The Poisonous Seed (24 page)

Frances felt hope draining away, leaving only a cold sensation in her stomach. ‘And there is nothing at all?’

He gestured, helplessly. ‘I think one account may have fifty pounds in it.’

There was a long silence. At first Frances thought she had become incapable of any emotion, as if she had been suddenly and sharply struck upon the head, and was sitting there in an icy and unfeeling trance. Then, just as suddenly, a jumbled mass of feelings began to flood though her mind – anger, despair, bewilderment, and a sudden insane desire to laugh hysterically. She realised that Cornelius was speaking to her. ‘My dear, I pray you will calm yourself. It is a hard thing to bear, but I promise I will assist you in any way I can, and I know Maude will do her duty by you.’

The mention of her aunt was like a dash of cold water that restored her thoughts. At the back of her mind there was a voice telling her that it was not true, that it was a cruel joke, a dream, something said only to test her mettle, that in a moment she would awake, or Cornelius would tell her that the money was not gone after all, and beg her forgiveness. She pushed all of that aside. She had only to look at her uncle’s face to know that it was true. ‘Maude will only be grieved by the loss of her two hundred pounds,’ said Frances, bitterly. She took a deep breath, and clenched her fists in determination. ‘I must not give way. I must be practical. There must be things that I can do,’ she said.

‘My dear,’ said Cornelius. ‘I know it is a shock. Perhaps you should call Dr Collin.’

‘No, please, I am well. I only need to order my thoughts. There are bills to pay but we can put them off a little. We must obtain the services of a qualified man so that we can open the shop again. Then there is the lease which is due to be renewed in two months’ time. There is no hope of paying that. But I do think, if you were to help me, I could go to a bank and show them the accounts and borrow enough to see us through this time. There. All is not lost.’

Cornelius gazed at her pityingly. ‘Frances, I am not sure if I have made the position clear to you. There is no possibility of your being able to borrow sufficient to recover. Quite apart from the business debts you have mentioned, there are others; to stockbrokers, to banks. These people will not wait for their money. You cannot borrow to pay them for you have no security to offer.’

‘But the business —’

‘Is encumbered by debt. It has no value as its stands.’

She stared at him. ‘Then what must I do?’

‘I am truly sorry,’ he said softly. ‘There is only one thing you can do. You must sell. The price of the business may well be sufficient to pay off the debts.’

‘And then I will have nothing!’ she said wretchedly.

He nodded. ‘Very probably. But Frances, be assured of this; I will not desert you. You may make your home with me if you wish, or with Maude. I have a small investment which provides a little income and you are welcome to make use of it for your own necessaries.’

Frances began to tremble and he held onto her hands. In asking herself how she had come to deserve this, she could only answer that she did, that she had been at fault. When her father had been alone working on his papers she knew she was not to disturb him, yet would it not have been better if she had disobeyed him and done so? She might have seen enough to suspect what was happening. And, she realised, there was a moral fault also, the fault of greed. How could she hide from herself that in that short time when she had imagined she was mistress of five thousand pounds, she had felt a wholly unworthy satisfaction with her position, something for which she was now paying the price in full.

She looked around at the little parlour, so plain and so familiar, and thought of the shop and the smooth dark counter she had polished ever since she was a child, the storeroom where she had prepared the syrups and waters, the small kitchen where Sarah’s cooking infused the air with warmth and delicious smells, and her own little bedroom. It was all she had ever known.

‘I cannot give it up so easily,’ she said. ‘This is my home. It is what my father worked for all his life! How can I just sell it?’

He pressed her hands but said nothing.

‘A month!’ she begged him. ‘Let me have a month!’

‘But my dear, what can you do in a month?’ said Cornelius sadly.

‘I’ll run the business!’ she said desperately. I’ll find someone to supervise; we’ll open the doors again. We have well-wishers enough, and it is the winter season after all. In a few weeks we will have money.’

‘But it will not be enough. At the end of that time the debts will still be there. You have no hope of paying them. Frances, I am talking of three thousand pounds just to clear the stockbroker’s account.’

It was more money than she had ever seen in her life. She felt tears pricking her eyes, but fought them back. ‘I’m sure you are right. But I need the time, if nothing else than for myself. I need to know that I didn’t just throw it all away without even trying to hold on.’

He patted her hands and nodded. ‘I understand. And now I come to think about it there may be an advantage in waiting. With hard work and economy the business may recover a little, and the dreadful events of the last weeks will, in the fickle public mind at least, be forgotten. You may well get a better price in a month than you could now. Very well. I will allow you what funds I can. At the end of the month we will talk of this again.’

When he had gone, Frances looked at her father’s papers herself, and was unable to deny the truth of what her uncle had said. Her father was the only person who had the authority to draw the funds from the accounts. Why had he risked everything? Her aunt’s words came back to haunt her. Had he done it so she would not inherit the business? Was this his way of keeping her poor?

If she had been the sort of woman to do nothing but dwell on her misfortune she might, thought Frances, have gone mad, but that was not her way. After the first cruel shock was over, she bent herself to exploring how best she could combat this twist of fate. Sitting at the parlour table, she put before her all the books of the business and household and studied them to see how she could pare expenses to the very smallest amount possible. She had, in truth, very little hope that these poor efforts would assist her, since it had always been their practice to watch every penny of expenditure, but the task did serve to give her the illusion that she was working towards the salvation of her fortunes.

It grew late, and as the light faded and her eyes dimmed, she laid her head down upon the pages and slept. It was Sarah who awoke her.

‘Miss, it’s very late.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Frances rubbed her eyes. She looked up into the face of the honest servant who had been the mainstay of the household for ten years, who had been, as she thought, rewarded with a few pounds, money which would probably have meant a great deal to her family, and knew that she would have to tell her the truth.

‘Sarah, please sit down, I must speak to you.’

‘If it’s about the money Miss, I know these things can take a lot of time.’ Sarah saw her expression, and paused. ‘What’s wrong Miss?’

‘I have had some very bad news. My uncle has looked at my father’s papers and found that – that all the money has gone.’

Sarah blinked. ‘Gone, Miss?’ To someone for whom ten pounds was a very material amount it was hard for her to imagine how the Doughtys’ fortunes could have disappeared.

‘It seems that my father made some bad investments,’ said Frances. ‘We are ruined. For the next month I am determined to keep the business open and see what I can do, but at the end of that time, I think I will have to sell in order to pay the debts.’

Sarah sat quietly thinking for a while. ‘Where will you go, Miss?’

Frances smiled. Another servant would have been concerned about losing her place; Sarah’s first thought was for Frances. ‘I expect I will go to live with my uncle. He has already promised me that I can. Sarah, I doubt that I will be able to pay your wages. You may be best advised to look for a new place.’

‘I’ll stay here, Miss, if you don’t mind,’ said Sarah firmly. ‘Who knows but that you may get a stroke of luck.’

‘Oh I do hope so!’ said Frances gratefully. ‘I don’t know how I could manage without you. If the business is sold, well, the new owner may employ you, of course, and you will be given an excellent character.’

‘Would Mr Martin not have a place for me, Miss?’ asked Sarah. ‘It’s just that – I’ve looked after you since you were little, and —’

‘I will ask him, I promise,’ said Frances, but she knew that her uncle had a general servant and did not require another. One more thought crossed her mind. ‘Sarah, there is something I have been meaning to ask you. What is the talk in the neighbourhood about my father’s demise? Has there been any bad gossip about him?’

Sarah looked unhappy. ‘There has, Miss, but I wouldn’t care to repeat it.’

‘I must know,’ insisted Frances. ‘Spare me nothing. I will have the truth.’

‘Well,’ said the maidservant reluctantly, ‘they say that Mr Doughty was very unhappy, and took his own life from guilt about killing Mr Garton.’ Sarah gazed at Frances with some anxiety, as if the words might throw her into a paroxysm of grief.

Frances could only nod. ‘That is what I feared.’ She sighed. ‘Sometimes, Sarah, I feel like a soldier fighting a battle. A lone soldier against an army of enemies. Some have faces, and some do not. That is why I have to know the worst, so I know who I am fighting.’

‘You’re not alone, Miss,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll never let you be alone.’

The following day Frances’ work continued, and eventually she sat down with Sarah and instructed her on the harsh new rules of domestic economy. There was to be no extravagance and no waste. There had been neither extravagance nor waste before, yet somehow they would find even more occasions where pennies could be saved, and nothing must ever be thrown away. Meals, Frances assured Sarah, could be made out of almost nothing, and coals must be strictly conserved.

Herbert was out arranging for a manager and returned in high spirits, announcing that a Mr Jacobs would be starting early on Monday morning. A poster was manufactured from a sheet of clean wrapping paper and placed in the window announcing the re-opening of the shop. Frances was unwilling to reveal to Herbert the full extent of her financial distress, but thought it only fair to inform him that she was considering selling the business after all.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said, taken aback. ‘You have never considered selling, not for one instant. It is your father’s legacy.’

‘His legacy was less than I expected,’ she said dryly.

‘How much less?’ he blurted out.

She stared at him. ‘Really, Mr Munson, I think that is entirely my business.’

‘I meant – I am sorry – it was quite inappropriate, but believe me I spoke only from my concern about
you
, Miss Doughty.’

‘Really?’ Frances doubted it. ‘And would you be more or less concerned if I had five thousand pounds or five?’

He blinked in amazement. ‘I am not sure I understand you,’ he said.

‘Very well, I will be blunt,’ said Frances, firmly. ‘I have no money, Mr Munson. There, that is all you need to know.’

He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing like some strange barbelled fish in an aquarium. ‘But you have the business,’ he said plaintively.

‘The business is encumbered. I am a pauper.’ Frances could not avoid a certain note of triumph in her voice. Horrid as her situation was, much as she had determined to do all she could to maintain that little independence she had grasped just for a moment, she had been unable to resist seeing how Herbert would react to her reversal of fortune.

He was silent for a time, the colour draining from his face. When he spoke it was a whisper. ‘That is terrible indeed.’

‘I will not blame you if you do not choose to mention again the subject we discussed yesterday,’ she added.

He buried his head in his hands. ‘Oh, what you must think of me!’ he moaned.

‘I think,’ said Frances, ‘that like many another man, you seek to improve your fortunes in whatever way may present itself.’

‘Yes,’ he said, raising his head. His distress was all too apparent. ‘That is true. But I believe that you have great worth in yourself, and now, even more than ever, you need – you
deserve
to have someone on whom you can rely. I think I may choose to mention the subject again.’

Frances was surprised, although no more inclined to look on his attentions favourably.

Cornelius called to see how Frances was, bringing with him a copy of that day’s
Bayswater Chronicle
. She read it eagerly. There was only a brief mention of her father’s death, but two columns on the arrest of James Keane, who was due to appear before the police court the following Friday on charges of fraud, forgery and embezzlement. ‘But not murder!’ she said, frustrated at the inability of anyone but herself to see the obvious. ‘Why do they not charge him?’

‘He has as good as murdered many in Bayswater,’ said Cornelius. ‘Did you know that Rawsthorne’s kept many client accounts in that bank, and he himself has lost a great deal of money.’

‘Mr Rawsthorne is ruined?’ exclaimed Frances, understanding now the reason for the solicitor’s recent distracted behaviour.

‘No, not so bad as that, but things will be hard for him for a time. I have just come from there and he is in a great state. He was distraught to hear of your predicament and said that if he had the means he would have lent you what you needed for the sake of your father’s memory.’

‘That was very kind of him to say so,’ said Frances, wondering how many other old friends would tell her that they would if they could.

‘I asked him if he might find some gentlemen who would be willing to invest in the business and he said he would see what he could do, but that gentlemen are not usually willing to wait indefinitely for a return on their funds. But I will continue to make enquiries on your behalf. For now, I am concerned with the arrangements for the funeral.’

‘I suppose that my father will be buried beside my mother?’