The Marriage Debt

Excerpt

Katherine Cunningham looked up from her book in surprise as the front door opened and she heard male voices in the hallway. A rapid glance at the mantle clock showed it still lacked half an hour before six, so what was Philip doing home at this time in the afternoon?

She got to her feet and went to the door of the small back parlour of the Clifford Street house where she had been indulging in some snatched leisure for reading. With virtually no staff it was easier to keep only the one small reception room in use, the rest were under dust covers with the exception of the room that Philip liked to call his study.

He was approaching it as she stepped out into the hall, Arthur Brigham, his friend from schooldays, at his heels. At the sight of her they both stopped dead.

‘Good afternoon, Arthur.’ She studied their faces. ‘What on earth is the matter? You look as though the pair of you have seen a ghost.’

‘Good…good afternoon,’ the young lawyer stammered. ‘I was, that is we were just going to look at something in Phil’s study.’ As he spoke he gave her brother a firm shove in the back, propelling him into the room before Katherine could get a good look at him.

The familiar wave of apprehension swept over her. Now what was Phil up to? Drunk again, that would be almost inevitable, despite the hour. But there was something else afoot, she could sense it.

‘Philip, what is wrong?’ She dodged through the door before Arthur could close it, then stopped dead as she saw Philip’s face. It was blotched, with drink doubtless, but also with dried tears. The expression in his eyes was desperate and his mouth, so like hers, too soft for a man, quivered. Something clutched at her heart. ‘Phil, sit down. Arthur, is he ill?’

Thank goodness for Arthur, she thought, kneeling beside Philip’s chair and trying to get him to meet her eyes. He might be wild to a fault and perfectly capable of neglecting his studies or his duties in his uncle’s law firm when it suited him, but he had none of Phil’s fatal weaknesses for drink and gaming. And he was patient and loyal enough to keep hauling his friend home, whatever the scrape he was in.

‘You must tell her, Phil,’ Arthur urged. ‘She has to know sooner or later.’ It seemed to Katherine that he could not meet her eyes either. The grip on her heart tightened.

‘Oh God, oh God, I’m sorry, Katy.’ To her horror her brother burst into tears, his head on her shoulder. Ignoring the blasphemy she patted his arm, stroked his hair until he suddenly jerked upright. ‘We’re ruined, Katy, absolutely ruined.’

‘How can we be?’ Somehow she could not get to her feet, her knees felt like jelly. She stayed there by his side, the wetness from his tears soaking the front of her old blue dimity gown. ‘You said you had won at the races, you said you had won at cards and we could pay off that money you borrowed and everything would be all right.’

He buried his face in his hands. Muffled she caught the words ‘Lost it again. Payment due.’

‘What? All of it?’ Philip was beyond listening to her so she twisted to look up at Arthur. ‘Arthur, what is he saying?’

‘He went to a new hell in Pickering Place last night. Said I’d meet him there but, by the time I arrived, most of the money was gone.’ The young man shot her a look of mingled shame and apology. ‘I couldn’t get him to leave, Katherine. He was drunk as a judge, convinced it would only take one more throw of the bones.’ He bit his lip, his eyes shifting under her horrified gaze. ‘I did get him out eventually, before he actually wrote any vowels.’

‘Small mercy,’ she said bitterly. ‘They would have joined all the other debts and the tradesmen’s’ bills. But thank you for trying, Arthur. Where have you been today?’

‘To the moneylender, to see if he could get an extension on the loan, some more money. But the old bloodsucker just laughed in his face, said he’d give him two weeks’ grace then send the bailiffs round.’

‘Merciful heaven.’ Katherine sank back on her heels, her fingers pressed to her lips. ‘Philip.’ She shook his arm. ‘How much do you owe them?’

‘Five,’ he muttered, head averted.

‘Five hundred. Let me think, what is left we can sell?’

Arthur cleared his throat. ‘Er, no, Katherine. Five thousand.’

The room swam. Surely she had misheard him? ‘Five thousand?’ she whispered. ‘Five thousand pounds?’

Philip nodded mutely.

‘And there are all the other debts and bills.’ Her stomach seemed to have risen so she could not breath, would be sick at any moment. Katherine gulped air and clenched her hands until the nails bit into her palms. When she could speak she said flatly, ‘We must sell the house and the furniture, it is all we have left that even approaches that sum.’

‘Can’t.’ The single word was choked out of Philip. Like an old, sick man he dragged himself upright in the chair and passed a trembling hand across his face. ‘I’ve already sold them.’

‘What?’ Arthur’s exclamation cut across hers. ‘You’ve sold the house? How could you do that and Katherine not know?’

‘Did it the month before Christmas when she went to stay with Great Aunt Gwendoline, just before she died. Waste of time and effort that was,’ he added. ‘Never left us a brass farthing.’

‘Philip, how could you?’ Katherine shook her head, too buffeted at the rest of his news to scold him for his callousness.

He shrugged. ‘Anyway, sold it then. And the furniture. Man I sold it to agreed to rent it back furnished. I paid off the worst of my gaming debts and kept some back for the rent, but that’s gone now too.’

Katherine tried to get to her feet and found Arthur’s hand under her elbow. ‘Here, better sit down. Shall I ring for some tea?’

‘Thank you, Arthur. I think Jenny is in the kitchen.’

They sat in silence, all unable to find words. Mercifully Arthur showed no sign of wanting to leave, although Katherine realised he must wish himself anywhere but in the centre of this family crisis. She shot him a grateful look. Goodness knows how she could cope with Philip without his help.

Jenny, once Katherine’s maid and now, since all but one of the other servants had left, their maid, cook and housekeeper rolled into one, put her head around the door. ‘You rang, Miss Katherine?’ Katherine swallowed, trying to get her tongue around a simple order for refreshment. Jenny took one look at their faces, said simply, ‘Tea. Yes.’

The silence stretched on. Philip scrubbed his handkerchief over his face and sat cutting and re-cutting a pack of cards which lay on his desk. Arthur simply waited, studying his clasped hands and Katherine forced herself to try and make a plan, find some way out of this trap. But all she could see were doors slamming in her face, however much her mind twisted and turned.

Jenny returned with the tea tray, put it down and left. Somehow the simple presence of this symbol of everyday social life woke Katherine from her trance. She poured tea, passed cups, insisted Philip drank, then began to ask the questions which were beating on those locked doors in her mind.

‘What will the moneylender do if you cannot repay him?’

‘Send the bailiffs, like he threatened,’ Philip said dismally.

‘But there is nothing to take. You say the house and furniture are sold, what is left?’

‘The kitchen utensils, the china and silver, your clothes.’ Arthur spoke when Philip lapsed into silence again.

‘The very clothes off our backs? But none of that will make up five thousand pounds? What can they do?’

‘Debtors’ prison,’ Philip choked out.

‘Prison? No, oh no, Phil, I cannot bear it if you go to prison.’ Katherine stared at Arthur. ‘Arthur, you must know how to stop that happening.’

‘Nothing I can do,’ he shook his head. ‘And the moneylenders will soon find out who else money is owed to. They’ll all see to it that it’ll be prison until the debt is paid in full. They have a perfect right to do it.’

‘But how can Philip earn money to pay off the debt if he is in prison? And nothing I can do could ever hope to approach that amount.’ Katherine felt sick again, sick and despairing. Then the quality of the silence which filled the room penetrated. ‘What is it?’ she demanded of the two young men. ‘What are you not telling me? What can be worse than Philip going to prison?’

Philip buried his face in his hands again, tipping over the tea cup so the dregs spilled across the polished wood. Arthur got up and knelt by Katherine’s chair, taking her hands in his. ‘It is not Philip who would go to prison, it is you.’

‘Me? Why should I go to prison?’ It was some ludicrous, ill-timed jest. Some misplaced effort by Arthur to lighten the atmosphere.

‘Because you signed the papers for the loan,’ he said gently.

‘No. I witnessed some papers for Philip, that is all.’ Katherine got to her feet and took two rapid steps across the room. She wanted to wrench open the door and run, but her own reflection in the glass over-mantle stopped her dead.

This morning she had got up and dressed in the old dimity gown that was now blotched with Philip’s tears. She had arranged her heavy honey-blonde hair in a simple knot and spared no more than a glance for her face. Now her brown eyes were wide and drenched with unshed tears, her lower lip caught in her teeth, her face was white and strained. She had strayed into a nightmare and the nightmare was real.

Philip stood up and tentatively put his hands on her shoulders. She could see him in the glass, the features which were so feminine in her face merely showed the weakness on his. ‘They would not lend me any more,’ he explained. ‘They seemed to feel you would be more reliable.’

‘You tricked me into signing?’ She spun round so she was facing him, his hands still on her shoulders. ‘You lied to me?’

‘I thought you might not quite like it…’

‘I would have refused and you knew it!’ Katherine had spent much of her twenty four years excusing her younger brother, picking up after him, managing as best she could on their increasingly straightened means since the death of their parents. She had never let her occasional anger with him overwhelm her affection, but now anger surged like a tidal wave, unstoppable.

‘How could you? How could you lie and cheat just to gratify yourself? How could you risk everything, not just for yourself, but for me as well? You are selfish, Philip, selfish beyond belief.’

He stepped back from the force of her fury, his face crumpling again. Philip had always traded on his looks, his charm, his happy-go-lucky attitude. To face criticism from the one person he believed would indulge him in anything seemed to rock his entire world.

‘Katy, Katy don’t be like this.’

‘Like what? Angry? Afraid? Oh sit down, Philip, this will do us no good. Is there anything you can think of, Arthur? Anything at all?’

‘I have been giving it some thought,’ he said, his relief that her outburst was over very clear. ‘The only thing for it is marriage.’

‘To whom, pray? Our breeding is good, but Philip has no title and that is the only thing likely to recommend him to some rich cit wanting to marry his daughter to the gentry. And good blood is nothing in the face of huge debts, a reputation for heavy drinking and no title. And who do you think is going to want to marry me? No dowry, on my way to the debtors’ prison. I do not hold myself cheap, Arthur, but I can’t delude myself that I have any of the charms necessary to attract a husband blind enough to pay my debts as part of the bargain.’

Arthur looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘That was not quite what I had in mind, Katherine.’

She thought she understood his meaning and felt the blood rise hot in her cheeks. ‘If you think I am going to make myself some man’s mistress in order to pay Philip’s – my – debts, you must be mad, Arthur. Or are you offering me the position?’

‘Good God, no! I mean, would be honoured of course, but I have no money, trust fund doesn’t pay up until I’m thirty…not that I wouldn’t want…’

Katherine waved a hand at him. ‘Stop it, Arthur. I did not mean it. If it comes to that, why doesn’t Philip find some wealthy widow to squire about, one sees it all the time.’ She did not wait for an answer to her bitter enquiry. ‘But I am not selling myself. I would rather go to prison.’

‘No, you would not,’ Philip muttered.

‘How do you know?’

‘We were in Newgate this afternoon. There are debtors in there. It is hellish.’

‘What on earth were you doing in Newgate?’ Even the name made her shudder.

Arthur cleared his throat. ‘Because I had an idea. We were finding you a husband.’