A Conspiracy of Paper (18 page)

“Gad, Bobby!” Sir Owen exclaimed. “You make me blush with your illiberal words.”

“I heartily hope Mr. Weaver is not insulted,” Sir Robert said, “but we so rarely have an opportunity to address Jews upon these gentlemanly terms. I feel that we have much to learn from one another under these circumstances. If Mr. Weaver can disabuse me of false notions, I shall not only be willing to listen, but grateful to have the scales lifted from my eyes.”

I attempted to smile politely, for there was nothing to be gained from showing this man my anger, and I took a certain comfort in the contempt his opinions earned him from his fellows. “I feel there is little I can say,” I began, “for I cannot claim to be an expert on either Jews or money. But I can assure you the two terms are not synonymous.”

“No one should claim they are,” Sir Robert rejoined. “I think that we only wish to have some points clarified about what Jews want in our country. This is, after all, a Protestant country. If that were not important to us, we would not have imported a German King—we would have been contented with a Popish tyrant. And our Romish citizens understand their precarious situation, but I often feel that you Jews do not—always wanting special dispensations from taking oaths for office and so forth. It’s as though you want to become
English
yourselves. And despite what our friends in North Britain may think, being English is no simple matter of how one dresses or speaks.”

“I fear I must agree with Sir Robert here,” Lord Thornbridge told me, “for while I do not begrudge any foreigner his manners or ways, I do wonder about your brother Jews, who come to settle here in this nation, who wish to remain separate from us, yet clamor for special treatment. There are any number of men I know whose forebears were French or Dutch or Italian, but, from having lived here for a generation or two, they have become engrafted onto our English stock. I am not sure that is the case with your people, Weaver.”

“Indeed,” Sir Robert chimed in, “suppose stock-jobber Isaac, after earning a plumb in ’Change Alley off the misfortunes of honest Christian gentlemen, decides he wants to take his hundred thousand pounds to the country and become Squire Isaac. He buys an estate and builds up his rent rolls, and lo! he finds himself in charge of appointing a living for a clergyman. Is a Jew to appoint a priest of the Church of England, or are we to expect the good citizens of Somersetshire to follow the teachings of the rabbis? When Squire Isaac, who must serve as the law upon his property, is approached by tenants with a dispute, does he turn to the law of England or the law of Moses?”

“These are questions I cannot answer,” I told him, holding my voice steady. “I cannot speak for your Squire Isaac, for no such creature exists. And it has been my experience that rather than seek to take our host nation for as much as we can, we seek to live in peace and gratitude.”

“There,” Sir Owen said cheerfully, “you have the honorable sentiments of an honorable man. And I can vouch for Mr. Weaver’s honor.”

“Indeed,” Sir Robert said, “Mr. Weaver may not be the perfect specimen of his people. You recall, I believe, the story of Edmund West?” The other men nodded, so Sir Robert turned to me and explained. “West was a successful merchant who took to playing the funds. He became rather set on the idea of retiring worth a plumb, you know, like so many other men. His fortune rose such that he could have easily retired from the business of the Exchange, but he would not quit until he had that hundred thousand pounds in pocket. So, worth perhaps eighty thousand pounds, he made some investments of Jews and watched in horror as his fortune was diminished by a full third. These Jews scented out his panic and took advantage of it. Soon this amount was halved and then halved again until he was worth nothing and less. And if you doubt this story”—Sir Robert looked at me squarely—“you may visit Mr. West among the lunatics at Bedlam itself, his losses having quite undone his mind.”

Though much of my work required that I bear the abuses of gentlemen, I found my patience all but at an end with this lot. I also grew angry at Sir Owen for allowing this calumny to be launched at me with naught but an ineffectual guffaw. For a moment I thought on taking my leave and showing this buffoon that a Jew is as capable as any man of feeling indignation and responding to it as it deserves. And yet something held me back, for I had rarely had a man of Sir Robert’s stature lay open his thoughts to me at length, and I wondered what there was to be learned in this conversation. I therefore chose to choke upon my pride for the moment and to consider how to turn this unpleasant conversation to my best advantage.

“All men risk losing their fortunes in the funds,” I replied at last. “I cannot think that the dishonesty of Jews can be blamed. Because one man sells to another in hopes of gaining advantage does not make the seller a villain,” I said, confidently repeating the words of my uncle.

“I rather agree,” Home said. “To blame Jews for the corruption of ’Change Alley is much the same as blaming a soldier for the violence of a battle. Men buy and sell upon the Exchange. Some men make money and some lose—and some of these men are Jews, but I think you know too well, Sir Robert, that most are not.”

“Many, however,” Lord Thornbridge added, “are foreigners, and there Sir Robert is not wrong to be concerned. I think,” he said, turning to his friend, “you are too much the victim of popular prejudice to blame the sons of Abraham exclusively, but they are certainly there, along with many other men of many other nations, and a host of Englishmen with a loyalty to no nation, who would stock-job away the entire country if they could.”

Sir Robert nodded in solemn agreement. “Now you talk like a man of sense,” he said, waving his hands about excitedly, “but the true villainy of all of this is what it does to our nation. When men begin to trade things of real value for all of this paper, it turns them into frenzied, fanciful women. The rugged and manful values of the ancients are set aside in favor of frivolousness. These loans and lotteries and annuities run our nation into a debt that can never be paid, because we care not to give a fig for the future. I tell you, all this Jewish stock-jobbery shall destroy the Kingdom.”

“In my mind,” Lord Thornbridge noted, “far more pernicious is the effect of paper money upon the lower elements. Why should a man labor hard for his daily bread if he owns a lottery ticket that may transport him to sudden wealth? In the end I fear that stock-jobbers”—he turned to Sir Robert—“and I mean stock-jobbers named John and Richard as much as those named Abraham and Isaac-threaten to replace birth and gentility with money as the measure of quality.”

Here I saw my opportunity. “I wonder, my lord, if Jews or anyone else need to plot the demise of those who are so effective at undoing themselves. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but I need only point out Mr. Michael Balfour, who was ruined not by schemers but by his own greed.”

Sir Robert stared hard at me. Sir Owen, Home, and Lord Thornbridge exchanged glances. Had I gone too far? Had Balfour perhaps been a member of this club? I felt a flicker of remorse, as though I had been guilty of some
faux pas
, but I soon recollected the indignities these men had laid upon me, asking me to smile like an ape as I received their insults.

Finally, as I might have anticipated, it was Sir Robert who spoke. “It is certain that Balfour was killed by Jews, Weaver. I say, you astonish me by mentioning his name at all.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Sir Owen, not suffering from the shock and excitement I felt, spoke first. “In what capacity, sir? All of London knows that Balfour died of his own hand.”

“True,” Sir Robert agreed, “but can we doubt that there was a rabbinical influence behind it all? Balfour had a connection with a Jew—that stock-jobber who was killed the next day.”

“I believe you misrepresent matters,” Home said. “I heard that Balfour’s son had the Jew run down to avenge his father’s death.”

“Nonsense.” Sir Robert shook his head. “Balfour’s son would have helped the Jews to kick the stool from under his dangling father, but there can be no question that this Jew was involved.”

I looked about me carefully to see if anyone stared at me. I felt reasonably sure that no one knew the identity of my father, but I also felt that I was perhaps being tested in some way. I speculated that it would be best if I said nothing, but it then occurred to me that I had nothing to fear of failing the test. “Why,” I asked, “is there no question that there were Jews involved?”

Other than Sir Robert, who stared at me with mute amazement, the others simply looked embarrassed and inspected their shoes. I felt embarrassed and awkward, and their embarrassment did nothing to put me at my ease, but I had no choice but to press the inquiry. Sir Robert did not shrink from my gaze. “Really, Weaver, if you wish not to be insulted, then you should not ask such questions. The matter does not concern you.”

“But I am curious,” I said. “How is Mr. Balfour’s death related to Jews?”

“Well,” Sir Robert said slowly, “he was friends with that Jew broker, as I told you. And it is said that they were plotting something.”

“I have heard this as well,” Home chimed in. “Secret meetings and such. This Jew and Balfour surely involved themselves in something to which they proved unequal.”

“Are you saying,” I said, almost whispering, “that you believe these men were murdered because of some financial scheme?”

“Balfour involved himself with these”—Sir Robert waved his hand in the air—“these fiends, sir, these stock-jobbers, and he paid the price. I can only hope others will learn from him. Now, if you will excuse me.”

Sir Robert rose abruptly and Thornbridge, Home, Sir Owen, and I instinctively followed. He walked halfway across the room with his friends, leaving me to stand, by myself, with all eyes upon me, for an excruciating minute or two. Then, with a broad smile upon his face, Sir Owen strolled over to me. “I must apologize for Bobby. I thought he would be more welcoming. He really meant nothing, you know. Perhaps he was a bit warm from too much drink.”

I admit I was not as profuse in my expressions of unconcern as I might have been had I been truer to the dictates of fashion rather than those of feeling. I only thanked Sir Owen for inviting me, and took my leave.

I found myself overcome with relief when I finally stepped out of the building. Wishing to avoid even the potential unpleasantness of attacks upon my person, I asked the footman to procure me a hackney, and I rode home in a foul disposition.

THIRTEEN

T
HE NEXT DAY
, after a hasty breakfast of coarse bread and Cheshire cheese, washed down with a mug of small beer, I rushed over to Elias’s lodgings. Though it was rather late in the morning, I found my friend still asleep. Such was often his way. Like many men who thought themselves more blessed by the gods of wit than those of money, Elias would often sleep away whole days at a time that he might avoid the consciousness of his own hunger and poverty.

I waited as his landlady, Mrs. Henry, roused him, and I considered myself honored that he rushed to dress himself in all due haste.

“Weaver,” he said, hurrying downstairs, still thrusting one arm through his deep-blue laced coat that matched perfectly a blue-and-yellow waistcoat beneath. Short of money though he was, Elias owned some handsome suits. He struggled to finish dressing himself, as he shifted from hand to hand a thick pile of papers tied together with a green ribbon. “Monstrous good to see you. You’ve been busy, yes?”

“This business with Balfour consumes my full attention. Have you time to discuss it?”

He studied me with concern. “You look tired,” he said. “You have not been getting enough sleep, I fear. Shall I take some blood to refresh you a bit, sir?”

“Someday I shall let you bleed me just for the pleasure of astonishing you.” I laughed. “That is, I shall let you bleed me should I believe you will not kill me in the process.”

Elias rolled his eyes at me. “It is a wonder you Jews ever survived at all. You are like savage Indians in your medical beliefs. When one of your tribe grows ill, do you send for the physician, or for the shaman dressed in a bearskin?”

I laughed at Elias’s retort. “I should love to hear how you Scots, who run around the Highlands naked and painted blue, are more civilized than the authors of the Scriptures, but I had hoped you would have time to discuss the Balfour matter. And I should very much like to talk with you about all this stock-jobbery and such, of which I believe you know something.”

“By all means. And I have much to tell you. But if it’s stock-jobbery you wish to discuss, I can think of no place better than Jonathan’s Coffee-house, the very heart and soul of ’Change Alley. If you should only agree to pay for a hackney to drive us there, then I shall allow you to buy me something to eat. Or better yet, why not bill our expedition to Mr. Balfour?”

There would be no expenses billed to Mr. Balfour. From what Adelman had told me, I should be lucky to receive anything of him, but I had no desire to dampen Elias’s enthusiasm. I felt the jingle of silver in my purse, owing to Sir Owen’s kindness, and I was happy to pay for my friend’s morning meal as well as his good advice.

In the hackney on the way to ’Change Alley, Elias chatted constantly but said relatively little of import. He told me of old friends he had seen, of a riot in which he had nearly been caught, and of a ribald adventure he’d had involving two whores in the back room of an apothecary’s shop. But my mind wandered as Elias prattled happily away. The day was cool and overcast, but the air was clear, and I watched out the window as we headed east on Cheapside until it turned into Poultry. I saw in the distance Grocers Hall, home of the Bank of England, and before us the enormity that was the Royal Exchange. I must say this mammoth structure always filled me with awe, for though my father had not done business within since I had been a very small child, I still associated it with sullen and mysterious paternal power. The Exchange, as it was rebuilt after the Great Fire destroyed the old building, is essentially a large rectangle, the exterior surrounding a great open-air courtyard. Though only two stories, the walls reach upward three or four times as high as any other two-story structure one might think of, and the entrance is hovered over by an enormous tower that spires into the heavens.

Many years ago, stock-jobbers like my father did their business in the Royal Exchange, and Jews even had their own “walk” or place of business in the courtyard, along with clothiers and grocers and all manner of men engaged in foreign trade. But then Parliament passed a law forbidding stock-jobbing within the Royal Exchange, so jobbers had moved to nearby Exchange Alley, taking up residence in coffehouses such as Jonathan’s and Garraway’s. Much to the anger of those who had fought against stock-jobbing, the greater share of London’s commerce moved along with them, and while the Royal Exchange stood as a monument to Britain’s financial soundness, it was but a hollow monument.

In comparison, the real business of ’Change Alley took place in a few tiny and seemingly insignificant streets that one might circumnavigate in but a few minutes. On the south side of Cornhill, just across the street from the Royal Exchange, one entered Exchange Alley, and proceeded south past Jonathan’s and then Garraway’s, while the alley wound east to Birchin Lane, and a traveler passed the old Sword Blade Bank and a few other coffeehouses in which one might do business with lotteries or insurance or projects or trade abroad. Birchin Lane took one north, back to Cornhill, thus completing the simple tour of the most confusing, powerful, and mysterious streets in the world.

Our hackney encountered traffic near the Royal Exchange, so I bade the coachman stop by Pope’s Head Alley, and from there we walked the short distance, pushing our way through the crowds of men who swarmed about us. If Jonathan’s Coffeehouse was the center of commerce, it was also the purest standard of commerce, and the farther one pushed outward, the more one found strange hybrid shops, rooted in both the monetary frenzy of ’Change Alley and the more mundane business of everyday life. One could see lottery butchers, where the purchase of any chicken or coney registered a customer for a prize. A tea merchant promised that a treasure of East India Company stock was hidden in one out of every hundred boxes of his goods. An apothecary stood outside his doorway, shouting to all who passed by that he offered inexpensive advice on the funds.

It would be unfair of me to suggest that the area surrounding the Exchange was the only place in the metropolis into which the new finance had sunk its teeth. Windfall mania had swept the city with the legal reintroduction of the lottery in 1719, the year of this tale, and illegal lotteries had long been popular everywhere. I confess that I myself did business with a lottery barber who registered me for a prize each time I took a shave, though my almost daily visits, for upward of two years, had yet to yield me any bounty.

I had seen the sights of the Exchange before, but now they held a new wonder for me. I kept my eye alert, as though each man I passed might hold the key to my father’s murderer; in truth it was far more likely that any man I passed cared not a fig for my father’s death unless I could show how it might make or cost him money.

Elias and I forced our way to the Alley, and quickly reached Jonathan’s, which was quite full and bustling with the business of the day.

Jonathan’s, the stock-jobbers’ coffeehouse and the very soul of Exchange Alley, seemed to me more animated than any coffeehouse I knew. Men clustered around one another, arguing vehemently, laughing, or looking grave. Others sat at tables, hurriedly thumbing through piles of papers, gulping their coffee. And the din was not merely that of conversation. While some slapped friends upon the back with warm benevolence, others shouted out their wares: “Selling for the upcoming lottery, eight shillings a quarter ticket!” “Anyone to sell 1704 issues?” “I have an astonishing money-maker here for the man who will but lend me five minutes of his time!” “A project to drain the marshlands! Guaranteed!”

Looking about me, I could see why my Christian neighbors were so quick to associate Jews with ’Change Alley, for there was a superfluity of Israelites in the room—perhaps as many as I had ever seen together outside of Dukes Place. But Jews were hardly dominant in Jonathan’s and by no means the only aliens. Here were Germans, Frenchmen, Dutchmen—and Dutchmen aplenty, I assure you—Italians and Spaniards, Portuguese, and of course, no shortage of North Britons. There were even some Africans milling about, but I believed they were servants, and not upon the ’Change for business. The room was a cacophony of different languages, all being shouted at once. It was a dizzying array of papers changing hands, of pens signing, of envelope-stuffing, of coffee-pouring, and of coffee-drinking. I thought it the very center of the universe itself, and I admired in no small degree any man who could conduct business in a place of such distraction.

Fortune favored us, for no sooner did we step inside than a trio of men vacated a table just before us, and we moved quickly to beat out a large crowd that had been waiting longer, all the while conducting their business afoot. Shouting above the din, I asked one of the boys who passed by us with a tray full of dirtied dishes to bring us coffee and some pastries.

I looked about in amazement. I had not been inside Jonathan’s since I was a child and my father had dragged me and my brother along to watch him conduct his affairs. We had sat in mute discomfort, half stemming from the dull terror a child feels in the presence of inexplicable adult mania, the other half from pure boredom. Now, in Jonathan’s as a grown man, and in my own way here upon business, I still felt small, towered over, and a bit awed. At least I was not yet bored.

The boy brought us our coffee and food, and Elias wasted no time stuffing one of the pastries into his mouth. “Do you know Mr. Theodore James, the bookseller upon the Strand?” he asked me, his words muffled by dough and jam.

“I have passed by his shop,” I said.

Elias bubbled with excitement as he spoke. “You might try stepping inside sometime. He’s a grand man. He printed my volume of verse, you know. Mr. James possesses no small amount of influence, which he has used to obtain for me an audience with Mr. Cibber at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, who is to consider staging my play. It is an astonishingly exciting thing really. I grow giddy at the idea of having my play acted upon the stage. It is truly marvelous, don’t you think?”

I could not help but smile. Elias was, after all, a man of many talents. “I had no idea you had a play to stage.” I shook his hand with pleasure.

He giggled foolishly. “I hadn’t. I shall tell him I have labored hard. Not too hard, for I don’t want him to believe me one of those silly playwrights who think themselves a Jonson or Fletcher. I wrote it yesterday,” he added in a whisper.

“An entire play in a day?”

“Well, I’ve seen enough comedies to know how to order these things. And yet, despite its haste, it is not without some very original turns. I call it
The Unsuspecting Lover
. Who could resist a play with so merry a title? Come, Weaver, I consider you a man of taste. Let me read it to you.”

“I should love to hear your work, Elias, but I admit I am a bit preoccupied. I promise to attend to it on another occasion, but now I must seek your guidance regarding this Balfour business.”

“Of course,” he said, sliding out of sight the bundle of papers he’d pulled from his pocket. “The play can certainly wait. It has but so recently hatched into the world that perhaps a rest shall do it some good.”

I could not help but find Elias a marvelously agreeable friend. “Thank you,” I said, hoping that I had not hurt his feelings by shunting aside his literary efforts, “for I very much require your assistance in this matter. I am somewhat at a loss. Here, after all, we have two men who had some sort of acquaintance, if not a friendship, who died within twenty-four hours of each other. One under mysterious circumstances, the other under scandalous circumstances. I can assure you that the talk about the town is that there is something amiss in this matter, but I have no idea how to begin to settle upon what precisely that is. I shall attempt to locate the man who ran down my father, but I cannot imagine he will allow me to find him too easily.”

Our conversation was momentarily interrupted by one of the boys, who walked past us ringing a bell. “Mr. Vredeman. Message for Mr. Vredeman.” These interruptions were but part of doing business at Jonathan’s.

Elias had no difficulty ignoring the distraction. “Yours is a complicated matter,” Elias agreed as he sipped at his coffee. I could tell he wished to talk more of his play, although there was something in this affair he found irresistible.

“It seems,” I explained, “that there are those who do not wish me to seek out the truth behind these deaths. My life was attempted two nights ago.”

I now had Elias’s full attention, to be sure. I related to him the story of my encounter with the hackney coach, giving particular emphasis to the coachman’s parting words to me.

“It can have been no random assault,” he noted, “for you say the culprit knew you to be a Jew. Those who murdered Balfour and your father clearly do not wish you to expose their doings.” I had seen such a sparkle in his eye before when he had helped me out. In truth, I was used to seeing that sparkle when he helped me in matters that concerned amiable young women. Nevertheless, this inquiry obviously awakened Elias’s voracious curiosity.

“These villains have gone to great lengths to disguise their work, and now it seems they will go to greater lengths to keep their secrets hidden. It will be difficult for you to find them out.”

“Not difficult.” I nearly sighed. “I fear impossible. I am used to following trails that men foolishly leave behind. Now I am upon men who have been careful to leave no trace of their presence—indeed, who have gone to some lengths to obfuscate their business. I do not know that there is a way for me to proceed.”

“I wonder.” Elias lifted up his head thoughtfully. “There has to be a trail, just not the type you are used to looking for. A trail of ideas and motives, if not one of witnesses. You will have to do some guessing, you understand, but that is no matter.”

“Guessing will get me nowhere.” I now wondered if Elias was not off on some flight of fancy when I needed his clarity. “When a man comes to me for help in finding a debtor, do I guess where I shall find him? Certainly not. I learn what I can of his life and his habits and then look for him where I know I shall find him.”