Britannia’s Son (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 4) Read online

  Book Four: The Duty

  and Destiny Series

  From the author of the acclaimed,

  A Poor Man at the Gate Series

  Andrew Wareham

  Digital edition published in 2014 by

  The Electronic Book Company

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  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This ebook contains detailed research material, combined with the author's own subjective opinions, which are open to debate. Any offence caused to persons either living or dead is purely unintentional. Factual references may include or present the author's own interpretation, based on research and study.

  Britannia’s Son

  Copyright © 2014 by Andrew Wareham

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents:

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  By the Same Author

  Introduction

  Frederick returns to England to applause and honours; with a little political fiddling he is made baronet. He takes his ship to the Mediterranean where he is wounded and is forced to return home to convalesce. He makes his feelings known to a girl he has long admired and is seen in London Society where he begins to gain a degree of influence.

  Towards the end of the war he is given a heavy frigate and sent out to the Aegean and Ionian Seas to offer a threat to the Turks, who have shown leanings towards the French, to remain neutral. Frederick is aware that the French have taken the powerful Venetian fleet but does not perhaps realise just how dangerous they are.

  Author’s Note: I have written and punctuated Britannia’s Son in a style reflecting English usage in novels of the Georgian period, when typically, sentences were much longer than they are in modern English. Editor’s Note: Andrew’s book was written, produced and edited in the UK where some of the spellings and word usage vary slightly from U.S. English.

  Book Four: The Duty and Destiny Series

  Chapter One

  Frederick stepped out of his carriage. It was new, and plain, he had been unwilling to have his newly awarded coat of arms - spears and volcanoes - engraved on the door panels, for fear of showing away, ‘Johnny Newcome’ at his worst. He scowled disapprovingly at the imposing front elevation of Partington Manor, while Bosomtwi drove round to the stable yard, discreetly out of sight and away from any comment his master might choose to make.

  Since he had last been here the front of the manor had been elegantly sheathed in Portland stone, carefully symmetrical, false pillared to give a Palladian effect, and elms had been planted to right and left so as to screen the more plebeian elevations from view. They would take another thirty years to grow tall enough to completely hide the unwanted old Elizabethan brickwork, but still managed to disguise it.

  Frederick wondered just how many thousands had been spent on the rebuilding and the creation of a park to the front. It had not been cheap and the bulk of it would have been his loan, misspent on ostentation rather than on drainage and improvements for the enclosure.

  He paced up the four wide steps, knocked on the double-leafed front door, waited as it was pulled open. In the previous lord’s day there had been a pair of footmen to perform this duty, costing forty pounds a year apiece in wages, and their keep and their uniforms – satin was not inexpensive, he believed – and no doubt little presents as well. Small wonder the old lord had been short of cash, had borrowed from him, and no doubt others.

  “Captain Sir Frederick Harris,” he announced, presenting his card.

  A respectable middle-aged butler, very clearly long in the family’s service, inclined his head gravely.

  “Please to come in, Sir Frederick. My apologies, sir, for not immediately recognising you! If you would care to wait in the salon, Sir Frederick, his lordship will be informed of your presence.”

  Three minutes by the clock on the mantel and his lordship came into the room, settling his frockcoat on his shoulders, obviously made quickly presentable. His clothing was new, correctly sober in colour – slate-grey coat over charcoal pantaloons and white shirt and black tie-cravat – but it was not quite mourning – not even an armband. His late lordship had been too disreputable, had died disgracefully: his name had been erased from the family tree. That made things easier.

  Frederick smiled and offered his hand, not perhaps strictly according to the rules, but making his position clear – he came as a welcoming neighbour and friend. Partington shook his hand gratefully.

  “I am honoured, Sir Frederick… I was not certain whether I should call on you, whether indeed you would wish to receive me!”

  “I would wish always to be on terms with my neighbours, Lord Partington, and hoped that my unfortunate involvement with the late lord would not make this impossible. Your predecessor was in some ways an unusual man, my lord, and there were some difficulties… but, I felt it important to make it clear that these were personal and died with him, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Sir Frederick. Sir Geoffrey has already come to me and said exactly the same in making me welcome. I am so very grateful! This is a difficult time for me, for I had never expected to step into my predecessor’s shoes, Sir Frederick, was quite unprepared for the eventuality. He was fifteen years my junior and I had waited to hear of his marriage and of the heir who would quite naturally result from it. I knew nothing of him, and it was only when I first arrived here last month that I realised just how untoward an event that would have been!”

  Frederick smiled and commented that he could imagine more likely occurrences.

  “Quite! Fortunately my wife and daughters did not accompany me, Sir Frederick, and I was able to send to delay them for a sennight.”

  Partington waved a hand, pointed to the lighter coloured patches on the walls where, Frederick knew, paintings had hung.

  “The subjects were quite disgraceful, sir, and in the library – etchings, woodcuts, line-drawings, watercolours and oils covering every surface, and every one utterly perverse! They burnt, sir, despite a catalogue that claimed some of them to be Masters. I shall not describe them!”

  “I can imagine, sir – I visited here once, was made welcome by servants whose nature was somewhat ambivalent. I did not penetrate beyond this salon, and, having seen its decoration, had no wish to! I must say that I was very pleased in the butler who gave me entry today, my lord!”

  “I dismissed five indoor menservants, Sir Frederick!”

  “A very good thing, too, my lord – they were a disgrace!”

  “An extremely expensive disgrace, too, Sir Frederick!”

  Frederick could just hear music in the background, a piano and a ‘cello or viola, indistinct upstairs.

  “My daughters, Sir Frederick, they both play.” Partington took a step to the side, looked out of the window, away from Frederick. “On the topic of expense, Sir Frederick, my predecessor owed you a large sum…”

  “Secured against four hundred of your best acres, my lord, for which I apologise! The loa
n had to be made at the last minute to achieve the enclosure, and I liked the late lord so little that I gave my estate manager a free hand to fleece him as he would. There is no question of foreclosure, my lord, and the whole matter can wait until the estate is in profit, in a few years time. Your lawyers have, I believe, made a proposal and I have instructed my Mr Hartley to proceed entirely as they suggest. I beg, my lord, that you will not be concerned about the matter – the error was not yours and there should be no penalty accruing to you!”

  “You are generous, Sir Frederick. Thank you!”

  “Not at all, my lord.”

  Talk moved on: the weather, poor; the King, mad; the Prince, disgusting; the war, unending. The butler produced wine, having judged the meeting to be successful, and they drank a companionable glass, parted at the end of their thirty minutes much relieved in each other.

  Ablett met them at Abbey, informed Frederick that one of Sir Geoffrey’s grooms had just ridden in with a note and was awaiting a reply, and that Rogers had come in on one of Bosomtwi’s thoroughbreds, leading the other three.

  “Invitation to dinner, two nights hence – one moment, man, while I write an acceptance.” Frederick fished in his pocket, found a shilling, as was expected of him, went quickly to the library, sent Ablett out with his reply.

  “Rogers seems to be good with the horses, Bosomtwi.”

  “He got the feel, isn’t it, sir. Best he should stay here, sir. I need a good man for when I go to sea with you, sir.”

  “I had not thought of that – you are, as normal, quite right! What’s his wage?”

  “He live in the rooms over the stables, so he always there if he needed. That’s free. He eat from the kitchen for free, too, isn’t it, because I ain’t having no cooking fires in my stables, sir! So, he get paid fourteen bob a week, because he work every day, except he have holiday, and that good money!”

  Quick calculation on his fingers said that it was five times as much as a seaman made.

  “Right – tell Mr Hartley. Will he just look after your horses?”

  “He work for Abbey, sir! He look after the whole stable!”

  “Good. What about you? Are you taking a cottage here?”

  “No, sir. My wife, my Kitty, she happy at Long Common, isn’t it, with the other womenfolk. Best they together when we at sea, sir, and they old mum and dads, they there, too. Maybe the time comes, the war end or we got to live onshore forever, then we think again, isn’t it. But, while we seamen, that best.”

  “Why go to sea again?” The thought unspoken and quickly dismissed – it was his life, it defined him as a man, without the sea he would be lesser – he could not leave the sea, not until it left him through age, infirmity or more important work on land. The sea had made him, it would be somehow impious, and unlucky, simply to turn his back on it because it was no longer convenient.

  “How is Sid settling in, Bosomtwi? I noticed the food was of his quality – an improvement on Cook’s offerings. Have there been problems downstairs?”

  “Housekeeper have to deal with them, sir! Big arguments! Mr Sid is Chef, but he is Indian man and Cook, she go to chapel in Bridport on Sunday! She don’t reckon to take no orders from no brown man in her kitchen – but Mrs Montague, she soon deal with that – she get told her marching orders, do as she told or down the road with her! Mr Siddhartha is chef and that what Sir Frederick say, and that the law!”

  “Where does Sid live?”

  “He got a room, sir, but you don’t need to worry about him, he ain’t going to take a wife.”

  Dinner at the Taylors, country hours, reporting at four for genteel conversation over a welcoming glass, all correctly dressed in modern black and white. No rusticities permitted, no Squire Western here.

  His neighbouring landowner Robinson was present with his wife, she somewhat angular, myopic, awkward, uncertain of herself still at forty, pleasant, slightly anxious-seeming as if something was about to be discovered to be her fault, her eyes continually seeking out her husband and smiling in happy surprise whenever she saw him. She shook hands with Frederick, too heartily, realised he was still incommoded by his wound, fell into a welter of half-said apologies and self-recrimination.

  “Do not concern yourself, I beg you, ma’am – if there was any great problem I should use a sling, but indeed it is now a trivial awkwardness, an embarrassment more than anything else – the merest matter of time!”

  She could not be convinced – a dear brother, a Lieutenant of Marines, had died of just such a wound to the shoulder, in the American War, but still so sadly missed!

  “The mortification comes early or not at all, ma’am. Having survived the first week there is little to fear – and the sepsis is a matter of fate, ma’am – one man falls, another does not, and all a matter of luck! You may have seen my clerk riding by at some time, young Mr LeGrys, his crutch shipped behind the stirrup in a kind of holster. He was wounded far more severely than I, yet lives, and in the same engagement a seaman was hit in the foot, a small splinter, mortified and died in two days! Fate, ma’am! And my fate is a good one, as far as this wound is concerned!”

  The Partingtons appeared, en famille, decanted from a large and ancient coach of another generation. My lord, his lady, his heir, an unwed daughter, a sister just out. All were in obviously new finery, dressed to their new station in life – the womenfolk in colours – restrained pastels for the maidens, rich autumns to match my lady’s colouring – the gentlemen all black and white, and not a sign of mourning between them. His late lordship quite clearly had never existed, his face turned to the wall, written out of the Family Tree, his entry excised from the Great Bible in the Library, his dishonour such that the Family knew him not. It was a little too pious for Frederick’s taste, but it made relationships in the valley far easier to sustain.

  Introductions were made all round, strict order of precedence not maintained in a semi-formal country party, and Frederick assessed his new neighbours, more than anything so as to memorise their faces against chance encounter in Dorchester or on the road.

  My lord, nearly fifty, sandy-haired, lightly fleshed, high forehead, straight back, a gentleman farmer at first glance. His lady, much darker, a few years younger, had been a beautiful girl, still had bones, would never be less than handsome, quite small made, a point in her favour! Son George, mild-looking, scholarly-seeming, tall, not an athlete but no idle slugabed either, on sight. Younger daughter, Miss Charlotte, not a lot more than a schoolgirl, a woman grown but very quiet and self-effacing, and none the worse for it! Where was the other one? Miss Hackett was over by the closed piano, a full Broadwood, drooling almost, devouring it with her eyes, fingers itching; not exceptionally pretty, twenty or so, out two or three years without making a catch, not very tall, fair like her father, stocky – not fat, not even really plump, but heavy on hip and shoulder, must surely be stout in later life. A good, strong face, intelligent eyes, fully open, a broad mouth made to smile, to grin even – he revised his first opinion, hers was a face to last a lifetime, like her mother’s, much more than merely pretty.

  Why was she not wed? Surely some man must have seen how attractive she was! Too intelligent, perhaps? Frightening? Maybe – perhaps she had an acerbic wit, a caustic tongue. She was smiling across at her sister, some comment on the instrument perhaps, her face was really quite beautiful in that expression, her mother showing clearly. It was not polite to stare – he collected himself, joined the introductions.

  Handshakes, carefully given, Lord Partington making a show of his pleasure at seeing Frederick again, announcing acquaintance, amicability, the fraternity of the couth and landed.

  “I saw you at the pianoforte, Miss Hackett – your father said that you played.”

  “I try to, Sir Frederick, though never on an instrument to match that! My one disappointment in our new place in life is that there is but a very mere square upright pianoforte in what was once a schoolroom and no other instrument in the house!”

  And
, until the estate was brought round, no funds spare to make a purchase – fifty or sixty pounds to buy and then to transport and bring in a tuner. Small change left from a hundred, and a hundred would build four labourers’ cottages, or buy eight top breeding milkers or drain, hedge and ditch twenty acres of rough land, all of much greater importance in these years.

  There was an unused Viennese pianoforte – sometimes called a fortepiano, to his mystification - in the great reception room at Abbey, but he could not invite Miss Hackett to enter the residence of a single gentleman, however much it was to play the piano only! Without a hostess he could not even hold dinners at which she could play to entertain herself and others. A pity! He made a mental note that he must have a tuner brought out from – where? Poole probably – to bring the instrument into condition, it would be a shame to let it go off, or whatever they did.

  Sir Geoffrey apologised for his dinner – it was the wrong time of year for eating – everything in close – and they had to make do with flat fish and a soup and goose and capons and roast beef in one remove and veal and a pair of ducks and a shoulder of mutton in the second, and a raised pie and a selection of sweets besides the side dishes of a dozen vegetables.

  “A true meal is game – and that can only be eaten in season, of course”, decreed Sir Geoffrey, the sporting man. Frederick, sat next to Lady Taylor as protocol demanded, Lord Partington on her other hand, demurred, commenting that after years of sea fare, Sir Geoffrey’s was truly a feast, a dinner fit for a king.

  “But not a cannibal king, Sir Frederick, one trusts!”

  Lady Taylor’s quip produced a moment of flat silence while the company looked to see if Frederick had taken offence, and then a chuckle as he smiled.

  “There are, fortunately, few of those in England, ma’am, and probably all in Parliament, in any case!”