Page 29 of Henrietta

She was about to press Hetty on the issue, when a curricle came barrelling around the corner, turning so sharply through the puddles upon the floor that it almost doused them with water.

‘I say – careful!’ the Major cried indignantly.

The gentleman tossed them an apology over his shoulder but otherwise did not pause.

‘Very unbecoming conduct,’ Mrs Morgan disapproved. ‘Who is that fellow? Not a gentleman, certainly.’

‘It was Mr Crompton,’ Hetty said. ‘I did not see his face, but the terrible form is unmistakeable.’ They laughed. Hetty started. ‘I am sorry, that was rude,’ she added contritely.

‘It was entirely accurate – I’ve never seen such bad hands,’ Mrs Morgan said mischievously.

‘And on such a fine pair, too!’

‘I think she’s one of Petersham’s old bays, you know,’ Hetty divulged. ‘A better matched set you never did see.’

‘We tried to buy them!’ the Major told her eagerly.

Mrs Morgan leant toward Hetty confidingly: ‘He was mad as hellfire when Crompton beat him to the punch.’

It was as Major Morgan made a laughing rejoinder that the Allerton carriage at last drew up, and Arthur appeared on the street beside them, throwing his cloak over his shoulders.

‘I did not know Miss Clithero was such an admirable judge of horseflesh!’ the Major said, turning to him. ‘I shall have to bend her ear about Georgie’s new mare.’

They bid farewell, and Arthur climbed into the carriage rather thoughtfully.

‘Horses!’ he said, as one who has made a discovery. ‘Why did I not think of it before?’

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 …’