Page 51 of Much Ado About Margaret
“Right. I’ll find my brother. Thank you, doctor.”
As Bridger fetched a candle and pushed out into the hall, he realized the temptation to blame himself for his father’s sudden turn. He had, after all, strode into his study and called him a demon. All manner of self-flagellating thoughts arrived, eachmore extreme than the last, ending on the big crescendo with:I killed Father.
He recounted all of this to Pimm as they found their way to their father’s bedchamber. It was a room Bridger had entered maybe two times in his life. Mr. Darrow demanded perfect privacy. As boys, they had come up with a game where they would dare each other to go into the room and whoever took the most steps past the threshold won. This game continued until they were caught, by their mother, thank heaven, and the look of abject terror on her face convinced them never to try it again.
“You didn’t kill him,” Pimm grunted. The lack of alcohol was taking its toll. Pimm clearly hadn’t enjoyed even a moment of restful sleep. Bridger was somewhat the same, though for very different reasons. “And if you did, you should be given a medal. I thought he would hang around forever just to torment me.”
“It’s serious, Pimm. Even the death of a poor man is disruptive. Thank God Harris is already here.”
Another vexing thought occurred: he had promised to return to Pressmore with all haste, and this would delay him significantly. Some of the staff had been alerted to the dire nature of circumstances, and Bridger detained the estate butler, asking him to please have a message sent to Pressmore Estate explaining the situation. Even then, he felt a panicked itch begin at the base of his throat. He had no idea what awaited Margaret when she returned from Cray Arches, and he simply had to hope that Lane would protect her if any accusations regarding her virtue were flung about.
Mr. Darrow, small and somewhat childlike in his bed, received his sons with a blank expression. The men took turns tripping through their goodbyes. If Bridger had doubted the doctor’s fears, putting eyes on his father confirmed the man’s worries. He had a vague instinct to take his father’s hand, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Wanting to be moved totenderness was not the same as genuinely feeling it, and it seemed blasphemous to deceive his father at this, his final hour. When it was obvious that he had departed, Bridger and Pimm stood on either side of the bed in silence. Their eyes met, and Pimm heaved a tremendous sigh and said, “I thought we would have longer.”
Afterward, Pimm seemed taken by emotion and could not speak, so Bridger turned to the housekeeper and instructed that their father should be wrapped in the customary wool shroud, the house must be prepared for mourning, and black gloves and cravats should be aired out for the sons. There was an unendurable smell in the room that made Bridger’s stomach roil. He dismissed himself, went downstairs, out the kitchen door, and to the tree he had liked best for reading as a child. The clouds were moving fast, distorting across the swollen white crescent of the moon like dancing ghouls. A crisp, decidedly unsummerish chill thrilled across the grounds. The spirits, he thought, were uneasy. There was a taste upon the air, crackling on the tongue, the dark presaging of another storm. Indeed, the dampness foretold rain.
The first winks of dawn seemed to hesitate. He stood in the moonlight and felt a shift. A few eager raindrops splashed the leaves above his head. His shoulders eased down, the muscles in his jaw relaxing. For the first time in, well, perhaps ever, Bridger breathed in and felt free.
He only wished Margaret could be there to see it.
23
A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.
Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act 5, Scene 2
Bridger did not return the next day, or the next. By the fourth day, Maggie began living in a perpetual fog of anxiety.
Where was he?
A persistent rain had begun to fall, ugly and gray. Most of the wedding guests departed as soon as the storm lifted, but others tarried, put off by the weather. Maybe the roads had become too dangerous to travel. Maggie consoled herself with that possibility and held it as truth.
It had been decided after all that Ruby would return to India, and until then, she was to be sequestered in her bedchamber like Rapunzel. Each day, feeling sorry for her, even if she had behaved wildly, Maggie took a new stack of books and left them outside her door. She was in the midst of doing just that on the fourth day after their misadventure in Cray Arches, when the door abruptly opened, startling her.
Ruby’s huge, doelike eyes stared at her through the narrow crack.
“You must stop bringing me books, Miss Arden,” said Ruby softly. Something was wrong.
“It upsets you?”
“Yes, because I do not deserve it. I do not deserve your kindness.”
Maggie drew the books against her stomach, standing. “If Ann forgives you then so do I. You’re very young, Ruby. We all make our mistakes. I don’t say that to condescend, only to assure you that you are not alone in folly. We ladies are often condemned for the smallest of mistakes, and men celebrated for the same actions. One misstep should not define your life.”
Without warning, the girl burst into tears. “I fear I have made another!”
Maggie heard soft footsteps approaching her from behind. She did not yet turn to look, her gaze fixed on the open door. “Ruby—”
“Only—no, no! You must forgive me, Miss Arden! They are sending me away, and I know it is because you and Ann told Mrs. Richmond I must go. And I thought…” She heaved through her sobs, tears dampening the lace of her high collar. “I thought that if I cannot have my husband, then neither can you.”
Maggie’s hands went numb. She struggled to keep hold of the books. “What did you say, Ruby? What did you tell my aunt?”
“Everything,” she whispered, sliding down to the floor. “Everything. Oh, you must forgive me. It just tumbled out, it just…”
“Miss Arden?” It was Fanny that had come down the hall toward them. She sounded impatient. Maggie slowly turned to face her. Ann’s maid was an uncommonly pretty girl, but she looked like a ghost as she stood there in the middle of the wide, swallowing corridor.
“Beg your pardon, Miss Arden, but Mrs. Richmond and Mrs. Burton wish to see you in the Sapphire Library.”
Trembling, Maggie lowered to the floor and left the pile of books near Ruby’s closing door. She didn’t want anything in her hands, afraid she might hurlThe History of Tom Jonesat one of her aunts and make everything worse. It was a doomed march. As they reached the junction of corridors and the grand stairs, she heard shrieks from down the hall. No coincidence. Their guest chamber was that way, and she distinctly noted Violet’s and Winny’s voices as they argued with some unseen person.
