Sweet and Twenty

by Joan Smith

“It is a novel and very ingenious idea, I think,” Hudson told her. “Telford is very excited about it.”

  “Who will pay for it?” Martha asked.

  “The people who use it,” Hudson replied.

  “Mr. Hudson, you cannot think that will get you any votes,” Lillian said feelingly. “The cost would be enormous. You’ll lose even your Whig votes if you go ahead with this.”

  “Already told you, I ain’t paying a penny!” Fellows reminded him with a wounded countenance. “Dipped into my own pocket to the tune of five hundred pounds already. Had no notion it was so dear to become an M.P.”

  “How will it be financed, exactly?” Martha asked.

  “The money has been raised locally from wealthy citizens. The cost is not so great as you might think, for Telford is mainly interested in the welfare of the people and in trying a new technique, so he doesn’t look to make much profit from it. The incentive for the builders to use their own money is that it is a private bridge—they have bought the land on either side of the river where the bridge will begin and end, and they will charge a toll for using it.”

  “The Tories wouldn’t make us pay no toll,” Fellows grouched.

  “The toll will only be levied on carriages and perhaps mounted riders. We haven’t worked out all the details, but foot-passengers—the poor, in other words—will not be required to pay. The revenue will come out of the pockets of those who can well afford it, and they won’t all be local people by any means. Over the years the cost will be paid off, and it will provide a good return on the investment of the builders. It is bound to lead to an improvement in the roads with the traffic it will bring, but the Tories can foot the bill for that.”

  “Who are these local citizens who have funded it?” Martha inquired.

  “Mr. Ratchett is the major investor,” Mr. Hudson replied, with a quizzing look at Lillian. “I have had a good deal of business with him lately. He has so much money he doesn’t know what to do with it.”

  “He could give me a little for my campaign,” Tony muttered to himself.

  “He did give us a hundred pounds,” Hudson said.

  “Allingham is in on it, and I am myself. I am not a local citizen, of course, but as I sponsored the idea and Tony was reluctant to put his own money up, I thought it would secure confidence in the project and encourage others to join in, I think it will prove to be a good investment. I do not consider it money wasted by any means. And it will be good for the town; a new project of this sort will bring plenty of business. And it would be the first suspension bridge in England. It will put Crockett on the map.”

  “And it’s us Whigs that did it,” Fellows declared, after having fought the project tooth and nail every step of the way.

  “That’s right, Tony,” Hudson said. “Don’t forget that point. The Tories have promised a bridge forever, but it’s a Whig who got it. And remember, there is no toll for foot-passengers, whereas they must pay a couple of pennies now to be taken across by the boatman.”

  “Yessir, and if they don’t vote for me, I might not have Telford go ahead with it,” Fellows added.

  “The deal is signed,” Hudson reminded him, but this made no impression on Tony.

  “No sir, I just might not let them have it.”

  An announcement of such significance had to be talked over for several minutes, during which time coffee was prepared and served.

  “It will be fine to have a bridge,” Lady Monteith declared. “I do hate taking the barge to Chepstow, and the stores are very fine there.” Her social duty done, she settled back with her coffee and sweet bun.

  “Does Mr. Alistair know?” Sara asked.

  “Not yet. We hope to catch him off guard,” Hudson told her. Throwing a bridge at him seemed a trick more cruel even than throwing potatoes, and Sara soon vanished mysteriously from the room. Closeted in her own, she wrote up the information in a note and sent it off to Alistair, who received it that evening, several hours after he had heard the awful news in the village. But he thought it very nice of her to have warned him.

  Martha felt that some particular marks of condescension toward Mr. Hudson were in line now that she knew more about him, and she bestowed them in a catechism of impertinent questions regarding his parentage. His titled uncle, his estates real and to come, his work in the party, and his freedom.

  “And you are not engaged or anything of that sort?” she ended up, making the point of her questions so obvious that Lillian writhed in embarrassment. Hudson took it all in seeming stoicism, betraying not a glimmer of the resentment Lillian was sure he must be feeling. Martha was so cheered by what she heard from him that she dashed off upstairs at once to fetch Sara down, so as to allow Hudson to decide which of the two girls he wanted. It was a rare privilege that she was thus allowing him: to make his own choice.

  “Do you think I passed?” Hudson said to Lillian with a twinkling smile when Martha left the room.

  “Auntie is always curious about everyone,” she explained.

  “I will be happy to refer her to my man of business if there are any details she forgot to ask,” he said, obviously undeceived by this excuse. “And I think Allingham will give me a character reference.”

  “You have managed to stay pretty well out of his way, have you?”

  “No, but I lied a lot to him.”

  Lady Monteith overheard this last remark and frowned at Mr. Hudson. Fellows, bored with such a small audience, none of whom was paying the least heed to himself, turned to Lady Monteith.

  “You are a friend of Lady Marie Sinclair, I think, ma’am?”

  “Yes, I have known her forever.”

  “Do you see much of her?”

  “No, she lives three miles away, you know, and I seldom see her, except once in a while in Crockett.”

  “That’s a pity then.”

  Lady Monteith was not overly curious, but inquired, after another bite of sweet bun, “Why?”

  “Had a falling out with Basingstoke. Pity. He’s all cut up about it.”

  Hudson, overhearing this, was swift to object. “You won’t want to involve yourself in anything of this sort, Tony. She is a married lady and a Tory to boot, remember. We have already stumbled in on them once and been hinted away. Don’t get mixed up in other people’s marital problems.”

  “She may be a Tory, but she’s a devilish fine-looking woman for all that. Blond hair and blue eyes—or brown. Eyes, anyway, very nice ones.”

  “Only a squint and a little cross-eyed,” Lillian said in a low tone to Mr. Hudson.

  He was cheered to find her coming out of her sulks. “A fine figure, too—as broad as a barn door.”

  “I see what your compliment to me last night was worth. I too was a fine figure of a woman, and me skinny as a pole!”

  “It’s you who should be tucking into that plateful of cream buns. Shall I get you one before your aunt gobbles them all up?”

  She shook her head, smiling. “This bridge you speak of, will it make a big difference in the campaign?”

  “I think it will shift the balance. If only we could corner a handful of the grain-growers’ votes, we might rest easy. We have one last do coming up—-a dinner for the veterans, and several of them are farmers’ sons. If we could come up with some trick for that, it would be a help. It is quite shameful the way the government is treating the veterans—no work for them, and if the disabled are getting any pension, it is small and irregular. Reising has the advantage in the affair, as it is the Tories who are in power, and he can bring in Castlereagh or Eldon or some other name to impress the locals, to shake hands with Alistair and lend him a quite false air of being somebody.”

  “Have you no Whig name you could bring in?”

  “Some of the dukes are Whigs, but they wouldn’t put themselves to the bother of going out on the hustings. Couldn’t bear to tear themselves away from their mistresses.”

  “You should let them know what dashing lightskirts abound in Crockett since you two whippers-in
are come to town.”

  “It is only one whipper-in who brought lightskirts!”

  “Yes, the other sanctimonious gentleman was content with pickpockets and cat-throwers and making up to the Tory lightskirts.”

  “The girls are apolitical. Like your friend Alistair, till they are branded I consider them fair game. Well, we have Brougham and Tierney who might impress a cityful of university graduates, but I doubt they’d cut much ice in Crockett. What we require is a hero. A pity Lord Byron wouldn’t come. He’s a Whig when he’s not busy being a lover or a poet or posing for a picture.”

  “It’s not a literary community. A war hero would be better, particularly as it is veterans you want to impress. Wellington, I think, is a Tory, though.”

  “Oh God, don’t let Reising get that idea! That’s all we need, to have the Iron Duke here campaigning against us.” He sat silent a moment, thinking, then a smile lightened his face. “But Wellington didn’t win the war quite singlehanded, despite his boasts to that effect. There is Colonel Dorking, a good friend of mine, who lost a leg at Salamanca—a chestful of ribbons and a dashing scarlet tunic. I think you’ve given me an inspiration, Lily.”

  “Lily!”

  “This is no time to quibble about my manners. I must dash a note off to Dorking. And we’ve got to get to the village to meet Telford too. Where the devil has everyone gone? We should take our leave of your Aunt Martha.”

  Martha entered just then with Sara at her heels, in time to say good-bye to the gentlemen and then castigate her young niece as a peagoose as soon as they were gone, to have missed such a chance to nab a husband.

  The villagers were in awe to be the recipients of a stunning new bridge of a sort never before seen in England. The merchants foresaw much increase in business and prices; the innkeeper, a good profit from rooms rented and meals provided; the foot-passengers, many a pleasant free walk across the water to Chepstow. It proved an additional advantage that the Tories had so long promised a bridge and not fulfilled their promise.

  Reising made what he could of its being a toll bridge, but he knew he had sustained a severe, perhaps killing, blow, and he set his mind to work to counterattack. His main contributor of funds, Sir John Sinclair, was unhappy with him. He was miffed at Hudson’s going to Ashley Hall and at Fellows’s dangling after Lady Marie. Strange that Hudson had stood still for that. If worse came to worst, he would put the screws to Sir John, but he didn’t see that things could get much worse. However, there was still the veterans’ dinner.

  Telford was paraded about town and soon was being called by his old nickname of Laughing Tam by the townsfolk, who took to his winning ways very well and listened with interest to his stories about building the Ellesmere Canal and the Caledonian Canal in Scotland.

  Not one to waste time, Telford was soon seen on the site, with surveyors and other interesting persons performing tasks whose purpose could only be imagined. A sketch of the bridge was drawn up and put on display in the newspaper office window, where it received a good deal of attention. It was to be known as the Fellows Bridge, at least till after the election, when it might very well become the Ratchett Bridge, or the Allingham Bridge. Even the corn-growers had to admit it would be a help in getting their produce to the northern markets of York and Northumberland.

  Many an afternoon Mr. Fellows and Hudson were to be seen clambering down the banks of the Severn River with a group of interested spectators trailing at their heels, being informed by Mr. Fellows that it was the first bridge of its kind ever built. When a cautious man dared to ask whether it would be safe—the first of its kind and so revolutionary—he was told they had one just like it in America, and it was safe as a church, so where was the danger in it?

  The bridge site was fast becoming a general meeting place, so it was only natural that Miss Ratchett go to see what her papa was spending his blunt on. Natural, too, that she should be received with special respect by Mr. Hudson and Fellows. It became her custom to lure the former up from the banks to walk her home as often as she could. The ladies of New Moon also made more than one trip to the bridge site, and Aunt Martha was considerably distressed to see the heir of a barony debased through falling into common Cit hands.

  She found Miss Ratchett “forthcoming,” as she phrased it, and urged her own nieces to follow her example and put themselves a little forward. Her words fell on deaf ears. Sara was convinced the bridge would sway dreadfully, hung up by only a couple of little chains, and swore she would never set foot on it. She grew ill just thinking of it, and had no generosity toward its instigators. It was very bad of Mr. Fellows and Hudson to foist such a dangerous contraption on them, and she told Mr. Alistair so every time she saw him. Potatoes were forgotten entirely. He heartily agreed with her in his replies, but in truth he was fascinated by the bridge—Whig bridge though it would be. With a bent for engineering, he was intrigued by the project, and became one of Telford’s most ardent fans, to the chagrin of Reising.

  Miss Watters said not a word against the bridge, but when she saw Mr. Hudson leading Miss Ratchett up the bank several days in a row, she came to hate it as thoroughly as did Sara. She made no effort to engage Hudson’s attention, and in fact refused to see him when he waved. Martha was at her wits’ end with her two unmarried nieces and began to speak of sending Lillian home to snap up Mr. Thorstein before she lost him to some Cit’s chit too.

  “Appropriate, Aunt Martha. He’s a Cit himself,” Lillian reminded her.

  “Yes, you may look down your nose at him, but I don’t see you lift a finger to get Cecilford’s heir.” Hudson had become Cecilford’s heir in Martha’s repinings, to remind the girls of the glory awaiting them if only they would get cracking.

  It was assumed as a matter of course, by Mr. Reising and Mr. Alistair, that Mr. Telford would be the Whigs’ speaker at the dinner for the veterans. They had got Lord Bathurst to come down to speak for them and shake Alistair’s hand before the town, but they felt that even the Minister of War and the Colonies might not outshine Laughing Tam, particularly as the village was now alive with workmen and newspapermen and all sorts of revenue-producing people.

  The bridge had become the most-discussed subject in town, and it was invariably spoken of as the Fellows Bridge, thus putting forward the Whig candidate. Reising began to see that he would have to sink to a stunt that even he did not consider perfectly fair, and drove the ten miles to have discussions with Sir John.

  Chapter 11

  It came as a severe blow to Reising and Alistair that a Colonel Dorking had been sneaked into town and hidden out at St. Christopher’s Abbey, to be sprung on them at the Veterans’ Dinner in full regimentals, complete with wooden leg, cane, and medals. Bathurst hadn’t a chance against him. All he could do was boast of the victory at Waterloo in terms of quite dull statistics, with an emphasis on the cost in terms of pounds and pence. He had seen the war from behind a desk at Whitehall, and had nothing to say of interest to veterans.

  Dorking had been there, in the middle of all the blood and thunder—had left a leg there for his country. He was a tall, soft-spoken gentleman whose manner went down well after the bombast of Bathurst. He spoke in eloquent terms of the bravery of the soldiers, mentioning by name and regiment the two boys lost by Crockett. He knew what battles they had been in, and what battle had killed them. He knew, too, as a soldier, the importance of those battles, and could assure the parents and other listeners that the young men had not died in vain.

  The townspeople knew all about the boys’ records, but they heard it as though for the first time, for they only knew it from letters and papers, and here was a voice from across the water, telling it as it actually was. More than one tear was surreptitiously wiped away, and it was an all-male audience. Dorking had them in the palm of his hand, and when he made the subtle shift from war to politics, he still had them. Nothing could be done for the dead, but was it not a shame—even a crime—that so little was done for those who had returned, and especially for those who
returned mutilated? Not a glance down at his own missing leg at this point, but only a slight jiggle to remind them he stood propped up on a wooden leg. It was marvelously done; Hudson thought he should be on the stage.

  From the general injustice, Dorking began moving to particular local items. Was it not the very least to be done for these brave boys who returned without an arm or a leg that they be given jobs of a sedentary nature when the government had them to give? But of course it was not the case. This was recognized by all the locals as a reference to the post office job having gone to Jed Evans, the late M.P.’s nephew, who was well able to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, when Corporal Winton had applied for it. Corporal Winton sat blushing, taking care not to look at his sleeve, which was pinned to his jacket as it had no arm to fill it. It was a moving, emotional speech, and even the Tories present were made to feel there had been some nefarious doings in their town under Tory management.

  It was not fair for the Whigs to have two speakers at the dinner and the Tories only one, so Mr. Telford’s speech was given unofficially, from his chair rather than from his feet, while the port passed around. But it was a speech for all that, and it was equally as helpful to the Whigs as Colonel Dorking’s. Telford was a worldly, interesting man, and he spoke with authority as to the influence of the bridge he was building and the advantage it would be to the town. Even Bathurst became interested, and Alistair was the keenest listener in the room, interrupting the speech occasionally with a pertinent question, usually having to do with some technical matter.

  Reising could find no opening to mention the toll and was in a poor humor with his protégé, who actually sat praising the project! It was Hudson’s turn to give a sympathetic smile to his rival. Tony was behaving pretty well, only mentioning a little more often than was necessary that it was to be known as the Fellows Bridge. But there was a definite wind of approval for Fellows in the air, and no one took exception to his repeated remarks.

  After the port was finished, Dorking was taken to the parents of veterans and introduced to them. Then he spent some moments with the fathers of the two dead soldiers, and was invited in both cases to visit their homes on the morrow to meet the mothers. Both were Tory corn-growers, and Hudson was elated, but too clever to push either himself or Tony forward for the visit. This was not the time to push politics; he’d let Dorking, a confirmed Whig, do it for him.