An Indelicate Situation (The Weymouth Trilogy) (36 page)

‘I am convinced of it,
Mr
Staveley, but if you would like me to I should be more than happy to oversee him for you. You could ask him to consult me prior to taking any decisions in relation to your mother’s money. That way, at least, you c
ould
be sure of no one person taking
overall
control.’

Mr Staveley looked instantly relieved.

‘Would you do that for m
...
me, M
...
Mr Berkeley? I should b
...
be
devilish
grateful. It would certainly set m
...
my
mind at rest.’

‘Well, before you set off for Portsmouth – and preferably when neither of us has had
quite so much
to drink – we must make sure and take an hour to run through exactly what you want and I will engage, as far as I am possibly able, to ensure that your wishes are entirely carried out
. Indeed, it would probably be a good idea to involve
Mr Wright
in such a discussion – preferably away from the influence of his wife. He will know exactly what he has done with the money so far and can hand over the accounts as we do so
.’

They
sealed their
understanding with another couple of glasses before r
etreat
ing
a little unsteadily
from the dining room to join the ladies in the drawing room. Maggie
- perhaps hoping through this activity to prevent herself from pining entirely away whilst Mr Staveley
had
remained quite hidden from view
-
had already taken her place at the pianoforte and,
when
the gentlemen
appeared
,
was part way through a charming piece by Mr Haydn
which she was executing with a great deal of
delicacy
and
skill
.
After
the coffee
it was Kathryn’s turn to take to the instrument and she immediately struck up a lively
country
dance.

‘For whilst I am becoming a little too rotund for dancing just at present,’ she explained, laughing, ‘I know that my husband would dearly love a dance
and my playing is so vastly
inferior to that of yours, Miss Owens,
that this is about all I c
ould
possibly
manage
for you anyway.’

Poorly executed or not, the music was sufficient to encourage not only Mr Berkeley – who immediately offered his hand to his sister – but Mr Staveley – who
bravely
did the same to Maggie
-
onto his feet, while Captain
Wright
, whose consumption of his brother
-
in
-
law’s port had been a little more circumspect than that of his companions,
went over to the pianoforte and offered to turn the sheets. Indeed, as Kathryn’s playing was at about the same standard as Mr Staveley’s dancing – that is, not very good at all
-
the activity very quickly degenerated into a free
-
for
-
all which grew increasingly hysterical the more the participants missed
their steps and whirled chaotically
round and round the room. Two dances were sufficient to see all four of them collapsing, giggling uncontrollably, onto the various sofas and chairs
about the room
and for Jane – probably quite kindly – to replace her sister
-
in
-
law at the
instrument
to provide
them with
a glee for them all to sing along to
in order to finish off the night
.

Th
warted as they had been by Mrs Berkeley’s interventions, th
e twists and turns of fortune which had so
hounded
Maggie recently now appeared to have determined on attaching themselves to
two
further victims
in a renewed attempt to do their worst
. This time the victims were Mr Staveley
and his
long suffering
mama
.

For it so happened that on the very day on which Mr Berkeley and Mr Staveley had agreed to meet up with
Mr Wright
at Mr Brewer’s banking establishment
to effect the handover of the money,
some news of the utmost seriousness began filtering its way into town. Indeed, the news was so bad and so ill welcome that Mr Brewer met his t
hree associates with a very worried
look upon his face.

‘It is extremely bad news for the three of us I’m afraid, Mr Staveley,’ he intimated, leading the way through to his office at the rear of the bank. ‘I am not sure how much Mr Wright here
has
told you about the nature of our investments overseas – the investments into which we sank
a proportion of
your mother’s money as well as an amount of our own? – but I regret that they have turned out much riskier than either of us could possibly have imagined. We had invested in crops from the Americas –
North and South
-
tobacco, mainly, but also a little
rice
and
corn flour
, a few extra items of (ahem) that ilk
– which we had planned to trade at a profit over here. It is normally a secure and lucrative enough transaction. But sadly, this time – well, I am sorry, Mr Staveley, but it appears that the very boat which was transporting the goods along the American coastline has been boarded
and captured by some
foreign
p
rivateers
. They have boarded and captured the boat and all of its cargo. I have no expectations of us ever seeing anything of it again.’

Mr Staveley was looking a little bewildered. Mr Berkeley who, luckily, had not himself invested in the venture, took it upon himself to ask some questions on the gentleman’s behalf.

‘So all of the investment is gone, you say,
Mr
Brewer?’ he asked him. ‘And how much of Mrs Staveley’s money was involved in
i
t
, might I ask
?’

Mr Brewer took a s
hifty
look at
Mr Wright
, who was, in his turn, looking studiedly at the floorboards.

‘Umm...humph...Well, it
i
s a little difficult to say, exactly, Mr Be
rkeley. Mr Wright had pooled some of
his own money with that of Mrs Staveley. We invested about one half.’

‘A half? A half of what, exactly?’

‘A half of about – what was it, Mr Wright? – about a half of four thousand pounds. I believe that Mrs Staveley started with about two thousand
in ready cash
, and so did Mr Wright. We agreed to invest about a half of that total
altogether
. So you could, perhaps, say that each of them has lost a thousand
pounds
.’

‘A thousand?’

‘Yes. A thousand.’

Mr Berkeley raised his eyes to the sky.

‘And I take it, from your reaction, that the cargo was not insured?’

Here Mr Brewer stole another
shifty look at
Mr Wright
.

‘Well, the boat was insured,
certainly
,’ he said, cagily. ‘
And the boat, of course, wa
s one of mine.
But the cargo – well, the cargo was maybe not quite fully covered. Some of it  – well, perhaps we should just say
that some of it was
not quite
as insurable as the rest of it.’

‘So you were trying to smuggle it – is that what you are saying, Mr Brewer? You have invested an old lady’s money in illegal cargo, and now you are telling us that you have gone and lost the lot?’

Mr Brewer shifted a little uneasily in his seat.

‘Well...umm...well yes, I suppose you could look at it like that. About half of the cargo was insured. The rest of it – the rest of it we will unfortunately have to write off.’

‘I see.’

Mr Staveley, having passed his mathematics examination at the fifth time of trying, was rapidly working out the extent of the losses that Mr Brewer was
talking
about.

‘So we are talking ab...about a figure of five hundred p...pounds, are we, M...Mr B...Brewer?’

‘Well, if we were to say that half of the investment was your mother’s, and half of it was uninsured, I daresay – yes, we are talking about a figure of
approximately
five hundred pounds.’

This was depressing news. It meant that, effectively, he should be working for the next
four years for nothing
in order to make it up
.

‘But that is always assuming that a portion of Mrs Staveley’s money went on the illicit portion of the cargo, Mr Brewer.’

Mr Berkeley was obviously less
inclined than Mr Staveley
was
to abandon the money without a fight.

Mr Brewer looked at him narrowly.

‘Yes,’ he admitted, eventually. ‘Yes, I suppose that it is.’

‘So you are saying that Mrs Staveley invested her money in contraband, Mr Brewer, whereas I am sure – am I not correct, Mr Staveley? – that Mrs Staveley would have done no such thing.’

Mr Staveley found that all three of his companions were, at that moment, looking at him expectantly.

‘No,’ he assured them, confidently. ‘I am sure that m...my mother would have wanted to do no such thing.
My father lost a deal of b...balsam in a similar
manner himself. I am sure that m...my mother would never have risked her own fortune in doing the self same thing again.
’

Mr Brewer looked frowningly at his long
-
time gambling associate.

‘So what is it that you are suggesting, exactly, Mr Berkeley?’

Mr Berkeley smiled engagingly at him in return.

‘I am suggesting, of course, M
r Brewer, that of the two
thousand pounds invest
ed in
this
cargo, it was the
thousand pounds’ worth of legal, insured carg
o that Mrs Staveley invested in, a
nd therefore that the losses – whatever proportion of the remainder they may represent – must be entirely at the door of Mr and Mrs Wright
.
’
A
t this point
Mr Wright
shot his confederate a horrified glance, which Mr Brewer took great care not to notice. ‘You may, of course, wish to mitigate those losses by providing the Wrights with a share of the boat insurance, but I shall leave that as a suggestion that Mr Wright may well wish to negotiate with you entirely on his own.
’

‘Well,’ said the banker, cagily. ‘
I really could not agree that all of the losses are down to Mr Wright.
Mrs Staveley’s money must most certainly have been involved.
Perhaps we should work this out a little more
scientifically, Mr Berkeley. After all, I have been talking in round figures up to now. It
may be that not quite half of the cargo was made up of illicit goods.’

The gentlemen decided to adjourn for some refreshment whilst Mr Brewer undertook his calculations. Mr Staveley, feeling bemused by the whole affair, was only grateful for Mr Berkeley’s expert intervention. He would certainly not have had the expertise – or the courage – to have manufa
c
tured such arguments for himself. And once their refreshments were over and everyone felt a little more relaxed it transpired that the situation was not quite as bad as Mr Brewer had first thought – that only a third of the cargo had consisted of uninsured articles
after all
, and that, at some time in the future, the remainder should most certainly be reimbursed by Lloyds
. I
t was finally agreed that, for a
ten
percent loss on her original investment, Mrs Staveley should receive immediate reimbursement of the remainder of her money
from Mr Brewer’s bank reserves
and that, should any of the cargo ever come to light in the future, she should then be in line to take a simila
r proportion of any of
that
ensu
ing. Mr Brewer agreed to organise the investment of Mrs Staveley’
s remaining nine
teen hundred pounds in the three percents and to provide the certificate to Mr Berkeley when he had done so, for that gentleman’s safe keeping on Mr Staveley’s behalf.