Morgan’s Run (12 page)

Though his heart had not been touched, he was missing poor Ned Simpson more than he had counted upon; the others of their persuasion at Colston’s were paired too neatly to think of switching their affections. With Ned’s departure—he had died soon after going into St. Peter’s—no one needed him. Neither the Head, the Bishop nor the Reverend Mr. Prichard approved of Greek love, each of them having a suitable wife and other fish to fry. So the discreet liaisons which were conducted within the walls of Colston’s were fraught with a thousand tensions. Schoolmasters were a ha’penny a dozen, for who in choosing them cared a straw about whether they could teach or not? They were selected upon the recommendation of a board, a Church committee, an eminent cleric, an alderman, a Member of Parliament. None of whom would approve of homosexuality, no matter how discreet. Supply and demand. Sailors might drink themselves sodden, curse and brawl, ram every arse between Bristol and Wampoa, and still keep their reputations as good workmen intact; no ship owner bothered his head about booze, brawls or bums. The same could probably be said of lawyers or bookkeepers. Whereas schoolmasters were a ha’penny a dozen. No booze, no brawls, and—God forbid!—no bums. Especially in a charity school.

Mr. Parfrey had been thinking about moving on, but understood that his hopes were faint. His world was too small, too enclosed. Colston’s would see the end of his career, after which the Bishop might graciously consent to accommodating him in an almshouse. He was turned five-and-forty, and Colston’s was
it.

So he put the sketchbook into his case and left the ledge above the Avon to its own devices, still thinking about Morgan Tertius and his father. Odd, that the father shared the son’s amazing good looks, yet did not have the power to turn heads.

Now that
William Henry was back in school, Richard had the leisure to pursue both a friendship and an intriguing proposition. Cousin James-the-druggist had been at him to do something better by his £3,000 than leave it in a bank for Quakers to make more from than he did—invest it in the three-per-cents, or at least invest it! urged the businesslike member of the Morgan clan.

He had met Mr. Thomas Latimer when he and William Henry had called into the Habitas workshop. The seven years during which Senhor Habitas had made Brown Besses for Tower Arms had earned him enough to retire in style, but no one who loved his craft as much as Tomas Habitas did would voluntarily retire. Rather, he had advertised in
Felix Farley’s Bris
tol Journal
that he was now available to make sporting guns, and sufficient custom had arrived to keep him just pleasantly occupied.

As Habitas explained after the introductions were performed, Mr. Latimer was a craftsman of a different kind: he made pumps.

“Mostly hand pumps, but ships are converting to chain pumps, and I have an Admiralty contract for making the chains themselves,” he said cheerfully. “The hand pump or the pole pump were lucky to lift a ton of bilge water in a week, whereas the chain pump can lift a ton of bilge water in a literal minute. Not to mention that its basis is a simple wooden structure a ship’s carpenter can build. All he needs to complete it is the brass chain.”

This was news to Richard, who found himself liking Mr. Thomas Latimer enormously. Not anybody’s picture of an engineer, he was short, plump, and always smiling—no gloomy Vulcan’s brow or blacksmith’s sinews about Mr. Latimer!

“I have bought Wasborough’s brass foundry in Narrow Wine Street,” he explained, “I confess purely because it contains one of Wasborough’s three fire engines.”

Of course Richard knew what a fire engine was, but once his son was back in school and the hours between seven and two were entirely his to fritter away, he had the time to discover a great deal more about this fascinating device.

The fire engine had been invented by Newcomen early in the century; this was the model that pumped water out of the Kingswood mines and drove the water wheels in William Champion’s copper and brass works on the Avon adjacent to the coal. Then James Watt had invented the separate steam condenser, which improved the efficiency of Newcomen’s engine so much that Watt had been able to interest the Birmingham iron and steel magnate Matthew Bolton in his idea. Watt had gone into partnership with Bolton and the pair of them maintained a complete monopoly on the manufacture of fire engines through a series of court cases which effectively prevented anyone else’s trying to compete; no other inventor could manage to get around incorporating Watt’s heavily patented separate steam condenser into his design.

Then Matthew Wasborough, a man in his middle twenties, had met another Bristolian youth named Pickard. Wasborough had come up with a system of pulleys and a fly wheel, Pickard had invented the crank, and together these three new concepts converted the reciprocal motion of a fire engine into circular motion. Instead of the driving force moving up and down, it now turned round and round.

“Water-wheels rotate and can make machinery rotate,” said Mr. Latimer as he conducted the sweating Richard through a place filled with furnaces, hearths, lathes, presses, fumes and noise. “But that,” said Latimer, pointing, “can make machinery rotate all by itself.” Richard gazed at a puffing, chugging monstrosity which occupied pride of place amid a series of spinning lathes, all turning brass into useful objects for ships; iron and ships did not mix, thanks to the corrosive effects of salt water on iron.

“May we go outside?” Richard shouted, ears ringing.

“When Wasborough combined his pulleys and fly wheel with the Pickard crank, they virtually eliminated the water-wheel,” Latimer continued as soon as they emerged onto the bank of the Froom just downriver of the Weare where the washerwomen gathered to launder. “It is brilliant, for it means that a manufactory does not need to be sited on a river. If coal is cheap, as it is in Bristol, steam is better than water—provided the engine has circular motion.”

“Then why have I never heard of Wasborough and Pickard?”

“Because of James Watt, who sued them because their fire engine contained his patented separate steam condenser. Watt also accused Pickard of stealing his idea for a crank, which is utter nonsense. Watt’s solution to the problem of circular motion is rack-and-pinion—he calls it ‘sun and planet motion’—but it is devilish slow and complicated. The moment he saw the patent for Pickard’s crank, he knew it was the right answer, and could not bear being beaten.”

“I had no idea engineering was so cutthroat. What happened?”

“Oh, after a lot of heartaches like losing the contract for a Government flour mill in Deptford, Wasborough died of sheer despair—he was all of eight-and-twenty—and Pickard fled to Connecticut. But I have worked out how to get around Watt’s patented separate steam condenser, so I intend to produce the Wasborough-Pickard model before their patents run out and Watt can nip in to collar them.”

“It is hard to believe that the most brilliant man in the world is a villain,” said Richard.

“James Watt,” said Thomas Latimer, not smiling, “is a twisted, stringy little Scotch bastard of no mean ability but a great deal more conceit! If it exists, then Watt has to have invented it—to hear him, God is his apprentice and Heaven is a haggis. Pah!”

Richard eyed the sluggish Froom and noted its cargo of flotsam. Ideal for snarling the buckets of a water-wheel, he thought. “I do see the advantage of steam over water,” he said. “We simply cannot continue to conduct industries requiring water power in the midst of cities. Fire engines with circular motion are the way of the future, Mr. Latimer.”

“Call me Tom. Consider this, Richard! Wasborough dreamed of incorporating one of his fire engines into a ship, thus enabling it to steer a course as straight as an arrow without regard for seas, currents or tacking and standing to find a favorable wind. His steam device would rotate the blades of a modified water-wheel on either side of the ship, propelling it along. Wonderful!”

“Wonderful indeed, Tom.”

When he got home he repeated this sentiment to an audience consisting of his father and Cousin James-the-druggist.

“Latimer is looking for investors,” he said then, “and I am thinking of contributing my three thousand pounds to the venture.”

“Ye’ll lose your money,” said Dick grimly.

Cousin James-the-druggist did not agree. “News of Latimer’s intentions has created much interest, Richard, and the man’s credentials are excellent, even though he is a newcomer to Bristol. I am thinking of investing a thousand in it myself.”

“Then ye’re both fools,” said Dick, a stand from which he refused to budge.

Head bent over his books, William Henry was sitting at Mr. James Thistlethwaite’s old table doing his homework; he had gone from a slate to quill and paper, and had enough of Richard’s painstaking patience to enjoy producing copperplate script minus the smears and blots which were the bane of most boys’ lives.

I am going to make enough money, thought Richard, to educate William Henry right up to Oxford level. He will
not
go at twelve to some lawyer or druggist—or gunsmith!—to serve for seven years as an unpaid slave. I was lucky with Habitas, but how many young apprentices can say they have a good master? No, I do not want that fate for my only child. From Colston’s he must go to the Bristol Grammar School, and then to Oxford. Or Cambridge. He likes his schoolwork greatly, and I notice that, just as for me, it is no chore to him to have to read a book. He loves to learn.

Peg was there alongside Mag, both women busy putting the final touches to supper while Richard moved among the occupied tables collecting empties and delivering fulls. The atmosphere was much happier than of yore; Peg seemed to be on the mend at last. She could marshal an occasional smile, did not fuss over William Henry, and in bed she sometimes turned of her own volition to Richard to offer him a little love. Not the old sort of love, no. That was the stuff of dreams, and Richard’s dreams were busy dying. Only the young can conquer the mountains of the mind, thought Richard. At five-and-thirty years of age, I am no longer young. My son is nine, and I pass the dreams to him.

Along with
a dozen other men, Richard signed his money over to Mr. Thomas Latimer for the express purpose of developing a new kind of fire engine; none of the investors, who included Cousin James-the-druggist, were given any interest in the brass foundry itself, devoted to manufacturing the flat, hook-linked chains for the Admiralty’s new bilge pumps.

“I am closing down for Christmas,” said Mr. Thomas Latimer to Richard (who was so fascinated that he visited Wasborough’s almost every day) on the eve of that foggy, mournfully grey season.

“Unusual” was Richard’s comment.

“Oh, the workmen will not be paid! It is just that I have noticed that nothing is done properly during Christmas. Too much rum. Though what the poor wretches have to celebrate I do not know,” sighed Latimer. “Times are no better, in spite of young William Pitt as Chancellor for the Exchequer.”

“How can times be better, Tom? The only way Pitt can pay for the American war is to raise existing taxes and think of new ones.” Richard grinned slyly. “Of course, ye could make a happier Yuletide for your workmen by paying them for the holidays.”

Mr. Latimer’s cheerfulness did not abate. “Could not do that! Did I, every employer in Bristol would blackball me.”

It was pleasant for Richard, however, to be able to spend more time at the Cooper’s Arms over Christmas, for William Henry had no school and the tavern was full of wassailers. Mag and Peg had made delicious puddings and pots of brandy sauce to go over them, a haunch of venison roasted on the spit, and Dick made his festive drink of hot, sweet, spiced wine. Richard produced presents: a second cat for Dick, tabby grey, to dispense gin; a green silk umbrella each for Mag and Peg; and for William Henry, a parcel of books, a ream of best writing papers, a splendid leather-covered cork ball, and no less than six pencles made of Cumberland graphite.

Dick was mighty pleased with his gin cat, but Mag and Peg were overwhelmed.

“Such an extravagance!” cried Mag, opening her umbrella to study the effect of lamplight through its thin, jade-colored fabric. “Oh, Peg, how fashionable we will be! Even Cousin Ann will be cast in the shade!” She pirouetted, then shut the umbrella in a hurry. “William Henry, do not
dare
to throw that ball in here!”

Of course the ball was the best present as far as William Henry was concerned, but the pencles were pretty good too. “Dadda, you will have to show me how to sharpen them, I want them to last as long as possible,” he said, beaming. “Oh, Mr. Parfrey will admire them!
He
does not have a pencle.”

Mr. Parfrey was top of the trees in William Henry’s estimation, everybody knew that by now; William Henry had been dinning his excellence in their ears ever since Latin classes had begun early in October. Clearly this was one schoolmaster who knew how to teach, for he had captured William Henry’s interest on his first day, and William Henry had not been the only one. Even Johnny Monkton voted Mr. Parfrey first rate.