Thereby proving her right.
Bloody hell, he wouldn’t blame Devon for thrashing him to a fare-thee-well.
“Was this around the time Trenear’s little cousin ended her betrothal with you?” Severin asked.
“We’re still betrothed,” Rhys replied curtly.
“Is that so?” Severin looked even more interested. “What happened?”
“Damned if I’ll tell you—the devil knows when you might use it against me.”
Severin laughed. “As if you hadn’t fleeced more than a few unlucky souls in your business dealings.”
“Not friends.”
“Ah. So you would sacrifice your own interests for those of a friend—is that what you’re saying?”
Rhys took another deep drink of ale, trying to drown a sudden grin. “I haven’t yet,” he admitted. “But it’s possible.”
Severin snorted. “I’m sure it is,” he said, in a tone that conveyed exactly the opposite, and gestured for a barmaid to bring more ale.
The conversation soon turned to business matters, especially the recent flurry of speculative building to address the housing needs of the middle class and working poor. It seemed that Severin was interested in helping an acquaintance who had fallen into debt after investing too heavily with a low rate of return. Some of his property had been given to a firm of auctioneers, and Severin had offered to take over the rest of his mortgaged properties, to keep him from becoming sold up altogether.
“Out of the goodness of your heart?” Rhys asked.
“Naturally,” came Severin’s arid response. “That, and the fact that he and three other large property owners in the Hammersmith district are part of a provisional committee for a proposed suburban railway scheme I want to take over. If I pull my friend out of the mess he’s made for himself, he’ll convince the others to support my plans.” His tone turned offhand as he added, “You might be interested in one of the properties he’s selling. It’s a block of tenements that are being torn down as we speak, to be replaced with model dwellings for three hundred middle-class families.”
Rhys gave him a sardonic glance. “How would I make a profit from that?”
“Rack-renting.”
He shook his head with scorn. “As a boy living on High Street, I saw too many workingmen and their families crushed when their rents doubled with no warning.”
“All the more reason to buy the property,” Severin said without pause. “You can save three hundred families from rack-renting, whereas some other greedy bastard—me, for example—wouldn’t.”
It occurred to Rhys that if the residential buildings were of good quality, well plumbed and ventilated, the project actually might be worth buying. He employed approximately a thousand people. Although they were well paid, most had difficulty finding good quality housing in town. He could think of several advantages to acquiring the property as a residence for his employees.
Settling back in his chair, Rhys asked with deceptive indolence, “Who’s the builder?”
“Holland and Hannen. A reputable firm. We could walk to the construction site after lunch, if you’d care to see it for yourself.”
Rhys shrugged casually. “It won’t hurt to take a look.”
After the meal concluded, they walked north toward King’s Cross, their breaths ghosting in the raw air. Handsome building facades, with their ornamental brickwork and terracotta panels, gave way to soot-colored tenements separated by narrow alleys and gutters filled with muck. Windows were covered with paper instead of glass, and cluttered with laundry hung out on broken oars and poles. Some of the lodgings were doorless, imparting a sense that the buildings were gaping at their own decaying condition.
“Let’s cross to the main thoroughfare,” Severin suggested, wrinkling his nose at the sulfurous taint of the air. “It’s not worth a shortcut to breathe in this stench.”
“The poor sods who live here have to breathe it all the time,” Rhys said. “You and I can endure ten minutes of it.”
Severin slanted a mocking glance at him. “You’re not becoming a reformer, are you?”
Rhys shrugged. “A walk through these streets is enough to make me sympathize with reformist views. A sin, it is, for a decent workingman to be forced to live in squalor.”
They continued along the constricted street past blackened facades that had turned soft with rot. There was a dismal-looking cook-shop, a gin shop, and a small hut with a painted sign advertising a supply of gamecocks for sale.
It was a relief when they turned a corner onto a wide, well-drained roadway and approached the construction site, where a row of buildings was in the process of being torn down. The scene was one of controlled turmoil as a wrecking crew systematically dismembered the three-story structures. It was dangerous and difficult work: More skill was required to take down a large structure than to build it. A pair of mobile steam cranes mounted on wheels polluted the air with thunderous rattling, whistling, and clacking. Heavy steam boilers counterbalanced the jibs, making the machines remarkably stable.
Rhys and Severin walked behind a row of wagons being loaded with waste lumber to be hauled off and split for kindling wood. The grounds swarmed with men carrying pick-axes and shovels, or pushing wheelbarrows, while masons sorted through bricks to save the ones that could be reused.
A frown crossed Rhys’s face as he saw tenants being evicted from the building that was next in line to be demolished. Some of them were defiant, others wailing, as they carried their belongings outside and set them in heaps on the pavement. It was a pity for the poor devils to be turned out into the street in the dead of winter.
Following his gaze to the distraught residents, Severin looked momentarily grim. “They were all given a period of notice to vacate,” he said. “The building would have been condemned in any case. But some people stayed on. It always happens.”
“Where would they go?” Rhys asked rhetorically.
“God only knows. But it’s no good, allowing people to live among open cesspools.”
Rhys’s gaze rested briefly on a young boy, perhaps nine or ten years of age, sitting alone amid a small heap of belongings, including a chair, a frying pan, and a heap of soiled bedding. The lad appeared to be guarding the pile of possessions while waiting for someone to return. Most likely his mother or father was out looking for accommodations.
“I’ve had a glimpse of the plans,” Severin said. “The new buildings will be five stories tall, with running water and a water-closet on each floor. As I understand it, the basements will house communal kitchens, washhouses, and drying rooms. At the front, they’ll install iron railings to form a protected play area for children. Are you interested in seeing copies of the architectural schemes?”
“Aye. Along with deeds, bills of sale, building agreements, mortgages, and a list of all contractors and subcontractors.”
“I knew you would,” Severin said with satisfaction.
“With the condition,” Rhys continued, “that some of your Hammersmith railway shares are on the table as well.”
Severin’s smug expression faded. “Look here, you sticky-fingered bastard, I’m not going to sweeten the deal with bloody railway shares. That’s not even my building. I’m just showing it to you!”