Lady of Fortune Page 13

  London in winter in 1901 was grimy, noisy, and heavy-shouldered. Cab drivers sat hunched under their waterproof capes, with fog sparkling on their bowler hats, swigging Dr Wadhurst’s Patent Cough Mixture, which was 42 per cent alcohol, 20 per cent sugar syrup, 5 per cent chloroform, 3 per cent opium, and 30 per cent water. Those cabbies it didn’t cure, it killed.

  Navvies were digging up the wooden blocks of Oxford Street again; in their cloth caps and their bowlers, and their leather jerkins, and their trousers tied at the knees. The popular magazines compared London’s never-ending roadworks to a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, and published cartoons of elated workmen discovering blocks that actually fitted the roadway.

  London was a city of staggering opulence and grotesque poverty. While Alfred de Rothschild gradually awoke in his house at Seamore Place, overlooking the pathways where Effie and Henry Baeklander were riding, more than a third of London’s population had already been up since daybreak and struggling for their survival. Barefoot children, even in the winter, were a commonplace sight; so were whole families who used public benches as their homes. Will Crooks, a Labour MP who had been brought up in a workhouse, said that ‘the same sun which never set on the Empire never rose on the dark alleys of East London.’

  Although few members of the general public ever questioned the rightness of Britain supervising such a varied and sprawling Empire, there were many politicians and economists who were already beginning to question whether the huge sums of money invested abroad could better be spent at home; and there were many who could already detect the cracks in the Imperial façade.

  The London that lay under the cold fog of that January day in 1901, when Effie went riding along Rotten Row with Henry Baeklander, was the world capital of wealth, arrogance, complacency, and despair.

  Henry, in a long frogged riding-coat and a grey morning-hat, rode a handsome black horse called Khan. For Effie, he had brought a mild chestnut mare with a white blaze on her nose, called Nellie Bly. They rode sedately at first, but after a few minutes, Henry geed up Khan and cantered ahead of Effie for two or three hundred yards, before turning back, and doffing his hat to her.

  ‘You don’t have any idea what pleasure it has given me, riding with you,’ he called. The breath smoked from his lips, and his horse snickered and shook its head. ‘I didn’t think you’d come, even after last night.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure, either,’ said Effie. And she hadn’t been: for it was only when Henry Baeklander had been leaving the Cockburns’ house, and already in his coat, that she had decided to pin her handkerchief to her gown. Later, in bed, she had wondered whether she had agreed to meet him out of recklessness, or whether she was really being shrewd. Perhaps it was only the champagne and the flattery, and the excitement of meeting famous people. She hadn’t slept until the Westminster chimes in the hallway downstairs had announced that it was four o’clock, and only two hours away from dawn.

  Emily Prescott was supposed to have come along with them as a chaperone, and she had certainly managed to ride with them as far as Queen’s Gate. But then she had announced that she was too tired to go any further; and that she didn’t like the fog, and if Henry and Effie wanted to get up to any mischief on a freezing damp January morning in Hyde Park, then it was entirely up to them. So she had left them, and ridden back to her aunt’s house in Hans Crescent, in Knightsbridge, with the avowed intention of spending the rest of the day in bed.

  Henry had said, ‘I should take you back to Eaton Square.’

  But Effie had said, ‘Don’t worry, Henry. I’m sure that I can rely on you to behave yourself.’

  So they rode through the park. Effie, steadily, trying to remember what her riding instructor had told her about keeping a straight back, and not bouncing up and down as if she were a circus performer in a trampoline. Henry, excitedly and skittishly, riding sideways and even backwards, circling around Effie as if he were a brave young man, intoxicated with love.

  ‘I hope I didn’t frighten you last night,’ Henry said.

  ‘You did, a little.’

  ‘Because I talked of marriage?’

  ‘It was very sudden. You didn’t even know me. You don’t know me now.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. You must forgive me.’

  ‘I forgive you.’

  Henry came up close to her, frowning. ‘You must say that as if you mean it.’

  ‘I do mean it. I forgive you.’

  ‘In that case, I’m delighted, in fact, I’m more than delighted. I’m ecstatic.’

  They passed the Duchess of Woodleigh riding the other way, a magnificent women in a fawn riding-coat with chocolate piping, and a chocolate hat that was plumed with peacock feathers. Henry raised his hat, and inclined his head, and said, ‘Good morning, Duchess.’

  It was strict etiquette that when you met someone you knew on Rotten Row, you raised your hat and bowed to them the first time you passed them. If you happened to pass them again, you would simply smile. If you were unfortunate to pass them a third time, you would ignore them, and look in the other direction, as if something interesting had caught your eye, like a particularly unusual patch of fog.

  ‘Effie,’ said Henry, ‘you must think me very impetuous. But my father always taught me to trust in spontaneous feelings; and to act on them swiftly. That’s how I got so rich. I never gave myself time to think: I always seized what I wanted as soon as I saw it.’

  ‘Fools rush in,’ remarked Effie.

  ‘Perhaps they do,’ said Henry. ‘But I would be one hell of a fool if I didn’t tell you that the moment I set eyes on you, I loved you.’

  ‘You’re very complimentary.’

  ‘Aw, come on, Effie, I’m not being complimentary. I’m not even being polite. I’m being honest. I think you’re smart, and sweet, and pretty. Even if it’s too soon to talk of engagement, you could at least accept my courtship.’

  ‘What is that house over there?’ asked Effie, purposely changing the subject. ‘The big square one.’

  ‘Apsley House. Given by your grateful nation to your greatest general, the Duke of Wellington.’

  ‘And beyond it?’

  ‘Park Lane. If you look up there through the fog, you should just be able to see Mr Alfred de Rothschild’s house. They keep talking about knocking it down, I’m told, so that you could ride out of Curzon Street straight into Park Lane. But it will only be done over Alfred’s dead body, I can assure you.’

  They rode in silence for a little while, and then Effie said, ‘Dougal, my brother, told me last night that you had offered him a position with the Baeklander Trust.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘He said that you wanted him to go to New York; and that you asked if I would go, too.’

  ‘That’s also correct.’

  Effie reined in her horse, and sat still for a moment beside the dripping trees. Henry Baeklander watched her carefully; entranced by the forward tilt of her buckled riding-hat, the pattern of her veil against her face, the good cut and Scottish sobriety of her heather-mixture riding-coat, her purple-heather skirts, and her neatly buttoned-up brown-leather boots. The cold morning air had brought pinkness to her cheeks, and there was no pinkness, as far as Henry was concerned, that could compare with the blush of a very young girl.

  He dismounted, and led his horse across to her. Holding up his free hand, he invited her, silently, without a single word, to dismount, too. She looked down at him, and she could feel the blood rushing around her veins in a wild helter-skelter. He was dark as iron, and mysteriously magnetic. He was like old Mahoun himself. She only hoped that she could be strong with him when the time came. She took his hand, and climbed down to the soft sand of Rotten Row.

  Leaving Khan and Nellie Bly tethered to an elm, they walked together between the spectral trees. At last, Henry offered her his hand, and she took it. He said. ‘You told Mr Alfred last night that you wanted respect.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, softly.

  He stopped,
and drew her nearer to him. All around them the grass was white with falling fog, as if they were standing on a carpet of quick-silver. A shadowy man walked through the trees in the distance, exercising his dog. Breath fumed from Henry’s nostrils, and his eyes were glistening with cold.

  ‘Effie,’ he said, ‘I could respect you, and love you, with all of my heart.’

  He lifted her veil, and she raised her face to look up into his eyes. Hesitantly, tenderly, he bent forward and kissed her closed lips. The kiss was moist, and tasted of fog, like copper pennies, and autumn leaves. She shivered, as if a cold hand had immodestly traced a pattern down her neck, between her breasts, and then cupped, for one freezing and scandalising moment, the warm crisp nest of her mound of Venus.

  She understood, in a flutter of confusion, the meaning of the sensations that Henry Baeklander had been stirring in her last night. She crossed her arms across the braiding of her tweed coat, and lowered her eyes, and said, ‘Henry.’

  She had wanted it to sound grown-up, the way she spoke his name. But instead, it came out childishly, the way a twelve-year-old girl might have pretended to scold a boisterous uncle. Henry Baeklander, of course, adored it, and he stood there breathing heavily, and clenching his hands, and watching her with undisguised passion.

  He said, ‘You disturb me, Effie. You disturb me greatly.’

  ‘You disturb me, sir,’ she replied. Calling him ‘sir’ was like clutching for a spar after a shipwreck. It was a way of delaying for a moment her sudden sweeping-away in the flood of extraordinary emotions which Henry’s kiss had released in her.

  She walked a little way across the grass, her long riding skirt making a dark trail in the dew. She stopped, and then over her shoulder she said, ‘Is your offer to Dougal conditional upon my coming with you?’

  ‘Is that what Dougal told you?’

  Effie looked at Henry acutely. She said nothing. It was up to him to answer her question first, and he knew it. He smiled, and fiddled with his gloves and said, ‘Hah,’ like a man who has been outwitted at back-gammon.

  ‘You’re close, aren’t you, you and your brother?’ he asked, loudly, almost aggressively. ‘Well, I don’t suppose there’s any harm in that. In fact, quite the opposite. It seemed both unnecessary and unkind to me for anyone to separate you. What use is your brother to me if he’s pining for his dear sister? You are a fine pair, both of you. In your different ways, I need you both.’

  Effie didn’t know what to answer. She could sense that Henry desired something of her, but she wasn’t experienced enough to understand what. Being seventeen and well brought up, and confident, she didn’t even realise how wide the difference in their ages was. She didn’t think for one moment that Henry Baeklander might be one of those rich gentlemen who have a special taste for very young girls; and of course she knew nothing of the pretty ringleted twelve-year-olds who had been brought secretly aboard the Excelsior, dressed in lace and flounces like precocious brides, and then kept in their cabins for days and nights without end while Henry explored every unblossomed sensation of their bodies. Years ago, in the late 1880s, Henry Baeklander had corresponded rather archly with the Rev. Charles Dodgson, and they had exchanged coy sepia photographs of almost-naked nymphs.

  Effie, to Henry Baeklander, was like the unexpected manifestation of everything he had dreamed about. A girl who was young enough to stir his sexual tastes; yet old enough to be married without adverse comment; and also sensible enough to understand banking and investment, which after all was his primary obsession. Money, with Henry Baeklander, always came first.

  ‘All I can say is, I hope you won’t disappoint me,’ he said. ‘I am not a particularly witty man, nor charming. But I am very rich, and I can tell a joke or two, and I am sure that I can make you very happy.’

  ‘Tell me a joke,’ said Effie.

  He said, ‘What?’

  ‘Tell me a joke,’ insisted Effie. ‘You said you could tell jokes.’ And all the time she was thinking to herself – why are you challenging him so stridently? Are you frightened of him? What will he think of you? Oh, dear Lord, he’s made me so dizzy!

  Henry Baeklander swallowed, and then he said, ‘Well … here’s one … ahum, I understand that they’re bringing out a special women’s edition of the Oxford Dictionary. They’ve left out the last word.’

  Effie smiled. ‘Was that directed at me?’

  Henry shook his head. ‘No. It was the only joke I could think of. I’m sorry it’s such a poor one.’

  ‘You said we might go to the Kensington Palace and have some hot chocolate.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘That might be a good idea.’

  He accompanied her back to her horse, and helped her to mount. ‘You will answer me, though, won’t you, before I sail off to the Mediterranean? You will say if you will consider me as your husband?’

  Effie said, ‘Yes. Now, may we go? I’m feeling cold, and this fog is getting into my throat.’

  Henry untied his horse, and climbed up into the saddle. He looked at her quickly, perhaps a little sadly, and then trotted westwards towards Kensington, with Effie following a few feet behind him, her mind in the wildest turmoil she had ever known. She felt as if her brain was a decorative mirror, which had been smashed beyond repair; and as if she were groping to make sense of a thousand jagged pieces of coloured glass.

  Henry, absentmindedly, began to hum After The Ball.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  One Thursday afternoon, two weeks later, Dougal came back early from the bank, bursting with supressed excitement. He and Effie were still staying at Eaton Square, first of all Malcolm Cockburn had decided (with one eye on pleasing Thomas Watson) that it would be a pity for Effie to leave town before the late Queen’s funeral; and then because Vera, who had disliked Effie at first, was now finding her rather charming company, and very helpful at her morning tea gatherings. She liked to refer to Effie as ‘my little Scottish grouse, whom I have taken under my protective wing.’ It made her feel even more superior than she felt already, particularly since Effie was Thomas Watson’s only daughter.

  Effie wrote almost every day to her mother, telling her how she was getting on, and how she had visited the Houses of Parliament, where she had the good fortune to see the Marquis of Salisbury, the Prime Minister, impatiently giving a guided tour of the Commons to a top-hatted party of senior German ministers; and how she had visited Trafalgar Square, and St James’s Park, and the Tower of London; and how Mrs Cockburn had taken her for tea at the Connaught, and luncheon at the Savoy, and introduced her to so many young London girls, all delightful.

  Her letters disguised what she really felt. She found Vera Cockburn to be vain, precious, and often cruel. While she was interested to see the sights of London, and meet new friends, she felt it was far more urgent for her to learn about Watson’s Bank, and what Dougal was doing, and even more vitally, to find out what Malcolm Cockburn was doing. Instead, she was taken off every day on a constant carousel of teas, social mornings, charity luncheons, and shopping expeditions. To Vera Cockburn, no day was complete without spending money: perhaps on some trinket of diamonds and Fabergé enamel in Burlington Arcade, or on a silk scarf, or a blouse of ruffled lace, or on perfumes or chocolates or little silver birds that sang in musical-box cages. Vera Cockburn owned more shoes than she could count, in white kid and purple suède and crocodile skin. Her wardrobes were like the forests of Alaska, because they were so thick with sparkling sequins and jewels. Delivered to the doors of Harrods in Malcolm Cockburn’s brougham, she would flurry and twitter and gossip her from the gloves to the lace, while Effie followed two or three paces behind, smiling tightly from time to time at a particularly catty bon mot from her hostess and guide, and wishing it were five o’clock.

  ‘You’ve no idea how ghastly Lady Kenworth looked in that new French face powder. A fright! But the trouble was, my dear, she had no idea how ghastly she looked either! Poor Bimmy, that’s Lord Kenworth, was sitting in the morning-room when
she went past, and I swear to God that he called his man in, and asked if the house was haunted. Of course, his man said not that he knew of, and Bimmy said, “Well, that’s damned funny, I could have sworn I saw a sort of a woman come gliding through here … with an appallingly white face.”’

  Effie was sewing when Dougal came home that day. She was not particularly good at embroidery, but she found that it gave her the appearance of being occupied at some harmlessly feminine pursuit while she listened and watched and learned what she could about the Cockburns’ affairs. She had already discovered for instance, that the Cockburns’ trip to Paris and Vienna, which had been postponed by the Queen’s death, was not simply for pleasure, or to give Vera Cockburn the opportunity to add some more gowns to her collection. Malcolm Cockburn was attempting to set up a huge loan to Tsarist Russia, with the co-operation of the Crédit Alsacienne in Paris and the bank of W. V. Eckardt und Söhne in Vienna. This loan, of nearly twenty million pounds, had been opposed from the start by the Rothschild banks, partly because they were deeply mistrustful of Russia’s aggressive occupation of Manchuria, and her undisguised designs on the Balkan States, and partly because of the Tsar’s blatant persecution of the Jews.

  It had occurred to Effie soon after she arrived in London that while her father might be the titular head of Watson’s Bank, he was desperately out of touch with the financial politics of Europe and America. Loans to Clydebank shipyards and Yorkshire woollen mills were all very well – they were the everyday oatmeal of Scottish banking. But the real millions were to be made in Europe, where the unstable alliances between Britain and Germany and Russia and France were sending exchange rates up and down, like a bank of express elevators, and where an astute and hard-headed banker might make a killing of ten million pounds in a night, if he were to lend the right amount of money to the right person at the right time. Or if she were.