A Dangerous Fortune(18)
Augusta’s heart sank. So Florence had money of her own. That was bad news. Augusta wondered how much it was. The Stalworthys were not as rich as the Pilasters—few people were—but they were comfortable, Augusta believed. At any rate, Hugh’s poverty was not enough to turn Lady Stalworthy against him. Augusta would have to use stronger measures. “Dear Florence would be such a help to Hugh … a stabilizing influence, I feel sure.”
“Yes,” said Lady Stalworthy vaguely, and then she frowned. “Stabilizing?”
Augusta hesitated. This kind of thing was dangerous, but the risk had to be taken. “I never listen to gossip, and I’m sure you don’t either,” she said. “Tobias was quite unfortunate, of that there is no doubt, but Hugh shows hardly any sign of having inherited the weakness.”
“Good,” said Lady Stalworthy, but her face showed deep anxiety.
“All the same, Joseph and I would be very happy to see him married to such a sensible girl as Florence. One feels she would be firm with him, if …” Augusta trailed off.
“I …” Lady Stalworthy swallowed. “I don’t seem to recall just what his father’s weakness was.”
“Well, it wasn’t true, really.”
“Strictly between you and me, of course.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have raised it.”
“But I must know everything, for my daughter’s sake. I’m sure you understand.”
“Gambling,” Augusta said in a lowered voice. She did not want to be overheard: there were people here who would know she was lying. “It was what led him to take his own life. The shame, you know.” Pray heaven the Stalworthys don’t bother to check the truth of this, she thought fervently.
“I thought his business failed.”
“That, too.”
“How tragic.”
“Admittedly, Joseph has had to pay Hugh’s debts once or twice, but he has spoken very firmly to the boy, and we feel sure it will not happen again.”
“That’s reassuring,” said Lady Stalworthy, but her face told a different story.
Augusta felt she had probably said enough. The pretense that she was in favor of the match was wearing dangerously thin. She glanced out of the window again. Florence was laughing at something Hugh was saying, throwing her head back and showing her teeth in a way that was rather … unseemly. He was practically eating her up with his eyes. Everyone at the party could see they were attracted to each other. “I judge it won’t be long before matters come to a head,” Augusta said.
“Perhaps they have talked enough for one day,” Lady Stalworthy said with a troubled look. “I had better intervene. Do excuse me.”
“Of course.”
Lady Stalworthy headed rapidly for the garden.
Augusta felt relieved. She had carried off another delicate conversation. Lady Stalworthy was suspicious of Hugh now, and once a mother began to feel uneasy about a suitor she rarely came to favor him in the end.
She looked around and spotted Beatrice Pilaster, another sister-in-law. Joseph had had two brothers: one was Tobias, Hugh’s father, and the other was William, always called Young William because he was born twenty-three years after Joseph. William was now twenty-five and not yet a partner in the bank. Beatrice was his wife. She was like a large puppy, happy and clumsy and eager to be everyone’s friend. Augusta decided to speak to her about Samuel and his secretary. She went over to her and said: “Beatrice, dear, would you like to see my bedroom?”
4
MICKY AND HIS FATHER left the party and set out to walk back to their lodgings. Their route lay entirely through parks—first Hyde Park, then Green Park, and St. James’s Park—until they reached the river. They stopped in the middle of Westminster Bridge to rest for a spell and look at the view.
On the north shore of the river was the greatest city in the world. Upstream were the Houses of Parliament, built in a modern imitation of the neighboring thirteenth-century Westminster Abbey. Downstream they could see the gardens of Whitehall, the duke of Buccleuch’s palace, and the vast brick edifice of the new Charing Cross Railway Station.
The docks were out of sight, and no big ships came this far up, but the river was busy with small boats and barges and pleasure cruisers, a pretty sight in the evening sun.
The southern shore might have been in a different country. It was the site of the Lambeth potteries, and there, in mud fields dotted with ramshackle workshops, crowds of gray-faced men and ragged women were still at work boiling bones, sorting rubbish, firing kilns and pouring paste into molds to make the drainpipes and chimney pots needed by the fast-expanding city. The smell was strong even here on the bridge, a quarter-mile away. The squat hovels in which they lived were crowded around the walls of Lambeth Palace, the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, like the filth left by high tide on the muddy foreshore. Despite the nearness of the archbishop’s palace the neighborhood was known as the Devil’s Acre, presumably because the fires and the smoke, the shuffling workers and the awful smell made people think of Hell.
Micky’s lodgings were in Camberwell, a respectable suburb beyond the potteries; but he and his father hesitated on the bridge, reluctant to plunge into the Devil’s Acre. Micky was still cursing the scrupulous Methodist conscience of old Seth Pilaster for frustrating his plans. “We will solve this problem about shipping the rifles, Papa,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”