Page 20 of Mrs. Merritt’s Remorse (Lord Dere’s Dependents #2)

Fare thee well! I'll never hold communion with thee more:

But from the day-book of my dearest friendship I'll cross thee out.

— Joseph Reed, Madrigal and Trulletta (1758)

Keele’s School in Oxford consisted of adjoining buildings in Cornmarket Street near the town hall. One contained the pupils’ schoolrooms, hall, and library, as well as the kitchen and buttery, while the other held studies for Mr. Keele and Mr. Weatherill, the boys’ dormitories, the Weatherills’ living quarters, and several small parlors. In the coziest of these Mrs. Gerard Weatherill and her sister Jane sat one morning the week after the Greenwood ball.

“I wish you might stay with us for months,” sighed Adela, drawing her needle through the delicate muslin in her lap. “Apart from the cook and scullery maid, I am surrounded by the male sex, from ages six to sixty. There are female callers, of course, but those short little quarter-hour spells hardly count.”

“Another time I will,” Jane promised. “But I cannot leave Miss Egerton much longer to deal with Harry Barbary by herself. Even a ten-day absence meant four entire lessons where she must manage both his mischief and the schoolwork. And she has not written to me, which tells me she does not want to say how difficult it has been.”

No one had written, in fact, though Jane had been in Oxford six days already and had sent two letters herself to Iffley Cottage and a thank-you to Lord Dere for his help in sending her. The silence made her uneasy. Not that she feared the Barstows were unwell—rather she feared they had matters to tell her which they struggled to put down on paper. Matters like what was happening with Mr. Beck or whether word of Jane’s latest calamity had spread.

Adela knew the whole story by now, of course, the only bit held back being the bit Jane held back from everyone—her ill-fated affection for Mr. Egerton. And Adela being Adela, she furiously took Jane’s side, now counting the unknown Alexander Beck a mortal enemy. Adela had also taken it upon herself to send a secret note to the baron, begging him to smooth Mrs. Dere’s ruffled feathers regarding the incident—not as small a request as it sounded, since no doubt Mrs. Dere’s feathers were exceedingly ruffled on this occasion, and even if they had not been, the baron so rarely stood up to her.

Lord Dere’s reply was now tucked in her pocket. In characteristic fashion, he timidly assured her that he would try his best, but more helpfully he enclosed several banknotes, for “would it not lift Jane’s spirits to take her shopping…?”

“If I only have you four more days, let us go out and walk the High Street,” announced Adela, laying down her work. “You must find trinkets for Frances and everyone, and I will show you that calico I like, from which we might make matching dresses. What fun! Hooper the maid usually comes with me for propriety’s sake, but I had much rather it be you.”

A couple hours later, books and ribbons, gloves and stockings were all inspected and chosen, along with a Jacob’s ladder for Bash and a fox-and-geese board for the whole family. The calico, moreover, was pronounced so fine they purchased enough for Maria as well.

“Oof! We might as well drop our parcels at the Angel Inn,” suggested Della when they were finished. “Their boy can deliver them all to Keele’s, and we may take refreshment in the coffee room.”

Crossing the bustling inn yard, Della disappeared into the coffee room to claim a table, while Jane waited at the counter to arrange for the parcels. So constant was the opening and closing of the inn door throughout, that Jane did not bother to glance over. Not until she heard someone call her name.

“Why, Miss Hynde!” she exclaimed, amazed to see the young lady before her, wrapped in a dark wool traveling cloak. “Whatever are you doing here?”

The girl’s round blue eyes narrowed unmistakably, and her nostrils flared. “What does it look like? I am going home. Or back to Cottrell Hall, at any rate, on the Witney coach.”

“But—why should you go? Is Mr. Cottrell or Miss Cottrell unwell? You have only been a few weeks in Iffley.”

With a sharp glance over her shoulder, Miss Hynde seized Jane’s elbow and hurried her aside. “Let us go where we will not be interrupted.”

Over Jane’s startled questions, Miss Hynde dragged her along one of the passages and thence into an alcove where the Angel Inn stowed a variety of umbrellas, walking sticks and one unmatched boot.

“Miss Hynde, what can you possibly have to say which could not be said more comfortably in the waiting room?” Even as she asked, Jane’s heart began to hammer. Was it about Mr. Egerton? Could the girl somehow have guessed—?

“I am glad to encounter you here, Mrs. Merritt,” declared Miss Hynde. “I have learned there is nothing to be gained by holding my tongue, but you left Iffley so soon after the ball that I could not put my learnings into practice.”

“Your learnings?” asked Jane with increasing trepidation.

“Yes. Since I am going and will never see you again—nor anyone else I care to see—” Miss Hynde continued, almost on a sob, “Not that I care to see you —I intend to speak my mind. Because it is your fault, Mrs. Merritt that I am being sent away.”

“ My fault? Miss Hynde, I do not have the pleasure of understanding you.”

“Don’t you? Then I will explain. I say it is your fault I am being banished. It is terribly unjust, and I have told Mr. Egerton so. But I am nevertheless being sent away all because you are so—promiscuous and unscrupulous and—and—and—”

“Promiscuous?” gasped Jane, unable to prevent herself from parroting the girl yet again. If not for the alcove wall enclosing them she might have crumpled to the floor in astonishment. Could Mr. Egerton have dared to call her such a thing, or did it originate with Miss Hynde? “How—dare you, Miss Hynde!”

“You eloped, didn’t you?” the girl retorted. “Ran away with a man before you were married to him.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she said loftily, “Mr. Egerton told me.”

“But I did marry Roger—as soon as we could,” whispered Jane. Despite everyone under the sun knowing her story, the knowledge that Miss Hynde had it from Mr. Egerton pierced Jane through. “And he—was the only one.”

“The only one yet ,” Miss Hynde choked. “If you had not been caught with Mr. Beck, would he not have been another? That’s why you ran away to Oxford—because after what happened at the ball, Iffley was too hot to hold you. Admit it—you may as well, for you’ll never see me again either. Admit it!”

But Jane was rallying. While she had never thought or tried to evade punishment for her foolish match, seeing it only as her due, what happened in the Greenwood library was another matter altogether, and she would be confounded if she took the punishment for Mr. Beck’s transgressions!

“I—admit—nothing,” she pronounced therefore, straightening to her full height (which was at least three inches taller than her accuser). “I concede nothing. You are entirely mistaken, Miss Hynde, and I was not a willing participant in what you witnessed.”

Few who knew Jane Merritt in Iffley would have credited the existence of this version of her, an avenging fury with head held high and eyes blazing, but Miss Hynde was not a bit surprised. For who but a creature of fire and allure could capture the heart of the dashing Mr. Beck? Therefore it was not overawe which finished Felicity Hynde, nor that she was persuaded Jane spoke the truth (she was not). Rather it was that she was only eighteen and felt a failure and was being banished to the tender care of Martha Cottrell.

She burst into tears.

“Miss Hynde—Miss Hynde!” cried Jane, utterly perplexed. Her own temper faded in the face of this storm, and, after scrutinizing the girl a moment to assure herself the fit was genuine, she patted her shoulder. Miss Hynde only sobbed harder.

“Miss Hynde, do calm yourself,” Jane pleaded. “You will be overheard.” It had been sheer good fortune no one had yet passed their alcove, but Della would surely come in search soon, and, now that Jane came to think of it, Miss Hynde could hardly have come to the Angel Inn by herself, which meant—

“I don’t care!” wailed the girl, even more loudly than before, if that were possible. Jane’s hand itched to cover Miss Hynde’s open mouth, wide as a starving baby bird’s. “I don’t care who hears me or sees me! What does it matter now? Everyone is so cruel to me. I, who have done nothing to deserve anything. You run away with one man and kiss another, and nobody does anything; whereas I— ”

They were on familiar ground again, but this time Jane only rolled her eyes and tried to gather Miss Hynde to her. If the child could not be hushed with reason (and if murder was not allowed), perhaps a partial smothering against Jane’s shoulder would serve?

But this made matters worse, for Miss Hynde resented the embrace as much as she resented the universe’s favor toward Jane, and she began to struggle mightily, wriggling and trying to twist her face away from the wool-cloaked shoulder, uttering, “Let me go! Let me go at once, you—you—hrmmffy—”

The next instant, Jane was wrapped in iron bands and flung into the dimly-lit passage, carrying Miss Hynde with her. The girl’s head struck the wall before Jane knew what was happening, so that, when she released her in horror, Miss Hynde slid down the papered and wainscoted wall to the floor.

Then all was confusion.

“Have you got him, sir?” demanded a gruff voice. “Ruffian! Brigand!”

“It’s not a him, it’s a her! ”

“Felicity!”

“Mrs. Merritt ?”

“Jane?”

“You know this person?”

“Whatever are you doing here?”

“What happened?”

“Let go of me, Mr. Egerton.” This last came breathlessly from Jane herself, having recognized his voice and worked out who had seized her from behind to clutch her as tightly as ever Mr. Beck had.

She was obeyed with a muttered apology, and as all the exclamations were being repeated, the whole huddle tumbled into a parlor the inn host opened for them. He was a burly man trussed in a gold-buttoned coat who frowned upon such disturbances of the Angel Inn’s peace.

I am a half-clogged drain, Jane thought wearily, drawing every bit of surrounding scandal to collect at my edges .

Except she doubted half-clogged drains attracted as many onlookers as she did, for in addition to the inn host there was a waiter from the coffee room, an ostler, both Egertons, Adela, and a few other strangers who must have been drawn by curiosity.

Miss Egerton took charge. “Ah,” she said, clapping her gloved hands together once. “Here is the very young lady we were searching for,” she said, indicating Miss Hynde, who had thrown herself in a chair and buried her face in her arm. “And we need not have worried, for she was in the company of—a mutual friend. But thank you all for your assistance in the search. You may go now.”

“Wasn’t acting like a mutual friend in my opinion,” grumbled one of the strangers, pointing a finger at Jane. “If she’s a friend, why was that one crying and screaming?” Another jab of the finger, this time at the huddled Miss Hynde.

“ Are you all right, miss?” whispered one who must have been Miss Hynde’s maid, bending over her.

The young lady pushed her away without looking, mumbling, “Oh, do go away, Robertson. I wish everyone in the whole wide entire world would take himself off and leave me alone.”

Robertson stood her ground, but the strangers had no more excuse to remain, and they reluctantly withdrew, the ostler pausing to announce in an apologetic tone, “Coach for Witney goes in five minutes.”

That made Miss Hynde kick at the carpet, while her maid risked her mistress’s ire again. “Hadn’t we better get you cleaned up, miss? You look a right mess.”

“What does it matter how I look?” she snapped. More whispered urging followed, however, and eventually she sat up, turning her back on the rest of them and allowing Robertson to make repairs.

Jane gave the Egertons and her sister a rueful glance, not surprised to find them all looking to her for an explanation. As if the sound of her voice wouldn’t cause Miss Hynde to fire up again! Stifling a sigh, she said, as quietly as she could, “Mr. Egerton, Cassie, may I present you to my sister Mrs. Gerard Weatherill? Della, this is Mr. Terry’s curate Mr. Egerton and his sister Miss Egerton. And—er—Miss Hynde.”

“Aren’t we Miss Prim and Proper?” jeered Miss Hynde.

“Felicity,” said Mr. Egerton in a cutting tone Jane had never before heard from him, “you are welcome to give your account—quickly—of how you came to be…grappling…with Mrs. Merritt in the passage, but I must ask you to mind your manners.”

“Don’t speak to me as if I were a child!” she flashed at him. “I am tired of everyone’s hypocrisy. You are banishing me, as if I had done anything wrong, so I disdain to make explanations. Let her tell you whatever she pleases. It’s plain you’ll believe her, instead of me. Come, Robertson, or I will miss the coach. Cassie, you have been kind to me—at times—therefore I wish you well. Good-bye.”

The girl stormed out before the Egertons could respond, but when the door slammed behind her, Cassie said, “Philip—we cannot let her go on these terms—what will my uncle say?”

“Given how vexed she has been with us this past week, these might be the only terms available,” he replied grimly. “But I will see her off.”

Cassie followed his departure with troubled eyes before turning to Adela. “Mrs. Weatherill, I am sorry we meet under these circumstances, but be assured we are honored to make your acquaintance. Perhaps Jane told you—Miss Hynde—the young lady who was so…overwrought just now—is the ward of my uncle. She has been visiting us in Iffley for several weeks, but I am afraid it has ended badly.” She sighed. “The only comfort—not a very comforting comfort—is that my strait-laced cousin Martha will say we are doing the right thing.”

She had no sooner finished speaking than the door opened once more, to admit a defeated Mr. Egerton.

“Has the Witney coach already gone?” asked his sister.

“It will in the next minute,” he answered heavily, “but Felicity was clear that if I did not go away at once, she would make another scene.”

“Oh, dear.” Cassie crossed to pluck sympathetically at his sleeve. “Let us pray she will understand why we do this, as she grows and reflects upon—her time with us. She may even thank us eventually, Philip.”

Which Jane interpreted to mean, “Don’t lose hope—you may still one day win her!”

“But what on earth was happening, Jane?” Adela rounded on her sister. “Am I the only one who does not understand what I just saw with my own eyes? However did you come to be in the passage—wrestling—with her?”

Instead of replying straight away, Jane’s hand flew to her mouth, and she sank into the chair Miss Hynde had vacated. Heavens—what was wrong with her? And something must indeed be wrong, or how else to explain the something which felt suspiciously like—like a laugh!—threatening to bubble up from her throat?

She must be mad! she thought, as she stuffed it down. Or it was hysteria, brought on by relief, now that Miss Hynde was gone. Or it was because there was a point after which horror toppled over into absurdity, and that point had been reached.

What was there to hide, in any event? These three people already knew everything which happened at the Greenwood ball. And no matter what Jane told them now, Della would continue to love her and Cassie to like her. As for Mr. Egerton, well, he already thought her past hope, so what further harm could be done?

Spreading her hands wide, palms up, she cleared her throat and tried to master herself.

“I’m afraid Miss Hynde has been—nursing some resentment toward me,” Jane began, “and when she saw me she—er—led me away to that alcove to speak her mind. I did not know you were sending her back to Cottrell Hall until she told me, but if I understand aright, she—blames me for what she feels is a punishment. An injustice. That is—she thinks it unjust that I was the one found—being embraced by Mr. Beck—but she is the one being shipped off.”

“But you didn’t ask Mr. Beck to kiss you!” declared Adela hotly.

“We know that, Mrs. Weatherill,” Mr. Egerton rejoined. “As Felicity noted, we did not believe your sister did anything wrong, other than, perhaps, to put undeserved trust in Beck’s character. You may rest easy on that point.”

Jane stifled a sigh. Why was it that any crumb of praise which fell from Mr. Egerton’s table made her want to hug herself? Or hug him? Being Mr. Egerton’s charity case was not so different from being his pupil, she imagined.

“But Felicity unfortunately could not be persuaded that Mrs. Merritt did not—invite Beck’s attentions,” he went on, “Beck being a big handsome fellow whom many find charming.”

“She thought no woman could possibly resist him,” explained Cassie.

“All right, then,” said Adela, regarding her sister steadily. “Miss Hynde blamed you, Jane. But please explain the grappling!”

“Miss Hynde began to cry,” Jane resumed. “I tried to comfort her, but she…objected to this. I suppose because she saw me in the light of a rival. It must have felt…patronizing. She grew louder, instead of quieter, and I panicked. I—er—pressed her against my shoulder. Not hard enough to do her any injury, of course.”

“You smashed her face into your shoulder?” asked Adela.

“Only to—assist her—in quieting herself!” Jane pleaded. “Truly.”

A silence followed this speech. One so complete that Jane could hear her own pulse. Surely, if the Egertons did not condemn her for being kissed by the loathsome Mr. Beck, neither would they condemn her for attempting to calm Miss Hynde—even if doing so had only made matters worse?

She peeped at Adela, but Adela was determinedly staring at the mantel. And for very good reason, for when her sister felt her look and ventured to meet it, Jane saw by the sudden pressing of Della’s lips that she was trying very hard not to laugh.

Instantly Jane looked away, for she knew from long experience that, if she and her older sister once gave way to giggling, there would be no end to it, and then what would Mr. Egerton think!

But the curate was occupied with passing the brim of his hat through his fingers, round and round, round and round. And Cassie—Cassie sat unmoving, staring at the fire, until at last she thumped her breastbone with her fist. Once, twice. Then a high-pitched note was heard—faintly at first.

Jane blinked at her friend, whose shoulders hunched as the note gained in loudness.

“Stop,” choked Mr. Egerton. “Cassie.”

But his sister shook her head helplessly, and Jane saw with amazement Mr. Egerton’s own shoulders hunch.

“Poor Felicity!” gasped Cassie.

In the end it was the Egertons who gave way first, Cassie breaking forth into a scream of laughter, to be joined by her brother’s roars, and it was a mercy all around that the Witney coach was by then well out of earshot.