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too old to be of any use. She couldn’t rely on her aunt’s children to keep her in her old age. They wouldn’t remember their obligation to her father. More than likely, she would be cast out to the workhouse. If she didn’t find a way to escape going to Manchester, she would spend the rest of her life regretting it.

Five
    F rances smoothed down her mourning dress, sucked the ink stain from her finger, and read the letter again.
Dr. Matthews. There is something I should like to discuss with you.
She still wasn’t sure she wanted to send it. Could she ever feel anything except dislike for a man whose proposal had been born from pure opportunism? If he hadn’t asked to marry her, then her uncle might well have taken her in. But his letter had ruined every chance of that. He had made it too easy for her uncle to be rid of her, and it was quite possible that he had known it would be the case.
    Sunlight streamed through the window. It was too hot for September, and the heavy weave of her dress was making her sweat. It was more wool than silk, and its seams chafed against her skin. She ran a finger around the cuffs, easing the material away from her wrists. What would he make of her change of mind?
    The writing desk, worn and polished, was almost entirely covered with letters of condolence. It faced the window and she looked out onto the garden. The grass, usually carefully trimmed, had overgrown its borders. It would need cutting, but not by Kerrick. Another heap of envelopes had arrived this morning. Not the letters she might have expected, from the politicians and businessmen who had fêted her father when he was successful and deserted him when his money ran out. These were people she had never heard of, governors and trustees of charities and ordinary men and women who wanted to acknowledge her father’s benefaction. She hadn’t known about his work for charity, and it was a consolation that there were people who loved him for it, who hadn’t abandoned him as soon as his fortunes had turned. She might have had a chance to meet some of these men if convention had allowed her to be at the funeral, but instead she had been forced to spend the day at home with Mrs. Arrow.
    Frances dropped the letter onto the desk and rested her head in her hands. All morning she had listened to the milling of feet through the corridors of the house. Gradually, the noise had subsided, and now all she could hear was the occasional ripple of applause when something went under the hammer for a good price. Most of the furniture would be gone by tomorrow—only the morning room and her bedroom had been spared—and her aunt had already left for Manchester. It was a blessing to have her out of the house. She couldn’t have borne her running commentary on the event.
    There was a knock on the door.
    “Tea, Miss?”
    “Yes, Kerrick. Thank you. How many is that now?”
    Kerrick’s forehead crumpled into an expression of deep disgust. “Over one hundred since this morning.” He stood not quite straight in the doorway, his shoulders bunched together with age.
    “And the sale?”
    “It seems good, Miss. Your father had no shortage of beautiful things. But there’s an awful lot of gentlemen happy just to gawk.”
    The contents of the house, and the house itself, wouldn’t bring in enough to cover her father’s losses. There would be nothing left over for her. “Heavily and unwisely invested” was the verdict delivered by her uncle when he had emerged from a protracted meeting with her father’s lawyer. When she asked to know more, he polished his nose with his thumb and forefinger and delicately avoided the word “bankruptcy.”
    The newspapers told her more. Her father, it turned out, had been borrowing money against his company to invest in the Northern Pacific Railway, which was building a line across a vast, untracked stretch of land up near Canada. Six weeks ago, the railway company had filed for bankruptcy, defeated by the