The Girl in the Gatehouse Read Online Free PDF

properly sat on the sideboard. Miss Dixon had many sterling qualities. She was loyal, intelligent, hardworking, and forthright. But the woman simply could not cook a palatable meal. Which, Mariah supposed, was not surprising, considering she’d been hired into the Aubrey household years ago as nursery-governess, and not a cook. She had been Nanny Dixon to Mariah and Julia when the girls were young. The thought brought pain. How Mariah missed her sister.
    She sighed and dipped a modest serving of stew into a chipped bowl. With effort, she sawed off a shingle of bread, then sat alone at the kitchen table. Briefly bowing her head, she said quietly, “For your provision of food and shelter, and Dixon, I am truly thankful.” She felt awkward and uncomfortable as she prayed, as if talking with an estranged friend – one she had wronged very badly.
    Her six-fingered cat, Chaucer, came and curled around her ankles. The stray with the extra digit had earned his keep by catching many a gatehouse mouse over the fall and winter. But now that spring was in the air, he spent his time hunting out of doors and often left his small victims on her doorstep.
    Mariah set her bowl, with the remaining morsels of stew, onto the floor at her feet. “There you are, you little beggar. Don’t tell Dixon, or neither of us shall hear the end of it.”
    The silver and grey cat sniffed at the bowl, then walked away, leaving the scraps of fish and potato untouched.
    Rising, Mariah donned her work apron and did the washing up. Then, not wanting any stray hairs to end up in the jam, she donned a white cap. She cut tissue, brushed oil and beaten egg whites onto each side of the thin paper, and then covered each pot with the oiled and egged papers.
    Not everyone liked rhubarb, Mariah knew. It was viewed as primarily medicinal by many. Considering Dixon’s recent malady, Mariah thought it wise to preserve all they could from the patch that had sprung up beside the stable. She preferred strawberry or raspberry jam herself, but those fruits would not be in season until June and July respectively. Last week, Dixon had gone to the village market and purchased at discount a basket of past-peak imported oranges. These, plus several exorbitantly priced lemons, they had boiled with sugar into marmalade, pots of which stood proudly on their larder shelves.
    The last jar covered, Mariah glanced up through the kitchen window and noticed how dark it already was, although the March days were becoming longer. A storm was brewing. Had Dixon taken an umbrella?
    A crack of thunder rent the air, and Mariah jumped. She wiped her hands on her apron and stared out at the roiling sky, feeling her emotions roil in tandem.
    Perhaps it was the approaching storm that made her give in. Or the fact that Dixon was out for the evening, leaving her alone in the gatehouse. There was no one to witness her weakness.
    Or perhaps it was because her mood had sunk as low as Venus in the morning sky, as it sometimes did when the past revisited her, each memory like a sharp hailstone pinging, pecking against her brain. How could I have been so stupid? Foolish, foolish girl! And doubts and despondency would rise like waves in the North Sea, threatening to crumble her stoic façade. Had she conjured up, imagined the whole affair? Surely not. Had he not given her every assurance of his love? Of their future together? Was he really as innocent of misleading her as he later insisted?
    She needed, once more, to reassure herself their courtship had not been merely the fancy of a desperate young woman.
    The proof was tucked away in the attic, at the bottom of her trunk, where Dixon was not apt to stumble upon it whilst tidying the rooms. Where Mariah would not be tempted to look too often, to while away her days, her life, on futile regrets. She had gone for months without venturing up the steep turret stairs and would have resisted longer had curiosity over her aunt’s chest not gotten the better of