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

by Andrew Wareham

  "What happened in the past, my lord?"

  "Men rarely had five sons, I believe, and most of them died in childhood. I do not know why, but the numbers of the people are suddenly growing, in England and Ireland both - and they cannot all be fed and found work in the villages. The long war was a Godsend, of course, so many soldiers and sailors called for that the excess was not to be noticed; the peace has been a disaster for the ordinary folk, putting them at starvation's edge. They must go, preferably of their own volition."

  Goldsmith had grown up in Town, knew little of the Land and its problems. The cities were full of people, but that was natural to them - the concept of an excessive population had not occurred to him.

  "It seems that most go to the United States, my lord, to a foreign land. Would it not be better if they were to go to an English colony, there to produce wealth that the Mother Country might benefit from?"

  "An Empire? Not a popular proposition in Whitehall, where the ships and men to conquer and hold the new lands must be found and paid for."

  "Would you have an objection was I to speak for the need to take more lands for ourselves, my lord? Arguing of course that Utility demands that our people be used to the benefit of all."

  "Not at all, Mr Goldsmith - you are at liberty to follow your own conscience, sir. I would, however, beg of you to remain faithful to the Party. My brother, Mr James Andrews, who you will meet often, has been given to the Whigs, primarily because his lady is of a Whiggish family, but also to give our clan a foot in their camp, when the need arises. It is my expectation that the member for this seat shall be our representative in the other party."

  Family first, country second, personal inclinations a long third - it seemed reasonable to Goldsmith. In any event, his own family, strong in banking and finance, fell quite naturally into the Tory way of thought.

  "My father feels that I should marry in the relatively near future, my lord. Have you any thoughts on the matter?"

  "A wife is a present comfort, Mr Goldsmith, and there is much in favour of the institution of marriage. That said, your helpmeet must be capable of all of the duties of a political spouse - she must be a hostess."

  She must, in other words, be at home in Society; a sheltered background was not appropriate.

  "I will make this very point to my father, my lord. He will probably be understanding, though my mother will be much distressed, I fear."

  Both skirted round the presumption that Mr Goldsmith's bride must be Gentile, unwilling to put the clear necessity into plain words. It was essential to fit in, to become a full part of the political world - it was not possible to take the advantages conferred upon a member without accepting all of the obligations.

  The electors gathered happily: a year before the election was due - they had not expected to garner the fruits of their eminence yet.

  "Gentlemen, Mr Walker will not be standing for the House at the next election, indeed may seek to retire to the Chiltern Hundreds within a few weeks. He has served for many years and is now taking his retirement to enjoy existence with his young family."

  "Got to be damn' near sixty, ain't 'e, my lord? No age to 'ave a boy of five years like what 'e got! Goin' to look more like 'is grandsire than 'is dad!"

  There was a general mutter of agreement followed by an elbow that said no more was required on that topic - when all was said and done, it was none of their affair what the silly old bugger chose to do in his private life.

  "Mr Goldsmith has agreed to take on the responsibilities of the Finedon seat and has come to meet you all and let you get a look at him."

  They took up the invitation, peered very closely at the young man.

  "Skinny, ain't 'e? Death's head on a mopstick, no more!"

  "Hush!"

  There were smiles of sickly apology - very ignorant, some of the locals, they implied. Goldsmith had carefully heard nothing, smiled back.

  "I am town-bred, I fear, and know very little of country ways and problems. Tell me, what would you say are your greatest concerns?"

  An unwise question - his ears were battered for the next half hour.

  All eventually became clear - they were frightened for the future. 'Where would their children find work' was the gist of every question, every complaint.

  "We'm better off nor most, master. We got the Iron Works and the old boot manufactury, the like of which they don't 'ave up to Burton, you might say. But that ain't much more than a few men and women getting too old to work no more each year and their jobs bein' taken by youngsters. It's to the good, but it ain't nowhere near enough. And it be all very well, my lord, to say they got to go, but iffen they do, they ain't never comin' back no more, they ain't goin' to see they's families never again!"

  There was no answer to be made - even if they could write there was no cheap postal service, no guarantee that any letter would reach its destination.

  "Could the boot manufactury be made greater, my lord?"

  "Not by me, Mr Goldsmith - I would have to spend more time than I have available. I cannot do everything, sir! I had hoped that there would be competitors by now - new ideas are very soon emulated in our experience in the north, but that seems not to be so hereabouts."

  "Are there no local merchants with the money to set themselves up as cordwainers in a manufactury, my lord?"

  "Few - this is not a country much given to trade, not like London or the busy lands about Manchester and Leeds and Newcastle. Few estates match ours in the Midlands, and as a consequence, there are few men with the thousands available to risk in a new business. The banks, of course, are very unwilling to lend for anything untried, and it is almost impossible for a go-ahead young man to find an investor to back him."

  Goldsmith had no more to say, except that he had never visited a manufactury of any sort.

  He spent next day inside the two, iron in the morning, boots to round out the day. He had a headache by dinner-time.

  "How do the people withstand the noise and the noxious fumes and the poor light, my lord?"

  "They grow used to it, I believe - and on payday they happily remember that where there's muck, there's money. The two are inseparable, to the best of my understanding."

  "And do not the people find their health and well-being to be impaired, my lord?"

  Robert had not the least idea, was not sure that it was his business to know - if the local folk did not like the work, they did not have to do it, they were free to go elsewhere, they were not serfs.

  "Should I visit with the neighbourhood outside of the village, my lord?"

  "The Latimers? I would not, sir - under-educated, over-important and bumptious squireens for the most part - I feel they would be so much more at home in the bogs of Ireland, they would fit in, as it were."

  Worse could not be said of any gentleman.

  "What of the tenantry, my lord?"

  "They do not have the vote here. In many constituencies the larger copyholders are enfranchised, but that was not the case here, why I know not. There is, of course, no generality of procedure throughout the realm; perhaps there should be. It is an anomaly that the bulk of the electors here are poorer than the farmers on the estate; most own a house and garden of their own and rent premises from the estate for their trades - and it is the ownership that gives them the vote, though it is rarely of as much as one hundred pounds a year worth."

  "Very old-fashioned, my lord. Have such arrangements still a place in the modern age?"

  "Probably not, Mr Goldsmith - but, to be honest, I am little concerned whilst I retain a sufficiency of influence to order the estate for the best."

  "We are to dine with the Dowager tomorrow, Mr Goldsmith - her first entertainment in her new dwelling. I am sure that she and the Marchioness will have opinions on the matter of politics."

  It was a friendly warning - 'careful, these ladies have views and may bite'.

  The ladies had strong opinions, but not on the franchise.

  "Your dress, Robert! Positively
antiquated, sir!"

  They looked at Mr Goldsmith and shuddered, courtesy demanding they said nothing.

  "Is one, perhaps, to discover that fashions have changed, ma'am?"

  Frances raised an eyebrow to Miriam, who was very quietly spooning soup, only the tiniest quirk of a smile disturbing her face.

  "An old-fashioned frock-coat might do for a banker, Robert - but it is not proper for my lord. I am amazed, sir, that your tailor would permit you upon his premises dressed so!"

  "Well... in fact, ma'am, I have not really found the time, as it were, to take cognisance of his strictures. In fact, I had a man run up my last coat from the original - he took only two days, very convenient!"

  It occurred to Frances that Robert had never brought his valet with him to the Hall; a dreadful suspicion seized her.

  "Tell me, my lord - what has your man to say to such doings?"

  "I have not quite found the time to discover a true valet, as such, ma'am - there is always a footman or some such who will do the little I need."

  "A shame that Brown has chosen to retire to his Peaks of Derbyshire!"

  "Is that where he was to go, ma'am? I know that I have given instructions for him to be pensioned - Captain Thame will be seeing to that in a not ungenerous annual sum."

  Frances was a little disturbed - Robert would meet his obligations, that was a certainty, but rather from a knowledge of duty than from any milk of human kindness. A pity! Thomas had been erratic in his generosity, but his giving had generally come from his heart; Robert, it seemed, would patronise more good causes but from a sense of propriety rather than innate generosity.

  "I do feel, Robert, that your present position demands, absolutely, not that you espouse the self-indulgences of the dandy, but that you present yourself in a manner that Society will approve of."

  Frances spoke with the power of her position behind her - the Dowager was expected to be the social arbiter in any family. She was young for the role, but the weight of generations rested on her shoulders - she must not be refused in this.

  "I shall be bullied, ma'am - harassed and hustled from dressing-room to hairdresser to tailors to haberdashery, oh, I know not where next!"

  "So you should be, sir. You must procure the services of a gentleman's gentleman, and soon. When next do you go to Town?"

  "Not in the immediate future, ma'am - my lady wife will be travelling less for the while."

  They were temporarily diverted, came back to the pressing question after all the necessary inquires had been made.

  "I shall write to Mr Michael, ma'am, begging him to secure the services of a knowing man who is nonetheless not seeking to establish himself and his master at the forefront of fashion."

  "Two such, if I may make so bold, sir. I am sure that Mr Goldsmith would be happy to avail himself of Mr Michael's services."

  Goldsmith knew which battles not to fight - he had no wish to be fussed over by a querulous pursuer of the trivialities of millinery, but he had even less desire to risk a refusal. He smiled and made his thanks, realising, he said, that his new position must make attention to his appearance necessary.

  Important matters dealt with it was imperative to turn to politics, which presumably interested the young man.

  "What have you to say of the matter of Catholics, Mr Goldsmith?"

  "Emancipation is essential, ma'am. The Jacobite succession is no longer of relevance - there is no longer a Stuart in the direct male line to make a claim - if ever there was, that is, remembering the warming-pan - and the ban on Catholic participation in public life is therefore unjustifiable. The late Cardinal Duke of York was the last of the Pretenders and there is now only a King of Sardinia, or some such place, as heir, and he descended in the female line. There are no acknowledged bastards - the Young Pretender too drunk to frequent female company and his religious brother not in the way of propagating for other, pressing, reasons. We are now in the field of prejudice rather than policy."

  Removal of the formal, and largely ignored, proscriptions must also lead to the enfranchisement of openly practising Jews and Non-Conformists, in many ways desirable also. A few of chapel-goers were pleased to see themselves as the victims of persecution, leading occasionally to undesirable attempts to attain martyrdom for their cause, which was an irritation to constables and magistrates who had important business to go about.

  The ladies withdrew and left the men to their port, neither particularly in love with the wine but obliged to take a couple of glasses while the females went about whatever they did in the absence of the menfolk.

  "It would seem, my lord, that we must become band-box creatures."

  "Obedience is the course of wisdom, I fear, Mr Goldsmith. You will discover when you wed that quite often a quiet life is the better course, sir. I really do not care too much what I wear - though I am damned if I will don one of these corsets which are so much the new thing!"

  "I rather doubt I could, sir - was I to be nipped in at the waist then I fear for my survival!"

  The manly shape had come into vogue - it was recently mandatory for the fashionable gentleman to display a powerful chest and set of shoulders above a narrow waist and well-muscled thighs. Where nature did not make the necessary provision then it fell to tailor and valet to achieve a respectable counterfeit with puffed sleeves and shoulders and carefully cut breeches and, increasingly, trousers, and, inevitably, quantities of whalebone and tight-lacing. Possibly the King's love affair with the corset had led to patriotic emulation.

  "Brummel would not be delighted, I fear, my lord. I believe him to be confined to a madhouse in France, by the way, a pauper's ward at that. A few friends sent him funds when he fled the country for debt, but they have fallen off, it would seem, and he has come upon the hardest of times."

  "Sic transit gloria mundi - there is none so dead as the fashionable man who has fallen from his pedestal, his insignificance exposed. There is more to life than clothing, it would seem, but I shall not be making that argument to the females, I believe."

  The ladies were discussing the 'Mirror of Fashion', a periodical magazine much treasured by those forced to dwell out of Town.

  "Dreadful news, my lord! The Empire is finally dead and we must abandon its precepts! Females are to return to the hour glass shape with very full skirts!"

  Robert liked the high-waisted, narrow-skirted look that he had grown up with - he believed it to be flattering to most females and would regret its passing.

  "The hair as well must take a new appearance, my lord. Ringlets and curls and elaboration are now the thing - the simple knot will no longer do! Add to that, colours are back! From understatement to over in one sweep of fashion!""

  "Which suggests, my lady, that we must modify our plans and make a visit to Town in the very near future. Modistes and tailors - and quite possibly hair-dressers - must be descended upon, it would seem."

  Miriam agreed while Frances, enviously, feared that she must remain in the Dower House for the while - the demands of mourning really forbade her to take pleasure excursions for the next half year.

  "I must resign myself to dowdiness for a few months, I regret."

  She made it obvious that she had many regrets, but remained the courteous hostess as manners demanded.

  "My sister is well, ma'am?"

  Verity brightened, reminded again of her life's consolation.

  "She is indeed, Robert! Bright and healthy, active and noisy - not an inert lump as some babies seem to be."

  Robert was not aware that infants could be other than his family had shown themselves, had assumed all babies to be lively.

  "I am glad, ma'am, and look forward to making her acquaintance as soon as she is old enough to leave the nursery."

  "I so miss the news of Town, Robert. Isolation in the countryside has some pleasures, but I fear I am an urban soul at heart!"

  "Little to say, ma'am. The King grows fatter and Liverpool thinner week by week - he cannot have too many years left in him and
his would-be successors become increasingly clamorous in their recruitment of supporters."

  "Wellington as well? That would be a surprise."

  "No, he stands to one side, above the hurly-burly, sure that one day he will be called upon when the Party is at a stand. He will be, too."

  "An able man, and possessed of a knowledge of his duty, but just the tiniest element of the prig about him?"

  "He is aware of his own worth, certainly."

  "Mr Peel believes that the Duke will be a force for reason in the Party, though I believe he underestimates his loyalty to his Irish connections," Goldsmith said.

  "You mean that he will oppose Catholic Emancipation?"

  "I fear he must, ma'am. The Irish Protestants will not stand for power being taken away from them and will see any measure of relief to the Romanists as an attack on their privileges."

  The Irish Protestants possessed a significant number of seats in the House of Commons, could make a Prime Minister's life very difficult if they became dissatisfied.

  "Could we not give Ireland away, Robert?"

  "Who would take it? We dare not allow the country to fall into the hands of France or Spain because it is so valuable as a base for blockade or an attack on England in time of war. In all other ways than the strategic it is a burden upon us. A nation of peasants and bigots, stricken by poverty, ignorance and malice in equal proportions; people capable of rising to the heights of sainthood and the depths of deviltry simultaneously. The history of Ireland cannot be forgotten and until it is the land - I will not call it a country, it has never been a political state - condemns itself to sterile repetitions of misery. There is no solution to Ireland - the Irish will not permit it - and therefore all the English can do is turn their backs, killing the odd thousand or two whenever they become too great a nuisance and have to be driven back to their kennels."