Chapter twenty six: London home coming
London, Saturday the 7th October
"Mr. Gardiner…" said Charles while giving his senior partner his most flashing smile and bowing.
"Mr. Bingley…" answered Edward Gardiner while doing the same. "Didn't I already insist that Edward is now the way I'd like you to address me?"
"Indeed you did but as it is the young ambitious sprout I am continues to refuse to be too familiar with a man he profoundly admires!"
Gardiner shook his head and stepped forward.
Soon they were embracing each other.
"Glad to be back, son…" whispered Edward. "I see you've foreseen a lot of Gardiners coming back."
Charles stepped back and bowed in direction of his partner's family.
He got curtsies and bows in return.
"I was sure Mrs. Gardiner wouldn't let you go home alone. So I came with enough carriage to move the whole family and its luggage back home."
"How is London, Charles" asked Mrs. Gardiner.
"Slowly changing, Madam…" answered he. "And I must confess that I am one of those responsible for the changes. The sewers are developing quite nicely and we should be able to recover plastered streets within five or six months." His bright and luminous smile flashed at her. "I have even found a way to placate most of the vendors who were crying murder because the customers were no longer able to come to their shops."
Mr. Gardiner frowned at his partner.
That problem had been his main social fear for the last weeks. The huge civil engineering endeavors in London had forced quite a lot of shops to close their doors and wait for the end of the public works. And a shop keeper unable to greet customers would soon become a pauper.
"And how did you work out that miracle, young man" asked Mrs. Gardiner.
"I displaced them…" answered Charles with a smile. "Or at least we will displace them within the next month."
"Displace them and where are they going?"
"I rented –with a selling promise from Lebrun– all of London's remaining barracks and our work gangs are rebuilding them into…" he hesitated. "I call them 'Sies' the acronym for 'Sellers' Islands' where all vendors will be able to have a selling area made of three rooms, one to expose the wares, one to stock and/or repair and one to put a bed, a table and two chairs for those intend to live at their shop."
Mr. Gardiner nodded and smiled.
"And they accepted?"
"Not without grumbling but I uttered a few little falsehoods about the company being decided to fill up the empty areas with its own sellers, and soon they decided that they weren't really interested in waiting too long and getting the last little selling areas in the attics. So most of them are now helping the work crews to lay out and fit out their new shops… They have been a great help with solving practical problems like stock displacements and delivery. It should be quite an interesting new concept to have all different trades regrouped in one building…"
"Only one?"
"Yes and no" said Charles. "There will be seven 'Sies' in London but each of them will regroup a few sellers of each trade. The only trade which won't be dispatched everywhere is the trade of Goldsmith. All of London's Goldsmith asked to be regrouped in one huge –and secured–selling area in the old horse guards barracks…"
Mr. Gardiner could only laugh at those merchants wit.
"Best place in town in sight of the Palace and the nicest parks in town" whistled he. "I'm quite sure they will sell a great deal more than now."
He patted his junior partner on the shoulder and soon helped his wife to climb in the second carriage, the first having been invaded by his little pack of children.
"That's a great idea Charles. It was scarring me to see all those families losing their livelihood because of our work gangs. Now they'll probably get through that period without getting their fingers burned."
As soon as he was inside Charles leaned over and began to whisper.
"Some have even begun to –discreetly of course–discuss of ways to stay in the 'Sies' even after the completion of the sewer network. Demands are coming especially from those whose initial shop was not so well placed in town."
Mrs. Gardiner who was a woman and so much less romantic when it came to money asked the twenty thousand pounds question.
"And what will it cost the company?"
"Around twenty thousand pounds" said Charles with a smirk. "I know it's a huge sum but it's the price for a year in peace and without public unrest."
"That will cut our profit hugely" insisted Mrs. Gardiner.
"You must look at it as an investment, Mrs. Gardiner" answered Charles who had pondered that problem. "As I already mentioned it to your husband the concept seems to agree to most vendors. They won't abandon their own shops but most of them have envisioned staying in the 'Sies' to have a second selling area. Second selling area which is, often, better placed than their initial shop. And I was very adamant to note that if the concept was a success I would in the future fill the shops with Company sellers." He smiled at her. "So I'm quite sure that they will stay and that they'll accept to pay interesting rents in order to do just that!"
Mr. Gardiner looked at his wife.
"And we owe it to the people, dear. Even if we are not those who launched the sewer project we, the Company, are those who earn money out of it."
"If I remember well," insisted Mrs. Gardiner, "we don't earn such a huge sum out of these public works. We spend most of what the French government pays in wages and materials."
"You are right but after this year our work gangs will have the know-how to do it faster, cheaper and without causing as much trouble as in London. All towns in England will have to be equipped with these new sewers. And we will be those best suited to do the work. We will have work for the coming decades…"
Bingley coughed to get their attention.
"I already negotiated the sewer-building for thirty other towns in England and Lebrun accepted that we send a team to Paris to prepare a plan to equip the French Capitol with the same sewers than here…" He smiled. "And meanwhile I got the London barracks for less than a thousand pounds a year for the next thirty years. We will make a profit out of the 'Sies' within five years, the Company shops' profit not included."
Mr. Gardiner thanked his partner with a nod.
"And I suppose you've included that new concept in London's new districts?"
"Indeed, I have" agreed Charles. "We will build three original 'Sies' in South London. And for those we won't have to adapt old buildings to new uses. We will build original selling areas suited for the passage of a great number of customers and the delivery of merchandise. It will solve the problem we had about including shops in our living quarters. People will have to move around but they'll find everything at one place."
"We could include a theater or a museum" added Mrs. Gardiner. "So the maintenance would be on the company and the people would still be able to touch culture…"
"We could even sponsor our own theater troops" said Mr. Gardiner with a smile. "So I could choose my future mistresses without stepping out of th…"
He dodged adroitly his wife's purse and used Charles as a shield.
"Where have you lost your sense of humor, dear…" added he while dodging a few not well aimed attempts. "But that would cost quite a bunch of money, wouldn't it? Where have you lost your saving money drive, dear?"
"Not quite the same" countered Mrs. Gardiner leaning back in her seat and putting away her weapon of choice. "We have a duty toward the people we employ. I'd like to get their children not only education –which is an investment for the Company–but also culture –which would be an investment for the Country-. I really do believe that educated people are less intended to use violence to settle their arguments."
"You are as much a romantic as I, dear…"
"Perhaps but you know what I think of people who buy things in your warehouses for one shilling and who sell it to outsiders for a pound. For me they are robbers… They have stolen enough to went through a year of dire straits. The company shouldn't pay to allow them to go on stealing the poor."
Charles smiled at Mrs. Gardiner's favorite hobby-horse. She was much more prejudiced against shop keepers than… for instance against French invaders… Which was perhaps the thing he was very prejudiced against and not because they invaded his mother country.
Mrs. Gardiner felt immediately his mood swing.
"Charles immediately stop dwelling on lost occasions! It will only make you unhappy again."
"Sorry," smiled he. "But when I look at you bantering with your husband, I can't just stop thinking of what I lost."
"You'll find it with another partner" said Mr. Gardiner. "But only if you allow yourself to be happy again, Charles."
Charles nodded.
"I know, I know… But if it's an easy concept to understand, it's a very difficult feeling to accept."
He shook his head.
"I'm surmounting it! I really do, believe me; but with Kitty out of town it was so easy to think of the past and of what could have been." He made a face. "I know it's foolish but I review all my encounters with Jane and each time the signs were so obvious that she was having real feelings for me that I wonder why I choose not to see them."
Mr. Gardiner looked at his wife and sighed.
He had wanted to wait till they were comfortably seated somewhere at their Gracechurch street house but Charles' present mood forced him to act.
"That's enough, Charles. As you said it's easy also because Kitty is out of town. And since she wanted to stay with her sisters she won't be back for quite some time. So I've decided to send my most trusted partner to Cardiff to negotiate with the Welsh about business opportunities and, possibly, the founding of a Welsh Branch of the Company."
He smiled at Charles.
"The ship we came in returns there tomorrow and I've already booked a cabin for you and two of your most trusted deputies."
He saw Charles make a face but stopped him before he could protest.
"What's more, Charles, I'd like you, as soon as your Welsh business is closed, to go to Ireland and look there at those other business opportunities your family ties could open to us." He looked his young partner in the eyes. "I do believe that Kitty would welcome a trip back to Ireland –if the company's right–and that Mary would be willing to accept to chaperon the both of you while bringing Duroc's daughter back to her father."
Mrs. Gardiner smiled at Charles.
"I'm sure a few days in Kitty's company will erase that ugly mood you fell in because of being lonely. You'll see the past holds nothing the future can't overcome!"
"Georgie Boy, smile! You're the hero of the day." said Pitney Forks. "They believe in your fight and they believe you when you say that you have a winning strategy against the French…"
He laughed loudly.
"Men are so gullible creatures, aren't they?"
"Stop it, Pitney. They are listening."
"They are shouting like mad, nobody can hear what I say. Not even me…"
The 'Darcy Darcy' shouts were overwhelming and George was rather scared by the amount of noise.
"Don't shit yourself Georgie Boy," snickered Pitney. "There are no French in town today. What with their field exercises…"
"They do a lot of noise…"
"We are in a theater, Georgie Boy…" said Pitney. "And there is a special performance of 'Much ado about nothing', people in the surroundings aren't in the least surprised by the raucous. It's theater, Georgie, people laugh and shout at the theater!"
"Half of them are spies, I'm sure…"
"If it were the case you'd already be in jail."
Pitney made a gesture encompassing his surroundings.
"We're here and we're free. So stop to be ridiculous and go out and harangue them like the perfect gentleman you are."
Soon he was pushed out on the scene and his shoulders straightened themselves without his conscious will.
He stepped in the middle of the scene and his fist went high in the sky.
"Free England"
And hundreds of voices answered him.
"Free England!"
And his fears were gone. He was their leader, they wanted to hear his voice and his orders.
He basked in the feeling.
"Soon" said he with a voice he didn't recognize. "Soon we'll…"
Arthur Conway was angry, angry because the people around him were bringing the house down because of the shit that Darcy idiot was shouting.
Everything he was saying was clearly nonsense but those idiots clapping around him seemed not to grasp the truth. The French were here and what they had brought was much better than what had been before.
His wage was three times better than what he had earned five months before working as a peddler. Now he worked only ten hours a day, got two meals from his Boss and had been promised a three room home in south London as soon as the Company had finished building them.
With the old rulers he would still be starving and so would probably also his wife. Now they were all fed and he could save two shillings a week to buy clothes and a toy or two for the kids.
No, nobody in his right mind could wish to see Fat George and Mad Freddy coming back.
He sighed and decided to wait till the end of the piece.
Then he would discreetly go home like all these other conspirators.
But tomorrow he would speak with his squad leader in order to decide what to do.
And if it was necessary he would even testify against that bloody lying Darcy who was probably believing himself the future savior of England.
Now that he had tasted the flavor of freedom never again would he bow before fucking useless German bloodsucker.
Never again!