by Rebecca King
“We have been supporting her for years,” Arthur told her. “You know that. What am I supposed to do, see her in the poor house?”
“You have been spending what is left of the family’s money on supporting your sister?” Mabel slapped the papers onto the desk in disgust. “No, you wouldn’t want to see your darling Wilhelmina in the poor house. You wish to see us all in the poor house instead.”
“It won’t come to that,” Arthur tried to assure her.
“Nearly all of those bills are hers. She spends more in a year than all five of us do,” Mabel cried. “At this rate we are all going to be bankrupt because we are keeping her in a life of luxury we cannot afford. Why have you not told her that we cannot afford it?”
“I have tried, but she won’t listen,” Arthur sighed.
“She has always walked all over you,” Mabel snapped. “What are you afraid of? Why don’t you stand up for yourself around her? This is the family home at risk, Arthur.”
“Have you entered any arrangement with Wilhelmina about Sian? Or any of your daughters for that matter?” Ryan interrupted when he sensed a full-scale argument was about to break out.
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
“Wilhelmina has mentioned it, though.” Again, it wasn’t a question.
“Yes, but I have said that I am not going to marry them off just yet.”
Ryan frowned at that. “But Sian said you two had an argument last night whereupon your daughters heard that they were to be married off because you couldn’t afford to keep them any longer. Is she wrong?”
“No. We are both aware that our daughters heard our conversation last night,” Mabel said coldly. “It was a private conversation that became heated and, unfortunately, was overheard. But I can promise you now that I am not going to allow any of my daughters to be sold off while that harridan is living the life of luxury. It is going to stop. Do you hear me, Arthur?”
Mabel was positively shaking. Ryan ran a hand down his face. While he didn’t want to get embroiled in the family problems, this did concern him because it involved Sian, and the mill. Sian was what was important, so much so Ryan was positively compelled to get up and go after her.
God only knows where she is now.
“What do you think we should do then? Eh? Do you want to force Wilhelmina to curb her spending?”
“Do you give her an allowance?” Ryan interrupted.
“Yes.”
“So, where are those bills coming from then? If you give her an allowance, that should pay her bills as well as provide her upkeep,” Ryan argued.
Arthur, a little defensive now, glared at him. “Does your father have family to look after?”
“Yes. An aunt of ours is under his protection. She has an allowance which pays for her upkeep. She then pays all her bills according to that allowance. It is the way it has always been. If you would take a word of advice from me? Make it clear to Wilhelmina that her allowance must pay for her bills as well from now on. You must make sure all her bills are returned to the senders who can then forward them to her at her home address, duly made out in her name. Her bills; her responsibility. Do not veer from it.”
When Arthur’s gaze fell to his desk, Ryan suspected he knew what was coming next. “You cannot afford her allowance anymore, can you?”
When Arthur looked up, it was with frightened eyes. “I can barely afford to pay for this house, if I am honest. We are already practically living on rations.”
“How bad is it?” Ryan had no idea it had gotten that bad.
“We presently owe nearly a thousand pounds to the bank,” Arthur whispered.
Mabel stared at him in frozen disbelief. Her eyes were wide with horror as she took in the import of what her husband had just said.
“We are living on borrowed time,” she breathed. “Tell me, has Wilhelmina really had a house fire, or has she been evicted?”
“That is what I need to go town to see for myself,” Arthur murmured. “I don’t think she would make something like a house fire up.”
“Is the house insured?” Ryan asked.
“It is rented from a local businessman,” Arthur informed them. “I had been paying Wilhelmina the rent but giving it to her to give to the landlord, but now I am not so sure she has been paying the rent with the money I gave her.”
“Was the property insured?”
“I couldn’t afford insurance for it,” Arthur whispered. “Having to repair that place is going to ruin us. We cannot afford to live as it is. Now, I have to pay all of those bills as well.”
“The shares will cover the bills but won’t provide you with an income after that,” Ryan advised. “What do you intend to do to pay for food and wood and the like afterwards? Besides try to persuade your daughters to marry that is. It isn’t the answer, Arthur. How are you going to afford to pay for their wedding wardrobes? How are you going to accommodate wedding guests? How are you going to afford to pay for a home for you and your wife once they are gone? While their husbands might help you, they aren’t going to keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed. Now will they pay Wilhelmina’s allowance and bills. Can you see Cedrick paying for anything for you?” Ryan shook his head in disgust. “Cedrick and Wilhelmina are the kind of people who take not give.”
“They have to go,” Mabel added. “Cedrick and Wilhelmina will have to go and stay in a tavern.”
“What, and run up a lot of bills that I cannot pay either?” Arthur’s voice was sharp.
“Why cannot Wilhelmina pay her own bills? Why should she send them to you? She is old enough to pay her own bills. She has had her allowance this month, hasn’t she?” Mabel demanded. When Arthur nodded, she snatched up the pile of bills and rifled through them until she had singled out Wilhemina’s bills, which she then began to total.
“How bad is it?” Ryan asked.
“There is nearly fifty pounds’ worth of bills here,” she whispered. “Plus, she has an allowance of ten pounds per month on top of the rent we are giving her.”
Ryan pursed his lips not least because the picture Arthur and Mabel were painting was indeed a bleak one. While he was wealthy enough to be able to help Arthur sort his problems out and not even feel a dent in his purse, he didn’t want to bail Arthur out of the mess he had gotten himself into. He wanted the man to fret and worry. His stubborn pride had to be dented in order to teach him a lesson and force him to stand up to his sister’s selfishness.
“I am not able to force Wilhelmina to agree to a reduction in her spending. I have tried on many occasions. She just won’t listen. She has always sent her bills to me. When I was working it wasn’t a problem, but now that things have changed, I cannot keep doing it.” Arthur ran a weary hand down his face and sighed as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Well, I understand that you have a relation to look after. She is, after all, a lady and your responsibility. However, you cannot allow yourself to go bankrupt while she won’t curb her spending. You have to make decisions based on your priorities and your first priority should always be, without question, to your wife and children. Wilhelmina must be forced to change her ways, Arthur,” Ryan bit out.
“She is not to stop here, Arthur,” Mabel ordered.
“What alternative is there?” Arthur growled. “Even though this house is full to bursting we have no choice but to keep her too. But we cannot keep tripping over each other like we are. It is ridiculous. If I can just persuade one of my daughters to marry, our lives will be easier. We will all have more space and less people to feed.”
Ryan sighed. “Look, for now, I shall purchase the shares from you and will pay you the full market rate. What I would strongly advise is that you send Wilhelmina’s bills back to the merchants, give them her proper address, and make them pester her for payment. Make it clear that she gets her allowance to cover everything and won’t get a penny more. Make it clear to her that if anybody sends you her bills you will just send them b
ack to the merchant with her address. They are not your responsibility. At some point, Wilhelmina is going to have to take responsibility for herself. You are doing her no favours getting yourself into a mess while she makes a mockery of you. Meantime, go and view Wilhelmina’s house and see if it is habitable. It might just need a coat of paint. In which case it might be pertinent to spend some money to get it re-decorated so you can send her home. Once she is there, stick to the allowance and refuse to give her anything no matter how argumentative she gets.”
“And if her house is beyond help?” Arthur asked quietly.
“If her house is beyond help, you will have to make financial arrangements with the landlord that covers the cost of the repairs but deduct a small amount out of Wilhelmina’s allowance. She has to pay some of the cost herself. After all, it was her mistake. She isn’t to just shunt the responsibility for it onto you.”
Arthur nodded his agreement. “I apologise for earlier. I have no idea what came over Sian. She isn’t usually that – wayward.”
Ryan knew the man was trying to figure out what acquaintance he had with Sian, but didn’t explain himself, not least because he wasn’t at all sure what to say.
“I am afraid that Cedrick has it in mind that she has been promised to him, and that is why Sian is so angry,” Ryan sighed. “I should like to go and have a word with her, if I may?”
“Wilhelmina?” Arthur scowled, as if trying to understand why anybody would want a word with her.
“Sian.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, of course.”
“For now, I shall get my man of business onto sort out the paperwork for the purchase of those shares. Then we will have another chat about how we are going to resolve those financial problems of yours. I have one or two suggestions on how you could earn an income. For now, I will go and see if I can find your errant daughter and calm her down a little.”
He left Mabel and Arthur doing everything possible to avoid each other’s eyes, and quietly left the house, but this time through the back door.
CHAPTER SIX
Ryan knew that when Sian was stressed, worried, or just needed some time alone to think, she gravitated to an old church on the edge of his estate which had been abandoned a century or so ago. It was there he found her.
Sian felt his presence before she heard him.
“I can assure you now that your father isn’t going to force you into marrying Cedrick,” Ryan began.
“Has he told you?”
“What?”
“That Cedrick is not going to be my husband?”
Ryan shook his head.
Sian closed her eyes. “How much financial trouble is he in?”
“Enough to force a few changes.”
“I am not going to be forced into marriage to that – that–”
“Cedrick.”
“If that is what you want to call him. I am certainly not going to be forced into marriage to that Cedrick,” Sian snorted.
“I am not suggesting you should be.”
“But my father has asked you to come and have a word with me.” Sian shook her head in disgust.
“Why are you so averse to marriage?”
“So, my father has asked you to come and have a word with me,” she persisted. “Well, don’t bother because I am not going to change my mind for you either.”
“Answer my question,” Ryan demanded.
“What question?”
Ryan forced himself to remain patient. It was clear that Sian was panic-stricken at the thought of having to be married to Wilhelmina’s acquaintance, and he could only sympathise with her for it. However, he wanted a few straight answers because her attitude toward matrimony affected him.
“What do you have against marriage?”
“I don’t have anything against marriage. I am sure it is a perfectly fine and credible institution for people who wish to indulge in it. I, however, do not.”
“Why?”
“Because I have no wish to hand myself over like chattel to any man to control at a whim,” she snapped. “You have no idea how frustrating it is to live with my father. A husband is not going to make me any happier.”
“But your circumstances will be better,” Ryan argued. “As a wife, you will run the home you live in ergo you will make decisions as to menu, purchases, dresses, and the fripperies you buy. So long as you find yourself a husband who is wealthy enough, you would be able to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of your life.”
Sian threw him a dark look. “There is more to marriage than money.”
Ryan mentally heaved a sigh of relief that she understood that.
“Why else do you think people enter into marriage?” he asked quietly.
Sian shook her head. “I don’t really want to think about it.”
“Why, does growing up concern you?”
“This isn’t about growing up.”
“Really? You say you don’t want to hand yourself over to a domineering husband but ignore the fact that your husband will bring you more freedom.”
“Not if I am married to a man like Cedrick,” she whispered.
“You don’t know that,” Ryan countered.
“God, you are reprehensible,” she gasped. “I don’t care what my father offered you, neither you nor he stand a chance of getting me to accept that oaf as a husband. I would rather die than be married to him.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Ever contemplate that dying will resolve anything. It won’t.”
“It will if it stops me having to marry him.”
Ryan sighed.
“I will not marry him. I don’t care what size his mansion is, who his relations are, or what he thinks he has to offer. Cedrick will not be my husband.”
“Why do you think people should marry?”
“Mutual attraction? Affection? Love? A desire to be together? I am not attracted to Cedrick, I have no affection for him much less love, and no desire to ever see that man again in my life or get stuck with him as my husband, and you can go back to my father and tell him that.”
“I am not your father’s errand boy,” Ryan retorted.
“So why are you here, if he hasn’t sent you? You have barely even given me a second look when we have met in the past. Why are you concerning yourself with this?”
Ryan squinted at the space where the alter had once stood and stepped closer to her.
“You have made me involved in this, or should I carefully ignore the fact that you saw fit to kiss me in front of your family? Your family who want to know just how close we are, and all because of the impression you gave them.”
“I am sorry I did,” she whispered.
“You cannot go back and undo what happened, Sian. I, for one, won’t let you. I doubt your sisters will either. What made you do it?”
“I don’t know.” But she did. She truly did. She just couldn’t tell him. Sian couldn’t do anything else that she knew would make her abject humiliation worse.
“You must know. I hope you do not go about kissing any man who happens to cross your path.”
“Of course not.”
“So, why me?” Ryan challenged.
“I don’t know. I was annoyed, all right? I just didn’t know what I was doing and didn’t stop to think. I apologise for embarrassing you,” she whispered.
“You didn’t. I just want to know what it was all about.”
“You know what it was all about. You heard everything, didn’t you?”
When Ryan nodded slowly, Sian closed her eyes and wished she was somewhere else.
“Well, I apologise and will promise you that I shall never be so bold as to do anything like it ever again.”
When she tried to move away, Ryan captured her arm in a firm hold and held her before him.
“You got it wrong,” he chided. “You got it all wrong.”
“What? I have acknowledged that what I did was wrong. I am not wrong in saying that I refuse to marry Ce
drick. It is not wrong to what something more from a marriage,” Sian breathed.
She stared at him and wanted, needed him to suggest marriage to him. She wasn’t at all sure why she should contemplate he would. Just because he had stopped to chat with her didn’t mean he had any intention of showing her even a little bit of interest. But it was something she desperately wanted anyway.
He has come after me. He is here. It must mean something, mustn’t it?
Sian was aware that the most likely reason he had come after her was because of the kiss. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t interested. She didn’t want to hear the words. She didn’t need to hear the words. Even though he didn’t speak, they hovered between them.
“That was not what I was talking about,” Ryan said.
“I shouldn’t want anything out of a marriage?”
“A marriage should be based on the right things.”
“Like what?”
Ryan stared at her. “Respect. Love. Desire. A need to be together.”
Sian stared at him because he had just acknowledged that he agreed with her. “I don’t understand what the problem is then. I don’t want to marry for any other reason, but you expect me to marry Cedrick.”
“I have never said you should marry Cedrick,” Ryan reminded her.
“But that is why you are here.”
“No. I am here because I want to know why you kissed me in your father’s study. Why would you give your family the impression that we were - together?”
“Look, I have said I am sorry. What else can I say?” Sian tried to keep her voice low for fear of someone overhearing them if they had been followed. “It was a mistake.”
“Your father is going to want to know what acquaintance we have that led you to believe kissing me in front of him was all right,” Ryan began. “What do you intend to tell him?”
Sian felt her heart start to crack. It created a hurt deep in her chest the likes of which rose and settled into the back of her throat. When she spoke next her voice was thick, and full of the emotion she daren’t release. It would emerge later, in the form of a steady stream of tears. Right now, Sian forced herself to tip her chin up and stare back at him with a pride that was so strong she wasn’t at all sure where it came from. She had no idea that she was even capable of it.
