A Dangerous Fortune (6 page)

A party such as this drum of Augusta’s was exquisite torture. Because it was a party, everyone went out of their way to be pleasant, find things to talk about, and show an interest in one another. The girls looked lovely and smiled and sometimes, discreetly, flirted. So many people were crowded into the house that inevitably some of the girls would brush up against Hugh, bump into him as they turned around, touch his arm, or even press their breasts against his back as they squeezed by. He would have a week of restless nights afterwards.

Many of the people here were his relations, inevitably. His father, Tobias, and Edward’s father, Joseph, had been brothers. But Hugh’s father had withdrawn his capital from the family business, started his own enterprise, gone bankrupt, and killed himself. That was why Hugh had left the expensive Windfield boarding school and become a day boy at the Folkestone Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen; it was why he started work at nineteen instead of doing a European tour and wasting a few years at a university; it was why he lived with his aunt; and it was why he did not have new clothes to wear to the party. He was a relation, but a poor one; an embarrassment to a family whose pride, confidence and social standing was based on its wealth.

It would never have occurred to any of them to solve the problem by giving him money. Poverty was the punishment for doing business badly, and if you started to ease the pain for failures, why, there would be no incentive to do well. “You might as well put feather beds in
prison cells,” they would say whenever someone suggested helping life’s losers.

His father had been the victim of a financial crisis, but that made no difference. He had failed on 11th May 1866, a date known to bankers as Black Friday. On that day a bill broker called Overend & Gurney Ltd had gone bankrupt for five million pounds, and many firms were dragged down, including the London Joint Stock Bank and Sir Samuel Peto’s building company, as well as Tobias Pilaster & Co. But there were no excuses in business, according to the Pilaster philosophy. Just at present there was a financial crisis, and no doubt one or two firms would fail before it was over; but the Pilasters were vigorously protecting themselves, shedding their weaker clients, tightening credit, and ruthlessly turning down all but the most unquestionably secure new business. Self-preservation was the highest duty of the banker, they believed.

Well, I’m a Pilaster too, Hugh thought. I may not have the Pilaster nose, but I understand about self-preservation. There was a rage that boiled in his heart sometimes when he brooded about what had happened to his father, and it made him all the more determined to become the richest and most respected of the whole damn crew. His cheap day school had taught him useful arithmetic and science while his better-off cousin Edward was struggling with Latin and Greek; and not going to university had given him an early start in the business. He was never tempted to follow a different way of life, become a painter or a member of Parliament or a clergyman. Finance was in his blood. He could give the current bank rate quicker than he could say whether it was raining. He was determined he would never be as smug and hypocritical as his older relatives, but all the same he was going to be a banker.

However, he did not think about it much. Most of the time he thought about girls.

He stepped out of the drawing room onto the terrace and saw Augusta bearing down on him with a girl in tow.

“Dear Hugh,” she said, “here’s your friend Miss Bodwin.”

Hugh groaned inwardly. Rachel Bodwin was a tall, intellectual girl of radical opinions. She was not pretty—she had dull brown hair and light eyes set rather close together—but she was lively and interesting, full of subversive ideas, and Hugh had liked her a lot when he first came to London to work at the bank. But Augusta had decided he should marry Rachel, and that had ruined the relationship. Before that they had argued fiercely and freely about divorce, religion, poverty and votes for women. Since Augusta had begun her campaign to bring them together, they just stood and exchanged awkward chitchat.

“How lovely you look, Miss Bodwin,” he said automatically.

“You’re very kind,” she replied in a bored tone.

Augusta was turning away when she caught sight of Hugh’s tie. “Heavens!” she exclaimed. “What is that? You look like an innkeeper!”

Hugh blushed crimson. If he could have thought of a sharp rejoinder he would have risked it, but nothing came to mind, and all he could do was mutter: “It’s just a new tie. It’s called an ascot.”

“You shall give it to the bootboy tomorrow,” she said, and she turned away.

Resentment flared in Hugh’s breast against the fate that forced him to live with his overbearing aunt. “Women ought not to comment on a man’s clothes,” he said moodily. “It’s not ladylike.”

Rachel said: “I think women should comment on anything that interests them, so I shall say that I like your tie, and that it matches your eyes.”

Hugh smiled at her, feeling better. She was very
nice, after all. However, it was not her niceness that caused Augusta to want him to marry her. Rachel was the daughter of a lawyer specializing in commercial contracts. Her family had no money other than her father’s professional income, and on the social ladder they were several rungs below the Pilasters; indeed they would not be at this party at all except that Mr. Bodwin had done useful work for the bank. Rachel was a girl in a low station in life, and by marrying her Hugh would confirm his status as a lesser breed of Pilaster; and that was what Augusta wanted.

He was not completely averse to the thought of proposing to Rachel. Augusta had hinted that she would give him a generous wedding present if he married her choice. But it was not the wedding present that tempted him, it was the thought that every night he would be able to get into bed with a woman, and lift her nightdress up, past her ankles and her knees, past her thighs—

“Don’t look at me that way,” Rachel said shrewdly. “I only said I liked your tie.”

Hugh blushed again. Surely she could not guess what had been in his mind? His thoughts about girls were so grossly physical that he felt ashamed of himself much of the time. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“What a lot of Pilasters there are,” she said brightly, looking around. “How do you cope with them all?”

Hugh looked around too, and saw Florence Stalworthy come in. She was extraordinarily pretty, with her fair curls falling over her delicate shoulders, a pink dress trimmed with lace and silk ribbons, and ostrich feathers in her hat. She met Hugh’s eye and smiled at him across the room.

“I can see I’ve lost your attention,” Rachel said with characteristic bluntness.

“I’m most awfully sorry,” Hugh said.

Rachel touched his arm. “Hugh, dear, listen to me for a moment. I like you. You’re one of the few people in
London society who aren’t unspeakably dull. But I don’t love you and I will never marry you, no matter how often your aunt throws us together.”

Hugh was startled. “I say—” he began.

But she had not finished. “And I know you feel much the same about me, so please don’t pretend to be heartbroken.”

After a stunned moment, Hugh grinned. This directness was what he liked about her. But he supposed she was right: liking was not loving. He was not sure what love was, but she seemed to know. “Does this mean we can go back to quarreling about women’s suffrage?” he said cheerfully.

“Yes, but not today. I’m going to talk to your old school friend, Señor Miranda.”

Hugh frowned. “Micky couldn’t spell ‘suffrage’ let alone tell you what it means.”

“All the same, half the debutantes in London are swooning over him.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“He’s a male Florence Stalworthy,” Rachel said, and with that she left him.

Hugh frowned, thinking about that. Micky knew Hugh was a poor relation and he treated him accordingly, so it was difficult for Hugh to be objective about him. He was very personable, and always beautifully dressed. He reminded Hugh of a cat, sleek and sensual with glossy fur. It was not quite the thing to be so carefully groomed, and men said he was not very manly, but women did not seem to care about that.

Hugh followed Rachel with his eyes as she crossed the room to where Micky stood with his father, talking to Edward’s sister Clementine, Aunt Madeleine, and young Aunt Beatrice. Now Micky turned to Rachel, giving her his full attention as he shook her hand and said something that made her laugh. Micky was always talking to three or four women.

All the same Hugh disliked the suggestion that Florence was somehow like Micky. She was attractive and popular, as he was, but Micky was something of a cad, Hugh thought.

He made his way to Florence’s side, feeling thrilled but nervous. “Lady Florence, how are you?”

She smiled dazzlingly. “What an extraordinary house!”

“Do you like it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“That’s what most people say.”

She laughed as if he had made a witty remark, and he felt inordinately pleased.

He went on: “It’s very modern, you know. There are five bathrooms! And a huge boiler in the basement warms the whole place with hot-water pipes.”

“Perhaps the stone ship on top of the gable is a little too much.”

Hugh lowered his voice. “I think so too. It reminds me of the cow’s head outside a butcher’s shop.”

She giggled again. Hugh was pleased that he could make her laugh. He decided it would be nice to get her away from the crowd. “Come and see the garden,” he said.

“How lovely.”

It was not lovely, having only just been planted, but that did not matter in the least. He led her out of the drawing room onto the terrace but there he was waylaid by Augusta, who shot him a look of reproof and said: “Lady Florence, how kind of you to come. Edward will show you the garden.” She grabbed Edward, who was standing nearby, and ushered the two of them away before Hugh could say a word. He clenched his teeth in frustration and vowed he would not let her get away with this. “Hugh, dear, I know you want to talk to Rachel,” she said. She took Hugh’s arm and moved him back inside, and there was nothing he could do to resist her,
short of snatching his arm away and making a scene. Rachel was standing with Micky Miranda and his father. “Micky, I want your father to meet my husband’s cousin, Mr. Samuel Pilaster.” She detached Micky and his father and took them off, leaving Hugh with Rachel again.

Rachel was laughing. “You can’t argue with her.”

“It would be like arguing with a dashed railway train,” Hugh fumed. Through the window he could see the bustle of Florence’s dress as it swayed down the garden beside Edward.

Rachel followed his eyes and said: “Go after her.”

He grinned. “Thanks.”

He hurried down the garden. As he caught up, a wicked idea occurred to him. Why should he not play his aunt’s game and detach Edward from Florence? Augusta would be spitting mad when she found out—but it would be worth it for the sake of a few minutes alone in the garden with Florence. To hell with it, he thought. “Oh, Edward,” he said. “Your mother asked me to send you to her. She’s in the hall.”

Edward did not question this: he was used to sudden changes of mind by his mother. He said: “Please excuse me, Lady Florence.” He left them and went into the house.

Florence said: “Did she really send for him?”

“No.”

“You’re so bad!” she said, but she was smiling.

He looked into her eyes, basking in the sunshine of her approval. There would be hell to pay later, but he would suffer much worse for the sake of a smile like that. “Come and see the orchard,” he said.

3

AUGUSTA WAS AMUSED
by Papa Miranda. Such a squat peasant of a man! He was so different from his lithe, elegant
son. Augusta was very fond of Micky Miranda. She always felt more of a woman when she was with him, even though he was so young. He had a way of looking at her as if she were the most desirable thing he had ever seen. There were times when she wished he would do more than just look. It was a foolish wish, of course, but all the same she felt it now and again.

She had been alarmed by their conversation about Seth. Micky assumed that when old Seth died or retired, his son Samuel would take over as Senior Partner of Pilasters Bank. Micky would not have made that assumption on his own: he must have picked it up from the family. Augusta did not want Samuel to take over. She wanted the job for her husband Joseph, who was Seth’s nephew.

She glanced through the drawing room window and saw the four partners in Pilasters Bank together on the terrace. Three were Pilasters: Seth, Samuel and Joseph—the early-nineteenth-century Methodists had favored biblical names. Old Seth looked like the invalid he was, sitting with a blanket over his knees, outliving his usefulness. Beside him was his son. Samuel was not as distinguished-looking as his father. He had the same beaklike nose, but below it was a rather soft mouth with bad teeth. Tradition would favor him to succeed because he was the eldest of the partners after Seth. Joseph was speaking, making a point to his uncle and his cousin with short jabbing movements of his hand, a characteristically impatient gesture. He, too, had the Pilaster nose, but the rest of his features were rather irregular and he was losing his hair. The fourth partner was standing back, listening with his arms folded. He was Major George Hartshorn, husband of Joseph’s sister Madeleine. A former army officer, he had a prominent scar on his forehead from a wound received twenty years ago in the Crimean War. He was no hero, however: his horse had been frightened by a steam-traction engine and he had fallen and banged his head on
the wheel of a kitchen wagon. He had retired from the army and joined the bank when he married Madeleine. An amiable man who followed where others led, he was not clever enough to run the bank, and anyway they had never had a Senior Partner whose name was not Pilaster. The only serious candidates were Samuel and Joseph.

Technically, the decision was made by a vote of the partners. By tradition, the family generally reached a consensus. In reality, Augusta was determined to have her way. But it would not be easy.