A Just and Upright Man (The James Blakiston Series)

by Lynch, R J

  ‘I think you do not altogether approve of us.’

  ‘I assure you, I have no such feelings.’

  ‘You have never married.’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘Are you cold towards our sex, sir? Are you one who cannot compromise his life with the demands of marriage? Do you think us all weak, thoughtless vessels?’

  ‘Why, Ma’am, I am not yet ready to meet my maker. I hope to have many years to come in which I may find a woman foolish enough to accept me as a husband, poor material though I be for such a role.’

  ‘I believe you will have no difficulty in finding one to take you, sir. And perhaps sooner than you think. But come. There is Mister Heron riding out about his business. Sir Edward will be waiting for you. I trust you will find what he has to say congenial.’

  ‘You know what it is?’

  ‘Mister Blakiston, I have known my cousin for too long to believe I could breach his confidence without fear of the consequences. You will find him forthcoming, I have no doubt.’

  Blakiston found Sir Edward seated by a large, empty fireplace with an empty glass in his hand. He gestured towards a tantalus on a walnut table. ‘Pour yourself a brandy, Blakiston. You might fill up my glass while you’re about it, there’s a good fellow.’

  Blakiston took the glass he was offered and filled it. ‘I cannot drink brandy while the sun is up, Sir Edward. I should sleep the rest of the day.’

  ‘As you like. I bring the key when I come here. Damn nuisance. There’s no-one I can leave an open bottle with since my cousin John died. No-one I can trust.’ He took a heavy swig of brandy. ‘You like the place?’

  ‘It is impressive, sir.’

  ‘Aye. Impressive enough. But it needs to be ruled by a good man’s hand. Just like Grace Hodgson there.’

  Blakiston could think of no sensible reply to this, and so remained silent.

  ‘Think you could handle the pair of them?’ asked Blackett.

  ‘Pair, Sir Edward? Which pair? Pair of what?’

  ‘Come, man, don’t put on these airs of bewilderment. Why d’ye think I brought you here? To serve my brandy? Eh? You value yourself more than that, I’ll be bound. And so do I.’

  ‘I do not know why you asked me here, Sir Edward. I am waiting to find out.’

  ‘Very well, Blakiston. Though I have to say I thought you would be sharper than that. I wish you to take over the conduct of Hoppyland Estate, and I wish you to take over the management of Grace Hodgson. The first as my tenant, agent and manager. The second as her husband.’ He studied Blakiston’s stunned expression. ‘Ye Gods, man, you really are astonished. Well, that is the proposal. Will you accept?’

  ‘But...but, Sir Edward. Why me?’

  Blackett held out his glass, which he had once again emptied, and waited till Blakiston had refilled it. ‘Why you? For more than one reason, Blakiston. Because I have followed what you have done for Ravenshead, and I want you to do it for me. Heron is a good man enough, but he lacks your breeding and he has not your eye for a farm. Or a farmer. That is one reason.

  ‘Because it is time that someone took Grace in hand, for she is at the season to be fruitful. That is another reason. Women, Blakiston, are not like us. They do not wear the unmarried state well. Chastity dries them up. It sours them. There are other men who have wished Grace for their own, to part those thighs and make her the woman she doubtless desires to become. Many men, Blakiston, and none of them poor, and some of them respectable in their pockets, but she is mine to give and I have rejected them all. And now I offer her to you, Blakiston.

  ‘Because I need someone here, in this house and on this estate, looking after my interest. That is also a reason.

  ‘I have said you would be tenant, agent and manager. But you would be more than that. I will not give you the freehold, Blakiston. That is not the Blackett way. Income may be spent, within reason, but capital is to be kept. You know the Vanes think themselves the dominant family hereabouts.’ His lip curled in a sneer. ‘Baron Barnard, Earl of Darlington, Duke of Cleveland. Vane titles all. Vane, and vain. Look at them! Old Sir Christopher must turn in his grave.’

  ‘I do not know the family, Sir Edward.’

  ‘Not know them? Ruined by slack ways and a profligate wife. Frances Hawes, and was ever woman better named? Lady Fanny, they called her. She would bed any man who could raise his flag to marching position and spend any sovereign in her husband’s possession, as well as too many that were not. They tried to borrow from me, Blakiston. Me! They did not try again, I promise you that. A noble family destroyed, Blakiston. That will never happen to the Blacketts. We have as yet no barons, no earls, no dukes, but we have capital and what we have we shall hold.

  ‘So, no freehold. But I will entail the use of the estate and the right to live there to your children and your children’s children. And Grace Hodgson comes to you with near five hundred a year. Security, Blakiston. What do you say?’

  ‘You gave me three reasons, Sir Edward. Are there no others?’

  Blackett’s face darkened. ‘Yes, by God, there is another. I want you to stop prying into the affairs of my family.’

  Chapter 43

  ‘He wants you to stop prying into the affairs of his family.’ Lord Ravenshead smiled. ‘He wants to buy your silence.’ Blakiston had long since given up trying to fathom the various smiles his lordship used. Something had amused him, but whether it was the irritation of a mere baronet or his Agent’s temerity in provoking that irritation, only he could have said. Whatever the Baron’s opinion of Sir Edward Blackett and his family, Blakiston knew it would not be shared with him. Or so he believed. He was about to learn differently.

  ‘I suppose he does not want his family name dragged through the mud any more than it already has been. What is it that you know, Blakiston, that Sir Edward would offer such a price to keep hidden?’

  ‘He is afraid of injustice,’ said Blakiston.

  His lordship stared at him, his expression still unreadable. ‘Sir Edward Blackett fears injustice,’ he murmured, to himself as much as to Blakiston. ‘Well, well. Does not that beat all? What is this injustice that fills our noble member of parliament with such dread?’

  ‘My lord, you are aware of Reuben Cooper’s outraging of the shipowner’s daughter and the tragic consequences for her sanity. The shipowner was from a branch of the Blackett family.’

  His lordship’s smile now had a different quality. ‘Did they have to drop the t?’

  ‘My Lord?’

  ‘Blacketts in trade are obliged to spell the name with but a single t at the end. For Blacketts, you know, do not engage in trade. Though how they think they made their money if not by selling coal, just as we Liddells did and do, is beyond me. They claim descent from King Malcolm III of Scotland, though all the bribes in the world to the College of Heralds will never see them prove it. The old Sir Christopher’s father was what polite people call a merchant adventurer, which is another way of saying he was a rogue who achieved success in commerce by robbing others less fortunate than himself and then bought respectability. In his case, by marrying his son to a Fenwick. Now they attempt it by providing free coals to the Newcastle gaol, and paying for one of the two chaplains to the wretches held there. But proceed with your story.’

  ‘My lord. The girl’s brother, Robert, who was also of course a Blackett, travelled to Staithes to avenge his sister.’

  ‘It is good to know that at least one member of the family possesses honourable feelings.’

  ‘My lord. While there, he became involved in a brawl during which he killed a brother of Reuben Cooper. He was sentenced to hang, but accepted commutation of his sentence to transportation to Virginia. The story was put about that he had died there of malaria. This tale was always doubtful, for the Virginian swamps were cleared two generations ago
and pestilential miasmic death is a thing of the distant past. Sir Edward admitted to me that in fact Robert was never transported and that Sir Edward used his influence to keep this default secret and unpunished. Robert is still a shipowner, having inherited his father’s business, and now calls himself Robert Black.’

  ‘I see. And Sir Edward fears that his abuse of his position will become known. And that is the injustice he fears? These members of parliament have a strange view of justice.’

  ‘I think, my lord...in fact, I know, because Sir Edward told me...that what he fears is that the law will proceed from Robert Blackett not having been punished for killing Reuben Cooper’s brother to the conclusion that Robert Black then killed Reuben Cooper himself. Which, Sir Edward assures me, is not the case.’

  ‘But why has all this surfaced now?’

  ‘Sir Edward heard that I had been inquiring into the supposed transportation of his cousin. Though the man is actually a third cousin once removed, as Sir Edward was at pains to point out. I set those inquiries in motion some time ago. They came to fruition only recently.’

  ‘And how was that?’

  ‘Rector Claverley and I have become good friends. He told me part of the story, but he would not tell me the name of the people involved.’

  ‘He was concerned for you, Blakiston. He knew the damage the Blacketts might inflict on you.’

  ‘He had my interests in mind, my Lord, I accept that. But I wanted to know. I sent a man to Staithes to find out for me. I have never told the Rector that.’

  ‘You did nothing wrong. I agreed you should find the killer of Reuben Cooper if it should be possible. You were right to do what you did.’

  ‘Once I knew the story, I asked my brother, an officer in the Navy, to examine the records of those who left this country in irons for two years after Robert Blackett’s sentence was passed.’

  ‘Two years? Why so long?’

  ‘Justice is slow, my Lord. You know there is an Assize in Durham only once each year. If someone is arrested when one Assize has just ended, he must wait a twelvemonth until he can be tried at the next. Then, let us say he is sentenced to death, as Blackett was. If he is really to die, it will be done within two days; but if the sentence is to be commuted, this can only be confirmed by another Assize, and so he must wait a further twelvemonth. And then it may take as long as a year before a ship is ready to take him to America.’

  ‘I had no idea. These years he has waited for justice. They are subtracted from his sentence, when he has it?’

  ‘They are not, my Lord. And he must pay for his keep while he is held, and then he must pay a fee to the gaoler when it is time for him to go. Some very poor people remain in gaol because they cannot find the money to get themselves released. Even innocent people. In Newcastle, men of charitable disposition pay the costs of prisoners’ upkeep for them. But not in Durham.’

  ‘Monstrous! But proceed.’

  ‘It was six months before my brother was able to inspect the records, for he was at sea. When he returned, and told me that Blackett had not been among the transported prisoners, I asked him while he was in London to make inquiries about the Blackett interest in sailing ships. I learned that there was but one such company and that it had passed into the hands of one Robert Black. It did not need the talents of a necromancer to draw my conclusion.’

  ‘Which proved to be correct. Do you believe Sir Edward when he says the young man had no part in the killing of Reuben Cooper?’

  ‘I do, my lord. But in honesty it matters not what I believe, for I cannot compel Robert Black to speak to me.’

  ‘He has avoided a legally imposed sentence.’

  Blakiston spread his hands wide. ‘His sister was grievously abused.’

  ‘But by Reuben Cooper. Not by the brother. Well, if you will not pursue the matter, I shall not. And marriage to his cousin! It is a handsome bribe Sir Edward has given you.’

  ‘Offered, my lord. Sir Edward has offered me a bribe, but he has not given it to me for I have not accepted it.’

  ‘You have not? I will not deny the relief I feel in hearing that, Blakiston, for in truth I think you could not easily be replaced. But are you wise in declining? Are you even fair? Think, man! Your sister...with the Blackett connections as your family, she would quickly find a husband and end her subjection...you could insist on it as part of your price.’

  ‘Please, my lord. Do not make me feel worse about myself than already I do. I have considered my sister’s position and I would do anything in my power to relieve it but I cannot serve a Blackett. I will not.’

  ‘But why do you feel so strongly? You never met one of them before yesterday.’

  ‘It is difficult to express. There was in the servants and labourers a subservience I did not care for. Here in Ryton we take deference for granted, as we should, but the feeling there was one of fear. The men and women who work on the land are treated worse than the animals, and valued less. It was clear that the woman proposed for my wife fully shared these views. I could not be yoked for life to such a one.’

  ‘She is handsome, I believe.’

  ‘There is a callous hardness in her that would make true beauty impossible.’

  ‘Well,’ said the Baron. ‘You have a human gentleness in you I had not suspected. But does not Sir Edward now fear you? Will he not attempt to do you harm?’

  ‘I do not believe so, for I have made a bargain with him.’

  ‘Its nature?’

  ‘He will offer a reward of one hundred pounds for information leading to the capture of the murderer of Reuben Cooper. The information to be provided direct to me. In return, he has my signed undertaking never to expose the evasion of his cousin Robert Black, whether the reward produces our killer or not.’

  ‘And the handsome but callous Grace Hodgson, whom you have so summarily rejected?’

  ‘Ah. Now there, my lord, I believe I have made an enemy. It is my sincere hope that she and I should never meet again.’

  Chapter 44

  One day when Blakiston was on his rounds, he saw the young woman he longed for so hopelessly walking with another man. Judging by his appearance, the man was a farmer; since Blakiston did not know him he must be a tenant of the Blackett or the Bishop’s estates. Kate raised her head as Blakiston rode past and looked straight at him. Her expression gave away nothing.

  Blakiston went through an agony that night, his sleep interrupted by dreams of Kate and the farmer. He had had these visions before, and they were always the same; the farmer possessed Kate and, in doing so, broke Blakiston’s heart. If he had asked himself how this could be, he would have had no answer, for was he not sure that he could never love again? If he swore to renounce women, was it really reasonable to expect Kate to keep him company by renouncing men? Especially men who Society would see as suitable mates for her, which was assuredly not how they would view Blakiston.

  He was determined not to mention the man when next he went to Chopwell Garth to check the readings. It was a resolution he could not keep. ‘You have a new suitor,’ he said, as lightly as he could manage.

  Kate nodded and pushed a sheet of figures towards him.

  ‘You do not wish to tell me his name?’

  ‘His name?’ said Kate. ‘Why, Sir, you may know his name if it interests you. I did not think it would. You know, Master, I would not bore you with my girlish nonsense.’

  ‘Has he asked you to marry him?’ Blakiston could scarcely get the words out.

  Kate nodded again. ‘They all ask that, Master.’

  ‘In the name of God, will you stop calling me Master.’

  She dropped a little curtsey. ‘I am sorry, Sir.’

  Blakiston moved closer, trying to force her to look at him. ‘And what have you answered?’

  ‘I, sir? Oh, I have
asked him to wait. I have asked for a little time to think over his offer.’

  ‘If you need time, Kate, it is clear you do not want him.’

  ‘Perhaps, Sir. But time goes past. And sometimes you realise you have to forget about what you really want and accept what you can have.’

  Blakiston would have gone on, but Tom came into the dairy looking for him to discuss what they were to do about a sick heifer and Kate took the opportunity to slip out and join Lizzie in the kitchen. Blakiston would never speak to Kate about personal matters when Lizzie was present.

  Thomas Claverley’s own marriage had come under question, if only by himself, when the crucifix with the red markings appeared in Matthew Higson’s makeshift grave. He knew, because Sophia Bertram had told Blakiston and Blakiston had told him, that Catherine Robinson had never seen the red-painted crucifix. That did not mean that Matthew Higson had not had it, for Higson might have had some reason for keeping it secret from his fiancée.

  Isabella had not returned to Ryton until her mother was dead and the funeral had taken place. This was three months after Thomas and Blakiston had discussed the implications. Of course, letters had passed between husband and wife during that time, but the matter was not one the rector felt he could broach by mail.

  And, if Thomas was honest with himself, and though it pained him even to think about his motives, he did not want to put his wife on her guard. He hated himself for what he feared, but he feared it still.

  His wife was a young woman, younger than he, and impulsive. Thomas had known Matthew Higson as a church-goer, pious in demeanour and attentive during sermons. That did not change the fact that he had been a young man and a vigorous one. Blakiston said Tom Laws had described him as a dandy. The rector was an old-fashioned man who felt that people had been happier when they stuck to the old ways and when how a man dressed told you immediately what he was. Of course, Higson had been a poor man, but he had been a poor man with no wife and he had lived at home. There had been little money for finery, but little is not none. Thomas struggled to call back into living memory this young man who had been gone from sight for so long. Higson had been among the first to exchange the old leather breeches for woollen cloth, and woollen waistcoats for cotton. He had been among the first labouring men in the parish to abandon the wig, though almost none of them wore it now.