Nouveau Riche (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 2)

by Andrew Wareham

  The navy had been good for Frederick, it seemed; a pity neither of his brothers had benefited in the same way.

  # # #

  Book Three in the Series

  First published in 2014 and available on Kindle.

  Tom exerts an increasing influence in the corridors of power. Both Tom and Joseph’s offspring go out into the world as part of their passage into adulthood. Tragedy befalls the Star family when two of Joseph’s boys find themselves on different sides of a conflict. Family members are involved in dubious adventures in America. Although a land of opportunity, being an Englishman in the States in the years following the 1812 war doesn’t come without risks.

  A short excerpt from Born to Privilege:

  A polite knock and the library door opened.

  Tom looked up in irritation – a servant would not have knocked so it was one of the family come to disturb him in the morning hours he devoted to work – it needed to be something important. He set a ruler across the long column of figures he was checking over, a randomly selected set of accounts for the last month from the South Wales iron works in which he was senior partner. He could not watch everything in his business empire but each month he made a point of thoroughly examining some of the books of one or other of his concerns, as his managers well knew.

  It was five years since last he had caught a fraudster. He had used his influence with the government to have him transported to the Van Diemen’s Land penal settlement, the most severe of all, and with his papers marked for him to be carefully watched by the convict authorities, to be given no clemency at all, to go to the flogging post at every infraction, however minor, of the many rules. All of his people knew the tale and trod the straight path of virtue very precisely indeed.

  “Yes, Robert?”

  “I would like to talk with you, Father, if it is not inconvenient. Privately, sir.”

  ‘Father’, not ‘Papa’ – that meant it was something important to the boy – young man, rather, he supposed. How old was he now? Quick calculation made him rising eighteen in a couple of weeks. He had been shaving for the better part of two years now which led to one possible reason for the need for privacy – put one of the maids in the pudding-club, maybe? Whatever, best to get it out in the open, especially if that was what he had been doing. Tom grinned, nodded to a chair.

  “Sit down, tell me about it, Robert.”

  The boy sat, diffident, polite, apprehensive but not physically scared, not frightened, Tom was pleased to see. A good-looking youngster, almost as tall as Tom and with some more growing to do still. Fair as his mother but square in the face, Saxon solid like his father. He was still a stripling but showed evidence of muscle and adult bulk to come – he would be a big man, fat if he wasn’t very careful. Intelligent and strong-willed, as Tom already knew – there had been a number of clashes during his childhood days.

  “It’s school, Father. Harrow. I do not wish to return, sir, to be one of the ‘chaps’ any more. They are just silly boys, sir, and they all intend to grow up to be wastrels, young men about Town. I want to be more than that, sir – idleness bores me! I know I am the heir, will one day be the second Baron Andrews, and you and Mama have both explained, and I know that you are right, that I must get to know these people and be known to them. But I don’t want another term at school and then three years at Oxford in their company, sir.”

  First reaction was to order the boy to do as he was told – his parents knew better!

  He held his tongue, choked the words back – he did not want to provoke the lad into doing something silly like running away to sea. He knew that his father had made his first money on the high seas, might well decide to do the same. If he obeyed and stayed at school and then, ‘went up’, was it, to Oxford then he would be resentful, less willing to fall in line as an adult, and he was trapped in his position – the heir to a rich barony would enjoy a life of luxury but would be forced to conform or be ostracised. Golden chains, certainly, and far less irksome than those grinding down the poor, but nonetheless he would not be at liberty to be his own man, every day he would have to ask himself whether what he wanted to do was what his position demanded that he should do. Give him his liberty now and he could grow into his adult shackles gradually, possibly unaware of what was happening to him.

  “Easter is upon us, you will be back to school next week unless we take a decision now. You are too old for the Navy, of course. Do you want a pair of Colours?”

  “No, thank you, sir, not the Army – too much like school, especially now that the wars are come to an end. I would like to go overseas, sir, to America, perhaps? Have we any interests abroad, sir, where I could go to work for a few years? I would like to pay my way, sir. I know I must not go to the foundries or pits in England, sir, must not dirty my hands where it can be seen, but abroad is different.”

  Tom had been about to enquire just how he had intended to keep himself if he did not intend to take up a profession, swallowed his words. The boy wanted to become a man, it would seem – he had no objection at all to that, but his mother might be unhappy.

  “It might be possible, Robert, and I am glad you wish to stand on your own feet, I will certainly back you in that. I will not, however, take the decision without consulting your mother. As well, take a closer look at my face, my son – that knife missed my eye by a hair’s breadth, my throat by little more. There is another scar on my chest that would have killed me if I had ducked to the other side. I was lucky – I lived. Go to the wild places and you might not be so fortunate. You want to become a man, but you might become a corpse instead!”

  “Yes, sir – but I will risk it, with your permission. I have no great wish to go to war, but I do want to grow up, sir, not like the little boys at school who want to do nothing at all!”

  “So be it, my son. I would prefer to keep you safe, but I want you to grow up as well, and that means you must leave your mother’s apron-strings behind, as you say. I will speak with your mother now, but I tell you straight, Robert, if I am forced to a choice then I will find it hard indeed to gainsay your mother’s wishes!”

  “He really ought to spend his terms at Oxford, Thomas – getting to know young men from the other schools who he would not have met otherwise. After that, perhaps four or five years with the embassies in Vienna and Paris or St Petersburg would give him an insight into world affairs, as well as meeting some interesting people. That done, he could become a member and would be invited to join the government before he was thirty and would be well-placed to be First Lord of the Treasury and claim his earldom at an early age.”

  Tom sat back in his wing chair in Verity’s sitting-room, stretching his legs in front of the fire, choosing his words with some precision.

  “Has he discussed politics with you, my love? I have never noticed him to be interested in the greater government of the country. I have talked long with him about our businesses and the farms on the estate, and I know he has frequently ridden out with Quillerson on his daily affairs as the estate’s agent, but I do not recall him ever saying a word about the wars, for example, or about Reform and revolution. That he must be active, I certainly agree – we do not want him to become a Bond Street Beau, a lounger about Town – but I see no gain in setting his nose to the wrong grindstone.”

  Neither mentioned her dead elder brother, broken by the pox before finally, wisely, putting a bullet through his head – but the thought was there.

  “He should not go into the business, Thomas, not as heir to the title. Eccentric we may be, as a family, but that would be seen as excessive, as crazy as old Lord Cochrane.”

  “The sailor? The one who rigged the Stock Exchange?”

  “No, his father – a mad inventor who bankrupted the family. It was, by the way, more likely his uncle the governor who actually worked the fraud on the Exchange, but he would not admit to his part in it, and Captain Cochrane was not well-loved by the government or Admiralty, Papa tells me.”

  “Cochrane-Johnston
e? I had some dealings with him soon after we were wed – a nasty, untrustworthy man. I believe that my man Clapperley had to speak very sternly to him at one stage.”

  She wondered just what had been the story there, but knew that he would say no more unless she very specifically asked him, and she was not entirely sure she wanted to know too much about the threats that Clapperley, a very nasty little lawyer, politician now, had evidently made.

  “You are right, of course, my dear – he must be acceptable to all, unlike me. I can, and sometimes do, stand in the House and speak about steam or coal or iron or the supply of great guns, and they listen to me with great, indeed flattering, attention, and I believe government has once or twice amended its policy as a result of my words. Was I, however, to turn my mind to foreign affairs then I would address deaf ears, for I would be out of my place, ‘not the right sort’. He must be careful not to be tarred with my brush, but experience overseas is a different matter – an English gentleman may do anything in the company of foreigners.”

  She nodded seriously, knowing him to be correct. Foreigners were different, lesser beings and even the comparatively civilised ones amongst them, such as the French and Austrians, were inferior to the English.

  “My cousin by marriage, Cavendish, is Governor-General of Bengal, and he would be pleased to take Robert as an aide-de-camp, I know. But it would take a year to send a letter out and receive a reply, and then another six months at sea for him; a long delay.”

  “He wants to be doing now, he tells me. He mentioned America. Now that that silly war is over he could be of great use to us there.”

  “Cotton?”

  Tom nodded; they had frequently discussed the possibility of buying their own plantations to supply their own mills and the Star empire, perhaps more cheaply, certainly more reliably than at present. Tom owned only a pair of spinning mills, picked up by default from a bankrupt speculator and retained more by accident than intent, but they provided a steady income and demanded very little of his time and kept him in regular contact with his old friend Joseph Star. Now, the wars over, the ex-Emperor immured on Elba, it was time to take the idea forward.

  “A good suggestion in some ways, Thomas, though we should remember that the Quarringtons have not acknowledged us since their young Jonathan went to the plantation States!”

  Both chuckled, the young gentleman having been sent out to the States at Tom’s urging, to make a man of him, and having returned two years later sporting moustaches, wearing fancy clothes, smoking cheroots and drinking whisky and very loath to return to the bosom of his Quaker family. He had not become formally estranged from his parents, was still their heir, but dwelt in Bristol where he was understood to have become a very successful merchant, importing tobacco and sugar and cocoa from the Americas generally and, it was suspected, deeply into the now-illegal slave trade which was much more profitable since it had been banned. They had seen him many times since his return, had made him a standing invitation to the Hall where he visited at least annually and corresponded very frequently, seeming to feel a great deal of gratitude to them. End of Excerpt

  Kindle Link: http://getbook.at/Privilege-1

  Reviewer Comments

  “…like being a fly on the wall and watching the day to day lives of a now Regency Era.”

  “The most absorbing and fascinating series I have read in years. I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone.”

  “If you have a reasonable background in history, or are interested in learning more, they are a veritable treasure trove. My highest recommendation for the literate and educated reader.”

  Books by the same author

  The Duty and Destiny Series: Published in 2014, these superbly-crafted novel length sea stories are set in the period of the French Revolutionary War (1793 – 1802). The series follows the naval career and love-life of Frederick Harris, the second son of a middling Hampshire landowner, a brave but somewhat reluctant mariner. Amazon - Kindle links to the whole series:

  US/worldwide:

  http://tinyurl.com/Duty-and-Destiny-Series

  UK only:

  http://tinyurl.com/Duty-and-Destiny-Series-UK

  If you have a spare minute, please visit Amazon and write a few words about Born to Privilege in the review section: Your objective feedback will help other potential readers make informed choices.

  Many thanks,

  Andrew Wareham

  Amazon Review Link:

  http://getbook.at/Nouveau-Riche

  Language: UK English spellings and word

  usage with Georgian period sentence

  structure and punctuation.

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