Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [129]
“It is still usury,” Valerius said with an intensity that held her attention in spite of her lack of interest in the subject. “A powerful industry invests in a small, backward country, a part of the empire, for example in Africa.” He leaned towards her, his face sharp with the strength of his emotion. “The people begin to prosper, as there is work for many of them. They are able to sell their goods and in exchange buy imported luxuries, for which they soon develop not only a taste, but a dependence. Perhaps it even includes the raw materials or the machinery necessary for their new industry.”
She could see no connection to the wretchedness of personal usury, and he must have observed it in her face. He resumed with greater urgency, his voice demanding her attention.
“The parent company expands the business, promising even better trade. The small country accepts. Suddenly life is better than they have ever known it. They have luxuries undreamed of before.”
“Is that not good?” She sought to understand, but the cause of his anger eluded her.
“And the country is utterly dependent on the industry, and those who govern it,” he continued, now oblivious of the rest of the room. Even Odelia’s skirt brushing his elbow and thigh as she passed behind his back made no impression on him at all. She apologized and he did not hear her. He leaned closer to Charlotte. “Suddenly the price is altered. They pay less for the goods the country produces, they charge more for the materials they supply. The rate of interest on the money borrowed is increased. The small country is in difficulties. Profits disappear. They need more money to service their needs and keep the industry surviving. The loans are increasingly expensive. Perhaps they cease altogether, and then they have to turn to venture capital.”
He must have seen from Charlotte’s expression that she had no idea what that was.
“Instead of simply lending money at a rate of twenty percent, or so,” he explained, his voice hard-edged, his face pale, “the rate of interest is higher, much higher, and the lender also demands one-third ownership in the business itself—forever.”
“But that’s monstrous,” she protested. “It’s … usury!”
A bitter smile lit his face.
“Of course it is!” he agreed. “Not man to man, but industry to nation. A few score profit, and tens of thousands suffer.”
She nearly asked why people allowed such a thing to happen, but the answer was already in what he had told her. She sat for several minutes digesting in her mind what he had said, and he sat in front of her, watching her face, knowing he had no need to add anything further.
While Charlotte was absorbed with Peter Valerius, Micah Drummond was standing apart, next to the enormous curtains that hung swathed across the windows at the entrance to the balcony and the steps down to the garden. He found the chatter almost impossible to concentrate on and the small snatches of gossip and opinion were insufferable when so much clamored in his mind: doubts so ugly they stifled everything else that entered his thoughts; doubts about himself, his actions and judgments of the past, his motives of the present; his own honesty; and dark, crowding fear for the future.
The room was full of lights. The chandeliers glittered pendant from the ceiling, their crystal facets winking in the barest movement of air. Lights burned from all the gas brackets on the walls. Diamonds sparkled around throats, on arms and in hair, even on slender wrists, waved to emphasize a remark. Reflected light glanced from polished tables and on silver and in glass.
The soft buzz of voices was interrupted by laughter, the chink of goblets. It all looked so gay and unshadowed. But he longed to go outside to the solitude and the concealing darkness of the summer garden, where his face would not be read, no one else saw or remembered who spoke to whom, and where at least for a while he could be alone.
He stood undecided, and perhaps it would be more honest to say unable to make