The Girl in the Gatehouse Page 33

  She did not complain.

  “How close they seem,” Mariah said. “But can they really know one another so well, when he has been kept isolated?”

  Agnes allowed Mariah to lead her down the passage to two chairs. “Oh, Amy would sneak up to his room whenever she could. Poor dear could hardly walk, but she would pull herself up those long stairs. Wore her out, but nothing I said would stop her going. For all his failings, John Pitt is a bit of a romantic. He would sometimes slip away so the two could talk privately through the door.”

  “Still, never really together . . .”

  “Oh, they knew each other long before the poorhouse.”

  That’s right, Mariah recalled. What had Captain Prince said? Something about remembering Miss Amy awaiting him back in England?

  Agnes’s eyes remained misty, focused on some distant point across the dark passageway, across the years, across the memories.

  “It is because of him she is alive today, though not for many more hours, I fear. . . .” Her thin shoulders shook, and she lifted a handkerchief to her narrow, lined face.

  Mariah put an arm around the quaking woman. After Agnes recovered herself, Mariah asked gently, “How did they meet?”

  Agnes nodded. “It was when Amy was . . . when my father sent her away. Vile man. Needed money for drink, so he sold his very own flesh and blood.”

  Shock jarred Mariah. What! It could not be. Agnes must be confused. Mariah had assumed the bitter Agnes was the sister Mrs. Pitt had meant, the one who had lived through such ignominy. Could she have been so utterly mistaken? Or had Agnes transferred her own story to her sister to distance herself from the memories, to make it possible to revisit those bleak days?

  “She was forced to work in a bawdy house in Bristol,” Agnes continued. “A port town, you know. I understand the captain looked up and saw her sitting in the window, staring up at the stars. Somehow he recognized her. I guess he had seen her years before in Whitmore, where we lived. Knew who she was by appearance, if not by name. Knew enough of my father to guess the rest.

  “He went inside and demanded to see the woman in the window. The hateful proprietor brought her down like so many oranges to be squeezed and sniffed to extract the highest price. Amy said the captain, in full dress uniform, stared at her, almost angrily she thought, and she was fearful of him. She’d had more than enough experience with angry, cruel men. But there was something about his eyes, his bearing, that made her realize he was not angry with her. He asked, ‘How much for the girl?’ A price was given. But he said, ‘No, not for an hour, not for a night. Forever. For her freedom.’

  “A ridiculously high figure was named, the peddler of flesh clearly having no wish to part with his profitable acquisition. In fact, the amount was far higher than the sum Father had received for her. But without a word, without taking his eyes from Amy’s, Captain Prince reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a heavy purse of gold and tossed it at the man. Then he said to Amy, ‘Get your things. We are leaving.’ ”

  “What a story!” Mariah breathed, mind reeling. Had cheerful, godly Amy really been a . . . She could not even think the word in the same sentence with Amy’s name. How had she survived, her spirits intact?

  Agnes nodded. “The captain placed Amy in a boardinghouse with a God-fearing family he knew. They were loath to take her in, for she looked the part she’d been forced to play. But they did, for his sake. They had a few lovely days together, Amy told me later, and he was a perfect gentleman. He encouraged her to write to me, and she did so – to my great relief, as she had not been allowed to do so before. The captain’s ship was leaving port, and he said he would be gone many months but promised he would visit her first thing upon his return.”

  Agnes leaned her head back against the wall behind their chairs. “Amy believed he would marry her. I did not. Kind as he was, she was too far beneath him, even before her fall at my father’s hand. But I had not the heart to caution her. And so we waited. Six or seven months later, news came that his ship had sunk, and most of the men, the captain included, had lost their lives.”

  “How dreadful.” The sadness of it struck Mariah anew, although she had heard the story of the shipwreck before, from Captain Prince’s point of view.

  “It was dreadful, for Amy. As for me, I got my sister back. Only then was she willing to quit the place where she’d kept vigil for him and return to Whitmore. Our father died leaving debts, and eventually we had to sell our family home. We took a small pair of rooms together and got on quite well. Those were happy years for us both. Though Amy never quite got over her loss and her health began to decline.”

  “How astounded she must have been to find him here. In the last place she wanted to be, no doubt!”

  Agnes sniffed. “Astounded indeed. It salved the pain of having to come here – though of course Amy credited God. But it was several months before the other inmates trusted us enough to tell us about the man on the roof. It was longer yet until she recognized his voice. For a long while she thought she must be imagining things – for Captain Prince was dead, was he not?”

  Mariah said, “He told us about his head injury, the memory loss, the years as a castaway. . . .”

  Agnes nodded her familiarity with those events and wiped her sharp nose with the worn handkerchief.

  “Still,” Mariah continued. “How surprising that he should end up here in this little-known poorhouse beside Windrush Court.”

  Agnes looked at her pointedly. “Not surprising at all, really, considering we were all born and raised in this very parish.” Tears swamped her eyes again. “How glad I am he is here. For poor Amy’s sake.”

  But somehow Mariah felt less sorry for Amy than she did for poor Agnes, the sister being left behind.

  Restless, her mind whirling with worry over Miss Amy, Maggie, and an angry Captain Bryant, sleep eluded Mariah that night. She left her candle burning on her bedside table, hoping the light might fend off the worst of the dark dread filling her, especially when she thought of the hardships Maggie might be exposed to at that very moment. Remembering Miss Amy’s – as well as Dixon’s – admonition, Mariah prayed, contritely asking God to forgive not only her offenses, but for wavering in her devotion. She also asked God to watch over Maggie and Miss Amy, and to heal the rift between her and Matthew. She felt more peaceful afterwards but still could not sleep.

  Giving up, Mariah pulled out one of her aunt’s journals and began reading. She decided it would be the very remedy for her sleeplessness, especially after enduring a number of tedious pages describing Francesca’s plans to renovate the rose salon and her own bedchamber after her marriage to Frederick Prin-Hallsey, complete with lists of tapestries, upholstery, and furniture to buy, friezes to be commissioned, et cetera.

  Mariah skipped ahead several pages and read with more, if morbid, interest of Francesca’s feelings about her second husband’s failing health, as well as the mounting tension between her and Hugh.

  But then something quite different caught her eye.

  The Prin-Hallseys never fail to surprise me. I have learned something rather shocking. In all truth, I am not certain I should write it down. For could not my own fate be tied up in, or unraveled, should the truth come out?

  I have learned that Honora Prin-Hallsey’s reasons for granting the funds and land for the poorhouse were not selfless after all. She was not motivated by Christian charity in the least, or certainly not as primary aim.

  Perhaps that is not entirely fair. I suppose they could have conjured some other means of keeping Windrush Court for themselves. Some ruthless workhouse in the north, or some asylum in London. Or a convenient shooting accident, fall, or overdose of laudanum. So perhaps I judge them too harshly. After all, here I sit, knowing what I know, and doing nothing to change the situation. Mine, or his.

  Dare I tell Hugh? A part of me revels at the thrill of revenge that would be mine to savor as bearer of such devastating news. To see the proud, demeaning young man lose all. B
ut then that old sense of self-preservation rears its stabilizing head and cautions me to consider the consequences.

  I wondered if he was the man I had glimpsed about the place when I was a girl. Was he the elder son, the one who disappeared as I once overheard Mrs. Prin-Hallsey confide to my mother?

  I stumbled across a framed painting when I was refurbishing the house. It was wrapped in paper and stored at the back of a cupboard. The man in the portrait appeared to be in his late twenties and seemed mildly familiar. It might have been the same man I had seen years ago, but I could not be certain. I knew the eldest son had gone against his parents’ wishes in joining the navy, but was that such a breach that they would remove his portrait from the hall – especially once he was missing and assumed dead? I asked Frederick about it, and at first he attempted to pass off the young man as an ancestor, but the style of clothes and of the painting itself seemed too modern to me. When I persisted, he finally confided the truth, though he was careful to assure me his brother was not in his right mind, and it was out of kindness that he did not have him institutionalized elsewhere.

  Kindness? I found that unlikely. Self-interest? That I would believe.

  As would I, Mariah thought, staring off into the flickering shadows as the sputtering candle stub guttered and smoked. She closed the journal. Was it true? Was Captain Prince really a Prin-Hallsey? The Prin-Hallsey?

  Reading from her aunt’s journal had certainly distracted her from her worries, but now her mind whirled over an entirely different set of circumstances . . . and what the startling truth might mean for them all.

  Then out spake brave Horatius,

  The Captain of the Gate:

  To every man upon this earth

  Death cometh soon or late.

  – Thomas Babington

  chapter 38

  Though she had not slept well, Mariah arose early in the morning, while the house was still quiet. Even Lizzy and early riser Dixon were still abed. Tiptoeing into the kitchen to start the fire, she was surprised to see a sealed letter on the floor, just inside the back door.

  The letter was marked with her name – Miss Aubrey – in a masculine hand. Her pulse quickened. Fire forgotten, she sat down and with eager fingers broke the seal and unfolded the single sheet. Reading Matthew’s introduction, her heart thumped. As she read “The Foolish Fox and the Two Birds,” she alternately chuckled and pressed a hand to her heart.

  Once there was a foolish, determined fox, who came into a far country, determined to catch one of the rare yellow songbirds that sojourned there. For many days he pursued the bewitching songbird, but she scorned him, flitting about from branch to branch, high above him.

  Another bird perched in a modest nest near the fox’s den. She was a beautiful bird as well, but not, perhaps, as showy as the yellow songbird. Nor could she sing. Her feathers were dark, her eyes golden and wise. She befriended the fox, called out warnings when danger came near, or when he was about to step into a trap. Blithely he thanked her and went on his way, chasing after the fickle songbird.

  How foolish was the fox. How blind. To not see, not value the friendship, the affection, the trust the brown bird offered him.

  One day he caught the songbird, only to realize he did not want her after all.

  He ran to the humble nest of the brown bird and called up to her, but she would not answer him.

  Was he too late, or might she yet forgive him?

  Mariah blinked back tears. No, it was not too late. And yes, she would forgive him.

  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 tent
atively, “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.”