CHAPTER IX
THE process of untangling the late Viscount’s sea of papers afforded Hetty a great deal of satisfaction, but the conclusion did not.
‘What’s the tally?’ Arthur asked her, three days later. To his credit, he did not blanch when Hetty told him. ‘Is that truly possible?’
‘Well …’ Hetty gestured expansively to the list of bills upon the table in front of her. Arthur rounded the table so that he might peer over her shoulder at the reckoning drawn up in her neat square handwriting.
‘Not all the bills are immediately pressing,’ she reminded Arthur. ‘I have listed them in order of precedence – I think that is more useful to us in this moment.’
‘Clever,’ he commented. ‘Do we really pay four hundred pounds for our box at the opera?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Candles, fifty pounds: that does not seem so bad.’
Hetty did not like to tell him that, based on current usage, this would only last them two months.
‘Five hundred pounds for a new barouche,’ he read on. ‘Did something happen to the old one?’
Reading the answer upon her face, Arthur whistled between his teeth.
He read on with every apparent sign of composure, though his hand, gripping the back of her chair, had turned white at the knuckles.
White champagne at seventy shillings the dozen, Indian muslin at ten shillings the yard, coals at forty-four shillings the ton …
‘You have forgotten,’ he noted with admirable lightness once he had reached the end of the third page. ‘There is the diamond loan as well.’
Hetty made a show of looking the paper over. ‘I don’t think I have, have I?’
‘Hetty.’
‘Oh, very well.’ She took out her quill, and paused for a fraction of a moment as she considered what sum to write, and Arthur, catching it, reminded her that deceit was generally considered a sin. Capitulating, Hetty made a note, totted up the new total, and they spent a moment gazing at it.
‘There we have it,’ Arthur said lightly. ‘For now at least – the costs of a London Season still to come, that dratted ball …’
For a moment, he considered persuading his mother to cancel it – surely there must be some excuse they could give – but in the next, he knew this to be impossible.
The shame of it, especially in a year such as this, would not be his alone to bear.
‘And what of Belcourt? Thimbleby made it seem on the point of bankruptcy, but the estate has twelve thousand acres of good land: I cannot understand it!’
Hetty, however, could. Charting a course through the sea of papers and correspondence that had been so impenetrable to Arthur, she described the decade of flooding which had so depleted the yield of Belcourt’s farms.
‘The rent-roll dwindled to little more than a thousand pounds a year,’ she concluded, running a finger down the chart of her accounts, explaining everything in a matter-of-fact manner that was not in the least patronising, and did not betray the least impatience.
Arthur was under no illusion: this was quite a considerable feat.
For a moment, he looked away from the ink and paper to regard her downturned face.
Her hair had darkened since he had been away, and her voice, too, he suddenly appreciated, was deeper.
But the wrinkle between her brows, the incongruously pointed ear peeking through her hair – that was all Hetty.
‘The last of your mother’s dowry was spent upon a drainage project which helped a little, but I gather it will need a great deal of time and attention before it is restored to prosperity.’
Arthur nodded.
‘I am sorry,’ Hetty said.
Arthur waved this away. ‘This makes things a great deal plainer. I know what I need to do.’
This was true. He needed capital to cover their debts. He needed to provide for Trixie and Timothy’s futures. He needed to save Belcourt, whatever it cost him to do so.
Arthur took in a long deep breath. He had not been aware he had ceased to do so. He turned away from the desk to stare out of the window, and again imagined himself standing on the very top of a hill, looking down upon all, without heat or emotion.
At least, he reminded himself again, no one was shooting at him.
‘First, I must find a way to cover these costs,’ he said. ‘Next, reduce our current rate of expenditure – and then I can turn my mind to Belcourt.’
It might be a gross oversimplification of his situation, but saying the words out loud was calming nonetheless. Having a plan was, sometimes, half the battle.
‘That sounds sensible,’ Hetty said.
‘It does, doesn’t it?’ he agreed. ‘Thank you, truly.’
Hetty waved his thanks away. ‘Actually, I found it most satisfying. I do feel perhaps I have been born into the wrong life – the role of accountant’s clerk would surely have suited me better.’
Arthur smiled appreciatively. ‘I should certainly recommend your European gentleman hand over the running of his estate directly to you,’ he said. ‘Does he have an estate? Or did he – before the French annexation?’
Arthur tried to sound as offhand as possible, as if such questions sprang from mere idle curiosity. It was difficult, however, to say the word ‘annexation’ casually, and Hetty was not in the least fooled. ‘I shan’t tell you,’ she told him severely. ‘You only wish to try to guess at his identity.’
‘Foiled again,’ Arthur mourned. ‘Very well. At least tell me when the fellow is to arrive in London?’
‘Er – soon, I should think.’
What was Hetty going to do when her fictional lover made no appearance?
She would have to think of some means of killing him off – some tragic accident on the crossing?
No, too dramatic. Far better for him to marry another before arriving in London – a wedding at sea, even, removing the need to set a single foot on British soil.
Arthur clapped his hands. ‘Then we must press on. Come, it is soon time for our ride.’
This would be the third of their rides with the Morgans, whose warmth and chatter were such that, as they rode together towards Hyde Park – Trixie trotting impatiently ahead – Hetty did not feel more than an ounce of nerves, a fact Arthur noted with a great deal of satisfaction.
It might be a slower method of building her confidence than Arthur had originally envisaged, but it was at least proving effective.
For there was far less expectation that one should be interesting or amusing while one was riding, there being so much else occurring.
Indeed, Hetty could easily spend a whole hour in near-silence without anyone noticing, especially with the loquacious Morgans for company, the irony being that this simple fact made Hetty far more likely to join in – and if there was one topic upon which Hetty had always felt confident, it was horses.
It was the most fun she could recollect having all year, only …
‘I cannot speak only to the Morgans for the rest of my life,’ Hetty said, ‘as pleasant as that might be. If only everyone could chatter so easily.’
Here, Hetty had knocked the nail quite firmly about the head, as Arthur promptly told her, though he did not agree that chatter was a blessing solely owned by the Morgans.
‘Most persons adore speaking, especially about themselves. And as the more they do so, the easier time one has, this is something one ought to promote at every turn. We shall practise this today: a Colonel Davenport is to join our party. You have not made his acquaintance before. Your task is to ask him a dozen questions before we return to Berkeley Square.’
‘A dozen?’
‘Any question will serve, anything you can do to prompt him into speech. Be as whimsical as you wish.’
‘I do not particularly wish to be thought whimsical,’ Hetty muttered.
It was the hour of the fashionable promenade, and the park was thronged with vehicles and persons, ladies’ barouches, dashing curricles, high-bred hacks and exquisitely attired pedestrians all competing alike for attention.
It seemed to Hetty that every second person wished to exchange bows and greetings, which Arthur was happy enough to reciprocate – Hetty murmuring colourless ‘how do you dos’ beside him – though Trixie, more ruthless than her brother, trotted merrily past the large number of gentlemen wishing to pay homage to her.
It felt like an age before they reached the Morgans and Colonel Davenport and once they did, Hetty felt herself quail a little. She did not speak for the first few minutes, listening instead to the Major tell a lively story about a recent mishap at a dinner hosted by the Lord Mayor.
‘… so then, of course, we arrive at Mansion House and are shown into the state room!’ Major Morgan paused for dramatic effect. ‘Where everyone is dressed as for Court. The Lady Mayoress was in a hoop dress.’
Trixie let out a peal of laughter. ‘What were you were wearing?’
‘I arrived in a round hat!’
‘At least it happened this week,’ Arthur consoled him. ‘With all the busyness of the coming days, some other gossip shall surely arise.’
‘Very true! Perhaps Princess Charlotte could choose this week to cry off,’ Mrs Morgan said. ‘That would provide us with serviceable cover.’
Trixie objected to this in the strongest of terms. ‘I cannot believe the rumours. There are so few adventures available to ladies like us,’ she expounded, losing no time to place herself on equal footing with the heir to the English throne, ‘if I were she I should leap at the chance to explore a foreign land – with a Prince, no less. Though,’ she added reflectively, ‘what if Prince Wilhelm has nose hair like our Prince?’
Arthur appeared much struck by this. ‘Very true – Davenport, can you confirm or deny the charge of nose hair?’
Colonel Davenport’s cousin, the Marquis de Nicolet, was known to be an intimate of the Prince of Orange, and they had been pressing him for titbits all morning.
‘I know nothing, I’m afraid,’ he said, to comical groans of disappointment from Arthur and the Major. ‘Though I do know that the royal procession has now reached Boulogne. They will sail as soon as the weather allows.’