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cooled. I’d been allowed to attend Betrix’s wedding, and I’d even squeezed in a visit after her son, Henry, was born. But I’d seen her stepping out with other girls, girls we’d once laughed at for their foolish antics and lack of learning. The truth was, I’d thought Betrix lost to me and mourned her long ago. Father’s death proved me wrong and for that I was very grateful. I learned that some things weren’t altered by time, not in an irreparable way anyhow.
    Betrix left the house promising to return when things settled. I would hold her to that — Hiske or no Hiske.
    I’d half expected the head of the Kontor, the foreign trading post set up by the Hanseatic League in Elmham Lenn, Captain Hatto Stoyan, to call. Amid all the other visitors, I felt his absence acutely. Though Mother’s death had put a strain on his relationship with Father (he’d known Mother’s family for years and would deliver news from Maastricht whenever he returned from there), I’d thought he’d make the effort. Despite Father, he’d always had a kind word for me and made a point of bringing the odd cask of wine or two from Bordeaux, cheeses from Ghent and ribbons or lace from Italy for our pleasure. Excuses to visit they may have been, but I always enjoyed the captain’s presence and Mother’s spirits were visibly buoyant after he’d been. Though I’d barely seen him since Mother died, I regarded Captain Stoyan, possibly unrealistically, as a link to her. Puzzled and hurt by his absence at first, I later discovered he was in London. I considered writing to him; I wanted him to know about Father, about us. But there were others who needed to be told first.
    Bad news is bold, a jackanapes, spreading faster than a plague, whereas good news is like a freshly hired hand, circumspect, afraid to overstep the mark. Just as I’d told the twins, I wanted to be the one to let Tobias know. Even though I was sure Lord Rainford would have dispatched a messenger to his son, I wrote briefly but, I hoped, lovingly. Tobias may have let correspondence between us falter, but I’d never done so. Though, since Mother died, I’d not had to deliver such bad tidings.
    After organising the making of mourning clothes, a task readily undertaken by Mistress Taylor in town, I pulled Adam aside and shared with him the rest of what Master Makejoy had told me. Adam listened respectfully as I explained my situation, ( ours , he gruffly corrected, and I wanted to throw my arms around his neck as I had as a child), his strong jaw clenching and unclenching, his hand occasionally rising to run through his thick, grey hair or graze the fine stubble on his cheeks. I finished by asking him to elucidate where we stood as a household and business. I thought maybe I could throw myself on Lord Rainford’s mercy but, in order to do that, I needed to understand the costs of running a house our size. If Lord Rainford was, as Master Makejoy inferred, to offer the lease to someone else, why could it not be me?
    For the next three nights, Adam and I waited until everyone was abed, then equipped with candles and cresset lamp, retired to the office. There was nothing surreptitious in our action, it was just that I preferred Hiske remain, for the time being at least, ignorant of what I was doing. On the first night, Adam made a fire and, as the kindling took, he opened a big ledger on the table. Inviting me to take Father’s chair, he sat beside me. Moving through the columns of neat figures and annotations he’d made over the weeks and months, I learned, to my dismay, that the day-to-day costs of running the house were more than I anticipated. While the tenant farmers paid reasonable tithes and supplied a variety of meat, grain and dairy produce, like most of the town, we were beholden to the Friary of St Jude’s for our ale, and purchased wood and coal from the respective merchants. Cloth and