Читать книгу A Convenient Gentleman - Victoria Aldridge - Страница 10

‘A h, here it is!’ Caro hauled the heavy book up from under the registration desk, thumped it down triumphantly and blew the light layer of dust off the leather cover. The motes danced in the pale winter light pouring in through the long front windows of the Castledene Hotel.

Outside had dawned the loveliest imaginable spring day. The previous day’s snow still clung to the hilltops, but Caro had gone for an early-morning walk around the outskirts of Dunedin, with Mr Matthews puffing behind all the way, and she had returned with a clutch of bright daffodils. They sat now in a fine crystal vase on the registration desk, lending an air of cheerful welcome to the otherwise formal entry hall.

‘Oh, dear.’ She looked across to where Mr Matthews sat glowering at his feet. ‘Nothing has been entered in these books for over four months.’ Mr Matthews, who had a profound suspicion of anything on a page, merely shrugged. ‘I wonder who’s been keeping record of everything bought or sold since then?’ she murmured to the empty air. ‘I would have thought that would have been Oliver’s job.’

‘Or yer aunt’s,’ Mr Matthews said shortly.

Caro glanced up at her aunt’s door at the top of the stairs. She had looked in on her earlier, but Charlotte had been still sleeping restlessly and Caro hadn’t liked to disturb her.

‘She’s not well, Mr Matthews.’

He snorted rudely. ‘Never has been, that one. Never been sober, neither.’

‘Don’t be horrible!’ Caro said indignantly. ‘I meant, she’s not well physically. She’s not strong, and only recently widowed, and I don’t think she’s ever had to run a business before.’

‘Neither have you,’ he retorted. ‘What do you know ’bout books and figures and all that? Never noticed you paying any attention to your ’rithmetic lessons when your ma was trying to learn you.’

‘But the figures that relate to running a business make sense, don’t you see?’ Caro jabbed her finger at the offending blank space in the ledger book. ‘Without that information, I can’t tell how much it costs to run this establishment. And I’d really like to know how much Mr Thwaites is—or isn’t—paying for the lease on the bar.’

‘None of your bleedin’ business, I say.’

Caro closed the ledger book with a slap. ‘It is, Mr Matthews, because I’m my aunt’s closest relative in this town. Come on.’

‘Oh, Gawd help us.’ He got creakily to his feet. After weeks of inactivity on the ship from Sydney and a night spent sleeping outside Caro’s door, he had found the brisk walk around Dunedin exhausting. ‘Where’re you going now?’

‘To the bar. There’s bound to be a ledger kept there.’

His eyes widened in alarm. ‘A public bar? Now look here, girl…’

But she wasn’t listening as she strode out the front door and along the veranda to the bar. With Mr Matthews audibly following her, she wasn’t in the least bit afraid. In fact, the bar was deserted apart from a bartender—a different one from the unpleasant man the previous night—and a couple of comatose bodies slumped on the tables. Although she would not have admitted it even to herself, Caro was relieved that there was no sign of Mr Thwaites. The air was fuggy from tobacco smoke and beer and she left the door open behind her to allow in some fresh air.

‘Good morning,’ she said firmly to the bartender. He opened his mouth, caught the look on Mr Matthews’s face and closed it again.

‘Mornin’, miss,’ he said after a moment.

‘I’m Caroline Morgan, Mrs Wilks’s niece. My aunt is indisposed, so I will be in charge of the Castledene for a while.’ She smiled engagingly at him. ‘Could I see your books, please?’

‘Books, miss?’

‘Yes. Your ledgers. Please.’ Her smile did not falter.

‘Don’t think I’m allowed to do that, miss…’

‘I’m sure you are,’ Caro said with steely charm.

The bartender looked from her to Mr Matthews, whose whiskers were literally bristling with belligerence. The little man had to be one of the ugliest people the bartender had ever seen, in contrast to the stunning beauty of the tall and very pushy blonde facing him across the bar. Completely unnerved, he stepped back.

‘I don’t think…well, I couldn’t let them leave the premises…’

‘That’s quite all right.’ Again there was that quick, enchanting smile before the girl took the ledgers firmly from his grasp and bore them off. In the middle of the bar room she stopped and frowned at the slumped figures at the two tables.

‘I think these people should go home, Mr Matthews. The place looks so…so cluttered, don’t you think?’

Mr Matthews grumbled something, seized the legs of the closest man and hauled him out the door. While he was gone, Caro moved closer and peered at the remaining unconscious customer. Arms splayed out on the table, his face turned to one side, he was still recognisable as the man who had come to her rescue the previous night. She shook him, gently at first, and then harder until his impossibly long lashes fluttered open.

‘Sir? The bar is closed now, sir.’

It took a visible effort for him to raise his head off the table, and it was only by using his arms as leverage that he was able to sit upright. The cold, dead eyes that had looked at her so clearly the previous night were half-closed and he looked to be in some kind of private agony.

‘Come on, mate! On yer way!’ Mr Matthews said testily behind Caro and she held up her hand to stall him.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked, keeping her voice devoid of sympathy.

After a moment the man nodded, very carefully. ‘Yes, madam. I believe that I am.’

Again, the perfect vowels struck her as strangely exotic and behind her she heard Mr Matthews’s expelled breath of surprise. Slowly, with great precision, the man lifted his hand and felt inside his jacket. Then his face crumpled and his eyes screwed tight.

‘No…!’

‘Been fleeced, have yer, mate?’ Caro was surprised by Mr Matthews’s completely out-of-character sympathy. The man took a steadying breath and nodded. ‘Stay off the booze next time,’ Mr Matthews advised. ‘Then you can keep a hold on yer wallet.’

‘Thank you for the advice.’ There was not a trace of sarcasm in the man’s voice. He manoeuvred himself to his feet and stayed there, propped up against the wall as the room was obviously swimming around him. He didn’t look at all well.

‘Have you got somewhere to go?’ Caro was surprised to hear herself ask.

‘Yes, thank you, madam.’

She didn’t believe him.

‘Mr Matthews, please give me a pound note,’ she said, not taking her eyes off the man for a second. He was so pale she thought he was going to faint. With only an insignificant mutter of discontent, Mr Matthews did as he was told.

‘Here.’ She tucked the note briskly into the man’s jacket pocket. ‘Please get yourself a meal and somewhere to sleep tonight.’

For a moment he met her eyes and the anger she saw there shocked her to the core. Then he looked away, a faint flush rising to his cheeks.

‘Thank you,’ he said emotionlessly.

She watched him walk stiffly to the door and out into the sunshine.

‘You’ll have us both in the poorhouse if you keep giving money to drunkards,’ Mr Matthews grumbled as Caro propped the ledger open on the vacated table. She ignored him, as she was certainly not about to tell him what had transpired in the bar the previous night. It pleased her that she had paid her debt to the man, but she still felt unsettled by the expression she had seen in his eyes. He hadn’t even had the grace to be grateful.

Ten minutes of perusing the accounts confirmed Caro’s worst suspicions. Mr Thwaites was making very healthy profits, indeed, from the bar, but if he was paying any rent to the Castledene Hotel, it was not shown in the books. She sighed and sat back to study the gleaming rows of bottles lined up on the wall above the bar.

‘This is dreadful, Mr Matthews. My aunt is facing destitution, the hotel has had to shut down, yet the bar is taking in hundreds of pounds every night! I’ve got to find out why none of the profits are going to keep the hotel and why the hotel got into financial trouble in the first place. It appears to have been profitable until my aunt’s husband died.’

‘Well, I’d ’ave thought that was bleedin’ obvious.’ Mr Matthews rubbed his bristles thoughtfully. ‘Yer aunt’s spent the lot on men and fripperies and booze. Always has, always will. When yer grandfather—yer aunt’s first husband—died, yer pa gave her enough to keep most women for years. She was back with her hand out in a fortnight and cut up rough when he wouldn’t give her another penny.’

‘But she’s my mother’s eldest sister—and she was his widowed stepmother! Surely he had an obligation to care for her, Mr Matthews?’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘There was more to it than that, girl. Things you don’t need to know nothin’ about.’

‘You mean about Aunt Charlotte choosing my grandfather instead of my father?’ Caro said tartly. ‘I know all about that, Mr Matthews, my aunt told me. While I’m pleased that she did turn him down, of course, because he married Mother instead, I think Father was petty and mean to send her away without a penny. The least I can do is try to help her out now.’ There was an ominous silence. ‘Well?’ she prompted after a moment. ‘Don’t you agree?’

Mr Matthews shook his head slowly. ‘Darned if I don’t know whether to weep or to put you over my knee and paddle yer behind. All I can say, girl, is don’t believe a word yer aunt tells you. From what you tell me, she ain’t changed one bit in the last twenty years.’

‘Then what did happen?’ Caro demanded.

‘Not for me to tell you.’

‘Then kindly mind your own business.’ She shut the ledger and returned it to the cringing bartender with a brilliant smile. ‘Now, I must go and see if Aunt Charlotte has improved.’

But Aunt Charlotte hadn’t improved at all. She lay shivering and as pale as the satin pillows of her bed, giving anguished little cries as Caro tried to open the curtains.

‘Oh, the light, Caroline! Oh, I can’t bear it! Please, go away, darling. I just want to die!’

‘I’ve brought you a jug of water, Aunt Charlotte— Mother always makes us drink lots of water when we’re feverish.’ Caro sat down on the bed and, despite her aunt’s protestation that it had been years since she had drunk plain water, she persisted until Charlotte had completely emptied a glass. She then dampened a cloth for her aunt’s forehead and tiptoed silently around the room, tidying and straightening, until Charlotte was asleep again. After leaving a window open to let in some of the crisply fresh air, Caro left, closing the door carefully behind her. There was so much she wanted to ask her aunt, but this was clearly not the time.

There had been no staff in the kitchen in the early morning and there were none there now. Mr Matthews stood alone at the kitchen table, preparing one of the delicious soups he always seemed able to produce from nothing at all, grumbling away to himself all the while. Caro sat and watched him, her chin propped on her fists, her forehead furrowed with thought.

‘You’ll get wrinkles,’ he advised her after a while.

‘Mmm. Mr Matthews, I’m going to have to go to the bank.’ He sucked in his breath with horror, but she plunged on. ‘Aunt Charlotte’s in no condition to do so and Mr Thwaites won’t lift a finger to help and there’s no other way to get the money we need to start up the hotel again.’

‘How much’re we talking about here?’ he asked in alarm. ‘I’ve got a little bit on me, not much, mind, and yer pa’d kill me if he knew…’

‘By the time I’ve paid the staff wages, provisioned the kitchen, bought firewood, had the chimneys cleaned… I’d say five hundred pounds at the very least.’

‘I ain’t got that much.’ He slumped into a heap of misery. ‘But you don’t want to go off to a bank. Nasty, thievin’ places, banks. Have the shirt off yer back in two seconds, they will.’

‘My father always dealt with them satisfactorily.’ Caro recalled visiting the bank with her father on occasion. She remembered the dark panelled walls, the heavy-handed pleasantry of the manager as he plied her with compliments and pressed a glass of the best whisky on Ben… Why, it had been rather fun. It couldn’t be that bad going on her own account, surely?

‘Yer father never borrowed ’cept on what he knew were a good business deal. And he were a man. They’ll never lend to you,’ Mr Matthews predicted darkly, realising his mistake only when Caro’s chin came up.

‘Well, we’ll see about that!’

There were banks on every street in Dunedin, but it was the work of a minute to look through the ledgers and find out which one her aunt dealt with. It took somewhat longer before Caro was satisfied with the image she wished to present to the bank manager. The better of her woollen gowns was perfectly presentable, but her coat and bonnet were too plain to give her any confidence. She crept into her aunt’s room and managed to extract a particularly fetching bonnet in pale blue, together with a matching short walking cape, without waking Charlotte.

She was pleased when she looked at her reflection in the mirror. While Aunt Charlotte’s taste ran to the somewhat flamboyant, the bonnet Caro had chosen was a study in understated elegance once she removed the peacock feathers. Just right, she thought, for impressing bank managers with her innate good taste.

Her sublime confidence lasted all the way down Princes Street, past St Andrew’s Church and down Carlyle Street. It began to falter a little during the half-hour she was kept waiting at the counter for the bank manager to see her, and by the time Mr Froggatt spared the time to show her into his office, she was decidedly tense.

Mr Froggatt was a big, squarely built Northerner, and not one to waste time on niceties.

‘Come to pay off the overdraft, have you?’ he boomed loudly enough for any passing customer to overhear.

‘Overdraft?’ Caro said blankly.

‘Aye, overdraft.’ The bank manager viewed her through narrowed little eyes.

Caro swallowed hard and flashed him her most engaging smile. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything about an overdraft, Mr Froggatt. I’ve come to see you about a business proposition. One I think you’ll be very interested in.’

‘Oh, aye?’ he responded drily, completely unmoved by her loveliness. ‘And what that might be? Nothing involving this bank lending further to the Castledene Hotel, I trust?’

She leaned forward to hide her shaking hands. ‘There’s no value to the bank in foreclosing on a business that should and could do very nicely on a small injection of capital, Mr Froggatt.’

He leaned back in his chair to distance himself, splaying his powerful hands on the desk as he bellowed, ‘There’ll be no more money lent to the Castledene Hotel, I say. No more, until the five thousand pounds already outstanding has been repaid in full, with interest. Am I understood, Mrs…?’

Five thousand pounds? It took all Caro’s resolve not to fly from the office there and then. She took a deep breath. ‘My name is Miss Caroline Morgan. I’m Mrs Wilks’s niece, from Sydney.’

He was instantly alert. ‘Are you, indeed? And would your father be Mr Morgan, of the Morgan Shipping Line?’

The word stuck in her throat. ‘Yes…’

‘Ah.’ Something that Caro hoped might have been a smile flickered far too briefly over the impassive features. ‘Yes, Mrs Wilks has spoken of your father several times and I understand he’d be prepared to stand for the losses incurred by your aunt. Are you here on his behalf?’

Thinking that she could cheerfully strangle Aunt Charlotte, Caro shook her head. ‘No, Mr Froggatt, I’m here on my aunt’s behalf. She’s not well, you see, and I’d like to put the hotel back on a sound financial footing.’ She spoke rapidly, before he could interrupt, outlining her plans for the resurrection of the hotel, speeding up when it looked as if he was about to raise an objection. To her relief he heard her out. When she finally ran out of words, he sat back, his shrewd eyes summing her up in a most demoralising manner.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Morgan. You’ve put forward some convincing arguments, but the answer has to be no.’ He almost sounded apologetic.

‘But why?’ She tried not to wail the words. ‘In a town expanding as fast as Dunedin, it would be impossible to run a failing business, if one were prudent!’

‘Mrs Wilks is not prudent,’ he pointed out patiently.

‘But I am!’

‘But you, Miss Morgan, are a young unmarried female.’

‘And?’

‘And the bank does not lend to young, unmarried females, no matter how…prudent they may be. That is the bank’s policy, it is a sound policy, and it will not be changed, Miss Morgan. I’m sorry.’

She took a deep breath. ‘And if I were married?’

‘But you are not married, Miss Morgan.’

‘I am engaged,’ she said brightly.

‘Then I offer my congratulations, Miss Morgan. But you are not married.’

‘I will be next week,’ she said recklessly, prompted by the dreadful vision of the Castledene Hotel falling into ruin. ‘I shall be a married woman then!’

‘Then, given the standing of your father, we might revisit the possibility of extending the period of the loan,’ Mr Froggatt said cautiously. ‘May I ask the name of your intended?’

‘My what?’ Caro said blankly, her mind whirling at what she had got herself into.

‘Your fiancé. The young man to whom you are affianced.’

‘Oh, him!’ she said quickly, trying not to panic at the note of suspicion in the banker’s voice. ‘You wouldn’t know him. He’s not long arrived from England. He doesn’t know anyone here. Well, he knows me, but he doesn’t know anyone else…’

‘My congratulations, then, Miss Morgan. I shall look forward to meeting him when you’ve tied the knot.’ He stood, terminating the meeting. ‘Until then, Miss Morgan.’

Somehow she managed to hold herself together until she returned to the hotel. She ran into the kitchen, took one look at Mr Matthews sitting huddled on the kitchen stool and burst into tears.

‘Mr Matthews, I’ve got to get married!’ she wailed.

In a trice he was at her side, pressing her down on to a chair, patting her shoulder in helpless sympathy. ‘Oh, girl, girl. These things happen. Don’t you fret…’

She wiped her nose on her sleeve, struggling for control. ‘But I have to get married immediately! Within the week!’

He sat beside her, finding a large handkerchief from a pocket and dabbing ineffectually at her eyes. ‘Now, it won’t have to be that soon, you know. It kin happen to the best of us. Why, me and my missus—’

‘You have a wife?’ Caro was so amazed by this information that she almost forgot her own problems for a second.

‘Had a wife. Might still have one. Dunno. England…’ His voice trailed off and she dared not ask further questions. Mr Matthews had once, a very long time ago, been a convict, and no one in the family ever spoke about his origins, respecting him as deeply as they did. He took back the handkerchief and harrumped loudly into it. ‘All I’m saying, girl, is it’s not the end of the world. When did it happen?’

‘Just now, at the bank.’

‘At the bank?’

‘Yes. Mr Froggatt the banker…’

‘The banker?’

She nodded miserably and Mr Matthews sat looking positively stricken.

After a while he cleared his throat. ‘Didn’t realise you wanted the loan this bad, girl.’

‘Oh, I do. That’s why I have to get married, you see.’

‘Yes, but you didn’t have to… Oh, blasted bankers!’ He slammed his fist down on the table. ‘I’ll do fer him, I will. And when yer pa finds out…’

Caro gave a final sniff. ‘Father doesn’t have to find out, Mr Matthews.’

‘Well, how’re you going to hide a baby, girl? Be sensible!’

‘What baby?’

‘Ah.’ He stared at her puzzled face and after a moment said carefully, ‘I think you’d better tell me what happened, girl. Slowly, this time.’

So she told him, stalking up and down the kitchen in indignation as she spoke, oblivious to the look of dawning relief on Mr Matthews’s face. He was smiling by the time Caro finished, which cheered her up no end.

‘So, you think it’s a good idea, Mr Matthews?’

‘What?’ He sobered up swiftly. ‘No. No, it’s a real bad idea. You can’t do it.’

‘But I have to. I have to find a husband in the next day, if I’m to get a special licence. The problem is, how?’

‘The problem ain’t how to get married quick, girl—the problem is the forty years after! You can’t just go and get a man off the streets…’

‘Yes, I can!’ She stared at him as if he was a genius. ‘That’s exactly what I can do! I’ll marry…oh, someone, I don’t care who, but someone who needs the money… That drunk in the bar this morning, for instance! All I have to do is pay him off out of the money the bank will give me, and then later I can get the marriage annulled! I mean, I don’t ever want to get married, but I might, one day, and no one need ever know… Oh, it’s a wonderful scheme! Thank you for thinking of it!’

Mr Matthews slumped on his stool, clutching his chest. His heart was surging in a way that terrified him. ‘You can’t…’ he said weakly, but she wasn’t listening.

‘Now, I want you to go and find that man and offer to pay him…well, I’ll leave that up to you, but don’t make it too much. I’ll go to the Town Hall this afternoon and arrange for a special licence and then… Oh, I’ve got so much to do!’

She spun around at the door and raised a cautionary finger. ‘And you will check his name, won’t you, Mr Matthews, please. I don’t want to be saddled with a name like Ramsbottom, or Piggot or…or Froggatt!’ She laughed gaily and the door slammed behind her.

Mr Matthews sat alone in the kitchen and listened to his charge’s feet exuberantly pounding up the stairs. Bleedin’ heck, he thought. What am I going to tell her pa?