The Ledgers
Chapter nine
Violet
“The household book, Your Grace. The accounts for the past quarter. And the standing orders with the tradesmen.”
“Thank you.”
Violet drew up a chair on her side of the table. The fire had been built up against the cold of the morning. She set her hands flat on the burgundy cloth of the topmost book and waited a moment before she opened it.
The first page was a summary of the previous quarter. She ran her finger down the columns and stopped halfway.
“Mrs Greer.”
“Your Grace.”
“Is this figure for the candles alone?”
“It is, Your Grace. Wax candles for the public rooms and the family rooms. Tallow for the offices below stairs.”
Violet did some quick arithmetic in her head. The wax candles for a single quarter at Iredell House came to nearly twice the entire household budget at Thornwick for a year. She kept her finger on the line until she was certain her face had settled.
“I wonder if we ought to reduce the use of wax candles and place tallow for the family rooms only, Mrs Greer. It should yield significant savings for the household.”
Mrs Greer pressed a hand flat against her hair at the temple where there was nothing to smooth.
“I should not advise it, Your Grace. The late duke’s father tried it in the family rooms, in the year of the wheat failure.
He reversed the decision before the month was out.
Tallow burns dirty and blackens the cornices. It is noticed.”
“I have lived with tallow all my life, Mrs Greer. I do not find the smell particularly disagreeable. I should not have noticed it at Thornwick, and I do not expect to notice it here.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
Mrs Greer drew a small pencil from her pocket and wrote down numbers in the back of the household book.
“The saving would come to perhaps six pounds a quarter, Your Grace. Against the standing wax order.”
“Six pounds was three months’ candles at Thornwick, Mrs Greer.”
After the housekeeper made her notes in the book, Violet turned the page. Then the next. The numbers continued for the butcher, the fishmonger, the coal merchant, and the wine merchant. She paused at a separate entry beneath the wine merchant’s column.
“Mrs Greer.”
“Your Grace.”
“There is a standing order here for plain brandy. Four gallons last quarter.”
“Yes, Your Grace. That is the cook’s brandy. We keep a quantity in the kitchen for preserving and the puddings.”
“Four gallons is a great deal of preserving.”
“Mrs Garrick is fond of a tot in her evening tea, Your Grace. She has been with the house two and twenty years, and her work has not suffered for it. The arrangement was understood by His Grace’s mother and continued by His Grace. I have not seen reason to disturb it, Your Grace.”
Violet nodded. “Cooks will be cooks.”
“Just so, Your Grace.”
Violet made a small mark in pencil on the margin and turned the page. The figure at the top was the apothecary’s bill.
“Mrs Greer.”
“Your Grace.”
“This line here. The tea.” She turned the book around and put her finger beneath the line. It sat apart from the rest of the bill, in a hand of its own, and the sum against it would have undone every small economy she had made all that morning. “It is a great deal of money for tea.”
“That will be Her Grace’s own blend. It does not come through the grocer. It is made up special at the apothecary’s and sent round, and Mr Vexley sees to the ordering of it himself.”
“My own blend. I never asked for one. And why would Mr Vexley concern himself with what tea I drink?”
“It comes with the house, you might say. The lady before you took it, and the two before her.” Mrs Greer pressed two fingers to her temple, to the place where there was nothing to smooth.
“It is held to be good for the getting of children. There is a quantity of foreign physic worked through it that comes very dear, and that is the whole of the figure you have there. Mr Vexley has always been most particular that the duchess should not be without it.”
“That is kind of him.”
“Kinder than most would trouble to be.” The approval was plain in her voice. “He stands next to the title, Your Grace, when all is said, and a child in this house would put him further from it than ever. But there is no greed or meanness in Mr Vexley.”
Violet looked at the figure and let a moment pass. What good was fertility draught if her husband did not come to her bed? It had been three or four days, and when he did come, he would not stay in the room long enough to warm the sheets.
“Leave it as it stands,” she said, lifting her eyes to the housekeeper. “What budget would be allotted to me, were I to take the stillroom and put it back in use?”
Mrs Greer did not answer at once. Violet kept her eyes on the apothecary’s column.
“The stillroom has not been used since Her Grace, the duke’s mother, passed away, Your Grace.”
“She was a herbalist?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Quite a skilled one, from what I gathered. She often treated the family’s ailments herself rather than call the physician.”
Violet absorbed this.
“The late dowager duchess quite enjoyed foraging in the forest on His Grace’s various estates.”
“You mean to say His Grace has estates other than this one?”
“Yes. Quite vast, mind you. Some with dense forests.”
“That sounds a great pleasure, Mrs Greer.”
“They’re lovely from what I’ve been told. I haven’t been there myself. But to answer your question, His Grace’s mother had thirty pounds a quarter for her supplies, Your Grace. Allowing for the rise in the price of dried goods, I should think forty would not be unreasonable for the present.”
Violet did not allow her face to do anything with the figure, but it was nearly twice the full annual income at Thornwick. She nodded once as if the sum was perfectly ordinary.
“I should be grateful for the use of it, Mrs Greer. I have some skill with herbs, and the apothecary’s bill need not remain quite where it is.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
She did not trust herself to keep her face in order through another page. She closed the ledger.
“I believe that is all, Mrs Greer.”
“If you wish, Your Grace.” The housekeeper’s gaze flicked to Violet then away.
“Is there something else you wish to discuss?”
“I only wanted to mention that the staff are quite looking forward to meeting Your Grace. If Your Grace is amenable to it, I could arrange a formal presentation. Perhaps this Friday morning, if it suits you.”
“I see. It does not suit me, Mrs Greer. I think I would find it too unfamiliar to be in that position. I still cannot get accustomed to being addressed as a duchess, Mrs Greer. A formal presentation would undo me entirely.”
Mrs Greer’s lips curved slightly. “As Your Grace wishes. I ought to remind you that the furniture from Gillows is to be delivered at noon, and we shall be wanted in the south rooms most of the afternoon.”
“Very well.”
“I should also like, when we may, to take you through the house room by room. There are corners of it Your Grace has not yet seen.”
“I should like that very much. Could we settle it for Thursday?”
“Thursday, Your Grace. I shall have the linen-press and the storerooms opened, and the cellar gates, if it would interest you.”
“It would.”
Mrs Greer drew a second small book from the white cloth in which she had carried the ledgers up. This one was bound in black.
“Your Grace’s engagements for the month, with the calls Your Grace ought to make in person, and the days set aside for callers. There are also the invitations.”
Violet opened the black book. The schedule covered the first leaf.
The other leaves were the invitations themselves, slipped between the pages: cards in cream and ivory and one or two in pale grey, each in different hand.
She turned them over. There was a dinner with the Marchioness of Bramwell, Lady Carstairs’s ball, a breakfast in Richmond on the twentieth, and a garden party at Marlowe Hall, weather permitting.
There were others behind these. She had not, in her life, received so many invitations as lay between the leaves of one black book.
“This is the usual quantity, Mrs Greer?”
“It is rather more than usual, Your Grace. If I may speak plainly. The first card came the morning after the wedding. The rest have arrived over the days since. I have put before you only those which I think will require an answer.”
“They are curious about me.”
“They are curious about Your Grace, yes. And about His Grace. The marriage has been the subject of a great deal of remark.”
“I should imagine so.”
Violet closed the black book.
The door opened. A footman stood in the doorway with one foot in the corridor.
“Mrs Greer. The Gillows men are at the area door. They are an hour early.”
Mrs Greer was on her feet at once. Violet remained where she was, studying the books. The housekeeper waited a moment then was gone.