Victorian Dawn: A Poor Man at the Gate Series, #12

Introduction

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Victorian Dawn: The families face new challenges as the Victorian Age arrives. It is a new era but many of the old problems persist; food prices remain high, the poor remain hungry and the threat of civil unrest is ever-present. Furthermore, the health of the people is endangered as the cities grow but are unable to cope with swelling populations. The overcrowding increases the risk of deadly diseases, and wealth and social standing afford no guarantee of immunity.

Author’s Note: I have written and punctuated Victorian Dawn in a style reflecting English usage in novels of the period, when typically, sentences were much longer than they are in modern English. Editor’s Note:  Andrew’s book was written, produced and edited in the UK where some of the spellings and word usage vary slightly from U.S. English.

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Book Twelve: A Poor Man

at the Gate Series

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Chapter One

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It is an opportunity for the whole family, James, just the chance we have been seeking these many years since our dear father died.

I have not been searching for any opportunity, Robert. I am content to work as a Minister of the Crown, even in a junior position such as mine. I may well eventually rise to Cabinet rank, I suspect, but not in the immediate future. For the while I am very happy in my life and see no need to chance our name and fortunes in a risky alliance with a most unpleasant person.

Viscount St Helens rose from his seat, took a hasty pace around the room, constrained by its dimensions. His younger brother’s office was well-placed in Whitehall but was in one of the smaller buildings, as befitted his role in the Administration as a junior minister of the Home Office. He had risen from his first role in the administration of the Colonies, but his career could not be described as meteoric; surely he must have ambitions that the new scheme could only benefit.

James, just consider the benefits to us all. The King cannot survive for more than a year or two and he will be succeeded by the young Victoria. Mr Conroy assures me that she is a weak girl and must be assisted by a Regency, her mother to be her guardian and probably joint regent, with whom is unclear, until such time as she may be fit to marry a husband who will take charge of her. Conroy is in a strong position in the Household, controlling the personal fortunes of the Duchess, her mother; of Victoria herself; and of the Princess Sophia, her aged aunt. None of them, he assures me, say a word in public that he has not first approved.

James leant back in his padded chair; he was in his mid-thirties now and felt the need to sit comfortably, resting the stump of his missing leg where it would not ache. He steepled his fingers, seeking the exact words that would make his point while causing his elder brother the least possible offence. Robert was no longer fully in touch with Public Business, mostly by his own choice; he had no love for Mr Peel, the leader of the Tory Party, and had withdrawn from national political life as a result, but he was still a financial supporter of the Party. James was a Whig, by arrangement of the family so that they had a foot in both political camps, so very useful to their commercial interests!

Living out in the wilderness as you do, Robert, you will not be au fait with Town gossip. Mr John Conroy provides one of the chief topics for the scandalmongers, and for the more rational beings of our existence as well. Not to make too much of a performance, Robert, there are many doubts about him, relating to his financial and moral dealings with the womenfolk of the Royal Household. Whether he shares the bed of the Heir Apparent’s mother is unknown to me – and I do not especially care; what the Duchess does of her nights is entirely her business, in my opinion. What does concern me is that he is a man with a habit of running up substantial debts; even as a junior officer of the Artillery he was spendthrift, I am told. Now, it would seem, his old accounts have all been cleared and he is even more in the habit of spending wildly, and not on credit. I believe he has forked out on land and on the rebuilding of his manor in Berkshire and on his interests in North Wales, which are not small. He has some connection with Ireland as well, but the details are unclear. I do not know where his funds come from, but I certainly have grave doubts.

Robert was sufficiently awake to realise that the Home Office would have a network of informers, some of whom would be located in the City of London, in the major banks and financial institutions. If they did not know where Conroy’s money was coming from then there must be something peculiar in it.

Yes... I realise that he is not necessarily the most savoury of gentlemen, but, you know, James, to a great extent that makes him a better partner for us! He must be desperate to maintain his position and to ensure that he is not edged out by any newcomers. He is a vain man, that I know, and will not wish to be eclipsed by any would-be pretenders to the new Queen’s confidence. He will feel the need for strong support outside of the Court, and we are ideally placed to provide that, being landowners as well as known in the new industry.

Not me, Robert! King William is the last of the Hanoverians in the male line, and we will do very well without them and their ways. Conroy belongs to their age, to Silly Billy and Georgie-Porgy, not to the new era of probity that we may hope to see brought into being. I will have no part in dealings with the man. Have you spoken to Joseph or to Charlotte yet?

Robert had not; he had hoped that James would join him in persuading them of the wisdom of the new course.

No, Robert! Not to be mealy-mouthed about the matter, Conroy is, in my opinion, a cheat and a fraudster. He was also a coward as well, I would suggest. He was a soldier during the Wars, yet what campaigns did he grace with his presence, one might ask. None! He was the terror of Hyde Park, firing Royal Salutes in the most debonair fashion, but never managed to accompany a battery to the Peninsula or to Waterloo, far less crossing the sea to America! I will have no part of him!

The political influence of the Andrews family had been important to the deal that Robert had discussed with Conroy. Fortunately, he had not yet committed himself to the man and had made no suggestion of a date for their alliance to come into being.

Perhaps you might accompany me to a discussion in Lancashire with the other members of the family, James. The new railway makes it possible to travel there and back well inside the week.

James was most reluctant; amongst other factors, he had no love for the railways since his political patron, Mr Huskisson, had died under the wheels of the Rocket at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester a few years earlier.

I am busy in the office, Robert, trying to make sense of any number of reports on the upsurge of discontent among the people. Some of my informants are sure that we face bloody revolution; most say that there will be no more than noise – meetings and marches and little else; a few claim that there will be a swell of support for ‘democracy’, of all things! The real problem is, as always, that the sort of people who give information to the government are so untrustworthy in themselves! Some are simply in the pay of the manufacturers and landowners, and they tell us that the trades unions are all wicked, bloody-handed Reds; a few are no more than old women who see ‘Reds under the Beds’; others are stick in the mud diehards who firmly believe that the world was a far better place when they were younger; a number are deeply religious and know that any man who is not must be a servant of the Devil; a percentage comprises honest, intelligent and deeply concerned gentlemen who wish the best for the country and all of its people. Trying to discover which is which is no simple task. In the end any Home Secretary merely looks at the conflicting reports and discards those he disagrees with!

Robert, who had no experience of Public Office, was horrified.

Are you to say that the policies of government are made in ignorance, James?

Most certainly, Robert. The historians are the only people who know what is actually happening in this country, and they do not find out until fifty years after the event! Even then, they disagree with each other.

Then... what can government do?

Act honestly. Mind you, brother, my understanding of ‘honesty’ might well not be yours. We might disagree on what is right on an entirely legitimate basis, both of us being quite correct in our own minds. Lord Liverpool was an example – he never acted except from deeply held conviction and in the knowledge that he was right, and he damned nearly created a revolution in this country due to his pig-headed, purblind stupidity!

I thought Lord Liverpool to be an excellent Prime Minister, James!

He was. It was only his policies that were wrong.

Robert decided that he might have been wise to have kept clear of Whitehall; the place had obviously had a bad effect on poor James.

Will you come to Liverpool?

I suppose that I must, Robert – but only for a few days. I must be glad to see Joseph again. It is what, four years since he came to London last?

Yes, he was here in the year Thirty-Three, for part of the Season. His wife’s enthusiasm for things matriarchal has prevented further attendance, of course.

They chuckled.

Poor Joseph – he is like to rival the Stars! I fear he has to do no more than drop his breeches of an evening and his lady takes pregnant!

Six, is it not? I am afraid that I tend to lose count in such matters!

Nicely balanced, of course, three each of male and female!

Highly scientific, brother!

James, whose family had stopped, paused he rather hoped, at five, grinned happily. He had never understood his younger brother, had merely had a great affection for him; now he was pleased to discover that his vast intelligence still allowed him to be very ordinary in his everyday affairs.

He is also very rich, I believe, Robert. He will need to be to start all of those children in life.

Robert, with ten so far of his own in no fewer than five sets of twins, a cause of some amused notoriety in Society, winced sympathetically.

I suspect, though I am not sure, that he is making at least fifty thousand a year, James.

Then he is worth a million, in effect. How?

He has bought land in what were once out-of-the-way places – valleys and hillsides miles from any town, and mostly poor land for growing, but all with coal measures close to the surface, or with a rich deposit of iron. A short railway line and his barren moor becomes a rich mine! Add to that he has his manufacturies, mostly making for the railways and the steam engines that proliferate in the North Country. Additionally, and not unimportantly, he has steadfastly refused to purchase a landed estate. He has persuaded me that the money he might have spent on two or three thousands of acres, and the annual subsidy he must have made to those fields, is far better put to labour in his mines and workshops. He tells me that one thousand pounds invested in a coal mine will infallibly return him eight per centum!

James knew very little of such matters, but everyone was aware that two per centum was regarded as the normal for the Land.

But, Robert, with all of those children he must surely need his own acres! They must ride their ponies and later take their guns out for sport!

Perhaps. I suspect he means to bring them up in a different fashion to that which we regard as the right and proper way of things. I know that his eldest boy reads and writes well already, and is starting in the Mathematics, and he cannot be more than eight years of age!

James shook his head. At that age, and for the decade following, his sole interests had been the Army and then girls. He was not at all sure it was good for a boy to have his nose permanently in a book.

His next is much the same, I am told.

But, she is a girl, Robert!

As is our sister, Verity, of course!

She is a different kettle of fish, of course. A taking little thing and so very clever! We must all be so proud of her!

Robert laughed, agreeing but able to see the unconscious paradox in James’ words.

She will take up residence in Mount Street with her Mama next Season, James.

To make her come-out? She is young for that, surely.

Too young, but she will make the acquaintance of other schoolgirls who will be debutantes with her. Living in Norfolk so much she is removed from the general run of Society, as the Dowager is aware. She is also likely to be one of the better inlaid young ladies of her year and will be much courted. It will be as well if her head is unlikely to be turned by a degree of flattery new to her.

Not very likely, surely, Robert. That is one of the most level-headed young misses I have ever met. I could wish my own girls were like to her in that respect!

Robert stood to leave, commented that the office was rather stuffy and asked if it was not permitted to open the windows.

Perhaps gentlemen in the Public Service are not encouraged to take fresh air, James?

There is nothing fresh about this air, Robert. You must have noticed the whiff as you came along the street? It is far worse on this side of the building.

Have your cesspools not been emptied, James?

Not in the last century, I am given to understand, brother. The sewerage, such as was ever laid, has never functioned. I am told the pipes were buried on the flat because the buildings were too close to the Thames and too low-lying. As a result, nothing has ever flowed away, not in a hundred years or more, and the government may be said to be floating in a lake of human excrement. The same is the case for the whole of the lower parts of London – except for those houses built on a hill, every one of us is surrounded by our own waste. Of course, the Thames being tidal, the few sewers that exist and discharge into the River achieve very little – what goes out on the ebb tends to come back on the flow!

You are not exaggerating, James?

I may be understating the case, Robert. London smells in the winter and stinks in the summer, and it can only get worse. There are nearly two millions of people living in the Metropolis, Robert, and not one of them is well-served for water and sewerage, yet more people flock here every year.

Why does the government do nothing?

How, in all honesty, can it? It would cost vast sums, to be paid from the Exchequer. How can we levy taxes upon the people of York and Bristol and Liverpool and Edinburgh and spend them exclusively to the benefit of London? No decent government could do such a thing!

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They travelled to Liverpool and met the rest of the family, Robert uncomfortably aware that he might come to be regarded as foolish in his dealings with Mr Conroy.  He had known the man as something of an adventurer, but he had not seen him as a villain, which James seemed certain he was.

Sir Matthew Star, broader in the beam in middle-age but still with a nautical air about him, said that he had heard from contacts in Wales that Conroy was not loved in his estates there.

Very good at collecting what is due to him but remarkably slow in paying his bills, so I am told. We have interests there ourselves now, as you may know, Robert, and hear much of the gossip.

Robert was not aware of any Welsh venturing.

Slate, sir! We built carriers for the industry and then we provided a little of finance, a quarter share, that sort of thing, in quarries and an underground mine – and not unprofitable, too! Every roof in Lancashire is under slate now – how many thousands of tons that has been I know not, but very many, for sure.

All carried in our steamers, and moved on the railway, I presume, Matthew?

Most certainly, Robert, and more every year. I cannot imagine how many thousands of houses will be built this year in Lancashire, but the bulk of them will continue to call on us for their roofing. To return to the man Conroy, however, Robert, every story I hear of him concerns his dubious behaviour. He is a man of untrustworthy habits, to put it mildly, and I hear a whisper that he is increasingly desperate - he has been juggling his finances for some little time, robbing Peter to pay Paul as it were, and has come very close to the end of his tricks. He needs to find a rich new dupe, or so I understand.

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!

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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.

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They talked more after dinner each evening, the children retired in the care of their nurses; Verity, too old to be a child