A Victorian Gent (The Making of a Man Series, Book 1)

by Andrew Wareham

  The South dared not offend the British - taking English ships would lead almost certainly to war.

  "The Union has apologised for its actions in taking the Southern emissaries from an English vessel and all is well there, sir. Trade with the North is now secure."

  Dick explained that he had been at seas for almost the whole of that episode, knew little of it. The tailor explained the matter and Dick reflected that Lincoln had had to humble himself in public; the Young Napoleon would no doubt have made much of that.

  His measurements were noted down and he was directed to haberdasher and bootmaker, told to come back for fittings in three days, being as he was in urgent need of replenishment. Generally, he would have had to wait somewhat longer, taking his turn, but victims of other men's wars could be given special treatment.

  "There is to be a public meeting next week, sir, at the Methodist Central Hall, to discuss practical aid that might be offered to the Northern Cause. Having been recently in the States, sir, you might be able to offer advice."

  "Public speaking is not for me, sir! Standing in front of hundreds of people would terrify me! I would be very happy to talk with members of a committee, however."

  The tailor murmured his sympathy - he had no wish himself ever to address a great gathering. There was, however, no such thing as a committee as yet - that might eventuate from the meeting itself.

  "Medical aid, springs to mind, sir. Doctors and medicines to aid the afflicted, of whom there are far too many! I saw after Bull Run wounded soldiers who had lain literally for days awaiting succour. Many of the wounded were carted into Washington and dumped on sheaves of straw on the floors of public buildings, there to wait their turn, or too often die untreated."

  "We had thought more to assist in glorious battle itself..."

  Dick smiled politely, admiring their valour; having seen one battle he had no further need for the proximity of glory. It had only been a very small battle, as well, he reflected, when compared to those he had read of in the Napoleonic Wars; there must be more and greater to come.

  He looked at the tailor, middle-aged and becoming plump; he would not be going to war, that was a certainty, he would limit his activities to the committee room and let other, younger enthusiasts do the dying bit. There was no gain to making any comment - it was part of life that fat elderly men should encourage the younger and more athletic to take the risks they had so carefully avoided.

  "'Dulce et decorum est…' sir."

  "Wise words indeed, sir - there are causes well worth dying for. The liberation of the enslaved is certainly one such. Was I only younger myself..."

  "Quite!"

  The bulk of the northern newspapers, those who served the centres of industry, seemed to have no doubt of the virtue of the North or the villainy of the South. The national titles, the Manchester Guardian and the Times particularly, were less committed, felt that the 'spirit of England' might be more in tune with the gentlefolk of the South rather than the clamorous peasantry of the North. It was noticeable that McClellan's name was little mentioned except in the national press. The local newspapers had reservations about Little Mac, having digested his views on Abolition and grown aware of his political ambitions. American democracy was precious to those of the English who wanted Reform in their own country and there was little love for a potential dictator.

  If Dick was to enter the local business world then he must be acceptable in his publicly stated political beliefs.

  He attended the public meeting, giving his new clothes an airing, sitting in the front of the big hall rather than standing for free at the back. He exchanged nods with his tailor, knew no other face there, which was unsurprising but also a source of relief - he had no wish to be recognised in England.

  A few introductions made and a little of banal conversation exchanged - the speakers were certainly inspiring to all good men - and he escaped to his hotel room and his volume of Trollope. His clothing had been unexceptional he decided, he had been acceptable in polite company; time to make his first steps into the world of business.

  He entered the doors of the Liverpool and Provincial Bank next morning, glanced uncertainly about him, carefully displaying that he was a stranger to their premises. A young gentleman approached him to ask if he could offer any assistance.

  "Why, yes, sir, if you would be so good! My name is Burke, Mr Richard Burke, and I am recently arrived from New York. I believe that a deposit has been made in my name - though, of course, it is possible that I may have outstripped the letter of instructions!"

  "The mail packets are generally faster than other vessels, Mr Burke. Let us just discover whether we are in receipt of your favoured communication!"

  The young man walked across to the dark oak counter, whispered to a colleague who trotted into a back room; two minutes of discussion of the weather and a discreet, almost invisible door opened in the side-panelling.

  "Would you care to speak to our Mr Frobisher, Mr Burke?"

  Mr Frobisher was a desiccated fifty year old sat in a richly senior office - he had a carpet on the floor and a brownish picture on the wall, signs of much promotion.

  "Please to take a seat, Mr Burke. May we offer a cup of tea, sir?"

  Dick accepted with becoming gratitude - winter in Liverpool was cold, was it not?

  "Now, sir, before we go further in this matter, I am sure that you can offer a little by way of identification."

  Dick had been forewarned in New York that he would be referred to by his military rank. He had his commission document to hand together with a covering letter.

  "Major Burke, a member of General McClellan's staff and now detached to furlough in England. Promoted in the field for service at the Battle of Bull Run, hence so distinguished a rank at an early age, sir!"

  Dick nodded modestly - there was little to be said.

  "Do you expect to return to service with the Union, Mr Burke?"

  "Probably not, sir. My rank outstrips my military knowledge and experience - I am, to be frank, an embarrassment! I must be appointed as second in a battalion, possibly in command of a force if casualties were taken - and I lack the skills necessary to such leadership. On the day of battle, I do not doubt that I could perform well, but in the weeks and months before and afterwards in training and rebuilding my men - that would be a different matter! Additionally, of course, I am an Englishman, and that could offend some few of those I commanded."

  Frobisher made a brief note on the sheet he had taken from the thin file on his desk.

  "I am instructed to place in your hands the sum of two thousand and three hundred pounds sterling, Mr Burke, which is the equivalent of ten thousand American dollars after commission. Is this the amount you expected?"

  "Making allowance for the rate of exchange, it is, sir. I am told that I should open an account elsewhere with this sum."

  Frobisher had no doubt that the reason was to more easily defraud American tax authorities; that was none of his business. He asked Dick to delay for a few minutes while he arranged for the bank notes to be brought to him.

  Added to his own profits from trading in guns he would have more than nine thousand pounds in capital, a very substantial sum. How best to use it was the next question.

  Gunpowder was less in demand he suspected; Du Pont was buying huge amounts of saltpetre and would be able to produce most of the Union's needs from their mills. As for cheap Belgian rifles - once was sufficient for that particular endeavour. If he was to sell to the government - and that was where profits could be made, nothing like a war for carving out one's pound of flesh - then he had to find a product that was needed and could not possibly be produced in the States.

  If not guns to kill soldiers, then medicines to cure them; essentially opium - most other nostrums were home-grown, but the poppy was not, as far as he knew, cultivated in America.

  Where did one lay hands upon opium?

  The coarsest, heaviest-cropping form was cultivated in India, but the great bul
k of that production was earmarked for China - the East India merchants were unwilling to sell any quantity in England, feeling that it might give them a bad name. How then was laudanum, so much in use in England, produced?

  He sought the obvious solution, finding a large and respectable looking chemist's shop. No longer called an 'apothecary', he noticed, wondering why and how the change had occurred - perhaps it had been long in the making, modern practice not having reached his backward home area.

  "I have a toothache, sir, and am unwilling to have the offending molar pulled if I may keep its use for a few more years."

  "Oil of cloves, sir, may be placed upon the tooth and sometimes relieves the symptoms. Laudanum may also be exhibited, and will very often achieve a degree of amelioration. Certain to relieve all pain, but not without a slight risk of harmful longer-term affects, is the opium pill. Best Persian or Anatolian latex, sir, made up variously but essentially the pure substance - a night's sleep guaranteed, all pangs and anguish banished! We make to our own formulation, sir, thus ensuring a hygienic process."

  Dick was easily persuaded, was offered a little cardboard box containing six pills, price one shilling. He wondered if he could buy in bulk, decided to test the water.

  "I must travel north to Kendal and then to Glasgow, this week, sir. Better perhaps that I should buy two boxes."

  "It is our practice, sir, to sell only the one box at a time. Any respectable chemist will be able to supply more as they are needed, but one does not wish to take the risk that the pain may be intractable, thus tempting the unfortunate sufferer to take too many pills in a single dose."

  That was very responsible, Dick thought. Obviously he needed to find a less scrupulous gentleman who could make up the pills wholesale for him.

  He spent a week, venturing deeper and deeper into the less respectable backstreets before coming across a young gentleman who met his needs.

  "Opium pills, sir, for the toothache? I would supply you, if I could, but I regret, sir, that I have been most cruelly deceived in my own merchant, have not a scruple, not a drachm in the premises!"

  Dick glanced about him, saw no assistant and the shelves very thinly stocked, the signs of a business in terminal decay.

  "You say that you have been betrayed by your own supplier, sir? A pity, for I had hoped to purchase quite heavily for trading overseas. Perhaps you could vouchsafe me the name of the man who has let you down, for my own protection."

  A sovereign appeared in Dick's fingers.

  "Messrs. Smith and Sons, off Lime Street, sir. They took a substantial down payment from me, then claimed their ship to have sunk in the Bay of Biscay - an unfortunate storm. They tell me that the insurers will certainly pay up, next year or the one after. For the while, there is nothing they can do for me, and if I wish to replace the cargo then, sadly, I must pay up again. Yet I know very well that they have made deliveries to other chemists in Lancashire!"

  It seemed strange behaviour in a firm of importers; Dick was moved to inquire a little more deeply.

  "They wish, sir, to drive me into insolvency and then to take over the remainder of my stock, and my formulation!"

  The gentleman had invented, he proudly told Dick, a patent medicine, one ideally suited for the female constitution; he had sold an amount in the immediate area and had enjoyed some small profit, sufficient to register his product's name with the Board, in London, and then to buy in a quantity of bottles, to print labels and to commence the manufacturing process. Now, all of his capital spent, he was driven into a corner by a greedy conspirator!

  "Would it not be possible to buy opium elsewhere, sir?"

  "It would indeed, did I have the necessary cash, sir! There are three separate importers of Turkish opium in Liverpool, any of whom will supply me against coin of the realm. The trade is growing every year and substantial cargoes come into London and Bristol and Liverpool almost every month. There has been some slight demand for control of the trade, for fear of the substance being abused for pleasure rather than for medical purposes, but such wanton interference by government has so far been resisted. "

  It was time to bait the hook.

  "My name is Burke, Rickard Burke, sir. Yours I presume from your shop front to be Mr Robinson?"

  They shook hands, Mr Robinson with an expression of hope dawning.

  "My product, Mr Burke, will, I am sure bring a very healthy return, wants only a quite small investment."

  Dick was beset by sudden doubt - he hated humourists, could not fancy going into partnership with a man who thought puns to be funny.

  "Tell me more, sir."

  Sixty-forty, he decided; if Robinson wished to be witty he could pay for it.

  "'Mrs Mary Boswell's Elixir for Ladies', Mr Burke, 'made to a receipt dating to the time of Good Queen Bess and a treasured secret in the family for all of those years'. There is a testimonial on the reverse attributed to a 'noble lady of the Court'. The labels are printed with a crest and a coat of arms, with the words, 'Supplied by Order' underneath."

  All very carefully thought out, and utterly meaningless, Dick realised.

  "That sounds very attractive, Mr Robinson. What do these bottles actually contain?"

  "Three sizes, sir, five fluid ounces, ten and a full pint, twenty that is. The bottles of expensive green apothecary glass and the mixture properly a rich brown in hue, the colour invariant - very important, sir!"

  "Yes... I was thinking more perhaps of the actual nature of the mixture."

  "That is a trade secret, sir."

  "Quite rightly so, too. It occurred to me that I am currently seeking an outlet for certain investment funds. I would be interested in a profitable product, sir. Have you certified books that I could examine with a view to entering into a partnership? Could you show me, ah... physical evidence of your manufacturing process?"

  Robinson led him through into large warehouse at the rear - waved his hand at stacks of crates containing several thousands of empty, new bottles on one side and a set of racks on the other loaded with thirty or more large casks and barrels. He rapped on the wooden barrels to show that they were full. There was a pair of long benches set up to fill and label the bottles and at the bottom of the room a large medical still.

  He then pointed to a locked strongroom, opened it to show nothing inside.

  "Everything except opium, Mr Burke!"

  He led Dick into his office, showed him simple cash books made up month by month and evidencing a profit of ten to twenty pounds, slowly increasing over the weeks. He produced as well invoices for the components of the mixture that eventually broke down to a cost of four pence for a sixpenny small bottle and no more than eleven pence for the pint that sold at one and eight.

  "Most ladies buy just two small bottles a week, sir; some will admit to the half pint but very few purchase the largest size. Why that should be I know not."

  "What happens to the empty bottles, Mr Robinson?"

  "Why, sir, I imagine them to be thrown away."

  "I presume they require only a fresh cork to be used again, sir."

  "Why, no, Mr Burke, the old cork can be used several times over."

  "Then it would be possible to suggest to your customers that they should bring the bottles back to the store, paying, what, a ha'penny each for returns?"

  "Even better, Mr Burke, one could refill the bottle there and then at a penny off the price for the small and medium, tuppence on the large!"

  Robinson had some idea of profitability, it seemed.

  "How much do you need, Mr Robinson?"

  Just four hundreds would suffice to set the firm up at its current small scale, another two hundreds to pay off odd outstanding bills.

  "Then, Mr Robinson, was I to place two thousands in your hands, what next?"

  "Advertisements in the papers, Mr Burke. Placards at the railway stations and in local small shop windows. The purchase of a small shop in the centre of the town, next to the largest stores, selling ordinary chemist's requisit
es but most importantly - the Elixir!"

  "My money to give me two thirds of the business, I propose, sir."

  They dickered for a while until Dick compromised at sixty per centum.

  They visited a local solicitor, a back street lawyer well-versed in debt collection and rental agreements and able to write out a partnership quite cheaply.

  Dick handed over his bank notes, demanded to know the secrets of Mrs Boswell.

  "Well, sir, the ordinary, more or less, but a little better flavoured than most. It is for ladies of a certain age, sir... One part in ten opium; three parts of medical alcohol; two parts black molasses; one part fine kaolin, for thickness, as it were; three parts of boiled water. In addition, a few leaves of mint, sir, to add a little of a tang. Well shaken up and to be taken as two dessert spoonfuls before sleep, every night, sir."

  "Medical alcohol?"

  "From my own still, sir - the mash based on best brown sugar with a little of the potato. All through glass tubing, none of this wicked lead piping here, sir!"

  "Two dessert spoons - an ounce or so?"

  "Many ladies will take a little more, perhaps... But only for medical purposes, of course."

  "Can you estimate the alcohol content, Mr Robinson?"

  "Perhaps twenty per cent, sir - certainly no more!"

  The business was running within the week, a steady trickle of ladies to be observed throughout the day. Many also purchased bottles of jalap, to ease the processes of the bowels, he understood, Robinson suggesting that opium and kaolin together could have a certain binding effect.

  "Syrup of Figs will solve that particular problem, of course, Mr Burke - again to my own compounding!"

  It all made money.

  "Excellent, Mr Robinson! We must soon give thought to selling the Elixir at other shops in the county. There must be many another who would be glad to carry our product. However, in the next lit tle while I would like you to bend your mind to the opium pill. The war in America is leading to a demand for battlefield medicines, and particularly to those that will ease the suffering of the unfortunate. The nature of the modern rifle is such that many a man will lose a limb or suffer a great destruction of his digestive parts. A pill to offer relief from his pain will be much welcomed."