Chapter 3- Margaret
The following morning, spurred by one last desperate gasp of hope, Margaret frantically dismantled her bedroom.
Perhaps her journal had simply been misplaced.
She removed every cushion from the seating area in front of the fireplace, every stitch of bedding from her mattress.
She shoved every piece of furniture from its customary place—except for the bed, which she crawled under, instead.
Once she’d emptied every possible spot where her journal could be hiding, she slumped to the carpet, leaned against the wall, and stared dazedly at the mess she’d made.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Come in,” she said, swiping the drizzling tears from her cheeks.
She’d expected her maid or one of her sisters. Instead, Miss Rachel Warrington—her new and closest friend—sailed through the door. She wore a walking dress in her customary navy color, her blonde hair pulled back into a simple braided bun.
Rachel took in the cataclysmic disarray of the bedroom at a glance. “Redecorating?”
Margaret struggled to her feet, and Rachel seemed to get a good look at her for the first time. Her blue eyes narrowed. “What’s the matter? Do I need to send Lucien after someone?”
Margaret shook her head. She was a bit frightened to ask who, or more precisely, what Lucien was.
Among Rachel’s many odd habits was the strange hobby of collecting taxidermy.
Though Reginald, the stuffed raven, was fine, Margaret was hesitant to meet any additional members of Rachel’s stuffed menagerie.
“I’ve ruined my prospects and that of my sisters,” Margaret nearly wailed. “We’re soon to become the laughingstock of all the nobility.”
“How on earth did you manage that?” Rachel asked the question curiously, with a touch of admiration.
“I’ve lost my journal,” Margaret said, her voice as limp as the hands hanging at her sides.
“Where’s the last place you remember having it?” Rachel’s eyes narrowed; her gaze sharpened. “Do you think someone stole it—one of your sisters, perhaps? If so, it will hardly do any good searching in here. Don’t worry, I always use extra hairpins in case I need to pick a lock.”
Rachel had half turned toward the door, her fingers already plucking a pin from her hairstyle, by the time Margaret said, “I took it into town and lost it.”
“Oh dear, that is a problem.” After a moment’s consideration, Rachel hefted the sofa cushion and muscled it back into place before gently leading Margaret to sit next to her. “Shall we go and have a look?”
“I already did, yesterday.” Margaret pressed fingers to her pounding temples and stared at the flickering flames in the grate. “It was nowhere to be found, and I looked everywhere.”
Margaret had retraced every single stop—even going back to that blasted bookstore near the docks, pressing both her maid and the shopkeeper into service in searching for her journal, but it had been no use.
Margaret finally had to give up when the sun began to set and the groomsman insisted they not be found near the docks at dark.
Margaret had cried all the way home, distressing her maid to the extreme. Not that she could blame the girl—Margaret was famously unflappable. She wasn’t prone to waterworks at all. Until this, apparently.
“Are you sure you searched well?” Rachel asked. “For I am happy to accompany you back out today. We can search again.”
“Thank you, but it’s gone.”
It was the truth, but it still hurt Margaret to admit it.
Losing her journal was like losing a friend who perfectly remembered all of her secrets.
Ruth had been the only one Margaret trusted to tell everything to.
She rationally knew that she’d only lost a journal, whose worth couldn’t be more than a sovereign, and yet she felt as if she’d lost far more than that.
With the house being so remarkably changed from what it once was, Margaret felt that all those letters she’d written to Ruth were the most lasting record of what had happened, what she’d lived through. And now her journal was not only gone, it was presumably in someone else’s hands.
Whose? She wondered wildly.
“Very well. Let’s presume the worst,” Rachel said.
“Must we?”
“Let’s look your worst fear full in the face, so that we might leach the terror from it. Who would be the worst person who could have found your journal?”
Margaret sat for a moment, staring at the fire. “Miss Daisy Knope.”
“Right. Let’s imagine that Miss Daisy Knope has your journal right now. What precisely is she reading? Is there anything incriminating within the pages?”
Margaret chewed her plump lower lip and thought about it.
“There might be, but I never signed any of the entries.” She turned to Rachel, the realization lighting all her features.
“In fact, I don’t believe there’s any specific detail that ties the journal to me at all.
My entries about our family and our loss of fortune are too vague for anyone other than me to know, and I never even used the initials for my siblings’ names—I use symbols instead, lest my sisters got a hold of it. ”
“And what is the most scandalous thing in your journal, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Do you promise not to tell?”
“I promise.” Rachel nodded solemnly.
Margaret swung her knees up onto the sofa, facing Rachel fully. She was suddenly, inexplicably excited to share her secret. “After our brother Richard lost the family fortune, I took in washing to help support my sisters.”
As quickly as she’d blurted the words, Margaret regretted saying them. What if Rachel turned from her with her lip curled in revulsion?
But her friend merely cocked her head in interest. “I have so many questions, but on the outset, I think that’s ingenious.”
“Thank you.” A flush of pride helped chase away the dread Margaret had felt ever since she’d lost her journal.
“Let’s return to the central point before I become distracted asking about laundering techniques. If Miss Daisy Knope found your journal and had the patience to read it—and to look up all the words she didn’t know in a dictionary—she would be reading the diary of a washerwoman?”
“I suppose so.”
“And how long, precisely, do you think one such as Daisy Knope would read the diary of a washerwoman?”
Margaret blinked. “Not long, I shouldn’t think.”
“And even if she did read it, you don’t think there’s any way for her to attribute the journal to you, correct?”
“I suppose if someone knew my family’s story and paid very close attention to my entries, they might be able to figure it out.” Margaret pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh, what if someone does piece it together?”
“Then you claim it was a work of fiction you were writing.”
“Do you think that would work?”
“I don’t think you’ll have to employ such tactics at all. There’s a very slim chance that someone like Daisy would ever pick up your journal.”
“Why is that?”
“For the simple reason that you’re fairly certain you left it amongst other journals.”
“Meaning?”
“Journals are typically purchased by introspective people seeking self-improvement. Daisy is not an introspective person. She’d never be able to spend a quarter of an hour in honest reflection. Not in her current state.”
Margaret had gone back to chewing her lip.
Rachel continued, “Even if she or someone of her ilk did happen across it, I doubt very much that they’d have the fortitude to read your tightly written script, or that they’d care to do so, especially once they discovered it was the unlikely journal of a laundress.”
Margaret nodded, hope rising within her like a tide.
“And if, by some twist of happenstance, someone does read it closely enough to ascertain you as the author, you can claim it was nothing more than made-up drivel to pass the time.”
Margaret blinked. Heavens, was it really that easy? Was she truly in the clear?
“I think you may be right,” she finally said.
“I often think so.” After a few moments, Rachel added, “Though I confess I’m disappointed to hear that the most scandalous thing in your journal has to do with laundry.”
“What were you hoping for?” Margaret realized her hair had sprung from most of its fasteners and was frizzing wildly about her face. She removed the remaining intrepid pins, placed them in her mouth, and set to taming her hair into a semblance of order once more.
“There are many unanswered questions in my mind, but the one that has caught my primary interest as of late is babies,” Rachel said.
“Do you want children?” Margaret mumbled around her hairpins.
Rachel wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think so. This is more a scientific inquiry than a sentimental one.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“How do they come to be?” Rachel shook her head. “I confess I would ask Dahlia, but when I posed the question to Adelaide, she blushed and stuttered and then told me never to ask anyone that again.”
Margaret’s eyes were wide, her face flushing. “Oh.”
Rachel’s forehead wrinkled. “I thought it a perfectly pertinent, natural question, as she’d just had Persephone. But things felt awkward between us after that, and it was but three days until she announced I was to leave for London and have a Season, so I never had the opportunity to ask again.”
Margaret could feel that her face had gone quite pink. “Well, if you truly are good at keeping secrets, I can answer your question. That is, if you promise never to reveal that it was I who told you.”
“You know?”
“While we were in Paris, our great-aunts told us. They didn’t want us going into marriage as ignorant as they had been. If you promise to keep my secret, I’ll tell you as well.”
“I promise.”
Margaret gathered her courage, determined to give an accurate accounting of what she’d been told, in service of her dear friend.
Perhaps five minutes later, Rachel leaned back, her eyes wide with horror. “That can’t possibly be correct. Why, that’s revolting. Why would any lady ever agree to such a thing?”
Margaret shrugged. “Apparently, that’s how such things are done.”