‘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 as he deserved.
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?’
‘Yes, 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 round 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, Miss Katherine', and went out.
The silence stretched on. Philip scrubbed his handkerchief over his face and sat cutting and recutting a pack of cards that 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 that were beating on those locked doors in her mind.
‘What will the moneylender do if you do not 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 white-faced 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 Arthur 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 that filled the room penetrated her frantic thoughts. ‘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 overmantel stopped her dead.
This morning she had got up and dressed in the old dimity gown, which was now still 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 the big pansy-brown eyes were wide and drenched with unshed tears, her full lower lip caught in her teeth and her heart-shaped face 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 that 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 straitened means since the death of their parents. She had never let her occasional anger with him overwhelm her affection; 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 rocked 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 actually,’ he said, his relief that her outburst was over apparent. ‘The only thing for it is marriage.’
Katherine regarded him as though he was mad. ‘To whom, pray? Our breeding is good, but Philip has no title, which 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, pray? No dowry, on my way to the debtors’ prison … I do not hold myself cheap, Arthur, but I cannot 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 his meaning unmistakeable 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 does Philip not 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