Читаем A Dangerous Fortune (1994) полностью

Augusta did not give her time to think about it. "Please forgive my being so frightfully candid," she went on. "It comes only from a wish to be of service." Lady Morte would not believe that, but she would assume Augusta simply wanted to curry favor with royalty. She would not look for a more specific motive, and Augusta would give her no more clues tonight.

Lady Morte hesitated a moment longer, then said: "You're very kind."

Mrs. Maple, the mother of Emily, returned from the bathroom, and Lady Morte took her turn. She went out with an expression of mild embarrassment frozen to her face. Augusta knew that she and Lord Morte would agree, in the carriage going home, that commercial people were impossibly vulgar and ill-mannered; but one day soon he would lose a thousand guineas on a horse, and on the same day her dressmaker would demand payment of a six-month-old bill for three hundred pounds, and the two of them would remember Augusta's offer, and they would decide that vulgar commercial people did after all have their uses.

Augusta had cleared the third hurdle. If she had assessed the woman correctly, Lady Morte would be hopelessly in debt to Pilasters Bank within six months. Then she would find out what Augusta wanted from her.

The ladies reconvened in the drawing room on the first floor and took coffee. Lady Morte was still distant, but stopped short of being rude. The men joined them a few minutes later. Joseph took Deacon Maple upstairs to show him his collection of snuffboxes. Augusta was pleased: Joseph only did that when he liked someone. Emily played the piano. Mrs. Maple asked her to sing, but she said she had a cold, and stuck to her refusal with remarkable obstinacy despite her mother's pleas, making Augusta think anxiously that she might not be as submissive as she looked.

She had done her work for the night: she wanted them all to go home now so that she could run over the evening in her mind and assess how much she had achieved. She did not actually like any of them except for Michael Fortescue. However, she forced herself to be polite and make conversation for another hour. Hobbes was hooked, she thought; Fortescue had made a bargain and would keep it; Lady Morte had been shown the slippery slope that led to perdition and it was only a matter of time before she started down it. Augusta was relieved and satisfied.