“Of course, Your Grace.”
Mrs Greer drew a small pencil from her pocket and wrote down numbers in the back of the household book.
“The saving would come to perhaps six pounds a quarter, Your Grace. Against the standing wax order.”
“Six pounds was three months’ candles at Thornwick, Mrs Greer.”
After the housekeeper made her notes in the book, Violet turned the page. Then the next. The numbers continued for the butcher, the fishmonger, the coal merchant, and the wine merchant. She paused at a separate entry beneath the wine merchant’s column.
“Mrs Greer.”
“Your Grace.”
“There is a standing order here for plain brandy. Four gallons last quarter.”
“Yes, Your Grace. That is the cook’s brandy. We keep a quantity in the kitchen for preserving and the puddings.”
“Four gallons is a great deal of preserving.”
“Mrs Garrick is fond of a tot in her evening tea, Your Grace. She has been with the house two and twenty years, and her work has not suffered for it. The arrangement was understood by His Grace’s mother and continued by His Grace. I have not seen reason to disturb it, Your Grace.”
Violet nodded. “Cooks will be cooks.”
“Just so, Your Grace.”
Violet made a small mark in pencil on the margin and turned the page. The figure at the top was the apothecary’s bill.
“Mrs Greer.”
“Your Grace.”
“This line here. The tea.” She turned the book around and put her finger beneath the line. It sat apart from the rest of the bill, in a hand of its own, and the sum against it would have undone every small economy she had made all that morning. “It is a great deal of money for tea.”
“That will be Her Grace’s own blend. It does not come through the grocer. It is made up special at the apothecary’s and sent round, and Mr Vexley sees to the ordering of it himself.”
“My own blend. I never asked for one. And why would Mr Vexley concern himself with what tea I drink?”
“It comes with the house, you might say. The lady before you took it, and the two before her.” Mrs Greer pressed two fingers to her temple, to the place where there was nothing to smooth. “It is held to be good for the getting of children. There is a quantity of foreign physic worked through it that comes very dear, and that is the whole of the figure you have there. Mr Vexley has always been most particular that the duchess should not be without it.”
“That is kind of him.”
“Kinder than most would trouble to be.” The approval was plain in her voice. “He stands next to the title, Your Grace, when all is said, and a child in this house would put him further from it than ever. But there is no greed or meanness in Mr Vexley.”
Violet looked at the figure and let a moment pass. What good was fertility draught if her husband did not come to her bed? It had been three or four days, and when he did come, he would not stay in the room long enough to warm the sheets.
“Leave it as it stands,” she said, lifting her eyes to the housekeeper. “What budget would be allotted to me, were I to take the stillroom and put it back in use?”
Mrs Greer did not answer at once. Violet kept her eyes on the apothecary’s column.
“The stillroom has not been used since Her Grace, the duke’s mother, passed away, Your Grace.”
“She was a herbalist?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Quite a skilled one, from what I gathered. She often treated the family’s ailments herself rather than call the physician.”
Violet absorbed this.
“The late dowager duchess quite enjoyed foraging in the forest on His Grace’s various estates.”