January 12th, 1891 — Greengrass home, North Bartonburg

Ford did not like confronting his mother. Their relationship had been thrown on its head after his father's death, and he felt as though it had never fully recovered, and so he never knew what to say. If he'd had the choice, he might have preferred to have sent her off to live with a sister or someone until he'd sorted this entire mess — until the girls were provided for, either through marriage or through some miraculous change in their own financial situation that pulled them back from the brink of destruction on which they were currently teetering. But since her siblings had sent no invitation and she showed no inclination to invite herself, she had moved to Bartonburg with them, where she continued to spend money they didn't exactly have, which made confrontations — at least occasionally — necessary.

He'd gone to work that morning but returned home for lunch, which was when the housekeeper had brought the matter to his attention. With a heavy sigh and equally heavy footsteps, Ford had trudged through the house seeking out his mother, and had found her in the sitting room.

"Good afternoon, Mama," he said gently. "I hope you're in fine spirits, today?"

Audra Greengrass

  

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Set by Lady!

Audra stared out the window, a pair of half darned stockings forgotten in her lap. When her children weren't around she would allow her mask to slip and her melancholy to rise to the surface. It had been a whole year since her husband had died. The pain was only a dull ache now but it was in quiet, solitary moments that it made itself known. Theirs hadn't been a romance to inspire a novel but she had lost a very dear friend and suddenly the ground beneath her feet wasn't so solid and certain as it had been. Grown though her children might be she didn't want them to see her troubled by such things, and besides they were the perfect balm and distracted her magnificently.

The despondent look on her face vanished in a flash as the sound of footsteps snapped her out of her reverie. "Ford!" Audra smiled at him as though she hadn't had a sorrowful thought on her mind in years. "Yes, I'm in as good a spirit as ever. I hope the same can be said of you?" There was a note of uncertainty in her voice as she sensed some unease about him.

Since his father had died their relationship had inexplicably changed. He was now head of the family and suddenly she was more his responsibility than he was hers. Between grief and the unexpected burden of great responsibility she found herself struggling to be a mother to him without coddling him like a little boy. The time for that had passed and he would surely not appreciate it. So the only way she knew to be of help to him was to do all she could to see her daughters married and provided for, although it wasn't wholly altruistic for her greater motivation was admittedly a little more selfish. Simply put, she enjoyed trussing up her girls and proudly flaunting them.

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"I'm fine, thank you," he answered, which was only partially true. He'd been fine this morning, and perhaps he'd be fine again this afternoon if he managed to survive this conversation in one piece. The fact that he had to have it at all was not particularly grand. He always felt so awkward trying to be direct about anything like this, but he feared if he was not direct it left too much room for future missteps.

"I talked with [Housekeeper] just now," he said, leading. It would have been nice if his mother had, for once since his father's death, been on the same page and known where he was headed with this, but he wasn't holding out high hopes. After a slight pause, he continued, "She said the tailor's apprentice called this morning." With a bill, he added mentally, giving her a significant look. He hoped he would not need to actually verbalize the implication.

  

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Set by Lady!

Audra was well aware that the tailor's apprentice had called that morning but he wasn't mentioning it because he thought she was unaware of the fact. Of course she'd been the one to receive him and the housekeeper would surely have said as much. She also doubted very much that he was trying to make small talk with her. That left but one other option which was that he was about to inquire further as to the nature of the visit. He wasn't worrying himself about money again, was he? There might be some other reason for his curiosity but that was the only one she could presently think of.

Poor Ford must still be worrying himself over the finances. It was one thing to be a grown man supporting himself but another entirely to suddenly have to manage the situation of an entire family. Most men steadily acquired that responsibility.

In the interest of not jumping the gun or potentially embarrassing her son she chose to say nothing and let him come out with it himself. "He did drop in briefly, yes."

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Was his mother being this difficult intentionally? Even if she hadn't caught on to what he was trying to say, she might have imagined that he had been looking for something more as far as responses went than just yes, he did drop in.

"He came to settle our account for last month," Ford prompted, his tone moving from gentle to slightly annoyed. "Which was several galleons higher than the budget we'd discussed."

Several galleons. Not merely a few sickles here or there; not a pittance, in Ford's opinion. It was half a week's work for him, and while he might have been happy to do it if that was the only expense that needed to be provided for, it was far from that. He was still trying to juggle a few past-due accounts in order to keep any collectors from showing up unannounced on their Bartonburg doorstep; he'd pay one account by pushing another, then pay that account by pushing yet another the following month. He didn't have half a week's pay to spare, and he knew Noble didn't, either.

  

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Set by Lady!

Audra shifted uncomfortably when he mentioned the account. She knew it would be fine and all was well but that didn't mean Ford shared her confidence, it didn't help that he was her son and she was still not accustomed to being chastised by him, she probably never would be.

"Oh I know, and I am sorry for it, I don't mean to make you fret but it really was imperative that we have the extra fabric. And Ford, ducky, I really was being thrifty, you know. It's quality fabric and they shall only push the prices up once we're closer to the season and with both of your sisters soon to be out..." Audra offered him a placating smile and hoped that would smooth it over, he wasn't really cross with her he was just doing his duty as man of the house.

All would be well before he knew it.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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She certainly didn't sound very sorry for it, whatever she said. He bristled slightly at the pet name ducky; he felt as though she was trying to distract him with platitudes, or maybe that using such a childish term of endearment was meant to remind him that she still saw him as nothing more than a boy. Merlin, how infuriating she could be sometimes! — that said, he couldn't immediately refute her explanation that this was actually a frugal purchasing decision. He didn't know enough about fashion to say whether she was right or not; he had never, in his life, anticipated that he might need to know. Was she implying that she'd just bought bolts of fabric and intended to make her own dresses? That did sound as though it might save cost, but he had never known his mother or either of his sisters to be particularly skilled seamstresses. More likely she was trying to justify using a much more expensive material for the dresses he'd agreed to for Christmas. Even when she was following the directions (one gown apiece, no accessories), she still found a way to undermine his budget.

But what was he to do? It wasn't as though he could go to the tailor with Verity and Grace. She was the only appropriate chaperone left to them, and she refused to take matters seriously!

"Grace won't be out if we go bankrupt before her debut," he pointed out, frustration clear in his tone now. "What am I supposed to do if you won't keep to a budget, Mama? If every time we buy a new dress, the bill comes back twice as high as we'd planned for, we won't have any new dresses at all," he warned, though how he intended to enforce that ultimatum without giving away the entire situation to the girls, he had no idea.

  

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Set by Lady!

Her brow furrowed with dismay as it became apparent that she hadn't assuaged his worries so well as she'd hoped. It pained her to see him so agitated and it was even worse that she was the cause of it, but he simply wouldn't listen to her reassurances and the girls had needs. This was the most important time of their lives and increased spending was a necessary evil. However she also didn't want her firstborn son to fall victim to apoplexy in the prime of his life.

Audra got up from the chair and looked her son square in face, it was a look of regret and pity. "Oh, Ford, sweetheart, I'm sorry I've caused you such vexation. I really am. That said you must try not to let these things eat away at you so, you'll make yourself ill. Things may look bad right now but your papa was very astute with money. If it looks as though we haven't much then it simply means Papa must have been very confident in his investments - we'll be in for a windfall before you know it!" She smiled reassuringly and reached out to take his hand to physically reassure him too.

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For a moment, Ford could only stare at her. "No," he eventually said, having moved from irritation to real anger at both her words and her tone — and worse than that, the look, as though he were still such a child that he couldn't possibly have understood. It was Mama who didn't understand anything, even though he'd told her. The investments weren't coming back. He'd already sold off the least lucrative of them, and had only hung on to the middling ones because he didn't want anyone to raise an eyebrow about his selling so much, so quickly. They were never going to be truly successful, though — the income from the investments they still held on to was maybe half what either he or Noble could make, and neither of them made very much.

"There's not going to be any windfall, Mama," he insisted, though he was already losing hope that she would really hear him. "There is no money. You're spending coins we don't have. And you'll ruin our credit before much longer," he said — he was spiraling, now, and speaking this way to Mama was not going to help (probably nothing he said to her was going to help), but he didn't know what else to do. "You just — you can't — ugh," he finally concluded. With an exasperated wave of his hands, he headed for the door.

  

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Set by Lady!

His anger did nothing to persuade her to his point of view but it did make her feel very very bad. All she wanted to do was embrace him and tell him it would all be okay, he could trust that it was true because she was his mother and she said so, but he wasn't a little boy anymore. He was long past the age of blind faith in her words of comfort and that hurt more than the fact he was angry at her.

She couldn't blame him for being worried about finances and her spending if the picture he painted was what he was truly seeing in front of him. The trouble was she knew better, there was no way her husband would've left the family in the lurch and besides, he had known what he was doing, he had so many more years of experience on Ford. If only there was a way she could make him see sense, or at least to put his mind at ease without having to sacrifice the girls' for it.

"Ford!" Audra called after him - she hoped that would stop him from leaving, she was loathe to leave things on such an unpleasant note.

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The following 1 user Likes Audra Greengrass's post:1 user Likes Audra Greengrass's post
   Fortitude Greengrass

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It would have been better to just keep going, but at the end of the day she was still his mother. He'd followed her direction and looked to her for guidance (not so often as his father, but still) for over twenty years. Habits were not so easily broken, even if she was currently delusional and walking a very fine line between showing she cared and recklessly endangering the family. He stopped, though remained in the doorway. "Yes?"

  

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Set by Lady!

To her relief he did stop, although that now meant she had to actually do something. "I don't want to make things any harder for you. I'll do my best to be more frugal. Let's not be at odds with one another, hmm?" Even if they were of differing opinions regarding how dire the finances really were, Audra didn't think it was unwise to be careful with spending even if she did believe it was inevitable that their fortunes would soon improve. That said she wouldn't see her daughters' prospects unnecessarily damaged now. Ford was a man and gentlemen had the luxury of only growing more eligible as they grew older while the opposite held true for ladies. If they didn't make a good first impression upon society it would alter the course of their adult lives.

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Ford sighed. A part of him knew that he had heard this before, and it never seemed to stick. These words were only words, and she might forget in a week and go straight back to doing exactly what he'd asked her not to do. Still, he wanted to believe her. He didn't want to have the responsibility for chastising his mother — no son would have.

"Alright, Mama," he said wearily. "We're not at odds."

  

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Set by Lady!

She breathed a small sigh of relief and offered a slight smile. "Good." Audra was sure he was only saying it to pacify her but it was good enough for now. Everything would turn out okay, she had to believe it would.

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