Drop of the Dice (25 page)

‘We’re going to be rich… richer than you’ve dreamed,’ he said. ‘Gad, this is the greatest chance that ever came to anyone.’

Little shivers of alarm went through me. I was always apprehensive about Lance’s gambling; he knew this and kept much of his activity in the field from me. He would occasionally report a fantastic win, but whenever he told me I wondered what enormous losses had gone before.

‘Put me down, Lance,’ I said, ‘and if this is another gamble…’

‘It is the greatest gamble that ever was.’

‘Oh no, Lance!’ He had set me down, and I drew away from him, looking steadily into his face.

‘Oh yes, Clarissa,’ he said, laughing, and his eyes were bright with anticipation. ‘Wait till you hear before you condemn,’ he went on. ‘No… it is not horses… It is not the tables… It’s a government venture, you might say.’

‘I am always suspicious of attempts to make money by gambling.’

‘This is different. Wait till you hear. I’ve gone into it thoroughly. I know exactly what is happening. Let me explain, and you will see how safe it is. The big trading company calling itself the South Sea Company has proposed to the House of Commons that they purchase the irredeemable annuities which had been granted in the reigns of William and Mary and Anne and amalgamate all the public funds together in one stock so as to become the only public creditor. Do you follow me?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Never mind. You will. The Bank of England has entered into the bargaining, and the two began to outbid each other. Now an offer has been accepted on the part of the South Sea Company to provide a sum of seven and a half millions in order to buy up the annuities. The Government annuitants are rushing to exchange their stock for that of the South Sea Company. Already two-thirds of them have done so. There will obviously be enormous dividends. It’s a way of getting rich in the shortest possible time. We have to get into this quickly, Clarissa.’

‘Won’t hundreds of people be saying that?’

‘Of course they will. It’s all so obvious. There will be a rush to get rich quickly. We mustn’t be left out. Already the fifty-pound shares are worth one hundred.’

‘It seems incomprehensible to me. How can they be worth so much?’

‘It’s the prospects, my dear. They are saying there will be a dividend of fifty per cent. The thing is to buy cheaply and sell dear.’

‘Surely everyone will have that idea?’

‘But the thing is to know the right moment to buy and the right one to sell.’

‘And how can anyone be sure of that?’

He put his arms round me and hugged me tightly. ‘My dear, cautious Clarissa you may trust your old Lancelot.’

I was silent—disturbed as I always was by his gambling exploits.

‘But suppose it shouldn’t work out as you think?’

‘My dear, don’t you think I shall know the right time to sell?’

‘I would rather not have anything to do with such ventures.’

‘What! And go on this way all our lives!’

‘It’s a very comfortable way.’

‘And see all those around us making fortunes!’

‘If some are making them you can be sure some are losing them.’

‘Leave it to me, my dearest.’

‘Lance… are you going to invest heavily in this South Sea Company?’

‘Unless one does there seems little point in it. And, Clarissa, I thought you would wish to share in it.’

‘I?’

‘Why not? You’re a woman of substance.’

‘I am not a gambler. I like things as they are. Besides, I couldn’t touch my shares and things which Leigh manages for me.’

‘Perhaps not. But there is the money your father left you.’

‘Oh no. I don’t think I would touch that.’

He shrugged his shoulders and laughed at me. But he said no more about the matter. He went out soon afterwards and I did not see him for the rest of the day. We were dining alone that evening and during the meal he seemed abstracted.

I said: ‘I believe you are still dreaming of the fortune you are going to make out of this South Sea affair.’

‘It’s going to stagger you, Clarissa.’

‘I do hope you have not invested a great deal.’

‘Enough to make me rich, very rich.’

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘We have enough of everything. We can have what we want, in reason. I cannot see why we want to clamour so desperately for more.’

‘You wait, Clarissa, you are going to be as thrilled as I am when you see the fortune which will be ours.’

When we were in bed that night I sensed that he was restless. He could not sleep; nor could I.

Suddenly I felt his hand grasping mine.

‘Are you awake, Clarissa?’ he said.

‘Yes. And I know you are. Oh, Lance, I don’t like this thing. I have an uneasy feeling

‘You think it’s a gamble. It is not. It’s a certainty.’

‘It doesn’t make sense to me. Why should something one buys one day be suddenly worth a lot more the next? It hasn’t changed its value, has it?’

‘It is changed in value because so many people want it.’

‘They want it because they believe it will make them rich overnight.’

‘So it will.’

‘But surely they can’t
all
become so rich?’

‘Oh, the shares will settle in time. That’s what makes it wise to buy now. But it is the dividends the money will bring in which makes it such an excellent venture. Fifty per cent. Just imagine that!’

‘I don’t understand it and I don’t believe it’s true.’

‘You disbeliever!’ He held me tightly and began to caress me. He told me how much he loved me and what a difference I had made to his life; how he had adored me from the time we had journeyed to York together; how jealous he had been of poor Dickon and how happy he was because he was going to spend the rest of his life with me.

Lance would always arouse a response in me. He was tender and gallant and fiercely passionate at the same time. I was happy, I told him. I wanted to please him for as long as we both should live.

I whispered an apology to Dickon as I invariably did at such moments. My encounter with him still stood out in my memory as something especially beautiful, but it was growing more and more like a dream as time passed and it had more than a touch of unreality about it.

At length Lance whispered to me: ‘Clarissa, dearest, I couldn’t leave you out of the excitement. You had to be in it. I wanted you to share…’

My heart started to beat more quickly. ‘What?’ I asked.

‘I have bought for you. You had to be in it. Everyone who can must be in it.’

‘What are you telling me?’

‘That I have arranged for five thousand pounds of your Hessenfield inheritance to be put into the South Sea Company.’

‘You have what?’ I drew away from him but he held me firmly and began kissing my face and throat.

‘I spoke to Grendall about it,’ he said. Grendall was the lawyer who managed the Hessenfield inheritance. ‘He wanted your approval but as I am your husband he accepted mine. I had to do it for you, Clarissa.’

‘Five thousand pounds,’ I stammered. ‘Oh… Lance, how could you!’

‘How could I not? Could I stand by and see everyone else making a fortune and my little Clarissa being left out?’

For a few moments I was speechless. It was half the money which my father had left me. I was furiously angry—first because I hated his gambling, which offered him more excitement than I could. This must be so because he could forget me when the fever was on him. And secondly because he had dared act without consulting me.

He tried to soothe me, holding my quivering body against his, tenderly, passionately. I pulled away from him and sat up.

‘How dared you!’ I cried. ‘You cannot resist the urge to gamble. If you must risk money in future, confine yourself to what is yours to risk.’

‘Clarissa, my darling, you are really angry, aren’t you? Wait until you see what this will bring you.’

‘I have no intention of frittering away my fortune and you have no right to treat me as though you own me and all my possessions.’

‘I love you. I only wanted to do what was best for you.’

I jumped out of bed. I wanted to escape from him. I did not want to be soothed and petted until my emotions were aroused and I was ready to forgive him and forget the matter. I felt it was important that he should understand how I felt and he must realize how deeply I resented his action.

He was leaning on his elbow, looking at me with that indulgence I knew so well, refusing to accept that I was serious in my condemnation of him, trying to shrug off this matter as though it were of no importance. It was very important to me.

‘You must not think that you are going to placate me with a few soft words,’ I said.

‘Come back to bed and talk reasonably. You’ll catch cold standing there.’

‘I shall not come back to bed,’ I said. ‘I want to think what I shall do. I want to be alone.’

I went towards the powder closet, which was roomy enough to hold a small couch.

‘You’re surely not going to sleep in there?’ cried Lance.

‘I told you I want to be alone.’

‘It’s very cold on that couch, and desperately uncomfortable.’

I ignored him and went into the powder closet. I was trembling, but not with cold.

Almost immediately he was there beside me. He put his arms about me. ‘If you insist on sleeping alone,’ he said, ‘there is only one course open to me… or two, rather. I must either offer you the bed and take the couch myself, or use the rights of a husband and carry you back to bed. Which shall it be, Clarissa? Please choose the second alternative, for I shall have a very uncomfortable night on that couch.’

He began to laugh and in spite of everything I found myself laughing also. It was typical of him to introduce a ridiculous note into a serious situation.

He had picked me up and carried me to the bed. I was momentarily reminded of that first night of our wedding when he had carried me thus. Then I had shivered with apprehension; now it was with resentful anger.

We lay in the bed together. He put his arm about me. I knew that he was trying to arouse desire in me; the act of love would make everything right between us. He always thought that was so. It was the same when he came home after a night of gambling. But I was not so easily to be won over at this time.

‘Don’t try your blandishments, Lance,’ I said.

‘All right,’ he answered. ‘I promise no blandishments. But just tell me you are not angry with me any more.’

‘But I am,’ I said. ‘I am very angry. I want to think about it.’

I moved away from him to the edge of the bed.

‘Good night,’ I said firmly.

He sighed. ‘Good night, my dearest,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow it will seem so different.’

I did not answer. He respected my desire to be left alone and we lay on either side of the bed.

I was trying to decide what I should do. That he had dared touch my money angered me; he would not be able to play such tricks with the fortune my mother had left because he would have to deal with Leigh first and I was sure Leigh would never allow it.

I knew that many husbands would have seized their wives’ fortunes. Lance had always behaved as though my money was of no importance to him. He had never shown a great interest in it—so I had thought. Yet he had dared go to Grendall’s and use it to buy stock in my name in the South Sea Company.

I pretended to be asleep as I lay there planning what I would do. It was the first time I had been really angry with Lance. True, I had resented those occasions when he disappeared for hours at the gaming tables, deserting me, so I told myself in hurt pride, for the love of the game; but I had always forgotten that resentment when he had come back and charmed me as he knew so well how to do. This was quite different.

I began to wonder whether he had married me for my money. He must have been fond of Elvira Vernon; but he had not intended to marry her. Why not? Presumably she did not have a fortune. This was not fair. He had explained to me about Elvira and I was not now the simpleton I had been at the time of that discovery. I knew that men had love-affairs before they settled down; and at least I had no cause to suspect Lance of infidelity… as yet.

Finally I dozed, and slept so late that he was gone from beside me when I awakened.

I had made up my mind. I was going to show him that I was an individual and had no intention of allowing anyone to manage my affairs—not even the most charming of husbands.

I took a sedan to Grendall’s in Cornhill, where I was shown into Mr Grendall’s office immediately.

He greeted me warmly and I told him the purpose of my visit. My husband had wrongly assumed that I wanted to invest in the South Sea Company. This was not the case. I wished to cancel the order he had given.

Mr Grendall looked dismayed. ‘But, Lady Clavering,’ he said, ‘the shares have already been bought. In these transactions it is always necessary to act with the maximum speed. They were bought two days ago.’

Two days ago! So he had not told me immediately. I felt my anger rising.

‘Then I wish them to be sold without delay.’ I said. ‘You look astonished. Is that impossible?’

‘By no means. People are clamouring for these shares. But Lady Clavering, the prospects are excellent.’

‘So I have heard, and there will be immense dividends. I am not interested. I want these shares sold at once.’

‘At whatever the market price?’

‘At whatever the market price,’ I repeated.

‘Your orders shall be carried out. I will let you know what price we obtained as soon as the transaction is through.’

‘Thank you, Mr Grendall,’ I said. ‘And I should be glad in future if you will take orders for such transactions from me in person. That is what Sir Lance and I both wish.’

‘I understand, Lady Clavering.’

I was bowed out to my chair.

Lance was in when I returned. He was clearly waiting for me.

‘Clarissa, I was worried about you. Where have you been?’

‘I have been to Cornhill to see Mr Grendall,’ I said.

‘Ah.’ He was smiling at me.

‘I have told him to sell the shares you bought with my money.’

‘To sell! But the market is rising.’

‘I have told him to sell, and that all such transactions will in future come through me and me only.’