aloysius parkinson is splendiferous at banking (splendiferously) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-10-11 18:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | biddie, lou parkinson |
Who: Lou Parkinson and Bedelia “Biddie” Linden
What: Lou delivers.
When: 3 October 1888 (BACKDATED)
Where: MPC London HQ
Rating: G
The truth was that Lou knew a bit more about MPC than he was letting on to most of his investors. Not as much as he'd like to, but he was leveraging what he did know to find out more. Specifically, he knew that Mrs Linden was as much of the brains behind MPC as the Captain, and he knew that she was going to take on some investors at his recommendation if he could find the right ones. And Katherine Foster, for all that Lou wanted to serve her interests, was one of the right ones. So after he'd talked to her, he arranged for a meeting with Mrs Linden at the London offices of MPC.
Oh, yes, he'd get that tour. For Katherine and everyone.
He found himself kicking his heels in the waiting room waiting for Mrs Linden. Lou might be a banker and a bit of a schemer, but he was also low in the ranks of power and influence and he knew it. It was his fate forever to be called and summoned and to answer, but not to be answered to.
Biddie had not been expecting to chat with anyone from Parkinson’s this week, but the time was available and, truth be told, it was one of the few official MPC transactions that she felt comfortable handling herself rather than farming out to Archie for posterity’s sake. Besides she rather like the banking house’s cut and set. They were so refreshingly frank about liking her money. It was an affection Biddie wholeheartedly shared.
Still, none of it meant she was above letting their young--very young--agent cool for a bit in the waiting room before asking her secretary to usher the boy in. She did, however, request for tea to be served in along with him.
She then proceed to greet the young agent with a characteristic asperity.
“What do you want, Lou?” Biddie said, not looking up from the map spread over her desk. “Our quarterly review isn’t for another two weeks and I’ve already sent your mother my apologies for skipping the--” She frowned suddenly, looking up. “That was your mother, wasn't it, with the flower mission?”
"Yes, and I'm sorry if she's being tiresome. But that's not what I'm here about." Lou waved her off because any apology would be pro forma rather than authentic. He might not care for being Biddie's messenger boy, but at least her refreshing lack of insincere politeness had its own appeal.
He got straight to the point: "You asked me some time ago to look for investors for MPC of the lycanthropic persuasion. I sketched out my plans as part of a broader bank effort to set up an investor programme for smaller accounts, in the hopes of finding you one or two more modest account holders who suit your purposes." Which he didn't know, but didn't seem to include any harm to the investors, so he was willing to do a little mutual back-scratching with Biddie to get the bank's account work.
"I believe I've found a young woman who suits your needs," Lou concluded.
Dear, dear boy, he’d brought her a present.
“Then this is a happy visit, after all,” Biddie said, one eyebrow up. She gestured curtly at a chair. “Sit down--somewhere. Just move whatever isn’t expressly weighted down, I’m going through some navigation anxiety.”
One of the ever helpful young things arrived with tea and apples rolls, and Biddie allowed for that pleasant task to be arranged (and the door firmly closed on the helpful darling’s exist) before speaking again.
“I take it she’s local, then. Black Pack?”
Lou took Biddie's offer of a seat, moving a stack of paperwork carefully in case it was something important that she'd need in the same order after he left.
"She didn't say. Her name is Katherine Foster. I told her I was going to see if I couldn't get a tour together--doesn't have to be of the works, an airship ride would do--so if I bring a group of small investors, you can get a good look at her without seeming to do so. Word has come to my ears that you're giving tours so that seemed an obvious way for you to meet her. Besides," and here Lou smiled, "I've got a motive of my own; I want to see the future in the air myself."
Biddie tapped her fingers against the desk in thought, the sound of it muffled by her gloves. “That’s easy enough to arrange, we can put her on--,” the fingers beat an offkey rhythm “--the Milon. It’s only running as far as Edinburgh.”
She picked up a long ledger bound in ochre and turned the pages, eyes running through columns. “We should do this month if possible, let me see now…”
Eyes still on the pages, Biddie said, “Have you considered investing on your own behalf, then? Independently I mean.” The brown eyes flickered up. “You’re a young man, after all. Time and a bit of common sense could bear fruit.”
She smiled then, sudden and bright. “Though I’ve got my own motive in making the offer.”
"It has occurred to me, Mrs Linden, but I thought I'd wait to see how--" not when "--you encouraged me." For all that Lou was a younger son, he was not without a trust and funds of his own. Biddie wouldn't know down to the shilling what his accounts were, but she probably had an idea. "Are you going to tell me what your motives are, beyond the obvious?" Because there were some obvious ones, not least of which was the security the bank's clients would feel in knowing that Lou believed enough in MPC to put his money where his mouth was.
“I’ll do no such things,” Biddie said smartly. “You know the numbers better than many and if you don’t, then you’d be a fool to admit it to me.”
She stood up and poured herself a cup of tea (the staff knew better than to leave pots on her desk next to wax and ink), then wrapped an apple roll to put in Lou’s hand. It was much like what she did with Archie (when he was ten).
“If you’ve a question about this business, you can ask me plainly.” She gave him a brisk pat on the shoulder. “Eat up.”
"Yes, ma'am." Lou found himself ducking his head a bit like a schoolboy taking a cuff from a master, but he was grinning anyroad. He went to work on the apple roll, also not unlike a schoolboy, pausing to add, "Of course I have a million questions, just not about the financials. I'm as curious as the next fellow, and I have to admit, I want to know what you're going to do when you win.
"I don't mean just the race, either," Lou added, to be clear.
Dear, dear, clever boy.
“I could try my hand at some mild opera, perhaps,” Biddie said lightly. “Buy and sell money. Perfect the edible bonnet. Reinvent cats. Expand the candied cardamom trade in Kiev.”
There was an antique armillary sphere mounted on a high stand by one of the bookshelves. Biddie ran two fingertips along one shining ring, nudging the spheres into motion.
“The point is, young man,” she said in that same mild tone, “that there’ll be plenty of options after I--” her mouth quirked ”--win. There’s no joy in imagining them all beforehand. This is a people business, Lou. And people are great sources of imagination, don’t you think?”
Lou swallowed the bite of apple roll he'd been chewing on, still grinning. "When you put it that way, Mrs Linden, I see your point. I shall stop wondering what you're planning and start coming up with a few plans of my own."
“Don’t overthink it, Lou.” Biddie said. She abandoned the armillary sphere in favor of picking up another ledger. “Now about the Byatt investment…”