Chapter 9
The household accounts of the Harrington estate were, Genevieve had discovered in the weeks since her marriage, a document of considerable complexity and quite extraordinary meticulousness.
She suspected Mr. Cavendish had been managing them in the absence of a mistress of the house, which was the sort of thing Mr. Cavendish did without being asked and without making any particular mention of it, and had done so with a precision that Genevieve found both reassuring and faintly intimidating.
Every expenditure was recorded. Every household decision was annotated. There was a logic to the filing system that had taken her the better part of a week to fully decode, and once decoded had turned out to be elegant in its simplicity.
She had been working through the October ledger that morning, when she found the discrepancy in the linen budget.
It was minor, a matter of a few shillings—most likely an arithmetic error or an incorrectly recorded delivery—but she made a careful note of it anyway, because minor discrepancies left unattended had a way of becoming less minor over time.
And because the satisfaction she took in finding and resolving such things was something she had given up pretending she did not feel.
She made the note in her neatest hand, which was considerably neater than her ordinary hand, which was in turn considerably less neat than her mother had spent fifteen years attempting to make it.
Her ordinary handwriting had been described, at various points, as spirited, enthusiastic, and, on one memorable occasion by a particularly blunt governess, as resembling the tracks of a moderately agitated hen.
She had always felt that was somewhat uncharitable.
The hen, in her view, had clearly known where it was going.
It had simply been going there very quickly.
She soon went back to reading and, in fact, had been so absorbed that she had entirely failed to notice that she had been humming.
She only became aware of this when she registered that she had been humming the same four bars of the same tune for what was, on reflection, probably quite a long time, and that the tune in question was one she had learned at the age of seven from a kitchen maid and which had absolutely no business being hummed in a drawing room by the mistress of an estate. She stopped.
She glanced at the door. There was no one there. She went back to the ledger and, after approximately forty seconds, began humming again.
She was also, she noticed, sitting in a manner that her mother would have had a great deal to say about.
She had been perched sideways on the green couch with both feet tucked under her for the better part of an hour, which was comfortable, practical, and entirely indefensible from a posture standpoint.
She made a brief and genuine effort to sit correctly. Then she found the linen entry she had been looking for and tucked her feet back under her without noticing she had done it.
“Mrs. Harrington,” Mr. Cavendish said as he walked into the drawing room with a tray.
Genevieve looked up, smiling at him. Then she quickly corrected her posture.
Mr. Cavendish, thankfully, did not say anything.
Whether he had not noticed or was being kind to her was unclear, but she minded neither situation over the other.
Mr. Cavendish shifted two of the ledgers to one side of the table and placed his tray down.
The tray contained a steaming teapot, a teacup, and a small plate with two Brighton biscuits on it.
“You have been reading those for some time,” he said.
“I have wanted to understand them thoroughly,” Genevieve replied.
“Not all young women in your situation would have done. The arithmetic can be quite dense,” he replied.
“I do not mind dense arithmetic,” she said with a slight giggle. “But, if you could, would you be able to explain this discrepancy?”
She held it up for him to see. His eyes scanned over it, and she noticed his eyebrows slightly furrowing.
“Let me investigate that for you, ma’am,” he said, before standing and leaving her.
Leaning back against the green couch she took a gentle breath, glad that she had found something worth seeing, however small.
She put the ledger onto the table, still open, and took the teapot and carefully poured herself a drink.
She had always liked numbers. They were one of the few things in the world that behaved exactly as advertised.
They could be trusted to mean precisely what they said, and responded to careful attention with correct answers rather than with the variable results that human situations tended to produce.
She found them restful in a way she had never bothered to explain to anyone because she had always suspected it was not the sort of thing one admitted to without inviting odd looks.
It was an opinion much at odds with Clarissa’s, who only saw the value of arithmetic when it came to purchasing dresses and hats.
She had been so lost in the numbers that she had not noticed a presence approaching the doorway, nor the smile that had grown on her face as she worked through the ledger.
"You are smiling again," said a voice from the doorway, making her startle.
Genevieve looked up. Lady Harrington stood at the entrance to the drawing room with the unhurried air of a woman who went where she chose, when she chose, and had reached an age where announcing herself beforehand was a courtesy she extended selectively.
She was dressed with the impeccable precision that Genevieve had come to understand was not vanity but principle.
"I am enjoying myself," Genevieve said honestly, setting down her quill. "Numbers that behave correctly are one of the more reliable pleasures in life."
"Hm." The older woman came into the room in the careful, deliberate way she moved everywhere, economical and unhurried, and settled herself in the chair by the window.
She arranged herself with the same precision she applied to everything, folded her hands in her lap, and looked at Genevieve with the direct, thorough attention that had initially been rather alarming and had since revealed itself to be simply the way Lady Harrington looked at everything she considered worth looking at.
"I have been meaning to come and speak with you," she said. "I have been putting it off for reasons I intend to explain, and I have decided this morning that the putting off has gone on long enough."
Genevieve set the ledger aside entirely and gave her full attention. When Lady Harrington announced an intention to explain something, one gave one's full attention. It was simply the correct response.
"You will have noticed," Lady Harrington said, "that I have kept something of a distance from you since your arrival."
"I had noticed," Genevieve agreed carefully. “Not at the church, but since we came back to the estate. I simply assumed you were allowing Thomas and I to adjust to life as newlyweds.”
"That was… part of it,” she replied. “I want you to understand the full reason for that, because I would not have you mistake it for indifference or coldness, and I would not have it become the kind of unspoken thing that sits between two people and accumulates into something it was never intended to be. "
She looked at Genevieve steadily. "I have known a great many women who were married quickly and into unfamiliar households under circumstances that were not of their choosing.
It is not an uncommon situation, whatever the particular details of any individual case.
And I have observed, over a great many years, the damage that is done to such women by the well-meaning interference of the people around them. "
"Interference?" Genevieve repeated, curious.
"Advice that was not requested," she clarified. "Opinions offered on decisions that were not being invited. The constant sensation of being watched and assessed and found either adequate or wanting, when what is actually needed in such a situation is simply space.
Space to find one's feet. Space to make one's own mistakes and correct them.
Space to become the mistress of one's own household in one's own way, rather than in the way that the previous mistress, or the grandmother of one's husband, or anyone else with opinions and the proximity to share them, would have chosen.
" She paused. "I am not that kind of woman.
Or rather… I try not to be. I have not always succeeded, but I try. "
Genevieve looked at her. She was aware of something shifting in her chest, a warmth, unexpected and considerable, for this sharp-eyed formidable woman who had kept her distance not out of disapproval but out of a deliberate and considered kindness.
"You were giving me room," Genevieve said softly.
"I was giving you room," Lady Harrington confirmed.
"To be yourself in this house. To establish yourself without someone standing at your shoulder deciding whether you were doing it correctly.
" The faintest suggestion of something wry moved across her face.
"I will admit that watching you do it has also been rather instructive.
You are better at this than you appear to know. "
"I am not certain that is true, my lady," Genevieve said, because it seemed the honest response.
"It is true," came the reply, in the flat certain way she said things she meant absolutely.
"And I wish for you to call me Grandmamma.” She paused and smiled, before continuing.
“The staff respect you. I have watched it happen, the shift from the wary courtesy they extended in the first days to something considerably more genuine.