Page 21 of Lady for a Season
Maggie woke again and heard the clock strike midnight, turned over in her bed, listening to the soft sleeping noises from Eliza and Agnes. Her mind would not be still.Edward, Edward, Edward.It was all she could think of.
A hammering at the door. She was sure of it. And yet she had imagined it so many times now it could not be true.
But it came again and she sat bolt upright, clutching at her blanket, Agnes and Eliza stirring beside her. She rose to look out of the tiny window and there it was again, the midnight carriage and its four horses, the stolid driver.
She ran down the stairs, opened the door, stared up into the dark man’s face. The same man who had taken Edward.
“Are you Maggie?”
“Yes.”
“You must come with me.”
“Why?”
“He is asking for you.”
“Edward?”
“Yes.”
“Is he safe?”
“Yes. But he has been asking for you and I have been sent to fetch you.”
Maggie’s heart hurt at the idea that Edward had wanted her at his side and she had not been there, that he had been all alone.She would go to him at once, she would go to – “Where are we going?”
“To Buckinghamshire.”
Maggie vaguely knew her counties; geography had not been much taught at the Hospital but there had been a map on the wall. She could picture Buckinghamshire, a county closer to London than where they were now. They must have travelled through it on their way to Ivy Cottage.
“Is that his home? Or a – a hospital?” What if it were somewhere like Bedlam, a place full of lunatics, some of them dangerous, not like gentle Edward?
“It is his home.”
“Am I to care for him there?”
“I have only been told to fetch you.”
She did not like the way he refused to answer questions fully. “Why have you come at night?”
“For discretion.”
Maggie hesitated. It was madness to step into a carriage at night with two unknown men, to go somewhere, she knew not where, only that it was in Buckinghamshire. But if Edward was there, if he had asked for her repeatedly… the thought of him, desperate, asking for her repeatedly, made up her mind in an instant.
“I need to pack my things. Tell Eliza and Agnes –”
“There is no time. Dress. Tell no one. Leave everything. More clothes will be provided.”
She turned away without speaking and made her way back upstairs. Softly, she took her clothes and shoes, dressed in the darkness, fumbling with her laces, feeling about her for her coat. She thought of the Bible and the letter she had been given, her spare clothes, but she had been told to take nothing and so she came back down the stairs and addressed the man still standing on the threshold.
“You swear you are taking me to Edward?”
He nodded, turned and opened the carriage door, pulling out small steps. Inside a low lamp was burning. “We’ll be there by dawn,” he said. He held out a hand to help her in, but Maggie shrank away from his touch and climbed in by herself. He closed the steps and then the door. The carriage rocked as he took his place beside the driver, then jolted as it moved forwards. Maggie pressed her face against the window, but already Ivy Cottage was swallowed up in the gloom, the horses gathering speed. Her face rocked into the glass like a cold slap. She sat back and looked around.
The low light of the lamp showed an interior that put Doctor Morrison’s carriage to shame. She was sitting on vast soft cushions, made of a sumptuous velvet in a rich dark colour, perhaps a dark blue, although it was hard to be sure in the dim light. The roof was covered with elaborate pleats of the same velvet, drawn towards a circle outlined in silver scrolls. At the centre, the image she recalled from the man’s livery button: the acorn and bulrush, bound by a coronet, in silver. Swagged curtains framed the windows; a dangling tassel might summon a servant from the driving seat. Maggie edged away from it. On the seat opposite her was a thick woollen blanket, soft when she touched it. At first, she did not use it, but despite her coat she was cold and eventually she wrapped it about her, bringing instant warmth.
The carriage rocked onwards. Maggie could see little out of the window. For a while she felt nauseous, from the rocking of the vehicle or from fear or both. But after some time the warmth of the blanket, the endless motion and her tiredness from three nights of broken sleep made her lean back against the thickly padded backrest, drowsiness overcoming her. She slept.
