The Girl in the Gatehouse (10 page)

“Hush. Do not say that. You, who are suddenly so grown up, and so wise.”

She smiled, even as tears brightened her dark eyes. “If I am wise now, I came to it late – as well you know.”

He squeezed her hand. “Let us not speak of it. It is in the past.”

“Yes.” Lucy exhaled, pressing her eyes closed. “And thankfully so.”

A few days after Easter, Mariah stood at the window in her bedchamber, staring out at nothing. Seeing nothing . . . except for her mounting problems.

Still no word from Henry.

She and Dixon had spent a quiet Easter together. It was the first year in memory Mariah had not traveled to visit family over the Easter holidays. Together the two of them had boiled eggs, saved from Lent, with red onion skins to dye them red. “To remember,” Dixon said in reverent tones, “the blood Christ shed to cover our sins.” Although her stalwart friend had not directed the words at her, still Mariah felt their pinch.

On Good Friday, they baked hot cross buns, and on Sunday, at Dixon’s insistence, they attended church together in the village. It wasn’t that Mariah disdained or blamed God for what had happened. She simply no longer felt worthy of Him. After the service, they had shared a modest dinner of mutton, turnips, boiled eggs, and left over buns with marmalade. As usual, Martin took his meal outside. No one mentioned the dry mutton. They all knew there was no money for ham.

Vaguely now, Mariah heard voices from below. Dixon and Mr. Phelps, discussing where the lilies he had divided and culled from his own plot should be planted in front of the gatehouse. Mariah felt like those lilies, a perennial cut from its roots, displaced. Transplanted in slipshod fashion. She wondered if she would have time to recover from the first upheaval before being yanked out again.

Mr. Hammersmith was not a man to be put off for long. Nor, did it seem, was Captain Bryant. And the thirtieth of April was looming ever closer on her calendar. Why did Henry not write? She supposed he had gone home to Attwood Park for the Easter holidays. That might have delayed him. Or perhaps the publisher had rejected her novel outright.

Mariah heard a distant door close and knew Dixon had come back inside. The two of them had begun reading aloud and editing her second manuscript in the evenings, in no doubt naïve anticipation of the publisher wanting it as well. If he did not, how else could she raise the money? And if she could not, where would they go?

As if the place called her name, she lifted her eyes, up past the trees greening with spring leaves, to that dreaded place of grey stone, with its flat roof guarded by an iron railing and spiked with chimneys. The poorhouse. Would she and Dixon end up there yet?

Suddenly, atop the poorhouse roof, motion caught her eye. Mariah leaned forward until her nose touched the cool, wavy glass.
What in
the world?
A man was walking on the roof. His motions were not the regular, focused actions of a workman, but rather erratic and fast-paced as he . . . marched? . . . from one side of the roof to the other.

“What is he doing?” she breathed.

“If you mean Martin.” Dixon strode in with laundered bedclothes. “Nothing useful. The man had the nerve to complain about my fish stew.”

“Come here, Dixon,” Mariah urged. “Do you see that man?”

“Where?”

She pointed. “There on the poorhouse roof.”

“Good heavens! There is a man up there.” Dixon squinted. “I can’t make him out very well. . . .”

“What is he doing, do you think? Taking exercise?”

“Exercise?” Dixon snorted. “On the roof ? More likely he’s off in his attic. Men!” she grumbled.

Something in Dixon’s tone snagged Mariah’s attention. She studied her friend’s agitated face and asked, “And how is Mr. Phelps today?”

“A bit too friendly, if you take my meaning.”

But Mariah did not miss the blush in her thin cheeks. They both stared out at the distant man once more.

Dixon sighed. “What is it about springtime that makes men crazy?”

With the help of her brother, [Frances Burney’s]
Evelina
was published anonymously [in] 1778.
The book was an instant success.

– Valerie Patten, Chawton House Library

chapter 8

Matthew spent Easter with his sister and her husband. While there, he was aware of how near he was to a certain family’s estate on the outskirts of Highworth but did not pay a call. He was not yet in position to launch his campaign. Instead, he returned and settled in for his first full week as master of Windrush Court.

He was surprised to find the girl in the gatehouse often on his mind. Understanding now why she had been cross, he wished to apologize to her, hoped he might clear up the misunderstanding that had caused her to direct her ire at him.

That evening, as Matthew walked toward the gatehouse to call on Miss Aubrey, he heard voices coming from inside. Voices in earnest conversation. And there – a sharp exclamation. An argument? He did not alter his course but kept to the path. He had every right to be there, he told himself. In fact, he was paying handsomely for the privilege.

“You are very much like your aunt, child,” said the gravelly voice of an older woman. “If you wore a wig, and had a fine tapered waist, I should almost conceit that I saw her again. Is it true that the ranting, raving captain is here again, and some other young scapegrace?”

A clear, youthful voice replied, “The captain is here, ma’am, with a Mr. Montgomery.”

Matthew recoiled.
The captain?
The “
ranting, raving captain
”? Certainly they did not speak of him. And who was Montgomery?

The older woman continued, “In my days, if a young woman was seen to be speaking to a man, unless he happened to be her father, her brother, or at least her cousin, he was set down as her betrothed admirer, and it generally turned out that he became her husband. But now ’tis higgledy-piggledy, fiddling, acting, a parcel of fellows kept in the house of a young woman, for no earthly purpose that I see, but to make her the talk and the scandal of the whole neighborhood.”

Matthew listened, increasingly disconcerted. A
“parcel of fellows kept in
the house”
? Had Miss Aubrey so many male callers? What sort of a woman was she? Matthew had thought Miss Aubrey admirable, if not traditionally ladylike. He hoped his earlier assessment had been correct.

He had overheard one or two disgruntled comments from the steward, Hammersmith, and a few suggestive hints from Prin-Hallsey. But he had chalked them up to vicious gossip. He knew too well how cruel people could be, how quick to swallow any tale that hinted at a woman’s loss of virtue. His own dear sister’s misfortunes had taught him that.

The women in the gatehouse were speaking of someone else, he decided, and resolutely walked away.

Matthew determined to try again the next day. The rain, which had started as a gentle drizzle and no deterrent to a man used to standing on deck in all sorts of weather, was now pelting down with soaking regularity. Matthew was tempted to turn around, but since he had spent the better part of an hour working up his courage and allowing the fastidious valet to fuss with his cravat, he thought it best to make his apologies and have done.

As he walked down the ever-narrowing lane through the wood, he heard the reverberating
clunk
of wood upon wood and wondered who would be out working in this weather. He had yet to master the names and faces of all the staff, but he believed a carpenter lived in one of the cottages not far from the gatehouse. It was likely him.

But when he approached the back garden of the gatehouse, he was stunned to see none other than Miss Aubrey, bent at the waist, gripping an axe that was wedged into a chunk of wood, refusing to either cut through or come loose.
What on earth?
If there was a “parcel of fellows” in the house, why were none of them assisting her?

Her head was bare, and she wore the oilcloth coat he remembered from the night of their first meeting. Beneath it, her blue frock hem was quickly becoming a muddy mess.

“Miss Aubrey!”

She glanced up, and he saw tears on her cheeks before she could avert her face or wipe them away. Or was it only the rain?

She stiffened. Then, with a fierce expression, she turned back to her task. She lifted the impaled chunk of wood high over her head and brought it down on the chopping block with a solid
thunk
. Still the wood did not yield.

“Fiddle!” she half yelled, half sobbed.

Clearly more was wrong than one stubborn piece of wood. She made to toss the axe down, but he rushed forward and grasped it, fearing it might strike her foot. He tried to take it from her, but she held fast.

“Allow me,” he said.

“No, thank you,” she clipped between clenched teeth.

“Then at least wait and have your man do it.”

“There is only Martin. He can’t chop wood with one hand. Besides, he has gone to market. We are out of coal and I haven’t money for more. I can’t ask Mr. Strong to come out in this, when he has done so much for us already. The fires are nearly out and Dixon was chilled, so I’ve sent her to bed. I don’t want her to catch cold or suffer another bout of the ague. . . .”

While her words accelerated and her voice rose, he gently pried the axe from her fingers and set it down. He firmly gripped both of her shoulders and spoke earnestly to her. He wondered at his boldness in touching her, and knew he would not have done so were she not so distressed. He felt the urge to comfort her, and hoped she would take no offense.

“Miss Aubrey, first allow me to say, I am not responsible for raising your rent. I believe Mr. Prin-Hallsey wished to transfer blame, not realizing I would care, or that we had even met. But I do care. And I regret you should think ill of me after your kindness with my horse. Do you believe me?”

She nodded, blinked rain and tears from her eyes. “I would believe that of Hugh, yes.”

“I hope we shall be friends, Miss Aubrey. And as a token of my apology and friendship, I ask you to please go inside and allow me to chop this wood.”

“But, I could not. It would not be – ”

“Yes it would,” he insisted. “I am not used to idleness and need the exercise. Please.”

A rivulet of rain coursed down her forehead, crossed the bridge between her eyebrows, and ran onto her upturned nose.

She blinked again. “Very well, Captain. But just this once. Thank you.”

He picked up the axe, but she turned back.

“And thank you for explaining. I should have known.”

Inside the kitchen, Mariah hung up the coat and found a towel for her hair. She told herself she should have realized that Hugh, as owner, remained in charge of tenants. But she had no personal experience with such arrangements. And Hugh had been so convincing. Now she saw why Fran had called him a wicked boy.

From the window, Mariah watched Captain Bryant. He laid his coat over a barrel just inside the stable door. In waistcoat and shirtsleeves he lifted the axe and brought it down on the block, chopping the dense piece with ease. Again and again he set up a log, split it, and then tossed the pieces onto the pile at the back door. The rain had lessened now, but still the drizzle curled his brown wavy hair and dampened his shirt sleeves until they clung to his shoulders and biceps and forearms. She glimpsed fair skin and the swell of muscle beneath his increasingly translucent shirt.