Description
Fifty-eight. Thirty-one years in Bengal, nineteen of them holding the Wentworth account, and it is the most distinguished thing about him. Small, neat, damp at the collar, with the careful courtesy of a man who has spent three decades being slightly less important than everyone he deals with.
His office off Clive Street is scrupulously tidy. His clerks are well treated. He offers excellent Madeira and produces summary accounts in a beautiful fair hand, and if you ask him a direct question he will answer a slightly different one, warmly, at length, and then ask after your father’s health.
Background
Came out at twenty-seven, too old to become anybody. Never rose into the covenanted service, never made a fortune, never went home. He handles private accounts for absentee families in England who have Indian money and no way to watch it, and he has been scrupulously honest for most of his career because nothing ever tempted him.
Then the indigo began to fail, and Mullick invited him to bring the Wentworth capital into the merchant consortium’s godown syndicate, and for the first time in his life Crispin Pargeter was asked to sit at the table rather than stand near it.
Connections
- Emma Wentworth, Georgiana Wentworth — His clients’ daughters, arriving without warning
- Baijnath Mullick — Brought him into the syndicate
In Play
Chapter 4, Session 10 (9–10 October 1814) — the sisters came alone, and he named Mullick. Emma and Georgiana called at his office off Clive Street with no man in the party. He gave them tea and Madeira, tried “man’s business” and the point that he answers only to Sir Nathaniel, and was pressed past it. He explained the move from the failing Nadia indigo into a godown syndicate on The Strand at better returns, said the funds were “temporarily engaged” in a reinvestment call, and that he had not written because the matter would be resolved before a letter could go and come back. The ledgers he produced were hard to decipher. Georgiana read fear and rehearsal under the smooth surface, and pressed further he named Baijnath Mullick as the syndicate’s head. He agreed to write a letter to Sir Nathaniel explaining the position, which the sisters will carry themselves. On the way out Georgiana noticed several other pigeonholes as thin or empty as the Wentworths’, all bearing English family names (Pargeter Interview Clive Street).
Appearances
Connections
People
Knows
- Baijnath Mullick NPC warmMullick brought him into the godown syndicate2 sessions, The Third Course to By Command of His Excellency
Serves
- Emma Wentworth Player character hostileHas managed the Wentworth Indian interests for nineteen years2 sessions, The Third Course to By Command of His Excellency
Places
Headquartered at
- Pargeter and Co Location neutralHis agency house; the upstairs room is his own1 session: The Third Course
Located at
- Calcutta 1814 Location neutralResident in Calcutta for thirty-one years
Events
Participated in
- Pargeter Interview Clive Street Event hostileReceived two ladies with no man in the room and answered them anyway, in the end