The notice of closure had been written three weeks before it was needed. This was, the Marquis of Rothwell considered, entirely efficient.
He had asked his solicitor, Mr. Hartley, to prepare the document in advance so that the Rothbury visit—two days at most, three if the roads were poor—could be concluded without delay. He would inspect the foundation, satisfy himself that the inspection had been thorough enough to be legally defensible, confirm that the endowment was insufficient to sustain ongoing operations, and instruct Hartley to file the paperwork.His late mother had established the Rothbury Foundation eleven years ago, in the third year of her widowhood, with the particular energy of a woman who had finished grieving and had decided to do something with the energy left over. She had endowed a school for the children of coal miners and agricultural laborers in a Durham village, funded a small lending library, and arranged for a teacher to be employed at a salary that had been adequate in 1802 and had not—as salaries established by a deceased patron's estate tended not to—adjusted since.The foundation's endowment had been generating income at a rate that was no longer sufficient to cover those salaries, plus the building's maintenance, plus the cost of materials, and the shortfall had been growing by small increments for three years.The closure was a practical decision. It was not, he was aware, a pleasant one. But Rothwell had not become one of the wealthiest peers in the north of England by avoiding practical decisions on the grounds that they were unpleasant.He arrived in Rothbury on a Wednesday in September with Hartley and a change of horses, took rooms at the King's Head, and sent a message to the foundation informing them of his intention to inspect the premises on Thursday morning. The reply came back within the hour. It was written in a clear, firm hand on paper that was not expensive, but was very clean:My Lord,Hartley read this over his shoulder. "Efficient," he said."She knows why we are here," Rothwell said."Most likely," Hartley agreed. "Shall I prepare the—""Not yet."He looked at the letter again: the clear, firm hand; the absence of any of the forms of appeal he had been expecting—the pleading, the invocation of his late mother's memory, the various emotional instruments that people in Miss Burch's position typically deployed when facing closure."Thursday at nine," he said. "We will see what there is to see."The foundation building was on the east side of the village green: a plain stone building of modest dimensions that had been built, he could see from the quality of the work, with more care than money. The pointing was recent. The windows were clean. The roof, which he examined with the professional eye of a man who owned fourteen properties and had opinions about rooflines, appeared sound.
The children and staff of the Rothbury Foundation are available for inspection at any time convenient to your lordship. We open at 8:00. The school will be in session and the children in attendance. If it would be helpful, I can prepare a summary of the foundation's current activities and expenditures for your review.
Miss Agnes Burch, Schoolmistress.