She smiled again, this time more broadly, then shook her head. “The sad truth of it is, Mr. Weaver, that I have always liked you very much. I believe things might have been very different if you had liked me. Not desired me, sir, the way a man may desire a whore whose name he never cares to learn, but harbored for me those feelings I was inclined to harbor for you.”
And so it was that she left me. With a glorious swish of her skirts she departed on that note of finality, so well suited to close a tragic stage play. She delivered her line with such strength that I believed indeed it was the last time I should have dealings with her, and I was inclined to think on my words, if not my conduct, with much regret. As it happened, however, this interview was not the last time I was to see Miss Celia Glade. Indeed, it was not even the last time I would see her that day.
ELIAS ARRIVED WITHIN half an hour of the time he had promised, which I considered very amiable for him. Indeed, I did not mind his lateness, for it gave me some time to regain my composure and to attempt to set aside the sadness I felt after Miss Glade’s visit.
I did not allow Elias to linger long, and we soon took a hackney to Craven House.
“How is it,” he asked me, “that we will be able to enter at will a meeting of the Court of Proprietors? Will they not turn us away at the door?”
I laughed. “Who would attempt to attend such a meeting without business? The very idea is absurd. There could be nothing more tedious and of less interest to the general public than a meeting of the East India Company.”
My understanding of those meetings was quite right, though in recent years we have seen that these meetings have become the subject of much public interest, theatrical rancor, and coverage by the papers. In 1722, however, even the most desperate paragraph writer would choose to fish optimistically in the most unfashionable Covent Garden coffeehouse rather than seek out news in so dull a place as a Craven House Court of Proprietors meeting. Had one such paragraph writer been there that day, however, he would have found his optimism well rewarded.
As I predicted, no one thought to question that we belonged there. We were both dressed in gentlemanly attire, so we fit in with the other hundred and fifty or so dark-suited types who filled the meeting hall. We were conspicuous only in being younger and less portly than the majority.
The meeting was held in a room that had been constructed for the specific purpose of these quarterly events. I had been in the room before, and it had struck me as having the sad emptiness of a deserted theater, but now it was full of life—sluggish, torpid life though it might be. Few of the members of the Court appeared particularly interested in the proceedings. They milled about, gossiping with one another. More than a few had fallen asleep in their seats. One man, among the few younger than myself, appeared to occupy himself by memorizing Latin verse. Some ate food they had brought with them, and one intrepid sextet had actually carried in a few bottles of wine and pewter tankards.
There was an elevated platform at the front and, upon it, a podium. When we entered the room a member of the Court of Proprietors was busy holding forth on the merits of a particular colonial governor whose worth had been questioned. As it turned out, this governor was also the nephew of one of the principal shareholders, and opinions ran, if not exactly hot, then at least toward the lukewarm.
Elias and I took seats in the back, and he immediately slouched into his chair and pulled his hat low. “I rather hate an anticlimax,” he said. “Please be so good as to wake me if anything happens.”
“You may leave if you like,” I told him, “but if you stay, you must stay awake. I need someone to entertain me.”
“Or you shall surely fall asleep yourself, I suppose. Tell me, Weaver, what do you expect to happen?”
“I’m not entirely certain. Perhaps our actions will have no perceptible consequences, but there has been much coming to a head. And, most importantly, Mr. Ellershaw’s fate hangs in the balance today. Forester will make a case against him, and even if the hand of Celia Glade is not visible in the outcome, even if the business with Cobb turns out to be irrelevant, I wish to see for myself how it plays out.”
“And for this I must stay awake?” he asked. “That’s not what I call friendship.”
“Neither is attempting to bed the woman I like,” I noted.
“I say, Weaver, I thought we had agreed not to speak of that anymore.”
“Except when I am attempting to manipulate you into behaving as I wish. Then I shall bring it up.”
“It’s rather rotten of you. How long do you plan to play me so?”
“For the rest of your life, Elias. If I don’t make light of it, it shall surely turn sour.”
He nodded. “I cannot argue with that. But I notice you say the rest of my life, not the rest of yours. Have you some secret of longevity I have not learned?”
“Yes. Not attempting to bed women desired by one’s friends. You must try it sometime.”
He was about to answer when I held up my hand.
“Hold,” I said. “I would hear this.”
One member of the Court of Proprietors, whose task it appeared to be to act as a sort of formal master of ceremonies, was in the process of informing the room that Mr. Forester, of the Court of Committees, needed to address the room on a matter of rather urgent business.
I suspected that when a gentleman wished to address the length of nails used in crates it was described as a matter of urgent business, for no one took particular notice. The sleepers dozed, the diners dined, the chatters chatted, and the scholar studied. My attention, however, was firmly upon the podium.
“Gentlemen,” Forester began, “I am afraid that there are two matters of urgent business upon which I am to speak today. One bodes well for the future of the Company, should we manage it well. The other is rather more unpleasant, and though I am loath to mention it at all, I fear it is my duty. But let us attend to productive things first.”
Forester signaled to a servant I had not seen before, who dashed over with a decorative lacquered box, swirling with gold and red and black, surely a product of the Orient. Upon the top was a handle in the shape of an elephant, and Forester lifted it and handed the top back to the servant. From the box itself he took out a compact roll of cloth. With this in hand, he returned the remainder of the box to the servant, who dashed off. Clearly there had been no need for the box at all, but I saw that Forester was a man who liked his drama, and I began to sense we would now observe a rather fascinating performance.
“I hold in my hand the future of the East India Company,” Forester announced. “As I need not tell you, it was one of the most disappointing moments in our organization’s history when Parliament passed the legislation making the domestic sale of India cloth so problematic. We are but weeks away from being forced to bar access to the cloth in our warehouses to our own citizens. Though there have been efforts to expand the markets for the few remaining cloths we may sell, the truth is that our Company failed to mount a proportionate counterattack to the wool interest, and now we may soon find ourselves with declining revenues. I will speak more of that later.”
I had no doubt, for Forester wished to lay the blame squarely upon Ellershaw’s shoulders, and unless Ellershaw could credibly promise a repeal of the legislation, his days were surely numbered.
“What has happened in Parliament is surely terrible,” he said, “and there have been rumors of more terrible developments to come. We have all heard it. There is a new engine, it is said, one capable of turning American cotton into an exact replica of India cloth—every bit as light and comfortable and elegant. Certainly the domestic dyeing industry has been perfecting its trade for years, and much of the India cloth enjoyed in this kingdom has been dyed here, so that if this American cotton could be spun in the mythic engine and then dyed here, it would be impossible for the consumer to tell the difference. I have no doubt that the experts of Craven House could find the slight variances, but not the consumers. Such an engine could mean the end of our cloth trade with the East.”