Lady of Fortune (27 page)

That's a bloody ugly-looking chicken,' remarked his friend, through the doorway.

‘Doesn't even speak,' the first man agreed. ‘Pretty polly, pretty polly, who's the King of England, then?'

The parrot screeched, and craned its neck around to nip at the man's finger. Without any hesitation, the man lifted the parrot in his hand and stuck it straight down on the upright metal spike on Mr Snetterton's desk. Impaled, the parrot shrilled, and clawed at the air, and managed pitifully to pivot itself in a circle.

‘Skewered,' said the man, with satisfaction. Then he left the office, nodded to his friend that it was time to go, and led the way down the stairs to the moist and foggy street. On their way out of Star Yard, one of them tucked a pound note into the police constable's belt, and said, ‘Top of the morning to you, Percy.'

Jack Cutting was awakened at four o'clock by the abrupt and terrifying crack of his bedroom door being wrenched off its hinges. He was in bed with a dark-haired shopgirl from Balham called Edwina Hargreaves; and his first ridiculous thought was that it was his landlord bursting in to surprise
him with a woman in his digs. He jumped smartly out of bed, in nothing but his nightshirt, and at the same time managed to heap his blankets and his pillows all over Edwina, in an attempt to hide her.

He said, ‘What on
earth's
going on?' But the three bulky men who jostled into his room said nothing at all. One of them snatched at his left wrist, and jerked his arm painfully around behind his back, while the others began to tug out all the drawers in his bureau, and throw them one by one across the room.

‘I said, what on earth's going on?' Jack demanded, in a shrill voice. The man who was gripping his arm gave him a short, stunning punch in the back, and he let out a high-pitched cough.

‘You can't –' he began, ‘but the man punched him again, and he involuntarily brought up an acid splash of bile, which came spurting out of his nostrils.

The men tore open his wardrobe, ripped down his clothes, and systematically wrenched them to shreds. They even sliced his shoes open with a sharp cobbler's knife, and cut his celluloid collars in half. They emptied his bottles of cologne on the floor, and shattered the wardrobe mirror with three powerful kicks. Then they turned their attention to his bed, and started to slash the mattress. Edwina, huddled in terror under her blankets, let out a scream, almost a whoop.

The men dragged back the blankets until they discovered her.

‘You leave her alone!' croaked Jack, but the men did nothing more than tip her roughly off the bed and on to the floor, where she sat in the corner, her nightdress pulled prudishly down to her ankles, shivering and letting out little mewling noises of fright.

It took the men no more than five or six minutes to wreck the room and smash everything that Jack possessed. Then, very brutally and calmly, they beat him with their fists, breaking out six of his front teeth, cracking four of his ribs, and bursting his right eardrum. The last punch they saved for his testicles. Whoever delivered it was holding a full handful of pennies, and it sent him instantly into shock. He fell to the floor, eyes rolled up into his head, like a knackered bullock, and lay with his bloody face buried among the feathers of his mattress, choking for breath, twitching.

The three men left the room unhurriedly, as if they were nothing more than obliging workmen, even taking the trouble to prop the bedroom door back into position. From somewhere distant and echoing and dark, somewhere that was more like a freezing Arctic seascape than the inside of his own head, Jack Cutting heard one of them say, ‘I could go a cup of tea, Frank. Fancy a cup of tea?'

Henry Baeklander stood on the after-deck of the
Excelsior
in a sombre and exquisitely-cut black overcoat, his astrakhan collar turned up to protect the stiff right side of his neck against the damp wind which blew across the silver-green curve of the Thames from the north-west, and from the Essex marshes. It was a quarter past eleven in the morning, and the yacht's boilers had been keeping up a full head of steam since nine. The safety-valves sizzled and sang like kettles, and brown coal smoke rolled ceaselessly from the yellow funnel. Another half-hour, and they would have to cast off, or they would miss the tide. Henry sniffed, and coughed, and brought out his Fabergé pocket-watch yet again, even though he could see Big Ben from where he was standing, and only a few minutes ago he had heard it strike the quarter-hour. His eyes watered and his breath smoked as he looked down at the needle-sharp hands. Eleven-seventeen, and still no sign of Effie.

Mr Outcault came out on the deck and saluted him. ‘Begging your pardon, Mr Baeklander, but we have to cast off soon, or we'll be delayed until the next tide.'

Henry could easily have afforded to wait in London for two or three more days. But he knew that if Effie wasn't going to come this morning, she would never come. He would rather sail away alone than be humiliated by her any longer. No, that wasn't true. He would accept any humiliation she cared to give him. But he would have to leave London sooner or later, and sooner was as good as later. He took out a small cigar, and Mr Outcault stepped forward and lit it for him.
‘Damned damp place, London,' he said, and Mr Outcault nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Known for it.'

At half past eleven a cab drew up on the embankment. Henry Baeklander said, ‘Sawyer, can you see who that is?' and Sawyer, from the upper deck, replied, ‘A gentleman, sir, with a trunk.'

‘No lady?'

There was a pause, and then Sawyer said, ‘No, sir. No lady.'

Henry watched as the iron gate from the embankment was opened, and Dougal appeared, heaving a large brass-bound trunk. Dougal gave Henry a half-hearted wave, but instead of sending one of his crew up to assist him, Henry stood where he was, watching as Dougal struggled with his luggage down the steps of the pier towards the yacht.

At last Dougal managed to wrestle his trunk on board. A minute or two later he appeared on the after-deck from the promenade deck, breathing hard, in his green tweed overcoat and his Coke hat. He was tugging off his hand-knitted woollen gloves, one of which had been frayed by the studs on the side of his suitcase, and his mouth was pursed in a silent whistle. ‘Well, Mr Baeklander,' he said, ‘you certainly have yourself well set up here. A floating palace.'

Henry said, throatily, ‘Where's Effie? Is she going to be late?'

‘Effie?' blinked Dougal. ‘Och, no, Effie's never late. Well, only if there's a reason. And she's not late today.'

‘Then where is she? We have to sail in ten minutes.'

Dougal flushed. ‘I think you'd better read this, sir,' he said, reaching into his coat. He took out a blue foolscap envelope, sealed with blue wax.

‘She's not coming?' Henry demanded. ‘Is that what this says?'

‘I'm afraid I haven't read it, Mr Baeklander.'

Henry walked across to the rail, holding the letter in his left hand, his right hand pressing his fur collar against his stiff neck. He stood in silence for a short while, and then he turned around, and handed the letter back to Dougal.

‘You open it, Mr Watson. You read it to me.'

‘But Effie did say –'

‘Open it, Mr Watson!'

Dougal took the letter, broke the seal with his thumb-nail,
and unfolded it. He scanned it quickly, and then glanced up at Henry Baeklander with great uncertainty.

‘Read it,' insisted Henry, in a sharp voice.

‘Very well,' said Dougal. ‘It says, “My dearest Henry, It is with the utmost regret that I cannot leave with you today on the
Excelsior
. You alone will understand how torn I am; and how much I wish that this did not have to be so. But the decision has been forced on me by the sudden illness of my dear mother (I received the telegram from Edinburgh not three hours ago). I must go to Edinburgh and see to her, and until she is well I am deeply sorry to say that I shall have to remain in Scotland.”'

Dougal paused here, but Henry, who had raised his hand so that it covered his face, and was now watching Dougal through the gaps between his fingers, said croakily, ‘Go on.'

Dougal said, ‘Erm – “Perhaps in one way this decision has been pressed on to me by Fate, as I will now have the opportunity to consult my father and mother fully before going away with you. I was so excited by the idea of an elopement to the Mediterranean, but alas! it seems that it is not to be. My dear Henry, I know you will understand, and I know that you will be in touch with me constantly, so that one day (one day very soon, I trust!) we can be together.”'

‘Is that it?' asked Henry.

Dougal said, ‘No, there's one more thing.'

‘Well, read it, will you?' demanded Henry.

Dougal looked unhappy, but then he read out, haltingly, ‘“You will, of course, honour the agreement that we signed yesterday, appointing my brother Dougal to the Baeklander Trust. He is a talented and clever banker, and I know that you will give him every opportunity to prove himself to you.”'

‘That's all?' asked Henry.

‘That's all,' said Dougal.

Henry paced around the deck in an odd-shaped pattern, the way a lion paces its cage at a zoo. Then he said, ‘How old is your sister?'

‘Effie? Seventeen, sir. And a half.'

‘Seventeen and a half. My God. And she's outwitted us all.'

Mr Baeklander?'

Henry shook his head. ‘Your sister will either become a goddess or a Gorgon. Well, perhaps she'll become a little bit of both. But to do what she did today, at seventeen and a half
… You've got yourself some dangerous competition there, Dougal, my boy. A sister who can run rings around both of us, without even trying.'

Dougal stood facing Henry Baeklander, not quite sure what to say. He asked, at last, ‘Do you still want me to come with you? I won't take this job if you're simply giving it to me for Effie's sake.'

Henry laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘You come with me, Mr Watson. Come and enjoy the Mediterranean sun; and then come to New York and make your fortune. You can be my hostage, against the day when I want Effie back. You understand me? I'm not obliging you. But from what I've heard of you, you've got a talent for banking, and I could use you on Broad Street, no doubt about it. I'll have the staff unpack your trunk.'

Henry walked off towards the promenade deck. Dougal said, ‘Mr Baeklander?'

Henry paused, without turning around.

‘Mr Baeklander, I just want to say that I'm sorry.'

Henry said nothing for a moment or two, but eventually whispered, ‘Yes, thank you,' and went back to his stateroom. Dougal thought he saw tears in his eyes.

The London train chuffed and clattered into Waverley Station at nine o'clock in the morning, under a clear crisp Edinburgh sky as blue as a child's tea-plate. Effie sat by the window, in a sealskin coat and a pale blue velvet suit with a high lace collar and trimmings of navy-blue braid, and an extravagant white hat on which two stuffed bluebirds dived amongst five white ostrich plumes.

It was hot in the first-class compartment in which she sat; but she shivered involuntarily as the train passed into the shadow of the rock. The railway lines ran between the castle and the New Town, in a gorge that had once been the Nor' Loch, and had been drained. For a moment, Effie felt as if she were travelling under its absent but icy waters.

Her mother was waiting for her by the ticket barrier, with Russell, the coachman, standing a few feet behind her in his uniform and his green top hat. Her mother, in a beige tweed suit, looked unexpectedly old, and very provincial, but Effie rushed into her arms and held her very close, feeling the warmth of her, smelling the familiar cologne, touching with her fingertips the gold-and-agate drop earrings which swung from her ears.

‘Effie, you've changed so!' declared her mother. ‘You're quite the London lady!'

‘Oh, mother, you're as beautiful as ever.'

They walked arm-in-arm to the station concourse, while Russell carried Effie's hatboxes, and directed the porter with the trunks. At last they were outside, on Princes Street, and Effie took a deep breath of sharp Scottish air. But after London, Princes Street seemed to have shrunk, and become oddly dowdy, and Effie found herself staring at the old-fashioned tweed skirts and the heather-mixture coats with as much surprise and disdain as a real Londoner might have done. And the hats! So lumpy and shapeless, with scarcely a ribbon on them! She knew then that she could not stay here for long.

‘It's not just your
clothes
that have changed,' said Fiona Watson, guiding her daughter towards the family carriage. ‘It's your face, too. You've suddenly blossomed. You're suddenly pretty! I can scarcely get over it!'

‘I think it's what London does for you, mother. If you're not sonsie, you'll not make your way.'

They climbed into the carriage. Russell spread their knees with plaid blankets, then put up the window, tipped the railway porter, and climbed up on to his box.

‘I suppose London was quite a sad place to be, because of the late Queen,' said Effie's mother.

‘Och, no. I mean, there was sadness, and a great deal of public mourning. But I think that everybody's pleased about Edward taking the throne. It's about time.'

Fiona Watson nodded, absent-mindedly. Effie said, ‘There's nothing wrong, is there? You've not had trouble with Jamie McFarlane?'

Her mother smiled at her tightly, and took her hand. ‘You have, haven't you?' asked Effie, ‘You've had trouble! He's not broken it off, has he? Don't tell me that.'

‘No,' said Fiona Watson, ‘he hasn't broken it off. But, he may have to.'

‘But why?' asked Effie, distressed.

‘Well, it's a long story, and not meant for your ears,' said her mother.