Mr Fairclough's Inherited Bride. Georgie Lee

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      ‘That would be lovely, a nice shade of blue, perhaps.’ Mrs Parker eyed the room as if she’d had plans for it for some time and could at last set them in motion. Mary didn’t mind.

      ‘But no chintz. I detest chintz.’ Her father had made Foxcomb Hall awash in it.

      ‘So do I.’ Mrs Parker winked in solidarity, then looked about with a disapproving tut. ‘Let me see where that maid has got to with the water. I like the girl, but she’s gone too long without a proper lady to serve. It’s made her forgetful.’ Mrs Parker bustled out of the room in search of the errant pitcher and basin.

       A proper lady.

      Mary was surprised Mrs Parker had said so. She’d walked in on Mary crying over the last letter from Mary’s sister, Jane, and Mary had told her everything, needing a friend and the comfort that Ruth had once provided. Not since those first few weeks with Ruth had Mary felt so lonely and far from the family she once thought had loved her. Mrs Parker had proven as sympathetic as Ruth and Richard, not judging or blaming her for having been young and in love and too naive to understanding the consequences of her decisions. It gave her some hope that others in America would be as forgiving, but after her parents’ shameful behaviour, it was a thin hope.

      No one here besides those two will ever know. Richard had assured her that there were too many people with questionable histories of their own that they’d conveniently left behind when they’d come to the States to chase their dreams of success and freedom to worry about hers. Mary hoped that was true.

      Mary sat at the dressing table where her ribbons, sewing box, stationery and other personal effects had been arranged. These little things were the only effort she’d made to bring any of herself into the room. She moved aside a small book of poetry and studied the letter she’d written on the fine paper beneath it. It was to her mother and father to let them know where she was living, but, try as she might to finish it, seal it and send it, she couldn’t. They’d stopped caring about where she was or what she was doing four years ago. The only one who cared was Jane. Her letters sat tied with a blue ribbon in the top drawer, her longing to see her sister again and share everything that had happened since they’d last been together dripping from each finely formed word. These letters were the only thing Mary ever received from her family, from the only family member who had cared enough to defy their father to correspond with Mary.

      Mary took the thickest letter from Jane out of the drawer and opened it to read again about Jane’s wedding at St George’s London last year. Her sister described the cream satin of her dress, the fine lace of her train, the music, guests and every detail of the dishes served at the wedding breakfast. It was everything that would have been Mary’s if she hadn’t been so weak and stupid, if she’d followed her head instead of her heart. It was a mistake she would never make again.

      The jingle of equipage and the snort of horses on the kerb outside drew Mary to the window. She pushed aside the curtain to see the black-lacquered top of Mr Fairclough’s carriage glistening with the carriage lamps affixed to the sides. The front door opened, spilling light into the street as Mr Fairclough crossed the pavement with sure, firm steps that made the edges of his cape flutter. His head was bent down, tilting his top hat at an angle of contemplation made obvious when he stopped outside the carriage door to raise a hand in goodbye to Richard. It was the same motion Mary had made when bidding the servants at Ruth’s cottage goodbye after Mary had overseen the packing up, selling and dispersing of Ruth’s things according to her will. The rest had been sent on to Richard to be absorbed into the various rooms of his house. Every once in a while Mary noticed them, pausing to think that they shouldn’t be here, she shouldn’t be here but in the London Jane described.

      Fool. You were such a fool. She crumpled the letter and let a tear of anger and self-pity slip down her cheek before she roughly wiped it away. It all could have been different if she’d chosen better, but she hadn’t and it’d cost her everything: her family, her heart, her future, her life and all the things about it that she’d loved.

      Mary watched Mr Fairclough climb into the carriage. She could see nothing of him through the dark window at the back, but if even one of his thoughts turned to her and what Richard had suggested she hoped it was favourable. The driver snapped the reins and the clop of the horse’s hooves echoed off the cobbles as the vehicle carried him away. She’d listened to Mr Fairclough tonight speaking in her native accent about ideas and prospects, the future and plans for himself and the business, and she’d been impressed. She wanted to be like him, to come from nothing and make something of herself. Marriage to a man of his standing and potential could help her achieve that goal. If she put as much effort into herself and this matter as he did his railroads, the future she’d once imagined for herself could be hers again. She would be a married woman, even if she knew very little about the man she was setting her sights on.

      Not a difficult problem to rectify, she could hear Richard say, and it wasn’t.

      She hadn’t been expected to marry for love when she’d come out in England. There was no reason to allow love to be the guiding force in a match here either. After all, her parents had supposedly loved her, but they hadn’t hesitated to cast her out of their lives. Preston had sworn to love her, but he’d abandoned her the moment he’d had the chance. Only Ruth had loved her and death had stolen her away, leaving Mary to grieve as deeply as she had in that dirty inn on the lonely road to Gretna Green. Mary refused to allow love to guide her or to shatter her or her world again. Her last attempt at marriage had been the wild imaginings of a lovesick girl struck dumb by infatuation. Her next marriage would be one of sense and rational thought, of a partnership with a man she respected who could make her a true lady once again.

       Chapter Two

      December 1842

      ‘Here you are.’ Silas dusted and dried the ink of his signature and handed it across the desk to Mr Hachman, his man of affairs. Outside his office door, and down the stairs, the whir of machines in the Baltimore Southern machine shop made a steady hum, broken now and again by the metal clink of hammers pounding steel into the parts and pieces needed to build and maintain a railroad. This machine shop was the first of what Silas hoped would be many to come. Soon they and numerous station houses would dot the landscapes of Baltimore and cities across the States, helping ferry people and the mass of goods entering Baltimore’s ports up and down the coast.

      ‘Congratulations, Mr Fairclough, on your first delivery of steel railway tracks from your, I mean the Baltimore Southern’s, new foundry.’ Mr Hachman collected the signed papers and slid them into his leather portfolio. ‘The regular deliveries will keep the men employed here and on the tracks busy for ages.’

      ‘Good, for there are a great many men in need of jobs.’ The country hadn’t entirely recovered after the panic of 1837 and with cotton prices still low, there were many men in need of work. Silas and his railroad would give it to them. He touched the signet ring on his left little finger. His father had once accused Silas of not possessing a charitable enough spirit, of being greedy and grasping, but he wasn’t; he simply pursued charity in a different manner than his father. After all, there was nothing wrong with helping one’s self while helping others. It didn’t all have to be privation. ‘We’ll dominate the American market and never have our progress hampered by the Atlantic Ocean or foreign politics again.’

      ‘It is a grand day, Mr Fairclough, and a grand future for you and Mr Jackson.’

      ‘All we need now is the new English engine to haul more goods and people over our freshly laid tracks.’

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