Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“Mama, I think Tamsin has the right of it with the rose-pink gown,” Daphne was saying, pulling Tamsin from her thoughts to the immediate conversation.
She had drifted into her mental preparations for the coming morning, the schedule for music and drawing lessons, the promise she had made to walk into York to visit the lending library, and hearing her name brought her rushing back.
The candles had burned low at the dinner table. How long had she been lost in her own head?
Her stepmother Anne Mayweather nodded toward Tamsin with a warm smile.
“I completely agree, Tamsin. Daphne has always looked well in pink of all hues, much more charming than the white everyone insisted on in years past.” Praise given, her stepmother turned her full attention to Daphne.
“Of course you will wear your coral pins. I think they will set off your complexion nicely, too.”
Tamsin put her fork down, having finished the fish though without much memory of tasting it. She waited patiently while the others did the same, and she nearly missed her father’s small sigh before he spoke.
“I have been thinking,” Mr. Mayweather said, to no one in particular, “that Daphne’s order might be better placed after Christmas. There is no urgency, after all. There will still be parties in January.”
He spoke the way he said most things he did not wish to discuss—quietly, between one course and the next, as though the dining room table were a place one might leave an unpleasant thought and walk away from it.
Daphne looked up from her plate of baked apple tart. “After Christmas?”
“Mm.” Mr. Mayweather reached for his fork.
“But—but the assembly is in December,” Seraphina spluttered. “She cannot wear last season’s—”
“She has perfectly good dresses, or may borrow one of yours,” her father said, already looking down at his plate rather than at any of his family. “My little starlings are quite capable of sharing with one another.”
Tamsin studied him. There was something in the way he’d said it; not the words but the edges of them, the careful vagueness of a man who hoped to leave a room before anyone thought to ask another question.
She knew that quality in him. She had learned it while still young.
“Father,” she said, keeping her voice even, “is it a matter of timing with the modiste, or—”
“Timing, yes, something of that sort.” He waved a vague hand. “No need to make a fuss.”
“But Papa,” Daphne said, her voice climbing, “you promised—”
“I said no fuss.”
Anne set down her fork. It made almost no sound, which was worse than if it had. “George.” She only used his given name like that when she had decided to be very calm, which conversely meant she was not calm at all. “What is wrong? What have you done?”
Tamsin watched her father’s face harden. “I haven’t done anything. I am merely suggesting a small delay.”
“What have you done with the quarterly income?”
Tamsin’s sisters had gone quite still. Leopold, at the far end of the table, had stopped eating entirely. Charles continued to eat his pastry without looking up.
“Anne—”
“The investment income, George,” his wife said, a sharpness entering her voice. “The Matteson fund. You told me in August it would be sufficient through the winter. You told me specifically.”
Mr. Mayweather set down his glass, his movements careful and his expression that of a man who was being very unfairly treated and wished everyone to know it.
“These things fluctuate, it is the nature of investment. Then there are all the household expenses that come up, especially the unexpected bills for young ladies preparing for parties. I cannot be held responsible for such things—”
“You absolutely can,” Leopold said. His voice was quiet and dangerous in a way Tamsin hadn’t heard from him before. “And you absolutely should. You are responsible. That is precisely what being the head of the house means.”
“Leopold, perhaps you should—” Tamsin began, tension fluttering in her lungs.
“No.” He pushed back slightly from the table, not even glancing at her. “Father, I must see the accounts. All of them. I am trying to marry. I am the heir to the estate, and I have a right—”
“You have no such right while I am living,” Mr. Mayweather snapped, with a sudden dignity that might have been impressive under different circumstances. As it was, he tucked his chin against his chest and glowered at the apple tart like it was the source of all his woes.
But the conversation was not over. “Then tell me honestly that you have managed things properly and I will believe you.”
An abrupt silence while everyone at the table stared at its head was the only answer.
It was the silence which did it. Mrs. Mayweather’s gaze turned cold and precise. Daphne cried quietly, Pearl’s chin trembling. Seraphina was looking between their father and her mother with wide-eyed shock.
Tamsin glanced around the table and completed the arithmetic she had already started since the moment her father said after Christmas. There were other expenses the family had between that moment and the new year.
Music lessons for Henry. Edward’s school fees due before January. The winter coal not yet ordered. The quarterly wages for the staff. Large, necessary expenses.
Daphne’s dress was the least of it.
“Perhaps,” she said to the table generally, “we might discuss this more calmly in the morning, when we have had a chance—”
“There is nothing to discuss,” Anne said, not looking at her and instead fixing her glare upon her husband. “Calmly or otherwise. Your father has been negligent, and we are all to suffer for it.”
“I have not been negligent,” Mr. Mayweather said, standing suddenly. “I have been unfortunate. There is a considerable difference, and I only thought to ask that this family extend me the basic courtesy of—”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, sit down, George.”
He did not sit down. He placed his napkin beside his plate, looking wounded. “I will not. Not when I am afforded so little respect in my own household.” He left the room with his head higher than Tamsin thought appropriate, given the circumstances.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Daphne pushed back her chair and ran out the other door, still crying.
Pearl went after her, tears glistening on her cheeks.
Seraphina rose without a word, her face composed in a way that meant she would be furious later, in private, where it was safer.
Tamsin had seen it before. Had comforted her before. Had comforted all of them.
Leopold stood, glaring at the door his father had gone through. “I will see those accounts by the end of the week.” Then he left.
Well. Stormed out, more like.
Anne rose with silent indignation and went out the same door as her husband. In a moment, Tamsin guessed, she would hear their not-so-calm discussion echo through the house.
Charles had already disappeared. Tamsin wasn’t sure exactly when. One moment he had been there, then he wasn’t.
Which meant that she sat alone at the table.
The candles guttered in the draft from the open door. The remains of dinner sat undisturbed around her. Somewhere upstairs she could hear Daphne sobbing, and her stepmother’s voice, low and clipped, then a door closing.
Then quiet.
Tamsin reached out and straightened the fork beside her plate. Then the one beside her father’s abandoned setting. Then Charles’s spoon.
Leopold would demand the accounts, their father would resist, the argument would go on for weeks, and nothing would be resolved. Henry’s music teacher still would not be paid. Edward’s school fees would still be due in January. The coal still would not be ordered.
Perhaps their anger would keep them warm.
She needed someone who would actually know what to do with the situation.
The little ones should not be made to suffer for the mismanagement of funds, but there were not many people to seek out, in her situation, for advice.
She would need a woman’s perspective, most likely, and a woman who ran a household would be best. But who—
Oh. Matilda Elgin.
Tamsin’s friend was a widow, with access to people and information she herself did not have. What might she know?
Perhaps she could help, or knew whether there was anyone in York with both the discretion and the knowledge to tell Tamsin what she actually needed to help her family.
The candle nearest her father’s chair sputtered and went out.
Tamsin sat in the dim light, alone at the family table, and thought.