Vanity

by Jane Feather

  “Forgive me, but since I didn’t know, I can hardly be blamed,” she said with bitter sarcasm.

  “On the contrary. If you’d followed your instructions, you would have known.” He spoke with the same curt authority, his mouth set in a grim line.

  “However”—he held up a hand as she opened her mouth to protest—“that’s water under the bridge. Now you will lure Wyndham to Putney Heath, where I shall be waiting for him.”

  “You would rob him?”

  “Just so.”

  “But he might recognize you.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “You will still be putting yourself at grave risk.”

  “No more than I am accustomed to. And you will not be at risk.”

  When she said nothing, he bowed and went to the door. “Good night, Octavia.”

  Octavia gazed down at her tightly clenched hands as the door closed behind him. Had he really decided before this debacle to change the plan to one that would not involve her sacrifice?

  But even if he had, what did it matter? How could it possibly matter in the light of his confession? A man who could do such a despicable thing was capable of anything.

  Chapter 18

  The hackney carriage slowed and came to a halt at the intersection of Gracechurch Street, Eastcheap, and Cannon Street. Within the carriage, Dirk Rigby and Hector Lacross simultaneously laid hands on their sword hilts as the raucous chant of the jostling throng in the streets swelled. Faces appeared in the windows on either side: bucolic faces, lean faces, faces suffused with liquor, faces drawn and twisted with anger, faces split in grins of holiday-making merriment.

  “No popery … no popery.” The chant was mouthed at the inhabitants of the hackney, rose on the sultry early-summer air in a great chorus. The carriage swayed as the crowd pressed ever closer.

  “Gad, but this could be ugly,” Hector muttered, half drawing his sword.

  “No, don’t draw upon them,” Dirk pleaded urgently. “It’ll only provoke them.” He reached sideways and let down the window. “No popery, good citizens,” he bellowed, waving his hand at the sea of faces. “No Catholic relief. No popery.”

  A roar of approval greeted this. “Let ’em pass,” someone called.

  The jarvey leaned down from his box and shouted, “No popery,” at the top of his lungs. The throng roared its approval yet again and moved backward a fraction, pushing and shoving each other to create just enough of a path for the frightened horses to press forward toward London Bridge. The jarvey cracked his whip, the horses picked up speed, and they were out of the mob, although the rhythmic, vociferous chant pursued them across the bridge.

  Hector sat back and wiped his forehead with a scented handkerchief. “Filthy scum. Who do they think they are, impeding the progress of their betters?”

  Dirk pulled up the window again. The air in the hackney was close, but the stench of London under the midday sun was worse.

  “They should call out the army … put Lord George in irons,” he declared. “The man’s mad … crazy as a bedlamite.”

  “But he knows how to rouse a rabble,” Hector said. “Everywhere he goes, it’s the same. People flock to hear him, and they come away from his meetings fired with antipapist zeal.”

  Dirk grimaced but made no other response. He leaned forward to peer out of the window. The redbrick warehouse loomed ahead beside the greasy water of the Thames, flowing sluggishly, gray beneath the suffused yellow light of a hazy sun. The hackney clattered off the bridge and turned into the courtyard, coming to a halt before the iron-barred door.

  The two passengers alighted and looked around. It was as quiet this afternoon as it had been on their two previous visits. On the last occasion they’d attended a board meeting of Thaddeus Nielson’s investors; this afternoon they’d been bidden to an emergency meeting to discuss urgent new developments in the building scheme on Acre Lane.

  “Want me to wait fer ye, gents?” The jarvey leaned down from his box and sent a stream of tobacco-stained spittle into the kennel running down the center of the cobbled courtyard.

  “We won’t be above half an hour,” Hector told him, stepping aside from the kennel, his lip curled in distaste.

  “Right y’are, then.” The jarvey settled back on his box and took out his pipe from the deep pocket in his caped greatcoat. “Let’s ’ope that rabble’s been an’ gone by then.” He Ht the pungent tobacco. “There’ll be trouble ’afore this is all over, you mark my words,” he pronounced. “That Lord George Gordon’s got a bee up ’is arse and it’s buzzin’ fit to bust.” He grinned. “Beggin’ yer pardon, gents, fer speakin’ so free of the Quality.”

  Neither of his passengers deigned to respond, merely turned on their shining heels and picked their way through the debris-strewn cobbles to the door.

  Ned opened the door on their knock, bunking into the sunlight, the cavernous dark stretching behind him.

  “So y’are ’ere,” he declared. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Y’are the last. Master’s waitin’ on ye above stairs.”

  Rigby and Lacross obeyed the imperative gesture of the thumb and stepped past the elderly man into the now familiar interior. The great iron door closed with a reverberating slam. The air was as cold and damp as it had ever been, despite the late-May afternoon.

  Ned preceded them up the curving iron staircase, lighting the way with the lamp held high. He muttered and grumbled under his breath the whole way, pausing every now and again to sneeze as clouds of dust rose with every step.

  “Reckon ye knows yer way from ’ere.” He stopped at the head of the stairs, sniffed liquidly, and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

  Hector edged gingerly past him, Dirk on his heels, and by the wavering light of the oil lamp held up behind them, they trod to the door at the rear of the landing. Hector banged with his fist. The truculent knock gave him confidence, and he raised the latch and flung open the door with an assertive air.

  “Ah, Mr. Lacross … is Mr. Digby with you … oh, yes, there he is, right behind you. So good of you both to come. Pray come in … come in … take a glass of wine. You remember your fellow investors, of course.”

  Thaddeus Nielson came toward them beaming, mittened hands outstretched in welcome. He was wearing a cutaway coat of threadbare gray velvet, with a greasy moleskin waistcoat and a spotted kerchief knotted in the neck of his collarless shirt. His beam widened, and the jagged scar lifted the corner of his mouth.

  In honor of his guests he wore an unkempt wig perched askew, but despite his disreputable appearance, there was something about his presence that awed both of his visitors whenever they were in his company. A glitter in the gray eyes that seemed somehow too youthful and penetrating for the rest of the man; a power in the tall frame despite the slight hunch of his shoulders.

  There were four gentlemen sitting around a pockmarked deal table in the middle of the room. An elderly group, they appeared for the most part to be half-asleep. As one body, they nodded and murmured acknowledgment of the new arrivals, who took the two vacant seats, Hector dusting his off with his handkerchief before sitting with a fastidious grimace.

  “Wine, gentlemen.” Their genial host filled two smudged glasses from a dust-encrusted bottle and passed them down the table before making the rounds, refilling the other glasses. “Now, to the order of the day.”

  “Just tell us where to sign, Thaddeus. We don’t need any ramblin’ explanations,” growled the oldest of the crew into his long white beard.

  “Aye, trust ye with my life, I would,” put in another with a hearty slap of his open palm on the table. The glasses shivered, the table creaked.

  Their host regarded him from beneath sleepy lids that concealed the sharp warning in his eyes from all but its recipient. The actor was being a little too fulsome for strict credibility.

  “Why, Banker Moran, you do me too much honor,” Thaddeus drawled, taking a sip of his wine. “But I’d not dream of taking your money without full disclosure.”


  “No, of course not,” the pseudo-banker declared hastily. “Just what I was saying … just what I meant to say,” he added, and retreated into his wineglass with a confused cough.

  “So what’s the urgency, Nielson?” demanded Hector with some asperity. “You need more money, is that it?”

  Thaddeus stroked his chin with a thoughtful frown. “Well, as I was explaining before you arrived, it’s a little complicated. There’s been a small hitch with the Funds, where I invested your little nest eggs. They promised to pay seven percent but it seems as if they’re only going to pay five percent this quarter.”

  He glanced around the table, seeming completely untroubled by this revelation. Indeed, all of his audience, with the exception of Hector and Dirk, appeared similarly sanguine.

  “How should that be?” Dirk asked, frowning in the gloom, wondering why the man didn’t open the shutters onto the river. At least it would let in some natural light. There was something very unpleasant, almost sinister, about sitting in this dark, dank cave on a warm, sunny day.

  “Funds on the Exchange are always subject to market vagaries,” Thaddeus said. “Isn’t that so, Mr. Moran?”

  “Quite so … quite so,” corroborated the banker.

  “Nothin’ to worry about, though,” put in a third member of the group with an indolent yawn. He was very splendidly dressed in crimson satin, with gold-frogged buttons and a hedgehog wig.

  Hector regarded this gentleman respectfully. “You believe that, my Lord Justice Greenaway.”

  “Oh, without doubt, m’boy … without doubt,” the justice said with another yawn. “What d’ye think, Bar-tram?” He nudged his so-far-silent neighbor.

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” Mr. Bartram said solemnly, pulling at his angular chin. He was thin as a needle, with a pointed head and a shining bald pate revealed beneath a slipping wig. “Seems to me, if we’re promised seven percent and we get five percent, it is a matter for concern. That means that Thaddeus here has less funds for his building … makes our investment less. See what I mean?” He looked around the table, blinking like a wise old owl.

  “Yes, you’re quite right, Bartram,” Thaddeus said smoothly. “It does indeed mean that your investment is reduced, and I find myself a little strapped for cash to complete the project.”

  He reached behind him for another bottle of wine. The cork had already been drawn, and he pushed the bottle across the table to the chief justice. “Another glass, dear fellow.”

  “Capital … capital,” the justice said with a rasping rub of his hands. He refilled his glass and passed the bottle along. “So what is it ye want from us, dear boy?”

  “Another twenty thousand apiece,” Thaddeus said coolly. “It will enable me to finish the houses on Acre Street and make a start on the next development. I have six customers for new houses, gentlemen. Tongues hanging out for a gentleman’s residence befitting a substantial citizen with a hopeful family, to set up in a manner to encourage good connections.” He smiled and the scar twitched. “The attractions of society are manifold for those who can’t as yet aspire to it. But a grand mansion, good governesses, Eton and Harrow for the boys—and a dynasty is born.” He gestured expansively. “Who are we to quibble at the vanities of the socially aspiring?”

  “But what guarantee do we have that this twenty thousand won’t go the same way as our other investments?” asked Dirk, refilling his smudged glass.

  “Oh, have a little faith, sir,” Justice Greenaway protested. “It’s hardly Nielson’s fault if the Exchange had a bad month. But we all know that what goes around comes around. Next month, it’ll be paying ten percent or thereabouts.”

  “But unfortunately I cannot wait until next month to provide the materials to finish the houses already under construction,” explained Thaddeus. “If we cannot finish them on schedule, then we lose our customers. If we lose our customers, we will be obliged to return to them their original deposits … and that, gentlemen, could be a little awkward at present time.”

  “For you,” stated Dirk. “But not for us. It’s nothing to do with us whether you have the money to repay them or not.”

  “Ah, well, I’m afraid it is,” Thaddeus said, drawing a sheaf of papers toward him. “Surely you read the contracts before you signed them, gentlemen. It states here most clearly that you are members of a consortium that agrees both as a body and as individuals to fulfill the terms of all housing projects presently under contract.”

  He pushed the papers toward Hector and Dirk. “Pray refresh your memories, sirs.”

  The two peered in the gloom at the spidery writing. Hector drew the candle toward him with an impatient movement, spilling wax on his finger.

  “Odd’s blood!” He snatched the document from his friend’s grasp and held it close to the flame. “So if you fail to fulfill your commitments, then we end up in the Fleet?” he exclaimed.

  “Gentlemen … gentlemen,” Thaddeus said softly. “Don’t be so exercised. That’s not going to happen. This is a very temporary setback. I need a further injection of funds just to bridge the gap until the houses are completed. Then the purchasers will pay the price of the houses, and we’ll be sitting pretty.”

  “But this further twenty thousand. You’ll not be putting that in the Funds?” Dirk asked uneasily.

  “Oh, no, there’s no time for that,” Thaddeus explained. “The money must be used immediately to ensure we don’t renege on our contracts with our customers. You need have no fear of losing a penny.”

  Dirk scratched his head. It sounded reasonable, and everyone else with the exception of Hector was nodding placidly. “What d’you think, Lacross?”

  “I don’t see that we have any choice,” Hector said curtly. “But it had better not be good money after bad.”

  “My dear sir, you insult me.” Thaddeus Nielson’s voice was so low it was almost a whisper. There was an expression on his scarred countenance that caused Hector involuntarily to draw his head back as if away from the strike of a cobra.

  “Surely you aren’t questioning my probity, Mr. Lacross?”

  “Of course he’s not, Thaddeus,” the banker said with a hearty slap on Hector’s shoulder. “I daresay the man’s not accustomed to dealing with Funds and the Exchange and such like. Daresay he knows nothing about percentages.” He smiled kindly at Hector. “New to the business, aren’t you, my dear sir?”

  Hector was still trying to recover his equilibrium after that frightening glimpse of a very different side to Thaddeus Nielson.

  “It’s possible,” he mumbled, shifting on his chair. “But I for one don’t have another twenty thousand in cash. I’ll have to put up a piece of property as security for it. Your bank will advance the money with that security, I imagine.”

  “My position, too,” Dirk said.

  “Oh, that’s quite usual,” Justice Greenaway said. “Do that all the time, don’t we, friends?” He chuckled. “Have to take a few risks in this game, dear fellow. A form of gamblin’, really.”

  “Yes, that’s all it is,” Dirk put in eagerly. “Like hazard or faro. Man makes a wager, lays down his blunt, and sees what comes of it.”

  Hector regarded him with an expression close to dislike. “Except that in this case we could both find ourselves languishing in debtors’ prison.”

  “Could do that at the tables,” Dirk said with an easy shrug. “Spent the night in the Fleet, m’self, once.”

  “Mr. Rigby, you have the spirit of the true investor.” Thaddeus leaned over to refill his glass. “One must take risks to reap the greatest rewards. And I assure you, I’ve never lost yet. Neither have any of these gentlemen.”

  He looked for corroboration around the table and received fervent statements of agreement.

  “So shall we drink to the next phase of our project?” Thaddeus raised his glass, smiling benignly, and Hector found himself wondering if he really had seen that hooded cobra behind the disfigured facade.

  The men around the table all ra
ised their glasses, Hector following suit with the barest hesitation.

  “Well, I’ll write out my draft, Thaddeus,” the banker declared. “If that man of yours can produce paper and a quill.”

  “Oh, I have that right here in the desk.” Thaddeus pushed back his chair and went to the battered oak desk. He drew out paper, ink stand, and quill pen and placed them in front of Banker Moran. “At your leisure, my dear sirs.”

  Taking his seat again, he took up a long churchwarden pipe on the table beside him and busied himself with tamping and lighting his tobacco. Then he sat back, smoking peacefully while the writing materials circulated and banker’s drafts were pushed toward him with various expressions of satisfaction.

  Dirk and Hector wrote their own documents, each pledging his share of Hartridge Folly, the property they still jointly owned because neither one of them had found good reason to buy out the other.

  Thaddeus took the pledges with a smile of thanks. He held the candle over the signatures and, when a blob of molten wax fell on each paper, passed them back to Rigby and Lacross with another of his benign smiles.

  “If you’d just affix your seals, gentlemen … and we’ll have Lord Justice Greenaway witness them for the record.”

  “No one else has done so,” Hector pointed out.

  “But they have given me banker’s drafts,” Thaddeus said silkily. “I must persuade my own bankers to advance me money based on your securities. A sealed and witnessed signature is necessary, as I’m sure you understand.”

  After a moment’s hesitation Hector pressed his signet ring into the wax on his pledge. Dirk did the same. Thaddeus Nielson’s expression remained smoothly affable. Justice Greenaway with much murmurings of pleasure, witnessed the signatures, and all the documents were once more in Thaddeus’s possession.

  “Thank you, sirs. I must say it’s a pleasure to do business with you.” He folded the papers carefully and placed them in his desk, turning a large brass key in the drawer and pocketing it.

  “Another glass of wine to conclude such a pleasant occasion.” He refilled glasses yet again.