Nothing New on the Land (The Agricultural Lord Palfrey Book 3), page 7
‘I do not need money that badly.’
He formed the sentence in his head, knew it to be true. He was not to put the Palfrey name into that mire of hatred.
An hour saw him back in O’Rourke’s offices.
“As a matter of policy, O’Rourke, we shall not put Palfrey money into iron. A shipyard producing timber-hulled steamers for the furtherance of trade – by all means. But if we produce iron hulls, we shall inevitably wish to own our foundries, to protect quality, and that will lead us to buy coal mines to supply them. Inevitably, we shall expand into the new industries, and I do not want that. Lend to the North Country by all means, but ownership is to be avoided. I will be pleased to see our interests expanding into merchanting in the rural areas – I suspect far more corn will be grown over the next twenty years and that must be bought in and milled into flour and sent north to the hungry new towns. There will be profits there, not so great as the mines and mills may offer, but nonetheless substantial enough.”
O’Rourke was a Northerner, his father settling in Yorkshire after fleeing the politics of Ireland and it had seemed natural to him to look to the new industries for profit. Palfrey was by a long way his greatest client and would make him nine hundred of the thousand pounds he expected to earn that year.
“My lord, I am obedient to your command. I have a whisper, my lord, of a small stable of great horses, located in Northamptonshire, the owner becoming old and open to persuasion to sell. Would you wish me to pursue the possibility?”
“Most definitely, O’Rourke! I have it in mind to build a substantial stud of workhorses, of any and all of the greater breeds. The Palfrey name is much tarnished in the South Country, the previous lord, as you know, little more than a villain. To be the supplier of the best plough and dray horses must do us good by bringing us to the eye of every landowner and merchant in favourable fashion. It will cost money in the first years and I doubt it will ever break even financially, but the benefits will still be substantial.”
O’Rourke agreed. There were profits to be made that would not show in the accounts because they were not to be expressed in cash terms.
“How much of Palfrey’s funds are held in loans and shareholdings in the North Country, O’Rourke?”
They sat over the account books, drew up summaries of all they had at risk.
“It is a lot of money, my lord. We are looking at a little in excess of six hundred thousand pounds invested in our industries.”
“And a profit last year of forty thousands, O’Rourke. And last year was not a good year for trade. Add to that the profit taken in Calcutta, which is not small, and we are comfortable.”
“One might say that, my lord. We retain more than sixty thousands in Consols, my lord, buying when they are low, selling as they rise and producing a minor profit. Should we get out of Consols entirely? Government stock is unadventurous and rarely returns five percent even when managed carefully.”
“No. Keep us in Consols, to an extent. The holdings are known, O’Rourke. They should not be, but it is a matter of common knowledge in the City and in government that Palfrey places substantial sums for the benefit of the nation.”
“Ah! That I had not realised, my lord. Palfrey is sound and is committed to the nation. That may be worthwhile in itself.”
“It is. For sure. Not to be so much as hinted at, but I will not become a friend of the Prince Regent. I find him detestable. He will no doubt be inclined to complain of me to his Prime Minister. Was I an outsider entirely, then Lord Liverpool would have little respect for my wishes and needs. But I vote the right way in the Lords and I put some part of my fortune into Consols and I maintain stability in my part of the country. I am not important to his government, I could be sacrificed to keep Prinny complaisant, but there are others who are far less useful than me. If the need should arise, Lord Liverpool could call me to Downing Street and beg a favour of me – what I do not know, cannot guess – and the probability is high that I would oblige him. That all combines to make me valuable. It is worth putting a few tens of thousands into Consols.”
O’Rourke was impressed. He had not thought upon such a scale of influence.
“Did Wiggins make any mention of a pair of wicked moneylenders from the rookeries, O’Rourke? A nasty pair, better unnamed?”
“He did, my lord. He suggested they might be inclined to look favourably upon this office, though exactly why he did not say. He made it clear that he would never wish to call on them but that they believed they were under some slight obligation to him.”
“They were amazed, it would seem, when he treated them with scrupulous honesty. Lord Palfrey – my predecessor – had behaved badly to them. He had in fact acted criminally, to their horror. They believed that all felons should be like them, overtly villainous and carrying knives in the rookery. Wiggins behaved with honour – which is no surprise to either of us but disconcerted them. I believe they may conceive themselves to owe a debt of honour to us. Should they come your way, treat them with respect and, if necessary, refer them to me at Perry House. I do not wish to mix socially with them, they might however one day be useful to us.”
O’Rourke was uncertain about that; he was not in the habit of rubbing shoulders with gangland. If my lord wished him to, however, then so be it. He was my lord’s man.
Nat was pleased with the effect he had achieved. O’Rourke had had, even if he did not yet realise the fact, to make a choice. He could have refused to compromise his integrity by knowingly dealing with gutter criminals but he had chosen instead to follow my lord’s command. He had committed himself to the Palfrey banner, unknowingly perhaps, but irreversibly.
Nat returned to Perry House in a contented frame of mind. O’Rourke was his chief aide, vital to his prosperity. Now he was part of the clan, locked into the Palfrey interest.
“Samways, can we return to Dorset this week?”
“We could, certainly, my lord. I might prefer that we should wait a few days for tailor and bootmaker to deliver. There is a Concert of Ancient Music, my lord, on Friday next, which you might enjoy and the Opera House is to open on Saturday. A Mozart, I believe, my lord. It would be much to our convenience to return to the Hall on Tuesday next, my lord.”
“Is it convenable for me to be seen in public at such affairs, Samways?”
“Acceptable, my lord. The first three months of mourning have passed and you may attend public pleasures. Not to dance or dine as yet, of course, and dressed in blacks. It will show that you will not intend to become a recluse, my lord. That is not unimportant.”
That suggested that Samways wished him to be seen in public, that the two entertainments were more important than Scott and Lobb.
“Be so good as to procure tickets, Samways. I shall attend both evenings. Ancient Music, by the way – what is it?”
“Germans, my lord. Telemann and Old Bach, the father of London Bach.”
“Was he German? I had supposed him to be a Welshman.”
Samways lacked the military sense of humour. He winced.
“Recorder, flute, harpsichord, pianoforte, violin and viola, my lord, with, naturally, the ‘cello to guide all. There may be a viola da gamba as well, if you are fortunate. Old Bach can be truly beautiful, my lord, provided they choose with care. Telemann may be regarded as one of the first of the moderns, paving the way for Bach and his substantial family and from him Mozart and our current great man, Herr Beethoven.”
“I had not been aware you were of a musical bent, Samways.”
“I accompanied my previous master, my lord, to many a concert. I shall, with your permission, be with the servants at the rear of the concert hall, able to listen while I wait upon your needs.”
“The Opera as well?”
“If you please, my lord.”
It was a little old-fashioned to be accompanied to an evening of pleasure but many of the older men kept attendants. Nat was pleased to accommodate Samways in such fashion.
Nat had never come across the Bach Concerto for two violins, regarded his evening well spent purely for that. He made a note in his diary of hearing the music for the first time and how much he regretted that Agatha could not have been at his side – she would have delighted in the piece. He attended the Mozart in hope of equal pleasure, was not disappointed, deciding one could not reasonably ever be less than pleased by the young genius.
He hoped Samways had enjoyed his evenings equally.
He left London on the Tuesday morning, music still running through his mind, almost content for the first time, reflecting that everything must pass, even the sharpest grief losing its anguish eventually. He could not forget but memory could be less painful.
Chapter Six
“Corn prices are dropping, my lord. Shocking low. Wheat farmers are going to hurt, my lord.”
Moorman shook his head gloomily. He was persuaded that all other prices would fall in sympathy.
“You are talking futures, I presume, Moorman.”
“In part, my lord. Primarily the grains from this year’s harvest which are still coming to market, the big buyers taking a good few weeks to bring the loads into their granaries and thence to market. It seems apparent now that there has been a most successful harvest, while simultaneously, there is a downfall in trade. The combination is leading to a glut, and naturally to a fall in prices of a dramatic nature.”
“The workers of the North Country cannot object to a fall in the price of bread and beer both.”
“Those who have jobs still must be delighted, my lord. The downturn however has put many onto short hours and some few to unemployment. Even so, I suspect the fall in prices is relatively greater than the drop in wages.”
“It can only be a temporary phenomenon, Moorman. Fewer acres will go to corn next year as farmers respond to the fall in its price. The glut will be followed by a potential shortage, driving up the price.”
Moorman shook his head.
“One might think so, my lord. That, however, is to overestimate the ability of the farming population to respond to reality. It is not, my lord, natural, to cut one’s production of grains merely because they offer no profit. The course of Nature is inexorable. Wheat, barley, turnips – the three-year rotation which may not be interfered with. To grow a crop of beans or pease on wheatland is to be blasphemous. Even to leave the land fallow when it should be cropped is impious. We are having a sufficiency of trouble here persuading all of our tenants to shift their land to profitable uses, my lord. To bring wheat farmers even to consider the possibility of not sowing their fields to the proper crop is a Sisyphean task, and would require many years of persuasion. I will be amazed if so much as one acre in a hundred is changed merely because it is impossible to take a profit from it.”
“That is nonsensical, Moorman!”
“So it is, my lord. It is also the nature of farmers. Wheat prices have been high these past ten years and almost all wheat farmers will have money tucked away for a rainy day. They will use that to pay this year’s rents. Most will be able to cover next year as well. They will run through all of that money, bewailing the low prices, before they consider changing their habits. At the end of two years, knowing they cannot pay the third year’s rents, they will still plant wheat. Why? Because it makes sense that low prices must come to an end. They must rise again. By planting wheat they will be in a proper place to take advantage of the following year’s high prices.”
“That is insane!”
“So it is, my lord. They will demand a cut in Poor Rates. They will complain rents are too high. They will demand the government should pay them a subsidy. They will do anything other than blame their own pig-headed obstinacy!”
“What of the landlords?”
“They will stand in Lords and Commons and announce disaster in the fields. The government must accept that farmers cannot respond to the market. They alone of this country must be guaranteed a living irrespective of markets and prices. Although, I suspect that vicars of the Church of England suffer from the same delusion, thinking on it. Almost alone, farmers must be guaranteed a living in time of low prices.”
Nat was inclined to accept Moorman’s conclusions, having a little experience of the farming community’s capacity for self-delusion.
“That is unacceptable, Moorman. Luckily, it is also irrelevant to us, or mostly so. I must suspect that sales of cheese and cream and butter must fall in the local towns as trade declines and local folk have lower incomes, but we do not produce any great quantity of wheat and so are far less affected by the drop in prices. Cheese as well can sit in our storage for another year or two and come to no harm. It will merely grow stronger in flavour, in fact.”
Moorman was in full agreement, thought they must congratulate themselves on having avoided the delusion of wheat.
“Why do we have these downturns in trade, my lord?”
“Wholly unknown, Moorman. I have heard it said it is because we have great and unnatural booms on occasion, and that the path of economic life must compensate with falls at a later date. I suspect the problem just now relates to the late wars. They lasted so very long that they perverted the nature of the whole of our business. Nearly a half a million men taken out of ordinary production and set to bolster the ranks of Army and Navy, for an obvious example. Ironworks created whose sole function was to make muskets and cannon. Weavers who made uniforms for the Army can easily turn to broadcloth for civilian greatcoats and jackets, but the ironfounders have a less easy task in changing their ways. As we know, so many young men to be found new work, and having had no experience as apprentices or improvers and so almost wholly unskilled. What do we do with men who have not learned to use scythe and hoe and plough?”
It was a specific difficulty, Moorman now saw. He had not thought of farmhands as possessing skills, for learning them since boyhood, picking up the tools at their fathers’ side. But so many had gone to sea as boys or joined the Army very young, that they had not gone out to the fields part grown.
“Many of those we have sent out to America, my lord, will not possess the skills to create their own farms.”
Nat agreed, almost guiltily.
“They will have to apply the little they have learnt in the Army or at sea. I much fear they will have to pick up muskets and take to hunting for a living, out in the wild lands. Skins and furs and some little of meat to bring into the towns. I doubt they will be able to do a lot else. That is more than they could manage here, and they may be able to pick up more skills as they go. Cutting down trees from the vast forests of America must surely be within their powers. They may not be ideally suited to their new lives, but surely more so than if they remained here.”
“The wars lasted too long, my lord. Winning the war now may have left us worse off than if we had lost twenty years ago.”
Nat did not believe he could accept that proposition, not for the country as a whole.
“For me, personally, Moorman, the war did little other than good. There are a good few hundreds of men in my shoes, possibly some thousands when one makes allowance for the Navy as well. Youngsters of ability who have climbed in the world and now live as gentlemen who would otherwise have been discontented hinds are not few in number.”
“Some few of decayed gentlemen in their place, perhaps, my lord?”
They considered that and could not find an answer. They simply did not know if there were families from the gentry who had declined to lesser status.
“What does happen to those who can no longer maintain their status, Moorman? The two families locally who sold their lands to the Goulds and Pearces – what became of them?”
“One was of females only, the remaining menfolk dead in the wars. The Freeman family, that is, my lord. Six or seven sisters and cousins who received a thousand or two apiece and disappeared from our view – I do not know, my lord. They may have found husbands, shopkeepers and such, to whom a dowry of a thousand was attractive. They may simply have gone to a town and sunk from view there.”
“No longer gentlefolk, almost of a certainty, Moorman. What of the other?”
“Again female, a mother and three younger daughters and fifteen or so thousands in total. The lady would have an income of about five hundred pounds, too little to dower her girls, sufficient for them to live on in a large cottage on the outskirts of a small town. They would come to know the lesser professional men, perhaps. They might wed curates and schoolmasters and attorney’s clerks and live in genteel poverty. More like they would remain as spinster ladies, living together in some slight comfort, probably keeping cats.”
“Disappearing thus from the squirearchy, no longer part of the County. Replaced by the Pearces and, of course, Sir Angus. A process of change, even if we do not notice it. My barony after all is one of the less than a dozen that predate the Civil War. The nobility of England is essentially new-made. Old blood is not much to be found in this country. The old blood must die out, unnoticed, I imagine. Little regretted if too much is like the old lord!”
“The wars have made that change more visible, perhaps, my lord. The fall in wheat may accelerate the process again. Who is to know or say?”
Nat agreed – nothing was immutable. The world changed, like it or not.
“So, to deal with important matters, Moorman, will our people be able to pay their rents this coming quarter?”
“Most will, my lord. The new smallholders are all still on their starting, low payments and should be capable of meeting them. The bigger tenants will possibly face difficulties. Dash will have no difficulties, and he is the most important. The others may find themselves persuaded to change their ways, my lord. It will not be possible to reduce their rents, my lord – a shocking proposal, outrageous, indeed! However, there is no reason why payment might not be postponed. The estate might make a loan of the amount due, payable at five or ten years. In exchange, of course, our good farmers might pledge themselves to a crop of beans suitable for fodder for the great horses – to be bought in by the estate – or to a field of pease or of good clover hay in place of the barley they would have grown. Should you be willing to postpone the rents lawfully due, my lord, we would have a handle, one might say, suitable to bring the foolish to our ways.”
