“Very well,” he muttered. “I will speak to Jones.”
Elizabeth nodded distractedly and turned another page in the ledger.
Coal deliveries.
Roof repairs.
The butcher’s bill.
Two maids requiring replacement aprons.
Three tenant cottages needing chimney work before winter.
And still no indication whatsoever that her father had looked at the estate accounts she placed upon his desk three days earlier.
“Miss Elizabeth?”
She looked up.
The butler hesitated. “There’s also the matter of Widow Martin.”
Elizabeth’s shoulders sagged slightly.
“What now?”
“She cannot pay for the pig she lost last month. Says she’ll be ruined if she has to purchase another before winter slaughtering.”
Of course she would.
Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly.
“Very well,” she said at last. “Take the cost from the discretionary household account.”
The man looked startled. “That’s your pin money account, miss.”
“Yes, Mr. Hill, I am aware of that.”
“But your winter pelisse—Mrs. Bennet said you were to have a new one made.”
Elizabeth almost laughed.
A new pelisse.
How delightful it must be to worry about such things.
“I shall survive with my old one,” she replied.
Mr. Hill bowed awkwardly. “You’re a good lady, Miss Elizabeth.”
No,she thought tiredly after he departed,merely a practical one.
The door shut behind him, leaving Elizabeth alone with the ledgers once more.
For several moments she simply stared at the columns of figures without seeing them.
She had begun helping with the accounts at fourteen. A necessity for running a household, her father had said. She did not argue, although she had never seen her mother so much as glance at the household accounts.
At first, it had only been small things.
