Chapter 7
The patroness wished to arrange six veterans beneath the ballroom windows, where the afternoon light would display them to advantage.
“They need do nothing exhausting,” she assured Margaret. “A few words about what Waterloo House has meant to them, perhaps. Gratitude is most effective when it is quite natural.”
Behind her, two footmen struggled to carry a mahogany writing desk through the ballroom doors without striking either the frame or Joseph Hales, who had already told them twice that the desk would fit if they ceased attempting to improve its angle.
Margaret looked from the patroness to the six chairs placed in a mournful row beneath the windows. Each had been turned toward the centre of the room, as though their occupants were to be examined alongside Joseph’s cabinets and the ward linen.
“How long would you wish them to sit there?” she asked.
“Oh, no longer than an hour. Guests must have time to approach.”
“And what are they to do when approached?”
The patroness smiled with the patience of a woman explaining benevolence to an employee. “Answer questions. Speak of their injuries, their former service, and the kindness they have received.”
“Three of the men you selected are working during the first hour. One has declined to discuss his service with strangers. Another dislikes being questioned about his leg, and the sixth is not a resident.”
The patroness glanced at the list in her hand. “Mr. Langley recommended him.”
“Mr. Langley is the surgeon. He does not live here.”
“Then he would be a most impressive example of recovery.”
Margaret removed the list from the woman’s fingers before charity could improve Edward Langley into a wounded soldier.
“No residents will be displayed beneath the windows,” she said. “Those who have volunteered to speak are entered upon the testimony roster beside the dais. They will speak at an appointed time upon a subject they have chosen. Guests may ask questions afterward if the speaker agrees.”
“But surely spontaneity would be warmer.”
“So is fever.”
The patroness’s smile weakened.
Margaret continued before irritation could become a public contest. “The ward display will remain unoccupied. It shows the cost of a bed, linen, fuel, medicine, and nursing time without requiring an ill man to provide decoration. The workshop sale occupies the east tables. Residents who made the goods will be present where they choose, and the objects carry their prices plainly.”
“Prices can appear commercial.”
“They are commercial.”
“This is a charitable subscription evening.”
“It is also where men earn wages.”
Joseph’s voice came from behind the writing desk. “If the lady prefers, I can remove the price and charge according to her expression.”
The patroness turned. Joseph stood with one broad hand upon the desk’s polished edge, his wooden left leg angled clear of the footmen’s boots.
The desk had been made of plain walnut with narrow drawers and no ornament beyond the proportion of its lines.
Margaret knew the cost of every board, hinge, hour, and coat of wax.
She also knew Joseph had already refused an offer from one subscriber who wanted it reduced because its maker lived in a charitable institution.
The patroness inspected the desk. “It is very handsome.”
“It was less handsome before I made it.”
She appeared uncertain whether this qualified as gratitude.
Margaret handed her a clean roster. “You may assist by directing guests first to the sale tables, then to the ward accounts, and finally to the speakers listed here. No one is to be asked about a wound unless he has chosen it as his subject.”
The woman looked down at the orderly names and times. “You have arranged everything.”
“Not everything. We still lack enough money for the roof and the first winter coal contract.”
That restored the conversation to a difficulty the patroness could recognize without touching it. She took the roster and moved toward the entrance, where Sarah Pritchard was directing cloaks into a temporary receiving room rather than allowing damp wool to gather against the ballroom walls.
Margaret ordered the six empty chairs removed.
Waterloo House’s ballroom had not received a formal assembly in more than twenty years. During that interval, the south windows had lost two panes, the musicians’ platform had acquired dry rot, and one section of floor had sunk enough to make dancing an act of private faith.
The last ten days had not restored magnificence. They had produced safety where it could be purchased and honesty where it could not.
Joseph and the workshop men had replaced the worst boards in the central floor.
The fresh timber showed pale against the old, even after wax.
Caleb Rowe’s men had repaired the leak above the western cornice, leaving new plaster that had not yet dried to the same color as the ceiling.
Sarah had filled shallow dishes with rosemary to counter the smells of damp cloaks, lamp oil, and too many bodies expected in one room.
The result was neither fashionable nor ashamed.
At the north end stood a low dais with a lectern, three chairs, and Thomas Bevan’s speaking roster.
The east wall held the workshop sale: desks, stools, writing boxes, two bookcases, four dining chairs, carved walking-stick handles, and a narrow cabinet that Joseph insisted was not crooked despite the ballroom wall’s contrary evidence.
The ward display occupied the west side.
A clean bedstead stood made but empty behind a folding screen.
Beside it, Sarah had placed a small table carrying a folded blanket, basin, medicine spoon, candle, and a written account of what each item cost. No names appeared.
No man’s illness had been converted into a subscription device.
At the south end, three musicians tuned behind a painted screen rescued from the old music room.
Violin resin sharpened the warmer scents of beeswax and rosemary.
Two service doors opened behind them toward the west corridor, while the principal ballroom doors led to the front hall and the cloakroom beyond.
Margaret had counted every exit, chair, lamp, sale item, subscription card, serving tray, and volunteer. She had not counted upon half London discovering that Henry’s title might depend upon a disputed parish entry before Dyer had reached the banker.
Two subscribers had withdrawn that morning.
A third had sent only his wife, which meant he wanted the House remembered if it succeeded and himself forgotten if it failed. Three newspaper men had accepted invitations intended for one. One stood near the ward accounts copying the cost of coal as though poverty became novel when entered in ink.
Margaret crossed to him. “The figure beside fuel is monthly, not annual.”
He looked up. “Your Grace.”
The title still caused a small delay in conversations. People appeared compelled to reconcile it with the keys at her waist and the pencil tucked behind one glove.
“Monthly,” she repeated. “The annual estimate is beneath it.”
“Does that include the repairs made since your marriage?”
“No. Roof and chimney work are entered separately.”
“Paid by the duke?”
“Paid from the sources named beside each charge. The chimney inspection was advanced by His Grace and entered as a debt to the House. The roof repair is not yet funded.”
The reporter glanced toward the principal doors. “Will His Grace attend?”
“He is expected.”
“Is it true that Mr. Blackwood has offered to withdraw his claim in return for this property?”
Margaret’s hand remained on the account card. The question had escaped Rothbury House more quickly than the documents connected to it.
“It is true that Mr. Blackwood proposed such an exchange and that the proposal was refused before witnesses.”
“By the duke?”
“By both co-trustees.”
The reporter’s pencil moved. “Were you present when it was made?”
“I was present when it was entered into the record.”
That answer provided less intimacy than he wanted and more authority than he had expected. Margaret left him with the coal account before he could ask whether a wife had persuaded her husband to value a refuge above a dukedom.
Guests began arriving in earnest.
The front hall absorbed carriages, wet umbrellas, footmen, calling cards, and the brief panic caused by a dowager who believed the east staircase led to the ballroom despite three signs and one resident telling her otherwise.
Margaret stationed Will at the stair turn before the dowager could become evidence against the building.
Lady Georgiana entered without waiting to be announced and brought four people capable of buying furniture without requiring a biography from its maker. She wore amethyst silk, white feathers, and the expression of a general who had chosen society because artillery damaged the carpets.
“You have hidden the patients,” she said after surveying the empty ward bed.
“There are no patients in the ballroom.”
“How disappointing for those who came to feel noble before supper.”
“They may purchase a washstand.”
“More durable than virtue.”
Lady Georgiana moved toward the sale tables and had bought a writing box within three minutes, though Margaret suspected she already possessed more writing boxes than correspondents.
Mrs. Alderton arrived next and apologized for the state of her hens as if they had declined the invitation from political principle.
Lord Wexham’s steward brought the overdue subscription with a note explaining that his lordship had been detained by gout, a phrase Margaret accepted because the money was real even if the ailment was not.
The subscription slate near the dais rose by cautious degrees.
Margaret moved through the room correcting facts, adjusting chairs, directing servants, and preventing a gentleman with military opinions from relocating Joseph’s best cabinet beneath a leaking patch that no longer leaked but had not earned trust.
Henry had not arrived by the time the first musician lowered his violin.