Flowers in the Blood (69 page)

The world of the auction room tilted. What was going on? Had Edwin gone crazy? He was not supposed to bid! There were a few more lots, and then the room began to empty. Stunned, I could not move. Where was my father? What would he think? And Abner Raphael and the others? Not to mention Samuel. Was Edwin going to ruin everything now? How could he do this? How and why?

 

Outside, I struggled for deep breaths. From the corner of my eye I could see the comforting whiteness of Gulliver's waistcoat. The other figures swirled past in a blur. Nobody approached me. Olivia and Natalie brushed by on their way to their carriages. Aunt Bellore and Sultana had left from the opposite exit.

“Dinah!” came my father's raspy voice. “I thought you said—”

“I. . . I don't know what happened. There must have been a change in strategy . . .” I glanced around furtively for Edwin. Surely he would explain.

“Why did Edwin leave without you?”

“He did?”

“Yes, I couldn't catch up to him. I thought you were together until I saw you waiting here. Come with me. I demand a better explanation of these events.”

Docilely I followed my father. Where was Edwin headed? Tears flooded my eyes as I strained to make sense of what was happening. In the silent minutes of our journey, I wondered where Uncle Samuel was going and with whom he would be conferring. What could he have thought of Edwin's brash maneuver? He had to have some suspicions that we were trying to buy lots of our own. Since nobody had yet been aggressive enough to outbid him for many chests, he could not have taken the threat seriously. If he backed off now, he could handle his losses, which would ruin our plan.

Once we were at Theatre Road, Zilpah made my father sit in the small parlor and sip his medicines. Only when the glass was drained did she chide him for not following doctor's orders. After that was accomplished, she stared at my outfit. “Dinah, where have you been, dressed like that?”

“At the auction,” I replied, feeling as ashamed as a child who has done something wrong but does not know quite what.

“What happened there? You are pale, and your father looks on the verge of a relapse.”

“Nonsense,” he said in a domineering voice that silenced his wife. He continued with an explanation of the morning's events.

“Where is Edwin?” Zilpah asked reprovingly.

“I do not know,” I said, hoping we could move on to the details of Uncle Samuel's machinations.

Zilpah would not let the matter drop. She pursed her lips and fixed me with a maternal glare. “There is something else going on here . . .”

“We had a small quarrel last night.”

Zilpah sucked in her bright red lips. “How unlike you two.” Suddenly she turned sympathetic. “Most couples have tiffs. Don't let it worry you.”

“I know that, but this is the first time for us.”

“You must have been under a considerable anxiety since your discovery of the altered records. Such a burden to accept on your own! You should have come to us—or at least to me,” she admonished gently. “And then to have the Luddy matter on top of that. . .”

“Unfortunately, money brings out the worst in most people,” my father added, thinking our dispute had something to do with my inheritance.

“Not money exactly,” I said, then wished I had left his guess stand.

“Why the hell is he bidding?” Papa shouted.

“Benu, calm yourself,” Zilpah hissed. She pressed the back of her bronzed hand to his milky-white forehead. I noticed a relieved sigh at no sign of fever. “You had both better have something to eat before returning to the auction.” She led us to the table on the terrace. The day was fair, the afternoon breeze a promise of the end of the hot-and-wet season, the roses fragrant in the moist air. The silver utensils glistened, the linen was white and crisp, the bowls of curry and rice steamed their spicy promise. For a second I wished I could sit there forever and blot out the nasty arena of commerce and duty. I reached for a slice of bread and tried to ease the unrelenting stabbing with food, but my churning stomach would not permit me to accept more than a few bites. I sipped tea and managed a handful of almonds while Zilpah and Benu heatedly discussed the predicament.

When my father checked his pocket watch, Zilpah swooped up like a butterfly flying into the wind. “I am coming with you.”

My seat in the ladies' section had been taken by one of Natalie's sisters who had not been there in the morning. Sultana had moved beside her mother in the front. Zilpah and I were content to take over the last row. Gulliver stood protectively behind my chair. Edwin's place remained empty until a few minutes after the auctioneer and the agents entered from the side room.

I hurriedly looked at the sheets of paper. Most of the subsequent lots were in groups of forty-eight or sixty. Matters would move more swiftly now. There were only six pages of figures remaining, each line representing considerably more than a mere printed number and description.

“We resume with lot two hundred eighty-one,” Mr. Chappell said, his rested voice as bright as a brass bell. “Sixty chests, grade-A Patna, processed at Monghyr. Do I hear a hundred thousand?”

A communal gasp rumbled through the room. A hundred thousand? What audacity to open at almost seventeen hundred per chest! And he was staring at Edwin! Edwin nodded his chin. Mr. Haythornthwaite could not master his grimace of satisfaction. The competing bids flew in fast and furious.

“One hundred and seven thousand, four hundred.” The gavel fell. An anonymous agent at the back of the room purchased the lot. Uncle Samuel, I suspected, had taken it for 1,790. At least Edwin hadn't managed to succeed again.

Edwin also started the next few lots, which were closed by a broker at around the eighteen-hundred level. Was Edwin merely compelling my uncle into higher and higher ranges? Had Samuel's hostility toward my husband forced his hand sooner than he had expected? If so, I suspected Edwin would tone down his efforts for a while. And indeed quite soon my husband refrained from beginning any bids and merely nodded halfheartedly in the center of the action, quieting long before the gavel fell closer and closer to the nineteen-hundred mark.

Energy flowed through the room as the lots in the three-hundred numbers came up. Some of the choicest grades from Dinapur were on the block. I watched as Jardine paid 1,925 for a double-A and the Gubbay firm bested him for a similarly ranked Benares at 1,932.

“A new record,” murmured the crowd.

Uncle Samuel was perspiring openly. True, the room had become stuffier in the late afternoon, but the punkahs were flapping and few of the ladies were as perturbed. Obviously the prices at these unimaginable levels distressed him. And if he was going to wrest control of the market, it was at this high range where he would have to make his play to buy everything in sight.

Edwin bid again. Why would he go after an inferior Gorakhpur that had opened at a measly fifteen hundred? Instead of letting others pick up the pace, Edwin stayed in the fray. I was aghast when I realized my husband had purchased his second batch for seventy-seven thousand rupees—over sixteen hundred per chest! Not a huge amount, considering the numbers we had been hearing, but a great deal more than the reserve. What in the world was he doing now? My palms began to perspire. I felt dizzy, for after Edwin's purchases the prices went soaring. While Raphael, Gubbay, and the Meyer brothers bid aggressively, they ended up deferring each overpriced lot to anonymous agents. I circled a figure on my page, 2,700, and whispered to Zilpah, “That's how many I think Samuel has taken. Although he's been conservative and the average price is under fifteen hundred, he must have spent more than forty lacs by now. That is way over what he can afford—almost double our estimate of his capital.”

“Probably he was waiting for the price to fall before taking everything. Now he has no choice,” Zilpah added knowingly. “Won't he need most of the balance to take control?”

I looked up. The gavel had fallen. I was relieved that Jardine, Matheson had taken the lot. “Yes, he will.”

Davidson had the next two. Jardine stole a few in the fifteen hundreds because of the auctioneer's seeming to ignore the agent behind Uncle Ezra. Gabriel Judah was on his feet about to register a protest when Edwin reached forward and pushed him down. Gabriel spun around and shot him a malignant glance. The whole room noticed the altercation, but the auctioneer did not miss a beat. For a while the prices soared to panicky heights near the two-thousand-rupee mark. Haythornthwaite did a merry jig as the numbers peaked. A pity the crown will profit handsomely from my uncle's evils, I thought sourly.

There was no evidence that anyone other than our tight circle of conspiring merchants had paid inflationary prices. We had scared Uncle Samuel off! Gabriel trembled openly. Sultana dabbed her eyes, pretending she had a difficulty with a lash to hide her anguish. Aunt Bellore's shoulders sagged.

“Lot four hundred twelve.”

The numbers were getting higher and higher.

We were on the next-to-last page. “Lot four hundred twenty-five.”

My uncle could never recover now!

“Seventy thousand . . .” There were no longer any bidders willing to open at over sixteen hundred per chest. Nonplussed, Mr. Chappell backed off to sixty thousand. Silence. Aware the room had cooled significantly, but ignorant of the forces at play, the confused auctioneer fell to forty thousand and finally sold the lot for the paltry—if more ordinary—figure of 1,345 rupees per chest.

As if propelled by something painful on his seat, Uncle Samuel stood up. His arms jerked wildly before he sank back into his chair clutching his chest. Abner Raphael turned around and directed the man next to my uncle to unbutton his jacket. The agent who had won many earlier rounds—probably for Samuel—passed up a flask. Samuel pushed his helpers away. Stumbling up the aisle, he scattered curses. Weeping openly, Aunt Bellore followed him out.

Somehow the others managed to conclude the sale. Over nine thousand chests had passed from the hands of the crown to those of the merchants. Zilpah took my hand, and together we walked onto the trading floor. In the aftermath, men gathered around in tight circles, comparing versions of what had occurred, those not in the know gleaning what they could.

Abner Raphael greeted my father with a luminous smile. “Benu! I did not expect to see you here. I thought this was to be a secret from you.”

“It was, but I had a premonition.”

“Now that you know, you won't be too hard on them, will you?” He lifted his furry eyebrows, which seemed crested with frost.

“I don't think I know the half of it yet, Abner, but it seems to me you made out rather well.”

“Indeed I have.”

Winston Davidson patted my father on the back. “Wasn't that amusing, Mr. Sassoon?” He chuckled. “I am pleased you were able to see what evolved, for no words would have done it justice, eh?”

“I suppose it is easier to enjoy oneself when the risks have been assumed by another party.” My father gave a sardonic laugh.

“I, doubt there will be any regrets in the house of Sassoon, my dear friend,” added the plumper of the Meyer brothers. “Your daughter is a treasure. How many men, let alone sons, would have taken that chance to save the family firm?”

“She's a wonderful girl,” my father agreed. “I always said she had the flowers in her blood.”

“And gold in her pocket,” Abner Raphael interjected. “Do you have any idea of what her position is now?”

My father scratched his head, for I had not explained the details of my twenty-percent guarantee. As Raphael filled him in, a realization began to dawn. My percentage gave me ownership of about twelve hundred chests, plus the several hundred Edwin had bought for some crazed reason of his own. After lot splitting on the usual basis, the Sassoon company would control at least another two thousand. And then there were the approximately twenty-five hundred that Samuel was stuck with at prices too high to market on his own. If I could make a deal to get Samuel's lots and combine them with mine
and
those of the Sassoons, I would monopolize the essential seventy-five percent to rule the marketplace!

My thoughts were diverted by the sound of Edwin's voice. “That is very kind of you.” He was talking to Awad Meyer, beaming under the man's lavish compliments. “No, I wasn't planning on bidding. I wasn't even planning to come . . .”

Raphael tugged at Edwin's sleeve. “Then why did you bid, my boy?” he said without rancor.

I held my breath for my husband's explanation.

“I knew you wanted Dinah there as bait for her uncle, but I was afraid I could not hide my emotions, so I forced myself to stay away. Throughout the morning I thought I would go mad wondering what was happening. Then, as I humored myself at Ranken's”—he touched his showy lapel with a chagrined smirk—”I realized I did not want to miss the moment a man who stole from his own family was put in his place. That sort of creature deserves no pity. Nor even the slightest chance to wheedle out of the mess! I thought: If only the bastard could be coerced to bid beyond any limits he had set for himself, he would disintegrate that much sooner. After that I wondered what would make him bid the highest. Suddenly I realized that the reason he had always treated me abominably was that he was
afraid
of me. If he saw me openly making a move on behalf of Dinah, he could not tolerate it.”