The Six Jolly Sea-Salt Fishermen in Holywell Street was an ugly tavern and peculiarly ill-named. It was a cramped, narrow building blackened by soot and standing at the dirtiest corner of the street between two perpetually steaming piles of rubbish and manure. Being more than a quarter of a mile from the banks of the Thames it had never served any fishermen in the whole of its existence, sea-salt or otherwise. And if by chance one had ever strayed into its musty interior he would have been hard put to it to be jolly, for the place was low-ceilinged, ill-ventilated, dark and dirty, in fact more like a dungeon than the ‘place of public recreation and refreshment’ that it claimed to be.
However, it suited Mr Hugh Jernegan’s present purpose to perfection. None of his colleagues would have dreamed of looking for him in such a place and he and Mr Snipe, having hidden themselves in the smoke of the chimney corner among the pewter pots and the fire irons and several broken baskets full of sea-coal and flotsam, could speak as freely as their natures would allow. For what was soon to be said or hinted at was fraught with danger for both of them and it was imperative that they shouldn’t be overheard.
The time had come for Mr Edward Easter to remove his troublesome cousin from the firm and make a play for his own rightful position in it, which was, of course, as managing director and eventual owner, and then, and this was far more important, to instal the first full management committee with voting rights for every member and Mr Jernegan himself as chairman. There would be no more nonsense then, no more petticoat government, no more interlopers, no more selling of disreputable newspapers like that deplorable Northern Star. No, no. The firm would have tone. That’s what it would have. Tone. And high time too.
Mr Edward was content to let matters take what he called ‘their natural course’. If you ever heard of anything so feeble!
‘Ordering all those books could be the end of her,’ he’d explained. ‘All that work! Think of it! She’ll find she’s bitten off more than she can chew.’
Mr Maycock hoped so, spluttering his enthusiasm.
But Mr Jernegan meant to make sure of it. He’d always known that what they needed to frighten the lady away was a nice juicy little scandal. And on the day Mr Edward introduced him to Mr Snipe and his ‘delectable publications’ he knew how it could be brought about.
‘It has always been my opinion,’ he was saying, peering through the smoke that was billowing from the fire, ‘that members of the Society for the Suppression of Vice have no conception at all of the nature of art and the artist. No conception at all.’
‘None,’ Mr Snipe agreed, picking the bones from the bloater that Mr Jernegan had so kindly provided for him.
‘Nor of the perfectly natural desires and inclinations of mankind, which we all share to a greater or lesser degree.’
‘They are most of them women, you see, sir, which don’t exactly predispose them to such intelligence. More’s the pity.’
‘Quite,’ Mr Jernegan said. ‘Take The Doors of Delight, for example. An exquisite book. One might almost say uplifting, might one not?’
‘My sentiments entirely. Would that more gentlemen could be uplifted by it. But that is not the way of things, sir, as well we know. It ain’t the way of things at all. There’s gauntlets to be run and prying eyes to be avoided. It ain’t a book to sell by daylight.’
‘But if it were,’ Mr Jernegan pressed, seeing an advantage, ‘you would be happy to sell it, I presume.’
‘A hypothetical supposition, sir, given the state of the opposition. Mr Walker’s premises were raided only last week and all his stock impounded to be burned, and a finer set of prints a gentleman couldn’t hope to find anywhere in the kingdom.’
‘A crying shame, sir. It grieves me to hear it.’
They devoured their bloaters for a few seconds, as the smuts blew up from the fire to settle like flakes of black snow on their heads and shoulders and all over the table, bloaters, bread and butter, porter and all. Then Mr Jernegan tried again.
‘I have often wondered how many copies of a book such as The Doors of Delight would sell.’
‘Sufficient, I daresay.’
‘Ah, but that would depend upon whose definition of the word “sufficient” you employed, would it not?’
‘Aye. It would.’
‘I would be interested to know what number you would consider sufficient, sir.’
‘Why, the number I could sell, I daresay.’
‘Which would be …?’ Mr Jernegan prompted.
‘It would vary according.’
‘To …?’ Devil take the man! There was no need to be quite so circumspect.
‘The weather,’ Mr Snipe said blandly. ‘The time of year. The number of gentlemen who required it.’
‘And how many might that be?’
‘Could be ten, could be twenty, could be none at all. There’s no way of knowing.’
Information at last! ‘But if there were some way of knowing, then you would welcome it, I daresay.’
Mr Snipe looked up from the mangled spine of his fish and regarded his host with a speculative eye. ‘You will allow me to make so bold as to ask, sir,’ he said, ‘where this conversation might be leading us. Not that I would wish it to lead us anywhere you understand, but there is a certain import to it, which don’t escape my notice.’
‘Would it surprise you to hear that it might be leading to a possible business proposition?’
‘I am not in the business of being surprised,’ Mr Snipe said. ‘That would hardly be to my advantage if you take my meaning. What manner of business proposition was it you had in mind, sir?’
Now it was Mr Jernegan’s turn to be cagey. Sounding out the waters was one thing, setting sail in them quite another, even to catch this particular fish in this particularly fishy inn.
‘Well now, as to that,’ he said, looking Mr Snipe boldly in the eye so as to display his honesty, ‘this is all at a most tentative stage at present, as I am sure you will understand.’
‘Tentative is my middle name, sir.’
‘Quite. Oh quite.’
‘Howsomever, you did have some proposition in mind, I daresay, however tentative. Was it another customer, perhaps, a gentleman, shall we say, too shy to make the first advance?’
‘It was too good an opening to ignore. ‘Several gentlemen, I do believe.’
‘In London or further afield?’
‘In London to start with. Further afield later.’ He had weighed anchor. Now what would happen, would happen.
‘And how many gentlemen would there be, would you say?’
‘To be plain with you,’ Mr Jernegan said, giving his honest stare again, ‘and it is always best to be plain, is it not, I believe the time is approaching when a certain bookseller and newsagent, well known to me but which I am not in a position to name as yet, as you will understand, well then, this bookseller and newsagent might be prepared to consider selling from the list of a publisher such as yourself.’
‘You don’t say so, sir.’
‘I do.’
‘Would this bookseller and newsagent, whom we would not name of course, not be afraid of the Society we were speaking of earlier, if you take my meaning?’
‘With an established and discreet clientele there is less risk, is there not?’
‘That is so, if the clientele are well known to the seller, not otherwise.’
‘Oh, I think I could assure you on that point. The clientele would be very well known, and the sale discreet. We would not be contemplating such an arrangement were there to be any real risk attached to it, now would we? I ask you as a gentleman of sensibility.’
‘You say not,’ Mr Snipe admitted.
‘Then I may take it, that should the bookseller and newsagent be prepared to sell some of your publications in some of their shops under the most discreet conditions, you would not be averse to the arrangement.’
‘If the price were right and discretion guaranteed, it could prove to be a profitable transaction for both parties.’
‘As I surmised, sir. As I surmised.’ The pot-boy was lurking among the smoke clouds in case they meant to give him another order. ‘Brandy to celebrate our understanding, I think, sir.’
‘How long would it be before this company we spoke of required a sight of my list?’ Mr Snipe asked as the pot-boy dissolved into the darker recesses.
‘Some weeks,’ Mr Jernegan said vaguely. ‘After Christmas certainly. It ain’t a thing to rush, you’ll agree. And to tell ‘ee true, the bookselling side of the business is only just established.’
‘Aye,’ Mr Snipe said. ‘I have seen the present stock in the Fleet Street shop.’ His face was bland in the firelight.
‘Meantime I daresay you could provide me with one of your more artistic publications. The Goddesses of Greece, for example.’
‘I could.’
‘Then pray do, sir, and I will send one of our representatives to see you upon some future date.’
‘Aye. There is no harm in that.’
He seemed cautious but the hook was baited. Now to enlist the help of Mr Maycock, who would be quite the most suitable representative to send, and to persuade Mr Edward to sway the December meeting.
It turned out to be far more difficult than he had imagined. For Mr Maycock was in an intransigent mood, questioning everything, and spraying like a watering can.
When Mr Jernegan told him that he’d discovered some rather interesting books that he thought the company ought to offer, and that he hoped Mr Edward would suggest their sale to Mrs Henry, he began to complain at once.
‘We are all having to sell enough books as it is,’ he grumbled, ‘without offering her more.’
‘I told you,’ Edward explained patiently. ‘If we overburden her, she will be forced to resign.’
‘Or take on two more secretaries. That’s what she’ll do. That’s my opinion.’
‘No,’ Edward insisted, using his duster, ‘she won’t. She likes to be her own boss and make her own decisions. You know that. So that is how we will catch her. Hoist by her own petard.’
‘She ain’t a mouse, dammit,’ Mr Maycock grumbled. ‘She’s a woman grown and quite sharp enough to see through a trick.’
‘Now come,’ Edward said. ‘We are not out to trick her, as you put it.’
‘Are we not?’ Mr Jernegan said, from his seat beside the window. ‘Well now, I rather thought we were.’
‘And what sort of trick did you imagine we were planning, Mr Jernegan?’ Edward asked, speaking slowly so as to give them both time to prepare themselves for the next stage of this conversation, wherever it might take them, for he could see that Mr Jernegan was plotting something, and the knowledge excited him.
‘We ain’t playing tricks at all,’ Mr Maycock said, ‘or you may count me out of it.’
‘I had been considering the possibility of a little, shall we say, scandal?’ Mr Jernegan said, gazing out of the window at the wintry Strand below him.
‘There is risk to scandal,’ Edward said, watching both his allies carefully.
‘Then let us have no part of it,’ Mr Maycock said, and he left his seat beside Edward’s desk and went to sit beside the fire, as if he were distancing himself from the discussion.
‘If we play for high stakes,’ Mr Jernegan said, ‘there are bound to be risks involved, ain’t that so? And I assume we play for very high stakes.’
‘High enough,’ Edward said, very coolly. ‘Voting rights for your committee for example.’
‘Voting rights for our committee with Mr Edward Easter as director of the company and myself as chairman?’
‘That would seem a happy working relationship.’
‘Then perhaps the time has come to talk of ways and means, Mr Edward.’
‘What do you have in mind, Mr Jernegan?’
‘I think it would be good sport to tease Mrs Henry into accepting one of Mr Snipe’s publications,’ Mr Jernegan said.
‘Who’s Mr Snipe?’ Mr Maycock said suspiciously.
But Edward let out his breath in a whistle of surprise and admiration. ‘Could we do it?’ he asked.
‘Mr Snipe is agreeable to providing the books,’ Mr Jernegan said, ‘which is a start, you’ll allow. Now all we have to do is to persuade the committee to accept – shall we say – artistic books in addition to those we sell already, and to find some way of teasing Mrs Henry into doing what we wanted, which shouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility. I do believe …’
‘Who is Mr Snipe?’ Mr Maycock worried.
‘He’s a publisher,’ Mr Jernegan said, ‘some of whose books contain – um – illustrations that would make some people complain sufficient to put Mrs Henry into an embarrassing position, if they knew she’d took ‘em, which we could make sure they did, if you take my meaning.’
‘Naked women, you mean?’ Mr Maycock said, lips a-wobble.
‘Artistic studies,’ Mr Jernegan corrected.
‘She wouldn’t accept ‘em,’ Mr Maycock said. ‘Never in a thousand years. She reads every single book. I’ve seen her do it. And I hope you don’t imagine we could ever sell ‘em, Mr Jernegan. Not naked women. There’d be the very devil of a row if we did that.’
‘Oh no, no, no,’ Mr Jernegan assured. ‘We wouldn’t sell ‘em. Dear me no, Mr Maycock, there’d be no need for that. All we’d need to do is order ’em, once we’ve teased Mrs Henry into accepting ‘em. In fact, sir, if it worries you, you could be the man responsible for handling the order, could he not Mr Edward? And then you would be quite sure no harm could come of it.’
That seemed an admirable plan to both his listeners, although Edward was only giving part of his attention to it because he was busy plotting how to persuade his cousin into accepting the books in the first place.
‘If we were to arrange matters,’ he said, thinking aloud, ‘so that she had scores of new books to consider and all at once, what’s more, she wouldn’t be able to look at them all, let alone read them. We could urge all the others to ply her with books, too. That’s how it could be done, Mr Jernegan. With sustained pressure, who knows what we might achieve. Oh, it’s a capital idea. I think we should do it.’ It would just serve her right for pushing herself into the firm, where she had no business to be.
‘And here’s the meeting tomorrow,’ Mr Jernegan pointed out, ‘come just at the right time for us to make a start.’
‘Leave the meeting to me,’ Edward said, happily confident. ‘I’ll sway ‘em, you just see if I don’t.’
It was a very easy meeting to sway, for all the members were in congratulatory humour and Nan was in a rush to have the whole thing over and done with so that she could start her long journey back to Westmoreland with Mr Brougham.
Caroline started the proceedings by serving them all champagne, ‘to mark our success’ and Henry had written a resume of all the reports, ‘since they all say much the same thing, with minor variations’, so there was very little left for the regional managers to do except enjoy each other’s company and drink their champagne. They reached ‘any other business’ in less than a quarter of an hour.
‘Never knew a meeting go so quick,’ Nan approved. ‘Do we have any other business?’ Expecting none.
‘Well,’ Edward said, catching her eye. ‘There is a little matter we might like to consider.’
‘Yes?’
‘It has occurred to me,’ he said, smiling his most charming smile, ‘that we might like to extend the range of the books we sell, seeing the success we’re having. At present we offer novels and poetry, and books on travel and home management, do we not?’
That seemed to be agreed.
‘But no books on art or sculpture or architecture, for example.’
‘Would they sell?’ Nan wanted to know.
Several of her managers thought they would.
‘I brought along a rather fine art book,’ Edward said, following Mr Jernegan’s excellent advice and placing Goddesses of Greece on the table before them. ‘It is rather expensive at present as you will see, but with the sort of sales we could offer I’m sure the price could be adjusted.’
‘It usually is,’ Caroline agreed, picking up the book and glancing at the pictures.
‘Do you want to propose an extension to our current list?’ Nan asked, and she seemed quite happy about it.
‘No,’ Edward said cautiously. ‘Not yet. It might not prove to be such a good idea on mature consideration. I thought we might all look for suitable books and send copies of them to Mrs Henry before the next meeting and then we could reconsider the matter in the light of what we’ve found.’
‘You will be inundated with books,’ Henry warned his wife.
But the challenge excited her, as Edward had known it would. ‘Inundate all you like,’ she said. ‘I think it’s an excellent idea.’
And so it was agreed. And to Mr Jernegan’s hidden satisfaction the second hook was baited.
Now it was simply a matter of waiting for the tide, for the moment when, hard-pressed and over-worked, the foolish Mrs Henry could be persuaded to accept Mr Snipe’s scurrilous material without looking at it. Mr Maycock was just the man to do it, and simple enough to be persuaded to it, but the moment would have to be carefully prepared and it would be best done at a time when her natural supporters were out of town. And of course the two most important people who ought to be removed were Mr Will Easter, who was always an unknown quantity, and Miss Euphemia Callbeck, who would be sure to help her cousin if she were there to do it. It was the most difficult problem in the whole affair, for as an employee of the firm Mr Jernegan knew he couldn’t possibly influence any members of the family.
But the fates were on his side. In January Miss Nightingale wrote to Euphemia from Rome to tell her that there was now no doubt in her mind that she would found a hospital ‘in the very near future’ and to suggest that Euphemia should prepare herself for that future by enrolling as an assistant, ‘for a month or two’ at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, ‘where you will not learn the things you ought to do as a nurse, but will most assuredly see all those things you ought not to do, and what is more important, will discover whether or not you have the stomach for the profession.’
And in February Will was despatched to Paris to cover a Grand Reform Banquet which was to be held there to further the cause of universal suffrage.
He went without very much enthusiasm, because reform meetings were two-a-penny these days and rarely provided anything exciting enough to make a good story, but happily enough because his old friend Jeff Jefferson was travelling with him.
‘We shall be home in a day or two,’ he said, as the two of them climbed aboard the train to Dover, with old Tom Thistlethwaite in attendance.
‘You don’t think there’ll be a revolution then?’ Jeff said, taking his seat. His editor had been full of speculation about the possibility of a new uprising, which was why he was being sent out.
‘Over a reform meeting?’ Will said. ‘In these enlightened times? I doubt it. Parisians might have gone in for armed rebellion back in 1789, but they won’t take that sort of action now. This is 1848.’
But as events were to prove, Paris in 1848 was a city of surprises.