The Brynthwaite Boys: Season Two - Part Two Page 4

  Connie made a face as she shoved the chemise into the wringer’s rolls and turned the crank. Water ran down the sides indiscriminately, making far more of a mess than the job warranted. Furthermore, Connie was careless with the chemise itself, and before it made it through the wringer, there was a loud rip.

  “Be careful,” Matty gasped, twisting to see what had happened. Only, her body wasn’t as lithe as it used to be, and she wrenched her back as she moved.

  “It’s just a stupid chemise,” Connie mumbled, pulling the garment out of the wringer and shaking it, sending water everywhere. “It isn’t even pretty.”

  “It’s mine,” Matty said, losing even the pretense of being cheerful. “And I only have a few of them.”

  Connie humphed and rolled her eyes as she hung the chemise on the line stretched across the corner of the room, then stomped back to run another garment—one of Lawrence’s shirts—through the wringer. Again, there was a rip.

  “Connie,” Matty scolded her. “Have a care with your work or I’ll put you to mending later.”

  “I hate mending,” Connie sighed. “And I’m terrible at it.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Matty’s memory was full of times she’d had to correct her sister’s shoddy stitching and hours when the two of them broke down into tears of frustration as Matty attempted to teach her to do better.

  “I want to go back to school,” Connie exclaimed out of the blue when she’d finished wringing Lawrence’s shirt.

  Matty laughed before she could stop herself. “I thought you hated school and didn’t want to go unless they allowed Willy to go.”

  “That was before,” Connie pouted. “I want to go back now.”

  Matty hissed out an impatient breath, but was too frustrated to think of the right reply. She wasn’t thrilled about hiding away in the woods, as much as she loved Mother Grace, especially since Lawrence continued to spend most of his days at the forge. He had to keep working, after all. If the forge went cold, it could take days to bring it back up to heat. Even though Lawrence had gone to Grasmere early that morning, Oliver would tend the forge all day until he got back. But that would mean Lawrence would have to spend the night catching up on work rather than joining Matty in the woods. Not seeing him for so long made her nervous in too many ways.

  Another rip shook Matty out of her thoughts.

  “Oh,” Connie said, looking more guilty than usual as she pulled one of Matty’s favorite dresses out of the wringer. Even from where she was sitting, Matty could see a long rip across the center of the bodice. She could mend it, but the dress would never be the same.

  “Perhaps we should find something else for you to do,” Mother Grace said from the far end of the cottage, where she was brewing something over her cook-stove. It could have been stew for lunch or a potion to put Connie in her place for all Matty knew. Elsie stood by her side, watching with silent fascination.

  “There isn’t anything else to do,” Connie said, jabbing clothespins into Matty’s dress as she draped it over the line.

  “There’s always something to do,” Mother Grace said. She gave her pot one more stir, then covered it, wiped her hands on her apron, and approached Connie and Matty. “That’s ready to simmer for a while, which gives us plenty of time to forage.”

  “Forage?” Connie asked uncertainly.

  Mother Grace moved to her chair, sat, and pulled on a pair of fur-lined boots. “There are all sorts of plants that can be gathered in the winter,” she said. “Get your things on and we’ll go out looking for winter berries and birch bark.”

  “I don’t want to go outside. It’s cold,” Connie said, slumping her way across the cottage to fetch her coat all the same.

  “We’ll walk at a brisk pace and keep warm,” Mother Grace told her in a somewhat flat voice. She sent a look to Matty that said they were going to have to do something about Connie’s attitude soon.

  “I’ll make some tea as soon as I finish with the laundry,” Matty said. “Perhaps some buns as well. You’ll have a cheery feast waiting for you when you return.”

  Connie made a face without saying anything, but Mother Grace said, “Thank you, dear. Mind you don’t wear yourself out. We don’t want that babe coming before its time.” She nodded to Matty’s stomach as she crossed to the door and donned her cloak.

  Matty smiled, resting a hand on her stomach. In fact, she was ready for the baby to come. More than ready, although she still had more than a month left. She was ready to have her body back as much as she was ready to welcome Lawrence’s child into the world.

  Lawrence. Thoughts of her beloved weighed on her after Mother Grace and Connie left. There was no telling what he would find in Grasmere. She still didn’t fully understand his reasons for going. It didn’t make sense to her to try to draw Hoag out when it was clear he wanted revenge. Hoag terrified her. Even when Lawrence was tucked in bed with her, she had a hard time sleeping. Nightmares of the night her mother had died and Hoag had been burned plagued her. She wasn’t sure they would ever go away, at least not until Hoag was gone for good.

  A gentle touch on her arm pulled her back to the present. Elsie had approached her and now stared at her with an oddly mature look of compassion. Elsie was the one person who had thrived by moving to the woods. She seemed completely at home, completely at peace for the first time in her life. She watched everything Mother Grace did with clever eyes, learning. But she still hadn’t spoken.

  “Are you keeping yourself busy?” Matty asked, her voice back to cheerful.

  Elsie smiled and nodded, then held up a small book. It was a primer of sorts, only instead of the standard “A is for Apple”, each letter was illustrated with something out of ancient myth.

  “Are you learning to read?” Matty asked, blinking into a smile.

  Elsie grinned and nodded.

  Matty leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’m so proud of you.”

  Elsie giggled and scurried back to the table where she’d been sitting, going on with her lesson.

  Strange though it was, Matty felt better. Elsie wasn’t only happier with Mother Grace, she’d developed a calming presence that put Matty at ease. The baby inside of her moved and stretched, as if he or she felt it too. It was enough to renew Matty’s energy as she finished up the laundry.

  Of course, once that was finished, there were still things to do. Connie had made a mess with the wringer, and the floor needed to be mopped and dried before the floorboards could warp. Matty emptied the wash water into the back garden bit by bit until she could move the entire tub, set the tub and the bucket outside to dry—not that they would right away, considering the weather—then went in search of a scrub brush and mopping towels.

  “You don’t happen to know where Mother Grace keeps her towels, do you?” she asked Elsie as she searched through what she thought was the linen cupboard. Mother Grace had taken their blankets and bedcovers from that cupboard when they’d first arrived, but there didn’t seem to be any washing towels on the shelves.

  Elsie shook her head and returned to her book. Connie moved on to the next cupboard, but it held mostly jars of herbs and plants, small bowls, and other items that could be used to brew potions or cast spells. She moved on, looking in the alcove that served as a pantry, but there wasn’t much there but food.

  Matty was beginning to grow frustrated and to contemplate letting the floor dry on its own when Elsie got up from the table and walked to one of the benches in the corner where the laundry was hanging. She moved the long, flat cushion aside and tugged at the seat. To Matty’s surprise, it opened like a chest.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed crossing to join Elsie. “What a clever idea. Especially when Mother Grace lives in such a tiny space.”

  Elsie’s smile widened, and she and Matty peered into the chest.

  There weren’t any towels. Matty’s momentary disappointment was banished by what the chest did contain, though. On one side, several articles of men’s clothing were folded and stacked—a jacket, shi
rts, and trousers. Matty picked up the jacket, wondering if Lawrence had left it there. The fabric was old, though, and the cut of the piece reminded her of pictures she’d seen from long before she was born.

  Curiosity got the better of her, and she stuck her hand in one of the pockets. Sure enough, it contained a few wadded pieces of paper, one of which was the canceled stub of a train ticket bearing the date November 12, 1864.

  “Oh, my,” she gasped. “That is old.” She returned the stub to the pocket, refolded the jacket, and put it back on the pile of clothes.

  As she did, she noticed an entirely different sort of garment—a baby’s gown. Only, it wasn’t like any other baby clothing she’d seen. The soft, oatmeal-colored linen was embroidered with rune symbols, trees, and animals.

  “That looks like Mother Grace’s work,” Matty said to Elsie.

  Elsie nodded in agreement, taking the garment and handling it reverently with a smile.

  A tiny pair of boots sat at the bottom of the chest, but as Matty picked them up to look at them, an uneasiness filled her heart. Why would Mother Grace have baby things? She had never married or had a child.

  Then again, Matty didn’t know that for certain. Mother Grace didn’t have a living child, but she could have had one who died. The thought nearly brought her to tears. She put the tiny boots back and turned her attention to the rest of the chest’s contents—books and old papers.

  Once again, Matty’s mood changed as she picked up the books and glanced through the papers. The books were old and mostly about medical topics. Matty leafed quickly through one, guessing from the headings that it contained details of old remedies for everything from coughs to bunions. A grin spread across Matty’s face. Perhaps Mother Grace’s remarkable healing powers weren’t so much a result of ancient folklore and magic as they were the effect of careful study.

  But as she closed the book, an inscription on the front page caught her eye. “To John—Go forth and make something of yourself.”

  “John?” Matty asked, turning to Elsie as though her tiny sister had the answer.

  Elsie shrugged.

  Matty put the medical book back into the chest and looked through the papers. Most of them were letters, but a few were clippings from the newspaper. Matty scanned over one of the letters first.

  “My dearest Grace. I hate being apart from you, especially with you so close to delivering. The trial continues to drag on, though, and as much as I protest my innocence, Jane’s lawyers are dogged. They insist the marriage was never annulled and that my father’s inheritance should go to her child, which she claims is mine. I am having a devil of a time disproving her theories. The only thing that keeps me going is your faith in me. With all my love, John.”

  Matty’s brow shot up. “Was John married to this Jane woman and not Mother Grace?”

  Elsie plucked another letter from the pile and handed it to Matty. She read, skimming over the much longer letter.

  “Yes, my darling,” it said near the middle of the page. “I know you are upset with me. I should have told you the full story. But I was coerced into marrying. My heart has always been with you. You’ve no need to come to Lincoln. I feel better knowing that you are safe in Brynthwaite.”

  Matty skimmed on, but she was too eager to see what the other letters and the newspaper clippings said to take her time. A story began to form. John, whoever he was, must have fallen in love with Mother Grace and gotten her with child. But apparently, he was married to another woman, Jane. The tone of his letters grew more desperate, and it became clearer to Matty that he was, in fact, married to Jane. Reading between the lines, it seemed as though he knew it and had deliberately deceived Mother Grace.

  But it was the newspaper clippings that provided a chilling end to the story. The headline of one clipping read “Bigamist Found Dead.” The article went on to describe how a certain John Keegan was found dead in his flat in Lincoln. The man had been poisoned, although the police were uncertain whether it was suicide or murder. John was in the midst of a sensational trial in which his wife was fighting in court for his father’s fortune when his pregnant mistress showed up demanding answers. The mistress was a known witch. A public scene was caused in which the truth came out. John was humiliated. Some people said he killed himself, but others insisted the witch poisoned him.

  Matty pressed a hand to her mouth as the picture from the past became clear. Mother Grace had had a lover who deceived her. The man had died. Matty couldn’t believe that Mother Grace would kill anyone, but then, that assumption was based on the woman Mother Grace was, not the one she had been. Anything was possible when love and betrayal were involved. Matty couldn’t imagine Lawrence being false with her, but if he was, and if she were carrying his child at the time, there was no telling how she would react.

  But what of the child? Matty folded the letters and clippings and replaced them in the chest, searching for more answers as she did. There was nothing, not even proof that the baby had been born. The embroidered gown and boots were in pristine condition, hinting that they’d never been worn. The newspapers said nothing about how far along Mother Grace had been when John died. Had the shock brought on an early birth that the baby couldn’t survive? Or had the baby been born and died sometime later?

  “I’m freezing. I can’t feel my feet.” Connie’s loud complaint sounded just outside the house.

  Pulse racing, Matty slammed the chest shut and scrambled to replace the cushion. She shooed Elsie back to the table and had just enough time to rush to the linen cupboard and throw open the door before Mother Grace and Connie entered the cottage, stomping snow off their boots as they did.

  “You said there would be tea and scones,” Connie complained when she saw nothing cooking but the stew Mother Grace had left to simmer.

  “I’ve been searching for towels to clean the floor with,” Matty said, perhaps a little too fast and breathless.

  Mother Grace tutted. “You look flushed. I told you not to push yourself too hard. Come sit at the table and I’ll give you some of my soup and a nice heel of bread.”

  “I want soup and a heel of bread,” Connie said as Matty shuffled across the room and sat.

  Mother Grace stared at her with a long-suffering and uncharacteristically impatient look. “You will clean up the washing water for your sister,” she said, then pointed to the pantry. “The towels are in the chest under the bottom shelf on the right.”

  Connie made a face, but went to fetch the towels all the same.

  Matty did her best to keep a pleasant smile as Mother Grace served a bowl of soup and brought it to the table along with the bread.

  “You need to keep your strength up without overexerting yourself, my dear,” she said with a knowing smile. “Childbirth is the hardest thing a woman can go through, and you must be prepared.”

  “Thank you,” Matty said, her face blazing hot with a flush. She was desperate to ask if Mother Grace knew how hard childbirth was from personal experience. She wanted to ask if heartbreak had made her weak and if that’s what had caused her to lose her baby. She wanted to ask what had happened, where that baby was now. But to ask those things would mean admitting she’d been rifling through Mother Grace’s most personal belongings, and the last thing Matty wanted to do was give the woman she was coming to think of as a second mother any reason to hate her.

  Marshall

  Marshall’s heart beat a mile a minute as he paced up and down the impersonal hallway outside of the office where the hearing to decide custody of his girls was to be held. This was it, the moment he’d been waiting for since that dreary August day when Eileen had mounted her ambush on behalf of the Danforth family and stolen the girls from him. Months of fretting, of leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of justice, weeks of demanding to speak to Percival Danforth and his representatives, to see his girls to be sure they were well, and finally, days of meetings with solicitors in the lead-up to the hearing, and the time had finally come.

  “Wearing
a trail in the floor isn’t going to win the case, Dr. Pycroft,” St. Germaine, Jason’s man of business in London, who had been coordinating the case, said.

  Instead of addressing him, Marshall sent a weary look in Jason’s direction, as if telling him to set St. Germaine straight. But Jason was far worse for wear than Marshall could ever have imagined. They’d only been in London for slightly more than three weeks, but Jason had lost a considerable amount of weight. He was as agitated and jumpy as a dog that had been kicked too many times, and dark circles stood out under his eyes, stark against his pale face. If Marshall hadn’t known better, he would have suspected Jason had been drinking, but considering how much time the two of them had spent in each other’s company since arriving in London, that was highly unlikely. Much more likely was Marshall’s suspicion that Jason hadn’t been sleeping or eating.

  But there hadn’t been time to worry about Jason. Not with the endless legal meetings, nor with the string of pointless social events Lady E insisted on dragging both of them too. Not that he’d attended most of them. The only benefit to the few dances, dinners, and nights at the theater he had attended was that Marshall had made the acquaintance of several prominent legal figures, including Lord Merion, whom he’d only briefly met at Jason and Lady E’s engagement before taking Alex home.

  Alex. Marshall stopped his pacing and took a deep breath, closing his eyes and conjuring an image of Alex. He saw her as she had been when things were at their best between the two of them—smiling at him first thing in the morning, her eyes heavy with sleep, her silky hair spilling across the pillow, her perfect body laid bare for him to feast his eyes on. He hadn’t been away from her long, but changes happened fast when a woman was with child. How much rounder would she be when he finally returned home to her? Would she let him undress her and caress her curves, let him relearn the way she felt beside him, underneath him? Things had been so devilishly horrible between them when they’d parted, all the way up until the very last moment when she saw him off at the train station. But that last moment, that final goodbye when she said she’d miss him had awakened new hope within him. Her frequent letters over the last few weeks kept that hope alive, even though she’d written mostly about hospital business.