‘You look shocked, sir.’ She withdrew her hand from his. ‘I am waiting to see someone. I should be obliged if you would leave me to see him on my own.’
There was now a dignity in her manner that reminded him of that first day, when she had proudly announced that she was the artist of the paintings hanging on the gallery walls. He looked towards the basement door and then up at the house. He didn’t want to picture her living here, in these appalling conditions. Why hadn’t she told him?
His love should be shattered, but it wasn’t. Is that what she feared? That she was not equal to him? He loved Meredith for herself, not where she came from.
‘No! Whatever you are facing, we will face together.’
A shadow fell across them and he looked up into the face of Woody, his informant and accomplice from The Grapes Inn.
‘Well, now. This is a surprise; and yer’ve brought the girl with yer to.’
Adam stood up, realisation beginning to dawn. What he had thought was play-acting in The Grapes Inn, was real. Her primness in the gallery after their first visit was a reaction to her past. Looking down, he saw her gaze was fixed on Woody.
‘Miss Sanders wishes to see you.’ Adam held out his hand to help her rise. ‘Well, Meredith, is this who you have come to see?’
‘Aren’t yer the one in room six, who got her skirt burned?’
Her hand trembled. Her lips were almost white and there was an emotion in her eyes he didn’t understand.
‘Hello, Papa. It’s me, Merry.’
The man seemed to age instantly. His shoulders sagged and the lines on his face deepened. His eyes never left Meredith’s face and his lips parted, then closed. Words seemed to have become frozen, unutterable as he swallowed and licked his lips. He put out his arms and then let them fall back to his side.
‘My Merry? Yer’re my girl?’
‘Yes.’ A whisper, but he heard.
‘How can this be? Where’ve yer been? Yer mother died with yer name on her lips.’ Meredith sagged as though she was about to fall.
‘I think we should go into your rooms.’ Adam’s voice broke the tableau.
Woody nodded and indicated the building behind them. Meredith moved towards the basement, but Woody’s voice carried loud. ‘We don’t live down there anymore. Without yer help I got us above the dirt and rats.’
She stopped. ‘I’m so glad …’ her voice caught and was full of tears, ‘… that Mama didn’t die in the basement.’
Adam longed to comfort her. Fold her in his arms, soothe away her pain. But she had to do this on her own.
The room Woody lived in was small, but clean, the one window covered with a thin curtain. The heavy wooden table filled most of the floor space and the two carved chairs looked out of place in the sparse brick-walled room. The one comfortable chair was placed by the hearth. A pot hung in readiness from a chain over unlit logs.
‘How many rooms do you have?’ Adam asked, seeing no bed or cot alcove.
‘We have another room across the hall fer sleeping in and the basement fer a workshop.’
Meredith came alive and her tone was sharp. ‘What have you done with my sister? Where’s Tilly?’
‘Ho! You think I’ve sold her off like I tried to you. I was desperate all those years ago. Newgate prison was killing me; I had to promise you to Snipes. Marriage was an honourable way fer yer.’ He started to pace the room, much as a prisoner in a cell. ‘Without yer being wed, I had to stay, but yer ma worked on and the boys helped. Only good thing was one of the other debtors was a carpenter and he showed me how to carve. So, perhaps yer running away was the right thing.’ Woody rubbed his hand over his face. ‘Tilly’s gone to the country, to help yer other sister with her babes. She’s just had two at once. She married a God-fearin’ man in the Church and the Lord might want us to …’ He stopped. ‘Sorry. Yer looks to have become a delicate lady, but one at a time was enough fer yer ma to have.’
He sat down in his chair; his eyes never still, darting from door to table, to Adam and then Meredith. Finally he asked, ‘Well, what der yer want?’
Adam now knew her secret: the guilt of running away, Woody trying to force her into marriage and Blackfriars where she was born. She thought it would matter to him, being born here in Thames Street? That he would reject her? Did she not realise his love was stronger than where she came from? Nothing could ever break that love.
She stood by the table like a statue, the silence broken only by the shouts of men and the clatter of horse carts from the street outside. The impasse between father and daughter was total. One had to give in and take the lead and bring a sorrow carried deep to an end.
He could not intervene, so he waited and watched two people come to a reconcilable decision.
Meredith spoke first.
‘Papa, I’m sorry. I should have thought of Mama, but what you were doing was wrong. I have carried that with me until I saw you that day at The Grapes Inn.’
Woody turned his head and looked at her. ‘Aye, and I should have recognised you. But I have believed you dead for so long.’ His voice broke and tears ran down his face. ‘Oh, Merry, me girl, what are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know, Papa. But I had to see you.’
Adam was an outsider to the emotions playing across both father and daughter’s faces. He wanted to tell her all was well. Wherever she came from she would always be his. But the moment was not yet; she had to deal with this in her own way. He had never been so inapt. But he forced himself to remain silent and still.
Woody tugged a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his face. ‘Can we be a family again? Would yer visit sometimes?’
‘Perhaps.’
Adam cleared his throat with a polite cough. ‘There is something I should like to ask. What is your given name, Woody?’
‘Me name? And why should an Irish rogue turned English gentleman wish to know that? It might be time fer me to ask what game yer be playing, Dello Murphy.’
‘Ah. As Dello said, he was paying for no questions asked.’ Adam bowed. ‘Mr Adam Fox, sir. Our friend Dello has gone.’
‘Mr Jack Burrows, sir,’ delivered with just a nod.
So Meredith had used her own name to play her role. Adam chided himself for not putting together this and Woody’s reaction when she was kidnapped. Her father thought her dead; yet faced with the hope that she could be alive. He had carried the guilt like a destructive instrument for his daughter’s desperate need to run away. A kidnapped girl of her age would have brought the guilt to the surface. But in The Grapes Inn, Adam had only one thought in his mind – to find Meredith.
‘Well, Mr Burrows, I request the honour of your daughter’s hand in marriage. She has been unable to give me an answer until now. Have I your permission to ask?’ Adam hoped this was the moment when she would accept he wanted her and her hidden past.
Simultaneously, father and daughter looked at him. Meredith’s eyes widened and she started to speak but Adam raised his hand. ‘Say nothing, Meredith; this is between your father and me.’ He raised his brows at Jack Burrows. ‘Well, sir?’
‘Marriage, be damned. Does she want yer? I’ve made one mistake, I’ll not make another.’ He gestured to Meredith, ‘Do you want him?’
Adam liked the blunt attitude of the man. It certainly put Meredith in a position of replying in the same manner.
She glanced towards him, her face now calm and beautiful. ‘Yes, Papa, I want him.’
‘Then it’s done, Mr Fox. She’s yers with no charge.’
Adam didn’t wait for any other comments. Taking Meredith’s hand he pulled her to him and lightly kissed her lips. ‘Will you be mine?’
She stepped away from him, glancing at her father, including both in her reply. ‘I lied about Frederick. But he found me and gave me his name. I was his daughter since the day I was twelve. I abandoned my mother, my brothers and sisters. But I never intended to hurt you, Adam. I tried to tell you, I want
ed you to know, really I did. I trust you, with my life and my love. But before I give you my answer I have to know you can forgive me.’
Now she had taken the step to meet him halfway. He had to bring her the other half. ‘Yes, Meredith, I forgive you. You have given me a fine chase, but all is now in the open and we can go forward into the future.’
She smiled at him and he could see the love in her eyes. ‘Yes, Adam, I will be yours.’
Her father stood up. She went to him, a flush on her cheeks. ‘Thank you. I will visit, I promise.’
For the first time in ten years, father and daughter stood together and when Woody took her hand, Adam saw tears glisten in her eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Adam helped Meredith from his coach outside Somerset House, his diamond betrothal ring on her wedding finger.
‘Welcome to your first visit to the Royal Academy, Meredith, and a more dignified entrance for me.’
‘Yes. I will never know the truth about Frederick. But his reputation remains untarnished. And I owe it all to you.’
Adam led her past the pale-faced steward, up the spiral stairs to the top floor.
Joseph Mallord William Turner’s The Great Fall of the Reichenbach, in the Valley of Hasle, Switzerland, hung on the wall in the Inner Room.
‘Isn’t it magnificent, Adam? Perhaps, one day, I might try to copy it too.’
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Marriage Act of 1753 permitted girls of 12 years and boys of 14 years to marry with parental consent.
In 1929, in response to a campaign by the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, Parliament raised the age to 16 (with parental consent) for both sexes in the Ages of Marriage Act. This is still the minimum age in Britain.
For more information about Julie Roberts
and other Accent Press titles
please visit
www.accentpress.co.uk
ISBN 9781783757756
Copyright © Julie Roberts 2016
The right of Julie Roberts to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The Hidden Legacy Page 22