A Dangerous Fortune(158)
But she could not live on nothing a year. She had to have enough for rent and staff wages, and although she was prepared to live frugally she could not manage without a carriage. She had very little cash, no more than fifty pounds. Hence her desperate attempt to buy diamonds. Nine thousand pounds was not really enough, but it might have sufficed for a few years.
She knew she was jeopardizing Hugh’s plans. Edward had been right about that. The goodwill of the syndicate depended on the family’s being serious about paying off their debts. A family member running off to the Continent with her luggage full of jewelry was just the thing to upset a fragile coalition. In a way, that made the prospect more attractive: she would be happy to trip up the self-righteous Hugh.
But she had to have a stake. The rest would be easy: she would pack a single trunk, go to the steamship office to book passage, call a cab early in the morning, and slip away to the railway station without warning. But what could she use for money?
Looking around her husband’s room she noticed a small notebook. She opened it, idly curious, and saw that someone—presumably Stoddart, the agent’s clerk—had been making an inventory of the house contents. It angered her to see her possessions listed in a clerk’s notebook and casually valued: dining table ￡9; Egyptian screen 30s; portrait of a woman by Joshua Reynolds, ￡100. There must be a few thousand pounds’ worth of paintings in the house, but she could not pack those in a trunk. She turned the page and read 65 snuffboxes—refer to jewelry department. She looked up. There in front of her, in the cabinet she had bought seventeen years ago, was the solution to her problem. Joseph’s collection of jeweled snuffboxes was worth thousands, perhaps as much as a hundred thousand pounds. She could pack it into her luggage easily: the boxes themselves were tiny, designed to fit into a man’s waistcoat pocket. They could be sold one by one, as money was needed.
Her heart beat faster. This could be the answer to her prayers.
She reached out to open the cabinet. It was locked.
She suffered a moment of panic. She was not sure she could break it open: the wood was stout, the panes of glass small and thick.
She calmed herself. Where would he keep the key? In the drawer of his writing table, probably. She went to the table and pulled open the drawer. In it was a book with the horrifying title of The Duchess of Sodom, which she hastily pushed to the back, and a small silver-colored key. She snatched up the key.
With a trembling hand she tried it in the lock of the cabinet. As she turned it she heard a bolt click, and a moment later the door opened.
She breathed deeply and waited until her hands stopped shaking.
Then she began to remove the boxes from the shelves.
CHAPTER FOUR
DECEMBER
1
THE PILASTER CRASH was the society scandal of the year. The cheap newspapers reported every development breathlessly: the sale of the great Kensington mansions; the auctions of the paintings, antique furniture, and cases of port; the cancellation of Nick and Dotty’s planned six-month honeymoon in Europe; and the modest suburban houses where the proud and mighty Pilasters now peeled potatoes for themselves and washed their own undergarments.
Hugh and Nora rented a small house with a garden in Chingford, a village nine miles from London. They left all their servants behind, but a muscular fourteen-year-old girl from a nearby farm came in the afternoons to scrub floors and wash windows. Nora, who had not done housework for twelve years, took it very badly, and shuffled about in a grubby apron, halfheartedly sweeping floors and preparing indigestible dinners, complaining constantly. The boys liked it better than London because they could play in the woods. Hugh traveled into the City every day by train and continued to go to the bank, where his work consisted of disposing of Pilasters’ assets on behalf of the syndicate.
Each partner received a small monthly allowance from the bank. In theory they were not entitled to anything. But the syndicate members were bankers just like the Pilasters, and in their hearts they thought There but for the grace of God go I. Besides, the cooperation of the partners was helpful in selling off the assets, and it was worth a small payment to retain their goodwill.
Hugh watched the progress of the civil war in Cordova with an anxious heart. The outcome would determine how much money the syndicate would lose. Hugh badly wanted them to make a profit. He wanted one day to be able to say that no one had lost money rescuing Pilasters Bank. But the possibility seemed remote.
At first the Miranda faction seemed set to win the war. By all accounts their attack was well planned and bloodily executed. President Garcia was forced to flee the capital and take refuge in the fortified city of Campanario, in the south, his home region. Hugh was dispirited. If the Mirandas won they would run Cordova like a private kingdom, and would never pay interest on loans made to the previous regime; and Cordova bonds would be worthless for the foreseeable future.
But then came an unexpected development. Tonio’s family, the Silvas, who for some years had been the mainstay of the small and ineffectual liberal opposition, joined in the fighting on the president’s side, in return for promises of free elections and land reform when the president regained control. Hugh’s hopes rose again.
The revitalized presidential army won a lot of popular support and fought the usurpers to a standstill. The forces were evenly balanced. So were the financial resources: the Mirandas had spent their war chest on a fierce all-out initial assault. The north had nitrate mines and the south had silver, but neither side could get its exports financed or insured, since Pilasters was no longer in business and no other banks would take on a customer who might vanish tomorrow.