Hanging Matter

by David Donachie

  “Am I to understand, by that enquiry regarding a crew, that you plan to return to sea?” It was clear he disliked the idea. His fine-boned face, the natural pallor heightened by powder, was screwed up in displeasure. But then he always had disapproved, since he saw Harry squandering the opportunities his patrimony had given him. For Lord Drumdryan all this charging around the oceans of the world was nonsense. A man as wealthy as Harry Ludlow, if he wished to increase his fortune, as well as his position in the world, should go to London, not to sea.

  Harry nodded. “You know I cannot abide a long sojourn ashore, Arthur, especially with the opportunities that war brings.”

  “I shall advance my usual arguments against such a course, Harry, but add two points. You are older, and should by now be wiser, and the war has made my previous observations even more potent. Given the fortunate position that you hold, together with the improvements that have been made to the estates, an increase in your wealth is near unavoidable. Add the tenuous nature of the ministry’s hold on a majority in the house, and you could, if you wish, secure some telling and profitable sinecures for your continued support.”

  Harry indicated the figures on the open ledger before him relating to his previous cruise. “As for profit, Arthur, there is a great deal of that at sea.”

  Arthur flicked a hand towards the unopened ledgers, a more substantial pile.

  “Let us leave aside the increased yields from land. I have placed the books relating to your investments near the top. You will observe, when you finally consent to look, that every stock has shown a considerable increase.”

  Harry smiled. “Would that be the case if I had charge of my own affairs? Who knows, I might lose the lot.”

  Unusually, his smile was not returned. Generally, when upbraiding him for his love of the sea, Arthur had behaved like an indulgent parent, despite their being the same age. Now the deep disapproval was plain in his look, even if good manners sought to disguise it, and when he spoke his well-modulated voice, with that slight Scottish brogue, carried a hint of asperity.

  “This is plainly nonsense, for I refer to Bank of England and East India stock, and five per cent Consols. All as safe as this house. But there have been any number of less regular investments you could have undertaken, nearly all of which have prospered, if you’d been on hand to take advantage of them.”

  “Why didn’t you take them if they were offered?” asked Harry.

  “I did, on my own behalf. But my stewardship of your affairs does not extend to commercial speculation, Harry.”

  “I don’t recall ever saying that was the case.”

  “I don’t suppose you ever did,” replied Arthur stiffly. “It would not be necessary to do so.”

  Harry was getting nowhere, either with Arthur or the pile of ledgers. But he knew that only the books would open up to reveal anything. With his brother-in-law he needed more subtlety and that in turn required time. Much against his earlier wishes, he pulled a ledger from the top of the pile and opened it.

  “Your guest,” said Arthur, who’d clearly not expected Harry to actually peruse the accounts tonight.

  “You take care of him, Arthur,” said Harry, glumly, “and if you can find a way to shift him off to Birmingham, please do so.”

  Arthur stood up. “Perhaps the spirits of the night will oblige, it being Halloween.”

  “Is it Halloween?” asked Harry.

  Arthur nodded impatiently, though without cause, for the particular festival was a Scottish affair that he had introduced to the household some years back. James, along with most of the local clerics, termed it Celtic barbarism. But Harry, on the rare occasions he’d been around, had entered into the spirit of things, revelling unashamedly in what was without doubt a pagan ritual.

  “I do have a dinner arranged for tomorrow, but I can shift it if you wish.”

  “Not on my account, Arthur,” said Harry quickly.

  That produced the first real expression of pleasure that Arthur allowed himself. “The heir of Goodnestone has wed since you last saw him. A charming girl called Miss Austen. She is, however, the possessor of a large family. A number of her relations have descended on the place and I have invited the entire party over to dine.”

  “I would not have you suspend it for the world, Arthur.”

  “Good. Then I wonder if you would be so kind as to inform Tite that we are having guests.”

  Harry opened his mouth to ask why, for Arthur could just as easily issue instructions to Tite, but the icy look in his brother-in-law’s eyes killed the words in his mouth.

  “He hates him, that’s what.”

  This statement was accompanied by a telling thump as Mrs Cray threw the dough into the pile of flour on the huge wooden table. “Old sod don’t think he’s got any right to be here. It’s got steadily worse this last year, while her ladyship’s brothers have both been at sea. Not that it wasn’t plain aforehand. An’ it’s sad to have to relate that Master James encourages the old goat. He always has.”

  “Old’s the word, Mrs Cray,” said Pender, waving a hand to keep the dust down. “Strikes me Tite ought to have been put out to grass years ago.”

  Her fingers squeezed the dough angrily. “The knacker’s yard is where he belongs. He’s got no teeth, no hair, and precious few manners. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, an’ it was ever so. Tite’s ways might have served aboard ship, but they’re no use in a country house.”

  The cook kept talking as she continued to take out her anger on the dough, listing the slights she’d received from Tite, especially in the article of cooking. “His lordship has gone to no end of trouble to teach me sauces an’ the like. But all Tite can say is that he likes things plain.” She slammed the dough on to the bare wooden board with increased venom. “I’ll give him plain, all right, one of these days. I’ll fetch him round the ear with a leg of mutton an’ ask him if that’s plain enough.”

  Pender hadn’t started the conversation and he suspected that Mrs Cray was hoping he’d pass on her remarks to Harry Ludlow. He’d only been in Cheyne for a few hours, yet he’d been left in no doubt that Tite was heartily disliked below stairs, much given to interfering in all manner of things, especially the preparation of meals. “Fancy French shit,” as he was wont to term it, he did everything he could to ruin it. Given that Lord Drumdryan was fussy about his food, it served as Tite’s way of telling him he was unwelcome. And since Lord Drumdryan wasn’t master in the house, he could not replace him, even if someone told him what Tite was about.

  “Be an idea to strap the old bugger to one of them cannons he’s so fussy about, then set it off.”

  The old cook stopped her litany of complaints and looked at Pender hopefully. He smiled, the white teeth flashing in his dark-complexioned face. Pender, who hadn’t taken to Tite himself, was not the type to split on anyone. But he was not daft enough, in this house, to get on the wrong side of the cook by saying so.

  “I don’t know that Captain Ludlow would take to that. I know he reposes great faith in her ladyship’s husband.”

  Mrs Cray thumped the dough on the table again, sending up a great cloud of fine flour. But this time it was done with pleasure.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I’M SORRY, PENDER.”

  “Ain’t your fault, Captain,” Pender replied, pointing at the papers in Harry’s hand. “If’n people started asking about me, then my woman would take a sharp hint and drop out of view.”

  James cut in. He’d come to the study as soon as his brother-in-law had returned to the drawing-room. “If I may make a suggestion, it would be better if you went to look for your family on your own. You stand a better chance of finding them than any agent we could employ.”

  “If the man had enough money to buy information,” said Harry quickly.

  Pender dropped his head slightly. It was clear that his captain didn’t want him to go. They both knew the risks, for there were bound to be warrants out on Pender’s head. Here, at Ch
eyne, Harry felt he could protect him. But James would brook no argument, for the logic of what he said was inescapable.

  “We could spend money to no purpose, brother. Much simpler to send Pender himself.”

  “It could be dangerous.”

  “Not for Pender,” replied James. “He knows that world better than you or I.”

  Pender grinned, more to ease Harry’s fears than anything else, for he had a few of his own to add to those already hinted at. “That’s true, worst luck.”

  Harry was silent for a moment, still searching for another way. But he had to concede, eventually, that they were right. He patted his servant on the shoulder.

  “You’ll need some funds for the journey.”

  “He can travel to London with me, Harry,” said James, quickly. “I can see him on to the Portsmouth coach personally.”

  “You’re not staying, then?”

  James shook his head, and spoke with a contrived eagerness that nailed his reason as an excuse.

  “I have all the items we bought in Italy and Germany waiting for me in London. They have to be sorted out.” He paused, dropping both his head and his voice slightly. “As well as other matters.”

  “Anne won’t be pleased,” said Harry.

  “She’ll be a damn sight less pleased, listening to Arthur and me trade insults. Besides, I’ll come back for the christening.”

  Harry looked from one to the other. “It seems that I’m to be left here on my own.”

  “You are welcome to come with me,” said James.

  Harry thought for a moment. It was a tempting offer. But it wouldn’t do. He could not entirely shirk his responsibilities, going off the very next day after an eighteen-month absence. The future looked no less gloomy. Things had changed at Cheyne. Getting away to sea, or even to London, was going to be more difficult than it had been previously. He shook his head and patted Pender again.

  “For God’s sake don’t get taken up by the press.”

  “What, me, your honour,” said Pender, genuinely shocked.

  “The port will be swarming with them.”

  His servant smiled again, and this time it was genuine. The action never failed to light up his face. “They ain’t managed it all the years I was living there, even in the hot press when the war started. I doubt they’ll succeed now.”

  “Better safe than sorry, Pender,” Harry replied, looking at Pender’s clothing, before turning to James. “Kit him out in London, brother. Make sure he loses the appearance of a sailor.”

  Pender cast a worried look over James’s elegant clothes, for he too, in his sartorial distress, had been forced to borrow from his old-fashioned brother-in-law.

  “You leave me to choose my own garb, Captain. If Mr James dresses me up to look like him, I’ll be clubbed for my purse afore I get ten feet from the coach.”

  “I should leave Arthur to deal with the Lord Chancellor,” said Harry. Pender, aware that they were set on discussing family business, had left the room discreetly, retiring to the room near the kitchen that Mrs Cray had allotted to him.

  “It will do no harm for me to talk to the Admiralty. After all, they have the ships. If anyone can lay that black-hearted villain by the heels, it’s the navy. You said as much yourself. I can get to see Lord Spencer with ease. He was after a portrait before we sailed.”

  “Ask him if he’s got any ships for sale.”

  “I can’t ask him that,” cried James, palpably shocked at the suggestion. “He’s the First Lord of the Admiralty, not a ship broker.”

  “Then send round the prize agents for a list of their stocks.”

  “Why not come to London yourself? You know that I have ample space to accommodate you.”

  Harry grinned. “Arthur is always at me to go me to London.”

  “I had in mind that you come for pleasure, Harry. His aim is that you should suck up to Pitt and Dundas so as to secure a title, with his garnering a peerage by hanging on to your coat-tails.”

  “Has Anne said anything to you?”

  “About what?”

  “About being unhappy.”

  The angry look, which had accompanied his opinion of Arthur, disappeared, to be replaced by a benign, almost paternal expression. “I’ve rarely known her more content. She positively aches for motherhood.”

  “I get the feeling Arthur is somewhat less pleased. I wonder if he’s beginning to find life at Cheyne a little tedious.”

  “Damn it, Harry, he should be grateful. He has everything he wants without effort.”

  “Not everything, I think.”

  James snorted derisively, frowning again as his voice rose in anger. “If he wants more let him go back into the army. I believe he still has his commission.”

  “An ensign’s commission. He’ll never get anywhere at that rank, as you know perfectly well.”

  “For God’s sake don’t advance him the money to purchase a colonelcy. Judging by what we saw in the Low Countries the army is in enough of a mire without his adding to their woes.” Inasmuch as a man so refined as James could snort, he did so. “Imagine Arthur commanding a regiment.”

  “Father always said his elder brother was a good officer.”

  James positively barked his reply, as though he wanted Arthur, still in the drawing-room with Wentworth, to hear him.

  “I curse the day he was allowed aboard Father’s ship. And just because his brother showed promise doesn’t mean that Arthur shares his talent. Mind, all these Highland Scotchmen think they are God’s gift to soldiering. We take the scum of the earth and kit them out with a red coat, but the man beneath is the same. I quote you Defoe, Harry, when I say that they are some of the worst, most barbarous men alive, cruel in victory, apt to quarrel, mischievous, and even murderers in their passion.”

  Harry had read Defoe’s Tour himself, many times, and he knew that his brother was being somewhat selective in his quotation.

  “I think you missed out the bit about being desperate in fight, which is, after all, the very stuff of war. And I believe, James, that Defoe, in that passage, was referring to the Campbells, a tribe even the native Scots regard as treacherous.”

  “It’s all one, brother.”

  It was an old argument and one which no amount of common sense would resolve. James, normally a most forgiving soul, was determined to engage in that fashionable English pastime, damning the Scots, merely because he hated his brother-in-law.

  “I will not contend with you, James, otherwise I will be exposed to the bilious words of Johnson on the same subject.”

  James looked slightly confused for a moment, clear evidence that he had been on the brink of quoting Johnson, or at least the words that his biographer, Boswell (another Celtic parasite in James’s book) saw fit to place in the great doctor’s mouth.

  “Have you decided to leave tomorrow?”

  James shook his head, pulled at the heavy drapes, and looked out of the window at the clear, starlit sky. “The next day, I think. I promised Anne that I would stay for her guests, the party from Goodnestone. Still, I suppose we should be thankful we avoided the usual celebration of Arthur’s barbarian Halloween ritual.”

  James traced a figure where his breath had misted the glass, then turned back to Harry, with a grimace on his handsome face. “We are in for a dull day, brother. It will be all crops and rotation from soup to pudding, with gravy boats full of rural piety. And you wonder that I want to be off?”

  Harry returned the bleak look in full measure, though in truth the prospect alarmed him less than it did James. But his next thought matched his expression.

  “Wentworth?”

  “Is also staying to dinner tomorrow. But I have persuaded him to go with me as far as Canterbury, by the simple expedient of telling him it’s free.”

  Harry’s boots made scrunching sounds on the crust of frozen earth that covered the path. There was an eagerness in his step, added to a lack of concentration, that sometimes caused him to slip, for his thoughts were f
ull of Naomi. He had known her husband, Tolly Smith, before he died, a man much older than she who had taken the rural taphouse and turned it into a proper coaching inn by hard work and application. Smith had been a tough individual, barrel-chested and ugly, with a touch of the smuggler in his past. But that didn’t matter to his landlord, Harry’s father, who was happy to peg his rent to help him prosper. He bought Naomi as a gamine young virgin from her father ostensibly to work in his kitchens. Not that anyone was fooled by that excuse.

  No one in their right mind paid good money for a scullery maid. Nor would anyone search out one so pretty. A hard man, Tolly showed a surprising softness for the girl thirty years his junior. Soon she was more than a concubine, if not quite a wife. Smith then surprised everyone, not just by marrying her two years later, but by doing so in a church, with all the expense which that entailed. Their joy was brief, their marriage childless. Tolly Smith’s health began to fail, till finally he’d died, in his bed, some five years previously.

  Harry had been home at the time and he could well remember the grey-faced, red-eyed young widow, almost destroyed by her loss. There must have been a firm bond of lasting affection there, for whatever the season Naomi never let a day pass without visiting her late husband’s grave. Harry felt a slight twinge of guilt there, for he’d paid a contribution for the headstone, a massive Portland stone affair, covered in angels, which he personally found offensively ostentatious. Then he’d promptly set about replacing the deceased in Naomi’s bed.