Chapter 4
The tinker’s cart had a cover of oiled cloth that kept the rain off his wares, as well as off Maggie and the children, who were huddled together in the space the tinker had cleared for them.
They had met him two nights ago, when they were about to eat their supper in a field by a little stream halfway between one Ashton and another.
Maggie had managed to catch some fish, and when the tinker saw her preparing to cook it over a fire, he offered to trade what he called twist bread for some of her fish.
The tinker’s wife rolled her bread dough into a long sausage shape then wound it around a stick, which she rested on two more sticks so it cooked above the embers of her fire.
She turned it every few minutes so it cooked evenly, and it was delicious.
The tinker and his wife had a crock of butter and a handful of sweet carrots. Maggie added some apples to the joint meal. She had spent two days working in an orchard in return for food and a bed in the barn, and the farmer had given her a few pennies and a box of apples when she left.
Once the children were settled for the night, Maggie told the couple her story.
“Ashton-on-Dove,” the wife repeated, when Maggie mentioned her next destination, the sixth Ashton on her list. “Fergus, it’s not out of our way to go through Ashton-on-Dove on our way to Downwood Market.
” It was not a question, but a statement.
“We can fit Mrs. Parker and the little ones into the cart.”
“That we can, Ginny,” said Fergus, and so they did.
Maggie was grateful. It meant she and the children would be in their sixth Ashton before Christmas.
She had been spending snatches of time when they were distracted or asleep, or during the four days of storm when they could not travel, making little Christmas gifts.
Surely, she would be able to find somewhere to stay in the village.
Some place safe and warm where she and the children could rest and enjoy a holiday?
Yesterday’s travel had been pleasant, until the evening when the rain began. Fergus had stopped at a farm whose owner was friendly to travelers, and offered some tinkering for a night in his barn for all of them, including the horse.
They made a late start in the morning, but Fergus said they were no more than an hour and a half from Ashton-on-Dove, and Ginny pointed out that none of them would melt.
They set off in the rain, Ginny and Fergus in raincoats on the driver’s seat, sharing a blanket, and Maggie and the children in the cart.
Her son found the confinement particularly hard. Usually, she could put Billy down to walk, or at the very least distract him by pointing out interesting things to look at, but under the cover, there was nothing to see beyond the interior of the cart.
Maggie sang songs, told stories, and invented adventures for Neddy, the wooden horse that Will had carved for Billy when he was a baby. The time slowly passed.
“I can see Ashton!” Ginny shouted, at last.
It was a good ten minutes later that the cart came to a stop. A few moments later, Ginny unlaced the flap at the back of the cart. “Come along, Parkers! We’ve arrived in Ashton. Fergus thought we might ask for your husband’s family at the tavern.
Billy flung himself at Ginny, and Eva, who was dozing on Maggie’s breast, woke up and blinked after him.
Maggie could only move at a crouch, which was awkward while holding Eva, but she scooted toward the flap and was soon hurrying after Ginny, who was carrying Billy in through a door under a sign Maggie couldn’t read from this angle.
The rain had stopped, at least for the moment.
Inside, Fergus was waiting to speak to the tavernkeeper, who was busy with another man, anonymous in a long rain coat that sent a pang through Maggie’s heart, for it was a soldier’s coat, and that, and something about the man’s shoulders, reminded her of Will.
Then he turned and took a step towards her and several thoughts collided in her mind, striking her speechless and freezing her in place.
He could almost be Will, but this man was older, thinner, and moved with a limp, his leg stiff and awkward.
He could almost be Will, but he looked straight at her without recognition.
Of course, he probably could not see her face in the shadow of her bonnet as she stood with her back to the light.
It had to be Will, for if he’d had a brother or cousin who was his double, would he not have told her?
He saw her looking as he walked toward her. She was in the doorway, so he stopped and lifted his cap politely. That removed all doubt from her mind, for there was the scar on his forehead from the blow on his head he’d taken at Cuidad Rodrigo.
“Will Parker?” Her voice made a question of it, though there was no question in her mind. It was Will, even if he did not know her.
“Yes,” he said, inclining his head in a polite nod. “I am he.”
Maggie responded to the nod with a slight curtsey, and pushed her bonnet back on her head so he could more clearly see her face. “Do you not know me, Will? I am Maggie. Maggie Parker.”
“My wife,” he said. His eyes focused on the child in her arms. “So, this must be Evangeline.” He moved his gaze to Billy. “And William?”
“Eva and Billy, yes. Will? What is it? Where have you been? What is wrong?”
Will cast an eye over his shoulder at Fergus and the tavernkeeper.
They were both watching, as was Ginny. He lowered his voice and whispered.
“I was injured at Toulouse, Miss Fi… that is, Maggie.” His tongue stumbled over her name.
“I hit my head. I don’t remember…” In his eyes were despair, embarrassment, and the bone-deep decency for which she loved him. “I’m sorry, Maggie.”
She sat Eva onto her hip to free one hand, which she put on Will’s arm. She kept her own voice low. “We shall work it out, Will. That is, if you want to.”
His eyes cleared and he spoke at normal volume.
“I was just hiring a horse to come and find you. Ma received your letter last night, though the date on it was more than two weeks ago.” He turned his head to call across the room to the tavernkeeper.
“It seems I won’t be needing that horse after all.
Here is Mrs. Parker come to find me before I could go to look for her. ”
The tavernkeeper’s eyes widened, but Fergus and Ginny looked relieved. “Will, these are Ginny and Fergus Fleming, who gave me and the children a lift in their cart,” Maggie told Will.
“Thank you for bringing my family safely home,” Will told them, politely.
* * *
It was just a form of words, and yet Will felt the deep truth of them.
This was his family. The girl he had admired (as had half the regiment), had matured and was even more beautiful than she’d been three years ago, and the two sweet children were adorable.
The boy had something of the look of Will’s sister’s boy, who had recently turned two.
Will judged that Billy, as Maggie called him, was a little younger than his cousin.
Eva, the baby, melted Will’s heart completely, with her chubby cheeks and her cheerful smile.
The carter’s wife went to hand the boy to him, but Billy buried his head on her shoulder and clung tighter. “He doesn’t know me,” Will explained.
“He was not much older than Eva is now when Will had to leave us,” Maggie explained. “Say goodbye to Mrs. Fleming, Billy. This is your Da, and we are going home with him. Fergus, could I have my things from the cart?”
Fergus nodded, and they all went outside, where the man offloaded—of all things—a wheelbarrow and then a trunk, a large bag and a smaller one, which he put into the barrow. Ginny put Billy into the barrow, and Maggie went to take up the handles, but Will said, “My job.”
She glanced at his leg, but nodded. Quite right, too.
He might be a bit lame, but he could handle a wheelbarrow.
Before he could push the barrow on its way, Maggie thanked the Flemings, giving Ginny a hug, so Will released the handles to shake Fergus’s hand.
Then Billy shook hands with Fergus too, Ginny gave the boy and baby Eva a kiss on the forehead, and Maggie dropped a kiss on Fergus’s cheek, making him blush.
“Thank you both,” she said.
“We’ll be around most of the day,” Fergus told her. “Fixing things. If you need us.”
Will’s internal response was swift and possessive. She’s my wife. If she needs anything or anyone, I’ll be the one. He was astounded at the strength of the emotion over a wife and children he had still not remembered. Perhaps his heart remembered them though his head couldn’t.
“We shall be fine,” Maggie was assuring the Fleming. “You heard Will. We are home.”
“When did you arrive in England?” Will asked as she strode alongside him on the way to Ma’s cottage.
She summed up the journey for him in laconic sentences, starting with the arrival in Portsmouth and her purchase of the wheelbarrow.
A world of detail was buried in, “I was fortunate enough to find work enough along the way to keep us fed, and people like the Flemings have offered us rides from time to time.”
His admiration for her courage and enterprise rose by leaps and bounds.
He pushed the wheelbarrow around the back of the house just as the rain started again. He offered Billy his hands to help him down, and then picked up the bags.
“Let’s get you inside out of the rain,” Will said. He strode to the back door, and Maggie followed, carrying Eva and leading Billy by the hand. After they’d taken off their coats and shoes, he said, “I’ll leave the bags here. Come and meet Ma.”
Maggie picked up Eva and the smaller bag. “The children need their clouts changed,” she observed. “I’ll keep this one, Will. Can you take Billy’s hand?”
Billy made no objection, so Will led his little family through the scullery and into the kitchen, where Ma was working bread dough at the table, with her back to them.