Page 70 of Miss Determined
Mr. Purvis poured out two cups of black tea and one of gunpowder. “Mrs. DeWitt, how do you take your tea?”
Mama peered at the cup, a delicate little affair that looked to be French provenance. “Stronger than that, sir. You must allow the green teas especially to steep properly. And one doesn’t pour out three cups at once, or pour into tea cups sitting on the tray. One holds the cup and saucer up to the pot to minimize the risk of spills.” Mama sighed. “In the shires, we recall our manners, but I suppose in London, all must be hurry and expedience.”
Ye heavenly choruses.Mama had always been a good sport about participating in Crosspatch’s amateur theatricals, but truly, the stage had lost a talent.
“Best fetch a fresh tray,” Lissa said, gesturing to the sandy-haired clerk, who bounced up from his post and headed out the door. “Mama has her standards, and they are a significant motivation for this call. The price of bread has tripled since my father’s death, Mr. Purvis, and Mama’s settlements require that her pin moneybe increased from time to time as economic necessity may require. We require you to adhere to the terms of those settlements. Triple will do. We can be thrifty.”
Purvis’s eyebrows and mouth worked in a disjointed dance of disapproval, or perhaps dismay.
Lissa had considered this meeting since the day she’d realized that Trevor was not an aristocratic by-blow. She had lost the luxury of assuming a prospective spouse would deal with Purvis, and thus she must see to the business herself.
She was good at seeing to matters herself, and she’d forgotten that all too easily when faced with a London solicitor’s posturing.
“Miss DeWitt,” Purvis said, sitting back, “I cannot simply… That is, you will exhaust your funds, and it would be most intemperate of me to approve any expenditure at triple the rate… Ladies, the world of finance is complicated, and you must rely on me—continue to rely on me—to guide you safely along its many twisting byways.”
Not blessed likely.“Mr. Purvis, we’ve called upon our banker. Not the banker Papa used for his business, but young Mr. Wentworth, with whom Mama’s settlements were lodged by Mr. Smithers. In the past five years, my personal fortune has increased by twenty-five percent. Mama’s portion has done even better, and that doesn’t take into account the income the family businesses generate, which falls into your capable hands. If you triple our pin money to keep pace with rising prices, we could spend every penny each month for the next one hundred and twenty-seven years and not have exhausted half our principal.
“That assumes,” Lissa went on, because Mr. Wentworth had done the calculations for them, “that our principal earns no interest in all that time. You shall triple our pin money, or we will ask our banker to take a very close look at the document you use to keep our fortune from its appointed purpose.”
The majority shareholder in Mama’s bank was a duke, and he’d been a banker before he’d been a duke. Not a friendly man, by all accounts, though one who took the welfare of his widowed clients seriously. Lissa had never met him, but she’d seen him up on the bank’s mezzanine, surveying the busy lower floor like a ship’s captain watching for bad weather on the horizon.
Had she been a squall, she would have fled far across the northern sea rather than face down that gimlet gaze.
“For pity’s sake, why involve the bankers?” Purvis said. “They get above themselves all too easily and can’t see beyond the numbers, when it’s the legalities that must control the situation.”
“Precisely,” Lissa said as Mama dumped the poured-out tea back into the respective pots. “The legalities require that Mama’s pin money be tripled. Retroactive to the first of the year will do. Economies, to those living in the country, are second nature after all.”
Purvis was looking at Mama as if she’d burst out singing a bawdy ballad.
“Economies,” Mama said gently. “If the clerks are to have that tea, Mr. Purvis, there’s no need for them to drink it both weak and cold.”
“Quite,” Purvis muttered. “I’ll see what I can do about your pin money, ladies, but these things take time, and I will want to review the documents Miss DeWitt has alluded to.”
Lissa was at once pleased—Purvis was stalling rather than denying their demand—and frustrated. Why hadn’t she confronted him with the legal wording of Mama’s settlements two years ago? Four years ago? Why hadn’t Gavin or Mama?
“I have a copy of Mama’s settlement agreement with me,” Lissa said. “Shall I read the relevant portion to you?” She fished in her reticule and brought out a sheaf of papers bound in a ribbon faded to pink.
“That will not be necessary,” Purvis retorted. “One must read these agreements as a whole, not simply pick and choose language at will from this or that paragraph.”
“Only one paragraph deals with Mama’s pin money, sir, and you will either write us out a bank draft before we depart this office, or I will take the matter up with our bankerand his superiors. The Season is already upon us, and because you have been remiss regarding our finances, we are quite behindhand. We have no Town coach, for example, nor do my sisters and I have riding horses. How does one honor invitations from the peerage when one has no appropriate means of transportation?”
Purvis sat back, sighed heavily, and looked from Lissa to Mama.
“The DeWitt ladies appeared ready to sack London,” Jones muttered.
Young Purvis would have described matters less delicately. The DeWitts had arrived looking ready to sack their solicitor, and Young Purvis would not have blamed them.
“No shouting. That’s encouraging.” Papa raised his voice if he thought the moment called for it. He didn’t bellow so much as he appropriated the role of barrister being emphatic for the sake of the jury.
“Perhaps the shouting will occur when Lord Tavistock comes in for his next appointment.” Jones passed over an elegantly penned note, signed by Tavistock and requesting the favor of an appointment. He’d specified the day and time because that was what a marquess did, when he wasn’t dropping by unannounced to create havoc and riot.
The other clerks were sending uneasy glances at Old Purvis’s closed door.
“This cannot end well,” Young Purvis muttered, a refrain that should have been the Smithers and Purvis motto.
“Tavistock has been out in Berkshire,” Jones said, speaking very quietly. “He has come home from years abroad with a view toward getting his finances in order prior to choosing a marchioness. That could end disastrously.”
“I meant the DeWitts’ appointment isn’t likely to end with smiles all around.” Though still no voices had been raised. No irate women had stalked from the office in tears threatening to involve Uncle Lord Methuselah or Great-Auntie Lady Dragon.
