Absent any more pressing projects, I then applied myself to the entertainments on offer at my country home.
Mrs. Annesley had returned, Georgiana’s kittens had opened their eyes, and my sister seemed more complacent than I had seen her since the catastrophe of Ramsgate.We never spoke of Wickham, and I believed she had put both the man and her misjudgment of him in the past.
My sister, I observed with a tinge of pride, had within her a capacity similar to my own: that of long-suffering patience in the face of unpleasant circumstances—a stoicism, if you will, of which she was not fully aware. We were rich, but we were not immune to either grief or disappointment, and she had suffered her share of both. That said, I began to hope that, as time and distance did their work, she would regain some facet of a more joyful girlhood not entirely outgrown.
While I hoped for a longer childhood for my sister, I also opted to endow her with a little more worldly sense. With this in mind, I began to teach her to play cards in earnest. She knew the fundamentals of Whist, and I then introduced her to Quadrille. We forfeited increasingly higher stakes—not just imaginary gains and losses—but pound notes and, once, even a tower of golden guineas she had saved over time.
I did not believe Mrs. Annesley approved, but in the process of taking Georgiana’s money, I strove to educate her about the kinds of deceits, cheats, flatterers, and adventurers one might encounter, not only at a card table but also in life. Perhaps if I had done more in this vein, she might not have been such an easy target for Wickham’s oily compliments. And, perhaps even more to the point, had she suffered less awe of me, she might have brought to my notice any misgivings she might have had with regard to her corrupt companion, Mrs. Younge.
In any case, as Georgiana’s skills at both play and discernment gradually improved, I also used the time to practice a less patriarchal approach and even allowed a kitten or two to explore my lap. This earned me a tender look from her; I needed this after so often playing the role of Captain Sharp and reaping glares of resentment.
As night fell on the second Tuesday in February, my sister and I were again contesting our luck over a pile of valuable paper. We had agreed to play for the highest stakes yet, and after she lost all her money, I taught her how to write a note of hand, as well as accept one in play, and later how to collect upon one. When a game heats up to this point—when men will put up stakes they do not possess on expectation or as an act of desperation—there were many lessons to be learned about a person’s character.
“But how awkward to have to pay you on quarter day,” she remarked with a small frown. Not unlike me, she had an aversion to losing.
“Equally awkward for me to remind you when you forget,” I answered with a wink.
“What if I do not have what I owe you on the day?”
“You must sell something of sufficient value to pay your debts. Or you might steal it, or worse, write out another note of hand and try your luck at Faro in a gaming house in town in hopes of recovering what you have lost.”
Georgiana considered this jest seriously. “Why would I gamble more when I do not have the knack of winning?”
“That is the lure of speculation, love. Know how to engage in it, and master it for the sole purpose of never getting caught in its hopeless net. Now, for the next game, what will you wager? A basket of kittens?”
“Never!” she cried with a rare laugh.
We did not get a chance to start another game for kittens or notes of hand or my mother’s old jewels, for at that moment, the butler announced the arrival of Sir Hugh.
I met the squire in my study as was his wish, and without further preliminaries, he stated his purpose.
“Arneson just returned from Yorkshire and said there is talk at the posting houses of a band of roughs making their way south to escape the admiralty’s press gangs.”
“I am not inclined to believe the navy would cast its net as far as Sheffield.”
“The admiralty is paying a bounty. They intend to launch the Blue squadron a month from now.”
“And we are beset by these rumors of criminal gangs descending upon us from all directions twice a year.”
“It is, as you say, likely nothing.”
“In any case, I thank you for coming. I shall alert my people to be vigilant. What of the constable?”
“I am on my way to him now.”
As I walked Sir Hugh to the door, we spoke a little more about the information provided by Mr. Arneson, who owned the local carrier for limestone and shale. We commiserated on the man’s recent reversals, for he had suffered some loss of business with the mine closure, and before that, he had been duped by George Wickham into a scheme of investment in Canadian timber. Needless to say, the only investment Arneson made was in lining the scoundrel’s pockets before he absconded.
“What was Arneson doing in Sheffield?” I asked, thinking about the man’s dented fortune and hoping he had not gone the way of the desperate speculators I had just discussed with my sister.
“Trying to raise capital to keep himself afloat, I imagine.”
We canvassed the subject of our mutual contacts in Yorkshire who might be of help to the man before again touching on the purpose of the squire’s call and the increasing restlessness of men in search of work.
I shook Sir Hugh’s hand in cordial appreciation for the news and began to climb the stairs to return to my sister. As I went, I mulled over his report. Even if these gangs of thieves, or what my cousin called “roundhouse rats,” were indeed headed toward Lambton, they would not stay. The village was too small to attract men who require crowds to scrabble out their living and slums in which to hide. They were likely making for Nottingham and would scuttle through the village at night, stealing whatever they—
I stopped cold and in mid-step. They were seen traveling down from Sheffield and would scuttle through Lambton from the north, passing directly by Mrs. Jennings’s house! That house, sitting unprotected and exposed on one side, would be the first they encountered as they made their way down the high street.
“Parker!” I roared.
