by Rose Lerner
The air, though, was clearer and purer than in London. Penelope had forgotten how much. And the view was lovely-a rolling lawn with picturesque stands of trees, winding paths, and even a narrow, sparkling brook. It did not look in the least neglected or impoverished. For a mad moment, Penelope wondered if Nev could have been mistaken about his financial situation-if he had, in fact, married her for nothing.
A moment’s reflection convinced her of the folly of this notion. She did not know the countess well, nor had she ever met the late earl; but she was not surprised to learn that little economy had been practiced in the park itself. She would have to look over the books to find out where, exactly, it had been practiced-if at all.
Yes, Penelope decided, she would have a quick breakfast before asking the steward if she might see the books; it was the only thing here in the country that she still knew how to do. She called for Molly, and when she was dressed asked a passing maid to direct her to the breakfast room.
“Do you know where Lord Bedlow is?” she added.
“He’s in the steward’s room, my lady.”
Penelope decided breakfast could wait.
“Oh, Penelope!” Nev stood up so fast he nearly knocked the chair over. “Perhaps you can make some sense of this.”
She couldn’t help smiling at his obvious relief at seeing her. “I can certainly try.”
She looked about the room-and felt a pang of dismay. Her father would have fired on the spot any agent of his who kept his office in so sorry a state. Open ledgers were everywhere, as were dirty wineglasses, small piles of pipe ash, and broken pens. A bottle of ink had spilled in one corner and been left to dry where it lay.
“Lady Bedlow, may I present Captain Trelawney?” Nev said.
“How do you do?” Penelope said, trying to hide her consternation. The steward looked more promising than his office. He was an upright, well-built man in perhaps his late forties, with a military mustache and a ruddy complexion.
“At your service, my lady.” His smile struck her as too friendly. “I’m honored. Please, sit down.”
Nev took his seat again once she was settled. “My wife is going to be helping me with the business end of things. She understands these things better than I do.”
Penelope could not help blushing under the captain’s speculative gaze. “What were you discussing with Lord Bedlow?”
“I was explaining the nature of the estate’s expenses and how difficult any new economy would be.” His patronizing tone raised Penelope’s hackles. “As you can see, my lord, Loweston will not run itself, and the harvest is close by.”
Nev nodded uncertainly. It was perfectly clear to Penelope-and, she was sure, to Captain Trelawney-that he could not make heads or tails of the accounts. “May I see?” she asked.
“Certainly, my lady.” The captain smiled and passed the ledger across the table.
Penelope stared. No wonder Nev had been baffled. The accounts were in a largely illegible scrawl-the captain’s, she assumed. She squinted at the page. It appeared to be nothing more than a long tally of expenses, all jumbled together, and every so often a gain from the sale of-she squinted closer-“4 grate oaks” or the like. The last several pages appeared mostly to record the sale of various horses: “Prometheus, a prime goer, to Sir J,” and so on.
“How are the books organized?” she asked at last. “Have you separate accounts for the house and the farm? Surely economies might be most easily made here.”
“Separate accounts?” the captain said in some amusement. “I don’t know how it’s done in London, but I’ve never met a steward who kept separate accounts. Estate books merely show charge and discharge.”
“But then, how can you tell if you’ve made money on a particular venture or if your expenses are rising?” She looked at the expenses more carefully, but it seemed he was right. She saw an outlay for candles cheek-by-jowl with one for feed for the workhorses, and there a record of wages paid to have the lawn scythed.
“Either you’ve a balance or you haven’t, I’m afraid,” he said, confirming her worst fears. It would be next to impossible to make any kind of systematic analysis of where money might best be saved. She thought of her father’s shelves of ledgers, all so clear and neat. All showing a profit.
She glanced at Nev, who had been counting on her to make sense of these chaotic, unreadable books. He was staring longingly out the window at the morning sun. “Is the principal income from the home farm or from rents?” she asked.
The captain chuckled. “Oh, rents, certainly. Fortunately all your tenants are upstanding men who paid even through the recent bad harvests.”
“How many tenants have we?” Penelope asked.
“Four, and good men all.”
Nev turned his head sharply. “Only four? But I thought we had dozens of tenants.”
“Not during my tenure here,” the captain said. “I daresay you mean before your father enclosed the commons, four or five years ago. The majority of your former tenants chose to avoid the expense of the hedges by selling to larger farmers.”
“Oh.” Nev was plainly disconcerted. “Who’s left?”
“Thomas Kedge, John Claxton, Henry Larwood, and William Shreeves. Mr. Kedge has by far the largest part. He pays us almost three thousand pounds per annum in rents and does very well for himself with what remains. The others amount to less than a thousand pounds each.”
“So our income at New Year’s will be…?” Penelope asked.
“Very nearly two thousand pounds and three-quarters.”
She sat appalled. Only a few thousand pounds left of her dowry to last them through the year, and then only a few thousand more to be gained! And Nev thought the estate had been abused; where was the money to refurbish it to come from?
“Will there be much profit on the home farm’s harvest?” Nev asked.
The captain stroked his mustache. “Five hundred pounds at the most. Very likely less. It has not been a good year, though nowhere near so disastrous as ’16, of course. With more funds, perhaps, we might have made more of it, but-” He shrugged, without the least embarrassment at this reference to his late employer’s prodigality, nor with the least consciousness, Penelope thought angrily, of Nev ’s stricken look.
“How much of an outlay will we need to make the farm more profitable next year?” Nev said. It had to be asked, but Penelope suspected the answer would not comfort him.
The captain made an airy gesture. “Oh, two thousand pounds at the least.”
Nev stared out the window again, shoulders slumped.
“Why don’t you assemble the last five years’ ledgers and receipts for me to look over? I’ll get them from you this evening,” Penelope said. “Perhaps going over the home farm and visiting our tenants will help us understand what needs to be done. Lord Bedlow, what is your opinion?”
Nev started, then looked hopeful. “Oh, yes. Jolly good idea. I’ll have two horses saddled directly.”
Penelope would have liked to tell him when Captain Trelawney was not by, but then he would have the horses already saddled and he would want to know why she hadn’t said anything, and she would look a fool. “I don’t ride.”
Nev stared at her. “You don’t-you don’t ride?”
Penelope could not help glancing at the captain. Sure enough, his eyebrows had shot up nearly to his graying hairline.
“No,” she said shortly.
Nev ’s disappointed look smoothed away into probably false cheer. “No matter. We’ll take the cart.”
They plodded down the tree-lined avenue in silence. Nev had wanted to be on horseback for this, able to gallop off and lose himself in the wind on his face and the ground flashing away beneath him if things got too bad. He would have to teach his wife to ride soon. It wasn’t an unpleasant thought. He glanced at Penelope, sitting quietly beside him in the cart. Her face was hidden by the brim of her bonnet as she gazed out over the lawn. But he could see the rest of her just fine, and she would look nice in a ri
ding habit.
“If we cut down these trees, we might be able to get almost a thousand pounds for them,” she said.
Nev turned to look at her.
A wash of crimson covered her cheeks before she looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “That was mercantile of me. Of course we can’t cut down the trees, they’ve been here for generations and-”
Nev grinned at her. “I wanted to cut them down myself, but my mother threw a fit.”
She relaxed and smiled at him. He wondered what would happen if he leaned over and kissed her. He probably couldn’t, because of the bonnet. He was calculating his angle when the gardener came into view and the opportunity was lost.
Nev had been encouraged by the appearance of the park when he had looked at it out of his window this morning. Although he knew it couldn’t be true, he had almost hoped for a moment that it was all a sham, that when he looked over Loweston later he would find it as prosperous and flourishing as ever.
He had known it couldn’t be true, and it wasn’t.
Things began to deteriorate as soon as they passed out of sight of the house. Nothing dramatic, at first. The grass was less well-kept, and there were stumps where Nev remembered inviting stands of elms and beeches. Then the path curved through a small wood of trees not valuable enough to be cut down, and they came out in view of the home farm.
There seemed to be fewer people working than Nev remembered from previous years this close to harvest-not that he had ever paid much attention. Indeed, Nev wasn’t sure he would even notice if there were anything wrong with the fields or the equipment. The swaying, ripening wheat ran in thick, crooked rows just as it always had. Was it a little thinner, or was that his imagination? He had no idea. In the distance he could see pastures where sheep grazed, but it was too far off to judge the size or health of the herd.
No, what struck Nev were the men. As a child he had known them all, by sight if not by name. Now he recognized a few faces, but the majority were unfamiliar. They seemed thinner than he remembered, thinner and harsher, somehow. As a child he would ride past them, waving and shouting, and they would wave and shout back. Now they tugged their forelocks or touched their caps in sullen silence.
Nev glanced at his wife. She was shrinking back against the seat, but when she caught his eye she straightened. “I’m sure they will be friendlier when they’ve got to know us better.” Her voice barely shook at all. “They are just unsure of what kind of master you will be.”
Nev was not sure what kind of master he would be either.
“Have you met Mr. Kedge before?” Penelope asked her husband.
“Tom Kedge? A hundred times. A stout man with dirt under his fingernails, a roly-poly wife, and a loud voice. His cottage is half a mile up ahead. His laborers live with him until they marry, so there are always a dozen folk in and out. Every time I’ve seen Mrs. Kedge she’s been passing someone a mug of ale in one hand and swatting someone with a rolling pin with the other. She used to give me fresh rolls.”
Penelope smiled.
He bit his lip. “I haven’t seen them in years, though.” Then they rounded a bend, and Thomas Kedge’s cottage was visible. It was larger than Penelope had expected, the largest house they had seen along the road-although, of course, on nowhere near the same scale as Loweston Grange itself. Nev whistled. But it was not until they got closer that Penelope realized why; it was larger than he had expected too. The whole left part of the cottage was visibly newer, as were the shingles on the roof. Honeysuckle and roses, along with a local plant she didn’t recognize, were just beginning to creep up a new trellis on the older side of the house.
“Tom Kedge never had glazed windows before!” Nev pulled up the horses in front of a neat drive. “I don’t understand-I thought things had been going poorly here.”
Surely this was a good sign, but Penelope could not appreciate it. She was seized with nervousness. She did not want to meet Nev ’s tenants. What if she could find nothing to say to them? What if they disliked her? What if they only gazed at her blankly like the laborers in the field?
Nev looked as uncertain as she felt. He had pulled the cart to a stop, but now merely sat holding the reins. They exchanged rueful smiles. She wished there were something she could do, but she was as out of her depth here as he was; more so, probably. He, at least, was used to the idea of having tenants. Mrs. Kedge had given him fresh rolls.
After half a minute or so, a scrawny boy ran out from behind the house to take the horses. As Nev and Penelope walked up the path, the front door opened and a round woman of middle years stuck her head out the door. “Come in, come in!” As they got nearer, Penelope saw that her blue muslin gown was nearly new. So was the lace on her cap, though it looked machine-made to Penelope. Her graying hair was inexpertly teased into ringlets around her ears. “I haven’t seen you in so long, Lord Bedlow! Look at you, handsomer than ever! Is this Lady Bedlow?”
Nev introduced them as Mrs. Kedge led the way into a whitewashed parlor. Freshly cut roses in an earthenware jug stood on the table. The wooden floor gleamed, and the mantelpiece and end tables were crowded with porcelain figurines.
“Betsey!” Mrs. Kedge called shrilly. “Bring tea for his lordship! And some rolls!” She turned to Nev. “Those were always your favorite. How have you been? We were all so sorry to hear about your father. He was such a wonderful man!”
Penelope didn’t think Mrs. Kedge noticed the skepticism that flashed across Nev ’s face. “Thank you,” he said easily. “I’ve been well. It looks like you have too-you were never so fine the last time I begged rolls from you!”
Mrs. Kedge smiled at him. “Yes, we had a couple of bad years, but Tom works very hard and he turned us right around. And he tells me there’s so much less waste now that the fields aren’t divided in that ridiculous way. Here, do sit down, please.”
They sat on sturdy wooden chairs around the table. “Is Tom by?” Nev asked. “I was hoping to discuss with him what needs to be done to-” He trailed off, then repeated, “What needs to be done.”
“Oh, yes, he’s talking Poor Authority business with the vicar in his counting room. Dear,” she hollered, and Penelope jumped. “Come meet her ladyship! We’ve all been half dying to meet you,” she added more quietly, smiling at Penelope.
A rather dirty maid came in at that moment, ostentatiously carrying a great silver tea tray. A plate of rolls and half a seedcake sat in the center. “Just set it down on the table and go, Betsey,” Mrs. Kedge told her. “And wash your face! Aren’t you ashamed for his lordship and her ladyship to see you?” Betsey set down the tray with a rattle and fled, red-faced.
“She’s a good girl.” Mrs. Kedge poured the tea and presented it in a manner she clearly thought very grand. “I do worry she’ll break the china, though.”
“You have quite a collection.” Nev gave every evidence of admiration for the china shepherdesses and monkeys dressed as fine lords and ladies that littered the room. “Aren’t you afraid the boys will knock them over? I remember you were forever telling me how all your nice things were broken.”
“Oh, the boys don’t live here anymore,” someone said from the doorway, and Penelope turned. This must be Tom Kedge. His sunburnt, genial face and massive body seemed too big for the house, as did his stentorian voice; it was probably just the right volume for directing men in a wheat field.
“It’s not like the old days.” Kedge shook his head. “People used to be content with their lot, and now-new men in and out of the district every year, and half the population up and emigrating to America. And the soldiers-I hate to speak ill of men who fought for their country, but it seems like a lot of them came back wrong. Couldn’t have ’em in the house anymore! Not safe for my Sally.” He smiled and winked at his wife.
Mrs. Kedge smiled back at her husband. “I do miss the racket sometimes. It’s so quiet in the house. But that’s progress, isn’t it? Things change. We shouldn’t like to live in the Dark Ages!”
Penelope looked around at the comfort and the cleanliness and pictured again the sullen, lean faces of the workers, even the boys. No, it would not do to have them tramping in and out and getting mud on Mrs. Kedge’s nice floor or breaking her fine china. Mrs. Kedge was too good for that now.
She thought of her father’s managers and foremen. Her father was friendly enough with them at the brewery, but he certainly did not invite them to dinner in Russell Square. Penelope tried to imagine those men drinking a glass of brandy at the mahogany dining table, but it was impossible; and they would hardly have wanted to. Yet her father had known some of those men from boyhood. So had her mother. Penelope remembered meeting a Mrs. Raeburn, who worked at the brewery affixing labels to kegs, bottles, and casks. The woman had pinched her cheek and told her that she and Mrs. Brown used to steal pies off a cart together.
Penelope knew that people found her mother distasteful; now she looked at Mrs. Kedge sticking out her pinky as she drank from a teacup painted with fat little Chinese boys and understood how they felt. She hated herself for it.
Kedge stepped out of the doorway. A much smaller man entered the room in his wake. An unprepossessing fellow in his middle thirties, his dirty linen and pompous air made him look even plainer than he would have without it. He waited, a small smirk on his face, until Mr. Kedge said, “The head of our flock, Mr. Snively.”
“How charming it is to see you again, Lord Bedlow, even under such sad circumstances,” the vicar said. “Your father will be severely missed by all true souls at Loweston. I am deeply pleased to meet your ladyship. It is an honor, truly, Lady Bedlow.” He took her hand and bowed, a little too low, in a way that made Penelope wonder if he were not trying to show up the Kedges as ill-bred.
“Thank you, Mr. Snively,” she said. “I-”
“He’s right about Lord Bedlow,” Kedge interrupted. “A real gentleman. If he’d raised the rents any higher in ’16, we’d all have lost our holdings to the bank.”