A Dangerous Fortune(69)

Samuel said: “You’d better sit down and tell us about it.”

Hugh put his drink down untasted and gathered his thoughts. He desperately wanted them to agree to his proposition. It was both the culmination and the proof of his triumph over adversity. It would bring more business to the bank at one stroke than most partners could attract in a year. And if they agreed they would be more or less obliged to make him a partner.

“Boston is no longer the financial center of the United States,” he began. “New York’s the place now. We really ought to move our office. But there’s a snag. A good deal of the business I’ve done in the last six years has been undertaken jointly with the New York house of Madler and Bell. Sidney Madler rather took me under his wing when I was green. If we moved to New York we’d be in competition with them.”

“Nothing wrong with competition, where appropriate,” Major Hartshorn asserted. He rarely had anything of value to contribute to a discussion, but rather than stay silent he would state the obvious in a dogmatic way.

“Perhaps. But I’ve got a better idea. Why not merge our North American operation with Madler and Bell?”

“Merge?” said Hartshorn. “What do you mean?”

“Set up a joint venture. Call it Madler, Bell and Pilaster. It would have an office in New York and one in Boston.”

“How would it work?”

“The new house would deal with all the import-export financing currently done by both separate houses, and the profits would be shared. Pilasters would have the chance to participate in all new issues of bonds and stocks marketed by Madler and Bell. I would handle that business from London.”

“I don’t like it,” said Joseph. “It’s just handing over our business to someone else’s control.”

“But you haven’t heard the best part,” Hugh said. “All of Madler and Bell’s European business, currently distributed among several agents in London, would be handed over to Pilasters.”

Joseph grunted in surprise. “That must amount to …”

“More than fifty thousand pounds a year in commissions.”

Hartshorn said: “Good Lord!”

They were all startled. They had never set up a joint venture before and they did not expect such an innovative proposition from someone who was not even a partner. But the prospect of fifty thousand a year in commissions was irresistible.

Samuel said: “You’ve obviously talked this over with them.”

“Yes. Madler is very keen, and so is his partner, John James Bell.”

Young William said: “And you would supervise the joint venture from London.”

Hugh saw that William regarded him as a rival who was much less dangerous three thousand miles away. “Why not?” he said. “After all, London is where the money is raised.”

“And what would your status be?”

It was a question Hugh would have preferred not to answer so soon. William had shrewdly raised it to embarrass him. Now he had to bite the bullet. “I think Mr. Madler and Mr. Bell would expect to deal with a partner.”

“You’re too young to be a partner,” Joseph said immediately.

“I’m twenty-six, Uncle,” Hugh said. “You were made a partner when you were twenty-nine.”

“Three years is a long time.”

“And fifty thousand pounds is a lot of money.” Hugh realized he was sounding cocky—a fault he was prone to—and he backed off quickly. He knew that if he pushed them into a corner they would turn him down just out of conservatism. “But there is much to be weighed up. I know you’ll want to talk it over. Perhaps I should leave you?” Samuel nodded discreetly and Hugh went to the door.

Samuel said: “Whether this works out or not, Hugh, you’re to be congratulated on a jolly enterprising proposition—I’m sure we all agree on that.”

He looked inquiringly at his partners and they all nodded assent. Uncle Joseph murmured: “Quite so, quite so.”

Hugh did not know whether to be frustrated, because they had not agreed to his plan, or pleased that they had not turned it down flat. He had a dispiriting sense of anticlimax. But there was no more he could do. “Thank you,” he said, and he went out.

At four o’clock that afternoon he stood outside Augusta’s enormous, elaborate house in Kensington Gore.

Six years of London soot had darkened the red brick and smudged the white stone, but it still had the statues of birds and beasts on the stepped gable, with the ship in full sail at the apex of the roof. And they say Americans are ostentatious! thought Hugh.

He knew from his mother’s letters that Joseph and Augusta had spent some of their ever-growing wealth on two other homes, a castle in Scotland and a country mansion in Buckinghamshire. Augusta had wanted to sell the Kensington house and buy a mansion in Mayfair, but Joseph had put his foot down: he liked it here.

The place had been relatively new when Hugh left, but still it was a house full of memories for him. Here he had suffered Augusta’s persecution, courted Florence Stalworthy, punched Edward’s nose, and made love to Maisie Robinson. The recollection of Maisie was the most poignant. It was not the humiliation and disgrace he recalled so much as the passion and the thrill. He had not seen or heard anything of Maisie since that night but he still thought about her every day of his life.