The Girl in the Gatehouse (48 page)

Matthew spent several days visiting poorhouses and workhouses in neighboring parishes, as well as the house of industry in Oxford. All were adamant that they had not admitted any new inmates matching Maggie’s description. He would have to widen his search. But first he returned to Windrush Court.

Though he had no further answers about the missing girl, still Matthew longed to see Mariah again. How clear everything seemed to him now. He had loved her for some time and wished to tell her so. If he was not mistaken, she was fond of him as well.

At the back of his mind buzzed nagging questions about Crawford and Mariah, but he pushed them away. He would try to somehow forget it ever happened. He could not bear to think of the two of them together. Not when he hoped, once this crisis with Maggie had passed, that he might court Mariah himself.

But Mariah greeted him at the gatehouse door with none of the sweet smiles he had hoped for. Only a somber reserve. Had he misread her feelings?

She led him into the drawing room and pulled a chair from the table. She said formally, “Please sit down.”

Matthew sat, but snagged her hand as he did so. “Mariah . . .”

“Shh. Say nothing you may wish back after I show you what I need to show you.”

“That sounds dire.” He playfully brushed the toe of his boot against her dress hem. “Have you a peg leg under there?”

Her bleak expression sobered him and he pressed her fingers. “No more bad news about Maggie, I trust?”

She pulled her hand away. Turned to retrieve something from the bookshelf. “I didn’t want you to see or hear of it elsewhere.”

This does not sound good
, Matthew thought, and braced himself for impact.

Mariah laid the book before him and opened it to the title page. Then she stepped back, holding her breath, and waited.

He stared for several moments but said nothing.

Driven to fill the tense silence, she said, “I never planned to use my real name, but there was a last-minute change and the publisher refuses to reprint.” She decided it would be futile to blame Hugh. She could not prove it, and even if she could,
how
the truth came out was really not the salient point.

“I cannot believe it,” he finally said.

Her stomach dropped. “Is it so bad?” she asked, hating the tremor in her voice.

He did not meet her gaze. “This from the woman who declared words were so important to her. I see how they might be, as you pay your rent by them. And when I think of how you let me go on, criticizing
A
Winter in Bath
. I thought you were only defensive on behalf of your sex, or of novels in general, never dreaming . . .” He shook his head, and when he finally looked at her, hurt and irritation dulled his eyes. “You said you weighed and measured words. I thought that meant honesty was important to you. When all along you were not honest with me.”

He rose and pushed back his chair, his face grey and stiff. “First I discover one dark secret about you and now this. Another lie.”

Mariah’s voice shook. “That is not fair. I did not intend to lie. Only to keep it private. You know people consider it unladylike. My father would be furious.”

“You were never going to tell me, were you? Just as you would never have told me about Crawford. You only tell me now because your hand has been forced yet again.”

She winced. “Am I obligated to tell everyone? To disgorge my guilt on both counts at first meeting? Like a leper calling out ‘Unclean, unclean’ to all who approach? As my landlord had you some right to know?”

He turned fiery eyes on her. “Landlord be hanged. I thought we were friends.” He thrust a hand through his hair. “Have I even heard the worst of it? What other secrets are you keeping? Was there a child?”

She gasped. “No!”

“But you . . . you are not a maid?”

When she made no reply, his jaw clenched, and he averted his gaze as though he could not stand to look at her. “I knew as much, and yet . . . Now I see that what I have learned by painful experience is true after all. Women are forever casting an appealing image they cannot live up to.”

Daggers of remorse plunged deeper than ever before, puncturing Mariah’s chest until she could not speak or breathe. Tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them back furiously. She had never heard him speak in so cutting a tone, or with such injury in his eyes. His words hurt all the more because they were true.

From across the billiards table, William Hart glared at him, dumbfounded and angry. “You said what?”

“Are you not shocked?”

“About which part? Crawford being an imbecile, or you?”

“What have I done but been felled by an unexpected blow? First I learn her character is not all it should be, and now I learn she has a secret life she has been keeping from us.”

Even as he said the words, Matthew knew he had overreacted. He had known, or at least suspected, the truth about Mariah and Crawford for some time but had refused to face it. After all, there had been no reason to take it to heart when he had planned to marry Isabella. But this reasoning had not kept him from storing up disappointment and even resentment over Mariah having been with another man. News of her clandestine novel writing had only served to spark the powder horn already smoldering within him.

Hart scowled. “As far as her indiscretion with Crawford, she has paid a high price already. What would you have her do? Drag it about like an anchor all her days?”

“No. But I don’t like being made a fool of.”

“You are making
yourself
a fool. Is your past any better than hers?”

Anger sparked. “You forget yourself, Lieutenant.”

“No. You forget yourself, Captain. For I was there. I was there when you ignored the signal flag and took the ship anyway, for one more capture, one more prize, though it would not affect the outcome of the war. I was there when you held your head in your hands over those young men who might still be alive had you not done so. I was there in port too. And well I remember that pretty Spanish girl with eyes only for the rich
capitan
.”

“Don’t.” Matthew pressed a hand to his eyes to block out Hart’s words, and the wounded expression on Mariah’s face when he’d lashed out at her.

“Why not? You would have Miss Aubrey display her secrets, but I cannot breathe a word about yours?”

Could Hart not understand his struggle? Even though Matthew had given up his quest to prove himself to society, any man would be upset to have his fears confirmed – to learn that the woman he loved was not a maid. Did it make him an archaic sapskull to wish she were? Her reputation would not be helped by this latest revelation, once news of her novel writing circulated.

But with what had befallen his own dear sister – and with all God had forgiven him – how could he join those condemning her?

He could not.

“Dash it, Hart.” Matthew rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Must you always be right?”

What a hypocrite he had been, Matthew realized, to judge Miss Aubrey for her deeds, when his own huge failings ever loomed before him.
Forgive me
, he breathed.
Forgive me.
He directed that silent plea both to the woman he loved and to the God who loved him.

Overwhelmed with remorse, Matthew resisted the urge to run directly to the gatehouse and plead his case. Instead he sat at the library desk to ponder the best way to communicate his sincerest apologies and hopes to Miss Mariah Aubrey, authoress.

Hitting on an idea, he took up paper, quill, and ink. With a prayer for smooth sailing on his lips, he began to write.

My dear Miss Aubrey,

Since you are a person who values words, I have decided to write
you a story. A poor attempt, no doubt, but here is my version of an
Aesopian fable I call “The Foolish Fox and the Two Birds. . . .”

I am the gate; whoever enters
through me will be saved.

– Jesus Christ (niv)

chapter 37

Worried when she saw neither of the Miss
Merryweathers
outside, Mariah stepped cautiously into the poorhouse. There, Agnes crossed the entry hall, hot-water bottle in her hands.

“Miss Merryweather,” Mariah whispered. “How is Miss Amy?”

Colorless lips tight, Agnes grimly shook her head. “Not good. But she’ll want to see you. Come along.”

Mariah fell into step with the slight woman, glancing back nervously over her shoulder, fearing Mrs. Pitt might see her and order her from the premises.

“They’ve got her in the infirmary now. Right through here.”

Mariah followed Agnes past the office used by the visiting apothecary and the occasional surgeon, past the glass-plated and locked cupboard where the day-to-day remedies were stored, and past a series of small sickrooms. At the last door in the passageway, Agnes gestured Mariah in before her.

“I’ve brought you a visitor, Amy. But don’t let her tire you,” Agnes said.

“Can’t get any more tired,” Amy said with a weak grin. “Hello, Miss Mariah.”

She and Mariah exchanged tender smiles.

Agnes bustled over and tucked the hot-water bottle under the bedclothes. “There, that should stop your shivering.”

For though the room was perfectly warm, Amy was covered in blankets and even wore a red muffler around her neck.

Amy fingered the muffler and said wistfully, “I never made you one, Miss Mariah.”

How small, how frail the dear woman looked. Mariah blinked back tears just to see so little of her remaining. “Never mind, Miss Amy. I don’t. You are all loveliness with that splash of red round your neck.”

Amy tugged ineffectually at the muffler. “You take it.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Amy gave a wisp of a chuckle. “I shall not need it where I am bound. No damp rooms in my Father’s house.”

Agnes mumbled something under her breath that sounded like
father indeed
.

Mariah said, “Perhaps Agnes would like it.”

Amy gave a dismissive flutter of her hand. “Oh, I made her a red one long ago. She refuses to wear it. This one should be yours.”

Agnes thought red a color for a Jezebel, Mariah recalled. She could understand the woman wanting no reminder of a life anyone would wish to forget.

She glanced at Agnes, and the woman nodded her approval. “Then I will treasure it. Thank you.”

Mariah helped Amy unwind the soft muffler from around her neck.

With bent, trembling fingers, Amy pressed it into Mariah’s hands. “You wear it, my dear. And you remember.”

Mariah’s throat tightened. “I shall never forget you.”

Amy gave a little snort. “
Pfff
. Forget me all you like, but don’t forget what it means.” Amy kept hold of Mariah’s hand, expression earnest. “None of us gets through this life without a tangle or two. Accept His mercy and move forward. Don’t hold on to the knots and forget the life ahead.”

Tears blurring her vision, Mariah gently squeezed Amy’s hand and whispered, “Thank you.”

She would remember.

Mariah glanced across the bed, and her heart clenched to see tears streaming down the weathered cheeks of stoic Agnes Merryweather.

Agnes took her sister’s other hand. “Please don’t leave me, Amy. Not again.”

“Promise me you’ll follow after me, Aggie. Promise me you’ll pass through the gate.”

The gate?
Mariah wondered.

Miss Amy must have seen Mariah’s confusion, for she pointed one finger straight up. “Not
your
gate, my dear. His gate.”

The door creaked open behind them, and there stood Captain Prince. He looked upon Amy Merryweather, diminished by time and illness, and his face seemed to cave in on itself. “Oh, my dear girl. My old friend.”

Amy smiled, lovely still. “Captain. How good of you to come.”

He stumbled to her bed. Kneeling beside it, he grasped one of her small bird-claw hands in his and wept.

“There, there,” Miss Amy soothed. “It is not farewell, my dear captain, but
au revoir
. Until we meet again.”

Mariah and Agnes silently moved to the door to allow the two to share a rare, and likely final, moment alone.