Lady of Fortune Page 11

  Malcolm Cockburn had said testily, ‘I hope this little excursion has been of some profit for you, Mr Watson. Mind you, I shouldn’t take too much notice of what Mr Cutting has to say. He’s something of a Non-Conformist.’

  ‘I was simply inquiring about coffee,’ Dougal had explained, and followed Malcolm Cockburn upstairs.

  At the head of the stairs, with his face as mealy and stern as one of McSween’s best hand-made haggises, hung a large portrait of Thomas Watson, in the philabegs. Behind him, in an Elysian field of purple heather, stood a stately but architecturally-unsound depiction of Watson’s Bank.

  ‘It’s almost like being at home again,’ Effie had remarked; and had pretended to be shocked when Dougal snorted.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Cockburns were not rich by the standards of the Very Rich. They were not Astors, or Wideners, or Roxburghes. But Vera Cockburn was the middle and prettiest daughter of the Earl of Telscombe, and Malcolm Cockburn had unparalleled connections in banking and the Foreign Office; and so if there was nothing better for the Very Rich to do, an evening at Eaton Square was usually quite acceptable. Although neither Malcolm nor Vera Cockburn would ever have admitted it, they were always careful that none of their little soirées clashed with any of the more attractive social events of the year, like an evening at Alfred de Rothschild’s listening to his own private orchestra, or a spring banquet at the Duchess of Sutherland’s. And whereas the Very Rich went to Waddesdon Manor or to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire’s house at Chatsworth if they wanted to relax and shoot and drink 1874 champagne and misbehave themselves, they knew that if they came to the Cockburns they could talk hard money, sterling and dollars, and find out who was making the millions these days, and who was not.

  The first few years of the twentieth century were seeing scores of old inherited fortunes dwindle away; and scores of aggressive and hideously wealthy parvenus begin to dominate the upper echelons of London society. Most painful of all, the size of a chap’s fortune began to circumscribe his social freedom. If he were only a millionaire, instead of a multi-millionaire, or a billionaire, then it was considered bad form for him to leave a party or a banquet before anyone sufficiently rich had decided that they had had enough.

  The London of the Gay Nineties had gone and although Edward was now King, the oncoming dotage of the Empire and the heightening tensions between Germany and Britain and France were already colouring the Edwardian era with the autumnal light of a dying day.

  The party that the Cockburns held the night after Effie and Dougal arrived from Edinburgh was ostensibly to celebrate the recent elopement of the Cincinnati oil and iron heiress Helena Zimmerman with the Duke of Manchester. Helena and the Duke had gone off together in November last year; and both of them wanted to get married desperately. Helena, because she was desperately in love; and the Duke of Manchester, because he was equally desperately in debt. Helena’s father, the millionaire Eugene Zimmerman, had tried to make the best of a sharp disappointment, and had praised the Duke for his ‘manly bearing.’ There was not much else about him that he could find to praise: the scandal sheets had called him ‘dissolute.’

  Effie, in the chintzy pink-and-blue bedroom which Mrs Cockburn had given her on the second floor, was being dressed for the evening by Mrs Cockburn’s chambermaid, Logan. She had chosen from her trunk her prettiest evening gown, in primrose-yellow faille, with white satin cuffs and a high white satin collar, and black satin revers. The maid curled up her hair with hot irons into the latest wavy style although Effie made her brush it out a little at the back because she was afraid of looking too fast.

  Logan, a perky and gingery little girl who never seemed to be able to pin her maid’s bonnet on straight, hummed Hallo, Central, Give Me Heaven, over and over. ‘You’re ever so pretty, you know,’ she told Effie, peering at her cheekily in the mirror on the dressing-table. ‘You should take advantage of it, do you know what I mean?’

  Effie cocked her head to one side and looked at herself in the glass. She had never believed before that she was pretty, or that she ever would be. Charity Mclntyre, who had lived on the other side of Charlotte Square, had always outshone her, with shinning blonde ringlets and a pert little nose that even Jamie Arbuthnott had described as ‘just like a rosebud’. But with her hair coiffed in the London style, Effie’s face had changed, and she suddenly looked far more alluring and mature. The excitement of coming down to the capital had given her something, too: the hint of a new sparkle, like the first wink of light in an incandescent lamp. It was a slightly naughty sparkle, perhaps, by Edinburgh standards – a mixture of feminine verve and provocative self-confidence. An American would have favourably compared her, as she sat at her dressing-table, to any of the girls drawn by Charles Dana Gibson.

  She was still scaringly innocent, but she was beginning to grow graceful, and poised. She was not yet fashionable, but she was not poor, and London was a treasure-house of gorgeous clothes, including princess gowns and Eton suits and beautifully-cut health skirts. For women, 1901 in London was one of the most chic and decorative eras there had ever been, and the greatest glory of all was their hats. There were morning hats, afternoon hats, and evening hats. There were picnic hats and opera hats. There were picture hats and toques. Every hat was huge, and heaped with lace, and ribbons, and flowers, and fruit, and whole nests of birds. Last year, in London, naturalists had complained bitterly when the feathers of 25,000 egrets had been auctioned in one month, all for decorating hats.

  ‘You’re not shy, are you?’ asked Logan, putting down her combs and brushes. ‘You ain’t got nothing to be shy about.’ In her Bethnal Green accent, she pronounced it ‘shoy’.

  Effie looked up at her, and then gave a little shrug of her shoulders. ‘I suppose I am a bit nervous.’ She patted her hair, and a wisp came down, which Logan tucked back into place with the handle of her comb. ‘I’ve been trying so hard to be bold and raucle, but I do get afeared at times.’

  ‘Well, don’t,’ said Logan. ‘They’re only a lot of people, these millionaires, just like the rest of us. I had to help the Duchess of Devonshire to change her dress once, and you should have seen her corsets! Made them in the naval dockyards at Chatham, I shouldn’t wonder. So every time I see one of these grand straight-backed ladies, I think of what they’re wearing underneath, and then I don’t feel so inferior.’

  Effie felt her own foundation garment pinching around her waist. She had seen some pretty new pink corsets advertised in The Lady’s Oracle, and she had promised herself that she would replace her underwear as soon as she had time to go shopping. There were a few other things that she wanted to try: things that she wouldn’t have dared to buy in Edinburgh. New perfumes, Princess hair tonic, and (most guiltily but most exciting of all) La Doré’s World-Famous Bust Food, ‘unsurpassed for making a plump, full, rounded bosom.’ Her own breasts were nicely shaped, but she longed for the large haughty frontages that so many of the London women seemed to possess.

  At last, Effie was ready. Logan had opened the door once or twice, and tiptoed across the landing to see who was arriving downstairs. She came scurrying back the second time to whisper, ‘Viscount Hardinge’s just come in, and I saw Mr and Mrs Stanley’s carriage outside. That’s Mr Edward Stanley. He married Lady Alice Montagu, who was the daughter of the Duke of Manchester’s father. Well, I know it’s complicated, but you don’t have to look so surprised. Everybody’s related to everybody else in the aristocracy. My mother calls it keeping themselves to themselves.’

  From downstairs came the vibrant sound of a cello and a viola, playing Mozart. There was a polite knocking at her door, and it was Dougal, looking equally nervous, but marvellously formal in his white wing collar, starched shirt-front, and tailcoats. Effie gave her primrose satin evening gloves one last tug, to straighten them, and took a deep breath.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Dougal asked her.

  ‘Aye, I think so,’ she swallowed. ‘My you’re the swankie tonight, aren’t you?
’

  ‘You should see yourself. You look really dink.’ Dink meant elegant and ladylike. Dougal could have used the English words, but somehow it was more reassuring to speak in Scottish argot. They had both been taken by their father to Highland Society Dinners, and Effie had once been invited to the annual presentation banquet of the Scottish Bankers’ Association, but even the precise pinsticking of upper-class Edinburgh manners seemed comfortably provincial when they thought about the etiquette of lords and earls and millionaires.

  Dougal took Effie’s arm, and led her down the staircase to the wide hallway, where Jerome, the Cockburns’ butler, was welcoming the guests, and Michael, their footman, was busily collecting coats and wraps and scarves. The ugly green and ochre umbrella pot was already thick with silver-and gold-topped evening sticks, and although the hallway was chilly from the wintry air outside, there was an aroma of expensive perfume, and fur, and something which Effie could only think was the smell of wealth. ‘Get away with you,’ Dougal would say to her later, ‘money no smells.’ ‘Oh, it does too,’ she would retort. ‘Money has a special smell, all of its own.’

  Through the open mahogany doors which led into the sparkling reception room, Effie could see a gathering of tall, statuesque women, almost all of them strikingly beautiful, and of short, ugly little men, almost all of them bald. The extraordinary contrast between the men and the women struck her so forcibly that she could hardly resist nudging Dougal in the ribs, and pointing it out to him. It was like a Punch parody, of Lord Philthyrich and his beautiful bride. It seemed as if Consuelo Vanderbilt, the lovely railroad heiress who had recently been forced by her mother to marry the short and unbecoming Duke of Marlborough, had been only one of scores of girls who had married for wealth or for titles, or both.

  The conversation was loud, and drawling, and the laughter was almost high-pitched enough to make the chandeliers jingle. As Dougal and Effie came to the door to be announced, Effie picked up snatches of gossip like ‘ – costing the Goulds an absolute fortune – ’ ‘ – don’t know why she had to fall for a Horse Guard – ’ and ‘ – thinks it isn’t worth anything like half a million –’

  ‘Mr Dougal Watson and Miss Effie Watson,’ called the footman.

  Mrs Cockburn came hurrying across, both hands raised like flustering doves. ‘Dougal, Effie, you both look wonderful! Effie, what a charming gown! Now, you must come and meet some people! You know Malcolm, of course! Now here’s someone! Henry, my dear, I want you to meet Dougal and Effie Watson, just arrived from the frozen North! Effie, this is Henry Baeklander.’

  Henry Baeklander stood among the chattering, screaming crowd as tall and as spare and as silent as a utility pole. He was almost forty, with a face that had been careworn into looking at least five years older. He reminded Effie of Abraham Lincoln, because of his heavy eyebrows, and his deepset, liquid eyes, and that kind of ugly-attractive jawline, and full lips. His tail-coat hung on him like a nun’s habit thrown to dry over a clothes-horse. His black hair was wiry, and thick, and streaked with fraying grey.

  ‘Miss Watson,’ he said, in a deep Minnesota accent, I’m honoured to know you. Mr Watson, how do you. You must be the daughter and son, respectively, of Mr Thomas Watson, of Scotland. He never told me he had such fine-looking children.’

  Dougal said,’Hardly children any more, Mr Beaklumber.’

  ‘Baeklander. I’m the chairman of the Baeklander Trust.’

  ‘Och, that Baeklander,’ said Dougal, slapping his forehead. I’m sorry, I should have guessed. Well, Mr Baeklander, I’m impressed. You’ve had some good fortune this year, haven’t you, by all reports.’

  ‘I’ve made a bit of money,’ Henry Baeklander admitted. His eyes followed the progress across the reception room of a pretty brunette with a five-strand pearl choker around her neck, and an evening gown of peach-pink satin cut low at the front, and trimmed with a whole froth of lace and white velvet ribbon. Effie, glancing at the girl, felt suddenly overdressed and dowdy in her primrose-coloured gown, especially when another elegant woman glided past, with a deep scented cleavage in which a single huge ruby pendant nestled.

  But Henry Baeklander turned back to Effie, and said, ‘You look as fresh as a spring flower, Miss Watson, if you’ll permit me to make you a compliment. The first snowdrop, amidst the winter-worn landscape.’

  Effie blushed, confused by Henry Baeklander’s directness. Dougal, with all the protective fluster of a good Scottish fier, said, ‘You’re quite the poet, Mr Baeklander. That’s rare in a banker.’

  ‘It’s rare to find such an unspoiled young girl in such surroundings,’ said Henry Baeklander, his thick lips twisting into the slightest smile. ‘It’s a great pity there’s no dancing today, Miss Watson; because if there were, I’d insist on being first on your card.’

  Dougal said, ‘My sister is only visiting London for a short while. Then she’s going to Putney.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Henry Baeklander, ‘we must take advantage of every hour that you’re here, mustn’t we, Miss Watson? Tell me, how’s your father keeping these days? I haven’t seen him in six years.’

  ‘He’s well, thank you, Mr Baeklander.’

  ‘You must call me Henry. Do you mind if I call you Effie? That’s a very pretty name. My grandmama was called Effie, although her real name was Minnie. She was a tyrant; and apart from that, she had more bric-à-brac and gimcracks in her living-room than anyone I ever knew. You couldn’t turn around in Grandmama Effie’s house without knocking over some china pug or some clock or other. Mind you, it was fashionable then, in Minnesota.’

  Dougal frowned, but Effie couldn’t help laughing. She had never met anyone like Henry Baeklander before. He seemed so odd, and yet so much at ease; although when she considered that he was probably one of the wealthiest men in the room, that really wasn’t very surprising. She had heard that he owned a steam yacht even bigger than the 256-foot North Star, owned by the Vanderbilts. The Baeklander yacht was called Excelsior, and carried a crew of ninety-three men, as well as the onetime head chef from the Paris Ritz, August Noustens.

  Effie said, ‘You know my father, Mr Baeklander? I mean, Henry?’

  ‘I know him very well, my dear. I admire him, too. Good solid investment sense, that’s what made your father what he is today. And he’s not an ostentatious spender, either, which I admire. In America, it’s almost impossible to keep up appearances unless you have a boat, and a Rhine castle on Fifth Avenue, opposite the Albert C. Bostwicks or the Levi P. Mortons, and a cottage in Newport, with Corinthian pillars and ten bathrooms. You can spend half a million dollars a season on dinners and dances alone.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound very prudent,’ said Dougal, sourly.

  ‘Oh, but it sounds fun!’ said Effie. ‘Do you know the Vanderbilts, Henry?’

  ‘I had dinner with William K. Vanderbilt Junior at Sherry’s, the night before I sailed from New York. An oaf, but I like him.’

  ‘An oaf?’ giggled Effie. ‘I’ve never heard a Vanderbilt called that before.’

  ‘I’ve heard them called worse than that,’ said Dougal.

  Henry Baeklander, without attracting Dougal’s attention, subtly beckoned across the room to a stately young brunette in a green chiffon velvet gown. The girl immediately left the circle in which she was engaged in conversation, and came gliding over. Henry Baeklander took Dougal’s arm, and gently turned him around so that he could meet this vision of society loveliness as she arrived.

  ‘Mr Watson,’ said Henry, ‘I thought you’d like to meet Miss Emily Prescott. She is the daughter of Colonel and Mrs Herbert Prescott, of Oxfordshire. She is staying in London at present, with her aunt. Isn’t that so, Emily?’

  Emily Prescott curtsied and blushed a little. Dougal took her hand, and stammered, ‘I’m delighted to meet you, Miss Prescott.’

  ‘Oh, you’re a Scotsman!’ Emily Prescott smiled. ‘How romantic!’

  Dougal bulged his eyes in Effie’s direction in a mute appeal for help, but Ef
fie simply shrugged, and laughed, and turned back to Henry Baeklander.

  ‘I adore Robert Burns,’ said Emily Prescott. She had one of those breathy, mannered voices which made you feel as if she were permanently sighing for love, or for the scent of roses, or that her foundation garments might be laced up too tight. ‘“Wee sleekit, keekit, tremblin’ beastie!”’

  Dougal coughed. ‘Actually, it’s “Wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie,”’ he corrected her.

  Emily pressed the palms of her hands together and closed her eyes in apparent ecstasy. ‘Oh, just to hear you say that in the right voice! Oh, Mr Wilson, you’ve transported me!’

  ‘Watson,’ said Dougal, as gently as he could.

  ‘What?’ asked Emily, blinking open her eyes.

  Henry Baeklander smiled to himself again, and quietly guided Effie away to the far side of the room, by the marble Adam fireplace, where a large Italian mirror reflected the bright faces and elegant clothes of an assembly who knew they were living the life of privilege and fame, and relished it more than champagne. ‘To be rich,’ Effie’s father had once remarked, ‘is to be permanently intoxicated.’

  ‘Poor Dougal,’ said Effie, glancing back at her brother’s struggles to amuse Emily Prescott.

  ‘Don’t worry about him. He’ll manage. Emily’s one of the most charming unattached girls in town these days; even if she is one of the silliest.’

  ‘Are you staying in London long?’ Effie asked him.

  ‘Just for another two weeks. Then I’m sailing south to the Mediterranean for a month’s sunshine. After that, it’s back to New York, and business.’

  A servant came up with a silver tray, on which there were two tall engraved glasses of champagne. Henry took them both, and handed one of them to Effie. As he did so, he caught her gaze, and held it; and although it was her first reaction to turn away, she thought to herself, I won’t, I’ll meet this man head-on, directly, and so she stared back at him until a gradual look of amusement broke across his face, and his eyes twinkled with appreciation.