The Girl in the Gatehouse Read online

  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.”
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br />   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.”

  “Mr. Martin!” Dixon complained.

  Martin leaned closer to the girl. “But I shall tell you the real version. The Frenchies were firing on us, see. And the nine-pounders were coming in like hailstones. I turned and saw a young midshipman standing there just a’staring up as a ball was about to strike. So I stuck out my hand and shoved him out of the way.” Martin shrugged. “There went the hand, but at least I lived to tell the tale, and so did he.”

  He glanced at her, found her staring at his arm in fascination. “Sometimes itches, where the hook facing laces to my arm. Otherwise, it’s naught. An apothecary gave me some foul-smelling ointment, but it was useless. Miss Dixon there gave me a new pot. Now I smell like a flower shop.”

  Martin looked from his arm to the girl. “Would you like to see it? It isn’t too gruesome, at least I don’t think so. But then, I’m used to it.” He rolled up his loose sleeve and showed her how the leather bindings wrapped around his forearm, just below the elbow. “A nice smooth stump. Ship’s surgeon did a good job. I’ve seen far worse anyway.”

  Maggie swallowed, and he quickly rolled his sleeve back down.

  “Sorry, lass,” Martin apologized. “Ought not to have shown you. That’s more than enough for one day, ey?”

  He rose from the bench and Maggie hurried back through the gatehouse. Her “thank-you” followed her out, so that Mariah was not sure if it was meant for her or Martin.

  I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!

  How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!

  – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

  chapter 18

  Hart was holed up in the library, reading one of two new books he had brought with him from London. Matthew had begun to read the other volume offered but could not sit for hours on end as Hart seemed capable of doing. He rose and paced about the room. When Hart cleared his throat, Matthew took the hint and let himself out into the hall.

  From the windows at the front of the house, Matthew watched as Hugh Prin-Hallsey directed the loading of a cart of belongings, which the man was selling to raise funds. Matthew still didn’t like Prin-Hallsey rummaging about the place, clanging and carting furnishings, paintings, and the like while he was paying good rent to live there. Especially now that he had a guest. But he kept his objections to himself, still hoping to curry the man’s favor until he agreed to sell Windrush Court to him outright.

  The portly agent from some auction house marked each item in a ledger as the servants carried out piece after piece. Matthew hoped he and Hart would still have beds to sleep in when the man was through.

  Mariah Aubrey hurried up the drive, hand atop her bonnet to keep it in place. Thinking something might be amiss, Matthew quickly let himself out the front door and onto the covered portico.

  “Mr. Prin-Hallsey.” She paused to catch her breath, cheeks flushed. “Mrs. Strong mentioned you were . . . parting . . . with a few things. I should like to purchase something I saw when last I visited my aunt.”

  She turned her head, looking among the heap of articles waiting to be catalogued and loaded, and pointed to a wheeled invalid chair. “There it is!”

  “What, that?” Hugh frowned. “I do hope you are in good health, Miss Aubrey.”

  “Oh, yes. It is not for me. It is for the dearest old lady in the poorhouse. She is weak as a foal but always so cheerful.”

  Hugh inhaled thoughtfully. “Your aunt’s nurse had it taken up to her room, but the old girl was too proud to use it. It was built for my father near the end of his life.”

  Miss Aubrey bit her lip, likely fearing this meant Prin-Hallsey would not be willing to part with it cheaply. Perhaps Matthew would buy it for her.

  “So . . . how much, do you think?” she asked.

  Hugh looked down at her, his expression inscrutable. Suddenly he reached out and tweaked her chin. “Oh, take it for nothing for your dear old lady.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  Watching the exchange, Matthew was as surprised as Miss Aubrey clearly was.

  Hugh shrugged. “My mother, Honora, would have approved. Besides, it wouldn’t fetch much, and I plan never to need it.”

  A look of wonderment crossed her face. “How good of you, Hugh. Thank you.” In a flash, she reached up and kissed his cheek and hurried past before Hugh could react. In fact, the man looked mildly dazed.

  Miss Aubrey grasped the chair by its handles, then pushed it down the drive before anyone might offer to help. Or change his mind.

  Matthew observed Miss Aubrey’s gratitude and hurried departure with an odd sense of envy and bemusement.

  Prin-Hallsey shook his head as though to clear it, climbed the front stairs, and stood beside Matthew. Together, the two of them watched Mariah push the chair across the lawn, evidently finding the graveled drive too jarring.

  “Singular creature, our girl in the gatehouse,” Hugh mused. “You would think with all her troubles, it would not be the best time to concern herself with the problems of others.”

  “Perhaps that is the best time of all.”

  Hugh’s lower lip protruded. “You may be right, Bryant. I own a strange lightness in my own crusty heart at having given her the old thing.”

  “Any particular reason for the sudden largesse?”

  Hugh inhaled deeply. “You might say I have experienced a recent windfall.”

  “At cards?”

  “No, not c
ards. Not this time.”

  “I have never cared for games of chance myself.”

  The man looked at him wryly. “Oh, come, Captain. Do not deceive yourself. You are in the midst of a very risky game of chance as we speak, are you not? For what else has brought you to Windrush Court? Risking all that hard-earned prize money, and for what? The smallest chance a certain lady will jilt her well-connected suitor to marry you, when she rejected you once before. What are the odds?” Hugh smirked and shook his head. “I would not bet on you, old boy. No, I would not.”

  Mariah delivered the invalid chair to a grateful Miss Amy. Even Agnes seemed pleased. Mariah also delivered the belated greeting from Captain Prince, which made Miss Amy beam and her sister look nervously over her shoulder.

  While she was there, Mariah looked about for little Maggie but did not see her. On the way home she wondered if Martin had succeeded in frightening the girl away, but was pleasantly surprised when she appeared at the gatehouse door a few days later. Without a word, she looked up at Mariah with clear appeal in her eyes.

  Mariah opened the door to her. “Well, go on.” She smiled and followed behind as the girl ran through the gatehouse.

  Dixon was already standing at the kitchen window, and Mariah joined her there. Outside Martin sat on the garden bench, again playing his flute. Maggie sat down to watch and listen.

  After a few minutes, Martin lowered his instrument. “I hear you are a singer,” he began. “I’d play something you could sing to, but I understand you like hymns and I don’t know many of those.”

  Maggie shrugged and asked, “Will you get your hand back in heaven?”

  He considered her, head cocked to one side. “I don’t know. Do you think I shall?”

  She nodded, reddish-gold hair bobbing up and down.

  “Well, then I shall look forward to going there. I sure miss that hand and wouldn’t mind seeing it again.” He grinned. “How I would shake my hand should we meet once more.”