The wine was brought; I accepted a glass; Louisa's maid appeared to report that Mrs. Seagrave was unchanged, however much vinegar might be pressed into her temples; and Mr. Hill was urged to a second round of Madeira. His thin face took on a bit of colour, and his small eyes did not lose their gleam.
“I often think that had I spurned the world of physick, and the adventure of the seas, I should have loved nothing so well as a tidy solicitor's office, and the management of sundry affairs,” he observed. “Three or four families, in a country village—provided they be sufficiently rich or eccentric to involve the affairs of a multitude—is the very thing to work on. And so we come to the Viscount.”
“I gather that he made some mention of Mrs. Seagrave in the will?” said Frank impatiently.
“So it is rumoured. The actual reading of the testament will not occur, to be sure, until after the Viscount is interred—and that is not to happen until Tuesday. But speculation is rife, I fear, and the Viscount's solicitors have not been as chary with intelligence as his lordship might have wished. Are you at all familiar with the gentleman?”
I shook my head.
“He was a very warm man, I believe,” said Frank.
“So warm as to be positively scalding,” agreed Mr. Hill. “Viscount Luxford inherited a very handsome fortune at his ascendancy, but rather than going immediately to ruin in the pursuit of horses, gambling hells, or the improvement of his estate—he engaged in speculation.”
“Which is merely gambling by a different name,” my brother observed.
“But a happier one, in Luxford's case. He first commissioned the building of a crescent, to the designs of Nash,1 on property long held by the family in Mayfair; the buildings, when sold, garnered a fortune. This in turn he ploughed back into commerce, by investing in ships. Luxford money has long been a considerable force in the management of the Honourable East India Company. More tea has come to England in Luxford's
holds, and more opium gone from India to China, than might fill all of Southampton.”
“Opium!” I cried.
“Naturally. It is a vital part of our triangular trade— though one we may hesitate to mention in polite circles. By consigning the vice to China, however unwillingly she might accept it, we may congratulate ourselves on remaining untainted.”
“How dreadful, that the Viscount's daughter should now be enthralled to the very abuse he has encouraged.”
“There are many hypocrisies inherent in trade, Miss Austen—and chief among them is the notion that noblemen never engage in it. They may not build their own ships or purchase their own cargoes; they call themselves investors rather than merchants; but they thrive in the mercantile world as happily as the Fashionable one.”
“And so we may take it that Viscount Luxford was exceedingly wealthy at the time of his death,” Frank persisted.
Mr. Hill nodded. “One of perhaps three or four of the richest men in England. There was talk of an earldom just last month, before Luxford took ill.”
Frank let out a faint whistle. “And yet he cut his daughter off without a farthing when she married Seagrave.”
“To say that she was cut off is not entirely exact.” Mr. Hill pressed a napkin delicately to his lips, as though to contain his own huge excitement. “I believe the Viscount lived in fear of his daughter's marrying a worthless adventurer, and we may judge him to have regarded Seagrave in such a light Her portion was no less than an hundred thousand pounds, along with some considerable property in Berkshire, that came to her through her mother's line.”
“Her portion!” I said. “But Louisa is his only child. Is the bulk of the estate entailed upon heirs male? Shall it go to a cousin, perhaps?”
“I am coming to that,” Mr. Hill informed me. “Luxford settled this marriage portion upon his daughter with the express provision that she must marry with his blessing.”
“Louisa eloped,” I told him.
“And was thrown off by her family. I am afraid that the Viscount took then-Lieutenant Seagrave in such violent dislike, that he sought to be punitive in the management of his daughter's affairs. Louisa's marriage portion was made over to her issue, inheritable only upon her husband's death,”
“The sole purpose being to keep the property from Tom,” Frank said.
“Exacdy. And so we proceed to the Viscount's entire estate—which, according to the knowledgeable fellows at the Morning Gazette, is estimated in the millions of pounds. If Louisa