The Old Order (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 7)

by Andrew Wareham

“I have time, Mr Robert, having put on good foremen and under-managers, without really meaning to do myself out of a job, but having done so.”

  “Get to it, sir! Costs to me as soon as you have them, of course. I will make contact with my father and with Mr Fraser at Roberts and we will see about the mines between us. A profit share to you, as well as a greater salary.”

  Rumpage had not really intended to increase his own income, being content with what he had, quite sufficient for his own station in life – but he had a family now, had to look to the future. He rather feared that he would be forced to make himself rich, for the sake of them all, for there was a strong possibility there might be a second on the way and Milly rather hoped there would be more to follow. A girl, he hoped, he would like a daughter, though Milly wanted a dozen sons. Whatever, he was obliged to provide for them, duty was ineluctable – he was proud of that word; nobody hearing him say that would believe he had been a navvy!

  Sir William sat in his office, the figures for the coals in front of him, satisfied that they were good – he could see a profit two or three pennies in excess of the shilling a ton he had predicted, increasing if he could launch bigger colliers, but that would have to be for the longer term. He needed now to visit the ports along the Channel Coast – all of those places which were not served by canals and relied on ship-borne winter fuel.

  Southampton first, because they had a start there; he wanted to look in at the yard as well, the man in charge had a few new ideas which he suggested Roberts should try. He had it in mind to build a ferry for the Isle of Wight run that could take wagons, so that there would be no need to slowly unload the carts, carry boxes and sacks aboard and stow them, then repeat the process two hours later on the other side of the Solent. Loaded wagons and drays could be pushed aboard in minutes, taken off just as quickly and probably double the number of runs a boat could make in a day. It was the sort of idea that ought to work, one of those which was so sensible that it seemed mad that it had not been done already – many of the best new ways of doing things were of that sort, obvious only after they had been thought of.

  He wondered what else he might discover in the man’s mind – the world was changing, faster every day, ideas bubbling in the unlikeliest places. The country had stagnated for centuries, a man’s son living exactly as his father had done, one generation after another, and then, suddenly, for no reason that he could see, everything had turned upside down and anything might happen tomorrow.

  It was, he had to admit, an exciting time to live in – who could have dreamt that he, a navvy, would be a comfortable businessman and a knight, and now planning to become rich. A shame his mum had died young, she would have been so proud – but he had Milly and she more than made up in that department. He would have to tell her that he must be away for a week or two – next run to Southampton would see him aboard.

  “Sir William, a pleasure to see you, I had much rather speak face to face and have been writing and rewriting a letter for a week now!”

  “In that case, Mr Knowles, it is well that I have come, for I had rather talk things over than read them myself. What is your proposal, sir, for such I presume you have?”

  Sir William thought his words over, decided that he had managed the two sentences very well – formal and accurate, just like the schoolie had taught him last year. He must remember him at Christmas – he had done well by the pair of them, not just the work he had been paid for but extras as well. He had given him advice on the colours he should choose to wear and there was a bookcase in his study now, shelves full of carefully selected works that he must acquaint himself with over the years, improving literature that a man such as himself needed, probably. Milly bought books now, and read them, so that she could start the children in the proper way – a child should have his letters by the age of three and that could only be done by the parents reading to him, so she had been told.

  “It’s the navy, Sir William. They have come to me and asked whether it would be possible to design a tender for the forts along the Solent and Spithead and as far as Portland. Within reason shallow draught, being coastal, but sea-worthy enough to carry rations and ammunition even in rough weather, so that the forts and batteries could always be replenished. In case of war, Sir William, the wind being in the west more often than not and Portsmouth being to the east of the line of fortifications, steam will be a Godsend, so they said. They want her to carry her own steam crane, for loading and offloading the quicker, sir. They've got steam engines in Portsmouth, two of them, so they know it works.”

  The dredger had its own steam buckets; a crane was a simple extension of that idea, except that there would never be storm waves on the Thames so that they had not worried themselves about rolling and pitching.

  “It will have to come from the Liverpool men, Mr Knowles. Captain Sir Matthew Star and Mr Joseph Andrews between them will have to solve this one. You and Mr Hathaway have the seaman’s knowledge and can say the right words, so one of you must travel to Liverpool. If I might advise you, take a written proposal, and a rough drawing as well of your ideas. Now then, sir – I came down to investigate the way household coal is brought to the town – is there a coal wharf, used for nothing else?”

  Two days showed the colliers to be strangely unorganised – it seemed that over the years the habit had developed of certain ships serving their port of choice, of turning up when weather permitted and selling direct from the hold to the wagons of whatever merchant might need supplies. There was never quite enough coal, always a small shortage so that the merchants were unable to build up stocks and were forced into a take-it-or-leave-it relationship with the shippers. Almost all of the coal merchants bought firewood from suppliers in the New Forest as well.

  “Mr Hathaway, I would wish you to find a wharf with an acreage behind it for a coal heap and loading bay. A steam engine to power a derrick for unloading. Roberts will be building its own colliers within the year, one thousand tonners at first, bigger by twice that within a very few years, so there must be a depth of water. You will bring one or more of the local coal merchants into a business relationship – which should not be too difficult a task, I believe.”

  Hathaway looked appalled; Knowles was grimacing over Sir William’s shoulder and mouthing ‘yes’ at him.

  “Aye aye, sir. As you order.”

  “Good, I thought it would be. If all goes well then it makes sense for you to take over the coal side and Mr Knowles to stay with the yard. You might in time be able to run lighters along the Solent and into Poole Harbour, and the towns in between. What about the Island?”

  That was a very good question – they were sure it could be answered as well, but not just at the moment.

  Lady Rumpage took tea with the parson and then accompanied him on his round of morning visits – a short hour of calling upon the suitably washed poor and infirm, respectably housed by a local charity. He dispensed his prayers and good wishes among them and seemed to believe that their places in heaven, and his, had been bolstered by his efforts.

  She made a tentative enquiry about the poor of the back alleys, was assured that they were invariably criminal and in their places by choice – there was no point to taking the risk of venturing among them. In any case, there were far too many to be practical, one could not alleviate their condition, there was not the availability of funds or of willing people.

  “Could one not at least bring the children into school, sir?”

  “Why? They would still be unwashed criminals, but now able to read and write and having to steal their books. Literacy is a great gift, and one that should be donated to those who will use it well. In any case, there is a great deal of nonsense talked about education – what is the point to teaching a stupid person to read badly? It will not make them less dull nor, I suspect, will it do other than make them dissatisfied with their place in life; we cannot all be rich men in our castles, you know, ma’am.”

  “So… the poor must stay in their gutters, you
would say, vicar?”

  “Not at all, ma’am, and I am surprised that you, of all people, should say that! Your eminent and worthy husband has shown us all that those who work hard and behave virtuously may rise to wealth and fame. Lord Andrews, his noble employer, is another example, I believe, of a man born to low estate who has risen to high.”

  Two men who had risen, and ten million who had not; she did not find his argument convincing.

  What he said about education was more difficult to refute – she was busily reading and learning and thoroughly enjoying herself, but she had always known she was cleverer than most, always believed so, anyway. But for ordinary people, what did book-learning gain them? Better they should be given a trade they could use to their advantage and to the gain of their family – but, there was no sort of college available where they could learn useful things, and it was well beyond her compass to create one.

  She thanked the reverend gentleman and returned home, to warmth and comfort, a little guilty that she should have so much, but quite unable to think of a way to make such blessings available to all. She rang for the nursery maid to bring little Billy to her for his playtime.

  “Dorset, Thomas. It is that time of year… again.”

  “Harvest home, the estate’s quiet and prosperous, time for the masters to go avisiting, doing the polite, my dear. There is no choice, is there?”

  “None, sir – we must go. My poor parents have been there for a month now, must have platitudes pouring out of their ears, bored beyond belief!”

  “That is exactly what I think. That tedious, long journey again: I really could not face it so I have arranged that we shall in fact take the fast road to Portsmouth, my dear. It is one of the better old roads in the country, to meet the needs of the fleet for contact with London. One of the new steam ferries is to stand off the Sally Port to take us to Poole, and save a day, perhaps two, of bumping on the highway. I have never actually journeyed in a steamer, you know.”

  Neither had Frances, and she would have been perfectly happy to remain thus inexperienced. She summoned a smile and said that she was sure they would have a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoy themselves.

  “What of the Castlereagh affair, Thomas? Is all properly quiet now? Can we leave Town in safety?”

  Thomas assured her that all was now well.

  “His financial affairs were very untidy, but we have between us managed to bring all into order. Viscount Hawker has bought the pair of Scottish landholdings that had been mortgaged, in process clearing those debts and most of his other unpaid bills. I have taken the land in Norfolk, at a knockdown price, Mostyns choosing to write off all interest due them and simply recover their capital. Lord Liverpool has instructed the Treasury to make a grant-in-aid to cover the expenditure Castlereagh had been to on government business, and some thought is to be given to the question of the expenses born by Ministers of the Crown – it is a costly business at the moment, to hold a place under the King.”

  “It does ensure that only those with a financial stake in the Kingdom can govern it, Thomas.”

  “Very true, but it also means that the able son of a spendthrift father cannot serve the country through no fault of his own and to the detriment of all.”

  That was an argument she had not considered – but there seemed to be quite a lot of able sons about, the loss of one or two could not be so very harmful.

  “What of this estate, Thomas? Is it large?”

  “Two farms on the sea coast near the village of Cromer. Prosperous, enclosed land – corn and potatoes and turnips and peas, marketable crops by coaster to London. One small house – a shooting lodge of seven or eight bedrooms – and a pair of farmhouses and yards with some cottages. About twelve hundred acres, so not tiny. It is not in the entail, obviously, and Robert has evinced no desire that it should be. I shall therefore keep it separate in my Will. I was wondering, in fact, if the one farm might go to James and the other to Joseph. Alternatively, we could alter your Trust, substituting the two farms and a capital sum in place of the two mills and the Liverpool house, if you might prefer eventually to retire to rural seclusion for part of the year.”

  She quite liked the idea.

  “James is now sitting in the Whig interest, so it would not be untoward for him to be the owner of a mill. As an avowed Tory he could not have done so, of course. I think I might well prefer the airs of the Norfolk coast to those of industrial Lancashire, particularly as a somewhat surprising event seems a possibility, indeed a strong probability – but more of that on another day!”

  "Perhaps now, my dear?"

  Tom had a strong suspicion, having fathered a number of children already.

  "I had not thought it to be likely, bearing in mind my age and... other factors. Be that as it may, Thomas, it does seem that your family is to grow larger."

  "Excellent! A child in your image could not help but be a pleasing addition to the clan. Do you wish to travel as far as Dorset, in the circumstances?"

  "We must, Thomas - there can be no escape, sir!"

  The highway to Portsmouth was well made and maintained by the Crown, but it was an old road even so, had been built without the base of a modern turnpike and fell into potholes very easily; it did not make for comfortable journeying.

  “Twenty years from now, or just a little longer, perhaps, and you will have the advantages of a trackway – two hours, or maybe three, of comfort on a smooth set of iron rails.”

  She wanted to correct him, to change ‘you’ to ‘we’, but she suspected he might be right, his chances of reaching eighty seemed slight. If Mr Godby Fletcher was not found very soon then she might suggest to Robert that they should post a reward in New York – it would warn him that the hunt was still active, but, if his head was worth more off his shoulders than on, then she doubted he would survive the attentions of his fellow gang-members. She was unwilling to put money in the hands of villains, but it was very likely that Fletcher had taken years off Thomas’ life - and he would die for that.

  It was, just possibly, a pity that Mr Peel had been unable to form his Police Force for the Metropolis, for there would soon have been similar bodies in every county of the Kingdom, and they might have been able to affect an arrest before Fletcher had made his escape; the example of New York, where there was a Constabulary, suggested that such a degree of efficiency was unlikely.

  Was an incompetent Police better than none?

  There was the Irish Constabulary of Peel's creation, which was the source of many jokes, but might perform some useful functions.

  The French example had also to be considered, she supposed, though one was always loath to give serious credence to anything they claimed to achieve; Bonaparte had created a ruthlessly efficient secret police, renowned for its ability to assassinate his political opponents, but less famous for its exploits in the field of criminal justice.

  What of the Prussians? If any nation might be expected to police itself it was the disciplined, militaristic aristocracy that saw itself as the first, and last, European bulwark against the Slavonic barbarians. She had, however, no knowledge of their policing, nor was she aware of any source of information on the topic.

  The bumping over potholes ceased eventually and was replaced by rattling over the ill-made streets of the town – one of the least attractive she had ever seen, crammed, jam-packed onto its little island, tumbledown houses leaning against each other, unable to fall down for lack of a place to go. Narrow, mean roadways and full of traffic, every cart having to pass through the town from the one bridge to the dockyard on carriageways barely wide enough for two. Even with the navy reduced from its wartime levels the town was crowded – what it might have been like in Napoleonic times she could not imagine.

  The post chaise took them to the Sally Port, the place where Nelson’s foot last touched English soil, the truest memorial to England’s greatest sailor in that it was still the embarkation point of choice for all of the officers who could possibly pass th
rough it.

  There was a steamship moored a furlong or so off the ramparts and a four-oar boat waiting; the steamer looked very small to Frances’ eyes, tiny, in fact – if that was what five hundred tons looked like then a ton was less than she had imagined. Tom was recognised – there must have been a telescope watching every coach that stopped – and the boat pulled to the steps. Valet and maid appeared from the second chaise of their little convoy and assisted master and mistress to make the hazardous passage from landing to their cushioned seats; hand baggage was put aboard and the servants scrambled after, the coaches turning to take their trunks overland the rest of the way. Five minutes and they were at the paddle-steamer’s low side, helping hands bringing them aboard dry-shod.

  A whistle from the open bridge-platform and a call down a voice pipe and the engine noise increased and the trickle of black smoke from the tall chimney turned to a thick cloud. The wheels began to turn, with much splashing, and the ship made her slow way towards the Gosport side and the harbour mouth, ignoring the wind that was keeping the navy at anchor.

  There was a substantial cabin, windowless and with wooden benches, and a smaller, glazed saloon with ten comfortable chairs for the genteel. A steward presided over a tiny galley containing a spirit stove for the boiling of kettles for tea and coffee and a dozen or so bottles of wines and spirits.

  Mr Knowles was present, as was to be expected, and explained that the ferry was to be used mostly on the short trip from Southampton to Cowes, largest town of the Isle of Wight. A surprisingly large number of passengers had appeared as soon as a cheap and quick ferry service had been instituted; it was possible now to travel from Cowes to Southampton and back in the space of a day and have time for shopping in between, rather to the annoyance of the few shopkeepers of Cowes, they having enjoyed a very profitable local monopoly previously.

  “Can we travel outside, on the deck, Mr Knowles?”