Chapter 17

BY ORDER OF THE MORTGAGEE

Matters were still progressing fairly satisfactorily when FitzGerald visited Lowestoft in September, 1872. On the 29th of that month he wrote to Mr. Spalding (_Two Suffolk Friends_, p. 122):--

". . . Posh--after no fish caught for 3 weeks--has had his boat come home with nearly all her fleet of nets torn to pieces in last week's winds. . . . he . . . went with me to the theatre afterwards, where he admired the 'Gays,' as he called the Scenes; but fell asleep before Shylock had whetted his knife in the Merchant of Venice. . . ."

"Gays" is East Anglian for pictures.

* * * * *

Towards the end of 1873 relations began to be severely strained between mortgagor and mortgagee. On December the 31st FitzGerald wrote from 12 Marine Terrace, Lowestoft:--

"12 MARINE TERRACE, "_December_ 31.

"JOSEPH FLETCHER,

"As you cannot talk with me without confusion, I write a few words to you on the subject of the two grievances which you began about this morning.

"1st. As to your being _under_ your Father: I said no such thing: but wrote that he was to be _either_ Partner, or (with your Mother) constantly employed, and consulted with as to the Boats. It is indeed for _their_ sakes, and that of your own Family, that I have come to take all this trouble

"2ndly. As to the Bill of Sale to me. If you could be calm enough, you would see that this would be a Protection _to yourself_. You do not pay your different Creditors _all_ their Bill at the year's end. Now, if any one of these should happen to want _all_ his Money; he might, by filing a Bankruptcy against you, seize upon your Nets and everything else you have to pay his Debt.

"As to your supposing that _I_ should use the Bill of Sale except in the last necessity (which I do not calculate upon), you prove that you can have but little remembrance of what I have hitherto done for you and am still willing to do for your Family's sake quite as much as for your own.

"The Nets were included in the Valuation which Mr. Balls made of the whole Property; which valuation (as you ought to remember) I reduced even lower than Mr. Balls' Valuation; which you yourself thought too low at the time. Therefore (however much the Nets, &c. may have been added to since) surely _I_ have the first claim on them in Justice, if not by the Mortgage. I repeat, however, that I proposed the Bill of Sale quite as much as a Protection to yourself and yours as to myself.

"If you cannot see all this on reflection, there is no use my talking or writing more about it. You may ask Mr. Barnard, if you please, or any such competent person, if _they_ object to the Bill of Sale, I shall not insist. But you had better let me know what you decide on before the end of the week when I shall be going home, that I may arrange accordingly.

"EDWARD FITZGERALD."

Mr. Barnard was a Lowestoft lawyer for whom Posh had no great love. It is hardly necessary to say that he did not "ask" him. He still raises his voice and gets excited when he discusses the grievances of which he made complaint in the winter of 1873. "He wouldn't leave me alone," says Posh. "It was 'yew must ax yar faa'er this, an' yew must let yar mother that, and yew mustn't dew this here, nor yit that theer.' At last I up an' says, 'Theer! I ha' paid ivery farden o' debts. Look a here. Here be the receipts. Now I'll ha'e no more on it.' And I slammed my fist down like this here."

(Posh's fist came down on my Remington's table till the bell jangled!)

"'Oh dear! oh dear, Posh!' says he. 'That it should ever come ta this! And hev yew anything left oover?'

"'Yes,' I say. 'I've got a matter of a hunnerd an' four pound clear arter payin' ivery farden owin', an' the stock an' nets an' gear and tew boots {184} an' all wha'ss mortgaged ta yew. Now I'll ha'e no more on't. Ayther I'm master or I ha' done wi't.'

"'Oh dear! oh dear! Posh,' he say, 'I din't think as yew'd made so much.'"

That is Posh's account of the final disagreement which led to the sale of the boats in 1874. Even if it be true one cannot say that the bluff independence came off with flying colours in this particular instance. But FitzGerald could have told another story, if one may judge from his letter to Mr. Spalding of the 9th January, 1874, written from Lowestoft (_Two Suffolk Friends_, p. 123):--

". . . I have seen no more of Fletcher since I wrote, though he called once when I was out. . . . I only hope he has taken no desperate step. I hope so for his Family's sake, including Father and Mother. People here have asked me if he is not going to give up the business, &c. Yet there is Greatness about the Man. I believe his want of Conscience in some particulars is to be referred to his _Salwaging_ Ethics; and your Cromwells, Caesars, and Napoleons have not been more scrupulous. But I shall part Company with him if I can do so without Injury to his Family. If not I must let him go on _under some_ '_Surveillance_': he _must_ wish to get rid of me also, and (I believe, though he says _not_) of the Boat, if he could better himself."

Posh's story is that after the letter of December 31st, 1873, FitzGerald tried to find him. He went to his father's house, and (says Posh, which we are at liberty to doubt) "cried like a child." He sent Posh a paper of conditions which must be agreed to if he, Posh, were to continue to have the use of the _Meum and Tuum_ and the _Henrietta_. The last one was (Posh says, with a roar of indignation), "that the said Joseph Fletcher the younger shall be a teetotaller!"

"Lor'!" says Posh, "how my father did swear at him when I told him o' that!"

No doubt he did. And no doubt in the presence of FitzGerald the "slim" old Lowestoft longshoreman raised his mighty voice in wrath and indignation that he should have begotten a son to disgrace him so cruelly! FitzGerald was too open a man, too honest-hearted, too straightforward to understand that a father could encourage his son insidiously, and swear at him, FitzGerald, at the same time as he deprecated that son's conduct. But FitzGerald's eyes, long closed by kindness, were partly open at last. He would not go on without some better guarantee of conduct, some better security that the boats' debts would be paid. On January 19th, 1874, he wrote to Posh (and the handwriting of the letter suggests disturbance of mind) from Woodbridge:--

"I forgot to say, Fletcher, that I shall pay for any work done to my two Boats, in case that you get another Boat to employ the Nets in. That you _should_ get such another Boat, is, I am quite sure, the best plan for you and for me also. As I wrote you before, I shall make over to you all my Right to the Nets on condition that you use them, or change them for others to be used, in the Herring Fishing, in any other Boat which you may buy or hire. I certainly shall not let you have the use of my Boats, unless under _some_ conditions, _none_ of which which [_sic_] you seemed resolved to submit to. It will save all trouble if you take the offer I have made you, and the sooner it is settled the better.

"EDWARD FITZGERALD."

But Posh "worn't a goin' ta hev his faa'er put oover him, nor he worn't a goin' ta take no pledge. Did ye iver hear o' sich a thing?"

So in due course, on the 17th February, 1874, Mr. W. T. Balls, of Lowestoft, sold by auction the "Lugger _Meum and Tuum_" (she had been converted into a dandy-rigged craft about 1872) "and the _Henrietta_ by direction of Edward FitzGerald as mortgagee."

{Edward FitzGerald's gravestone in Boulge churchyard; at the head of the grave is a rose bush raised from seed brought from Omar's tomb: p200.jpg}

So Mr. Balls writes me. But he has no letters from FitzGerald, and was kind enough to look up the valuation and sale transactions in his books at my request.

The _Meum and Tuum_ was a favourite of Posh's and he tried to buy her for himself. But although she had only cost 360 pounds to build in 1867, in 1874 she fetched over 300 pounds, and Posh could not go so high as that. So he made other arrangements, and his fishing interests with FitzGerald were finally ended.

One would have thought that there would be no more letters beginning "Dear Posh." But though FitzGerald had found himself obliged to end his association with Posh in the herring fishing, he never ended his friendship, even if, during the last years of his life, he neither saw nor wrote to his former partner.

The _Meum and Tuum_ made several more voyages in the North Sea and to the west, and, when she was no longer strictly seaworthy, was sold to a Mr. Crisp, of Beccles, a maltster and general provision merchant, who turned her into a storeship, and anchored her off his wharf in the river Waveney. When she became so rotten as to be unfit even for a storage ship she was broken up, and her name-board was bought by Captain Kerrich, of Geldeston Hall (the son of FitzGerald's favourite sister), who was kind enough to present it to the Omar Khayyam Club. But as the club has no "local habitation"--only a name--it now remains in the charge of Mr. Frederic Hudson, one of the founders of the club.