Chapter Four - Part Two

THE FIRST SECTION:

The next evening Coleman was preparing for the most important social engagement of his professional career. “Have you finished my suit yet?” Coleman blasted the servant who was busy scrubbing a pair of black leather shoes. “It is only a matter of a half hour before I have to leave. Where is Emily? Is she ready yet?”

The servant stood up and placed the shoes next to the chair and nodded silently before heading off to Emily’s room. Coleman grabbed a stick, threw it into the fireplace and watched the fire spark from the force of the throw. He then turned around and kicked a nearby chair over before letting out a yell. The servant returned just in time to witness the kick.

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“Shall I have the carriage ready sir?” he asked politely.

“Of course,” snapped Coleman. “And fix that chair the way it is supposed to be. It wasn’t positioned properly.”

The servant righted the chair to where it was before being kicked and asked, “Is this where you prefer it to be sir?”

Coleman snapped his affirmation without looking and then chided the servant for not building a proper fire. If it was not one thing that was wrong it was certainly another – the corner of the carpet was flopped over, ashes from the fire were settling on the recently buffed shoes and the silent servant was moving about too noisily. Coleman had every man and woman in the house on edge and not one of them could wait for the half hour to be over. And until that moment arrived, he would let every one of them know the terrible job they were doing.

“Yes sir we are. I apologize. We will do better from here on.” The servant grabbed a poker and clamp and turned a log just enough to turn the flame upward for a few moments. The orange glow roared through the room and died down after the log had settled. He then snatched with the clamp the stick that Coleman had thrown into the fire and gently placed it under the log where it immediately caught fire and ignited the unburned side of the log. At the same time another servant entered the room and curtseyed with a frown on her face.

Coleman looked irritatingly at her and scowled, “Have her ready in five minutes...”
Before the servant could leave, Coleman finished off sentence, “And by ready I mean down stairs with a coat on before I get there.”

Just as that servant left the room, another came in with a neatly pressed black suit. He hung the garments on a rack and bowed to Coleman, “Your attire sir.”

Coleman took his time getting dressed as he wanted to ensure that Emily would be waiting for him in the foyer when he came down. To his disappointment, she was not there. He turned himself around in search of a servant to yell at and heard the footsteps of one behind him. But when he turned he only saw a shadow move from one room to the next. Then he heard another set of footsteps and turned again only to see the same thing. Finally he heard a voice behind him.

“It seems your servants have good timing on days like this.”

Coleman turned around and his angry, red face turned to an instant smile as soon as he saw Emily in a fascinating yellow dress. She did return the smile but remarked instead, “I don’t blame them the way you treat them sometimes.”

“Well they deserve it. They should know how important this night is for me. It is not like this is a normal reception.” Coleman turned toward the door and walked out when the door was opened for him. Emily smiled behind his back and winked at the servant who stood at attention.

When the two arrived at the gathering, Coleman headed straight for the opposite end of the room toward his father. With Emily in tow, he stopped only briefly to acknowledge the other guests in the room. Emily pleaded with him to be more polite and less hasty but he continued to drag her until she stopped dead in her tracks.
Coleman turned to her, “You must be with me for this introduction. It would be the end of me if I could not do this properly.” He paused for a moment with begging eyes, “You will do this for me won't you?”

Emily sighed, “Alright,” she said, “but you must give me the night to converse on my own afterward.”

“That should not be a problem. I imagine that there will be a meeting later on that I hope to be invited to. Even if I am not invited, I assure you that I will be so dejected at that point that I will be more than willing to let you be. But I want to get this done and over with as quickly as I can. It means a lot to me, and I am sure that you will benefit from this as well.”

“I am not so sure of that, but we are in agreement then about the rest of the evening.”

Emily stepped ahead of Coleman and lead him to Edward, who was in the process of cracking a joke to a small group of men.

“Mr. Montague,” she said politely and extended her hand.

Edward turned before he could finish his joke and smiled at the young lady. He took her hand and kissed it gently before saying, “Misses Montague, why it is so lovely to see you here tonight. No doubt you forgot your lesser half?”

Coleman stepped forward and replied, “Only on your better days. Good evening father.”

Without looking at Coleman, Edward said to Emily with a smile, “You are young yet and will learn soon enough.”

“Is Misses Montague not in attendance tonight then?” Emily asked out of courtesy.

Edward chuckled and pointed across the room with his chin, “You see my child…Isabelle has nearly mastered the art of enjoying herself without my presence. I only wish that she could do it another room entirely.”

“Well then,” Emily grinned, “I will go and make my presence known to the lady of the house and leave you boys to do…whatever it is that you do when young ladies are not around.” Emily then quickly turned away without saying a word to Coleman.

Coleman knew most of the men that surrounded his father – there was Gerard Cabral the firs and trapping magnate, Hector Lees the commodities specialist, Jasper Rehoboth who was a financier of transporting luxury products such as marble and wine, and finally Reginald Trumpet, who was a very wealthy man from out of town but summered in Charlton and whose business nobody really knew anything about.

“So what brings you here tonight young Montague?” Cabral queried Coleman with a chirp.

Before Coleman could respond, Edward answered, “To meet with the likes of gentlemen like you.”

“Ah,” replied hector, “you wish to learn from us? Well, I am not so sure that I have the answers. Luck has much to do with one’s success.”

Coleman laughed, “Unless of course you know how to circumvent the game.”

The group of men laughed at this truth. They all knew how make money and enhance their power and not one of them ever wanted to discuss their methods. If rules are made for the smaller processes of life, they would say, then philosophies must be saved for the broad mind.

The evening progressed without a hitch for the most part. Occasionally one would catch wind of an adultery scandal that was occurring more openly than some would admit, but for the most part the guests joined in drinking, dancing and eating throughout the night. As the evening wore on, the dancing slowed and the drinking picked up. Groups huddled to themselves in remote corners of the house and the gossip spread faster than a rabbit under chase from a fox. Finally, at around two in the morning Gerard Cabral tapped Coleman on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow. Coleman scanned the room for Emily before Gerard whispered that she was in the other room with a friend. The two then hurried behind a curtain where a servant led them into a room discretely hidden behind a bookcase.

The first thought that came to Coleman’s mind was not one of jubilation for being invited, but of shock. He had watched this house get built and even grown up in it, yet he had never known about this room. It was well decorated with fine silk sofas and chairs, pristine marble tables and the smoothest gold candlesticks he had ever seen.

“Not the sort of secret meeting room you’d ever expect to see is it?” whispered Gerard in Coleman’s ear.

That was only half of the truth. Coleman could not understand how all of the beautiful furniture and décor could have been maintained, let alone moved into the room, without his knowledge all of these years. Certainly, he thought, I should have discovered this out of curiosity as a child.

Edward cleared his throat and broke Coleman’s awe, who acted as though he were startled awake. Coleman then gathered his composure and cast his eye on a wrinkled face he recognized almost instantly. Sitting in a chair that had been modified with wheels and with a blanket on his lap was the former mayor himself, Montgomery. It was odd for Coleman to see him in a wheelchair for the first time. Certainly it did not surprise him as Montgomery usually moved around with a cane. But he seemed more vulnerable now, sitting in his chair and not grandstanding about. Montgomery liked to keep a low profile, but when in public he wanted everyone to know that he was still a man to be reckoned with. Upon seeing him this way, Coleman realized why Richard had managed to successfully hang on to power all of these years. It is easy to take advantage of a man who no one else will, he thought.

“You are the young Montague?” Montgomery asked Coleman.

Coleman affirmed the old man’s query and moved to shake his hand, but Hector and Jasper both stepped forward to keep him away. Startled, Coleman stepped back and awaited an explanation. Reginald, who Coleman was surprised to see in the room despite his lack of business interest in Charlton, joked that the old man only shakes when a deal is done these days. The tension in the room eased a bit and Montgomery asked everyone to sit down.

The first order of business for the group was to discuss the recent rash of burglaries that had occurred over the past few weeks. Everyone except Coleman and Edward had been burgled, even Montgomery within the past week. At first, Hector claimed, that only small stuff was missing – a vase, pair of boots – stuff that could be easily blamed on servants. In fact, Hector fired two after the second robbery and the incidents seemed to stop. But after a period of two weeks he noticed that a silk cushion he kept in his carriage was missing and that he knew his drivers or stable hands were trustworthy enough to believe that they had not taken it. Soon after, the brass fittings for a fountain were stolen two days before they were to be set on an angel that hovered above the fountain base. When asked about the man who was to fit them, Hector replied that the man was actually the one who built them and had been paid as agreed for the services and the product.

“The terms were his to begin with,” he explained. “And he has always taken a lot of pride in creating much more expensive and elaborate pieces for me in the past. I just cannot believe that it was him, especially seeing how upset he was when he told me he could not find them where he left them.”

Jasper mentioned similar episodes but never once thought it was his servants. He explained that it was they who told him of the missing articles – silverware, a brass buckle and a tiny silver flask he kept behind a picture of his mother on the mantle in the reading room. This brought a laugh from the men in the room because everyone knew Jasper tried hide his liquor from his wife.

Coleman found it odd that Reginald did not cite specific items that had been stolen from his house. This man has so much of nothing, he thought, that he even refuses to brag about it. But all were in agreement that it was not a coincidence that they were all robbed.

“It certainly does not sound like a conspiracy against us though,” Gerard clarified. “No one really knows that it is us who meet here.”

“Kids?” asked Jasper.

“Not likely,” Hector replied. “I think these people know what they are looking for. Besides, what kind of grudge do they have against us anyway?”

“I disagree,” Coleman said for the first time. The entire time he was in the room had kept silent and listened to what everyone had to say. It surprised him that these men acted informally to each other and that there was no order to the conversation at all. Montgomery always got his say and it seemed that it was he who set the agenda for the meeting, but Coleman got no indication that this was particularly normal. In fact, Hector and Jasper both interrupted Montgomery on several occasions without the slightest hint of annoyance from the old man at all. Each man appeared to trust each other with their thoughts, knowing that what was said there stayed there unless some kind of political action needed to take place. In that case, Coleman realized, Montgomery gave his orders to Richard and deal was done.
“You believe it is the kids?” Gerard chuckled at Coleman’s seriousness.

This response shook Coleman from his train of thought and he unknowingly glared at Gerard. Informalities of the meeting aside, if it was one thing that Coleman disliked it was being interrupted.

“It would not surprise me,” Coleman shot back.

“Careful there boy,” Reginald cautioned Coleman, “we will listen if you will.”

Again, Coleman became unsettled. The only thing he liked less than being interrupted was being warned. His father had done it to him his entire life. Sometimes he accepted it as a father acting as such, but most of the time he felt like he was being treated as a little boy. Coleman refused to look at his father this time to see the present look on his face.

“Just the other day I was walking back through Marnie and there was this little boy sitting there with his legs stretched out, making everyone walk around him, closer to the street where they would get splashed from the carriages in the rain.”

“It’s just a kid being a nuisance,” Reginald said. “God knows I was like that growing up.”

“That is not the point. He was doing it on purpose.”

“So was I,” Reginald retorted.

Hector spoke up and explained that what he thought Coleman was saying was that Charlton had reached a point of downward influence. That the kids were possibly old enough to start acting like their parents had so many years ago. There was not a person in the room who had not had their pocket picked in Marnie, except maybe Montgomery, but even he knew it was a normal occurrence. And it was possible that the parents had taught their kids to steal, cheat and be pests in the streets because now they had to worry about putting food on the table and could no longer offer up the protests themselves.

“It is a possibility,” Edward said defending his son. “I agree that maybe things are getting a bit out of hand.”

But Reginald was not sold on the idea that the recent spell of crime was related to this new passed-down influence. He believed that this was the specific work of a few and he argued that everyone could live with the occasional pest as long as the flow of goods coming in and going out of Charlton was kept going. The merchants on the waterfront were paid to keep the warehouses secure, and they were. And the seamen never had a problem dealing with the people in Marnie. In fact, they rarely had any connection with them. Most either stayed on the boat or in whorehouses just off the docks.

“There is something specific going on here,” he said, “or else the warehouses would be targeted as well.”

“Maybe it is both,” Coleman added.

This caught Montgomery’s attention. Coleman explained that maybe a few parents had put their children up to being pests and at the same time the parents were trying to steal as a new form of protest. The children innocently make our daily lives less enjoyable while the parents make our nights less safe. There are no jobs and it makes sense that someone would want to make a little money turning over some valuable goods.

“But wouldn’t we be able to catch wind of someone unloading these goods?” Gerard asked.

“You would think so,” replied Coleman, “but they could be just going through some crooked seamen looking to make a little extra on the side.”

“We do get pirates at the docks all the time,” Edward confirmed. “I don’t like to deal with them, but sometimes they need repairs done. They are no different from any other shipping merchant in the end, except they get in a bit more trouble.”

“It would make sense then this theory of yours Coleman,” Montgomery said. “And I would caution you Edward on allowing pirates in here. They usually don’t come to port unless they can make out with more than they came in with.”

“Still,” Reginald added, “There hasn’t been enough stuff stolen for pirates to come in here. This is the first time we’ve spoken of it. That tells you not enough has gone missing for us to even care. If these pirates are coming in there would be a greater supply of better goods, not just trinkets and small items of luxury.”

Coleman suggested that maybe more people were being robbed than known. And when Reginald said more people would report to the police, Coleman replied that maybe Richard was not reporting upward as he should have been doing. Instead, trying to deal with the situation on his own.

“So what shall we do?” Reginald asked disgusted at Coleman.

“This town could use a bit more discipline,” Coleman recommended. “Maybe a sweep of Marnie will bring us to the culprits or at the very least the stolen goods.”

Montgomery agreed but wanted to go one step further, “This theory of the kids and parents has credibility and it should be stopped before it becomes ingrained in the minds of the next generation. We will lose everything if it keeps up, eventually anyway. It is not good enough to simply keep the flow of goods running. I think we need to teach them all a lesson. Put them in their place.”

“What will you do?” Jasper asked.

“Don’t worry,” replied Montgomery. “I’ll speak with Richard. And if he doesn’t do anything, I’ll speak with the constable myself. I’m sure his methods of keeping a criminal from acting again will work wonders on the community at large. I just want to ensure that we have the political support to move ahead.”