CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“I grew up just a few streets over from her family. Saw her here and there in the neighbourhood but was never familiar on personal terms. My father passed away when I was nine—croup—and my mum was never the same after. I was quite nimble and never afraid, so one of my father’s friends brought me to Mr. Yates, who was a chimneysweep, and he took me on as an apprentice.”
“Do you have any siblings?” Bingley asked.
“An older brother who was killed at Trafalgar, two sisters who died very young.”
“I see. I am very sorry to hear it.”
“Thank you. I worked with Mr. Yates to try to support my mum. He was a very good man and treated me like a son. When Mrs. Yates passed on—nearly four years ago, now?—Letitia, who was still but a child herself, took over all the house duties, caring for all her young siblings, as well. She was always a pretty girl, but the death of her mum and other hardships induced a maturity both, I suppose, emotionally as well as physically. She was kind and patient and understanding with the little ones. She worked from the first light of day to nearly midnight, mending clothes, cooking, cleaning. Through all of that she had a serene, I would almost dare to say confident, temperament. And she certainly blossomed into quite a beauty, during that time, as well. Each day I saw her, over the course of those four years, after her mum passed, I fell in love with Letitia more and more.” Bingley could not help but be stirred to thoughts of Jane. “Ours was not a high romance, but it was love, nonetheless. She loved me, and I made great sacrifices to be sure that once she was sixteen, we could marry, and I could care for her properly.”
Maitland’s voice trailed off and he took a swig of wine before looking off out the window contemplatively.
“How did things then go awry?” Wilshere probed. Bingley glanced at him and glowered.
“Pardon my man’s callous indifference. I can assure you that he is most interested in any information that you can share.”
“Of course,” replied Maitland, still staring off. He looked back at Wilshere and nodded.
“When you are ready, please continue,” said Wilshere politely.
“I asked Letitia to be my wife.”
“Was her father aware of your intentions?” Bingley asked.
“Of course,” Maitland responded. “I asked him for her hand before I ever thought to ask her. He gave his consent and seemed quite relieved, it seemed. As I already mentioned, he treated me like his own son. He even cried when he gave me his blessing. I did not have a ring for her, and though she agreed when I proposed, she made me swear that I would wait for her, until she could be sure that her siblings would be cared for. After all, the youngest was not yet six years old. This was very difficult for me—I was just turned twenty—for several reasons, as you might well imagine. She assured me that all would be well and that the best days of her life would be spent caring for me. I believed her in earnest and dreamt night after night of the day which I could call her my bride—” His voice trailed off once more. His eyes fluttered about the room as if to find some object of comfort that might steady him. “—But that day never came.”
“Take your time,” Bingley said reassuringly, tapping the top of his glass for Wilshere to pour the wine again.
“One day, when we had finished working, we returned to Mr. Yates’s home like we always done. Letitia had dinner cooked as usual, and even a pie for me to take home to my mum—this is before she, herself, passed—but Letitia was… distracted . While she did not seem distressed, her usual attentions to her father and to me were hardly paid. After dinner, I heard from her nine-year-old sister that a man spoke with them outside the butcher’s shop that afternoon, and that he was charming and handsome. I said, ‘charming and handsome?’ and asked if she had ever seen him before. The little one then giggled and ran off. I went home and gave my mum the pie but laid in bed unable to get the thought out my mind. The next day being Sunday, I thought to myself that I would meet her at church—her whole family faithfully attended—and we’d have a talk after. And sure enough, next morning I got gussied up, which basically meant scraping the soot from my fingernails, as best I could manage and headed to St. Benedict’s, but alas, the entire household was in attendance save Letitia, who had stayed home with a headache. I bolted out the church and raced over there, when I come round the corner to see a man leaving the house—”
“The man she met outside the butcher’s?” Bingley prodded.
“The same.”
“And you saw him?”
“With both mine eyes.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Tall and thin; dark haired. I would characterize him as very handsome.”
“Anything else remarkable about him?”
“Other than that, he was wearing regimentals, I could not say—he turned his back to me and was off before I had the chance to catch him.”
“Regimentals, you say?” Wilshere implored.
“Aye,” answered Maitland.
Wilshere and Bingley exchanged solemn glances.
“Did you speak with Letitia?” Bingley asked.
“Naturally,” Maitland continued. “I knocked on the door and she was quite surprised to see me when it opened. I demanded the identity of the man who left, and she started to cry—I thought she might faint. I sat her down at the table and she wept into my chest. She kept saying that she was sorry. I asked what she had to be sorry for—really, what had she done? After what seemed to me to be a lifetime of this, she looked in my eyes and told me that she could not consent to be my wife. My mind could not… grasp what she had spoken—I could not understand a word of it—it just hung in the air like a winter fog.
“Eventually, I asked her why, and if it was because of this other man. She implored me to believe that she loved me and would always love me. I asked her what that had to do with her refusal to marry me; she answered that her situation was untenable and that she might well never recover from her broken heart. She stated through her tears that he had made her an offer of marriage, and that she had accepted him. ‘How long have you even known this man?’ I barked. She had met him less than a fortnight earlier, but he had apparently had his eye on her for some time.
“As you might imagine, by this point I was quite despondent and wholly baffled. I asked her on what basis had she accepted him, and she told me that he could provide for her family—even that her father would never have to work again. With that I was crushed, as you could well understand. But for all the betrayal I felt, for all the carnage she wreaked on my poor heart, I cannot but remind myself that my dear, sweet girl, had chosen not only her family’s wellbeing over me, but even over her own feelings. She was not flighty; she was never impetuous. Her decision was based on how she might best care for those closest to her. She went on to tell me that he was a young man from Derbyshire who had recently inherited a fortune from a great uncle on the coast.”
“From Derbyshire , you say?” Bingley asked with great anticipation.
“Aye, from Derbyshire,” he answered slowly.
“Did she give you his name?” Wilshere entreated.
“No. Well, perhaps she did. I was too…devastated.”
“That is not surprising, given the news you had just received,” stated Bingley. “Can you recall, did she tell you anything else about him—anything at all?”
“Only that he was from a great estate in that part of the country. He ostensibly informed her that it was his desire that she should be the mistress of his own great home, and that her siblings receive a proper education. She implored me not to tell her father—that she would tell him in due time. Taking my hand and kissing it, she apologized, and asked for my forgiveness. She wished for my happiness—that I might soon forget her and take a wife in whom I would be forever enraptured. I was too befogged to even imagine how to respond. I believe in my heart I wished her to know that she was indeed forgiven, and that I did not hold her in any kind of disregard, but I am not sure that I was, in fact, able to say anything at all. She held my rough, blackish hand in her pale, delicate fingers—drops of her tears splattering my skin. At that moment her relations entered the home with the usual ruckus that accompanies the arrival of small children. Her father was startled by her state of emotion. He asked her what on the earth was the matter, and before I even knew it, I was I was outside and down the street.”
A sympathetic smile morphed into a grimace across Bingley’s face. He glanced at his man and then back to Maitland.
“I never laid eyes on her again,” spoke the young man before he was no longer able to control his own emotions. He wept vigorously for an extraordinarily brief moment before nodding and regaining his typical air of quiescence. “Mr. Yates tells me that she left the house under cover of dark, leaving behind all her belongings and a note, explaining that he should not worry. She declared that she would be married in those early hours in the private chapel at Sir Andrew Fraser’s country house outside Coventry, and that she and her new husband would return for the family within the week. That Thursday, her body was discovered in Southampton, and three days later, her father heard the news.”
“Sir Andrew Fraser, you say?” Bingley mused, casting a sideways glance at his steward.
“Yes, and I nearly killed the man myself,” uttered a stone-faced Maitland, looking up and directly at Bingley. “But you had got there first.”
“How on earth—” Bingley began, nearly rising from his seat.
“Mr. Bingley,” Maitland interrupted, “please be assured that I am your friend—nay, your servant. When I pledged you my devotion, I did so not because of how well you paid, but because of your devotion to a thankless, but essential undertaking.”
“But how—I do not understand,” Bingley muttered looking back and forth between Maitland and Wilshere.
“The methodical details are not vital,” Maitland said. “The evidence that led you to Sir Andrew Fraser, Thomas Abbott, and ultimately, Lord Bertram St. John was all there for anyone willing or, perhaps, daring enough to look at it. Many of the same methods that led me to those men led me straight to you, sir. And I cannot thank you enough for the work you have done, Mr. Bingley. You are a vengeful angel from God, bringing judgement upon men whose hearts are so vile, that hellfire itself may not purify them.”
Turning toward his steward, Bingley said: “Now Wilshere, I am a bit concerned that it was so entirely simple for a person to discover not only my work, but my identity, and even to come so close as to infiltrate—”
“Mr. Bingley, please,” Maitland inserted again. “Have no harsh words for Mr. Wilshere. I will not say that it was exceptionally difficult to locate, and even identify you, sir, but a firm resolve and dedicated effort were required, and I would doubt very much that anyone is looking as hard as I did.”
Bingley rolled his eyes and sipped his wine. “What about Lord Bertram St. John? Does he not have a vested interest in learning my identity at this juncture? And he certainly possesses the means with which to do it!”