Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [100]
“Oh my dear—don’t be naive!” Priscilla waved her hands, dismissing the very idea. “I don’t mean domestic residences in Primrose Hill. I mean two or three blocks of old tenements in Mile End or Wapping, or St. Giles.”
“Wapping?” Emily said with careful incredulity. “What on earth would that be worth to me?”
“A fortune,” Priscilla replied. “Place it in the hands of a good business manager, who will see that it is let advantageously, and that the rent is collected every week or month, and it will double your outlay in no time.”
Emily frowned. “Really? How on earth would rent for places like that amount to much? Only the poorest people live in such areas, don’t they? They could hardly pay the kind of rents I should wish.”
“Oh yes they can,” Priscilla assured her. “If there are enough of them, it will be most profitable, I promise you.”
“Enough?”
“Certainly. Ask no questions as to what people do, and what profit they in turn can make, then you can let every room in the building to a dozen people, and they will sublet it, and so on. There is always someone who will pay more, believe me.”
“I am not sure I should care to be associated with such a place,” Emily demurred. “It is not—something—”
“Ha!” Priscilla laughed aloud. “Who would? That is why you do it through a business manager, and a solicitor, and his employees, and a rent collector, and so on. No one will ever know it is you who owns it, except your own man of affairs, and he will certainly never tell anyone. That is his purpose.”
“Are you sure?” Emily widened her eyes. “Does anyone else do such a thing?”
“Of course. Dozens of people.”
“Who—for instance?”
“My dear, don’t be so indiscreet. You will make yourself highly unpopular if you ask such questions. They are protected, just as you will be. I promise you, no one will know.”
“It is only a matter of—” Emily shrugged her shoulders high and opened her eyes innocently. “Really—people might not understand. There is nothing illegal, I presume?”
“Of course not. Apart from having no desire to break the law”—Priscilla smiled and pursed her lips—“these are all highly respectable people with positions to maintain—it also would be very foolish.” She spread elegant hands wide, palms upwards, her rings momentarily hidden. “Anyway, it is quite unnecessary. There is no law to prevent your doing everything I suggest. And believe me, my dear, the profits are exceedingly good.”
“Is there any risk?” Emily said lightly. “I mean—there are people agitating for reforms of one sort or another. Might one end up losing it all—or on the other hand being exposed to public dislike, if—”
“None at all,” Priscilla said with a laugh. “I don’t know what reformers you have heard of, but they have not even a ghost of a chance of bringing about any real changes—not in the areas I propose. New houses will be built here and there, in manufacturing towns, but it will not affect the properties we are concerned with. There will always be slums, my dear, and there will always be people with nowhere else to live.”
Emily felt such a passion of revulsion she found it almost impossible to hide it. She looked down to conceal her face, and searched in her reticule for a handkerchief, then blew her nose a good deal less delicately than was ladylike. Then she felt sufficiently composed to meet Priscilla’s eyes again and try to make the loathing in her own look like anxiety.
“I thought it was such slums that reformers were involved in?”
Now the contempt in Priscilla’s face was easily readable.
“You are being timid for no reason, Emily.” The use of her name added an infinite condescension to Priscilla’s words. “There are very powerful people involved. It would not only be quite pointless trying to ruin them, it would be extremely dangerous. No one will cause more than a little inconvenience, I promise, and that will be dealt with without your needing even to know about it, much less involve yourself.”
Emily leaned back and forced a smile to her face, although it felt more like the baring