Privilege Preserved (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 5)

by Andrew Wareham

  Mark grimaced – with a government determined on repression and served by ruthlessly obedient judges, law and common sense were both irrelevant.

  “Felony or misdemeanour? Has he been remanded to the next Assizes or will the local bench suffice?”

  Christopher shook his head, his curls ruffling most attractively.

  “Neither, Mark – they have charged him before the magistrates in Wigan and put him away for the Quarter Sessions in Lancaster. Although he is a Manchester man they are dealing with him in the County.”

  They intended to hang Jowitt.

  “A judge would certainly see sentence commuted to transportation, Christopher, but the butchers up at Lancaster will have him on the gallows for sure. No possibility of a reprieve, of course, orders must have come from London to make an example in the locality. Any rational defence will be a waste of time – it will simply be ignored. His only chance lies in a failure of due process; if they are careless or ignorant, and both words describe our local peace officers, then they may well make errors that will invalidate proceedings, the judge or the Bench having no choice, no discretion in such matters. The constables who will have executed the arrest are all semi-literate – the best sort for our purposes – and could be found to have served an incorrectly worded writ or warrant.”

  Mark explained that wholly illiterate constables would have their warrants written for them whilst the partially learned often insisted that they could do the job themselves, much to the delight of the legal profession.

  “But they will merely rewrite their warrants, surely, Mark.”

  “Of course, but they will be forced to release him the meanwhile, he will be out of their hands for half a day at least, time to get him on a boat to the Isle of Man, with its entirely separate jurisdiction, and then to Belfast, again another system, finally a passage to the States. The delays will give his friends time to realize such assets as he may have and send him off with a few guineas in his pocket.”

  “What if they have been careful, Mark?”

  “Then we can at least pay for a lad to swing on his feet!”

  Judicial hanging amounted normally to slow strangulation, the condemned man – women were rarely hanged in public, for reasons of decency - nudged off a ladder or platform to dangle in the noose. Kind-hearted relatives would often pay an onlooker to run forward and jump up and grab the kicking feet, the extra weight sometimes breaking the neck, always at least hastening the procedure. There were volunteers available, a few fast-moving young gentlemen making it their profession at five shillings a time, and a sufficiency of hangings at present to give them a comfortable income.

  This would be the fifth seditionist Mark Star had stood up for in Manchester – his practice would soon be compromised as the word spread that he was unreliable. Conscience and wallet could easily come into conflict.

  “I do not know that I can afford to gain a reputation as the ‘Traitor’s Advocate’, Christopher. A falling off in my commercial practice would lead to the greater part of my fees disappearing, and then where would our soup kitchens be?”

  Christopher was outraged, at the system rather than at Mark

  “So, there is a choice, Mark, let a few of our leading men die for lack of a voice in court, or let a hundred and more of the poorest and weakest starve for lack of charity… What a vile land we live in, Mark! The rich wallow in luxury and use a few pennies to pay for the sabre and the lash for the poor when they dare raise their voices in protest. It surely is time for the great mass of the people to raise their fists in anger; there are ten thousand of us for every one of them. There is no alternative, Mark, if we are not to die, then they must!”

  The logic was inescapable, but the Revolution in France had shown what happened when the poor rose in anger – a million dead, he guessed, and the people tyrannised by Boney instead of the king. Revolution killed a few of the rich and many more of the poor. It was not necessarily wrong, it was simply ineffective – there had to be a better way, a means of compromise.

  “Not bloodshed, Christopher. The wrong people get killed.”

  “If they are rich, then right enough!”

  It occurred to Mark that he was ‘rich’, with an allowance from his father amounting to the wage of five farm labourers in addition to three or four times as much from his growing practice. He supposed he could give more away, but he was not at all sure he wanted to become one of the poor for whom he had such compassion.

  He needed advice; he must talk to someone, a trusted counsellor, one of his own sort, able to comprehend the nature of his problem. His father or his religious brother? Neither, perhaps, would understand his dilemma, or they might confuse the unorthodoxy in his way of life with his political aberrancy – it was amazing just how many people defined a man’s whole being by the rather minor matter of his sexual preferences. Matthew, perhaps? The Navy must have broadened his mind, made him less parochial.

  Matthew would understand, possibly, that he could not betray Christopher, that he would not give him up, but that he could not accept his Red tendencies either. Oppression such as the English suffered was intolerable, it had to end, but the guillotine was not the English way of doing things, except in Ireland, perhaps, but that was different… It must, surely, not be an insuperable problem; there must be a solution that would keep bloodshed from his door and Christopher in his bed. If Matthew could not provide an answer then perhaps brother Thomas could, there had to be a way!

  Mr William Rumpage surveyed his little kingdom, hands clasped gravely behind his back; beaver four-square on his head, frock coat settled on his shoulders, boots shining, fresh from his servant’s hands. He looked the epitome of the successful businessman, self-made and proud of it. It was a minute after six o’clock in the morning, as he verified from the hunter on its gold chain in his waistcoat pocket, and the yard was bustling, clanging with riveting hammers, hissing with steam, a very few voices adding to the cacophony. There were three tugging boats on the slips and a fourth fitting out at their wharf. Two of them would be launched within the week and the keel for a five hundred ton passenger paddle-steamer was ready to be laid the instant they touched the water and the men were available. The yard was showing a profit already, and Mr Robert had confirmed only the day before that the firm had purchased another five acres of land immediately adjacent – there would be two more slips before winter’s end, the rookery swept even further away by progress.

  He marched across his domain, inspecting everything, acknowledging the men he passed, speaking quietly to most, no more than a word or two of greeting but addressing each by name as a much-appreciated sign of respect. His men, ex-navvies the bulk of them, were well-paid, proud to be in their jobs, making steam ships, the envy of lesser mortals. Most were settling with newly acquired wives in the houses built by Roberts and rented at a very reasonable rate to their own people. It was a model enterprise, Rumpo Willy felt, one that he could boast about, if only he had someone to boast to…

  At eight o’clock he left the yard, walking the quarter of a mile to the bakers that had a small tea-shop with half a dozen tables attached, one of them reserved for his breakfast six days a week. A cup of tea and two fresh-made rolls brought to his table within the minute of his sitting down, the baker’s daughter smiling a greeting as she unloaded the tray, setting sugar and milk to one side, butter dish, red-currant jam and knife to the other.

  “Good morning, Mr Rumpage! How are you today, sir?”

  “Well indeed, Miss Millicent, thank you.”

  In six months he had never progressed beyond this point, unable to think of the words to start any further conversation. She smiled hopefully, sure that his look was admiring and wondering why he made no attempt to engage her interest – it never occurred to her that he simply might not know how. She was a pretty enough girl, she thought, not yet twenty, raven haired, blue-eyed and with a sufficiency of a shape to satisfy most men, or so she believed, and she was inclined to be indignant that he did not appr
eciate her efforts to please.

  Rumpo Willy’s dealings with the female sex had been exclusively commercial – navvies had few opportunities for delicate dalliance – and he was at a loss for what to do to further his acquaintance with a young lady, and he had no source of advice. He wondered whether she might be interested in his steam ships, though they were hardly the province of the female, he thought.

  “A busy week, Miss Millicent – we shall be launching two hulls on Thursday.”

  This was the first time he had actually managed to address a sentence to her. She accepted the offering in the spirit it was made.

  “Steam ships, I presume, Mr Rumpage? Like the one we saw chuffing away against the current last month?”

  “Aye, we only deal in steam, ma’am – it is the future for the River, and for the oceans, I suspect.”

  “You already employ a lot of men at your shipyard, Mr Rumpage. Will it grow bigger yet, do you think?”

  “Much, I believe, ma’am. Before too many years are past I expect we shall build ships to travel the oceans, not just river craft. One day, perhaps, we shall build steamers for the Navy as well, though not just yet. Would you like to see the yard for yourself, one day?”

  Rumpo Willy flushed, his cheeks hot at his own daring; he wondered if he had perhaps been over-bold in his invitation. The alacrity with which the young lady accepted his offer reassured him. Quick consultation with her approving parents arranged for her to meet him at the yard gates next afternoon.

  Major Wolverstone sat on the verandah of the English Club, a long drink on the table – a very small measure of gin, a slice of lime and a great deal of boiled water. Most of the gentleman about him had reversed the proportions in their glasses, but he wished to outlive them and, in any case, needed to keep his wits about him – many more business deals were concluded in the club than in merchants’ offices.

  He had accepted an invitation to dine with Mr Benson, a very successful Country Merchant, a trader independent of John Company although very necessary to them. Like most of his kind, Benson bought opium from the growers up country and traded it into China, an act wholly in defiance of Chinese law but ignored by the authorities in India, who could not themselves indulge in smuggling narcotics but badly needed the trade.

  “The Chinkees pay in silver, taels they call them, do you see, Major, and they insist that that’s how the Company pays them for their silk and tea and rhubarb. So I sell taels to the Company for gold – at a premium – and they allow me to buy merchandise in India and ship to England at a favoured rate. Indigo and jute, mostly, for me – that’s what I know. What I have been thinking about, though, is tea – a little grows in India, up in the hills in the north where it’s not too hot – different to China tea but still good. What if we were to set up our own plantations, eh?”

  Wolverstone was instantly suspicious – the last mail from Roberts in England had included a strong suggestion that he might wish to investigate the possibilities of this very enterprise. He wondered whether Barker, the Roberts factor, might be feathering his nest, passing the word on.

  “I have information, in fact, Major, that the Company is actively considering the proposal itself – following instructions from London that it must export less silver bullion from England. They are producing silk in India already, and improving the quality quite rapidly, though the quantities are yet very small, and I know that rhubarb plants have been unlawfully obtained in China and taken to England where the medicine may well grow successfully, so tea is the next thing and I suspect they may soon wish to create plantations, though not necessarily using their own people. I rely on the goodwill of John Company and dare not set myself directly up against them, but Roberts is independent of them, and has the ear of government in England…”

  Coincidence rather than the inside word, the same idea occurring to more than one knowledgeable person, which was common enough. Wolverstone relaxed, started to wonder just what Benson wanted. What could Roberts offer a successful and reasonably wealthy merchant?

  Not money.

  Not local knowledge.

  Not agricultural skills.

  People was the most likely answer – managers to run the plantations and the great mass of workers they would require. Half-pay officers turned out of disbanded battalions, a few of the thousands cast out into genteel poverty, captains tired of eking out an existence on four shillings a day, still young and active and willing to accept hardship overseas in exchange for a gentleman’s station in life. There would be hundreds in London who would leap at the opportunity and no way for a merchant in India to choose between them.

  Wolverstone remembered as well that Benson, a widower, had a daughter of eighteen or so, might well be looking for a husband for his girl, particularly if he had his eye on a remarriage to one of the Fisher Fleet, the young misses who had failed to find a husband in England and come out to India to remedy the lack. Provided the young lady came with a handsome portion, and Benson should be good for quite a few lakhs, then the possibility might be well worth exploring…

  “I think my principals in London could well be interested in the proposition, Mr Benson. We would need to suggest the terms of any partnership as well as make a submission of an exact plan. We would, for example, have to offer a location and a certainty that we could obtain the land, together with a detailed budget. I would imagine that the tea plants – bushes, I believe – would need to grow for some years before they could be harvested, so the early costs would be rather high. Have we access to the knowledge we would need, sir? Do we have an expert, in fact?”

  “I have contacts in Canton, Major. A Chinkee merchant who claims he is a leader of some sort of gang or secret society or some such thing, a Triad, so they call it. Anyway, whatever the little heathen bugger says he is, he moves my cargoes for me and pays up strictly to time. If I should ask then I have no doubt he would be able to provide me with a comprador who could do all we needed and probably a few families of coolies as well, to show the ryots here how to look after teas. You can get anything in China for a very few pieces of gold or catties of opium.”

  Wolverstone was not sure he liked the man’s attitude, but business demanded the acceptance of the minor personal foibles of one’s partners.

  “Excellent, Mr Benson! I will send a letter to my lord in England saying that I am exploring the possibilities of Indian tea. Assuming that he supports the project then I think we will be able to work together very satisfactorily. Does tea have to be grown up in the hills or can it be a lowland crop in colder climes?”

  Benson was unsure but rather thought that it had to be produced in the hills and mountains of the tropics, though it was possible that soil was the important factor rather than altitude.

  “Difficult, in that case, Mr Benson, as we have not yet taken full control of the more northern states.”

  “What of Ceylon, Major? Full of mountains and newly conquered. Easier to alienate tracts of land in the immediate aftermath of war, I believe.”

  Conversation widened after they had eaten the club’s mutton curry, its invariable dinner, seven days a week, and a reason in itself for the consumption of gin by those who had to subsist on it. Many of the young bachelors found their digestive systems ruined for life by the club’s offerings.

  “I must set up a more comfortable household for myself, I think, Mr Benson. I eat here at least three times a week and really don’t know why I continue.”

  The hint was sufficiently unsubtle and Benson instantly latched onto it, invited Wolverstone to take potluck at his house whenever he wished – his daughter would always have a meal for a guest, she was a notable housewife.

  Wolverstone said that he rather thought he had met the young lady at the house of an acquaintance, at a ball given to the guests at a wedding, or so he believed. Benson did not take the opportunity to say that his own daughter’s nuptials would soon be celebrated so it seemed she had no suitor for her hand. Wolverstone invited himself to dinner a couple o
f days later, time to give papa the chance to chat with her in advance.

  “Connors, I shall be dining with the Bensons later this week. I hear he is quite a successful merchant.”

  The relatively few English confidential servants formed a tight-knit clique, drinking together in their own small club. They knew everything about everybody.

  “Marrying again, from what I hear, sir. Miss Peabody, the niece of the Bishop, so I’m told, sir. Her father, he’s the Bishop’s missus’ brother, is one of them Irish lords, you know, sir, like Captain O’Brian of ours was, got ten thousand acres of bog and mountains and lives on two hundred a year. She ain’t got no money, out of course, but she ain’t got no brothers neither – Salamanca and Waterloo did for the pair of ‘em. So, as I been told, there’s nobody to take the title but the land comes down to her, so a rich nabob would do her very nicely, and he might get made a lord himself in a few years if he dishes out the possibles to the right hands. Good marriage for both of ‘em, but she won’t want his daughter, not ten years younger than her, hanging about the place all untidylike.”

  “Nice enough girl, the daughter, I suppose?”

  Nothing was a secret in India. If the young lady had been a little careless in her amusements then the servants would know about it.

  “Not heard a word about her, sir. Nothing bad, or good, from anybody. I did hear, though, that Miss Peabody takes her Bible quite serious, as you might say, don’t have much liking for opium, maybe.”

  So, Wolverstone thought, a reason to move into the respectability of tea. He was glad to know that Benson had a reason for his proposal; it made him more trustworthy as a partner.

  Miss Benson was of marriageable age and was aware of her own worth and was quite an attractive girl, blue eyed - which was important in India, guaranteeing no touch of the tar brush - and well made. She had no intention of flinging herself away on just anybody who pretended to her hand. She very much hoped to ally herself to wealth and family but had just sufficient intelligence to know that the combination was rarely to be found in India. Wealth was a commonplace in her circle, but old breeding very definitely was not.