by Merry Farmer
“Ladies and gentlemen, the bride and groom are ready to depart!”
The cry came from the far side of the lawn where a carriage was decorated and waiting to whisk Lady Charlotte and Anthony Fretwell away.
“Oh dear.” Alexandra puffed out a breath, the spark of intensity between the two of them fizzling. “I had better get over there or I’ll never hear the end of it from Mother.”
The smile she gave him was gloomy but brave. She stepped back, then turned to go, striding away.
“Alexandra, will you marry me?” Marshall called after her.
He was hit by a wave of dizziness once the words were out, swaying to the side as all breath and feeling left him.
Alexandra froze, her back still to him. Marshall could see the tension that stiffened her as if he’d thrown a rock and hit her in the back of the head. When she whipped back to face him, her eyes were wide and round, and a look of pure shock filled her face.
“What?” Her voice was several notes too high. The pink of her cheeks darkened to a passionate red.
The cat was out of the bag. There was no point in pretending the truth was anything other than what it was. It was time to take a page out of Jason’s book and rush forward with boldness.
“I love you, Alexandra,” he said, pouring his heart into his speech, mad though it was. “You know that. You are my partner at the hospital, but nearly from the moment I met you, far before I should have, I knew that you were the partner of my life as well.”
Her open mouth shut and she turned to face him fully.
“I know that you don’t love me the way I love you,” he went on, letting his shoulders drop, “but if we were to marry, I promise that I would protect you and cherish you and help you to secure the life I know you want.”
“But….” Her question faded and her mouth dropped open once more.
Marshall took a step closer to her. The afternoon sun seemed somehow brighter, more brilliant, filling him with courage as each beat of his heart spun more of the story of his love for her. “Think of it,” he said. “If we marry, then your family will have no further hold on you. Not a one of them will be able to tell you where to live or what job to take or leave. That would be up to me, and I want nothing more for you than all those things that you want for yourself.”
“Marshall.” His name on her lips, breathless and surprised, filled him with even more courage.
He closed the rest of the gap between them, reaching out and taking her hands. “Ours would be a partnership of equals. I would not make demands of you that you would not want. You could stay at the hospital, continue to practice medicine with my blessing and my support, by my side. I promise you I will respect you in every way, love you in every way, whether you ever come to love me or not. I will be honest with you and true, just say you will be mine.”
“I…but…how….” Every new attempt at forming whatever mysterious thoughts she had in her head into words failed, but the light of thought and the spark of hope shone bright in her eyes.
Marshall held tight to her hands, sensing she needed him to ground her, to keep her steady.
“Gather ’round, ladies and gentlemen,” the call from the carriage on the driveway grew more insistent. “Come, give your well-wishes to the happy couple.”
Marshall kept his eyes trained on Alexandra’s. “I’m not saying it will be perfect,” he went on. “I’m not saying we won’t face challenges. Two friends like us? We’re bound to cause more trouble together than any one of us could manage alone.”
To his trembling delight, Alexandra broke into a teary laugh, punctuated by a sniff as she pulled herself together.
“But it would be worth it,” Marshall went on. “It would be worth every skirmish and ever shouting match, all the trouble in the world, if you would just say you will marry me.” He paused, then ended with, “Will you?”
“Alexandra,” Lady Charlotte called across the lawn, a touch of anger in her voice. “Where are you?”
Alexandra sucked in a breath, then turned to glance over her shoulder. The gesture stretched her neck gracefully, caused the sunlight to highlight the graceful lines of her body and the touches of gold in her hair.
“Alexandra!” Lady Charlotte’s second shout was harsh with demand.
Alexandra twisted to face Marshall once more, clasping his hands. “A partnership of equals?” she asked, voice shaking.
“In every way,” Marshall promised.
She held her breath, studied his face. Marshall could see her thoughts turning over and over, could see the flash of her eyes and the flame of her heart. At last, she let out a breath and answered.
“Yes.”
Matty
The courtroom had grown hot and stuffy in the hours since the magistrate had left to deliberate. At least, it felt like hours to Matty. In truth, it could have been no more than a few minutes. The bailiffs that had been set to guard the room took the magistrate at his word. They hadn’t let anyone in or out of the room, nor had they let anyone move from the spot where they’d been when the judge had given his order.
Matty still stood in the dock. Her legs ached from standing for so long, but she refused to sit or slouch or even lean against the dock’s railing. Not when Connie had just been so brave and spoken on her behalf. She was innocent. The entire room knew it.
Hoag knew it.
From the dock, Matty watched him. When Connie had been brought into the room, Hoag blanched. The shock in his eyes told her that he’d been certain he would never see Connie again. Lawrence had whispered what he’d done to steal her siblings away from Hoag in the farthest corner of the prison cell where Matty had been held. Not even Kate and Lottie had overheard his story of fooling the pimp who had Connie, rushing off through the alleys of Kendal with Willy and Elsie. Matty had wept tears of relief and gratitude then.
Now she stood with her head high, absolutely confident for a change. Hoag’s eyes darted around the room, sometimes landing on her, sometimes on Connie, sometimes even on Lawrence. He knew that his time was up. For all his size and girth, Hoag cowered at the end of his bench, breathing fast, sweat dripping down his head. He’d glanced to the half-open window, but he was too bulky to jump that high or squeeze through. He’d checked every door in the room too, but at least two bailiffs stood at each one, and the guards Lawrence had hired to watch the children were planted at the end of the row of benches where Hoag sat. Even Bobbo had nipped across the aisle to sit with his shoulders hunched, well out of Hoag’s way. Hoag was done for.
Which meant that for the first time in as long as she could remember, Matty had a chance of being free.
She glanced to Lawrence, reassured by the smile he wore. It was a smile of triumph, yes, but also one of joy, of love. With that smile and his eyes, as he sat on the bench with Beach to one side, Willy and Elsie to the other, he told her to be patient, to wait things out, that there was no way they could lose now. An eye-witness had told the judge what he’d seen, Bobbo had pointed the finger, and Hoag’s barrister had given up. Surely the magistrate would see the truth of things. All they had to do was wait.
And what would all this waiting end in? Matty shifted her glance from Lawrence to her sister. Connie still sat in the witness box. Even though she was given leave to step down by the magistrate, she had been too afraid to move. Now that she’d said her piece, it was almost as if she waited where she was, protected by the smallest and youngest of the bailiffs in the courtroom, to be sure it was safe to move. Not once did she twist to look behind her at Hoag, but it was as if she could feel his presence, but was still too terrified by him to see for herself.
At last, after what felt like an eternity, the handle on the door that the magistrate had left through rattled. In a flash, the atmosphere in the courtroom snapped from anxious anticipation to high tension. The door opened and the magistrate bustled through. Matty sucked in a breath and stood rod-straight so fast that a wave of dizziness threatened to knock her over. Those in the gallery watchi
ng the trial—from Lawrence and Beach on one side to Hoag on the other—leapt to their feet. The bailiffs and guards tensed as though they would need to quell a riot. Even Connie stood, though she swayed and gripped the edge of the witness box as she did.
“Well,” the magistrate said with a heavy sigh as he sank into the chair behind the high desk. “It’s fairly obvious to me that Mathilda Wright is innocent.”
Cries rang up from the gallery, along with a yelp that Matty was fairly certain came from her. The world stopped turning at the magistrate’s words, and like the sounding of a gong or the blast of a cannon, everything that had been wrong in her life was set right. It filled her with a detached sensation, and at last, she sagged against the side of the dock, weeping with relief.
There were more shouts of both triumph and protest around her, along with the magistrate pounding with his gavel and shouting, “Order, order. Be quiet, now!” Matty barely heard them.
“As I said,” the magistrate shouted over the cacophony of the courtroom, “It is obvious that Mathilda Wright is not only innocent, I don’t believe she is capable of strangling and stabbing her own mother. That, and according to Mr. Hoag’s own testimony—which is decidedly suspect in many areas—even if he was attacked by Miss Wright and thrust into the stove, he blacked out and did not, in fact, see any murder.”
“I did,” Hoag shouted, “I did, I did.”
“Because you performed it,” Lawrence barked back at him.
The magistrate banged on his desk again. “Order, I say, order! Hold that man down.”
The last order was directed at Hoag, who was now trying desperately to climb over the benches in an attempt to make a break for the door. Two bailiffs and one of Lawrence’s guards lunged for him, and between the three of them, they managed to hold him to his spot straddling one of the benches.
Hoag grimaced with pain and fury. “I’ll kill you,” he shouted at Lawrence, then glared past him at Matty. “I’ll slice the both of you from end to end and roast you over the fires of hell!”
From his seat near the front of the courtroom, Havers groaned and covered his face with his hands.
The magistrate gaped at the scene and banged his gavel a few more times. “As I said,” he began in a loud voice, “the only person here who admits to witnessing the murder, aside from the defendant, is young Miss Constance. I believe the veracity of her testimony, and I can clearly see the fear she has of Mr. Hoag. Based on this evidence, Miss Wright, you are free to go.” He nodded at Matty.
The moment the bailiff closest to her unlatched the gate of the dock, Matty scrambled down. She rushed around the edge, darting to the benches as Lawrence climbed over two rows to catch her in a fierce embrace. It felt so good to hold him completely, to be enveloped by his heat, his scent, and his love, that Matty moaned in relief.
“Furthermore,” the magistrate went on behind her, though by now Matty hardly cared, “I hereby order that Trevor Hoag be taken into custody, to be incarcerated and held until he can stand trial on his own for the murder of Philomena Hoag. And I damn well want an investigation of the police force in Grasmere who let this heinous crime go misdirected for so long,” he added, incredulous. “If I have my way, heads will roll, starting with yours.” He pointed his gavel at Hoag.
That was the end. Hoag bellowed in protest as the bailiffs clapped him in irons. It took four of them to escort him from the room. His shouts could be heard for several minutes as he was hauled away. When, at last, they finally dwindled to nothing, Matty let go of Lawrence and stood back to smile up at him.
“You’re free,” he said, tears in his eyes and joy in his voice. “No more mystery hanging over your head, no more darkness pulling you down.”
“I hardly know what to think or do,” she said.
But that was not true. She did know what to do. When she heard the creak of boards behind her, she turned to find Connie stepping down from the witness box at last. With a swallowed cry of happiness, Matty turned away from Lawrence and ran across the room to wrap her sister in a tight embrace. Connie collapsed in her arms, wailing with all the sorrow and fear and pain she’d been forced to keep inside.
It took several minutes of reassuring her everything would be well now, of promising her their lives would be good now that Hoag wasn’t there to torment them, and of hugging the little children and telling them the same before they all began to calm. Somewhere in that time, Havers had left the courtroom in disgust, and Bobbo had snuck out. Beach and Owings were still there, but they held back, letting Matty and Lawrence and the children have their moment to grasp the reality that their lives had been born anew.
“Do you have plans for those children?” Beach asked Lawrence at last, stepping forward as the court staff ambled into the room to begin cleaning up.
“Plans?” Lawrence asked, blinking.
“Yes. Their mother is dead and their father is likely to hang within a few months,” Beach said. “If you’d like, I can recommend several homes for orphans that have good reputations. The conditions of crown-sponsored orphanages have improved quite a bit from the days when you and your friends were growing up.”
Something cold and hard gripped at Matty’s throat. She stood from where she had been cradling Elsie and turned to Lawrence and Beach with a loud, “No.”
“No?” Beach questioned her.
Matty looked to Lawrence. “I can’t abandon them now,” she said. “I left them once before, but only because my memory was gone. I refuse to do it again.” She hugged Willy and Elsie close to her.
Several emotions crossed Lawrence’s face at once, from surprise to concern to helplessness. “Matty, the forge is barely big enough for the two of us. We’re having a baby in just a few short months. Are you sure?”
Matty hugged her two youngest siblings tighter. “I won’t leave them to who knows what fate.” She took a breath, searching for solutions. “Perhaps we could live with Mother Grace, in the woods. Or maybe Mr. Throckmorton would let us stay at the hotel for a time. We…we could even build our own house somewhere, far from everyone else, where no one would be able to hurt us again.”
Lawrence opened his mouth to protest, but a deep look of understanding and compassion filled his eyes. For a moment, all other emotions were replaced by pity. He closed his mouth and ran a hand through his hair, looking from Matty to Connie to the younger children.
“I suppose I knew I was about to become a father,” he said. “I just had no idea it would be to four children nearly at once.”
Matty’s shoulders loosened in relief, and her chest and throat squeezed with the love she felt for him. How had she ever been lucky enough to find a man like Lawrence Smith? He was everything she could have hoped for in a man, and he was hers.
Lawrence came forward and squatted to bring himself to the level of the younger children. “What do you say?” he asked. “Do you want to come live at the edge of the forest, like wild gypsies, howling at the moon?”
He asked his question with humor and a wink for Willy. The two little ones stared back at him with hollow eyes and pale faces, as if he too might beat and torment them. They cowered, shrinking into Matty’s skirts.
“Yes,” Connie answered for them. Her voice was still ragged with tears, but she stood with more determination than she had in the witness box. “Yes, we want to come live with you. You kept Matty safe. You can keep us safe as well.”
Lawrence’s moment of trepidation—brought on by the frightened reaction of the younger children—melted to warmth. He stood, resting a hand on Connie’s head. “Very well then,” he said. He leaned forward to kiss Matty tenderly on the lips. “Let’s go home.”
Flossie
The last time Flossie was on a train, feeling the slow resistance as the brakes were applied and the engine brought them near to a station, her life had changed forever. Polly had been waiting at that station to take her on to the interview that would throw her world into chaos and bliss all rolled up together. No one was waiting for h
er at the station at Silecroft now, but as she and Jason stepped out onto the platform, once again, she felt as though her world tilted on the brink of a whole new level of chaos.
And bliss.
“The inn is just a short walk from here,” Jason told her, lifting his head to breathe in the salty breeze that wafted up from the other side of the station. “Lawrence has the name of the place, so if there’s any word of Matty’s trial, it should be waiting for us there.”
Flossie glanced around at the quaint setting. Silecroft was infinitely smaller than Brynthwaite, but it still had the same neatness, the same sense of industry and possibility. She too breathed in the sea air, caught the cry of a gull overhead, and smiled.
“Yes, let’s go. I’m eager to hear how the trial went.”
Jason sought out a porter and gave him orders to take their suitcases to the seaside inn, along with a generous tip to ensure they reached the inn quickly and safely. With that taken care of, he clasped Flossie’s hand and helped her off the station platform and onto the lazy streets of Silecroft.
It was the supper hour, and as they walked, few other people were out and about. The sun was low in the sky, but still gave enough light for them to see by. There was so much for Flossie to look at that she was certain Jason would tease her for turning her head as though watching a parade.
“I’ve never been to the seaside before,” she confessed as they approached the small inn that would be their home for the weekend.
“Never?” Jason asked, incredulous.
“Of course not,” she laughed in return. “When would a poor maid like me ever have time to visit the seaside?”
“Well,” he replied, letting go of her hand long enough to leap ahead to open the inn’s door for her. “As far as I’m concerned, you can travel wherever you want to whenever you’d like now.”
She should think of some witty reply to his grand statement, but all that came to her was a deep, grateful flush and the feeling as though she’d passed through some gossamer screen to a whole new world.
