Moonbeam Shadows
by John C Nash
Free ebook download: Moonbeam Shadows by John C Nash, legally licensed and available in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats.
Download this free ebook. Despite the wealth that is the British Empire, the ordinary people mostly do not have running water, and very few towns have sewers.
Queen Victoria has presided over the Great Exhibition of 1851 and commands a great empire that is splashed red across the globe. Despite the wealth that is the Empire, the ordinary people mostly do not have running water, and very few towns have sewers. That is changing, and the agents of change are enterprising people who are scrambling energetically to build a new world in which they can live and prosper.
Among these are Cassandra Cohen, née Match, and her circle of friends and associates, who are building a modest commercial empire of their own in Brighton. This motley assortment of individuals all have their own trials, such as Tony Brown, donkeyman and carter, who is actually Antonia Crown and trying to decide how to go forward in life with Moonbeam, his jenny.
And Tony is just one of our protagonists.
Excerpt:
The obligations of a writer are generally only to his or her own ambitions, but in this present work I am charged with honouring an unspoken promise. My duty is not one recorded in pen and ink, but it is nonetheless as binding as the shackles employed by the constables at the Old Bailey. I am burdened with continuing the stories of a group of assorted but unlikely characters who have found common cause to assist each other to find fortune and contentment in the middle part of the 19th century in Brighton.
The previous account of this band of friends was centred on one Miss Cassandra Match. She came to Brighton in 1851 after leaving a house of entertainment in Greenock, Scotland, with her friend Mary McNair. Cassandra had managed the establishment, in the process rescuing Mary from the traditional activity of the house. Cassandra had been astute, and had accumulated sufficient funds to buy two houses that formed the nucleus of her economic activities, but she also became the manager, now essentially the proprietor, of a haberdashery.
Mary, who had been at one time about to become the cook in a large country house, turned her skills to creating saleable delicacies, now promoted as Tastes for the Tongue, which she creates in the two kitchens of numbers 21 and 23 Fortescue Road that Cassandra acquired.
By hiring two sisters from the Workhouse – Maud and Ethel Soulton – then their brother Tom, whose ingenuity and manual skills were turned to convenience and profit for all, Cassandra and Mary were able to provide attractive and profitable accommodations. Ethel is becoming a competent understudy in the enterprise of making delicacies, and Mary’s now-stepdaughter Elizabeth is beginning to learn. Along the way, Adeline Naismith joined the group as tenant then as educator, translator of French dress designs and commentary, creator of promotional drawings, and general odd-job person. Henry Mortimer came as the law clerk of Mr. Archibald Turcotte QC, who rented offices in one of the houses. Henry and Maud are, at the start of the current history, trying to figure out how they may marry.
Maud, though she started as more or less a housemaid, was soon promoted, albeit without any formality, to buyer and seller of second-hand furniture. She proved to have a very good eye for value and Cassandra has allowed her to team with Joshua Goldman and Abraham Cohen, pawnbrokers and furniture dealers, where she has learned well how to profit in the second-hand furniture trade. Indeed, when she experienced her first (and extremely rare) loss of a few pennies, it was a great shock to her. Joshua and Abraham had to counsel that in business there were going to be occasional setbacks. Overall, she is very astute, and has negotiated the purchase of the donkey Moonbeam and her cart at a favourable price.
Cassandra and Mary, who began our previous tale with firm resolve to avoid matrimony and the coverture that would render their wealth to their husbands, have both married. However, Henry Mortimer had, in a casual comment, noted the possibility of a contract called a separate estate. Cassandra has such a legal arrangement so that a goodly portion of her assets, particularly two houses, two carts and two donkeys, are protected should anyone manage to put a lien on the property of her husband, Abraham Cohen. Abraham is the much-younger cousin of Joshua and Rachel Goldman, who managed through hiding under a dung heap to escape the 1821 pogrom in Odessa. Abraham’s parents did not.
In July of 1852, Cassandra had managed to reconnect with her mother Frieda, who was taking a holiday in Brighton with her friend Winnifred. Both Frieda and Winnifred were widows of merchants and, if careful, could live comfortably on the proceeds of sale of their husbands’ businesses. Through a serendipitous visit to Bartlett and Jones haberdashery, Cassandra was able to meet with her mother and discover that her father had not told Frieda that Cassandra, widowed after just 4 days of marriage, had written to ask if she might return home. He had, without informing Frieda, told Cassandra that she was disowned and not to contact them again. This was not Frieda’s wish, and the reunion was a happy one. Now Frieda and Winnifred have purchased a property next to B & J, where they have established the Brighton Ladies’ Garment Emporium with a pleasant living space above. Here they sell manufactured apparel for women and organize custom dresses, often in current French styles courtesy of translations and interpretations by Adeline Naismith and the skills of a pair of local dressmakers, Sarah Ritchie and Catherine Campbell, as well as providing highly professional adjustments and repairs by a Mrs. Baldock. The neighbouring businesses, one managed by mother, the other by daughter, promote each other, and are looking into opening a communicating wall in the back yard so deliveries to B & J could be made without the need for draymen to pass through the front of the shop.
The donkeys owned by Cassandra are named Annabelle and Moonbeam. We have used the latter as our central character for this tale. Though she has no words, her peripatetic movements will allow the stories of our characters to be revealed. As we begin our tale, Moonbeam is about 6 years old and a female, or Jenny. Her companion Annabelle is about twice as old, and acquired by Cassandra when her owner, Archie Temple, dropped dead in the pub where he regularly drank himself into a stupor. Cassandra removed the awkwardness of a dead body in the bar by offering to pay for Archie’s funeral against the value of his estate, which was essentially Annabelle and her cart. It turned out that Archie sheltered Tony Brown, an urchin who watched Annabelle in exchange for a place to sleep in the lean-to where Archie stabled Annabelle and slept himself. Tony became Annabelle’s driver, assisted by Tom Soulton. Tony is about 14 now, and by appearance a young man, though actually Antonia. On the street it was marginally safer to be a boy, and we will adhere to male pronouns. Tony now did well, sharing the Best Bonnet cartage business with Joseph Upton.
Joseph’s father James had been a rather unsuccessful purveyor of second-hand furnishings. His jealousy of Joshua Goldman caused him and a drinking associate, Sam Taylor, to try to burn down an old barn Joshua had rented to store acquired furniture and to stable Annabelle. Tony was there as watchman, but James Upton did not know that. Fortunately, Annabelle created a fuss and Tony, Annabelle and their cats were able to escape. Sam tried to grab Annabelle’s bridle, but she bit him and kicked out, catching James Upton in the stomach. He died a few days later of peritonitis. Taylor absconded before the constables could arrest him – it would have been attempted murder with Tony inside.
