London - Edward Rutherfurd [505]
And it was then that Eugene had his most brilliant idea. “You’ve two thousand left? Take it round to the Bank at once! In a handcart,” he cried. “This is what to do!”
Half an hour later, the little crowd waiting to be paid in the counting-house was addressed by a now cool-as-cucumber Meredith. “Gentlemen, our apologies. We asked the Bank for sovereigns and they have sent us only change. But we have plenty of it. You shall all be paid. A little patience, please.”
The two clerks at the counter started slowly paying out in shillings, in sixpences, but mostly in pennies. By the time the small coins were carefully counted out, the money was flowing out at only three hundred pounds an hour – but it never ceased. The earl himself arrived just before closing with ten thousand in gold, to find all but the most panic-stricken depositors starting to drift away out of sheer boredom. From that day, for many years after, the City would say of Meredith’s: “They pay; but you only get pennies there.”
The great banking crisis of 1825 did not end on that Tuesday. On Wednesday, for many – though happily not for Meredith’s – it was worse. By Thursday the Bank of England, dropping all its severity, and backed in the cabinet by the iron Duke of Wellington himself, was bailing out every financial house in sight.
On Friday, the Bank of England ran out of bullion, too. In the evening it was saved by an infusion of gold gathered by the only man in England, or indeed the world, who could have done it: Nathan Rothschild. Rothschild was king of the City.
The winter Lucy was eight had been hard for the family. Her mother had been troubled by a hacking cough, though she had managed to get to work each day, but little Horatio had been more worrying. They had noticed that the boy’s legs were getting weaker. By the turn of the year, he sometimes had to stay at home while Lucy went to work for Carpenter. By the spring, he did seem to be better but sometimes, as she led him by the hand, Lucy would see that he was crying silently.
One warm summer evening, when all the family was feeling better, Lucy was surprised to see the burly form of Silas Dogget tramping up the street to their door. Uninvited, he entered the house, sat himself at the kitchen table and gruffly announced: “I need help. Got a proposition.”
“Never!” Lucy’s mother cried, as soon as she heard what it was.
“I’d pay you twenty-five shillings a week,” he continued. “Keep you out of the workhouse.”
“We aren’t in the workhouse.”
Silas said nothing for a moment. “You’re a fool like your husband,” he observed.
“Leave us alone! Take yourself off!” her mother shouted now, in a real rage.
Silas shrugged and slowly got up. As he paused in the doorway his eyes rested upon Lucy. “Your boy’s a weakling, but the girl looks strong. Maybe in a year or two she won’t be as proud as you.” He rested his heavy hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “Just you remember your Uncle Silas, girl,” he said in his deep voice. “I’ll be waiting.”
Lucy and Horatio had come back from their work at Carpenter’s one September afternoon, not expecting that their mother would have returned, when they heard a strange sound coming from the room where they all slept. Opening the door, they saw their mother lying on the bed. Her face was very pale and she was making a hoarse sound. As they approached her, though she turned to look at them, she seemed to be gasping for breath. Hustling her brother out of the room, Lucy ran to fetch a neighbour and waited anxiously while the woman helped her mother until the fit was past.
“What is it?” she asked the woman desperately. “Is my mother dying?”
“No,” the woman replied. “There are many people in this parish like that, Lucy. It is asthma.”
Lucy had heard of the complaint but had never seen it. “Is it dangerous?”
“I’ve known people choke and die,” the woman answered truthfully. “But though