The first time she had realized that the documents she wrote and changed for Archie were not done in play, but real, and had real consequences, she had gone in tears to Barbara. “It is wrong,” she’d said. “It is a sin, like stealing, and I will be punished for it.”
Barbara had held her, and dried her eyes. “My work’s a sin as well, but it is only work, and it is what we need do to put bread on our table. Ye think that the men in high places, the men in our government who make the laws, never break them? They cloak it in righteousness, but aye, they murder and steal, and their sins are far blacker than yours,” Barbara promised her. “God kens your heart, Lily. Give him your prayers and be good in all other ways. He will forgive ye.”
Lily knew He’d have much to forgive.
By the time she had finished her work on the will, Matthew was nearing the end of his chapter.
He and Maggie were reading their way through The History of the Most Renowned Don Quixote of La Mancha: And His Trusty Squire Sancho Panza—a newer English edition that was richly illustrated with engravings.
As he finished reading, Maggie sighed, her eyes upon the picture. “But she wasn’t a real princess, she was just a maid.”
“He fought for her, regardless,” Matthew said.
“I still wish she had been a princess.”
Matthew smiled. “Perhaps she was, in secret.”
Maggie brightened. “Truly?”
“Aye. In life,” he told her, “nothing is impossible.” He closed their book and gave it to her. “Here, you put that back, and fetch the red one from the shelf beside it. No, the taller red one. That’s my lass. Now, what date was that published?”
Maggie turned the pages. “It’s in funny numbers.”
“Roman numerals,” Matthew said. “And you can read them, don’t pretend you can’t. I taught you.” Patiently, he waited while she worked them through.
She told him, “Sixteen eighty-eight.”
“And what year were you born, then?”
“Sixteen eighty-nine.”
“Right.” Matthew took the red book from the little girl and in an expert motion tore out one of the blank end pages. “So now you have a paper of the proper age,” he said to Maggie. “Some papers have marks on if you hold them to the light, so you can’t use one that was made after the date you’re needing. Now you only need to add the writing.”
Archie commented, “And what now would ye have me do when someone else does need that page?”
But Barbara looked up from her cards and told him drily, “I doubt ye’ll have many clients who are ages with our Maggie.”
Matthew passed the little girl the page. “Take that to Lily. She’ll make you a princess.”
They all partly had a hand in it, for Lily wrote the body of the document, but Simon aged the edges of it, Walter bore it witness, as did Barbara, and Henry—who did special work with wax—designed a seal fit for the kingdom of their Princess Maggie’s birth.
Even Archie grudgingly agreed the end result was something beautiful. He petted Maggie’s head and said, “Now off with ye to bed and keep it safe. And all the rest of ye, stop wasting my supplies.”
Not all the documents they worked upon were fraudulent or false.
Archie was a notary, and as such he served those who were respectable as well, and performed duties that were legal.
Late in February, a new client turned up on their doorstep. Walter showed him in, since Archie had gone out with Simon on another errand.
Lily had been helping Maggie with her writing lessons in the front room, but she stood when Walter and the visitor came in.
She recognized him straightaway. He had changed little in the ten years since she’d seen him at Jean’s wedding.
Thomas Gordon would now be just shy of thirty, she decided, and his features had grown firmer in their contours, but his eyes were just as blue as she recalled them being, and his smile was just as quick to charm.
He did not know her. Even when they had been briefly introduced and he had bowed, his gaze passed over her to Maggie and she realized she had not made an impression when they’d met. And she had changed. She was no more the little girl who’d sat with Jamie on the barrel at the penny wedding, cracking walnuts with the tool that Gordon used for his ship’s navigation while he told her life was for the living.
“That’s a bonny name,” he said to Maggie. “One of my best ships is named the Margaret.”
Maggie’s eyes became too large for Lily’s liking. Lily did not trust men who showed such attention to young girls. She said, “Ye will excuse us.”