Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

F our days later, the door from the kitchen slammed closed behind her, and Scarlett strode off with terrified indignation making her blood race, swiping the tears off her cheeks as she went.

“Scarlett!” Mrs Hobson came running out behind her.

She turned and looked to see the housekeeper extending a small pouch from beneath her apron. “What is this?”

“Nothing.” The housekeeper pressed it into her hand, forcibly closing Scarlett’s fingers around it. “Certainly not the money I keep for the milkmaids or the post.” She smiled. “It is hardly anything, but it might get you something for your stomach when you need it. Tuck it down in your satchel, now.”

From the weight of it, Scarlett thought it might get her more than that, but it seemed Mrs Hobson would not hear a refusal. A fresh wash of tears came over her as she pushed it into the hastily-packed satchel in which she had just stuffed three of her best gowns. Then she gave the housekeeper a kiss on the cheek, turned, and went once again on her way.

Her steps on the lane were firm and confident, a direct contrast to her actual feelings. She retreated into her thoughts as she walked, her mind replaying over and over the remarkable events that had led to her , of all people, being on the road to Dunstable, and then on to London.

The three days of her imprisonment had passed like none other in her life. Mrs Hobson had met with little success in persuading the reverend to release her from her punishment. Scarlett was unsurprised by that, but she was surprised by the little acts of defiance perpetrated by the housekeeper, who sneaked her tea and muffins, and even a note from Bess bidding her farewell.

She railed against her imprisonment at first, sobbing and pacing and imagining, in her head, all the furious arguments she would have liked to launch at the reverend. It could not last, however, and eventually she subsided into a dream-like stupor, lying on the cot and merely thinking. The entire structure of her life had just been razed to the ground; she was dazed and shocked, standing amid a proverbial pile of rubble where a home had once been and plagued by myriad questions about what once had been and what happened next.

The mother who had raised her had been a quiet woman who had always—at least in Scarlett’s memories—seemed to be sewing. She spoke little, save to admonish her daughter to sit up straight, or hush her when she was too loud. She had been older than most other mothers, having been forty when Scarlett was…well, not born. Adopted. ‘A late in life surprise’ was all Mrs Margrave had ever said about her daughter. Scarlett had presumed to imagine she meant that having fallen with child at such an advanced age had shocked her. Evidently that had not been the case.

Mrs Margrave had been the reverend’s model for ideal womanhood; she spoke only when spoken to, dressed soberly, lived frugally, and was not given to displays of sentiment. A sense of doom came over her when Scarlett realised the reverend’s efforts had been aimed at molding her into a similar sort of woman.

She had felt, always, as if things were not quite right, as if she did not belong, or was out of place in some way. She never knew what it was she wanted, only that she had never had it. She had wondered, at times, at the reverend’s zeal for denial. She believed in God, of course, but she had never quite understood why the good Lord would have created so many wondrous things if He had no wish for His faithful followers to find enjoyment in them.

There had been, always, loneliness within her. The reverend and her mother were always so grave; there had been times she longed to shout, or stomp, or do something to relieve the weight of their sobriety. The noise and chatter she saw in other houses were wildly appealing to her.

Was her family what she had been missing? This lady in London—might they be relations of a sort? A sister seemed too much to imagine, particularly given the now exalted position of the lady—but it was surely some place to start. One certainty, Scarlett knew: to return to her life in Stanbridge, when the shimmering mirage of something else lingered on the edge of her mind, was impossible.

But you must remember that it is exceedingly unlikely that this girl is anything to you , she told herself continuously. What would be the odds of an earl finding two long-lost nieces within such a short time? In any case, she was positive that once she met this Miss Adelaide Richmond, she would discover only a very slight resemblance to herself. Nevertheless, it did bear looking into.

When her fears grew too heavy, she retreated into thoughts of Lord Worthe and how it had felt, for just an evening, to be like any other lady of eighteen. Twenty , she reminded herself. I am twenty, not eighteen.

It provided some diversion, as she strode towards Dunstable, to think of a different world, one in which gowns, and parties and balls, and handsome dance partners, were a part of everyday life. A life where whom to marry was her foremost object, and the possibilities were many. No, not many. Just Lord Worthe.

She knew her father’s purpose in locking her up as he did. He had meant for her to emerge chastened and properly grateful to him, reinvigorated in the ways of obedience and humility. It had, alas, produced the very opposite effect. She had been humiliated but not humbled; not chastened but strengthened. There was a different life for her, a life with love and laughter, where the basic needs of life were not meted out stintingly and resentfully. Some people might have thought physical comforts a good substitute for all of that, but she did not.

It was a stroke of luck to find that their little town was mostly deserted. She nodded at Mr Long, who tipped his hat to her from atop his horse, and observed some ruffians playing behind the shop; otherwise it was a sleepy morning, much to her relief. The last thing she wished for was to encounter some acquaintance or another who would want to know what exactly she was doing walking to Dunstable early on a Monday morning. Enough curiosity had likely been raised when she had missed church the day prior.

Then she was through the town and out again amid the fields. She could see the Downs at a distance and walked towards them with as much assuredness as she could muster. The truth was, she could not recall ever having been to Dunstable; she had certainly never commissioned a journey on a post coach and in fact, had never even ridden in a post coach. She hoped, desperately, that she would not somehow make a fool of herself in the attempt of it all.

She pushed aside her qualms to again review the events of the last hours. Once she had been released from her attic room, the reverend had bade her come to him. He was at his desk, grave and righteous, and he told her to sit while he rose to tower over her.

“I hope that you have learnt a valuable lesson in what it means to be a?—”

“I would like to find my family,” she had said firmly. Oh, but she had been so bold with him! What had she imagined, that he would take her to them?

The reverend had paused, no doubt shocked at the interruption. “You have found him. I am right here.”

“I want to know the people I came from.”

“No.” He had shaken his head as if warding off a pesky fly. “Now, I shall expect a written apology?—”

“I am twenty years old,” she had said, raising her voice very slightly. “And I think I have a right to know from whence I came.”

“They did not want you then, and they surely do not want you now.”

“How do you know?”

She recalled the coldness of his answer. “No one has ever shown the least interest in you. Not a single soul has ever sent a letter of enquiry, not in eighteen years. They were glad I took you from them and certainly more grateful for it than you have proved to be.”

It hurt when he said that, then and now, but nevertheless she had lifted her chin and straightened her back. “Perhaps they do not know I exist. You said the records had been destroyed, burnt with the house itself.”

“They know,” he had replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I cannot say I much like your behaviour, Scarlett, for as it says in Romans, whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”

“Then you will likely be very glad to see the back of me.” The emergence of those words had shocked her as much as it had him. Oh, yes, she had sat in that little dark room planning and scheming—but to actually say it? To put things in motion?

“See the back of you?” She supposed his mirthless bark had been laughter. “Where do you think you will go?”

“London. I am going to go to London and see what I might find out about them.”

“And then what?” He raised his brows.

“A-and then…then I shall…well, I shall find them and they will?—”

“Send you right back here. A finer punishment I could not devise myself.”

“Punishment?”

“Scarlett.” The reverend had shaken his head, with the air of a long-suffering, superior being. “Still imagining that some exalted personage has been out there pining for you all these years, hm? I do not wish to waste my breath persuading you otherwise so…go. Off wi th you, to see the hard truth of your circumstances for yourself. You will need to walk to Dunstable—the post coach will take you from there.”

Scarlett had stared at him, dumbfounded. Of all the possible replies, she had never imagined this one. It was almost…too easy, never mind his careless cruelty that accompanied it. It had made her wary, how easy it was. She feared it meant she was setting off on a fool’s errand.

She could have sworn, as she closed the door of his study behind her, that she heard him mutter, ‘enough rope to hang herself’.

Was she hanging herself now, as she went along this country lane? She glanced behind her, seeing Stanbridge, which looked impossibly dear from this vantage. Was she truly prepared to leave it, and the safety and security it represented, behind her?

Then she thought about the reverend, locking her away, not just for three days but for her entire life long. Every day the same as the one before it, the same breakfast, the same parishioners, the same suffocating strictures upon her every thought, word, and deed. A life with no Bess, a life with no true family, a life with no Lord Worthe. A life with no love. A spinster helpmeet, forever.

With renewed resolution, and only a little terror making her knees shake, she went forwards.