The Wages Of Virtue (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 8)

by Andrew Wareham

  George had noticed that she was a committed church-goer, saw no harm in pandering to her distrust of high living.

  She realised that he fully intended to make good the promise of a title that he had made when requesting her hand; she had accepted that as an ambition, now began to regard it as a reality.

  "Will you accompany me to your father's house? I believe he would appreciate hearing your news in your presence."

  She was struck again by his consideration - he was a natural gentleman, it seemed, and made their alliance of convenience so much easier for them both by his good manners. It was a pity, perhaps, that he in no way moved her to romantic affection, but he was a satisfactory husband and would certainly be at least a dutiful father, and the children would fill any emotional desires she might develop. She was very pleased that she had agreed to marry him - a very sensible act on her part.

  George handed her into the carriage, sat by her side reflecting that she was neither handsome nor attractive, but she was a very good wife and would make an excellent mother for his family and an outstanding lady for the manor that would one day be his. He had made a very wise marriage, was pleased with himself and her - love was for the story-books, had no place in real life.

  "Your daughter expects to be delivered of our first child, your grandson one may hope, in six months, Mr Brown."

  "No time wasted, lad - first-born in the first year! Good business practice, I must say!"

  George realised the old man had made a joke, laughed with him.

  "We are looking about us for a proper house, sir, in a correct part of the town and hence not so far from here."

  "Your attorney can do the searching for you - easier that way and you'll get a better price. A seller who knows who you are - the master of Lodestar - will jack the price up a few hundred for one of the town's leading young men."

  "You flatter me, sir."

  "You'll be worth more than me by the time you're my age, lad! I wish I'd had your push, I tell thee that for free!"

  "Yet you have done very well for yourself, sir."

  "Had I done as well as your father, then I would be a proud man indeed! Your brother will do as much for the family as he did, I expect, though not in the commercial line; Sir Matthew is busy establishing himself in shipping; Mr Mark Star is a judge already; I hear that Mr Henry Star is a businessman of no small renown in the States; the Reverend is well known in the town as a man of true charity; even Mr Bob Star runs his sheep over thousands of acres. Your father did what I had hoped to, but never managed - he made a family that will last for many generations, God Willing, in wealth and honour. I envy him!"

  "He made himself from nothing, sir - I can never emulate him for having had so much easier a start in life, but I walk proudly for being his son."

  "And so thee should, lad, and it's one of the things I like about thee!" Brown turned to Mrs Star - he would never address her by any other name now, thinking that to be correct. "Your mother is none too well, and your sisters are both worse. If you do move to a house nearby then perhaps it will be easier for you to visit them more often."

  George intervened, seeing the opportunity to ingratiate himself - the old man still had not finalised the Will, he believed.

  "I shall buy a gig, perhaps even a fashionable tilbury, for my own use, ma'am, and a trotting horse to pull it. The carriage will be at your convenience every day as soon as I have made the arrangements. You must pay the three unfortunates every attention - consonant, that is, with your own well-being - you must not jeopardise your own health!"

  "Thank you, husband, yet again - you are very good to me!"

  "He is that - I should have thought of that mysen'."

  'Courtesy', George reflected - he was in a business partnership and must exert his best endeavours to make it a success, using the tools appropriate to the task.

  "How goes trade, Mr Star?"

  "Well, sir. The new looms are working full out, two shifts and the Sabbath as well, and I am looking about at my competitors, seeking that one who is most vulnerable so that I may offer to buy him out at an appropriate moment. I would like to catch a mill before it closes its doors, so as to keep it going and the men to stay in employment - better to retain an experienced set of hands. Lodestar is as big as is convenient now - to grow further I would have to buy out more expensive housing than was the case last time, and one cannot build upwards, I am told, the vibration of the looms doing the fabric of the building no good at all."

  "I hear a whisper that Alfred Myers is in trouble, Mr Star. He put his son in as manager last year, going into retirement himself, and the young man could not face the task and has taken to the bottle, or so I am told. I know that Myers came back to work last month."

  George had not heard that rumour, thanked Brown for it.

  "I've known Myers these twenty years, lad - not close friends, like, but acquaintances who talk together when we meet. I shall see if I cannot bump into him soon."

  Brown nodded and winked and escorted them through to his wife's withdrawing room.

  The curtains were drawn against the weak sun, the room shrouded; she was sat unmoving and with no apparent occupation by the fireplace, made no attempt to rise to greet them.

  "Good morning, Mama. How are you today? Are you well?"

  "No, my dear."

  "Have you seen the doctor recently?"

  "Yesterday. He has given me a new cordial, but it seems little better than the old. Your sisters are very poorly. Neither has come downstairs today."

  "I am come to tell you that I am with child, Mama."

  The frail, elderly-seeming lady was roused a little from her abstraction.

  "How does that come about, Cordelia? What have you been doing?"

  "Mama, I am a married lady. Mr Star is with me, see!"

  "Oh, yes. I thought I had seen him before... he is your husband, you say? Why was I not invited to the wedding?"

  "You were present, Mama..."

  "Oh..."

  "Perhaps I should go upstairs, husband, to visit with my sisters."

  George gave her his arm, led her away; she was trying not to weep, finding composure difficult to attain.

  "She has become old before her time, I fear. I do not consider that a good sign, my dear."

  "It cannot be, husband. I am sorry to make such a display, sir - I should know better."

  "If one cannot cry for one's mama then one must be in a sorry case, ma'am! And, I would add, a husband who found such to be offensive would himself be a rather poor specimen of humanity, such as I hope I am not."

  "You are a true gentleman, sir, and I consider myself fortunate to have met you. I had understood that a lady should never show emotion in public, but perhaps I was taught wrong."

  "In one's father's house and in front of one's husband is hardly public, ma'am. You are quite right that a display before the masses is not correct, but in the bosom of your own family, there you must be free to be a daughter only."

  "I must learn these things - your children must be taught properly."

  "They will be, ma'am, you need have no fears for all that you will teach them, they will not go astray following your example. In any case, the girls shall have a governess, the boys will go to a school."

  George returned to Mr Brown's company, asking him questions about the cotton trade, sometimes genuinely to learn, at others confirming his own knowledge and allowing the older man to demonstrate his.

  "What of selling overseas, Mr Brown?"

  "The Southern States of America will buy cheap cottons for their blacks and quality for the masters - they have no mills of their own. Less is sold to the Sugar Islands, but still a good few tons a year. The East India Company buys the cheapest of cloths by the tens of thousands of yards. In Europe, those countries that we can trade with freely are into wool far more than cotton. Spain, Portugal and the Italian States are fairly much closed to our trade, and the Turk has nothing to say to us."

  "What of the French, si
r?"

  "Sod them, lad - after twenty years of war they can whistle for my business!"

  George allowed himself a grin - it was a popular point of view.

  "Was I to look for overseas contracts, Mr Star - was I you, that is - then I would send a traveller to Richmond in Virginia and instruct him to work his way further south and west around the coast. You are producing at the upper end of the market, Mr Star, and have small need yet to look abroad; should you expand into another mill, perhaps more into middle of the road stuffs, then it might be wise to look to establish a name overseas, before others are seized by the same notion."

  "A traveller, a bright young man with his fortune to make?"

  Brown shook his head - he did not like brash salesmen, instinctively distrusted them.

  "Far better a gentlemanly sort, in his thirties and able to chat on equal terms, over a comradely drink or two. A major, say, who has exchanged civilities in his mess for years, and who can slap the backs of Southern gentlemen, so-called."

  "One tends to be instinctively distrustful of the half-pay officer, Mr Brown - they have a bad name!"

  "There are many good men amongst them - they just ain't seen so much, because they keep their mouths closed."

  "Well said, sir - I should have thought of that myself - the blowhard is always the more visible."

  "That said, lad, I don't know how we would go about finding one of those majors - they ain't my sort of folk at all."

  "I would ask my brother, Lord Star, to speak to Lord Andrews and have him utilise his people in London. He has a lawyer there, one who is retained by the family and will deal with all of that sort of thing."

  "Out of my class, Mr Star." Brown looked up suddenly - he was shorter than George by two or three inches and held himself stooped now, as if bent over some pain or discomfort in his middle parts. "You married below you when you wed my girl, Mr Star. I know the money was part of it, and adding my name in the business to yours counted as well - but what else was there? Why her, when you could have got wed to some lord's daughter with all of the other sort of advantages?"

  "I think, sir, it was because I am my own man, not one to be taken up by some lord, and because I wanted a strong woman by my side, not a pampered little miss. Your girl is a good wife to me, and she will be a fine mother to her children, of that I am sure - none of this namby-pamby, niminy-piminy dying away for her!"

  "You made a good bargain in her, that's for sure, lad. If that was what you wanted, then you got it in full measure."

  'Making the best of a good bargain' - it would have amused his father, George thought.

  "Would it be allowable to speak to the family doctor, Mr Star? Not for myself, but to enquire after my mother and my sisters - I cannot believe them to be anything other than much weaker in the sennight since last I saw them."

  "I do not believe that he would wish to betray their confidence, ma'am. He is a professional man. He will have spoken to your father, who has the right to know their condition, and will have explained his fears to him."

  "Has Papa spoken to you, Mr Star?"

  "He has intimated his acceptance of their early mortality, ma'am."

  She puzzled over that for a few seconds.

  "How soon?"

  "I doubt they will see our child, ma'am."

  "It is better to know than to fear, sir... At the least, I will not be taken by surprise. Though, having observed Mama's condition today, I could not have any other expectation. She is very frail in body and mind."

  "She is old before her time, as I said."

  "I must fear for myself, having seen her and my sisters."

  "No! I strongly suspect - though I am no medical man - that your mother became infected by some unusual ailment in the years after your birth and before that of your sister Agatha, and that all unawares she passed it to the two girls while carrying them. I am sure that you are wholly safe."

  So many illnesses were of unknown origin and course that it was an immediately acceptable explanation - it was the Will of the Lord that there should be disease on Earth, and none could hope to unravel His entire purpose; one could merely acquiesce.

  "My father seems less sturdy of late - but the worry that he must be suffering, poor gentleman, would explain that in whole."

  "No feeling individual could remain unmoved by such an ordeal as he is experiencing. He must continue in his labours and then take up another burden when he returns to his house at night - small rest for him, I fear!"

  "I hope and trust that he may continue successfully in his business, sir, under such a load of troubles."

  He answered her unspoken question.

  "The New Steam Mill continues to be one of the most healthy enterprises in town, ma'am. All of the looms are busy and all of his customers are happy, to the best of local knowledge - and you know how gossip and rumour spreads amongst the cotton people. I am a little surprised, I will admit, that he has not appointed an under-manager, an able man who could learn from him and then take charge when he became older and wished to step down from the day-to-day hustle and bustle."

  "I do not believe that ever to be his intention, Mr Star. He will work until the day he takes to his death-bed, and then he will pass all over to his heir. So he has told me since our marriage."

  Such being the case, George thought, and there being no other known candidate as heir, he would be well-advised to find an under-manager himself - he could expect to be very busy within a few years, quite possibly within months if the old chap's decline accelerated.

  "Captain Thame assures me that the builder whom he has appointed to maintain your estate will have finished his first tasks within the month, ma'am. He is to install a water-closet, amongst other evidences of modernity which appear to be quite foreign to the somewhat, quaint shall we say, to be courteous, ways of the Norfolk people. The kitchen is to benefit from a closed stove as well. Apart from that a few window casements needed replacement of rotten timbers or cracked panes - the salt air may well harm the woodwork. The roof is, fortunately, wholly sound. You will be able, if you wish, to take up residence for the better part of the summer. The Gift is perfectly habitable, and Sir Iain informs me that he has closed with the purchase of a 'convenient' little house in Mayfair. He begs, by the way, 'the privilege of staffing the house in respect to my lord, so fine a gentleman as he was'."

  "Just how great a house is it, my lord?"

  Frances was moved partly to laughter, almost to tears, swamped by the tokens of generous affection.

  "Sir Iain's notions do not always display accord with mine, ma'am. He claims, as I say, that the house is ideally suited to your circumstances - and it will be, of that I have no doubt! He has appointed the staff and they will, of a certainty, also make their reports to him as well as to you. You will find the housekeeping bills to be remarkably low, and the number of staff ridiculously high - and I will beg of you, ma'am, to be wholly unaware of those facts."

  "I must play the innocent, you suggest?"

  "He would be so embarrassed otherwise - he is a good-hearted man and is very unwilling to display his generosity. He could not buy me a Town House, because we have Mount Street, and now has been able to make the purchase for you instead, much to his pleasure. I have been quite unable to pay him for the acres he bought for your Home Farm - I have had to content myself with a necklace and earrings for Lady Andrews, of a higher value, of course, which he is awake to and deeply approves of."

  "It must be difficult for you sometimes, Robert."

  Use of his name told him that the conversation was now personal and confidential.

  "It is always difficult, for me and more so for Miriam. She must know, or have a very strong inkling by now, of the existence of my other family. I have never tried to deceive her with protestations of affection, and she knows that I will not publicly shame her, yet she must be aware that she is second-best. She has the comfort of her children - our children, she knows of my real love for them - but it is not the life I woul
d wish upon any woman - yet I cannot leave Judy, will not do so. There is a second child on the way there, ma'am. My mother met her, you know, and, I believe liked her; it was a pity that Papa could not, in decency, visit her."

  "He wished to, Robert - we discussed the question more than once. On the topic of residence, I would wish to transfer to the Dower House in the near future - it will be so much easier for your wife. I doubt that I shall make the journey into Norfolk while Verity is so young - next summer will be time enough. London, perhaps, later in the year. Is there a pianoforte in the Dower House?"

  "Clementi is to deliver from his warehouse within the sennight, ma'am. I have begged him as well to put together a selection of scores - Mozart, Beethoven, Hummel and his own works as well as such other of the moderns as may occur to him. It would not have been tactful, I thought, to specify London Bach to Mr Clementi, and I have bought some of his pieces elsewhere."

  She made her thanks.

  "I am right that you prefer the fortepiano, am I not, ma'am?"

  "You are - I have that in common with Herr Mozart, I believe - and nothing else at all!"

  "A rare genius, but matched by Herr Beethoven, I think."

  "Some would say surpassed - though I am not wholly certain myself. You know of the maestro of the violin, Herr Spohr? He has openly stated that Beethoven has faults that Mozart did not possess, and I am inclined to accept his word - Spohr is a very great man!"

  "We are fortunate in our time, I believe, ma'am - there are men of genius alive today."

  "Rich in music, certainly - yet almost none of them English as such, Clementi the nearest, having dwelt here for many years. Other than that, a few performers of some ability, yet no composer to be remembered; one wonders why."

  "Any young man of talent will have it beaten out of him at school, ma'am - if the masters do not discourage him then his peers will bully him almost to death. To possess musical ability is not consonant with the schools' definition of manliness, I believe. And, of course, one must not show away in front of the public; Rothwell's daughter is a player of rare distinction and in Vienna would be renowned and begged to play before the court."