The Girl in the Gatehouse Page 16

Maggie giggled. “You can’t shake your own hand.”

  “Could happen.” He regarded her a moment. “How old are you?”

  She shrugged again. “Seven or eight. I don’t know my birthday.”

  Martin lifted his chin, appraising her. “I think eight. Do you know why?”

  She shook her head.

  “I had a sister once, and you remind me of her. The last time I saw her, she was eight years old. I was older and already gone to sea when the letter came, saying she had died. My mother was laid very low over it. But when I got shore leave two years later, there was already another babe to take her place. But I never forgot my sister. In my mind, she is ever eight years old.”

  “What was your sister’s name?” Maggie asked in her quiet voice.

  Martin smiled wistfully, eyes distant. “Mary. But our mother was Mary as well, so we called her Mary Jane.”

  “Mary Jane,” she repeated.

  “And may I have the honor of knowing your name?” Martin asked, though Mariah had already mentioned her name, she was sure.

  The girl bit her lip in a bashful smile. “Maggie.”

  He offered her his good hand and she shook it.

  “I don’t know my mother’s name,” she added.

  “That’s too bad. And your father’s?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I lived with my grandmamma, and that’s all I called her.”

  “As well you should.” Martin looked into Maggie’s sweet, accepting face and seemed to hesitate. “You know, I still have my old flute. Should have sold it years ago, but couldn’t bring myself to part with it. Perhaps I could teach you to play it. At least, I think I could. Would you like that?”

  Maggie smiled and nodded.

  “Well, give me a few days to find it. I believe it’s buried in my seaman’s chest. But I shall unearth it, shall I?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Martin rose from the bench with a groan and a stretch. “Well, I had better get back to work, before Miss Dixon calls me a sluggard and worse. A good day to you, Miss Maggie.”

  She bounced a small curtsy. “And to you, Mr. Martin.”

  At the kitchen window, Dixon breathed, “Oh dear . . .”

  Alarmed, Mariah asked, “What? What has he done now?” She looked into the stricken face of her old friend and what she saw written there surprised her. “Don’t tell me he’s gone and made you like him.”

  Dixon pulled a grimace. “Foolish girl. Not ‘like him.’ Not in that way, of course. But . . . he does surprise one, doesn’t he? Maggie speaks more to him than to the two of us put together.”

  Mariah nodded. “Children who are not frightened by him seem drawn to him like bees to honey.”

  “Or manure,” Dixon murmured, as though that were the next line in the script, but she no longer possessed the asperity to do the part justice.

  The next day, a pony cart came rumbling up the gatehouse lane, driven by Jack Strong. Martin sat beside him and was the first to climb down when the cart came to a halt. Mariah stepped outside to see what the men were about, and Martin gestured her over. He reached into the cart and hauled out a large canvas bag and tossed it to her. She caught it gingerly, but the bag was far lighter than it looked. Then Martin and Mr. Strong began hefting an old trunk off the back of the cart. Maggie, George, and Lizzy appeared at the other side of the gate, grasping the iron bars and watching the bustle with interest. Mariah waved George over, and the boy came running through the gatehouse, hurrying forward just in time to help with Martin’s end of the trunk.

  “Couldn’t stand to see your aunt’s things burned in the rubbish pile, or pilfered by the maids,” Martin explained, puffing and straining. “Thought you might like to have them – what Hugh didn’t manage to sell, that is. I suppose what’s left is not very fashionable.”

  “Thank you, Martin. That was very thoughtful.”

  Mariah carried the canvas bag toward the house just as Dixon opened the door for them. Martin, George, and Jack Strong bore the trunk inside, then went out for a load of bandboxes, another bag, and an old mahogany cosmetics case. The men left everything in the drawing room for the ladies to peruse at their leisure, but Mr. Strong offered to return the following day to haul the trunk upstairs if they wished. George lingered behind after the men departed.

  Maggie and Lizzy appeared at the drawing-room window, Maggie’s nose pressed against the wavy glass. Dixon gestured them inside. As the girls entered, Mariah smiled her welcome and unlatched the trunk. “Come and see. What is your guess? Pirate treasure? Mr. Martin did deliver it, after all.”

  Maggie giggled. George rubbed his hands together.

  Mariah pushed back the lid and looked inside. “No treasure, I am afraid.”

  George peered over her shoulder. “Clo-o-othes,” he muttered in disgust. He tipped his hat and was out the door in two seconds.

  His sister rolled her eyes, and the women shared a smile.

  Mariah pulled out a feathered mask from some long-ago masquerade ball, followed by a pleated betsie. “Martin was right, these do look a bit dated.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Dixon tied the betsie around her neck. The ruff was so stiff she could barely turn her head.

  Mariah laughed. “You look like Queen Elizabeth in her lace collars.”

  Mariah wrapped a mantle of moth-eaten mink around her own shoulders and set a tall chimney-pipe hat upon her head. “What do you think?”

  Dixon regarded the ensemble. “It is not quite the thing.” She replaced the hat with a gauze turban sporting a jaunty egret plume. “Oh yes, infinitely better.”

  They put a faded, tunnel-like poke bonnet on Maggie, who disappeared within it, laughing all the while.

  Eyes wide, Lizzy lifted out a silvery wig from one of the bags, a high Cadogan hairdo with roll curls.

  “Well, go on,” Dixon urged.

  Lizzy giggled and settled the confection upon her head, and was utterly transformed into an imperial lady.

  Soon, an all-out game of dress-up and charades ensued as four females indulged their playful feminine natures.

  Dixon pulled on a pale satin tunic over her day dress. She fitted her head with a Grecian style coronet complete with attached snood to cover her pinned hair.

  Mariah helped Lizzy into a velvet spencer jacket with fur-trimmed collar and flared cuffs. Then she handed her a soft muff of matching fur.

  She extracted a gold-braided Hussar jacket for herself and pulled it on. Near the bottom of the trunk she spied a riding habit – long skirt and short jacket. There was nothing extravagant or amusing about those pieces. In fact they brought a stab of regret, reminding her of her fine riding habit, and fine horse, at faraway Attwood Park.

  She left those garments where they were and instead pulled out a wide mushroom-shaped muslin hat with eyelet trim and bow, a fashion from at least twenty years ago, though it seemed familiar. Why had Aunt Fran kept it? And then she remembered her aunt showing her this very hat when she was a girl, and telling her it had been what she was wearing when Uncle Norris proposed. How sweet that she kept it after so many years, even after another husband.

  With a grin, Mariah removed the bonnet from Maggie’s head and replaced it with the ballooning hat. “Adorable. The hat and the girl wearing it.”

  Maggie ducked her head but could not conceal her delight.

  Martin walked in, eyes focused on the bottle of oil in his hands – on his way to refill the lamps, no doubt. His eyes lifted, then widened, as he looked from the mound of clothes, to bandboxes spewing tissue paper and ribbons, to Lizzy, Mariah, Maggie, and Dixon dressed in musty finery. “I feel as though I have walked into the pages of La Belle Assemblée,” he said. “You all look like fashion plates.”

  Maggie and Lizzy giggled.

  Martin’s eyes lingered on Dixon. “May I say, Miss Dixon, the coronet suits you. You look like a goddess.”

  Dixon bit back a smile, clearly pleased yet self-conscious. “Oh, go on with you.”

  But Marti
n was right. She did look like a goddess. And it was at that moment that the idea struck Mariah. They should put on a theatrical for the children of Honora House. She remembered her aunt saying she recalled the “little plays” Mariah wrote and performed as a girl. She would no doubt approve of them putting her old things to such good use.

  Mariah walked across the grounds and spotted Captain Bryant and Mr. Hart reclining on a picnic cloth spread beneath a leafy oak. Remnants of a repast were tossed haphazardly in a basket on one corner. Both men were reading in casual, relaxed poses, but Captain Bryant straightened when he saw her approach.

  Mr. Hart remained propped on one elbow. “Miss Aubrey, come and have pity on us. We are reading novels and feel our manliness diminishing by the moment. Come restore our vanity, do, and tell us we look the dashing officers we once were.”

  What cheek, Mariah thought, amused. But as Mr. Hart reminded her of an overgrown little boy, she smiled at him. “Hello, Mr. Hart. Captain Bryant. What are you reading?”

  Hart cocked his head in Captain Bryant’s direction. “Bryant here is reading a new novel, reported to be all the crack in London.”

  Mariah felt her brows rise. “Captain Bryant reads novels? I am surprised.”

  “Yes.” Hart sat up and crossed his legs. “You see, I happened to meet a certain young woman he admires, and she told me she adored it and thought it ‘everything romantic and thrilling.’ ”

  Captain Bryant rolled his eyes and looked very much as though he wanted to kick Mr. Hart’s foot. His bad foot.

  “And so you purchased him a copy,” Mariah said. “How kind.”

  William Hart’s eyes shone with mischief, and he leaned forward conspiratorially. “I don’t believe he sees it as a kindness. For if Bryant here has ever read more than his ship’s log and the newspaper accounts of his own exploits, I should be very much surprised.”

  “Thank you, Hart,” Captain Bryant said dryly. “I am afraid it is not to my usual taste, but I am endeavoring to enjoy it.” He lifted the book in his hand. “Have you read it, Miss Aubrey? Perhaps you could give us a summary and pithy commentary, so we can have done. I have not shot nor ridden in two days, and I feel my legs turning to pudding.”

  “I may have read it. What is the title?”

  “A Winter in Bath, by Lady A. Do you know it?”

  Mariah started, her stomach knotting. “Well . . . yes. I suppose I am familiar with it.” She suddenly felt dizzy. “You say you don’t find it to your liking?”

  “How can I? Listen to this.” Captain Bryant began to read.

  And Mariah began to squirm.

  “The wind whipped his raven hair and black cloak about him. He stared at her with smoky grey eyes, fiery with intensity. She could not look away. She was ensnared all over again, caught in the brambles and powerless to escape.

  “She thought of what her aunt had said, about the blackberry being a symbol of lowliness and remorse. She felt both of these emotions now, trapped as she was in a bramble of her own making. The thorns had caught her, tripped her, held her. She had fallen among them. Or had she been pushed?”

  He snapped the book shut. “It is all so much gentlewoman gibberish to me.”

  Hart lifted one shoulder as he idly picked and twirled a blade of grass. “I like that bit about the thorns.”

  Captain Bryant regarded Mariah frankly. “You are a woman, Miss Aubrey. Tell me. What did that certain lady mean when she said she found this ‘everything romantic’? Must I have raven hair and grey eyes to win her heart?”

  “Smoky grey eyes,” Hart amended.

  He grimaced impatiently. “Who has grey eyes, anyway? Light blue or brown or green, or any combination thereof, but grey?”

  “I have seen grey eyes,” Mariah defended.

  “On an Englishman? In any case, I am afraid I find the book frightfully dull.”

  “Let me guess,” Hart said. “No swordplay, no gunfire, and no horse races.”

  “Exactly. Lots of long looks and deep discussions.”

  Hart raised one finger high. “And therein lies the void between the sexes. Women want long looks and deep discussions, and men want to ride and shoot.”

  Captain Bryant nodded. “I know I do. Can we lay aside novels for a few hours and go shoot something?”

  “Oh, very well.”

  Captain Bryant got to his feet and gave Hart up a hand up. “But you are my witness, William. I did try to read A Winter in Bath.”

  Mariah felt her throat tighten. “And you, Mr. Hart. Is your novel frightfully dull as well?”

  “Actually, mine is excellent. Most diverting. Euphemia’s Return by a Mrs. Wimble. I shall be finished soon, Matthew, and we might switch if you like.”

  Captain Bryant groaned. “No. If this is her favorite novel, I shall read it. Or die trying.”

  “Well.” Mariah formed a brittle smile. “I was going to ask you and Mr. Hart to take part in a theatrical we are putting on for the poorhouse children, but no doubt you would find that frightfully dull too.”

  Captain Bryant looked wary. “What sort of theatrical?”

  “Is there to be swordplay?” Hart asked eagerly.

  Mariah looked from one man to the other, and then answered carefully, “There . . . can be.”

  Jane Austen’s juvenilia contains a one-act play,

  possibly written as a Christmas entertainment

  by the young Jane.

  – Maria Hubert, Jane Austen’s Christmas

  chapter 19

  Knowing she would need permission to hold the theatrical, Mariah spent the morning working up her courage to go and see Mrs. Pitt. On her way to the poorhouse, she stopped to speak with the Miss Merryweathers. The sisters advised her to involve the matron in the production somehow, saying she was more likely to grant her approval if given a role. Mariah thanked them but was secretly reluctant to ask Mrs. Pitt to take any part.

  In the poorhouse office, Mariah stated her case. As she spoke, the matron’s mouth tightened, her eyes narrowed in obvious disapprobation.

  Desperately, Mariah added, “And you might even take part in the theatrical, if you like.”

  The woman hesitated. Mariah was sure she was about to refuse outright, when a voice from the door startled them both.

  “A theatrical! Excellent notion.”

  Mariah looked up to find the vicar standing there, eyes bright. “The children will so enjoy it.”

  Mrs. Pitt paused, then said, “I am glad you think so, Mr. Lumley. For I have just agreed to introduce the theatrical and to narrate one of the plays.”

  Had she? Mariah was not certain she wanted the woman to participate. She faltered, “I . . . was not sure you would be able to get away.”

  With a quick glance at the vicar, Mrs. Pitt smiled her close-lipped smile. “The poorhouse is not a prison, Miss Aubrey.”

  “Of course not,” Mariah murmured, thinking of the man kept on its top floor. But she thought it best not to mention him.

  Mrs. Pitt intertwined her bony fingers atop the desk. “Yes, I think I must take part, to assure the performance is suitable for the children and all the inmates.”

  “Wonderful,” the vicar said. “I shall look forward to it.”

  Mariah smiled weakly, wondering if Mrs. Pitt would have agreed to the production at all had the vicar not arrived when he had.

  “And in my brief absence,” Mrs. Pitt added, “my son, John, is more than capable of overseeing the institution. Now, when is the first rehearsal to be?”

  Mariah glanced across the drawing room yet again. How strange it seemed that Mrs. Pitt should be there in the gatehouse, seated in the best chair. The mantel clock struck the hour and Mariah jumped. The woman made her nervous. She glanced instead at the others in the room, Dixon and four young people from the poorhouse – Lizzy, George, Sam, and Maggie. The children were clearly nervous as well.

  Mariah stood as Captain Bryant and Mr. Hart entered.

  “Bryant and Hart reporting for duty,” the captai
n said.

  Hart added a cheeky salute.

  “Hello, gentlemen,” Mariah said, hands primly clasped. “Thank you for coming.”

  At that moment, Chaucer loped down the stairs and across the floor, leaving a trail of inky paw prints. Had she forgotten to close her inkpot again?

  “Chaucer, no!” Mariah lunged to pick up the cat, all poise forgotten, but he quickly skulked through the kitchen door and out of sight.

  Dixon rose. “Never mind, Miss Mariah, I shall attend to it. You go on.”

  “Thank you.” Mariah pushed a stray hair from her face and attempted to recover her dignity. “You gentlemen know Miss Dixon and Miss Barnes, I believe.”

  The officers bowed and Lizzie curtsied, a becoming pink rising to her cheeks. Dixon was too busy wiping up the ink to acknowledge the men’s gesture.

  Mariah continued. “And this is Mrs. Pitt, matron of Honora House, who has kindly graced us with her presence.”

  Mrs. Pitt dipped her head in condescension.

  “And our other players here are George, Sam, and Maggie. Everyone, please take a seat and be comfortable. George, do you mind sitting on the floor? Thank you.”

  Hart sat in George’s place, but Captain Bryant remained standing. The crowded drawing room had never felt so small.

  Mariah took a deep breath and addressed the group. “Miss Dixon and I have decided upon a selection of Aesop’s Fables for our performance. ‘The Peacock’s Complaint,’ ‘The Lion, the Bear, and the Fox,’ and ‘The Fox and the Crow.’ ”

  Mr. Hart raised his hand. “I shall take whichever part has the fewest lines.”

  Lizzy giggled.

  Mariah said, “Actually, I had two parts in mind for you, Mr. Hart.”

  “And what role shall you play, Miss Aubrey?” Captain Bryant asked. “The peacock? You certainly have the feathers for it.”

  Mariah hesitated, for a brief second thinking the captain had complimented her, but then he gestured toward a pile of feathers on the table. She had neglected to gather them up before the children arrived and then had forgotten all about them. “Oh! Yes, a lot of feathers. I fear I am very particular about my quills.”