An Unlamented Death: A Mystery Set in Georgian England (Mysteries of Georgian Norfolk Book 1) by William Savage Read Free Book Online

had at Cambridge, but well enough. Then, on a sudden, such a storm engulfed my father’s business as drew away all his money, so that I might no longer pay my way. Indeed, in the end it took his life.’
    ‘That is ill news indeed,’ Adam said. ‘I am sorry such a heavy fate fell upon you, who deserved none of it. It seems yet more proof that Divine Providence is naught more than mankind whistling to keep up his spirits.’
    ‘My father had always been most liberal in extending credit, as you know, Bascom,’ Lassimer said. ‘Especially to the gentry and merchants of Shrewsbury. That liberality ruined him. Two young blades, both of noble parentage, patronised his tailoring business to fit them for the fashionable life each believed he deserved. Both were profligate, idle and licentious, as is too often the way of the sons of the gentry. Now each proved that he was as poor a player at the gaming tables as the veriest country bumpkin. They gambled away their allowances. Then they fell into the hands of money lenders. Soon they learned also that gentlemen of that sort were unwilling to wait for the settling of debts.’
    ‘But your father was a prosperous man,’ Adam said, ‘in good standing in that city. Could the debts of two such men cause him to fail?’
    ‘By themselves, no,’ Lassimer said. ‘He saw that he would never recover what each owed him. They denied not just the debt, but ever having patronised his shop. Worse was to come. Their fathers were eager to limit what they must pay to save their offspring from the debtor’s prison and chose to believe them. Then came the worst blow of all. His chief clerk had, it seems, grown tired of his wife of twenty years and taken up with the young wife of his neighbour. The two of them were in bed together, when they thought the husband safely gone for the night to stay with his brother. It was not so. The woman's husband suspected her of adultery. Now he sprang his trap and drove them out into the night, inflicting some severe wounds on the man who had cuckolded him. The two lovers were forced to flee. Well aware that he would find it hard to find well-paid work elsewhere, the wretched man emptied the safe of the money my father had placed there ready to pay his own creditors.’
    ‘What depravity,’ Adam said. ‘Was the thief apprehended?’
    ‘Alas, no, for none knew which way the two might have gone from the town. My father was ruined. He sold his business and managed to pay all his creditors from the proceeds. Only just enough remained to pay for me to take up an apprenticeship with an apothecary in Leicester. My father insisted I move as far away as I could. He knew that the disaster would forever be attached to the name of Lassimer, should I stay in Shrewsbury.
    ‘When I finished my apprenticeship early, thanks to my medical studies, here I came. The arrangement suits both Mr. Gerstone and myself. No sooner had he purchased this business than his own health failed. He cannot now make the calls necessary to sustain a country practice. Though I am still a journeyman, we have agreed I shall buy him out by stages and become his successor. He now lives in a fine house on the edge of the town, where he hopes to end his days in quiet retirement.’
    ‘When will that be?’ Adam asked.
    ‘I must serve another two years at my present level, under the professional – but very occasional – supervision of Mr. Gerstone. Then I may seek to be entered a Freeman of the Company.’
    ‘And your father?’ Adam said, fearing what he suspected must come.
    ‘My mother died some years ago, as you know, and I have neither brother nor sister. I pleaded with my father to let me stay at his side, but he would have none of it. Though my heart demanded I set all else aside to support him as best I could, my head told me that he was right. Had I stayed, I would always have been “that man whose father lost his fortune through his own trusting and foolish actions”. My future