John peered through the corner of his eye at her flushed countenance, wondering what it would take to recreate the moment he had just lost. He reached hesitantly for her hand, but she did not heed. She was gazing up the stairs, a look of astonishment and inspiration dawning.
“Margaret? Are you well?” He clenched his fist. If he had somehow distressed her, just when she had begun to turn to him, he would never forgive himself!
She jumped and spun towards him. “John, there is something I must show you! Come, it is in Papa’s study!”
She scrambled up the stairs without his assistance, leaving him bewildered behind her. There was nothing to do but to keep up with the rustling black skirts. “Margaret is something wrong?”
She made no answer as she reached the third floor. Instead, she hurried to her father’s desk and searched in the top drawer until she found what she sought. Snatching it up, she returned to him with heightened colour warming her cheeks. She visibly caught herself; then, as if offering her whole life in the upturned palm of her hand, extended the object to him.
He took it with a quizzical frown. “A portrait?”
She swallowed and nodded tensely. “Do you recognise the face?”
John raised the miniature to study it more carefully. It was of a young man in a navy midshipman’s uniform. He looked to be approximately sixteen at the time the likeness was taken, but he appeared a strong youth with a firm set to his chin and roguish hint about his mouth. The nose was perfectly straight, the eyes clear and light. John squinted and changed the angle of his hand, so he could compare the portrait to his wife. “A relative?” he guessed, though the resemblance was plain enough.
She nodded intently, as though only waiting for him to hit upon the revelation. “You have seen him before, though he was much older… do you remember, John?” Her voice pleaded with him to recall whatever she so desired for him to know.
He stared harder at the miniature, then his stomach dropped, and his hands began to tremble. Margaret’s eager nod assured him that he had stumbled upon the correct realisation. “The man at the station!” he marvelled under his breath.
“Yes! Oh, how glad I am that you remembered! John, this is my brother Frederick.”
“Brother! Why have I never been told of this?”
Margaret took the miniature back and gazed lovingly at the faded image. “Frederick… he can never come home, John. If anyone heard where he was, he would be hunted down and hanged! He should not have come when our mother was dying, but it was my fault. Mamma asked me to write to him, and we both knew he would never stay away.”
“Margaret,” he shook his head in confusion. “Perhaps you should start from the beginning. Come, sit down, and tell me what you would have me know.”
Helstone
August 1837
“Margaret? Shh, come very quietly!”
Margaret rolled drowsily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. At once she blinked, fully alert. “Is it time now, Fred?”
He pressed a conspiratorial finger to his lips and jerked his head towards the passage. “We mustn’t disturb Mamma. Come!”
The child, clad in her little white nightdress, tumbled from her bed. Her brother tucked a blanket round her and picked her up—all the better to avoid detection on their nocturnal adventure. This was to be their last time together for some while, and though most twelve-year-old boys did not relish the company of four-year-old girls, familial loyalty compelled the boy to risk this one last outing.
He tiptoed with her through the parsonage, down the steps and out the back door where a splendid apple tree spread inviting branches. It boasted one particularly comfortable crotch where brother and sister had spent many an hour together, and there they were bound on this night. Perhaps neither considered that it would be Margaret’s last opportunity ever to climb a tree, but such it was. After he left, there would be none to assist the child, and she certainly could not do so once she became a young lady.
He hoisted her to their branch and nestled his back against the trunk to pull her securely into his embrace. “Comfortable, Margaret?”
She only nodded, her bright, curious eyes already searching out the gravid moon, hanging low in the sky. They had a perfect view from their little place in the tree as a broken limb above their heads made clear a portal through the leaves. “It is full, Fred, just like you said it would be!”
“What did I tell you? The sixteenth today, that is what the calendar predicted.”
“How?” she tilted her head in cynical bafflement. “The calendar is only paper. How can it know what the moon is to do?”
“Why, Margaret, do you not yet know how it works? It’s a regular thing, do you see. The moon has her rounds to make, lighting sea faerie paths and frightening off the dragons. She must always be right on time, or the sun will set after her.”
She frowned and turned back to him. “You made that up.”
“Not the bit about the sea faeries.”
She set her little mouth, with its wide, full lips, into an intimidating pout, comical on her youthful features.
“Oh,” he relented, “Papa taught me all about it. I suppose that’s what made me want to go to sea, really. The moon, and the sun and the stars, they all have their courses. Nothing can alter them—they each march to their proper time, and they are always predictable. Papa said once that is the only bit of the future we are always permitted to know. I don’t know about that, but I do like being sure of where I am in the world.”
“How does the moon tell you that?”
“Oh, why, in that case, it’s not so much the moon as the stars. Do you see… oh, bother these branches. Come down, I will show you.”
He took the blanket from her shoulders and spread it upon the grass for them both to lie on. He then set the example, sprawling himself out with his hands laced behind his head. Margaret, her childish arms much shorter by comparison, did her best to follow suit.
“Look,” he pointed. “Do you see that shape to the north there? It’s called the Plough. See how bright all the stars are?”
“Yes, I see it.”
“Now, look at the two stars nearest the bottom. See how you can draw a line from them to that other star there, off to the right?”
“That one? It is not very bright.” She squinted, grimacing as small children so often do when concentrating very hard.
“Not as bright as others, but it is the most important. We call that one the North Star, or Polaris in Latin. Everything else will rotate, but Polaris always stays exactly where it is. It’s how we navigate the ships.” He spoke, as boys are wont to do, as one who has already passed all initiations and earned his place among the men he longed to join. His father would have chided him, but his little sister only grinned in appreciation.
“So, you see, Margaret,” he continued, “that star always points north—nowhere else. It’s like home, if you will—if I know where it is, I can find where I am going. Why, I can even tell how far north or south I am by how high it sits in the heavens!”
She was silent for several minutes, then, in a small, frightened voice; “Will you know where I am?”
He glanced to her in surprise. Her face, bathed in moonlight, cast a worried expression. “Why, of course, dearest little sister! Even on the sea, I shall know which way England lies, and there you will be.”
She swallowed, her features settling into a more stubborn frame. “I think you should stay here, Fred. I shall never leave Helstone.”
“You will, you just do not know it yet. Papa and Mamma plan to send you to London when you turn nine to take lessons with Edith. Oh, do not look so frightened! You shall be quite old enough, and that little cat of yours will be busy with a dozen kittens of her own.”
“I will come back and live here forever when I am finished, then,” she announced.
He chuckled at her innocent decisiveness. “I imagine that choice will not be yours to make, but no sense worrying about such things now, dear one.”
“How long will you be gone, Fred?”
“Well, it will be two years before I even put to sea. I’ve some studies to complete, and then I shall be a cadet. After that, I must work another year or two on ship before I earn my midshipman’s rank. I hope to make Lieutenant by the time I am twenty.”
Her face fell. He supposed that twenty must be ancient, and eight years an eternity to a child of her age.
“Come, Margaret, it is not so bad! I will have leave to come home once in a while, surely. Let me show you a few more stars, so you will always know where to look up. I will be seeing the same stars, do you know. Let me see… ah, there she is. Andromeda, the Chained Maiden—or, as I like to call her, the Northern Princess. Poor girl, she was taken to an awful place to be sacrificed because her parents were vain and foolish. And then, in flew Perseus on his great steed Pegasus… there he is… and he saved her from a hideous fate. Just like St George!”
Wide eyes gazed back in astonishment. “Is that true, Fred?”
“Naturally.” He chucked her chin. “Heroes always save the princesses. That is what I shall do someday, Margaret. There is nothing like the navy for adventure!”
~
London
29 April 1847
“Margaret, dear, a letter is arrived for you!” Mrs Shaw, with her prim curls and still youthful looks, breezed into the schoolroom. Edith and Margaret both glanced up from their studies.
“It is from your father.” Gifting the letter into her niece’s hand, she left the room.
Margaret, ever eager for news from home, tore into it with trembling fingers. “Oh, I hope he is to be early this spring. I am so longing for him to come take me back to Helstone!”
Edith, boasting her mother’s bright curls and merry, round cheeks, tilted back in her chair. “If I did not know better, Margaret, I should say you did not like being here in London with us.”
Margaret flashed a brief, embarrassed smile to her cousin, but quickly her attention turned to her father’s sober hand. Within only a few lines, her face had drained of all colour. Edith emitted a brief cry of alarm as Margaret’s eyes grew wide and her lips parted in horror.
“Margaret, what is it? Is Aunt unwell?”
Margaret had leaped to her feet and stood, clutching the letter. Her brow furrowed and rippled in agonised little jerks. “Fred!” she gasped. “No, it cannot be!”
Edith, not yet so mannerly as her mother would perhaps have wished, came to snatch the letter from her. “What is it?”
“Frederick! Papa writes that there has been some terrible mistake. He—” she clenched her fist and buried her face in it to sob. “He has been branded a traitor!”
“Surely not! Frederick is as honourable as anyone. He would never have betrayed his duty.”
“Papa does not believe he did.” Margaret took the letter back, searching the short missive for understanding which was denied her. “He writes… oh, but he does not know!”
“Know what, Margaret?”
She shook her head numbly. “There has been some news about Captain Reid and his officers being recovered from a boat after a mutiny. Frederick was not among them!”
“But what can that mean, Margaret? Frederick was not a senior officer, there was no reason for him to have been set adrift as well.”
“It means, Edith, that Fredrick has been counted among the mutineers.”
“No! Why, that means….”
Margaret was trembling, the tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. “There must be justice! They cannot hang him, Edith! Surely, he was acting against some great wrong. I know him!”
Edith shook her head. “Do you suppose he was provoked? That he lost his temper, perhaps?”
“I cannot think but that he was an innocent party!”
“Darling!” Edith drew a comforting arm about her cousin. “You remember how Fred has written of heroism and adventure. Is it possible he thought his captain gravely in the wrong?”
“I think that a certainty. He must have been trying to save another, but what good is it to be right when the law is against him? Oh, Edith, he is under a death sentence!”
“Come, Margaret, there will be an investigation. Frederick is not the man to run after all! He will be seeking to clear his name, and when all is discovered, everything will turn out right! You will see.”
Margaret bowed her head and fell to her chair, sobbing. “No, Edith. Father is right! Frederick can never return to England, and we shall never see him again.”
John had taken back the miniature, staring blindly at the face of his lawful brother. A brother! And such a man—John could not decide if he thought the fellow dreadfully impulsive or impossibly honourable.
“You say that he lives in Spain now?” he asked in a quaking voice.
“Yes, in Cadiz. He married some months ago—her name is Dolores. She sounds most endearing in her letters.”
“What has been done to investigate his case?”
Margaret drew a sharp breath and her gaze fell to the portrait. Sensing her distress, he reached to touch her hand. “Margaret, you do remember that I am a magistrate?”
She nodded, her eyes still low. “I know that it is asking a great deal of you,” she whispered miserably. “Please, John, I beg that you would not report him! He is so far away, surely he can do no harm—”
“Margaret! You mistake me, my love!”
Her head snapped up, and she regarded him with open wonder. “Wh-what did you say?”
John’s stomach clenched. Had that really slipped from his tongue, so naturally and without precedent? “I...” he faltered and looked helplessly into her beseeching face.
“I said ‘my love.’ You are my love, you know, Margaret. I thought you should not like to hear it, but I swore to you once that I should love you in defiance of all you might say against me, and indeed, in spite of myself. I have ever done so and shall continue so long as I draw breath.”
Tears had started in her eyes. “But you could not have! How could you not hold me in utter contempt? I was so cruel, and then I grasped at a lie to save myself!”
“Margaret, my Margaret,” he soothed. He cupped his hands round her face and drew her tenderly close. “I forgave you long ago, for every ‘offence’ you now claim. How could I do aught but love you? Was I to despise you for my own failings? I knew even then that there must be some justification, for though I doubted at first—though I endured such imaginings as would astound and mortify you, your character was the one thing I found I could be certain of.”
“But what you must have thought! You cannot know how I longed to explain it all to you. I knew how vexed, how—”
“Jealous? Aye, I was, I confess it—despicable feeling, and I was sick with it! I would have traded my immortal soul for such an embrace from you, but I loved you all the more, and could see no harm come to you.”
“And it was you who saved him—saved me! You, the one man whose good opinion I longed for, knew all my shame and yet did not condemn me. I am unworthy, John!”
“Let us not speak so, for my own sense of unworthiness must be far greater. You must no longer lower your eyes before me, nor speak as if under condemnation. I believed in your virtue even when I would have cursed him who had won your love.
“And now the truth of it—oh, my Margaret, all this time he was your brother! Little wonder you were so desperate to protect him. You were trying to defend an innocent man and had no help or means at your disposal. I promise, love, you shall never have to act alone again! If there may be justice for your brother, I will do all that can be done.”
Margaret’s fearful trembles had begun to slow in the warmth of his assurances, but present instead was an entirely new sort of shiver. Her eyes, fixed so earnestly on his face, had darkened, and her full lips parted. He stroked the rounded edge of her cheek with tender fingers.
“There is one thing more I must know. Your brother, and this cousin you mentioned—would either have taken you in when your father died?
”
Her breathing, quick and shallow under the restraint of her stays, intensified. “Yes,” she answered guiltily. “Both surely will be disappointed that I did not go to them. Edith lives in Greece now with her husband—a Captain Lennox. They were expected to have returned to England by last year but matters in his regiment have detained them some while longer. I know she would have wished me to come to her, though.
“Dixon proposed that we sell the furniture and purchase passage to Corfu immediately, even before a letter could arrive. As she says, Edith and the captain are sure to return to England when his commission is up, and when they do, my aunt will return from her own travels abroad. I might have come back with them all to live in London again.”
He studied her for a long moment before begging the question which might answer for his every aching desire. “Then why would you settle for me?”
Her eyes widened innocently. “I did not settle! I married you because I wished to—because after coming to know you, I realised I could never esteem another, but I was such a fool! I thought I had lost you forever, and rightly so. When you came that evening, I hoped it meant you might still cherish some little affection for me, unworthy though I was. Oh, please, John, I never meant to take advantage—”
“’Some little affection’!” cried he, his tones broken with both anguish and elation. “Have I been so cold that you were uncertain of my love? I shall declare it every day, over and again until you grow weary of hearing!”
She was sobbing, laughing for joy. “Then you shall be repeating it forever, and so shall I! I love you, John Thornton, and I wish to live out my days by your side.”
Had he gone suddenly mad? Was he delirious? For Margaret was there, nearly in his arms, and reaching for him, swearing the love he had believed impossible. His throat seemed numb, his eyes incapable of any action but simply to stare at her, wondering, as her fingers brushed his temples. Her eyes shone, and her fingers slipped to his jaw, so near his mouth.
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