Page 16 of Mrs. Merritt’s Remorse (Lord Dere’s Dependents #2)

'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,

The name, and not the thing.

— Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, V.iii.310 (c.1616)

“Harry, what have you got there?”

The cluster composed of Harry and Jimmy and Anna’s heads broke apart. The Cramthorpes’ hunched shoulders and averted eyes bespoke guilt, but Harry grinned with mischief.

Jane held out a hand. “Let me have it.”

“Now, now, miss.”

“Let me have it.”

With a shrug, the boy produced a crumpled piece of paper and placed it in her hand. “We were trying to read, miss, as you taught us.”

“This doesn’t look like the primer or the Bible to me,” answered Jane, glancing down. “Oh!”

Snickers engulfed first Harry, then Jimmy.

In large, rounded script was written: “Alexander Beck. Mr. Alexander Beck. Mrs. Alexander Beck. Felicity Beck.” These combinations were framed by drawings of hearts, vines, and flowers.

There was no question of the children having written it—they could barely copy the letters from the horn book. But did they understand what it said?

“Where did you find this, Harry? It clearly does not belong to you.”

He swung his foot, kicking at the table leg. “It was on the floor.”

“Of our schoolroom?” Jane asked incredulously.

Harry gave a slow shake of his rumpled head. “No…I saw it when I came back from the kitchen where Miss Egerton said I might go for some bread and cheese.”

His teacher’s eyebrow rose to indicate her opinion of this likely story. As if Miss Hynde would drop such a thing in the kitchen! It was far easier to imagine Harry Barbary making a few detours through the rectory and snatching up whatever caught his eye.

“Are you going to tell Miss Egerton, miss?”

“Perhaps.” Jane wished Cassie were there now to manage the situation, but with the musical evening to take place later that same day, she had left the day’s lessons to Jane. “In the future, Harry, you must leave everything just as you find it, or Miss Egerton will no longer allow you to wander through the house.”

“But what does it say, miss?” demanded Harry incorrigibly. “Is it a love note?”

“It does not concern you, at any rate,” Jane replied, folding the paper and tucking it in her sleeve. “Let us continue with our reciting. Anna, you begin…”

If the children managed to learn anything in the remaining minutes, Jane deserved no credit for it, her mind being occupied. Occupied with what had not been written in Miss Hynde’s script. That is, there had been no “Philip Egerton. Mr. Philip Egerton. Mrs. Philip Egerton. Felicity Egerton.”

It was none of her business, of course, whom Miss Hynde loved or did not love, and while Jane would not allow her conscious self to dream of Mr. Egerton, she was human enough to feel a guilty pleasure in Miss Hynde not dreaming of him.

But if everyone was so intent on warning Jane against the danger posed by Mr. Beck, should not Miss Hynde be equally on her guard? Especially if, unlike Jane herself, the girl was eager for his attentions.

With a shiver Jane remembered her younger self, and how she had been warned by her father against Roger Merritt. It served no purpose in the end, that Jane proving so flighty and blind and headstrong, but perhaps Miss Hynde would be more biddable.

And the warning should be given now, while Mr. Beck did not think of Miss Hynde, lest when he grew tired of Jane’s indifference his efforts turned to the latter young lady for amusement.

Cassie will know what ought to be tried .

“Very well, children,” she announced, absently cutting off Jimmy’s recitation, “that will do for today. We will resume on Monday. Be sure to practice writing your alphabet—you might do it on a windowpane or in the air or by drawing a stick through dust, even. And repeat your verse so that you may tell it to Mr. Egerton next week.”

“I could write the alphabet in a book with a pencil,” said Harry Barbary, and had Jane not been distracted, this remark would have aroused her suspicion. As it was, other than a fleeting hope he had not come by these items through robbing the grocer again, she merely replied, “So you could. Goodbye. Goodbye.”

The moment she heard the rectory door shut and their shouts and footsteps receding through the churchyard, Jane went in search of Cassie. Avoiding the drawing room, where she heard Miss Hynde singing and playing, and the curate’s study, where she expected Mr. Egerton and his students had retreated, Jane peeped into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Winching. Have you seen Miss Egerton?”

Bobbing a curtsey, the cook said, “Not for a quarter hour, Mrs. Merritt, but she said she was going to arrange flowers for the drawing room.”

She would just have to pry Cassie away, then.

Sure enough, when Jane entered, she found Miss Hynde at Mrs. Terry’s old Zumpe square piano and Cassie placing fronds in a vase.

“Jane! Have they gone? What do you think? I haven’t as many flowers as I would like, this late in the year, but these look well, do they not?”

Miss Hynde halted on a jangling chord, whipping around to favor Jane with a chilly nod.

“Please, don’t let me interrupt. Cassie, the vases look lovely, but may I speak to you a moment apart—about Harry Barbary?”

“That sounds ominous,” chuckled Cassie, laying the remaining fronds aside and following Jane from the room as Miss Hynde turned slowly back to leaf through her music.

In the dim passage, Jane thrust the paper in her friend’s hand. “On one of his exploratory jaunts through the house, Harry found this. I caught him showing it to Jimmy and Anna, though none of them could read it. But, from the…embellishments they guessed at its import.”

Squinting at the writing, Cassie drew a sharp breath. “Oh. Oh, dear. Oh dear oh dear.”

“I leave it to you to deal with, Cassie,” Jane whispered, “only I feel duty-bound to say that—that I do not believe the man in question to be—the sort of person a young lady ought to—set her heart upon, if it can be avoided—He is not—”

“How dare you!” screeched a high voice, and then there was Miss Hynde among them, red and snatching at the paper. “How dare you read my personal things! How dare you take what is private and discuss it behind my back?”

“Miss Hynde!”

“Felicity!”

The girl burst into tears of embarrassment and rage. Crumpling the note in her fist, she then shook that fist at Jane. “Has no one ever told you not to read private correspondence? But I suppose a person like you hasn’t any scruples! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mrs. Merritt!”

“Miss Hynde,” gasped Jane, shocked at both the suddenness and the vigor of the attack, “I did not—it was not—I did not mean—”

“And how dare you cast aspersions on him?” Miss Hynde’s voice rose, her whole person shaking. “How dare you—you impugn another’s character, when you—when you—as if you were one to talk! As if you were one to sit in judgment! Why, I should—”

“Miss Hynde.”

In such a rumpus, Mr. Egerton’s tread had gone unheard, but the sound of his level, firm voice cut through the tension and clamor at once. The three young ladies fell apart, Jane having to steady herself against the wall, her knees like water.

Cassandra was the only one in any condition to speak, and while she had no desire to take sides against the girl who might one day be her sister (as unlikely as that was beginning to appear), nor to be caught between potential lovers in a quarrel, her native honesty could not be denied.

“Brother, it seems that Harry Barbary picked up a scrap of paper, which Mrs. Merritt then confiscated and showed to me—”

“After she read it herself,” sobbed Miss Hynde.

“The writing upon it concerned Felicity’s private matters,” Cassie went on. “Therefore she was…distressed.”

“Miss Hynde,” Jane finally schooled herself enough to say, “I understand your—discomfiture. But—I had to look at it, in order to know what should be done. One of the reasons I chose to give the note to Cassie was that she might decide what to do, if anything. I knew you would not like anyone—to have seen it, and I thought to spare you that knowledge by drawing Cassie apart—”

But Miss Hynde only cried the harder, covering her face with both hands and fleeing, a task more easily done with one’s eyes open, for she ran straight into the wall and then the door jamb (adding insult to injury) before getting safely away.

“Mercy,” muttered Cassie.

“Mercy,” her brother repeated with a low whistle.

Cassie threw him a grim glance. “You had better let me take care of this, Philip. It will be less trying for her.”

“If you think so,” he answered. “If it helps, you might tell her that I do not ask to be told the contents of the note. I warrant she’ll think the fewer people who have seen it, the better.”

“That’s for sure. Though I daresay you hardly needed this straw to know which way the wind blows.” Blowing out a breath, she turned toward the stairs. “’Bye, Jane. See you later this evening.”

When Cassie was gone an awkward little pause fell.

“I—believe I will go home now,” said Jane.

“You’re white as a cloth,” he replied. “Perhaps you had better sit down a minute.”

“No, thank you. I’m perfectly well.”

But when she released the wall, she swayed and might have slid to the floor, had Mr. Egerton not caught her by the upper arm.

His grip made short work of her pallor. Heat shot up her arm from where he held it, from arm to shoulder to breast to neck to face, and when she inhaled sharply, her eyes meeting his, she found his countenance as suddenly scarlet as her own.

It was over in an instant. He released her as quickly as if she were a burning log he had shifted by hand, and Jane was equally flustered. She must leave. Be gone—before he guessed the cause of her agitation! Retreating, she collided with the wall as clumsily as Miss Hynde had, before fleeing, praying her face had not been read as easily as the girl’s note.

Philip Egerton. Mr. Philip Egerton. Mrs. Philip Egerton. Jane Egerton.

Hours later, when dinner had been eaten and darkness fallen, the Iffley Cottage family made the walk to the rectory for the musical evening, Jane finding comfort in the safety of numbers. Not only the adults had been invited on this occasion, but also Gordon and Maria, to their delight. Thus surrounded by a hedge of five Barstows, Jane did not suppose either a tiresome Mr. Beck or a still-angry Miss Hynde could come near her, not that she was thinking overmuch of either of them.

No, she thought only of Mr. Egerton. Mr. Egerton, from whom she must now also hide, metaphorically speaking, until she succeeded in quashing the painful emotions welling up. Who would have thought she could lose her heart again, after all the disasters which had befallen her?

The real question is, how could I not lose my heart to him, worthy man that he is?

But worthy or not, he would never think of her in a million years, and therefore she must forget him. She must endure the next few months until the Terrys returned, and then Mr. Egerton would go away, never to be seen again.

One could not give up someone who had never belonged to one, but it still cost Jane many a pang to think she must relinquish even the possibility of friendship with him.

But she must.

Because the morning had been a very near thing, and what would happen if he were ever to discover her secret?

Jane almost thought she would rather return to the squalid shared quarters she occupied in the Fleet Prison than suffer Mr. Egerton to gaze on her with pity and dismay. Still harder to bear would be his chosen bride’s certain triumph—but how could Miss Hynde feel otherwise, after Jane had inadvertently had her at such a disadvantage?

But would Mr. Egerton still court Miss Hynde, marry Miss Hynde, when she bore feelings for another? Or was he not aware? Though Cassie had implied he could guess the contents of Miss Hynde’s note, what if he could not? Or what if, once cautioned, Miss Hynde conquered her tendre for Mr. Beck, just as Jane intended to conquer her affections for Mr. Egerton? Miss Hynde was young and susceptible to charm, as Jane had once been, but Jane could not suppose Miss Hynde would remain blind long to a man of Mr. Egerton’s quality beneath her very nose. Indeed, Jane firmly believed she herself would not have been swept away by Roger Merritt had there been someone better with whom to compare him.

Surely before too long the scales would fall from Miss Hynde’s eyes, and then—ah, then—then Jane would have to bear watching them smile upon each other and bear hearing their engagement announced. And Mr. Egerton’s hand would clasp Miss Hynde’s arm, not for fear of her collapsing, but simply because he rejoiced to call her his own.

At least nothing Jane feared had yet come about, for when the Barstow company entered the milling drawing room, Miss Hynde stood beside neither of the Egertons. Instead she leaned on her instrument, showing Tom Ellis a piece of music while he gazed on her, stupefied, as if he had sustained a blow to the head but not yet fallen over.

Mr. Egerton Jane dared not look at, but she was nonetheless aware of him at all times: where he stood, whom he greeted or chatted with, whether he looked at Miss Hynde (he did not, nor she at him). Mr. Egerton and Miss Hynde might be fated for each other, but there had at least been no éclaircissement since the morning. Reprehensible or not, this last observation could not but soothe Jane’s spirits a little and bring a half smile to her lips.

“You are complacent, Mrs. Merritt,” came the unwelcome voice of Mr. Beck, accompanied by his equally unwelcome person directly before her, blocking all else from view. “What mysterious source of joy brings the rare boon of a smile to your lips?”

Honestly. Were there women who appreciated such nonsense?

“I look forward to the music, sir.”

The man put a hand to his breast and bowed, as if she had paid him a compliment, and too late Jane realized it might be understood as praise of his singing at Perryfield. “Do you—sing again tonight, Mr. Beck?”

“As you guessed, Mrs. Merritt, I do indeed. At the Perryfield dinner Miss Hynde asked me in particular if I would lend my modest talents to our little entertainment. Did she not ask you as well? I do not mind telling you how determined I am to hear you perform. She has not asked. I can see from your expression that she has not. Mrs. Merritt, I here give you notice that I intend to lodge a petition for you to be included.”

Given Miss Hynde’s feelings toward both Mr. Beck and Jane herself, this was the last thing Jane wanted, and she was obliged to affect a wheedling tone. “I thank you, but I beg you might defer this wish, sir. I know how carefully both Miss Hynde and Miss Egerton have planned this evening, and I could not forgive myself or you if we were to spoil things.”

Another elegant bow. (Jane resisted a childish urge to bring her knee up to meet his broad forehead.) “I cannot refuse you, Mrs. Merritt, when you ask so sweetly. But in return, would you grant me the second two dances of the Greenwood ball? I must give the first to Mrs. Dere, as is due her rank, but if you would honor me with the next…”

With a reply barely more formed than a grunt, Jane conceded, thanking God the next moment when Cassie clapped her hands for everyone’s attention and bade them be seated. Stupid Mr. Beck of course looked right and left for where he might find a chair next to hers, but she had foreseen this and glided away to take the place saved for her between Frances and Sarah.

Miss Hynde was a clever and charming musician, Jane had to admit, choosing pieces which displayed her voice and skills to advantage. And when Mr. Beck joined her in a duet, a hum of admiring murmurs arose. Jane thought Mr. Hardy might burst with esteem for his friend, and even Mr. Rowland started awake at one particularly pleasing harmony and muttered, “Fine, fine. Dashed fine.”

Jane allowed herself just one peep at Mr. Egerton, to gauge his response. Did he too hear the whispers calling Mr. Beck and Miss Hynde a handsome couple, whose performance was “dashed fine”?

He was at his most severe, sitting straightly, mouth thinned. He did hear the others, then, and he did not like it.

Unconsciously, Jane mirrored him, her own person straightening and mouth thinning. Yes, she understood. Jealousy was, of all emotions, the most unpleasant. And Mr. Beck was, for all his shortcomings, a good-looking, eligible man who might easily steal Miss Hynde, if he chose to.

Again she wondered if he knew the contents of Miss Hynde’s note, and if he did, if he had spoken to her about it. Did he frown now because his beloved scorned his warning, or did he frown because he could not help but fear the loss of her?

There was no way of knowing, and Jane dared not study him longer.

Miss Hynde and Mr. Beck were followed by Cassie Egerton, who played twice as well for a fraction of the attention and approbation. If Jane had not made such a spectacle of herself at Perryfield applauding Frances’ performance, she would have been tempted to do so now, because it was so unfair, but instead she promised herself she would certainly take Cassie aside and tell her at the first opportunity.