Elizabeth Mansfield (8 page)

He came home from his visit to the City determined to inform them bluntly of the state of their impoverishment. It was a necessary cruelty. He had to apprise them of the hard facts at once so that they could learn to accept what would soon be their much-diminished style of life. To that end, he ordered the butler to request that the family assemble in the drawing room in three quarters of an hour, at exactly four P.M., when he would confer with them over tea.

In the meantime, he sat down at the desk in the room that had been his father’s study to go over the figures that Chivers had given him. Attempting to calculate the exact advantages that one of the plans might have over the other, he picked up a pen. Its nib, he found, was impossibly dull, and he thrust his calculations aside to search for a knife with which to sharpen it. He opened the top drawer and discovered, to his horror, that it was stuffed full of unpaid bills.

He surveyed the crumpled, disarranged, confusing accumulation with a feeling of utter despair. Slowly, one by one, he studied them, sorting them into piles and jotting down the amounts on a tally-sheet. Every bill was overdue, and all of them—mostly household trivialities and ladies’ clothing—were for amounts considerably larger than he would have expected. His mother seemed to have deliberately purchased the most expensive items she could find. Although she must have had some inkling of the state of their finances, she had evidently taken no steps to economize. There were, for example, thirty-seven bills for millinery alone! Why, he wondered distractedly, when one’s finances were in disarray, would one even
consider
buying oneself
thirty-seven hats
?

He made a quick estimate of the total, but the sum sickened him. Could his addition possibly be right? Could his mother have spent almost
three thousand pounds
on these
trifles
? He recalculated the list, hoping that a more careful reckoning would yield a less horrendous total, but the second accounting was even worse. His fists clenched in bewilderment and frustration.
How could so large an amount
, he asked himself,
have been spent on useless, self-indulgent luxuries
?

As the fact of this new debt sank into his consciousness, his sense of helpless frustration gave way to a feeling of explosive fury. He seized the papers in an angry fist and strode across the hallway to the drawing room. “Mama,” he demanded without a word of greeting, “what on
Earth
is the meaning of
this?”

The dowager Lady Kittridge, the only person in the family who’d thus far responded to his summons, was comfortably ensconced on an easy chair near the tea table, which was already laden with the tea things. She was about to nibble at a cucumber sandwich she’d taken from the tea tray when his bellow made her shudder in alarm. “Good heavens, Robbie, you startled me!” she gasped, her hands fluttering up in alarm. She frowned at him disapprovingly and then looked down at the sandwich which his abrupt entrance had caused to fall from her fingers to her lap. “Whatever possessed you to burst in on me like that? You made me drop my—”

“Whatever
possessed
me, ma’am?” her son exploded. “
These
are what possessed me!
One hundred and seventy-four unpaid bills
!”

“Oh, those.” She shrugged, picked up her sandwich and took a dainty bite. “I don’t see why you should raise a dust over them. Just send them over to Mr. Jennings. He’ll take care of them.”

Kittridge stared at his mother in disbelief. She was not in the least discomposed by his fury, but calmly finished her little sandwich and brushed the crumbs from her lap. She was a small-boned, delicate creature, looking at this moment—with her head tilted up at him, one graceful hand draped over the arm of the chair, and one tiny, slippered foot resting on a stool—like an exquisite porcelain figurine. Her hair was so white it seemed powdered; her complexion, once so luminous that her beaux made toasts to it, was now sadly wrinkled but still translucent; her waist was still as shapely as when she was a girl; and her graceful, slim-fingered hands fluttered like birds when she spoke. It was disconcerting to Kittridge to have to scold so fragile-looking a creature, but what else was he to do? “Damnation, ma’am,” he raged, “what is Mr. Jennings supposed to ‘take care of them’
with
? His own pocket money?”

The birdlike hands fluttered to her breast. “What do you mean, my dearest?” she asked, blinking up at him in bewildered innocence. “Mr. Jennings
always
takes care of the bills.”

“Are you trying to pretend, Mama, that you don’t know that my father left us penniless?”

Her pale blue eyes widened. “Well, I knew he was profligate, of course, and that he’d run himself into Dun territory, but
penniless
—?”

“Yes, penniless! What do you think ‘Dun territory’
means
?”

“I know very well what it means. But your father never asked me to stint on the household expenses. Never!”

“Household expenses, ma’am? Is that what you call these? These are nothing but bills for gowns and bonnets and nonsense like reupholstering chairs! Nothing but
fripperies
!”

Her ladyship’s elegant eyebrows rose in agitated disbelief. “Are you saying I shouldn’t have purchased any new gowns?”

“That’s
exactly
what I’m saying!” her son snapped. “And it’s not only gowns we’re speaking of. How can you have bought yourself something as expensive and unnecessary as a new barouche when there were three carriages in the stables already and you
knew
Papa’s finances were all to pieces? Do you realize that there are bills here, all accumulated since his death, adding up to
three thousand pounds
? I can only suppose that you’ve forgotten how to
add
! I cannot otherwise explain how you could indulge yourself in such knickknackery as imported laces and French champagne and silver tea services, Mama, when we can hardly afford to pay for
tea
!”

“Not pay for tea? Really, Robbie, aren’t you being a bit ridicu—?”

“Goodness, Robbie,” came a voice from the doorway, “why all this shouting? I could hear you all the way down the hall.” And in strolled his sister Eunice, Lady Yarrow, followed by her two little girls and their governess.

“Uncle Robert, Uncle Robert!” clarioned Della, the eldest of the two children, running to embrace
him. “See the portrait I’ve made of you!”

Kittridge, bottling up his temper, knelt down and scooped the five-year-old girl up in his arms. “Della, you minx,” he said affectionately, looking at the drawing the child held up to his face, “do you really think that long-shanks looks like me? And what is that you’ve drawn on my head?”

“It’s a picture of you in your uniform, of course,” the girl explained. “That’s your shako on your head—with the plume, see? And this is your horse.”

“And a very good horse it is, too,” her uncle laughed, placing her on his shoulders and taking the other child by the hand. “How are you, Greta, my little puss? Do you and your sister stay to tea?”

“No, they don’t,” Lady Yarrow said firmly. “They only came down to say hello to you. Miss Roffey will take them upstairs in a moment.”

“Of course they don’t stay to tea,” the dowager Lady Kittridge said dryly. “We can’t afford it.”

Lady Yarrow turned a questioning pair of eyes to her mother. Eunice Yarrow was a tall, sturdily built woman whose strong features and dark coloring were inherited from her father. She had none of her mother’s delicacy in her form or her manner. Her character could be summed up in one word—blunt. “What do you mean by that, Mama? You sound as if you’ve suddenly entered your dotage.”

“Not I,” the dowager declared. “It’s your brother whose wits are addled. He says we can’t afford tea!”

“Robbie!” Lady Yarrow wheeled round to her brother in alarm. “Are things as bad as
that
?”

Kittridge was, by this time, down on hands and knees giving his nieces a ride on his back. “Perhaps I exaggerated a bit,” he admitted, the sight of his adored nieces having dissipated what was left of his anger. “I was making a point about buying unnecessary silver. I think we can manage to afford some tea for the girls.”

“Hooray!” shouted Della, clapping her little hands together delightedly. “We’re staying for tea!”

“No, you’re not,” Lady Yarrow said sharply, lifting the girl from her brother’s back and setting her on her feet. “Our teatime conversation promises to be serious … much too adult for you.”

Little Greta began to cry in disappointment. “I want tea wiff Uncew Wobit!” she wept, hugging her uncle tightly about the neck.

Lady Yarrow pulled her from Kittridge’s back. “But you can’t have tea with Uncle Robert, so stop snivelling. You mustn’t behave like a baby, Greta, now that you’re a big girl of three. You may have your tea in the nursery.” She handed the child to the governess. “Take these crybabies upstairs, Miss Roffey. I have a feeling my brother has more important matters on his mind than playing horsey with the children.”

While the governess herded the girls from the room, Lady Yarrow studied her brother with a knit brow. “Jennings did not have good news, I take it,” she said when the children were gone.

“No, Eunice, he didn’t,” her brother admitted, getting up and brushing the carpet dust from his knees.

“Are you badly dipped?”

“As bad as can be.”

Eunice expelled a breath. “I’m sorry, Robbie. It was unforgivable of Papa to have done this to you.” She walked thoughtfully to the tea table and picked up the teapot. “I suppose this means that all your dreams for the future are up in smo—Oh! Good God!” She froze in the act of pouring and glanced over at Kittridge with an expression of real pain. “What about
Elinor
! How will all this affect your plans in regard to
her
?”

“I have no such plans,” Kittridge said shortly.

“No such plans?” Eunice put down the teapot, fixing a dubious eye on her tight-lipped brother.
“Don’t talk fustian to me, Robbie. I’m fully aware that you intended to offer for her … last weekend, I thought. What’s happened?”

“I learned that I am
persona non grata
in their home. Her parents have taken her to the continent.”

“Oh,
Robbie
!” his mother cried out, her hands reaching out to him in sympathy.

“How dreadful!” his sister gasped. “I can hardly believe the Langstons can be so … so mercenary.”

“It is not mercenary to wish one’s offspring to live in comfort,” Kittridge said, picking up the teapot and pouring tea for her. “You would do the same in their place. Here’s your cup. Sit down and drink your tea.”

“I would
not
do the same,” Eunice insisted, taking a chair beside her mother. “I am very disappointed in Elinor.”

“So am I,” his mother agreed, accepting a cup of tea from her son. “And as for Lady Langston, I shall give her the cut direct the very next time she crosses my path.”

Kittridge was touched at his mother’s foolish loyalty but would not permit himself to be distracted from his purpose by feelings of affection. “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” he said with what he hoped was a repressive frown. “It was I, not they, who cried off. I went up to Suffolk on Saturday for the express purpose of explaining to Elinor that I would not make her an offer after all. She and I agreed to call it quits. She has gone off to enjoy a Grand Tour, and I … well, I shall have all I can do to keep
us
fed and clothed. For me, a wife is out of the question.”

His sister looked up from her teacup with raised brows. “Good God, Robbie, what nonsense is this? I still have my allowance. And, since my girls and I will be living with you, I intend to turn it over to you to add to the family income. That alone should be sufficient to keep us in necessities, shouldn’t it?”

Kittridge pulled up a chair before her and gently took his sister’s hand in his. “That’s one of the difficult things I must tell you, Eunice. Jennings informed me that Yarrow had incurred some debts of his own. His heir intends to cut a good deal of your income to pay them.”

Eunice paled. “Robbie,
no
! My Henry in debt? How can that be? Henry was not like Papa. He
never
gambled!”

“He may not have gambled with dice, my dear, but he speculated on the ’change. The market was down at the time of his death. It seems he lost more than he could afford.”

“How
could
he have done something so dreadful?” Eunice cried, snatching her hand from his hold. “I can scarcely believe it! Had he no thought for me or his children?”

Kittridge shook his head. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Eunice.”

“Sorry!” She got up, put down her cup and strode angrily to the window. “I shall never forgive him. To pauperize me is bad enough. But to leave his
daughters
in so helpless a condition—!” She choked back the words and stared out the window with unseeing eyes.

“Try to be fair, my dear,” her brother said softly. “He couldn’t have expected to die so young. When one is young, one doesn’t think of death as imminent. One believes one has time to take risks. I’m sure that, if he’d lived longer, he would certainly, in due time, have made proper provisions for you.”

“
If
he had lived longer …” Eunice shook her head, weeping silently.

“I
always
thought Yarrow was a maw-worm,” came a voice from the doorway.

“Gavin! There you are at last!” Kittridge strode to the door, pulled his younger brother into the room and shut the door against any other possible eavesdroppers. “You buffle-head,” he said in irritation, “do you
enjoy
seeing your sister in tears? Keep your opinions about your late brother-in-law to yourself! How long have you been standing there in the doorway?”

“Long enough to get the drift,” the boy declared. “We’re scorched. Isn’t that what you’ve called us together to tell us?”

Gavin Rossiter, at seventeen, was almost as tall as his brother, but his features still had the unfinished, not-quite-in-proportion look of adolescence. His nose was pronounced, like his sister’s, but his eyes were as light as his mother’s. His hair was almost as curly as his brother’s, but it was long and fell over his forehead and shoulders in Byronic disarray. He had come down from Eton to welcome his brother home, and Kittridge had encouraged him to postpone his return until the financial situation could be sorted out.