Chapter 26

26

For where thou art, there is the world itself,

And where thou art not, desolation.

Henry VI, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 2

October

My dear Ann,

Your letter arrived on the very day I noted the leaves outside my window were beginning to change. London will be dressed in orange and gold for your arrival, and you cannot imagine my joy at learning you will soon be here. Papa always referred to me as his summer girl, but I must confess, autumn has always brought me the most delight—to see the world change all around you and feel the days turn crisp and cold is like magic. The gaslights burn as beautifully as any firefly in the meadow at dusk. It eases my mind to think that life is not one season, that the heartaches of these last few months cannot last forever.

Please, please convince me that they cannot last forever.

We mustn't dwell there. Since I cannot pursue my writing or that other thing (hello, Aunt Eliza, I know you are reading this), I have tried to find ways to keep my mind constantly employed, lest the ideas bubbling within make it burst. Who requires liberty or love when there are rich bachelors and Mayfair townhouses; I am sure that is what my aunt Eliza wishes me to say. You would think all the secrets of the universe could be found in the folds of maiden's-blush damask silk, so fervently does she covet it.

It will not shock you to hear that I have devoured everything in the little library here. Thank the lord, my aunt's good friends the Courtenays enjoy an extensive collection and they took pity on me, kindly sending over some selections. Aunt Eliza has strictly forbidden me from attending the raffles at Minerva Press, for she is convinced that a circulating library will be a corrupting influence. Her choices and methods are mysterious to me. I can confess this to you even with my jailors watching, for it is no secret in the house: I tried twice already to smuggle ink and paper into my room in a quantity suitable for drafting. Those fledgling manuscripts were discovered and tossed from the nest. I am likely to try it again if my time here stretches on much longer.

How I miss Mosely and my sisters! How I miss freedom.

But I have the strangest news. I have never told you of my father's sister, Beatrice, who was cut off from the family after she chose a life on the stage. My father always spoke tenderly of her and kept a locket in his study with her likeness inside. We otherwise knew nothing about her, and we were never introduced, for Papa never corresponded with the lady after she left. My being in London is no secret, as Aunt Eliza has trotted me out exhaustively to every ball and salon in the hopes of luring a suitor, and it must be that way that the name of Arden got about and traveled to the folk now caring for Beatrice in her old age.

She is not well, and the Smiths have taken care of her for months now as she declines. A lingering cold from last winter has not abated and worsens monthly. They are not wealthy, the Smiths, but people of such generosity that I could not help but be moved by their pleas for help; recently they moved Aunt Beatrice from St. Giles to their own home. It is not a Mayfair beauty, but it is suitable for me to visit. Aunt Eliza also does not have a heart of stone, not always, anyway, and has allowed me to help care for Beatrice and to bring her supper every Friday.

And Ann! She is such wonderful company—clever, well-spoken, and, though weak, eager to tell me stories of her youth and her happiest days on the stage. Often, I see what her audiences must have, a shining gem, a woman born to perform and entertain. Sometimes it is just like sitting with Papa again, and it has become such a needed balm for my spirit. We find ourselves discussing the hardship of estrangement, and I'm sure you can imagine where my mind and heart go when that is the subject. It is those Fridays, your letters, and the letters of my sisters that keep me from going completely mad. Violet says she will come to see me soon, we only await Aunt Eliza's permission.

Give Lane my love and keep as much as you need for yourself. Do not worry about me; I think I can endure anything so long as I have books enough to read. That is what I tell myself when the nights are too lonely to bear.

Yours,

Maggie

"I wonder, Margaret, at your lack of a husband."

She sat by the fireside with Beatrice while her aunt sipped her fortifying soup. Maggie had been lost in thought, watching the flames dance and shiver, remembering the exact warmth of the hearth on the night she and Bridger slept at the vicar's parsonage. The question made her jump back into herself, and she fussed idly with the stitching that was in her lap, which she had been poking at on and off while she chatted with Beatrice and kept her company.

She had been trying to embroider a lovely pastoral rabbit, but Winny was the artisan of the family. Her poor little rabbit looked more like a lopsided weasel.

"You are young and clever and lovely," said Beatrice, hovering over the bowl. The Smiths kept a small, tidy home, unremarkable but for the curtains, which were of excellent quality and thickness; they had made their money in that trade. "How is it that you have not married?"

"I could ask you the same question," Maggie replied. Beatrice had never accepted a husband or had children, though she had shamelessly recalled for Maggie a long list of lovers, from actors to politicians to dukes.

Beatrice set down her spoon and laughed, the laugh degrading into a painful cough. Shifting out of her chair, Maggie offered her a handkerchief, then patiently waited for the fit to stop. She hugged a pretty shawl closer around her thin shoulders; Winny had made it and sent it from Mosely for Maggie to deliver. "You tease me! Who would have me now?"

"I ask myself the same question," said Maggie, her gaze drawn back to the flames. The house smelled like rising bread, yeasty, bright, and soothing, enhanced by the profusion of dried herbs hanging on hooks above the hearth. The blanket covering two elderly ginger cats rose and fell, the cloth draped over a deep basket, giving the appearance of a pie bubbling as it cooked. Their purring snores rolled beneath the snap and pop of the fire. Maggie stared down at her sad rabbit, ready to give up on it entirely. Maybe Winny could unpick it and fix the shape, if ever she was allowed to go home.

"You are too hard on yourself." Beatrice sighed, returning to her soup. "Or else, I cannot find fault with you. If you would rather keep your secrets close, then—"

"There was a man," Maggie blurted out. She clutched the sewing in her lap and gasped, the needle pricking her thumb. A bead of blood oozed out, and she was almost grateful for it, for that tiny, human pain. Things varied so little day-to-day, trapped in Eliza's gaudy, gilded cage, that feeling anything was a thrill.

During her visits with Beatrice, she had spent hours describing her childhood, assuring the old woman that Mr. Arden had been a doting father. She never went to sleep without first having a bedtime story, and during those same bedtime stories, her father described the unknown years of Shakespeare's life. Nobody really knew what his early time in London was like. The time between 1585 and 1592 was something of a blank. The Lost Years, they were called. That phrase had stayed with Margaret from the instant she first heard it. The Lost Years. It felt like what she was living now—the time between seeing one's destiny and actually getting to live it.

The second part of Henry VI sprang to mind— For where thou art, there is the world itself, and where thou art not, desolation.

Beatrice waited, like all smart women, knowing more would come if it was meant to. Sticking her pricked thumb between her lips, Maggie turned and faced her aunt. It was impossible not to see the resemblance between them. Illness, age, and hard living had given her aunt a sunken appearance, her hair thin, the skin beneath it marked with orange splotches. But their eyes danced with the same blue embers, their mouths lifted in the same bemused smile, and it was so like looking in a mirror to the future—she beheld herself an old maid, leaping the years that might be filled with her own style of happiness. Beatrice had been solitary but not alone, and her stories were never tinged with regret.

"I told you Aunt Eliza has unofficially assumed my guardianship to shop me around to London society," Maggie said slowly. "And that is true. But I did not tell you why she is so strict and overbearing—there was a man this summer, the first man I have ever met who matched me in wit. He is handsome, to be sure, but it was his humor and intelligence that captured me. We talked about all the things I love for hours—Scott, Cowper, Edgeworth. Poetry, biography, prose…he could speak to all of it, and we passed a single perfect evening together. Perfect for me, but my aunt had other feelings."

Leaning back, Beatrice nodded. "Your family did not approve of him."

"Neither of us have money," Maggie replied with a dry chuckle. "After Father died, we had scarcely five hundred pounds between us. With three girls grown, you can imagine how far that goes, and how little inducement there is to marry us beyond our charms and looks. Mosely Cottage is not ours, but my aunt's, and she is the ruler of our little world. Without her charity…"

"Poor, dear heart," said Beatrice. "I'm sure you weighed the costs."

"I did. Impossible, unthinkable, to harm my innocent sisters. But believe me, I have considered changing my mind every day. Every minute."

They were interrupted by Mrs. Smith arriving, a fluffy blue bonnet in her hands. She was a small woman, cheerfully rounded, apples in her cheeks, and with an unflinchingly rosy disposition. "You wished for me to remind you of the noon hour," said Mrs. Smith from the doorway.

"Of course!" Maggie had lost track of the time. She leapt up and placed her sewing in the small basket near her feet. The cats stirred and turned over in their bed by the fire. "I'm sorry, Beatrice, I must leave you early today. My friend and sister are arriving today. They stay a fortnight, and I'm sure they will want to accompany me next Friday, if that is agreeable."

"We would be delighted," Mrs. Smith cried.

"Your sister?" Beatrice smiled serenely. "Yes, dear, I so wish to meet her."

"Then I will see you both very soon." Maggie went to embrace her aunt, troubled by the frailty of her body. She lingered there, then left the cozy row house and took the carriage that was waiting for her. An almost unbearable impulse rose in her to tell the driver to take her not to Mayfair, but to Paternoster Row in St.Paul's Churchyard. She remembered addressing the Killbride manuscript to Dockarty she wasn't eating properly. The paper fell away, revealing a gleaming, beautiful, blue, marbled leather-bound book. As she cracked open the fragrant new cover, her heart stopped in her throat. She thought she might faint and choke as she digested the text.

THE KILLbrIDE.

A NOVEL.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

BY A LADY.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR B. DARROW,

MILITARY LIbrARY, WHITEHALL.

1817.

A note slipped out from between the next pages. Maggie's hands shook as she cradled the precious book to her stomach with her left, and with her right, carefully unfolded the letter.

For the author,

It is with pride that I present to you a first edition of the first volume of The Killbride by A Lady, bound in goatskin, the whole of which is to be published in two duodecimo volumes. You will find it in cloth binding at the circulating libraries of London, where it is already proving quite popular. Our small press will do what it can to meet the demand. As for the profits generated by this novel, they are entirely yours. Miss Regina Applethwaite generously put up the sum required to print the run, and has forfeited all expectable income from The Killbride, instructing that it should instead go to the author.

This does not violate the terms of your arrangement with Mrs. Burton, as there is no indication that you, dear one, are the author. This has been done with no expectation of acknowledgment or thanks; if it would endanger your family, do not respond to this gesture, merely take it with the spirit in which it is meant: my sincere respect and love.

You once wrote that there is no Margaret Arden without her writing. We both know I have never hesitated to offer critique where needed, and in this, I feel strongly, you are wrong. For I fell in love with a woman, not a book, and if you could never produce another word again, it would not diminish you in my eyes.

With unflinching admiration,

Mr. Bridger Darrow

"I can't breathe," Maggie whispered, reading the note again and again. "I really don't think I can breathe."

"You're speaking well enough," said Ann.

"Hold her up, Ann! Hold her up! Don't let her damage the book!" Violet crowded them, hands flung out wide.

Ann laughingly took Maggie by the shoulders, standing behind her, prepared to catch the lady if she indeed fell. Tiny spasms of shock rolled through Maggie's body. It felt like her tongue had touched lightning. She flipped through the book, confirming that yes, those were her words printed in a real book. It was unbearably beautiful.

He was unbearably beautiful. He had done it for her. After her cold, stony silence, he had still done it for her.

"Is it real?" she asked, gazing up at them in a daze.

"Absolutely real," said Ann.

"Can you believe Miss Applethwaite helped?" Violet shook her head in disbelief. "I thought she had all the depth of a boiled leek, but I am happy to be wrong."

"After your last letter," Ann added, "I instructed Lane to share with Mr. Darrow that we would be in town in October, and that if he had any…important errands for us to run, we would be at his disposal. It just so happens, he had a very specific task in mind."

"But then, you've seen him," Maggie murmured, drifting a few steps toward the door. She hadn't removed her coat or bonnet.

"We have," Violet told her, grinning ear to ear.

"And how did he look?"

Violet held her hands to her lips. "Still in love with you."

It was then that Aunt Eliza chose to appear. Mr. Burton was nowhere to be seen, which was usually the case, and given his grumpy demeanor, nobody ever complained about it. Feathered and frocked in jewellike purple, Eliza opened her arms to greet her guests. "But what is the matter, girls?" Her eyes fell keenly and swiftly on the book and letter in Maggie's grasp. "What is that?" she asked, sharp. Lord, but she had a devilishly keen nose for Maggie's misbehavior.

But Maggie scarcely heard her. She certainly didn't heed her. "I have to go to him."

Frantic, Violet's head snapped back and forth between her sister and her aunt. "Run, sister, I will hold the line!"

"What could you possibly mean by that?" Aunt Eliza stormed past her guests, quickly surmising what lay in Maggie's hands. "Give that here, Margaret. You know our understanding! Wait, I see it now—have these two sirens come to tempt you toward more misadventure?"

Maggie made up her mind quickly. And really, Aunt Eliza made the mistake of forcing the issue. She lunged for the book, surprisingly agile, eluding Violet long enough to make an earnest grab for the gift. The spell was broken. Maggie crashed back into her body with a cry of alarm, spinning before her aunt could reach her. She used the momentum of the turn, racing for the doors and stumbling through them before the footmen could stop her.

"Take my carriage!" she heard Ann shout from within and over Eliza's squawks of protest. "My driver knows the way!"