Page 18 of Miss Dauntless
The more pressing task, though, was to find out everything known about the late Harry Merridew. A fellow did not entirely lose his native complement of curiosity simply because he grew up, went to war, or became a peer of the realm.
“I tell you, ’Arry, she’s not there.”
A man as smart as Harry Merriman, formerly Harry Merridew, Harmon Merryfield, Hal Marigold, et cetera, needed about three days to change his name. It felt good to be Harry again, like coming home.
Harry had found that the most important part of the transformation was to addresshimselfas the new person. To mutter that name under his breath, to declaim it in conversation, and converse with his new self in the mirror.
Harry Merriman, I says to myself, what could possibly be going on?
The rest—changing the mannerisms, the speech, the signature, the clothing, the family tree, the childhood stories, the preferred haunts—all followed from changing the name. This little pub, for example, was snuggled between the shops and bachelor apartments of Knightsbridge, not a venue the happily married Harry Merridewhad had occasion to frequent.
He was Harry Merrimannow, had been since he’d first set foot on English soil after three years in Dublin’s fair city, traveling under various pseudonyms.
“What do you mean?” Harry asked, nudging the opposite chair a few inches away from the table with his boot. “Matilda has to be there. That house is the only property she owns, and she’d sell it before she and the boy took charity.” Matilda was a proud sort, determined to maintain the properties, poor dear. Much like her father, did she but know it.
“Windows are boarded over,” Spartacus Lykens replied, running a hand through red hair fading to blond at the temples. “Steps ain’t been scrubbed for days, according to the neighbors. No coal going down the chute. The lady and her boy lived belowstairs, but the boy ain’t been seen neither, and nobody’s lived in the upper part of the ’ouse proper for weeks.”
Matilda would never be parted from that child. Harry was counting on her maternal devotion, in fact.
“This, my dear Sparky, is what you call your interesting development.” London required being more conscientious about diction, a return to the speech of Harry Merridew, who had been ever so eloquent when courting his bride.
“She’s piked off on ya,” Sparky replied, tossing himself into the chair Harry had offered. “Your missus was too pretty not to remarry. Some other fellow come along and crooked his finger at her. We’d best get back to Dublin.”
Sparky was very attached to his Dublin landlady. Harry doubted that good woman’s affection had been exclusively reserved for dear Sparky, though she’d been fond of him.
A female had to be practical. Maybe Matilda had turned up practical?
“She attended at St. Mildred’s,” Harry said. “Time you reacquainted yourself with divine services, Sparky. Sunday finest, end of the back pew for you. A few quiet inquiries. You knew the lady’s late husband and promised him you’d look her up if you were ever in London. He did dote on his missus, did old Harry.”
“Which ‘Arry was you then?” Sparky asked, signaling the girl at the bar. “Merrifield, Merribrook? Merrimount? I get them all confused.”
“Merridew, as in ‘I do.’ Don’t bungle that, my friend.”
The tankard arrived, and Sparky blew the foam onto the plank floor with practiced dispatch. “Merry Hell, you ought to call yourself. Why can’t you leave the lady in peace, ’Arry? She done nothin’ to you.”
“She married me, and that means I cannot marry elsewhere, not without risking the noose, so she owes me.”
Sparky downed a quarter of his pint and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You married her, too, if I recall the particulars. Good ale. London ain’t all bad.”
“London as winter approaches is a trial. I wouldn’t be here unless I’d studied long and hard on the matter.” Then too, Dublin was a close-knit town, and Harry’s welcome had grown perilously tarnished there. “If I’m alive, Matilda doesn’t yet own that house.”
Sparky heaved up a resigned sigh. “You said the prop’ty came to her from an auntie. Aunties is always conferrin’ with solicitors, and solicitors is always creatin’ problems. Maybe yourmissus don’t own that ’ouse, but you don’t neither. I thought you swore off sellin’ ’ouses you don’t own.”
“I am the trustee. Matilda’s papa had taken her into disfavor by the time I married her, and there wasn’t anybody else who could serve. The lawyers didn’t like it, and they set it up so that the boy got the house if both parents died during his minority. Thought they were being clever, but Matilda cannot sell that house if I’m alive—only I can do that.”
Sparky took another pull on his pint and aimed a baleful expression at Harry. “You wasn’t that hard up in Dublin, mate. You coulda laid low, nipped up to Derry, but instead, you’ll swindle yer own widda outta her last mite.”
“I’ll do no such thing. I will split the proceeds with Matilda, assuming she isn’t some lord’s fancy piece or engaged to a prosperous cit by now.” St. Mildred’s wasn’t the sort of congregation to have fancy lords stacked three deep in the loft, but a retired sea captain or gentry scion would have been within Tilly’s reach there.
She’d gonesomewherewith the boy, after all. Tilly was an attractive woman, when she wasn’t all pinched up and broody. She’d been sweet once, too, and appallingly trusting.
Though the boy would give any man pause. Taking on another’s fellow’s get wasn’t for the faint of heart or short of coin. A fancy lord might take Matilda on as his commodity, but he’d not marry a woman hauling a brat around behind her.
Harry had trouble picturing Matilda as a siren. Not a role she’d try on out of anything other than necessity.
“I despair of you, ’Arry.” Sparky addressed his observation to the depths of his mug. “You were no sort of ’usband, you frittered away her money, and now you won’t stay dead.”
“Bad form, I know, but needs must. Last I heard, she hasn’t remarried. She either misses me or has learned her lesson, and if she’s not inclined to remarry, and she is finding consolationin the arms of a willing fellow, that creates another potentially interesting situation.”
