The Girl in the Gatehouse (22 page)

It was arranged for Saturday. Lizzy agreed to come over on her half day as a second woman, though she did not know many dances either. Dixon would accompany them on the pianoforte.

Captain Bryant and Mr. Hart rose as they entered the salon, each man appearing as nervous as a schoolboy at his first ball.

“Shall we begin with a country dance?” Mariah suggested. “Perhaps, Pleasures of the Town?”

“To what tune, Miss Mariah?” Dixon asked, settling herself at the pianoforte.

Mariah paused. She was an accomplished dancer, but her sister, Julia, was the family’s musician. “I have no idea.”

Martin walked in behind them and sat in one of the chairs near the pianoforte. Without looking at anyone, he announced, ‘The Fair Maid of the Inn.’ ”

Mariah glanced at Dixon. Her friend’s stunned expression no doubt mirrored her own.

Ignoring them, Martin opened a small case and from it extracted and fitted together the pieces of a simple three-holed pipe. With it, he played the opening notes of the jaunty tune with his one hand. Dixon raised her brows high.

“Mr. Martin,” Mariah said for them both. “We had no idea you were a musician.”

He shrugged. “A bit. Now, are you going to dance or not?”

She and Dixon exchanged a look. What other surprises had the odd man in store?

“Very well. Let’s begin,” Mariah said. “Gentlemen there. Ladies facing them.”

Hart pushed himself off the wall and limped forward. Captain Bryant stood beside him.

Mariah painted a circle in the air with her hand. “First, gentlemen ring around the ladies.”

Captain Bryant gave his friend a sidelong glance, saying dryly, “I am not holding your hand, Hart.”

Mariah bit back a smile. “Step lively. And one, and two, and one and two. Very nice, gentlemen.”

Surprisingly, Hart’s limp did not seem to much hinder him. When they returned to their places, Mariah continued. “Now we ladies join hands and circle the other way around the men.”

“While we look admiringly on,” Hart quipped, eyes on Lizzy.

Lizzy grinned and blushed prettily.

“Take your partners in the promenade hold,” Mariah instructed as she and Lizzy returned to their places.

When the captain hesitated, she stepped to his side. “The lady’s right hand in your right, her left hand in your left.”

“Ah.”

Captain Bryant’s hands enveloped hers, and Mariah endeavored to appear unaffected.

She glanced instead at Hart and Lizzy. “She should stand at your right side, Mr. Hart. Your right hand
above
your left. That’s it. Now allemande in a circle around the room. Though this is a bit tricky with only two couples.”

“Then let us have three.”

Mariah looked across the salon, surprised to see Hugh Prin-Hallsey lounging against the doorjamb.

The music and dancing stopped as Hugh straightened and walked over to the pianoforte. There he bowed to Dixon. “May I have this dance?”

“Oh my. I don’t . . . That is . . . I shouldn’t . . .” Dixon blustered and blushed and tried not to look as pleased as she clearly felt.

“Go on, Miss Dixon,” Martin said. “Enjoy yourself. I shall provide what music I can single-handedly.” He waggled his brows and grinned at his own joke.

Miss Dixon smiled in return. “Oh, why not. Very well, Mr. Prin-Hallsey.”

If Captain Bryant was displeased with the intrusion, Mariah noticed that he was too polite to show it.

“Now, where were we,” Mariah resumed. “Right. Face your partner. Gentlemen, keeping hold of the lady’s right hand, switch places with her. Ladies step forward and form a circle, left hands high. And finally, gentlemen, turn your partner once more. Good. Again.”

Hugh danced with effortless skill, grinning at Mariah whenever she caught his eye. Dixon moved gracefully, and it was easy to imagine her the lithe young woman she had once been.

Mr. Hart hobbled through his steps but managed to keep up better than Mariah would have expected. She wondered, however, how Captain Bryant’s London guests might react to such an imperfect performance. She dearly hoped they would not laugh at him. Surely, no friends of Captain Bryant’s could be so cruel.

As for Captain Bryant, he seemed to dance quite competently beside her, step for step, sides occasionally brushing, hand in hand. But he was too close, and she too aware, to risk looking at him often.

As Matthew held Mariah’s hands in his as she’d directed, he admitted to himself he liked the feel of her smaller hands in his and the warmth of her shoulder tucked close to his side as they danced in the promenade position. He regarded her lovely profile and upturned nose several inches below his. She darted a glance up at him and blinked, as if surprised to see him so near. He smiled down into her brown eyes. Even at this close range, her complexion was pure cream. The skin of her brow and cheeks smooth, but for that small beauty mark. That point of punctuation on her delicately arched brow.

Matthew found himself thinking,
She looks good. She smells good. She
sounds good . . .
and fought the irrational desire to lean down and kiss her brow, or at least her pert nose.

Steady, Bryant
, he warned himself.
Keep your eye on the prize
.

On Monday, Mariah realized her inkpot was running low and set about making another batch of purple-blue iron gall ink. She ground oak apples, iron sulfate, and gum arabic, purchased from the village apothecary, and added these to stale beer and a little refined sugar. She corked the bottle of this preparation and carried it into the drawing room. She would leave it standing in the chimney corner for a fortnight, shaking it a few times a day until it was ready to use.

From the drawing room window, Mariah glimpsed coppery curls. The young singer from the poorhouse lingered across the road, watching George and Sam as they erected a makeshift wicket and cricket pitch. The girl – what was her name? Magpie? No, Maggie – looked very much as if she would like to join them but was afraid to. Mariah remembered Miss Amy saying how shy the girl was, and that she was an orphan.

Wiping her hands on her apron, Mariah walked back into the kitchen. There, she wrapped several biscuits in paper and then let herself out the front door.

George and Sam rushed over at the sight of her, the brown paper as a red cape before bulls. Once the boys had shoved biscuits into their mouths and returned to their play, Mariah cautiously approached little Maggie.

“Hello there,” she began, walking slowly across the lawn. “Would you like a biscuit?” The girl stayed where she was, alert eyes reminding Mariah of a frightened doe – or storm-frightened horse – about to take flight. “Well. I shall just leave it here on this paper. If you don’t want it, the birds will.”

Mariah turned, the faint music not registering at first, as she listened for any indication that the girl had accepted her offering. She glanced over her shoulder. Saw the girl pick up the biscuit but not stop to eat it. Instead she carried it with her, walking forward, following the music. Reaching the gate, Maggie put her free hand on one of the iron bars while the biscuit dangled in the other. She swayed gently to and fro to the tune from Martin’s flute as he sat on the garden bench on the other side, playing an old sailing song.

Mariah stood several feet from the girl, careful not to get too close. “That is Mr. Martin. You like his music, do you?”

If Martin saw the girl there, watching him, he chose to ignore her, assuming no doubt that she would run away, shrieking in silly tones about the hook-handed pirate, as other children had done. Or that she would simply grow bored and move on.

When she still stood there several minutes later, he paused in his playing and looked at her through the bars.

She looked placidly back.

“Do you like the way the flute sounds?” he asked.

The girl nodded, her curls bouncing.

“You can come closer if you like,” he said. “In fact, you can go right through the house and join me in no time. You shall be perfectly safe. Miss Dixon and Miss Mariah are here. And there are George and Sam just there. All right?”

Warily, Maggie looked from person to person, then nodded once more and bolted through the house, doors open on the fine summer day, and emerged on the other side in seconds. Mariah followed her but stopped in the kitchen to watch from the window.

Once outside again, Maggie slowed and approached Martin cautiously. He had gone back to his playing, as if sensing this would be the best way to put the girl at her ease. He scooted over on the bench without looking her way as he played another ditty.

Silently, Maggie sat down at the far edge of the bench.

Dixon, on her knees working in the garden, called over, “Don’t be teaching her any of your bawdy songs, now.”

Martin ignored her but paused in his playing to say to the girl, “I shan’t sing you one of those songs. All about Davy Jones’s locker, rum, and the pox.”

“Mr. Martin!” Dixon reprimanded. “A girl her age does not need to hear words like
the pox
.”

“She’s heard it twice now, madam, thank you.”

Martin coaxed a sweet, reedy melody from his wooden flute. Then he paused again. “When I was a young man, I played a transverse flute – like this.” He lifted the flute from a vertical to horizontal position, balancing it in his hook, while miming the fingering of many holes with his good hand. “Now, that was a beautiful sound.” He played a bit more, then turned to her. “Would you like to try?”

Her eyes grew large. She nodded.

He pulled a handkerchief and a small vial of oil from his pocket. “We shall have to clean it good and proper first, or Miss Dixon there will accuse me of fouling your wee self with scurvy, the typhus, and I know not what.”

He handed her the vial. “Uncork that for me, will you? Devilish difficult with one hand.” She did so with her small, nimble fingers. “A few drops here, if you please.” He held forth his handkerchief. “On my perfectly clean handkerchief,” he said loudly in Dixon’s direction. “Which I know for a fact Miss Dixon boiled in lye.”

Dixon looked up, rolled her eyes, and scowled before returning to her work.

He cleaned the mouthpiece thoroughly, inside and out, with the oiled cloth. Then he repositioned it and handed the girl the slim instrument. “That’s right. Your fingers there, and there, and there. And your thumb at the back for support. Good, now blow long and slow, like a whistle.”

An airy note shrieked from the flute.

“Excellent. Now close your fingers over each hole one by one and see how the sound changes.”

She did this, and if possible, her blue eyes grew larger yet.

When she handed the flute back to him, he asked, “Do you know what this is called?”

She shook her head.

“Some call it a one-handed or three-holed flute. The French call it a
galoubet
, but I haven’t cared for the French since the war. It was not invented for one-handed gents like me. It was made to be played with one hand so that the other hand would be free to play a small drum. That way, some enterprising musician could make a tidy living playing for country dances and the like. Of course, not being an ambidextrous fellow myself, I play it alone.”

The girl was no longer looking at the flute. She was studying his hook. She asked softly, “Does it hurt?”

So,
Mariah thought,
Maggie can talk as well as sing
.

“What, this?” He raised the hook. “Not anymore. Though now and again I awake with my fingers aching, only to remember those fingers are long gone. Isn’t that strange?”

She nodded solemnly. “Where are they?”

“Ah.” He nodded as if it were the most natural question in the world. “At the bottom of the sea, I suppose.”

“Why?”

He regarded her. “Are you sure you want to know?”

Again, the solemn little nod.

Mariah listened as attentively as the girl. Even Dixon, she noticed, had paused in her work.

“You see, I was not always a steward, brushing the captain’s uniform and preparing his meals. Before that, I was a proper seaman, battling with the best of them. Now, the yarn I tell the other jack-tars is longwinded indeed. But suffice it to say, cutlasses were crossed. A Frenchman lost his head and I lost my hand, so I got the better end of the bargain.”