Читать книгу The Fatal Cup: Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and the strange deaths of his relations - John Price Williams - Страница 22

CHAPTER 2

AN OFFICER AND GENTLEMAN

The “new and flashy gauds” were the yellow facings and silver lace of The 16th (the Bedfordshire) Regiment of Foot. It was probably the peacock finery of the young Guards and dragoon officers strutting around London which had attracted Wainewright to the Army. He was once reported as saying airily: “No artist should serve as a soldier unless he is permitted to design his own uniform.”

He no doubt imagined himself as a dashing officer in a fashionable regiment, taking time off from the busy social round to perform feats of arms which could later be recounted at the dinner table. The truth was to be very different.

Coleridge had joined as a private, but Wainewright bought his way in as an officer, or rather, tolerant Uncle George Griffiths had to put up the money - £400 in cash demanded for the lowest rank of officer - as Wainewright had an allowance of only £250 a year.

It must have pained him that Uncle George was not more generous; £400 was the minimum price of a commission, and that in a county infantry regiment. The buying of commissions had gone on since the 17th century - the more you paid, the higher the prestige you enjoyed. It preserved the senior officer class as an exclusive cadre, built on wealth and social privilege, of which Wainewright had neither. He was on the bottom rung as an

THE FATAL CUP

22