Gone
Southampton
April 9, 1912
Meg
Meg’s dreams had morphed into nightmares, as if her unconscious mind wanted her to remember the events of the day before. She dreamt of her mother standing in the doorway screaming at her, saying she’d ruined everything, of the awful things her uncle had said, and finally of sinking in ice cold water, spindle fingers grasping at her ankle. When she awoke, the sun was already up, and Kelly was sitting on the edge of her bed, a worried expression on her face.
“What time is it?” Meg asked, her eyes not yet focused.
“Nearly nine,” Kelly said, a bit of relief washing over her countenance. “I tried to wake you, but you wouldn’t budge.”
Meg yawned, but stretching hurt too much, and she didn’t want Kelly to see her wince, so she sat up carefully. There was no reason for Kelly to know what had happened, not yet anyway, and since she was already feeling much better than she had the day before, she was hopeful she could pull off the charade. “When did you get back?”
“A few hours ago,” Kelly answered. “I was due back, and since you never showed up yesterday, I was beginning to worry. What happened?”
There was no way she could answer that question without bursting into tears, so Meg sidestepped it instead. “Ezra wanted to say goodbye to his father. So he did. And then, my mother found out I had missed the ball.”
“Oh, no!” Kelly interjected. “Is that where that bruise came from?”
Meg’s hand instinctively flew to the side of her face. “Is it bad?”
“No, it’s mostly in your hairline, but I noticed,” Kelly said. She slid over on the bed and forced Meg to turn her head so she could look at it. “Did she hit you with something?”
“I think her ring caught,” Meg replied, finally pulling away. “Anyway, everything is ruined for sure now. We need to just slip out and go.”
“What about Charlie?” Kelly asked, the expression on her face giving voice to her hesitation.
“He stopped by yesterday, and my mother told him to come back today. Kelly, I can’t be here when he arrives. My mother and uncle would like nothing more than for me to marry him so that they can have his money, and I won’t be their pawn.”
“But doesn’t Charlie want to marry you?”
“I don’t know. But if he knew what he was getting, he wouldn’t,” Meg replied. “Besides,” she added, her mind slipping to thoughts of happier times, “Ezra does, too. I’m disappointed that he didn’t help me yesterday when I got into it with my mother and uncle, but perhaps he was just frightened.”
“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Kelly said, shaking her head.
“Kelly, he really does love me. I know he wants to go with us so that we can be together. He just doesn’t understand exactly what it entails yet to be a proper husband. I’m sure, once we get to America, he can learn….”
“He’s gone.”
Meg froze, mid-sentence. “He’s what?”
“Gone,” Kelly repeated, dropping her eyes from Meg’s shocked face.
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know. I came in this morning, and Tessa said that he had lit out of here last night. Told his father goodbye and left.”
Unable to believe her ears, Meg stared down at her hands for a moment, trying to wrap her mind around what Kelly was saying. Certainly, she’d been upset at him for not helping her. She wasn’t even sure she loved him anymore. But she was willing to give him another chance. After all, they’d pledge themselves to one another, and that meant everything to her. Tears began to fill her eyes, and not wanting Kelly to see her cry, she wiped them away before they could even roll down her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Meg,” Kelly said, wrapping her in her arms.
“No, it’s okay,” Meg said, wiggling free. “I’m just… surprised. That’s all.”
“Well, there’s more,” her friend began, her voice still cautious. Meg looked at her expectantly, and Kelly continued. “He took Charlotte with him.”
Dumbfounded, Meg stared at her friend’s freckled face for a long bit before she finally muttered an expletive under her breath.
“I know,” Kelly agreed. “If I ever see him again, I’ll kick him in the privates so hard, he’ll be peeing out his eyebrows.”
Even as irate as she was, picturing such a thing made Meg giggle, and then her laughter turned to tears of anger and frustration, and Kelly held her for a long while as she cried in exhaustion and disbelief.
After a bit, Meg finally pulled herself together and said, “Well, we still need to go before Charlie gets here. Is my mother about?”
“When I came up, she was out and your uncle was allegedly at work,” Kelly replied. “Where’s the bag? The one with my old dress in it?”
“I left it in the motor coach,” Meg realized.
“That’s a problem,” Kelly muttered, her hand resting on her chin in thought.
“Why is that?”
“Because Ezra stole the car.”
Meg could only shake her head. “Don’t you have another dress in your room I could borrow, once we get to the hotel?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Kelly nodded. “I do believe we should all be third class passengers, though. You know there will be a lot of high society people on this maiden voyage.”
“I know. All right. Help me put on a traveling gown for now. The boat doesn’t leave until tomorrow. Surely, we can hide out in a hotel for one day without being caught.”
“I should hope so,” Kelly replied as she helped Meg get dressed. She did her best to make her look simple and plain so as not to draw any attention to them.
Once she was dressed and ready to go, Meg asked, “Do you see my pink pocket book anywhere? The new one?”
Kelly helped her look for the bag for quite some time before they finally found it on the floor under the dresser. Meg wasn’t surprised to find that it was empty. “I wonder if Charlotte stole my money this morning or if Ezra took it when we were in the carriage house?”
“Either way, it’s gone,” Kelly shrugged, almost as disappointed as Meg.
“I have all of those coins,” Meg remembered. “Perhaps we can find a place to trade them in?”
Kelly helped her draw her hatbox down from the top shelf, and as she did so, all of the letters from Charlie fell to the ground. While Kelly collected the coins, Meg stooped and picked them up, looking at each of them, and wondering what her life might have been like if she’d agreed to be Mrs. Charles Ashton. Now, she would never know.
“All right, love, we’re all ready to go,” Kelly said as she dropped the last of the coins into a bag along with a few necessities Meg might need.
She carefully placed the letters back on the shelf and then stepped out of the way so that Kelly could put the hatbox away. Her pink robe caught her eye, and for a moment, she remembered the Christmas her mother had given it to her. She’d thought, perhaps, that day had opened a new chapter for them, that they would be proper mother and daughter from that point on. Even though that had not worked out, the robe was a reminder of what might have been, and Meg picked it up and shoved it into her bag.
Meg took one last look around her room; she wouldn’t miss it one bit.
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