Stone's Fall

'You have not the slightest trace of any foreign accent,' I said, feeling a little ruffled.

'Thank you. I have been in England for a long time. And I have never found languages difficult. Manners are a different matter, though. Those are more difficult to learn.'

She stood and shook my hand as I prepared to leave; she wore a soft, utterly feminine perfume which complemented perfectly the black clothes she wore. Her large grey eyes held mine as she said goodbye.

A drink. Either to celebrate or to recover, I wasn't sure, but I certainly needed assistance to think about the wave of change that had just swept over my life. In about forty-five minutes I had changed from being a jobbing reporter on £125 a year to someone earning nearly three times as much and able to do pretty much as I pleased. If that did not call for a celebration, I do not know what would, and there is a decent pub in Apple Tree Yard, just round the corner from St James's Square, which caters for the servants who work in the big houses, and the suppliers who keep those inhabitants in the style they require. Two drinks later, I was beginning to feel fairly grand. I would take a house, buy some new clothes. A decent pair of shoes. A new hat. Eat in hotel restaurants. Take a cab every now and then. Life would be very fine.

And I could do my appointed task with as much diligence as I chose. Lady Ravenscliff, it appeared, was still in shock over the loss of her husband and the discovery of his secret life. She had depended on him and looked up to him. Not surprising that she was now throwing his money around.

Why investigate at all? I wouldn't have done. If her husband hadn't troubled to find out who his wretched child was, why should his widow? It seemed to me like inflicting quite unnecessary self-punishment, but what did I know about the mentality of widows? Maybe it was just curiosity, being childless herself, to discover what a child of her husband would be like. Maybe she wanted to find out something about the woman who had succeeded where she had failed.

CHAPTER 3

The offices of Ravenscliff's general manager were in the City, at 15 Moorgate, an anonymous street of five- and six-storey buildings, all erected for commercial use in the past half century. There was nothing remarkable about the street or the people in it; the usual bustle of traders and agents, of young men with spotty faces, top hats, ill-fitting suits and shirts with stiff collars. It was a street of insurance brokers and stockbrokers and grain traders and metal dealers, those who imported and exported, sold before they bought and contrived to keep themselves and the Empire at whose centre they were in liquid funds. I had never liked it very much, this part of town; the City absorbs bright youths and knocks the spirit out of them. It has to; it is the inevitable result of poring over figures eleven hours a day, six days a week, in chilly offices where no talking is allowed and frivolity is punishable by dismissal.

The Stock Exchange is different; I was passing through once when some jobbers decided to set fire to the coat-tails of a grandee, who was billowing plumes of smoke for several minutes before he noticed. Fights with bread rolls arcing over the trading floor are a daily event, American Funds assaulting Foreign Railways. They work hideous hours for low pay, and lose their jobs easily even though they make their masters much money. It is not surprising that they have a tendency towards the infantile, for that is how they are treated. In the pubs and taverns of the City I had made many good friends amongst the jobbers and brokers, but among the bankers few, if any. They are different; they see themselves as gentlemen – not an accusation that could ever be hurled at a stockbroker.

I did not know what to expect of Mr Joseph Bartoli. This is not surprising, as he filled an unusual position, although the evolution of capitalism will throw up more of his type as industry becomes more complex. Ravenscliff (I later learned) had so many fingers in so many pies that it was difficult for him to keep track of them; nor could he involve himself in day-to-day operations as a mine owner or steel founder might be expected to do. For this he had managers in each enterprise. Mr Bartoli oversaw the managers, and informed Ravenscliff how each business was developing.