Page 22 of The Marriage Debt
Jenny wiped her hands on her apron and went, leaving Katherine brooding at the kitchen table.And there was still that debt and not the slightest hope of paying it.
She was still deep in thought when the maid came back. ‘I asked Mr Lydgate if he’d like a nice omelette and some ham and he said he would, so that’s good isn’t it?’
‘He told me he wasn’t hungry.’
‘That’s men for you,’ Jenny reached for an empty bowl and began to crack eggs into it. ‘They need tempting. I told him how good my omelettes are, though I say it myself. There’s the frontdoor, that’ll be Mr Brigham and he’ll be hungry too, I make no doubt.’
Need tempting?The last thing that Theo Lydgate needed was tempting. He appeared to take what he wanted quite easily without any such encouragement.
Arthur put his head round the kitchen door, saw Katherine and came in, his arms full of a handsome French clock.
‘Here you are, and here are the earrings.’
‘Thank you so much,’ Katherine said gratefully, running a hand over the ornate metalwork of the clock. It brought back her grandmother so vividly she smiled as she touched it. ‘What do I owe you?’
Arthur looked embarrassed, ‘No hurry at all, don’t think of it. Anyway, I thought Lydgate was going to pay. You have other things to consider before that. Besides, it’s a mere trifle, I told you I would have lent the money to Philip.’
‘I do not borrow money and I have saddled Mr Lydgate with more than enough debt already,’ Katherine said rather grimly. ‘Please tell me.’
Reluctantly Arthur said, ‘Ninety pounds.’
‘Is that all? Honestly, you would think Philip would have the gumption to get a better price than that.’ Katherine felt half relieved because at least she could repay Arthur from what remained of the necklace money and half exasperated at Philip’s foolishness.
She and Arthur ate with Jenny and John around the kitchen table, too tired to worry about changing clothes or using the dining room. When Arthur went home Katherine helped Jenny in the kitchen and sent John to make sure Theo had everything he needed. She had no intention of causing her emotions further turmoil by going up herself.
When she went to bed the worry about the debt sat like a brooding vulture on the bedpost, and the presence at theother end of the landing of a mysterious half-stranger who was refusing to do the sensible thing and annul their marriage threatened to completely overset her resolution to do the right thing.
Katherine was heavy-eyed and depressed as she breakfasted alone and then set herself to establish the true extent of her financial difficulties. She gathered her own account books and the small pile of tradesmen’s bills and went along to Philip’s study.
The final demand from the moneylenders was easy enough to find but it took longer to unearth all the other bills, dunning letters and scrawled vowels that littered the study or were jammed into drawers.
She had just drawn a line under a long and staggering list of figures when the door opened behind her and Theo said, ‘There you are.’
Katherine pushed back the chair and stood up, studying him anxiously. He looked well enough in John’s respectable coat and breeches and the colour was back in his face. The edges of bandages showed under his cuffs and he had tied a spotted handkerchief loosely around his neck.
‘Not perhaps the clothes to be seen wearing in St James’s, but I can tell you the luxury of clean linen is priceless.’
‘Should you be up?’ Katherine asked. ‘You do look much better, I have to admit, although your eyes are still red. Your voice sounds improved.’
‘I slept like – I almost said the dead – like a log. Which is more, I think than you did.’ One stride brought him in front of her and he ran the ball of his thumb gently under her eyes. ‘You look tired.’
‘After yesterday I found it hard to sleep.’ Katherine tried not to shiver at the light caress.
‘What are you doing?’ Theo reached behind her and picked up the paper she had been using to list Philip’s debts. He gave a low whistle. ‘Your brother’s?’
‘Yes.’ Katherine took a deep breath. ‘I have decided I cannot deal with those, he will have to, if and when he returns. I have added up my own housekeeping accounts and I can cover those with what is left from the necklace money. I paid Arthur for the pawnbroker last night. That leaves, let me see, just over thirty pounds. That will feed us and pay the housekeeping for a while, but it is not going to help with the big debt.’
‘We need to leave Town.’ Theo went to lean on the mantle shelf, apparently engrossed in the dead embers in the fireplace. ‘If we go away it will take them a while to find us. That’s all I need, to buy a little time.’
‘But where can we go?’
‘Home,’ he said simply. ‘I will take you home.’ Then he turned and Katherine saw the bitter frustration in his eyes before he dropped his gaze. When he looked at her again he had his expression under control.
‘You do not want to go,’ she stated, feeling miserably guilty.
Theo shrugged. ‘No, but it is time I faced up to my responsibilities, swallowed my pride and made peace, I know that. Coming to London was only a way of delaying the inevitable.’
‘Make peace with whom?’
