Born To Privilege (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 3) Read online

  Next stop was to Trentham’s, the apothecaries. Physicians were not always available in foreign parts, and, in any case, offered little more than placebos for most ailments. Common sense was often safer than the bleeding and purging that was all most doctors relied upon.

  The apothecary, a learned man, agreed.

  “Bark for the agues – very common in the southern parts of the States, Walcheren fever and marsh ague especially, the sort found in the Norfolk and Cambridge fens. I put my bark up in lead-sealed jars, my lord, perfectly fresh and keeps for years at a time. Dr James’ and Dr Baillie’s Powders as well, to balance the humours – a spoonful whenever you are under the weather works wonders. Blue ointment for boils and suchlike excrescences of the skin and basilicum powder for the sweaty parts – heat rash can be very uncomfortable, young sir. Turpentine, for itches of the skin – very few rashes stand a bathing in turpentine, I believe. Laudanum deals with all other problems, I find – a quart Winchester will see you right, sir. All made up in a travelling chest, the bottles wrapped and strapped in place, sir. I sell at least three of these every week to travellers going to India and Russia and Spain and other primitive places.”

  Tom paid and gave the direction of the Clarendon, asked whether the apothecary had any advice to offer that might be specific to the States.

  “Very little, my lord – be careful to drink only from sealed bottles from known distillers, I am told. They produce some excellent whiskies and rums, but also there are backyard poteen makers by the score, whitestick a commonplace product. Other than that, keep the pores closed and the bowels open, my lord, as is good advice everywhere!”

  Father and son took their leave, walked off towards the office of the Andrews’ London lawyer and confidential agent, Mr Michael, Tom explaining that ‘whitestick’ referred to the capacity of wood alcohol to send its drinkers blind. He suggested that Robert should avoid gin wholly and should make sure to buy his other alcohol from reputable merchants.

  “On that topic, my son, of bought pleasures, you will undoubtedly make the acquaintance of young ladies of easy virtue, or, indeed, of none at all! Pay well and avoid the indiscriminate – a mistress in your own keeping is far the safest course and you will carry sufficient funds with you for that to be easily possible. Your late uncle – Lord Rothwell’s elder brother, who died before you were born - was so far gone in the syphilis that he put a bullet through his brain before he was twenty-five. James is a good lad, but I do not wish to see him heir in your place!”

  Scarlet-faced, Robert made inaudible mutters of agreement.

  Tom made a mental note – evidently none of the maidservants had taken the boy’s education in hand yet, which was rather a surprise, there was generally one or two who fancied the chance of a little cottage and a pension of their own, but that was a matter easily dealt with.

  Michael had not met Robert but had expected to at any time – the young man was heir and would require advice and assistance when in London.

  “Mr Michael is wholly in my confidence, Robert – you may always contact him if I am not available. You will draw any cash you may need at any time, for any purpose, from this office. Mr Michael will not query your expenditure – though I may well do so! I will put you on an initial allowance of one thousand a year, Robert, for your personal needs, but you may commit the business as seems reasonable to you when you are overseas. If, for example, there was a plantation came on the market that was a knock-down bargain then you would have authority to spend. For the moment you will stay with us at the Clarendon – if you require rooms of your own at a later date, Mr Michael will organise them for you. You won’t need a place of your own here while you are in the States, obviously, but you may wish to live in London when you return – the choice will be yours.”

  Tom left unsaid his most earnest wish that Robert would not find the need to dwell in Town, living a life of idleness – he would not coerce the boy.

  “Mr Michael, Miss Andrews is to make her come-out next Season and I have no doubt that Lady Verity would wish her to do so from our own house, with ballroom and all that is necessary to such fuss and bother. The address must also be suitable – and that you will know far better than I. Be so good as to buy and refurbish as may be necessary, if you please.”

  “Large, I presume, my lord?”

  “Naturally, Mr Michael!”

  “In the best of modern taste, my lord?”

  Tom stared suspiciously at Michael’s straight face, nearly twenty year’s acquaintance with the legal gentleman’s acute brain and occasionally erratic humour warning him to tread carefully.

  “Shall we simply say in the best of good taste, Mr Michael?”

  Michael shook his head in mock regret, permitted a faint trace of a smile.

  “A shame, my lord, I looked forward, for a moment, to the prospect of commissioning a Chinese drawing-room and Egyptian salons – crocodile-claw feet to all of the chaise-longues, one understands!”

  “Good, English taste, Mr Michael!”

  “A contradiction in terms, I believe, my lord – one can be in good taste or in English taste, I believe, but it is rare indeed for the two to coincide. I shall, however, employ the best of agents to oversee the transformation of the mansion we choose to purchase. Being aware of Miss Andrew’s age, I have made up a portfolio of suitable houses on the market, my lord, and I know a young gentleman in the architectural line who will examine them for me. I do feel it to be better that your house should not fall down about your ears, as it were, my lord.”

  Tom nodded, not in the least surprised that Michael should have known what was in his mind.

  “A note to Lady Verity before you conclude any purchase, if you would be so good – the social sphere is hers entirely and we should neither of us tread on her toes, Mr Michael.”

  Tom turned to his son, enquired whether there was any other business he could think of; if not, he might wish to visit their tailor.

  “Scott, Papa?”

  “I have used him for two decades, my son – thus showing myself to be out of date, I presume?”

  “Not at all, Papa – a very good tailor for the more elderly and less adventurous, I am told, and for the military, of course. I understand Schultz to be recommended for more modern young men.”

  “The choice is yours, my son – hatter and bootmaker as well. Accounts to Mr Michael, of course.”

  A cab was summoned and Robert departed, gleefully – he had been afraid that his father intended to supervise his outfitting. The old chap had so many virtues that he would have been unwilling to offend him by ridiculing his choice, but he was sadly behind the times when it came to proper dress!

  “I wonder, Mr Michael, whether you might be able to assist in another aspect of young Robert’s education…”

  Just two days later, Robert left Manton’s range where he had been ‘shooting in’ his new pistols, firing a few rounds from each to get the feel of them and discover how they pulled in his hands, when he quite literally bumped into a young lady in the street. He apologised and gave her his arm to steady herself when she discovered that the heel of her shoe had come loose. She was on her own, it transpired, doing a little shopping without her maid, and she would appreciate his aid in finding a cab and returning to her boarding-house, where she was staying just temporarily. She was not a lady of quality, he assumed from the way she spoke, but perfectly respectable, and he felt obliged to assist her. She was very grateful when she reached her abode and insisted that he escort her to her room, the stairs being difficult. Once there she very rapidly found herself bowled over by his manly charms, much to his surprise, he not realising that he had any.

  He missed dinner at the Clarendon that night, but explained to his mother that he had met a Harrow acquaintance, a Guards lieutenant who had joined the year previously; she was very content, as was Tom.

  Joseph Star had a great deal of advice to offer, strongly recommended that Robert should go to New Orleans and should investigate the
possibility of buying into one of the merchant houses there as a more reliable way of laying his hands on a certain supply of cotton. Plantation agriculture was, he said, an uncertain venture, relying as it did on slaves and overseers of dubious intelligence and probity. An owner who did not live on the premises could never be assured of the well-being of his estate. There was as well the moral issue of slavery; he had grown up in its company, as Robert might know, and had accepted it as a youth; now, however, he had the gravest doubts about the Institution. He himself had bought a pair of small plantations in the West Indian islands where the cotton was of a very high, long-staple quality, not always available on the English market; he had split the land up into smaller blocks and had arranged for freemen to take them on a share-cropping basis and was very satisfied with their production.

  “It can be done on the small islands, Robert, because slavery has never been strong there, but it would not work on the bigger ones. In the States it would be impossible because the slave owners have the political power and would not tolerate that sort of example to their people for fear that it would set off slave revolts.”

  “The freemen make a good living as share-croppers, I presume, Sir Joseph?”

  “Enough, I believe, Robert – better than they can do in any other way. My son Thomas assures me that there is a school and a church and a pair of stores in the little village closest to them and that it is the richest community on the island. He has visited them twice for me.”

  Robert had vaguely assumed the slaves to be content in their lot, having been taken out of the savagery of Africa and placed in the hands of Christian masters who ensured they were fed and housed securely. The mention of slave revolts puzzled him, as he had never heard of such happenings before apart from the unfortunate affair of Spartacus, which had after all been a long time ago.

  “You should read of Hayti, Robert, of Toussaint L’Ouverture and Christophe who led the great uprisings there, and of the French Revolutionaries who brutally put them down, thus showing exactly how honest they were in their love of their fellow-men and Liberty. The only Liberty they know is the liberty of the French to ravish the rest of the world!”

  Robert placed the names in his memory. He would discover what he could of them, for Sir Joseph was almost as great a man as his father and his words were to be accorded respect.

  Brief discussion followed, the feasibility of basing themselves on some town other than New Orleans, the wisdom of hiring an agent in America as opposed to Robert taking up residence there for a few years, the possibility of sending out another Englishman instead. All was to be decided at a later date, on the basis of Robert’s report.

  Robert took ship from Liverpool, deciding that the spring storms were no reason to delay, and Tom returned to the Hall. Three days later a courier arrived from London, on horseback and bearing a brief note from Nathan Goldsmid, father to Lady Rothwell, requesting his immediate presence in Town, if it was at all convenient. They had met, had had a few dealings over the years and Tom had been happy to lend his name to Goldsmid, to be used as a guarantor of Gentile good faith for those businessmen who were nervous of the fabled rapacity of the Hebrew. Now, when called to urgent need, he responded without question, was on the road that afternoon, in Goldsmid’s offices before noon next morning.

  “My lord, thank you for coming! I have the word of an opportunity that should not be missed – at the very least, my lord, you may avoid considerable losses. Please to take a seat, my lord!”

  Tom refused refreshments, smiled politely, tried to calm his host. Goldsmid was highly intelligent, accepted that England was different, but had lived too long in the atmosphere of the pogrom, with the knowledge that a dead Jew was very often the best sort of Jew in the eyes of the European aristocracy. Now he stood in his own office, a tall man, his back hunched over so as not to seem menacing or arrogant. It was instinctive and unthinking, but it was very irritating for it seemed to say that Tom was a threat as well.

  “What have you heard, Mr Goldsmid? As you know, my Mr Martin is a country banker and knows all that is happening in England but rarely gets word of events overseas.”

  Goldsmid opened a folder on his desk, displayed a quarto sheet of the thinnest paper Tom had ever seen closely covered in blocks of figures.

  “Prices, Mr Goldsmid?”

  “A form of code, my lord, each pair of figures standing for a single letter or punctuation mark, changing each week, the first pair telling me which week to use. It can be broken, but will take time, a few days at least, and by then will be out of date. Sent by pigeon. This one originated in Marseille three days ago at first light. The Emperor Napoleon has left Elba and will march on Paris where he will take power again. There will be war again, my lord.”

  “And prices on the Exchange will tumble, Mr Goldsmid, starting by tomorrow, I would imagine?”

  “The news should start coming to the South Coast ports late tonight, my lord.”

  “Thank you! I must see my Mr Michael immediately. Will you send a messenger to the Marquis of Grafham, if you have not already done so?”

  “I preferred that you should do that, my lord – he would have greater faith in you than me.”

  Tom nodded.

  “Mr Michael – before close, today, you will sell all of my Consols, including the trust funds you hold. Gold rather than bank notes, if at all possible. A messenger post-haste to Mr Martin of St Helens and another to Telford in Kettering, the word being to expect a significant fall on the Exchanges – if Martin can get to the Manchester Exchange before close tomorrow it will be greatly to his advantage.”

  There was a highly expensive Express service operating in the City, riders who would change horses every hour and could average more than twelve miles an hour, day and night, on the turnpikes. It would cost more than fifty guineas to take a letter to St Helens by this method.

  “What is the news, my lord?”

  “In strictest confidence, Mr Michael – Bonaparte is loose again. We may expect to see King Louis on our shores again in the very near future. I must go. Do you know who acts for the Marquis of Grafham? Can you get word to him to be ready to protect his client’s interests?”

  Michael would do so. He would also put his own savings, a respectable sum, into safety.

  “My lord, thank you for seeing me at no notice.”

  Grafham was at the offices of the Navy Board where he was still a major figure, the habit of work now entrapping him more than the earlier necessities.

  “What is it, Lord Andrews? My wife?”

  The Marchioness had been a little unwell when her husband had last seen her a week before.

  “No, my lord, she is perfectly well. I have certain word that the Emperor Napoleon landed near Marseilles three days ago. He will be half way to Paris by now.”

  “We have been expecting this for two months now, my lord. The French King has said that he will send Marshal Ney to collar him, has no doubt that he will do so.”

  Tom raised an eyebrow, said nothing. All he knew of Ney said that he was a man governed by his emotions, one who had never before been able to resist the charm of his Emperor.

  “I agree! I will send immediate word to the First Lord.”

  “Might I suggest that a note to your attorney would not come amiss, my lord? I could, perhaps, act as your proxy in this?”

  Grafham was no man of business, had no knowledge of what ought to be done – he wrote a short letter under his seal, passed it across the desk.

  “Full authority to act in your name, my lord. Thank you.”

  By the time the Exchange closed its doors for the day the business was complete. Michael, stretching a point, had also disposed of all of Sir Joseph Star’s holdings in Consols and East India Company stock. If the rumour was false then they would lose nothing, or very little when commissions were allowed for; if Napoleon returned to power then there would certainly be a slump on the markets which would allow them to buy back at a handsome profit. Prices had start
ed to fall in the last minutes of trading as the word went round that some of the big men were getting out. Canny traders noted that the Goldsmid connection had come out of the market entirely and that the Rothschild family had started to dump government paper and followed their example. The less observant responded to the dip in prices by buying, snapping up apparent bargains; in out-of-hours dealings that evening these same gentlemen were separately offered, and often accepted, many tens of thousands more of stocks, happily listening to the stories of a need for cash against speculations in new goldfields in Canada or trading with the Spanish colonies, newly, secretly opened to the English, even, in one case, a chance to get in on the ground floor of a great venture to build a canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. It was amazing, Michael commented later, just what the gullible could persuade themselves to believe; it was a shame, really, he laughed.

  “Stupidity, my lord, is not a crime – but it often carries the sentence of debtor’s prison!”

  Tom smiled in response – he had grown up knowing that sheep were born to be sheared, would indeed queue up for the privilege.

  “Buy at your discretion, Mr Michael, as I believe I need not tell you. I will contact Sir Joseph and tell him of all that we have done. Is there any word on the other matter, by the way?”

  “Sir Joseph will become Lord Star this year, my lord, to be announced at an appropriate moment. If there is war again, then immediately after the first great victory, it seeming to be part of the celebrations rather than a more commercial matter. His third son was made post-captain only last week, and has a frigate, one of the few sea-going commands of the peacetime navy – which will have put him in a very fortunate position should the French venture out!”

  “Young Matthew – twenty-five or thereabouts?”

  “An able officer, fortunately, my lord.”

  Both knew that his nautical virtues were less important than his family interest. If the young gentleman could actually get his ship to sea then that would be a bonus, and not necessarily one that was expected; his crew would include an experienced master and a pair of very competent lieutenants.