Chapter Six

Madeline didn’t know what to expect when she came downstairs behind Miss Cuthbert, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t Captain Foster. Maybe she had thought he would look like Mr. Ince, since he was that good man’s grandson, but Amos Foster was of middling height and lean, with an intensity in his dark eyes made more pronounced by the wind scours around them. She knew this was a man used to being outdoors in all weather. Mama always said that Mr. Ince looked like he was built for comfort, but that wasn’t Captain Foster. He looked like a man accustomed to enduring.

Before she turned away because of an engrained unwillingness to be scrutinized, she noticed something more than mere scrutiny: he appeared interested in her. Why, she couldn’t imagine, except that the notion was flattering. He needed a haircut, and somehow, that simple detail, quickly noted, touched her heart. It made her wonder if he ever had time to think of himself. It also made him human.

Should she curtsy? Should she extend her hand? What did ladies do in America? You’re being silly , she told herself. What should she even say? Miss Cuthbert said he was interested in someone to give Mr. Ince’s house a quick clean. “He called it a lick and a promise,” Miss Cuthbert had said upstairs, and they giggled together. Perhaps it was an American term.

“I already know you,” she said impulsively, then put her hand to her mouth. ‘Well, I do, sir. I wrote some of the later correspondence to you from Mr. Ince. I don’t precisely know you…” Why was she getting so flustered? There was something about this American she liked on sight. Heavens knows what, but she was turning into an idiot. She gave up and held out her hand to him.

He shook her hand. “I regret I never met him.”

That, then, was that. “You would have liked him,” Maddie said. “I know I did.”

Miss Cuthbert had gone ahead into the library. “Tea and biscuits,” she announced. “You have time for that, Captain Foster.”

“I think I won’t argue with her,” he said, when he nodded and the librarian returned to her kitchen.

“Wise of you, sir,” Madeline Tifton replied. She went to the window and sat on a stool beside the comfortable armchair.

“This is the better seat,” he told her. “You should sit here.”

“Captain Foster, I have tried that armchair. Once I am in it, I sink in and need assistance getting out of it.”

He leaned toward her and tried to sound conspiratorial. “I’m trying to think of a way to whisk it from the library, stick it on the mail coach without anyone’s notice, and get it back to my ship and into my miniscule cabin. If you think of a distracting diversion, do share it with me.”

“I will point out to the street, and scream that the horses are loose from the posting house,” she said promptly, her eyes lively. “It will be a brief diversion, and you will be on your own!”

It was a silly conversation, but the captain didn’t seem to mind. When tea arrived, he took a sip, and became all business. “Apparently, I am here because the solicitor has been keeping my step-grandfather’s will, which must mean I am in it; heaven knows why. I don’t suppose he reckoned on war, so some considerable time has passed. Mr. Clare gave me the keys to Grandfather’s little house, where I want to stay. It’s only a matter of a few days, but I’m already sneezing from all the dust.”

“We will both be happy to redd up the place for you,” Maddie said. “Mama is sewing a row of tatting to the annual Christmas dress I make for Miss Amelia Tifton of Tifton Manor. When she finishes, she can help me at your Number Fourteen.”

“I will pay you four pounds for your efforts, Miss Tifton.”

G oodness. You Americans are perhaps easy to cheat in the market , Maddie thought, astounded at such a sum. “Captain, you would be grossly overpaying us,” she said. “Five shillings will suffice and we’ll be glad of it.”

“But I wouldn’t be glad of it,” he countered. “Don’t argue, Miss Tifton. I will pay four pounds.”

It wasn’t said with any meanness, or really, any emotion at all. Maddie decided that sea captains must have a certain command that was hard to dispute. “Very well, sir,” she replied, “as long as we do not put you in the poor house.”

“You will not.” He took another biscuit. “When can I expect you next door?”

“Now,” Maddie said, still stunned by the idea of that much money for doing so little. “I’ll wrap a scarf around my hair and get some cleaning supplies.” She couldn’t help herself then. “Is there a password after I knock that allows me entrance?”

He thought a moment. “Swordfish,” he said, which struck her as hilarious.

“Oh, you have a better one?” he teased back.

“Thimble.”

“Thimble it is.”

Maddie knew Mr. Ince’s house well. Perhaps she should tell Captain Foster that she and Mama had cleaned it many times when the old man started to fade. She put on her oldest dress, knocked on his door and said “Thimble,” when he opened it and laughed, which gave her the giggles.

But there was work to do. She went right to the closet off the kitchen, with its mop and bucket, and something evil-smelling that cleaned floors and walls.

“I can help.”

She handed the captain a broom and dustpan, and he went to work alongside her until the kitchen was in order. The sitting room was a larger dust repository, which meant the captain was soon sneezing and helpless.

P oor man, Maddie thought. This will never do . She had a task for him upstairs. “I can finish this,” she said. “Captain, please go upstairs and take the sheets from the beds.”

“I already looked. No need. They’ve been covered by bedspreads.”

“…Which are full of dust. It’s been three years.”

When he appeared inclined to argue, she took a page from his own book. “You told me not to argue about wages,” she reminded him. “Don’t argue about housework, Captain. I probably know it better than you do.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly enough. He whistled his way upstairs, which suggested she had not wounded his pride overmuch. Poor fellow. She heard him sneezing almost immediately.

The sitting room was also a nightmare of dust, even for Madeline. She took a large handkerchief from her pocket and tied it over her nose and mouth, which helped. She dragged the area rug outside. She swept, then began to mop, when the captain came downstairs with a load of bed coverings. When he looked in on her in the sitting room, he dropped his bundle and raised his hands. “Is it my money or my life? Both?” he asked.

She had never enjoyed cleaning out a dusty house so much in her entire life, and all because Captain Foster was hilarious. When his hands were still raised, she threatened him with the wooden end of the mop. “Neither of those, sir,” she said, then felt supremely shy, because she wanted to tell him that his good humor was buoying her up as nothing had in her years of poverty and humiliation at the hands of relatives. It wasn’t something she could tell anyone, much less a man she barely knew.

B ut I do know you , she considered later as she tackled the book room. On her direction, Captain Foster had taken that area rug to the backyard clothesline and was tormenting it with the rug beater. I know you from the letters than Mr. Ince dictated to me, then stowed in that pasteboard box because he could not mail them .

The box. Where did he put that pasteboard box? She would have looked, but a knock on the door meant Mama’s arrival. Like her daughter had done, Mama walked through the main floor, remembering its former owner, dabbing at her eyes.

By the time Mama’s inspection ended, Captain Foster was in the pantry, emptying out old flour and nameless food that had seen better days. “I’m not in my element here,” he admitted to Maddie.

There was no real need for an introduction. “You must be Mrs. Tifton,” he said to Mama. “Is Hampshire famous for its handsome ladies?””

Those wrinkles around his eyes deepened, and Maddie revised her opinion of them, and him. Maybe they were smile lines. “Three or four days should finish my involvement in Ashfield, or as long as it takes for Mr. Clare to read the contents of Grandpa’s will and testament. Can’t imagine why he needs me for that, but here I am.”

Thinking of the will seemed to remind him of the time. He pulled out his pocket watch and frowned. “Time and tides wait for no man. I am to have dinner at Tifton Manor in one half hour,” he told them. “I wish I had a better shirt than a flannel one and this sorry specimen rejoicing in blue and white checks.”

“I can find one of your grandpapa’s shirts,” Mama said. “The other Mrs. Tifton is a stickler for proper social spheres and good manners.”

“I doubt she will be impressed with my social sphere,” the captain said cheerfully, leading Maddie to suspect he didn’t give much thought to rank and style, if any. “A shirt here?”

“We used to wash and iron your grandpapa’s linens,” Maddie said, feeling her face turn rosy because the subject seemed intimate. A glance at the captain only showed her an interested face.

“We still have a shirt or two at our place,” Mama said. “I never had the heart to return them, once he was gone. There is this, too.” She reached in her pocket. “Here’s the key he left us. We didn’t know who to give it to. But then, you must already have one.”

“Aye. The solicitor told me that about a week before he passed away, Grandpa took a will to him, plus a key. You hang onto yours, Mrs. Tifton,” he told her. “I don’t know what is to happen to this place.” He looked around. “It’s a nice house.”

Mama left to get the shirt. Captain Foster watched her go. “What happened to you and your mother?” he asked quietly.

He sat down at the dining room table, and she felt obliged to sit, as well. “Mama met Mr. Peter Tifton’s younger brother in London at the home of mutual friends. Apparently he was a charming person, and Mama quite a beauty.”

“She still is,” he interrupted, then startled her by looking at her with that same scrutiny that had surprised her earlier. “And you resemble her. Ah yes, go on. I interrupted you.”

“They married, and it was a mistake from the start. He was under the impression she had some wealth––Mama does carry herself well––so imagine his surprise when he learned how little she had.”

“Mr. Clare said he drank and gambled and died, leaving you in ruins. Do you remember your father?”

“All I remember is someone who came by now and then, and finally stole Mama’s two remaining gold necklaces to pawn.” She went to the newly cleaned window, uncomfortable with the subject. “I remember a cold ride on the mail coach, then walking to the manor and a door slamming in our faces. I was six.”

W hat he must think of us , Maddie thought, unwilling to say more. “We manage well enough now,” she added quickly. “Please don’t feel sorry for us.”

“I won’t,” he said. “Now I must dine with people who already don’t impress me too much. So Mr. Peter Tifton is lord of this manor, and his brother was the rascal?”

“Aye, sir,” She took a liberty and leaned closer. “Between you and me and probably everyone in Ashfield, Peter Tifton has been cowed by your step-aunt for years. I doubt you’ll miss Ashfield when you leave.”

He started to reply, but Mama came into the room. She handed him a neatly folded shirt, kept in their lodging over the library, and not dusty. “It might be a little large.”

“But there are no blue and white checks,” the captain said. “Wish me luck, ladies!”

They did, and left after Mama gave him directions to the manor, just a mile further west. “Stay on this street and you’ll get there,” she said as he walked them to the door. “After you leave, Maddie and I will return and finish tidying up this place.”

“I’ll find that pasteboard box with the rest of your grandpapa’s letters,” Maddie said.

“What? What?” he teased. “Neither of you are willing to stay here to make sure my neckcloth is straight, there is no tooth powder on my nose, and my jacket well-brushed? How can I possibly impress those other Tiftons?”

“I could have told him that no one can impress those Tiftons,” Mama said as they strolled home three buildings away, where Miss Cuthbert was turning the sign from Open to Closed, Come Again. “Maddie?”

“Oh. Yes. No one,” she said, surprised to find her mind busy with the enjoyable fiction of making certain Captain Foster’s neck cloth was squared away and his suit jacket tidy. She had long since given up the notion that she might ever do that for a man someday. She thought she had resigned herself, but apparently wishful thinking poked its way out of dusty corners to look around.

H e’s only here for a few days . Don’t be silly.