have a reason. I feel like I work for a madman sometimes!”
“Oh, come now, Timothy. You know as well as I what would transpire if everyone knew the reality of my situation.”
“Yes, wouldn’t it just be awful to have the jealousy of the masses as a balm to your blackened soul?”
“Hah. They would be after me night and day to pay for every piddling thing they couldn’t see raising taxes for.”
“People of means often view charitable giving as a way of giving thanks for that which has graced them.” Timothy had peered over his reading spectacles at Augustus pointedly.
“Phooey. People who give ‘charitably’ should do so in ways that don’t require the knowledge or thanks of anyone receiving it. I give plenty, by the by. I prefer to remain quiet about it, is all.”
“So you have some sort of ‘embarrassment of riches’, is that it?” A lawyerly chuckle at his own jest.
“For crying out loud…why are you so infernally interested in my motives?”
“Augustus, you have the wealth of Croesus at your disposal, and you go on, living as though you were a step away from the workhouse, or worse. Why should I not wonder? Frankly, it beggars the imagination to surmise a reason why any man should do anything so odd, so confounded, so strangely egotistical. I have known you since the war, when we both sat for hours playing cards. Is that it? Are you ashamed of your war service?”
“Well, it doesn’t help. All those boys died in the mud and pickets, while we sat aboard blockade ships.”
“Well, it was boring, tedious, and all that, but it was safe, for the most part.”
“You forgot the ‘profitable’ portion of that duty, Tim.”
“Well…never let it be said that I was displeased by that.”
“And you too live modestly, continuing to work for your living, at least to those who would wonder.”
“I have not the means that you do, Augustus.”
“Nay, Timothy, but you could have retired in comfort several times over. I think you are as hounded as I about the origins of our wealth. I certainly wish for no-one to ask. Why, the families around us who lost fathers, sons, uncles, brothers, not just at the battles, but at the prisoner of war camps…they would probably burn my house to the ground if they imagined I was a profiteer.”
“You are hardly that.”
“You only say so because you don’t want to be called one either.”Augustus tapped his pipe, emptying it into the fireplace, whileTimothy withdrew into thought. “We both know that I came into money from many places, through many sources, but at the heart of it is that blockade, the auctions, all of it one step away from piracy. I had rather not be viewed that way. At least in this, people pity me, try to save my eternal soul, and generally avoid me otherwise. I don’t think I could stomach it if they all hated me.”
“So move away, go to California, or France. People can come up with their own ideas of your wealth there.”
“Someday soon. For now, I have to stay.”
“Whyever for, Augustus?”
“Blasted charity. My blasted penance.” And so, the explanation lingered between them, and they both knew it to be true. The only thing that Augustus could not say to his friend had to do with the things he had seen after he’d left blockade duty.
To explain that would mean drawing out a letter in a leather pouch, which permanently resided in his inside pocket. And pulling out the letter would require far too much explanation. It held the secrets of the wealth Augustus currently enjoyed, but it also held the key to his determination in staying put. The lawyer worked his thoughts away from their shared history, on to his only remaining question.
“Will you tell me one day how you came into the rest of your fortune?”
“I may, Timothy, but likely only when one of us is on his deathbed.” That unsettling thought sent Timothy Haines into silence. His companion Augustus reflected on how much longer his conscience would require him to linger in the village, where he played at being an idiot.
Cousins
From a spotted and age-darkened mirror’s reflection, a woman watched herself blink rapidly as she tried to adjust a red satin sash on her shoulder. The blinking contrived to restrain tears, and she hurried herself to avoid further confrontation with her houseguests.
Turning a critical eye back on her reflection, she told herself firmly that while flushed cheeks were fashionable, red eyes and noses were decidedly not. She cleared her throat in a series of quiet coughs, fussing with the sash again, and then began humming her mother’s favorite, “Onward Christian Soldiers” to cheer herself up by.
“Cousin Mary? Wherever did you go?” A lilting, girlish voice tinged with notes of the Empire swam down the corridor to where she stood. Mary was tempted to bolt for the door, but her cousin Charlotte rounded the corner just as Mary’s fingers brushed the metal of the door handle. Mary frowned, moving to smooth her pale hair down instead, and make certain her hat was pinned on securely.
“I am here, cousin, as you can see.”
“You fool no one, dear Mary. I can see the work that my brother’s ill-advised words have wrought upon you.” Charlotte carelessly poked a slim finger up inside one of her fat sausage curls, wriggling the hair nearly out of its careful arrangement. “He can be a perfect beast at times, to be sure, but you certainly oughtn’t let him upset you so. He has the inner philosophies of a tea biscuit, after all.”
“Perhaps. I suppose I ought to keep politics and personal viewpoints at a minimum between us, however.”
“Oh, twaddle. He loves to squeeze a good debate out of anyone willing to engage him, which isn’t difficult, given his frivolous nature. He’s just in bad airs today. I have informed him that he’s being particularly Napoleonic today, and that the next time he wishes to be so unpleasant, I’ll save him the trouble by having him stuffed with breadcrumbs and roasted for Sunday supper.”
Charlotte seemed earnest, but Mary had learned how difficult it was to read her cousin’s true intentions. She abandoned her hat to stare at her toes instead.
“You are too kind to me, cousin. I probably do not deserve it.”
“Again I must make an exclamatory. Phooey! If you read something clever, like that Twain chap, you’d have some devilish good ammunition with which to trounce Ian. Of course, you’d probably not enjoy Mr. Twain’s views on that Temperance movement you hold so dear.”
Charlotte smiled at her in that open way she had, utterly innocent and diabolical all at once. Mary never usually had any ready response to these moments, except that she had been saving one for a moment such as this.
“Our Centennial will be celebrated in a week’s time, you know. Will you join us Colonials in celebrating that great occasion, or do you think it better to stay indoors, in the event that someone takes umbrage with your accent?” The smile on Charlotte’s face pulled out of the humorous, and into the thin and wry variety. Her eyes did not so much twinkle as crackle with merry mischief.
“Why, Mary, I cannot conceive of what you mean by that. How peculiar you can be at times.” And so, Mary’s only barb was batted down, and as she lacked the quick wit that Charlotte had in abundance, she turned to her original plan, and fled out the door onto the footpath without.
Charlotte followed her briefly. “Dearest Mary, you will be careful out on the roads, won’t you? There is the worst sort of ruffian that frequents where you and your friends choose to tap your tambourines.”
She smiled again, waved in a genteel manner, and closed the door quickly, biting her lip to keep from laughing, as she couldn’t be certain whether the household staff was gone yet. “Naughty girl.” The sight of Mary shooting out of the door like a ramrod left accidentally in a rifle barrel was too amusing.
“I cannot for the life of me imagine why it is that you are so kind to her, and instead threaten your own brother with bodily harm.” Ian had emerged from his hiding place in the drawing room. He was clutching a large tumbler of whiskey. Charlotte answered him while watching out t
he front windows.
“Because, you ninny, my brand of kindness confounds her, keeps her off-balance, and distracts her from wondering why we’re here for such a long visit.” She turned to shake a finger in the general vicinity of his nose. “I’d rather have her not thinking very much at all, aside from her execrable cause. Where on earth did you get that?” Her finger traveled down to indicate his glass.
“Er…I found it?” He shrugged helplessly, tugging and straightening his waistcoat under his sister’s glare. “Oh, all right, then. Cook smuggled it in for me.”
“And where, might I ask, did you ‘find’ the funds with which to purchase it?”
“If you must know, I sold my fob and chain. I was getting a bit thin, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”
“You sold…the fob and chain were gold, dear brother.” Charlotte’s voice took on the weary anger of constant disappointment. “I do hope you got a good price for it.”
“I wasn’t cheated, if that’s what you’re asking. Took it to a jeweler, if you must know. As you’ve decided to keep the purse strings tightly knotted, I had few options left to me.” He chewed his lip, and, while Charlotte had several dozen more questions for him regarding this development, she opted to let it go, for now.
“Did you give the staff the time off? Is the house empty now?”
“Naturally. And the old girl is fast asleep upstairs with a drop of laudanum in her.”
“I am not at all certain I