Chapter Eight #2
Yes, Charlotte saw, it was the medicinal scotch.
The household budget would not stretch for another bottle.
Maybe a cheap gin. But she shivered at the thought of buying a bottle at a gin house.
Something about the hold blue ruin could take on a person—she had seen it time and again during her writing.
Children, starving because their mothers could not bear to spend on anything but the poison.
The same mothers, who in moments of lucidity were consumed with shame at what the drink drove them to do.
Maybe once in her younger days, she would have judged them for it.
Would have hated them for their weakness.
But she had seen enough now to understand.
It was an illness. A sickness they could not fight on their own.
A sickness she suspected her own brother suffered from.
And so, as she watched Freddie pour another glass, she could not stomach the idea of replacing it.
“I tell you, Charlie, lady fortune is finally favouring me. First, that puffed-up cit Scarsdale calls off the duel—” He stopped as if he knew he had slipped.
“Called it off?” Charlotte’s head snapped up from the letters she was sifting through.
Freddie just waved it off. “Not to worry, Charlie. It was never actually going to happen. It is just something gentlemen do. A code of honour. And Scarsdale issued the necessary apology before matters escalated. Right too. At least he has some idea of his betters.”
Charlotte’s head was spinning. Had Rowley cooked up this excuse to appease her brother’s ridiculously inflated ego? Or had Benjamin really issued an apology to her dimwitted brother to conceal her own involvement at the price of his own reputation?
Freddie carried on obliviously. “And now this! Whoever the chap is, he'd better make himself known. I am of the mind to buy him every round of drinks he could ever want!”
“With what money?” Charlotte mumbled again, mostly to herself as she sifted through the open letters on the desk.
None gave any indication of who had settled the accounts.
Only that the debts had been wiped clean, and Freddie’s credit was once again restored.
One proprietor had even signed below the note with a kiss.
Charlotte saw the red lip colour below a postscript from a Missus Fannie Bulette, professing her hope to depend on Frederick's continued patronage.
She bit back her admonition. Of course, Freddie had run up a debt at a brothel. Likely more than one.
Freddie continued chattering away about the plans he had now that he was freed up, and Charlotte carefully stacked the letters together and put them aside in a neat pile by her other correspondence.
There was another unopened letter left on the desk.
She picked it up and saw the return address was the Eton tuition office.
Her heart dropped to her stomach. They were going to expel Henry and Marcus.
She had dreaded this letter for months now.
“Freddie.” She held up the letter. “When did this one come?”
Freddie looked disinterested, clearly having dismissed anything that was not sent from one of his favourite haunts. “I don’t know. With the rest of them, I assume.”
Charlotte ripped open the envelope and flipped open the letter.
“Dear Lord Elford, We send our sincerest thanks for the deposit of Masters Marcus and Henry’s missing term tuition payment, as well as your generous donation to the school.
We look forward to hosting the young gentlemen for the remainder of their education and appreciate your continued patronage.
Sincerely, Mr. William Roberts and Mr. Elery Finch. ”
She needed to sit down. Now.
“Charlie, you really do not look well. Shall I send for the doctor?”
“We can’t afford a doctor, Freddie.” Charlotte rubbed her forehead.
“What do you mean we can’t afford a doctor?” Freddie laughed derisively. “Have you not been here for the last half an hour? Everything is paid. We are free!”
“Freddie.” Charlotte could not summon the energy to be patient with him. “Don’t you see? This just means we are in someone else’s debt.”
“Well, until the man in question comes a’knocking, I will consider it an act of divine benevolence.” He wrinkled his nose and huffed like he did when he was a little boy. “Why do you always have to be such a dark cloud, Charlotte? We should be celebrating.”
“I am not a dark cloud. I am pragmatic.”
Normally, she would be angry at her brother’s insult, but the wind had gone out of her sails, and she was completely exhausted, not to mention dizzy.
When was the last time she had eaten? Did they even have anything in the house that was edible?
She had not been to the market this week, so likely, no.
“Pragmatic or not, you haven’t got the faintest idea how to have fun. I pity you, Charlotte.” She looked up at him in disbelief. “I prefer to enjoy life. And I am going to do just that.” Before she could conjure up a response that properly conveyed her frustration, Freddie had left the room.
“The fool.” Charlotte shook her head and leaned back in the chair, holding up the letter from Eton and staring at the names she had only just dictated the day before to a man who most assuredly had not forgotten the exchange as she had requested.
There was only one thing to do now.