The Widow of Larkspur Inn (13 page)

He stopped to give her an apologetic smile. “I’ve gone and frightened you now, haven’t I? Well, I wouldn’t worry, Mrs. Hollis. Most folks will be too polite to mention Jake Pitt to you. And once it becomes obvious that no disasters have befallen you and your children, I’m sure they’ll forget about him.”

Julia felt somewhat relieved. “Should I tell my children?”

He thought this over for several seconds, then nodded. “They’ll surely hear something about old Jake at school Monday. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.”

After a lunch of another batch of Henrietta Wilson’s roast beef sandwiches, Vicar Wilson proposed that Julia and her family should have a grand tour of Gresham. “Surely you can take an hour away from work to learn about your new home, can’t you?”

Julia wasn’t sure if the excitement on her children’s faces was because of an interest in Gresham, or because they would have an hour away from their cleaning chores. Either way, she had no recourse but to agree. Besides, she was curious about the village as well.

Since the vicar’s trap wasn’t large enough to hold everyone, Luke, who had been pulling vines and scraping moss from the outside walls, was dispatched to the iron foundry to borrow a wagon. The gardener was back half an hour later with a wagon and team of English blacks. He obviously had also taken some of that time to change his clothes and slick back his dark hair with water. Julia thought this a bit odd for just a wagon ride through the village … until she caught the glance he sent in Fiona’s direction.

He’s smitten with her
, Julia thought, smiling to herself.
It would be wonderful if Fiona found a husband here
. It then occurred to Julia that if she could wish such a thing for Fiona, then she herself must not have soured completely toward marriage.
At least not for others
, she amended. She would certainly not be interested in placing her security and her children’s in the hands of another man. What if he turned out to live a lie, just like Philip?

After gathering bonnets, shawls, and coats, for the late-March air still carried a nip, Luke helped everyone into the wagon. “Here you go, Miss O’Shea,” he said to Fiona, though Henrietta and Julia stood closer to the wagon in the carriage drive. Julia exchanged an amused glance with the vicar’s daughter while Luke managed to escort Fiona to the space directly behind the driver’s box. No doubt he would have put her on the box beside him if the vicar’s joints could have tolerated sitting in the back.

Fiona responded to this attention with politeness but did not return the flirtation, bringing back to Julia’s mind the things she’d overheard from the other servants back in London. “She must have a sweetheart back in Ireland,” Alice had once said.

But Julia wondered if there could be another reason for Fiona’s coolness toward men. Just as Philip’s actions had left her with no desire to ever marry again … had some past hurt affected Fiona’s feelings about marriage?
Is that why she left Ireland with little more than the clothes upon her back?

As the wagon started moving down the carriage drive, Julia sent a wave to the Worthy sisters across the lane and turned her thoughts toward her new home. Whatever had happened to any of them in the past, Gresham was their present and future. She would embrace the village as if her own ancestors had once walked the cobbled and dirt roads, and try to help Fiona do the same.

As Luke drove the team of horses at a leisurely pace, Vicar Wilson conducted the tour from beside him, turning often to point out this cottage or that quaint shop. Each cottage garden was a riot of color; early tulips, crimson, white, pink, bronze, and purple, vied with yellow daffodils and white narcissus. Polyanthus and the stiff crown imperials added their bit to the charming picture. Wild yellow jonquils and multicolored primroses grew in abundance along the lanes, attended by humming bees and flitting butterflies. Red stone farmhouses with mossy or thatched roofs could be seen nestled among the low hills in the north, where black-and-white Friesian cattle grazed.

Julia committed to memory every lane the vicar pointed out and soon began to understand the way Gresham was laid out. The village reposed tidy along the willow-lined River Bryce, with its village green, main roads, and businesses to the south of the river, the cheese factory and pastures to the north. Market Lane, upon which the
Larkspur
sat, was the only road that crossed the river. According to the vicar, the stone bridge had been widened twenty years ago to accommodate carrier wagons from the cheese factory.

Running east to west and intersecting Market Lane, Church Lane was the second oldest road in the village. Newer roads—but still decades old—included Walnut Tree Lane, Thatcher Lane, Short Lane, and Bartley Lane.

Every villager they passed raised a face to stare curiously, sometimes followed with a lift of the hand for the vicar. As the team pulled the wagon back up Church Lane on its way back to the inn, Julia looked to her right and caught sight of a half-dozen women gathered at the pump on the green. They looked up from their gossip and buckets to stare at the passing wagon. Some rested fists on their hips, resembling two-handled mugs. Julia risked sending them a smile and wave of the hand and was relieved when at least half returned the gesture.
This is going to be home one day. It may take some time, but it’s going to happen.

Trumbles
, a stone building on the corner of Market and Thatcher Lanes across from the
Bow and Fiddle,
was like no shop Philip had ever seen. Multifarious as a bazaar, it boasted shelves from floor to ceiling with merchandise on display from tools to tooth powder, cloth to candy, teapots to timepieces. And to the left of the doorway was another counter with shelves divided in dozens of slots, for the shopkeeper also served as Gresham’s postmaster. Philip saw no sign of a safe, though smaller print etched underneath
Trumbles
on the signboard in front had stated that banking could be done at the establishment as well. He reckoned that the curtained doorway behind the counter contained the safe. Or did the shopkeeper/postmaster/banker just store the money in a dresser? Perhaps people were more honest here than in the city, he told himself.
You couldn’t get away with that in London
.

A tall man was stacking boxes of matches on a shelf behind the merchandise counter when Philip walked up to it. The man glanced over his shoulder, then became of average height as he stepped down from a short stool. Philip had a feeling that this was Mr. Trumble himself—the thinning blond hair, drooping walrus mustache, and round, friendly face seemed to match the name somehow.

“And what might I do for you today, young fellow?” the shopkeeper asked, smiling.

“Are you Mr. Trumble?”

“I am indeed. And who might you be?”

“Philip Hollis. We just moved into—”

“The
Larkspur
?”

“How did you know?”

Mr. Trumble tapped his temple with a finger. “It’s what you call conductive reasoning, my young friend. A new family moves into the inn, and then the next day there’s a new face in my shop.”

“Don’t you mean …” Philip started to say, then clamped his mouth shut before
deductive
could come out. Hadn’t Mother just told him last night that people were more impressed with kindness than with knowledge? Producing his list, he said instead, “I mean, my mother would like these things, if you have them.”

“Soap cakes, lamp mantles, iron …” the man mumbled, then looked up at Philip. “My, that’s quite an order. Think you can pack all that, or should I send it round in the cart later?”

Philip drew himself up to his full height of five feet. “I can carry it.”

“Now, that’s the spirit, lad.”

While Mr. Trumble filled the order, Philip looked at the shelves of merchandise in front of him. His eyes immediately fastened upon a wooden box on a lower shelf containing some familiar-looking round objects.

“Are those marbles?” he asked the next time Mr. Trumble looked up from the list.

“Yes, but they aren’t for sale. I’m all out of the other kind, but I expect them in next week. You can look at those if you like.”

“Yes, please. Thank you.” The box was set before him, and Philip picked up one of the marbles. It was of clear glass, dark with age, and marred by a tiny chip on the surface. There were dozens like it—some chipped, and a handful with flawless surfaces. Still others appeared to be made of clay, but so hard that he couldn’t make a dent with a fingernail.

“Came from the ruins atop the Anwyl,” the proprietor said with his back to Philip. “I found a few when I was a boy like yourself and started savin’ them.”

“You mean they’re Roman?”

“And older than you and me put together, with the vicar thrown in for good measure.” Mr. Trumble gave him a sidelong look and added, “No disrepent intended, of course. The vicar’s a good sort, he is.”

Philip closed his fingers around one of the bits of glass and tried to imagine a toga-clad boy his own age playing with the very same marble. And now that boy was long dead, his bones turned to dust. Could he have imagined that centuries later a British boy would hold that very same marble in his hand? The thought gave him a deliciously morbid shiver, and he wondered who would be handling his chess set centuries from now.

“Like ’em, do you?” Mr. Trumble asked over the stack of goods he had gathered.

“I’ve never seen anything like them.”

“Going to take ’em down to the British Museum and make a fortune one day.” He bent down to tap his knee. “Only … this leg can’t take the Anwyl no more. Got kicked by a horse ten years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Philip said, wincing sympathetically.

“Oh, it doesn’t pain me any. Just can’t make the hill. But children bring ’em to me once in a while and trade ’em for sour balls.”

“They trade these for
candy
?”

The mustache widened with a grin. “Candy’s a rare treat for some of the little ones. And I tell ’em what I plan to do with the marbles, so there ain’t any inception on my part. You should go search some out for yourself, if you’re interested.”

“You mean
anyone
can look for them?”

“Anyone without a lame leg, that is.” Soon the shopkeeper had the order packed neatly in a soap box. Philip handed over the money his mother had given him, pocketed the change, and thanked the shopkeeper for allowing him to look at the marbles.

“Any time, Mr. Hollis. Are you
sure
you don’t want me to send it on later?”

“No thank you,” Philip grunted, hoisting the box in his arms.

Mr. Trumble came around the counter to open the door. “You tell your mother I put an extra cake of soap in there, on account of you bein’ new customers. Compliments of
Trumbles
.”

“Thank you,” Philip said again.

As he trudged home with his load, he found himself wondering if the shopkeeper had any children. A twinge of envy passed through him at the thought. What must it be like to have a father who actually seemed to have time to converse with children instead of giving them a pat on the head every so often? If only his father had been more like Mr. Trumble.

Father saved people’s lives!
he reminded himself, suddenly ashamed of his disloyalty. How many boys could make the same boast?

But he could also recall days at a time when his father did not come home until he and his sisters were asleep. Oh, he’d understood that there were many ailing people that Father had to help, but even on the brief times that they were together, it seemed that his father was distracted. By what, Philip had no idea, but he’d always felt a resentment toward the vague enemy that positioned itself between a father and his own children.

Perhaps it was this resentment that had kept him dry-eyed at the funeral, even as his mother and sisters wept. Or perhaps, he thought now, it was because he had spent years grieving the loss of his father. The grave was just another excuse for not being at home.