For a Year She Read Aloud to a Blind Stranger in the Park — He Was the Duke Who'd Refused Her
Chapter 5
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
"Hobday has brought me a book from Gaunt's desk," said Mr. Hale. "Gaunt reads me my letters and tells me what is not worth the trouble. He reads me the totals every quarter. They are very clean. I have never in my life met a clean total.""Then why do you keep him?" said Verity."Because he reads very well," said Mr. Hale. "It is a hard thing to replace a good voice.""I should say so," said Verity with some feeling.Hobday set the home farm ledger on her knees. It weighed as much as a small dog."Read me the columns," said Mr. Hale. "All of it.""The summary first," said Verity. "It gives the Rayford rents as £11,400.""That is what Gaunt told me."She turned pages. Rain tapped the elms. Her lips moved on a number."You are doing it in your head," said Mr. Hale."It is the only place I keep anything of value." She read each rent aloud, farm by farm, and her voice went cold and level as a pump handle. At the foot of the page, she stopped. "The columns add to 10,090. The difference is 1,310."Silence."Go on," said Mr. Hale."Mill repairs at Thorpe. £200 a quarter, four quarters. £800 a year," she said, "for a mill that burned in 1812, according to the parish register on the facing page."Hobday made a sound like a kettle."Wages for nine keepers. Four names on the estate roll. Five keepers who do not exist," said Verity, "at £40 each. £200. £2,310 in a single year.""She counts like a bailiff, sir," said Hobday. "Nothing left in the drawer."Verity read the next line, and her voice did not change. Her hand did.Provision for the Brandreth account: £300 per annum, declined by the lady. Struck."Go on," said Mr. Hale.She had been offered nothing. She had declined nothing. She turned the page.After she had gone, he sat with the book across his knees and did not open it. He had thought of her as a voice. He found he was now measuring the angle of her head by the direction of the sound. She had read his steward's thefts aloud as flatly as a grocer's list. No one had spoken to him like that in a year. They had spoken to him softly, or not at all.One line stayed with him:Declined by the lady. He had heard it in March and let it pass. It sat in him now like a stone in a boot. He had heard the page shiver in her hand on that line and on no other.He wanted to ask her name. He had agreed not to. He had never honored an agreement so badly.Bishop's head came down on his knee."Hobday," he said."Sir.""Take the book to Lord Loxbourne tonight. And Hobday...""Sir?""If she comes tomorrow, bring the second blanket.""She has come every morning for five months, sir," said Hobday. "I should say the blanket is secure."September came in gray and wet. Verity brought the letter. She had carried it in her reticule since January, folded small, soft as cloth at the creases."Mr. Hale," she said, and sat. "I have something to say that is not in the book."