Crescent City by Belva Plain

Author:Belva Plain [Plain, Belva]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780307574497
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-06-15T14:00:00+00:00

“I have a letter from David,” Miriam told Emma later that day. “Perhaps you will tell my father that he’s safe in New York. I can’t talk about it anymore.”

Later still Emma came to report. “He didn’t say a word, but he looked very relieved. A father is a father, after all.”

True. And the anger would pass. The pain might well last, but the anger would ease away. Ferdinand was not a man to hold on to it forever.

16

Gabriel Carvalho closed the ledger with a smart thud and leaned back on the sofa. Often they went over the quarterly accounts of Mendes and Company in the comfort of Rosa’s parlor, combining this business with Miriam’s social visit to Rosa.

“So,” he said, “a job nicely done. Mendes is solvent. Very much so, I should say.”

“Only because of you.”

“Not so. You have caught on wonderfully well.”

It was true. Miriam had astonished herself. With Scofield replaced by an honorable, bright young manager who had no objection to working with a Mrs. instead of a Mr., she had “gone back to school,” as it were, and found it exciting. Having learned from Ferdinand’s failure and from Eugene’s prior example, she had as soon as possible paid off the debts which Scofield had piled up. Recently she had even begun to invest in real estate, prime vacant land alongside the railroad. Railroads wül develop as the city grows; they are bound to, she had thought. And Sanderson the manager had agreed.

“I had an idea,” she began now, and stopped.

It was far easier to express herself to Sanderson than to Gabriel. There was too much unspoken between herself and him: the affair with David, and Eugene’s taunt, retracted, it was true, but not forgotten by her: He can’t take his eyes away from you. Absurd! The truth was, he seldom looked at her at all; when his head wasn’t bent over documents, his eyes were directed at the wall behind her head. She was quite certain that this behavior was not due to any shyness; he was too positive to be shy; rather, he was austere, kind but austere. One wondered whether he and any woman would—her thoughts stumbled, ashamed of themselves—what he and a woman would … But with André it was all clear, all vivid; one could imagine.

“You were saying you had an idea.”

She retrieved the idea. “Yes, I was thinking, do you suppose we might offer Sanderson an interest in the business? He’d have more incentive than one can have with just a salary.”

“And I was thinking of suggesting that myself. You’re a step ahead of me. Soon I shall have to run to keep up with you.”

“Oh, no, there’s so much I don’t understand! All that business about bank stocks, Sanderson was trying to explain.”

“Why they’re a sound investment? Because banks have to be exceptionally strong in this economy. Planters need big loans to keep themselves afloat between harvests.”

“But why is it so hard to keep themselves afloat?”

“They have to modernize. It costs money to run a plantation.

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