"I gathered as much," said Honora.
"His Grace instructs me to say that he acknowledges the debts recorded in your late father's daybook as the debts of the late Duke, and therefore of the Hartsmere estate. He proposes to repay the principal, eleven thousand four hundred pounds, to your father's heir, with such interest as you think just. He is aware it cannot be done at once. He asks your patience, and your terms." Mr. Haverstock cleared his throat. "Her Grace instructs me to say that she will sign a private memorandum, to be lodged with this office, stating that Mr. Edmund Lisle was guilty of no dishonesty. She asks that it remain private. She renews her offer of a settlement."
Honora looked down at her hands. It was more than she had dared hope for on the Bath road. Her mother had died wanting less.
"Private," she said.
"Her Grace feels—"
"My father was arrested in front of the tenants at the Michaelmas audit, Mr. Haverstock. Nothing about his disgrace was private." She drew a breath. "And I will not take His Grace's money if it means Lowfield goes under the hammer. Tell him that. Tell him I have seen the figures."
Mr. Haverstock blinked. Then, as if something in him had come loose, he said: "Your mother never wished to take it either, you know. The other money. She sent back the first quarter's draft. It was only when you had the scarlet fever, the winter of the year six, that she began to keep it."
The room went very quiet.
"What other money?" said Honora.
Mr. Haverstock went grey. He looked at his cold tea as though it might rescue him.
"Mr. Haverstock."
"Eighty pounds a year," he said at last, wretchedly. "Paid quarterly through my office since the spring of the year four, to Mrs. Lisle and afterwards to yourself, from an anonymous friend of the family. I understood you knew the source, Miss Lisle. I understood your mother had guessed it long ago."
Honora remembered the little drafts coming at each quarter day, all her life: the rent on Westgate Buildings paid, the doctor paid, the coal, the term at Miss Tuttle's that had let her become a teacher rather than a servant. Her mother had called it Papa's friend. Honora had imagined a fellow land agent, a college acquaintance, some shabby faithful gentleman in the north. She had imagined him so often that he had a face.
"Thank you, Mr. Haverstock," she said. "Please tell His Grace that I will send him my answer."
* * *