Lady of Fortune (70 page)

‘Stay out?' But I've got all the figures,' protested Alisdair. ‘Apart from that, how can you discuss the London end of things unless –'

Robert pushed his hands into his pants pockets. ‘I just asked you to stay out, didn't I? I
asked
you. Now, don't put me in a position where I'm obliged to
tell
you.'

‘No, father,' said Alisdair, lowering his eyes. Effie reached over and touched Alisdair's hand, and said, ‘Don't worry yourself. I expect we'll have a few old times to talk about, You wouldn't want to waste your time listening to all that old blether.'

‘No,' said Alisdair, but he was clearly unappeased. He looked at Effie and Effie could plainly see on his face the one fierce sentiment:
I'm a father myself, the father of your child, and yet
you're
treating
me
like a child, too. What shall I do? Sing
Dance To Your Daddy for you, and then
go up to
bed
with
a
mug of warm milk?

After Effie had kissed Kay goodnight, and Alisdair, tight-lipped, had gone off to his room to read, Effie and Dougal and Robert met together in the library, with its rows and rows of gilded and leather-bound volumes, and its deep leather-back chairs, and its dim yellow and orange shaded Tiffany lamps. Dougal had brought out a bottle of Blair Athoil whisky, and
Robert was already sitting back comfortably with his legs crossed and his glass of malt resting on his paunch.

‘You can smoke if you wish,' said Effie, sitting down and taking out her cigarette case.

‘In that case, I'd better open the window,' said Dougal. He rang for Rousseau, and said, ‘Open the window, will you, Rousseau? And bring me some of that Turkish delight. I've got a sweet tooth in me tonight.'

‘Yes, sir, Mr Watson.'

‘Now then,' said Robert, ‘perhaps we'd better get our noses to the cutler's wheel. I've already explained a little of this to Effie, so I won't go into the tedious details. But what I'm actually proposing is that Watson's in New York and Watson's in Edinburgh should, from this day forward, work closely together. I'm proposing that British and European investors should be able to buy Latin-American bonds and US industrial bonds through Watson's in New York; and that US speculators should be able to venture their money into Europe and British Empire countries through Watson's in Edinburgh. A two-way traffic, which – because we're related, because we can trust each other – we can conduct between ourselves at extremely favourable rates of exchange, we can also do quite a lot to manipulate currencies to our own advantage, either to or fro. Dougal has already agreed that this is an excellent idea; an idea which we should have made use of years and years ago, if it hadn't been for our ridiculous and unprofitable family quarrels. Between us, I believe we can offer investors very exciting profits; and very tempting rates; and build ourselves up into quite a formidable banking empire once again.

‘Sure Dougal has a great deal more to offer you than you have to offer Dougal,' said Effie, putting away her cigarette lighter. ‘After all, Watson's New York, even without the stake I used to have in it, is still worth five times as much as Watson's Edinburgh. And while American banks are literally scouring the world for people to whom they can lend their money, most of your British and European investors don't have two beans to rub together. It's going to be a pretty one-sided affair, in your favour.'

‘I don't need
two
beans,' grinned Robert. ‘Jack and the Beanstalk demonstrated that. If I want the golden goose, all I need is one bean, and the right place to plant it. Watson's
New York is the right place. And my bean is that £24 million I was talking to you about … the money we made by picking up German war debts. To show you that I really mean business, I'll commit
all
of that money for Dougal to lend to American investors. Dougal will pick up a healthy commission and a respectable percentage of the earnings, and Watson's in Edinburgh, apart from the small profit it makes, will know that its money is in capable family hands.'

Dougal said nothing. In the library lamplight, he looked slightly healthier than he had at dinner, even a little flushed, but he still had a disturbingly lop-sided appearance; a man who had been radically corroded by his own fears and by his own disappointments. It seemed extraordinary to Effie that Robert should so blithely be talking about doing business with someone so ill – brother or not. Although Watson's New York was one of the richest of the small private banks, in New York, richer, for example, than Hallett's Bank, or the Bank of Columbia, this was largely due to the capable management of Dan Kress, and (in her time there) Effie herself. Several people on Wall Street had commented to Effie over the past few months how sick Dougal appeared to be, and how vague he had become. Jean Monnet, with whom Effie had become acquainted through Blair's and through the TransAmerica corporation, had even sent Effie the name of his doctor.

Effie said, ‘You've agreed to back up the promise of this loan with a bill of exchange.
Before
Dougal starts lending out his own money.'

‘That's correct.'

There was a silence. Effie said, ‘Well, I suppose it's a good idea. It's about time this family healed its differences and worked together again. What do you think, Dougal?'

Dougal cleared his throat, and shrugged.

‘Well, do you want to do it or don't you?' Effie insisted. ‘Perhaps you're not even in a fit state to make a coherent decision.'

‘I'm perfectly fit,' said Dougal. His voice was choked and petulant. ‘I've been – overworking, that's all.'

Robert reached into his inside pocket, and produced a piece of paper, which he handed to Effie. ‘There's your bill,' he said. Effie opened it out, and read it, and then looked across at Dougal. ‘It seems acceptable, provided the rate of exchange doesn't dip too sharply.'

‘That's a risk we're prepared to take, for the time being,
anyway,' said Dougal. ‘Even if there's a dip as serious as half a per cent, I believe we're capable of absorbing it, especially if we've got this kind of money to lend out.'

‘I think we can drink to this arrangement, then,' said Robert, lifting his glass of Blair Atholl.

Dougal raised his hand to show that he acknowledged the toast. Effie said to Robert, ‘Do you have lawyers in New York?'

Robert nodded. ‘Dayton Friedman Kurst. They can get together with Dougal's lawyers on Monday. But I hope we can say now that this arrangement is agreed.'

Dougal waved his hand again. ‘It's agreed.'

‘Effie?' asked Robert.

‘I don't know,' said Effie. ‘In principle it's a good idea; and I accept that your bill is a watertight guarantee of payment. But I still don't trust you, any more than I did during the war. This all seems too much like straightforward good banking for you.'

Robert laughed. ‘Did you hear that, Dougal? Young Effie still doesn't trust me. I just hope she wins more trust from the small investors of California, for that cockeyed bank that she's thinking of starting up! You can mark my words you'll be ruined in less than a year, Effie, and so will all those poor misguided bumpkins who hand you their money.'

Dougal said, in a peculiarly empty way. ‘What do you think about it?'

‘What do I think about what?' asked Robert, turning around and frowning.

Dougal smiled, and looked from Robert to Effie and back again, with an expression as blank and retarded as Stan Laurel. ‘I don't know. Money. Banking in general.'

Early in the morning, before it was light, Effie was awakened by the murmur of voices outside on the galleried landing. She lay still for two or three minutes, her eyes wide open, listening. A long way away, across the fields, a long-eared owl was
whistling and calling around its nest. But then she heard the voices again, whispering and sibilant, and she got up from her bed and slipped on her silk wrap, tying it tight around her waist as she went to the door.

She didn't usually believe in sneaking around other people's houses; but there was something about the voices which made her open her bedroom door very quietly, and peer out into the darkness of the house with her breath held tight. There was utter silence for a very long time, almost longer than she could bear, but then she heard the creak of a floorboard, and a door opening, and a muted lamplight was suddenly switched on in one of the bedrooms.

Carefully, she crept outside on tiptoe, and made her way around the landing to the far side. Down below her, she could see the hallway, its white marble floor gleaming luminously through the shadows. To her left, three doors along, she heard voices again, and something like a moan or a sigh.

She stayed where she was. I'm a respectable, wealthy, middle-aged woman she thought. Why on earth am I creeping about like this in the middle of the night, in my brother's own house? Yet she was provoked by a curiosity that wouldn't allow her to go back to her bed – not without finding out who was whispering and laughing so softly in the small hours of the morning. She had a feeling that if anyone was actually enjoying themselves tonight, after all the wrangles and embarrassments and fractious arguments of the previous evening, then what they were doing must be highly significant, both romantically and financially. Enjoyment visited the Watson family only rarely, and when it did, it always brought fate on its shoulder, like Stevenson's sea-cook with his screeching parrot.

She closed her eyes. I must make a decision. Either I'm going to go straight back to my room, and pretend that I heard nothing at all; or else I'm going to tiptoe my way along to that third bedroom and see if I can discover what's going on.

The long-case clock in the hallway below struck two-thirty. By the time the last note had died away, Effie had made up her mind. It was knowledge that saved skins, in the banking business: early intelligence from reliable sources. That had always been Robert's great strength; and since she had been working in American banking; it had been Effie's great strength, too. One good fragment of gossip can save a fortune.

She lifted up the hem of the wrap, and delicately stepped
along the landing until she reached the door from which the lamplight was being diffused. The door, in fact, was two or three inches ajar, and she could hear quite clearly that there was a man and a woman in there, and that they were whispering and murmuring to each other. God, she thought, I feel so guilty, spying on people like this. And yet, not guilty enough to forget all about it and go back to bed.

Holding her breath again, she danced quickly across the width of the doorway, and then tried to look through the cracks between the hinges. A little light was filtering through, but that was all. She stood quite still, uncertain about what she should do next.

The man grunted, and she was sure it was Robert. Nobody else on earth grunted in the deep, piggish way that Robert did. Then the woman's voice said, ‘You're teasing me. Why do you tease me so much?'

Mariella, thought Effie, at once.
It's Robert and Mariella. He's been flirting with her and playing with her all evening; and now, in the middle of the night, he's making love to her
.

Fascinated, horrified, and tight as a clockspring with tension, she reached out her hand and gently nudged the door with her fingertips. It opened less than half an inch more, quite silently: but it was enough for Effie to be able to see through the crack. Her heart bumped. She felt hot and shaky from embarrassment and fear. But she still had to look. She still had to see for herself how Robert was betraying his own brother. She even managed to admit to herself that she might be watching because it would arouse her.

She could make out the pinkish blur of Robert's thigh; then, giving the door another slight push, she could see almost all of him. He was lying on his back on the yellow-quilted bed, fat and naked, and startlingly smothered in thick black hair. Mariella was squatting between his parted legs, demurely dressed in a white silk nightdress – although, as Effie watched, she raised the nightdress up to her bust, and tied it in a loose knot so that she left herself naked from the waist down.

Effie couldn't understand what they were doing at first. Robert was holding in one fist the bright crimson erection which rose from out of his bushy black pubic hair. His penis was quite small, but obviously very stiff, and there was something about it which was attracting Mariella's intense interest.

‘If you want it, my dearie, there it is,' smiled Robert. ‘Yours for the taking.'

Mariella raised both her hands to her face, and let out a funny little gasp. ‘You're teasing me.'

‘A little. But you can have it if you want it.'

Effie had become slightly short-sighted over the past four years, and so she had to strain her eyes to get Robert into sharp focus. When she did so, briefly, she suddenly realised what game he was playing. Lodged in the cleft of his erection, sparkling amongst the juices of his self-stimulated lust, was a diamond of at least three carats, a diamond which was probably worth well over twenty-five thousand dollars, if it were genuine. Robert had probably brought a whole bagful over to America with him, if Effie knew him at all: diamonds bought on a depressed European gem market which could fetch two or three times as much in the United States.

The tableau of Robert and Mariella together was hideous but compelling. Effie knew that she ought to go straight back to her bedroom, now that she knew exactly what was happening; but somehow she found herself unwilling to move, unable to move, hypnotised by what she saw.

Mariella placed a hand on each of Robert's huge hairy thighs, and bent her head forward until her face was only an inch from his diamond-studded penis. He waved it slowly from side to side in front of her, smiling like a benign emperor, and Mariella glanced up at him, and gave him a sly, seductive smile in return. Poor Mariella, thought Effie: she hasn't had this much attention from a man for years. No wonder Robert has influenced her so quickly, and so completely.