Chapter 10 Pike’s Offer
Pike’s Offer
Septimus Pike came to call on a blustery Thursday.
His riding clothes were quite as fine as his attire at the ball had been.
Mamma looked quite comically perplexed when he bowed and claimed an old acquaintance with the family.
Clearly, she’d entirely forgotten him. On any other day, she’d have stayed and tried with clumsy subterfuge to ascertain his income, but she had bigger prey to think of; she left me, Lydia, and Kitty to entertain him and flew off in pursuit of a rumor regarding when Bingley would return from London.
“It is a beautiful day,” he lied, “and I have missed the countryside hereabouts. Shall we go for a walk?”
As usual, Lydia and Kitty had secret business of their own; despite the cough Kitty was developing, the two of them quickly outpaced us. I tried to keep up, but Septimus Pike took my arm and held me back a little.
“Let them skip ahead,” he said. “I would like a word, Miss Mary.”
“Oh?” I said. The road wound up the hill, with a steep drop to one side. I had a sudden, delightful vision of shoving him over the embankment to his doom.
He patted my hand. “I am sorry for the other night. Truly. I was so excited to be home, and, well—I see now that I was abominably rude. Can you forgive me?”
He really did look sheepish. I did not want to forgive him—but of course, leaving town a penniless boy and returning as a man of means would make anyone lose his head. “I understand,” I said.
“Good.” He drew a deep breath. “I believe I can make it up to you. How would you like to sell more dye?”
“But you said—”
He held up a hand. “I know. But I owe you, Miss Mary.” He gave me that charming smile again. “You may not be the most profitable partner I have had, but you were the first to trust me to be one. I can certainly see my way to a small side business.”
“I see.” I fell silent. I could feel his eyes upon me. So much for the dream of five thousand pounds.
After a moment he sighed. “You are a gentleman’s daughter, Miss Mary,” he explained gently. “Every third person you know has a fortune of five or ten or fifty thousand. I am afraid that making that kind of money is not as common as it may appear.”
My face grew hot. It was true. When I seized on the number of five thousand pounds, I was trying to be modest about what had seemed, to my younger self, to be a guaranteed success.
If someone like Mr. Bingley, who appeared to have dandelion fluff for brains, could amass a large fortune from manufacturing, how could I fail to attain a small one?
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Arrogant, too. I was lucky Pike offered anything at all.
There was no reason not to say yes. I had nothing to lose. No reason, except the strange desolation that had rolled in my chest the night of the Netherfield ball.
He took my hesitation for business concerns. He sighed. “It is true, our profit margins would be slim. But—as I have said, you deserve my help.”
I had not cried since the day I’d discovered my lab, but my throat began to feel sore and gummy. “Do not help me out of pity,” I ground out.
“No, no, of course not.” He cleared his throat. “Actually, there is… another reason. I… wish to marry.” I looked at him, and he added hastily, “To marry someone else.”
Ah. Of course. “So you do remember our bargain.”
He looked sheepish, and said nothing. I actually felt a little better. It wasn’t just pity; he felt obliged to help me to make up for breaking his promise to marry me. I had no objection to a fair exchange. “How much would you need?”
He gave me a relieved smile. “Shall we say… five bottles per month? I can pay you up front, so you needn’t worry if I’ve found a buyer. Half a pound per bottle.”
Something about all this was bothering me, but I had learned to doubt my own intuition.
I supposed it was just the lost dream of five thousand pounds.
I would be a fool, though, to turn down two and a half pounds per month to spite my vanished fantasy.
If, as appeared increasingly certain, I was to be a poor relation all my life, I may as well try to be a fractionally less poor one.
And—my lab. I could go back to it. I would have to. Already I could almost smell it. Sawdust and chemicals and centuries of isolation.
Just a few hours per week, of course. Just to make the dye. Plenty of time to be a model of Quindley’s womanhood the rest of the time.
“Very well,” I said.