Dire Shenanigans (The Making of a Man Series, Book 2) Page 15

  "A good point, sir. The General is here, sir."

  Dick, in civilian clothing - cotton jeans and check shirt, the uniform of the West - could not salute; he stood to attention instead.

  "Major Richard Burke - I am honoured, sir! I believe you have not been posted to my command, sir?"

  "No, sir. I am here on other business but felt it was a courtesy to inform you of my presence, sir. There have been a number of questions raised related to the misappropriation of supplies, sir, a rumour of powder and ball fraudulently removed from various arsenals and magazines and smuggled South. Percussion caps seem to have been especially targeted by these traitorous thieves."

  "Fraudulently removed, Major?"

  "Forged requisitions, sir - accepted in good faith by Quartermasters at Army level and sent in to the supply depots, the materials then intercepted and spirited away with none the wiser for many months."

  "In this command, sir?"

  "Not to my knowledge, General. I am concerned to identify the hauliers moving the contraband south. Kansas City is a major centre for wagons."

  "Easier to catch them in the act, Major?"

  "Far, sir. The trail of paper can be followed, but in the nature of things only after the event. Useful to the lawyers seeking convictions in the courts, but not to those of us aiming to stop the traffic."

  Dick had spent days working out his cover story; he suspected that it would lead to orders to patrolling cavalry to keep an eye out for wagons diverting south from the main trails, and if that led to less Union powder firing Confederate rifles and cannons then he would not be displeased. If by a stroke of supreme luck the trail led back to Jim Fisk or one of his ilk, even better.

  "Good luck to you, Major, I wish you well!"

  Sir Godby Burke stood from the couch in the consulting room of the best respected medical man in Dorchester, the county town and centre of services for the genteel and the rich.

  "Well, doctor?"

  "You might wish to go to London, Sir Godby - it is possible that a practitioner there might know of an operation that could assist you. I know of nothing, sir, and am not wholly behind the times."

  "I came to you because of your reputation, sir. What have you to tell me?"

  "Your heart, sir, is beating irregularly and displaying weakness. Your breathing is laboured. Your lips show blue. You will inevitably suffer a heart attack, sir. In two minutes or in six months - I doubt very much that it will be longer than that. Do not over exert yourself and you may see the half of a year; try to run, for example, and you might not last another minute."

  "Well, that is blunt enough, sir, even for me!"

  "I will not tell a man like you soothing nonsense, Sir Godby. You are no sheltered old woman to need protection from hard truths."

  "By God, I am not, sir! Thank you. Your bill to my lawyer and agent - quickly, I would suggest!"

  Next morning saw Sir Godby closeted with his lawyer, telling him with absolute honesty what his prospects were.

  "I need to tidy up just one more matter, Mr Peckham. My son's children - neither of them his, as we well know - must be pushed out of the line of succession, legally, tightly and finally."

  "The papers are prepared, Sir Godby, and the adoption process may be put into effect. It requires only the signed affidavits from Mr Richard Burke."

  "He is in the States, sir. Not within reach. I have a letter in his hand."

  The lawyer shook his head, he did not keep a forger about him.

  "Perhaps you know of a policeman who might have met such in the way of business, sir?"

  "You will see me hanged yet, Sir Godby! Leave the matter in my hands, sir!"

  The Carteret interest was informed of the case that was to be taken to the High Court of Justice and showed deeply concerned. The heir to the estates visited Sir Godby, lawyer at his side.

  "One would not wish there to be any great public splash of this business, Sir Godby."

  "That damnable marriage was undertaken solely to avoid public attention to our affairs, Mr Mortimer. I was sadly in error to promote the match, sir, and much regret it now, but there is no gain to washing our dirty linen in public. It would be foolish to make any noise now."

  "The application you have proposed, Sir Godby, might be made in chambers rather than in open court."

  The lawyer gravely explained that a judge might sit in his private rooms when a confidential matter was to come before him.

  "The courtroom is open to all - Justice being a matter of public concern. On rare occasion though, Sir Godby, it is necessary to bring a matter to the notice of the Law which it is nonetheless not in the public interest to be discussed openly. The protection of the well-being of those in their nonage is such an example. There is no need to discuss the parentage of innocent children before the newspapers, as all will agree."

  Sir Godby, not an unintelligent man, had found the lawyer's statement difficult to follow.

  "You mean the judges will cover up cases of bastardy?"

  The lawyer winced at such unnecessary bluntness.

  "Crudely expressed, yes, Sir Godby."

  "Good, let's get about it. What is to be done?"

  "Silks must be briefed, I much fear, Sir Godby. Three, at minimum. The interests of the Burkes require one barrister and his junior; the Carteret family must be represented by another pair; the father by blood must be known and his assent must be expressed, by his barrister. It might be well to seek the appointment by the Lord Chancellor, as a neutral party, of a fourth to ensure that the children themselves are protected - they being unable to speak for themselves because of their age."

  "And how bloody much will that cost?"

  "Not less than three hundred pounds to each silk - two hundred to him, one to his junior. One thousand and two hundred pounds, plus the fees of the court itself, sir."

  The Carteret heir, Mr Mortimer, intervened.

  "I believe, Sir Godby, that there would be fear of collusion was the Carteret family to pay all fees itself, but I can assure you that your liability would be limited entirely to the costs of your own barristers."

  Sir Godby was both surprised by and suspicious of this offer. Mr Mortimer briefly commented that the question of the succession to the baronetcy had been raised in the family and that it had been agreed that silence was of the essence.

  "In brief, Sir Godby, the matter came to our attention only some months after the unfortunate marriage was solemnised, if that be the appropriate term! Had the family been aware at an earlier stage then the whole business would have been scotched - there must have been a better way of dealing with the indiscretions of the young lady!"

  "I have accepted that I was much in error, sir."

  Mortimer brushed his comment aside - it was not Sir Godby's fault.

  "My lord no doubt exercised a degree of pressure that a commoner would have found hard to withstand, Sir Godby. Threats might well have been made against your business interests. I do not know, sir, and regret the abuse of your son that resulted. I understand that the result was a breach between you, even more to be a source of shame to us."

  "He fled to America, sir, unable to show his face in the locality. There, he has been made a major in the Union forces and has recently, I am told, been awarded their Medal of Honor, their equivalent to the Victoria Cross, I am deeply proud to discover."

  Sir Godby was rarely ashamed as well - he had judged his son a weakling, probably a coward!

  The lawyer expressed his delight - no judge, he said, would wish to bring humiliation on such a man - there was instant justification for all the secrecy the Law could achieve. The matter could go ahead and be settled within a very few months: all could be left in the hands of the legal profession.

  "What have you in mind for the children, Sir Godby?" Mortimer enquired.

  "The boy is to be apprenticed to Jardines, one of the big trading companies, sir, in India. Arrangements have been made and he will go out when he is thirteen. I have already purchased his
indentures and his passage, all in one. He will be put into a school as soon as he is old enough to learn, one in London recommended by the firm itself, and he will be taught his English and some of what they now call the Mathematics - it was used to be Sums, I believe. At age twenty-one he will be free and well skilled and able to make a fortune of his own in the East, if that be his wish. Should he prove unsuited to the business life then he will be put onto one of their ships as a junior mate at a proper age - fifteen or so."

  "That is generous of you, Sir Godby."

  "In part, sir, but mostly it will mean that he has money enough to be his own man and with no need to come back here begging."

  "And the girl?"

  "I have spoken to the wet-nurse and her husband. They have a son some five years of age and believe that there will be no other child of her body - I did not enquire why exactly but no doubt they know what they are talking about! The little girl will have fifty pounds a year for all of her childhood and two thousands in cash in her husband's pocket when she weds. They are good-hearted folk and will see the child comes to no harm, and they have sufficient of an eye to the main chance to make very sure their own boy is much in her company and hopefully will develop an affection for her."

  "Very sensible, sir, and one that speaks much good of you. Might I beg that the Carteret family, which, after all is related by blood, should bear some of the costs you have assumed? If that does not suit, then perhaps we might add to the little girl's portion on her marriage?"

  It was agreed and they told each other that generosity was far the best way out of the situation. It was a very fine feeling.

  "A final word, gentlemen - my doctor assures me that I would be well advised to press you for all possible speed in this matter. I shall place funds in Mr Peckham's hands to cover all fees and additional expenses, but it will no doubt be easier if I am available to meet any unforeseen contingencies."

  They looked at his face and assessed the slight tremor in his hands and nodded - they would seek to expedite the case. It could always be done, for a price.

  Sunderland was a dirty town - not filthy like Washington but deeply grimed by a century of coal smoke and the fumes from smelters dumped into the air and inexorably falling to the ground. The glass cones poured out their gases which met the products of the hundreds of steam engines powering the shipyards and coasters themselves and then joined the smoke of the railway engines working the tens of miles of branch and main lines and the hundreds of miles of sidings serving every factory and yard. The sky was dark and the buildings literally black with soot.

  Elizabeth Parsons stared from the window as her train pulled slowly through the town to the station. She passed a building site, a tall factory in the making, masonry infilling between cast iron pillars, saw the bricks to be red in the newest, higher courses and already brown towards the bottom of the walls; six months and they would be black.

  At the station she watched a pair of porters sweeping, doing their best to keep the platforms clean; she saw that the hems of her skirts were already grubby, as were those of every other woman in sight.

  "Forget about white lace in this town, Jenny," she said to her maid, a proper pace behind her shoulder.

  "Yes, ma'am. Respectable black, ma'am, for out of doors here."

  Jenny was forty, well trained as a lady's maid and with an eye for colour but her main function was to show respectable, to protect her mistress' public air of virtue. Young women were not expected in the general way of things to travel unaccompanied, or to stay in hotels on their own; most hotels in fact would have no hesitation in refusing a room to a solitary female, for fear of her profession. The Railway Hotel - large and resplendently modern - had a pair of rooms reserved by letter for the American lady, Miss Parsons and had no qualms in welcoming her and her maid and three porters bearing her trunks on their little hand trucks - she was obviously of the right sort.

  "A man from Mr Anstruther left a note for you, ma'am. He is, as no doubt you know, a leading light in the legal profession here, ma'am."

  "Thank you. I was expecting that. Tell me, those large, bottle shaped kilns, not quite like the pottery ovens I have seen in the States - what are they?"

  "Glass, ma'am. A large amount of press-moulded glass is produced in Sunderland and sold over the whole of the country. It is a growing industry, ma'am and much ornamental and highly artistic ware is made to grace the genteel sitting-room as well as the utilitarian products for the kitchen."

  She noted that there was a deal of local pride here - rather like America in that - the home-town was best. That was to be remembered; she must not suggest that they were behind the times and would benefit from go-ahead American ways.

  Mr Anstruther was a lawyer - and they were the same the world over - pompous, self-satisfied and patronising. She had her Derringer in a pocket sewn into her skirts - there was much to be said for bulky, stiff folds of cloth - modern fashion had its uses; if he put his hand on her knee she would show him that American women were not to be treated so!

  To give the man his due, he made no advances, was content to offer mere superiority over the weaker sex.

  "There was some mention, Miss Parsons, of the intention of the firm of Parsons and Burke to enter into ship-building. I presume that your father has sent you to break the ground, as it were, for him?"

  "No, sir. I am the Parsons, and Major Burke is unavoidably detained by military business in the States. He is an English gentleman, though serving with the Union forces, and has recently been awarded the Medal of Honor, which many equate with the British Victoria Cross. He will be taking an active role in the business when he is able to return to England, no doubt. I am to take charge in the first instance, having recently sold my Clausens Steel Company to Mr Carnegie in Pittsburgh. I have a letter from the Cotton bank in Liverpool which should establish my credentials, sir."

  A quarter of a million did much to improve her standing with Mr Anstruther; Major Burke's medal helped as well.

  "Your letter of introduction, ma'am, suggested that you wished to purchase a modern steel plant using a 'Bessemer Converter', if such was to be discovered for sale in Sunderland, and ideally in close contiguity to a shipyard."

  "It is my intention, sir, to build ironclad warships, equipped with turret guns. To follow the pioneering work of Mr Ericsson, of course. There must soon be a demand for such from all European navies."

  "There are those who would regard the province of the military as exclusively male, ma'am. There might be difficulties, for example, in discovering an engineer to design for you."

  "I have one, sir. Mr Bleaker will arrive from the States within the week."

  "You will, of course, require managers, Miss Parsons. I cannot imagine that the Lords of the Admiralty would be able to discuss warships with a female."

  "It is my first intention, sir, to interest the government of France in an armoured ship carrying ten inch turret guns. I believe that once such a delivery is made then the Royal Navy will come knocking at the yard door."

  "Possibly, ma'am. I would suggest that they might be more likely to place a contract with a known British manufacturer. A foreign firm headed by a woman might be seen as too unreliable to be trusted with British defence contracts."

  She realised that he was entirely serious, concerned to save her from an enterprise that must, he thought, end in her bankruptcy.

  "Would it be possible to buy into an existing yard that had ambitions to expand into naval construction, Mr Anstruther?"

  "I do not know, Miss Parsons, but I can set enquiries afoot. A substantial shareholding together with the services of an engineer familiar with the ships so recently made famous in the American conflict - that might well be very attractive, ma'am. Yourself, of course, to be acting as intermediary only as a result of American wartime conditions."

  "Please make your enquiries, sir. You may talk of sums in excess of one hundred thousand initially."

  "There are very few of public companies
as such as yet, ma'am. The law permitting their creation other than in banking and railways is very new. Limited partnerships do exist and are better understood among the local businesses."

  "While I take a share of profits and have access to the books, Mr Anstruther, I am willing to be called 'partner'."

  "Difficult, Miss Parsons; wiser far for Major Burke to be the partner and it would be better if your own financial man was to be seen inspecting the accounts. A firm that permitted a woman to have a say in its affairs might well find its reputation to be blown upon locally. As an example, there is very little of bank finance available to manufacturers and they generally extend credit to each other, delaying their demands for payment until the final product is sold and paid for. A firm which was regarded at askance might well find its bills coming due at a very early date."

  "I very much wish the firm to be associated with the new ships that must conquer the oceans of the world, sir. That demands a presence in England. It seems necessary that the name of Major Burke must be the one associated with this money."

  "Better far, ma'am! The gentleman cannot leave his place of duty, as all will accept, and there is far more sympathy with the Northern cause locally. You are in effect his messenger, able to act as his agent, the distances being so great and decisions being needed quickly very often. You have his instructions and some freedom to interpret them - American ladies being somewhat more 'advanced' than English, shall we say."

  "Then I shall leave the matter in your hands, sir, and retire to my hotel room. Perhaps I should purchase some embroidery to occupy my time."

  "Crochet is well regarded, Miss Parsons. It is said that Her Majesty indulges herself so!"

  She left the offices and returned slowly though the town, fuming. It seemed that England was even more determined than America to keep women in their proper place - the kitchen and the bedroom. She had no overwhelming objection to becoming a wife, but she would not give up her money; besides that, she enjoyed the business life.