The Rich Are with You Always (46 page)

  "Do you enjoy banking, Herr Wolff?" she risked asking.

  It was as if the question touched a start lever within him. "It is at once the most absorbing and frustrating of professions," he said. "To see inside so many great affairs, sometimes even to help plan them, yet always in the end to be the—you say, third person?"

  "Third party. Chambers says it's the trade of sultan's eunuch."

  Her frankness, which was deliberate, took him aback. For a moment he did not know what to say, then he composed himself to pretend she had said something else, and then he laughed. She decided that a man of sixty years' experience who, when surprised, let so much of his thoughts show in his face was probably not a very good banker.

  "Its good," he said. "He is amusing, Chambers."

  "There is a funny side to him," Nora agreed. She looked away again, for her gaze seemed to discomfit Wolff, and said, "I imagine there was never a more interesting time to be a banker than the present."

  "In London," Wolff agreed. "But on the Continent, we meddle with mere currency; we argue of currency unions and common coinage. We are
techniciens.
But in London you are artists."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because of what happened last October and November. The manner in which the extraordinary demand was met." He looked at her. "Did you not find that—exciting?"

  She decided to say nothing; instead she smiled, making him smile too. "On the Continent, it would have been…chaos." He said
Kaos,
the German word; it sounded much more doom-laden than mere "chaos"—which, to her mind, was a fitting description of the everyday state of the London money market.

  He became even more lugubrious. "But we can procure
Kaos
without extraordinary demand. You are so comfortable and secure in your little island. But here on the Continent things are terrible."

  "Really, Herr Wolff!" She laughed. "What a thing to tell me at the start of a visit here!"

  "Truth," he said, with a Germanic intensity that carried no apology. "Do you realize—of course you don't—how close revolution is, here, in France too, also in Germany, also Italy—everywhere?"

  She began to feel a little bored with Wolff. Only the suspicion that he had something important to say and could not work around to saying it kept her out there with him. His recovery from "giddiness" was so complete that it could not have been real. "If you are so certain," she prompted, "why do you not close your business and come to London?"

  "Oh!" It was a dismissive sound. He shrugged and waved his hands aimlessly, as if ten dozen contrary reasons presented themselves. "Do you know how little a banker can move? Only his fixed capital—his own money. But his loan capital—his good name—how can he move these? Yet they are his real trade."

  "You have survived revolutions before," Nora said, preparing to return to the ball.

  He did not move. "This one is—will be—completely different. In England you are so clever. Peel repeals the Corn Law, and what happens? The country workers, rural workers, are at once in harness with the aristocracy and proprietors of land, for expensive corn. But the town workers, they of course are in harness with the factory masters and proprietors of industry, and they want cheap corn." He brought down his hand, like a guillotine blade, on the baluster rail. "
Boomz!
The worker class is divided."

  It was an interesting insight, one she had not heard before; she made no further effort to disengage. "Here they are not?"

  "Here we have no rural worker class; only peasants. So the town worker class has no—no interest together with the bourgeoisie, they say. It is a hard fight. It is revolution like no other before. It is not ancient against modern or country against town; it is the modern against modern, the bourgeoisie against—we call it
das Proletariat
."

  "We use the French—
prolétaires.
What are their demands?"

  "They wish the state. They wish to be masters, to direct capital, to appropriate profit. They wish to become the proprietors—the sole proprietors!"

  Nora began to laugh. "You mean communists and socialists! But how can you take them seriously? It is so easy to demolish all their arguments and pretensions. Their leaders are idealists, their followers are greedy; and, as always happens, the greedy will swallow the idealists. And then they will choke."

  "Of course we take them seriously!" he said. The note of anger carried to the groups and couples passing by, provoking amusement and raised eyebrows. But he persisted, unnoticing. "It's easy for England. You have been so clever. You divide the
prolétaires,
you give them slow improvement—enough to stop revolution. So you avoid danger—and you think it is no danger on the Continent too. But it is. And it's dangerous for you, as well. A hot fire can jump the water! It can jump the English Channel, even the German Ocean."

  "Perhaps we do not see these things as clearly as we should, Herr Wolff," she said to soothe him. "But you too are misled if you think we have solved the problem in the ways you say. Perhaps we do not face immediate revolution, but our danger, seen over years, is worse. We are facing a new kind of leader of our workers. He is not communist. Perhaps he is socialist out of convenience, but certainly not out of conviction. He thinks"—she tapped her forehead—"like you and me. He thinks of supply and demand and price and market. And so he thinks of his labour as a commodity, like tea or iron. He says if a Baltic trader can corner the market in Russian tallow and then dictate his price, why cannot the labourer make a corner in his own commodity? How do we answer that, Herr Wolff? It is our own ideal thrown back at us."

  He nodded. "Here too, in France and Germany, is such an element. I tell you how we answer it: with guns and soldiers. And then"—he made his fist explode with a flurry of fingers—"revolution!"

  "But that is not your answer, Herr Wolff?" she asked, certain now that she was close to his purpose in drawing her out here.

  "No" he agreed. "We—my brother and myself—because we are bankers, and very cautious, old-fashioned bankers—and also not young—we can have only a little answer. We wish to put some money abroad, in England. Not much, of course, because everything that goes away makes smaller our—fundament, do you say? Our fundament for lending."

  "Basis. I can see that."

  "
Ach so! Basis.
It's the same."

  "Why do you not speak to Chambers?"

  "I did. We did." He looked calmly, almost—as far as she could tell in the light that poured from the house onto the terrace—amusedly, at her.

  "And? What did he say?"

  Wolff lowered his voice. "He says that of all people who would know how to use best this money, it's you."

  The slight smile on her face did not vanish, but inside she was furious. It was all a joke. This whole charade of Wolff's was the elaborate opening round of some little scheme of theirs to humiliate her. A little Jewish bankers' joke on the gentile lady. Chambers! He was so sure of himself they had even agreed to bring his name into it from the beginning. Her first instinct was to sweep majestically from the terrace, as any affronted heroine would feel impelled to do. But Nora was no longer a woman of first instincts.

  Instead she said, quite neutrally, as if reserving the choice of being pleased or angry: "He had no right to say such a thing."

  Wolff looked pained. "He did not discuss your business. But he admires you so." He gripped her gloved arm fastidiously in his gloved fingers and said confidentially, "He told me not to mention his name. He says you unreasonably mistrust him. But I do not like secrets."

  It was too amusing—that they would imagine she could be taken along so easily. She decided to play them out at the game they had chosen. "I think, Herr Wolff, that you are a victim of Mr. Chambers's humour. You know him well?"

  "Nathan?" he asked. (He pronounced it
Nah-tan,
which Nora did not at once recognize.) "From a child. I used to give him—what do you say?" He gestured the holding of a child on his shoulders.

  "A flying angel," Nora said.

  "Oh? It's good. A flying angel. I give him many." He chuckled at the memory.

"And now he is playing a little game with you."

"Oh no!" Wolff was at once serious. "I assure you, no."

"Very well, Herr Wolff. How may I help you?"

  "We wish, my brother and I, we wish you to take some of our money and to invest it for us in—in such places where you invest your own." He studied her face closely for the effect of this extraordinary proposal. She could tell from his reaction that he found nothing there.

  "In whose name?" she asked. "Understand, I think this is preposterous—a joke of Chambers's in poor taste. But—let us play, let us amuse ourselves. In whose name?"

  "You will see it is serious." He pulled out a bill drawn on Chambers in London. It was marked
a vista,
which made it payable at sight. It was drawn in her favour. And it was for ten thousand pounds sterling.

  An expensive joke. The first doubt that this proposal might, after all, be genuine occurred to her. She pulled her shawl around her and said, "It has gone far enough. And I wish to dance."

  She walked away from him. "Please!" he called after her. His anguish sounded genuine. "I have done it so badly. Nathan has said not to say his name. And I—fool—think I know better. Please, just listen."

  She stopped then. She had been walking slowly back to the terrace doors with him jogging at her elbow. "Very well, Herr Wolff. I will listen. And I will try to believe."

  He thrust the bill into her hand. "You take. You invest it—anywhere you believe good. You are free, totally free. And you keep ten per cent of its profit. And the other ninety per cent you reinvest on the same conditions as before."

  "Fifteen per cent," she said at once. There was one way to scotch this silly idea. But moments later she wished she had said twenty, for, although he looked unhappy and muttered about having to consult his brother, it was clear he was going to agree. Quickly she added: "And there will be management fees. Were you thinking of a trust?"

  "No," he said unhappily. "We cannot so certainly revoke a trust. We give power of attorney."

  She nodded. "So there will also be a fine for cancellation of the power of attorney. The management fee will be one-half per cent on the investment each year that the profit or yield is not realized on that investment. The cancellation fee will be ten per cent if in the first five years, five per cent between five and ten years, two per cent thereafter."

  
That will surely kill it,
she thought.
At least I come out butter-side-up.
She wished she could see Chambers's face when Wolff-Dietrich, the werewolf king, carried the tale back.

  But Wolff was looking at her with frank and breathless admiration. "Du liebe Zeit!
"
he said. "You must be certain of your power. It's outrageous! Highway robbery!"

  She smiled with relief, thinking he was at last calling off his proposal. "Good! I'm glad that's agreed." She forgot to return the bill though.

  "Oh, no! No, no!" he chided playfully, snatching the bill from her. "I still must talk to my brother. I tell you tomorrow.
Adieu, Gnädigste!"
He kissed her hand and was gone.

  Only then did the amazing truth dawn. He had not been cancelling his offer! He really intended it. All this "I must consult my brother" was nonsense. He was going to say yes tomorrow. Could she think of any other fees she might impose? No sooner had she asked herself the question than she realized the folly of it—and of the fees she had already demanded. She had simply, and thoughtlessly, intended to kill what she had in any case thought of as an insincere proposal. Now, clearly, it had all along been sincere. And how close she had come to stultifying it! She trembled at the memory.

  In the small hours of the next morning, when they were back at La Gracieuse, after dancing her feet raw with Sam, with Rodet, and with half of Normandy, she told John what had happened and how it had come about. He parodied a huge chagrin. "You say you trembled!" He laughed despairingly. "You drift into these situations all your life. And how you come out unscathed—let alone with gold in your palm— I'll never understand. You're like the drunken smoker in the gunpowder works."

  "What do you mean?" She laughed.

  "The day I met you, that very first day, you were running away. Running for your life. Why?"

  She smirked.

  "Because you found your gaffer had his fingers in his employers' till—and you told him you wanted a quarter of whatever he was getting."

  She bit her lip and grinned.

  "And when you intercepted those letters of Chambers's, and you tried to blackmail him…"

  "I
did
blackmail him."

  "Very well. But, in fact, as I pointed out the minute you told me what the letters said, there wasn't one line there to connect them with Chambers. Your 'blackmail' was pure bluff."

She squirmed with delight.

"And with Wyatt. There was more bluff than real threat in what you did."

"He didn't think so. And it's my opinion we both ought to be glad for that."

  It was a rebuke and John knew it. She often did that sort of thing these days—repulsing him just when she seemed to be warming again. For the first time in this long climb back to their fortune, he began to feel a sort of panic. He and Nora were growing apart, and he could not understand why. In so many little ways she was shutting him out, building a complete life of her own. He wondered whether she was even aware of it. There seemed to be a permanent but suppressed hostility there, cooling everything that had once been so warm. What did she want?