The small inn at Covent Garden sat next to a pub, a quiet place to look over the information and discover what prompted Manners to send an experienced soldier, rather than a clerk up to a seemingly irrelevant post in the middle of nowhere. After the change in my plans, I did not have the patience. Seeking distraction, I turned north and walked along the Strand. Fewer bonfires lit the path. Oil lamps had replaced the old method of lighting the streets, the neighbourhood wealthy enough to afford such a luxury. I would admit only to myself at having a small amount of curiosity for my uncle’s well being. Through old friends, I knew his health was as robust as ever and he had made several changes at Pendomer House, such as having water piped in. He enjoyed keeping up with the latest innovations. It was the only topic we ever agreed upon, the improvement of man by way of science.
A string of tutors in my early childhood had taught me of my family’s fortunes after the Civil War ended. Several of the great families began building large houses along the Thames and my grandfather, the fourth Baron Pendomer, would be no exception. He built Pendomer House to the highest extent his purse would allow, almost falling into total financial ruin several times and eventually dying in debt.
My first memory of the house was as a boy arriving in a carriage along with my tutor and nanny, for my first grown-up Christmas with my absent uncle. The light shining from the windows, as it presently shone in the darkness, caught my imagination, along with the immaculate façade, the servants rushed to the coach. I slipped and skinned both my knees, tearing my new silk breeches while running along the riverfront terrace. Apparently modelled after the one commissioned by Charles I’s, dowager queen at Somerset House. My nanny reminded me repeatedly of the expense of the stone, carted all the way from our mines in eastern Wales. At the time I was much more interested in how the stone might be quarried. How the mechanics of the carts worked for loading and carrying. She did not know and rapped my knuckles for impertinence.
I watched from my position further down the strand, as carriages full of guests began lining the small drive. Jostling for position as their occupants unloaded, checking wigs and dresses before stepping through the marble archway for an early dinner at Baron Pendomer’s expense before heading to their next evening’s entertainment. In the years I spent under my uncle’s care, I always remained here. The outsider peering into the position I would one day occupy. Viewing it neither with suspicion or jealousy, only as I do now, as a burden, the weight of my new orders suddenly felt much lighter, my trials in the New World a test of my fortitude. As I had so many years ago, I turned away from Pendomer House. Away from my uncle and his aristocratic presumptions for my life, and walked unhurriedly further up the Strand. I paced through Temple, where the last vestiges of bewigged lawyers appeared harried and over-worked. Up along Fleet Street, wider than many of the spidery lanes and thus full of traffic until the London Wall suddenly appears.
I spotted Gresham College, in Bishopsgate, where I spent many a fine evening along with other men and a few women, delving into the unexplained. Who enjoyed the art of argument over questions of formulae and mathematics. In short, a bastion of scientific learning and exploration. I received the Royal Society papers from the college while away in the New World. Even making several contributions to their study of fauna and animal behaviour.
I walked up the steps, and a doorman dressed in the familiar College livery of burgundy and gold opened the door. After a moment’s hesitation, he spoke with a broad cockney accent. “My lord, the lectures are full, best be about your business someplace else.”
I scratched the stubble on my head with some bemusement and looked down at my worn breeches and stained stockings. My boots impeccably shined to a glossy finish, in contrast my tightly buttoned frock coat worn around the edges. Incredulous, I stood with my mouth open for a minute.
“The policy of this College is to give entrance to every person seeking knowledge of science and philosophy, though I have spent a long sojourn away from the capital I cannot believe the hospitality of this institution changed to such a degree as to refuse my entrance.” Though disinherited, I was an heir to a Baron.
The wiry man used his body to prevent further intrusion and his voice became indignant. “Listen here, you. I can tell who’s supposed to be in here with the rest of the fancy, and who belongs out there, in the streets, and you do not belong here.” He tried to shut the door further and I wedged a boot between it and the doorway.
“I fully understand the position you have taken over my lack of apparent qualifications to enter this building, I have not spared the time to visit a tailor nor a wigmaker, I am newly arrived from Boston and have cause to meet with Mr Wick, I am sure he is haunting the halls this evening.” I kept the reasons behind my lack of wig to myself, being because I hated them, and my shaved head, the results of my effort to put an end to the louse infestations due to my imprisonment.
The other man’s eyes grew dim for an instant. The Londoner’s natural belief in his existence being higher than any colonial came to my aid. Wedging my thigh and some of my upper body through the portal I suddenly heard my name shouted from the interior of the building and lifted my chin in surprise. Mr Wick’s green frock flying out behind him to reveal a pink waistcoat, never one to disappointment his tailor. He looked similar to a fashion plate come to life in the wood panelled corridors of the College.
“My boy! My dearest Esmond, you are returned to us at last!” The shout brought bewigged heads from out of more than a few doors to investigate the cause of the disturbance. Wick ignored the shushing and, coming to an abrupt halt, he hugged me to his breast as if I were still a child. I stood taller than him these days. Even in his heeled, buckled shoes, his wig tickled my nose. I sneezed on the powder he used to keep it fresh from lice.
The small doorman took my acceptance by one of the oldest members of the Royal Society as an indication of previously unknown self-worth and retreated back to his seat by the doorway. Where he reigned, supremely confident in his chosen occupation.
Mr Wick stepped back and I used the freedom to take a deep breath. “Mr Wick.” I sketched as good a bow as any soldier might. “It gladdens me to see you looking so well, and sprightly, may I add.” I clapped the older man on the arm.
Feigning a wince, he smiled back at me. “Not as firm by half as when you last saw me,” sobering, the older man studied the lines of my face. I knew well the changes he would see and watched as he filed them away in his great brain, corridors of memory. “I hoped you would come to see me in Aldersgate, we are well met here. They are conducting an experiment using a microscope to study the single-celled organisms of Antoine van Leeuwenhoek. He is giving a discussion on the matter, are you interested in joining?”
I would have been interested in listening to the lecture as I missed him when attending classes at Cambridge, but I looked down at my attire and my lack of preparation would only embarrass me. I began to make my excuses but the old man already guessed my thoughts. “No need to rush into the fray, he will be around in the future. I am sure. He is considered a valuable member of the College and you can read of his lecture and findings in the papers.” He squeezed my shoulder, assuring himself of my physical presence. “Why don’t we walk around the corner for a dinner? The Hollybush does a decent turkey pie.”
Mr Wick chatted amiably on the latest news concerning the Royal Society. Though I read the papers when I eventually received them in the New World, some of the most interesting happenings were between members, rather than their experiments. “And Mr Cotswald replied, he wished he had never taken Jenkins as his partner in the experiment and he would never have him along one of his specimen-gathering walks again, as he is a rogue of the worst sort! I would not believe it myself dear boy, if I had not heard the words straight from his mouth. Well, it’s all a sorry affair as now the two are arguing over who made the mineral discovery, as it is worth some money to the finder.”
After ordering two cups of Northdown Ale and Wick being disappointed over the turkey pie being finished. We decided to have the beef and cabbage instead. We sat in a relatively quiet corner of the smoky pub. “I am sorry to hear of Mr Cotswald’s troubles. He was a nice man when I knew him ten years ago. Unfortunately I cannot say anything on this Jenkins, having never met him.”
“Right, right,” Wicks took a deep drink and studied me over the rim of his clay cup. “I am sure you have no interest in all these goings on.” He smiled with relief. “Now you are home, you might want to have a man take over your affairs, mine has done as good a job as any. Your stipend from you late parents’ estate still gives you five hundred Sterling a year. My man of affair’s says you hardly use any of it, and you might presently consider a reconciliation with your uncle.”
Sensing the hesitation in his voice, I carefully constructed a firm yet truthful reply. “You have mentioned your hopes in letters you sent and you already know my answer. He made his choice and I made mine. I want to be free to choose my own path in life, not the one he has arranged, as you said, I do fine on my stipend and I have my army pay, such as it is, to keep me.”
Wick’s brow crumpled in thought. “The last letter from you,” his hands shook, “full of despair, self-hatred. I worried for your state of mind, pondered over the words of comfort, you clearly stated your intentions to sail home and sell your commission. Your time in the army finished, your service to our country at an end, has there been a change?”
“Your old friend, Colonel Manners, used a persuasive argument to dissuade me from selling my commission.” For the first time I pointed to the satchel sitting on the table. “I have an assignment and I will be leaving on the morrow for Scotland. I am sorry this will have to be a short visit.” The frown on the old man’s face made me put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
To my surprise the old man began to cry, a few tears tracked their way down his cheeks before a flood erupted. Astonished, I searched through my pockets for a kerchief. Fortunately, Wick produced one at the ready, and sobbed into it a few times. Between attempts to clear his blocked nose he mumbled. “I wish I had never sent you to Colonel Manners. If I had known I would not see you for ten long years, well, I never would have helped you. I would have sent you straight back to your uncle. Some days I think your father watches from the grave and he hates me.”
“Mr Wick, you have always been a valuable friend to me, the best a lonely boy could ever want.” Wick looked from behind the wet rag to study may face. “I would never even know my parents if not for your stories. You know my uncle never spoke of them, and my father was a soldier. He would have been proud to have me follow him to the regiment.” I tried to reassure the old man. He carried a heavy burden. He introduced my beautiful, independent and well-dowered mother to his friend, a penniless soldier, working his way through the ranks of the army. He helped them marry in secret and ride the storm of my uncle and society’s disapproval. “You are our family’s saviour, I think, we all must come to you for help out of some trouble or another. I would have joined the army with or without your help. You gave me the opportunity to train as an officer rather than start as a foot soldier, much more dangerous in these tumultuous times.”
Wick secreted the rag into one of his pockets and took another long pull from his cup, finishing the ale and signalling for another. “Still, I know you believe your mind to be set on the matter, however a reconciliation with your uncle will set give you good stead with the rest of society. You would be welcome at court, along with all the privileges, even take a seat in the Lords. As a boy you wanted to change things.”
Finishing the rest of my ale, I handed the serving girl the empty cup. “When young, I wanted a great many things. I wanted a family. I wanted to take apart the great steam engine I saw at the Royal Exhibition in order to find out how it worked. I wanted to be a good nephew,” sighing heavily into my second cup. “None of those things, I am disappointed to say, have come to pass.”
Face lighting up, Wick leaned forward. “Here you have a chance to do all those things in one!” He carried on excitedly, not even seeing me anymore, completely absorbed in his own cleverness at finding a solution to what he believed were my problems. “You only need to reconcile with the Baron, it might take some prostrating on your part. You will be a good nephew again. I might be able to find the plans for a steam engine. I will ask around and you can build your own, think of the lecture you could give at the Royal Society. All you need do to rectify the first is get married, it is well past the time for a young man such as yourself to find himself a woman.”
Placing the clay cup down with enough force for a good measure of the contents to spill around the lip. I stared at Wick. “I had a good woman. I had a wife, she is dead, though not be my hands, by my actions and surely by the actions of the Boston Militia.”
Wick made to protest, to placate. “None reading your letters would ever doubt you loved the girl, Esmond. It rang out in the words you used to describe her, the everyday tasks she accomplished. Your marriage could never have worked. She was a savage. You could not have brought her home with you and you could not marry under the laws of the Church, only some pagan ritual.” The last words delivered with a squeak.
My temper, ever at the surface since the death of my wife, boiled over onto the old man. “Native she may have been, seen as a savage by you perhaps, in every bone of her body she was steadfast. She was loyal and she was carrying my child.” The last came out in a whisper. Wick’s expression of horror either reflected my anger or my admission. I did not care. “She and the child were meant to be the start of my family and now she is dead. I suggest you make peace with this before you find my direction again.”