Chapter 9 #2
She started packing on Sunday, and organizing what she was sending to London.
She had no reason to linger in Manchester now.
It was no longer her home, and even if he had left the house to her, she didn’t want to stay in Manchester without him.
She had lost her job as his wife on the day he died.
She knew without a doubt she would never marry again.
She wasn’t a spinster now, she was a widow, which gave her a little more respectability and almost as little power.
A woman without a husband was a pariah in society, and she doubted she would be invited anywhere, except by those who claimed they had missed her during her folly of a marriage, in their eyes, who would invite her to tea out of pity.
She didn’t care. She preferred to stay alone, and was thinking of staying in Hampshire for her year of mourning.
It would be lonely but peaceful, and she knew she would be lonely anywhere.
Bert had filled her life to the brim with happiness, love, and interesting activity. All of that was over now.
* * *
On Monday morning, Victoria was dressed and ready for William Eckles when he arrived for the reading of the will.
Seamus showed him into the drawing room.
She didn’t know how many people were coming, since she didn’t know how many people were mentioned in the will, and the attorney hadn’t told her.
But there was plenty of seating in the large room, and Patrick, the chef, had tea and biscuits for everyone, and scones with clotted cream and jam that he made himself.
Victoria came downstairs immediately when she heard the attorney arrive, and Seamus had just set the tea tray down.
It was a silver service of her father’s she had brought with her from London, which Bert had loved.
He had grown up in comfortable middle-class circumstances, but had a fondness as he grew older for the beautiful things that were commonplace to her.
The Oldbrookes had a vast quantity of ancestral silver that she had inherited.
Bert had had the finer taste that matched his fortune, not his birth.
He had been a wonderful combination of both worlds.
Victoria had loved his open, modern ideas, and his respect for her heritage.
William Eckles expressed his sympathy to Victoria again when she entered the room, looking dignified and sober in a simple black linen dress.
They sat at a small round table where he could set down the papers he had brought with him.
Bert’s will was sitting on the table, a thick document that encompassed all his holdings, possessions, and investments, and outlined all of his bequests.
“Shall we get started?” the attorney asked politely, not wanting to rush her.
She had poured them each a cup of tea before she sat down.
She looked every bit as aristocratic as she was, although she hadn’t used her title while she was married to Bert.
She was prouder of his name than her own, since her peers had treated him so badly.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the others?” she asked, surprised. She still didn’t know how many to expect, and Mrs. Kelly had set out china for a dozen guests.
“There are no others,” the attorney said simply.
“You are his only heir.” She was surprised to hear it, and she guessed that the others were charities whose representatives didn’t need to be present.
She knew that Bert had no living relatives, and none of his friends needed money.
She was his only family, as he was hers.
Their family circumstances were similar, as only children with deceased parents.
“Then I suppose we can begin.” Just being there was painful, knowing that Bert was dead. The reading of his will made it that much more real, and Victoria wanted to get it over with. She had been dreading it since the funeral.
The attorney began with the usual formalities that preceded the bequests, starting with the house in Wilmslow, which was left to Victoria in its entirety to do with as she wished.
Thirty years earlier it would have had to be held in trust for her by a male, as she could not have owned property outright, but all of that had changed.
Bert left the property in Yorkshire to her as well.
And then, much to her surprise, he listed all the business entities he owned, partially and fully, the factories and mills that he owned outright, warehouses, and everything related to his business activities.
He had left it all to her, and she looked at William Eckles with some dismay.
“What will I do with all of that? I’ll have to sell it. Will you help me?” She felt panicked at the prospect. She had kept everything her father left her, but it was all property and money, none of it related to business.
“If that’s what you wish to do,” Eckles said quietly. “The bequest isn’t finished.”
“There’s more?” Bert’s holdings were even more extensive than she’d thought, and he was a great deal richer than she had guessed. She had never thought about it until now, since she wasn’t interested in his money, and loved him for who he was, not what he was worth.
“There are his wishes,” Eckles explained.
“You are free to do what you wish with everything, of course. Bert’s wishes and suggestions are not binding.
There are no conditions in his will. But he had strong feelings about it.
He discussed it with me several times, before he wrote the will.
He gave it a great deal of thought.” She nodded, waiting to hear the rest. She was already shocked by how much Bert had left her.
She had a huge fortune now, and no idea what to do with it.
She planned to lead a simple, retiring life without him, perhaps in Hampshire most of the time.
She intended to withdraw from the world now, at twenty-four.
Eckles read directly from the will then, a letter Bert had directed to Victoria and the administrators of his will.
“To my beloved wife, Victoria, I am leaving not only the financial value of my business and all it entails, but I leave, with full confidence, the day-to-day running of my business. I believe that eventually she will be as competent to run it as I am. She will need help and support, to which I address and entrust this task to Hubert Maddox, my very capable administrator, or if he refuses, then to an experienced administrator of his choosing. I believe that within a relatively short time, within a year, Victoria will be capable of taking on the tasks relating to the business. And I leave to her very excellent judgment the decision as to when she feels ready to take that on. Until then, the administrator is to act in my stead and teach her all she needs to know to ultimately take on the running of the business. I know that she is fully capable of it. She is an extraordinary woman, and I leave all of my holdings and my business in her care, with the knowledge that she will do a wonderful job, if she chooses to rise to the challenge. I am only sorry not to be there to do it with her. It has been my intention since we married to put my business in her hands one day. The time has come, if you are reading my will. I hope that my darling wife will take on this responsibility, which I entrust to her. I have every faith that she is equal to the task. With all my love, her loving husband, Bertram Banning.” Victoria sat very still when Eckles finished reading, and didn’t say a word for a minute. The attorney spoke gently.
“I know it must sound very daunting, Lady Victoria. He had great faith in you. And you can rely on Hubert Maddox for as long as you feel you need to. He won’t let you down, and he can teach you everything that Bert didn’t and you need to know.
You would be the first woman to run textile mills, and I agree with Bert.
I have no doubt that you are capable of it, if you wish to take it on.
” She turned to him with tears bulging in her eyes.
“Why did he do that? He had too much faith in me. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t know how.” She looked very young as she looked at him, and the tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“You can learn it, if you want to. It’s an amazing opportunity. I’m sure it sounds frightening now. Why don’t you think about it before you decide?”
“The men will hate me if I try to step into Bert’s shoes.” They were big shoes to fill. Too big, she thought.
“He was certain you could do it. You don’t have to decide right this minute.
Think about it. I’ll speak to Maddox and make sure he’ll be willing to work with you.
He can run the business until you feel ready to take over.
There’s no need to rush.” For an instant, the idea of running Bert’s business one day was exciting.
She had loved shadowing him when he was alive.
But what if she made mistakes, if she ruined everything and destroyed what he had built?
Surely both the men in the factories and the other mill owners would hate having a woman in their midst. She would have done it with Bert.
But without him? It seemed impossible to her.
She was facing Everest, alone, with her bare hands and no tools and no safety net. That was how it felt to her.
The rest of the will was simple by comparison.
Bert left her all his money, and a list of five charities he wanted her to donate to jointly in their name, from her as well.
Victoria still felt dazed when the attorney left.
He had only been there for an hour and he had turned her whole life upside down.
Bert was giving her a chance to be a woman among men, to do what appeared to be impossible, to have a voice in a man’s world and prove what she was capable of doing, without the benefit of university, experience, or training, with only what he had taught her.
He had thought she could do it, but what if he was wrong?
It would be lonely and frightening to be the only female voice among so many men.
Part of her was aching to try, to honor his wishes, but part of her was terrified.
She didn’t know which voice in her head to listen to.
The voice of fear, or Bert’s, who was sure she could do it, and wanted her to try.
She wanted to make him proud. But what if she failed?
She was dizzy from trying to figure it out, and she went for a walk in the garden and stood taking deep breaths to calm herself down.
Seamus and Mrs. Kelly were watching her from the kitchen windows, wondering what had been said.
“She looks panicked, the poor thing,” Mrs. Kelly said to Seamus in a whisper. “Do you suppose he left her nothing?”
“No, I don’t. And that wouldn’t panic her. She has her own fortune. I think it’s just the opposite. What if he left her everything, including the business? She used to go to work with him all the time. He must have been grooming her to take over one day, and she didn’t know it,” he guessed wisely.
“He’d never do that,” Mrs. Kelly said in her Irish brogue.
“He might. He was crazy about her, and she’s smart.
It would set this town on its ear. All those smug, rich old bastards who try to pay their workers as little as possible, while they spend a fortune on their lazy, greedy wives.
” There were a few men from the aristocracy who owned mills and had inherited them.
But for the most part they were men from the middle class who had made good, like Bert.
Polite society forgave the aristocrats who had inherited their mills, but they were merciless with the middle-class men who had made fortunes, like Bert.
“What do you think she’ll do?” Mrs. Kelly asked Seamus, shocked by what he had said.
“I don’t know. It’s a fantastic opportunity if she’s got the guts to do it, if he left the mills to her. I think she does have what it takes. Not now. She’s still too devastated over losing him. But after that, when she recovers.”
“Poor thing,” Mrs. Kelly said again. “No man will ever marry her if she takes over his business.”
“That’s true,” Seamus agreed, “but I don’t think she cares. She’s not thinking about marrying again. She doesn’t need to, and he was the love of her life.”
“Yes, he was,” she said sadly, “and she was his. They were so perfect for each other. She’s only twenty-four. Do you think she’ll come back here to live?” she asked him.
“She will if she takes over the business. Otherwise, I think she’ll go back to London.
It’s more her style than Manchester. We’ll have to see what happens.
Personally, I like the idea of working for the first woman mill owner.
” They saw Victoria walking toward the house then.
She looked like she’d been crying, and they got back to work.
Mrs. Kelly wondered if Seamus was right, and Bert had left Victoria his business.
If he had, he was a brave man, and he must have loved her even more than they’d thought.
And she would have to be a brave woman to rise to the challenge.
There was no telling what she was going to do now.
Even Victoria didn’t know the answer to that.