Uncle Elliott had paid for Hazel to attend St. Mary’s, a more advanced school than her parents could afford, and he’d arranged to have gifts sent at her birthday and Christmastide, even though he had lived in India most of her life. He had come to see her whenever he was in England, and he was the first person to suggest that a specialty boot might be made for her clubbed foot. Walking had required crutches before then. It had been a wonderous thing to walk on two feet like every other nine-year-old girl, even if she still could not run or play.
“You were offended by his gift of dowry for you, then?” Duncan asked her.
“Completely.” It felt silly to say so. It was not as though she had anything less now than she’d had before. Somehow it felt as though she’d lost something, though. “I have no marriage prospects, and for Uncle Elliott to try to induce a man to marry me for money was quite . . . painful, really.”
“Is your lack of marriage prospects due to your deformed foot?”
Hazel’s spine snapped into alignment, and her eyes popped wide. The burn in her cheeks blazed red-hot, and she looked away not only to take a breath and center her thoughts but also to give him ample opportunity to restate his question or apologize. When he did not do either one, she turned back to him and stared at him coldly. He missed the look completely because he was not looking at her.
“Yes, Duncan. My deformed foot.” Her twisted, grotesque, and mutilated foot that had set the course of her life from the day of her birth.
“Is it so bad? I mean, you can walk, can’t you?” He looked around the room. “I see no crutch or bath chair.”
Hazel’s chest tightened up like planks of a barrel. “I can walk.”
“That is very good, then,” he said with a nod. “As you are of gentle birth, intelligent, and well-featured, a deformed foot is not such a deficit as to interfere with your ability to marry. As there are many men of gentle birth in need of fortunes for one reason or another, you will have no trouble finding a husband.”
While Hazel’s blood boiled, Duncan finished his ale and then pulled a battered watch from the pocket of his unadorned waistcoat. The footman came in to clear their plates.
“That was a most excellent breakfast,” Duncan said, nodding at the stoic footman. He turned his attention to Hazel with an expression free of any awareness of her response to the egregious things he’d said. “I am glad to have met you, Cousin Hazel.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” she said stiffly. She wanted him to understand that he’d offended her, and yet looking into his innocent expression made her question the right to have been offended. He hadn’t said or done anything that indicated scorn of her failing; he’d simply been direct about her foot in ways no one ever was.
Deformed, she repeated in her mind. While shocking in its starkness and a completely inappropriate term for casual conversation, Duncan’s description of her clubbed foot was not wrong. Her foot was de-formed.
Duncan stood and straightened his coat, less awkward than he’d been when he entered the room, though still . . . odd. She did not quite know what to make of him. Was he slow-witted or, like Audrey, was he advanced in some ways and unskilled in others, like social graces that determined what one did and did not talk about?
“I am going to take a walk around the back pond before it rains,” he announced. “Lord Howardsford showed me the path from the window yesterday evening, and I enjoy walking. Perhaps I shall see you at luncheon, Cousin Hazel. Do you find number riddles interesting?”
“Sometimes,” she said, unsure how she felt about the prospect of further conversations with him now that her initial curiosity competed with defensiveness. Even in her offended state, however, she found his directness a bit refreshing in a world where people said one thing but meant something else or often spent hours talking of nothing at all.
“I collect number riddles. They are fun,” Duncan said as he straightened his simple brown waistcoat beneath his darker brown coat. “Most people lack the rational ability to factor them for the sake of entertainment. As you are a mathematics teacher, however, I expect you may be up to the challenge. I shall think of some we can entertain ourselves with at luncheon. Good day, Cousin Hazel.”
He nodded, smiled quickly as though someone had whispered in his ear that he should, and left the room.
April 4, 1822
Dear Cousin Hazel,
I enjoyed the number games we shared at lunch last month when we met at Howard House, and I wish to continue them through written correspondence. It is a rare treat for me to find someone with as much wit and intellect as myself in these matters, and I enjoyed that you reciprocated with challenges I had not known before. The one about the zebras was particularly intriguing.
I am glad that you rectified your relationship with Lord Howardsford before I left. It was a very pleasant visit for me, aside from the travel, due to the excellent food and stimulating company.
A man is climbing a mountain 100 kilometers high. Every day, he climbs up 2 kilometers then sleeps for the night, but every night while he sleeps, he slips 1 kilometer backward. In the morning, he starts again. How many days does it take the man to reach the mountaintop?
Sincerely,
Mr. D. Penhale
May 28, 1822
Dear Duncan,
I am also glad that Uncle Elliott and I were able to find accord during my visit. We did not speak of my dowry again for the whole of the week, which is likely the chief reason I was able enjoy the rest of my time at Howard House. I still question his motivations in creating his “marriage inheritances,” and I feel they are much more a disadvantage than an advantage. My brother shall marry for his inheritance alone, mark my words. I feel very sorry for the woman he marries, who, without Uncle Elliott’s manipulation, might have lived a happy life.
The answer to your riddle—which is one I give my own students—is ninety-nine days.
What is summer like in Ipswich?
It stays rather cool this far north, and the cold fog that rolls in from the ocean, the haar, is often present, which can become tedious. Unfortunately, the haar does not discourage the summer visitors. It seems that when people leave London after the season ends, they all come to King’s Lynn.
Can you guess the next number in this sequence?
27, 82, 41, 124, 62, 31, 94, 47, 142, 71, 214, 107
Sincerely,
Hazel
June 27, 1822
Dear Cousin Hazel,
To continue the sequence you relayed in your latest letter, I must use the following formula:
(x*3+1, /2, *3+1, /2)
This results in the next two numbers of the sequence being 322, 161.