The Lorimer Line
Page 4
What happened next was unpremeditated. At no point did he tell himself that the simplest way to destroy his own wishes before they became important to him lay in discourtesy, but only some feeling of this kind could have prompted his next remark. They had by now climbed the steps from the lower terraces to the garden which lay on the same level as the house. The appearance of the mansion on this side was not so grandiose as the approach from the carriage drive, where the new arrival was greeted by eight Italianate pillars supporting a row of marble figures in ancient Roman dress. But even from the garden the grandeur of the property was apparent. The pinkish local stone with which both the house and the orangery were built had been stuccoed over in grey. The long windows which overlooked the lawns gave the property a peaceful look, and the wisteria and evergreen magnolias which rose to the height of the roof witnessed to many years of calm and prosperous living.
‘A fine house,’ said David. ‘The reward, I suppose, for a century of slaving.’
As soon as he had spoken he was appalled by his own words. He stood still, expecting the daughter of the house, the slavers’ descendant, at the very least to stalk away affronted. Instead she seemed too startled to move.
‘You are very direct, Mr Gregson.’
He dared to look at her, and found that she was staring steadily into his eyes. There was no reason, after all, why she should be ashamed.
‘We Scots have an unfortunate habit, I fear, of calling things by their names.’ Now he wanted to beg her forgiveness, to explain what he had meant and not meant. No woman in his life before had ever reduced him to such a state of confusion.
He was saved from argument when her elder brother emerged with his family from a small marquee in which ices were being served. Margaret ran forward with a cry of pleasure to pick up her three-year-old nephew Matthew, and cuddle him for a moment before setting him down again on the ground in order that his new sailor suit might be admired - this was, he proudly informed everyone within earshot, his first day out of skirts. It was David’s chance to move away, although he was held in conversation for a moment or two by William. Such was the shipowner’s indignation with Mr Plimsoll, whose unwarranted interference in the business of shipping had so impertinently been given force by Parliament, that he felt obliged to express it to every new audience.
David naturally knew a good deal about William Lorimer’s affairs. He knew, for example, that the Lorimer Line was more deeply indebted to the bank than even Mr Crankshaw’s business, and with less security. Besides being the son of the chairman of Lorimer’s, and a large shareholder in his own right, William was presumably destined to be chairman himself one day. Sometimes he behaved as though he regarded the bank’s funds as his own, and it was difficult for anyone but his father to oppose him. The purchase of steamships was an expensive business and their running costs were high. David could not help suspecting that, in the rivalry with Liverpool, pride sometimes counted for more than economic considerations.
Although he knew something of William’s financial affairs, David was less well acquainted with him as a man. John Junius had married late in life, so his elder son was still under thirty. Lacking the authority of his father’s age and position, William made no attempt to emulate his domineering manner. Instead, he had a reputation for being devious, for arranging what he wanted with one person at a time in such a way that each believed he was being asked to accept a plan to which everyone else had already agreed.
David had heard that Sophie, William’s wife, was a beauty, but at this first meeting he did not feel disposed to agree. Perhaps it was only that her pale face, sleek black hair and languid manner gave a colourless impression when compared with the repressed energy of her smaller sister-in-law. Or perhaps her placidity had been imposed by her present condition. Although the slim lines and fluid fabrics of the latest fashion had not yet spread out from London, even the provinces had some time ago abandoned the crinoline. This season’s slimmer hoops afforded no disguise to the later stages of pregnancy. Sophie held out a limp hand to David as William presented him, but showed no interest in conversation. With the feeling that he was intruding on a family occasion, David withdrew as soon as it was polite to do so.
For a time he explored the gardens. Eight ladies were playing a game of croquet on one lawn, while their husbands drank sherry and seltzerwater and made teasing remarks. There was a good deal of laughter and a certain amount of cheating - David could see more clearly than the players themselves the way in which a long skirt concealed both a ball and the foot which rearranged its position. The tennis lawn, on the other hand, was not in use. Even if the members of the bank staff had known how to play the new game, they were not correctly dressed for it. David stood for a moment at the edge of one of the two terraces above the gorge, leaning back against its stone balustrade and staring at the mansion.
He was not envious. In his feelings at this moment there was no resentment that the Lorimers should live in such style whilst he must be content with two dark rooms in an insalubrious neighbourhood. The same ambition which prompted him to copy the accents and manners of his betters allowed him to admire their possessions without rancour. One day he intended to be a wealthy man himself. A fortune on the scale of the Lorimers’ was not to be acquired in a single lifetime, but it represented a goal at which to aim. As long as such rewards existed at the top of the ladder, the struggle at the bottom was worth while. Even if David himself should never live in a palace like Brinsley House, it was necessary to his ambitions that homes such as this should stand ready to welcome the son he hoped to have one day.
From the upper lawns he heard the sound of tea cups: it was time to be sociable again. As soon as he appeared he found himself encumbered with Mrs Lynch. She had been ordered by her husband to be affable to his subordinates, but was not prepared to lower herself too far down the hierarchy. It was a relief when the military band began to play and made conversation superfluous.
Just as it seemed that the afternoon’s entertainment must be drawing to a close, he was surprised to be approached by Margaret Lorimer.
‘It was impolite of me to leave you so abruptly before tea, Mr Gregson,’ she said. ‘I take such pleasure in the company of children that it leads me to forget my manners. I hope you will forgive me.’
Had she forgotten his own earlier rudeness or was this her way of assuring him that it was to be ignored? David was too flustered to think of a proper response, and this in turn seemed to make her feel that she had indeed offended him. Her next suggestion was an undisguised olive branch.
‘I wonder whether you would care to see my father’s collection of Eastern art?’ she said. ‘I believe it to be highly esteemed.’
David bowed his appreciation and followed her across the lawn. A double stone staircase led from the garden to the centre of the house, but the door at the head of it was closed to discourage intrusion. He was taken instead to a side entrance. It opened into a conservatory in which a fountain splashed to provide a humid atmosphere for palms and aspidistras. David himself had been born into a house where a single room served as kitchen and dining room and living room. But here – because there were no corridors on this floor, and each room led into the next – he found himself walking through a morning room, a grand drawing room and dining room and then a smaller version of each, presumably for the family’s use when they had no guests. Finally they arrived at the central hall. Its marble floor stretched from the front of the house to the back. On its further side one door of polished red mahogany was closed, whilst another stood open to show a large billiards table, covered with a white cloth, and a small smoking room beyond it. But the central hall was their destination.
David looked dutifully around. Art had little interest for him, but he would have liked to study the row of portraits hanging in the upper gallery. He recognized the chairman at once and guessed that all the subjects were members of the family. But to mention them might bring back the forbidden subject of slavery.
‘I love all the animals, but the squirrel is my favourite,’ she said. For a moment she cupped it in her hands, seeming to warm it. Then she handed it to David.
He took it cautiously, afraid of dropping an object which might be worth a fortune. The surface quality of the stone he found unpleasant to the touch. As soon as was polite he handed it back and with much more enthusiasm pointed to an object which had caught his eye at once: a golden cage containing a tiny jewelled bird. Margaret agreed with his admiration.
‘Unfortunately, my father has never been able to find a jeweller to repair it,’ she said. ‘It should turn and sing. A gift for an emperor, I believe.’
‘May I touch it?’
Margaret smiled and gestured towards the cage to show that she herself was too small to reach it. David lifted it carefully off its high shelf, but kept it above his head so that he could study the bottom without tilting it.
His attention was distracted for a moment by the sound of shouting in one of the rooms which led from the main hall. The sound of John Junius’s voice raised in anger was a familiar one to all the staff of Lorimer’s, but David was surprised to hear it on a social occasion. As he looked towards the door a young man flung it open. He was only about seventeen, but tall for his age and already sporting a fine pair of side whiskers to match his golden hair. He wore a white blazer braided with dark blue and held himself well, a handsome, athletic figure. John Junius’s voice followed him and he flushed with anger as he realized that a stranger was within earshot. He closed the door and strode without speaking across the hall.
‘My poor brother,’ said Margaret, laughing affectionately. ‘It is a difficult time for him. At school Ralph is a hero, almost a god, to the younger boys. Outside their classes the masters leave the boys very much to themselves, and the captain of cricket has only to call once and there will be a score of fags ready to do his errands. Unfortunately, his Greek marks are not as high as his cricket scores, and in his own home he is treated with less respect.’
‘He might be happier as a boarder,’ suggested David.
‘Undoubtedly he would. But my father was one of the men who founded the school. It was very soon after Ralph was born. One of the objects was to provide the sons of the Clifton community with a good Christian education without removing them from their homes. You touch that like an expert, Mr Gregson. Have you seen such an object before?’
For the past few moments David had forgotten that he was still holding the cage, but during that time his fingers had caressed it with the special touch which his father had taught him. He wondered for a moment whether his hostess had any real interest in the answer to her question. But she had asked it, so he replied.
‘My father was blinded in the Crimean War,’ he said. ‘He was a locksmith before he went for a soldier, and when he returned he found he could still practise his old skills. Where delicate mechanisms were concerned he had the ability to see with his fingers and ears. Something of that I’ve inherited. I’ve never rationally understood it, any more than he did. It’s like the gift of healing, but applied in this case to cog-wheels.’
He had thought she might laugh, but instead she watched with fascination as without looking down at the cage he opened it and began to stroke the tiny bird upwards with his finger tips.
‘And he allowed you to waste these gifts on accountancy?’ she asked.
‘I was apprenticed to a watchmaker as a lad,’ David admitted. ‘But most of my master’s business was in the importing and resale of clocks, and he soon found me more useful at keeping the books.’
He had sent David at his own expense, in fact, to study book-keeping, and for two years the young apprentice had been able to earn a small but useful income in his free time, assisting several local tradesmen who were clumsy with figures to keep their accounts in order. This had brought him into frequent contact with the manager of the local bank, who recognized the young man’s ability first by offering employment on his own staff and later by recommending him for promotion to the head office in Edinburgh. It was the experience he had gained in the Scottish capital which had encouraged David to apply for his present responsible position at Lorimer’s. However, he could not expect his hostess to be interested in all that. He concentrated in silence on the jewelled birdcage.
Under one of the bird’s feathers he found a tiny lever and moved it in a dog-leg pattern. Jerkily the bird began to turn and a high-pitched squeaking came from the base of the cage. The mechanism had been fully wound, so the sound continued for a considerable time. John Junius Lorimer appeared in the hall with his mouth open to protest in fury. But when he saw the cause of the noise his annoyance was replaced by surprise.
‘Miss Lorimer allowed me …’ began David when at last the bird was still, but his chairman waved the explanation aside.
‘Yes, yes. But why couldn’t that fool Parker discover what was wrong, if you could do it so easily.’
‘There seems to be little wrong with the mechanism, sir,’ said David. ‘It needs cleaning, of course: it’ll be a good many years since it was last used. What your jeweller failed to find was the secret catch. If I may show you, sir …’ But it was obvious that the thickened joints of John Junius’s fingers would never allow him to reach the lever. The chairman’s daughter must have seen this as quickly as David himself. Slipping off her glove she asked that she should be given the demonstration instead.
David showed her first of all the shape of the track through which the lever moved. Then he took her hand and turned it so that her finger could slide beneath the jewelled feather.
Her hand had been firm, he remembered, as he took it earlier that afternoon, but her fingers were soft and cool. For a second time that day David found himself disturbed by her nearness. He licked his lips nervously and edged quickly away when, having moved the lever once, she checked her knowledge by sliding it back again.
John Junius was not a man given to thanks so far as the affairs of Lorimer’s Bank were concerned, but his private collection was a different matter. He was brusque, as was his habit, when he expressed his appreciation, but David was aware all the same that he had done himself some good. Perhaps one day some question of promotion might arise, and his name would be remembered with favour.
In the meantime he prepared to take his leave. He would see John Junius from time to time at the bank, of course, but Margaret Lorimer he had no expectation of meeting again, unless the Bank Holiday invitation were to be repeated next year. As he bowed low over her hand before going in search of her mother, he told himself that it was perhaps just as well.
It happened, however, that a meeting came sooner than he expected. The approach to it was a curious one. It was not part of David’s duties at Lorimer’s to prepare or revise the valuations of properties which had been accepted as security for bank loans: he was merely required to incorporate the agreed figures into the annual statements of accounts. But as he studied the amounts, noticing the changes in valuation which had taken place annually on the same property, he became too disturbed to remain silent. Etiquette forced him to use Mr Lynch as his channel of communication, but he addressed his written conclusions directly to the chairman.
They were as straightforward as they were critical. For a good many years now the trade and prosperity of Bristol -and indeed of the whole country - had increased steadily w
ith each year that passed. But within the past eighteen months the tide had turned. The cotton industry had suffered earlier from the effects of the American Civil War and agriculture from an influx of cheap food. Now, abruptly, a lack of confidence in every sphere, increased by the costs and uncertainties of wars and unrest abroad, showed itself in a general depression of trade. Income tax had already been raised by a penny and a further increase was thought to be imminent. Values were falling now, not rising. It seemed to David that Lorimer’s directors were proving slow to adjust their business to this new situation.
Such an opinion, strongly expressed, might well be regarded as an impertinence. David waited in some anxiety for the chairman’s response. It came in a form he could not have anticipated. He was summoned to John Junius’s office, although not invited to sit down. At no time in the interview was his statement mentioned.
‘My daughter,’ said the chairman without preamble, ‘interests herself in the sick of the city.’
Bewildered, David bowed his head to acknowledge that he was already aware of this.
‘The charity she supports is generously maintained. But until now, only on the basis of annual subscription. Miss Lorimer has persuaded me of the advantage of opening a capital fund. She is peculiarly specific about her wishes. She appears to have convinced herself that there would be great benefit in acquiring a building on a high and healthy part of the Downs, in which mothers with wasting diseases might recover their health while their children are cared for away from the risk of infection. It is thought that the women would not be so ill as to prevent them taking some domestic responsibilities during their stay, so that running costs would not be too high. All that is required is to meet the cost of purchasing a suitable building.’
He paused, but David had nothing to say.
‘I propose to head the appeal for such a fund. It seems to me to be a suitable charity, and Lorimer’s Bank will make a generous contribution. A very generous contribution.’