Chapter Three
The next couple of days were … peculiar.
Titus closed his shop while he saw to the funeral arrangements, which was to say, put everything in the hands of Mrs. Thorpe.
He obtained a black cravat and black gloves, though he felt like the worst kind of humbug in them, and brought over his best clothes and a few changes of linen from his home.
His shop, rather. The Carey Street house was his home now, or would be once he had confirmation from Mr. Carnaby that the windfall would not be snatched from him.
He wouldn’t let himself believe it until then.
It felt like more good fortune than he was permitted to have.
He put notices of her death in the news sheets, and sat in the parlour waiting for the funeral.
Reading seemed somehow too self-indulgent in a time of mourning, but he did draw, guiltily helping himself to Miss Whitecross’s pens and drawing paper, even more guiltily enjoying the opportunity.
He had always liked drawing, though he was quite untaught, and concentrating on a sketch of a vase meant he didn’t have to think about anything else.
Miss Whitecross’s body was laid out in the dining room, surrounded by sweet-scented flowers, since it was late spring and getting warm. A handful of old people came to pay their respects; otherwise it was very quiet indeed.
Mr. Thorpe suggested Titus might like to invite a friend to sit with him, but Titus was acutely aware that he had nobody he could talk to about this.
Almost everyone he knew was an impecunious artist, and he didn’t think he could say, I might have married a fortune and I’m not sure it was a good idea, and be understood.
He had been on civil terms with a couple of past lovers who might have sympathised, but Henry had driven them away, and he’d let it happen.
So he sat alone, to the point he composed a letter to his brother, just for the illusion of talking to someone.
The day of the funeral came. Titus stood self-consciously at the graveside, wishing his best blacks were better and blacker.
Mr. Matthew Laxton stood opposite. He was a fleshy man in his forties, with wide shoulders, a dissipated look, and the start of a drinker’s nose.
He wore an obtrusively mournful expression, but Titus couldn’t help glancing up when all eyes were meant to be lowered mid-prayer, and was sure he saw a smirk.
That would be because they had yet to announce the marriage. Mr. Carnaby had advised they wait to do so, on the grounds that all hell would break loose and Miss Whitecross should have a dignified burial first.
A scandal was horribly inevitable. Titus had known that Miss Whitecross could afford the best paints, but hadn’t considered her financial situation in much greater depth, it being none of his affair.
He now learned that she’d possessed an astonishing amount in the Funds and Consols, quite a lot of land, and some manufactories in the Midlands.
It all added up to a regular income of some eight thousand pounds a year, a sum so ludicrous he had to sidle up to it from an angle.
I will have a house, he told himself. I can afford servants and consult a lawyer.
I will buy new clothes, tailored for me.
It was rather like a man who had inherited a mountain picking up a single rock and saying, Look what I have!
but it was the only way he found himself able to think of the change in his life quite yet.
He visited the coroner with Mr. Carnaby at his side, to ask him to reconsider the verdict on Miss Whitecross’s death.
It did not go well. Miss Whitecross, the coroner insisted, was a bitter, querulous old woman, senile or malicious or both.
Her nephew had said everything that was proper at the time, and the coroner saw nothing suspicious in his conduct.
Yes, Mr. Laxton had stood to gain a fortune from her death, but since he had not murdered her at any point in the previous twenty years, there was no reason to suppose he had done so now.
The coroner would not pursue a case for which there was no evidence except the spiteful words of a nasty old woman who had nothing to do but complain about her male relatives, and he would advise the gentlemen not to listen to fishwives and gossips.
“Doesn’t like his mother-in-law, I take it,” Mr. Carnaby said as they left.
“I hope she makes his life miserable every day,” Titus said. “This is wrong. Can we appeal to someone? A different coroner?”
Mr. Carnaby sighed. “Realistically, no.”
“But is there nothing more to be done?”
“Only to let Laxton know he won’t snatch the prize. I think we should announce your marriage and inheritance tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?” Titus said, and heard his nerves in his voice. “That is, shouldn’t we wait?”
“For what?”
“Well, suppose Mr. Laxton goes to law?”
“I doubt he’ll risk it,” Mr. Carnaby said.
“Nobody is going to hang him on Miss Whitecross’s word, but in a civil case, the suspicion that he had a hand in her death will carry a lot of weight.
And more to the point, he can’t afford lawyers.
Between him and his father, every penny they had off Miss Whitecross’s unfortunate sister is long gone. ”
That seemed impossible. “How? I mean, what does one spend that much money on?”
“Horses, cards, women? My dear sir, eight thousand a year is easily thrown away, at least in some circles. Though I grant you, running through the capital as well must have taken a deal of effort and dedication.”
“Goodness,” Titus said. “I don’t propose to make that sort of effort myself.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Mr. Carnaby cocked his head. “That said, and to be serious, have you considered your next steps? You have a most satisfactory fortune, and gentlemanly birth to go with it. You could make an excellent marriage. A younger daughter of the nobility is not out of the question.”
“My eldest brother is married to a baronet’s daughter,” Titus said numbly.
“You might aspire to an earl’s. A marquess’s, even. Mr. Titus Pilcrow and Lady Such-and-such Pilcrow. One in the eye for your brother, eh?”
“I don’t really think—”
“Of course not. Excuse me: Mrs. Carnaby and I are in a habit of friendly rivalry with her sister.”
Titus could not imagine any such thing. “No, well. I had not thought of marriage. My circumstances have never been such as to permit it.” Or his inclinations, either.
He’d had three love affairs in his thirty-one years, two of them pleasant, quiet dalliances with pleasant, quiet men, one of them Henry, who had plunged his existence into miserable tumult.
He suspected he was about to have quite enough tumult to be getting on with.
“I would rather accustom myself to my new circumstances before I consider another change.”
“That is a very reasonable attitude,” Mr. Carnaby agreed.
“Though I doubt you will find it shared by people with marriageable daughters. I shall speak to Mr. Laxton today—we have an appointment, which I shall enjoy—and put the announcement in the papers for tomorrow. You can expect a certain amount of attention thereafter.”
“What should I do about that?”
“Precisely as you please. You’re now a man of considerable substance, Mr. Pilcrow, and there is a reason we call wealth ‘an independence.’”
Titus moved the rest of his clothes and personal effects into Carey Street that afternoon, with the aid—shyly requested from Mr. Thorpe—of a footman. He had a feeling he’d be safer there when the storm broke.
“You don’t have much, sir,” Mr. Thorpe observed when his two trunks were brought into the hall.
“No,” Titus admitted, somewhat self-consciously.
Of course Mr. Thorpe knew his previous position in life, but he still felt embarrassed by what now seemed desperately straitened circumstances.
“Though there are a lot of paintings still in the cart. Perhaps they could go in a spare room for now? But I don’t have many clothes.
I must visit a tailor.” He supposed he should be looking forward to that. In fact, he was dreading it.
“I will have it all looked at for mending before it’s put away,” Mrs. Thorpe said, bustling up.
She was a kindly, motherly, pleasant woman, clearly an excellent housekeeper, and Titus had just a slight feeling she was watching him like a hawk.
“I had meant to ask, sir, will you be taking the master bedroom?”
Titus had been sleeping in a back bedroom. The thought of turfing out all Miss Whitecross’s clothes and trinkets, airing the room to rid it of the smell of lavender and old age, felt like the grossest imposition. “Oh, I don’t know—the back room does very well—”
“We could clear it out for you to decide, sir,” Mr. Thorpe said. “We all miss the mistress very much, but she would be the first to say, Get about your business.”
“She would, wouldn’t she? I suppose you were with her a long time?”
“Mrs. Thorpe and I have served the Whitecrosses all our lives.”
“You didn’t want Mr. Laxton to inherit, did you?” Titus said, struck by sudden doubt. “As his mother was a Whitecross?”
“We should both have handed in our resignations on the spot,” Mr. Thorpe said crisply.
Mrs. Thorpe glanced swiftly at her husband. “Whereas we are very happy to continue service to you, if that is your wish.”
She seemed a touch nervous, and Titus thought he knew why.
He owed his good fortune to Mr. Thorpe’s decision on the doorstep.
It hadn’t been made for his benefit, but he had benefitted to an absurd degree, and he undeniably felt a little awkward knowing that his new wealth stemmed from his butler’s whim.
That was doubtless what Mr. Carnaby had meant about holding his good fortune against Mr. Thorpe; Titus could imagine deciding that life would be more pleasant with a new butler who only knew him as a wealthy gentleman, not a needy tradesman.
That would be ungrateful in the extreme, not to mention self-deluding.
Everyone would very soon know he was a jumped-up colourman, so he would only be paying someone to pretend otherwise.
“I should very much appreciate it if you would stay,” he said.
“This seems an exceedingly well-run house, and I would have no idea what to do without you. To be honest, it’s all rather overwhelming—the money, and what I’m supposed to do, and Mr. Carnaby is putting in the announcement of my marriage in the newspapers for tomorrow, and he says there will be a great deal of interest, and I’m not sure… ”
He tailed off there, realising he had blurted out rather too much. The Thorpes exchanged looks.
“What you need, Mr. Pilcrow, is a cup of tea and something good to nibble on,” Mrs. Thorpe said firmly. “Now, I could bring you something in the parlour, but I wonder if you’d care to continue one of the mistress’s traditions?”
“What was that?”
“She used to take tea in our pantry, now and then. When she wanted a gossip, or to feel a family around her. She liked to watch our Alma play, back when she was a little one, and she got in the habit. We’d have a cup of tea and a comfortable coze, and it took her troubles off her for a little. I don’t know if that would suit?”
“Yes,” Titus said with profound thanks. “Yes, it truly would.”
An hour later, he felt better than he had done all week.
Mrs. Thorpe had given him tea, biscuits, and unflattering character descriptions of all his neighbours.
She had decreed, and he agreed, that he would take the master bedroom and consider new furniture, better suited to the house.
Mr. Thorpe had offered to announce him as Not At Home for as long as he liked.
Titus felt a strong urge to shelter behind that, but knew himself well enough to fear that if he refused this fence early on, he would shy away forever.
That wouldn’t do. He was a rich man now, and it would be foolish to live as a hermit.
“No, I will see callers,” he said aloud, so he couldn’t go back on it. “Really, there is nothing to be worried about. Is there?” he was forced to add, as Mr. Thorpe made a face.
“Well, perhaps not worried, sir, but I doubt Mr. Laxton will take the news well.”
Titus didn’t think so either. “Mr. Carnaby is seeing him today,” he said apprehensively. “Is he likely to visit?”
“I should think so, yes. I can turn him away.”
“No, I should talk to him,” Titus decided. “At least once.”
“He’ll be begging for money, I’ve no doubt; it’s what he always did. You won’t give him anything, sir?” Mrs. Thorpe asked.
“I promised not to. And if he did as Miss Whitecross said—no, absolutely not. But I think I should tell him so to his face. I don’t need to avoid him, since I have done nothing wrong.”
“No, sir,” Mr. Thorpe said, a touch dubiously. “And then there’s the Comte.”
“Who?”
“The Comte de La Motte, sir. The gentleman Miss Whitecross proposed to marry.”
“Oh, yes! Mr. Carnaby mentioned she had a man in mind. Do you think she was going to go through with it?” The words “breach of promise” intruded alarmingly into his thoughts.
Mr. Thorpe rocked a hand. “She found the Comte charming, and he made her laugh, but she was no fool: she knew what sort of man he is. A handsome rogue if ever I saw one.”
“He would have made her Lady de La Motte, though, and she liked that idea,” Mrs. Thorpe said, adding with perhaps a touch of wistfulness, “And he is very handsome.”
“I don’t believe she’d have done it, except on her deathbed,” Mr. Thorpe said. “That’s a wrong’un if ever I saw one. And if he turns up to scrounge now, my advice is to send him packing.”