The Girl in the Gatehouse (16 page)

– Miss Augusta Smith, niece of Jane Austen’s neighbor

chapter 13

On his way inside to shoot billiards – to shoot something – a frustrated Matthew spied Hugh Prin-Hallsey in the dim gunroom. The man was on his knees, digging through the contents of a dusty old cabinet. Behind him was a stack of antique guns, some in and some out of a large packing crate. Hugh, leaning halfway into the cabinet, peeled down the cloth covering from an ornately framed oil painting. Matthew caught only the quickest glimpse of the portrait – a man’s face – before Hugh rewrapped the frame. Had Hugh now stooped to selling his family history as well as heirlooms?

It unnerved Matthew to have the man underfoot. How could he make Windrush Court his home if the owner was forever loitering about? He hoped the man would return to London before Lieutenant Hart arrived. And stay there.

Matthew leaned against the doorjamb. “Hello, Prin-Hallsey. Lose something?”

Hugh’s reply was an artificial grin bordering on a grimace. As he rose to his feet, one of his knees cracked.

“You know anything about Miss Aubrey having a man of business?” Matthew asked, and quickly wished he had not.

“Man of business?” Hugh’s brows formed a dark V. “What sort of business would she have to conduct?”

“I don’t know. I saw her speak with a man as he was leaving the gatehouse, and hand him a parcel. She mentioned he was her friend who assists her in matters of business.”

Hugh’s voice rose. “You saw her give the man a parcel?”

Matthew nodded.

“A large parcel?” he asked eagerly.

Matthew marked off a rectangle with his hands. “Fairly large. About the size of a book, I would say.”

“A book?” He frowned. “Did you get the man’s name?”

“No. She did not say. I asked her maid when I passed her, but she either could not or would not tell me. Seemed to make her nervous when I asked.”

“I wonder why.” Hugh’s eyes were far away in thought. “What is Miss Aubrey up to?”

When Dixon showed Hugh Prin-Hallsey into the drawing room, Mariah quickly tucked her page of new story ideas inside a volume of Johnson’s dictionary. “Hugh! I mean, Mr. Prin-Hallsey. This is a surprise.” She rose and curtsied. “How do you do?”

He swept off his hat, giving her a stiff, perfunctory bow. “I could be better, Miss Aubrey.”

“Oh? Might I help you with something?”

“Indeed I hope you can.” He turned his hat around in his manicured hands. Hands that did not match his lank, unwashed hair and unshaven face. “I am looking for something, you see. Something that belongs to me.”

“And what is that?”

“Something your aunt had in her possession before she died. I wonder if, perhaps, she gave it to you? Not realizing she had no right to do so.”

She stared at him, thinking back to the things her aunt had brought over, and to her warnings about Hugh.

“She did give you something?” he asked eagerly. “Never fear, I will not blame you. You may not have realized your aunt’s error. How could you?”

Mariah slowly shook her head. “My aunt gave me nothing of value, if that is what you mean. She only came to call on me once, soon after I moved in here. To see me settled.”

“And she made you a gift?”

“Only a few small things for the house.”

“What? What?” His eyes were feverish. Nearly manic, she thought.

Mariah shrugged uneasily. “Only a basket of kitchen things. A tin of tea, another of coffee. A few candles, and a packet of biscuits.”

“A tin? Have you it still?”

She hesitated. “I think so.”

“Then let me see it.” He turned to the kitchen door through which he had so recently stepped, and held it open for her. She had little choice but to precede him into the kitchen.

Dixon spun around from her place at the worktable as they entered, her softly lined face grimacing. “Bless me, but you startled me.”

“I am sorry, Dixon. Might you put the kettle on? It seems Mr. Prin-Hallsey has a sudden longing for tea.” She turned to the man. “Or would you prefer coffee?”

“I don’t – Whichever you prefer is fine. The tin, Miss Aubrey?”

Mariah led the way to the larder, feeling Dixon’s concerned gaze on her back. She quickly located the ornamental tea tin – they had reused it over and over again, as the original few ounces of Ceylon had long since been used up.

He grabbed the tin from her, pried open the lid, and began shifting the loose tea this way and that as though to see to the bottom.

“Here.” She took it from him, dumped the tea leaves into a bowl, and then handed it back. He looked inside the now-empty tin.

“Nothing,” he murmured.

What had he expected to find?

She had more difficulty finding the old coffee tin.

“Dixon? Do you remember what we did with that blue enamel coffee tin my aunt gave us when first we came?”

“Oh.” Dixon wiped her hands on her apron. “Just a moment and I’ll fetch it.”

She returned from her own room a few moments later and offered the blue tin as though one of the magi presenting a gift.

Hugh pulled it from her and carelessly ripped off the lid, sending a clattering shower of buttons and pins scuttling across the kitchen floor. Dixon’s face crumpled as though her last few shillings had been cast upon the sea, irretrievable.

“There is nothing here,” Hugh announced. “What else did you say she gave you?”

“Just some biscuits, wrapped in paper, which are long gone I am afraid.”

Dixon added, “And your aunt gave us a candle – ”

“Several candles,” Mariah interrupted quickly, with a warning look at Dixon. “But those are long gone as well.”

“Dash it.” Hugh dropped his head, rubbed his long-fingered hand over his unkempt hair, and fought for control. “Well.” He straightened abruptly. “Pardon the intrusion. I trust,
cousin
Mariah, that should you remember anything else your aunt gave you, you will not hesitate to let me know?”

Mariah nodded, but the promise would not come.

Once Hugh had gone, Mariah helped Dixon gather up the spilled buttons. Then she lit a candle and walked slowly upstairs to the attic. There, she pulled the old key from around her neck and knelt before her aunt’s chest. She had resisted opening it to this point. But now . . . What in the world did he think was inside? Surely there was nothing to her aunt’s jest about “treasure.” Was it possible Hugh had believed it?

She slid the key into the lock and tried to turn it. It would not give. She jiggled it in the slot and tried again.
Click
. She raised the lid and lifted her candle high to see inside. On top was a lace shawl, curiously like the one she kept in her own trunk. She set it aside. Under it, she found two pairs of gloves, a stack of old ledgers, two novels, and two miniature portraits – one of Aunt Fran’s son and one of Mariah’s uncle Norris, both long dead. She peered more closely at the one of her mother’s brother. How bittersweet to see his face again after so many years. What a funny, lovable man he had been.

Setting these aside, she picked up the first of what appeared to be several large, heavy ledgers. Household accounts? Journals? She had no interest in the former and wondered if it would be proper to read the latter. But had Francesca Prin-Hallsey not left them in her care? What had she said . . . ?
“Wait until after I am dead and buried, and then you
may sift through my things.”
Something like it, at any rate.

She lifted the cover of the first volume and began to read.

The Prin-Hallseys wish everyone to think they are from an old,
good family with close connections to the nobility. But the truth of the
matter is that old Horace Hallsey made his living as a tailor. But after
listening to his patrons – many of them personages of quality – he
acquired several useful investment strategies, the ability to mimic an
upper-crust accent, and a style of conversation pleasing to the ton.
He added the Prin to his surname, taken from his mother’s maiden
name, because he thought it made him sound aristocratic, and to
distance himself from the name of his family’s well-known London
business, Hallsey and Sons. He met his first wife at Covent Garden.
An actress . . .

Mariah shook her head. No wonder Aunt Fran didn’t want these journals to become public until after her death. Did it also explain why she had given them to Mariah – did she fear Hugh would destroy them, should they fall into his hands?

The candle guttered, and Mariah’s knees began to ache. She decided she would take the journals down to her room to read them in greater comfort at her leisure.

When a hired post-chaise stopped before the gatehouse three days later, Mariah hurried to the window, fearing who it might be this time.

It was Henry. What was he doing back so soon? She was not expecting him, especially midweek. And why the carriage to her door instead of taking the coach from Oxford to Whitmore and then walking the rest of the way as usual? Why the hurry, the added expense?

She could tell nothing from his expression, hat pulled low against the drizzle, frock coattails whipping in the wind. He carried a parcel under one arm and held a valise in the other. Had Mr. Crosby rejected her second manuscript already?

She hurried to the door and flung it wide. “Henry, what is it? Is everything all right?”

A slow smile lifted one side of his mouth. “You tell me.” He handed her the brown-paper-wrapped parcel, and she took it in her arms like a mother takes a child. It was solid, rectangular. Her heart began pounding. Could it be? So soon?

Henry said, “Am I to come in or stand in the wet?”

“Oh. Do come in,” she murmured as she stepped back, her eyes and thoughts on the parcel. She set it on the table and carefully began to pull away the paper.

Henry wiped his feet and removed his hat. “Come on, Rye, for once in your life, just tear in.”

She felt slightly offended at his remark but was too distracted to do more than shoot him a look. She ripped the paper and let it fall to the floor. She stared, eyes wide, nerves jangling.

There it was. In her hands.

A Winter in Bath
by Lady A

“Is it real?” Mariah breathed.

“No, my dear, it is fiction.” Henry grinned. “At least, I hope it is.”

“Goose.” She glanced at him, but her eyes were quickly drawn back to the book. “I did not expect it so soon.”

“And that is not all. Crosby says he is interested in
Daughters
as well, though he wants to read more before he commits. Is that not good news?”

“Yes.”

Henry smiled and tapped the book cover. “Then I say this calls for a celebration.”

Happiness bubbled inside her. “And I say you are perfectly right.”

They were sitting around the kitchen table – Mariah, Henry, Dixon, and even Martin – when Captain Bryant appeared at the back door, propped open to allow the rain-washed air to cool the kitchen, still overly warm from the cooking fire.

“Captain Bryant!” Dixon, cheeks flushed from the champagne Henry had brought, rose quickly to open wide the door.

There was nothing else to do. He wasn’t at the front door, where one might send him away with a manufactured excuse. He was right there at the kitchen door and had already seen them sitting together, talking and laughing.