Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
“What shall we do about Ipswich and Heevers?” Bernard asked, moving the coat stand from the corner of the room to a place about six feet from the office’s hearth.
He put his top hat on the highest hook, draped his greatcoat on the next hook down, and caught a familiar look of puzzlement on his oldest clerk’s face. “What have I done now, Kessler?”
“The, um, damp will drip on the carpet if you leave the stand there, sir.” Kessler was graying at the temples, passing from the prime of life into the sunset years, though he was spry, hardworking, and respected by his juniors.
His appearance was modest, neither tall nor short, neither fussy nor plain.
He attired himself much in the manner of a solicitor and knew more law off by heart than most solicitors could cite in a lifetime.
What defined the prime of a person’s life, anyway? “The carpet will be a bit damp,” Bernard said, “instead of the floor being damp. How is this a problem?”
“Not strictly a problem, sir, but anybody coming into your office will expect that stand to be in the corner, and there it is, like a tailor’s dummy, right in the center of the room.”
“In the center of the room, where the fire’s heat can actually do some good with my sodden garments. Shall I move the stand back to the corner and consign myself to wearing wet wool when I walk home?”
“You shall not.” Kessler linked his hands behind his back and cleared his throat. “You asked about Heevers and Ipswich.”
“Yes. They were glowering at each other across the clerks’ room, so I gather separating their desks has not calmed the hostilities.”
“Ipswich took a notion to use a penny whistle to aim spitballs at Heevers’s desk.
Heevers retaliated by purchasing two penny whistles.
The other clerks are spending more time placing bets and goading the combatants than working.
I would say separating Ipswich and Heevers has had the opposite of the intended effect, Mr. Huxley. I do apologize.”
Bernard gestured to the straight-backed chair opposite the desk. “Any suggestions?” Separating desks had been indirectly Kessler’s idea, though he’d hemmed and perhaps’ed and what-would-you-think-sir’d at such length, Bernard realized that the idea was supposed to appear as Bernard’s own.
“I could inquire if any other offices are hiring, sir, and send one of the boys to another post.”
The warring parties were nine and ten years old, both late to be starting on apprenticeships.
“Word would get around?” Bernard asked. When a curate had a penchant for drink or causing upset among the parishioners, when he was overly fond of the ladies or overly long-winded in the pulpit, word certainly got around.
“Most assuredly, sir. They are bright boys. They both have significant potential.” Kessler did not take the proffered seat, but braced a hand on the back, like a thespian posing for a soliloquy.
“Ipswich is still new to his post and feels himself something of an underdog, being the youngest clerk. Heevers sees his status as threatened by a younger boy who is nearly as quick, even if he’s not as experienced. ”
“And we cannot make one a bishop and the other a dean.” The Church knew a thing or two about productively channeling ambition. Give everybody a title—vestryman, deacon, chaplain, prebendary, prelate, canon—and give each man his own little fiefdom that might lead to a larger share of churchly glory.
In commerce, the titles were few—clerk, manager, director—and the opportunities for advancement fewer.
A hundred clerks knew that perhaps six of them, after years of toil, might become junior managers. Managers did not become directors, unless they married considerably up, looked the part, and offended no one over the course of decades.
“We are too aristocratic,” Bernard said. “Too set in our ways and concerned with hierarchy. I will consider the matter.”
Kessler sighed. “We could simply sack them, sir. I know you are reluctant to label young boys professional failures, but they refuse to give up their feud, and they are increasingly disruptive. His lordship might have some ideas. He dealt very well with the clerks.”
His lordship in this context would only ever be Lord Lorne, whom Bernard had grown up knowing as Cousin Cam. To the surprise of all concerned, Bernard and Cam were unrelated by blood.
“We will not trouble the baron over a trivial irritant,” Bernard said. “If they were choir boys, we could threaten each boy with a duet solo that involved a female partner of particularly dubious skill.”
“We’re to hire female clerks?” Kessler looked as if he had a megrim coming on, along with a gouty toe, a bout of melancholia, and an attack of nervous exhaustion.
“Females regularly occur in the clerking ranks on the Continent, Mr. Kessler. Commerce seems to weather the shock adequately in France and Germany.”
Kessler studied the wooden chair at some length.
“Meaning no disrespect, Mr. Huxley, the lot of young men you employ would not weather the shock. They would be so insulted, and so distracted, by the presence of females in the office that the little battle between Heevers and Ipswich would pale by comparison.”
Besides which, his lordship would never have done such a thing. Camden had sent his unruly younger clerks off to loiter on the docks of a morning, or in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour, and called it commercial reconnaissance.
“Let’s have the day’s latest correspondence, shall we, Kessler? I did not expect my outing to take quite so long, but needs must.”
Kessler sighed again, which he did as eloquently as a violinist plied his fiddle. Kessler’s sighs could convey relief, exasperation, acceptance, judgment… Many a curate could have learned the sighing art from Mr. Kessler.
Bernard dispatched the correspondence in less than two hours—he was getting better at it, and Kessler’s ability to follow guidance with little elaboration was improving as well.
“And we will both be home very nearly in time for supper for a change,” Bernard said, taking his dry greatcoat from the stand. A paper crackled in the pocket.
The few lines Bernard had jotted thereon were an address in France. “I almost forgot, Kessler. Please remind me that I’d like to pen an inquiry to a French distillery regarding some particularly fine cognac. Not urgent, but important.”
“After the morning mail and before nooning, then, sir?”
“Exactly. I am having lunch with His Grace tomorrow. Please assist me to be punctual.”
“Have you ever been late anywhere, sir?” Kessler removed his spectacles, folded them in the manner of a philosophically inclined headmaster, and let the question take on some subtle significance.
“I am certainly lagging in the matter of sorting out Ipswich and Heevers. Perhaps inspiration will come to me in the night.”
“We live in hope, sir. We live in hope.” Kessler bustled out, leaving assignments from the correspondence exercise for each clerk according to his ability and interest.
Bernard was enjoying a brisk stroll to the Lorne town house when it occurred to him that Lady Barclay might have some ideas for dealing with Heevers and Ipswich.
Her children were lively to the point of unruliness, but Jordy and Bridget got along well.
So well that when Bridget had told Jordy to put a book away, he’d done it.
Bernard tossed tuppence to the underfed crossing sweeper. “Good night, Enoch. Isn’t it time for you to go home to your supper?” As the weather had moderated, Enoch’s wardrobe had shifted from layers of rags bound around him with twine, to recognizable, if filthy, articles of clothing.
The boy ran a grubby finger under his nose and sniffed stoutly. “No going ’ome till the streets are quiet, Parson.” He held up one of the coins Bernard had given him. “I’ll eat good when I do, though!”
Probably a meat pie and tankard of watered ale. Not a bad meal. “Do you like your post, Enoch?”
Enoch surveyed the intersection, which was sadly devoid of horse droppings. “I like a clean street. If it wasn’t for us sweeps, London would be a muck pit. I don’t like being cold and wet nor hot and thirsty. I do like to eat.”
His assessment of his station bore no rancor. The glory of London mattered to him. The glory of Huxley and Company did not matter to Ipswich and Heevers. Their modest pay packets didn’t seem to matter to them either.
“Until tomorrow, Enoch. Don’t stay out too late.”
Enoch shook his head. “Right, Parson. Don’t you be reading your Bible until the small hours neither.”
“No worries there.”
By the time Bernard reached his front door, a slight drizzle had started up. Perhaps that would send Enoch home, or to the nearest church doorway, where he’d be permitted to lurk for at least a short time.
“How did he do it?” Gilchrist, given name Tansy, set down the tea tray with an air of subdued pique. “How did Mr. Huxley make the children clean up that entire mess?”
Tansy took the plain chair near the hearth, her way of maintaining standards against the gross presumption of being asked to sit and take a cup of tea with her employer.
The presumption was Sorcha’s, as was this small, informal parlor. She had chosen to take her tea in this room because it had no windows facing the street, and the walls and door were stout enough to ensure privacy.
“Mr. Huxley didn’t threaten them, not directly.” Sorcha poured two cups and drizzled honey in both before Tansy could object. “He did not wheedle. He did not try to order them about.” She put two squares of cinnamon shortbread on each plate.
“What does that leave? Trickery? Mr. Huxley is from Yorkshire. They have some strange notions there. Backward notions.”
Tansy was from Peeblesshire, but thanks to a father from the Isle of Mull, she was comfortable speaking the Erse. She was also patient beyond human comprehension and pretty in a comfortably plump, blond way.