A Radical Arrangement (14 page)

With this thought, Margaret rose and began pacing beside her pool. Once she would have been too diffident to contemplate what now ran through her mind, but that seemed years ago. If there was the least chance of success, she was ready to fight for what she wanted. Sir Justin could refuse to love her, but he could not do so without facing her and saying it. And she had the feeling that denial would be difficult in those circumstances. Margaret smiled. If he thought he could simply continue to avoid her, and then slip away without ever having dealt with this question, he was quite wrong.

Resolved, she shook out her skirts and started to walk back toward the Red Lion. How was her plan best accomplished? she wondered. Keighley was probably out now, and in any case she did not feel ready to face him
yet
. She would wait until the evening. Yes. They met automatically at dinner; she would do it then. And perhaps there were some steps she could take to make it easier.

She smiled again—a smile that her mother would have found alarmingly alien—and tossed her head. She saw how it could be managed. It would be wholly unexpected too, and that was a great advantage. She took a little skipping step and bounded up the seawall steps. Tonight could be glorious, but there was much to do first.

After making certain arrangements with Mrs. Appleby, Margaret returned to her bedchamber and took stock. The dinner would be good—Sir Justin approved of Mrs. Appleby’s cooking—so she need concern herself only with her own appearance. But this was not an insignificant problem. She was heartily sick of the three gowns she had brought, and though she had not thought much about it before, she now realized that her efforts at hairdressing left much to be desired. Even after all this time she had still not become as skilled as her maid at home.

A small mirror hung above her washstand, and she went to peer into it. She could hardly see anything. Margaret stood back. There was a much larger glass in Keighley’s room, she knew. Did she dare try to bring it here? He was probably out, but how could she be sure? She did not want to meet him before she was ready.

Going to the door, she opened it a crack and listened. Though there were sounds of activity downstairs, the first floor of the inn was silent and Keighley’s bedroom door was open. He must be out. Margaret slipped into the hall and moved quietly down it, stopping to listen again at intervals. When she reached Keighley’s chamber, she paused, then slowly peered around the corner to make sure it was empty. Yes. She hurried in, picked up the full-length mirror that stood on oak legs in the corner, and lugged it out to the corridor. It was heavier than she had expected, and she had to put it down for a moment there. But she waited only to catch her breath before trying again, with a better grip. It was awkward, but she could manage it.

She was almost to her own room when a deep voice from the direction of the stairs said, “Can I help, miss?”

Margaret nearly dropped the mirror; she craned her neck to find Mr. Appleby standing on the landing and looking through the stair rail at her. He seemed puzzled. “I…I wanted to use this mirror,” she gasped. “The one in my room is so small.”

The innkeeper came up the remaining steps. “To be sure it is, miss. We should have thought. Mr. Camden doesn’t use that glass, and a young lady is likely to want one. Let me take it for you.” He lifted the mirror easily and carried it into Margaret’s room. “I’ll set it right here in the corner, under the window.”

“Thank you.”

“And shall I take the small one to the other bedroom? I reckon your brother can use it for shaving.”

“Yes, but don’t mention that I…I mean…he teases me so about being vain.”

Appleby grinned. “I won’t say a word, miss. Or, if he asks, I’ll say the wife decided to move the furniture about. She often does.”

Margaret could not help returning his smile. “Thank you.”

Nodding, he went out. “You must tell us when there’s something you’d like, miss. We’re only too happy.”

Thanking him again, Margaret shut the door and sank down on her bed. Her heart was still hammering. When Appleby had first spoken, she had been sure it was Keighley. Now she took several deep breaths and gradually calmed. All this fuss over a mirror.

After a while she rose and went to look at herself. This glass was good—she could see her whole figure—and the reflection it gave back startled Margaret considerably. She had known her appearance had changed. The fit of her dresses and her small mirror had told her that. But she had not quite realized the extent of the alteration until now. She turned this way and that, surveying herself from all angles. Not only was her figure fuller and more rounded, but her shoulders were straighter and she moved differently. She could not decide just how. There was a new springiness in her step and fluidity in her motion. Her face looked different too. It was slightly fuller, so that her eyes no longer seemed too large for it, and her formerly pale cheeks glowed with color. But her hair—Margaret put a hand to the fine blond curls—that was much the same. Something must be done there.

Her gaze shifted to her white muslin gown, and she made a wry face. She never wished to see this dress again, or the blue or the pink, but she would have to wear one of them tonight. She took the other two from the wardrobe and held them up one by one before her. It hardly mattered, but she supposed the pink looked best.

There was a tap on her door, and one of the younger Appleby girls called, “Miss? I’ve filled the bath as you wanted.”

“Thank you.” Putting the dresses on the bed, Margaret gathered her things and went to have a hot bath, thinking that at least some luxuries remained to her.

* * *

At six, she stood before the long mirror once again, checking her appearance one last time before going downstairs. It was still quite light, but she had also lit two candles to see the effect. The pink dress was all right; it was clean, at least, and fit her better than it ever had. The plain, round-necked bodice and puffed sleeves set off her newly rounded arms and shoulders, and the color intensified hers. But Margaret’s main attention was to her hair. She had worked on it for nearly an hour, and she was pleased with the results. She had gathered it in a knot on top of her head, with curls falling over her ears and forehead. It was a style she had never worn before, and she thought it became her.

She had also, for the first time, opened the little casket of jewelry she had packed, which had miraculously survived its accident on the road and subsequent rescue. Most things, like her pearls, did not suit the dress or the occasion—she did not want to alert Keighley to her purpose—but she had brought a pair of tiny silver earrings ornamented with a single drop of opal, and these she fastened in her ears. They caught the candlelight beautifully and, she thought, gave her head a much more elegant appearance.

Margaret took a breath, shook out her skirts, and snuffed the candles. She was ready. She had heard Sir Justin go down a few minutes before, and she followed him with a beating heart but, she hoped, an impassive expression.

He awaited her in the back parlor, where the table was set as usual for dinner. He was sitting in an armchair reading a newspaper, a habit he had taken up in the last few days, and she did not attempt to interrupt but merely said good evening and sat down. A few minutes later Annie Appleby came in with a steaming crock of soup, and they began to eat.

“Did you have a pleasant day?” asked Margaret.

“Yes, thank you.”

“You went walking?”

“Along the shore, yes.” He looked directly at her for the first time that evening, his expression showing puzzlement. Margaret had not been talking much in the last two days, and something else, which he could not pin down, seemed different.

“It was a lovely day for it. I was out also for a while.”

He nodded as Annie removed the soup plates and set down fresh crockery. She served them both with roast chicken, new potatoes, and fresh peas, then went out. Keighley began to eat, only to pause in surprise when the girl returned with a bottle of wine and poured out two glasses. “What’s this?” he asked.

Margaret smiled. “Mrs. Appleby thought we should celebrate, since you are so much better.” This was not strictly true. The wine had been Margaret’s suggestion and rather difficult to procure, but Mrs. Appleby was primed to support her if necessary.

“I see.”

She picked up her glass, hoping that her almost complete inexperience of wine did not show, and said, “To your continued health,” sipping a little.

Keighley raised one black eyebrow but drank. “Thank you. And, speaking of my health, it is so much improved that we should think of leaving here.”

“Yes,” replied Margaret agreeably. “You must get back to your estate. I daresay they have been worried about you.”

“I sent a letter yesterday. Jem carried it to Falmouth, to a trustworthy man he knows there. It should reach my butler without revealing our direction.”

She swallowed a bite of chicken that had nearly choked her. “Ah. You did not tell me.” Things were not going exactly as she had planned.

“No.” Keighley drank more wine. He felt he should have told her, but he had not been able to find a time that seemed good. Indeed, now that he had raised the subject of leaving, he wished he hadn’t. Why had he felt compelled to ruin their dinner when Margaret was looking so… Harshly cutting off this errant thought, he added, “We might think of going at the end of the week.”

Margaret nodded absently, causing Sir Justin to clutch the stem of his wineglass so tightly his knuckles whitened. She noticed his reaction with joy.

“Where do you intend to go?” he asked.

She smiled and shrugged slightly, watching his eyes.

“You do not mean to tell me?”

“After all, it can be no concern of yours.”

“No concern?” he began hotly, but Annie returned just then with a dish of pudding and set it on the table.

“Will there be anything else?” she asked.

“No,” snapped Keighley, and the girl went out with a startled glance at him over her shoulder. “Now, listen to me,” he continued.

Margaret interrupted him. “You know, I have been thinking a good deal since our visit to those people.”

Sir Justin stiffened. Was the girl about to throw his behavior in his face? That would get her nowhere.

“And reading too,” she added, which was true. She had spent two hours with the book on reform that afternoon. “I find my opinions are greatly changed.”

This was not what he had expected. “Do you?”

“Yes. Since I have seen how people really live, I agree with many of the proposals in the book you lent me. You know that I thought them extreme at first. Now I don’t.”

He merely watched her, bemused.

“It seems to me that half measures are dreadful. They raise people’s hopes but accomplish so little.”

“That may be true. But they can be gotten through, and at least that little accomplished. If one insists upon sweeping reform, nothing is done.”

“Yes, I see. But it is so hard to think of those families we saw, and the others you tell me are all over England. They will not be affected by small reforms. They will continue to suffer.” She gazed intensely into his eyes.

“That is one of the infuriating things about politics,” he agreed, meeting her eyes. “I found it nearly insupportable when I first began. But gradually one comes to see that one must simply do what one can. Sulking over impossibilities helps no one.” He smiled a little. “I know. I did it for a year when I was twenty.”

Margaret sternly controlled her answering smile. She did not want to interrupt a process that was going so well. “It is the children I cannot forget,” she went on. “I pity the adults, of course, but the children could do so much if they had the opportunity.”

Margaret leaned forward again, bringing her face closer to his across the table, and added, “I want so to help, you see. For the last two days I have thought and thought what I might do. But I feel so powerless. I cannot stand for Parliament or make speeches or influence those who run the government. No one would listen to me. Yet I must do something. I cannot remain idle after what you have shown me.”

“I believe you are serious,” replied Sir Justin, his eyes on hers.

“I am. Completely.” And, indeed, Margaret was not fabricating this part of her appeal. She had felt an impulse to help the people she had seen, and she would do so if a way was offered.

Keighley’s hazel eyes softened. “There are things you can do. For example, a friend of mine, Lady Noonham, has started a series of charity schools for the children of laborers, particularly in the North, where the factories are increasing every day. They are educated so that they can do better than their parents.”

“That is a splendid idea,” exclaimed Margaret sincerely.

“She is always looking for contributions.”

“Money, you mean?”

“Yes. There is never enough for such work.”

“Well, I would be happy to give her whatever I can, but I want to do something
myself
.”

Keighley looked puzzled.

“I want to see the people, to be with those children…and to work with them myself.” As she spoke Margaret realized that her words were no more than the truth. The children she had seen haunted her, particularly the first little girl and boy. She could still see their eyes, shadowed by fear and ignorance, very clearly.

“You don’t know what you’re proposing,” answered Sir Justin. “You have had a small taste of dirt and poverty, but that is quite different from facing it often or in larger concentrations, such as one finds in London.”

“I know it must be. And perhaps I should not be able to endure it and would fail. But I am determined to try.” Looking down, and partly forgetting her purpose tonight, Margaret repeated, “Determined. I will find a means.” It suddenly occurred to her that here was a focus for her future. Whatever happened, she would retain this interest, and it would sustain and fire her. She raised her head and met Keighley’s dark eyes with a new light in her own. She had set out to do one thing this evening and, in the process, discovered another.

“I believe you will,” he said, impressed. His hand moved involuntarily to cover hers on the table; he was entranced by the fire and spirit that illuminated her as she spoke.

Though she pretended not to notice, Margaret’s heart began to pound. “What a feeling it must be, to really help.”

“I have been told so.”

“But you have felt it. You have worked for the same cause.”

He shrugged. “With members of Parliament, factory owners, the Prince. It is all talk and most often useless.”

“I don’t believe that for an instant.”

He smiled wryly. “Well, it is hardly as satisfying as what you propose.”

“Indeed not, and it must therefore be all the harder. I could never keep up such a thankless struggle, and I admire you for being able to. I daresay you will be the one who makes real reform possible one day.”

“We are working on a bill…” He broke off with a short laugh. “But you are merely being polite.”

“I am not! I do admire your work. It must require immense patience and will. You fight for what you believe in. What more could anyone do?”

His grip on her hand tightened, and his eyes showed a sudden vulnerability. It was seldom he heard words like these. Most of his acquaintances and even friends mocked or criticized his efforts.