"He is coming back. He will be at the lodgings in a few days."
"That is, if he gets there. Like as not Master Rosslyn will find he has more pressing business to keep him occupied."
"I am staying in his lodgings."
"No more, you're not. This is your home, and if he wants to see you, he can come here."
"Maggie, I have to see him. I have to hear what he has to say."
"Some well-thought-out tale, I shouldn't wonder. Yes, he had a wife ... but your charms so blinded him that you caused a lapse of memory and he forgot all about her."
"Oh, Maggie, this is very important to me. I would never be satisfied unless I saw him ... unless I heard from his own lips ..."
"Oh yes, I know. And when he tells you he was a naughty man who loved you so much that he resorted to this trickery and he'll die of a broken heart if you leave him, what are you going to say, eh?"
"You are wrong, Maggie. If this is true, I shall not stay with him. I shall always remember what Kitty said to me. If I knowingly did anything that was wrong, I should feel she was reproaching me. She was so anxious that nothing ... nothing like this ... should happen to me."
Maggie put her arms round me.
"When this sort of thing happens," she said, "or any misfortune, for that matter, it helps not to sit down and mourn. You get up, my girl. You start from there. What's done is done. You'll come back here. Who knows about this so-called marriage? Only those who took a part in it, and they won't tell. They might not be all that proud of it, and, more to the point, too much talk about something like this and their part in it spoils the next little game they might want to play. Listen to me. I have been around a good deal. You'll come back here. You have been away for a little while, visiting perhaps relations in the country—that's the tale if the need arises. When you've calmed down a little, you'll see it my way."
"Maggie, I am sure you are right ... if this is true. I've heard it more than once."
"It is true, I tell you he's married. And did you not see the rogue who played the part of the priest? I've heard of Sir Harry Fresham ... they're a wild band. Friends of my Lord Rochester, as wild as any. Why the King does not forbid them the court, I do not know. Yes, I do, because he is as much a rake as any of them. There. You have to be watchful. This is a different world we live in now. The times have changed and these little adventures of merry young men are not frowned on and treated with severity as they would have been in the days of Oliver Cromwell."
"I must hear of it from his own Ups."
She looked at me in exasperation.
"Take my advice. Don't go near him. He'll get round you with some tale."
"I shall demand an explanation."
"No need for what's clear as daylight. If you take my advice, you'll forget you ever set eyes on him."
"If only it were as easy!"
"Listen. Don't you go back to that place. This was your home before all this started, and it still is. You stay here. Try and forget all about this grand marriage to a not-so-noble lord."
I did not know what to do. Good sense told me that Maggie was right. There was Harry Fresham to prove it.
I was very unhappy and very undecided.
Maggie took me up to my old room.
"There," she said. "This is where you'll be safe."
I stayed that night and what a restless night it was. I did not sleep at all. My mind changed continuously.
I would go back to him the next day. I had to wait for his return: and when I thought of how he had deceived me, I was bitterly angry and in despair at the enormity of what I had done.
I could see Kitty's reproachful eyes. Sarah, Sarah, how often did I warn you? Would you go back and be his mistress? And when he tires of you ... what then? Have you not seen the fate of others?
How could I have been so foolish, I asked myself one moment; and the next: But I do not believe it. Am I not judging him because of what Maggie has heard? How could she be sure? It might be that his wife had died ... that he did not like to tell. Naturally he would not call attention to the difference in our ages. That was it. And then in my mind I saw the cynical smile of Sir Harry Fresham across the coffee room table, and I knew that Maggie was right.
So passed that tragic night.
By the light of day I felt sure that Maggie was right, and my wretchedness returned. Before the morning was out I was finding all sorts of reasons why she could be wrong. So the mood of uncertainty continued.
I had to go back to the lodgings. He would return and find me gone. What if he were so angry that he went away back to his estate? How should I know?
I had to see him.
I went to the lodgings. It was Saturday and still he had not come back. I waited for a while and then left. I went back to Maggie. I could find some solace there. Maggie cared for me. Maggie would look after me.
She found me weeping quietly and she stayed beside me.
She said: "Life is hard at times, dear child. When we fall we must perforce pick ourselves up and start walking again. It will mend itself. And we should rejoice that we have become wiser and will not fall into the same trap again. Sarah, my dear Sarah, trust me. We will show this man that his attempts to ruin you have not succeeded, for they can only do so if you allow them to."
I listened to her words and thought how wise she was. She was a great comfort to me.
I did not go back to the lodgings again. The days passed. I thought of him continually. Had he returned, found me gone and then shrugged his shoulders and gone away again? Had he laughed at the simplicity of the stupid unworldly girl who had been so easily duped by a false ceremony and a false priest?
Perhaps I had made it easy for him. He had had the amusement he sought, played out his little charade, and now I had conveniently gone away so that he did not have the trouble of deserting me.
It was Tuesday of the following week at five of the afternoon when there was a loud knocking on the door.
We both started up. I thought: He has come; and my heart leaped with sudden joy, for if he had come it would be to take me back with him and to explain all that I had not understood until now.
As we went into the hall we saw him brush Martha aside and come in.
"Sarah!" he cried, seeing me. "Why have you not been at the lodgings these last days?"
He seemed angry, and I managed to say: "There is much to explain."
"Explain?" he said. He had come into the parlor. Maggie was standing there militantly, as though waiting for him.
He gave her a look of dislike and turned to me, his expression softening.
"I told you I was coming back. Why were you not there? Why should you come back here?"
I was dumbfounded and dismayed and then, in spite of everything, wildly happy. He had come for me. He was going to take me away with him. It had been a foolish mistake.
Maggie was angry. She said: "How dare you come here?"
"This is no matter for you!" he replied shortly. "I must ask you to keep out of it. I should be glad if I might be allowed to talk to Sarah alone."
"She may not wish to," said Maggie. "She has learned a great deal which you have kept from her. Sarah, tell him to go."
I looked at him and, after those days of melancholy misery and uncertainty, I felt my heart filled with hope. I was convincing myself that he would explain everything and then it would be as it had been before.
Maggie said: "Tell him to go, Sarah. You must have nothing to say to his sort."
"A little late in the day for such talk to my wife ..."
Maggie laughed derisively, and he turned to me, and said in an authoritative voice: "Sarah, please tell her to go."
"Maggie," I said, "I have to talk ..."
Maggie's attitude changed suddenly. "Talk ... talk from now to Kingdom Come. Ask him to explain his little tricks. Talk ... Sarah, you shall have your talk in my house, which is your home while you want it. Don't let go of your good sense, that's all I ask. Talk and then do the only thing you can reasonably do. Say goodbye to this villain here and send him on his way forever."