CHAPTER VI #2
Hetty bit back any further arguments she might make, perceiving the obstinacy upon his face. ‘Could I at least – perhaps I might look at the papers?’
Arthur cast her a quizzical glance. ‘It does not make for enjoyable reading. I myself can barely …’
He did not finish the sentence, hardly able to admit – even to Hetty – the extent of his deficiencies.
‘I used to do all my father’s bookkeeping,’ Hetty reminded him. ‘Your father may well have used a different system but … I might be able to help.’
Approaching the desk rather reluctantly, he lifted a single stack of papers upon the table, gripping them between his hands.
Hetty reached out to grasp them. Arthur did not let go.
‘Arthur? Am I meant to … fight you for them?’
‘Why did you ask Timothy to teach you how to flirt?’
‘I was asking Timothy about conversation!’ Hetty hurried to correct him. ‘Charm – cutting a dash – not flirting!’
As soon as the words had escaped her, she regretted them. Arthur hummed thoughtfully.
‘This is on account of the Belgian, I perceive?’
Oh Lord. This blasted Belgian again! Hetty cursed herself for ever going along with such a foolish untruth – but what was she to say to extricate herself from this tangle?
She would rather die than confess the truth: premature declarations of love were not dashing; she did not need Timothy to explain that to her.
Mind blank, Hetty stared up at Arthur rather helplessly.
‘You wish to change the light in which he sees you?’ Arthur pressed. ‘
‘I …’ Hetty sighed. ‘Well, yes. I thought perhaps … if I could show the – ah – Belgian that I am different now, that I have outgrown my shyness. Which I have, indeed – or for the most part … but, well, I suppose … You saw me earlier. I still find myself so wooden outside these four walls, and there is a great deal more I wish to learn, only how I am meant to do so when—’
With a great deal of effort, she managed to stop herself from speaking. ‘It is a piece of foolishness that I beg you will forget!’
Hetty held out her hands for the papers, and this time, Arthur handed them over.
‘I do not think it foolish,’ he said mildly.
Hetty did not answer, beginning instead to leaf through the papers, her eyes on the pages in front of her.
The first sheaf were, as she had seen, a chart of accounts as lengthy and complex as one would imagine for an estate that included twelve thousand acres of farmland, a country seat, a London townhouse and several other properties. Complex, but …
‘These are incomplete,’ she realised. ‘The dates …’
Arthur gestured to another pile. ‘Several years of tradesmen’s bills – paid or unpaid, I do not know, and we still do not have all of Mama’s bills.
’ He pointed to the next. ‘Reports on Belcourt. Letters from Mr Holland – our land agent – and notes from my father … Thimbleby can make neither head nor tail of those.’
Hetty made a turn of the desk to look over his shoulder. ‘Mangel-wurzels …’ she read aloud.
‘I beg your pardon? Mangel … what?’
‘I think that is what it says …’ Hetty narrowed her eyes. His late lordship’s handwriting was, admittedly, difficult to parse – especially in the light of only a few tapers – but not impossible.
‘How can you read it?’ Arthur marvelled.
‘My father’s scrawl is much worse than this,’ she said. ‘I used to transcribe his notes for him and …’ She paused, before adding shyly: ‘It’s a little like yours, you know.’
Arthur’s own letters home had often taken days to understand properly, with the combined translatory efforts of the whole Allerton household.
‘An insult, indeed!’ Arthur observed, though without heat.
‘I think I could decipher this for you,’ Hetty said. ‘Decipher this – and complete the accounts, once Lady Allerton supplies the bills, and—’ She looked up to find Arthur’s eyes upon her. ‘If you like,’ she added, feeling suddenly self-conscious.
Arthur hesitated. It was tempting. He was certainly desperate enough that any help felt a salvation.
‘Of course, I am sure there are persons better suited – more qualified …’
Arthur tugged upon his cravat. ‘Hetty … I do not know that I can let you. You have done too much for our family as it is – wasted too much of your attention.’
Everywhere he looked, she was there, easing conversation, and preventing Trixie’s worst starts, and soothing Timothy’s ego, and practically running the household …
‘All I would be doing’, Hetty cajoled, ‘is reading, really. Just so that we might understand the situation. That is all.’
‘We,’ he noted softly.
There was something so very touching about it.
He had not realised how lonely he had felt until that moment.
And for all of his private criticism of his family, of their use of Hetty, as if her time and attention were their right, he could see how tempting it was – here she stood, unfairly skilled and proficient, offering to lift all of his burdens, and she was miraculous, truly, but could he forgive himself for wasting more of her youth with such Allerton nonsense?
His family had failed Hetty. He would not do so.
‘Very well,’ he said, and Hetty felt a rush of satisfaction that was immediately eclipsed by his next words. ‘If you will accept my services in return. You wished for help: let me be your tutor.’
Hetty shook her head. ‘No, no, I could not bear that.’
However much she had already bungled matters, having Arthur – the object of her desire – help her cut her a dash to win himself … It was too ridiculous.
‘I can teach you.’ Arthur – who had moments ago declared a chart of accounts beyond him – spoke as if this were the easiest thing in the world. ‘At the very least, I am confident that my tutelage will be more useful than Timothy’s.’
‘Timothy told me I had to improve the posture of my soul,’ Hetty admitted.
Arthur grinned appreciatively. ‘Our great philosophical mind.’ Then, more seriously: ‘You deserve the world, Hetty. You shall have the fellow of your dreams.’
Hetty let out a strangled laugh. ‘Do you promise?’
Arthur’s eyes lit up. ‘Do we have an agreement?’
Hetty laughed again, shaking her head. ‘I do not know …’
‘These are my terms,’ Arthur added. ‘Our aid must be reciprocal, or I shall not accept it.’
Hetty hesitated. It would be excruciating, but … ‘Very well. We have an agreement.’