Billy! Can you come into the office for a moment?’ Gilbert sat behind his father’s desk and pondered. So much to do. He really didn’t know where to start first. There was a pile of correspondence on the desk waiting for attention, and he didn’t know the answers to most of the queries which were contained in them. I wasn’t cut out for business, he thought, looking gloomily at the letters. I’d much rather be out riding or playing cards. That thought reminded him that he was in debt for a considerable amount of money, money that he hadn’t got until his salary was due. The furniture for the house was costing a fortune, he mused. Yet Harriet would have it. Or her mother would, he considered. It was her doing, he was convinced. The house in Charlotte Street, where he and Harriet would live, was only a short walk from the Billingtons’ home in Albion Street, an imposing town house of four floors, where the Billingtons liked to entertain, when Mrs Billington was well enough. And if she wasn’t well, which was usually the case, then Harriet was called upon to be hostess to her father’s friends and business associates.
