CHAPTER THREE
NOVEMBER
1
MISS DOROTHY PILASTER married Viscount Nicholas Ipswich at Kensington Methodist Hall on a cold, bright morning in November. The service was simple though the sermon was long. Afterwards a lunch of hot consommé, Dover sole, roast grouse and peach sherbet was served to three hundred guests in a vast heated tent in the garden of Hugh’s house.
Hugh was very happy. His sister was radiantly beautiful and her new husband was charming to everyone. But the happiest person there was Hugh’s mother. Smiling beatifically, she sat beside the groom’s father, the duke of Norwich. For the first time in twenty-four years she was not wearing black: she had on a blue-gray cashmere outfit that set off her thick silver hair and calm gray eyes. Her life had been blighted by his father’s suicide, and she had suffered years of scrimping poverty, but now in her sixties she had everything she wanted. Her beautiful daughter was Viscountess Ipswich and would one day be the duchess of Norwich, and her son was rich and successful and the Senior Partner of Pilasters Bank. “I used to think I had been unlucky,” she murmured to Hugh in between courses. “I was wrong.” She put her hand on his arm in a gesture like a blessing. “I’m very fortunate.” It made Hugh want to cry.
Because none of the women wanted to wear white (for fear of competing with the bride) or black (because it was for funerals) the guests made a colorful splash. They seemed to have chosen hot colors to ward off the autumn chill: bright orange, deep yellow, raspberry-red and fuchsia-pink. The men were wearing black, white and gray, as always. Hugh had on a frock coat with velvet lapels and cuffs: it was black, but as usual he defied convention by wearing a bright blue silk tie, his only eccentricity. He was so respectable nowadays that he sometimes felt nostalgic for the time when he had been the black sheep of the family.
He took a sip of Chateau Margaux, his favorite red wine. It was a lavish wedding breakfast for a special couple, and Hugh was glad he could afford it. But he also felt a twinge of guilt about spending all that money when Pilasters Bank was so weak. They still had one million four hundred thousand pounds’ worth of Santamaria harbor bonds, plus other Cordova bonds valued at almost a million pounds; and they could not sell them without causing a drop in the price, which was the very thing Hugh feared. It was going to take him at least a year to strengthen the balance sheet. However, he had steered the bank through the immediate crisis, and they now had enough cash to meet normal withdrawals for the foreseeable future. Edward no longer came to the bank at all, although technically he would remain a partner until the end of the financial year. They were safe from everything except some unexpected catastrophe such as war, earthquake or plague. On balance he felt he was entitled to give his only sister an expensive wedding.
And it was good for Pilasters Bank. Everyone in the financial community knew that the bank was down more than a million on Santamaria harbor. This big party boosted confidence by assuring people that the Pilasters were still unimaginably rich. A cheap wedding would have aroused suspicion.
Dotty’s dowry of a hundred thousand pounds had been made over to her husband, but it remained invested in the bank, earning five percent. Nick could withdraw it, but he did not need it all at once. He would draw money gradually as he paid off his father’s mortgages and reorganized the estate. Hugh was glad he did not want all the cash right away, for large withdrawals put a strain on the bank at present.
Everyone knew about Dotty’s huge dowry. Hugh and Nick had not been able to keep it completely secret, and it was the kind of thing that got around very quickly. Now it was the talk of London. Hugh guessed it was being discussed this very moment at half the tables at least.
Looking around, he caught the eye of one guest who was not happy—indeed, she wore a miserable, cheated look, like a eunuch at an orgy: Aunt Augusta.
“London society has degenerated completely,” Augusta said to Colonel Mudeford.
“I fear you may be right, Lady Whitehaven,” he murmured politely.
“Breeding counts for nothing anymore,” she went on. “Jews are admitted everywhere.”
“Quite so.”
“I was the first countess of Whitehaven, but the Pilasters were a distinguished family for a century before being honored with a title; whereas today a man whose father was a navvy can get a peerage simply because he made a fortune selling sausages.”
“Indeed.” Colonel Mudeford turned to the woman on his other side and said: “Mrs. Telston, may I hand you some more red-currant sauce?”
Augusta lost interest in him. She was seething at the spectacle she had been forced to attend. Hugh Pilaster, son of bankrupt Tobias, giving Chateau Margaux to three hundred guests; Lydia Pilaster, widow of Tobias, sitting next to the duke of Norwich; Dorothy Pilaster, daughter of Tobias, married to Viscount Ipswich with the biggest dowry anyone had ever heard of. Whereas her son, dear Teddy, the offspring of the great Joseph Pilaster, had been summarily dismissed as Senior Partner and was soon to have his marriage annulled.
There were no rules anymore! Anyone could enter society. As if to prove the point she caught sight of the greatest parvenu of them all: Mrs. Solly Greenbourne, formerly Maisie Robinson. It was amazing that Hugh had the gall to invite her, a woman whose whole life had been scandal. First she had been practically a prostitute, then she had married the richest Jew in London, and now she ran a hospital where women who were no better than herself could give birth to their bastards. But there she was, sitting at the next table in a dress the color of a new copper penny, chatting earnestly to the governor of the Bank of England. She was probably talking about unmarried mothers. And he was listening!
“Put yourself in the position of an unmarried servant girl,” Maisie said to the governor. He looked startled, and she suppressed a grin. “Think of the consequences if you become a mother: you will lose your job and your home, you will have no means of support, and your child will have no father. Would you then think to yourself: ‘Oh, but I can be delivered at Mrs. Greenbourne’s nice hospital in Southwark, so I may as well go ahead and do it?’ Of course not. My hospital does nothing to encourage girls into immorality. I just save them from giving birth in the gutter.”
Dan Robinson, sitting on his sister’s other side, joined in. “It’s rather like the banking bill I’m proposing in Parliament, which would oblige banks to take out insurance for the benefit of small depositors.”
“I know of it,” the governor said.
Dan went on: “Some critics say it would encourage bankruptcy by making it less painful. But that’s nonsense. No banker would want to fail, under any circumstances.”
“Indeed not.”
“When a banker is making a deal he does not think that he may make a widow in Bournemouth penniless by his rashness—he worries about his own wealth. Similarly, making illegitimate children suffer does nothing to discourage unscrupulous men from seducing servant girls.”
“I do see your point,” the governor said with a pained expression. “A most … ah … original parallel.”
Maisie decided they had tormented him enough, and turned away, letting him concentrate on his grouse.
Dan said to her: “Have you ever noticed how peerages always go to the wrong people? Look at Hugh and his cousin Edward. Hugh is honest, talented and hardworking, where Edward is foolish, lazy and worthless—yet Edward is the earl of Whitehaven and Hugh is just plain Mr. Pilaster.”
Maisie was trying not to look at Hugh. Although she was glad to have been invited, she found it painful to see him in the bosom of his family. His wife, his sons, his mother and his sister made a closed family circle that left her outside. She knew his marriage to Nora was unhappy: it was obvious from the way they spoke to one another, never touching, never smiling, never affectionate. But that was no consolation. They were a family and she would never be part of it.
She wished she had not come to the wedding.
A footman came to Hugh’s side and said quietly: “There’s a telephone call for you from the bank, sir.”
“I can’t speak now,” Hugh said.
A few minutes later his butler came out. “Mr. Mulberry from the bank is on the telephone, sir, asking for you.”
“I can’t speak now!” Hugh said irritably.
“Very good, sir.” The butler turned away.
“No, wait a minute,” Hugh said. Mulberry knew Hugh would be in the middle of the wedding breakfast. He was an intelligent and responsible man. He would not insist on speaking to Hugh unless something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Hugh felt a chill of fear.
“I’d better speak to him,” he said. He stood up, saying: “Please excuse me, Mother, Your Grace—something I have to attend to.”
He hurried out of the tent, across the lawn and into the house. The telephone was in his library. He picked up the instrument and said: “Hugh Pilaster speaking.”
He heard the voice of his clerk. “It’s Mulberry, sir. I’m sorry to—”
“What’s happened?”
“A telegram from New York. War has broken out in Cordova.”
“Oh, no!” It was catastrophic news for Hugh, his family and the bank. Nothing could be worse.
“Civil war, in fact,” Mulberry went on. “A rebellion. The Miranda family has attacked the capital city, Palma.”
Hugh’s heart was racing. “Any indication of how strong they are?” If the rebellion could be crushed quickly there was still hope.
“President Garcia has fled.”
“The devil he has.” That meant it was serious. He cursed Micky and Edward bitterly. “Anything else?”
“There’s another cable from our Cordova office, but it’s still being decoded.”
“Telephone to me again as soon as it’s ready.”
“Very good, sir.”
Hugh cranked the machine, got the operator, and gave the name of the stockbroker used by the bank. He waited while the man was called to the telephone. “Danby, this is Hugh Pilaster. What’s happening to Cordovan bonds?”
“We’re offering them at half par and getting no takers.”
Half price, Hugh thought. Pilasters was already bankrupt. Despair filled his heart. “What will they fall to?”
“They’ll go to zero, I should think. No one pays interest on government bonds in the middle of a civil war.”
Zero. Pilasters had just lost two and a half million pounds. There was no hope now of gradually returning the balance sheet to strength. Clutching at straws, Hugh said: “Suppose the rebels are wiped out in the next few hours—what then?”
“I shouldn’t think anyone will buy the bonds even then,” said Danby. “Investors will wait and see. At the very best it will take five or six weeks before confidence begins to return.”
“I see.” Hugh knew Danby was right. The broker was only confirming Hugh’s own instincts.
“I say, Pilaster, your bank will be all right, won’t it?” Danby said worriedly. “You must have quite a lot of these bonds. It was noised about that you hardly sold any of the Santamaria harbor issue.”
Hugh hesitated. He hated to tell lies. But the truth would destroy the bank. “We’ve got more Cordovan bonds than I’d like, Danby. But we’ve got a lot of other assets as well.”
“Good.”
“I must get back to my guests.” Hugh had no intention of going back to his guests, but he wanted to give an impression of calm. “I’m giving lunch to three hundred people—my sister got married this morning.”
“So I heard. Congratulations.”
“Good-bye.”
Before he could ask for another number, Mulberry called again. “Mr. Cunliffe from the Colonial Bank is here, sir,” he said, and Hugh could hear the panic in his voice. “He is asking for repayment of the loan.”
“Damn him,” Hugh said fervently. The Colonial had lent Pilasters a million pounds to tide them over the crisis, but the money was repayable on demand. Cunliffe had heard the news and seen the sudden slump in Cordova bonds, and he knew Pilasters must be in trouble. Naturally he wanted to get his money out before the bank went bust.
And he was only the first. Others would be close behind. Tomorrow morning depositors would be queuing outside the doors, wanting cash. And Hugh would not be able to pay them.
“Have we got a million pounds, Mulberry?”
“No, sir.”
The weight of the world descended on Hugh’s shoulders, and he felt old. This was the end. It was the banker’s nightmare: people came for their money, and the bank did not have it. And it was happening to Hugh.
“Tell Mr. Cunliffe that you have been unable to get authorization to sign the cheque, because all the partners are at the wedding,” he said.
“Very good, Mr. Hugh.”
“And then …”
“Yes, sir?”
Hugh paused. He knew he had no choice, but still he hesitated to say the dreadful words. He shut his eyes. Better get it over with.
“And then, Mulberry, you must close the doors of the bank.”
“Oh, Mr. Hugh.”
“I’m sorry, Mulberry.”
There was an odd noise down the line, and Hugh realized that Mulberry was crying.
He put down the phone., Staring at the bookshelves of his library, he saw instead the grand facade of Pilasters Bank, and imagined the closing of the ornate iron doors. He saw passersby stop and look. Before long a crowd would gather, pointing at the closed doors and chattering excitedly. The word would go around the City faster than a fire in an oil store: Pilasters has crashed.
Pilasters has crashed.
Hugh buried his face in his hands.