The Indigo Pheasant: Volume Two of Longing for Yount: 2 (24 page)

“
Quatsch
, and more than
Quatsch
,” said Barnabas, rubbing his well-worn vest (an old favourite in times of stress, a champakali design picked out in chalk blues and sharp reds). “How do we handle ’em, Sanford?”

Sanford shook his head. No one could read a balance sheet better than Sanford; he knew a conspiracy of debits threatening to overwhelm the credits of McDoon when he saw one.

McDoon & Co. was beset on all sides, and everywhere the firm of Coppelius, Prinn & Goethals (Widow) cropped up.

Charles Matthew Winstanley—their new lawyer, a young man with the face of a whippet, and the habit of being the first through every door—cleared his throat and produced a mass of papers from within a satchel that could easily have housed several changes of clothes and possibly a small tea-service. He beckoned Barnabas and Sanford to sit. Young as he was, Winstanley came highly recommended by Matchett & Frew, and had already secured himself a seat in the Lowtonian Society and other leading legal associations.

“Mr. McDoon, Mr. Sanford,” he began, rapidly fanning papers out on the table, long rows of remittances,
factura
, bills of exchange, bills of lading, invoices, claims and counter-claims on insurance and salvage, letters of hypothecation, bottomry bonds and respondentia, exemptions for demurrage, waivers on edulia and other duties, writs of cassation, reclamations for Danish Sound Tolls paid, connoissements,
contrati de arrendamiento financiero
, rescriptions, subrogations, documents relating to virement, supervenience, cession and assignment, certificates of contingent remaindership, licenses for disjunctive distribution and for non-abatement,
lettres pour l’aiguillage et le gaspillage
, shares in tontines, deeds of title, lien and encumbrance, records of
dadny
advances to merchants in Surat, Calicut, Cannanore and Oddeway Torre,
cowl-namah
agreements with traders in Tranquebar.

The three passed a long afternoon planning the McDoon position and counter-attack. Winstanley darted quickly to cases. He recommended, in short declarative sentences inviting little argument, that McDoon & Co. sell immediately its shares in a wide range of miscellaneous assets: the one-sixteenth part of a timber, flax, and hemp warehouse in Riga, the sixteenths and eighths held in brigantines, galleases and other ships home-harboured in Hamburg, Luebeck, Stockholm and Danzig, the two dozen wine-barriques held by a correspondent firm in Porto, the consignment of salt from Setubal, the raze of ginger jointly held with the Muirs out of Bombay, and so on. He advised delaying payment on this bill of exchange, refuting the usance on that one, calling for a moratorium on this debt due, disputing the traheration of the other.

Barnabas was fascinated. Winstanley’s angular phrasing formed a complete contrast to the oleaginous rondure of Sedgewick’s words. Charicules noticed as well, singing softly and without sidebars at an
andante
pace to counterpoise Winstanley’s clipped
allegro
.

Sanford experienced something in the neighbourhood of joy, despite the grim situation. If every cloud has a silver lining, then this was a most stormy cloud and Winstanley appeared to be most refined silver.

Sanford had argued for years that McDoon & Co. needed to sell its many idiosyncratic, small, and random holdings (“fleas,” he called them), to consolidate and focus on its core business. But Barnabas consistently objected, in each case with a different but equally strongly held rationale, at core based on immoveable loyalties to kin, swelling convictions about the goodness of humanity and the utility of trade, a boundless bent towards the curious and the assymetrical.

Thus, whenever a fellow Scot wrote to implore or induce, Barnabas would invest as a matter of nationalistic pride and faith in Scottish character. As Sanford observed, Barnabas’s Caledonian loyalties resulted in McDoon & Co. owning five shares in The Company for the Dredging of Harbours in the Baltic (sponsored by Scots located in Stettin, Koenigsberg, Memel and Libau), ten shares in the Gothenburg Arctic Whaling Company (founded by a Murray, a Cameron and two Gordons), a claim in the bankruptcy estate of Tulloh, Ramsay & Halyburton in Madras, and—Sanford’s favourite—one ticket in the New Lottery of The Argentine (purchased from a Mackay in Glasgow, whose brother-in-law was an organizer of the lottery in Buenos Aires; one of Barnabas’s great-grandmothers had been a Mackay out of Glasgow).

Likewise, Barnabas felt compelled to show support for any project promoted by the Landesmanns and Brandts in northern Germany—our “
cousins-germaines
” as he would pun. Which placement of trust led McDoon & Co. to possess—among other curiosities—a handful of shares in a sugar refinery in Altona, in a tileworks in Flensberg, and in the Diskonto und Kurant Bank of Hamburg.

But the amount of cash that might be raised through sales of assets held far and wide, from the realization of long submerged, half-forgotten, ill-defined and phantasmal profits, from the accelerated ravening of debtors and from delayed or halted payments would still not be enough to meet the ever-mounting demands of the Blackwall shipyard, the Maudslay engineering firm and all the other contractors and vendors on the Project. Nor was it enough to meet the capital call precipitated by Coppelius & Co.

Winstanley, looking like a stage-magician as he swiftly put some papers back into his valise while pulling others from out of the bag, said that he could find legal ways to stall Coppelius but that the ultimate call and claim were based very solidly on the
Indigo Pheasant
’s articles of association.

“So, beans and butter,” said Barnabas. “We could actually lose the ship, if we don’t find additional capital.”

“Yes,” said Winstanley.

Sanford said (stressing in his broadest Norfolk accent all the adjectives and adverbs, emphasizing how seldom he used either part of speech), “We need that meeting with Sir John Barrow at Admiralty. Also with our erstwhile silent partners at the Honorable East India Company. I suspect there is little difference in this case between Admiralty and the John Company. Whoever precisely is on whose lead-strings, they are our last, best hope to keep control of the
Pheasant
.”

Winstanley—nose up, fingers tapping more quickly than the clock ticking on the mantlepiece—said, “Yes, yes, and yes. I believe we can expect some resistance to such a meeting now from my predecessor in this position, but I also have faith that I can effect such a meeting through means and connections of my own.”

Barnabas, looking at the engraving of Rodney damaging the French fleet, hopped to his feet, threw one hand in the air and said, “Let’s go . . . now!”

Mr. Winstanley declined the offer to dine with Barnabas and Sanford, taking his leave with a statement that he had much to do on their behalf and would start at once that very evening. As he left, Reglum and Dorentius arrived as scheduled to join the McDoons for dinner.

Over a plain roast of mutton (with just the merest hint of mint-jelly, as Cook strove for economy, much to Barnabas’s chagrin), Reglum announced that he was removing himself to Woolwich.

“Figs and farthings, Woolwich? Whatever for?”

Reglum reminded them that he was a military man and that Woolwich was an ideal placement; he was joining the staff of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, which was next to the Royal Arsenal and the Royal Artillery Barracks.

“While you build the
Indigo Pheasant,
” said Reglum. “And Maggie and Dorentius here create and have installed the Great Fulginator, we must also look to the ship’s defenses. I will get us supplied with the latest in gunnery and ordnance—so necessary, as you know, if we are to traverse the Interrugal Lands successfully.”

“All the more important with the Owl taking a direct and personal interest in our little adventure,” added Dorentius.

“Precisely, thank you Dorentius. And then there’s the Ornish waiting for us on the other side, with their rapid-fire cannons. I want to learn what might best be applied to the
Pheasant
in terms of bombardment geometry, range-finding, that sort of thing. Also, we will need gunners onboard or will need at the very least to train to professional standards some of the volunteers Billy Sea-Hen is recruiting. No place better than Woolwich for that. Oh, and I will also have a secondary appointment at our sister college, the Addiscombe Military Seminary in Croydon.”

“Where the East India Company trains gunners and engineers for its army,” said Dorentius, in his most helpful voice.

“Spot on again, Dorentius, thank you.”

Cook entered with a plate of four small boiled sweets, one for each of the men at table. She looked apologetically at Barnabas (whose face had fallen when he saw the dessert) and indicated with her eyes that the fault lay entirely with Sanford; Sanford saw their exchange, and said nothing, maintaining a face of resolute determination.

“Well, bells and butterflies, that is all very stimulating news, Mr. Bammary,” said Barnabas while he nibbled on his sweet in a vain attempt to make it last. “We shall of course miss you being near us in the City, but neither Woolwich nor Croydon are more than an hour or so by chaise or by the Thames ferry for the one, so you will not have gone so very far. Jolly good thinking that, about the cannons and all—we’ll need as many of ’em as we can get, to handle whatever the Owl and the dismal roads may put in our path!”

The four men toasted to Reglum’s new position in Woolwich, and to the success of the
Indigo Pheasant
.

“Also, ahem, I do not mean to intrude where I am not welcome,” said Barnabas. “But Mr. Bammary, besides the guns and geometry, might there be any other reason for your decision to remove to Woolwich?”

Reglum shook his head and did not reply.

“Ah, well, I see then, and I apologize if I am too forward.”

Dorentius shifted the topic in the next moment by announcing that the Chancery Court had probated the will of the merchant “de Sousa” and had that very day accepted him and Reglum as the sole heirs.

“The money was, of course, never Salmius Nalmius’s in his own right,” said Dorentius. “Nor will it be ours as private persons. It was and is property of the Yountish people, held in trust by the Queen and her duly appointed representatives.”

“How much?” asked Sanford.

“Just over three thousand pounds sterling, net of all charges, fees, and etcetera,” said Dorentius. “We will deploy the majority of that amount towards equipping the
Indigo Pheasant
—as we are sure the Queen and the Chancellor would approve.”

“How soon?”

“I think you have a better grasp of your English judicial pace than we do, Mr. Sanford, but we are told by the Chancery solicitors that we can expect the first installments within the next few months, subject of course to how fast the assets can be liquidated, and etcetera.”

All four men toasted anew. Barnabas asked if that news did not also call for more sweets but Sanford rejected the motion.

As Reglum and Dorentius made ready to leave, the maid admitted a messenger in at the front door.

“Begging your pardons, sirs, I came as instructed, which is to say, as quick as rain and lightning, by St. Adelsina, I did.”

“Out with it, man,” said Sanford.

“Yes sir, here it is: I am ordered to tell you that your Chinese visitors will arrive within the next few days, sir, wind permitting. They are in an East Indiaman that has anchored in the Kentish roads just off Ramsgate, awaiting a turn in the wind to allow them to beat up the Thames. I came chip-chap straight up the Watling Street from Ramsgate to tell you, wore out three horses on the way. They will be staying in Devereux Court off the Strand, next to the Outer Temple and the other Inns of Court.”

After Barnabas tipped the messenger and sent him on his way, Reglum said, “‘The osprey pulls a fox from the ocean!’ So long as the fish-hawk stays aloft on his way back to shore!”

“We will, we will,” said Barnabas.

“We must,” said Sanford.

Sir John Barrow, Second Secretary of the Admiralty, was a man of vast and varied experience. He had visited China and lived for a while at the Cape in South Africa. He had seen and heard many strange things. Yet now his face was a picture of perplexed indignation, as if he had been told that the giants had walked down off the Guildhall Clock or that a temerity of dragons was soaring around the dome of St. Paul’s.

“Allow me to understand you completely,” he said. “Behind this entire project is a young woman of dark complexion, a child of Africa, who you are telling me is a gifted mathematician, some sort of black, female Newton?”

It was the second Tuesday after the day Winstanley had met with Barnabas and Sanford; as good as his word, and—confirming initial impressions—supremely well connected, Winstanley had gotten the meeting with Sir John. Besides Sanford, Barnabas, and Winstanley, five other individuals sat in the Admiralty chamber with Sir John: the two black-clad men known only as Mr. I. and Mr. Z.; James Cumming, the head of the Revenue & Judicial Department for the East India Company’s Board of Control; Lieutenant-Colonel James Salmond, head of the Examiner’s Department at the E.I.C., and William M’Culloch, Assistant Secretary for Revenue, also of the E.I.C.’s Examiner’s Department. Conspicuously absent was any representative from the Treasury.