Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

S carlett and Reverend Margrave generally kept country hours for dinner, usually sitting down around four o’clock. Thus it was a surprise to her when he summoned her to his book room at half past three; she might have imagined that anything he wished to say to her could have waited for dinner. Trepidation pricked at her as she descended the stairs, but she persuaded herself it was just the peculiarity of the request, not true foreboding.

Her day had not been a happy one. The frustrations she had always kept at bay, the feeling of living a life not her own, would not be easily set aside. Her thoughts were a muddle, trying to comprehend the truth of her beginnings and what it meant for her now—if anything. And it weighed on her, thinking that Bess, her dearest friend and one person whom she truly felt loved by, was slipping out of her reach. It began with the London Season and ended with Bess as Mrs Beamish, her own home and family in her mind, having forgotten all about Scarlett. Such pitying notions! Scarlett tried to laugh about it, if even in her own mind, but had not yet arrived at such equanimity.

The reverend was writing in a small book as she entered. “You needed me, sir?” she asked as she presented herself in front of his desk. He did not look up, but that had happened before. She knew she was desired to be patient and silent and await his attention.

At last, he finished writing and put his quill back in its little stand, next to his pot of ink. Then he steepled his hands and looked at her, his eyes dark and flat. For long minutes, there was nothing but staring.

Finally unable to bear it longer, she asked, “You wished to see me?”

“A report of an alarming nature reached me this afternoon, Scarlett. I had hoped you might make a clean breast of it yourself without me having to ask you.”

“I-I do not know what you mean, sir.”

“Scarlett.” He said it in a disapproving, almost pitying manner.

“Truly, I cannot think of anything today that you might have disapproved of. I visited Mrs Worsely and took a basket to the Joneses’, I?—”

“Spent nearly an hour lolling on a bed with Bess Leighton, gossiping about matters of no concern to her?” His colourless lips pressed into a thin, angry line. “Yes, Scarlett, I know all about it. ”

“But h-how—” She stopped, suspecting she knew how he knew. There was a dreadful little whey-faced cretin called Uriah who often followed her about, no doubt watching her on the reverend’s coin. She and Bess had given no regard to open windows, or to keeping their voices down.

“Never mind how I know, but I do—as I know that the pair of you, silly and ignorant, were sparking up some nonsense about money to go to London.”

“That is not what we did!”

“So you were not discussing your secret purse of money? That was surprising news.”

“It…no, that is not?—”

“And that flibbertigibbet Bess was not attempting to persuade you to go to London? Even offering her own money to you?”

“Well…y-yes, but I said?—”

“Enough,” he said, quiet fire in his tone.

Scarlett felt a flutter of fear in her stomach. He had never been cruel to her, but he did frighten her nevertheless.

“You think yourself some grand lady now, yes? Well, allow me to show you this.” He thrust the book he had been writing in towards her, nearly sending it sliding off the desk. She caught it just in time, turning it around to view it.

The page was covered with figures and calculations, none of which made any sense to her. The date on the top of the page was two days previous, and at the bottom, the number five hundred and eighty-two was circled. She began to rifle through the pages, seeing what looked like expenses going back years and years. This must be the account that Mrs Hobson found.

“So when you wish to boast of your trifling little sum of money,” he said bitingly, “think of this .”

She raised her eyes. “What is this?”

“This is what I have spent raising you. Likely over six hundred pounds complete, for I am sure I missed some things.”

Her mouth fell open. He had kept track of it all? Her eyes again roamed the page she had landed on—it looked like every meal she had eaten, every shoe she had worn, every candle she had ever lit—it had all been recorded and tallied. Why? Who would do this, take in a child and then keep accounts of how much that child was beholden to them?

Not only have I not been loved , she thought, I have been an unwelcome burden . “Why are you showing me this?”

“You are privileged, excessively so, to call yourself Miss Margrave, and this nonsense of the assembly has made you forget that. You owe me more than you can ever repay—far more than your little pouch of coins in your bedchamber! I am disgusted that I even need to show you this. I should have imagined your innate gratitude would compel you to do your duties. But now you know. You will repay me, not in money, but in service.”

She had been trained to earn her keep! Not a servant—servants were paid. The customary outlay of childrearing had been added to accounts that she could never settle, save for the enduring servitude of a spinster daughter.

“I did not ask for any of this,” she said with more defiance than she felt.

“And yet, you have taken it. Gladly.” He was more comfortable now, his voice taking on the cadence of sermonising. “Yours is a debt like the one to our Heavenly Father, which can never be removed or repaid, save for obedience and humility. I am going to write out a course of scripture study for you that you may meditate upon over the next three days.”

“The next three days?”

“And when those three days are complete,” he said, with a disapproving click of his tongue, “you will cease lolling about with Miss Leighton.”

“Until she returns from London?”

He gave her a mockingly sad look that was all the answer she required. “But Bess is my friend!”

“Bess was your friend. I do not need such poor influences preying upon you. You are weak-minded, Scarlett, far more than I ever could have imagined, and I can only presume that it is the influence of the mother who bore you that makes you so.”

She felt the peculiar urge to defend her, that unknown woman she had never known, but that would only make things worse.

The door clicked open behind her and Mrs Hobson entered. Scarlett turned, not liking the look of her as the lady stood with eyes averted, twisting her hands beneath her apron.

“You will forgo the material comforts of your bedchamber and your meals over the next few days, and succumb to a fast of the mind, body, and spirit.”

“What?” she cried out. “No! I promise I shall not?—”

“It is needful,” he said sternly. “It will do you very well to think of what you have been given, and how careless you have been for it. Everyone can look at what they wish for and think of themselves as poor creatures. Those who are truly happy have proper thankfulness for what they have been given. I can only pray three days will suffice. Mrs Hobson?”

The last was a signal for the housekeeper to come forwards and take Scarlett by the arm. Astonished into compliance, she allowed herself to be led from her father’s book room and taken to a small room in the attic. The room held only a cot overlaid with a rough woollen blanket and a Bible; the only light, dim as it was, came through a small, high window. “I am sorry, Scarlett,” said Mrs Hobson in hushed tones. “I shall work on him, see if this cannot be shortened.”

“Thank you,” she said wearily. Her stomach picked that unfortunate moment to grumble, and she grew teary-eyed thinking surely he did not mean to starve her for three days? Not when she was already hungry? Did today count as one of the three days? She held no hope in Mrs Hobson’s powers of persuasion, or even in the good lady’s will to exercise them. The housekeeper was excessively timid when it came to doing the reverend’s bidding.

Mrs Hobson closed the door, and Scarlett heard the scrape of the latch, locking her in. Then she threw herself on the little cot and sobbed.