Chapter 35
“Miss Rothschild!” Richard said rather loudly. How charming she looked in that color of green with Mrs. Moorshead’s flowers beside her on the table.
Richard felt his skin heat as everyone turned to him.
The young lady’s eyes brimmed with amusement.
He prayed it was amusement of the favorable kind—that she was as pleased to see him as he was to stumble upon her.
“What are you doing here?” he blurted, then bit his tongue before another forward exclamation burst from him.
“I am here to call on Mrs. Moorshead, the same as you it appears. I could ask what you are doing here!” she replied with enough sauce to provoke Richard’s laughter and effectively break the ice.
Mrs. Moorshead clutched her hands at her chin. “A reunion! How wonderful.” Wagging her finger in the air, she added, “Providential.”
After brief introductions and a clipped version of how they had met, Richard sat back in his chair and ceded the conversation to Nick. He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing one foot over the other, hoping to appear as though he had not a concern in the world.
In reality, his feet bobbed and twitched with the effort to contain his unasked questions.
Questions he would not voice even if it were appropriate to do so: Was she happy to see him?
Had she thought of him as much as he had thought of her?
He was not the handsomest man—of that, he was aware.
However, he would be content to know she thought of him kindly maybe once or twice.
Any more than that would be the height of presumption.
She was a beautiful lady—an heiress—who could have her pick of gentlemen.
Still, he sat taller in his chair and tried to calm his fidgeting feet as she and Nick exchanged the little they knew of their stories.
Mrs. Moorshead pinched her chin as she listened.
Darcy asked her, “What do you remember of Nick’s arrival?”
So, Nicholas was Nick now. Richard was glad to hear it.
With a sigh, Mrs. Moorshead said, “I am afraid there is precious little to tell. I woke early one morning to milk the cow and feed the chickens, and nearly tripped over a basket filled with blankets perched just outside the door. At first, I thought that someone had left the blankets there for the poor, but when I lifted the basket to put it inside, I noticed how heavy it was. Heavier than it ought to have been.” She smiled at Nick, pressing her hands against her heart.
“Imagine my surprise when I moved the blankets aside and saw a baby! He did not cry or make any noise at all. He simply looked up at me and glowered.”
That sounded about right for a Darcy. Richard looked down at his boots and bit the insides of his cheeks.
Mrs. Moorshead chuckled. “I see your expression has not changed much, dear boy.”
“A family trait.” Darcy smiled at his brother. Richard was relieved to see his cousin’s easy acceptance of the newcomer to his immediate circle when he tended to be cautious with new acquaintances.
“My husband was similar. I often wonder how he made any friends at all before I came into his life.” Mrs. Moorshead looked up, in the direction of her husband’s sickroom, Richard presumed, her eyes warm, her face soft.
She took a deep breath and dabbed her eyes with a bit of lace tucked into her sleeve.
“I hope you find young ladies who encourage you not to take yourselves so seriously.”
Darcy and Nick smiled confidently, and something in Richard’s chest tightened. Some day, he would be the one grinning as wide as his lovelorn cousins. Some day.
He knew the danger of getting caught, but he could not help a brief flicker of his gaze to Miss Rothschild.
Not many young ladies in her position had the persistence or wherewithal to question what others would encourage her not to trouble herself over.
If a wrong had been done, her appearance in Mrs. Moorshead’s parlor was proof that she was determined to right it.
Truth and justice above her own comfort as they ought to be.
Before Darcy or Nick could distract Mrs. Moorshead with stories of their betrothed (for what man or woman could avoid the indulgence of speaking of the person they most adored), Richard asked, “That must have been a shock. What did you do with Nick after you found him?”
“The Fleys had no children of their own, and they had been kind enough to keep on a milkmaid who had fallen into sin. She lost her baby—a sad business, even if it was the price of her sin. I took Nicholas to them directly, and they were happy to take him in.”
“What became of the milkmaid?” he asked.
She frowned. “Some women do not learn. Nicholas must have been nearly three years old when she bore a child of her own. Happily, the man—a fisherman from Exeter—married her.”
Nick rubbed his side whiskers. “I don’t remember her. Did she ever ask about me … later?”
“I am afraid not, my dear.” Mrs. Moorshead’s voice reflected her regret. “In any case, she knew nothing more of your origins than I do.”
The milkmaid was a dead end, then. On to the next. “Does the name Currey mean anything to you?” Richard asked. He cast a glance at Miss Rothschild, but the mention of Mrs. Finchley’s nurse did not alter her expression.
“Currey, Currey. Now, where have I heard that name? It is not too uncommon, you know,” Mrs. Moorshead mumbled.
“A Mrs. Catherine Currey?” Richard added.
“Catherine Currey,” Mrs. Moorshead repeated, pressing her eyes closed only to open them so suddenly, Richard’s heart jumped and collective gasps echoed in the parlor.
“I remember now. It was the oddest thing, but as the rector, my husband’s duties called on him to sit on the magistrate’s bench besides seeing to the births and deaths within our parish.
He was called to the magistrate, let me see …
it must have been a week or so after Nicholas showed up in a basket.
Our own Baby Moses, as I have fondly referred to him over the years, although my husband preferred to think of him as Jonah.
He was a faithful prophet who suffered a moment of weakness… ”
Richard hated to force the elderly woman’s conversation to the topic when she clearly wished to reminisce, but if his cousins were to have any peace, they needed to get to the bottom of the unsettled affair. “You said it was odd about the magistrate and Mrs. Currey?” he prompted her.
“Yes, the strangest thing. Mrs. Currey was the only traveler in the midday post coach. It was scheduled to be full—I remember, my husband checked that detail—but the other travelers never claimed their seats. She was traveling alone,” she repeated, her voice softening the way it did when one must sharpen a memory.
“Not too strange for a woman of her age and profession, but she carried no reticule. Had my husband not inquired at the ticket office, he never would have learned her name from the register. And, even then, he would not have known to pick that name from the other travelers who were supposed to be in the carriage. We never could find any of them to ask why they had changed their plans at the last minute. I supposed they were so relieved not to have been in the carriage when it tumbled down the embankment, they praised the Lord for saving their souls and lived better for it.”
A carriage accident? With a lone traveler?
“It is strange your husband and the magistrate could not find even one person to speak to,” Darcy commented, echoing Richard’s sentiments.
“It made it more difficult to identify Mrs. Currey, that is certain. I only guessed that was her name because she had a CC stitched on the handkerchief in her pocket.”
“That was clever of you,” Miss Rothschild said.
“Not clever enough to find her family. I put an advertisement in several papers, but after a week had passed, we had little choice but to bury her in the common graveyard.” She looked down at her hands and sighed.
“It pained me to lay her to rest without so much as one friend to grieve her loss. It was not until another week had passed that I received word from her employer. She was greatly agitated. Her nurse had disappeared, and she feared the worst. I showed her Mrs. Currey’s handkerchief, shawl, and bonnet.
” She looked up sheepishly. “I had held on to them in the hopes of such a meeting. Really, the shawl was plain gray wool, nothing spectacular or else I would have buried it with her.”
Richard nodded at her. “You do not need to explain yourself, Mrs. Moorshead, when you and your husband had done more for an unknown deceased than many do for their living relatives.”
“A sad commentary on our society, but true, nonetheless, Colonel. I imagine you have seen more than your fair share of the darker side of humanity. As a rector’s wife, I have learned that the best way to manage the injustice and disappointment is to actively look for the good.
And in Mrs. Currey’s case, I found it in her employer.
She recognized the items I had saved immediately.
She arranged for a proper, engraved headstone.
There was no detail too small for her attention.
You can see the gravestone yourself, if you wish.
I prune the weeds away and put fresh flowers on the grave when I can.
But I only have so many flowers, and there are so many neglected graves…
” Her gaze settled on the flowers she had picked for Miss Rothschild, and Richard imagined she would pluck more beautiful blooms from her garden to take to the cemetery as soon as her guests had departed.
“Do you remember the employer’s name?” he prodded, helping her along when her brow furrowed. “Perhaps a Mrs. Finchley?”
Miss Rothschild leaned forward at the mention of the midwife’s name.