A Dangerous Fortune - Ken Follett [118]
Augusta checked Lord Morte’s account with Pilasters Bank and found that he had an overdraft of a thousand pounds. The next day he got a note asking him when he hoped to regularize the account.
Augusta called on Lady Morte the same day. She apologized, saying that the note had been an error and the clerk who sent it had been sacked. Then she mentioned the ball again.
Lady Morte’s normally impassive face was momentarily animated by a glare of pure hatred as she understood the bargain that was being offered. Augusta was unmoved. She had no wish to be liked by Lady Morte, she just wanted to use her. And Lady Morte was confronted with a simple choice: exert her influence to get Augusta invited to the ball, or find a thousand pounds to pay off her overdraft. She took the easier option, and the invitation cards arrived the following day.
Augusta was annoyed that Lady Morte had not helped her willingly. It was hurtful that Lady Morte had to be coerced. Feeling spiteful, Augusta made her get Edward an invitation too.
Augusta was going as Queen Elizabeth and Joseph as the earl of Leicester. On the night of the ball they had dinner at home and changed afterwards. When she was dressed Augusta went into Joseph’s room to help him with his costume and talk to him about his nephew Hugh.
She was incensed that Hugh was to be made a partner in the bank at the same time as Edward. Worse still, everyone knew that Edward had been made a partner only because he had married and been given a £250,000 investment in the bank, whereas Hugh was being made a partner because he had brought off a spectacularly profitable deal with Madler and Bell of New York. People were already talking of Hugh as a potential Senior Partner. The thought made Augusta grind her teeth.
Their promotion was to take place at the end of April, when the annual partnership agreement was formally renewed. But earlier in the month, to Augusta’s delight, Hugh made the unbelievably foolish mistake of marrying a plump little working-class girl from Camden Town.
The Maisie episode six years ago had shown that he had a weakness for girls from the gutter, but Augusta had never dared to hope that he would marry one. He had done the deed quietly, in Folkestone, with just his mother and sister and the bride’s father in attendance, then he had presented the family with a fait accompli.
As Augusta adjusted Joseph’s Elizabethan ruff she said: “I presume you’ll have to think again about Hugh’s being made a partner, now that he’s married a housemaid.”
“She’s not a housemaid, she’s a corsetière. Or was. Now she’s Mrs. Pilaster.”
“All the same, a partner in Pilasters can hardly have a shopgirl as a wife.”
“I must say I think he can marry whom he likes.”
Augusta had been afraid he would take this line. “You wouldn’t say that if she were ugly, bony and sour,” she said acidly. “It’s only because she’s pretty and flirtatious that you’re so tolerant.”
“I just don’t see the problem.”
“A partner has to meet cabinet ministers, diplomats, leaders of great businesses. She won’t know how to act. She could embarrass him at any moment.”
“She can learn.” Joseph hesitated, then added: “I sometimes think you forget your own background, my dear.”
Augusta drew herself up to her full height. “My father had three shops!” she said vehemently. “How dare you compare me to that little trollop!”
He backed down instantly. “All right, I’m sorry.”
Augusta was outraged. “Furthermore, I never worked in my father’s shops,” she said. “I was brought up to be a lady.”
“I’ve apologized, let’s say no more about it. It’s time to go.”
Augusta clamped her mouth shut but inside she was seething.
Edward and Emily were waiting for them in the hall, dressed as Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Edward was having trouble with his gold braid cross-garters, and he said: “You go on, Mother, and send the carriage back