The Maid of Fairbourne Hall Read online

  “What about now?”

  “Much better, miss. As long as you don’t talk, I think your brother could pass you in the street and not know you.”

  Margaret thought of the accents she had heard daily as a girl, spending hours with first her nurse and then the housekeeper while her mother was busy with this society event or that charity. Nanny Booker was from the north somewhere and Mrs. Haines from Bristol, she believed. Margaret had made a game of mimicking their accents, though now she wondered how charming they had really thought it. “An’ wha’ if I changed m’voice? Would ya know me then?”

  Joan’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t talk like that.”

  Margaret quickly reverted to her normal way of speaking. “I know. And I am not trying to ridicule anyone. Only to disguise myself in every possible manner.”

  Joan lifted her chin in understanding, then dubiously eyed the narrow carpetbag. “Is that all you’re taking?”

  “Well, I cannot take a trunk, can I? Nor do I wish to arouse suspicion when we leave by the servants’ entrance.” Margaret riffled through the crammed bag. “I have an extra shift and the milkmaid frock as a spare—it doesn’t weigh a thing. A nightdress and wrapper, slippers, comb, tooth powder, and the kohl.” She did not mention her father’s New Testament, nor the cameo he had given her, wrapped in a handkerchief. She slipped a shawl over her shoulders and looped bonnet ribbons over her wrist. “What else do I need?”

  “Don’t forget some of that nice paper for my character,” Joan said.

  When Margaret had slid a piece into her bag, Joan blew out a deep breath. “Well, it’s time.” She slapped her legs and stood.

  Telling Margaret to wait in the room, Joan picked up her valise and crept down the corridor to listen at the top of the stairs. She waved Margaret forward. Margaret slipped from the room, quietly closing the door behind her. She followed Joan down the stairs on tiptoe, barely allowing herself to breathe. They descended one pair of stairs and then another without encountering anyone coming up. At the top of the basement steps, Joan motioned her to wait while she checked the passage below.

  The maid’s head soon popped back into view and again she waved Margaret down. Together they hurried along the narrow basement passageway, past the kitchen, to the service door at its far end. Joan opened it for her.

  Margaret had just stepped through when a voice called from the kitchen behind them.

  “Joan? Who’s that with you?”

  Margaret hesitated, unsure if she should run or turn around. Joan’s firm hand on her arm kept her from doing either.

  “’Tis only my sister, come to collect me,” Joan said. “You heard I got the push?”

  “Oh, Joan. I did,” the female voice commiserated. “And sorry I was to hear it.”

  “I didn’t steal anything, for the record.”

  “Of course you didn’t. I’d wager he mislaid the money or spent it hisself. Or that nephew of his pinched it. Not fair is it?”

  “No, Mary, it’s not fair.”

  “Going to your sister’s, then, are you?”

  “Until I find another place.” Joan gave Margaret a little shove, and she lurched forward, tripping on the bottom step before starting up the outside stairs.

  “Good-bye, Joan, and Godspeed.”

  Margaret reached street level as Joan trotted up the stairs behind her.

  “Let’s go,” the maid whispered, without a backward glance.

  Margaret, however, looked over her shoulder several times as they crossed the square, fearing any moment the hovering footman or Sterling himself would appear behind them. But all was quiet save for the clicking of their bootheels and the distant clip-clop-clatter of horse hooves on cobblestones.

  They had made it.

  What now? She’d known only that she had to get out of Benton’s house that very night. In her panicked hurry she had not even left her mother a note. Even if she had, she knew very well Sterling would have read it. And lost no time in following any unintentional clues it held to find Margaret and drag her back. What would she have written at any rate? She didn’t know where she was going beyond Billingsgate. And Joan had made it clear this would only be a brief stay until she found other employment. Margaret hoped it would buy her enough time to figure out her next step. She would write to her mother then.

  Ahead of her, Joan strode briskly on, and Margaret strained and panted to keep up. On the next street, a man leaning in a shadowed doorway leered at them. Two militiamen whistled as they passed. Margaret decided she did not like walking London streets at night. “Joan? Joan, wait!” Her voice shook. “How far did you say it was?”

  Joan glanced over her shoulder. “Three or four miles, I’d reckon.”

  Margaret swallowed. Perhaps she ought to risk going to Emily Lathrop’s house instead. It could be no more than a mile or two away.

  She recalled the last time she had gone to the Lathrops’ in Red Lion Square. She had been vexed with Marcus and Sterling both, and hoped to beg an invitation to stay with Emily for a time. But she had not been in the Lathrops’ drawing room an hour when she heard Sterling Benton’s name announced and had to sit there while he lamented that her mother had taken ill and needed her at home.

  It had all been a ruse. Her mother was in perfect health, although she had been “sick with worry,” and quite put out with Margaret for leaving the house alone—though she had never minded when Margaret spent time with friends before.

  At the end of the block, Joan waited for a post chaise to pass, allowing Margaret to catch up with her. “Do you know where Red Lion Square is?”

  Joan looked wary. “Yes. My cousin has a post near there. Why?”

  “Could you please walk there with me? My friend Emily lives there, and perhaps she might help me.”

  Joan shrugged an apathetic reply. “I suppose. ’Tisn’t far out of my way.”

  Margaret was surprised she agreed so readily. Joan was apparently eager to be rid of her.

  As she trudged behind Joan along busy Oxford Street, Margaret rehearsed how to explain her predicament to Emily, mortifying though it was. Emily would be happy to have her, once she quit laughing over her costume. But could she talk her parents into allowing her to stay? They were unlikely to believe her word over Sterling Benton’s. Sterling could be so convincing, so persuasive. He would have them believing his nephew the soul of propriety and her a deluded ninny with an overinflated view of her “irresistible” charms. Mr. Lathrop would gently admonish her to be sensible and send her home with Sterling without a second thought.

  She shuddered. Perhaps instead of asking to stay, she would ask Emily to loan her enough money to see her out of town and somewhere safe. Margaret would pay her back with interest as soon as she received her inheritance. She loathed the thought of borrowing money from friends. But she would have to set aside her pride. Pulling the mobcap down more snugly over her black wig and spectacles, she realized she already had.

  They walked north and then turned into quiet and pretty Red Lion Square. There, Margaret led the way across the square’s central garden. She paused behind one of the trees to survey the Lathrop town house across the street. Joan stood behind her. All was still, save for the flicking tail of a horse harnessed to a carriage waiting several houses away.

  Margaret was about to cross the cobbles when she realized with a start that she recognized the landau with its brass candle lamps, as well as the coachman at the reins. Margaret retreated behind the tree once more. As she peered around it, the Lathrops’ front door opened and Sterling Benton appeared, framed by lamplight at its threshold, speaking in earnest confidence with Emily’s father. Sterling shook his head somberly, appearing the perfect image of concerned stepfather. Mr. Lathrop nodded and the two men shook hands.

  Sterling had certainly gotten there quickly. She and Joan had left perhaps only thirty or forty minutes before. Of course they had walked, while Sterling had a horse and carriage at his disposal. He—or Marcus, more likely—must have come
to her room soon after she’d left and discovered her gone. Thank heaven she left when she did.

  Clattering horse hooves galloped into the square, and Margaret peered around the other side of the tree. A man in a chimney-pot hat and cropped coat rode up, quickly dismounted, and tied his reins to a post. The man’s hurry sounded an alarm in Margaret’s mind. Was this the man from Bow Street Murdoch had announced before Margaret left? Had Sterling planned to hire a watchman but now commissioned the same man to find and apprehend her?

  The newcomer trotted up the walkway toward Sterling and Mr. Lathrop. There on the stoop, the three men spoke, Sterling gesturing and frowning. He pulled something from his pocket and handed it to the officious-looking man. She could not see the object clearly from that distance, but based on the way the man studied it, she guessed it might be a framed miniature portrait. The one commissioned by her father for her eighteenth birthday?

  Evidently, Sterling had arranged for the runner to meet him at the place he expected to find Margaret. Where he would have found her had she arrived even five minutes earlier. Sterling Benton knew her better than she realized, and that thought riddled her with anxiety. Where could she go, where could she hide, where Sterling Benton would never think to look for her?

  A few minutes later, Sterling departed in the carriage and Mr. Lathrop retreated inside, yet the runner remained, leaning against the outside stair rail.

  “Well?” Joan whispered.

  “The watchman, or whatever he is, is making himself comfortable. I don’t think he is going anywhere soon.”

  “Well, I must be going soon,” Joan said. “Are you coming with me or not?”

  There was no point in staying. Sterling had gotten there first. Even if she managed to sneak inside and speak with Emily, her father would insist on sending her home. It was no good.

  Margaret sighed. “Looks like I am.”

  Joan echoed her sigh. “Well, come on, then.”

  Staying to the shadows, they crossed the square and returned to the thoroughfare. Joan urged her to hurry, and soon Margaret’s thoughts were consumed with dodging flower carts, barrels, carriages, and horse droppings. And with trying to keep sight of Joan’s blue frock as she scurried ahead. Soon, Margaret’s feet were aching and her side cramping.

  Joan turned only long enough to hiss, “Hurry! We’ve got a long way to go, and it’s getting late.”

  Margaret eyed the passing hackney carriages with longing but knew she should not spend the little money she had. She bit back a groan and kept trotting along, the carpetbag swinging against her leg. Ahead, Joan strode smartly on, ever eastward, her heavier valise apparently no burden at all. Thirty or forty minutes later, they turned south onto Grace Church Street.

  The street narrowed and darkened. The cobbles gave way to uneven paving, refuse-filled gutters, and smells that compelled Margaret to breathe from her mouth.

  Finally, Joan turned down a lane signposted Fish Street Hill. There, they passed several old tenement buildings before Joan pushed open a narrow door. Margaret breathed a sigh of relief. Her next inhale brought salt air and the rank odor of rotting fish. They were close to the river here, she guessed. And the docks.

  Too tired to care, she followed Joan inside and up two rickety flights of stairs. She stood, numb and mute, as Joan knocked softly on the door of number 23.

  While they waited, Joan turned and whispered, “I’ve had all the trouble I care to from your Mr. Benton. I think it best we don’t tell my sister your name or who you really are. Peg has never been good at keeping secrets.”

  Margaret nodded.

  A few moments later, shuffling and grumbling came from the other side of the door. Then a woman’s hoarse whisper. “Who’s there?”

  “Peg, it’s Joan.”

  The lock clicked, and the door was opened by a frowzy woman very like Joan in appearance, though several years older and a stone heavier. She might have been pretty once, but her skin was rough, her face too careworn for her years.

  “Good heavens, Joan. What’s happened?”

  Joan answered calmly, “I’ve lost my place.”

  Her sister’s face crumpled. “Oh no. What did you do?”

  “Nothing. Look, it’s late. We’ll talk in the morning, all right?”

  The woman nodded over Joan’s shoulder. “Who’s this, then?”

  Joan flicked Margaret a glance. “She’s with me. She just needs a place a sleep for a night or two. Come on, Peg, let us in. We’ll help with the children and give the place a good cleaning—whatever you like.”

  The woman frowned. “Oh, very well. But keep it down. The children are already asleep.”

  They stepped inside the dark room, which smelled of cabbage and soiled nappies. Margaret could see little, as their reluctant hostess spared no candle for them to get settled by.

  “Candles are dear, they are,” Peg explained as if reading her thoughts. “There’s a bit of light from the window, if you need it. And embers in the stove.”

  Joan disappeared into the apartment’s only separate room. She returned a moment later and tossed something onto the floor. Margaret realized with sinking dread that she was meant to sleep on an old blanket on the floor.

  Margaret stood there, waiting for Joan to help her undress. But Joan followed her sister back into the bedchamber.

  Margaret whispered after her, “Joan?”

  “You’re on your own now, miss,” Joan said. “I am a maid no longer.” She shut the door behind her.

  Well. She needn’t be so snippy, Margaret thought, oddly chastised as well as annoyed. She decided she was too tired to undress in any case and settled down atop the thin scratchy blanket on the floor, hoping no mice or rats decided to join her there.

  Margaret awoke on her side, stiff. Her hip bone ached from being pressed against the hard floor. Sunlight, filtering through sooty windows, shone on the grey wool blanket she had pulled over herself in the night. Likely it had once been the golden hue of boiled wool. As she pushed it away, something furry brushed her hand. She gasped and bolted to her feet. A dark, hairy form fell from her shoulder to the floor. She shrieked, only to realize it was not a rat, but her wig. She quickly bent and pulled it on. Another creature appeared before her and she reared back and nearly shrieked again. This creature had a small pale face, curtained by stringy ginger hair.

  “Hello,” the little girl said, staring at her. “Who are you?”

  “I am . . .” Who am I? Margaret’s brain was a fog. She remembered Joan saying she ought not give her real name. Probably wise. If Sterling came here to question Joan’s sister, Peg might say Joan had been there with someone, but not that a Margaret had been there.

  “I am a . . . friend . . . of Joan’s.”

  “Is Aunt Joan here, too?”

  “Yes. In your mamma’s room, I believe.” She made no effort to disguise her voice with the child.

  The little girl tilted her head to one side. “What’s wrong with your hair?”

  Margaret reached up and realized her wig was askew. She righted the wig and muttered lamely, “Always a mess in the morning. You, on the other hand, have very pretty hair.” She said it hoping to distract the girl. She did not want her reporting to Sterling or a runner that a blond lady wearing a wig had been there. That would give away her disguise and make Sterling’s search all the easier.

  She eyed the girl’s stringy hair again. “Or you could have. When was the last time you combed it?”

  The little girl shrugged.

  Margaret looked away from the girl to survey her surroundings. One end of the room housed a small stove, cupboards, and table and chairs. The other end held a pallet bed complete with sleeping boy and baskets heaped with fabric. Apparently Joan’s sister was a seamstress of sorts. Margaret spied a piece of broken mirror hanging on the wall by a ribbon and walked over to it, checking her wig and cap and wiping a smear of kohl from between her eyes.

  “I want breakfast,” the little girl pouted.

  �
��And I want to be a thousand miles from here,” Margaret whispered to the stranger in the mirror.

  Peg stepped out of the bedchamber, tying on an apron and stifling a yawn. She said, “Light the fire, will you?”

  Margaret looked at the little girl. She seemed awfully young to be trusted with fire. It took Margaret a few seconds to realize Peg had asked her.

  Margaret had poked at many a drawing room fire but had never actually laid one. She eyed the small stove. A bucket with a few pieces of coal sat at the ready.

  Joan came out of the room, a toddler on her hip. She glanced at Margaret, then smiled down at the boy. “This is little Henry.”

  “Named for his father, he is.” Peg pulled a sack of oats from the cupboard.

  “Papa is gone to sea,” a boy of seven or eight piped up. Margaret had not seen him rise from the pallet bed. “I am going to sea one day too.”

  “Not for a few more years, Michael. Don’t be in a hurry,” Joan said, an indulgent dimple in her cheek.

  Margaret caught Joan’s eye, and nodded her head toward the stove. Joan frowned at her, uncomprehending.

  “Haven’t you got that fire lit yet?” Peg asked, not looking up as she pulled a pot from the cupboard.

  “Um. . . . no. I am not certain . . .”

  “I’ll do it,” Joan said in a long-suffering manner, placing the child in Margaret’s arms.

  At least this was something Margaret could do. Having two siblings many years younger than herself, she knew how to hold a child.

  Margaret settled the child against her and soon felt dampness seep into her gown. Ugh. She wondered if she could manage to change him. At Lime Tree Lodge, they had employed a nursery maid to deal with soiled nappies.

  “What’s your name?” the older boy asked her.

  “My name?” Margaret echoed stupidly. “Ah . . .” Her mind whirled. “Elinor,” she said, choosing her middle name.