Page 25

The stagecoach passed through Thornton, not Twynham. A hack post chaise waited outside the Yellow Lion, ready for hire, and Georgie stood with the luggage, and Hilda and Matilda, while Elf talked with the postillion.

She hadn’t talked with Georgie on the drive. She’d read continuously from Sepulchral Anecdotes . Nothing but books in her portmanteau, as it turned out. They’d watched her read out of the corner of their eye, considering the way forward.

There was a way forward. A way shadowy, watery, and as yet obscure.

They were considering it still.

“Let’s be off,” called Elf, walking briskly back to them.

She wore the same brown dress as yesterday, more wrinkled, and her eyes were tired.

She opened her portmanteau. Besides the books, she had packed a few articles of clothing, and when Mr. Marsden had handed her a small coin purse at breakfast, she’d stuffed that inside too.

She dug out the purse and shook the contents into her palm.

“Oh.” The syllable was small and dismayed.

Georgie stepped closer and peered. One shilling, two thrupenny bits, five metal buttons, and a tooth.

“That isn’t human?” they asked. “No,” they answered their own question, because Elf seemed frozen. “Stag, maybe.”

“He didn’t give me enough.” She lifted her blanched face. “He put us on a stagecoach, and he didn’t give me enough to hire a carriage home. If it were only me, but…” She looked at the twins, who were sitting now on Georgie’s valise, oblivious.

“Even if it were only you,” said Georgie, “it’s wicked.”

“He forgot to check.” She slid the coins and buttons, and the tooth, back into the purse and tested its weight. “It feels full.”

“It is full. Full of buttons.”

“He thought it was money.”

“There’s no one here but us. You don’t have to defend him.”

Elf returned the purse to the portmanteau mechanically, not meeting their gaze. But of course. She’d been defending her Papa to herself.

His actions weren’t defensible. Mr. Marsden had stayed in the Peak, with his cronies, because he’d rather poke around for Saxon skulls than see his daughters safely home.

They felt a tug. Matilda had grabbed onto their skirt.

“May I sit on your lap in the carriage?”

“Erm.” Georgie caught Elf’s eye. “No?”

For a split second, she looked even more tired, shoulders bowed, but she straightened and smiled, and said, in a deceptively cheery voice, “We’re going to walk.”

“May I sit on your lap?” Matilda kept tugging.

“My lap will be vertical, I’m afraid,” said Georgie. “Is it even a lap, if it’s vertical?”

Matilda turned to Elf. “I want to ride in the carriage. And sit on Miss Georgie’s lap.”

Elf bent down, still smiling, and tapped Matilda’s nose with a fingertip. “Next time.”

“This time.”

“This time we’re walking.”

“I hate walking.”

“You love walking.” Elf’s smile began to fray. “Yesterday you would have walked to the moon.”

Matilda crossed her arms. “Today I want to ride in the carriage.”

“I’m hungry,” Hilda complained from her seat on the valise. “I am ravenous.”

Elf gazed longingly at the postillion. He’d realized something was amiss with their party and was taking payment from another.

“Look there.” Georgie pointed. “That’s the high street.”

The twins looked.

“There’s a bun-house on the high street,” said Georgie. “The buns are hot and buttery and scrumptious, but no one riding in a carriage is allowed to buy them. The buns are only for walkers.”

“Why?” asked Matilda.

“It’s a rule,” said Georgie. “Set by the bakers guild.”

“I want a bun!” Hilda stood up.

“To the bun-house, then.” Georgie grabbed the handle of their valise and twirled as they lifted it, feeling light-heeled with self-congratulation. Which was a good thing, because it was easily six miles to Twynham.

The twins went skipping for the high street. Georgie followed. Elf struggled along beside them, looking less than pleased.

“We can switch,” they offered, extending their valise. “I didn’t pack any books.”

“It’s not heavy.” She gripped her portmanteau with both hands, her grunt belying her words.

Georgie didn’t insist. “How many buns should we buy? I say a half dozen. We bribe them with one per mile, split between them.”

“We shouldn’t buy any,” said Elf. “We’ve too little money.”

“Too little money for the post chaise.” Georgie’s heels came to earth. “Plenty of money for buns.”

“The post chaise is what we need, though.”

“Yes, but we can’t afford it. Whether or not we buy buns.”

This was inarguably correct, but Elf’s jaw exhibited a stubborn tightness. “If we buy the buns, we’re further from affording it.”

“If we don’t buy the buns, we’re not driving or walking. Or do you have another incentive? Do you think you can bribe them with buttons?”

“I can reason with them.” Elf was breathing hard. “And save the shilling. It might come in more use later.”

“That attitude is why coins turn up in graves.”

Elf frowned. “No, it’s not.”

“Ask the next skeleton. Ask them what good it did, holding on to that last shilling.”

They caught up to the twins on the high street.

“Here it is!” declared Matilda, craning her neck at the sign. “The bun-house! Established 1668.” Hilda had her hands on the window and was staring through the glass at the buns, expression worshipful.

Georgie opened the door for Elf. “After you.”

Matilda and Hilda squealed as one and darted inside.

Elf sighed. A moment later, she was sliding her shilling across the counter.

Georgie waited outside a little longer. Thornton had very good shops, considering it wasn’t London, or Bath, or even Derby.

They used to visit them with the Janes, and eat buns at this bun-house, and fritter the days, lounging and parading, showing off, as Elf would have it, for everyone and no one.

They were about to turn, to enter the bun-house, when they glimpsed, across the street, an enormous bonnet laden with artificial fruits. Its owner was just disappearing into the milliner’s.

They recognized that bonnet.

Or not that particular bonnet. Five years had gone by, after all. Rather, they recognized the ratio of berries to buckram.

“Mrs. Alderwalsey!” They dashed after her, between the passing carts and horsemen.

Within the hour, Mrs. Alderwalsey’s carriage was crammed with wayfarers, Matilda on Georgie’s lap, Hilda on Elf’s, each twin piled in turn with Mrs. Alderwalsey’s parcels.

“I was sorry to hear that your father died,” Mrs. Alderwalsey said to Georgie, as the carriage bumped out of Thornton. “It’s inevitable, of course, but one always hopes to put it off. For oneself, at least.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Georgie, politely.

“On occasion,” she continued, “one does wish to hasten the demise of another.”

Georgie hesitated. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Mrs. Roberts bought the last of the fine spotted muslin.” It might have been a non sequitur, but then again, perhaps not.

You never knew with Mrs. Alderwalsey. She was in her upper seventies, wealthy, ubiquitous, and slightly terrifying.

“I was forced to get the jaconet.” She unwrapped a parcel. “Try the texture.”

Georgie stretched around Matilda and touched the fabric. “Perfect for a gown.”

“Do you think so?” Mrs. Alderwalsey thinned her lips.

“I don’t. It won’t wash well. I’m going to cut it into handkerchiefs.

” She addressed Elf. “ You are in need of a new gown, in a better style. Tell Harold I said so. I won’t speak to him myself.

I haven’t spoken to him since he shouted those scurrilous insults.

How did he describe that incident to you, I wonder? ”

“There are so many.” Elf sounded regretful. “I wouldn’t know which.”

“It was the year before last. At Sir Hugh’s. A meeting of the St. Alcmund’s restoration committee.”

“Oh, yes. That one.” Elf nodded. “He has strong feelings about the preservation of historic buildings.”

“I await his apology.”

“I’m sorry,” said Elf.

“ His apology. He owes an apology to Susan as well. She wrote that he severed their connection in the least civil terms.”

Elf covered Hilda’s ears, so Georgie did the same to Matilda.

“Aunt Susan wrote to you?”

“Of course she wrote to me. I am her godmother. She asks about your hair. Straight as a pin, I see. And your hands. Show me.” Mrs. Alderwalsey leaned forward and seized one of the requested appendages, tugging off Elf’s glove.

Instead of exclaiming in horror at the calluses, she thumbed Elf’s palm with surprising gentleness.

“You are very like Caroline.” Her voice was gentler too. “Hers is a demise I would have deferred if I could, even if it meant compacting with the devil.” She returned Elf’s hand and glove. Her eyes had a damp sheen.

Georgie removed their hands from Matilda’s ears. They hadn’t realized Mrs. Alderwalsey and Elf’s grandmother were so close.

“Write to your aunt.” Mrs. Alderwalsey commanded it. “You neglect her. And pay me a call. I will give you a pot of salve for those corns. And some blue satin. You’d look well in blue satin. You haven’t called since Susan brought you. Promise you will.”

“I promise,” said Elf.

“And how is Agnes? I saw her at the Parkers’ last August. She was blowing on an odd-looking horn and was quite red in the face. I hope her face isn’t always so red.”

“It’s not usually red, no.”

“Does she still play that odd-looking horn?”

“More so the lute.”

“She should play the pianoforte. Why doesn’t she?”

Nothing Elf said was to Mrs. Alderwalsey’s satisfaction. The interrogation went on and on. The carriage turned onto the road to Twynham, and eventually the lane to Redmayne Manor and Marsden Hall.

Georgie began to consider it again: the way forward.

Within my depths, the shadows play. And yet there is light at my mouth and water that brings life.

One answer would solve many problems.

“What is wrong with the gentleman?” asked Matilda.

Georgie shifted her to the side and looked out the carriage window. Their fist shot up and banged the roof.

“Stop!” they cried.

The carriage stopped abruptly. Georgie tumbled out. There was Marsden Hall, gray and grim on the hill. And there, stuck sideways in the hedge, squirming, his plum-colored coat snagged on broken twigs and thorns, was Lord Phillip Winston.

“Phipps.” They hissed it. What was wrong with him was obvious. He was half-sprung and fully embedded in a very prickly shrub.

“Do you know this man?” Mrs. Alderwalsey called from the carriage.

“No.” The denial dropped from their lips like a stone. “I feared some mishap, but he’s one of those devotees of nature, the sort that’s always climbing into hedges for solace and inspiration. We should drive on.”

“Don’t go,” slurred Phipps, squirming more vigorously. “I came all this way to see you.”

“Shh.” Georgie tried to shush him and simultaneously tried to appear as though they were doing nothing of the kind.

“Can’t hear you,” slurred Phipps. “Can’t find my topper.”

“You’re drunk.” Georgie linked their hands, standing decorously on the verge of the lane, posture upright, voice a furious whisper. “How did you get here? And get drunk?”

“Arrived yesterday. Spent the night at yours. There was a decanter in the study, and…”

“Spent the night!” Georgie yelped, then twisted around to wave at the onlookers.

“Just one moment. Mr…. Mr. Hawthorne is a stranger to these parts and inquires after the nearest inn.” They moved closer to the hedge and resumed their furious whispering.

“You can’t set foot in my house. Harry will have us both killed. ”

“He won’t find out.” Phipps ripped himself free of the hedge with a curse, white blossoms and green leaflets showering down. Georgie danced backward.

“Yes, Mr. Hawthorne,” they said loudly. “A clean, well-run establishment, to be sure.” Back to furious whispering: “He will find out! He told me he asked the housekeeper to write him a tattling letter if I stepped out of line.”

Phipps was shaking the hedge now, trying to dislodge his top hat. It had the merciful effect of muffling his voice.

“The housekeeper won’t give herself the trouble. Housekeepers have too much else to do. Also, I tipped liberally.”

“You bribed her?”

“Tipped. Bribed.” Phipps gave the hedge a final shake.

“Whichever it was, I’m completely out at the pocket.

And my father’s about to disown me. We had an awful row.

He insists I marry at once.” Phipps retrieved his hat and spun to face Georgie, overshooting and swaying back to center, much like a devotee of the bottle.

“Your fault. There’s more gossip about me than ever.

Our marriage was meant to quell gossip.”

“Shhh.” Georgie twisted toward the carriage. Mrs. Alderwalsey, Elf, the twins, the coachman, and the horses were all staring. “One more moment! He needs directions.” They snapped back around. “Phipps. I can’t help you.”

“You have to help me.” Phipps stuffed his hat on his head. The hedge had poked various holes in his coat. Georgie had never seen him look so seedy. Typically, he put Nicholas Fluff to shame. He had the face not of a prince but an archangel. Now stubble roughed his jaw, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“It’s Lady Cecelia.” At least he was whispering.

“That’s who my father picked as my bride.

Cecy, who clings like a limpet. She’s been in love with me since she was a child.

I can’t do it. It would feel like drowning a sack of kittens.

Not to mention she’ll cry about my indifference to her mother, and her mother will complain to my mother, and I’ll never know a day’s peace in my life. ”

“A horrid predicament,” acknowledged Georgie, with more sympathy. “But there’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”

“What is happening?” called Mrs. Alderwalsey. “I have not the patience. Introduce me to Mr. Hawthorne.”

“There’s nothing I can do,” repeated Georgie, meeting Phipps’s red-threaded eyes but briefly before looking away. The whole business felt shabby. But the last time they and Phipps had been together, three people had nearly died. Enough was enough.

“There is something,” muttered Phipps, but Georgie was already turning, hurrying back to the carriage.

That’s why Phipps had to yell.

“Marry me!”