The men stayed in the dining room to smoke and Augusta took the ladies upstairs to her bedroom. There she got Lady Morte alone for a few minutes. Fifteen years older than Augusta, Harriet Morte was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria. She had iron-gray hair and a superior manner. Like Arnold Hobbes and Michael Fortescue, she had influence; and Augusta hoped that, like them, she would be corruptible. Hobbes and Fortescue were vulnerable because they were poor. Lord and Lady Morte were not so much poor as improvident: they had plenty of money, but they spent more than they had. Lady Morte’s gowns were splendid and her jewelry was magnificent, and Lord Morte believed, against the evidence of forty years, that he had a good eye for a racehorse.
Augusta was more nervous about Lady Morte than she had been about the men. Women were more difficult. They would not take anything at face value and they knew when they were being manipulated. Thirty years as a courtier would have refined Lady Morte’s sensibility to the point where nothing could slip by her.
Augusta began by saying: “Mr. Pilaster and I are such admirers of the dear queen.”
Lady Morte nodded, as if to say Of course. However, there was no of course about it: Queen Victoria was disliked by much of the nation for being withdrawn, staid, remote and inflexible.
Augusta went on: “If there were ever anything we could do to help you with your noble duties, we would be thrilled.”
“How very kind.” Lady Morte looked a little puzzled. She hesitated, then decided to ask. “But what could you possibly do?”
“What do bankers do? They lend.” Augusta lowered her voice. “Court life must be cripplingly expensive, I imagine.”
Lady Morte stiffened. There was a taboo on talking about money in her class and Augusta was breaking it flagrantly.
But Augusta plowed on. “If you were to open an account with Pilasters, there would never be any problems in that area….”
Lady Morte was offended, but on the other hand she was being offered the remarkable privilege of unlimited credit at one of the largest banks in the world. Her instincts told her to snub Augusta, but greed held her back: Augusta could read the conflict in her face.
Augusta did not give her time to think about it. “Please forgive my being so frightfully candid,” she went on. “It comes only from a wish to be of service.” Lady Morte would not believe that, but she would assume Augusta simply wanted to curry favor with royalty. She would not look for a more specific motive, and Augusta would give her no more clues tonight.
Lady Morte hesitated a moment longer, then said: “You’re very kind.”
Mrs. Maple, the mother of Emily, returned from the bathroom, and Lady Morte took her turn. She went out with an expression of mild embarrassment frozen to her face. Augusta knew that she and Lord Morte would agree, in the carriage going home, that commercial people were impossibly vulgar and ill-mannered; but one day soon he would lose a thousand guineas on a horse, and on the same day her dressmaker would demand payment of a six-month-old bill for three hundred pounds, and the two of them would remember Augusta’s offer, and they would decide that vulgar commercial people did after all have their uses.
Augusta had cleared the third hurdle. If she had assessed the woman correctly, Lady Morte would be hopelessly in debt to Pilasters Bank within six months. Then she would find out what Augusta wanted from her.
The ladies reconvened in the drawing room on the first floor and took coffee. Lady Morte was still distant, but stopped short of being rude. The men joined them a few minutes later. Joseph took Deacon Maple upstairs to show him his collection of snuffboxes. Augusta was pleased: Joseph only did that when he liked someone. Emily played the piano. Mrs. Maple asked her to sing, but she said she had a cold, and stuck to her refusal with remarkable obstinacy despite her mother’s pleas, making Augusta think anxiously that she might not be as submissive as she looked.
She had done her work for the night: she wanted them all to go home now so that she could run over the evening in her mind and assess how much she had achieved. She did not actually like any of them except for Michael Fortescue. However, she forced herself to be polite and make conversation for another hour. Hobbes was hooked, she thought; Fortescue had made a bargain and would keep it; Lady Morte had been shown the slippery slope that led to perdition and it was only a matter of time before she started down it. Augusta was relieved and satisfied.
When at last they departed, Edward was ready to go to his club, but Augusta stopped him. “Sit down and listen for a moment,” she said. “I want to talk to you and your father.” Joseph, who was heading for bed, sat down again. She addressed him. “When are you going to make Edward a partner in the bank?”
Joseph immediately looked cross. “When he is older.”
“But I hear that Hugh may be made a partner, and he is three years younger than Edward.” Although Augusta had no idea how money was made she always knew what was happening at the bank in terms of the personal advancement or otherwise of family members. Men did not normally talk business in front of ladies, but Augusta got it all out of them at her teatime gatherings.
“Seniority is only one of the ways in which a man may qualify as a partner,” Joseph said irritably. “Another is the ability to bring in business, which Hugh has to a degree I have never seen in so young a man. Other qualifications would be a large capital investment in the bank, high social position, or political influence. I am afraid that as yet Edward has none of these.”
“But he is your son.”
“A bank is a business, not a dinner party!” Joseph said, getting angrier. He hated her to challenge him. “Position is not merely a question of rank or precedence. Ability to make money is the test.”
Augusta suffered a moment of doubt. Ought she to push for Edward’s advancement if he was not really able? But that was nonsense. He was perfectly all right. He might not be able to add up a column of figures as fast as Hugh, but breeding would tell in the end. She said: “Edward could have a large capital investment in the bank, if you so wished. You can settle money on him anytime you please.”
Joseph’s face took on the stubborn look that Augusta knew well, the look he wore when he refused to move house or forbade her to redecorate his bedroom. “Not before the boy marries!” he said, and with that he left the room.
Edward said: “You’ve made him angry.”
“It’s only for your sake, Teddy darling.”
“But you’ve made matters worse!”
“No, I haven’t.” Augusta sighed. “Sometimes your generous outlook prevents you from seeing what is going on. Your papa may believe that he has taken a firm stand, but if you think about what he said you’ll realize that he has promised to settle a large sum on you and make you a partner as soon as you get married.”
“Goodness, I suppose he has,” Edward said in surprise. “I didn’t look at it that way.”
“That’s your trouble, dear. You’re not sly, like Hugh.”
“Hugh was very lucky in America.”
“Of course he was. You would like to get married, wouldn’t you?”
He sat beside her and took her hand. “Why should I, when I have you to take care of me?”
“But who will you have when I’m gone? Did you like that little Emily Maple? I thought she was charming.”
“She told me that hunting is cruel to the fox,” Edward said in a tone of disdain.
“Your father will settle at least a hundred thousand on you — perhaps more, perhaps a quarter of a million.”
Edward was not impressed. “I have everything I want, and I like living with you,” he said.
“And I like having you near me. But I want to see you happily married, with a lovely wife and your own fortune and a partnership at the bank. Say you’ll think about it.”
“I’ll think about it.” He kissed her cheek. “And now I really must go, Mama. I promised to meet some fellows half an hour ago.”
“Go on, then.”
He got up and went to the door. “Good night, Mama.”
“Good night,” she said. “Think about Emily!”
KINGSBRIDGE MANOR was one of the largest houses in England. Maisie had stayed there three or four times and she still had not seen half of it. The house had twenty principal bedrooms, not counting the rooms of the fifty or so servants. It was heated by coal fires and lit by candles, and it had only one bathroom, but what it lacked in modern conveniences it made up for in old-fashioned luxury: four-poster beds curtained with heavy silk, delicious old wines from the vast underground cellars, horses and guns and books and games without end.
The young duke of Kingsbridge had once owned a hundred thousand acres of best Wiltshire farmland, but on Solly’s advice he had sold half of it and bought a big chunk of South Kensington with the proceeds. Consequently the agricultural depression that had impoverished many great families had left “Kingo” untouched, and he was still able to entertain his friends in the grand style.
The Prince of Wales had been with them for the first week. Solly and Kingo and the prince shared a taste for boisterous fun, and Maisie had helped to provide it. She had substituted soapsuds for whipped cream on Kingo’s dessert; she had unbuttoned Solly’s braces while he dozed in the library, so that his trousers fell down when he stood up; and she had glued together the pages of The Times so that it could not be opened. By hazard the prince himself had been the first to pick up the newspaper, and as he fumbled with the pages there had been a moment of suspense when everyone wondered how he would take it — for though the heir to the throne loved practical jokes, he was never the victim — but then he began to chuckle as he realized what had happened, and the others all laughed uproariously, from relief as much as amusement.
The prince had left, and Hugh Pilaster had arrived; and then the trouble had started.
It was Solly’s idea to get Hugh invited here. Solly liked Hugh. Maisie could not think of a plausible reason to object. It had been Solly who asked Hugh to dinner in London, too.
He had recovered his composure quickly enough, that evening, and had proved himself a perfectly eligible dinner guest. Perhaps his manners were not quite as refined as they might have been if he had spent the last six years in London drawing rooms instead of Boston warehouses, but his natural charm made up for any shortcomings. In the two days he had been at Kingsbridge he had entertained them all with tales of life in America, a place none of them had visited.
It was ironic that she should find Hugh’s manners a little rough. Six years ago it had been the other way around. But she was a quick learner. She had acquired the accent of the upper classes with no trouble. The grammar had taken her a little longer. Hardest of all had been the little subtleties of behavior, the grace notes of social superiority: the way they walked through a door, spoke to a pet dog, changed the subject of a conversation, ignored a drunk. But she had studied hard, and now it all came naturally to her.