The Maid of Fairbourne Hall (6 page)

That evening, Margaret sat thinking at Peg Kittelson's open window, elbows on the sill, her back to the depressing room crammed with toppling piles of piecework, childish babbling and wailing, and meager food. Margaret inhaled the outside air, fresher than the stale apartment, though carrying the smell of the nearby river. She tried in vain to reach an itch through the wig and wished she'd thought to bring a wig scratcher. The narrow lane below, littered with tumbling wads of newspaper and horse droppings, was relatively quiet compared to the clamor of the room behind her.

She wondered if she should try again to contact Emily. Perhaps wait a day or two and knock at the servants' entrance in disguise. Or would the runner still be on guard, questioning everyone who came to call?

On the distant street corner, three young men sat on the stoop of an ale house. A hulking black-haired man tossed pebbles into the gutter, while his thin comrade whittled and spit seed hulls into the street. The third sat, limbs sprawled, head lolling against the wall behind him in an ale-induced doze.

“Come away from the window, girl,” Peg whispered. “You don't want that lot to notice you. Blackguards they are.”

Margaret was about to comply when clattering hooves and wheels sounded below. From around the corner came a black coach pulled by two horses. As it passed the ale house, the enclosed carriage all but filled the narrow lane, its brass lamps blazing like beacons in the night.

Joan said from her shoulder, “Might as well light a sign asking to be robbed.”

Joan and Peg receded into the room, but Margaret remained at the window. The equipage and horses were too fine for the neighborhood. The man at the reins, a sturdy man in his midthirties, did not look the part of traditional coachman. No top hat graced his head. No many-caped greatcoat fluttered in the wind.

The carriage stopped on the street below for no apparent reason, and the driver tied off the reins and clambered down none too nimbly. He opened the carriage door and leaned in. “Are you all right, sir?”

She heard no reply.

Margaret looked past the coach to the ale house on the corner. As she'd feared, the ne'er-do-wells on the stoop had taken notice of the carriage as well. The thin man stopped whittling. The black-haired hulk stilled, his gaze focused on the coach, nose high like a hound on the scent. He slowly rose, gesturing to the second fellow to follow and kicking the foot of the dozing youth.

Dread prickled through Margaret's stomach and along her limbs.

She glanced back down at the driver standing with his head and shoulders in the coach, completely unaware of the danger he had steered into.

“Hello?” she called in a terse whisper, trying to make herself heard. Vaguely she heard Peg shush her in the background. “Excuse me, you there!” she hissed, not daring to shout. She did not want to draw the ruffians' attention to poor Peg's window. Only belatedly did she realize she had not bothered to disguise her voice. No matter, for the man had not heard her.

Margaret closed the window and stepped back, retreating into the relative safety of the room. Well, she told herself, she had tried.

Then in her mind's eye she saw her beloved father calling “Whoa” to his old driving horse, pulling the gig to the side of the road to help a farmer with a broken wagon wheel, mucking his breeches and gloves without complaint. Just diving in to help a fellow traveler in need. How often he had done so.

She turned to the door and yanked it open. “I shall return directly.” Without awaiting a reply, Margaret drummed down the stairs. She was halfway to street level before the second thought followed. . . . It had been in the midst of just such a good deed that her father had been killed.

Reaching the front door, she cracked it open. The driver still had his head and shoulders inside the carriage, and she could see that he was repositioning a pillow under a man's bandaged head. A pillow was not going to help either of them if they did not get out of there in the next few seconds!

She peered around the edge of the door. The large man had paused down the street, bending to remove something from his boot. A knife? His thin crony cinched up his baggy breeches as the third man yawned and sized up the unguarded coach. Margaret wondered why the travelers had neither guard nor groom.

She inched open the tenement door a bit farther, glad that it acted as a shield between her and the approaching cutthroats.

Dredging up her best imitation of Nanny Booker, she called sharply, “You there. Best drive off . . . and sharp-like.”

The driver swiveled around to frown at her. “What do you want?”

Only then did she see that one of his hands was bandaged. She pointed beyond the open door. “Are ya blind? Get out of 'ere. Go.”

The man looked in the direction she'd pointed and the skin around his eyes tightened. His mouth followed suit.

“Hold on,” he urged the man inside. He slammed the coach door and leapt back up into the coachman's seat far more adroitly than he'd climbed down. He slapped the reins, yelled a command, and snapped the whip in the air. The horses tossed their heads, whinnied and pulled, and the coach began to move away. Too slowly.

She braved one more glance around the door. The black-haired man was running up the lane. He shouted, “Let's get 'em, lads!”

His cronies followed more cautiously.

In a flash she gauged the hulk's gait against the coach's slowly increasing speed. Not accelerating quickly enough. Looking up, she saw the driver glance back, his face grim.

She heard the pounding of the boots just beyond the door she held slightly ajar. At the last moment, she shoved the door wide open with all her strength.

Slam.
Umph.
The heavy wooden door reverberated violently and came slamming toward her. She leapt back. The door smacked her shoulder, barely missing her face. She heard a shout, a
thud-slap
, as knees and limbs hit the cobbles, followed by a sharp curse.

The door hit the jamb and bounced outward. Through the opening, a pair of black eyes locked on hers. She snagged the latch and pulled the door closed. Hands shaking, she slid the bar home.

Margaret bolted up the stairs as fast as her feet could carry her. She tripped at the first landing and felt her stocking tear. Her ankle and knee screamed complaint as she rounded the first newel-post and shot up the second pair of stairs. Below, the bar splintered and the door crashed open. Footfalls, threats, and curses gained on her as she hoofed it up the remaining stairs and down the passage. She ran into number 23 and shut and barred the door behind her, hoping the men had not seen which of the many doors she had disappeared into.

“What is it?” Joan asked.

“Shh.” Trembling all over, Margaret picked up a cumbersome oak chair and propped it against the door.

Peg asked, “Is it those ruffians?”

Margaret nodded.

Peg's eyes grew wide, and she wrapped a protective arm around the child nearest her.

Running footsteps raced past their door.

The women looked from one to the other as they waited, listening.

The footsteps clomped back, more slowly. A man shouted, “I'll find you. And when I do, I'll kill you.”

That night, Margaret shared the narrow pallet bed with Peg's son. She didn't sleep well. She was reminded of the days Gilbert would climb into her bed for a story, fall asleep, and then rob all the bedclothes.

In the morning, Margaret sat at the small table with Peg's family, sharing a meager breakfast and strained silence. Even the children were unnaturally quiet. From across the table, sisters Joan and Peg exchanged a pained, meaningful look, which Margaret had no trouble interpreting. She had worn out her welcome already.

She opened her mouth, but Joan beat her to it. “I am afraid, mi—Nora. That after last night, it would be best if you took your leave. If those men see you and figure out whose place . . .”

Margaret nodded, though fear ran through her veins. “I understand.”

“And as soon as possible,” Peg added. “While that lot is still sleeping it off.”

“I know you meant well,” Joan allowed. “But I can't have you bringin' danger to my sister's door.”

Again Margaret nodded and woodenly repeated, “I understand.” She rose, her legs weak and trembling. Where was she to go? And what if those men were out there right now, lying in wait?

She plucked her Oldenburg bonnet from the peg near the door, and tied it securely under her chin. She picked up her bag and bid farewell to each of the children and pressed one of her few coins into Peg's palm. “For your hospitality,” she murmured and opened the door.

“Wait,” Joan called after her. “I'm going with you.”

Peg began to protest, but Joan insisted she needed to find work. “There aren't any positions hereabouts anyway.”

Margaret swallowed a bitter pill of pride and humbling gratitude. She guessed Joan was making excuses. But Margaret was not brave enough to insist Joan remain, to bluster that she would be fine on her own. She would not be. And after the near-miss with those men, she was frightened of venturing out alone.

“Very well,” Margaret said, the words
thank you
sticking in her throat.

Joan embraced her niece and nephews, and quietly warned Peg not to say anything about them being there. Peg no doubt believed the warning due to the three would-be thieves alone.

Taking valise and carpetbag in hand once more, Joan and Margaret went quietly downstairs. They peered from behind the splintered door, and seeing no one about, stepped outside. They walked quickly down Fish Street Hill, turning from the lane as soon as possible to avoid being seen by any early riser glancing from his window.

Once they were several blocks away, Joan moderated their pace, leading the way toward the Thames and across London Bridge. The wide river teemed with boats—fishing boats moored midriver or docked to unload the morning's catch—while sailing vessels of every size slipped between them.

On the other side of the bridge, they passed the Southwark Cathedral before turning left into the Borough High Street. There, Margaret glimpsed a three-story galleried coaching inn. Joan explained that many stagecoaches as well as a Royal Mail coach departed from The George each day.

From behind the railing of the first gallery above, a swarthy porter carried a bolt of fabric over one shoulder, and a well-dressed gentleman smiled down at them and tipped his hat. On the upper gallery, a woman in a low-cut nightdress blew kisses to a sailor trotting down the outer stairs.

The inn's courtyard swarmed with activity. Dogs barked. Horses snorted and pranced in their braces. A large stagecoach with red wheels prepared to depart. Hostellers checked the horses' harnesses. An official-looking man in red greatcoat and top hat opened the coach door and handed in a matron and her young charge. Once the door was closed, a brawny dark-skinned man strapped barrels to the side of the carriage.

The body of the yellow stagecoach was emblazoned with its final destination in bold and stopping points along the way in smaller lettering. Four passengers sat on its roof, and another shared the coachman's bench. The guard climbed to his position at the rear and blew his long horn.

Joan led Margaret to the front of the clapboard inn, to a protruding half-circle structure with the words
Coach Office
painted above its sash window. Boards listing routes and departure times lined its outer walls.

“Where to, miss?” Joan asked, studying the boards.

Margaret frowned in thought. “I don't know . . .”

“How much money do you have?”

Margaret recounted the coins in her reticule, bit her lip, and pronounced the paltry sum.

Joan stepped to the office window and addressed the booking clerk within.

“Hello. There are two of us traveling together.” She laid the coins before him. “How far can we go?”

The clerk stared at her a moment without speaking. Margaret noticed one of his eyes was milky white. With no change of expression, he drew a chalk circle on a map on the counter. Margaret glanced over Joan's shoulder at the circle of modest diameter around London. Not very far at all.

“Stage rates are tuppence to four pence per double mile. Royal Mail is faster, but costs a bit more, and don't leave till tonight.”

Joan said, “We prefer to get out of . . . that is, to be on our way as soon as possible.”

He turned his milky gaze from Joan to Margaret. “The Northampton line will take you as far as Dunstable for a crown—if you take an outside seat, which is cheaper. It leaves in twenty minutes. Or, the Maidstone Times leaves in thirty.”

Joan glanced at her. “Which shall it be, miss? North or south?”

Margaret thought quickly. Her old home, the village of Summerfield, lay to the south, though outside the chalk circle. Would Sterling look for her there? “South, I think.” She hesitated. “Unless you prefer north?”