Louise Allen Historical Collection (33 page)

‘Not you, Perrott. Me. Where is Mrs Halgate?’

‘In her room, I believe, my lord. Damaris said she was unwell yesterday afternoon and I have not seen her since.’

Something trailed one icy fingertip down Ross’s spine. He shoved back his chair and strode out of the door, up the stairs, two at a time. There was no answer as he hammered on Meg’s door, only the silence of an empty room. When he opened the door the bedchamber was immaculate and on the end of the bed was a neat pile of clothing and money. Money and paper.

Ross snatched at it.

‘Oh, my lord.’ Damaris arrived flustered in the doorway. ‘Mrs Halgate said she had a sick headache, my lord. I left her to sleep until she rang.’ She stared about the room, then at Ross’s hand. ‘She’s gone? And left a note?’

‘She has gone and left a precise accounting of her wages.’ Ross strode to the landing. ‘Woodward!’

‘My lord.’ The butler appeared below him in the hall.

‘When did Mrs Halgate leave?’

‘I was not aware that she had, my lord.’

Ross closed his fist and felt the painful scrunch of the paper against his palm.
Where have you gone, Meg? Back to Cornwall?
No, there was nothing for her there. So where? Where could a young woman without friends, without references and with virtually no resources, go?

Meg climbed down from the farmer’s cart, stiff in every joint. The journey had seemed to last for ever. The stage from Ludgate Hill had been cramped and smelly and it had been a relief to climb down at the Falcon in Ipswich, even though she then had to find a carrier’s cart to take her as far as Framlingham. When they finally arrived she had given up for the day and went to seek a room at the inn, too tired and hungry to face finding someone to carry her the remaining six or so miles to Martinsdene.

Discomfort was a blessing sometimes, Meg decided, buttering bread in one corner of the dining room of the Blue Boar. It was difficult to think too hard when you were uncomfortable. Now with a chair beneath her bruised behind and good food in front of her it was all too easy to think about Ross and to mourn what she had so nearly shared with him. He might even have come to love her, one day. Just a little.

She no longer even wanted to throw things at him, exasperating, proud, private man that he was. She just ached for him and the challenge of teasing the faintest twitch of a smile from that gorgeous, wicked mouth.

Meg finished her roast gammon and found she even had appetite for the apple pie the waiting girl was bringing out from the kitchens. She had learned in the Peninsula that it was no good picking at food, however miserable she was. Food was strength and she needed that.

Now, as she turned up the lane towards Martinsdene, the church tower was visible ahead, the slopes of the hills and the angles of the copses as they met the fields were all achingly familiar. Life had gone on while she had been away and the place that had once been the centre of her world had got along perfectly well without her. Meg shifted the valise from one hand to another.

Jago had found nothing here but a wall of silence. It was only her anger and the hope born of desperation that made her even try. But try she would. There was even the faint, forlorn hope that her father would welcome her back, that after all these years apart they might find a way to reach each other. Meg walked into the Royal George inn. ‘Good morning, Mr Wilkins. I require a room for two nights.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Ben Wilkins put down the cloth he had been polishing tankards with and smiled his familiar gap-toothed smile. ‘We’ve a nice one overlooking the green.’ Then he blinked, stared and Meg smiled back. ‘Miss Margaret! Why, they said you’d run off with young Mr Halgate, so they did—and here you are, home again.’

Meg winced inwardly at the word
home
, but kept her smile bright. ‘Yes, here I am. It is good to see you looking so well, Mr Wilkins.’

‘I’ve been married to Jenny North—you remember her?—for five years now and we’ve three nippers, all bright boys too. And Jenny, she’s smartened this old place up wonderful fine…’

Meg nodded and smiled and waited until Ben ran out of news and started thinking. ‘But, Miss Margaret, why do you want to stay here?’

‘I may not be very welcome at the vicarage,’ she said frankly. His expression showed embarrassment and comprehension and an obvious question. ‘But I need to find my sisters.’

‘I don’t know, Miss Margaret. It’s a mystery, certain sure.’ All she got after half an hour of speculation and gossip were the dates that Jago had gleaned.

‘I will visit my father, of course,’ she told Wilkins as he carried her bag upstairs, ducking under the low beams in the room he showed her to. There was no point in trying to be secretive. Better to be frank and give the village gossips something accurate to clack their tongues over.

And there was no point in putting things off either, she decided after eating the luncheon that Jenny Wilkins had provided along with five years’ worth of village news.

The vicarage looked just as it had when she had left. She walked in at the side gate and cut across the yard to the kitchen door. The garden was clipped and regimented, the door knocker shining, the white curtains starched. Everything as upright as its inhabitants, Meg thought with an attempt at humour.

The back door was open so she went right in.
I am a grown woman now. He can neither control me nor harm me.
So why was she feeling sick?

Mrs Philpott the cook, greyer and stouter than Meg remembered, was standing with her back to the door at the range. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Philpott.’

The cook turned stared, gasped, ‘Miss Margaret!’ and went into strong hysterics, throwing her apron over her face and shrieking.

‘Oh, be quiet and pull yourself together!’ Meg gave her a little shake and the hysterics turned into gasps. ‘I have come to find out where my sisters are,’ she said as calmly as she could.

‘What is this racket?’ The door opened to reveal the Reverend Shelley, spectacles on his nose. ‘I am attempting to write tomorrow’s sermon—’ He stopped dead. ‘Margaret!’

‘Father.’ Once, long ago, there had been laughter, once he had loved her, she thought, reaching back into childhood memories and the hazy recollections of the time before Mama died. She had wanted so much when she was growing up to please him, make him proud of her, find that vanished love again. She held her breath—she was home again, the prodigal daughter. Would he forgive her? Could she learn to love him again?

‘What are you doing here, you sinful girl?’ The pain twisted in her stomach. Rejection, not forgiveness. But she would not weep, there were her sisters to think of.

‘Where are Arabella and Celina?’ Meg demanded, her eyes fixed on her father’s face, searching for some hint that he knew as avidly as she had searched for some spark of welcome. But there was only baffled anger and righteous indignation on the vicar’s lean features.

‘I do not know and I do not care. They have fallen into sin as you did, I have no doubt. I failed to drive the wickedness out of you all, now I must bear the burden of it.’

Meg stood her ground for a long minute. She was not going to allow him to intimidate her, or to hurt her, ever again. It was worth coming back, worth the pain of the last few minutes, just to know that. Without a word she turned on her heel and walked away.

Sunday dawned bright and sunny. Meg lay listening to the sounds of the inn and the village starting the day, then got out of bed and began to wash and dress. She had one more idea, one more faint hope. If that did not work then she would go back to London, find whatever employment she could with no references, and advertise for her sisters. And she would forget Ross Brandon. The last resolution seemed impossible. How could she forget him when she ached for him, worried about him, thought about him every moment?

She timed her arrival at church for Matins just as the organist lifted his hands from the keyboard and the vicar emerged from the vestry. Her veil down, Meg slipped into the rear pew. It was strange to be back here. The view was different from here and not from the high-sided Vicarage box pew. But there were the familiar monuments on the walls and the familiar hymn boards hanging on the pillars. The same vases held greenery around the font and the organ still wheezed on the high notes.

The ritual was soothing, although her father’s sermon was both dull and uninspiring after the warmth of Reverend Hawkins’s words.

She waited until the service was over and the congregation got to its feet, then stood out in the aisle and threw back her veil.

‘Please, may I have a moment of your time?’ She pitched her voice to carry and they stopped talking. Heads turned, she saw some she knew, saw recognition dawn. ‘My name is Margaret Shelley and I am trying to trace my sisters. Can anyone help me? If you know anything, however insignificant it might be, I beg you to tell me. I will be at the Royal George until tomorrow. I would be so grateful if you—’

She had lost them. They were all still staring up the aisle, but not at her. The breeze from the open door caught at her veil as she turned. A big man was standing beside the font, his face expressionless under a shock of black hair. It needed cutting. Perrott should have…
‘Ross.’

Someone gasped, then the spell was broken as her father emerged from the vestry, still in his cassock. ‘What is this? Margaret, you will leave this church immediately!’

‘This is not your house to order anyone from,’ Ross observed, his deep voice echoing around the stone walls in the shocked silence. ‘It belongs to a higher authority.’ Someone giggled nervously and the vicar turned a furious glare towards the sound. Ross ignored him, addressing himself directly to the congregation. ‘Miss Shelley has not received any reply to her question. As she said, we will be at the inn and will be most appreciative of any assistance you may give us.’

‘And who are you, to make a disturbance in this place?’ the Reverend Shelley demanded, striding down the aisle, cassock flapping around his legs.

‘I am Brandon,’ Ross said with the arrogance that always made Meg smile.
He is real
, she thought, grasping one of the poppy-head carvings at the end of the pew. And he was here. ‘And this lady, I trust, is about to consent to be my wife.’

‘I…’ He was here, talking of marriage after all that he had discovered about her, after all he had said? ‘After the last time we met, my lord,’ Meg said, finding her voice, forgetting their audience, ‘I was left with the impression that you had mistaken your feelings for me.’

‘I was not aware of the truth of them.’ His eyes were dark and intent on her face. ‘I had thought of a number of very good reasons why we should marry, but the fact that I love you had not occurred to me.’

‘You love me?’ A sentimental sigh from the verger standing a few yards away brought Meg to her senses. ‘My lord, we are not alone. We should discuss this… elsewhere.’
He loves me?

‘By no means. I feel the need to declare my intentions before witnesses.’ Ross thrust his tall hat and his gloves into the verger’s hands, walked forwards and went down on one knee in front of her, lifting her hand to his lips. The little church and all in it fell entirely silent, holding their breath, just as she was. ‘Margaret Shelley, will you do me the inestimable honour of becoming my wife? I love you with all my heart and soul.’

Someone burst into tears. Meg could hear her father spluttering, but all she could see was Ross’s smile, the passion in his eyes, the utter truth of what he said, written on his face.

‘Oh, yes. Yes, I will marry you, Ross Brandon. I love you too much not to.’

He came to his feet, her hand still in his, and drew it through his arm. ‘Then you have made me far happier than I ever deserve to be.’ He turned them both to face the vicar. ‘Do you wish to be married by your father?’

She looked across at her father, hoping against hope for the slightest softening, at least the faintest hint of approval or forgiveness, but there was nothing. ‘No,’ she said after a moment. She could not go back, only forwards. ‘I would like to go home. Home to Cornwall. And I would like to be married in our little church by dear Mr Hawkins, with Miss Hawkins playing the organ out of tune, with Lily as my bridesmaid and old Billy to give me away.’

‘And William can be best man.’ Ross laughed, his rare, rich, laugh that made her want to laugh too. ‘We will go home tomorrow, my love.’ He looked round the church. ‘Thank you, my friends. If you can help my fiancée, we will be in your debt.’