Page 22 of The Mad Marchams

Mabel looked up from her laptop. “You dunk cake in there, too?”

“Not exactly.” Colin met her gaze. “You probably don’t want a lecture on why Jaffa cakes are really biscuits, do you?”

“No, thank you.” Mabel offered him a sweet smile. “I’d much rather help you put together some kind of rescue plan for your lovely home.”

Colin sighed. “I knew you were going to say that. Now where would be a good place to start?”

CHAPTER SIX

“Thanks so much for coming, everyone.” Colin bestowed his best smile on his assembled relatives. None of them looked particularly pleased to be there, and no one smiled back.

He’d invited them to afternoon tea and promised them chocolate cake. He’d also asked the staff to join them. There was Mrs. Reynolds the cook, her husband Ron, who was the part-time butler and full-time handyman, and Dot and Betty who did the cleaning. The Reynolds lived in the house, but Dot and Betty came in from the village. It was a far cry from the good old days when there had been forty indoor staff, ten gardeners, a fully functioning stable, and a couple of gamekeepers.

Freddy gave an obvious yawn. “Get on with it, Viz. We haven’t got all day and we want our cake.”

Colin glanced over at Mabel, who gave him an encouraging thumbs up. She’d set up her laptop to project onto the white wall of the drawing room so he could share the various spreadsheets she’d helped him compile.

“Hello everyone!” Colin risked a cheery wave which went down as well as he’d expected. “As some of you might already know, my father has decided to hand over the reins of running Marcham Hall to me.”

A few of his relatives exchanged speculative glances.

He continued. “It is both a great honor and a great responsibility and I am determined to do my best to drag— I mean, bring the estate and the home farm into the twenty-first century.”

Freddy raised an eyebrow. “You mean you’re not going to sell it?”

“Didn’t I just say the opposite?” Colin stared at his brother. “Have you gone deaf or something?”

“I’m just… surprised. It’s not as if you’ve bothered to hang around in the last few years.”

Colin noticed several nodding heads and murmurs of agreement.

“I’ve been working a full-time job for the past five years. It’s not always easy to get time off, but I have kept in contact with Father and our family solicitor about how things have been going.”

“Bully for you,” Freddy muttered and folded his arms.

Colin decided to ignore his brother and press on. “As you might also be aware, caring for an estate and house of this size is prohibitively expensive. I think it would be fair to say that, despite the family’s best efforts, there are some severe financial issues with both the current funding and overdue maintenance of the place.”

“It’s falling apart,” his sister Felicity spoke up. “We all know that.”

“I certainly don’t,” Colin’s grandmother spoke up. “This house is a testament to the longevity and greatness of our great family and none of us should ever forget that.”

Seeing as his grandmother had married into the family, Colin thought she was exaggerating slightly, but he was far too polite to mention it.

“My aim, Grandmother, is to both restore and maintain the estate.” He paused. “But I don’t think it takes a genius to know that times have changed and that the old ways of making and keeping money are no longer available to us.”

“Yup,” said Freddy. “It’s such a shame we can’t go out there and pillage other countries’ wealth in the name of the Empire, or enslave people to cultivate our sugar, or⁠—”

“Freddy. Will you please just shut up and listen for once?” Colin, on the verge of losing it, interrupted his brother. “You really are not helping.”

“I’m not trying to, Viz. I just came here for the cake.”

Colin glared at him until he finally shrugged and sat back. “Fine. I’ll be quiet.”

Colin determinedly turned his attention back to the rest of the room. “From what I can see, we need to drastically curtail our expenses.”

Mr. Reynolds cleared his throat. “We ain’t been spending any money for years. In fact, me and the missus haven’t even been getting paid.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Colin said. “And I have come up with some possible solutions that will hopefully solve our current predicament.”