'Tis the Season: Regency Yuletide Short Stories

by Christi Caldwell

  “You have encouraged me to keep an eye on the merchant community, Mr. Wentworth, and I do that. I chat up the butcher’s boy when he makes his deliveries, I inquire into the dairymaid’s health when she brings the milk around of a morning. I drop into this or that shop, and report to you what I find. I had no idea Thatcher’s granddaughters were nearly destitute.”

  “Why should you? Their situation is no concern of ours.” Wentworth penciled a note into the margin of the document. “Thatcher was getting on in years, and ought to have made better provision for his dependents. You knew the bank was looking for a property to house a branch office and that Thatcher’s location was ideal for that purpose. What did you think I’d do with the information that the bookshop owner had gone to his reward?”

  Aidan had passed along news of Thatcher’s death two months ago, amid the usual gossip: A prominent mercer had sued a newspaper for libel. A theater troupe had been laid low on opening night by bad eel pie. The vicar at St. Euphonia’s had been posted to a village outside Leeds amid rumors of mishandled funds.

  “I quite honestly forgot I’d told you, sir, and now that we know the young ladies will be rendered homeless by the sale, we can look elsewhere for a better branch location.”

  Another note scribbled onto the margin. “Can the young ladies bid on the property themselves?” He didn’t even look up to pose that question.

  “My understanding is that they have very limited means. What coin they can earn from holiday shoppers might be all they have to show for years of minding that shop.”

  Look at me. At least have the decency to look me in the eye when you decide to ruin two innocent lives.

  Silence stretched, one of Quinn Wentworth’s favorite negotiating tools. Aidan had worked for the banker too long to be drawn out by that tactic though. For once, Quinn Wentworth would explain himself.

  He turned another page. Aidan waited until Mr. Wentworth sat back and removed his spectacles.

  “Here’s where we are, Farris. The community of merchants, mindful that one of their own has died leaving two dependents destitute, will bid vigorously on that property because that is their version of charity. The season of the year works to the advantage of the seller, meaning Barnstable. He will at the very least collect all of his trumped up fees, penalties, and interest in addition to the principle owed.”

  “You’re saying the merchants will bid generously, knowing that the young ladies face penury?”

  This theory, like all of Mr. Wentworth’s theories, had merit. If mercantile London was ever generous and decent, it was at Yuletide and to one of their own.

  “Wait until January, though,” Wentworth continued, “and the merchants quickly resume business as usual. Your young ladies will see more coin from the sale if it’s held before Christmas. They will present a pathetic spectacle, orphans turned out into the frigid night, and their performance will be rewarded.”

  This was what Quinn Wentworth did. He applied logic with unflinching disregard for emotion, as a director of a stage play considered how gestures or lines of dialogue would affect the audience. Usually, Aidan was impressed with the workings of such an orderly, sensible mind.

  Not this time. “You are wrong, sir.” It won’t be a performance.

  One dark brow lifted to a merely curious height. “I am in error? How novel. Do enlighten me, Mr. Farris.”

  “The holidays are when most commercial establishments are busiest, and the week between Boxing Day and New Year’s is typically when a bookshop sees the most sales. People return one book and buy two to replace it. Boxing Day social calls mean all of London is out and about, and yet, the longest weeks of winter are still ahead. If ever we buy books, we do it as the holidays are passing, and January looms before us in all its dreary interminability.”

  Aidan knew the habits of book purchasers both from discussions with old Mr. Thatcher and from years of being a devoted reader.

  “Not all of us, Farris, have the leisure time to waste with Sir Walter’s maunderings.”

  That comment bordered on unfair, and Quinn Wentworth was never unfair. He did, on rare occasion, benefit from hearing another’s viewpoint.

  “Not all of us, sir, are so lacking in imagination that we can think of aught else to do the livelong day besides work, cipher, and think about work and ciphering.”

  The eyebrow of eternal damnation lofted a tad higher, into the did-I-hear-you-correctly range, though Aidan would not take back his words. Mr. Penrose had once indicated that Mr. Wentworth had come to reading later than most, but so had Aidan, and he’d loved books ever since.

  “Are you discontent with your post at the bank, Mr. Farris?”

  The question was polite, the threat clear, but again, Aidan knew his employer, and knew better than to show how this discussion upset him.

  “I owe my employer my loyalty, Mr. Wentworth, therefore, I must be discontent when the bank proposes an action that will unnecessarily redound to its discredit. If you purchase that shop at auction and turn the young ladies out as the holidays approach, Barnstable will be made whole.

  “We both know,” Aidan went on, “Barnstable will twist and misrepresent the sums owed by the estate so that he makes much profit on the sale while leaving nothing for the young ladies to inherit. You and this bank, however, will have paid an inflated price for the property in your eagerness to gain possession of that building. Worse yet, the bank’s reputation—turning helpless women out into the cold at Yuletide—will suffer as well.”

  Mr. Wentworth rose, and though he was only two inches taller than Aidan, he carried the height in a manner that made other men feel lesser. Perhaps the problem was that Mr. Wentworth moved as quietly as he spoke, or perhaps the stretch of fine tailoring across broad shoulders hinted at the bully boy Wentworth had once been.

  “Redounding, are we?” he asked with mock dismay. “Polishing my image as Bad Fortune’s personal errand boy? I treasure that image, Farris. Knowing that I mean what I say and never go back on a contract once signed saves all and sundry a great deal of heartache and drama.”

  He strolled around the massive desk, hands linked behind his back. He might have been a tutor preparing to wax eloquent about the Shakespearean tragedies, except that the tragedy for the Thatcher sisters would be all too real.

  “You do raise an interesting point,” Wentworth said. “Putting unearned profit into Barnstable’s greedy hands is a logical outcome of an expeditious sale. Suppose we can’t have that. Not when Phineas has been such a naughty fellow the live-long year. I’ll have a word with him, and suggest the sale be moved back until after Christmas.”

  He collected the document on the desk and passed it to Aidan. “Direct the clerks to make three copies of this contract as annotated, please, and keep an eye on that bookshop. I want daily reports, Mr. Farris. How much custom, of what variety, purchasing which titles.”

  “Yes, sir.” Aidan accepted the thick sheaf of pages and left his employer to his ciphering.

  Something about the interview didn’t sit well, as if Aidan had arrived at a conclusion Mr. Wentworth had intended for him to arrive at, but no matter. Aidan had earned the Thatcher sisters another week at least in which to collect revenue from brisk sales, and himself another week to pray they’d find a miracle, before Quinn Wentworth saw them cast out into the cold.

  Chapter 3

  “A nip to ward off the chill, Mr. Wentworth?” Phineas Barnstable lifted a crystal decanter from a mahogany sideboard as he made that offer. “My selection includes very fine brandies, but perhaps your tastes run to rum or,”—he paused, his smile becoming insolent—“gin.”

  Gin, the drink that had ruined Quinn’s father. “I prefer not to take spirits during business hours, thank you just the same. I’d like to discuss the Thatcher sale.”

  He ambled the perimeter of Barnstable’s office rather than take a seat. The paintings hanging on the walls were good quality, but nudes every one. Put those images in a Seven Dials pub, and they’d be lew
d. Here, they were art.

  “The Thatcher auction,” Barnstable countered, pouring himself a drink. “I am merely the mortgagor, liquidating an asset on behalf of the old man’s estate. To your health.” He lifted his glass and made a little performance of sampling the contents, holding the drink beneath his chin, then beneath his nose, then audibly swishing the first taste about in his mouth.

  Quinn knew how to consume brandy. That skill was necessary for moving in gentlemanly circles, so he’d learned it. He’d learned how to dress in the first stare of fashion, even how to damned waltz.

  He’d never learned how to cheat at business, but Barnstable could have taught university courses on the subject.

  “Will you entertain a private sale of the property?” Quinn asked. The mantel held a thin coating of gray coal dust. As warm as Barnstable kept this room, the whole office likely needed dusting three times a day.

  “My dear Mr. Wentworth, I have already advertised the auction to the commercial public. If they learned I’d instead transferred the property to you without benefit of full and open competition, how could I prove to the courts that I’d got the best price for the place? An estate must be rendered solvent if possible, and a public auction means I’ve done my part to make that happen.”

  He spoke genially, as if instructing a clerk. He was also misrepresenting the law, which he did well and frequently.

  “If what you seek is full and open competition, you’ll wait until after Christmas,” Quinn said. “But perhaps Barnstable’s is a bit short of coin, and must liquidate assets hastily? The banking business is such a fraught undertaking.”

  Quinn turned his back on his host as if to admire the view of the street below, a deliberate rudeness in exchange for deliberate insults, plural.

  Barnstable’s bay window was fogged with grime, as every London windows was in winter, but Quinn could make out the crossing sweeper at the intersection, a child shivering in ragged clothes. The boy darted out into traffic to collect horse droppings while they were still warm, and shoveled them into a barrel. The lad huddled next to the barrel, gaze riveted on passing vehicles.

  Quinn knew firsthand the ache in those small knees, the focus that blotted out almost all awareness of the cold. He’d graduated from crossing sweeper to groom at a livery, and still found a stable a place of peace, warmth, and refuge.

  This stuffy, ostentatious office had, by contrast, authored much undeserved hardship. Quinn’s good deed for the year—he permitted himself one charitable undertaking each Yuletide—would be to serve Barnstable a portion of justice.

  Barnstable set his drink on the ornate reading table in the center of the room. “Mr. Wentworth, do you imply that my establishment is insolvent?”

  “Several hypotheses come to mind to explain the undue haste with which you put the Thatcher property up for auction,” Quinn said, wandering away from the window. “First, your bank needs ready coin. Banks fail all the time, and the present economy is a tribulation to all in the financial business.”

  Barnstable gestured with his glass. “One cannot take offense at platitudes, but I assure you, Barnstable’s quite sound and you imply otherwise at peril to my civility.”

  Quinn did not give one frozen horse dropping for Phineas Barnstable’s civility. “Second, you have failed to take into account the nature of the parties likely to bid on the Thatcher property.”

  “Now you do insult me, Wentworth. You come to my office, begging me for special consideration, insinuating—”

  Quinn picked up Barnstable’s drink and held it beneath his chin, the raised it to his nose, then set it down. Not first quality. A slight hint of wet dog about the nose, a faint note of boar-in-rut below that.

  “I beg for nothing, Barnstable. I felt it incumbent upon me as a fellow banker to discuss with you the folly of a precipitous sale, of which the courts would naturally take notice. The merchants eager to get their hands on that property are themselves short of cash prior to Christmas Day itself. Accounts owing are typically not paid until Boxing Day, and thus far more ready money will be in their pockets after Christmas than before. Perhaps this signal fact slipped your mind.”

  Barnstable’s brows drew down, suggesting that this obvious fact had escaped his notice. “One doesn’t want to involve the courts, Wentworth. I had merely hoped to see the matter tidied up sooner rather than later. The merchants are not hard-hearted toward their own, and the Thatcher girls face the proverbial plight, you see. They will be penniless and homeless unless the sale is very successful. I’ve put that word about, and the reception has been most encouraging.”

  Quinn pretended to study the painting over the mantel, a much-darkened rendering of Artemis with her loyal stag, and without much clothing.

  “You are using the Thatcher sisters’ situation to play upon the sympathies of the bidders, then?”

  “Why not? Nothing like a little holiday generosity to make Yuletide feel complete. The Thatcher sisters will benefit, I’ll benefit, the estate’s other creditors will benefit.”

  The estate had no other creditors. Quinn had established that much several weeks ago. The Thatcher sisters had nearly beggared themselves paying off every sum due, and of course, Barnstable had ensured that those bills had been delivered almost before the old man’s funeral.

  Barnstable was thus free to manipulate his accountings without any fear of oversight or interference from other creditors.

  And—Quinn was certain of this—Barnstable’s institution was perilously short of cash.

  “Holiday generosity does not disappear on Christmas night,” Quinn said. “We both know Boxing Day ushers in at least a week of brisk commercial activity as accounts are paid and calls are made. If you have the sale immediately after Christmas, you will see much higher bids, and you’ll still be able to play upon the sympathies of the merchants. You will also have less to fear from the courts, who take a dim view of unnecessary haste where orphaned females are concerned.”

  Regardless of the timing of the sale, Barnstable would keep every ha’ penny for himself, and allow the Thatcher sisters a pittance by way of an inheritance. Their grandfather’s solicitor would be only too happy that his own outstanding invoice was settled, and the hardworking young ladies would end up on the parish or worse.

  Quinn knew that tragedy line by line.

  “Your reputation for shrewdness is well earned, Mr. Wentworth,” Barnstable said. “May I ask what you would have offered for the place?”

  “You may ask, I’d be a fool to share that information. I might, however, be persuaded to send a representative to your little auction.”

  Barnstable’s smile would have been a credit to Father Christmas. “Your Mr. Farris has been seen on the premises at least twice a week since old Thatcher’s death. You doubtless sent your loyal hound to reconnoiter, which is how I knew you were interested in the property. You are welcome to bid as high as you please at my little auction.”

  “If you hold that auction before Christmas, don’t expect me to bother. I can’t have the courts meddling in the transaction, particularly not when I’ll likely end up paying a premium price for the place.”

  The courts did meddle occasionally, and when they did, an estate could languish for years. Barnstable did not have years. If Quinn’s information was correct—and it was—Barnstable barely had weeks.

  Barnstable sloshed more liquor into his glass. “I’ll hold that auction whenever I please, Mr. Wentworth.”

  “And I,” Quinn said, “employ enough idealistic young solicitors to make you regret any precipitous behavior. The Thatcher sisters grew up in that shop, I’m told, and they know their trade well. You might have allowed them to catch up the mortgage after their grandfather’s illness, but you chose not to. The courts will be interested to know that, I’m sure, and will examine your records very closely if prompted to do so.”

  Barnstable’s smile winked out like a snuffed candle. “You don’t care one whit for those girls and neither do I, Wentworth. Th
e working classes are resilient, and if those young women know their trade so well, they can ply it in somebody else’s bookshop. Why do you need an extra week? Is Wentworth and Penrose short of funds, is that it?”

  The next part was delicate, for Quinn would not lie. “Wentworth and Penrose has enemies, which is no secret. The old, established banks regard us as an upstart aberration, unworthy to transact business in their backyards. If I do purchase the Thatcher property, it will be to open a branch close to where the better families like to shop. I anticipate resistance to that endeavor, and a precipitous auction is a perfect excuse to involve the courts.”

  Every word of that recitation was the truth, and Barnstable appeared to accept it as such.

  “Why not wait a month, then?”

  A month during which Barnstable would tack more principle, interest, fees, and penalties onto what the Thatchers supposedly owed him.

  “Because by tradition, commercial accounts are settled in the next week or so, Barnstable. How many times must I remind you? Even the courts have to acknowledge a custom that’s been centuries in the making. Longer than that, I do not care to wait. If the sisters close up shop and leave Town, there’s no telling what condition the property will be in after London’s vagrants have made free with it.”

  Barnstable studied the rug, a plush Axminster that stretched from wall to wall. Somebody swept this carpet regularly, for the red, green, and cream pattern of leaves and blossoms was brightly visible.

  “Very well,” Barnstable said, “I’ll hold the auction after Christmas, and regardless of who the successful bidder is, I will anticipate no interference from the courts. You are reputed to be shrewd to a fault, but honest, so I will look forward to seeing one of your idealistic solicitors at the sale. Do we have an agreement, Mr. Wentworth?”