“The Stars will be in Town, my lord and lady and Thomas and his bride certainly. Matthew may well be returned from the Indian station by then and I would expect him to join them. John Star is known to be dead, by the way. Of Henry, we know nothing still, but if he was in John’s company then he must have died with him.”
James shook his head decidedly.
“No, sir – John had no love for Brother Henry! He might have told him he was going to Canada, say, but I very much doubt that Henry would have found him there. Knowing Henry, he will have fallen on his feet in any case; more likely, he will have landed on someone else’s feet!”
Tom chuckled approvingly at what must have been James’ first ever attempt at wit – the boy had grown up on campaign!
“You know the young Stars better than I, of course, James. What did you think of John?”
James reddened, he had never been asked his opinion of a fellow man before, not in a meaningful way. It seemed to him that there was a reason behind his father’s question, that he was obligated to answer carefully and fully. His first reaction was to say that John had been a jolly good egg and would be much missed, but a schoolboy response was not what was wanted. He thought a few seconds.
“I never really liked him, Papa – even though he always set himself up to be liked – it always seemed to me that he wanted me to think well of him, in case he needed me one day. He was like that with everyone he met, I think. The families, the boys, came together for a month at least every year, as you know, sir, and I always knew that Thomas was glad to see us, thought of all three of us as his brothers, but John saw us as rich Lord Andrews’ sons who could be very useful one day.”
Tom was intrigued – he had not credited James with any powers of insight.
“What of the others?”
“Bob and Matt and Mark and Luke – all good friends. Matt I hardly knew, being at sea, but what I saw I liked, sir – a strong man!”
“What of Henry? You did not like him, it would seem.”
“He does not know what is right and what is wrong, sir. John would do wrong, would break the law if he saw a gain, knowing that he was being a criminal. Henry would do the same without thinking about it and would be surprised and angry at the law officer who took him up – ‘he was only doing what he had to’, so he would say.”
“I must remember never to do business with Henry then, for he could never be trusted in any contract.”
“Yes, sir – yet Thomas would die before he broke his word. All three growing up together, the same parents, tutors, religion. Why so different, sir?”
“Damned if I know, my son! You, Joseph and Robert – the same could be said of you – not for trust, of course, not that! But you are three different men, that’s for sure!”
It occurred to Tom as he said it that they were men, not his boys any longer – he was getting old!
“Will Joseph be with us in London, Papa?”
Tom shook his head, gave a brief account of Joseph’s recent career, joined James’ shocked – and somewhat envious – laughter.
“I will visit with him, if I may, sir? A few days after London and before I go to my next posting.”
“He would be glad to see you, I doubt not – he is too young to be independent, his own man, but too intelligent and active to be a boy at home – he needs his family about him, but not so close as to smother him. I am sure he will wish to show you off at his Manufacturers’ Club – fighting soldiers are rare beasts there, for certain. He will also be very happy to dazzle you with his science – the younger brother leading his elder through the maze, you know! I would like you to go to him, would be very pleased to see you both remaining friends as grown men – it is easy for brothers to grow apart. On that note, by the way, you might give some thought to the art of letter-writing – if you go out to India, or Ceylon or Burma, you may expect to be away for seven years and another six months travelling each way. Your mother would value your correspondence, as, indeed, would I!”
James promised to be good; his father suggested that he might think of writing a few lines every day, a diary as it were, which he could bundle up every two or three months – it might be easier than trying to sit down pen in hand for two or three hours at a time.
“Word from my son, my lord, a sensible and detailed proposal for our people – I am quite amazed!”
Tom made no comment, waited for Quillerson to continue.
“He suggests that our emigrants should take themselves to the north of New York State, towards the border with Canada where there is good farming land in plenty but also, importantly, there is a canal being forwarded, both to take folk inland and to ship produce to the City and provide a route to the Great Lakes. He says that wheat and corn may be grown there, as well as apples and hogs in profusion. He believes that a prosperous, thriving community might be formed with as little as twenty years of hard work and application. I never thought to hear of him advocating hard work, my lord!”
“It comes to us all in the end, Quillerson. Has he identified an actual location?”
“He has, with the aid of a gentleman named, let me see, Colonel Miller, earmarked some forty ‘sections’ which our people may move into and register as their own – a procedure that is perhaps a fraction out of the ordinary way of doing things, but acceptable to us.”
Inevitable that Miller would become involved, and it made it important that the Andrews interest should not be seen to be implicated in the failure of his Central American schemes, whatever they might be. It was just possible, in fact, that his plans might have to be brought to some degree of success – not as far as an independent arch-dukedom of his own, but to some reasonable profit. Tom hated being used, manoeuvred, in this fashion, but Miller had cornered him and there was no profitable alternative to working with the man. He scribbled a brief note to himself to inform Robert of the new circumstances.
“Forty families, Quillerson, can we identify them and send them off this year?”
“More than that, my lord – my son writes that there should, ideally, be forty of farmers but also, to set up in a village, each family with a smaller ‘lot’ for kitchen gardens and firewood, a smith, a miller, perhaps a storekeeper, a reverend gentleman and possibly a saddler and boot and harness-maker. The miller must also have another craft – perhaps a brewer or cider-maker would be sensible, he says. The smith must be able to serve as wagon-maker and the reverend will, of course, be a schoolmaster as well, and it would be useful if he had some knowledge of medicine. It is possible that the smith might wish to bring a journey-man with him as carpenter, the two working together sensibly. He says that there are small deposits of coal and iron known throughout the hills of the area. The winters are cold so coal fires would be reasonable.”
“A letter to Mr Mason would be a good idea, from the sound of it; a mining man would be useful to them. Can we find the others?”
“All except the reverend gentleman, my lord – I have the names of fifty men who wish to go, and who will be capable of achieving some success.”
“Ask each to come to see me, Quillerson, half an hour apiece over the next fortnight.”
Tom felt obliged to speak to each of the emigrants who he was, indirectly at least, encouraging to leave his home land almost certainly never to return, never to see parents or brothers and sisters in the rest of their lives. He knew that the expression ‘Go West’ was being used as a synonym for death in common parlance, for those who went west never came back again. Some of them would die, some of them would fail – they might even, possibly, face starvation, unable to cope with unexpected demands in a new, harsh environment. Some of them, of course, could well become rich, owners of great tracts of the new lands, but they were taking a huge risk, not always entirely willingly. Their children would almost certainly benefit to a greater extent, the old paradox of service – one generation suffered and died that another might gain, an irrational altruism when one considered it. Small wonder that the weak turned to reli
gion, hoping to make their profit in the afterlife, he presumed.
They came, some almost belligerently, others hesitantly, wondering if they were wise, the bulk resigned to the need, knowing that they could not stay and preferring the stories they had heard of America to the tales of life in the new industrial towns of the North Country, an equally distant, foreign place to Northamptonshire hicks.
Younger sons of all of his tenants, two Barneys, one each of Bass, Eakins and Mudge; two of Denham’s daughters with their newly acquired husbands, one of his sons; thirty others from the village and thereabouts. None chose to back out when sat down in the estate office and talked to by my lord in person, few showed any great pioneering enthusiasm either, but they would settle down to hard labour, that Tom became sure of.
He was less happy about the tradesmen who had decided to go. The miller was a failure in business – he had inherited his father’s tenancy of a water-mill over at Desborough, a few miles to the north, and had been unable to make a living from it. Drought had been succeeded by flood, admittedly, but he had responded weakly, Tom thought.
“Are you quite sure of your course, Mr Abbott? You will be required to identify a sufficient stream for your needs, build most of the mill with your own hands and bring it into work within the first year, as well, of course, as farming your own acres and kitchen garden. You intend to run a brew house for the village so you will need to build your malt-loft as well.”
“My three sons, my lord, accompany me, good lads of fourteen, fifteen and eighteen, as well as my four girls and the wife. Between us we should be able to achieve all that is needed, as long as, that is, the mill wheels are to hand, for I will not be able to quarry and cut them, my lord.”
“That is being arranged, Abbott – young Mr Quillerson will be organising that.”
Tom spoke confidently, fingers crossed, as it were, not at all certain that young Quillerson would deliver, hoping he might, he had said he would in his letters.
The smith, White - an easy name to remember, Tom thought, White the blacksmith – was a different matter. He had worked his own forge for ten years and more, had shown himself competent as farrier and local handyman, but had grown disenchanted with the chapel in Finedon, quite why Tom did not know, and had gradually ceased to attend worship there, thus alienating himself from the bulk of his peers. Most of the emigrants were also, theoretically, children of the chapel, but by their very willingness to go had shown themselves to be unenthusiastic, should find no difficulty in keeping White’s company. Tom wondered if he should, perhaps, ask whether White felt he had been forced out, whether he had a fair complaint to make, but the need did not arise.
“Well, my lord, I must thank you for paying my passage out to America, for I would have gone soon enough myself and this saves me money that I will find very handy in my new life.”
“I have offered every family going fifty pounds as well, Mr White, as you know, to help them purchase foodstuffs for their first winter and buy a few extras. You will have the expense of setting up your own forge, I presume, as well as building your cabin and working your garden lands. Do you intend to purchase a wagon and a team, Mr White, to act as haulier to the village?”
“Eventually, probably, my lord; for the while, from all I understand, we will be able to use a flatboat on the local rivers to bring our goods in from New York port. For your fifty pounds, my lord, I would be very happy to take a loan from you in the first instance, but I have it in mind to be a free man, my lord, would not wish to consider myself bound in any way, not as I am here, for example.”
Tom was taken aback – he had not considered himself to be offering enslavement to his people when he gave them money.
“Well, certainly, Mr White… perhaps your best course would be to speak to Goldsmids the bankers when you reach New York – Mr Quillerson will put you in touch with them – and arrange a commercial loan, so retaining all of your independence.”
White agreed that this was far the better course, knowing that Tom would be in the background as unofficial guarantor but preferring the distance between them.
“I am to understand that you are not happy here, in the village, Mr White?”
“No, my lord. I am increasingly doubtful about the chapel, my lord – it is becoming Romish in its busy ordering of the people’s lives. ‘Do this!’, ‘don’t do that!’, above all, every Sunday comes the message that we do not need to think for ourselves, ‘better men’ can do the thinking for us. Never a reason given, just orders which we were to obey, being too lowly to understand them, one presumes. It is not my understanding of the Scriptures, my lord, and nor is the practice of preaching against those who ask questions part of my Faith. So, my lord, I have chosen to go, the farther the better!”
“I had heard some of this, Mr White, and have tried, indeed, to talk to the reverend myself… Do you know if the Chapel will be sending a preacher on the ship with you?”
“I know they will not, my lord, the pastor having forbidden members of the faithful to go and having been ignored by many.”
“That is a great pity, I think, because it means that I may be unable to find a schoolmaster and doctor, having expected a preacher to take on both other functions.”
White agreed, the community must have a teacher and a doctor of some sort would be very useful.
“Sonner Dowdy’s boy, Joby, was sent with the quota to the Navy ten years back, my lord, was soon ruptured on board ship, pulling above his weight, he was never a big, strong man. He became a loblolly in the sick bay and then was transferred to a smaller ship where there was no mate to the surgeon and he became his chief helper and learned a lot. When he came back last year, with his knowledge of plants and herbal remedies, he set up as a hedge-doctor. And he’s a cunning-man with the animals and makes a living of sorts. I suspect it would be possible to persuade him to come with us and he could be very useful, my lord.”
“’Joby’ – unusual name. Diddicoi?”
Memories of the Star, of Joby and Jarge, surfaced, unpleasantly.
“Yes, my lord, the family are Dids. They have a squat down in the waste between Finedon and Irthlingborough, close to the river.”
“However did he get caught by the quota? You would expect him to disappear just as soon as his name was mentioned!”
“I expect he had no objections, my lord, wanted to get out, perhaps. Had he not been ruptured he might well never have come back. A change of name and a move of only a few miles, my lord, and he is not a Did any more.”
“Is he married? No, take that back, no Did would ever be ‘married’ as such – has he a mate?”
“He has, my lord, and a little boy. Neither church nor chapel would allow him through their doors, of course, so he is not wed as such.”
It was clear that White knew and liked the young man and would be prepared to assist him to move. It was almost certain that most of the villagers would very strongly disapprove of having a Diddicoi in their midst, they were outcasts, feared and hated by the ordinary run of country folk.
“Are you wed, Mr White?”
“Not yet, my lord, but I will be before we take ship, if the pastor will allow me to stand before him, that is.”
The chapel had been licensed to perform marriages for some years now, the bulk of the Finedon people choosing to avail themselves of its services rather than be forced into church as they previously had been.
“The parish church will be available to you at need, Mr White – the reverend will be amenable, I am quite sure.”
White smiled, for the first time in their meeting.
“Speak to Dowdy, if you can, persuade him to marry his lady – again, there will be no difficulties at the parish church – it may make them more acceptable to the ordinary run of people. If he will go, then the same terms will apply to him – his passage, fifty pounds and a garden and ‘wood lot’ in the village. If he is willing then bring him to see me – he must be treated like everyone else.”
“He w
ill come with us, my lord, that I know for sure, he asked me, in fact, to mention his name to you in the hope that he might be permitted to join the ship. What of a schoolmaster, my lord?”
Tom shook his head, he had no suggestion to offer.
“I will speak with Mr Quillerson, but I do not know how we are to find one.”
“Had you thought of young Mr Cox, my lord? He is at home and without occupation, I know, for he sometimes comes to chat at the forge with two or three of the others who went to the wars.”
“I don’t know him, Mr White. I will ask about him.”
“Quillerson, ‘young Mr Cox’, who went to the wars and is now come back again and is at a loose end, it would seem. Do you know anything of him?”
“His father is an attorney, was very ill in the year eleven, came close to death. Abel was just eighteen and his name was drawn in the ballot for the Militia and father was too ill to purchase a substitute and mother lacked sense to ask for assistance, so Abel left the Grammar School and put on a red coat. He was ‘persuaded’ to volunteer for Regular service within three months of joining and was soon in Spain – he sent the bounty home to his mother, not knowing that father had made a recovery and was earning again and was arranging his release from servitude. Be that as it may, he fought through Spain and marched to Toulouse as a corporal; thence his battalion went to America and I believe he was at New Orleans. I know he came back to England too late for the Waterloo campaign, which was probably lucky for him. He was discharged earlier this year with the cutbacks in the army, and has no profession and very little future that I can see.”
“Kettering Grammar School, so he is literate, might have gone to the University?”
“More likely to have sat in an attorney’s chambers and learned the law, my lord.”
“Would he go to America, do you think? As schoolteacher on a small salary for a year or two while he found his feet – with his own cabin and land in the village he could be reasonably well off.”
The Pain Of Privilege (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 4) Page 2
