Lady of Fortune (41 page)

‘That is the first time that a man has actually called me a banker,' said Effie.

Karl glanced up, chewing. ‘Well, isn't it true?' he asked her. ‘Your brother Robert said that I could do business with you. It's bank business; therefore, to me you are a banker.'

‘I'm also a woman.'

‘Does that matter? What does it feel like to you, inside yourself? Do you feel you are any less of a banker because you are a woman?'

Effie sipped her soup, and then laid down her spoon. ‘It's most unusual of you to take this attitude. Most of the time, I'm treated with a great deal of suspicion. Very few men can understand how a woman can have a grasp of finance; and those who can understand it feel that I shouldn't be doing it. I think they feel that it emasculates them, somehow – particularly if I happen to know more than they do.'

Karl said, ‘Of course. You'll have that reaction from almost every man.

‘But not from you?'

‘Sometimes. I'm a man in a man's world. I expect a lady to behave like a lady, and I expect to treat her like a lady. No matter how clever you may be at your business, Miss Watson, you will never find me permitting you to go into dinner on your own, or opening a door for yourself. It is not my way. But, if you are clever with money, if you have a talent for business, then it would be both absurd and
Pronkvoll
of me not to recognise it, and to dismiss you as a flibbertigibbet simply because you are very pretty and wear a dress. Trousers are not a prerequisite for a skilful banker.'

Mr Niblets let out a snickering laugh. Effie frowned at him, and he went pink, and cleared his throat, and applied himself conscientiously to his soup. Karl von Ahlbeck smiled at her, his brown eyes sparkling in the light from the candles on the table, and said, ‘I'm sorry if my English is amusing.'

‘There is nothing wrong with your English, count,' said Effie. ‘It is better than the English of most Englishmen. I just think that Mr Niblets is over-sensitive to wit.'

Karl said, ‘You are not as I had imagined you, you know.'

‘How did you imagine me?' asked Effie.

‘I'm not sure now. The reality has already effaced the fantasy. But I believe I imagined you were going to be sterner … not so gentle. You are a true lady, and I suppose I thought that a woman who had decided to work as a banker must somehow be …
tough
, perhaps, as the Americans say.'

Do you deal with Americans often?' Effie inquired. The old whiskery servant poured her another glass of Schloss Vollrad, a dry and stylish riesling from the Rheingau. The fire lurched and showered sparks.

‘I deal with everyone and anyone,' said Karl. ‘But, yes, I spend at least two months of every year in America. For this Turkish proposition I have been talking to Citibank and Morgan and Chase, among others, although I have finally made a satisfactory arrangement with the Baeklander Trust.'

‘I didn't know that,' said Effie, suddenly alert. ‘I thought it was entirely between Watson's and the Deutsche Kredit-bank, and nobody else.'

‘My dear Effie, the Turks have been asking for something
more than £20 million. If your brother Robert and I were to try to stump up money of that order, it would probably break us. But with a triumvirate of banks – Wastson's, Baeklander, and Deutsche Kredit, we should be able to meet their needs – and eventually win ourselves back the highest of returns. It's potentially a marvellous opportunity. It has its risks, of course, as all large loans must do. Look what happened to Barings when they tried to get involved in Argentina. But the three of us can give each other strength. Provided we remain completely loyal to each other – all for one and one for all, like The Three Musketeers – then we are cast-iron. Each of us can individually stand to lose £6.6 million, at a sharp pinch, but if only one bank out of the three were to pull out, and leave the other two to stand the losses, it would be disaster. Ten million would cripple Baeklander's, and it would cripple me, and it would certainly cripple Watson's. That's why you are here today, Miss Watson: to assure me that Watson's are completely committed to this loan, and to make me feel confident that Robert will honour her triumvirate no matter what the circumstances.'

Effie looked at Mr Niblets. He had finished his soup, and was blinking from Effie to Karl as if he were watching a badminton tournament. Effie said, ‘Mr Niblets, did you know about Baeklander's being involved in this?

Mr Niblets solemnly shook his head.

‘Count von Ahlbeck,' said Effie, ‘with whom did you do business at Baeklander's? It wasn't my brother Dougal Watson by any chance?'

Karl von Ahlbeck shook his head. ‘Are you suspicious of your brothers? No, it wasn't Dougal, although I did meet him briefly the last time I visited New York. He's like you, isn't he? Very like. But, no, I did business with Henry Baeklander himself. We've been friends for five or six years, ever since my father died, and I took over the bank myself.'

He pushed back his chair, stood up, and walked around the table to stand next to Effie with his hands behind his back, his face serious and intent. ‘You know something, Miss Watson, we are in a frightening world. Yes, it's true. The Kaiser may be Queen Victoria's grandson, but he is desperate to widen the German Empire. To widen it, and also to pinion it. At the moment, as you know, our possessions are scattered insecurely across both sides of Africa, across a few Pacific
islands, and around the China coast, and the only way in which we can safely hold them together is by patrolling the seas with our battle-cruisers, like the
Scharnhorst
, and the
Gneisenau
. We are insecure, as a fledgling empire, and so we have to be aggressive, and expansionist, and alarm people!

‘Of course, the British navy has responded to the strengthening of the German navy in kind. All those dread-nought battleships you have built! All those cruisers and torpedo-boats and submarines! We are racing each other at breakneck speed to build up the greatest national armories that the world has ever known. Our factories are turning out battleships and ammunition at full capacity. We sit here drinking fine wine. We laugh, and joke, and go hunting. In England, you have your regattas and your croquet. But both of our countries are hurrying inevitably towards war. Hurrying, rushing! That is, unless the banks can prevent it.'

‘I don't understand you,' said Effie. ‘How can the banks prevent war if war is inevitable?'

‘The banks can prevent war by demonstrating to the politicians that true prosperity comes through a worldwide alliance of capital. Think of this deal we are doing now – Germany, Britain, and America joined as one, to assist Turkey. The results will benefit Turkey, but they also benefit everyone else. The same kind of deal can be done to assist any country which seeks financial benefit. The alliances of the future will be based on the pound and the mark and the dollar, not on military strategy and political aggression. If this Turkish arrangement goes through satisfactorily, it will be a convincing demonstration to the Kaiser that capital can overcome national considerations; that the banks can be regarded as a kind of international super-government whose only commitment is to profit and to human welfare. He will understand that the German Empire can be strengthened without war.'

Effie said, ‘Do you mean to say that the Kaiser actually knows about this arrangement?'

‘Of course, I talked to him in Berlin last week. He is awaiting the outcome of it with as much interest as anyone. If a British bank and an American bank are prepared wholeheartedly to support German interests in Turkey, then he will understandably feel much more secure, and less inclined to go to war to achieve his aims.'

Effie didn't quite know what to say. Robert had told her nothing of this before she left Scotland. She had assumed, as most people in Britain assumed, that the system of treaties and alliances which existed in Europe were sufficient to maintain at least a temporary peace. Britain was allied with France and Russia. Germany was allied with Austria-Hungary and Italy, and had been perservering in her attempts to woo the Ottoman Empire for years. The balance was uneasy, of course, but it was still a balance.

Now Karl von Ahlbeck was telling her that unless she settled this arrangement between Watson's and Baeklander's and the Deutsche Kreditbank, there might very well be war.

Karl sat down again. ‘I want to be truthful with you, Miss Watson,' he said. ‘And this is the last serious thing I shall say all evening. Watson's was the only British bank which I could persuade to enter into this arrangement, and to be perfectly honest I am still unsure that your brother Robert will keep his word to me. I need you to convince me that it will be safe to go ahead.'

Effie watched a neatly-sliced
haxe
being served on to her plate, with red cabbage and roasted potatoes. She said, gently, ‘I think, Count von Ahlberg, that convincing you of Watson's sincerity is the whole purpose of my visit, although I may not even have realised that myself.'

After dinner, they sat by the fire in the huge ancestral hall, with its high arched ceiling and its regimental banners hanging from gilded poles. The 2nd Silesian Uhlans, the 6th Neumark Regiment, the 1st West Prussians, the Landwehr Infantry. Karl served them German brandy, and they talked of England, and America, and of music and dancing and art.

At eleven o'clock, Mr Niblets pleaded exhaustion and indigestion, and said that he had to retire. Karl courteously shook his hand, and hoped that he would sleep ‘like a swine.' Mr Niblets awkwardly kissed Effie on the cheek, but she forgave him because of the amount of wine and brandy he had been drinking. He noisly climbed the stairs, and waved to them from the galleried landing. ‘I wish you – sweet dreams!' he cried.

When Mr Niblets had gone, Karl sat down in his chair again and stared at the fire. ‘I'm sorry I was so dry during dinner,' he said.

‘You weren't dry at all. You were startling, if anything. I
hadn't realised how important this loan actually is.'

‘I should have been amusing,' said Karl, shaking his head. ‘Your first night in Germany, and I talk to you like a professor of geography and politics. And look at you – you are so pretty.'

Effie looked away. ‘You don't have to compliment me,' she said. ‘You will have your assurance of Watson's commitment without flattery. You don't flatter Henry Baeklander, do you, on the quality of his moustaches? Or the chancellor of the German Reserve Bank, on the wonderful size of his potbelly?'

‘No,' smiled Karl, ‘you're quite right. But, I suppose I have inherited my father's personality. Too much seriousness, followed by too much frivolity.'

‘When did your father die?' asked Effie.

‘Six years ago. A hunting accident. His horse put a foot in a pothole, and threw him off. He was dead by the time I reached him. I didn't even have time to kiss him farewell.'

‘And your mother?'

‘I have a picture of her somewhere,' said Karl, quietly. ‘I never knew her. She – died in childbed, bearing me. She gave up her life, so that I could live. I sometimes wonder why they didn't kill me instead. That would have saved her, apparently, killing her baby. But she screamed at them, No! You must save my baby. She is buried here, in the grounds of the
Schloss
. My father is buried in Pomerania.'

Effie said, ‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.'

Karl looked up at her. ‘You didn't upset me. I feel wistful for my parents, if you understand what I mean. But not upset. The whole of Europe is boiling; and thousands of people are in risk of being swept away. The future is more important than the past.'

They sat in silence for a minute or two, and then Karl suddenly said, ‘Can you dance?'

‘Of course,' said Effie.

‘Would you like to dance?'

‘Of course!'

Karl got up, and went over to the corner of the hall. ‘Look here! The very latest talking-machine! All the new purple-label Columbia records, which I shipped back from America! Here it is – Over The Waves waltz, by the Vienna Orchestra, still with the price on it – twenty-one cents!'

Effie laughed. Karl furiously wound up the graphophone, and then placed the needle on the record. The hall was filled with the crackly, muffled sounds of an Austrian orchestra, lilting and dipping their way through one of the year's most popular dances.

Karl took Effie's hand, and led her away from the fireside rug to the open floor. He bowed, and then he began to dance with her around the room, easily and fluidly, holding her at arm's length, but leading her through the dance as if she knew every step precisely. And the miracle was that, even though she had never danced one of these Viennese waltzes before, his timing and his guidance were so immaculate that she danced as if she did.

She said. ‘You dance marvellously!'

‘I was trained by the very best,' he said. ‘My father used to insist that everything a von Ahlbeck did, had to be done supremely. I was taught by fencing masters from Prussia, riding masters from Brunswick, English tutors from Oxford. I can sing, swim, play the accordion, and speak five languages.

‘And you've never married?'

‘Married? No. Nearly, very nearly. I was engaged to be married when I was twenty-four to Baroness Auguste of Prenzlau. A beautiful girl, with an unquestionable pedigree, but, ultimately, a heart of ice. She betrayed me. That's all I can safely tell you, without anger.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘There isn't any need for you to be.'

The record finished, and Karl put on
The Blue Danube
waltz. This time, as they danced, he held her closer, and they scarcely talked. Effie felt the wine she had drunk during dinner swimming in her head, and the hall around her seemed to revolve like the mechanism of a carousel. The sparkling fire danced past her eyes, then the military flags, then the staircase, then the door, then the fire again, around and around, until she leaned her head against Karl's shoulder, against the black silk of his lapel, and smelled the mingled arousing scents of a gentleman, cologne, and tobacco and warm fresh perspiration.