Travel bag in hand, she stepped out of her bedroom before glancing back one last time. She would never sleep in this room again. It was another final goodbye.
“Come on, Mary. If you keep this up, you will be here all day. You cannot say farewell to every single room and object,” she muttered.
She indulged in one final tour of the apartment. She had cleaned her father’s study earlier in the week, and shed a million tears as she did so, grateful that Hugh had been too busy to visit that day.
Hugh.
He had been her father’s star pupil. A man destined for greatness in the Church of England, perhaps someday even becoming the Archbishop of Canterbury. With the Duke of Strathmore as his older brother, Hugh Radley had enough connections and talent to make that a reality.
Mary set her bag down and then collected the empty cups and plates from where her visitors had left them, taking them over to the washbowl near the fire. After washing and drying them, she carefully placed them on a nearby shelf.
For some inexplicable reason she left Hugh’s cup for last. She washed it in the warm soapy water, and then held it. She pretended to herself that it was still warm from when Hugh had last touched it. She raised it to her lips and kissed the cup where she knew his lips had been.
So close, yet so far away.
It was a simple coffee cup with a red, gold, and blue mosaic pattern on white china. It was a one-of-a-kind in her home. Nearly every day for the past two and a half years she had made Hugh a cup of coffee in it and brought it to him as he studied late into the night.
Mary chuckled softly. Hugh liked his coffee thick and mud-like. No sugar, and just a dash of milk. The cup would sit untouched for hours while Hugh and her father engaged in long philosophical discussions, often only being finally drained when the coffee had long gone cold.
Opening her bag, she pulled out a woolen scarf and wrapped it around the cup. She would keep it as a memento of all those wonderful days.
When Hugh returned to Cambridge after Christmas, she would meet him somewhere else in the town and patiently wait for him to tell her of his exciting plans for the future. She would share the news of her own changed circumstances as a mere afterthought, something to be noted and then never mentioned again.
She carefully placed the cup into her bag. Then with one final tearful look, she bid farewell to the only home she had ever known. “Time to go, Mary Gray. Time to put the past behind you.”
She closed the door of the rooms for the last time and locked it. After returning the key to the groundkeeper’s office, she crossed over the cloisters and headed toward the main entrance of St John’s College. It took all her willpower not to look back, not to cry.
Thank God Hugh was not there to see her leave.
Chapter Four
“Oh, blast,” muttered Hugh.
He put his hand back into his travel bag one more time and rummaged around, but his prayers were not answered. The book was nowhere to be found. He had already emptied and repacked his leather satchel twice in his desperate search; the travel bag had been his last hope. He slumped back on the bench and huffed with frustration. Yet again, he had misplaced something.
“What’s the matter?” asked Adelaide. She held a sleeping William in her arms, the infant having dozed off after his mother had fed him at the college.
Charles held out his hands and took his son from her. Will did not stir as his father tucked him into the crook of his arm.
“I had a book on ecclesiastical law that I needed to study while I was in Scotland. I must have left it behind in my room,” Hugh replied.
“If it is important, could you perhaps secure a copy in Edinburgh?” asked Charles.
Hugh shook his head. “It’s a Church of England lawbook. Edinburgh comes under the Church of Scotland. I doubt very much if I would be able to find a copy in Edinburgh. I’m sorry to have to ask this of you both, but I need that book.”
Adelaide gave him a sisterly, knowing look. Hugh had a long history of losing things, finding them again, and then losing them once more.
“Well at least we are not far from Cambridge. It won’t take us too long to return and collect it,” replied Adelaide.
Charles covered his son’s ears as Hugh stood and rapped on the roof of the coach. To the relief of all, the sleeping Will did not stir. After giving quick instructions to the driver, Hugh sat down in his seat and gave a sigh of relief as the coach made a turn in the road and headed back toward Cambridge.
“I think I know exactly where I left it. I swear I picked it up three times this morning, intending to put it in my bag,” he eventually said.
He raked his fingers through his hair, frustrated and a little more than angry with himself. He had set the book down when Mary had given him the Christmas gift. The book was still on top of a pile of marked exam papers in Professor Gray’s old rooms.
Once they reached St John’s College, Hugh jumped down from the coach. “I won’t be long. I shall say a brief, polite hello and goodbye again to Mary, then be back.”
He hurried across the grounds, through the cloisters, and with a quick knock on the door, took hold of the handle.
The handle did not budge. He rattled it several times, thinking it must be stuck. When it finally dawned on him that the door was indeed locked, he frowned. The Grays rarely, if
