Chapter Forty-Four
Over the next few days, Andrew visited the Doncaster Arms, the village alehouse, and the smithy, center of all gossip (since men had nothing to do but chat while waiting for their horse to be shoed), to see if the locals could tell him where he could put his hands on one of Trevithick’s Cornish Engines.
The news was discouraging. The inventor and engineer had left for Peru a few years earlier, and had yet to return to England.
He was hoping to make his fortune in mine-pumping there, but according to all reports, things were not going well.
Apparently, he had not even sent his wife money regularly.
Trevithick himself used to oversee the installation of his machines, and with him gone, his business in Britain had ground to a halt.
There were no Cornish Engines to be had.
A number of competitors had tried to take over the market, but they were much more expensive and no one locally had any experience of them.
If only Richard had listened to him years ago!
This bad news was mitigated, however, by a letter from Parsons who told him he had a buyer for the London townhouse, and his late lordship’s horses had been put up at Tattersall’s, where they were selling well.
Richard had always been a good judge of horseflesh.
The purchaser of the London townhouse was a Mr. Reginald Butterworth, a self-made man who owned a hat-making business near Manchester.
He had just returned after some months in Canada, where he had been developing an expanded network for the exportation of beaver pelts.
He came from near the town of Denton, but his wife now deemed this location too provincial. She had not accompanied him on his travels, and had spent the time reading modish magazines describing the dress and movements of the London ton. Now she felt ready for those elevated circles.
As soon as her husband returned, she exacted the promise that he would buy her a house in London.
Though thoroughly provincial himself, he thought his wife might be in the right of it.
London was where the money was, after all.
However, no man who has made as much money as he had was to be fooled by anything less than the best. He quickly recognized the Mayfair address of Doncaster House as one of the finest, he was impressed by the interior, and most of all, he liked the idea of living in a home formerly owned by an Earl.
Richard had never bought anything cheap.
His home was furnished from top to bottom with all that was newest and best. Whether it was always in the best of taste was another question: he favored massive gilded French pieces that ill accorded with the restrained Adams interior.
However, it was expensive, it had been bought by an Earl, and that was enough for Mr. Butterworth.
After some lively negotiations, Parsons was able to inform Andrew that the merchant would pay the fabulous sum of ￡10,000 for the hundred-year lease of the property, and ￡200 for the contents.
Having interrogated the grooms in Richard’s stables, and realizing that the late earl knew his stuff, he was also buying several of his horses to the tune of ￡300.
Furthermore, since his wife had no knowledge of hiring staff in London, he was prepared to retain the servants.
So impressed had Mrs. Butterworth been with the haughty demeanor of the housekeeper, who wore the fact that she had served an Earl like a cloak of office, that she would subsequently report to her friends back home that she was sure Queen Charlotte herself couldn’t be better served. In a word, everyone was satisfied.
This was extremely good news. It meant that together with the sale of the acreage, they would be able to pay back the first installment of the debt, and hopefully have enough over to pay for a steam pump.
But how to acquire a steam pump? Andrew could see himself riding all over the country in pursuit of this elusive machine.
He cursed. He had already been almost a month away from Cynthia and wanted to get back.
But without a pump, he could not fully exploit his land and make enough to repay the remaining installments of the loan.
Over the next couple of weeks, he rode all over the Fens seeing what more provident farmers had done with their property.
He saw winter wheat and fields of turnips already planted, while his own were barren. He was even more discouraged.
His sister in law had by now moved into the Dower House.
True to his word, Brummage had lit all the fires, and a team of men and women had removed the holland covers, taken down and beaten the bed and window draperies, dusted and polished the whole place, including the old plank floors, laid down the rolled-up rugs and put warming pans in the beds.
The Countess was delighted. She did not miss the gleaming mahogany and gold furniture with which her husband had filled Doncaster Park House, and moved happily into this old place with its oak settles, thick cushions and deep fireside chairs.
With the heavy woven draperies pulled shut over the casement windows, and the candles lit in the old wood-paneled rooms, nothing, she declared, could be more cozy.
Andrew was trying to decide what to do when he received a note from Mr. Brummage. Adam Bitterman, the farmer whose lands abutted the acreage that they were trying to sell, had a proposal to make to his lordship. Would he receive them the following morning at eleven?
Bitterman and his forebears had been born and raised in the Fens for many generations. His Viking ancestry was visible in his tall, spare figure. He was hardworking and ambitious and had been one of the first to invest in a Cornish Machine. He now had three.
“I heard you was looking to get your hands on a steam pump, m’lord,” he said, “and when Brummage come offering me to buy the lands what lies next to mine, I saw where we could do each other a bit of good. If you can let me have your fields for a good price, I can lend you my pumps in the spring.”
Andrew leaped at the suggestion. This was the solution to his problem.
They hammered out an agreement there and then, both sides willing to give a little, but equally determined not to come off the worse.
In the end, they reached an accord with which neither was a hundred percent satisfied, which a wise man once said is the essence of good compromise.