Piccadilly: A Fragment of Contemporary Biography

by Laurence Oliphant

"Lord Staggerton was one of the promoters, and had them allotted to me," said Lady Broadhem. "He also was kind enough to put me into two Turkish baths, a monster hotel, and a music-hall. You will see that I lost heavily in the Turkish baths and the hotel, but the music-hall is paying well. Spiffy says I ought never to stay so long in anything as I do; in and out again, if it is only half a per cent, is his system; but Staggerton used to look after my interests, and managed them very successfully. I am afraid that all my troubles commenced when I quarrelled with him. He is now promoting two companies which I hear most highly spoken of, but he says I must take my chance with others about shares, and he won't advise me in the matter. One is 'The Metropolitan Crossing-Sweeping Company,' of which he's to be chairman, and the other is the 'Seaside Bathing-Machine Company.' Spiffy says they will both fail, because Staggerton has not the means of having them properly brought out. Bodwinkle won't speak to him, and unless either he or the Credit Foncier bring a thing out, there is not the least chance of its taking with the public. They don't so much look at the merits of the speculation as at the way in which it is put before them; and with this system of rigging the market, so many people go in like me only to get out again, that it is becoming more and more difficult every day to start anything new. Oh dear," said Lady Broadhem, "how exhausted it always makes me to talk 'City!' I only want to show you that I understand what I am about, and that if you can only help to tide me over this crisis, something will surely turn up a prize."

"I know you disapprove of cards, but perhaps you will allow me to suggest the word 'trump' as being more expressive than 'prize,'" I said. "Well, now we have got through the companies, what have we here? Why, Lady Broadhem, you have positively taken no less than seven unfurnished houses this year. What on earth do you intend to do with them all?"

"My dear Frank, where have you been living for the last few years? Do with them? Exactly what dozens of smart people, with very little to live on, do with houses—let them, to be sure. I made £1100 last year in four houses, and all by adding it on to the premiums. I don't like furnishing and putting it in the rent. In the first place, one is apt to have disagreeable squabbles about the furniture, which, however good you give people, they always say is shabby; and in the second, you get much more into the hands of the house-agents."

"Well, but," I said, "here is one of the largest houses in London—rent, unfurnished, £1500 a-year. That is rather hazardous: who do you expect will take that?"

"Oh, that is the safest speculation of them all," said Lady Broadhem. "I had an infinity of trouble to get it. Spiffy first suggested the plan to me, and we found it succeed admirably last year. It was we who brought out Mrs Gorgon Tompkins and her daughters. She took the house from me at my own rent on condition that Spiffy managed her balls, and got all the best people in London to go to them. This year we are going to bring out the Bodwinkles. It will be much easier, because she is young, and has no family. He, you know, is a man of immense wealth in the City—in fact, as I said before, his name is almost essential to the success of any new company. I told his wife I could have nothing to do with them unless he came into Parliament, for they are horridly vulgar, and they were bound to do what they could for themselves before I could think of taking them up. Lady Mundane positively refused to have anything to do with them, and, in fact, I live so little in the world, though I keep it up to some extent for the sake of my girls, that it was quite an accident my hearing of them. Now, however, he has got into the House of Commons, and it is arranged that she is to take the house, and Bodwinkle is to help Spiffy in City matters, on condition that he gets all Lady Mundane's list to her first party. Poor Spiffy is a little nervous, as Bodwinkle actually wanted to put it in writing on a stamped paper; but he is so immensely useful to society, that the least people can do is to be good-natured on an occasion of this kind."

"No fear of them," said I; "if Bodwinkle is the only man who can launch a company in the City, no one can compete with Spiffy in launching a snob in Mayfair. But I thought you never went to balls."

"I never do; but because I do not approve of dancing, there is no reason why I should not let houses for the purpose. You might as well say a religious banker ought not to open an account with a theatre, or a good brewer live by his beer, because some people drink too much of it. If any one was to leave a gin-palace to me in a legacy, I should not refuse the rent."

"Any more than you do the interest of your shares in the music-hall. And now," said I, coolly, gathering up all her papers and putting them in my pocket, "as it is past one o'clock, and I see you are tired, I will take these away with me, and let you know to-morrow what I think had better be done under the circumstances."

"What are you doing, Frank? what an unheard-of proceeding! I insist upon your leaving my papers here."

"If I do, you must look elsewhere for the money. No, Lady Broadhem"—I felt that my moral ascendancy was increasing every moment, and that I should never have such another opportunity of establishing it—"we had better understand each other clearly. You regard me at this moment in the light of your future son-in-law, and in that capacity expect me to extricate you and your family from your financial difficulties. Now I am quite capable of 'behaving badly,' as the world calls it, at the shortest notice. I told you at Dickiefield that I was totally without principle, and we are both trusting to Ursula to reform me. But I will relinquish the pleasure of paying your debts, and the advantage of being reformed by your daughter, unless you agree to my terms."