Chapter 5 #2
“You needn’t furrow your brow so,” Matilda said encouragingly, as they turned from Stonegate into the narrower streets beyond.
“He will not make you feel foolish. Mr. Eastwood is not that sort of man. He will listen properly and tell you what he thinks without dressing it up to spare your feelings, which is more useful than most men are when they speak to women about delicate matters.”
“That is a relief,” Tamsin said with a small smile. “I do not need my feelings spared. I need to know what can actually be done.”
Matilda glanced at her with something that might have been concern. “Yes. I thought you would say something of that kind.”
The streets were quieter here, away from the main thoroughfares, and the buildings older, pressing closer on either side.
Tamsin had walked through this part of the city before but rarely, and not recently.
She had grown used to looking at York from its edges—the half hour’s walk to the barbicans, the walls—without often going farther in.
She had always been traveling with a purpose, a goal in mind to achieve.
There was always something at home that needed her.
They came around a corner onto Castlegate and Tamsin stopped.
There was no reason to stop, except the church.
One of many churches. York had a surplus of medieval chapels; this one was small, its stone worn and bright, indifferent to the century it resided in, its steeple still reaching up to the blue sky above.
Something about the sight of it made her pause in a way she could not immediately explain.
It was very old. She knew that without knowing precisely when it was built, and whatever had threatened it over the centuries, whatever improvement or progress or simple neglect had come for it, it was still here.
Still standing on its corner of Castlegate with its old stones and its narrow windows, looking much as it had likely looked two hundred years ago and the two hundred years before that.
She stood there in silence, lost in her thoughts.
“Tamsin? Are you well?” Matilda’s voice was quiet.
“Yes.” Tamsin looked at the church for one more moment, then looked away. “Yes, I was only thinking. My apologies. Are we nearly there?”
Hartwell House was only a little farther down the street, and Tamsin made herself look at it squarely as they approached.
She had walked past the house before, but had never had occasion to look at it directly.
It was a neighbor to the Fairfax residence, a place her mother continuously cooed over as the most fashionable house in all York.
Hartwell House had a kind of quiet authority—well-kept brick, clean lines, nothing excessive, nothing neglected.
It was the sort of house which did not need to announce itself.
The shining number twelve near the door did all the work of that.
A footman received them with the composed efficiency of a well-run household and showed them to a sitting room without hesitation.
A fire crackled in the hearth. The room was ordered and comfortable in equal measure, and Tamsin found herself noticing things; the quality of the furniture, the absence of clutter, the stillness of a house where things were where they belonged.
No scattered shoes. No abandoned needlework or sketches on every surface. No small handprints on the window glass.
It felt both empty and delightfully tidy.
She was still taking stock of it when Mr. Eastwood entered.
He was dark-haired, like his brother. Goodness, had she really seen Lord Hartwell but two days before?
But where Lord Hartwell was all contained precision, this man moved with a quieter ease, at peace in the place he occupied.
Which made sense, she supposed. It was his family home.
He had an open face, the kind that showed what he was thinking without intending to, and when he saw Matilda his expression shifted into a wide and genuine smile that reached his eyes without any apparent effort.
Lord Hartwell, Tamsin thought, had not at all worn an expression like that.
“Mrs. Elgin.” Mr. Eastwood bowed graciously. “It is an unexpected kindness to have you visit today.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Eastwood. I hope we are not interrupting,” Matilda said with a smile.
“Not at all.” He turned to Tamsin, his expression open and attentive, entirely without condescension. “And your friend?”
“Allow me to present Miss Mayweather. Her father is Mr. George Mayweather of Sycamore Lodge.”
Tamsin curtsied. “Mr. Eastwood. It is a pleasure to meet you.” She glanced at Matilda. How exactly was she to begin this conversation?
“The pleasure is mine, Miss Mayweather.” Their host looked between them. “I am afraid I am the only one available for your visit. My mother is out, and I have not seen my brother all morning.”
Thankfully, Matilda knew precisely what to say.
“We have come on purpose to see you, Mr. Eastwood.” She settled into one of the chairs as he gestured at them.
“Miss Mayweather is in need of some sensible counsel, and I told her there was no one more sensible in York. Excepting my brother,” she added with a teasing familiarity that set Tamsin more at ease.
They were obviously well acquainted. “But as he is away, we are here to appeal to you.”
Mr. Eastwood smiled at that. “Miss Mayweather,” he said with a bow. “Please, won’t you sit down. I confess, I am not clever about all things, but I will do my best to be of service to you.”
Tamsin sat on the edge of the couch. She folded her hands in her lap, took a breath, and began her tale a second time. “Well, you see, Mr. Eastwood…”
In the study, Roman’s pen stopped moving.
He had heard the bell and Martin speaking to someone in the entry.
There had been the murmur of women’s voices and the sitting room door opening and closing.
But no one had come to fetch him. He had returned to his correspondence, Apollo snoring at his feet and unaffected by household guests if Roman wasn’t rising to greet them.
Athena, spread out by the fire in blissful repose, suddenly twitched upright and walked quietly across the carpet to the door joining the study and sitting room.
Given that the callers were women, he absolutely did not wish to distress them with the appearance of his large, though affectionate, hound.
“Athena,” he whispered at the same moment her nose poked at the not-quite-latched door, pushing it open a scant two inches. She swung her great head around to look at him, ears perked, eyes wide and innocent. “Aus.”
She dropped her head as though she had never received such an unkind word in her life, though the command to call her off was used often enough, before walking slowly back to her place by the fire. She glared once more before curling up and issuing a most disgruntled huff.
Then Lyness spoke, and through the not-quite-latched door came the name circling Roman’s mind in his brother’s careful, unhurried voice.
Miss Mayweather.
Roman set his pen down.
He did not move. He was aware, with great clarity and as a man who prided himself on his own conduct, that the correct action was to rise, cross to the door, close it fully, and return to his letters. The conversation in the sitting room was evidently not his to hear.
Yet he remained precisely where he was, motionless in his chair, one hand flat on the desk, listening to her voice. She spoke in the low, composed, precise way of someone who had organized their thoughts carefully and did not intend to waste anyone’s time.
Athena’s head listed and she stared at the door, then at Roman. He narrowed his eyes at her. There was absolutely no reasonable way his dog could remember the woman.
Was there?
Miss Mayweather was not what he had expected.
The woman from the walls had been competent and faintly amused by her small charge’s enthusiasm.
This woman—the same woman, he was quite certain—was careful, polite, and quite serious.
She laid out her family’s situation the way one lays out a map.
Here is where we are, here is the terrain, here is what I need to know to find a way through it.
She did not dramatize or apologize for taking up his time. She asked carefully worded questions, and when Lyness asked her something she did not know, she said so without sounding embarrassed. Unfortunately, that occurred many times. A very calm, “I do not know,” had to be repeated.
Roman found he had picked up his pen again without noticing, twisting it between two fingers. He set it back down.
Lyness asked something about the nature of the investments, and Miss Mayweather’s response was careful and thorough and revealed, without her seeming to realize it, that she understood the situation considerably better than anyone else appeared to in her family.
She was not asking Lyness to solve all her problems, but to confirm what she already suspected and tell her what options remained.
That was not what he imagined a young woman of limited means to do when they found themselves in the company of men who understood finance. Most women would defer such things to male relatives, would they not? Take whatever crumbs of reassurance were offered home and make the best of things.
Miss Mayweather was not doing that.
Roman was almost startled when the interview in the next room came to a close.
How much time had passed with him sitting there, listening to things that were none of his business?
His correspondence sat untouched before him as Lyness offered what guidance he could before the scrape of chairs, the polite exchange of farewells.
Footsteps retreated toward the entry. The front door was opening and closing. Then the usual silence of the home.
Athena snorted, her head raised and tail thumping as Lyness appeared in the doorway to the corridor.
“Athena, here you are.” Then he looked at Roman with sudden surprise. “And here you are. You missed a most puzzling visit.”