Redemption - Leon Uris [145]
Caroline and Roger had managed a week-long silence before the tinderbox exploded, spewing out a quarter of a century of pent-up rage.
Caroline unloaded on Roger his rotten fathership of Jeremy, his use of human fodder in his fields and industries, his bigoted Reformation mentality, and his dirty secrets.
Roger had a thing or two to say about her hypocrisy, her coddling of Jeremy, her obscene spending, which had required the continuous running of the shirt factory. In the hammer blow, he renounced her giving birth to Jeremy for the sake of her father and not for the earldom.
When Caroline left for Belfast, Sir Frederick’s private train carried so much of her luggage it indicated her plan to stay away from Londonderry for a long time.
Sir Frederick, recovering from his stroke, seeing his family structure going to a shambles, made a long overdue decision committing the future of Weed Ship & Iron to Caroline. Caroline’s hand fit the glove to perfection. As for Sir Frederick, by Jaysus, Caroline would have to sort out the family quagmire.
The removal of Brigadier Maxwell Swan was a sticky proposition, but even Weed recognized that that way of doing business may have had its day. A close and loving relationship between Caroline and Uncle Max had faltered badly over the years and collapsed completely after the factory fire.
The bloody goons who beat off the unions and the Catholics, industrial spies who gleaned the future plans of steel mills and shipyards, and covert financial dealings all had an archaic bent.
The liberal wave could not be diverted and found its way over the Irish Sea to Ulster, bringing a greater consideration for the welfare of the working people. Union-busting was losing its urgency among the industrialists. Slowly, ever so slowly, it occurred to the upper class that happier working people were producing much finer products at far less cost.
It was nothing that would take place overnight, to be sure, but who better than Caroline Hubble to sense the changes and flow with them?
The problem at the yard was that Maxwell Swan and Frederick Weed were covered with enough of each other’s fleas to send the other to the hangman’s scaffold a hundred times over.
In the end the two old boys, scoundrels and killers though they were, were birds of a feather. Swan was of an age that he wanted to go off someplace faraway and do his sunset years in style. Weed’s stroke had shaken him up considerably. As Sir Frederick aged, Swan feared that Roger Hubble would try to pull him into Hubble’s personal service. Sir Frederick had always had a keen and jolly sense about him, what with his bouts with the bottle and the ballerinas and his rugby team and his bombastic energy for faster trains and ships.
Lord Roger, on the other hand, seemed keen to kill with a sense of satisfaction. Except for Caroline, the man would have been an utter monster. And the last bloody job…spying on Lord Jeremy, promising to keep the results from Freddie and Caroline…feeling Roger’s hot breath on his neck to recruit him away from Belfast.
Sir Frederick Weed, in his most charming and generous manner, took it eye-to-eye with the Brigadier.
“Max,” Freddie said, “we’re going to have to trust each other.”
A sumptuous estate in Jamaica and a hefty pension were laid on the table. Here, he could be among dozens of cronies retired from the military. He could dress formally three or four times a week, complete with medals, and banquet into inebriated unconsciousness…and make those visits to certain well-maintained cabins.
Now here was where the trust came in. As part of the arrangement, Swan left a handwritten memoir of his black deals with Roger Hubble. The authorship was certified in the presence of an impeccable quorum