Victorian Dawn (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 12)

by Andrew Wareham

  They looked at Robert, blandly, not a trace of accusation in their faces.

  "Thank you, brothers. I shall pass the word to Mr Conroy that the family finds itself unable to enter any new ventures this year, or next. I was unaware that I was no more than a sheep to be fleeced, but you seem convinced that this is so, and I must accept that you know more than me on this occasion."

  Bowing to James' better judgement smacked of humiliation; Robert became reluctantly aware that he had rusticated too long and had permitted a once keen brain to become idle.

  "To think, gentlemen, I was once a banker, and not a bad one at that! Now I am a victim to be plucked by some Johnny-Come-Lately enterpriser come hotfoot from the bogs, quite possibly with webbed feet as well!"

  They laughed with him, sympathetically, he hoped.

  "There is a question of railways, Robert, if you were interested. There is a need for miles of branch lines to connect every cotton town to Manchester and Liverpool, and then even more to make links across to Yorkshire and the pits there, and then perhaps to South Wales. Raising the capital, launching the companies, selling the shares and then watching the financial dealings of the engineers actually building the lines - all will demand time, patience and a deep knowledge of high finance, which no other member of the family possesses. You could be the source of great gain to us all, brother."

  "I had thought Captain Hood to be much involved in this field."

  "So he is, and very good at it, too. But he is much taken up with the lines into London from the Kent coast especially. He is a South-Country man. You would wish to pick his brain, I have no doubt - what he does not know of the villains haunting the Exchange is not worth bothering with, I suspect."

  "A fellow nautical man, Matthew?"

  "To an extent, Robert - but he spent much of his time in a different sort of service to mine. I respect him, but not as a sailor, as such!"

  Captain Hood was on holiday; he had taken his wife and son and young daughter to the coast near Cromer in Norfolk to stay with the Dowager for a few days. He could not find the time to be away for more than a week and Lady Margaret would not remain on her own, finding no pleasure in being apart from her husband. They had bathed in the sea, as was obligatory, and agreed that the sands were rather attractive and that the sea air was definitely pleasing.

  “Bracing, one understands, ma’am,” Verity said.

  Her mother laughed and then apologised for the family joke.

  “How do you enjoy life on your estate, Captain Hood?”

  “It is very well, ma’am, but I am glad that I have other occupation to keep my brain alert as well. Staring at the pigs and admiring hop vines is all very well, but it does tend to become somewhat stupefying. A day or two of each week in London keeps me awake, and another spent visiting one of the lines being laid is also valuable. We shall before too long have manged to connect London to Dover and Folkestone and to the ferries to Calais. There will soon be a line across to Paris to complete the link. In less than two years it will be possible to leave London at eight o’clock and reach Calais soon after twelve, and then be in one’s hotel in Paris before five. The convenience is almost unbelievable, ma’am. There is talk as well of cutting a tunnel under the Channel, or even of building a bridge across it, so that it will become no more than an express journey, Paris closer than Glasgow or Edinburgh in time.”

  The Dowager was not enthralled; she could see little need for this obsession with speed.

  “Quite why is it so important to save time, Captain Hood?”

  “Possibly because travelling is so very tedious, ma’am. I am happy, perhaps, to be in Paris, but to spend day after day staring at fields from the windows of a slow-moving chaise offers me no enjoyment at all. Particularly when it is raining, and it always pours on a day one has appointed for an excursion!”

  “That, of course, is perfectly true. Even if I choose to venture no further than Norwich then I can guarantee to be rained on. Will we see one of your ‘lines’ in Cromer before too long, Captain Hood?”

  “A few years, ma’am, and we shall see a railway station in every town in this country.”

  “I wonder whether I welcome that prospect, sir. I really do not know if I wish to be connected almost instantly to every part of this country. I like living in a backwater, Captain Hood. It is very peaceful.”

  “I cannot imagine that rural Norfolk will ever be anything else, ma’am.”

  They talked more after dinner each evening, the children retired in the care of their nurses; Verity, too old to be a child but not yet adult, disappeared into her library, as happy with her books as with people.

  “Have you had any contact with Lord St Helens recently, Captain Hood?”

  “No, ma’am, not for some months.”

  “Have you heard of his contact with the man Conroy?”

  “A whisper in the City is all, ma’am, a passing mention that St Helens was to be set up as a pigeon for the plucking. Conroy has a bad name among the community of bankers and money men. There is a scheme of sorts in the offing, I believe, but its details are not yet known to me. As soon as I have the hard word I have it in mind to take steps, ma’am.”

  “What can you do, Captain Hood?”

  “Speak to a few influential gentlemen in the first instance. Mr Conroy has more than one loan out in the City and has guaranteed them with monies that are not his own. I have my own contacts, from the days when I was otherwise employed, and will be able to produce evidence at need. Public scandal will not be wanted, for obvious reasons – the name of the young Victoria would be mentioned and that is to be avoided – and he will simply be pressured by government. A few thousands of pounds will be dug out of the secret funds and he will be put out to grass in his estates. His associates will, however, share in his ignominy and, although I can protect him from the financial losses, Lord St Helens would be well advised to steer clear of the man.”

  “The family cannot afford that sort of thing, Captain Hood. I shall send a letter to my lord!”

  For Captain Hood to involve himself in Robert’s affairs unasked would be an encroachment; the Dowager, however, had the right, the duty indeed, to protect the family.

  The letter clinched the matter in Robert’s mind. He was embarrassed that the Dowager should have heard that he was in process of becoming involved in an indiscretion and very rapidly ended his contacts with the adventurous gentleman. He travelled to London and spoke briefly to Conroy, informing him that the family had committed itself fully in other directions and he was unable therefore to play any part in the promotion of the Welsh and Home Counties Railway which he had proposed.

  “No contract with the Mail, I fear, sir. Nor assistance in procuring rights-of-way, I am afraid. I had not realised the extent to which we were committed in Lancashire and Yorkshire. I am sure you will be able to find other partners.”

  Robert called in at Mostyns Bank and was immediately admitted to the offices of his father by marriage.

  The gentleman was showing signs of age and had intimated that he would soon retire. His eldest son, ennobled as Baron MacDonald of Achnasheen, a good and truly obscure Scots name, was with him.

  “A pleasure, my lord. We do not see you in London so often.”

  “Business, my lord. I have come close to being fleeced by a very smooth agent indeed. I have to admit that he pulled the wool over my eyes in the most successful fashion. Fortunately, others of the family became aware of the affair. I have just extricated myself from the half-commitments I had made, but I suspect he will try to entangle another victim in my place. I wonder if perhaps he might not be discouraged from so doing. He is the man Conroy, the intimate of the Duchess of Kent and her household.”

  Sir Iain Mostyn shook his head, almost in reproof.

  “That one! One is well advised to avoid him and his schemes, sir!”

  “I have just done so, sir, but I have to say that I was fortunate – he is a very plausible gentleman and I was taken in, was g
iven the true word by Mr James Andrews, no less!”

  “Well, I think we must involve ourselves in his scheming, my lord. We cannot have this sort of thing in our family. Did he know, I wonder, that he was involving Mostyns in his plans?”

  “I am now inclined to the belief that he has an overweening confidence in his own abilities, sir. So brilliant a man, he is, that all must bow down to him and fall into his toils.”

  “Then we must persuade him that he is mistaken, my lord. Nathan will take the matter in hand, I doubt not.”

  “I shall indeed, Father. I believe that it may not be impossible to bring him aboard one of the less reputable concerns in the City and leave him with responsibility for all of its debts when the inevitable failure occurs. What was his particular scheme, my lord?”

  Robert was almost shame-faced as he named the railway.

  “Welsh and Home Counties? That sounds ambitious! To connect the north I presume, the south being in Mr Brunel’s capable hands.”

  Robert agreed that it was; they were to connect the slate mines of the mountains with Cheshire and then run down to Shrewsbury and thence to Birmingham as a first line. Later, the plan was to make contact with Hereford and Worcester and cross the whole of central England to Oxford and the existing line to London. It had looked very logical on an atlas.

  “It is highly sensible, in many ways. Those places will eventually be connected to the railways. But, my lord, if one was to bring a line down from North Wales, surely one would wish to connect to Liverpool and then Manchester as well as Birmingham?”

  “That was to be done by another company, or so I understood. I was given to believe that was in hand and I was too late to invest in it, was lucky to have this opportunity.”

  “A very smooth talking gentleman, it would seem, my lord.”

  “I have rusticated too long, gentlemen. I was taken in like any hick from the shires newly come to Town! I am to make a return as a result, gentlemen, to rejoin the world of affairs. The family has an interest in completing a network of lines in Lancashire to join all of the cotton towns to Liverpool and Manchester and I am to look after the business. I shall be much involved in the banking side and will no doubt wish to float more than one company in the process.”

  Both Mostyns showed interested and assured him that the Bank would be available to him.

  “Too many railway promoters are fly-by-nights, my lord. We shall be very happy to become involved with a man we know to be safe. As far as Conroy is concerned, we shall work quietly over the next few months to entangle him in his own meshes. Never fear, my lord, we shall deal with him and show him that he is not the only silver-tongued gentleman in London!”

  Robert took the opportunity to show his face at the shipyard while he was in London; he had not been seen there for too long, he knew.

  “Sir William! How is the business?”

  “Flourishing, my lord, thank’ee! I am looking to expand the yard again – we can find work for another pair of slips and I am giving thought to the trade in the German Ocean. General carriers taking English iron goods and cottons and woollen cloths to Dutch ports and returning with bacon and hams and cheeses, all of which can sell in London. I have spoken to a number of merchants not so far from here, men in a middling sort of way, and believe that was we to supply a ship and them the cargoes, then we could work a profitable partnership. As well as that, my lord, I am costing up another, greater brickworks along the Thames Estuary, serviced by our own steam barges. There is a shortage of bricks, my lord, and more plans every month for bridges and sewers and waterworks and houses in their tens of thousands. Bricks by the million, and clay tiles, and slate down from Wales, though that is to be more of a railway venture, I believe.”

  “A massive expansion, in fact, Sir William.”

  “It is due, my lord. The country is growing and we must take advantage of the times if we are to be at the forefront, and there is no other place for us to be.”

  “You may well be right, Sir William. I am to be busy in the North Country – we are to build railway lines for the cotton mills. You must therefore be the man on the spot here. A note to Sir Iain Mostyn, Sir William, and a meeting to be arranged to discuss your plans for the expansion of our interests, and for their financing. I will inform the bank that you are to be in sole and whole charge of the new enterprises and they are to deal with you exclusively in these matters. If you find yourself in need of advice then call upon Captain Hood, would be my suggestion – he is a very wise man, I believe. Another two thousand a year on your salary would be appropriate, and a share of the profits, of course. Have you drawn plans for your steam barges?”

  “The yard at Southampton will work them up for me, my lord. They have good ideas down there. I shall send them an outline of what is required and they will draw them up in their loft.”

  Robert enquired of the nature of the loft, listened with genuine interest to the description of the old sail loft that had been converted so that the lines of ships to be built could be chalked out at actual size.

  “So long as she’s no greater than two hundred feet, my lord, that is. And there ain’t many a ship built bigger than that just as yet, though I suspect there will be before too many years are passed.”

  Robert realised that he had been away too long – Sir William was anxious to talk, to explain all he had done, even to boast a little. It was only fair to treat his underlings well, not to speak of quite possibly being more profitable. His father would never have made such a mistake, and even if he could never hope to be so great a man, nonetheless he was obligated to do his possible.

  “Put it all in hand, Sir William. I shall drop in to see you again at the beginning of next month, I think. Have you been up to the Liverpool yard recently? Sir Matthew has one or two interesting hulls in the building and I am very sure he would like to know more of your drawing loft. What of your people in Southampton? Would they perhaps wish to travel up with you? I suspect they have much to tell us as well as a little to learn.”

  Robert made his way back to the town house, looking about him with more than normal interest; he had been away too long. The streets were as crowded as ever and the traffic possibly more chaotic, though he did see a few of the new policemen trying to create order.

  ‘New’ police, he reflected – they had been in existence for nearly ten years; he was becoming an old stick-in-the-mud!

  He noticed that there was an attempt to separate the up traffic from the down, the policemen were trying to push carts and wagons and coaches to their left. It might be a good idea, he mused, though it smacked it a little more than he liked of Napoleonic bullying. The state of the roads was such that something must be done, he supposed, though the authorities might be better advised to build railway lines through the town rather than rely on the streets as they were. They might try to do something about the hawkers, as well. At any given moment he could see a dozen at least trying to sell to the passers-by. There were water cress sellers on every street corner, little girls who should be at their mothers’ aprons not left on their own to accost every gentleman who might have tuppence in his pocket; it was a shame, he thought, for they could not grow up uncontaminated, poor souls. He leant out of his carriage and took a bunch of cresses, giving sixpence in exchange – it was not much but it might help that mite a little. He wondered vaguely where the cress was found, what fresh-water stream it might be harvested from, then ignored the question – there was much he did not know about London.

  Brick making, Sir William had discussed – a call for millions of bricks, so he said. Was he exaggerating, perhaps?

  Robert looked out of the windows again, saw, now that he was observing carefully, that there was new building almost on every road. Houses and shops and warehouses and factories and pubs by the score, going up on every piece of open land that was not protected by an iron fence, or so it seemed. Men swarming over them, rickety wooden scaffolding wherever he looked; bricklayers by the hundred. It was so commonplace
a sight that he presumed he had ignored it – building work was just an omnipresent part of the background. He wondered whether the drays carrying bricks moved mainly at night, when they could perhaps pass through the streets a little more comfortably; where possible, he presumed that the builders would use barges as quicker and easier transport.

  A second large brickworks – very large – on the banks of the Thames, reasonably distant from Town, would be, as Sir William had said, a source of a steady income. Not huge profits, in all probability, from so commonplace a product, but a regular three or four or five per centum was not to be sneezed at. Coals brought down by sea to their own wharf; clay dug locally – the Thames ran through clay beds for most of its length; he had a memory of the Bible, something about ‘bricks without straw’. Did they still use straw, he wondered? Sir William would know.

  He got down from the carriage leaving the cresses behind; one of the grooms would spot them and no doubt eat them with his supper.

  A note written to Captain Hood, begging him to pay a visit if he was in Town, to discuss Railway Companies, and their best promotion now that the family was to be more involved in Lancashire.

  That raised the question of why they must float companies for these short lines. The firm would supply the capital, or so he supposed, so what was the need for shares and, importantly, shareholders?

  Captain Hood had the answer.

  “We are not a railway company as such, my lord, and neither do we wish to be, I would suggest. We wish to take the profits of their construction but not to be too much involved in their running. Thus, my lord, we create the company for each line and float it on the Exchange – Manchester or Liverpool or London as seems good at the time. We issue, say, one hundred thousand shares at a face value of one pound, all of which we take up ourselves, but we allow it to appear that they are trading – there are ways, my lord – and we ensure that their price is a little more than par. They will appear to be very healthy but not too much out of the ordinary. We shall build the line and equip it with rolling stock and then organise contracts for the carriage of cotton and of coals, and probably of wheat in bulk to the bakeries and mills, possibly iron goods as well. These contracts will supply a handsome profit for the first year or two which will make the shares very attractive. At that point we shall release some part of our holdings, selling the shares in parcels of one or two hundred, never enough to drive the price down. Over the space of five years or so we shall be able to sell off all of our shares and make a very good return from them. The railway lines with all of their benefits to our trade will be in existence and we shall have all of our money back and a profit as well and, most importantly, we shall not have the fuss and bother of running them ourselves.”