The Girl in the Gatehouse (50 page)
Eager to tell him so, and to confide the discoveries from her aunt’s journals, Mariah quickly dressed and walked through a cool mist to Windrush Court. But instead of Matthew, she saw Hugh Prin-Hallsey jogging down the front steps. She hesitated, fighting the urge to duck behind a shaped hedge and retreat unseen, but she steeled her resolve and strode forward.
“Well, if it isn’t Lady A,” he said, and actually smiled at her. Revenge certainly agreed with him.
“I suppose I need not ask why you did it, Hugh,” Mariah said, surprised the man was up and about so early. “But I am still struggling to reconcile the act with the man I thought you were. I had never considered you vengeful.”
Hugh nodded. “By nature I am more of a live-and-let-live sort of fellow. But I take it very ill when someone gets between me and my next guinea. Or persists in referring to a certain vexing woman as Mrs. Prin-Hallsey.”
Mariah sighed. “It was her name, Hugh.”
He slanted her a sly grin. “And
Lady A
was your name, but I managed to end that farce, did I not?”
Mariah was unexpectedly grieved by this chasm between them. Perhaps it had always been there, but she had not realized its depth, distracted as she had been at first by his charming bravado, his affable façade.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “You have ended it.”
She studied Hugh’s implacable expression. Should she tell him what she had discovered in the poorhouse and confirmed in her aunt’s journals? Just as Francesca had been, Mariah was tempted to have her own revenge against this man. Moreover, she wanted to see Captain Prince – or Prin-Hallsey, if that was his real name – freed and restored to his rightful place. But would Hugh even believe her? Yes, he would, she realized, even if he would not admit it. For Hugh had recognized the man on the roof that day – she was sure of it.
She took a deep breath. “I have met your uncle.”
One dark brow rose. “My uncle?”
“Yes, you remember. The old man on the poorhouse roof ? The man you recognized? He is your father’s
elder
brother.”
Hugh met her gaze unflinchingly. He did not gape or rail as she had expected him to. Instead he merely smirked, his dark eyes glinting. “Poor Bryant.”
She frowned. “No. The captain can always find another house, but you stand to lose everything.”
He shrugged. “It is time I left the old place in any case and struck out on my own.”
“You are leaving?” Mariah asked. “For good this time?”
“For good?” He pulled a face. “When have I ever done that?”
Mariah stared at him, disconcerted by his unruffled, knowing smirk. Would he somehow manage to destroy the evidence before the authorities or solicitors could verify Captain Prince’s claim? Worse, had she endangered the old captain by placing him between Hugh and “his next guinea”?
A chill ran down her spine at the thought.
“Miss! Miss Mariah!”
Mariah turned. There was Lizzy, standing at the end of the gatehouse lane in her nightdress and shawl, gesturing urgently. “Come quickly!”
Foreboding seized Mariah at the sight. Hugh forgotten, Mariah hurried back to the gatehouse.
As she ran, Mariah’s stomach twisted in dread. No good news came to call so early. She anticipated George or someone else from the poorhouse bringing news of Miss Amy’s death. But she did not expect Captain Prince himself.
Yet there he stood in the drawing room, slouch hat in hand, fully dressed but in stocking feet. His crumpled face told her the rest.
Mariah ached for him. “Captain Prince, do sit down.”
Dixon tiptoed down the stairs, dressed, but her hair still hanging in its long plait. She looked from Mariah to Captain Prince, and instead of complaining of the early hour, she nodded grim understanding. “I’ll make tea,” she said softly, before scuttling through to the kitchen.
She must have taken herself out to the stable and roused Martin as well, for several minutes later, both he and Dixon came in bearing tea things. Mariah invited them all to sit down together at the table, then repeated the news Captain Prince had indeed come to impart. Amy Merryweather had died in her sleep during the night. At peace and ready to meet her Maker.
Captain Prince’s eyes shone with tears, and his voice was haggard. “She was a good friend to me. My light and warmth in that dreary place.”
A thick silence followed.
After a time, Lizzy excused herself to dress, and Mariah asked tentatively, “Captain, will you now tell us what happened when you returned to England?”
The man nodded, his expression downcast.
“I am afraid I have no figgy dowdy to offer you, Captain,” Martin said.
He waved the apology away as a gnat, his eyes focused inward.
“The proprietor of the boardinghouse believed the Miss Merryweathers had returned to their home village, though she did not recall its name. I did remember, for I had grown up nearby. I stayed in Bristol for a short time doing odd jobs until I could earn enough money for coach fare. When I arrived in Whitmore, I went first to the old Merryweather house, but strangers were living there. How they looked at me – as though I were a beggar or worse. I lost the courage to ask after Amy Merryweather then, afraid she was no longer in the village, afraid that if she were, she would not be happy to see me. And certainly no one would have been happy to see me as I was. Shabby, salt-stained clothes, skin and bones, brown as a nut. I truly hoped Miss Amy had married some kind, decent man during my long absence, even as I knew how very unlikely that was.
“I decided to return home first, assuming the place was still standing and my brother would allow me in. I remembered him, though I doubted he would recognize me. I planned to have a bath and shave and borrow some decent clothes before I began seeking Miss Amy in earnest.
“What a row! At first Frederick refused to believe me. He said,
‘My brother is dead. Long dead. And you, sir, are an imposter.’
Later, I realized that he and his wife had heard rumors that I was still alive – sightings of me on the island and aboard the trader’s ship, whispered by sailors and passed from ship to ship, from crews to their families, and finally to the populace at large.”
Martin nodded. “I myself heard the rumors and very much wanted to believe them.”
The captain dipped his head. “Thank you. My brother and his wife did not share your sentiments, however. They had not sat idle while the rumors began circulating, for lo and behold, if they didn’t have a place prepared for me when I returned. Had me declared a lunatic too, so Frederick would inherit the estate. I cannot blame them, not fully. For I was off in my attic then, and I am not quite right yet. Doubt I ever will be, this side of heaven.”
Mariah shook her head. “Your brother may have planned to take legal steps to make himself heir, but I don’t believe he actually did so. Perhaps he only told you that to keep you from leaving Honora House. If you thought you had nowhere else to go . . .” Mariah let the words drift away. She rose, lifting a forefinger. “Wait one moment.”
She dashed upstairs and returned with Fran’s journal. She found the section she had been reading the night before. “Listen to what my aunt wrote.”
Mariah paused to catch her breath, then read, “ ‘I suppose Hugh could go through lengthy and expensive legal proceedings to have the man declared incompetent, but I can find no evidence of Frederick and Honora having done this. Too public, I suppose. Too scandalous. Too risky. Besides, why should they bother? For while searching through my husband’s desk, I did find one legal document. A certificate declaring Percival Prin-Hallsey dead, having been missing for more than seven years. Frederick and Honora never acknowledged his return. Instead they hid the inconvenient truth humanely away in order to retain their home and control of the purse strings.’ ”
Mariah took a deep breath and continued, “ ‘For here is the truth. Windrush Court does not legally belong to Hugh Prin-Hallsey. Yes, he is Frederick’s heir, but Frederick never legally owned it either. It rightfully belongs to Frederick’s elder brother. Not dead as assumed and hoped and legally declared. But secretly living in the poorhouse across the road.’ ”
Mariah glanced up from the journal. Martin and Dixon sat, stunned and frowning.
Finally, Martin asked, “But . . . if you are a Prin-Hallsey, how did you come by the name Prince?”
The captain intertwined his long fingers. “My parents wanted me to be a gentleman, you see. When I was seventeen, they sent me to Oxford to be educated. But that was not the life I wanted for myself. So I ran off and joined up as a volunteer seaman. I could not sign on under my real name, could I? Not with my father likely to track me down and haul me home before the ship had even left port.”
Here, the captain chuckled dryly. “Even had I not wished to evade my father, I would have been loath to use my real name. A high-falutin’ name like Percival Prin-Hallsey would have earned me endless taunts from rough-and-rowdy seamen and extra lashes from the bosun. No thank you, sir.”
Martin, brows high, nodded his agreement.
“Three years later, a captain appointed me midshipman,” Captain Prince continued. “I think he knew who I really was, but he never said a word. Perhaps he had a disapproving father as well, I don’t know. Three or four years after that, I passed the lieutenant’s examination. I liked everything about the navy, and the navy liked me.”
He raised his glass in salute, and Martin raised a teacup in reply.
“I had no plans to stay away forever, and no plans to go home. I was living day by day, promotion by promotion, and loving every minute of it.”
Mariah said, “My aunt mentioned finding a portrait of a man in his late twenties, and guessed it might be you. But how could that be, if you left home at seventeen?”
Captain Prince looked up, searching his memory. “When I was about eight and twenty, I learned my father had died. That old captain slipped me a newspaper clipping and granted me leave. While I never got on with my father, I loved my mother and decided I would go to her, give what comfort I could, and assure her I was well. It was then that I saw the Merryweather twins in the village. I had heard of their father – he was a notorious drunkard. But his daughters had become young women while I was away. I did not know their Christian names at the time, but one does not forget a pair of such lovely girls.”
Mariah bit her lip. He was right. One did not forget them.
The captain inhaled deeply before continuing. “I arrived at Windrush Court to find my mother in poor health, but she was happy and relieved to see me. I was glad I went when I did, for she did not live many years longer. My brother was away in London at the time, and I never saw him the entire fortnight I was home. My mother wrote to him, but he did not deem my return worth missing the social season. While I was home, my mother commissioned an artist to paint my portrait. Dreadful man wanted me to sit still for hours on end, and I could not abide it. In the end, he drew my face in detail and said he would finish the rest later from sketches and memory. Probably turned out badly, for all I know.”
“I wonder where it is now,” Mariah murmured, hoping Hugh had not sold it.
“I don’t know.” The man shrugged. “I returned to sea and progressed in my career. Finally, I received my first commission as captain. I found Amy just a few days before I sailed away, expecting great things. . . .”
Percival Prin-Hallsey’s eyes filled anew, and Mariah reached out and laid a hand on his arm.
“What will you do now, Captain?”
He shook his head, apparently bewildered.
Martin said, “We will help you gain your permanent release from the poorhouse. You are neither dead nor incompetent. Windrush Court is rightfully yours.”
“Captain Bryant has another few weeks left in his lease,” Mariah added. “But I don’t think he will mind relinquishing it. To think of all you have been through, all the hardships. I am certain he will be as glad as we all would be to see you back where you belong.”
Captain Prince shook his head. “The hardships I experienced were nothing to Miss Amy’s. Nothing!”
Mariah patted his arm. “But she had your friendship, Captain, don’t forget. And a beloved sister by her side.”
He wiped his eyes. “I never understood how she managed it.” Slowly he shook his head. “To remain so full of faith and joy despite it all.”
Mariah remembered the single knot and the line of red wool stretching over the rise and out of sight.
And understood.
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
– Jane Austen
After Captain Prince left, returning to the poorhouse to offer Agnes Merryweather what comfort he could, Mariah sat down and flipped through the neglected pages of
Lydia Sorrow.
She felt as though the tale had been written – and lived – by another person. One whom she remembered, was vaguely acquainted with, but whose pain and regret and desire for revenge were no longer her own.
Lizzy knocked on the open sitting-room door, her young face alight with barely contained excitement.
“Mr. Hart wants me to meet his mother. May I go, miss? May I?”
Mariah’s chest rose and fell in waves of wistful happiness. “Of course you may.”