by Carla Kelly
‘Aunt Alice said I should give her this address, or else her reply would end up in Dumfries. Roses, Da?’
Forgetting him, Nathan wandered into the kitchen, where Mrs Pritchert was flouring veal cutlets. He sat cross-legged on the bench, nodding at what he read, then handed the letter to his father.
Ross opened his mouth to object. He closed it, not wanting to protest that it wasn’t good manners for him to read a letter meant for someone else, when he was desperate to know what she had to tell his son. Any crumb from Mary was surely better than all of Belinda’s dubious talents.
‘“Dear Nathan,”’ he read to himself, ‘“imagine my surprise or chagrin—ask your father what it means—when I arrived in Edinburgh to see Dina wearing the little ring. It seems Mrs Morison, the cook, had retrieved it from the batter when I was out of the room. She sent me on my errand because she wanted me to have an adventure. Perhaps she feared that if she had left the ring in the batter, I might have not found the dratted thing. Ah, well. I still haven’t been below stairs to talk to her and perhaps I won’t go.”’
Ross looked up at his son. ‘I would have left the ring in the fruitcake and let Mary find it.’ And then Mary wouldn’t have been humiliated by a bully who didn’t believe her, he thought with remorse.
‘I would have, too.’
He returned to his son’s letter. ‘“My journey wasn’t for nothing and I give your father the credit.”’
Ross nodded to Nathan. ‘I did something good? It’s nice to hope.’
‘Keep reading, Da.’ Nathan cleared his throat as though it was his announcement, and not Mary’s.
Ross read, ‘“I informed my uncle Sam that I was going to work in his counting house and he would pay me. He wouldn’t hear of it, but I sat in his lobby in his counting house for one week until he changed his mind.’”
Bravo, Mary, Ross thought with admiration as he continued reading. The smile left his face. ‘“I intend to save my earnings until I have enough to emigrate to the United States. I might go to Savannah or Charleston where it is warm. I have decided it is too damp and chilly in Edinburgh.”’
She’s leaving and I can’t blame her. Besides, it was my idea! I doubt there is a bigger fool on this entire island, he thought, discouraged beyond words.
‘May I write her back, Da?’ Nathan asked.
‘What? What? Aye, lad. And...and tell her hello from me.’
Ross handed back the letter and his son immediately started to read it over.
‘I’m leaving now for the Channel,’ he said.
Nathan merely nodded, his eyes on the letter. He walked slowly from the room and upstairs. Mrs Pritchert gave Ross a look full of sympathy, something he did not want. He told her goodbye and left the house.
He stood outside, looking up at Nathan’s bedroom window, waiting for his son to wave and blow him kisses, as he usually did. The window remained empty. He waited a long while, then walked slowly to the harbour.
* * *
The matter of employment in her uncle’s counting house had not been as easily accomplished as Mary had suggested in her letter to Nathan. She couldn’t bring herself to go below stairs to see Mrs Morison. She blamed it on utter exhaustion for keeping up the cheerful pretence that her accident was a chance encounter with an elbow on the mail coach. The little tale made the rounds of Wapping Street, nobody questioning her. If she never saw Mrs Morison again, Mary knew she would not mind greatly.
‘What am I going to do with my life?’ she asked herself over and over during the days when she hid upstairs as the black eye faded. There were no avenues for well-bred women except marriage. She even dared to wonder what would happen if someone ever did propose. She knew that she loved Ross Rennie: one-legged, experienced at sea, a well-off post captain, and a man dogged by demons she couldn’t imagine. The war had ruined him and she knew no cure. Even with all that, if someone else proposed, she would turn down this mythical suitor. Mary Rennie wasn’t a woman to deceive a husband into thinking she loved him, when her heart belonged to the most inappropriate man on the planet.
That resolved, although not pleasantly, Mary remembered a conversation of theirs, when he had said he might marry some day when the war ended, and she wondered what she would do. He had suggested she emigrate to Canada or even the United States. The idea had struck her as funny then, but as January dragged out in her comfortable room on Wapping Street, she changed her mind. That was precisely what she would do.
She puzzled about how to take such a shocking step. She knew her aunt and uncle had the money to oblige her, but she knew they would never agree to it. She had a modest competence slowly growing in sensible funds. What she needed was employment. When her answer came the next morning, she interrupted Uncle Sam over breakfast. They always ate together, even though he spent most of the time behind his newspaper.
When he was finished and enjoying that final cup of tea, she announced, ‘Uncle, I have decided to work for you in your counting house.’
He sprayed the newspaper with tea and stared at her.
‘I am very good with figures. I need to earn enough money to move to the United States of America.’
That wasn’t so hard. Mary felt no fear because she had made up her mind. She smiled back when he continued to glare at her.
‘It’s out of the question,’ he said finally.
‘No, it isn’t. Just because you do not currently employ any females doesn’t mean that it is not a wonderful idea, Uncle. I prefer to keep my little inheritance gathering interest. When I am ready to leave I will withdraw it. I plan to earn my passage working for you. In your counting house. Starting tomorrow.’
‘Over my corpse,’ he said, his thin lips even thinner.
‘It won’t come to that,’ Mary told him just as firmly.
Feeling competent, wise and brave, she gave him a day to think about her declaration. When he left for work the next morning, she followed him right out the door and down the street. He said nothing to her, trying to hurry ahead as though she were a stray dog nipping at his heels. Eyes ahead, she marched right behind him. She followed him into Rennie and Son Counting House, past the astounded receptionist and into the office waiting room, where he ignored her for an entire week.
At the beginning of the next week, he silently cleared off a desk, placed a stack of ledgers with columns on them and told her to add them and make no mistakes. Mary did, finishing sooner than any of the other clerks. By Thursday of week two she was figuring percentages. On Friday he paid her. That night, she knelt by her bed and thanked the Lord. She had been neglecting Him for a year or more and knew how much she owed Divine Providence.
She wrote about the whole experience to Nathan, who became her regular correspondent, as January stepped aside for February. She was a little surprised to learn in one of his letters that he shared her correspondence with his father, who came into port more often than usual. If Captain Rennie found some amusement in her efforts, that was all right with Mary. Maybe he even remembered that emigrating was his idea.
Mary had to chuckle when Nathan wrote back that Da had grumbled and said something that made Mrs Pritchert gasp, when he read him that part about emigrating to the United States. ‘You see, Mary, he still smarts over the time a Yankee privateer with a letter of marque and reprisal cut a cargo ship right out of a convoy he was guarding towards Spain,’ Nathan wrote, which made her laugh, not a frequent occurrence at either Wapping Street or in the counting house.
She never went below stairs to see Mrs Morison. Aunt Martha had begged her to say something to the old cook, but Mary knew she was not ready to forgive her for the horrible scene in Knaresborough, which no one knew about anyway, because she never explained. Maybe some day before Mary sailed for Baltimore, Maryland, she would see Mrs Morison. The war with America had ended and perhaps someone in that city needed a counting-
house clerk. She could have chosen any city, but Mary liked the sound of Baltimore. Since Ross and Nathan were never to be part of her life, it probably didn’t matter which city, really.
She discovered one true pleasure in being a woman on her own: all decisions were hers. She had no need to consult a husband or children. And if she decided that Charleston might suit her better than Baltimore, or that Delaware was more to her taste, so be it; she could move there just as easily, without a by your leave. That was something to smile about, except the emotion that inevitably followed all this independence was the pain of losing Ross Rennie, he who had never been hers in the first place. Heart and soul, he belonged to his Britannic Majesty’s Navy, a monolith she could not fight, any more than she had a say in war. She was powerless, but so was he. And if he ever found Our Lady of the List, Mary wouldn’t have wagered much success for either of them since he was a ruined man.
She had spoken ‘I will love you until I die’ into her window that overlooked Wapping Street until she almost felt the sentence was etched there. Mary knew she would say it into the wind as she crossed the Atlantic and then into other windows and vistas. It would be her heart’s refrain until she finally breathed her last and proved the statement true. What folly was love.
* * *
On February the twenty-sixth, the day that Napoleon bolted from Elba and began his journey to Paris, gathering old veterans as he marched, Cousin Dina married Mr Algernon Page. In a burst of romantic feeling—Mary was surprised—Mr Page had arranged for a wedding journey to Paris. Dina had had to settle for the Highlands, because That Beast Napoleon had ruined her plans. She came home with chilblains and a putrid sore throat. Mr Page came home with the look of a man who could see his future spooling out before him in a way too bleak to contemplate. Poor Mr Page.
Mary discovered that she had not even begun to get over Captain Rennie. Her heart surprisingly tender, Mary continued her days in the counting house, where all the talk among the clerks was of renewed war. There were some moments during her breaks and luncheon when she retreated to the broom closet and wept, praying for Ross Rennie’s safety. No one knew except Nathan, who expressed exactly the same fears to her in his letters. She wrote to him daily now and they comforted each other through the penny post. With every fibre of her bruised heart, Mary Rennie longed to see Nathan. She made the mistake of telling him that in one unguarded moment, when all England waited for news of a battle in Belgium.
Both of them knew better than to think Captain Rennie was anywhere other than at sea and probably twiddling his thumbs with a tedious escort service to transport troops and war materiel. They also knew, because they had told each other in more than one letter, how tired they were of war.
And then she heard no more.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In late June, the frantic note from Mrs Pritchert caught up with Captain Rennie in London celebrating the Duke of Wellington’s victory over Napoleon in a Belgian wheat field. Already the newspapers were combining Liège, Quatre Bras and Mont Saint Jean into the all-inclusive Waterloo. His frigate had sailed into Portsmouth with the wounded and he knew the whole dirty business was finally over.
Since he still sailed under Special Orders, Ross went to London and checked into his favourite hotel, before taking his post chaise to Admiralty House. Mrs Pritchert’s note had been sent to Standish House, but with all the excitement in a city mad with joy, the note was overlooked when he arrived and signed the register.
Ross hurried to Admiralty House with his logs, but prepared to begin the paperwork that would lead to the resignation of his commission. He was under no illusion that he could just walk away right now, not when there were more wounded to transport. Soon there would be troops to escort home as well, as Europe turned from Napoleon’s playing field to independent quarrelling nations. Perhaps by the end of summer he would be a free man.
When he returned to Plymouth to inform his son, he would have leisure to scout about for a tailor. He still liked navy blue, but maybe a dark-green coat with a paisley waistcoat would suit. Maybe the agent in Kirkbean had not entirely given up on him. Or he could ask Nathan where he wanted to live. He knew he wouldn’t really mind Plymouth because he knew he would miss the ocean.
The overworked porter in Admiralty had just indicated an open door down the hall when his counterpart from the hotel pounded up to the high desk and demanded to see Captain Rennie.
‘Right here, lad. What have you?’
‘Sorry, Captain, but we’ve been busy.’
Still out of breath, the man handed Ross the letter and accepted the coin tossed his way. ‘Thank’ee,’ he said, but Ross had already turned away, letter in hand, to stare for a second at Mrs Pritchert’s crabbed handwriting—she rarely wrote to him—and to feel dread weigh him down more than duty.
He ducked into an empty office and ripped open the letter. ‘Good God,’ he whispered, and read it again and once more, until a bare smile played about his lips. ‘You scamp, Nathan’, was all he said. Duty still called, so he continued down the hall to the door the porter had indicated.
Lord Melville himself sat there. Ross doffed his bicorn and made a proper bow. ‘My lord, I have logs and papers for your secretary and a sudden burning urge to travel to Edinburgh, rather than back to Belgium.’
‘You do? How singular, Captain Rennie.’
Ross knew they stood on some degree of friendship, after all these years and Special Orders that took him here and there at the First Lords’ whim and the exigencies of war. ‘My lord, I know you have sons.’ He handed over the letter from Mrs Pritchert.
Lord Melville read it through and his lips began to twitch, which relieved Ross.
‘Do you think, my lord, that I could, uh...hotfoot it to Edinburgh? My first luff is entirely capable of returning Abukir to Europe’s shores for more escort and transport duty.’ He paused. ‘I have but one son to your four, my lord.’
The First Lord nodded and handed back the letter. ‘You may.’ He glanced out the window. ‘London has gone mad and we can spare you. But why Edinburgh? I saw no mention of that city in the letter.’
Ross unfolded the letter. ‘These are Mrs Pritchert’s words: “All he said was Mary needed him.”’
‘And Mary is...’
Ross swallowed. ‘In Edinburgh. She’s the woman I plan to marry, if she’ll have me. The matter hangs in some doubt, my lord, and I am not sanguine.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder at that!’ Lord Melville looked him in the eye. ‘The war has not been kind to you and men like you, Captain Rennie.’ He waved a hand to dismiss Ross. ‘But do try. When you have retrieved your boy and had whatever success you might find with, uh...Mary, return here.’
‘Aye, my lord. Good day.’ Ross bowed again and started from the office. He stopped and asked another question, which made Lord Melville laugh out loud and refer him to the Inns of Court.
* * *
By late afternoon and after shelling out an amazing amount of money—he who seldom was in port long enough to spend any—Ross had been on the Great North Road. Forty hours later, his mud-spattered post chaise pulled up to Fifty-six Wapping Street.
Call it vanity. He knew he was not, in himself, much out of the ordinary in appearance, but the uniform, even travel-stained, was as effective as ever. An elderly butler showed him into the sitting room immediately. ‘Come on, Mary, receive me,’ he muttered and then started pacing as though on his quarterdeck. Old habits were going to die hard, apparently.
Two people met him instead, a woman in tears and a man with a preoccupied air, looking supremely uncomfortable. They introduced themselves as Martha and Samuel Rennie, aunt and uncle to Mary Rennie.
He bowed to them both and introduced himself, even though he could tell they already knew who he was. ‘Mary?’ he asked. ‘My son?’
‘Sit down, Captain.’
The woman burst into tears and Mr Rennie glared at her. Even with his own brief experience with Mary Rennie, Ross could have told Mr Rennie that was a technique not destined to prosper.
‘Captain, she resigned from my counting house a few days ago upon the receipt of this letter from your son and departed for points unknown.’ He handed Ross the letter.
‘Damned secretive of her,’ he muttered, as Mrs Rennie gasped. He opened the letter to see Nathan’s familiar handwriting. It was a short letter.
Mary, I’m coming to see you. I don’t have much money, but I should at least make York. Your friend, Nathan
‘So they are in York,’ he said, handing back the letter. ‘Well, well.’
‘We have no idea where!’
‘I do. Good day to you both.’
This impromptu trip north was turning into the sort of travelling he used to do during the worst days of the Great War, when desperate doings and secret messages meant trips to London from Plymouth or Portsmouth. He had been hungry and tired then, and sometimes wounded—his leg was paining him now—but he had also been younger.
He stopped for the night in Galashiels, a small city of some pretension he remembered vaguely from the infamous list. His tired brain eventually spat out the Horse and Rider, and something do to with cheddar. He ate cheese and slept hard and was on the road by daybreak.
* * *
A day later, he arrived in Apollo Street. His eyes felt like fried eggs and his stump was fiery and painful as though he had been walking on it. He looked down to realise he had been pushing and pushing against the floorboards, as if to make the chaise go faster.
A strange butler ushered him into the house, saw him to the sitting room and said he would fetch the mister and mistress. Ross looked around, startled. There had been no mistress in December when they stopped here. Was he in the wrong house?
