The Last Days of Newgate - Andrew Pepper [33]
Pyke had always felt it necessary to guard against his uncle’s attempts to solicit favours from him. Yet as he looked into Godfrey’s guileless eyes, he couldn’t help but feel moved by the concern in them. Pyke started to open his mouth, but the extent to which recent events had unsettled him suddenly made him feel weak and the words wouldn’t come. He thanked Godfrey for his concern and assured him everything would be fine.
Godfrey shrugged as though he did not believe Pyke. ‘That other business you were asking about. You know.
Lord Edmonton. I did a little digging.’
In the strains of the past few days, Pyke had almost forgotten about Edmonton and the robberies. He made a mental note not to overlook Swift and the question of what had taken him to the St Giles lodging house in the first place.
‘It would appear that Edmonton’s estate is in some trouble. The usual thing: the cost of maintenance outstripping the yield from rents. You mentioned his brother William, the banker. My source claimed that the brother’s bank has been propping up Edmonton’s estate for a while and keeping the lord himself in clover. He hadn’t heard anything about the robberies, though. I’m afraid I can’t help you there.’
Pyke thought about Hambledon Hall, Edmonton’s shabby country estate, and about the strange act he’d witnessed, the two brothers openly bickering in front of him, Edmonton silencing his apparently weaker sibling.
‘For what it’s worth, I also heard that Edmonton is tight with the King’s brother, the Duke of Cumberland. Damn nasty piece of work, that one. I’d be wary of anyone who claimed him as a friend.’ Godfrey proceeded to regale Pyke with stories that he had already heard. Apparently Cumberland had once raped Lady Lyndhurst; he had also driven Lord Graves to suicide, possibly raped his own sister and, on one occasion, having received a blow on the head in the middle of the night from his valet in a botched assassination attempt, Cumberland had, according to some accounts, slit the man’s throat and then convinced the authorities his valet had committed suicide. Godfrey also repeated rumours to the effect that Cumberland was engaged in a dastardly plot to poison the young Princess Victoria in order to steal the crown for himself and safeguard the Protestant ascendancy.
Godfrey pulled down his wine-stained shirt to cover his girth. ‘You also asked about the mother.’ He watched Pyke suspiciously. ‘And the daughter.’
Pyke nodded but said nothing.
‘The daughter, Emily, is an acquaintance of Elizabeth Fry. She’s a committed reformer or an interfering do-gooder, depending on your point of view. They visit prisons, asylums and even factories, and write reports as a way of pressuring the authorities to improve conditions. Most of ’em are your wearisome God-bothering types, motivated by the usual nonsense about bringing the poor to the Lord, as though prayer and a few homilies about the Almighty will put food in their stomachs. Apparently this one doesn’t do the work for the glory of God. I asked Reverend Foote about her. As the Ordinary, he knows her quite well. He doesn’t much care for the reforming type but he told me something you might find interesting. Edmonton is not the kind of man who would readily allow his only unmarried daughter even the tiniest smidgen of freedom or the financial support to carry out work he, no doubt, regards as unbecoming.’
Pyke affected a frown. ‘What are you telling me?’
‘Well,’ Godfrey said, enjoying himself, ‘at the time of their marriage, control of the Hambledon estate, as the law demands, passed from wife to husband, but I’m told that the marriage settlement included a number of unusual provisions. A certain sum of money was settled on their future offspring by trust. I don’t know if the wife had doubts about Edmonton’s character even then but, at the time, he wasn’t in any position to dictate terms. You see, Lord Edmonton was by no means a member of the landed gentry in those days. He was only titled as a result of his connections with Tories like Eldon and Winchelsea.’ Godfrey tapped his nose.