Her heart sank. Mr. Finnegan was clearly distressed by this. And worse, Isobel suspected that the man wasn’t altogether certain his complaint would be taken seriously by her. But why should he think anything different? What with the way Charles had ignored his suggestions—patronized him, even, by putting up that flimsy board—it was a wonder the man had any faith in her at all.
“Will you show me exactly where the damp is getting in, sir?”
Finnegan’s sharp, shrewd eyes widened a touch. He nodded his head. “Of course, missus. Follow me.”
He led the way, with Isobel close on his heels and Nat close on hers. Once they’d reached the far corner, he bent down on his wiry haunches and pointed underneath a stack of empty barrels.
“It’s in behind there. But you can’t see it so well unless you get down on your knees.”
Isobel passed a determined look to the man and began unbuttoning her waistcoat.
“Then I shall get down on my knees to see it.”
She handed her coat to Nat, who took it with a stifled chuckle.
“And what do you find so funny, sir?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s only that you’ll ruin your lovely frilly blouse if you start crawling around a brewery store house.” In teasing, he gestured at the elaborate collar that edged her neckline.
Isobel cocked her head and plunked her hands on her hips. “It just so happens, Mr. Cotter, that my mother bought me this blouse and I’ve hated it every day it’s been in my wardrobe. Which is precisely why I wore it today. I’ve always been looking for an excuse to see it destroyed.”
With that, she hiked up her skirts, got down on her knees, and crawled in and around the barrels. She suspected her upturned bottom wiggled at Nat and Mr. Finnegan as she eased her way in, but at the moment she didn’t give a fig about it. Hang propriety. If she was going to be a proper business owner, she would need to get stuck in like her employees did. It was the way Andrew had run his business, and it was the way she would continue.
Indeed, Finnegan was right. Daylight was coming in through the brickwork over which a rotted board had been secured in a pathetic attempt to stem the seeping of damp. It looked as though the masonry were crumbling here.
“Well that shall need to be repaired properly,” she stated as she crawled back out. Standing, she faced Mr. Finnegan squarely. “You have my word this shall be repaired properly. I beg that you give me some time, though, for I fear that I will be confronted with a long list of necessary repairs today. But I do assure you that it will be addressed.”
“I believe you, missus,” he answered solemnly. “Thank you.”
It was odd that Isobel should be so pleased with Finnegan’s approval, but she was.
With the first meeting of the first employee a success, she allowed herself to be taken on a tour of the brewery by one eager worker after another. She was shown in detail all the things about which the men had complained at her home. She had expected that facing the evidence of the brewery’s decline would bring on a sense of defeat. Instead, she found that the mounting ineptitudes of Charles’s management only served to heighten her resolve to be better than him. To bring the brewery back. To return it to its former glory.
The men all looked at her with such hope in their eyes, she couldn’t imagine letting them down.
Meeting them, listening to them and allowing them the opportunity to share with her their knowledge, Isobel learned that these men were as invested in the business as she was. They all had immense pride in the work they did, and they were eager to believe that Isobel was going to share that feeling.
Nat remained by her side throughout the tour. It pleased Isobel that he appeared to take as keen an interest in learning as she did.
“I need to know what my job is all about, don’t I?” had been his answer when she suggested he need not bore himself with such minute details.
At the end of the tour, Isobel retired to the administrative offices by herself. She met the clerk, a mousy, pleasant little man named (coincidentally) Clarke, who extricated himself from under a mountain of paperwork to greet her briefly. Then she showed herself to Andrew’s old domain.
It was in a state of complete disarray. Papers were everywhere, and there were two empty bottles of port on the beautiful mahogany desk. That desk, she knew, was a century old. It had been shipped from India by Andrew’s great grandfather when the business first opened. Those empty bottles had warped the wood, leaving ugly circles as evidence of Charles’s neglect. A telling microcosm of his effect on the business itself.
Evidence of her neglect, come to that. After all, she’d let Charles do this. She’d turned a blind eye and put it out of her mind.
“Damn you, Charles,” she murmured.
The office had an air of sadness to it. Isobel leaned on the edge of the desk and looked around at all that remained. There was nothing of Andrew here, no trace of his presence. There was much of his forbears, for they had furnished the office and each one had left his mark on the décor through the years.
And, of course, there was too much of Charles left over in the disorganized, uncaring state of the place. But Andrew had not left his mark. He’d come to the office every morning, promptly at nine. He would put in his ten hours a day, six days a week, year after year. Yet he had not made any changes to the office. There was nothing to make it his own.
It was much like how he had run the business, she thought. Chugging along like a steam locomotive, keeping the engine oiled and pristine, but neither laying new track nor altering existing ones that would take him on new and uncharted routes.
She hoped the thought was not uncharitable, for she did not mean it to be. Moreover, she hoped that Andrew in heaven was not able to listen her private thoughts. A superstition, perhaps, but one she was unable to shake in this place, where he’d spent so much of his short life. She’d loved him dearly, loved him still. She would not want to offend him.
If she and Andrew had had a child together, the son that Andrew had so badly wanted, perhaps he would be the one to chart that new course, to lay new track. But as there was no son borne of their union, not even a daughter. It would be up to Isobel to forge new paths, to rebuild and repair.
It was a daunting task, but an exciting one.
She could already sense that Nat Cotter would play a big part in helping her rebuild, and it only now dawned on her how fortunate it was that she’d found him. Or, more to the point, that he’d found her.
Something deep inside told her that he was going to be vital to the business’s success and that she would come to depend on him. What it was or where it came from, she couldn’t say. It was just a feeling she had, and it was strong.
She drifted to the bank of windows and looked out at the men as they went about their work. Nat was with his father, watching him add a quantity of barley to one of the stills. Joseph Cotter spoke to his son, explaining what he was doing in words that did not reach Isobel’s ears. Nat paid close attention, nodding and occasionally asking a question.
He was a handsome young man, Nat Cotter. Dark curls framed a pleasant face and intelligent eyes. The girls of Spitalfields must be mad for him.
Isobel brought herself up short. It was the second inappropriate thought Isobel had had about him, an employee, this morning. For shame!
She certainly hoped Andrew in heaven was unable to listen in on those thoughts.
Chapter Eight
Those first few days she spent at Duckett and Company were some of the greatest days Isobel ever had. She immersed herself in work and the livelihood of production and found she enjoyed it a great deal. There was a satisfaction in work, she discovered. At the end of the day, it left one with a feeling that one’s life had purpose. That it was spent productively. Andrew had told as much to her, in those quite evenings spent together after supper. But it was always with the undertone that she should involve herself in charity work. And while Isobel supported charity in theory, the work she was always asked to do when she did vo
lunteer was rather impersonal. Removed from the gritty need that made the volunteering necessary. It was not here, on the ground, where the life was.
Isobel loved the beating heart of the brewery. Her brewery.
So with everything going so well, of course she was not surprised when the inevitable happened to throw a wrench into the cogs of her newfound purpose. She was disappointed, perhaps. But not surprised.
After a full day of work, in which Isobel had spent a good portion assisting with the repairs on the worst fermenting still (imagine she, Isobel, assisting!) she’d come home through the chill autumn air and, the glow of street lamps, with a keen desire for nothing more than a bowl of hot soup and her bed. Upon stumbling into the foyer, however, those hopes were dashed when she was handed a letter by Willcox.
“No postage,” she noted, examining the envelope.
“No, madam.”
“My stationery.”
“Indeed, madam.”
“My mother’s handwriting.”
Willcox hesitated, his expression one of regret as he regarded his mistress. “Mrs. Dyer arrived shortly before noon today. When I informed her you had gone out, she retired to the library to write this letter, which she insisted you receive promptly upon your return.” He added, “I am sorry, madam. I know this distresses you.”
“I am a business owner, Willcox,” she said quietly. “And a widow. By all rights I should be a woman unto myself, yet I still can’t seem to pull myself out from under my mother’s thumb.”
She was wallowing. Wallowing was something Isobel Duckett, Businesswoman, was not going to indulge in anymore. She tossed a hand.
“Forgive me, Willcox.”
“There is nothing to forgive. Shall I have Stott bring you something? A hot chocolate, perhaps?”
“A brandy, I think.”
The old butler nodded solemnly, but there was a twinkle in his eye. Isobel watched him leave the foyer with her cloak, thankful for his quiet, steady presence.
When he was gone she looked down at the letter in her hand, at the prim, concise handwriting on the envelope.
“Let us see what you are all about, shall we?”
She retreated to the drawing room, closed the door, and sank into the nearest armchair. Her fingers shook with apprehension as she flipped open the envelope, slid the folded paper from inside, and began to read.
It was as she feared. Her mother was direct, dictatorial, and in no mood for argument.
Isobel,
I will not mince words. I was shocked to hear from your brother, Charles, that you have been spotted at the Duckett and Company brewery every day for nearly a week. I could scarce believe it at first, but Charles has assured me that he speaks the truth.
Isobel, you are a woman. It is improper for a woman of your social standing to run a business, and certainly not one that produces alcohol in Spitalfields. Both your father and I are distressed by and ashamed of your actions, and insist that you cease immediately. I understand your reasons for not wanting Charles to resume his management of the company, so I shall endeavor to have Mr. Entwhistle begin interviewing suitable candidates as an alternative.
Mother.
To be honest, her mother’s letter was not as bad as she was expecting. Nevertheless, it left Isobel cold. Why that woman felt she had a right to interfere with her life, Isobel would never understand. At least Mr. Entwhistle would not be able to hire anyone without Isobel’s consent. Her ownership of the business was ironclad, and Mr. Entwhistle was now fully aware that she meant to take charge.
She would not let her mother’s letter put her off. She would continue on as she was, and she would just have to find a way to dodge her mother in the meantime. Confrontation was one thing Isobel avoided with the formidable Mrs. Ruth Dyer at all costs.
Chapter Nine
Today was Nat’s big day. His first test. The most important of the offended suppliers had agreed to meet with Duckett and Company at Isobel’s written request. This was the hops distributor, the one on which Duckett and Company had relied primarily (before that useless pile of dung Dyer’s intervention) to bring the product into London directly from the growing regions of Kent.
Nat was nervous. Although he was confident in his ability to talk the ears off a rabbit, there was a small part of him that worried he would not be able to do it on cue, when there was something at stake. When others were relying on him. What if he bungled it under the pressure?
His father was disappointed in Nat’s unwillingness to prepare the night before.
“Maybe you should practice. I can help you,” Joseph Cotter had proposed.
“And how do you think we’ll do that, Dad? Neither of us know what the bloke is going to say.”
“Well… we can practice what you’re going to say if he might say one thing or another.”
“Cor. He could say a thousand different things. We’d be here all night.”
Joseph had thrown his hands into the air then, frustrated. “Blimey, Nat. This is the biggest day of your life so far. You can’t just sit there and do nothing.”
“Dad, look.” Nat ran his hands through his hair to rein in his own frustration. “I’ll work meself into a tither going on like this. Isobel brought me in to do the talking because I talk good. And I talk best when I don’t think about it. If I get meself all worked up, I won’t talk so good. So leave me to me own devices, wouldya?”
Although Joseph Cotter had clearly not agreed with his son, he’d retreated to the bedroom, muttering to himself, and had left Nat alone. But now, the morning of the big day, Nat wished he had run through at least a few possible scenarios in his head. Just in case.
Up with the birds as usual, he dressed himself carefully. Rosie had been up late laundering his shirt so that it was clean as a whistle. Nat put it on, taking care with the buttons, and then brushed the tangles from his hair so that he was presentable.
He wondered if Isobel was fretting too, over in her part of London. If she was brushing the tangles from her hair and worrying about all the possible ways this meeting could go wrong.
He immediately checked himself. That was not the way to think. If he started imagining the way the meeting could go wrong, then it almost certainly would. Better to envision all the ways the meeting could go right.
Resolving to keep his thoughts positive, Nat left the tenement before his father was even up, and walked the short distance to the brewery. This morning he decided to stop at the baker’s shop on the corner of John Street and Brown’s Lane to buy himself a hot cross bun. It was a luxury, but if ever he deserved a luxury it was today. Besides, his first payday was tomorrow. There was room for small frivolities like this once in a while.
The sweet, doughy bread took the edge off his nerves just enough that he was almost in a jovial mood when he reached the brewery, whereupon he discovered he was not the first to arrive for the day. When he entered the building, Nat’s eyes immediately fell on the gentle glow of the office lights above the brew house floor.
So Isobel had beaten him here, had she? The tenacity of the woman. Grinning to himself, Nat ascended the staircase to the upper offices.
She was examining a spread of papers on her desk, absorbed in their contents. When he rapped a knuckle on the open door, she looked up with those luminous brown eyes of hers. She seemed happy to see him, and that pleased Nat a great deal.
“You’re early,” she remarked.
“As are you.”
“It is my business.”
Nat leaned on the door and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not sure as I can say why, but I feel somehow as though the success and failure of this place is as much me own business as it is yours.”
Pleasure turned to chagrin. “I am sorry if I’ve made you feel that way.”
“It is no trouble. I like a challenge, me.”
“Well you are in for a challenge, then, I can assure you. I’ve been going over the records of our sales for the last year, and I’m worried about the decl
ine I’m seeing.”
“But you knew the business was going down.”
“Yes, I did. But the trends in the decline are worrying me.”
He came into the office and peered over her shoulder. “What trends are these, then?”
She shook her head at the papers. “What was once our most popular ale is now our worst seller, I’m afraid. And I am not confident that simply correcting the wrongs in the brewery will bring the customers back. I am counting on you and your sorcery with words more than I was at the beginning of all this, I’m afraid.”
Nat furrowed his brows at her. “How long have you been here, exactly?”
“Oh, well…” She looked absently around the room then up at him. “I couldn’t sleep, so… a while. An hour, perhaps. Maybe two.”
On cue, the bells of the Christ Church clock chimed six times.
He raised an eyebrow as her cheeks turned pink with guilt. “Have you eaten at least?”
The pink deepened. “I did not wish to wake my cook. Mrs. Hargrove, you see, she takes her job quite seriously. If I were to wake her, she would have taken it as her own failure that she had not anticipated my early departure, and would have spiraled into a pit of despair that would have affected the whole of my staff.”
Nat chuckled, imagining the woman. Then he tipped his head towards the door.
“The last thing we need is for the captain of our ship to fall ill. C’mon, then. Let’s go fetch something to eat.”
“What—out there?”
“Out there.”
“In Spitalfields? At this time of the morning?”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I—I’ve never been outside on my own before. Only ever the distance from the door to my carriage.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.” When she remained uncertain, he tipped his head towards the door. “C’mon. You need something to eat.”
“I suppose I do,” she admitted, and reluctantly stood.
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