Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

‘All we need is for a handful of customers to demand their money and we’d be in trouble. This bank is teetering like a house of cards and to make matters worse you’re proposing to take on more long-term debt; debt in a company whose share price has just dipped below ten pounds. It’s sheer madness.’

‘By my reckoning, we’ve currently got about a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of discounted bills sitting in the vault earning three, maybe four, per cent. I’m instructing you to sell them so I can lend that money to the Grand Northern Railway. This way we’ll more than double the return on our investment. Eight thousand per year instead of three. Is that understood?’

‘But those bills are as good as cash. We need some funds at short notice in case of claims made against us.’

‘Nonsense. We keep too much in reserve as it is. Dead money that’s earning no interest for the bank.’

Blackwood’s face reddened still further. ‘It’s my name above the bank’s door. My name. People are willing to entrust us with their savings because of my reputation and my integrity.’

Smiling, Pyke heaved a sigh. ‘That might have been true when you were running the four country banks in Norfolk but we both know that people here in London entrust us with their savings because we pay them a higher rate of interest than any other bank in the Square Mile.’

They were quickly getting to the nub of the matter. The four banks in question had been run by William Blackwood but only because his brother, Emily’s father, the late Lord Edmonton, had shown no interest in getting involved, apart from greedily collecting any profits that had accrued. Edmonton had owned the banks, lock, stock and barrel, and after his death, the banks had passed into Pyke’s hands as part of his wedding agreement with Emily, who, in turn, had inherited the Hambledon estate. In his new career as banker, Pyke had soon realised that William Blackwood was, indeed, a very competent figure and realised, too, that he’d need the man’s help, if his plan of opening a branch in London was ever to be realised. In order to keep Blackwood at the helm, Pyke had given him a third of the bank’s stock for nothing. Blackwood had always seemed to loathe his garrulous brother almost as much as Pyke did, but this didn’t mean that he welcomed Pyke’s takeover with open arms. In his rather traditionalist view of the world, banking was a risk-averse gentleman’s profession in which bankers provided a service to respectable people and charged them an appropriate fee for doing so. It didn’t involve sharp practices, brickbats and the whiff of violence. But since Pyke had retained two-thirds of the stock, his word was the one that mattered and it was this, more than anything else, which irked William Blackwood. At least Edmonton had never actually intervened in the day-to-day running of the banks, Pyke had once overheard him say. ‘But now I have to listen to, and take orders from, someone who doesn’t know an acceptance from an endorsement.’ Pyke knew about money, though. He knew the difference between a farthing and a groat and, under their twin stewardship, the bank had flourished, but the disagreements and tension in the partnership had never gone away.

The door flew open and the meeting was interrupted by a dishevelled man dressed in tatty clothes who fell into the room, closely followed by the head clerk, who claimed he had been forcibly brushed aside by the interloper.

‘Harry Cobb, at your service.’ The man performed an elaborate bow, his velveteen coat touching the floor.

Amused, Pyke told the clerk to leave them alone for a minute and asked him what he wanted.

‘I’m a humble shoemaker, sir, as was my father and his father, too. I remember a time when we were plump in the pocket but not any more. Not since the sweaters moved in and stole all of our business. It used to be that we’d get paid three shillings to make a pair of shoes, five for a pair of boots. But now there’s this sweater by the name of Groat who’s got all these wimmin and chirren, hundreds of ’em, mostly bilked from the workhouse, to make his shoes, working sixteen hours a day for almost nothing, and none of us folk can’t compete with him, at least not on our own. Not after we’ve paid for our grindery, candles and tools.’

Pyke regarded him with curiosity. ‘So what is it you want from us?’

‘Just the chance to earn our bread.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, sir, I ain’t an unreasonable man, in spite of my barging in on your meeting. I knows youse all want to make a profit like the next man but I heard folk say Mr Pyke’s a good man, not the kind who lends his arse and shits through his ribs, so that’s why I’m here. Me and a few others have got together and we’d like you to lend us some Darby, so we can make our boots and shoes and show ’em direct to the public.’

Nash ran his fingers through his mane of black hair, swept back and held in place by a sticky unguent. ‘Get out, you impertinent beggar.’

‘Let the man finish his piece,’ Pyke said, before turning back to face Cobb. ‘How much do you want to borrow?’

‘I reckon fifty megs should do it.’ Sniffing, Cobb wiped his nose on the sleeve of his coat.

‘And what security could you put up for the loan?’

‘Security?’ Cobb seemed flummoxed.

‘Something to guarantee the loan. Some property perhaps?’

‘If we owned property, sir, we wouldn’t need to come to you cap in hand begging for Darby, would we?’ He was puzzled more than angry.

‘And unfortunately for you, we’re a business and not a charity. If we were to lend you some money without any security, how could we stop you from pocketing it and then disappearing?’

‘Why would we do that, sir? We’re honest culls just wantin’ a chance to earn our bread.’

Nash leaned back in his chair, resting the heels of his boots on the table. ‘Listen to him. I don’t know whether to pity the poor wretch or throw him out on his ear.’

Cobb looked perplexed. ‘You mean you ain’t gonna lend us a thing?’ Suddenly he seemed on the verge of tears.

‘Get out, you dirty little man.’ Nash stood up and tried to push him out of the door.

‘Jem, let the man be.’ Pyke kept his tone flat and neutral. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Cobb, but we require security.’

‘Go and have a look for yeself. Groat has taken over the whole terrace on Granby Street. Rooms full of young chirren, kept in the dark, their little fingers worn down to the bone.’

‘It won’t make a difference.’

The wind seemed to leave Cobb’s sail. His shoulders sagged forward and his head bowed to the floor. ‘Thankee, sir, thankee. I won’t hold you up any more.’ He shuffled to the door and left without uttering another word.

Pyke watched his young assistant’s face, as hard and unyielding as dried wax. It was one of Nash’s attributes that he saw people only as entries in a ledger book, but while he would doubtless give Cobb no further consideration, Pyke was cursed or blessed by other thoughts. The old shoemaker might perhaps drown his disappointment with a few glasses of gin in a nearby tavern and then trudge home through dark, muddy streets to his lodging house in Bethnal Green, where there would be no food for his family to eat and precious little firewood to keep the room warm. As a younger man he had probably served a long apprenticeship learning the rudiments of his craft and had been assured that these skills would be sufficient to earn a living for the rest of his days, but in recent years the arrival of the sweaters and the hiring of non-apprenticed women and children to make inferior shoes had driven down prices, wages and conditions to such an extent that the old promises counted for nothing.

‘What a pathetic old fellow,’ Nash said, shaking his head. ‘Now let’s get back to this business of the loan to the Grand Northern…’