Mary Brendan - A Kind And Decent Man

‘Surely the warehouse ought to have been insured against fire?’ Victoria demanded of Alexander Beresford, seated opposite her, his papers spread across her small library desk.

The man raked some chubby fingers through his brown hair. ‘It seems it was not, Mrs Hart. I have to admit to being equally amazed and angry at this discovery.’ A stubby finger poked between his neckcloth and his red-mottled throat. ‘The clerk charged with dealing with insurance cover on the premises at the East India Dock had not paid over the cash to the insurance company. In short, the man appears to have fraudently used the money as his own and allowed the policy to lapse.’ Mr Beresford clapped both hands down on the table, pushed himself back in his chair and issued a hearty blow of mingled annoyance and resignation. ‘None of which helps your cause, I’m afraid, Mrs Hart. Practically all Daniel’s stock was lost in the inferno. The rogue could possibly be punished, if the theft was proven and his whereabouts discovered. I have it from a reliable source that the coward is gone to ground. No doubt he trusted the theft would go undetected.’

Victoria gazed at him with wide grey eyes. The enormity of what he was saying was slowly penetrating her mind, in terrifying fragments. ‘Just how badly will I…will Hartfield…be affected by this loss, Mr Beresford?’ she asked quietly, determinedly.

His thick fingers plucked distractedly at the papers in front of him before clasping together. ‘To pay off creditors Hartfield must be sold,’ he eventually burst out.

‘Never!’ Victoria whispered in fierce astonishment. She certainly had not anticipated that things were as bad as that. ‘Daniel bequeathed Hartfield to me to provide a home for us all. And also to retain the servants who have served him…us so faithfully. Some have been at Hartfield for twenty years or more. Samuel was but nine years old when he commenced work in the stables. I would feel I had utterly failed Daniel…betrayed him, and so soon. It is barely eight weeks since his death. No! There must be some other way…’

‘I have searched for other ways, I assure you,’ Alexander Beresford stressed quite truthfully, his fleshy face ruddying in indignation. ‘The bank that forwarded loans to Daniel for the speculative purchase of those silks and cottons, now mere ashes, is pressing for payment. I need to forward some cash soon. An interim payment might appease them for a short while. I suggest sale of the last of the sterling bonds…’ He swivelled some papers towards her as he spoke, but they barely received a cursory glance. Her grey eyes were pinned back on his face, desperate for some reassurance that this awful, unexpected situation wasn’t as dire as it seemed. None came.

‘I’m sorry, my dear, but Hartfield will need to be sold. And as soon as possible. There is no stock now to sell to meet the interest or the principal. You probably know that during your late husband’s illness his finances declined quite considerably. There is the matter of the overdue rent from the Holdbrook farm, but I know Daniel was not keen to sue for that while the family were suffering such tribulations.’

Victoria nodded, murmuring her wholehearted agreement with Daniel’s forbearance. The tenants at that farm were experiencing dreadful hardship: two of the sons had been taken with consumption and just before Daniel had died of the same pitiless condition they’d had word that the youths’ mother was also afflicted. Adam Holdbrook, a man in his late forties, was now struggling to run his farm single-handed and rear three young children under five years of age. To insist on payment of overdue rent at such a time would have been beneath humanity. In fact, it was time she visited the family with a little of Hartfield’s butter and cheese. Samuel had told her only that week that, in desperation, Adam Holdbrook had sold the family’s last dairy cow. At one time, Daniel had been in a position to help luckless villagers. It had cemented good relationships between landlord and tenant. Now there was very little she could offer at such times. Her thoughts raced back to her own predicament. The awful truth was that she might soon be in need of a little charity herself.

‘Will there be any residue from the sale? Enough to provide a home for myself and my father and aunt?’

‘There will be very little, my dear…very little indeed.’ Alexander knew there would be nothing but voicing as much was beyond his courage.

Victoria stared at him, obliquely aware that he was kindly trying to comfort her. He had done so before on the fateful evening Dr Gibson had told them that Daniel would be dead before morn. And when reading Daniel’s will to her and explaining that everything her late husband owned was to be hers.

Hartfield was to be hers to keep or sell as she would but no other man would ever lay hands on it. Codicils had been added to the deeds to Daniel’s estate so it could be bequeathed to her yet never pass out of her control and into the unworthy clutches of a future husband, should she remarry.

Alexander Beresford’s brown eyes settled on the woman he secretly desired and admired. He strove for the boldness to voice his proposal. ‘There is another way, Victoria.’

The immediate bright hope in her eyes made him blurt quickly, ‘You could…you should remarry.’

Victoria frowned across the library table at him. ‘Remarry? My husband is barely eight weeks buried. It is far too soon; besides, I have no wish…’

‘I realise, my dear, that so soon might seem indelicate but in circumstances such as these…desperate circumstances…people understand such behaviour. What choices have you? A man to support you or employment are the only options if you are to avoid the parish relief.’

‘Well, which man would take on a widow with an estate and property to upkeep that will never be his own? He would need to be a wealthy saint. No such man exists.’

‘Well, naturally, Victoria,’ Alexander Beresford said mildly, ‘no man would burden himself so. Hartfield must be sold to meet your debts, for no man would take on such losses. But you still need protection and security. And any amount of gentlemen would be proud…happy to have you grace their home…’ And their bed, ran involuntarily through Alexander Beresford’s mind, making his chubby features perspire at such lustful thoughts. He repeated quickly, ‘No, Hartfield must be sold to pay your debts and I expect you would feel obliged to make provision for your relatives before you wed, if at all possible.’

‘My relatives? You mean my papa and Aunt Matilda? Well, naturally they would live with me…’

‘Daniel Hart was indeed philanthropic. But a new husband might not countenance such an arrangement, my dear,’ Alexander warned firmly. His brown eyes roved discreetly over her fitted buttoned bodice. Even the drab mourning grey and serviceable material could not deflect an appreciative glance at her slender ribcage and small rounded breasts.

He was determined to make his offer and in the circumstances was reasonably confident of it being successful. But his means and generosity would never stretch to her extended family. He earned a reasonable salary, had good prospects, and a comfortable home in St Albans. Victoria was very welcome to share it as his wife but his duty ended there. He had no intention of charitably boarding and lodging her brain-sick father or her outspoken widowed aunt, no matter what precedent Daniel Hart had vexingly set.

She would lose Hartfield. She had debts to pay and would thus lose the home her husband had had in his family for three generations. This was all that dominated Victoria’s mind. Daniel had left it in her safekeeping and within two months of his death it was to be lost. But how could she have prevented it? She could never have averted this disaster. Was there sense in Alexander’s proposal that another good man might be her salvation? She had married one kindly husband who had cared for her and her family. But then Daniel Hart and Charles Lorrimer had been old acquaintances: she had known her late husband all her life. She had always liked him…trusted him implicitly. It was the reason she had agreed to marry him when her future looked so bleak. She sighed dejectedly. ‘My papa and my aunt are settled here. I so wish my father could see out his remaining days at Hartfield.’