Chapter One #2
Titus followed him inside. It felt horribly intrusive, as though he were dunning a woman on her deathbed, but Mr. Thorpe had been with Miss Whitecross forever. If he thought it would make her feel better to pay a bill, he was doubtless right.
Mr. Thorpe showed him into the parlour and disappeared.
He remained absent for so long that Titus began to feel quite uncomfortable.
He didn’t have anything to read or a pencil with which to scribble, so he sat, bored and uncertain, on a spindly chair too small for the well-sized room, surrounded by little tables bearing china vases and statuettes and dishes, and some truly dreadful watercolours on the walls, which he recognised as being perpetrated by his hostess.
The room had a good high ceiling, large windows. If it were his house, Titus would hang oils in here. Then he thought about Miss Whitecross’s oil paintings and felt relieved she hadn’t.
Well, it was her home so her taste ruled.
And Titus could only respect a level of self-esteem that allowed its possessor to decide My work is worth displaying in the teeth of the evidence.
He hadn’t pinned a scribble of his to the wall since he was a child, making sketches and showing them to his brothers.
That had been “drawing attention to himself” or “giving himself airs,” cardinal sins for the younger Pilcrows and strongly discouraged.
There were footsteps and muffled voices in the hall, but nobody came in. Titus wondered if he’d been forgotten. He wondered why Mr. Thorpe had felt it necessary to bring him in. He wondered about his shop.
Out by the end of the month. He wouldn’t find new premises without closing up his current place and dedicating himself to the search, but that would cost him business he couldn’t afford to lose.
Maybe a fellow colourman might lend him an apprentice?
But that would take time to arrange, and it would all need to be done so quickly, and he hated to be rushed.
It flustered him, and he always seemed to do the wrong thing when he was flustered.
He had no choice. If he didn’t find somewhere, he would soon have neither shop nor home.
What would he do if he couldn’t find new premises in time?
Where would he put his tools and supplies?
He had friends who would give him a space to sleep, but he couldn’t bring his many boxes of poisons and powders into people’s houses.
He might have to sell off some of his stock or tools, but if he did that, clawing his way back would be even harder.
He’d seen all too often the frightening speed with which people could fall from comfort to destitution; one bad accident or stroke of misfortune could send you sliding inexorably downwards. The void was yawning beneath his feet.
He was wondering whether he could appeal to his brother for help, and if there was any chance the appeal would be heard, when the door opened and Mr. Thorpe came in.
The butler was wearing an extraordinary expression, something almost like excitement. “Please come upstairs, Mr. Pilcrow. She wants to see you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Please. This way.”
Titus gave a mental shrug and followed him. Perhaps Miss Whitecross wasn’t so badly hurt after all. That would be good.
The hope dwindled as he was admitted into her bedroom, where she lay with a lawyerly sort of gentleman sitting by her.
The old lady’s face was cut and bruised in a way that looked obscenely wrong on elderly features, and her skin was otherwise an unpleasantly pale grey-yellow shade, almost isabelline.
“Miss Whitecross,” Titus said. “I’m so sorry. How are you?”
“Bad,” she said, voice thin. “Dying. Murdered.”
“What?”
“Laxton tripped me,” she whispered. “My nephew. At the top of the stairs. His foot between my legs. I fell.”
Titus’s mouth dropped open. He looked round at the lawyerly man, who grimaced.
Miss Whitecross caught that and glared at them both.
“I’m not a fool. He tripped me, I tell you, and I fell and broke, rot these bird’s bones of mine.
He’ll go unpunished for my murder, and be a rich man for my death. Damn him. Damn you all.”
Titus cast a desperate glance at the butler and the lawyer, but neither was looking at him.
“And God rot the Laxtons, all of them,” Miss Whitecross went on, voice shaky but intent.
“His father made my sister’s life a misery, and his son is like him as peas in a pod.
I had such a scheme to spite him—it would have been a grand jest, but he got wind of it, and he killed me.
” She paused there, gasping for breath, and finally got out, “And you fools are doing nothing!”
“We have brought Mr. Pilcrow, ma’am,” the butler said gently.
“Er—” Titus said.
“Yes.” Miss Whitecross’s thin fingers were clutching spasmodically at her sheets. “Pilcrow. You’ll scotch the snake for me. You’re a gentleman born, ain’t you?”
“Yes? My father was rector of a parish in Gloucestershire, but—”
“And you’d like to be rich.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She glanced up at the lawyerly man. “Tell him, Carnaby.”
He bowed in his seat. “Madam. Mr. Pilcrow, I am George Carnaby, Miss Whitecross’s attorney. What she proposes—I must say, this is irregular—”
“Get on, fool,” the old woman croaked. “I might die while you talk.”
Mr. Carnaby sighed. “Miss Whitecross proposes that you marry her. Now.”
“… what?”
“You will marry her, and become heir to the Whitecross fortune, without encumbrances or restrictions.”
“But,” Titus said. “But—the circumstances—”
“Irregular, but I am happy to swear that Miss Whitecross is of sound mind.”
“As am I,” Mr. Thorpe said strongly.
“Her reasoning for this action is, of course—”
“Hate,” Miss Whitecross said. “My money will pass to the Laxton toad if I’m not married. He can go to the devil and say I sent him. What about it, Pilcrow?”
“But—what—”
“Don’t gibber,” she said with a feeble shadow of her usual acerbity. “Won’t ask you to bless the marital bed. Not with my bones. Snap like twigs.”
Mr. Carnaby’s expression was indescribable. Titus groped for a response. “Don’t you need a licence?”
“Got one already. I was going to make myself a lady, but the fool’s gone away, so fill in your name. It’s your lucky day.”
Titus had no idea what she meant by that, but he was more concerned by “lucky” in this context. “Miss Whitecross, please,” he said. “You’ve time yet. You’re well cared for. Please don’t give up.”
Her eyes met his properly then, faded and full of pain. “I’m dying, and we all know it. Help me, Pilcrow. Laxton broke my sister’s heart and his son has broken my bones. Let me spite him and I’ll rest easier.”
Titus contemplated the proposal. To marry a woman close to fifty years his senior on her deathbed, for no better reason than money on his side and malice on hers—it was contemptible. He’d be a laughing stock.
He’d be a rich contemptible laughing stock.
“All right,” he said.