Margaret Dashwood's Diary

by Elliott, Anna

  Aubrey recovered his composure, though—enough that he actually looked amused at that. Tolerantly amused. He looked more handsome than ever with the sunlight gilding his fair hair, and he shook his head—rather in the manner of a fond parent scolding a recalcitrant child. “Now, darling. I know that it is common practice with girls to reject a man’s advances … thinking that such tricks and deceptions will increase his ardour. But there is no need—”

  My precarious grasp on my temper slipped. “Tricks and deceptions? I believe the only one of us who has engaged in duplicity is you. I certainly have no wish to play such games. I am speaking nothing but the truth when I say that I never want to see or speak to you again.”

  Aubrey looked astonished all over again. And then his look darkened with anger. “Now see here,” he began. “Do you think you can make a fool of me?”

  “No,” I snapped. “I think that you do not need my assistance with that at all. You seem to have done an excellent job of it entirely by yourself. Now please, go. You are upsetting Star.” I could see that at the far end of the pasture, Star was stamping and pawing nervously at the ground—no doubt unsettled by our raised voices.

  Aubrey’s face flushed a dull, ugly red colour. But then his expression cleared and he laughed again—tolerantly—as he took a step towards me. “Such spirit—you must know that is what I have always admired most in you. But what high-spirited girls always want most is to be mastered. You need a man who is not afraid to take you in hand and teach you who is in charge.”

  He had me backed up against the wooden fence rails, and there was no way of evading him again as he caught me around the waist and set his leg between mine. He bent his head, mashing his hot, wet mouth against mine—and I brought my knee up hard against his groin, and at the same moment set my hands against his shoulders and shoved him backwards as hard as I could.

  Aubrey gave a grunt of pain and staggered back, lost his balance and fell to the ground. His expression was dark with fury, and as he sat staring up at me, I saw something ugly—and utterly alien—slither across his blue gaze.

  Up until that moment, I had not been afraid. It would never have occurred to me that I might have anything to fear from Aubrey. He had always been so very much the polished gentleman, so utterly refined. But even if not a giant of a man, Aubrey was still significantly heavier and taller than me. Besides which, here in the isolated north pasture, there was absolutely no one save Star to hear me if I screamed.

  I debated whether I was afraid enough to run—whether I wished to give Aubrey the satisfaction of having frightened me enough to make me run away. Then, abruptly, another man’s figure emerged from the trees at Aubrey’s back, strode forwards, and planted a foot against Aubrey’s chest, pinning him to the ground.

  “I think the lady asked you to leave,” Jamie said. “Seems to me, it would be healthier for you to do as she asked.”

  I stared. I was almost as astonished to see Jamie—not only alive, but up and able to walk—as I had been to see Aubrey. Looking more closely, I saw that the marks of Jamie’s recent illness were visible in the slight pallor of his skin, the shadows about his eyes. But he was up and walking—and all traces of the fever were gone.

  Aubrey’s eyes narrowed as he took in Jamie’s appearance: the ragged breeches and shirt, his coloured neckerchief and too-long hair. Aubrey drew himself straighter and thrust out his chin—which is not easy for a man lying flat on the ground with another man’s boot on his middle. To give Aubrey his due, he very nearly managed to affect a look of outraged nobility.

  “If you think I’m going to abandon her with the likes of you in the neighbourhood—,” he began.

  Jamie actually laughed at that—but the line of his jaw was so tight it might have been carved in granite. Jamie had rarely—if ever—let himself lose his temper back when I knew him. Not even when his father spent all their money on drink or his brother stole an apple and landed in gaol. But I could see he was dangerously near to it, now. “Do you know, it looked to me like she’d a lot more to worry about coming from you.”

  Aubrey thrashed in an effort to get up, the veins in his neck bulging. “You—”

  I will not bother to record all the names he called Jamie. ‘Cur’ and ‘gutter scum’ were the most polite. The rest included all the vile, insulting names for gypsies that I have ever heard—and more I had never heard, besides.

  Jamie did not bother to reply to the insults. His face was blank of emotion, but the toe of his boot crept upwards, until it was resting against Aubrey’s windpipe. I heard Aubrey’s breathing begin to rasp painfully as Jamie applied pressure. “You have one chance to get yourself away from here,” Jamie said. “Before I decide to make you.”

  Aubrey’s face reddened all over again as he fought for breath. And then abruptly, Jamie released him, dragged him to his feet as though he weighed no more than a kitten, and gave him a shove to start him on his way. “Fair warning—now go.”

  If I had been in a mood for humour, it might have been almost amusing to watch in Aubrey’s expression his sense of injured pride struggling with the instinct for self-preservation. I was rather sourly amused to note that he never glanced in my direction at all; apparently abandoning me to the mercy of a strange man who might be—for all Aubrey knew, at least—all the vile names he had called him, did not weigh into his considerations at all.

  Self-preservation in the end won out. Spinning on his heel, Aubrey strode—rapidly—away. Though as he reached the edge of the tree line he turned back and shouted, “You may be certain I will speak to the local authorities about this!”

  After he had vanished from sight, Jamie drew in a slow breath and let it out again—as though trying to control his temper. Then he turned to me. “Are you all right?” His voice was tight.

  I nodded, leaning against the fence and trying to stop my body from shaking and the breath from scraping painfully in my throat. “I’m fine. And you’re—”

  “Better,” Jamie agreed.

  I felt my cheeks warm at the memory of last night, wondering what—if anything—Jamie himself remembered. He had been so lost in delirium that I had no idea whether he had even been aware of my presence through the night.

  “I’m glad—very glad. I mean, I should have been glad to find you better in any case—but I am especially thankful you were able to be here this morning. Thank you,” I added.

  Jamie shrugged. A brief ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “Looked to me like you were managing all right on your own.”

  I remembered that ugly look in Aubrey’s eyes, the one that had turned him into a stranger, a man I did not know at all. I suppressed a shiver, and Jamie came to stand beside me, leaning back against the fence. And I at last broke the silence to say, “I suppose you must be wondering who that man was.”

  Jamie shrugged again. “Well, now. I suppose if you were to tell Star over there, I might listen in.” He nodded towards the end of the pasture and added, “That is Star—the horse you were telling me about?”

  “Yes, that’s right.” I rubbed my forehead as I looked at Star—who was no longer stamping the ground. Instead she stood, swishing her tail and turning her head, seemingly trying to bite at her sides. It was hard to tell at a distance, but I thought her sides were moving in and out as though she were breathing hard. “I hope I have not just undone whatever progress I had made. Not that I had made so very much progress with her, come to that.”

  Jamie shaded his eyes against the sun as he studied Star. “She’s a real beauty, though. Worth your trouble if you can find a way to gentle her.”

  “Do you think so?” I felt strangely warmed by Jamie’s approval; it almost chased away the memory of Aubrey’s hands on my wrists and his hot breath on my face.

  Jamie nodded. Then he cleared his throat, eyes still on Star, and added, “Look, you don’t have to explain or tell me anything, if you don’t want—”

  I let out my breath. “No, it’s all right. I do not mind telling you.” I
managed a small smile. “When you have been required to threaten another man with violence, I suppose the least you are owed is to know his name.” I stared out across the pasture, searching for words. “His name was—is, rather—Aubrey Neville. He and I were engaged, up until a month ago.”

  Jamie made some slight movement that made me glance at him, but he said nothing. After a moment, I went on, “I suppose to begin with, I ought to explain how our family’s fortunes changed when my father died. Everything was left to Robert—my half-brother. My mother and sisters and I received practically nothing. That was why we were gone from Norland when you arrived that fall.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jamie said.

  I shook my head. “It was years ago—I do not mind it, now. It is just that in order to explain properly what occurred between Aubrey and me, you first have to understand that we are quite poor—well, comparatively so.” On reflection, it seemed rather absurd to be speaking of poverty to Jamie, who had grown up without even a roof over his head. “And Aubrey is wealthy. Extremely wealthy. He has an estate in the north—in Yorkshire—and an income of ten thousand pounds a year. Not that that was the reason I wished to marry him. I honestly did not think about his money—except to be thankful that he had enough of an income to allow us to wed. His parents are both gone, too—so it was not even as though he had any family to object to his marrying a girl of little fortune. We had planned to marry in the autumn. And then—”

  I stopped again. Recalling that final scene—especially so soon after confronting Aubrey today, and hearing of his magnanimous offer to forgive me—made my fingers curl involuntarily. I took a breath. “Then one day Aubrey came to see me—terribly upset, or so he claimed. He said nearly the whole of his fortune had been lost. A good bit of his income depends on the family property in the East Indies—and there had been a violent tropical storm there—so he said—that had utterly destroyed the plantations.”

  “So he said,” Jamie repeated. “It wasn’t true?”

  “No.” I exhaled a humourless laugh. “It was not true. Aubrey offered to release me from the engagement, in light of his reduced circumstances. And of course I said that it did not matter to me in the least—that I would marry him whether he had ten thousand pounds a year or one. But then … I do not know what made me suspicious. I suppose it was something in his manner. He was too calm—and he was watching me too closely. Even after I had assured him that I would marry him regardless, he kept asking me, ‘Do you mind terribly, my love?’”

  I focused on Star—but I was seeing instead the scene in the parlour at Barton Cottage. The back of my neck had prickled strangely as I had turned to face Aubrey and said, “No, of course I do not mind. But I just told you that.”

  I drew in my breath, blinking the memory from my eyes. “Aubrey beamed at that—and said something along the lines of, ‘That’s all right then. I had to be sure. But now it is all perfectly fine and we can be married as planned. Now I know for certain that you are not a fortune hunter.”

  My mouth twisted as I glanced at Jamie sideways. “He had not suffered any losses in the East Indies at all—it was only a test, to see whether I would cry off the engagement at the news of his reduced fortune. He was quite … astonished that I was angry with him for not simply trusting me and my regard for him. He could not in the slightest understand why I resented his engineering a test of my devotion.” I drew in a breath and let it out again. “At any rate—his surprise notwithstanding—I broke off our engagement and came here, to Delaford. I had no idea that he would follow me. That was what you interrupted—Aubrey’s telling me that he was perfectly willing to let bygones be bygones and consider us engaged again.”

  Jamie’s gaze narrowed as he looked across to the place where Aubrey had vanished into the trees. “I’m beginning to think I should have hit him after all.”

  I smiled a little at that. “I would not necessarily disagree.” I hesitated, unsure of whether to go on, but finally added. “I’m sorry. About what he said to you—the names he called you.”

  Jamie lifted one shoulder, his eyes still on the tree line. “Not the first time I’ve heard those words. And I reckon it won’t be the last, either.”

  “But you are not—,” I started to say.

  “Not a gypsy mongrel?” Jamie interrupted me. His voice was all at once edged with bitterness. “Why? Because I can read and write and quote Shakespeare and wear a regimental coat?” He shook his head. “Maybe I’m not a true Rom anymore—not enough that I can go back to my tribe. But I’ll never fit in with the likes of your Mr. Neville, either. You know what one of the sergeants in my regiment told me? He—and some of the other men, besides—were none too pleased by the colonel’s acting as a benefactor to me. They jumped me one night, three of them—and the sergeant said, ‘You can teach a dog to walk on its hind legs—but when all’s said and done, he’s still a dog.’”

  “That’s a horrible thing to say!”

  Jamie hitched up one shoulder again. “True enough, though. To most gadjos, that’s all I’ll ever be—a dog walking on its hind legs, decked out in a suit of men’s clothes.”

  I could not think of one single thing to say to that—because however unjust and unfair it might be, he was perfectly right. I thought of the families around Delaford, country squires and their wives like Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth—kind people, whom I actually like. But would Mrs. Rushworth ever consent to set a place for Jamie at her dinner table?

  Instead I asked, “What happened? To the sergeant and the other men?”

  “Well, they never said that again—not to my face, anyway.”

  Having seen the effortless ease with which Jamie had overpowered Aubrey, I could well imagine it. I hesitated again—unsure of whether I ought to say anything more at all. “I hope that you do not think—,” I started to say

  But I broke off sharply. I was still watching Star—and saw her legs abruptly fold as she lay down on the grass. “Jamie! Something is wrong—I thought she was acting strangely.”

  Jamie swung round to look at Star. He shook his head, the grim, angry look ebbing from his face. “No, nothing’s wrong—or at least, I don’t think so. Looks like her foal’s coming, that’s all.”

  I had known that her foal might be born any day, but somehow the news still came as a surprise—and instantly drove all thoughts of Aubrey from my mind. I asked Jamie whether we ought to help her somehow, but Jamie shook his head again. “If she’s so much afraid of people, we’ll likely do more harm than good, if we try to get near. Unless something’s going wrong, she’ll manage best on her own.”

  Of course I could not simply turn away and go back to Delaford House, though. I stayed, leaning against the fence with Jamie beside me, both of us watching in companionable silence, unwilling to talk for fear of unsettling Star while she laboured to bring her foal into the world.

  I had only a hazy idea of how long the process was supposed to take. My father was tolerant of my spending practically every waking moment in the stables when I was younger, but even he would not have allowed me to watch a foal being born—and my mother would have died of horror.

  But as the afternoon dragged on and on, and the shadows began to lengthen as the sun turned the western sky to fiery gold—and still there was no sign of Star’s foal actually being born—I began to feel worry coiling in the pit of my stomach. I turned to ask Jamie whether this was normal. And found him watching Star, his gaze narrowed once more and his face grim.

  “Is something—”

  “Something’s not right,” Jamie confirmed. “The foal’s backwards—or lying sideways, maybe.”

  I might never have witnessed a birth—but I did know that such complications were serious. They could mean the loss of a mare’s life, and the foal’s, as well. My stomach clenched. “Can you help her?”

  “Maybe,” Jamie said. “If she’ll let me, that is.” He glanced at me sideways. “I don’t suppose you—”

  “Of course I want to help!” I interrupted h
im.

  Jamie’s expression lightened in a brief smile at that. “That isn’t what I was going to ask—I figured that much for myself. What I was going to say was, I don’t suppose you still have that chestnut powder I gave you?”

  “Oh!” I had completely forgotten. But I did still have the packet of powder with me—tucked into my reticule, since I had intended to try it on Star today. I fished it out and offered it to Jamie, who tipped a small measure onto his palms, then returned it so that I might do the same.

  “What should I do?” I asked, as Jamie helped me over the fence.

  Jamie caught me around the waist to lift me down, then turned to study Star. As we moved closer, I saw with a fresh pang of fear that her coat was lathered with sweat, her sides heaving as she pushed and strained. “Try sitting at her head,” Jamie said in a quiet voice. “Keep her calm enough that she’ll let me examine her.”

  My whole body felt shaky as I moved to kneel beside Star’s head—but I pushed the worry far, far back and tried to keep my voice calm as I laid a hand on her neck. Her head jerked at my touch and she snorted, nostrils flaring—but perhaps the chestnut powder helped. Or perhaps she was simply in too much pain to be afraid of human touch as before, for she did not struggle any more. Her liquid-dark eyes seemed almost human in their look of pained despair.

  “There, now,” I whispered. “All right, my pretty girl. We’re going to help you.”

  I kept murmuring assurances as I stroked her, rubbing her neck and ears in slow circles. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jamie making his examination.

  “The foal is lying sideways,” Jamie said at last. “I’m going to try to turn it, if I can.”