A Dangerous Fortune

by Ken Follett

  "And I suppose he'll campaign for stricter government regulation of banks."

  "Would you be against that?"

  "We never like the government to tell us what to do. True, there are too many crashes; but there might be even more if the politicians ran the banks." He rolled on his side and propped his head up on his elbow to get a better view of her taking off her underwear. "I wish I weren't leaving you tonight."

  Maisie wished the same. A part of her was excited at the prospect of being with Hugh when Solly was away, but that made her feel more guilty still. "I don't mind," she said.

  "I feel so ashamed of my family."

  "You shouldn't." It was Passover, and Solly was going to celebrate the ritual of seder with his parents. Maisie was not invited. She understood Ben Greenbourne's dislike of her, and half felt she deserved the way he treated her, but Solly was deeply upset by it. Indeed, he would have quarreled with his father if Maisie had let him, but she did not want that on her conscience too, and she insisted he continue to see his parents in a normal way.

  "Are you sure you don't mind?" he said anxiously.

  "I'm sure. Listen, if I felt strongly about it I could go to Manchester and spend Passover with my own parents." She became thoughtful. "The fact is that I've never felt part of all that Jewish stuff, not since we left Russia. When we came to England there were no Jews in the town. The people I lived with in the circus had no religion at all, mostly. Even when I married a Jew, your family made me feel unwelcome. I'm fated to be an outsider, and to tell you the truth I don't mind. God never did anything for me." She smiled. "Mama says God gave you to me, but that's rubbish: I got you all by myself."

  He was reassured. "I'll miss you tonight."

  She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over him so that he could nuzzle her breasts. "I'll miss you too."

  "Mmm."

  After a while they lay side by side, head to tail, and he caressed her between her legs while she kissed and licked and then sucked his penis. He loved to do this in the afternoon, and he cried out softly as he came in her mouth.

  She changed her position and nestled in the crook of his arm.

  "What does it taste like?" he said sleepily.

  She smacked her lips. "Caviar."

  He giggled and closed his eyes.

  She began to stroke herself. Soon he was snoring. When she came he did not stir.

  "The men who ran the City of Glasgow Bank should go to jail," Maisie said shortly before dinner.

  "That's a bit hard," Hugh responded.

  The remark struck her as smug. "Hard?" she said irritably. "Not as hard as what happened to the workingmen whose money was lost!"

  "Still, no one is perfect, not even those workingmen," Hugh persisted. "If a carpenter makes a mistake, and a house falls down, should he go to jail?"

  "It's not the same!"

  "And why not?"

  "Because the carpenter is paid thirty shillings a week and obliged to follow a foreman's orders, whereas a banker gets thousands, and justifies it by saying he carries a weight of responsibility."

  "All true. But the banker is human, and has a wife and children to support."

  "You might say the same of murderers, yet we hang them regardless of the fate of their orphaned children."

  "But if a man kills another accidentally, for example by shooting at a rabbit and hitting a man behind a bush, we don't even send him to jail. So why should we jail bankers who lose other people's money?"

  "To make other bankers more careful!"

  "And by the same logic we might hang the man who shot at the rabbit, to make other shooters more careful."

  "Hugh, you're just being perverse."

  "No, I'm not. Why treat careless bankers more harshly than careless rabbit-shooters?"

  "The difference is that careless shots do not throw thousands of working people into destitution every few years, whereas careless bankers do."

  At this point Kingo interjected languidly: "The directors of the City of Glasgow Bank probably will go to jail, I hear; and the manager too."

  Hugh said: "So I believe."

  Maisie felt like screaming with frustration. "Then why have you been contradicting me?"

  He grinned. "To see whether you could justify your attitude."

  Maisie remembered that Hugh had always had the power to do this to her, and she bit her tongue. Her spitfire personality was part of her appeal to the Marlborough Set, one of the reasons they accepted her despite her background; but they would get bored if she let her tantrums go on too long. Her mood changed in a flash. "Sir, you have insulted me!" she cried theatrically. "I challenge you to a duel!"

  "What weapons do ladies duel with?" Hugh laughed.

  "Crochet hooks at dawn!"

  They all laughed at that, then a servant came in and announced dinner.

  They were always eighteen or twenty around the long table. Maisie loved to see the crisp linen and fine china, the hundreds of candles reflected in the shining glassware, the immaculate black-and-white evening dress of the men and the gorgeous colors and priceless jewelry of the women. There was champagne every night, but it went straight to Maisie's waist, so she allowed herself only a sip or two.

  She found herself seated next to Hugh. The duchess normally put her next to Kingo, for Kingo liked pretty women and the duchess was tolerant; but tonight she had apparently decided to vary the formula. No one said grace, for in this set religion was kept for Sundays only. The soup was served and Maisie chatted brightly to the men on either side of her. However, her mind was on her brother. Poor Danny! So clever, so dedicated, such a great leader--and so unlucky. She wondered if he would succeed in his new ambition of becoming a member of Parliament. She hoped so. Papa would be so proud.

  Today, unusually, her background had intruded visibly into her new life. It was surprising how little difference it made. Like her, Danny did not appear to belong to any particular class of society. He represented workingmen; his dress was middle class; yet he had the same confident, slightly arrogant manners as Kingo and his friends. They could not easily tell whether he was an upper-class boy who chose martyrdom among the workers or a working-class boy who had risen in life.

  Something similar was true of Maisie. Anyone with the least instinct for class differences could tell she was not a born lady. However, she played the part so well, and she was so pretty and charming, that they could not quite bring themselves to believe the persistent rumor that Solly had picked her up in a dance parlor. If there had been any question of her acceptance by London society, it had been answered when the Prince of Wales, son of Queen Victoria--and future king--had confessed himself "captivated" by her and sent her a gold cigarette box with a diamond clasp.

  As the meal progressed she felt the presence of Hugh by her side more and more. She made an effort to keep the conversation light, and took care to talk at least as much to the man on her other side; but the past seemed to stand at her shoulder, waiting to be acknowledged, like a weary, patient supplicant.

  She and Hugh had met three or four times since his return to London, and now they had spent forty-eight hours in the same house, but they had never spoken, of what had happened six years ago. All Hugh knew was that she had disappeared without a trace, only to surface as Mrs. Solomon Greenbourne. Sooner or later she was going to have to give him some explanation. She was afraid that talking about it would bring back all the old feelings, in him as well as her. But it had to be done, and perhaps this was a good time, when Solly was away.

  A moment came when several people around them were talking noisily. Maisie decided she should speak now. She turned to Hugh, and suddenly she was overcome with emotion. She began speaking three or four times and could not go on. Finally she managed to get a few words out. "I would have ruined your career, you know." Then she had to make such an effort not to cry that she could say no more.

  He understood right away what she was talking about. "Who told you that you would have ruined my career?"
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  If he had been sympathetic she might have broken down, but luckily he was aggressive, and that enabled her to reply. "Your aunt Augusta."

  "I suspected she was involved somehow."

  "But she was right."

  "I don't believe that," he said, getting angry very quickly. "You didn't ruin Solly's career."

  "Calm down. Solly wasn't already the black sheep of the family. Even so, it was difficult enough. His family hates me still."

  "Even though you're Jewish?"

  "Yes. Jews can be as snobbish as anyone else." He would never know the real reason--that Bertie was not Solly's child.

  "Why didn't you simply tell me what you were doing, and why?"

  "I couldn't." Remembering those awful days, she felt choked up again and had to take a deep breath to calm herself. "I found it very hard to cut myself off like that; it broke my heart. I couldn't have done it at all if I'd had to justify myself to you as well."

  Still he would not let her off the hook. "You could have sent me a note."

  Maisie's voice dropped almost to a whisper. "I couldn't bring myself to write it."

  At last he seemed to relent. He took a gulp of his wine and averted his eyes from her. "It was awful, not understanding, not knowing if you were even alive." He was speaking harshly, but now she could see the remembered pain in his eyes.

  "I'm sorry," she said feebly. "I'm so soriy I hurt you. I didn't want to. I wanted to save you from unhappiness. I did it for love." As soon as she heard herself say the word "love" she regretted it.

  He picked up on it. "Do you love Solly now?" he said abruptly.

  "Yes."

  "The two of you seem very settled."

  "The way we live ... it isn't difficult to be contented."

  He had not finished being angry with her. "You've got what you always wanted."

  That was a bit hard, but she felt that perhaps she deserved it, so she just nodded.

  "What happened to April?"

  Maisie hesitated. This was going a bit too far. "You class me with April, then, do you?" she said, feeling hurt.

  Somehow that deflated his anger. He smiled ruefully and said: "No, you were never like April. I know that. All the same I'd like to know what became of her. Do you still see her?"

  "Yes--discreetly." April was a neutral topic: talking about her would get them off this dangerously emotional ground. Maisie decided to satisfy his curiosity. "Do you know a place called Nellie's?"

  He lowered his voice. "It's a brothel."

  She could not restrain herself from asking: "Did you ever go there?"

  He looked embarrassed. "Yes, once. It was a fiasco."

  That did not surprise her: she remembered how naive and inexperienced the twenty-year-old Hugh had been. "Well, April now owns the place."

  "Goodness! How did that happen?"

  "First she became the mistress of a famous novelist and lived in the prettiest little cottage in Clapham. He tired of her at about the time Nell was thinking about retirement. So April sold the cottage and bought Nell out."

  "Fancy that," said Hugh. "I'll never forget Nell. She was the fattest woman I've ever seen."

  The table had suddenly gone quiet, and his last sentence was heard by several people nearby. There was general laughter, and someone said: "Who was this fat lady?" Hugh just grinned and made no reply.

  After that they stayed off dangerous topics, but Maisie felt subdued and somewhat fragile, as if she had suffered a fall and bruised herself.

  When dinner was over and the men had smoked their cigars Kingo announced that he wanted to dance. The drawing room carpet was rolled up and a footman who could play polkas on the piano was summoned and set to work.

  Maisie danced with everyone except Hugh, then it was obvious she was avoiding him, so she danced with him; and it was as if six years had rolled back and they were in Cremorne Gardens again. He hardly led her: they seemed instinctively to do the same thing. Maisie could not suppress the disloyal thought that Solly was a clumsy dancer.

  After Hugh she took another partner; but then the other men stopped asking her. As ten o'clock turned to eleven and the brandy appeared, convention was abandoned: white ties were loosened, some of the women kicked off their shoes, and Maisie danced every dance with Hugh. She knew she ought to feel guilty, but she had never been much good at guilt: she was enjoying herself and she was not going to stop.

  When the piano-playing footman was exhausted, the duchess demanded a breath of air, and maids were sent scurrying for coats so they could all take a turn around the garden. Out in the darkness, Maisie took Hugh's arm. "The whole world knows what I've been doing for the last six years, but what about you?"

  "I like America," he said. "There's no class system. There are rich and poor, but no aristocracy, no nonsense about rank and protocol. What you've done, in marrying Solly and becoming a friend of the highest in the land, is pretty unusual here, and even now I bet you never actually tell the truth about your origins--"

  "They have their suspicions, I think--but you're right, I don't own up."

  "In America you'd boast about your humble beginnings the way Kingo boasts about his ancestors fighting at the battle of Agincourt."

  She was interested in Hugh, not America. "You haven't married."

  "No."

  "In Boston ... was there a girl you liked?"

  "I tried, Maisie," he said.

  Suddenly she wished she had not asked him about this, for she had a premonition that his answer would destroy her happiness; but it was too late, the question had been raised and he was already speaking.

  "There were pretty girls in Boston, and pleasant girls, and intelligent girls, and girls who would make wonderful wives and mothers. I paid attention to some of them, and they seemed to like me. But when it came to the point where I had to make a proposal or back off I realized, each time, that what I felt was not enough. It was not what I felt for you. It wasn't love."

  Now he had said it. "Stop," Maisie whispered.

  "Two or three mothers got rather cross with me, then my reputation spread around, and the girls became wary. They were nice enough to me, but they knew there was something wrong with me, I wasn't serious, not the marrying kind. Hugh Pilaster, the English banker and breaker of hearts. And if a girl did seem to fall for me, despite my record, I would discourage her. I don't like to break people's hearts. I know too well what it feels like."

  Her face was wet with tears, and she was glad of the tactful dark. "I'm sorry," she said, but she whispered so softly that she could hardly hear her own voice.

  "Anyway, I know what's wrong with me now. I guess I always knew, but the last two days have removed any doubts."

  They had fallen behind the others, and now he stopped and faced her.

  She said: "Don't say it, Hugh, please."

  "I still love you. That's all."

  It was out, and everything was ruined.

  "I think you love me too," he went on mercilessly. "Don't you?"

  She looked up at him. She could see, reflected in his eyes, the lights of the house across the lawn, but his face was in shadow. He inclined his head and kissed her lips, and she did not turn away. "Salt tears," he said after a minute. "You do love me. I knew it." He took a folded handkerchief from his pocket and touched her face gently, mopping the teardrops from her cheeks.

  She had to put a stop to this. "We must catch up with the others," she said. "People will talk." She turned and began to walk, so that he had to either release her arm or go with her. He went with her.

  "I'm surprised that you worry about people talking," he said. "Your set is famous for not minding anything of that sort."

  She was not really concerned about the others. It was herself she was worried about. She made him walk faster until they rejoined the rest of the party, then she let go of his arm and talked to the duchess.

  She was obscurely bothered by Hugh's saying that the Marlborough Set was famous for its tolerance. It was true, but she wished he h
adn't used the phrase anything of that sort; she was not sure why.

  When they reentered the house the tall clock in the hall was striking midnight. Maisie suddenly felt drained by the tensions of the day. "I'm going to bed," she announced.

  She saw the duchess look reflexively at Hugh, then back at her, and suppress a little smile; and she realized that they all thought Hugh would sleep with her tonight.

  The ladies went upstairs together, leaving the men to play billiards and drink a nightcap. As the women kissed her good night Maisie saw the same look in the eyes of each one, a gleam of excitement tinged with envy.

  She went into her bedroom and closed the door. A coal fire burned merrily in the grate, and there were candles on the mantelpiece and the dressing table. On the bedside table, as usual, there was a plate of sandwiches and a bottle of sherry in case she got peckish in the night: she never touched them, but the well-trained staff of Kingsbridge Manor put a tray beside every bed without fail.

  She began to take off her clothes. They might all be wrong: perhaps Hugh would not come to her tonight. The thought stabbed her like a pain, and she longed for him to come through the door so that she could take him in her arms and kiss him, really kiss him, not guiltily as she had in the garden, but hungrily and shamelessly. The feeling brought back an overwhelming memory of the night of the Goodwood races six years ago, the narrow bed in his aunt's house, and the expression on his face when she took off her dress.

  She looked at her body in the long mirror. Hugh would notice how it had changed. Six years ago she had had tiny turned-in pink nipples like dimples, but now, after nursing Bertie, they were enlarged and strawberry-colored, and stuck out. As a girl she had not needed to wear a corset--she had been naturally wasp-shaped--but her waist had never quite returned to normal after pregnancy.

  She heard the men coming up the stairs, heavy-footed and laughing at some joke. Hugh had been right: not one of them would be shocked by a little adultery at a country-house party. Did they not feel disloyal to their friend Solly, she thought derisively? And then it hit her like a slap in the face that she was the one who ought to feel disloyal.

  She had put Solly out of her mind all evening, but now he came back to her in spirit: harmless, amiable Solly; kind, generous Solly; the man who loved her to distraction, the man who cared for Bertie, knowing he was another man's child. Within hours of his leaving the house Maisie was about to let another man come into her bed. What kind of woman am I? she thought.