Lady of Fortune

by Graham Masterton

  She said, ‘You had a difficult time after the war. So I heard, anyway.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Robert. ‘For a year or two, it was all a pretty close-cut thing. We lost scores of millions of pounds; and there was one time, although it didn’t appear so in the shareholders’ reports which you received, when we were down to a reserve of less than two million pounds.

  ‘Mind you, the Bank of England went down to ten million during the war, so I don’t suppose we did so badly, comparatively speaking. I just wish now that they’d take Britain off the gold standard. It’s doing us irreparable harm.’

  Effie didn’t comment. She had her own views about the 1925 Gold Standard Act. She said, brusquely, ‘Dougal tells me you want to set up some kind of co-operative arrangement with Watson’s New York.’

  Robert nodded. ‘That’s absolutely right. I’ve had my eye for quite a while on New York. We do considerable business here in any event: but I would like to think that we had a headquarters here, for dealing with foreign bills and investing in the New York stock market. Several of my Scottish clients want to put their money into American automobiles and steel and chemicals. Many of them already have; but it would be far more convenient if Dougal could handle it all for me. At least I’d know that the business was in good hands; family hands. I’m only sorry that you’ve decided to pull out.’

  ‘I’m still a major stockholder in Watson’s New York, just as I am in Watson’s of Edinburgh,’ said Effie.

  ‘In that case,’ smiled Robert, ‘I’m sure I can count on your vote when it comes to putting forward my new arrangements.’

  ‘What new arrangements?’

  Robert put down his tankard, tugged out his hankerchief, and conscientiously dabbed at his mouth. The only sign of his age was that he was beginning to spit a little. Last year, most of his front teeth had been taken out by Sir Gordon Louth, the Scottish dental surgeon, and replaced with dentures. He said, ‘Watson’s did extremely well last year by discounting bills to French companies on the expectation of money received from Germany in war reparations. I don’t suppose there’s very much more to be made out of that particular market: the German economy is now quite desperate, as you know. But we finished up with a few tidy millions which can be lent to American brokers to cover stock purchases on the US market; and we’re anxious to do so.’

  ‘I suppose I’m not against it in principle,’ said Effie, coldly.

  ‘It’s excellent business,’ said Robert. ‘It will shove more money into the American economy, which can’t harm anyone, especially not you, and especially not Dougal. It will allow ordinary American investors to speculate in the shares they want to buy; it will allow American brokers to do the business they so urgently want to do; and it will give the shareholders and investors of Watson’s Bank a very healthy slice of profit from the US stock-market boom without actually having to involve themselves in buying US stocks.’

  Effie said, ‘I thought you distrusted Dougal.’

  ‘Of course I don’t distrust Dougal! How can you say that? We used to argue when we were young laddies; but look at us now. Grown men.’

  ‘Have you seen him since you arrived?’

  ‘I intend to call on him now. I telephoned him earlier but he wasn’t at his office: so I decided to come here first.’

  ‘Well,’ said Effie, ‘I don’t know what to say. You and I have had such terrible rows in the past. The only reason I left England was because I couldn’t stand to work with you any longer; nor live with you, for that matter. I still haven’t forgiven you for lending all of that money to Germany.’

  ‘That was a matter which is probably best forgotten,’ said Robert.

  ‘Would you have said that if Germany had won?’

  ‘Germany very nearly did win, my dearie. But, yes, we did lose quite a lot of money during the war. I was personally hoping that President Wilson would listen to the Kaiser’s peace proposals after the Americans took the St Mihiel Saliet. But, well, it wasn’t to be, was it? Instead of an economically-balanced Europe, which we might have had if everything had been settled a good deal earlier, we have this absurd situation whereby Germany is required to pay impossible reparations. It just shows you that politicians understand nothing about banking. If Germany were actually to repay even a fraction of those reparations, the whole world’s economy would teeter, and tremble. When will they ever understand that countries may have borders, but money hasn’t?’

  ‘You seem to be quite happy to take money from reparations.’

  ‘Do you blame me, when you consider how much of the money belonged to Watson’s in the first place? Besides, a banker who doesn’t take advantage of whatever opportunities are available to him is a fool. Which is why I’m here, in New York.’

  Knitty came in then, with Robert’s beef sandwich. Robert took it without a word; and began to eat, quickly and hungrily, occasionally taking out his hankerchief to wipe his hands. ‘I’m starved. I can never eat on those ships. It’s the rolling motion, don’t you know, and the smell of oil. I’m lucky if I can keep a bowl of porage down.’

  ‘How is your arrangement with Watson’s New York going to work?’ Effie asked.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ said Robert. ‘It’s all a question of guarantee. Dougal will simply underwrite advances to Wall Street brokers to the tune of twenty-four million pounds, which is the money Watson’s in Britain has available for American investment; and Watson’s will act as acceptors for the loans. Dougal will be my agent, my New York representative, that’s all. And, of course, he will be extremely well rewarded for his trouble.’

  ‘I shall strongly advise him not to make any advances until he has received your written note,’ said Effie.

  ‘Och, you’re so suspicious,’ said Robert, with his mouth full. ‘Do you really think I’d gyp my own brother?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think I’d put anything past you.’

  Robert wiped his hands again, cleared his throat, and drank some more champagne. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘So that you’re quite sure that I’m not going to play any hanky-panky, I’ll allow you to witness my foreign bill to Dougal, and I can assure you that it will guarantee him the entire $24 million within three months. Do you think that would be satisfactory?’

  Effie shrugged, and turned away, and then said reluctantly, ‘I suppose so. If Dougal’s really determined to do business with you, then there isn’t much I can do about it, is there?’

  ‘Not really. But I have to say that I’m sorry you feel this way. I thought, maybe, that after ten years …’

  Effie said sharply, ‘Don’t try to be sentimental with me, Robert. You’ve never been the sentimental kind.’

  ‘All Scots are sentimental!‘Robert protested. ‘In fact, I can show you just how much. I brought someone along to see you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Robert finished the last of his sandwiches. ‘Would you tell that maid of yours to go to the front door and beckon to my chauffeur?’

  ‘Robert, what is this? What’s going on?’

  ‘Effie – you’re sounding just like an American. Do what I tell you, and then you’ll see for yourself.’

  Kitty was just passing the door outside on her way to the parlour. Effie said, ‘Kitty – would you go outside on to the stoop and wave to Mr Robert’s driver, please?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Effie, whatever you say.’

  They waited in silence; Effie tensely holding her knees, Robert sipping noisily at his tankard of champagne and watching her in huge satisfaction. At last, they heard footsteps on the front porch, and Kitty saying something indistinct; and then the living-room door opened.

  Effie had already guessed who it was, from the malicious glee in Robert’s eyes. But there was one thing she didn’t know, and couldn’t guess: whether Robert had discovered what had happened between them all those years ago, on that strange night in Edinburgh, when grief had overwhelmed time, and morality, and everything, except the need for love.

>   He said, ‘Hallo, Aunt Effie,’ in a deep, precise, Edinburgh accent; a voice which made the past ten years collapse like an accordion; a voice which brought back not only the shock of remembering that Karl von Ahlbeck was mutilated and dead, but so many mingled days and months and people and conversations, so many dances and dinners and automobile rides and moments of laughter and thoughtfulness and nonchalance and fun. She stood up. Tried to stand up. But then sank back again in her seat, and looked at him across the living-room through tears which she found it impossible to stop.

  Robert loved it, and smartly rubbed his hands together in pleasure.

  Alisdair was twenty-seven now: and so much like his father had been in his twenties that Effie had to keep reminding herself that this wasn’t Dougal, that Dougal was middle-aged and collapsed and fat – that this carefully-dressed young man in his grey three-piece suit and grey tie was Dougal’s only son. More than that, her one-time lover, and the father of her only daughter Kay.

  ‘Hallo, Alisdair,’ she whispered. She couldn’t think why she was crying, or why she was shaking so much, but she was.

  He took her hands between his: and his hands were warm. He had been waiting in the car for Robert to summon him. She could smell cigarette-smoke on his clothes, and thought of the time when they had sat in the library together at Charlotte Square and smoked. There was a single gold band on his left-hand little finger.

  She said, ‘It’s such a surprise to see you. Robert – well, your father didn’t give me any idea.’

  ‘You’ve probably heard it already through the grapevine,’ said Robert, his face flushed with champagne and beef sandwiches and sheer delight, ‘but Alisdair is now the manager of our foreign investment section. That’s why it was quite obligatory that I brought him along.’

  ‘I see,’ see Effie. ‘Well, Alisdair, congratulations.’

  ‘It’s wonderful to see you,’ said Alisdair, in a different tone altogether, softer. ‘You’re just – well, you’re just the same way I remember you.’

  ‘Perhaps we ought to have another tankard of champagne,’ suggested Robert.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Effie. ‘Kitty – would you bring another bottle, please, and another tankard.’

  Kitty could sense that something was up; she said, ‘Yes, Miss Effie, I certainly will,’ and left without closing the door behind her.

  Alisdair sat down. He said, shyly, ‘I’ve often thought of writing to you, Aunt Effie. I’m sorry I didn’t.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Effie. ‘You once thought of writing to – you once thought of writing to, um, who was it?’ She wished the tears would stop flowing out of her eyes; she didn’t feel like crying, and yet she couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘Rockefeller?’ Alisdair suggested. He knew that she meant Dougal, that she had spilled it all out accidentally.

  ‘Well, yes, that’s right,’ said Effie. ‘That’s who it was. Rockefeller! You thought of writing to Rockefeller. Well, I don’t suppose he was any more aggrieved than I was that you didn’t write to him. Now you’re here, what does it matter that you didn’t write?

  ‘Effie,’ said Robert, ‘you’re talking nonsense.’

  ‘I’m pleased to see Alisdair, that’s all,’ said Effie, in a quavery voice. I’m entitled to talk nonsense.’

  ‘You weren’t pleased to see me.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so goddamned petulant! I don’t mind you being boorish, but you don’t have to be petulant as well.’

  ‘Well!’ said Robert, in amusement, pulling an exaggeratedly offended face. ‘It seems as if you’ve thoroughly acquainted yourself with the American way of being utterly direct. Do you think your person might get a move on with the champagne?’

  Effie wiped away her tears with her fingers, and looked at Robert with such anger and composure that he tugged at his nose, and looked away across the room, and said, ‘hmff,’ in embarrassment.

  ‘Kitty,’ said Effie, with great clarity, ‘is not a person Kitty is my maid and my friend. If you wish to continue to work with people in America, you had better understand right from the very beginning that the divisions of race and class are not at all as marked as they are in Britain.’

  Robert sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers on his empty tankard. He said to Alisdair, almost as if Effie had already left the room, That’s the trouble with your aunt. She always believes that she can dictate to everyone else how they should conduct themselves. It doesn’t matter about her own conduct, of course. She is merely experimenting on behalf of our greater good. If she should have an illegitimate child, that is quite all right: she is simply making sure that it isn’t all right for the rest of us to do such things. If she should withdraw all of her personal funds from her brother’s banks, twice within a single decade, at a time of maximum need and urgency; well, that’s quite acceptable. She is simply demonstrating to the rest of us that while gentleman bankers have to behave with decorum and prudence, and responsibility to their stockholders, lady bankers, being a very rare breed of one, can do whatever they wish, without concerning themselves what skaith they do to their associates and their kin. Your aunt –’ and here Robert began to grow very angry, so that his double-chins went bluish-white, and shook like jellies ‘- your aunt always believes that in banking there is only one law, and that is the sacred preservation of one’s own personal funds, regardless of the greater responsibilities that every banker has to the economy of the world at large, and to the well-being of every bank, and to every man who has faith enough and philanthropy enough to invest his money in the enterprise and skill of his fellow human-beings.’

  Alisdair looked across at Robert and gave him a teasing, chiding, pout of his lips. ‘Hold your whisht, father,’ he said. ‘You know that Aunt Effie’s not like that at all.’

  Effie, in spite of herself, laughed out loud. ‘Robert,’ she said. ‘I do believe you’ve been squelched by your own son.’

  Robert’s eyes darted quickly from Effie to Alisdair, and back again. Effie could see how his black vest was rising and falling, as he breathed deeply in and out to restrain his temper. At last, he said, ‘You’d better understand, Effie, that Alisdair and I discussed some years ago the matter of his natural parentage.’

  Effie said nothing, but glanced towards Alisdair.

  ‘He is quite aware that Dougal is his actual biological father, if I can put it that way. Well, you know that already. He says that he told you very early on, after his mother passed away. But, what you may not know is that Alisdair has elected, whatever the circumstances, to stay with me and Marion. A biological father may be one kettle of herring; but a father who takes the trouble to bring you up, to educate you, to feed you, and to introduce you at last into the bank where he works as a powerful and leading young executive officer … well, that’s what a real father is.’

  Alisdair didn’t take his eyes away from Effie once. There was an intent look on his face which said: believe me, Aunt Effie, there wasn’t any other way. I was only a boy. And, besides, he brought me up, he stayed by me when everybody else had rejected me, my own father, even you.

  Robert smiled at Alisdair with undisguised pride. ‘He’s a young gilpey at times. An impertinent young fellow. A blether. But that’s only because he’s asserting his youthful independence, his sense of good fun, and not because he’s eager to betray me, as you once were. You’re looking at a very keen and wealthy young man here, Effie – worth fifty times what you were at his age, and that’s in spite of Winston Churchill and his gold standard.’

  Effie said, ‘I’m pleased for him. Are you going to tell Dougal that he’s a father? An actual biological father, I mean. Not the kind of father who brings you up, feeds you, and makes you into a bank executive?’

  ‘Aunt Effie –’ Alisdair protested, but Robert raised his hand to quieten him.

  ‘Dougal doesn’t need to know, does he?’ said Robert, speaking soothingly now. ‘Do you actually think it’s wise? I wouldn’t have thought so, for Alisdair’
s sake. Alisdair’s curious to meet him, of course; and I think he should. But there isn’t any useful purpose to be served by telling him. It will only create unnecessary frustrations.’

  Effie said quietly, ‘Supposing I tell him?’

  ‘You never have in these twenty-seven years. Why should you tell him now? What good would it do?’

  ‘Perhaps Dougal would be interested to meet the son he gave to the woman he once loved.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do such a thing,’ said Robert.

  Effie tilted her head inquisitively on one side, and looked at Alisdair. ‘What about you, Alisdair?’ she asked. ‘Do you think he ought to know?’

  Alisdair shrugged, all curly hair and wrists and big boyish hands. ‘I wouldn’t want to hurt him.’

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ said Effie, ‘I don’t think anything much can hurt Dougal any more. You destroyed him a long time ago, Robert, when you exiled him from his own family. I don’t think he’s ever really recovered.’

  ‘He told me he was happily married,’ said Robert.

  ‘He’s married, yes, but not happily. And why do you think he got married so quickly and so unwisely? Because he needed security; a family of his own; and desperately.’

  Alisdair looked from Effie to Robert and back again. ‘I still want to meet him,’ he said. ‘And if anybody tells him that I’m his actual son, it’s going to be me. I think I have that right.’

  ‘Well, well, how wonderfully innocent you are,’ said Effie, turning towards the boy who had once been her lover, the boy who had given her the only child she had ever had. ‘If you were older, and a little more experienced, you’d have realised by now that nobody has any rights to anything. Just because your father made love to your mother, years and years ago, with no thought of you or of any baby when he did so – in a world where there were still horse-drawn omnibuses, and nobody had ever flown in an airplane – do you seriously believe that you now have the right to surprise your father with the news that he made your mother pregnant, and that he has, unknowingly, abdicated twenty-seven years of fatherhood?’