The Privateersman (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 1) (10 page)

Glasgow with winter coming on, still a small town
but growing rapidly, the first smokes rising from steam engines, the docks
crowded with foodstuffs and timber and cotton and tobacco and sugar coming in,
textiles and iron goods for export. There were shipyards, many of them newly
built, along the Clyde, all the evidence of a thriving, booming city – but it
was very Scottish, an English accent would be out of place in business here,
and, in any case, they would be wiser to disappear from sight again here as
they had originally planned.

Chapter Five

They took places in the stage coach leaving from the
Post Office at dawn, the ancient faded green rattler - fifty or more years old,
nearly ten feet wide and twenty long, a farm dray with a body roughly slapped
on, a pair of bench seats and a big wicker basket at the rear for bags and
parcels, and traditionally the poorest of passengers, the basket scramblers -
expecting with ordinary good fortune, the agent said, to reach Carlisle before
nightfall; if it was delayed then they would have to put up at any wayside inn
that had beds.

“Ninety miles, Tom, and ten hours of daylight – not
a hope in hell!”

Joseph was unimpressed by the coachman’s promises –
they might make the run in one day at the height of summer when there was
fifteen hours of light, but approaching the autumn equinox there was no chance.
He knew little of coaches but had hired enough wagons to estimate what sort of
speed they could make and the voyage down the Firth and into port had given him
an idea of the countryside and its hills.

The coachman chirruped to his six horses and they
set off at a sedate walk through the unlit, shadowy streets, stopping less than
a mile away at a small beer house to pick up five more passengers, all of them
going up onto the roof although there would have been room for four of them
comfortably inside.

Bennet sniffed and said she had thought so.

“Thought what, Bennet?”

“Shouldering, Mister Andrews, sir. Thruppence a
mile, you paid the company for us, sir – two bob in the driver’s pocket for
them, you can bet, sir.”

“What about the guard?”

“He gets a cut, that’s for sure, sir.”

The road was in better condition than most in
Britain, having been rebuilt after the Jacobite rising and maintained ever
since against military need, and the coach was able to trundle along at a
steady eight miles an hour on the flat and up the lesser slopes; as soon as the
gradient became noticeable the pace dropped to a walk, a plodding four or five
miles an hour.

They stopped to change horses and seek refreshment
after three hours and twenty miles, the outside passengers quietly disappearing
and being replaced by half a dozen more; Tom stood next to the coach driver, in
front of the malodorous wall that served the men’s needs.

“How far do you expect to get today, driver?”

“Moffat, sir, probably. Good inn there, sir, rooms
for the four of ye.”

Fifty miles, a little more than halfway.

It rained that night and they made Carlisle at dusk
on the second day, the landlord of the posting inn seeming to think they had
made good time and certain that they could reach Lancaster in no more than
three more days, Liverpool or Manchester on the following afternoon.

Another Accommodation Coach next morning, like the
first, ancient, stale-smelling and apparently, unsprung. The leather upholstery
was original, cracked, sweat-stained, stuffed with old, matted horsehair and
lacking any vestige of comfort – passengers were few and the company made its
money on the carriage of mails and small parcels that could not be sent by sea.
It seemed that most people who had to travel any distance rode or hired a
post-chaise or, better still, went by sea, although not in the autumn or winter
months; the great majority simply stayed at home, nine out of ten men and women
never travelling more than ten miles from their birthplace in their whole lives
and most of the rest mobile only because they had been caught by the press or
forcibly enlisted into the army by the local Bench of Magistrates.

Southern Scotland and the Borderlands seemed to be
empty – a few sheep on the uplands, rare farmsteads in the sheltered valleys, a
very few fields showing stubble of rye or oats from the recent harvest,
villages far apart and uniformly poor – rarely a curtain in a window or a
larger house to show a doctor or even a shopkeeper’s residence. It was a
wasteland, compared even with Tom’s memories of rural Dorset, itself not a rich
county by any means.

The lowlands of Lancashire, when they eventually
reached them, were a thriving agricultural country with a busy population and
heavily cultivated fields. There were dairy cattle and herds of beef, very few
goats, flocks of sheep on all the hills and a mass of small fields surrounding
the many large villages and small towns.

“Spuds and turnips and greens more than wheat and
barley,” Bennet commented, the only one of them bred to the English land.
“Selling to the townies, they must be, Mister Andrews – markets in the local
towns, close to ‘and, like, because it costs too much to travel far. Got to be
money in they towns, or they wouldn’t do it.”

Advice from the landlord of their inn in Lancaster
sent them to the old borough of St Helens, situated midway between Manchester
and Liverpool and in the centre of the new industrial towns that were just starting
to grow. Cotton, iron and glass, they were told, all being made in huge new
manufacturies, often employing as many as one hundred men under a single roof,
while the old coal drifts were being turned into underground mines producing
thousands of tons a year. There were canals, as well, and even, so mine host
had heard, new engines worked by steam, though mostly it was watermills that
supplied the power, so much so that some people were calling the new places
‘mills’.

“Should be openings for merchants there, Joe,” Tom
said as they sat themselves into the post chaise they had decided to hire from
Lancaster – so much more wealthy seeming than a mere stagecoach, it would make
a far better impression of financial probity, and at four shillings a mile it
damned well ought to, Tom reflected.

“Why stick to merchanting, Tom?” Joseph replied, the
short name still sticking in his mouth but forcing himself to the sign of
equality that was necessary in the new country and in his new identity.

“Because I don’t know anything else, Joe?”

“Then we can learn, can’t we. It’s all new, Tom,
none of them can know a lot more than us, because they must be making it up as
they go along.”

It was a good argument, Tom had to admit.

“What do we do first, Joe? We need to make the decision
now.”

They had talked about little else over the days of
travel, had still no firm plans.

“If you please, sir,” Amelia made a very rare
contribution, having been well brought up and understanding that young misses
should not intrude upon their elders and particularly should not involve
themselves in men’s business. “If we had a house of our own, then we would seem
to be settled and respectable. And you would have to talk to lawyers, and Papa
always said that they know everything that is going on in any town.”

It made sense, it would all add to the appearance of
worth that would be so important to them while they were starting out and
making contacts and building their new business, whatever it might be.

The landlord of the posting house was happy to oblige
them with advice and information – his business was growing every month, it
seemed to him, all on the back of the new firms starting up. He kept another
chaise now and had recently bought another dozen of horses and had the builders
in to extend the yard and the premises – eight more big bedrooms, and a
bathroom with a cold water tap and a drain, only the hot water needing to be
bucketed up in so modern a convenience. He was considering one of the new water
closets as well, but was still not wholly persuaded of so daring an innovation,
nor was he sure that his customers would know how to use one.

“Three rooms, sir, one each for Mr Andrews and Mr
Star, a double for Miss Jackson and her maid – your ward, you say, Mr Andrews?”
This was a respectable house – there would be no goings-on here.

“In effect, Mr Smithers, though not in law – her
father, the major, died in New York earlier this year and begged me almost in
his last words to escort her back to England, her mother long deceased. The
major had been unlucky in an investment, I understand, and had little in the
way of funds to leave her and it had been my intent to take her to an uncle who
lives in a small way in the south country, but it seems to me that there is an
understanding growing between her and Mr Star and I rather suspect she would
far rather be wed and independent than a burden and a drudge in an unknown
relative’s house. She is a pleasant young lady, and he is a man of respectable
birth, and it seems to me to be a good thing for them both.”

The landlord agreed – there was little future for an
undowered young miss dumped out of the blue on her relatives, much better a
respectable marriage. Tom consoled himself that he had been telling the
strictest truth – Joseph had told him that his Carib grandfather had been a
chief in his tribe, thus qualifying him as an aristocrat of sorts, at least the
equal of an English baronet in his own land.

“A house, Mr Andrews? Buying over on the west side
of town, upwind of the smells and smokes, of course. All the fires are coal
now, you can’t get firewood for love or money and the air gets thick in winter,
sir, and there are even steam engines at some of the pits now, smoking all year
round. They drive the pumps, I am told, necessary now that some of the mines are
cutting coal a good one hundred feet underground! The iron foundries are mostly
at the eastern end of the town, and the glassworks is out on the sands, of
course. The cotton spinners are spread all through, in the sheds at the back of
their cottages, though one or two larger places are on the streams up the
valley over towards the Wigan side. Weavers are all small men, working out of
their own houses all over the place. Everybody who is anybody lives upwind of
the smell, better yet out of town if they possibly can. For a house, the
attorneys of the town can act to point you to the sellers, and, of course, they
must draw up any contract in real estate – purchase of land must be recorded in
written contract, is not lawful otherwise. I could give your name to my own
lawyer, sir, recommending you, as it were?”

“That would be very convenient to me, Mr Smithers,
please do so.”

Smithers’ attorney was ancient, grey, desiccated and
highly respectable; he sat behind his desk and listened gravely to Tom as he
announced his desire to buy a house of appropriate size, to be his base whilst
he found his way into the local business community.

“I, myself, Mr Andrews know nothing of, ah,
‘business’, hardly the preserve of the genteel, I understand. Of real estate,
however, I believe I have some slight acquaintance, and can represent you to
your advantage. There are a number of properties to be sold in the better part
of town and the immediate locality and my junior clerk will be pleased to
escort you to the viewing of several. I understand that young Mr Clapperley,
the son of my late partner, himself an attorney with his own practice, numbers
some of the, ah, ‘business community’ amongst his clientele, and may be aware
of opportunities for investment, for cash, money being short at the moment.”

Tom noted that young Mr Clapperley had not succeeded
his father in the partnership, which was unusual, he believed; even in New York
the attorneys he had dealt with had been members of old family firms. It was
possible, likely indeed, that there was a lack of respectability to the young
man – which could make him a very useful gentleman to know, bent lawyers were
always a potential source of profit.

“I have, Mr Satterthwaite, a number of
countersigned Bills of Exchange which I would wish to discount. Perhaps a
local bank could assist? Or must I take them to London? They are twelve month
Bills drawn on London Houses with between two and three months on them. I would
wish as well to make a deposit of some reasonable amount in Bank of England notes,
retaining the coin for my own outgoings, and the purchase of my house – I
presume there is a premium on gold in England?”

Gold was more highly valued than paper, in England
as it had been in New York; Satterthwaite was able to assure Tom that five or
six hundred gold guineas would purchase him the largest property on the local
market, the coins valued at not less than ten parts in the hundred more than
their face. The American War had driven gold out of circulation, the thrifty
hoarding the metal and passing on the paper money that might, conceivably,
become worthless in the event of the collapse of government and trade
consequent on humiliating defeat and invasion.

“Not, Mr Andrews, that there is great likelihood of
any successful invasion, but the Jacobite army from Scotland passed through
here less than forty years ago, looting and destroying – many of the older
residents have memories of the event, and believe that what has occurred once,
may again. The fear is there, and fear commonly defeats rationality, I believe.
I bank with Mr Martin of the St Helens and Wigan, Mr Andrews, and am confident
in his probity; he is perhaps the smallest of the local banks, but he is not
the least sound, in the main because he is content to lend very carefully, with
great prudence, taking only those customers who come recommended. I would be
very happy to introduce you to him, sir.”

Tom wondered why – he was unknown to Satterthwaite
and had no local connections; he had merely said that he had been resident in
America and had judged it wiser to come away, sole survivor of his family and
bearing the last of its fortune with him.