Chapter Twenty-One #3
There would be a matron resident in the house.
A small number of rooms at first, not the vast institution his mind had already begun trying to construct.
Applicants would be interviewed, but employers would be examined just as carefully.
References would run in both directions.
A woman placed through the foundation could write back if the situation proved different from the one represented to her.
It was, Nathaniel realised, less a charity than a mechanism for giving women without power some of the protections ordinarily supplied by family and money.
“What do you need from me?” he asked.
Selina’s eyes lifted. “You are asking?”
“Yes.”
“Without first telling me what you intend to provide?”
“I am making an effort.”
“I should mark the date.”
“Selina.”
She smiled and turned the third sheet towards him.
“Money, obviously. Enough to lease the house and meet the first year’s expenses without requiring the women themselves to support the scheme. Your name, where mine will not open a door. Petherick, if he is willing to advise us. And introductions to employers whose households can be trusted.”
“That is all?”
“For the beginning.”
“You have not asked my permission.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Her expression altered slightly.
“I am inviting your assistance.”
“I understand the distinction.”
“I know.”
He looked down once more.
A few months earlier, presented with the same proposal, he would have summoned Petherick, doubled the capital, found the building himself and appointed three men to administer it before Selina had reached the end of her first page.
The impulse still existed. He let it pass.
“You have allowed too little for coal,” he said instead.
Selina stared at him. “Coal?”
“Yes.”
“You have before you an entire plan for an institution which does not yet exist, and your principal objection is coal.”
“At present.”
She pulled the account towards herself.
“How much?”
They argued about coal for several minutes.
It was an oddly satisfying argument.
They moved from fuel to the number of resident rooms, from rooms to the salary of the matron, and from the matron to whether employers should pay a small registration fee.
Selina opposed it until Nathaniel pointed out that a fee might discourage men who regarded an endless supply of governesses as disposable.
She conceded the possibility but wrote consider beside the line rather than changing the figure.
He noticed.
“You have not agreed.”
“I have agreed to think.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“I am pleased marriage has sharpened your understanding.”
By the time Bassett appeared to announce luncheon, the original pages had acquired additions in two hands.
Bassett looked at the table.
“Shall I have another tray brought, Your Grace?”
“No,” Nathaniel said.
“Yes,” Selina said at the same moment.
Bassett waited.
Nathaniel looked at his wife.
“Let us eat properly,” Nathaniel said. “Then you may resume objecting to my figures.”
“They are not your figures.”
“My objection to yours, then.”
“Better.”
Bassett withdrew.
Nathaniel gathered the sheets into order.
Selina reached for them. “Do not alter anything before luncheon.”
“I have no intention of altering anything.”
“You have written in three margins.”
“Those were observations.”
“They were figures.”
“Numerical observations.”
She took the papers out of his hands.
Nathaniel stood. “You realise this will occupy us for years.”
Selina looked down at the pages. “I hope so.”
There was the future of it in that answer, and for once neither of them seemed inclined to make anything more of the fact.
They went down together.
***
Georgiana was already in the dining room and wanted to know whether there would be cake. Bassett informed her that there would, provided she allowed luncheon to precede it. Georgiana regarded this as an arbitrary household regulation and appealed to Selina, who declined jurisdiction.
Nathaniel took his place at the table.
Three weeks ago there had always been something waiting beyond the next door: a letter, a threat, a name to protect, a consequence to anticipate before it reached the people he loved.
He had spent so long arranging his life around what might go wrong that peace still felt faintly like something he had forgotten to attend to.
But Georgiana’s letters were ash. Giles had put his name beneath the truth and gone. Rowland had lost the means to threaten them. Across the table Selina was already making another note in the margin of her foundation accounts while pretending not to do so.
Nothing required rescuing.
There were only things to be done.
Selina caught him looking at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That expression generally precedes interference.”
“I was thinking.”
“More dangerous still.”
Georgiana looked between them. “May I have cake while you decide which of you is right?”
“No,” they said together.
Bassett turned away with suspicious promptness.
Selina’s mouth twitched.
Nathaniel reached beneath the edge of the table and found her hand. Her fingers closed around his without hesitation.
Luncheon arrived. Georgiana resumed her campaign for cake. Selina informed Nathaniel that his estimate for coal remained excessive, and Nathaniel informed her that winter would decide the matter.
The house was no longer quiet.
He found he preferred it that way.