The Girl in the Gatehouse Read online

  “It is you, Mr. Martin. How good to see you again after so long.” The two men shook hands.

  Hart saluted as well. “Lieutenant Hart.”

  The older man nodded his acknowledgement.

  Hart clapped the shoulder of the boy in front of him. “And this is George Barnes, who served as our guide tonight.”

  “George, is it?” The man shook the lad’s hand.

  Martin said eagerly, “With your permission, Captain Prince, I have prepared your favorite treat – figgy dowdy.”

  “Figgy dowdy! How that takes me back!”

  Martin gestured with his good hand. “If you would like to follow us across the road to the gatehouse . . . ?”

  “Lead on, Mr. Martin.”

  George decided he’d better turn in for the night, but the others walked away, leaving the rope where it was, with the old man’s promise to toss down the grappling hook upon his return. So he already plans to return, Matthew thought. So much for our “rescue.”

  “Are you really Captain Prince?” Hart asked as they walked, but Bryant elbowed his side. He had no wish to offend the man. Mad though he might be, he had clearly served the British Navy in some capacity to have gained such skill in signal flags, not to mention ship vernacular.

  But the man answered Hart’s question without asperity. “That is a long story, Mr. Hart. Ply me with figgy dowdy and port and I shall happily oblige you.”

  Mariah was relieved to see the would-be rescuers return unscathed, and with their object among them. She was somewhat nervous about having the strange man in her home. Was he insane, as Mrs. Pitt suggested? He had certainly seemed coherent and well-spoken when she had talked briefly with him through the door, but she could not forget the way he had charged from behind the curtains and onto the stage, wooden sword blazing.

  “Miss Aubrey,” Martin began. “May I present Captain Prince?”

  “How do you do?” She curtsied and he bowed gallantly before

  “Ah, the kind young lady who came to visit me. What a pleasure to meet you face-to-face.”

  Mariah opened the door wider and stepped back. “Welcome. Come in.”

  Captain Bryant ran back to the great house for the requested port, which Mariah did not possess, while Martin set about brewing coffee and whisking up a sauce for the figgy dowdy.

  While Mariah set the larger table in the drawing room, Captain Prince surveyed her movements, hands behind his back.

  “Were you able to deliver my message to Miss Amy?”

  “I did, sir.”

  “I have not seen her since the night of the . . . uh . . . drama. How does she fare, do you know?”

  “Last I saw her she was a bit frail. But her spirits seemed as cheerful as ever.”

  “Yes. They always were.”

  She wanted to ask how long he had known Miss Amy but did not press him with Mr. Hart and Dixon in the room.

  Soon Captain Bryant returned with the promised port and Martin set his masterpiece on the table before them along with a sauceboat.

  “What a sight for these poor eyes,” Captain Prince said.

  Martin beamed.

  The figgy dowdy was just as delicious the second time, Mariah thought. Even Dixon admitted it. Captain Prince was excessive in his praise, which clearly delighted Martin. The older man raised his glass of port in salute, while the others sipped coffee. And when Captain Bryant refilled his glass, Captain Prince neatly wiped his mouth and began his tale.

  “The Largos was my first command. I shall never forget her. We undertook a long voyage to the Horn, amassing several victories with which I shall not bruise your ears. Mr. Martin, I would guess, has told you of our final battle and the storm that was our ruin?”

  Heads nodded around the table.

  “Then you know the mighty Largos was lost. It still pains me to think of her, there at the bottom of the sea, rotting away. Not unlike me, in my chamber. My useful days, my glory days, gone. But, I digress.” He sipped his port.

  “I was determined to go down with my ship to her watery grave. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but one minute I was standing on deck and the next the ship had rolled and I was tossed into the sea. I seem to remember a mermaid slipping her arm around my neck and telling me to float on my back while she pulled me to that beautiful shore. I suppose I assumed she meant heaven. Then my vision began to darken like a shrinking tunnel, like a ship’s glass fouled or broken, and I could see nothing but blackness. How long I inhabited that blackness I cannot say.”

  His faded green eyes grew misty. “My earliest memories of that time are of voices. Unfamiliar, birdlike voices, speaking in a tongue I did not recognize or comprehend. Soft hands, tending me, interspersed with searing pain in my head and eyes. I would guess now that I was in and out of consciousness for quite some time, months even. I do not know. When I finally awoke, I felt a long beard on my formerly clean-shaven face. I opened my eyes to see two beautiful brown women. It seemed as if I should know them. And in a strange way, I did. I had come to know their voices, their touch, even their aromas over the months I had drifted on the waves of unconsciousness. It was a pleasure to put faces to people I already knew. Much as I felt upon seeing you, Miss Aubrey.”

  He smiled, and Mariah returned the gesture.

  “Were these women my family? My friends?” Captain Prince continued. “I did not know. I was not bewildered initially. That came later when shards of memory from my former life began to return. But at first, when these women smiled down at me as if they knew me, and talked excitedly to each other in their language saying, or so I imagined, “Here he is! At last he has returned to us!” I felt only relief and contentment. A newborn child in his mother’s arms. And, in many ways, Fara, the older of the two women, was very like a mother to me. Her daughter, Noro, the sister I never had.

  “Slowly I regained strength and began to take in my surroundings. Fara and Noro lived in a small village on a large island they called Madagasikara, but I later realized it must be the place we sailors called the Island of the Moon.”

  “Is that where you washed ashore, Captain?” Martin asked. “The rest of us survivors were picked up by a passing ship and taken to Mauritius.”

  “Well, Martin, you did not have a mermaid to guide you, then, did you?” He smiled, and it was difficult to tell if he was joking or not.

  Then Captain Prince clasped his hands and asked tentatively, “Did many survive?”

  Martin shook his head. “Only a few. But that young midshipman you bid me watch over was counted among us. Mind, I take no credit. Why God spared some while so many others were lost, I cannot know.”

  Captain Prince nodded, then lowered his head. A moment of respectful silence followed before Captain Prince once more looked up and continued.

  “I do not wish to wear out my welcome with longwinded tales, so suffice it to say, I began a new life there. Learned the language, worked alongside the Malagasy people – fishing, hunting, building. Men were scarce after years of skirmishes with kindoc, the pirates who made the island their port. So I was begrudgingly accepted by the surviving men and eagerly accepted by the women.”

  He paused to scrape the last bite of figgy dowdy into his mouth. “Since I had no idea who I was or what my name might be, they called me lahy lava, which I later learned meant tall man. Though the less kind among them called me vazaha ratsy – ugly white man.” He chuckled. “I could not blame them. My head wound healed very poorly, and even now I keep my hair long on the sides so others might not be burdened to see it.” He patted his hair. “What a row Mr. Pitt and I had when he tried to cut it short!”

  His smile soon faded, and he said, almost reverently, “I am glad Miss Amy is not with us to hear the next part. For Noro eventually became my vady. My wife. We spent many happy years together and even had a child.” Here he paused, his voice thickening. “A little girl. Jane.”

  “Jane?” Dixon asked. “Was that a name in their language as well?”

  He shook
his head, as if not trusting his voice. Then he cleared his throat. “That was the first faint thread of memory: I wished to name my daughter Jane, though I was not certain why. That was how it started. Like raindrops – or bird droppings – falling from the sky. How many falling memories had I missed? Or failed to attend to? Perhaps my memory would have returned more quickly, more completely, had I tried. But the truth was I . . . I didn’t really care. I was happy where I was. In fact, I began to dread what I might remember, fearing it might rip me away from my peaceful new life.”

  He grimly shook his head. “Something did rip me away, but it was not a threat from the past. Rather one from the present. Other vazaha began coming to the island. Traders primarily. Most of them honest and well-meaning, but not all. They gave me strange looks, I can tell you, but none seemed to recognize me. But in the end they brought strife, infighting, and foreign disease to our small world. I might be there yet had God not seen fit to . . .” His voice broke and tears ran unabashedly down his cheeks. “To allow Noro and Jane to perish.”

  Mariah’s heart plummeted.

  Captain Prince stared down at his clasped hands once more. The room was silent as his hearers exchanged pained looks.

  Eventually he whispered, “If I do hide from reality, let the fog and mist settle in my mind from time to time, do you blame me?”

  Mariah, tears running down her own face, put her hand on his arm. “No, Captain. We do not.”

  He wiped a table napkin across his face, sniffed, and went on briskly. “Injury and pain wrought the loss of memory, and injury and pain began its restoration. Suddenly, I remembered Amy Merryweather. The sweet angel awaiting me in England. Hope flamed in my near-dead heart. At the very least I had promised to return to visit her, and I would keep my promise, though I knew it would be many years tardy. But even once I had pieced together enough of my past to know I needed to return to a place called Bristol, it was several months more before I was able to get passage on one of the traders’ ships. He in turn decided to press me into service to compensate for my passage. And so began another long series of misadventures. I finally managed to return to Bristol, if one can trust calculations done in this head, some fourteen or fifteen years after I set sail from its port.”

  As if reminded by the word, he finished the remaining ruby liquid in his glass.

  “I found my way to the boardinghouse where I had last seen Miss Merryweather. Surprisingly, I remembered the location quite plainly. But, alas, Amy was no longer there. I should have known she would not be. And yet . . .”

  Captain Prince rose abruptly, his chair teetering behind him before settling back on all four legs with a clatter. “I need to find her. Miss Amy used to come to speak with me once or twice a week. Yet she has not come in quite some time and that troubles me. Very unlike her. I pray nothing is amiss.” He turned toward the door.

  Mr. Hart asked, “Shall you be able to scale that wall? To regain your room?”

  At the door, Captain Prince turned and boldly declared, “I shall go in through the front door, as God intended.”

  “But . . . you have not told us how you came to be in Honora House,” Martin protested.

  Captain Bryant added, “Or why, when ‘Captain Prince’ was lost at sea, and the authorities tried to locate his next of kin, they could find no trace of anyone named Prince to notify.”

  “Ah!” Captain Prince said, eyes alight. “Another story for another day. And another figgy dowdy!”

  Chance is perhaps the pseudonym used by God

  when he does not wish to sign his work.

  – Anatole France

  chapter 26

  For several minutes after the old captain left them, the rest of the party stayed at the table, finishing dregs of cold coffee and rehashing the man’s wild tale. Matthew had his doubts about it, as did Hart and Miss Dixon, but Martin and Miss Aubrey clearly believed every word. If Matthew remembered his academy lessons correctly, the Largos sank more than thirty years ago. If he were nearer to town, he would have searched the naval records to see what he might discover about the ship’s crew. But in all truth, he had other more pressing matters to occupy his mind. For the days were passing all too quickly and there remained much to do in preparation for the house party.

  Eventually Martin eased himself up and said he would just stroll over and make certain Captain Prince had managed to get himself back inside the poorhouse.

  “I shall go along if you don’t mind,” Miss Dixon said, laying aside her table napkin. “A walk is just what I need after that rich food.”

  When they left, Miss Aubrey rose to begin clearing the table. Matthew and Hart offered to help, but she waved them away. In truth, Matthew was glad to take his leave, for Mrs. Parker’s long list of tasks had begun to enumerate themselves in his mind.

  The household staff of Windrush Court moved like a set of rusty cogs in need of a great deal of greasing. It was clear they had not been obliged to undergo the arduous work of preparing for a party in many years, so they grumbled and slowly creaked into the higher speed needed to complete all the cleaning, cooking, and polishing required.

  While Hammersmith stoically planned the replenishment of the cellars and negotiated with the local musicians, the housekeeper, Mrs. Strong, proved to be Matthew’s greatest ally. She took on Mrs. Parker’s list of tasks, ordered additional ice, commissioned footmen on shopping excursions, negotiated with local musicians, and tallied the incremental household expenses – for which Matthew would be responsible. She cheerfully bustled about, working hard herself, but also delegating endless duties to the maids, laundresses, and cook. She apparently relished the thought of airing the entire house, preparing bedchambers not used in several years, consulting Mr. Phelps about flowers, et cetera, et cetera.

  Mrs. Strong’s cheerful labors went a long way toward motivating the sluggish staff, but Matthew himself provided extra greasing with the promise of bonuses for a job well done. After all, this was not a frigate awaiting his Sabbath inspection, where the bosun would strike any slackers and a flogging would await any man who shirked his duty. No, other means must be employed, and if Matthew had learned anything about this new world of gentlemen, it was that money spoke.

  Beyond preparing the house itself and planning lavish menus, entertainment needed to be considered. There were insufficient horses for the entire party, even though ten guests was a modest number, according to Mrs. Parker. The hostess would not ride, and he, Hart, Parker, and likely Crawford and Browne would have their own mounts. The stable also housed Prin-Hallsey’s black, when he was in residence, the dapple-grey mare Miss Aubrey had ridden, and a pair of matched bays for the carriage. But he doubted the suitability of team horses for saddle riding. He would have to ask Parker. He also made a note to check how many sidesaddles were in the tack room.

  With the help of Mr. Phelps and Jack Strong, they groomed the back lawn for ninepins and set up an archery range. Hart himself offered to devise a treasure hunt about the estate grounds. Matthew thought of Miss Aubrey’s theatrical and guessed the party would greatly enjoy putting on their own production. He would have to ask her if she would be willing to loan them the scripts and costumes. Or perhaps even participate herself, though he doubted he could convince her to join them.

  Four days before the other guests were due to arrive, Mrs. Parker and Ned returned to Windrush Court to oversee the final preparations. While her son lounged about, Mrs. Parker bustled about, inspecting the house, assigning bedchambers to each guest, and planning the dining room seating assignments. Now and again Hart would disappear for an hour or so, and Matthew wondered what he was up to – until he spied him out walking with Lizzy Barnes. He had hoped his friend might find some kind young lady among the guests who would overlook his lame leg. But perhaps Hart had already met such a girl.

  Two days before the party, Matthew received a reply from his father.

  Thank you for reiterating your invitation. Please allow me to reiterate my reasons for refusing
. . . .

  Refusing. People seemed to make a habit of it in Matthew’s case. He crumpled the brief letter in his hands, telling himself it didn’t matter. That the emotion he felt was mere irritation and not the pain of rejection.

  Hugh Prin-Hallsey returned to the gatehouse, all smiles and politeness – as though his forceful search of the attic had never occurred.

  Mariah begrudgingly opened the door to him. “Hello, Hugh.”

  “Mariah. What a pleasure to see you again. Thought I would see how you were getting on. Also, Captain Bryant asked me to absent myself from dinner.” He smirked. “Curmudgeon. I see now why we won the war.”

  She did not ask Hugh to leave, but nor did she intend to invite him to join her for a meal.

  Still, he made himself at home, sitting on the settee and crossing his long legs – legs that bounced with excess energy. Or nerves.

  His gaze alighted on a book lying on the end table. “I see you are reading Euphemia’s Return. What do you think of it?” One brow rose high as he studied her face. He clearly did not ask idly but was eager for her opinion.

  “I find much to admire in it,” she allowed. “Though I am only about halfway through. I understand reviews have been very good.”

  He smiled, eyes glinting. “Did you see the review in Gentleman’s Magazine? No, I don’t suppose you would subscribe to that. They described it as a ‘work so skilled as to be suspect.’ ”

  “Suspect?”

  He chuckled. “They believe it beyond the grasp of a writer of the female sex. That the author must be a man.”

  “And that, I suppose, is the highest praise,” she said dryly.

  “Of course. Isn’t it delicious?”

  “Why should it be?”

  He looked about the room as though an editor from the Quarterly Review might jump from the cupboard at any moment. “Can you keep a secret, Mariah? Why am I asking? Of course you can.” He winked and announced, “They are right. The author is a man.”