Nothing has changed since the last time we were here, Josefa thought. Even the wine decanter and the plate of small pork pies.
“The Frauleins Weber,” droned the servant as he closed the door behind them.
“Good day, dear Uncle,” said the girls, making their curtseys.
The man in the tasseled wool cap who had been working behind the desk looked up. He was Fridolin’s elder brother by some ten years, and he had Fridolin’s spryness, except that he was almost entirely bald. “Well, nieces!” he said abruptly. “You find me at a very busy time. You might have sent word. Are you here to inquire about my health? Unlikely. There’s so little commerce between my brother and myself since our quarrel, I can’t recall when he’s last come. He’s sent you perhaps. No? You’re well? Good. Have a pork pie. How much do you want to borrow today?”
Josefa smiled, curtseying again deeply. “Dearest Uncle,” she said in her singer’s voice, which reverberated under her cloak. “You speak abruptly only because we’ve surprised you at your work, for which we are so very sorry. Still, you can’t conceal the goodness of your heart, for even now, every Sunday at dinner, our Papa tells us of how kind you were to him as a boy, and how much he admires and loves you. Surely you understand that all men are not equally fortunate in all areas of life’s endeavors. I recall you bought me a hat once. Unfortunately, it is long outgrown.”
Once more she made the smallest curtsey. “Yes, I confess it,” she said, looking aside modestly. “We are in need of funds. Dearest Uncle, I would not ask you to part with any of your money unwisely. I would not dream of asking you for any if I could not offer sound collateral and a note of terms of repayment.”
Assuming a queenly manner, she gazed at him.
Her uncle stared at them. “Repayment?” he croaked when he found his voice. “Collateral? What can you offer me that any money put into your hand will ever see the inside of my cash box again, eh? Tell me.” Uncle Joseph put down his scratchy pen and narrowed his small eyes. “I could have timed your arrival by the season,” he said. “Was it not this time last year that the two of you appeared just as abruptly at my door? And, in the name of sweet Saint Elizabeth, what collateral?”
Josefa faced him with chin upraised. “My work,” she said clearly. “I have been planning this for some time. I intend to open a music shop with Papa to advise us. We will sell printed music, clavier strings, violins, and violoncellos.”
“And where will you find the money to begin this venture?”
“From you, dear Uncle, with a little extra added on so that we can subsist until we succeed and Papa’s work increases. Now you can certainly see I am not asking for a mere loan, but capital for my shop. Here, if you will, look at this paper. The costs and profits are clear; I have been calculating them for weeks. The payments, interest added on, of course, will begin within a year. Our friends Heinemann and Alfonso will help us.”
Joseph Weber rose a little, leaning on his desk. “What, what? How?” he stammered. “Does my brother know of this? What do you know of the world? From books, which I am told you buy incessantly with your little musical earnings? Blessed Savior, you’re cut from your family’s cloth! Of course my brother can’t sustain such a large family with their longings for books, French hats, chocolates, and wine! I told him two years ago to leave Mannheim to find more work elsewhere. Would he go? No. Will he do anything practical for you girls? Engage you as ladies’ companions? No. Apprentice you as seamstresses or milliners? Send you out into service with some good family? Never. He has mad, ambitious ideas for you and himself, none of which will ever come true, and now you have inherited them.”
The clerk hid his scrawny face by busying himself with a pile of papers, while Uncle Joseph rose a little more, fixing his cold eyes upon them. “Music, music, music,” he cried. “And now, on my hope of salvation, more music! You all do nothing but starve on it, and still you persist. Loans last year, and the one before, and nothing repaid. Here I am selling cloth and have made a fine living, while he grows poorer and