Chapter 3
“Miss Smith.”
“Mr Jones.”
That was how our fourth annual encounter began.
The young lady had matured to the point where I no longer considered her particularly young. She was as engaging as before, she had grown an inch or two, her figure had filled out nicely since her last visit, and I found it light and pleasing.
“If I recall correctly, you should be coming up on eighteen in a fortnight. How go the wars?”
She laughed gaily, which lit her eyes very prettily.
She really was an engaging girl… well, not girl anymore.
She was still in my opinion not ready to settle down, but from the curmudgeon’s perspective of my twenty-six years, I thought she might be ready to satisfy her mother’s ambitions in another few years.
I selfishly hoped her mother was not too effective in her plans but was honest enough with myself to recognise I was just being greedy for her company.
“You seem like a man with an excellent memory, Mr Jones. Can you remember what I said last year?”
I could not resist the challenge, so I did something I never did with anyone but my sister.
I raised my voice and recalled what I could.
“The taaaaaallllking! Every event requires discussions about where it is, and so on and so forth and all of those are repeated a dozen times or more, in half a dozen drawing rooms.”
She laughed gaily and I joined in.
“And your support project?”
“Your book-buyer is excellent. We finally completed our inventory, so I visited the man during a visit to my uncle. He very kindly explained that my father’s estate would not be his first entail, or even his dozenth.
He showed me a warehouse full of packing crates and claimed he could clean a library in a matter of hours like a swarm of locusts.
He even volunteered to refill the shelves with absolute rubbish for a modest fee. ”
I laughed long and hard, enjoying the fact that she was willing to repeat something that would be considered a touch vulgar by most ladies of her age and station. Naturally, the matrons of London said far worse day in and day out when they were alone, but I saw little point in mentioning that.
She sighed ruefully, “I was astonished by the sums available. There is over ￡1,000 in books, and my father did nothing to recover the funds. I almost challenged him on it, but—”
“But… what?” I asked as if skating on razor thin ice.
She sighed resignedly. “I have tried several times to discuss such things, and he did just what you alluded that first year. Remember that… I was fourteen and dumb as a post at the time.”
She did not seem upset by her self-condemnation, so I chose to treat it as a teasing jest. “Perhaps not a post. You could have at least competed with a goose.”
She laughed gaily, and I was not unhappy with the result.
She shook her finger at me like a particularly exasperated governess. “Do you remember what you said?”
“I remember quite a few things, so it would be speculation to guess what exactly you mean.”
“You asserted that some men would pat me on my head like a wayward puppy and tell me to go back to my embroidery… or something like that.”
“Ah, I remember… though I do not recall any mention of puppies.”
“I can imagine you mentioning such cute creatures now, but back then, well, I was certain you spent most of the meeting wondering what kind of stupidity you had engaged yourself in and when the torture would end.”
“Actually, I can remember being impressed with a—”
I started choosing my words carefully, so she beat me to it. “—a precocious child… a brat… a little hellion. You need not own to it.”
“I shall neither admit nor deny any or all such assertions, though you are welcome to add spitfire to your list of things I may or may not have thought.”
She laughed gaily, which reminded me very much of one of my good friends.
There was an infectious joy in her character that had completely escaped the Darcy line some generations back—if it ever existed in the first place.
I most certainly had little of it, and given that most of what I remembered of my father was after my mother’s death, I could not remember much there either.
Of course, my grandfather killed a man in a duel, so I doubted he was a bundle of joy either.
“How is your sister doing, Mr Jones? Did you send her to school in the end?” she asked brightly.
“I did, and I believe it is working well enough so far. She is a rather shy and timid child… nothing at all like you.”
She laughed gaily and shook her finger again.
“She does not seem to be making very many friends, but there are a few, and given that she shares my reticence, I suppose I cannot expect more.”
“You? Reticent?” she snapped in shock, then laughed. “You are most certainly not reticent.”
“Ah, but this room is a special case. If you ever met me at a ball, you would hardly know me.”
“I am all astonishment,” she said suspiciously. “What is the problem if I might ask? Husband hunters or worse?”
I sighed and was thinking about what I could or could not say, so she impatiently continued in a gravelly approximation of a man’s voice.
“See here, Mr Jones, my Mathilda is quite in her looks, is she not. Mr Jones, My Agnes plays the pianoforte like an angel, though I suppose I must ruefully admit she sings like a scalded cat. Jones! Take a look at this rifle. Practically bags birds by the dozen without even aiming. You need at least a dozen! Why, Mr Jones, you must get in on this investment… one-hundred percent returns or more, and there are only fifty shares left! Mr Jones, you have not been at Almac’s in a month, nor have you danced with a single debutant in a fortnight—What is wrong with you? —”
She carried on in that vein for a good five minutes, until we were both in tears. The worst part was that she was obviously trying to produce the most absurd ideas she could manage, but at least half of them had happened to me at one time or another.
I finally settled down and could see we were running out of time.
“Do you still write your sister regularly?” she finally asked.
“As you direct, so do I comply. We write once a week like clockwork.”
“That is excellent, though you may wish to temper your compliance with my suggestions. Half of my ideas are terrible.”
I chuckled. She was fooling nobody.
“Have you completed your project, now that you are out and the original purpose has been satisfied.”
“I continue apace,” she replied sheepishly.
“I have little hope of one of us marrying a man wealthy enough to make my mother’s precarious jointure superfluous; and some of my sisters may never marry.
A few of us will eventually wed lesser men, but my mother will almost certainly outlive my father by at least a decade, and besides that—”
“—besides that, it is the most interesting thing you do,” I supplied, since it seemed obvious, given how she described her life. She might have been better off born to a tradesman.
“Correct! You can have no concept of how dreadfully dull the life of a gently bred woman of modest means is. You get to ride, shoot, fish, go to school, study anything you like, travel wherever you want… and… and… well, you get the idea. Ladies may work on the dreaded accomplishments,, go to the occasional entertainment, read what our fathers allow, walk where our fathers allow, visit relatives when our fathers allow, visit entertainments when our fathers allow—”
Since she said the words ‘accomplishment’ and ‘fathers’ like a dread disease, I was getting the picture.
“I shall not claim to understand, but I can empathise.”
She shook her head, as if she truly wanted to be done with the disagreeable subject, an idea I could easily get behind.
“Remember that when your sister comes out. Her life will have different challenges. For me, the worst is the tedium of low circles and low expectations. For her, the worst will be the terror of high circles and high expectations.”
The thought struck me like a club, but I finally got my tongue moving again. “That is incredibly perceptive. I must give it some thought.”
“You will do the right thing when the time comes. I am certain of it.”
I liked her faith but suspected it was misplaced. To date, my sister may as well have been raised by wolves, but perhaps the school could improve on her crusty father and two bachelors for guidance. It seemed achievable, given how low that standard was.
Not prepared to delve deeper into that, I suggested she tell me about her project.
“I wasted six months learning about four-course crop rotation and trying to get my father to at least try it.”
I chuckled grimly. “I can see your hair is still flat from him patting your head.”
She joined my grim chuckle. “I finally gave up and went back to selling everything not nailed down.”
“Any progress?”
“Some, but the pickings are getting slim.”
That was hardly surprising. What was surprising was that she had worked at it so long and accomplished as much as she had. No quitter—our Miss Smith!
I said, “I did a bit of studying about entails and spoke to an attorney. He is a good friend, and blissfully devoid of a single unwed relative of any kind.”
“A handy thing to have.”
“He suggested something a bit… well… sneaky might be a good word. Some might be tempted toward underhanded… dishonest… that sort of thing… but I would dispute such.”
“Do go on,” she said, showing real enthusiasm.
“Let us say the inventory lists a ‘drawing room sofa’ or even gives a more specific description. Let us further suppose your mother bought a new sofa at some time or other.”
“Both correct,” she said suspiciously. “I think she is prouder of that sofa than some of her daughters.”
I flinched but did not pause. “Now, let us say a good sofa is worth, say forty pounds, but the worst one in the world is worth five.”
I saw the light come into her eyes, and she completed the thought. “I need a man who could supply a terrible sofa on little notice and store our good sofa somewhere until we work it out. That one item could save us thirty pounds. It is the furniture versions of the swarm of locusts.”
“Exactly. You might even buy the terrible one in advance and store it in the attics or an outbuilding, then your servants could move them at a moment’s notice. You can watch for a used one or get one cheap from an estate sale or some such.”
She thought about it a while. I could not tell if she was thinking about the idea in general or going through an inventory of things she might treat thusly. I just enjoyed watching the interplay on her face, as she was very engaged with her thoughts, and it was fascinating.
She gave a little evil chuckle. “I think I just worked out why it could be underhanded.”
“Do tell.”
“If I did that with a sofa my mother purchased and replaced it with one that was equal quality to what she found on her arrival, that would be completely honest in all particulars.”
“Agreed. You could even argue for that during probate of the will but—”
“But if the heir is already ensconced in the estate, it is difficult to gain access. Not to mention he might damage it out of spite.”
“Correct. And what was your idea for where it gets dishonest?”
“Suppose the entail inventory simply lists the silver by the number of pieces of each type. Twenty forks, and so forth.”
“Go on.”
“If there was good silver when my mother arrived, and the cheapest possible silver when she left, that would be close to theft, but nobody would ever know… or at least, the heir would be unlikely to prove it, unless you had the poor sense to let him inspect it beforehand. Like your earlier suggestion, I could even purchase it in advance.”
“Exactly. I would not do that unless—”
“—unless?” she asked anxiously, in a tone suggesting she was looking for a good excuse to do exactly that.
“Unless the heir is very disagreeable. In that case, he deserves what he gets.”
She grunted. “He gets a solid, well-tended estate with a good income for being born with certain body parts. Disagreeable or not, he does not deserve a single thing more than what I am unable to safely remove.”
I could not argue the logic, nor would such occur to me. A glance at the clock suggested time was up. Our meetings got longer by about a quarter-hour every year, but it was time to go.
“Next year, Miss Smith?”
“Same time, same place, Mr Jones!”