Lady of Fortune

by Graham Masterton

  Effie said, ‘We’re both like our mother. Our late mother.’ Mariella nodded. ‘Well, I will try to entertain you as merrily as I can.’

  There was another silence, and then Effie said, ‘You won’t mind if I’m direct with you, will you? Tell me if you don’t want me to be direct.’

  Mariella knew what Effie was going to say. ‘You can be direct,’ she said.

  They walked, Effie and Mariella, down past the row of cypress trees which stood along the back of the house; and then through the kitchen-garden, with its pumpkins and winter kale and squash, to the broad bowl of the lawn which bordered the lake. The lake itself was petrified in the winter cold. It reflected nothing except the gum-coloured sky.

  Mariella said, ‘I suppose that I am as wrong as Dougal. I should leave and let him live the life that he wants. But, you must understand that it is difficult for me. I love him, and I always hope that he will come to a day when he realises that he is tired of other women, and tired of work, and wants to return to me.’

  ‘Don’t you have any friends?’ asked Effie.

  Mariella shook her head.’Dougal took me out of New York City, and now I live here. There is nobody here in the winter. Sometimes I go for three or four days, and never talk to anybody except the servants.’

  ‘You should leave,’ said Effie. ‘You said you should leave, and you should. What possible future do you have here?’

  Mariella thrusts her hands into the pockets of her dark mink coat. ‘I am not sure if Dougal would let me leave.’

  ‘What do you mean? Of course he would. In any case, there’s nothing he could do to stop you.’

  Mariella looked away, across the lawns and the hedges, and the fastidiously-trimmed borders, and said nothing.

  Effie said, ‘Your parents are still alive, aren’t they?’

  Mariella nodded.

  ‘Then couldn’t you go to live with them for a while? You seem so unhappy.’

  Mariella turned around and looked at Effie with an expression that Effie couldn’t understand. ‘I can’t leave,’ she said off-handedly, and then began walking up the sloping lawn to the house.

  Effie hurried after her. ‘You can’t? What do you mean you can’t?’

  ‘I can’t, that’s all. Please don’t ask me any more.’

  ‘But Dougal’s my brother.’

  ‘He was your brother, perhaps, many years ago. Now he is my husband.’

  Effie caught up with Mariella, and took hold of her arm. The two women faced each other, their breath smoking in the cold Atlantic air. ‘Your husband, yes,’ agreed Effie. ‘But not your lover. Not even your friend.’

  Mariella stared at Effie, and then lowered her head as if she were about to say something. But her emotions were too jagged, her feelings were too broken, and she didn’t know Effie well enough to be able to confide in her, especially about her brother. She ran quickly through the gate of the kitchen garden, and up the steps to the house, leaving Effie where she was. The iron gate which separated the kitchen garden from the main lawns swung slowly back on its hinges, with a squeak and a slight shudder. Effie stood where she was, her hands clasped in front of her, her head slightly raised, with an expression of concern and pain on her face.

  In the distance, she heard Dougal calling, ‘Effie? Effie? Where are you, Effie?’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was John Browning who changed her life in America. She met him, by accident, in the lobby of the Savoy-Plaza hotel, after Dougal had taken her for lunch (oysters, sea-bass, and Perrier-Jouet champagne). She was waiting for Dougal to finish an urgent telephone-call to a client in Texas, watching the furred and perfumed women come and go from the elevator bank, when she accidently let her purse slip from the side of her chair, and spilled out her comb and her hairpins and her powder-compact over the carpeted floor.

  Almost instantly, a lean grey-haired man with a large moustache had ducked down on to his knees to pick everything up. He carefully popped the hairpins one by one into her purse; then stood up, brushed down the knees of his pants, and bowed to her.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ acknowledged Effie. ‘That was careless of me.’

  ‘It was a pleasure,’ the man said, in a deep voice. ‘And it wasn’t careless at all. I once dropped a whole case of vintage brandy, and there wasn’t any use in picking that up.’

  ‘I’m Effie Watson,’ said Effie.

  ‘I’m John M. Browning,’ the man told her. ‘Would it be too much if I were to ask you to join me for tea, in the Palm Court? I was on my way there when you dropped your little bomb.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be meeting my brother. He’s on the telephone.’

  John Browning offered Effie his hand. ‘Any brother who can leave a sister as becoming as you to sit alone in a hotel lobby while he makes a telephone call deserves to be abandoned. Now, don’t you agree with me?’

  Effie tried to look prim; but she didn’t feel prim; and besides, wasn’t this America, where people did what they wanted? The land of democracy? She said, ‘All right, then. I’d love some tea. Do you think if I tell the hall porter where I am, my brother will be able to find me?’

  ‘The who?’

  ‘The – ’ she frowned at the sign over the reception desk. ‘I beg your pardon, the bell captain.’

  ‘Well, certainly. And who cares if he doesn’t find you?’

  Effie usually resisted the approaches of strange men, but there was something warm and appealing about Mr John Browning; a relaxed manner that told of responsibility and self-confidence and inner strength. His grey afternoon suit was plainly expensive, and very well cut, and the orchid he wore in his buttonhole must have cost seven or eight dollars on its own. He nodded to the maitre d’ at the entrance to the Palm Court, and he and Effie were immediately steered to a small table in the centre, where everybody could see and admire them, and where they weren’t too close to the piano.

  ‘Tea?’ asked John Browning.

  ‘With lemon, please,’ asked Effie.

  ‘Cakes? They do very tempting cakes.’

  Effie shook her head. ‘No, thank you. But not because I’m not tempted. I’ve just finished lunch.’

  ‘Well, that’s a pity! But maybe some other time. You’re pretty late finishing your lunch. It’s almost four.’

  ‘We had a hard morning’s business.’

  ‘You work?’ asked John Browning, curiously. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘I’m a banker. My brother owns Watson’s New York Inc., and I’ve just come over from England to help him.’

  ‘A lady banker? That doesn’t sound possible.’

  ‘So people seem to think. But it is possible, because I am one.’

  ‘Congratulations. I think it’s wonderful. You can handle my bank account any time you like.’

  Effie smiled. ‘I’m in the money-lending business personally. You’ll have to talk to my brother if you want to know about long-term management.’

  John Browning sat back in his chair. He looked suddenly serious. ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked her.

  Effie slowly said, ‘No. Should I?’

  ‘Not necessarily. But I’m the owner, and principal inventor, of Browning automatic weapons. You’ve heard of the Colt-Browning machine-gun?’ He paused, and looked at Effie’s perplexed expression. ‘Well, no, obviously you haven’t. But if you’re in the money-lending business, I’m in the kind of business which needs money to be lent to it, particularly now. Perhaps we might take more than tea together. Perhaps we might talk a little turkey. You’re English, aren’t you?’

  ‘Scottish.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I gather there’s a very fierce distinction.’

  ‘There is. But I used to live in London, too, as well as Edinburgh.’

  The waiter brought tea, and cucumber sandwiches, with the crusts neatly cut off. John Browning pushed two or three of them into his mouth at once, and then said, ‘You’re sure you won’t have any? I have a terrible weakness for cucumber sandwiches.’
>
  ‘Like Algernon, in The Importance of Being Earnest,’ said Effie.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Never mind. You were telling me that you were in the gun business.’

  John Browning smirked, and shrugged, and then said, ‘You could really say that I am the gun business.’

  ‘You need money, though.’

  ‘Who doesn’t? At the risk of boring you, I’ve been perfecting for years now a practical medium machine-gun – that is, a machine-gun which is mounted on a tripod, and which fires bullets that are as big and hefty as rifle-bullets. It works entirely by recoil – that is, when you fire one bullet out of it, the mechanism of the gun recoils backwards, loads another bullet into place, and cocks itself, ready to fire again. In the tests I’ve done so far, I’ve fired 600 rounds a minute. It’s simple, and it’s practical, and it keeps on firing long after gas-operated machine-guns have fouled up, and stopped.’

  Effie said, ‘I’m no expert, Mr Browning, but it sounds as if it’s just what the Allied armies could do with in France.’

  ‘Well, they have their own guns there. The Vickers gun, and the Lewis gun; although neither of them are quite as simple and efficient as this one. I first patented it in 1901, and I’ve been fiddling with it ever since, making it better and better.’

  ‘I’m surprised the American Army haven’t bought any,’ said Effie.

  ‘You have to understand the American mentality, Miss Watson,’ John Browning told her. ‘We’re very remote from Europe here. A great many of us left Europe because we were down on our luck, or oppressed, or unhappy, and we’re still looking westwards rather than eastwards. It’s considered to be very unlikely that the United States will involve herself in the war in Europe, although personally I believe that we need to, and that we should. But, at the moment, the US Army is very small, and very short on funds, and they can’t envisage any practical use for a medium machine-gun, not even a medium machine-gun as good as mine. The only way my company has been keeping its head above water these past few years is by selling pistols and sporting rifles to the civilian population.’

  Effie said, ‘Why should I lend you any money to continue to develop your machine-gun, if nobody will ever buy it?’

  John Browning took another triangular cucumber sandwich, and bit the point of it. ‘Because it’s the weapon of the future. Because the time will come, sooner or later, when the military will not only want it, but need it. Haven’t you heard? Killing as many people as possible in the fastest possible time is all the rage.’

  Effie sipped her lemon tea. She knew nothing at all about guns and military contracts, except that Robert had once lent money to an eccentric Englishman called Leonard Jollye for the development of an explosive called pyroxylin. She couldn’t recall whether pyroxylin had been a success or not.

  ‘How much money would you need?’ she asked.

  ‘To build two working prototypes, maybe $250,000.’

  For five or ten minutes, Effie drank her tea without talking; and listened to the pianist playing A Bird in A Gilded Cage. John Browning finished the sandwiches and started on the cream cakes, making a particularly spectacular mess of a vanilla-iced mille feuilles. Then Effie said, ‘What if I said no, that I wouldn’t lend you the money?’

  John Browning licked cream off the back of his cake-fork. ‘You won’t. I’ll arrange a demonstration for you. I’ll let you fire the gun yourself. When you’ve seen what it can do with your own eyes, you’ll lend me the money without even hesitating.’

  ‘How do you know I’ve got $250,000?’

  John Browning smiled. ‘A girl who looks like five million dollars is bound to have a measly quarter of a million tucked away somewhere.’

  The violinist came over and grinned at them. ‘You’d like a request, madam?’

  John Browning folded a ten-dollar bill and tucked it into the violinist’s breast pocket. ‘Play, She’s Just A Little Different From The Others That I Know.’

  At that moment, Effie turned, and saw Dougal frowning and gesticulating at her through the palms.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Dougal was furious about John Browning, not only for abducting Effie and giving her tea, but for trying to inveigle her into lending him $250,000 for his medium machine-gun. ‘If we lend him $250,000 and the United States doesn’t enter the war, what happens then? We’re left with one of the most powerful infantry weapons ever devised, for the sole purpose of keeping a few stray Indians in line, and making sure that Mexican bandits don’t wander across the border. He’s a brilliant man, there’s no doubt about it. But there is such a thing as the right product at the wrong time, and that’s what I’d call his medium machine-gun.’

  Effie was smoking a Chesterfield and reading a copy of Elite Style. In just a week, she was beginning to find that American life suited her. She adored the clothes, she adored the fashion stores, and she adored the restaurants. There was something bright and free and energetic about New York; a snappiness which had been lacking in the sedate streets of Edinburgh, and the foggy fastnesses of London. And there was far less prejudice against women. Women were expected to work. Women were expected to snarl and bite back. She had already spent three days in the offices of Watson’s New York, and had been treated by the bank’s male managers with an almost startling lack of discrimination.

  Howard Odkolek, the vice-president in charge of securities, had even asked her, quite blandly, if she wanted a cigar.

  ‘I don’t smoke cigars,’ she had told him.

  He had thrust his hands into his pockets of his baggy grey suit, and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, that’s a pity. My sister-in-law had twins last week, and my brother gave me ten V-Bs, out of sheer shock.’

  But Dougal turned out to be far less easy-going with Effie than the rest of the staff. He spoke disparagingly of John Browning every time Effie mentioned his name, and he was particularly annoyed when John Browning telephoned her while she was sitting in his office, going over the week’s figures.

  ‘Why don’t you simply tell him we’re not interested?’ Dougal snapped. ‘If the Army isn’t interested, we can’t be, either. We lend money for inventions that are going to sell; not for dead ducks.’

  Effie put the phone down. ‘He’s invited me out to somewhere called White Plains on Friday afternoon, to see the gun for myself.’

  ‘Well, go to White Plains on Friday afternoon, if that’s what you want to do,’ Dougal told her, as he irritably collected up papers from his desk. ‘But make sure you don’t lend him any of the bank’s money; that’s all.’

  ‘Supposing I lend him my own money?’

  Dougal looked up, and stared at her, but then he shook his head in disbelief. ‘If you lend him your own money, you’re a fool. You might just as well draw out $250,000 as a banker’s draft, and use it to light up one of Howard’s cigars.’

  Nevertheless, on Friday afternoon, Effie was able to persuade one of the clerks in the investment section to drive her up to White Plains in his huge second-hand Haynes Tourer. His name was Gregory Wilbur II; and he was one of those irrepressibly cheerful young men who never stopped talking, and were endlessly obliging. He had cautioned her to wrap up warm, and so she wore her white mink coat and her white button-up boots, and a hat tied down by a long motoring-veil. He himself wore a deerstalker cap and a shabby raccoon coat, and brought with him a picnic hamper crammed with bologna sausage and fresh Vienna loaves from Zito’s Sanitary Bakery on Bleecker Street, as well as a bottle of white Califonia wine.

  ‘Ever since we heard you were coming to join the bank, we’ve all been agog to meet you,’ he said, steering the lumbering tourer out of New York City, and northwards through the rocky suburbs. It was really autumn up here, out of the city. The sun was glittering behind the trees, and the leaves were coppery and rusty and red, bank upon bank of them, as if the world had been deluged in billions of dollars of loose change. Effie had never smelled air that was so sharp, even in Edinburgh.

  ‘Do I come
up to your expectations?’ asked Effie.

  Gregory Wilbur II glanced across at her, and grinned. His eyes were blue and bright behind his wire-rimmed spectacles, and he had a cheeky snub-nosed face that reminded Effie of a Czechoslovakian puppet.

  ‘We didn’t expect anybody quite so pretty,’ he said. ‘That’s if you’ll excuse my impertinence.’

  ‘I think I can excuse anybody who flatters me so nicely,’ said Effie. ‘In Scotland we call it “blowing in someone’s lug.”’

  ‘Well, if you’ll allow me, I’ll blow in your lug any time you want me to,’ said Gregory Wilbur II. ‘Nathan Fishman said that if you weren’t a Watson, and that if you weren’t a Gentile, and that if he could persuade his mother to lend him the spare room, he’d ask you to marry him tomorrow.’

  Gregory knew that to talk to his lady employer so boldly was risking not only disapproval but even dismissal. But Effie laughed. She understood the difference between sly rudeness and affectionate teasing, and she knew that Gregory was only trying to show her that he liked her. She had a quality about her, a maturity and a poise that were lightened by an obvious sense of fun, that always desperately attracted young men.

  John Browning, in a heavy overcoat and a fur hat, was waiting for her in a misty, muddy field off Saxon Woods Road, not far from Mamaroneck Avenue. There was a truck parked a little way away, which had brought the machine-gun and its equipment all the way from the Browning works in Buffalo, and John Browning’s own car, a large shiny black Packard. Two or three of the armaments factory staff were there, in mackinaws and caps, and they greeted Effie with their breath smoking in the four o’clock chill.

  ‘We’d better get started before the sun goes down,’ said John Browning. ‘Tom, will you take that tarp off? Richard – will you fetch over the ammunition?’

  John Browning took Effie’s arm and led her over to a small natural rise in the ground, where the machine-gun had been set up on its tripod. It looked to Effie more like a black brass-cased telescope, except that at one end, it had a small muzzle, and at the other end a wooden handle, and a trigger.