Lady of Fortune (21 page)

Dougal sneezed twice. ‘Oh, Effie, leave me alone. I feel bad enough as it is, without you whinging.'

‘There's something else,' said Effie. ‘Something far more important than Prudence, although I'd lay ten pound that Prudence has something to do with it.'

‘And what's that?'

Effie put her head against her upraised knees. She felt so sorry for Dougal that she could scarcely bring herself to tell him. He was so bluff, usually, and so enthusiastic, and she knew that one day he would make the most inventive banker that ever lived. But now, with his head-cold, and his stubborn infatuation for Prudence, he was both helpless and unwilling to be helped.

She said, ‘I think something's awry with Jack Cutting and this plan of his.'

‘Oh? What makes you think that? You're all of a sudden an expert on East African Railways.'

‘No, but I know what you're trying to do, and how you're financing it; and I also know who's supposed to be putting up your security.'

‘Lord Rethesdale,' said Dougal.

‘Aye,' nodded Effie, ‘Lord Rethesdale. And, by chance, I happened to meet Lord Rethesdale in Greenwich Park today. Well, it wasn't so much of a chance. They have a hospital nearby where they treat people who are suffering from paralysis.'

Dougal pressed the back of his hand against his tender, stuffed-up nose. ‘Hold your horses,' he said. ‘You're trying to tell me that yon thigger in a wheelchair,
that
was Lord Rethesdale?'

‘You're a bright fellow, for a brother,' said Effie. That's just exactly who it was.'

Dougal frowned for a moment, but then let out a puff of disbelief. ‘That's ridiculous! Here we are, talking about Lord Rethesdale for the first time ever last week; and what happens? You bump into him in the park the very first time we go out! Or you say you do! That's too trickie for words!'

Effie pushed back the covers of her bed and stood up. ‘Nevertheless, it's true. It was him. He swore it was. He said that he'd been ill, so that he couldn't walk; and that he had mortgaged and sold all of his estates so that he could afford to have hospital treatment to make him better. He won't live long. He's in awful pain, and he's wasting fast.'

Dougal stared at Effie for almost a minute. Then he said, ‘You'd best not be pulling my leg, Effie Watson.'

‘Do you think I would, on a matter like this, so important to you?'

‘You don't care for Prudence.'

‘You're right about that. But then I do care for you.'

‘You're just telling me stories to put me off her.'

‘Dougal,' said Effie. She reached out and offered him her hand. ‘Dougal, I love you, and I wish to God that I
were
telling you stories. But I'm not. That man in the wheelchair, all twisted up and crippled, with no money to his name in the whole wide world, that was really Lord Rethesdale.'

Dougal took Effie's hand reluctantly and pressed it tight. Then he said, ‘There must be some mistake. Perhaps you misheard the name. Well, even if you didn't, I can't see Jack Cutting playing a trick like this. He's not the sort.'

‘You can never tell
who's
going to trick you when it comes to money,' said Effie, gently. ‘Father said that.'

‘Father's a cynic.'

‘Father made a fortune, from nothing at all,' Effie reminded him. ‘If it hadn't have been that father was a cynic, and didn't believe people, you wouldn't be here now.'

‘Better if I hadn't,' said Dougal, blowing his nose, and tucking his handkerchief into his pocket. ‘I'd rather die of a Scottish fever than an English cold.'

There was a knock at the door. It was Logan, with a mug of Horlicks malted milk for Effie, and a small heart-shaped herbal pillow which she had promised to lend to Effie to help her sleep. Horlicks was very popular as a bedtime drink just now, because a strident advertising campaign had associated it closely with the Boer War. Armoured trains were depicted steaming through the South African bush with their smoke curling into the word ‘Horlicks.'

When Logan had gone, Effie said, ‘What will you do?'

‘Do?' asked Dougal. ‘Nothing at all, for the time being.'

‘But supposing this East African business isn't all that it's supposed to be?'

‘And supposing it is, and I don't go through with it?' retaliated Dougal. ‘I'll lose one of the best opportunities to pull off a grand financial coup that I'll never have. It has to be now, Effie. I have to show father that only a week or two after he's sent me down to London I've been able to arrange such substantial loans that Watson's Bank will soon be right in the forefront. Barings have never been the same since that Argentinian affair, when Rothschilds had to bail them out; and Rothschilds themselves have been drawing in their horns lately. We're not exactly Rothschilds yet, but we could
be, if only we act quickly, and take some risks!'

‘A million pounds on an East African railway is a terribly big risk. Especially when you can't be sure of your security.'

‘We're risking a million, yes. But you mark my words, we'll get three million back.'

Effie said nothing. She was frightened for Dougal, but she knew from experience that once he had made up his mind about something, it was almost impossible to turn his head. It was the stubborn support he gave to unpopular and eccentric investments that was the measure of him; of his strength, and of his weakness. She often felt that he was in the wrong career, being a banker. He should have been an explorer, or a soldier, or a mountaineer. From his mother, he had inherited wilfulness, and grace of character, and an optimism that almost nothing could crush – not tedium, not disapproval, not even the morals of an age in which it was earnestly suggested by the most popular of social commentators that if a man wished to get to know a young lady, he should consider joining the same cricket club as her brother.

Effie said, ‘Let me ask you just one thing, Dougal. When you meet the directors of the railway tomorrow, may I come?'

Dougal coughed, and stood up, brushing his coat straight. ‘Very well,' he said, in a congested voice. ‘I'll think about it. Now, why don't you drink your malted milk and get yourself some sleep?'

The offices of the East Africa Railway Venture Company were in a dark four-story building in Star Yard, at the back of Chancery Lane. It was sleeting when Dougal and Effie arrived there at four o'clock on Monday afternoon, and it was already very dark. They climbed up a narrow staircase, lined with damp brown wallpaper, and along a landing that smelled of gas and cats. On a frosted-glass door, a cardboard sign said, ‘Snetterton, Plant & Beest, Limited.'

At a rolltop desk inside the office, surrounded by a chaos of unopened letters and crumpled papers and dog-eared
accounts books, and overlooked by a gallery of picture-postcards of dashing young men in uniform, a pretty young typist sat, in a shirtwaist blouse and a dark green skirt, painting her fingernails with pink. Her tea, an Eccles cake, was warming up nicely on top of the upright oil stove.

‘You're not looking for Mr Beest, are you?' she asked cheerfully. ‘Mr Beest never comes into the office.'

But at that moment, an inner door opened, and Jack Cutting appeared. ‘Dougal! My dear chap! And you've brought your delightful sister! My dear fellow, do come in! Mr Snetterton and Mr Plant are absolutely dying to make your acquaintance! Miss Watson, what a pleasure this is, on such a dire afternoon!'

He said, ‘Alexandra, dear, would you make some tea for everybody? Use the Darjeeling, and the best cups.'

Then he ushered them through to the inner office, which on first impression looked more to Effie like the offices of an unsuccessful weekly newspaper than a railway company. There were papers everywhere, and maps, and heaps of books, and in one corner of the room there was even a large wire cage in which a moulting green parrot was imprisoned, irritably clawing its way from one end of its perch to the other.

The two partners of the railway company rose to their feet when Effie walked in. Mr Snetterton was tiny, almost a midget, with a head which seemed to slope off to the left, and a burst of brambly hair that seemed determined to leap off it even further to the left. His collar was so high that Effie wondered how he kept it from poking his eyes out, and he wore a yellow silk necktie with a diamond pin. A little dandy, with hands and feet like those of a child, and an odd, strangled voice.

Mr Plant on the other hand was obese. He had the look about him of a man who had lived for most of his life in the tropics, eating too much native food and drinking too much gin. There was something pleasant about his slovenliness, though, a comfortable air, and he kept his hands in the pockets of his huge tweed coat at all times (except to take Effie's and kiss it, and to shake Dougal's) as if he were very much at home with everybody and anything. He had eaten three mutton pies for his lunch, for the remains were still scattered all over his desk, and intermittently he would push a fragment of
pastry through the bars of the parrot's cage, and make loud kissing noises with his crimson lips. ‘Come on, Poll. Comestibles.'

‘You must pardon our premises,' said Mr Snetterton. ‘Our principal offices are in Nairobi, and they are extremely smart. But when we came here in London, we had to rent what we could, and there was no justification for being lavish, simply for the purpose of impressing banks.'

Dougal looked around, and sniffed. ‘As long as your railway plan impresses us, Mr Snetterton, I don't think we're too concerned about your waste paper and your parrot.'

Mr Plant brought forward some cheap bentwood chairs. ‘In three years time, Mr Watson, we shall be able to afford to rent the Bank of England, for offices. This railway line will make all of us as wealthy as emperors, and a little more besides.'

‘I've seen your plans,' said Dougal. ‘I've also taken the time to go through your financial proposal, and your figures. They seem sound enough to me, provided you can lay your line within the time you've allowed, and within your budget, and provided you can guarantee that you'll be able to secure the necessary monopolies on ivory trading and warehousing.'

Mr Snetterton took out a small cigar, and said, ‘Would Miss Watson object if I smoked?'

When Effie said, ‘Please,' he lit up the cigar and sucked at it furiously until it was well alight. The dim office was curled with pungent blue smoke, sliding and turning and sinking.

‘Let me tell you this,' said Mr Snetterton. ‘George Plant and I have been out in East Africa for eleven years, on and off.'

‘On and off,' agreed George Plant, affably, and smiled at Effie.

‘We're known to every agent, every native, every ivory poacher, every Tom, Dick and Harry, black or white. Even the lions know us, don't they George?'

‘Not on first-name terms,' grinned George Plant.

‘When we build our railway spur from one side of Lake Victoria to the other, and connect up with the government line, we'll have a financial stranglehold on the whole of the Central African interior. The whole world will depend on us for every natural product which comes out of that part of the continent, and everyone who wishes to travel, or settle, or farm, in East Africa or Uganda will have to pay us his due.
Imagine having exclusive rights to that stretch of railway-line between London and Watford, and you will understand the logic of what we wish to do.'

‘You have all the necessary land-grants?' asked Effie.

Mr Snetterton looked across at her sharply, but didn't answer. George Plant smacked another kiss at the parrot, and pushed a piece of pie-crust through the bars of its cage. The parrot nipped him, and he said, ‘Hell's teeth,' and sucked his finger ruefully.

Effie said, ‘I asked you, Mr Snetterton, if you had all the necessary land-grants?'

Mr Snetterton said to Dougal, ‘Does your sister speak on your behalf, Mr Watson?'

Dougal glanced uncomfortably at Effie. ‘I think she has a legitimate point, Mr Snetterton.'

Mr Snetterton clapped his little hands smartly together, his cigar clenched in a grimace. ‘Very well! It's just that I'm unused to doing financial business with the fairer sex. I suppose you could say it unnerves me. Ladies are made for tending the home, and looking admirable, and for love. But banking? I don't think so, Mr Watson. Begging your pardon, Miss Watson.'

Effie stood up. ‘I am the daughter of Mr Thomas Watson, the owner of Watson's Bank, and I think I am as entitled to ask after the interests of the bank's money as anybody.'

Jack Cutting reached across and touched Effie's arm. ‘Miss Watson,' he said, seriously but warmly, ‘you mustn't mind us gentlemen. It's a new experience for us, to do business with anyone so attractive and so personable. Alisdair, will you explain to Miss Watson about the land-grants?'

Mr Snetterton said, quite snappily, ‘They're all in order. I negotiated them personally. Do you wish to see them?'

‘Yes, please,' said Effie; but Dougal raised his hand and said, ‘No, Mr Snetterton, I don't think that will be necessary.'

‘Dougal,' warned Effie, but Dougal shook his head.

‘I've been over this scheme in the minutest detail, Effie. I know what I'm doing. Now, I would rather you kept your remarks to yourself.'

Effie said, ‘What about Lord Rethesdale?'

George Plant looked up. His frog-like eyes glistened in the gaslight. Alisdair Snetterton said, ‘What about Lord Rethesdale?'

‘He's your guarantor,' said Effie. ‘He's the only security you've been able to offer against going bankrupt.'

Alisdair Snetterton tapped the ash precisely off the end of his cigar. In a caustic tone, he said, ‘I understood that I was to meet Mr Dougal Watson of Watson's Bank today, to complete an agreement for the financing of our Lake Victoria railway. Instead, I seem to be talking to his impertinent young sister. I am not a boor, but I am not a particularly patient man, and this is not the way in which I am used to doing business.'