I sensed something caustic in her last comment, but I did not believe this to be a topic that I might delve into any deeper than I had already. “So, my uncle has offered a settlement on your behalf to Adelman if he should marry you?” I inquired.
“He has not said so,” Miriam explained, “but I can only speculate that is the case. Your uncle should see it as an investment to purchase such influence of Adelman. Is it true,” she asked quite suddenly, now in a less dire tone of voice, as though she had changed the topic to music or stage plays, “that your father failed to consider you in his will?”
My first instinct was to wave my hand and show my lack of concern, but I knew such a gesture to be a mere facade, and one that I did not wish to erect before this woman. Instead I nodded. “I feel no resentment. Indeed, I consider it a kindness, for had he left me any sizable estate, the guilt at my neglect would surely have been more than I could endure.” Miriam remained silent—not because she judged me harshly, but because, I believe, she did not know what to say. I attempted to turn the conversation to a topic less awkward. “And what of Mr. Sarmento?”
Her face betrayed what I took to be astonishment. “You are a very clever man, Cousin, to have noticed Mr. Sarmento’s attentions. Yes, he too is my suitor.”
“It is sometimes hard to tell if he is not, perhaps, Mr. Adelman’s suitor.”
She nodded grimly. “Yes, that is why I was surprised you noticed him in that capacity. Mr. Sarmento has expressed some interest to my uncle, but he is far more concerned with pursuing matters of business than matters of a domestic nature. Frankly, Mr. Sarmento is more puzzling and repulsive than Mr. Adelman. He is a self- interested and I think deceitful creature. So is Adelman, but at least he is involved in Court politics, and deceitfulness is, I should think, required. What excuse can Mr. Sarmento offer for scurrying about like a rodent? Frankly, I imagine he wishes to replace Aaron in Mr. Lienzo’s heart, so in that sense he is your rival as much as Mr. Adelman’s.”
I chose to ignore that jibe. “He has property enough to make his match?”
“His family is not unsuccessful. They would offer to settle him, I believe, once marriage negotiations are under way. But his family would benefit far more than yours.”
“And what does my uncle think of this rodent?”
“That he is an able man about the warehouse, that he keeps my father’s business ordered, and that, should Sarmento decide to strike off on his own, he should be difficult to replace. I do not believe this sentiment is the same as wishing to stare across a table at him at breakfast each morning for the rest of his life.”
“It is a tricky business, placing a son’s widow upon the marriage market, I suppose.”
“Indeed,” Miriam said dryly.
“And to whom do you cast your eye, may I ask?”
“To you, of course, Cousin,” she said, the words flying instantly off her tongue. I suspect she regretted her flippancy the minute she spoke, and there was a period of profoundly confusing silence in which I neither spoke nor breathed. Miriam let out a nervous laugh, perhaps suspecting she had taken too great a liberty. “Do I presume too much? We should perhaps spend two or three such afternoons thus before I may be flippant with you with impunity. I shall be serious, then. I cast my eye on no one. I am sure I am not ready to become another man’s property. I have few freedoms right now, and I do not know that I want to surrender those I have. Perhaps I desire more freedoms, and I think they should be more readily attained here than in some other man’s house.”
I said nothing for a moment, for I felt myself still hot in the face over the unexpected exposure of the pleasure I took in her company. It took some time before I finally opened my mouth to speak, but I was cut short by the arrival of my aunt and uncle, who cheerily breezed into the room, poured themselves some wine, and told us stories of their youth in Amsterdam.
TEN
THE SUN WENT DOWN, and the Sabbath was over. After dinner I retired with my uncle to his study, where we finally came to the business of discussing my father’s finances at the time of his death. Like my uncle’s private closet in his warehouse, this room was lined with ledgers and maps, but here he also kept histories, travel books, and even some memoirs—all, I suspected, important to an understanding of the places with which he traded. The walls of the room not covered with bookshelves were a distracting clutter of maps and prints he had taken from broadsheets or pulled out of inexpensive pamphlets. Almost all available wall space was covered; parts of prints and woodcuts overlapped one another. Some were pictures of important men, such as the King, or of scenes of domestic life or of trade or of a ship upon the ocean. It was a dizzying array, but Uncle Miguel took pleasure from the endless variety of images.
He sat behind a desk, and I pulled a chair up close that I might hang upon his words. I suppose because contacting my uncle had been such a difficult matter for me, and because he had delayed this meeting for a full twenty-four hours, I believed that he would have things to say that would prove tremendously illuminating.
“The problem is not that your father kept inadequate records,” my uncle began. “He kept copious records. He simply organized his information inadequately. He knew where everything was, but no one else did. It would be a project of months, maybe years, to organize his papers and then cross-examine everything against the issues in his possession at the time of his death.”
“So there is no way of learning whether or not his holdings were disordered, as Balfour claims his father’s were.”
“I fear not. At least not directly. But he was involved in something curious shortly before his death, and it is for this reason that I first became suspicious about this accident. Your father had a true gift for the funds, you know—almost a prescient ability to predict their rise and fall. He liked to discuss the funds with me—about how much this one or that was worth on the current market. I think perhaps I was the only man he could talk to and not fear I would act prematurely on his advice, and thus cause an unpredicted flux in the market. Then, shortly before he died he grew quiet and changed the subject when I asked him what he worked upon. I know that he met several times with Mr. Balfour, but Samuel never told me of their business. That the two of them should die only a day apart—I think you can see why I am suspicious.”
“If I am to make any progress in this inquiry, I must have a better sense of these issues in which he involved himself. I must confess that my father never told me much about his business, and I never cared to learn much of the doings of Exchange Alley in general. What are these funds you speak of? How do they work?”
My uncle settled into his chair, and smiled like a pedant. “The process is quite simple. If you were to find yourself in need of more ready money than you had in your possession, there would be several options open to you, such as borrowing money of a goldsmith or a scrivener. Governments, particularly when they fight wars, often find themselves short of the money they require to pay their troops, manufacture their weaponry, and so forth. In the past in this country, and even today in nations oppressed by absolute monarchs, a king could demand that his wealthy nobles ‘lend’ him money. If the king never paid the money back, there was not much these nobles could do. And once the monarch died, heirs would usually refuse to honor any predecessor’s debts.”
“So this money was not lent but extorted.”
“Precisely. And when the powerful landowners are oppressed by their monarch, it is ever a dangerous circumstance. When King William took the throne away from the villainous Papist, James II, thirty years ago, he immediately made war against the French in order to prevent that nation from gaining mastery of Europe. To pay for these wars, he used the Dutch method of raising revenues. Instead of demanding that men pay the Crown cash, he offered the opportunity to turn cash into investment. When the Kingdom wishes to pay for a war, money can be acquired by selling issues—promises to pay back a certain amount with a particular interest. If you invest one thousand pounds into an issue that promises to pay 10 percent interest, you receive one hundred pounds per year. After ten years, the government has repaid your loan, but you continue to receive an income. Now, this might be a bad investment for someone who has only a thousand pounds in the world, but if a man can spare the money, then the funds provide a regular and dependable source of revenue. More dependable than land, for a landowner’s rents may fluctuate depending upon the economy of the countryside and the bounty of the harvest. Investments in the funds are guaranteed.”
“But for how long?” I inquired. “For how long does the state continue to pay out that hundred pounds a year?”
My uncle shrugged. “It depends on the issue, of course. Some are for sixteen years, some a little more, some
