Missy arrived at the front door of Mon Repos about ten o’clock, hampered by a large and exceedingly well wrapped parcel which she carried rather gingerly by a string loop. Had the butler any idea of the consternation already reigning in the small drawing room, it is doubtful whether Missy would have got any further than the front stoop, but luckily the butler did not have any idea, and so was able to contribute his mite to the general atmosphere of disaster.
The small drawing room, not really small, was nonetheless rather full of very large people when Missy sidled round the door with her parcel on its string. Aunt Aurelia was there, and Uncle Edmund, and Alicia, and Ted and Randolph, and the third Sir William, and his son and heir, Little Willie; Lady Billy was not there, as she was assisting a mare to foal.
“I don’t understand it!” Edmund Marshall was saying as Missy gave the butler a smile and a gesture which indicated she would announce herself as soon as maybe. “I just don’t understand it! How could so many shares escape us? How? And who the hell sold them and who the hell bought them?”
“As far as my agents can gather,” said the third Sir William, “every share not held by a Hurlingford proper was bought up for many times its actual value, and then the mystery buyer began to make inroads on shares held by Hurlingfords. How or when or why I don’t know, but he managed to discover every Hurlingford in need of money and every Hurlingford not tied to Byron, and he made offers no one could refuse.”
“It’s ridiculous!” cried Ted. “For the sort of money he’s been paying, there’s absolutely no way he can ever recoup his outlay. I mean, the Byron Bottle Company is a very nice little enterprise, but it’s not gold we’re taking out of the ground, nor is it the elixir of life! Yet the prices he’s been paying are the sort of prices a speculator might pay on receipt of an infallible tip that the ground is solid gold.”
“I agree with all that,” said Sir William, “but I can’t give you an answer, because I just don’t know it.”
“Are we reduced to minority shareholders, Uncle Billy, is that what you’re trying to say?” asked Alicia, who was fully acquainted with the practices and terminology of the business world – and a not inconsiderable shareholder in the Byron Bottle Company herself, since Chez Chapeau Alicia had put capital in her hands and an acquisitive nature had tempted her into the safer realms of speculation.
“Good God, no, not yet!” cried Sir William; then, with less confidence, he added, “However, I admit it’s going to be touch and go unless we can either stem the tide of shares we’re losing, or buy more ourselves.”
“Aren’t there any stray small shareholders living here in Byron whom we can get to first?” asked Randolph.
“A few, Hurlingfords on the distaff side mostly, and two or three of the old maids who accidentally inherited shares they weren’t really entitled to. Naturally they’ve never been paid a dividend.”
“How did you manage that, Uncle Billy?” asked Randolph.
Sir William snorted. “What do they know about shares, silly old biddies like Cornelia and Julia and Octavia? I didn’t want them thinking they were hanging onto something valuable, so as well as never paying them a dividend, I told them the shares were worthless because they belonged by rights to Maxwell and Herbert. However, rather than make a big fuss, I merely told them they could best rectify the mistake by willing the shares to the sons of Maxwell and Herbert.”
“Clever!” said Alicia admiringly.
Sir William gave her one of his hot lusting glances; she was beginning to wonder privately how easy it was going to be to keep Uncle Billy at arm’s length after she married and moved into Hurlingford Lodge – but cross that bridge later.
“We’ll have to acquire the old maids’ shares now,” said Edmund Marshall, looking very gloomy. “Though, Billy, I must be frank and admit that I don’t know how I’m going to find any ready money. I’d have to retrench drastically, which would be most disagreeable for my family – Alicia’s wedding, you know.”
“I’m in the same boat myself, old man,” said Sir William, the words sticking in his gullet. “It’s all this flap over a big war in Europe, dammit! Rumour-mongering is all!”
“Why buy the shares?” asked Alicia, just the smallest tinge of contempt for their stupidity in her voice. “All you have to do is go to Auntie Cornie and Auntie Julie and Auntie Octie and ask! They’ll hand them over without a murmur!”
“All right, we can do that with those three, and with Drusilla as well, I imagine. What on earth possessed Malcolm Hurlingford to leave shares to his daughters, I ask you? He always was soft over his girls, though thank God Maxwell and Herbert don’t take after their father in that regard.” Sir William sighed impatiently. “A pretty pickle we’re in! Even if, as Alicia says, the old biddies hand over their shares without a murmur, we’ve still got to deal with the various ne’er-do-wells and half-Hurlingfords who most certainly won’t want to part with what shares they have for nothing. Oh, we’ll manage, I have no doubt, just as long as they don’t get wind of the mystery buyer. Because we can’t match his prices.”
“What can we sell in a hurry to raise cash?” asked Alicia crisply.
They all turned to look at her, and Missy, as yet quite unnoticed, shifted stealthily from her spot in front of the door (against which her brown dress and person didn’t show at all) to a safer spot behind one of the potted Kentia palms Aunt Aurelia had placed everywhere inside her lovely house.
“There’s Lady Billy’s bloody horses, for a start,” said Sir William with relish.
“My jewels,” said Aurelia with great resolution.
“And my jewels,” said Alicia with a nasty look at her mother for getting in first.
“The thing is,” said Edmund, “that this mystery buyer, whoever he – or they – might be, seems to know more about who owns shares in the Byron Bottle Company than we do, and we’re the board of directors! When I consulted our list of shareholders I discovered that in a great many cases the shares had passed from the person listed as owning them into other hands, mostly sons or nephews, admittedly, but strange hands nonetheless. It never occurred to me that any Hurlingford would sign away his birthright this side of death!”
“Times are changing,” sighed Aurelia. “When I was a girl, Hurlingford clannishness was a legend. Nowadays it seems as if some of the young Hurlingfords don’t give a tuppenny bumper about the family.”
“They’ve been spoiled,” said Sir William. He cleared his throat, slapped his hands on his thighs, and said with great decision, “All right, I suggest we leave matters as they stand over the weekend, then on Monday we get down to raising some cold hard cash.”
“Who is to approach the aunties?” asked Ted.
“Alicia,” said Sir William instantly. “Only not until a bit closer to her wedding, I think. That way she can hoodwink them into thinking they’re giving her a wedding present.”
“Won’t the mystery buyer get to them first?” asked Ted, who always worried about everything, and so had drifted into accounting quite naturally.
“One thing you can be absolutely sure of, Ted, is that none of those silly old chooks would dream of parting with anything Hurlingford to anyone outside the family without first asking me or Herbert. The buyer could offer them a fortune, and they’d still insist upon consulting me or Herbert first.” So positive was Sir William of his ground on this point that he smiled when he said it.
Taking advantage of the general mêlée as several worried and overwrought people endeavoured to find the right way to break off their meeting, Missy slid out the door and came back inside very noisily. And they all noticed her at once, though none of them looked pleased to see her.
“What do you want?” asked Alicia rudely.
