House of Trelawney

by Hannah Rothschild

TiLing looked offended.

  “You’re the most talented person in this office,” Blaze continued. “You’ll have no problem finding another job.”

  TiLing went around the desk and stood face to face with her boss. “I work for you because you are one of the bravest, most ethical and talented investors of your generation. People listened to you and they’ll listen again. If you walk away now, you’ll be remembered as the woman who couldn’t hack failure or success.”

  “That’s unfair.”

  “So make it untrue.”

  Questions rattled around Blaze’s brain. Was she strong enough, talented enough to start her own business, or would it expose her lack of emotional intelligence and swamp her in an administrative quagmire? Maybe she was a maverick investor who needed the comfort of a large organisation in order to function? Blaze ran her hands over her face and, tracing the bumpy edge of her scar from below her eye to her jawline, tried to consider other options. There were unlikely to be many jobs on offer in the City. What else could she do? Her entire career had been in this world and tailored to suit her narrow set of skills. She wasn’t a good enough mathematician to return to academia and she was too intellectually inflexible to retrain in another discipline.

  Then TiLing delivered her last shot. “If you don’t do it, the same investors who want to back you will give their money to Wolfe.”

  Blaze’s breath caught in her throat: Wolfe had taken enough.

  She sat back down at her desk and, picking up a pencil and a piece of paper, began to doodle; with Moonshot Wharf plus all her share options and cash in the bank, she was worth nearly £10 million. Not for the first time, the thought occurred: as she had no children or other dependants, what was she saving or making more money for? Her own needs and desires were minimal; she had no interest in yachts, art or expensive holidays. Why risk starting a new business? On the other hand, what was there to lose?

  “Why do you want to make money?” she asked her adviser.

  TiLing didn’t hesitate. “For all the obvious reasons: freedom and opportunity. I’d send my younger siblings to the best universities; get the top medical care for my father; and set up home with my boyfriend.”

  As she listened, Blaze doodled with her pencil. Without thinking, she drew a rectangle and then some windows. There followed a river, trees and a garden full of flowers.

  “Where’s that?” TiLing asked.

  “Home,” Blaze said and, in uttering that word, realised her purpose. Her father, though estranged, had made her the guardian of Trelawney. Twenty years had passed since their last meeting, yet Enyon still believed in his daughter and her ability. A lump rose in her throat. To restore the house was a Herculean task, but Blaze had to try and honour her father’s wishes, live up to his expectations. Turning the piece of paper over, she began to make some more calculations.

  “What are you doing?” TiLing asked, wondering if her boss was having some kind of breakdown; in the five years they’d worked together, Blaze had never drawn childish pictures or mentioned home.

  “I need to make at least £2 million a year,” Blaze said. “The roof alone will cost twenty.”

  “The roof?” TiLing’s worst fears were being confirmed.

  “We’d have to fix the plumbing and the wiring as well.”

  TiLing put her hand against the wall for support.

  Looking down at the scribbled figures, Blaze crystallised her plan: she was going to create a foundation in Trelawney’s name which would pay for repairs now and in the future.

  “Do you think we can charge the standard two and twenty fees?” she asked.

  “Why not?” TiLing said, her spirits rising.

  “You believe we can raise £400 million?”

  “By the end of the week.”

  Blaze took the pieces of paper and tore them into tiny shreds.

  “We need a billion.”

  TiLing let out a low whistle. “That might be difficult in the first year.”

  “But doable?”

  TiLing shrugged. “Money follows success.”

  Smiling, Blaze looked at TiLing. “We’ll call the business Moonshot Capital. I will invest all of my own money. No one can accuse me of not having my own skin in the game.”

  “All? Are you sure?” TiLing asked, wondering again about Blaze’s state of mind.

  “One hundred per cent sure,” Blaze replied, meaning it. “We start tomorrow.”

  TiLing punched the air.

  16

  The Letter

  MONDAY 27TH OCTOBER 2008

  Later that day, an envelope addressed to Blaze was delivered to Kerkyra Capital. Bound in red tape, it had the words Private and Strictly Confidential across the top. Opening it, Blaze saw a handwritten letter and a sheaf of official-looking papers. She closed her office door and tore open the envelope.

  Blaze,

  I have spent the last few weeks thinking desperately how to exonerate my behaviour and do something to make you think a little better of me. It’s true that I shorted Acorn’s stock with one thing in mind—to make money—that’s what we do—but, as lame and unlikely as it sounds, I had no idea that your brother was Viscount Tremayne. For the first time in my professional life, I have seen the human impact of one of my investment decisions.

  Owing to the idiocy of losing the respect of a woman whom I’d like to know better, I have, since then, recalibrated the ethics of my investment policy. I am not a romantic man but, from the moment I first saw you, I felt that our destinies were linked. I so enjoyed our afternoon in the country that, after you left, I was tempted to drive to London at breakneck speed to meet you off your train at Marylebone.

  I have taken steps to mitigate my actions and to put right the damage caused to your brother. Enclosed are legal papers showing that I have bought and written off his debts up to £1 million. I have no idea about his specific financial circumstances but hope that this transfer of the profit I made from Acorn will mitigate some of his present hardship.

  Please don’t see this as a cynical attempt to salve my conscience or as a means of seeking a lever of control. I don’t imagine my gesture will right the wrong committed or put things on a better footing between us, but I do hope it will be seen as an acknowledgement of my failings and the negligent way that members of our profession treat others.

  Finally, you might ask why not do this act anonymously? Only because in the course of trying to uncover the identity of the creditor you would have wasted time and possibly exposed yourself and your brother to speculation and gossip. The paper trail enclosed in this letter is untraceable.

  Sincerely,

  Joshua Wolfe

  * * *

  Twenty-four hours later, Blaze, after many attempts, replied.

  Dear Mr. Wolfe,

  As predicted, your actions and your letter have caused some confusion. Suffice to say for now that I will do my best to repay you as soon as possible.

  Yours sincerely,

  Blaze Scott

  17

  Propositions

  SUNDAY 30TH NOVEMBER 2008

  Jane chased the horse all the way from the rose garden to the river. Most of the time, Milly was a biddable creature who came when called and liked to have her ears scratched. Today, fortified by eating the last of Jane’s favourite plants, she was intent on escape. Neither Jane nor Milly could move particularly quickly over the sodden ground and they skidded and slipped in the mud. It had rained almost constantly since the funeral; the river had burst its banks and most of the meadow lay under water.

  From an upper floor of the castle, Toby and Arabella watched their mother lunge for the horse’s collar. Milly easily evaded capture; Jane stumbled and fell face first.

  “Do you think she’s gone mad?” Arabella asked. “I mean, like more mad than usual?”

 
“She is talking to herself a lot,” Toby said, watching his mother pick herself up and set off at a determined pace towards the departing horse. About ten yards farther on Milly stopped and Jane made another grab for the animal’s collar. Milly jumped to one side; Jane slipped and fell again. This time she didn’t get up but sat in the mud.

  “Is she crying?” Toby asked, trying to read his mother’s facial expression from a distance.

  “I can’t see. Do you think we should help her? Or stay well away?”

  “I think she might be laughing,” Toby said, as his mother fell on to her back and flailed her arms around beside her. Even Milly stopped to see what was going on.

  “Thank God, the washing machine’s working again,” Arabella remarked.

  “Let’s hope she cleans up before Blaze arrives.”

  Below them, Jane got slowly to her feet and walked back towards the castle. Milly, thinking of feeding time, followed her mistress.

  “Who needs television with a mother like ours?” Arabella asked. “Maybe we could become a reality TV show like The Osbournes? I can see it now: The Trelawneys of Trelawney.”

  Toby didn’t laugh; he found his mother’s growing eccentricities increasingly worrying. She had shown up at the parents’ meeting the week before in a floor-length multicoloured skirt unearthed along with the photographs from the attic trunk. It hung off her hips and dragged along the ground.

  Thanks to Blaze’s intervention, there was now hot water in the castle and the radiators were working. Once again, there was decent food in the fridge and Mrs. Sparrow, fully reimbursed, had been promoted to Cook. Arabella had held a fake funeral for the death of mince, and she and her brother vowed never, under any circumstances, to eat it again. Clarissa had finally agreed to take meals in the kitchen with her grandchildren, but Jane often missed lunch or dinner. When she wasn’t in the office reclassifying the unpaid invoices and preparing long and highly detailed spreadsheets for her sister-in-law, she was making new prints, bent over the attic press or her sketch pad. Once her designs had been full of colour, but now her palette was limited to blacks and greys. Bucolic scenes were replaced with a swirling mass of insects, serpents, ivies, briars and twisted trees, reflecting both her mood and outlook on life. Jane had papered these to her bedroom wall.

  “Like totally fucking creepy,” Arabella had commented. Even Toby, normally supportive of his mother’s work, had shuddered. The bugs were menacing and the snakes so real it seemed they might slither out of the papery world and into theirs at any moment.

  Today, as Jane had often told her children over the last few weeks, was D-Day: they’d find out whether they had to leave Trelawney. The house belonged to their aunt until Ambrose came of age and she would be likely to want to enjoy it.

  Toby checked his watch and saw that it was already midday.

  “She better clean up.”

  “Do you think the wicked aunt will chuck us out?” Arabella asked. Their first and last sighting of Blaze had been through the rain at Enyon’s funeral. Under her thick black hat and raincoat, the most memorable feature was a splash of red lipstick. Arabella had already packed her favourite possessions—a microscope Tuffy had given her, the skeleton of a rat found in the attic and a photograph album—into a small bag.

  “Mum says we’ll be given a few weeks’ notice to find somewhere else,” reassured Toby.

  “Where will we go?”

  Toby shrugged. “She went to see a housing trust and put our names on a register.”

  “Will Blaze chuck Gran out too?”

  “It’s not like she’s shown any interest in her since the funeral, is it? She hasn’t been down once.”

  They both looked at Jane walking back through the overgrown garden, past the Venus fountain and the 8th Earl’s grotto. Milly followed at a safe distance, unsure whether to surrender to capture.

  “Blaze is a hedge-fund manager,” Toby said.

  “A real one? Like on the news?” Arabella could hardly contain her excitement.

  Toby nodded.

  “So she’s, like, really bad?” Arabella whistled. “We could shoot her and be heroes?”

  “If we kill her we’ll just be murderers.”

  “But lots of people will cheer.”

  “There are different kinds of City people, all on a spectrum of evil. I don’t know where she falls.”

  “Do you think she was one of the ones that did for Dad?” Arabella’s eyes followed Jane, who had now put a halter on Milly and was leading her back past the decimated rose garden. Horse and owner were splattered in mud. “Maybe she ruined Iceland or Ireland.”

  “I wish Dad was here,” Toby said.

  Arabella bit her lip. They tried not to mention Kitto in front of their mother as it led to copious tears.

  “Do you think he’ll come back?”

  “I want the old Dad.” The last time the children had seen him, he’d stared out of the window seemingly oblivious to their presence.

  “Has he had a breakdown?”

  “He should be at home.” Toby clenched and unclenched his fists, unable to understand why their mother had excommunicated their father.

  A black chauffeur-driven Mercedes swept up the drive.

  “Perfect timing.” Toby shook his head in disbelief. The car stopped outside the front door. Jane rounded the corner at the moment Blaze stepped out, pristine in a black trouser suit. From their second-floor window, the children could make out the flash of their aunt’s red nail polish and matching red lipstick, the awkwardness of the greeting followed by Jane leading Milly towards the barn, and Blaze walking purposefully through the front door.

  “She looks like Cruella de Vil,” Arabella said. “Do you think we should hide Pooter?”

  “He’s hardly a cute spotty puppy.”

  “Shall we go downstairs and protect Mum?”

  “I’m going to meet Celia.”

  Arabella’s face fell. “I thought she’d finished with you?”

  Toby winced but didn’t reply.

  “I hope she does.” Arabella didn’t mean to be unkind but, with her father and eldest brother away, Tuffy at a conference somewhere in America, her mother distracted and her brother obsessed by his girlfriend, she was mostly alone and bored. She liked her grandmother but had heard more than enough stories about the old days.

  Jane had made an effort to tidy her office, but the desk was covered with papers and folders, the filing cabinets were still exploding with documents and the bookshelves bowed under the weight of ledgers and directories. On one wall there was a huge estate map dated 1938. Most of the time Jane didn’t notice it; but, following Blaze’s glance, she was painfully aware that nearly all of the fields were now in other people’s ownership.

  “Have you seen Kitto?” Blaze asked.

  “The children saw him last week,” Jane said, wiping dust off a chair and pushing it in her sister-in-law’s direction. Blaze took a white handkerchief out of her pocket and cleaned the seat carefully.

  “He’s not doing well.”

  “I suppose that’s my fault?” Jane asked.

  Blaze ignored the remark. “He’d like to see you.”

  “Too late for that.”

  “He gave her up for you, Jane; isn’t that enough?”

  Jane brushed the top of the desk, sending little clouds of dust up into the air.

  “Anastasia took everyone else’s heart—why couldn’t she leave my husband’s?”

  Blaze agreed with her sister-in-law, but didn’t want to add to the hurt. “If you knew all along, why was it such a shock?”

  Jane hesitated and looked out of the window. When she finally answered her voice was barely audible. “There’s a difference between knowing and accepting, between suspecting and acknowledging.” She pushed her shoulders back and cleared her throat. “I went to the
local council to enquire about housing. There are eight thousand on the waiting list. As a deserted bankrupt wife with three school-age children, I’m about number five thousand. If I become a heroin addict, my chances would be better.”

  Blaze didn’t react.

  “There were forty jobs advertised for shelf stackers and till managers at the new Tesco outside Launceston. Three hundred and seventeen people applied. I got rejected before interview.”

  Taking her briefcase from the floor, Blaze snapped open the locks and brought out three neatly bound folders which she placed on her knee.

  “You see, I find myself in a bit of a bind—sort of up shit creek without a paddle. I have no one else to blame, of course. Should have had a Plan B—should have seen the whole thing coming.” Jane was trying hard to push the lump in her throat back down. “Your brother and I,” she hesitated, “we were the wrong people for the job. Turns out we couldn’t run a bath, let alone an estate.” She stole a look at her sister-in-law; Blaze was fiddling with the edge of one of her folders. “I’m sorry you’ve been left with the mess,” she concluded.

  “I’m only the regent. The castle belongs to your son.”

  “We have been woeful custodians.”

  “Something of an understatement.” Blaze didn’t need to conduct her sister-in-law’s performance review; she was desperate to get back to London. The incorporation of Moonshot Capital, as TiLing predicted, had been easy. So too had enticing clients; the fund had quickly reached its target. What Blaze hadn’t anticipated was Sleet’s fury and vindictiveness. His star manager had defected, taking with her many of Kerkyra’s clients, including Spalding Trust, an insurance company which had placed £250 million with her and promised, subject to performance results, to move another £750 million over by early 2009. Sleet had tried to stop banks from handling Moonshot, threatening to withdraw any Kerkyra custom from those who dealt with it.

  Her other issue was as pressing: the challenge of finding something in which to invest. There were opportunities, but the market was volatile. Because Moonshot was largely liquid, it was making minimal performance fees. With her mother, Jane and her niece and nephews to support, as well as Wolfe’s loan to Kitto to repay, Blaze needed to generate money.