A Dangerous Fortune (28 page)

The first person he shook hands with was his cousin Edward. He was twenty-nine but he looked older: he was already becoming stout and his face had the flushed look of a glutton. “So, you’re back,” he said. He tried a smile but it turned into a resentful sneer. Hugh could hardly blame him. The two cousins had always been compared to each other. Now Hugh’s success drew attention to Edward’s lack of achievement at the bank.

Micky Miranda stood next to Edward. Still handsome and immaculately dressed, Micky seemed even more sleek and self-assured. Hugh said: “Hullo, Miranda, are you still working for the Cordovan Minister?”

“I
am
the Cordovan Minister,” Micky replied.

Somehow Hugh was not surprised.

He was pleased to see his old friend Rachel Bodwin. “Hullo, Rachel, how are you?” he said. She had never been a pretty girl but she was turning into a handsome woman, he realized. The angular features and close-set eyes that he thought plain six years ago were now oddly intriguing. “What are you doing with yourself these days?”

“Campaigning to reform the law on women’s property,” she said. Then she grinned and added: “Much to the embarrassment of my parents, who would prefer me to campaign for a husband.”

She had always been alarmingly candid, Hugh recalled. He found her interesting on that account, but he could imagine that many eligible bachelors would be intimidated by her. Men liked women to be a little shy and not too clever.

As he exchanged small talk with her, he wondered whether Augusta still wanted to make a match between the two of them. It hardly mattered: the only man Rachel had ever shown any real interest in was Micky Miranda. Even now she was taking care to include Micky in the conversation with Hugh. He had never understood why girls found Micky irresistible, and Rachel surprised him more than most, for she was intelligent enough to realize that Micky was a rotter; yet it was almost as if he fascinated them more on that account.

He moved on and shook hands with Young William and his wife. Beatrice greeted Hugh warmly, and he concluded that she was not as much under Augusta’s influence as the other Pilaster women.

Hastead interrupted them to give Hugh an envelope. “This just arrived by messenger,” he said.

It contained a note in what looked to Hugh like a secretary’s handwriting:

123, Piccadilly
London, W.

Tuesday

Mrs Solomon Greenbourne requests the pleasure of your company at dinner tonight

Below, in a familiar scrawl, was written:

Welcome home!—Solly
.

He was pleased. Solly was always amiable and easygoing. Why could the Pilasters not be as relaxed, he wondered? Were Methodists naturally more tense than Jews? But perhaps there were tensions he did not know about in the Greenbourne family.

Hastead said: “The messenger is waiting for a reply, Mr. Hugh.”

Hugh said: “My compliments to Mrs. Greenbourne, and I shall be delighted to join them for dinner.”

Hastead bowed and withdrew. Beatrice said: “My goodness, are you dining with the Solomon Greenbournes? How marvelous!”

Hugh was surprised. “I don’t expect it to be marvelous,” he said. “I was at school with Solly and I’ve always liked him, but an invitation to dine with him was never a coveted privilege.”

“It is now,” said Beatrice.

“Solly married a fireball,” William explained. “Mrs. Greenbourne loves to entertain, and her parties are the best in London.”

“They’re part of the Marlborough Set,” Beatrice said reverently. “They’re friends with the Prince of Wales.”

Clementine’s fiance, Harry, overheard this and said in a resentful tone: “I don’t know what English society is coming to, when the heir to the throne prefers Jews to Christians.”

“Really?” said Hugh. “I must say I’ve never understood why people dislike Jews.”

“Can’t stand ’em, myself,” Harry said.

“Well, you’re marrying into a banking family, so you’re going to meet an awful lot more of them in the future.”

Harry looked mildly offended.

William said: “Augusta disapproves of the entire Marlborough Set, Jews and others. Apparently their morals aren’t what they should be.”

Hugh said: “And I bet they don’t invite Augusta to their parties.”

Beatrice giggled at the thought and William said: “Certainly not!”

“Well,” said Hugh, “I can’t wait to meet Mrs. Greenbourne.”

Piccadilly was a street of palaces. At eight o’clock on a chilly January evening it was busy, the wide road hectic with carriages and cabs, the gas-lit pavements thronged by men dressed like Hugh in white tie and tails, women in velvet cloaks and fur collars, and painted prostitutes of both sexes.

Hugh walked along deep in thought. Augusta was as implacably hostile to him as ever. He had cherished a secret faint hope that she might have mellowed, but she had not. And she was still the matriarch, so to have her as enemy was to be at odds with the family.

The situation at the bank was better. The business obliged the men to be more objective. Inevitably Augusta would try to block his advancement there, but he had more chance to defend himself on that territory. She knew how to manipulate people but she was hopelessly ignorant about banking.

On balance the day had not gone badly and now he looked forward to a relaxing evening with friends.

When Hugh left for America, Solly Greenbourne
had been living with his father, Ben, in a vast house overlooking Green Park. Now Solly had a house of his own, just down the street from his father’s place and not much smaller. Hugh passed through an imposing doorway into a vast hall lined with green marble, and stopped to stare at the extravagant sweep of a black-and-orange marble staircase. Mrs. Greenbourne had something in common with Augusta Pilaster: neither woman believed in understatement.

A butler and two footmen were in the hall. The butler took Hugh’s hat, only to hand it to a footman; then the second footman led him up the staircase. On the landing he glanced through an open door and saw the bare polished floor of a ballroom with a long sweep of curtained windows, then he was led into a drawing room.

Hugh was no expert on decoration but he immediately recognized the gorgeous, extravagant style of Louis XVI. The ceiling was a riot of plaster molding, the walls had inset panels of flock wallpaper, and all the tables and chairs were perched on thin gilded legs that looked as if they might snap. The colors were yellow, orange-red, gold and green. Hugh could easily imagine prim people saying it was vulgar, concealing their envy beneath a pretense of distaste. In fact it was sensual. It was a room in which impossibly wealthy people did anything they pleased.

Several other guests had arrived already and stood around drinking champagne and smoking cigarettes. This was new to Hugh: he had never seen people smoking in a drawing room. Solly caught his eye and detached himself from a group of laughing people to come over. “Pilaster, how nice of you to come! How are you, for goodness’ sake?”

Hugh perceived that Solly had become a little more extrovert. He was still fat and bespectacled, and there was already a stain of some kind on his white waistcoat,
but he was jollier than ever and, Hugh immediately sensed, happier too.

“I’m very well, thanks, Greenbourne,” Hugh said.

“I know it! I’ve been watching your progress. I wish our bank had someone like you in America. I hope the Pilasters are paying you a fortune—you deserve it.”

“And you’ve become a socialite, they say.”

“None of my doing. I got married, you know.” He turned and tapped the bare white shoulder of a short woman in an eggshell-green dress. She was facing the other way but her back was oddly familiar, and a feeling of déjà vu came over Hugh, making him unaccountably sad. Solly said to her: “My dear, do you remember my old friend Hugh Pilaster?”

She paused a moment longer, finishing what she was saying to her companions, and Hugh thought: Why do I feel breathless at the sight of her? Then she turned very slowly, like a door opening into the past, and Hugh’s heart stopped as he saw her face.

“Of course I remember him,” she said. “How are you, Mr. Pilaster?”

Hugh stared, speechless, at the woman who had become Mrs. Solomon Greenbourne.

It was Maisie.

2

AUGUSTA SAT AT HER DRESSING TABLE
and put on the single row of pearls that she always wore at dinner parties. It was her most expensive piece of jewelry. Methodists did not believe in costly ornament, and her parsimonious husband Joseph used that as an excuse not to buy her jewelry. He would have liked to stop her redecorating the house so often, but she did it without asking him: if he had his way they might live no better than his clerks. He
accepted the redecoration grumpily, insisting only that she leave his bedroom alone.

She took from her open jewelry box the ring Strang had given her thirty years ago. It was in the form of a gold serpent with a diamond head and ruby eyes. She put it on her finger and, as she had done a thousand times before, brushed the raised head against her lips, remembering.

Her mother had said: “Send back his ring, and try to forget him.”

The seventeen-year-old Augusta had said: “I have sent it back already, and I will forget him,” but it was a lie. She kept the ring concealed in the spine of her Bible, and she had never forgotten Strang. If she could not have his love, she vowed, all the other things he could have given her would be hers somehow, one day.

She would never be the countess of Strang, she had accepted that years ago. But she was determined to have a title. And since Joseph did not have one she would have to get him one.

She had brooded over the problem for years, studying the mechanisms by which men gained titles, and many sleepless nights of planning and longing had gone into her strategy. Now she was ready and the time was right.

She would begin her campaign tonight, over dinner. Among her guests were three people who would play a crucial part in having Joseph made an earl.

He might take the title earl of Whitehaven, she thought. Whitehaven was the port where the Pilaster family had begun in business, four generations ago. Joseph’s great-grandfather Amos Pilaster had made his fortune with a legendary gamble, putting all his money in a slave ship. But then he had gone into a less chancy business, buying serge cloth and printed calico from Lancashire textile mills and shipping it to the Americas. Their London home was already called Whitehaven House in
acknowledgment of the birthplace of the business. Augusta would be countess of Whitehaven if her plans worked out.

She imagined herself and Joseph entering a grand drawing room as a butler announced: “The earl and countess of Whitehaven,” and the thought made her smile. She saw Joseph making his maiden speech in the House of Lords, on a topic connected with high finance, and the other peers listening with respectful attention. Shopkeepers would call her “Lady Whitehaven” in loud tones and people would look around to see who it was.

However, she wanted this for Edward as much as anything else, she told herself. One day he would inherit his father’s title, and meanwhile he would be able to put “The Hon. Edward Pilaster” on his visiting card.

She knew exactly what she had to do, but all the same she felt uneasy. Getting a peerage was not like buying a carpet—you could not go to the supplier and say: “I want that one, how much is it?” Everything had to be done with hints. She would need to be very surefooted tonight. If she made a wrong move, her careful plans could go wrong very quickly. If she had misjudged her people she was doomed.

A parlormaid knocked and said: “Mr. Hobbes has arrived, madam.”

She’ll have to call me “my lady” soon, Augusta thought.

She put Strang’s ring away, got up from her dressing table, and went through the communicating door into Joseph’s room. He was dressed for dinner, sitting at the cabinet where he kept his collection of jeweled snuffboxes, looking at one of them in the gaslight. Augusta wondered whether to mention Hugh to him now.

Hugh continued to be a nuisance. Six years ago she thought she had dealt with him once and for all, but he was once again threatening to overshadow Edward. There was talk of his becoming a partner: Augusta could
not tolerate that. She was determined that Edward would be Senior Partner one day, and she could not let Hugh get ahead.

Was she right to worry so much? Perhaps it would be as well to let Hugh run the business. Edward could do something else, go into politics perhaps. But the bank was the heart of this family. People who left, like Hugh’s father Tobias, always came to nothing in the end. The bank was where the money was made and the power exercised. Pilasters could bring down a monarch by refusing him a loan: few politicians had that ability. It was dreadful to think of Hugh’s being Senior Partner, entertaining ambassadors, drinking coffee with the chancellor of the Exchequer, and taking first place at family gatherings, lording it over Augusta and her side of the family.

But it would be difficult to get rid of Hugh this time. He was older and wiser and he had an established position at the bank. The wretched boy had worked hard and patiently for six years to rehabilitate his reputation. Could she undo all that?

However, this was not the moment to confront Joseph about Hugh. She wanted him in a good mood for the dinner party. “Stay up here a few more minutes, if you like,” she said to him. “Only Arnold Hobbes has arrived.”

“Very well, if you don’t mind,” he said.

It would suit her to have Hobbes alone for a while.

Hobbes was the editor of a political journal called
The Forum
. It generally sided with the Conservatives, who stood for the aristocracy and the established church, and against the Liberals, the party of businessmen and Methodists. The Pilasters were both businessmen and Methodists, but the Conservatives were in power.

She had met Hobbes only once or twice before, and she guessed he might have been surprised to receive her invitation. However, she had been confident he would
accept. He would not get many invitations to homes as wealthy as Augusta’s.