Chapter 5 #2
“I do have a bit of the poppy somewhere in the larder if you’re in pain,” Hope said.
“Thank you, but no. To exert myself felt good at the time. What shall we do about this house, Hope?”
To be Hope to an adult male, not Mrs. Burdette or Widow Burdette, required an adjustment, a small step away from being defined by bereavement and lack rather than by one’s own identity.
Edwin would have told her that it was past time to take those steps. “We shall be grateful for shelter of any kind, given the present weather.” Hope was dodging a significant issue, but she truly did not want to turn Joshua out with no place to go. “Will peppermint tea do?”
“Splendidly. I have a proposal regarding this dwelling.”
Hope swung the kettle over the coals, fished out two peppermint sachets from the tin holding her store, and took down the two best mugs.
“I might have to consult with my solicitor regarding any proposals. Mr. Peters has been a font of knowledge and good judgment so far. I do believe that when my mortgage payments are late, he makes the payment on time for me and lets me catch up without demanding any interest. I know the bank expects interest and fees and whatnot.”
Joshua set the sugar bowl on the table. “This is a valuable property in a good neighborhood. Whatever the extent of the mortgage, the property has appreciated substantially since Edwin purchased it—if he purchased it.”
“Which he did. I raised that topic of the house’s value with Mr. Peters, and he said the press wants everybody to think London is prospering, that Town is growing by leaps and bounds, and the streets are paved with gold.
He claims the reality is different. That few people have enough coin to afford a place like this, and I should not expect to make a great deal on the sale. ”
But she would make something. He’d assured her of that.
“More and more families have enough coin to purchase a nice house, Hope. Many prospered during the war and learned to do it without relying on agriculture for their income. The Corn Laws will keep the gentry flush for a while, and they are always shopping for Town properties.”
Before the kettle could whistle in earnest and wake Holly, Hope took it off the fire and poured two steaming mugs. The aroma of peppermint filled the kitchen, a reminder that in warmer seasons, the back garden did more than look pretty.
“Every time I ask Mr. Peters if the market is right to sell this house, he has a reason not to let it go yet. I think he fears Holly and I will be homeless, which…”
Joshua took both mugs to the table. “Which…?”
“Isn’t likely, but I don’t see that we can afford to live here much longer. I have family in the shires who would probably look after Holly if I begged them to.” Probably, assuming they still lived at the last address Hope had for them. “What is your proposal?”
She joined Joshua at the table as the cat departed from his place on the hearth and strode across the corridor into the darkened bedroom. He’d climb on the bed and snuggle up to Holly, and she’d sleep a little more warmly for his presence.
“You worry about that lazy beast,” Joshua said, putting a lump of sugar into each mug. “I do believe Mrs. Colchester might take him in.”
Holly worried about Heifer, and thus Hope worried for him doubly. “Mrs. Colchester would not be caught dead with a creature of such low repute in her pantry.”
“He’s handsome, dignified, and behaves himself. Doesn’t claw the curtains, never messes in the house, repels mice with his mere presence. If you asked her, one widow to another, she’d aid you, and you’d be doing her a favor as well. I suspect she’s quite lonely.”
Hope sipped the tea, savoring both the sweetness and the bracing aroma of peppermint. “You might be right. How do you know such things?”
“I have been in trade for years, in the financial end of trade. People make a choice about how they react to hardship and lack. Some rise to the challenge, sharing what little they have, sparing a kind word if they can’t spare anything more.
Others are diminished by their straitened circumstances.
Still others are diminished by improved circumstances.
Their good fortune provokes in them such a fear of losing what they have that they become worse misers than they ever were when poor. ”
“I am not poor. Edwin used to say that a lack of coin did not make one poor. A lack of imagination and the freedom to use it were the worse deprivations.”
“And yet,” Joshua said, gaze on the dwindling pile of lumps in the sugar bowl, “Edwin’s daughter and his cat and his widow must eat. Are you ever angry with him?”
Not a question Hope had been asked before. “Furious, from time to time. Any number of people told me I was married to a genius, but the genius could not keep a ledger to save himself, nor would he allow me to do the requisite bookkeeping.”
Hope told herself to stop there, then told herself that Joshua could be trusted with the truth.
“Edwin was the most playful, endearing papa a girl ever had, but if Holly had been naughty, that was always for me to deal with even if dear Papa had instigated the bad behavior. He would go for walks, be gone for hours in all weather, and tell me that he needed to move to think sometimes. In truth, he needed to get away from a colicky baby or a wife who had a megrim coming on. He’d be over at the Ocelot telling stories by the hour. ”
“And then,” Joshua said, “he’d shut himself in a room and beg to be allowed to sit for hours, because he needed solitude and a comfortable chair to think at other times.
My wife was a fanatic about dust. Maureen kept all the chairs and sofas in the public rooms covered nearly all the time.
What is the sense in having pretty furniture if it must be shrouded in Holland covers six days a week? ”
True male bewilderment colored Joshua’s question.
“But somehow,” Hope said, “you grasped that dust was an enemy she could subdue, so you did not begrudge her her victories. Does it feel disloyal to criticize her?”
Joshua peered at his tea. “Not as disloyal as it once did. I loved her, and I cherish her memory, but she was human, as I was, and am. I think it’s a mistake to glorify a past that was precious and lovely, but imperfect.
Maureen warned me not to climb into the grave with her. She was very brave, very principled.”
And fierce, apparently, at least where dust and a beloved husband were concerned. “She sounds well worth missing.”
“As does your Edwin. Maureen also admonished me not to put her memory on any pedestals. How did we get on this subject?”
“The cat, Mrs. Colchester, Edwin’s ghost making me angry. You are avoiding this proposal you’ve mentioned about the house.”
And Hope had allowed Joshua to meander away from the topic. She did not want to charge him rent—they’d eaten today and would eat for several more days because of his ingenuity and hard work—but she also did not want him getting too comfortable at a residence he had no right to occupy.
And yet, to have a conversation that was neither hurried nor particularly pragmatic was a rare luxury, to have a confidant more precious still, and Hope frankly did not care what Edwin’s ghost had to say regarding either topic.
“I left England in something of a hurry,” Joshua said, setting down his mug. “My business partner had recently married, much was in flux, and my decision to travel had about it a now-or-never quality.”
Like Hope’s decision to marry Edwin, oddly enough. She’d been so anxious that some clever idea would seize his attention, and all thoughts of courtship and matrimony would fly from his head.
“Did your business partner marry well?” she asked.
Joshua’s lips quirked. “Very well, better than he knew, and the extent of his good fortune was becoming more apparent to him by the day—and night. Quinn and Jane were fashioned for each other by providence itself. If anything, marriage made his head for business more astute when he was nigh unparalleled in his expertise to begin with. A fanatic for financial dealings.”
“You are not a fanatic?” And what did a profession in financial dealings involve, anyway? Wentworth and Penrose was a London bank, but Joshua could hardly be associated with that institution when he’d been overseas for years.
“I am not a fanatic, and it’s probably more accurate to say that Quinn is an artist. I am a dedicated appreciator of the financial arts and competent as a result. A large part of my job was managing Quinn, and once Jane got her mitts on him, I was surplus to requirements.”
He finished his tea and set his mug aside, his expression puzzled.
“Are you figuring this out only now?” How much of Hope’s job had been managing Edwin? How much did she miss that job, and how much did she miss the merry, impecunious, often-distracted man she’d married?
“I am figuring out my motives from a new perspective,” Joshua said. “I see now that I haven’t wanted to intrude on their happiness. I also haven’t wanted their happiness to intrude on my sorrow.”
“Ah. Widows have a different challenge. We are stashed away with little but our grief to keep us company for at least a year, and for that whole time, we’re spared any semblance of functioning, at least in theory.
Among the lower orders, where I now number, the theory is quite useless.
I imagine your Maureen hadn’t the luxury of moping about for years.
Men, by contrast, are given almost no time to grieve.
Both approaches strike me as disrespectful to the person suffering the loss. ”
“Disrespectful. Good word. Unfeeling, and indicative of a society trying to elude its own mortality. More hot water?”
“No, thank you. Tell me what you have in mind for the house?”