“This wharf, is it ours, or do we rent the occasional use of it?”
“Beg pardon, sir, my lord, that is, but you are Lord Andrews, are you not, sir?”
“I am. I do not know you but you seem to be in charge here?”
The overman, a worried frown slowly clearing as he passed across the responsibility, admitted that he was acting as manager.
“Davies, my lord. Roberts Shippers own the dock now, my lord. I was Mr Griffiths’ senior man, my lord, and when he was taken up for debt they told me I was to stay here and look after the place, like, and then Captain Star bade me act as a sort of manager, for the while, until my lord should make his pleasure known. So, my lord, when the order came that we was to load Mary Griffiths and Hepzibah I hired on the same men as we ever did, and they’ll be coming to me for their wages tomorrow, my lord, and I am very glad you have come first, for I know them to be hard men and they would ‘ave bloody scragged me!”
The rest of the day was spent finding a bank and then setting up accounts for Davies to draw on. A deposit of one hundred pounds in paper from Tom’s pocket and proof of his identity produced a provincial bank manager who was most anxious to please.
Tom made a note in his Day Book, a commercial manager to be hired for the yard in Liverpool – Fraser and young Matthew were masters of the technicalities of their trade but financial wizardry was obviously beyond them, neither had given a thought to the payment of wages. He turned to Davies as the thought struck him
“Have you been paid, Mr Davies?”
“No, my lord, not for four months, my lord. I moved into the pair of rooms behind the office last month, my lord, when the rent became a burden, but my savings are run very low indeed, my lord, and Mrs Davies is not best pleased with me.”
“Or with me, I expect, Mr Davies.”
Davies had no answer to that.
“I would wish you to run this wharf for me, Mr Davies – ensure that all of our colliers can be loaded at all times – always have a stock of coals to hand and men to work the ships. Keep full accounts, make all necessary payments. Wages to the ships’ crews will be dealt with in Liverpool, at the Roberts Shipyard. What did Mr Griffiths pay you?”
“Eighty pounds, sir, salary.”
“Not enough, I believe – we tend to pay the highest wages at Roberts, so ensuring that we get the best of people. One hundred and fifty-six for the first year, a convenient three pounds per week, Mr Davies. Work well and we shall see about a bonus and an increase after twelve months. You are owed sixteen weeks money, you tell me?”
“Fifteen, my lord, it is not quite four full months since Mr Griffiths last paid me.”
“Thank you, Mr Davies – I appreciate honesty, sir! That is forty-five pounds you are due, and if you will accompany me to the bank we shall draw it in cash for you now, sir.”
Mourning was over – there might be another Davies, or another dozen, who had a fair grievance against the firm simply because of a lack of supervision. My lord had disappeared from the scene, even for a couple of months, and the guiding hand was no longer there; it had to return.
Back to the estate, that was essential, he must tie up all loose ends with Quillerson, then Lancashire, to be seen and to poke his nose into all of those little inconvenient corners which people had far rather he knew nothing of. After that, well, something would come up, and if it did not he should be seen in London, he needed to talk to Michael to discover what was happening in the wider world, should appear in the Lords to announce that he had returned, was in business again.
“I shall be going up to St Helens, Charlotte, later this week. Will you wish to accompany me?”
“I would certainly wish to, sir, but I think it better to stay here for another month – three months strict mourning and then it may be appropriate for me to appear in the world again – the village will approve greatly. For the menfolk, the world goes on, but young women have no need to be gallivanting about the country, don’t you know, sir!”
“You are a better judge of that than I, my dear. Have you a date in mind for your wedding?”
“Early in April, we have pencilled in, Papa. The six months will be up by then so it will be quite proper, particularly if we hold the ceremony here – not a Society wedding in London. You and the Stars would then go to Mount Street for the Season – which I believe you should, sir, whilst Matthew and I sink into provincial obscurity, which we believe we should, younger sons have no business being prominent. All will then be for the best, I think.”
“Good. I must go back to work – I have been idle for too long, it seems.”
She approved – he had never been one for idleness and she could not believe it to be good for him.
He joined Quillerson in the office next morning, saw him to be somewhat excited.
“Have you heard, my lord? Has the news reached Morton for him to pass on to you?”
“No. Is the king dead, perhaps?”
“Not that I know of, my lord, much more important than that – Mr Nigel Hunt has passed away!”
“Dead? Where? He was in London very frequently, was he not?”
“He was, my lord, and spending very heavily, too – racing and cards and other expensive pursuits – phaeton and curricle and teams of match-bays, I gather. I believe that Mr Benjamin Hunt was quite upset that his brother should have reappeared to fritter away the wealth that he had created by his good management of their funds and lands. The acres they inherited from Parker following the enclosure are in very good heart, due to his care.”
“Mr Parker died quite young as well, I remember?”
Quillerson noticed the question in Tom’s voice, shook his head decidedly.
“No, my lord, I do not see any relationship there – he was out hunting with the Quorn, had gone into Leicestershire for the week, and misjudged a fence – something any rider can do, I believe, and in full view of the field. But, Mr Nigel Hunt left the house yesterday after his breakfast, just hacking out, he said, for the exercise, and his horse came back without a rider an hour later. They found him with his head against a milestone on the Thrapston road, as if he had fallen unluckily.”
Quillerson shrugged, accidents happened, he seemed to imply, but then suddenly spoke again.
“Coincidentally, Mr Benjamin Hunt was out taking the air as well, came back to the stable yard in time to join the search party.”
“Will there be an inquest?”
“Possibly, my lord. All will depend on the magistrate’s opinion, of course – he may decide there is no need. Mr Charles Latimer is the gentleman conducting the investigation, I understand.”
And Charles Latimer was a fool, of limited sense and intelligence, capable of seeing what was immediately under his nose and nothing else – which could, possibly, be what Mr Benjamin Hunt was depending on, assuming the worst, he, after all, would have sent a message to the magistrate, could have chosen his candidate, perhaps…
“What do we know of Mr Benjamin Hunt, Quillerson? I have met him quite infrequently, a single dinner, the funeral, very rarely besides, have hardly spoken to the young gentleman.”
“A good landlord, my lord, one who knows the new agriculture and will continue the drainage along the Nene, for example. He is, I know, concerned to bring the road from Kettering south into better condition, whilst his brother hardly cared at all for the estate or the county. Mr Nigel Hunt was interested in some scheme to trade into Upper Canada, probably in competition against the Hudson’s Bay Company, and I believe there already had been some legal interest in his plans, the prospect of protracted and expensive court cases, which Mr Benjamin did not approve of. I believe him to be considering an alliance with the Chestertons, a family with some lands between Thrapston and Huntingdon, an eldest daughter who had been destined perhaps for a richer spouse; they will now find him eminently eligible, I would imagine.”
Circumstances suggested the need for investigation of the possibility that Mr Nigel Hunt’s horse had been assisted to
throw him, positively encouraged in fact, but it would not necessarily be desirable that the succession to the estate should be compromised, that a very large landholding should be thrown into limbo, left as prey to Chancery lawyers.
“Should Mr Benjamin Hunt be found to be criminally compromised, to the extent that he could not be permitted to inherit as beneficiary of a felony, who would stand next in line?”
“I do not know that there is another heir, my lord. The major was an only son, Parker had no other heirs, and I suspect the family would be found to have died out, in which case the lands would escheat to the Crown, and would probably fall into neglect in short order.”
“Then I must pay a visit of condolence to Mr Benjamin Hunt. I shall beg the Grafhams to do the same.”
Quillerson would ensure that the word reached Mr Charles Latimer. The most powerful public men of his locality wished to discover no ill of Mr Benjamin Hunt and he should have just sufficient sense to agree with their judgement.
“What next, Quillerson?”
“Very little, my lord, other than a whisper that all may not be well with the iron-founders in Kettering – Cairncross tells me that he’s had a pair of overmen from Kettering making enquiries of vacancies at our works.”
“A nuisance, if it be so – at minimum poachers and sheep taken or calves killed in local farms, at worst rioting in the town and bigger villages. Have any more soldiers or sailors returned to Finedon since the emigrants went out?”
“Three, my lord, soldiers all and quite young, the worst sort!”
Older men who had been balloted into the Militia and transferred into the regulars had generally learnt a trade of some sort before going, could return to work. Youngsters who had left the village as boys of fifteen or sixteen and spent ten years with the Colours knew nothing else, found it very difficult to fit into a place in the village.
“Speak to them, Quillerson, persuade them if possible that they would really wish to live a life of adventure in the New World. There is a possibility of employment in Botany Bay, I understand, as guards or militiamen in the Rum Regiment – not pleasant, but better there than here. I will talk with Michael when I go to London, discover what can be arranged. For the meanwhile, have we a parish constable, does he need assistants?”
“Joe Pearce? He is eighty if he is a day, my lord, keeps the post because he has nothing to do in it – there would be no harm in having three young men in attendance at the Magistrates Court when it sat, and there are vagabonds wandering the roads who could be encouraged to pass through more quickly. The people in the village have no love for tramps, my lord, believe them all to be evildoers, potentially at least, would be very pleased to see them chivvied along and would know that Thingdon was looking out for them again. I will suggest, strongly, to the young men that they would be pleased to earn a wage from us.”
Book Four: A Poor Man
at the Gate Series
Chapter Five
Tom was restless, unable to stay in one place for more than a few days at a time – he moved between South Wales and Lancashire, London and Thingdon Hall, the staff at his two houses forced to keep everything at readiness for him to walk through the front door at any moment. The hotels he patronised near the works found it worthwhile to set aside a suite for his permanent use – he paid well and never allowed his account to drag on. Quillerson, to whom all of the bills came as part of his functions as personal steward to the estate, suggested that he should purchase a small house - eight or ten bedrooms, nothing ostentatious - outside the Rhondda and another either near St Helens or close to the yard in Liverpool – cheaper, more comfortable, convenient to have his own servants at his command.
“That or settle down again, Quillerson – but I cannot stay here for weeks at a time, not when every room, every walk, every stretch of the gardens has its memories. It is easier when I am busy, even if it is no more than make-work busy! Am I needed here for the next few weeks, Quillerson?”
“Quarter Sessions, my lord, opening on Tuesday next, and with a number of hard cases to be heard: the rioters from the foundries, my lord.”
Two of the three main iron producers in Kettering had, as expected, closed their doors in the autumn, victims of the depression and the end of the wars. Both had cast field guns for the Ordnance, had come to rely on their military contracts over more than two decades of war and had been unable to find replacement work. Neither proprietor had been flexible enough, or sufficiently bright, to develop and sell their own products – they could have, for example, built iron ploughs to their own design, or harrows or dung carts or seed drills or turnip choppers for winter cattle feed, had they possessed even a little ingenuity. Cairncross at the Finedon Works was turning out all of these things and was looking for more ideas from the local farmers, and he was still working double shifts, night and day, but he was a talented manager, not simply an elder son who had inherited from a far more able father or grandparent.
Both firms had closed down without notice to their people. The men had simply come into work one Monday morning and found the doors locked, the furnaces cold; on the Saturday they had turned up again for their wages, had discovered an empty office. The literate read the notice pinned on the door, telling them that the firm was bankrupt, there was no money. They had wrecked the offices before going in a mob to the owners’ houses and destroying them as well. Dragoons had appeared and dispersed the crowds, arrested a few, killed a couple, terrified many more and over the following week had raided a dozen houses and cottages, picking up a dozen men identified by informers. Those taken up had been remanded to the senior court by the local justices of the peace and were due for trial at the next sitting of the Quarter Sessions.
The Lord Lieutenant of the County deputed senior magistrates to sit at Quarter Sessions where, guided by a legally trained Clerk, they acted in much the same way as a military court-martial, offering a similar quality of justice, often more rigorous than any judge at the Assizes, being less interested in precedent and more concerned to be honest. Where there was local interest involved and the County found the need to show solidarity with its brethren then the Quarter Sessions could be ruthlessly Prussian, hanging and flogging and transporting with no concern whatsoever for right or decency, the justices behaving, in fact, just like a High Court judge to whom cynical compliance with the orders of government was a commonplace fact of existence.
The magistrates deputed to the Bench at Quarter Sessions normally followed the lead of their most senior members – social status was of far greater significance than any consideration of justice. Tom, if he sat, would be the sole peer, richer than any other present and possessed of a greater acreage – his word should be final, the other JPs giving advice and opinion but accepting his decisions as theirs, except where there was a split on grounds of Party or the most pressing public issue. The matter of disorder, of possible revolution, was one that transcended ordinary courtesy – the great bulk of the County supported the coercion of any who displayed violent dissent, whether that violence was merely verbal or took the form of active riot, and they were dismissive of any who showed sympathy for the ‘so-called oppressed’. If Tom sat and called for mercy then he could be certain that several of those on the Bench with him would publicly disagree, leading at minimum to scandal, at worst to political opportunism, the creation of an issue that might lead to a change of Member at the next election. The government would not be pleased by open dissension amongst the leaders of the County, would probably react by posting a regiment or two of cavalry to the area, billeted forcibly on local farmers and innkeepers and creating a much resented burden upon them, and Tom could be sure that the bulk of them would be found on his tenants’ farms, casually breaking fences and trampling crops at will.
The simplest course would be for Tom to be absent from the area, unable to sit for press of urgent business, in which case he could be quite certain that the Latimers and their ilk would attempt to hang every man accused of riot, the Lord Lieutenan
t able to commute most of the sentences to transportation but having to allow a few to die to satisfy the thirst for blood. He was convinced that severity was not the answer, was aware that he could do almost nothing without creating a potentially more destructive situation. The Marquis advised him to go to the Lord Lieutenant, who probably shared his views, and discuss what, if anything, could be done.
“Without taking exceptional measures, very little, my lord,” was the Lord Lieutenant’s first response. “I would much prefer that the Bench displayed a proper unity of purpose, whatever that purpose might be, yet fully accept that you are morally convinced that your position is correct. Government has made it clear that it would wish to encourage a severe response to public disorder and I fear that I would display disloyalty was I to take any other course. I must support the local magistrates, and so should you, my lord, but it might be possible to sweeten their temper a fraction…”
Three days later Tom was sat in Downing Street, allowed half an hour of the Prime Minister’s valuable time, courtesy of his high public standing, no mention made of the eighty or so thousands which had accrued to Party funds over the previous twenty years.
“There is a need for severity, of course, my lord,” Tom said, “but it must be tempered with a little of grace – we are not Russians to set Cossacks on our dissenters. Unfortunately, the local gentry around Kettering are amongst the less enlightened of the breed – Squire Western at his most bucolic!”
The Prime Minister smiled and nodded cautiously – the squirearchy with its demands for a return to the Dark Ages was a permanent burden, but controlled too many constituencies to be dismissed as unworthy of consideration.
“If only they would confine themselves to killing foxes and pheasants we should all be better off, I have no doubt, Lord Andrews!”
The Pain Of Privilege (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 4) Page 13
