Page 28 of Mrs. Merritt’s Remorse (Lord Dere’s Dependents #2)

Don't you see December in her face?

— William Cartwright, The ordinary: a comedy, i.ii.8 (c.1643)

Jane did not have to feign illness when she arrived at home. Her mother took one look at her pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes and said, “You have overtaxed yourself, my dear. Why don’t you go and lie down?”

The bedroom she shared with Sarah had one small window facing north, which meant it was dim and cool in the summer and dim and cold in the winter, and the thrifty Barstows usually dispensed with heating the bedchambers during the day and spent their time in the cozier parlors. On this occasion, however, Jane found the lamp lit and Sarah at their little dressing table.

“Oh, goodness! Jane,” said her sister-in-law, quickly folding up a letter and returning it to its packet. “Bash was napping, and I—I—”

And she was rereading Sebastian’s letters . Jane did not need Sarah to finish her sentence. Instead, smothering a sigh, she gave Sarah’s shoulder a squeeze and threw herself on the bed, wrapping the coverlet about her.

“Are you unwell?”

“I will be fine,” she answered, “with a little rest.”

“Did you have your hands full with Harry Barbary?”

“Somewhat.”

“All right, then. I will leave you in peace. Bash should sleep at least another hour in there.” Securing the bundle of letters with its ribbon, Sarah stowed it in the drawer, but leaving the candles burning at Jane’s request, she slipped out.

Not being the least bit sick nor accustomed to napping, Jane stared at the ceiling.

He loved her and wanted to marry her! She should have been floating around that very ceiling, singing and grinning like a madwoman. She should have been seizing her family members to dance them around the room. But she could not do any of these things.

Because her engagement was a secret.

Jane groaned. A secret. How she hated that word! How she had hated it ever since Roger. And now, in what should have been a crowning moment, to have the man she adored again say the wretched word, again enjoin her to secrecy! To hiding and slinking, to whispers and furtiveness. Roger had insisted on secrecy because what he proposed was shameful. But Philip asked for it because he was ashamed of her .

Throwing off the coverlet, Jane sat up, hugging her knees close, as if to hold herself together. Oh, if only his kisses were not so delicious and the tributes he paid her so tender, so intoxicating!

Because it was not that she did not see the reasonableness of his request; it was that she did.

If he must hide me in order to marry me, he should not be marrying me.

The thought stabbed her, and she buried her face against her knees. He should not have asked me. Not yet. Possibly not ever.

And then: “No more secrets,” she said aloud, barely above a whisper.

But her voice strengthened as her resolve did.

“ No more secrets. No more scandals. I have finished with that part of my life, and I do not want ever to be hidden or made to feel ashamed of myself again. If marrying me will bring him or his career in the church down, he had better not do it. I wish—I wish I might be a credit to my husband. But if that is not possible, I wish at least not to shame him.”

She was shaking, but she struggled up from the bed to sit at the same dressing table where she had found Sarah. Here were not only hairbrushes, combs, pins, powders, and lotions, but also paper and a wooden pencil.

It might have been the hardest thing she had written in her life. But no—writing to her family to say Roger was in prison had been worse.

When it was done at last, Jane folded it carefully and tucked it in her sleeve. She would sleep on the matter, but if she felt the same in the morning, she would find some way to send it to him.

Fortune favored her, if fortune it could be called.

“How pale you still look, my dear,” said her mother the next day. “Perhaps you should go back to bed.” But when Jane insisted she was perfectly well apart from restless sleep, Mrs. Barstow relented. “Very well. I will leave you in peace. Perhaps then you might go with Sarah or Frances to the Cramthorpes? I have some mince pies and soup for them.”

Frances begged off, so it was Sarah and Jane who set off with the food and Sarah and Jane who met Mr. Egerton as they emerged again half an hour later. (The call lasted longer than usual because the younger Mrs. Cramthorpe wanted to thank Jane for her teaching and the older Mrs. Cramthorpe to criticize it.)

“Mrs. Barstow, Mrs. Merritt,” he said with alacrity, his features lighting as he lifted his hat to them. “You here too? What an unexpected pleasure.”

“My mother had some things for them,” Jane replied, flustered by his nearness. But her resolve had indeed survived the night, and she fumbled at her sleeve. “And—and the Cramthorpes insisted on hearing Jimmy and Anna say their pieces twice over. I—have written them down for you. Won’t you look them over and—and tell Cassie if you would make any changes?” Jane told no falsehoods. She had deliberately added the recital verses to her note because it was the only excuse which came to her. Still, she could not bring herself to meet his eyes, for fear she would give way.

Puzzled by both her insistence and her evasiveness, he accepted the folded paper, his fingertips just brushing hers. “Thank you, but I am certain whatever you and Cassie have chosen will do very well.”

“Still, do look it over as soon as you have leisure,” Jane urged, now adjusting her sleeve and taking Sarah’s arm. “I—would feel much better if you did.”

“Though no doubt you will learn the selections as soon as you enter,” put in Sarah with a twinkle, “for I am sure Jimmy and Anna will be made to perform for you as well.”

Before he could answer, Jane was hustling her sister-in-law away, calling over her shoulder, “Good day to you!”

“My word,” Sarah said breathlessly as Jane tugged on her. “What is your hurry? Mr. Egerton looked like he didn’t know what to think.”

“Never mind Mr. Egerton.”

“Don’t you like him, Jane?”

“Of course I like him. Oh, gracious—here comes Mrs. Lamb as fast as her legs can carry her. I don’t suppose there’s any avoiding her.”

There was not, but at least the postmistress was brief. “They’ve come back!” she panted before she had quite reached them. “The Greenwood Hall set. Wiley saw Mr. Beck’s coach take the turning. What do you think of that, Mrs. Merritt?”

Had Jane not just done something so momentous as break her secret engagement of less than a day’s standing, this news would have discomposed her greatly. As it was, she hardly cared, much to Mrs. Lamb’s disappointment.

“Is it so?” said Jane. “Then the children will have their recital very soon. Thank you, Mrs. Lamb. And if it was the curate you wished to tell next, you will not find him at the rectory, but rather calling upon the Cramthorpes. Good day.”

Watching Jane go, he might have read her note there and then, before he even set foot in the Cramthorpes’ cottage, but he too saw Mrs. Lamb’s approach and quickly tucked his darling’s message away before ducking inside. But not once in the next twenty minutes, when he too must hear Jimmy and Anna recite, and he too must be hunted down by the postmistress to deliver her news, did he forget the little folded paper in his possession.

Could it be a love note? The mere thought of one was enough to make him interrupt old Mrs. Cramthorpe and finish her complaining sentence for her, with hasty promises that whatever trifle had vexed her the Sunday previous at church would be addressed at once.

But if it was a love note, why had she been so pale and withdrawn? Why had she run away as if she might catch leprosy from him? It might have been embarrassment, of course. Or fear that she might give something away if she remained in his presence. The explanation did not satisfy his wandering mind, however, for in the fleeting glance she gave him there had been a hint of sadness. Of stoicism. If this was to be her outward manner during their secret engagement, Egerton thought he would have to spend half his time inveigling to get her alone.

At last, when both the Cramthorpes and Mrs. Lamb were dispensed with (the latter with assurances that, yes, the recital invitation would go out directly), Egerton returned to the rectory, shutting himself again in his library and praying to be left alone.

The writing was small and neat but not always easy to read because of the many places where his beloved had made errors or changed her mind and resorted to the India rubber.

It was no love note.

Mr. Egerton,

After much pondering, I have concluded that I must end our arrangement. While I am deeply sensible of the honor you do me and thoroughly understand your reasons for secrecy, I find I cannot ever again consent to such a scheme. Despite all I have done and deserved, I confess I cannot bear to be taken on sufferance, nor to enter a match where I am considered so much the inferior partner. Forgive me my pride and my change of heart. I wish you all happiness and every good blessing.

There followed no signature, but only the list of the children’s recitations.

In his first year at Oxford, Philip had plummeted from a first-floor window after a night spent skylarking. He had landed hard on the grass below, winded and dazed, miraculously having broken no bones.

This felt like that.

Mrs. Merritt—his Jane—no, not his Jane, no longer his Jane—had flung him down with the same ease as gravity, and Philip experienced once more the painful suffocation and shock. If her letter had been written in Hittite he could not have struggled more to understand it.

She “ended their arrangement”?

She cast him into outer darkness yet wished him, in the same breath, “all happiness and every good blessing”?

His first instinct was to rush to Iffley Cottage and plead for her to reconsider. How could they have gone from those thrilling, ardent kisses—which he had not been able to put from his mind more than a few minutes at a time—to this ?

I should not have insisted on secrecy . It wounded her. I will march over directly and ask her again and tell her we will shout our engagement from the rooftops.

But then the old problem reared its head of how he would support them. For better or worse, his darling Jane’s scandals trailed her faithfully, and she could escape them no more than she could her own shadow.

The answer, old boy, is that you should not have asked her yesterday in the first place! You should have held your tongue until you had something secured already, and then none of this would have mattered.

With a groan, he thumped his forehead slowly with his fist. Fool! Idiot! Because he could control himself no better than Beck, he had ruined everything.

But did she love him? She must, surely she must, or she would never have kissed him and let him kiss her. She had not willingly kissed Beck, after all. Therefore, though she had not said the words, she must love him.

And if she loves me, she will wait for me.

He would write his letters seeking employment. He would find his next position. He would crawl on his belly to his uncle, if it would do any good. And then, the instant he found something, anything, he would fly to Iffley Cottage and ask her to consider him again.

And in the meantime, however long that meantime might last, he would treat her like the queen of the world.

Yet no sooner did Egerton make this vow, than he could not help but qualify it. She would be queen of his heart, yes, though of course her past could not be undone. He could not pretend her shadow did not exist, but he would henceforth graciously cease to refer to it, if it could possibly be avoided. And it could, once he had a benefice in hand.

With this renewed determination, Egerton set immediately to work, writing five letters that very hour, and when they were done, he decided to post them at once and then reward himself with a call at Iffley Cottage. Because he should certainly demonstrate to—Mrs. Merritt, he supposed he had better call her again—that he understood her reasoning, yes, but also had no intention of giving her up permanently.

“I say, aren’t you a busy man, Mr. Egerton,” remarked Mrs. Lamb. “Nearly as busy as all of them over at Greenwood Hall. Another letter came for Mr. Beck that was as ill-spelt as the last. Did I tell you about that first letter? Oh—must you be going already? Good-bye, good-bye! These will go out with the very next post.”

When the maid Reed announced him at the cottage, the usually crowded parlor was empty, save for the youngest daughter Maria, the toddling Bash who was teasing the dog—and Mrs. Merritt.

“Where—is everyone?” he asked in surprise. Not that he was sorry to find her nearly alone, but it was so unusual he did not at first trust his eyes.

“Baking mince pies!” declared Maria, springing up. “All but Gordy, who ran over to Perryfield, and Jane because Mama says she needs rest, and I, because someone must watch Bash. Do you smell the pies? I was only allowed one from the first batch because they were for other people, but Mama says these new ones are for the rectory and for us!”

“They smell delicious.”

“I will tell Mama you are here,” the girl announced.

“No—don’t,” Jane and Egerton said in unison.

“Don’t let me disturb everyone’s work,” he added. “I won’t stay. I only came because—because—”

“You came to approve my note,” Jane finished for him. “Of the children’s recital selections.”

“…Yes. That’s it.” He felt a banging against his knee and looked down to see Bash rapping it smartly with his Jacob’s ladder. Bending to give the little boy’s head a pat, he went on. “I don’t know if ‘approve’ is the right word, however. Perhaps ‘acknowledge with great reluctance’ would be more fitting. Great, great reluctance, bordering on…anguish.”

She absorbed this in silence, but her little sister frowned. “Mercy, Jane, what have you picked for them to recite?”

“Nor do I consider this a final word,” said Egerton. “It is, for now. I will not lose hope, unless you tell me I should.”

Maria stared from one to the other, but her sister merely pressed her lips together and twisted her hands in her lap.

“Tell me, Mrs. Merritt,” he pressed. “Should I…lose hope?”

“I cannot say more than that you—and I—are entirely free,” she whispered. “To say otherwise would be no different than if—my note—had not been written, or had not been sincere.”

Maria thought the curate not very pleased with this answer, for he looked darkly at her older sister for a full minute. Then, gently disengaging himself from Bash, who had wound around his boots like a cat, he rejoined, “Very well. Freedom all around. I will only say my freedom will be spent in the pursuit of my unchanged desires. Good day to you.”

When he had gone Maria flew to Jane. “What did it all mean?” she demanded. “Was that truly about the recital, for if it was you are all taking it much too seriously. Perhaps Anna and Jimmy might prefer a poem from Mother Goose instead of Bible verses. The one about the old man with the calf is easy enough, and so is ‘Bow wow wow, whose dog art thou.’”

But her sister perplexingly covered her eyes with her hands for a moment before taking up her sewing again and stitching as if for her life. “Thank you, dear,” she murmured. “If he asks again, you can suggest them.”