Henry Star continues to prosper around New Orleans, operating mostly on the fringes of legality and becomes engaged in some shady dealings with the equally shady, Colonel Miller.
Tom’s life falls apart after tragedy strikes at the heart of his family.
Here’s an excerpt from the Start of ‘The Pain of Privilege’
“Will you go as secretary to Mr Walker, Robert?”
“Perhaps not, sir, I am known to most political figures now and have, to be honest, little liking for any of the breed – I have achieved all that I needed and can now keep my hands clean. What I would prefer, with your permission, and Mama’s endorsement, is to spend some little time, a few months, a year or two, at the bank. Mr Goldsmid has already said that he would be very glad to welcome me into his halls so that I might gain some familiarity with banking practices and particularly with his overseas correspondents.”
Robert hesitated, obviously deciding whether this was the right moment to continue, to enter a possibly difficult discussion with his father. He made his mind up, he had to tell the Old Man sooner or later – better get it over with.
“He is quite sure, Papa, that numbers of wealthy Jews from Russia and the German States will wish to seek refuge here or in the Americas in the next decade or two. It is the case that some few of the prominent revolutionaries of the last age have been Jews and that has tarred every Hebrew with the red brush and given a perfect excuse to every ruler from Koln to St Petersburg. In this it would seem that Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox are uniquely united – none of them can resist the opportunity to first rob and then kill a Jew!”
“And your role, my son?” Tom was mildly disturbed to hear of the tribulations of European Jewry – he liked Lady Rothwell and had a respect for her father, but he was not inclined to lead a Crusade to their relief. If they were rich then it was up to them to save themselves, they could always buy the services of mercenaries, after all. He did not wish to hear that his son was proposing to take an active role in persuading government in Prussia and Russia to change its ways – he had no desire for any of the family to unwittingly tread on the toes of His Britannic Majesty’s diplomats.
“To be known, sir, simply that. If you are a foreign banker or merchant or insurer or goldsmith, say, and you fear for your future in the land where your family has lived for generations, your only home, as you thought, then it is a great step to take off into the completely unknown – it might be frying-pan for fire, after all! If, however, there is a young lord who is a point of contact, a nobleman, no less, then you may feel more confident in emigrating because there will be a friend to help you pass into the country and settle in a new business community and gain the friendship of the authorities. Being young, of course, he will be available for many years. We can use their gold, sir, we need it, in fact. There is a shortage of capital and of real money which is hampering business, this damned silly war came close to bankrupting us, as you know.”
Tom nodded – the points his son had made were all true and there would always be a welcome for rich foreigners. He hoped they would not have a plethora of poor relations to bring in their train, however.
“Well and good, but what do you gain, Robert?”
“Knowledge, sir, in the first instance – I will know how money works, I will be given the first word of any and every opportunity that may arise. Secondly, I will gain the good will of the bankers, who must become of greater importance to the country over my lifetime…”
Robert paused, selecting his words carefully.
“And thirdly, sir?”
“I spoke with young Joseph while he was here, Papa, and he is convinced that there will be steam trackways crossing the whole country within ten or twenty years. He will not be one of their builders, he says, he is more concerned with the needs of the manufacturies and pits, but there will be an expansion that will make the Canal Boom look like the merest nothing. If he is right, and I firmly believe he is, then I hope, with your concurrence, sir, to be in a position to be a major financier and owner and profit-taker from this great boom.”
“So, not the genteel agricultural life on the Lutterworth estate, my son?”
“No, sir.” Robert coughed, looked distinctly uncomfortable, squared his shoulders manfully. “We should also, sir, suggest to Mama that we might reconsider our plans for my wife.”
Tom winced, shook his head in dismay.
“A lady from outside of the ranks of the blue-blooded, my son?”
“More than that, sir. I am given to understand that Mr Goldsmid has a cousin, a ‘great banker’, residing in Hamburg who has a daughter of seventeen or so, probably a well-educated, refined young lady. Mr Ignaz would be very happy to relocate to London, with all of his vast fortune, was the family to be ‘settled’ with an English relative. Financially, of course, the gains would be enormous, to family as much as to the country.”
“When do you go back to London, Robert?”
“In two days, sir.”
“Then say nothing of this to your mother today, if you please, I will consider the question and how best to present it to her”
It was clear to Tom that the Andrews dynasty now faced a choice of directions. If Robert married into the banking world then they would become outsiders within another generation, not a part of the traditional aristocracy and separated from its political power, whereas if he made a conventional match then he could become a kingmaker with access to Downing Street at any time. If, however, he did choose to become an outsider, then he would be part of the new England, would be ideally placed to become a founding member of any new elite that created itself, and times were changing, even if very slowly. If Reform should come, and surely it must, then the old powers must be replaced by new, even if the new were essentially the same people in a different guise.
He could not be coerced into a marriage he had decided he did not want, and Tom wanted no breach with his son, he found he had too strong an affection for him to risk that.
How would Verity react?
Badly.
“I had thought we had agreed on Robert’s future, my lord! I have indeed already spoken, obliquely, fortunately, to my cousin Cavendish, and I know that the Daventrys, almost the richest family in England, have two daughters to bring out over the next three years.”
“Not them, Verry! Bad blood, there! The heir is a Beggar’s Club wastrel, the father was a drunken fool as a youth and is now a recluse, and the grandfather, I am told, died raving mad locked up in an attic with a pair of male attendants permanently to hand.”
“Yes, well, not them, necessarily, but there are several other young ladies of impeccable lineage and fortune and Robert could be the prize of the Season next year or thereafter, able to choose as he would!”
And Verity, as Mama of the most eligible of young gentlemen would be leader of Society, for a few weeks – a beguiling thought, it would seem. Tom would also find himself caressed by the Polite World – something that she would value even if he did not.
He had prepared his ground thoroughly, marshalled all of his arguments.
“I was thinking more of the future, my dear, of our grandchildren and their offspring. Little altered in the country from the restoration of Charles Stuart until the mills and mines were built in the North Country, a hundred years of stability. But now I have doubts that the world will be in any way the same in even twenty years time. The pace of change is so great that we can only say that things will be different, in what way, we cannot specify. The possession of wealth will still mean power, I suspect, so money becomes more important than old breeding, probably – but nothing is certain! James will be an eligible young officer in ten years time and, was he to be made free of the Lutterworth lands, he could perhaps marry ‘well’, so coppering our bets. Robert, married into wealth greater than Rothwell’s and the heir to much of the Andrews’ fortune, would always be sure to become a power in the land. What of Joseph? If he is wed to Mary Star then he has a place in the industrial r
anks second to none. The three then have a foothold in Finance, the Land and the new Industry – surely a desirable thing for the Family!”
“Charlotte seems to play no part in this, Thomas?”
“I would wish her to play the part she desires, my dear. For the man, an arranged marriage is of little concern, after all. Rothwell, for example, is happy enough in his life and has, I suspect, developed an affection for his lady. Robert has his Judy, and will, I think, keep her for many, many years. For a woman, all is different: Charlotte, if she made a marriage of convenience, would be called a whore if she kept a lover of her choice as well. Therefore, I would have her follow her heart, wherever it might lead her.”
“I trust it may lead her in the same direction as her head, my love!”
Verity was silent a while, trying to assess all that Tom had said and to put it into a new frame of reference, preferably one that might demonstrate its fallibility.
“What if James falls in battle, Thomas?”
“What if the plague takes us all, my love?”
Unanswerable – it was sometimes a damned nuisance to be intelligent.
“Well, at least Thomas Star has married unexceptionably, and the Stars are generally held to be very closely related to us so that gives us some respectability! And, as well, I suspect that theirs will be a very happy union, both being of a temperate nature they will be easy company one for another, will be caressed by Society as a result.”
Tom was surprised, he had not heard that he and Joe were kinsmen.
“Yes, quite well known – Sally Jersey again, I suspect – you and Lord Star share a mother who remarried, quite possibly scandalously soon after her first husband’s death and so kept quiet, and you are half-brothers. Hence the long and clear affection between you and the continuing close ties of the families. It is ‘known’, how I have not been informed, that Lord Star saved your life at least once during the wars, at risk of his own, and that you have shared your greater business acumen with him since.”
“Bloody nonsense! Joe is far more of a businessman than I could ever be.”
“Then how do you come to be the wealthier, Thomas?”
“I provided our initial capital, my love. I stole it.”
////////
Book Four of: ‘A Poor Man at the Gate Series’, The Pain Of Privilege is available on Kindle and all leading online ebook stores: Amazon - Kindle Link:
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The Duty and Destiny Series: Published in 2014, these superbly-crafted novel length sea stories are set in the period of the French Revolutionary War (1793 – 1802). The series follows the naval career and love-life of Frederick Harris, the second son of a middling Hampshire landowner, a brave but somewhat reluctant mariner. Amazon - Kindle links to the whole series:
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Born To Privilege (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 3) Page 28