Nobody’s Child Series
BOOK ONE
Nobody’s Child
ANDREW WAREHAM
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Nobody’s Child
Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Wareham
All Rights Reserved
Contents:
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
By the Same Author
Prologue
I’m seventy today in this year of 1842. Never thought I’d make three-score-and-ten. Almost didn’t. More than once. Or twice, thinking on it.
Sitting here, Mr Fat Cat of Pussy Hall – not that I’ve renamed the old estate, much though I might like to. The County would be outraged, which is a good argument for doing it. It would upset my lady, however, and that is not to be tolerated.
No, here I am, back in Old England for good, or bad, depending on your viewpoint, and settled. Bought back the lands my father lost. Not entirely sure why, they mean little enough to me, having left them so young. Makes me less of the nabob, the upstart, in the eyes of the County, or so I must suppose.
They all think I made a fortune in trade in India. Daft buggers! If only they knew! They think trade ain’t so very respectable, but they bow down to its money. They wouldn’t like the truth, or such part as I choose to remember. That’s why I’m writing it down now – The Life of Giles Jackson, Gentleman.
I shan’t seek a publisher.
Can’t write dry. There’s a brandy bottle tucked away in my desk. My wife knows about it, that I’m sure of, but we play the game of stopping the old man from drinking too much; keeps my son Fred happy.
Nothing will do that for my daughter, except recourse to her prayer-book. Must be a changeling, poor lass. Amazed me when she snaffled a husband – sorry for the poor little sod, or would be if he didn’t seem to be enjoying his sentence of penal servitude for life. Mind you, he’s the vicar, so he’s got no more than he deserves.
Fred’s a Member of Parliament these days; with my money when he inherits, he should be made a baronet. He wants a title - respectable, is Fred. Don’t know where he got it from, because I ain’t, and no more is my lady, Sunny.
Unusual name, ain’t it? I’ll explain it, when the time comes.
Enough of this havering. Time to get started.
Chapter One
Editor’s Notes: This book was written, produced and edited in the UK where some of the spellings, punctuation and word usage vary slightly from U.S. English. Your experience of Nobody’s Child will be enhanced by reading the short prologue.
Nobody’s Child Series
Nobody’s Child
I was always an anomaly. The odd one out. From my earliest memories, I did not fit in.
That is not quite true, of course – but why should recollections be either tediously precise or embarrassingly honest?
‘Near enough is good enough’, so Old Jack, the head groom at the Manor, said, repeatedly.
I spent hours of every day in the stables from earliest boyhood, until I was sent away to school when I was ten. I was out of the way there, invisible, less of a quandary and encumbrance to My Lady, as I was bidden to call her, and out of sight of Sir John, which he much preferred.
I did not belong at the Manor, or anywhere else, which can be difficult for a little boy.
The problem was that I was not their child, nor anybody else’s.
Let me explain.
My father was Mr Abel Jackson, a gentleman of good standing in the County of Hampshire with an estate not so far from Winchester, overlooking the old canal at Shawford. I like that view now, from the big bow windows. When about thirty, Mr Jackson married Miss Susannah Sprigge and in the normal way of things, I came along a year or so later. My father at about that time invested his all in a remarkably rich canal project. Needless to say, instead of paying thirty per centum each and every year, it went bust. It was, I suspect, a sham from the very first, but, whatever, it separated Mr Abel Jackson from his substance most efficiently and he put a pistol to his head before my first birthday.
My mother was thus a young widow, still no more than twenty, with a baby to look after. She had a lifetime income from her Marriage Settlements and soon after becoming one-and-twenty, found a second husband. She died in childbed a twelvemonth later. I was left with a stepfather and no blood relations – not so uncommon, one might think.
When I was four my stepfather remarried, and then died, thrown from his horse when caught out riding by a summer thunderstorm. His widow wed Sir John when I was six.
I thus grew up as the responsibility of two adults, neither of them related to me by blood. I was a nuisance, a burden to them, especially when their own children came along.
I had no money, no inheritance at all, courtesy of my natural father’s canal.
I should, I suppose, be grateful that I was not simply discarded, thrown out into the gutter. Sir John and My Lady were – their children still are, I know – most comfortably circumstanced with broad acres and, I believe, merchant money inherited as well. To keep me was no financial burden and I was fed and clothed generously, but I did not belong and eventually would need to be established as something genteel, for I was, still am obviously enough, of good breeding, probably better than theirs, for having a lord or two a generation back in my ancestry.
I shall not name the peers in question – I don’t need them, not these days.
As soon as I was of an age, it was off to school for Master Giles, and a distance away from the home acres.
It was 1784, just after the American War, lost for Old England by the Royal Lunatic, in between talking to his oak trees at Windsor, and schools were cropping up in imitation of the few old institutions of Eton and Harrow and such. I was sent to the Park School, close to Poole in Dorset, on the edge of the New Forest.
Park School occupied a fine enough building, once the house of a merchant in the shipping trade out of Poole and sold off on his death without a respectable heir. The whisper among the schoolboys was that the old fellow had never wed for having affections that turned in another direction. Be that as it may, the school occupied a manor house of some thirty bedrooms and the better part of four score of boys.
Downstairs there were three large chambers which had been converted into classrooms, each presided over by an usher under the command of the Principal, Reverend Doctor Martin, DD Cantab, as he insisted on bei
ng addressed.
I must imagine that he made a comfortable living of his investment. I do not know the fees – how should I? But eighty boys must have generated four thousand sterling a year, or more, and at least one half of that came to his pocket, I would imagine.
We were fed well enough on mutton and potatoes and greens and the house was kept warm – firewood was cheap on the outskirts of the New Forest. We dressed in thick woollens and were, as such things go, comfortable enough.
The Doctor was not a bad man. I am told one can say that of few enough of his peers in the schooling trade.
We sat on our benches and memorised Latin and Divinity for ten hours a day, six days a week. On the Sabbath, we were marched to church, a distance of some three miles, and back, twice a day, rain or shine.
I still, half a century later, remember my amo, amas, amat – though in truth I had little love for the learning.
I was not a stupid boy and was able to master the lessons and the exercises and progressed quickly out of the lower classrooms, was sat towards the front with the great boys by the time I was twelve.
The system was simple. There were tests every Saturday afternoon and on Monday one’s place was changed in response to the results, moving towards the front of the room with success, being relegated to the back benches in case of failure. I understand they do the same in the House of Commons. From the front row of seats in the lowest classroom, one was admitted to the rear of the middle, and the progression commenced again.
It was terrible tedious.
When I was thirteen I experienced that change in my body that accompanies age and maturity and became even more intolerant of the schoolboy’s life. Some of the bigger boys found ways of amusing themselves and tried, often vigorously, to bring me into their little habits and entertainments. I was not minded to join them.
I had grown into a large, robust sort of fellow. Even now, at seventy and used to the comfortable life, I am not a small man and carry some muscles. I was dark haired – bald as a badger now, of course – and blue eyed and was more like to chuckle than cry. Still am – all eternity to be serious in the grave, might as well laugh when alive, so say I.
Be that as it may, one of the older boys thought to enter the room I shared with three others late one evening and climb into my bed. I remember the occasion clearly.
“Get out, Binks,” I cried.
“Shut up and roll over,” said he.
“Not bloody likely,” I wittily responded, swinging a knee good and hard.
I kicked him off the bed, doubled over and clutching himself, and then dragged him to the door, and used my toe to urge him out onto the landing. It was dark and I was over-vigorous, I suspect, and he fell onto the stairs. He did not bounce at all well.
Binks’ family had money and connections who lived close to Poole.
Two days later I was put out the door and set aboard the common stagecoach into Poole where I was to purchase my ticket home. The Doctor placed the shillings in my hand and bade me farewell, recommending me to control my wicked temper. He gave me a letter, sealed, to hand on to Sir John.
I had not been back to Sir John’s manor once since being sent to school and did not look forward to my return.
I took the obvious course and broke the seal on the letter. Inside I read that I was of far greater than average cleverness - which pleased me no end, confirming as it did my own suspicions – but I was also of uncertain temper and had reacted in a ‘schoolboy squabble’ with a degree of violence that had almost ended the life of a connection of the Earl of Shaftesbury. The Doctor recommended that I should be found employment, preferably at far away. He had, he said, hoped that I might sit my terms at University and take my degree and become a clergyman with every expectation of promotion within the Church; that was now ineligible. If Sir John had the influence, then India might be a wise destination.
I threw the letter out of the window.
I sat and counted my shillings and debated what to do.
Poole was a fine town for a young fellow with an uncertain future, fortunately.
The stage dropped me off close to the quayside – but everywhere in Poole was close to the water, the town stretching around the bay and looking to the sea. I cannot remember the name of the inn, but it’s probably still there. I would recognise it if I went back, but there might be people in the town, seafaring men, who would still recognise me in return. Better not.
I did not know what to do – I had never been let out on my own before – but I knew I was hungry and thirsty. I took my little bag with my single change of clothing and thanked the guard and wandered inside. Possibly I should have tipped the guard for his services, but I lacked the spare money and he knew I was a schoolboy; had been, I should say.
The first room I entered was a big bar, counter along the inside wall and a dozen or more tables set about the floor, most of them occupied in the early afternoon. I saw that some of the men there were eating. I glanced surreptitiously at the clientele as I made my way to the bar. They were all, without exception, of the nautical persuasion, or so it seemed to me from my boyish knowledge.
“Might I have a mug of porter and a plate of bread and cheese, if you please, sir?”
I had been taught my manners at Park and had never been one to show ignorant. No need to be gratuitously offensive. Always been a rule of mine to be polite, even if it became necessary to shoot in the next minute. Any fool can be ill-mannered; most are.
The barman had met schoolboys off the coach before, or so I must imagine. Perhaps as well he appreciated a little of courtesy. He drew the mug for me and shouted behind the bar for food and took my pennies and directed me to a small table in the corner.
“Out of sight and harm’s way there, young feller. There be a few rough characters about, but they won’t come after thee if ye sits back quiet-like.”
I leaned over my plate and ate and watched the sailors. There was a table close to me, five or six sat at it and not the best of friends, or so it seemed. Their voices grew louder over a few minutes and suddenly two stamped to their feet. I did not know all of the words they used – despite schoolboys often being foul-mouthed brutes – but it was clear that they were, in effect, saying their farewells and breaking some compact of employment that no longer satisfied them.
One of the others jerked to his feet, chair toppling, and responded. I heard him clearly.
“If so be ye are too yellow to come wi’ us, so be it. Don’t come back crawling for a share in our take next year or the one after. Gone is finished, and good riddance to ye!”
“Well, sod you, Captain Marker! I shall hear of ye dangling at the end of a rope and need no share in that!”
I watched and saw the one who had answered turn away to the door while his second dallied as Captain Marker bent round to pick up his chair. Marker showed his back and the one pulled a jack knife and lunged at him, no more than a yard distant from me.
I might know better at my age, but then I was a boy and knew only that it was wrong. Thinking on it, I have little love for back-stabbers now.
A backhand with my left across his face, heavily, and I grabbed the knife with my right and pulled forward and tripped him, all in a second. I had no idea of fisticuffs, but I was big enough to put the knifeman down and two of the others from the table were onto him before I could think to do more.
They were wearing boots onshore and used them to good effect, rolling the battered, half-dead body out into the gutter inside two minutes.
I watched silent, half-sick at the sudden violence, then sat back down to my cheese, a nibble still unfinished.
“Well, you’re a cool one for a boy, youngster! I’m obliged to ye!”
I looked up from my plate and stood, politely, as Captain Marker spoke to me. He was a tall man, a good inch more than me when I was full grown, but was lean, of a lighter frame than me. I could not guess his age – boys rarely can assess a grown man – but I later discovered he was about thirty years, wi
th a full mop of chestnut hair and hazel eyes. There was a rueful smile on his lips as he acknowledged me, not entirely pleased to have been rescued by a boy.
“Not at all, sir. I could not see him put a knife in your back and do nothing, sir.”
“Well said. But not every man would do the same, and you are not a man grown yet, from the looks of ye.”
I presumed he wondered why I was sat in the bar of a seaman’s inn.
“I am sent away from my school, sir, and left the coach here. I am now to discover what I must do next, for I doubt that my stepfather will have any welcome for me.”
That was not wholly true, but I had been thinking of a story to offer to any who might have a job. I was too big to become a stable lad, though I knew a little of horses, but had wondered, boy like, if there might be work with a carter or such.
“Well… It might be I am to thank ye for my life… What’s yer name, young feller?”
“I am Giles Jackson, sir.”
“Never heard the name – so you ain’t running from a rich family like to get a man in trouble, are ye?”
“No, sir. I am of fourteen years and my own man now.”
That was almost true – near enough to be good enough.
“I sail for the Indies in a few days, Giles Jackson. My own ship and the crew on shares.”
That meant nothing to me – I had never heard of the privateering lay, and the wars were over in any case. In effect, Captain Marker was turning to piracy, off to the wild seas beyond India as some few others had before him. No doubt he read my blank face.
“Spare hand, you would be, learning the trade with the gunner and the supercargo and part of the boarding party. One share, until you show better. Not an easy trade and a chance your neck will be stretched, or you’ll pick up a blade in your guts. But you’ll come back a man, and with gold in your pocket.”
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