Brand, oddly enough, was an asset. Eustace would say casually, “That’s the devil of these old families. Inter-marry with their own kin till the blood’s no thicker than water. Look at that brother-in-law of mine, now. Hardly any better than a cretin. Earns about four pounds a week in some bloody little office in Kingsway, and, of course, they’re the most fertile class of the community.”
Olivia, fortunately, did not possess a very high standard. She could compare her home, her jewels, her clothes, her afternoons, her amusements, her car, and her children with those of other people and find them superior. She seriously matched her work against Brand’s “studies” (because to her his canvases were never complete) and preen herself on her better art. She spoke of her own work as literature, with her tongue in its normal place, between her teeth. She admired the lithe, crafty, smooth sons of Eustace Moore, who were already aware of what constituted real values, and seriously debated with their father the commercial value of a University education.
“You meet a queer lot of fellows up there these days,” Monty would say. “Don’t know that it’s worth your expense, Dad.”
“They have money if they haven’t breeding,” said Eustace shrewdly. “You don’t often find the two together. But they’re both worth plucking.”
East of Oxford Circus, Eustace was regarded with a certain wariness; he was the director of a number of concerns, with a probing and energetic finger in many others. His companies were in a minority in declaring large dividends shortly after their inauguration. Shareholders had the option of drawing these or of allowing them to accrue with the original capital. About eighty per cent chose the latter course; the remaining twenty took their dividends and recommended the shares as an excellent investment to their friends. Eustace contrived quite a good connection by means of that smile and generally pleasing manner, that so much appealed to women. He was not actually attracted by them, particularly by the young, who he considered on the whole lacked the decorum and good manners he had admired in a previous generation. But he was nothing if not practical, and he suffered familiarities of speech and gesture that were personally obnoxious to him, when the speaker was possessed of private means, and he saw a reasonably good hope of persuading some of these into his companies, and so into his purse. But he retained to the last all his race’s strong family sense, and, apart from his wife, he shrank from physical contacts.
The crisis that had arisen this Christmastide was as unexpected as it was crucial. A nameless traveller of no significance, returning from some distant place where Eustace (and his shareholders) had interests, began to speak freely in mixed company of the impracticability of Eustace’s proposals in certain connections. He chanced to do this in the presence of one of the shareholders, a truculent fellow, who instantly called him to order. The traveller, unaccustomed to being hectored or contradicted, made something in the nature of a scene. The petty disagreement spread, and other shareholders heard of the nameless man’s views and were inclined to be impressed by them. As a result of letters he received from strangers, Mr. Plant wrote to certain organs of the Press, putting into forcible language his view of the morality and general character of a man who would attempt to hoodwink harmless persons and deprive them of their savings. Everyone expected Eustace to start a libel action, and when he sat tight and did nothing, a miniature panic sprang up. Each man, eager to be before his fellows, gave orders to his broker to dispose of his shares. These became a glut on the market, and fell to next to nothing. In an attempt to dispel public suspicion, Eustace ostentatiously bought up these shares as they touched bottom prices, and encouraged a report that Plant was a person well known to him and receiving handsome payments for spreading his story. He was not, however, very successful. The first man who had the temerity to go to Plant direct with this version was sent home minus a front tooth, and only Plant’s inability to lay hands on evidence against Eustace, who was careful to commit nothing to writing, stopped him from bringing an action. There were more rumours, and scandal raised an ugly head. Even Eustace’s boys heard of it and wrote their father urgent letters quoting little snivelling nonentities among their school-mates whose parents were being ruined by this hanky-panky, and imploring him to scotch the story before their own reputation went. Matters assumed a gravity of which Eustace in his most pessimistic moods had never dreamed. He hastily convened a board meeting of the directors of the doomed company, and, white-faced and alarmed, they consulted with one another as to what had best be done. There were not many of them, and the majority were smallish men whom Eustace had selected as likely to be sharp enough to be of use, but not sufficiently astute to work for their own ends. It was agreed that it was necessary to raise ten thousand pounds at once, if criminal proceedings were to be avoided. Eustace had no doubt at all as to the result of such a course; he would be committed and sentenced, and at best would get five years. Besides, there were his sons to think of.
It was, therefore, necessary to put the position with brutal clearness, not to say crudity, to his father-in-law, who, by a skilful manipulation of the facts, could be made to appear a partner in the dishonesty. This point of view had not occurred to Adrian.
