The Peculiar Folly of Long Legged Meg Read online

  "That tongue of yours will get you in trouble, Long-Legged Meg," a cross old woman had declared once, after jumping so suddenly at one of the girl's gruesome stories that she banged her head on a low beam. "You'll end up in the branks, I shouldn't wonder."

  The branks, otherwise known as a scold's bridle, had been used to curb the riotous tongues of gossiping women for centuries. The inn-keeper there at The Kingfisher had one such object on display, hanging from a hook above his cider barrels, but it was more of a warning deterrent and a curiosity than anything, since it had not been worn by anybody in many years. Meg, with her fascination for all things macabre, had studied that iron muzzle and imagined wearing it as she was led through the village. An iron bit of two inches in length, projected into the mouth of the wearer to press down upon the top of the tongue and prevent it moving. A little bell hung above the bridle, just to make the wearing of it even more humiliating.

  Unfortunately, looking at that implement of torture merely inspired her rotten imagination with more stories. Thus, she conceded there was no hope for her— not if she stayed in Twytchel-on-the-Nene, where folk began to see her wickedness and taunt her with that bridle.

  So this girl had other plans. Meg of the Long Legs— as she'd been known, according to one of her stories, since she was a newborn babe, found half-drowned in a bucket of water and pulled out by her ankles— was restless for more than she could find in that village. It was inevitable, perhaps, considering the length of the limbs which carried her, that she should feel the intense need to wander about on them.

  "Whatever you envision for yourself, will come to pass," Master Cosgrove once said. "Always nurture a dream, set your target in life, and collect the tools to cut that path ahead of you, otherwise you will be driven instead, like oxen yoked to a plow, toiling in other men's fields, for the benefit of other men's profit."

  Well, what Meg envisioned for herself was the most luxurious treasure she could imagine: a garden overflowing with flowers, where everything was color and light, birdsong and sweet fragrance. Where there was beauty, peace and life always renewed. Where nothing was hurried and angry, nobody kicked or slapped her, but where she worked in the sunlight, for her own pleasure and at her own pace. And it all belonged to her, every nodding flower head, rustling leaf and glistening golden stamen.

  She kept all this to herself, because if she told anybody about it, they would inevitably snatch the dream from her. Or they could try. Meg was quite tenacious when she had her mind set.

  Master Cosgrove was the cleverest man she'd ever known, and Meg had followed his lessons avidly. Not that she was a pupil at his school, but she was once the maid who cleaned the floors and the windows, scrubbed his boots for him, dusted books and stacked papers, made up the fire on cold mornings and toasted his bread for breakfast. All that she gleaned from that learned fellow she guzzled heartily, and unbeknownst to him, in great thirsty gulps, listening closely as he rehearsed his lectures, or scolded pupils, or read aloud from his newspaper in a scornful way to his miserable wife. In this manner, by accident on his part, he had been her tutor for four years. Yet it was unlikely he even knew her name. He didn't even know when she was in the room.

  His wife did though. "Get on with your work, useless, great, lanky girl. Always dilly-dallying, wandering about with that gormless countenance and under my feet. Look at the smudges you've left on that window. I swear I don't know why I took you in."

  Meg didn't know either. There must have been no other girls to spare at the charity home on the day Master Cosgrove's wife came to hire acquire a maid-of-all-work for her house, and was offered a shining-eyed, nine-year-old waif, described as "tall for her age, quiet, knows how to get on and only has to be shown once."

  "As long as you don't grow much more," the schoolmaster's wife had remarked warily, while assessing young Meg's gangly appearance. "We've only so much room in our house and if you take up too much of it, you'll have to go. We want a girl who works hard and doesn't cause any trouble, or cost much to feed."

  In return for her services, Meg was provided with two meals a day, a straw mattress under the stairs, one candle a week for her personal use— two in winter when the dark hours were longer— and material to make one new frock a year.

  "It is up to you," Mistress Cosgrove had said, "whether you make a new garment for summer or winter each year, but you cannot have both. It will teach you to be grateful and thrifty. And the importance of maintaining your clothes to make them last."

  Meg was surprised to hear that she still needed lessons in poverty and the art of making do, since she'd never known anything else. Had she not already been named Long-Legged Meg by whomever found her, she would surely be better known as Makeshift Meg. But she supposed she ought to look keen and attentive, as any stray dog would for the person with food in their hand.

  She did her best to please the Cosgroves and not expand too much, although there was scant chance of that in any case, on the meager crusts they spared for her plate. Sometimes, for amusement, she pictured herself bulging out of their windows and chimney until she became so big that the house lifted from its foundations and she clumped down the street wearing it, with a tiny, squealing, Mistress Cosgrove running after her.

  "What do you smirk at, girl?" was a demand often uttered by that lady, and Meg's apparent inability to answer only made her mistress more irate and suspicious, resulting in many pinches to Meg's arms and beatings about her wicked head.

  Four years later, when the master was hired for a new school in a larger town, they decided not to take their servant with them.

  "She eats too much," Mistress Cosgrove complained to her husband. "I'll find another maid in King's Lynn. To be sure there's better pickings there. This one's always thinking. You can see it on her face. I'm sure I caught her reading from one of your books t'other day. "

  "Reading?" Her husband had choked out a short chuckle. "I very much doubt it, my dear. She must have been looking at the illuminations, attracted, as a magpie would be, by the gold leaf."

  They thought her illiterate, of course. She wasn't supposed to get above herself, even though Master Cosgrove gave speeches to the boys in his class about aspirations and reaching for greatness. It was different for girls. Especially for those whose unwed mothers abandoned them to the charity of the parish. If Meg was to find honest work for herself, the less education she had the better. Grand folk didn't care for maidservants who, if they could read and write, were capable of prying into their master's correspondence, nosing into business that was not theirs to heed and generally getting above themselves.

  No, indeed, Meg was not entitled to have any ambition at all. Her mind was meant to be left fallow, for the good of all. But, for some terrible reason, any seeds that fell by chance upon her field flourished there, in ground quietly throbbing with vitality and fortitude. It was no more feasible to stall her imagination than it was to stunt her physical growth.

  Left behind by the Cosgroves, she next scrubbed floors and black-leaded grates for Dame Glossop, a mean-tempered, rich and greedy old lady, who kicked and whipped her maids bloody for even a sideways glance. Since Meg was the only soul with enough gumption to talk back to the mistress and stand up for the smaller girls, she received the brunt of that ill-will, and her skin bore several print marks from the old lady's iron pattens. Then, one day, Dame Glossop found a bowl of beautiful, shiny, black berries on the table and, with her usual greed, ate them all herself. It was to be her last meal.

  When the village doctor came to examine the body, she was slumped in her carved oaken chair, but the empty bowl had been removed and her eyelids respectfully closed by one of her maids. Called out in the midst of his own supper— warm, greasy crumbs yet hanging on his chin, port wine on his breath, and a napkin still tucked into his stock— the doctor hastened to declare death caused by a seizure of that shriveled heart and nobody questioned it further. Her demise was too convenient for everybody who ever knew her and Dame Glossop's relatives, ha
ving waited impatiently for the end of her bitter, frugally led life for some forty odd years, quickly divided the spoils with no further ado.

  One of the other girls once asked Meg whether she put those berries on the table for their mistress, to which she replied calmly, "Don't be daft. I know the berries of deadly nightshade are poisonous. Why would I give them to our mistress to eat?"

  Next she went to work for Dr. Woodruffe, the village apothecary, where she had the opportunity to study his charts and figures as she dusted them, to learn a variety of medical terms from the books on his shelves as she tidied them, and to listen at his door as she cleaned the flagged-stone passage. From there she heard patients complain of many different symptoms, while he, in his dusty, grey wig and with wine fumes released by every flap of his thick tongue, delivered his standard treatment for every occasion— leeches, followed by a course of elixirs, made up in his back room and embellished with a label of impressive promises.

  During her three years in his house, she never knew of the "learned" doctor curing anybody, although he sold them this series of ineffective potions for a neat profit and undoubtedly hastened several folk to their graves. Nobody else seemed to notice his incompetence, or realize that he could make no money from the healthy. Or, if they did, they dare not doubt such a man of learning. Why would they question him, when he could be so very disparaging if they did and make them feel like fools?

  It must have been about that time when it occurred to Meg that as long as a person dressed and walked the part, and had the proper words to say, everybody believed them. All it took was a convincing coat of confidence, bluster and a good wig.

  At least he didn't pinch her arms and beat her about the head like Mistress Cosgrove had, nor did he knock her down and step on her like Dame Glossop, but when Dr. Woodruffe first came fumbling after her one evening, slobbering his foul breath on her neck and with sloppy, sausage fingers tugging at her laces, Meg discovered there were even worse ways to suffer.

  Screams had never brought anybody to her aid, so after the shock of that first attack she relied on a fiercely wielded iron poker and a bacon kettle, which, from then on, she kept in her bed at night. But now she must worry about the other little maid in the house, a girl less capable of defending herself. Although she brought the girl into her bed for safety's sake, Meg got no rest with one eye open and she had to be up early to light the fires, so her solution was a little hemlock slipped into the doctor's evening drink. This helped send him to sleep faster and deeper, and kept him from doing his maids any further harm.

  One night he woke suddenly, thought he heard someone shrieking that there were robbers after the bottles in his cellar, and tripped down his stairs in an addled stupor, his big head falling first to the cold stones, the rest of him tumbling after. There he dreamed so deeply that he never woke up again, and Meg could finally sleep soundly herself for the first time in almost three years.

  She was then taken in at the local inn, and there she was now, still bright-eyed and long of leg, but not so willing to stay quiet and certainly not content with cleaning floors and emptying chamber pots for the rest of her life.

  According to rumor, Jasper Wallop, a local wool-merchant's son whom she'd known for most of her life, thought she would marry him. But he hadn't got around to asking her yet. At least, not in a definite way. Instead, he circled the matter in a jumpy fashion, like a blackbird pecking at a fallen crust of bread, that was just a little too big to carry in his beak. His father, so she heard, didn't approve the match. He wanted better for his son, of course, and there were rumors about those two dead employers in Meg's past— no proof but plenty of speculation. Jasper didn't seem to pay it any mind. He didn't even flinch at the half-moon scar on her cheek bone, a mark left by one of the iron rings on Dame Glossop's foul-weather pattens.

  The village busybodies often reminded her that it was quite a compliment for Jasper, eldest son of a moderately successful merchant, to notice a fatherless maid-of-all-work with not a penny to her name and two dead bodies in her past. But Meg didn't need any reminder. She knew she was a wicked girl and he was far too good for her. Perhaps his goodness would rub off on her.

  So after church on Sundays she daringly let him hold her hand as they walked along the river bank, but invariably his wretched little brother would trail along after them, throwing fish heads and bait worms, or hide in a tree above, smacking his lips together loudly and laughing so hard he fell out of the branches. More than once she'd chased that naughty boy into the river Nene, but apparently a dousing was not enough to stop his teasing.

  "Don't pay heed to him," Jasper would say, trying to grip her distracted hand again. "The little bugger does it for attention."

  It was all well and good for him to say, but Jasper didn't have a vengeful temper or an imagination like Meg's. He'd never had to fight for his survival. Indeed, if he had a bit more raw passion about him, he might have swept her off her feet and made her heart beat faster. But, as it was, there was not much zeal in her suitor's veins. A placid fellow, he was content to follow in his father's steps, to live always in Twytchel-on-the-Nene and, mostly, do as he was bid. Others around him could create havoc if they chose, but he simply kept on walking, his head down, letting the fish heads bounce off. He looked down a lot, but since he walked the same path every day and it had already been worn out for him, he had no need to look ahead for dangers and obstacles in his way. He had no enemies, no experience of other folk trying to hurt him. He could have walked along with his eyes closed.

  Meg, on the other hand, kept her wits about her and her eyes busy.The only time she trained her gaze upon the ground for any lengthy spell was when she thought coin might have dropped from somebody's pocket.

  She decided Jasper deserved a better wife, not a wretched sinner like her. With her bad temper and knack for trouble she could bring him nothing but sorrow.

  Happiest with people, places and things he knew well, Jasper saw his life stretching onward into a fat, contented future with the same safe routine he had known forever. He cherished no desire to cut himself a new path. If it was sufficient for his father and many a Wallop before that, it was good enough for Jasper. But it was not enough for Meg of the Long Legs. Taking Master Cosgrove's advice to heart—even though it was never meant for her and he would be appalled to know she heard it— Meg would set out a path for herself.

  She had plans that didn't include Jasper, or Twytchel-on-the-Nene, and all she required to embark upon her great journey was an opportunity.

  Chapter Two

  Twenty years later

  Holbrooke House, Norfolk

  "My dear Albert, consult your conscience!"

  "My conscience, madam, is not a separate entity that requires independent consultation." The Marquess of Holbrooke did not look up as he addressed his stepmother, but kept his gaze fastened upon the dainty, solid silver cup, which had just been carefully set before him, clad in a miniature velvet bonnet. "My conscience is well acquainted with my loyalty and my duty," he added. "They are old friends, and each knows the other's hand."

  The butler, having carried that silver cup all the way from the kitchens and delivered this precious cargo to his lordship's table, now backed away reverently, head bowed. The marquess paused a moment, his fingers pinching the little gold tassel mounted atop the tiny bonnet.

  "And now perhaps I might be allowed to consume my breakfast."

  With somber ceremony he removed the cover to reveal a boiled egg— cooked, of course, to his exact specifications, and brought to him by hand, as it had been every day since he was three, to ensure it remained at the perfect temperature.

  "A boiled egg," he liked to say, "should never be left to chance."

  Always fascinated by this ritual, his stepmother endeavored to hide her amusement. She knew a chuckle would get her nowhere with Albert, for he had almost no sense of humor and was always very dignified, to the point, sometimes, of appearing moribund. She had stated before, in some frustration
, that he was the sort of man who would remain upright and resentful of an expression, even while slipping in a cowpat. Not that such an event, of course, would ever happen, no matter how fervently she schemed for it.

  But whenever she took an opposing view to his own— as she frequently did and especially, he had noted aloud before, when she joined them at breakfast— then Albert very nearly had to raise his voice. And he frequently ended up with a stain of some sort about his very tidy person.

  This morning, his father's widow had come all the way across the park, on foot, to spoil his morning repast by insisting upon his sister being allowed to choose her own husband. She watched as the marquess, who never let anybody choose anything for themselves if it could be avoided, struggled, in a tightly wound fashion, to stifle his temper. Breakfast and the boiling of an egg were not the only things Albert insisted upon controlling to avoid as many variables as possible.

  Unfortunately, although funeral dirges had more vivacity than the fourth Marquess of Holbrooke at this hour of the morning, it was often the only time she could catch him in, seated, and unable to make an immediate exit when he heard her approach. Not until he'd enjoyed his precious egg.

  "My dear!" she said again, her body twisted in the chair to face her stepson. "All I mean to say is that Lady Honoria deserves to be happy in matrimony. I may only be your stepmama, but I do not think it interfering, or over-stepping my bounds, to wish for her to be content. Surely, you would want the same."

  Grim-faced, the target of her entreaty sat like a tall, stout, silent tree trunk at the end of that long table, his eyes two round, dark, gloomy hollows, exposing a slowly decaying heartwood within the bark. Apparently he could not enjoy his boiled egg with any relish until she stopped talking, so his spoon remained poised in mid-air, the first crack yet to be administered with his usual firm swing. And she, suspecting he might agree with her reasoning, merely to be rid of her and get on with his egg, made the most of this chance.