It was at this point that Margaret’s father insisted she return to the Red Lion. He had come down several times during the day to upbraid her, but now he gave up arguing and simply hauled her along by one arm. Margaret, damp from the rain, cold, and dispirited, did not resist too strongly. Her long, uncomfortable vigil had given her ample time to reconsider, and her conclusions had not been pleasant. Reviewing the events of the past few days, she began to find it easier and easier to believe that Sir Justin had fled to escape her and her father’s insistence on marriage. Had he not plainly stated, before them both, that he did not mean to marry her? She had been dazzled by their closeness last night, but now that seemed far away.
And if, as he had said, he was not thinking of marriage, what was she to do? She loved him; that had not changed. But she was still enough her parents’ daughter to want the customary setting for that love. Perhaps he, from such a different family, felt differently. Or, and this seemed both more likely and more dreadful to Margaret, perhaps he didn’t care for her at all. Perhaps he often kissed girls who, she admitted it, encouraged him to do so, without necessarily feeling anything. His dramatic departure seemed to suggest this was the correct interpretation.
And because she was coming to fear this, she let her father guide her up the hill to the inn and did not protest as he said, “We are leaving at once. I have directed the landlady to pack your things, and I have paid your shot. Keighley’s too, if it comes to that, the blackguard. I imagine he thinks it very amusing that I have been left with his bill. I have the chaise—I have been traveling in it—and James from our stables. He is completely trustworthy and will mention none of this. We can be home tonight, and by tomorrow morning, you will have begun to forget this whole terrible incident, Margaret.”
The girl wondered confusedly what she should do.
“How it galls me,” her father continued in the same ferocious tone, “that we cannot spread the tale of his infamy throughout society. But, of course, that is impossible. I shall drop a word in the ear of one or two of my friends—without giving details, naturally—but for the rest, we must remain silent. It is unfair.”
“Papa—”
“Now, you needn’t say anything, Margaret. I know you are overwrought after all that has befallen you. You can stop worrying now. I will take care of everything.”
“But, Papa, you could be wrong. Sir Justin may have had an accident, and if he has, we should—”
“I care nothing for that man. He must take the consequences of his actions. If something has happened to him, well, perhaps it is divine justice, stepping in where we cannot.”
This roused Margaret. “You do not mean that. Someone must search for him.” They had reached the inn by now, and she saw Mr. Appleby and Jem standing before the doorway looking out to sea. Hurrying forward, she said, “Is there to be a search for the Gull? I am afraid there may have been an accident.”
“Oh, yes, miss,” responded Appleby. “Two boats are going out directly, now that the sea’s down.” He looked skeptical but spoke kindly.
“I’m going,” added Jem firmly. “Probably meet him coming back.”
Mr. Mayfield made a rude noise.
“What can I do?” asked Margaret.
Both Applebys looked surprised. “Why, nothing, miss,” answered the innkeeper after a moment.
“Surely I could be of some help? I could…” Margaret could, in fact, think of nothing.
“We’ll do everything needful,” said Appleby. “Jem here won’t spare any pains looking for his boat.”
His son assented with heartfelt enthusiasm.
“Yes. Yes, of course,” replied Margaret sadly. They were right; there was nothing she could do. And even if there had been, how would Sir Justin respond if she appeared in the search party?
“Is my chaise harnessed up?” interrupted Mayfield. “We will be going soon.”
“Yes, sir. She’s in the stable, all ready.”
“Good. Come, Margaret.” He took her arm again.
“We’re sorry to see you go, miss,” said Mr. Appleby. He eyed her a little anxiously, as if unsure whether to offer help.
“Thank you. You have been very kind to me.”
Appleby shrugged, and her father pulled her inside the inn and down the corridor. “Go up and see that they have packed all your things,” he said. “And take off that damp cloak. You won’t need it. We leave in a quarter hour, Margaret.”
At his urging, she walked slowly up the stairs. Her bedchamber, where she had spent so many hours that it now seemed almost like home, was bare and unwelcoming. All her things were folded and lying in a portmanteau she recognized as one of her parents’. Margaret slipped out of her cloak and sat down on the bed. What should she do? If there was any chance that she could help in the search for the Gull—but there was not. She could only stand by and wait. She would have done that if she thought Sir Justin would welcome her efforts. But this, too, was doubtful. Yet how could she simply leave with her father, go home again as if nothing had occurred?
With a worried sigh, Margaret stood and went to the window. The sea now sparkled blue under a mostly clear sky. No boat punctuated its bright expanse. She was utterly alone.
Abruptly she thought of Mrs. Dowling. She would know what should be done. And she must be paid for her nursing in any case. Snatching up her reticule, Margaret ran back down the stairs and out the door, encountering no one. In five minutes she was knocking on the cottage door and being admitted with a cheerful greeting.
“Mrs. Dowling,” she almost gasped.
“Here, now. What’s this?”
“Have you heard what has happened?”
“I’ve heard there’s another gentleman at the Red Lion, an older gentleman.” She cocked an inquiring eye at Margaret. “If the truth be told, I meant to come up there today, but I had to go out to the Woosters’ for a birthing.”
“It’s my father.”
“Ah, is it, now?”
“Yes. He’s very angry with me.”
Mrs. Dowling merely nodded and settled into a listening pose.
“I—I did as you suggested and spoke to—to the other gentleman. But—” She could not continue.
Mrs. Dowling eyed her shrewdly. “You don’t mean he denied you?”
“Not exactly.” Trembling, Margaret poured out all that had occurred. “So you see,” she finished, “he said that he did not want to marry me. And now he is gone. I—I suppose I should just go home with Father, but—”
“But you don’t want to.”
“No. That is—”
“Of course not.” Mrs. Dowling sighed. “Gentlemen are foolish. They always make such a muck of things and then expect their ladies to put it right again without so much as a whimper.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you’ll pardon me, miss, I must say your father went about it exactly wrong.”
“About what?”
“And the other gentleman wasn’t much better. Cut off his nose to spite his face, he did. Going off in a boat in the dark—just like a little boy sulking. They don’t change, miss, from the time they’re three and rolling in the dirt cursing one another.”
Margaret frowned at her.
“I’ll tell you what,” the old woman was continuing when they heard shouting in the street outside.
“Margaret,” bellowed a voice.
“It’s Father!”
“Margaret.” A pounding started on the door, and Mrs. Dowling went to open it. Mr. Mayfield stamped in angrily. “Here you are. They said you might have come here. What in heaven’s name are you doing, Margaret? The chaise is ready. We are going now.”
“I…I wanted to see Mrs. Dowling. She hasn’t been paid for her nursing,” added Margaret hurriedly.
“Paid for… Dash it, am I supposed to lay out good money for that as well? Outrageous. But anything to get away from this cursed place. How much are you owed, woman?”
Margaret protested his mode of address with a gesture, but Mrs. Dowling merely gazed at him. “Not so much as that fancy Falmouth doctor,” she replied.
“Rightly so, no doubt. How much?” Mayfield had taken out his purse and was brandishing it impatiently.
“I will pay her, Papa.”
“Nonsense.”
“She has been very kind to me, and I wanted—”
“Well, thank her and run along, Margaret. We must get on the road at once if we are to benefit at all from the evening light. Go on.”
Margaret looked helplessly at Mrs. Dowling, who indicated the door with a small nod. Reluctantly the girl moved toward it. She felt a paralyzing mixture of anger, despair, and fatigue.
“Go on,” repeated her father. “Get in the chaise. It is in front of the inn. I shall be there directly.”
“Papa.”
“Go, Margaret.”
With a broken sigh, she did so, climbing slowly back toward the inn. She could do no more; everything was spoiled.
In the cottage Mayfield was surveying Mrs. Dowling. “Are you in his pay?” he asked her coldly. “Did you conspire in my daughter’s imprisonment?”
The old woman raised her eyebrows.
He made an impatient gesture. “It hardly matters now. How much do you want?” He opened his purse.
“You’re botching this job, you know,” said Mrs. Dowling.
“I beg your pardon?”
“She’ll not be happy without him.”
“If you are speaking of my daughter—”
“Nor he without her, if I know anything.”
Ralph Mayfield swelled in outrage. Not only had his daughter defied him and her ravisher escaped, but now this old fisherwoman had the temerity to criticize his actions. It was too much. “You don’t,” he snapped. “You know nothing whatever. Now, if you will be good enough to tell me how much—”
“I know more about them two than you,” interrupted Mrs. Dowling. “I’ve seen it coming. They belong together.”
“Can you possibly mean—”
“I mean your daughter and the gentleman. It’s plain as the nose on your face.”
“No doubt that is why Kei—the ‘gentleman’ has taken to his heels and left my daughter here.”
“Oh, that was because of you. If you hadn’t come, all would have been well.”
Mayfield had to take a breath before he could speak. “You were in his pay. So I spoiled your little game, eh? Both of you. If I had not come, Margaret would have been seduced—I caught him at that—and kept here as long as she interested him, I suppose. You—you—it sickens me to think of it.”
Mrs. Dowling shook her head. “You are a thick one, aren’t you?”
“How much?” answered Mayfield through clenched teeth.
She named a small sum, and he threw it down on the table. “You’d do better to—”
“Enough,” he roared. “If I find that you have been near my daughter again, I shall have the law on you.” And he slammed out of the cottage.
“Highty-tighty,” said Mrs. Dowling. She put two fingers to her lips, then hurried out her back door and along certain narrow passages up to the Red Lion.
Owing to her superior knowledge of the village, she reached the inn before Mr. Mayfield. Seeing the chaise pulled up before the front door, she looked inside, but the vehicle was empty. She slipped through the inn door and looked in the parlor. Here she found Margaret slumped in a chair, one hand over her eyes. “Miss,” she hissed, causing the girl to start. “Here, leave your direction with the Applebys. I’ll send for you if he comes back.” And before Margaret could reply, she was gone again.
In the next moment Margaret heard her father calling her. But she ran to the writing desk and wrote out her real name and address on a scrap of notepaper. After a moment’s hesitation, she also scribbled a short note to Sir Justin and sealed it. She was just finishing when her father strode in and demanded, “Why aren’t you in the chaise?”
“Coming, Father.” She rose, putting the hand that held the letters behind her.
He gestured impatiently, and she followed him into the corridor.
“I will just say good-bye to Mrs. Appleby.”
“You have done that.”
“She was so kind.” Not waiting for an argument, Margaret darted toward the kitchen. Mrs. Appleby and her daughters were there, and she mumbled a good-bye as she thrust the papers into the woman’s hands. Before her father could protest further, she was back and heading toward the front door. “All right, Papa,” she said.
Mayfield watched her back speculatively, then he frowned and walked to the kitchen. Mrs. Appleby was still standing as Margaret had left her, looking perplexedly at the letters in her hand.
“I’ll just take those,” said Mayfield, taking them from her and substituting a gold sovereign. “We are on our way. Good day, Mrs. Appleby.”
“But the young lady…”
“Good day.” He turned on his heel and left her staring, joining Margaret in the chaise before she realized that he had delayed.
Margaret did not afterward remember much of the ride home. They hardly spoke, and she was sunk in her own despondent thoughts. She could not keep herself from recalling her days with Keighley, the picnic, their talks—their embrace. That last evening came back to her again and again. It was like a happy dream that had turned to a nightmare. She would remember how he had held her and looked at her, and then it would all dissolve with a crash and the sound of her father’s voice.
What was she going to do? she wondered over and over. Her home in Devon now seemed a prison to which she was being inexorably dragged. She might never speak to Keighley again. What would she do?