rates, big lines, lunches, candlelit dinners in romantic restaurants, and offers to divorce their wives and marry her.
It was easy to tell if Arbella was on the Floor, and where, because of the buzz and posse of young ensorcelled admirers who followed her around, eager to watch and listen as she went through the rote of her broking presentations, share her aura, and benefit from the unaccustomed philanthropy of post-Arbella underwriters who had yet to come off the high of having her as a postulant, though it only be for a line on a risk, so close to them.
Mesmerized by her gazelle-like beauty, the grumpiest underwriter was transformed by the briefest encounter with her.
Whether Arbella was aware or not of the fascination she inspired was impossible to tell by those who observed her; but despite her polite smile it was clear to all, from her otherwise sphinx-like expression, that she neither was nor would be anyone’s minx. Fixated nonetheless the mariners were all wistful I-chabods, the glory of whose romantic aspirations departed with her.
Though most marine underwriters had never embarked on anything more saline and adventurous than a cross-Channel ferry, or sailed in a lagoon, they all believed that the Cerebos of the sea was in their blood. Though they may not have set foot on ship or boat or dinghy, or if they had, only for as long as it took to feel queasy and hop ashore before cast-off, or had done no more than float a model yacht on the lake in the park as children, they were attuned to the music of the main, and experienced its rolling motion—not just after lunch—and were inspired by the desire described by Masefield in his poem Sea Fever , to [go] “down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky...where the wind’s like a whetted knife”.
At heart they were like the little boy whose father takes him down to the docks and wharves for the first time, to smell the tar in the rigging of ships sliding at anchor, and spices from the Indies and Orient. Like the Sea Rat in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows , they saw the chests and bales being unloaded at the quayside, and sailors with gold rings in their ears descending gangways with unsteady feet and far-off eyes; with him they heard the keening gulls and saw the other rats running along the hawsers, and the ship’s cat curled on a barrel with his tail twitching, still dreaming of abroad.
From boy to man: now each was a healer from marine risk, a ship’s doctor.
Lloyd’s of London in the modern era, though still very conscious of its seafaring origins, was predominantly a market for protection against Acts of God: earthquake, windstorm, fire, tornado, volcanic eruption, flood, tsunami. It was there for farmers whose crops had been ruined by drought, and blight; and for the owners, and former owners, of jewellery, stamp and coin collections, vintage cars, and Stradivarius violins.
It insured churches, prize bulls, and carrier pigeons. It was also a market for every kind of legal liability, and the pioneer of professional indemnity coverage for lawyers, accountants, hospitals, doctors; for the surgeon who removed the wrong leg, or who botched repairing the finger of a concert pianist who had got too close to the blade of his lawnmower, and for the malpractising priest.
In the worst of all possible scenarios, when the triangulated lines of the actuarial charts of probability converged in a delta wing of impossibility, the last Lloyd’s underwriter left sitting ramrod straight at his box would stare at the unlimited policy he had bound himself for when Apocalypse was succeeded by Armageddon, shrug, toddle upstairs to his office and sign every claim cheque with a steady hand. Then, after telling his deputy that he had to take care of a few things, he would pawn his cuff-links and watch to keep the bailiffs from bothering his family for a few days.
Having invited his biggest Names down to his country house for the weekend, he would ply them
It was easy to tell if Arbella was on the Floor, and where, because of the buzz and posse of young ensorcelled admirers who followed her around, eager to watch and listen as she went through the rote of her broking presentations, share her aura, and benefit from the unaccustomed philanthropy of post-Arbella underwriters who had yet to come off the high of having her as a postulant, though it only be for a line on a risk, so close to them.
Mesmerized by her gazelle-like beauty, the grumpiest underwriter was transformed by the briefest encounter with her.
Whether Arbella was aware or not of the fascination she inspired was impossible to tell by those who observed her; but despite her polite smile it was clear to all, from her otherwise sphinx-like expression, that she neither was nor would be anyone’s minx. Fixated nonetheless the mariners were all wistful I-chabods, the glory of whose romantic aspirations departed with her.
Though most marine underwriters had never embarked on anything more saline and adventurous than a cross-Channel ferry, or sailed in a lagoon, they all believed that the Cerebos of the sea was in their blood. Though they may not have set foot on ship or boat or dinghy, or if they had, only for as long as it took to feel queasy and hop ashore before cast-off, or had done no more than float a model yacht on the lake in the park as children, they were attuned to the music of the main, and experienced its rolling motion—not just after lunch—and were inspired by the desire described by Masefield in his poem Sea Fever , to [go] “down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky...where the wind’s like a whetted knife”.
At heart they were like the little boy whose father takes him down to the docks and wharves for the first time, to smell the tar in the rigging of ships sliding at anchor, and spices from the Indies and Orient. Like the Sea Rat in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows , they saw the chests and bales being unloaded at the quayside, and sailors with gold rings in their ears descending gangways with unsteady feet and far-off eyes; with him they heard the keening gulls and saw the other rats running along the hawsers, and the ship’s cat curled on a barrel with his tail twitching, still dreaming of abroad.
From boy to man: now each was a healer from marine risk, a ship’s doctor.
Lloyd’s of London in the modern era, though still very conscious of its seafaring origins, was predominantly a market for protection against Acts of God: earthquake, windstorm, fire, tornado, volcanic eruption, flood, tsunami. It was there for farmers whose crops had been ruined by drought, and blight; and for the owners, and former owners, of jewellery, stamp and coin collections, vintage cars, and Stradivarius violins.
It insured churches, prize bulls, and carrier pigeons. It was also a market for every kind of legal liability, and the pioneer of professional indemnity coverage for lawyers, accountants, hospitals, doctors; for the surgeon who removed the wrong leg, or who botched repairing the finger of a concert pianist who had got too close to the blade of his lawnmower, and for the malpractising priest.
In the worst of all possible scenarios, when the triangulated lines of the actuarial charts of probability converged in a delta wing of impossibility, the last Lloyd’s underwriter left sitting ramrod straight at his box would stare at the unlimited policy he had bound himself for when Apocalypse was succeeded by Armageddon, shrug, toddle upstairs to his office and sign every claim cheque with a steady hand. Then, after telling his deputy that he had to take care of a few things, he would pawn his cuff-links and watch to keep the bailiffs from bothering his family for a few days.
Having invited his biggest Names down to his country house for the weekend, he would ply them
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