The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark (34 page)

She saw me
, Julia thought.
But did she recognize me?
Surely if she had, she would have shown some sign. But then, Mrs. Somerville wouldn’t have expected to see her in Shrewsbury, and Julia herself had been known to stare past members of even her own family while deep in thought.

It seemed approaching her was the right thing to do. If Mrs. Somerville had indeed recognized her and was merely bashful, it would be snobbish to move on as if they had never made eye contact. Weaving her way over, Julia paused at her table. “Mrs. Somerville?”

The woman looked up again, and this time smiled. She was dressed in a becoming brown spring silk. “Why, Mrs. Phelps. How good to see you.”

“Thank you—and the same to you.”

“Will you join me?”

Julia smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”

A waiter appeared just as she had sat down in the opposite chair. Because Mrs. Somerville had occupied the table first, Julia waited for her to order. But the woman shook her head. “I ordered just before you came in.”

So you saw me after all
, Julia thought but kept her face impassive as she ordered creamed mushroom-and-leek soup and tea. And as she could think of no reason the woman would have to dislike her, she again attributed her looking away to bashfulness. “Have you been shopping?” Julia asked after the waiter left.

“Looking, mostly. And you?”

“The same. My husband had a tooth removed, and I was ordered not to collect him until noon.”

“Oh my.” Mrs. Somerville made a sympathetic face. “That sounds serious.”

“He was given enough chloroform to put him to sleep,” Julia replied. “So at least there’s no pain at the moment.”

“How are you going to get him home?”

“In our trap. When he wakes up, of course.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Somerville agreed.

“Please may we have our picnic now, Mr. Sanders?” Lester asked for the third time, when Harold and the Meeks brood were finally back on solid ground. “My stomach is making noises.”

“Well, fine then!” Harold snapped. To Mark, he ordered, “Fetch the hamper from the wagon. And stay out of the street.”

It’ll serve her right if they eat every last bit of it
, he told himself. When the boy had returned, dragging the hamper at his side, Harold found a spot under a fir tree, opened the lid, and passed out boiled eggs and sandwiches wrapped in brown paper. The crockery jug of lemonade could wait until after the food was finished. Even though Trudy assured him they could eat and drink at the same time, Harold didn’t want them making a mess of their clothes and giving Miss Clark a reason to think he wasn’t able to tend children. After all, women likely took note of such things when choosing husbands. Finally the little beggars had filled their stomachs, and Harold his. He took four tin mugs from the basket and poured lemonade.

“What will we do now?” Mark asked after returning the basket to the wagon.

“Yes, what will we do now, Mr. Sanders?” Trudy echoed.

Harold propped himself back on his elbows. “There’s naught to do but wait for Miss Clark and your sister.”

“But how will they get here?”

“Hire a carriage, most likely.”

“Have you a handkerchief?” Lester asked.

“Why?”

“We could play blindman’s buff.”

“Yes, let’s!” Trudy exclaimed.

Anything to keep them from pestering me
, Harold thought, leaning to one side to reach the bandana wadded in his back pocket. He reckoned he could buy his own farm today if he had a shilling for every question that had been put to him by the Meeks children.

“Will you play with us, Mr. Sanders?” Mark asked.

“No.”

Trudy’s gray eyes were pleading. “You can be first.”

“No.”
If you don’t get here soon, Miss Clark, I might just change my mind about marrying you
.

“Please…”

Harold motioned for them to leave him alone. “I don’t play games!” He hadn’t meant for his voice to come out so harsh, but he was tired of playing nanny. And the thought of facing Papa’s wrath for slipping away didn’t help.

But he had gone and barked at them, and now the children stood staring at him as though they were statues. Trudy’s lower lip even trembled. With a weary sigh he pushed himself to his feet. At least he didn’t know anybody in Shrewsbury, so there would be no one to laugh at him for wearing a blindfold and playing a children’s game.
And if anyone does, I’ll knock his head off
.

He realized he was frowning and eased his lips into a halfhearted smile. “Now, don’t go lookin’ at me like that,” he told the children. “I were just joking with you.”

Chapter 22

“I thought I would go mad from boredom, so I hired a carriage from the
Bow and Fiddle
,” Noelle confessed after the waiter had brought identical orders of soup with a server of buns and cups of tea. Now that the discomfort of spotting the vicar’s wife at the door and then having to offer to share her table had passed, she found herself relieved to have the company. It wasn’t that the
Larkspur
was lacking in that regard, but the only two women near her age were dreamy Miss Rawlins and the tediously perfect Mrs. Clay.

She had been too preoccupied to notice last Wednesday how attractive Mrs. Phelps was—and certainly well-preserved—to have a married daughter. Her burnished red hair—the sides drawn up into a straw hat trimmed with blue ostrich feathers—and fringe, curled above her eyebrows, contrasted her eyes so that they shone like green emeralds.

“It’s a pity we couldn’t have saved you the trouble and expense,” the vicar’s wife was saying while spreading butter on one of the rolls. “But we didn’t plan on ending up in Shrewsbury when we set out this morning.”

Noelle took a spoonful of the soup. It couldn’t hold a candle to Mrs. Herrick’s but was still warm and filling. “Are there no dentists in Gresham?”

“Mr. McFarley pulls most of the teeth. He’s the barber.” Mrs. Phelps smiled at Noelle’s look of horror. “We’re told he’s competent, but…”

“I understand,” Noelle assured her. “But what I still
don’t
understand is how you live like that, not when there are churches on practically every corner in the cities.” She remembered as the words left her mouth how Mrs. Phelps had said she had no choice in moving there. “Couldn’t your husband ask for a transfer?”

“Andrew?” After a moment, awareness cleared her puzzled expression. “Andrew had actually requested somewhere rural, but that’s another story. You see, Gresham is where we met. I had moved there with my three children six months earlier.”

“You mean he’s your…”

“Second husband, yes. I was widowed just before we left—” Holding her soup spoon poised over her bowl, Mrs. Phelps stopped abruptly, “Do forgive me.”

“For what?”

“I’m sure that’s not a pleasant subject for you.”

Why would I care if you were widowed?
Noelle then realized the vicar’s wife was referring to her own fictitious hero-husband. “Well, one must go on,” she said bravely. And curiosity compelled her to ask, “But I confess I still don’t understand. What
did
force you to move to Gresham?”

“Finances. Our London home was foreclosed after my husband’s death. The
Larkspur
was all we had.”

“I’m sorry.” She really meant it. “And you with three children.”

“Thank you. But you know, I treasure the lessons I learned during that time.”

“Lessons?”

A self-conscious smile curved Mrs. Phelps’s lips. “I was as shallow as a goose spiritually. Oh, I was a believer, but I sent prayers heavenward because I had been taught since childhood that it was what decent people did—not out of any desire for fellowship with God. And then when there was no one to take care of me, I began to realize how much I had taken for granted over the years. I saw how much I really needed Him. And His companionship and guidance became more important to me than even material provisions.”

That a vicar’s wife could be so transparent about any spiritual failings astounded Noelle. Her parents had striven hard to maintain auras of perfection, never relaxing their guard even in front of their own children—who were constantly reminded that they, too, must be examples.

“Forgive me,” Mrs. Phelps said. “I didn’t intend to go on and on. I’m just a bit anxious about my husband.”

“No, I was interested in hearing it,” Noelle told her. But she was morose
enough
about being banished from London—she didn’t care to be reminded of her own spiritual emptiness, so she artfully steered the subject back to more comfortable ground. “Speaking of your husband, I hope his recovery is swift. My brother had a tooth pulled when I was a girl, and it stayed swollen for days.”

“Oh dear. I didn’t think that far ahead, but surely he won’t be able to conduct services tomorrow.” Mrs. Phelps pushed up her sleeve to glance at a narrow gold watch, then looked up again. “Will you mind if I leave you? It’s a bit early still, but I should like to see about him.”

“Of course not,” Noelle replied, surprised to find herself a little disappointed at the loss of company.

The vicar’s wife took a florin from her velvet reticule to leave next to her half-filled bowl of soup. They said their farewells, and Mrs. Phelps wove her way back around tables now filled with patrons. Just as the door closed behind her, some odd impulse seized Noelle. She hastily left some money on the table and hurried through the cafe. Ahead on the walkway she could see the familiar royal-blue dress and auburn chignon showing beneath a straw hat.

“Mrs. Phelps?” she called when she had almost closed the gap between them.

The woman paused and turned, her expression puzzled. “Mrs. Somerville?”

Raising a hand to her chest while she caught her breath, Noelle asked, “May I be of any assistance?”

Mrs. Phelps smiled. “God must have sent you, Mrs. Somerville. I was just wondering if Andrew will be able to sit up in the trap.”

“Then let’s go, shall we?” Noelle urged when the other woman did not move.

“But I just remembered—what about the carriage you hired?”

“I’ll be back before he leaves Gresham.”
But I just may not tell Mr. Greedy-pockets
.

They walked together, turning the corner at High Street and arriving at a two-story red brick building connected to a row of other shops and businesses. The signboard boasted a white molar tooth about the size of a hatbox—hideous in Noelle’s opinion. The waiting parlor was empty, and after a moment of staring helplessly at an inside door, Mrs. Phelps suggested that they sit. “There were other patients here when I left. Mr. Beales may be with one now.”

Mrs. Phelps seemed in no state to chat now, and she kept glancing at the back door as if she were second-guessing her decision to stay put. After ten or so minutes Noelle assured her, “Your husband will be out shortly. It’s as you said, the dentist is tending someone else.”

Turning a grateful smile to her, Mrs. Phelps replied, “Thank you, Mrs. Somerville. Now I
know
you were sent by God.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Noelle told her. She wished God wouldn’t keep cropping up into their conversations.

The back door opened and two men came through it—neither was Vicar Phelps, but it was easy to tell which one was the patient, for the shorter of the two held a handkerchief to his mouth. He gave a muffled reply to the taller man’s farewell and made for the front door.

“Your husband is just now stirring, but I believe he can walk,” the dentist said while approaching Mrs. Phelps, now on her feet.

“May I take him home? I’m sure he’d rather be in his own bed, and our children have no idea where we are.”

“Is your carriage out front?”

Mrs. Phelps replied that it was, and the dentist asked her to wait there before disappearing through the doorway again. He returned three minutes later. Vicar Phelps, at his side, was indeed walking, but appeared unsteady on his feet and liable to topple over any minute. A strip of white cloth was wound tightly around his head from chin to the crown, the ends tied off at the top and comically resembling a girl’s hair ribbon. In his right cheek something bulged.