“I suppose that you are not thinking of marrying her yourself?”
“Actually tonight, after you had transformed her, I did think of it,” admitted Georgie. “But quite frankly any girl of that age would bore me stiff in a fortnight and all the money in the world cannot sweep away boredom!”
Galina laughed.
“That is very true and when you do marry someone, I want you to be really in love with her.”
“And I will say the same to you, Galina, but where you are concerned, you have to love his bank balance as well as him!”
As he finished speaking, he kissed Galina again and walked to the door and as he opened it, he turned round,
“Goodnight and dream of the Shah of Persia at your feet!”
He did not wait for her reply, but walked down the passage to the Master Suite.
It was, as she undressed and got into bed, that Galina found herself thinking not of the Shah of Persia but of Lord Bramton.
It was impossible to forget the strange and unusual emotion he awoke in her.
‘I know I have made a mistake,’ she whispered to herself, ‘in asking him to stay here, but how could I help it.’
She closed her eyes and she could still feel Lord Bramton kissing her hand.
CHAPTER FOUR
The invitations to parties, balls and other forms of entertainment were pouring in.
It was clear that the Social world was amused and fascinated by Mr. Farlow and his daughter.
In the next few days Galina never had a moment to herself.
She was either discussing the invitations with Ellie-May or deciding what she should wear. Then they were rushing off to the shops or hurrying even faster back as so many people were calling to see them.
As Mr. Farlow had some business acquaintances in London, he was as busy as they were.
It occurred to Galina that the great house, which had always seemed so gloomy whenever she and Georgie were alone, had now become almost like a parrot’s cage.
Everyone seemed to be talking at the same time, running down corridors or trying to find her.
If she went upstairs to rest, there was certain to be a message or an unexpected visitor.
Galina was kept so busy that she did not worry, as she had expected to do, about Georgie.
She did not even worry too much when there were no telegrams from America for Mr. Farlow.
She had expected, from what Georgie had told her, that he would be having one every other day and then she would have to detain them until she could telegraph their contents to Georgie.
Nothing happened, but she hardly had time to think about it.
She was, however, vividly conscious and at times very grateful that Lord Bramton was with them.
He proved a tower of strength when people arrived unexpectedly. This often happened and when Galina could not be found, he had to take her place.
Lord Bramton talked to everyone and showed guests the Picture Gallery and all the other rooms where there was some particular collection that would interest them.
“I just don’t know what I would do without you,” Galina told him one day.
He had coped with a group of Americans who had just arrived in England and who were determined to make themselves known to Mr. Farlow.
“I just hope you will never have to handle all these people yourself,” Lord Bramton said to her very quietly.
As Galina looked up at him, she knew that was what she was hoping herself.
Only when she had left him, did she say to herself,
‘It’s impossible – impossible! I am only making it worse by depending on him and feeling as I do when he is near me.’
*
It was not until the beginning of the following week that a telegram arrived addressed to Mr. Farlow.
As soon as Galina saw it in the basket amongst the letters that had been brought to her, she drew in her breath and felt afraid.
Now she would have to be very clever not to make any mistakes and remember exactly what Georgie had told her to do.
She opened the telegram and found a brief message,
“Have found a comfortable accommodation as you suggested in Titusville.
Sam.”
Galina read it through twice and then she went to the library.
She found a book on America and turned quickly to the chapter on Pennsylvania and was not surprised to learn that Titusville was a small town in the State.
Now she had the information that Georgie wanted. But she had not yet heard from him and there was nothing she could do until she did.
Then she remembered him instructing her that the longer she could delay the telegram the better.
It seemed such a wrong thing to do to anyone.
Yet if another well had been found for Mr. Farlow, it could not hurt him so very much if he was three or four days delayed in drilling for it.
At the same time, feeling uncomfortable and rather ashamed, Galina slipped the telegram into one of the drawers of her writing desk.
She was praying that Georgie was not losing a good chance of finding an oil well, as it would save them from what she was more and more convinced was destruction.
Mr. Newland had told her only yesterday that the bank was complaining they were so overdrawn.
The money that Mr. Farlow was paying for renting Ranmore House was not enough to pay all the bills that had accumulated at Ranmore Park.
That night after she had retired to her bedroom, she drew the curtains back from the window.
She looked up at the moon and it seemed strange to think that the same moon was perhaps shining on Georgie.
Or it might be a sunny day in Pennsylvania and he was roving around the oil fields.
Wherever he was, she sent up a little prayer that he would soon let her know what he was doing.
She could then tell him that there was at least one possibility of an oil field.
Two days later she at last received a telegram. She opened it at once and when she saw the name ‘Donaldson’ she wanted to cry out with excitement.
He was there.
He was in America.
Now she would be able to get in touch with him.
To her astonishment she read,
“Am staying at 48 Fifth Avenue for a few days, so let me know how you are.
Donaldson.”
Galina knew very little about America and yet she recognised that Fifth Avenue was the ‘crème de la crème’ of New York where millionaires had their opulent houses.
‘What on earth could Georgie be doing there?’ she wondered. ‘If nothing else, how can he afford it?’
However, she now had an address for him and she then sent him Mr. Farlow’s telegram.
She had no idea what could be happening.
Because she was so worried and she had to confide in someone, she asked one of the footmen to inform Lord Bramton that she wished to see him.
He joined her in a few minutes and when he saw that she was alone, he closed the door firmly behind him.
Galina jumped up from where she had been sitting and ran towards him.
“I had to tell you, Victor, that I have had a telegram from Georgie and where do you think he is?”
“In America,” he replied immediately.
As he spoke, she remembered that she had not told him where Georgie was going.
She supposed that he must have guessed or perhaps once again he was reading her thoughts!
But there was no reason to argue about that now.
“He is in Fifth Avenue! Can you believe it? What is he doing there?”
Lord Bramton pulled her gently onto the sofa and then he sat down beside her saying,
“Now, you are not to worry. If I know anything of Georgie, he is well capable of making himself comfortable and at ease wherever he is. I can assure you Fifth Avenue is extremely comfortable if rather too much so.”
“Why is he there?” asked Galina.
“I rather think he is sensibl
e enough to realise that is just where the gold of America is more easily found than anywhere else.”
He saw the expression on Galina’s face.
“I know he is not seeking gold, but knowing him, he is doing it in the most comfortable way and will perhaps succeed quicker than you expect.”
“I don’t understand. I did not mean you to know what Georgie is doing.”
“I did not believe all that nonsense about going to France at the request of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and because he has a good brain, I am quite certain that he will come back with the goods.”
“Oh, Victor, I do hope you are right. But it worries me so much.”
“I will not allow you to worry, Galina. Everything is going so well at the moment and Mr. Farlow is delighted with himself and the impression he is making on London.
“I know he is going to ask you sooner or later if he can hold a party at Ranmore Park and you will find that very advantageous.”
“It will please Mr. Newland. He is worried about the expenses there which are mounting up and up.”
“Just like mine are,” sighed Lord Bramton.
Galina put out her hand and laid it on his arm.
“I am sorry. I keep worrying you with my troubles when you have terrible ones of your own.”
“There I have to agree with you, Galina.”
“I have not forgotten about you, Victor, and I have been praying that something will happen which will help you, but I have to think of Georgie first.”
“Of course you do and I know, my darling one, if anyone’s prayers will be heard, they will be yours.”
He looked at her in a way that made Galina jump up from the sofa.
“Now, I must really get back to work, but you do think that Georgie is all right and there is nothing wrong or mysterious about him being in Fifth Avenue?”
“If I had any money, I would risk it all on betting that whatever Georgie is doing, it will be very much to his advantage!”
“That is exactly what I really want to hear, Victor, and now I am not so frightened.”
“I will not allow you to be frightened of anything if I can prevent it,” asserted Lord Bramton. “Can I tell you how lovely you are? You are more beautiful every time I look at you.”
“I only wish it was true – ”
“It is true and my lovely, my precious one, go on praying that by some miracle you and I can be together for always.”
There was no need for Galina to answer him.
She just looked at him.
As their eyes met, she knew the only happiness for either of them would be if they could be together without the horror of their endless debts keeping them apart.
She turned back towards her writing desk and was wondering again what Georgie was doing in Fifth Avenue and if by a miracle he had found a way of making money.
What she did not know was something important had happened that would sweep away all her fears.
*
Georgie had, once again, fallen on his feet.
When he had climbed aboard the steamer to carry him off to New York, he had, against his better judgement, taken a First Class cabin.
He had seen some of the Second Class passengers going aboard and he sensed instinctively that they would be of no use to him.
The First Class passengers were very different.
There were a good number of middle-aged men who looked rich and prosperous. The women accompanying them were well dressed and bejewelled and that, if nothing else, told him their husbands’ pockets were not at all like his own.
He had therefore taken a First Class cabin and when the ship was well underway, he had deliberately made the acquaintance of his fellow travellers.
He was aware that unlike the English, Americans were always prepared to be friendly to strangers.
He was soon chatting away with older men, who he was quite certain in their own words were ‘in the money’.
When they met up again before dinner in the bar, he accepted a drink from a man with white hair.
He seemed a little older than the others and had a better glass of champagne in front of him.
“Would you care to join me, Mr. Donaldson?” he asked.
Georgie had not hesitated.
“That is most kind of you, sir. It is something I would much appreciate at the moment.”
“Then help yourself and please tell me why you are coming to my country?”
Georgie had been frank.
“I think you might guess the reason and I can only say, sir, I think that America is now the land of opportunity for young men like myself.”
The American was pleased.
“You are quite right and the more young men we encourage the better.”
Georgie had to be very careful what he said about himself.
Mr. Wilbur was extremely rich and what was more he had already made a fortune in oil.
He could therefore tell Georgie what he wanted to know and explain how he had become such a success.
Mr. Wilbur, who so obviously liked to talk when he had an audience, was only too ready to tell Georgie what he wanted to know.
He told him how for some centuries Pennsylvanian farmers had found their streams muddied up by a sort of black glue. They cursed it and then, following a tip from the Indians, they bottled it and sold it as a medicine.
“A medicine!” exclaimed Georgie. “I would never have thought of that.”
“It was sold as a cure for asthma, rheumatism, gout, tuberculosis, cancer and fallen arches!”
“I can hardly believe it.”
“It’s true,” replied Mr. Wilbur. “And what is more at the time of the Revolutionary War it was a sure remedy for constipation.”
Georgie found all this very amusing.
“Then,” Mr. Wilbur continued, “a certain Mr. Kier discovered it made a good, if rather smelly, lighting fluid. And that of course was just the beginning.”
“It’s more fascinating than a fairy story,” Georgie said. “Please go on.”
“I think it was in 1857, the owner of a small piece of land decided that underground an oil creek there must be a primary source for the substance Mr. Kier had bottled so profitably. He found that by tapping wells with a pick and shovel there was an ooze of oil.”
Georgie was listening to him intently.
“When a friend of his nearly drowned,” Mr. Wilbur continued, “because an underground spring erupted, he concluded, and was right, that oil lies deeper than water.”
Georgie was entranced as Mr. Wilbur went on and described how a local blacksmith who was used to digging salt wells was persuaded to sink a seventy-foot shaft.
On one sultry day in August the black glue bubbled up into a flood.
The same blacksmith was so excited he jumped on his mule and rode into Titusville crying,
“Struck oil! Struck oil!”
Mr. Wilbur paused before he added,
“He had, in fact, hit on the first oil well.”
“It’s such an exciting story,” enthused Georgie.
“As you can well imagine,” Mr Wilbur expanded his tale, “a great number of people, and that included me, descended on Titusville with shovels and drills. Oil towns began to spring up around it like weeds.”
“And that is how you made your millions.”
“I did, and it was the most precious moment in my life when I could pay the proceeds of my first well into my bank.”
He chuckled.
“Now, of course, all my friends are looking for oil in other places. But Titusville was the first and now there is a huge demand for oil that we never expected.
“It always amuses me to remember the year after John Drake’s strike, a group of men in Cleveland sent John Rockefeller over to Oil Creek to report on the long range possibilities of the gushers.”
“And what did he say?”
“After his first survey, he reported that oil had no commercial future.”
“I don�
��t believe it!”
“It’s true, but he had to eat his words and it was a Rockefeller who guessed that oil might be used for heating and steamships.”
“And of course he was right.”
“Rockefeller and his partner pooled all their savings and invested just four thousand dollars in a candle-makers’ refinery.
“Rockefeller became extremely rich and men are now building more refineries and getting richer every day. No one knows where it will all end.
“But now my guess is that this is just the beginning of what oil can perform and there are a great many more discoveries ahead of us.”
“That is just what I want to find out,” Georgie said a little rashly.
“Well, I can certainly give you a hand,” Mr .Wilbur told him as they journeyed across the Atlantic.
Georgie knew he had already struck gold.
He learnt quite a lot about Mr. Wilbur.
He married when he was very young as he wanted a girl with money and then she had run away with his best friend after three years of a rather unhappy marriage.
“We just weren’t suited to each other,” Mr. Wilbur told Georgie. “And you take my advice, young man, and don’t marry anyone until you’re real certain she’ll listen to what you say. Also give you a son to whom you can leave your fortune once you’ve made it.”
“Have you no children?”
Mr. Wilbur shook his head.
“No. When my wife left me, I decided I wouldn’t marry again, but travel all over the world alone. It’s been interesting, it’s been exciting and I’ve had some real pretty women in my arms, but not for keeps. I enjoy travelling and no woman wants the discomfort of that.”
“I can that see you are more than comfortable at the moment,” remarked Georgie.
Mr. Wilbur laughed.
“Now I can travel First Class, be waited on hand and foot and buy the best champagne. But then I’ve done it the hard way and, I can tell you, that you can be damned uncomfortable and extremely rough!”
Georgie was fascinated by the stories Mr. Wilbur told him.
He listened attentively and he gathered the oil still brought him more money than anything else he had been interested in.
They often talked till they were the last passengers to retire to their cabins and they were talking again the next morning when they met at breakfast.
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