I could barely make out the retting flax stalks that lay discarded or forgotten from summer. Farther I traveled, along the outskirts of the village, my eyes roving over each familiar landmark: Cromwell Cottage, South View Cottage, Dixon Inn. I crept closer to the inn. I went up on my tiptoes and peered through the mullioned window into the low-ceilinged tavern, just as I had done when I was a child. As always, the miners from the colliery sat about tables, their work-callused fingers wrapped around mugs of warm ale, their clothes and faces still dusty with the residue of their labor.
I carried on to Finkle Street until I reached Dead-man Lane. There I stopped. I told myself, Carry on, carry on. There is nothing here for you now. He is gone. Jerome is gone. Make do with the memories. But I couldn't. The many hours I had spent at that humble cottage drew me nearer. I could almost hear Jerome's brash laughter, his good-natured teasing . , . his first declaration of love. The recollection brought tears to my eyes. How I ached to confide in him now.
Weakened and shaken by my sorrow, I stumbled to the house and sank against its stone wall. How I longed to press my face against the glowing panes of glass in the window and feast my eyes on this stark but cheery interior. I could imagine Rosine Baron, Jerome's mother, stooping over the fire with her poker, her simple pewter pots and dishes dully reflecting the light from the hearth. This had been a kind of home to me. I did not realize until that sad moment how much I had come to miss it.
The wind howled over Pikedaw Hill. Forcing myself to leave the cottage, I trudged through ankle-deep snow up the road to Lavely Lane. There I looked upon Friars Garth and the house of Doctor Brabbs.
As I huddled there I thought—hoped—some passerby would dissuade me from knocking. But, save for the tumbling sleaves of ghostly white snow, there was nothing astir on that inclement night but me. Taking a deep, burning breath, I banged upon the door.
I waited.
I banged a second time; I waited again.
I heard the lock grind. The door inched open, pouring warm yellow light across my face.
"Who is there?" came the voice grown hoarse with age.
"It is I," I said.
"Speak up. I'm deaf, you know. Who is there?" He opened the door a little more.
I pulled my cape more tightly across my shoulders and stepped farther into the light. I saw his twinkling hazel eyes assess me. "Brabbs," I said, "I am freezing."
The night wind swept over the bracken moor and died, moaning in the distance.
"Blessed saint," I heard him whisper. "Mayhap the foul wind plays tricks on my ear."
"No trick," I told him.
"Mayhap, then, it is the snow."
"No snow," I assured him. "Brabbs," said I, shivering and numb, "I am cold. Will you not allow me in?"
He flung open the door, allowing the snow to scatter around his feet. He opened his arms. "Lord God. Lord God. Ariel Margaret Rushdon, the sight of you is enough to shock an old man to his grave* Maggie, you're alive."
I swept through the molded doorway into his arms. He clutched me to his chest and rocked me side to side. "Maggie, Maggie." He sobbed before releasing me, then slammed the door closed against the cold and leaned against it for support. Without turning, he said in a weakened voice, "If you're a ghost come back to haunt me—"
"No ghost," I replied. "No wind or snow or figment of your aging mind. But haunt you I will. I will haunt you until your dying day because I loved you. I trusted you with my secret—"
"Stop! Stop!" he entreated me.
"Nay, I will not." Sweeping my cloak from my shoulders, ,1 threw it to floor. "Look at me, Brabbs. I am flesh and blood—no specter of death."
He looked cautiously over his stooped shoulder. His eyes widened. "Lord God, I cannot believe it. I don't know you. You're not my Maggie, my childlike Margaret with laughing eyes as green as Ireland and cheeks as pink as heather. Nay, you're nothing like her. Go away! Go away, wraith! Your eyes are too dull and your cheeks too sunken to belong to my Maggie."
"Aye, my cheeks are sunken and my eyes dull. Living night and day in dungeons will do that to you."
Facing me completely, he sank back against the door. "Lord God. Merciful God, I am dreaming. He told me you were dead. Jerome stood in that very place you occupy and wept into his hands that you had died in that miserable, wicked place." His gray brows hooding his eyes, he slowly began to circle me. "Answer me this then. What day and hour were you born? Quickly!"
"At one stroke past midnight in the year of our lord, seventeen and seventy-seven."
"Your mother's name."
"Julianne."
"And your father's?"
"Eric."
"Were there brothers and sisters?"
"Aye. One, but she died at birth."
"And?"
"My mother died with her." "And where is your father?" "Dead. He died at the colliery when I was ten." "And—"
"I came to live with my uncle." I turned to face him. "I lived for the next ten years in the quarters over the Cock and Bottle Inn. I used to attend you when you made your rounds. I dusted this very house and swept these very floors. I begged you to teach me of healing, and you promised you would someday." He wept into his hands.
"When I was sixteen I confessed to you that I was in love with Nicholas Wyndham. I told you that I dreamt of marrying him, that I would marry him. You laughed and said you would dance at my wedding. For ten years I watched him come and go out of my uncle's tavern, always remaining hidden, certain he would find me too plain or too young. You convinced me I was beautiful. You and Jerome. You called me princess; said I deserved no less than a prince."
He dropped into a chair. "If I could only do it over—"
"I convinced Jerome to help me. Following his instructions I planned that meeting on Cove Road. Precisely at noon I met Nicholas Wyndham face-to-face for the first time where the road branches to the north and south. In my hand I carried baskets of heather and daffodils. I wore a dress of pearl-gray muslin ..."
My voice trailed off as I recalled the first moment I turned my eyes up to Wyndham's. "My wish came true. He fell in love with me that day."
should never have allowed it," my old friend declared.
I frowned into his grieving eyes. "Aye, you might’ve told me about her. Of Lady Jane Blankenship who was doing her best to nab him."
"I didn't want to hurt you."
"Hurt me! Was I not hurt to learn of his betrothal to Jane? A betrothal that came not two days after he had declared a love for me?"
"Then it is Lord Malham you should be shaming, Maggie, not me."
"Nay, 111 not shame him. I shame myself. I shame you and I shame Jerome. Had I known about Jane before—"
Brabbs came out of his chair. "You knew about Jane when you climbed in his bed, girl. Where was your pride then?"
"Pride!" I railed. "You preach to me of pride: a man who tosses aside friendship and confidences like they were cinders. I trusted you—"
"What was I to do? When your uncle come to me with the suspicions of your problem . . . what was I to do?"
"You might have sent me anywhere. Anywhere but Royal Oaks in Menston. It is housed by lunatics—"
"There was nowt else to do, lass." He sank defeatedly back into his chair. "After your uncle died I tried writing letters to the institution, but I heard nothing. Nothing! Then Jerome showed up, barely alive himself. He told me you were dead. Had died in that miserable place during your ordeal. Oh, Maggie, Maggie, how I suffered."
His sobbing tore at my heart. I sank to the floor and hugged his knees. "Do you think I haven't suffered?" I asked him, more gently now.
He stroked my hair. "It must have been a wicked place
"Aye. Wicked. I was so ashamed by being interned there. I hated you. I hated my uncle. I hated Nicholas. Why me? I asked myself a thousand times a day. I had always been a good girl. All I ever wanted was Nicholas, and even wanting that I was willing to let him go, for I knew the ways of nobility. He had to marry Jane. It was agreed
upon between their families/'
"And yet you went to him."
I closed my eyes, remembering. "Aye, I went to him. Is it not ironic that his engagement celebration was spent in my uncle's tavern?"
"How did you manage it?" he asked me.
"I paid off the wench that Wyndham's friends had purchased him for the night. I took her place."
"He should have turned you out."
"He tried."
"He is not without fault, lass."
I sighed and stared into the blazing inglenook fireplace. "His only fault was allowing me to believe I stood a chance. He promised me that night, swore to me that he didn't love her, and I believed him. He vowed he would find a way to break the engagement. He set out to York the following morning with that intent ... I did not see him again for weeks. When I learned of his return to Walthamstow I waited, certain he would come to see me. He didn't."
"That is when you left for Menston."
"Aye," I answered softly. "While he stood at the altar marrying Jane Blankenship I was hearing the iron doors of Royal Oaks Institution slam on my future."
"But you're here, lass. You've come home now and—"
"Not for long," I told him. His hand grew warm and heavy on my head. Closing my eyes, I admitted, "I'm here to take what is mine; then I'll be gone."
He hesitated before replying. "There is nothing Maggie, nothing here that belongs to you. Your uncle left you nothing."
"I did not return here for clothes or coin or keepsakes."
"Look at me."
I shook my head.
"Look at me!"
I did so.
"Tell me; where are you staying?"
"Walthamstow."
"Lord God!"
"He doesn't remember me."
"That doesn't concern me. But this crime—"
"Crime!" Roused to something like passion, I threw his hands from me and stumbled to my feet. "Crime, sir? Is it a crime to take back from a thief what rightfully belonged to me in the first place? The child is mine! Mine! Taken from my bed and breast less than twenty-four hours after his birth! Taken by a well-meaning friend—"
"Maggie, think of the child. What can you give him?"
"I am his mother!" I pounded my chest. "I am his mother! Do I love him less because I have no home? Because I am poor? Uneducated? What does that have to do with what I feel in my heart? He is my flesh, my spirit—"
"He is Wyndham's as well!" He left his chair. "Tell me, girl; y've seen them together: Does Nicholas love him any less than you?"
I turned away and sobbed convulsively. It was as if some great, terrible wound had burst inside me and flooded me with all the pain and anger and grief I had pent up since first being shut inside that wretched asylum at Menston.
Brabbs enclosed me in his arms, gathered me to his chest. "Hush. Hush, Maggie, and listen. You cannot take the child. If you were caught you would lose him again. You would suffer greatly at the hands of the courts. You gave him away—"
"Nay! He was taken from me!"
"Hush," he repeated. "Now tell me this. Did Jerome act in total duplicity? Did you never agree that he would place the child in a capable home? Look at me, Maggie, and answer truthfully. Was such an agreement made?"
"Aye. But—"
"Then he acted in good faith, lass."
"Cease speaking to me of faith," I told him. Pushing him away, I paced the room.
"Maggie," came his kind voice. "Come and sit down with me. I've made mulligatawny for my dinner. Well discuss this dilemma, perhaps work something out."
"There is nowt to work out," was my answer, though I looked toward the aumbry where rested a platter of bread and a ewer of posset. The warm milk and ale beverage, smelling of spices, caused my stomach to ache with hunger.
"Come on." He fetched another bowl from the cupboard and placed it alongside his on the table. Turning his grizzled face back to mine, he smiled. "Maggie-mine, when have you ever turned down my mulligatawny? It used to be your favorite."
I tried to resist again. "The hour is late, Brabbs."
He poured me a mug of posset. "One hardy drink and bowl of soup and then you're gone. I'll fetch my timbrel and we'll get you back to Walthamstow in half the time it takes to walk it."
I did not refuse again, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Brabbs sat across the table, his hazel eyes steadfast on my face, though we ate in silence. I sensed his curiosity: I was changed from my former self in both appearance and personality. But I avoided his appraisal, staring occasionally toward the fireplace. I was in no state of mind to speak of my experiences at Menston. My thoughts, instead, were on Nicholas. And my son.
When Brabbs had finished his soup, I sat back in my chair, closed my eyes briefly with sleepy contentment, then asked, "In your opinion, is Nicholas mad?"
"I d6 not know, girl."
"But you must have heard—"
"Only rumors. The man is reclusive."
"But surely his brother—"
Brabbs threw up his hands. "His brother is as likely to continue this profession as I am to be appointed King of all England. Would you like more posset, girl?"
I shook my head.
"Trevor has a keen head on his shoulders, I won't deny it, but he lacks the sensitivity it takes to be a dedicated physician."
Thinking of Mr. Dix that morning, I mentally agreed.
"George might have made a fine physician. Aye, he would've at that, come to think on it."
I had forgotten George Wyndham, the second-born son of milord's parents. I recalled Eugene Wyndham as well, who was slightly older than Trevor—Trevor being the youngest of the Wyndham sons. "They are still in the colonies?" I asked.
"Aye, they've set themselves up nicely in Boston." Scraping his chair away from the table, Brabbs fixed me with his eye and said, "It's back to Walthamstow with you before this storm gets worse. I'll get my cart. Settle yourself before the fire and warm up while you can. I'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail."
I watched him pull on his woolen cloak. "Brabbs?"
He turned to face me.
"I have but one question, and 111 put it to you straightforward. Do you think he killed her?"
The wind rattled the glass in the window.
"You know him better than I, girl," he finally replied, then turned for the door.
I stopped him again. "Were you summoned to the house the night she died?"
"Aye," he replied without turning to face me again.
"You saw her body?"
"What was left of it."
"And how was Nicholas?"
"He was like a man in a trance. It was several days before the shock began to wear off. The worst of it started then, I fear." He opened the door and looked out on the swirling snow and darkness before stepping out into the night.
I donned my cloak, then warmed my hands before the fire before leaving the house myself. Standing inside the fenced toft, I looked about the gardens where the dried stalks of poppies and sweet williams lay mostly hidden by the blanket of snow. Then Brabbs appeared with his horse and cart and I climbed aboard.
We passed directly through town, by Common Ewe Moor and Finder Inn at the foot of Lavely Lane. Twice we met horsemen, and twice I huddled more deeply into my wrapper. Once we passed a stooped figure standing beside the road, and as Brabbs slowed the cart and allowed the wasted figure to pass, I noted the familiar profile of my old friend, Rosine.
Halfway across the road she stopped, lifted the hood of her cape slightly to better see me. I did not hide though my instinct told me I should. I could not hide from Rosie.
What emotion did I see there within her weakened eye? A tear of recognition? Of memory? Of forgiveness? A smile touched her mouth and then she was gone behind a flurry of snow. The cart rumbled on. I heard Brabbs say quietly, "She's been ill."
A half an hour passed before we arrived at Walthamstow. I had no desire to leave my old friend. I looked at him and smiled. He returned my smile and hunched his
shoulders against the cold.
"Maggie-mine," came his shivering voice in the darkness. "Answer me this: If it's only the child you’ve come for, why have you not taken him and gone?1'
I climbed from the cart.
"Maggie . . . ?"
I looked up at Brabbs, allowing the snow to fall lightly onto my face. "Because Nicholas needs me," I said. I turned to the house and thought, Because I love him.
With the admission came an unexpected release. I was free to love Nicholas Wyndham again because I understood now. He had loved me. He might have returned to me but for some cruel twist of fate that had caused his horse to fall through the ice. The accident had left Nicholas partially without his memory. But could such a trauma be affecting him still?
I turned to look down the road. Brabbs was no longer visible to me, swallowed by the darkness and snow. I turned back for the house.
I cannot guess how long I trudged my way along the path before realizing the snow had been trampled before me. But the footprints, though fast filling in with fresh snow, were there. I bent to study them curiously, and followed them as they wound away from the house and into the trees.
The snowdrifts, much deeper at the edge of the woods, sufficiently hid the tracks from my sight. I continued to search for several minutes before giving up. Turning back to the house, I paused to take in Walthamstow's enormity. I recognized this wing even in the darkness. It was my lord's quarters. I stared up at his window, then toward my own.
What made me stand in the frigid, blinding snow and stare at that dismal portal I do not know. But stare I did, as if compelled never to take my eyes from it. Then I saw it: a shadow against the window, a silhouette, blacker even than the darkness surrounding me. Someone was in my room.
My pulse stopped. Plunging my hand into the pocket of my cloak, I closed my fingers around my key. Had I remembered to lock my door? Yes. I vividly recalled locking it. My mind raced frantically. I had taken every precaution to destroy any evidence that could somehow link me with Royal Oaks. But what if I had overlooked a scrap of paper or article of clothing?
I backed into the tree line, suddenly aware that whoever stood at my window and looked down into the garden could see me as well. Deeper into the trees I descended. Then the ground gave beneath my foot, and though I made a desperate grab for some harbor to save me I felt myself tumbling backward into the chasm of black and white that reached with icy fingers to envelop me. My head struck the ground, and my world dissolved into darkness.
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