The Privateersman (A Poor Man at the Gate Series Book 1) (12 page)

“And coal and steam engines as soon as I’ve got the
first place up and running. I’ve been talking with Smithers of an afternoon,
sharing a quiet glass in his slow time while you’ve been out in town with Miss
Amelia; running a big inn like this he gets to meet people and hear everything
that’s going on. He says that iron’s the way it’s going to be for the next
century – iron bridges, iron ships even, big iron pillars to hold up the roofs
of these mills, iron drain pipes and gutters and sewers. On the small side
there’s kettles and pots and pans; door knobs and knockers; knives and swords
and guns; axles and wheels; nails and screws and needles and pins! There’s no
end to what you can make out of iron, Joe, and that means coke to smelt it and
coal mines and the engines to drain them and turn their big wheels to lift the
coal up and down.”

Joseph grinned at the younger man’s enthusiasm – it
all sounded too smoky and fiery and dirty for him, he would keep to the cleaner
world of cotton.

“Another thing, Joe, Smithers passed on a bit about
Clapperley; he don’t like him at all, says he might be useful but we need to
watch the little bugger, a really nasty piece of work. There are rumours about
him and a young girl, the daughter of his landlady when he was in rooms, only
just grown up and not very willing – all hushed up and paid for, but you can
never keep that sort of thing completely quiet in a small town. Word as well is
that he cuts corners and ain’t at all fussy where his money comes from, but he
knows everybody and everything.”

“Nasty! I’ll make good and sure he gets nowhere near
my Amelia, Tom. He’s going to be handling a good bit of our money, one way and
another though. Not much we can do about that, other than go to another lawyer,
and who’s to say he’d be any better?”

“We need to watch him then, keep him honest. Not too
honest, of course, but bent on our side!”

“Wear the big greatcoat, Tom, when we take the money
to him, and let him spot the belt underneath it – undo a couple of buttons in
the warm.”

“Frighten him?”

“Just that. He’s yellow, Tom – every time he looks
at that mark on your face he shits in his breeches. He’s a greedy little man,
so we’ll keep him greedy for us.”

Clapperley took Joseph down to the new wharves at
Liverpool later that week, brought him to a red-brick warehouse and introduced
him to Mr Abraham Marks, cotton factor and carter, a short, skinny,
worried-looking gentleman in his thirties, at a guess.

“Mr Marks is actively seeking a partner, Mr Star – I
gave him your name yesterday. He appreciates that you are newly returned to
England and hence unknown as yet in the business community.”

Joseph was vaguely aware that the name was Jewish,
there had been quite a number of Jews in the chandleries in Antigua, more in
business in New York, but it mattered little to him – he was not a chapel-goer
or a member of the Church of England and had not had their prejudices hammered
into him. They shook hands and were ushered inside.

It was a large warehouse, more than a hundred feet
in length and nearly as wide, clean and modern, and it was almost empty; a
dozen bales of raw cotton sat on racking at one end; there were yarns along ten
feet of shelving, a couple of bundles of undyed cloths, a tidy stack of
dress-lengths at the very end.

“Mid-week, Mr Star, the bulk of the materials move
on Saturday.”

Joseph nodded, glanced out of the rear doors at the
stables block, saw only two of the boxes to have straw down; there was a single
set of cart tracks in the mud.

“How many men do you employ, Mr Marks?”

“One lad, at the moment.”

Joseph raised an eyebrow to Clapperley – this
shoe-string operation wasn’t worth ten bob – why was he talking of two
thousands?

“Mr Marks suffered a misfortune recently, Mr Star; a
dishonest carter – Irish, of course – who made off with a full dray load of
dyed cloths, and the dray itself and two horses. The cloths had been sold
already, contracts signed, and he had to pay his buyer’s consequential losses
as well. The insurers are unwilling to pay in full, as always, and demand
proofs and this and that, as ever, and the matter will drag on for another two
or three years I expect. The effect was to destroy almost all of Mr Marks’
working capital at a blow.”

Joseph nodded, waited silently for more – the man
who talked first was at a disadvantage in this sort of situation.

“Mr Marks knows the trade and the people and the
prices; he can keep his spinners and weavers in employment and loyal to him –
but he must have the wherewithal: another dray and pair, a closed van and a
light horse, a part-load of cotton, two drivers and a warehouse hand. He would
wish to advance wages to spinners and weavers so as to keep them beholden to
him. The meanwhile, of course, he would make all of his knowledge available to
you.”

“Two thousands? Expensive horses and wagons, they
must be, Mr Clapperley.”

“Well, in fact, of course, Mr Marks has had to
finance himself as well as he could the while, there are sundry debts…”

Joseph shook his head, cut him short.

“No. I do not believe I wish to be fairy godfather
to Mr Marks. Too much money for too little return, I am afraid.”

Joseph nodded farewell to Marks and turned on his
heel, walked quietly outside leaving Clapperley with no option other than to
follow him.

“What happens to Marks now, Mr Clapperley?”

“He will be taken up for debt, warehouse and his
goods sold out from under him, his own house as well, family out in the street.
Actually he has a brother who will take the wife and children in, but he will
not, cannot, pay his debts.”

“How much does he owe?”

“Five hundred or so. The warehouse will go for one
fifty; stock, cart and pair of ponies, about another fifty. House and
furniture, a hundred at most, and that will include his wife’s jewellery. He
will be down a long hundred, possibly two.”

“You know his affairs in some detail, it would
seem.”

Clapperley was silent a few seconds, reluctantly then
admitted that he was Marks’ chief creditor.

Joseph waited in his turn, let the silence drag out
long enough to make Clapperley thoroughly uncomfortable.

“Do nothing until he is locked up, Mr Clapperley, in
the sponging house, but before there is a judgement against him. Then, before
his family is turfed out of house and home, buy up the warehouse and pay off
all of his debts – including those to yourself – and then offer him a pound a
week to work for me, two parts in ten of the annual profits to be his as a
bonus at the end of each year. You may wish to point out to him that I have
bought up his debts and own his house.”

“So, sir, should he not wish to work for you, or be
unsatisfactory in the performance of his duties, it will be back to clink for
him until he has paid you off, which he will not be able to do from his prison
cell! Of course, a couple of years and he should be able to pay you from his
bonuses.”

“By then I shall not need him – I cannot imagine
that I will take too long to learn the trade, Mr Clapperley.”

A few days later Clapperley brought Tom to the
attention of Mr Roberts, sole proprietor of the Roberts Iron Works, an
establishment conveniently on the Manchester side of the town. The works
sprawled over the better part of twenty acres on a hillside overlooking the
canal and the high road, was obviously long established, the cobbled yard at
the base of the hill dating back at least a hundred years. There was a stream
on the left-hand, western, edge of the property, running into a header pond and
then away, presumably eventually to reach the River Mersey. The other side of
the hill was deeply quarried, the source of the iron which had led to the
establishment of the furnaces here. There was a turning pond and loading bay at
the canal and a heap of coal out in the yard, a larger supply of coke, fifty or
sixty tons in a ten feet high pile, in an open-sided warehouse with a wooden
trackway running to the pair of furnaces. Next to the highway was an old forge
and smithy, no longer in use, beside a large thatched house; running up a lane
were a dozen or so of small cottages, presumably home to some at least of the
workers. The modern works comprised a pair of long sheds on either side of the
two furnaces, the right hand section fairly new, that on the left perhaps
twenty years old and including a waterwheel that was slowly turning under the
jet from the header pond.

Both of the furnaces were smoking and there was a
general banging coming out of the sheds together with a very solid regular
thumping that spoke of a machine rather than a human hand.

Just inside the gates was a small single-storey
brick building, a pair of rooms that were obviously the offices. Roberts was
there, accompanied by his daughter, sat at what appeared to be her own desk;
she was still a girl, of about Tom’s age, dressed very plainly in a grey,
high-necked gown without ornamentation; there was a smudge of ink on her
sleeve. She was, or could have been, very pretty, Tom thought, soft brown hair,
blue eyes, a high forehead, good, regular features, well formed; a pity she did
not smile as she gave him good morning. He noticed a black mourning band on her
arm.

“My daughter, Margaret, Mr Andrews,” Roberts
brusquely stated, swaying just a little as he rose to make his greetings. He
stank of gin and stale sweat, the latter forgivable if he had spent the early
morning in the foundry.

“Mr Roberts is intending to retire in the near
future, Mr Andrews,” Clapperley announced. “Hence his wish to take a partner
now with the expectation of being bought out in a year or so.”

“I would prefer otherwise,” Margaret interrupted. “I
think it would be better that Papa should remain as a sleeping partner, drawing
an income annually – it would be a more secure provision for our future.”

Clapperley had talked of three thousand now and a
further payment on nine or ten when the old man retired; the girl was obviously
afraid that he would drink himself to death in short order, wasting the ready
with a drunkard’s abandon and leaving her destitute. She was probably right.

“We could vary the initial proposal to that effect,
of course, ma’am, though I have to say that I would prefer to be sole owner of
the firm with the freedom to make any changes that I personally pleased.”

“It’s none of your damned business, girl!” Roberts’
speech was slightly slurred, not sufficiently for him to be aware of it, but
clear to the alert ear. “Jonathan is dead, and business is no business of
womenfolk, so there is no further family interest in the works. I shall sell
and be damned to it!”

She subsided into silence, aware that she would gain
nothing other than a slap round the face from argument; Tom watched her
covertly over the next few minutes as Roberts gave a rambling exposition of the
firm’s activities, could see hatred in her eyes – it was a good thing there was
no pistol to hand, he thought.

“Thank you, Mr Roberts, for your explanation. Would
it be possible for me to take a look at the premises?”

“Of course, you’d be a fool to buy in sight unseen!”
He turned to his daughter. “Get Mason!”

She came back in five minutes accompanied by a
middle-aged man dressed in working clothes – brown corduroy trousers,
open-neck, collarless flannel shirt and thick-soled short boots – and wearing a
long, heavy leather apron. His bare arms were covered in small scars and burns
of varying redness, his cheeks the same; he wore a heavy cap pulled down over
his eyes.

“Mason is foreman, in charge of both sheds, with
gangers to the furnaces and hammer under him. He can show you all you need,
he’s got a good three hours before the new furnace pours - plenty of time.”

Roberts seemed to be a stranger to common courtesy,
to lack the most basic good manners; Tom mentally knocked a thousand off any
price he might be inclined to offer for his firm – the man was a drunken pig.
At least Blaine had behaved like a gentleman when he was in liquor – Roberts
behaved like an animal all the time he suspected

“Good morning, Mr Mason. Would you lead the way,
please?”

Mason showed surprise, not expecting decent
treatment in this office, silently held the door for Tom and pointed him
towards the canal. Ten yards from the door and he glanced across and gave an
apologetic smile.

“Master don’t have no time for talk, like, sir. Do
you know ‘owt of iron, sir, or do you want to see it all?”

Tom smiled waved a hand generally, inviting him to
lead on.

“My name is Andrews, Tom Andrews, Mr Mason. I know
nothing of iron yet, and I will need a man who does know if I am to buy these
works. I know a little of the sea, and a little about fighting, and now I want
to put the money that came to me to useful work, and myself, too. I would wish
to do a man’s work, Mr Mason, but I will need advice and assistance from a
skilled and experienced source. By the way, who was Jonathan?”

“Mr Jonathan, only son to Mr Roberts, thirty or
thereabouts. Master was married twice, both dead now, young Miss Margaret
daughter to the second, her mother barely surviving her birth by a week. Mr
Jonathan was found in the canal here, two months since, with a big bruise across
his forehead, like as if he’s fallen and hit his head as he went in… maybe.”