Page 9 of Mrs. Merritt’s Remorse (Lord Dere’s Dependents #2)

Ah Ma'am, but as the jack-ass driver said, there's two can play at that game.

— Henrico Glysticus, Tears of Camphor (1804)

Mrs. Barbary and her four children lived a few hovels past the Cramthorpes, and, if possible, they were equally unpleasant to visit. It was not that Mrs. Barbary was cross and sharp-tongued like the older Mrs. Cramthorpe, it was that, as Frances put it, “One is afraid she will open her mouth and never close it again till the last trumpet.”

It was Sarah, therefore, who agreed to accompany Jane the following morning, leaving Frances to oversee Maria’s lessons and keep Bash out of trouble.

“I am proud of you, Jane,” her sister-in-law said in her gentle way.

“For crawling out from under my rock?”

“For deciding you have done enough penance. You took all the consequences of Roger Merritt’s flaws and choices upon yourself, as if they had been your own.”

“But, Sarah—in a way they were my own. For Roger had managed to live within his means before he married me—”

“With the allowance from his aunt.”

“Yes, but had he never married me, his aunt would never have cut him off and driven him to extremities. So it really was our unwise match and the burden of supporting both of us which led him to do what he did—the debts, I mean. The drinking, the Fleet.”

They were outside the Barbarys’ cottage now, but Sarah lay a hand on Jane’s arm to arrest her. “What you say is true, Jane, but it does not follow that, if he had not married you, he would not have made another match equally offensive to his aunt, with much the same results. That is all I ask you to recognize.”

“I should never have run away with him. Papa warned me that Roger was—unsteady.”

“That alone was your error,” said Sarah. “But none of the rest of what followed. And heaven knows you paid for it, even before you came to us at Iffley.” She shivered, remembering how Adela had described Jane’s circumstances in the Fleet. “Therefore, I am proud of you for…deciding to hold up your head and to be in the world again.”

“Oh, Sarah!”

The two embraced on the doorstep, only to be bumped from it the next instant by Harry Barbary, as the boy burst out the door. He took one look at Jane, eyes widening, before whooping and dashing away.

“Oh, Mrs. Barstow, Mrs. Merritt,” Mrs. Barbary cried in her plaintive voice. “What an honor! Oh! Please excuse—everything—how hard it is to keep things clean with so many children—”

“And one of them Harry,” whispered Jane to Sarah as they entered.

There was no danger of Mrs. Barbary hearing them, however, for she had not ceased to speak. “—How I wished I could call at Iffley Cottage to say how sorry I was for Harry pushing you in the street, Mrs. Merritt. What is to be done with that boy I can’t say, but he’ll be the death of me, only I expect he’ll run away soon enough as his father did. But until he does, what trouble! I blessed my stars when Mrs. Lamb said she would give him a shilling a week to do things for her, but that didn’t last, and then to hear he’s been stealing from Mr. Linn—! Currants! Harry doesn’t even like currants. It’s the mischief he likes, and I can’t beat him properly because I would like to see anyone try to manage such a boy when she has three other little ones to look after, and he’s so fast to slip away if I reach for my broom—Lolly! Get off of there and let the ladies sit down. I asked Mrs. Lamb if Lolly couldn’t go on her errands for her instead of Harry though she’s only four, but Mrs. Lamb said she couldn’t approve of a little girl running all over Iffley and wasn’t it bad enough with Harry out of my sight? Better out of my sight than in, I said—”

“Mrs. Barbary,” interrupted Jane, seeing her chance, “it’s Harry I’ve come to speak with you about.”

Instantly the tiny woman with her faded hair and pale blue eyes drew herself up. “N-Now, Mrs. Merritt—no harm’s come to you in the end, for you to go after my Harry.”

“I don’t mean to ‘go after’ Harry, Mrs. Barbary, but rather to suggest he might—”

“Suggest? Suggest he might go to the workhouse?” The woman’s voice rose. “Suggest he might deserve more than Mrs. Lamb dismissing him? If I want suggestions, I’ll thank you for them! Hoity toity! Coming after my boy—You of all people should know everyone makes mistakes, seeing as you’ve made more than your share—”

“Mrs. Barbary!” gasped Sarah, seeing Jane flush.

But stopping the woman when she was in a taking was as impossible as putting a tablecloth over an erupting volcano, and tiny Mrs. Barbary sprang up, going red herself and balling her fists. “For what’s not paying what you owe but another kind of stealing?” she demanded. “My boy has mischief in him, but he’s not the only one! I know where you and your husband ended, before you got freed and came back to Iffley, so it’s no use putting on airs with me and coming to tell me my boy harmed you—”

“But I—” began Jane, rising herself and hardly knowing whether she wanted to run away or to push the woman down.

“The Fleet!” shrilled Mrs. Barbary. “I know you were in the Fleet, or as good as, since it was your husband that did it, the not paying—and you think you’re better than my Harry? If you ask me—”

“Mrs. Barbary!” Jane almost shrieked, her heart pounding so hard she didn’t even feel the hand Sarah put out to steady her. “I have not come to accuse Harry of anything. I have come to say the new curate’s sister and I would like to start a parish school. We would like to—teach Harry to read, that is.”

Sarah would later say that Jane, in her crisis, succeeded in doing what no one in Iffley ever had: she struck Mrs. Barbary dumb. The woman gawped. Collapsed back on her chair. Failed even to notice that the baby had crawled near to the fire and begun to suck on the handle of the nearly empty coal bucket. (Sarah rescued her.)

“With your permission,” Jane hurried on, “Miss Egerton and I propose teaching him at the rectory, say, beginning Thursday after Michaelmas for an hour or two. We mean to ask the Cramthorpes as well. Perhaps Tuesdays and Thursdays at ten? And—if everyone is amenable—we might increase it to a third day.”

By this point Mrs. Barbary’s mouth was working, perhaps out of sheer habit, but still no sound emerged.

Jane pressed her advantage. “Do you approve of the plan? May we go and find Harry?”

The moment the woman jerked her chin in a nod, Jane and Sarah made their escape.

“Well, that was worse than I expected,” said Jane when they were safely up Mill Lane. Such an understatement made the two fall against each other, smothering laughter. But their mirth ended in gasps when Harry Barbary popped from behind a nearby hedge.

“I won’t go to gaol no matter what you say!” he declared. “Nor be hanged!”

“That’s good news,” Jane replied, straightening. “And I have more for you. Because how would you like to go to school, Harry, and to learn to read?”

The boy, whose blond hair and pale eyes brought his mother sharply to mind, stared at her much as his mother had, minus the working mouth.

“The curate’s sister Miss Egerton and I would like to start a little parish school,” she explained.

“I don’t want to go to school.”

“You might learn to read, write and cypher.”

Harry only made a rude noise which would have had Mrs. Lamb and his mother reaching for their brooms. Turning to go, he took aim with the haw berries he had plucked, pelting a red squirrel until it scurried away, chittering.

“Very well,” sighed Jane. “We will try our luck with Jimmy and Anna Cramthorpe. They don’t appear overly doltish.”

“There you’re wrong!” cried Harry Barbary, spinning back to scowl at her. “Jimmy is a great blockhead.”

“Oh, dear. We will have to be very persistent and patient then,” answered Jane with a shake of her head, “for if he is as stupid as that, it will take a long time to teach him.”

“I could learn ten times faster than Jimmy Cramthorpe,” insisted Harry, snatching at some hawthorn leaves and ripping them to bits. “A hundred times . ”

“My word! That would have been wondrous to see. Perhaps if I tell Jimmy that on Thursday morning, it might motivate him,” she mused. “I might say, ‘Jimmy, if you are as dull-witted as Harry Barbary claims you are, think how you will astonish the world when you can read and write and do sums! We will have to show you at the fairs like a performing horse.’” Taking Sarah’s arm, she nodded at him. “Thank you for the idea, Harry, and we wish you a good afternoon.”

“No Harry Barbary, then?”

Looking up from where she was bent over the primer between Jimmy and Anna Cramthorpe, Jane saw Mr. Egerton in the doorway. It was the first Thursday morning after Michaelmas, and Cassie had gone to fetch cushions to raise Anna in her chair. Holding up their new shared primer and slates for him to admire, Jimmy and Anna beamed at him, and Jane had a dreadful suspicion she was beaming as well.

“Wait and see,” she replied, relieved to hear the calmness of her voice. “But I have tried my best.”

After patting Jimmy on the shoulder and mussing Anna’s hair, he smiled at Jane. No—he grinned, eyes twinkling, and Jane felt it to her core.

“You spoke with him, or with Mrs. Barbary?” he asked.

“Both. Mrs. Barbary gave her permission, but Harry was—er—inclined to resent the offer.”

“I don’t doubt it,” chuckled the curate. “Still, your intentions were good.”

“I have not given up hope,” Jane insisted, her face warming at his approval.

He raised a questioning brow. “You think his mother might persuade him?”

“Oh, no. I fear Mrs. Barbary hasn’t any more sway over him than the rest of us. Only Harry Barbary has sway over Harry Barbary. But I attempted to…appeal to his self-interest.”

When she did not enlarge upon this, he said, “Ah. I would have liked to hear that conversation, especially if your method works.”

“Look!” squeaked Anna Cramthorpe, removing the forefinger she had been sucking on to point out the window.

Their heads turned just in time to observe a vanishing thatch of blond hair and narrow blue eyes.

“Eureka!” laughed Mr. Egerton, dashing from the room to reappear the next instant with Harry Barbary in tow.

“I won’t go to gaol!” the boy protested in his familiar refrain as he tried to wriggle from the curate’s grasp. “I weren’t doing nothing!”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Jane said swiftly, “because if you had come for a lesson, I’m afraid there are only two slates. If we had to teach you as well, poor Jimmy would have to share Anna’s.”

Jimmy unwittingly aided the cause by clutching his slate to his chest. “You heard her! Go away, Harry. They weren’t expecting you.”

At once Harry stuck out his chin. “Too bad for you, Jimmy Cramthorpe, because I’m here too.”

“Oh dear oh dear,” sighed Jane. “Well, Jimmy, I’m sorry, but you will have to give your slate to Harry. But perhaps he won’t like school,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper, “and it will only be for today. I’m sorry.”

One corner of his mouth curling as he pressed his lips together, Mr. Egerton released Harry Barbary, who snatched the slate from his fellow pupil and plumped himself down on an open chair.

“That’s where the teacher sits,” said Anna around her fingers, which she was sucking again.

“I suppose Miss Egerton and I can stand for an hour,” Jane said regretfully, now seeing Harry grip the slate with one hand and the chair with the other. She thought—hoped—Mr. Egerton would almost smile at this too, but his brow knit.

“ Will you be well enough to stand for an hour?” he asked. “Your injured head—I can fetch another chair.”

“I’m perfectly well now,” she threw back, widening her eyes to indicate, Hush! Leave this to me!

Harry’s eyes flew to her now bandage-less forehead, from which the bruise, though still discernible, had faded to a sallow shadow. But before he could burst out again with his inevitable “I won’t go to gaol!”, Mr. Egerton perceived his error. He began backing away. “Well, I had better see to my own pupils, Mrs. Merritt, but I will say our cook Winching made gooseberry tarts for Michaelmas, and I expect anyone who is still here at the end of the lesson would be welcome to one, including you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Egerton,” she replied, unable to prevent a smile at this transparent bribe.

Cassie reappeared then, her arms laden with cushions. And like the sensible girl she was, she betrayed no amazement at the sight of their newest pupil, saying merely, “Try these, Anna, and you will be better able to reach the table.”

The curate left without another word, and the lesson began.

An hour and odd minutes later, crumbs from the gooseberry tarts still sticking to their faces, the children raced away, now chattering with each other, while Jane and Cassie set the room to rights.

“I think,” said Jane, straightening Anna’s cushions and sliding the chair against the table, “that went as well as we could hope.”

Cassie nodded eagerly. “Did you notice that, by the end, Harry stopped pretending he was here upon sufferance?”

“I did, and I think Jimmy and Anna outright enjoyed it. But we had better not get a third slate yet. Let Harry believe he continues to inconvenience Jimmy until he wants to be here for more reasons than that.”

Heads together, the two sat at the table planning their next few lessons and eating the remaining fragments of tart until Cassie rested her chin on her hand and sighed. “I do wish Felicity weren’t coming tomorrow, though that sounds ungracious.”

“Miss Hynde seemed a pleasant person,” said Jane cautiously.

“She is a pleasant person. It isn’t that. It’s that Philip and I are establishing ourselves in Iffley, with the Tommies and Archie, with the church and the parishioners. And here you and I are starting our little school. But when Felicity comes, she must be taken into consideration. She must be included. And she is so young! I do not know how well she will be able to entertain herself.” Cassie made an apologetic face. “Just listen to me complain! I beg your pardon for it, Jane.”

“But surely—she will have needlework and books and music to occupy her,” Jane suggested. “And if—Mr. Egerton is—fond of her, he will make time for her, so that all the responsibility for amusing her does not fall solely upon you.”

“Possibly,” answered Cassie doubtfully, “but I cannot picture Philip dancing attendance upon her, no matter how fond he might be. When we would visit my uncle Geoffrey, my brother seemed more content to sit and admire her than to engage her, if that makes sense.”

Jane was finding it too tempting to hope Miss Hynde would prove burdensome, however, and she guiltily began to gather her things.

“Oh, see?” Cassie wailed. “I have horrified you.”

“You haven’t, Cassie. I only thought you must have much to do in preparation for her coming.”

“But you will call, won’t you, or will we not see you again until church on Sunday?”

“I don’t like to intrude—”

“Then we may call upon you? Because if we may not, what on earth will I do with her following me about around the clock?”

“Of course you may call at Iffley Cottage with her whenever you like,” Jane assured her. “And who knows? She and Frances might take a liking to each other. They are nearer in age, and then she could follow Frances around half the time—though that would involve frequent calls to Perryfield because Mrs. Dere can hardly do without my sister.”

“Yes!” Cassie clapped her hands. “What a lovely thing that would be. We will certainly call, then. The first moment I catch her stifling a yawn. Well, good-bye. Wasn’t it great fun teaching them the alphabet? They might be just scribbles on a page now, but soon they will have meaning! Good-bye!”