The Widow of Larkspur Inn (39 page)

But to his relief she accepted, however unenthusiastically, and fetched a wrap from upstairs. He pulled two golden pears from the tree just outside the back gate and handed one to her on the way. The Bryce stretched out north of the vicarage, and for a long time they stood on the upper bank between two willows and watched the activity at the cheese factory on the other side. It appeared that several red-and-white carrier wagons had returned from the train station in Shrewsbury with empty barrels, which were being hauled up by a pulley into the overhanging gable. Each barrel nosed open the trap door and fell with a loud
clap!
behind them.

“The cheeses are delivered to nearly all parts of England, according to Mr. Sykes,” Andrew said by way of starting conversation, as if she hadn’t been seated at the same table and heard the same information herself.

“Is that so?” she said with no hint of sarcasm.

Andrew realized her thoughts had been occupied elsewhere during dinner. Upon whom, he did not wish to speculate. Deciding to get right to the point, he said, “I should begin paying calls tomorrow. Why don’t you consider accompanying me?”

“Accompany you?” She threw her pear core over to a rook sauntering along the lower bank. “But why, Papa? I never did in Cambridge.”

“You were occupied with schooling then.”

“Are people here expecting me to come with you?”

“I don’t know that, Beth, but I wouldn’t ask you to do anything just because people are expecting it. I believe it would be good for you to become acquainted with the villagers. And it would give you less time to brood over the past.”

When she protested right away that she wasn’t brooding, he amended with “
dwelling
upon the past,” though in his mind he could see no difference.

“Are you ordering me to come with you, Papa?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“Then I would rather stay at the vicarage.” She did not say
at home.
Then, as if concerned that she’d hurt his feelings, she offered him a strained smile. “Perhaps some other time.”

Her attention was drawn to three rooks scrutinizing the ground where she’d thrown the pear core earlier, and Andrew studied her.
So like her mother,
he thought, even though she had inherited his blond hair. Would to God that Kathleen were here now. A mother would more fully understand what her daughter was feeling and be able to offer a more soothing consolation.

But you understand loss,
a voice reminded him.

“Elizabeth,” he began haltingly.

She turned to him. “Yes, Papa?”

How could he put into words the feelings he had held inside for so long? But it seemed he had no choice. “When your mother passed away … I wanted to die myself.”

Her brown eyes took on a liquid sheen. “You loved her very much, didn’t you?”

“More than I can tell you. She was more than a helpmate, Beth. She was my dearest friend.”

With a somber nod, she asked, “How did you cope, Papa?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “For a while, I didn’t. I blamed God, blamed myself, and blamed anyone else who happened to have the privilege of living. Perhaps I would still be doing so … who knows?

But I had two daughters to consider and knew I could ill afford the luxury of extended grief. So I asked God to give me some renewed purpose for my life.”

“And He did?”

“Not right away. Or more likely, I didn’t recognize it right away. But eventually, I found that I had a deeper appreciation of my remaining family and my ministry. When I gave up dwelling upon my own misery and absorbed myself with the lives of those around me, the peace that I was lacking returned.”

After a space of silence she threaded her arm through his. “Are you happy, Papa?”

He patted her hand. “Yes, Beth. But don’t you see? When we pursue happiness for its own sake, it’s like chasing the end of a rainbow. It will always elude us. It is when we’re committed to some higher purpose that happiness somehow breaks through and comes to dwell with us.”

Giving her a self-conscious smile, he said, “I sound as if I’m in the pulpit, don’t I.”

“A bit,” she smiled back. “It’s not the first time.”

“Habit of the trade. But do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I do, in my head.” Her eyes became liquid again. “But my heart still feels like it’s dying.”

Reaching into his waistcoat pocket for a handkerchief, he wiped her cheek with it. “And it will continue to feel that way as long as you keep thinking about him.”

“I need some time. You had time to grieve over Mother.”

“But your mother wasn’t a scoundrel,” came out of his mouth before he could stop himself. The change in her expression was immediate, for she now stared at him with lips pressed together tightly.

Andrew put a hand upon her shoulder and felt it stiffen. “Beth, I shouldn’t have—”

“Yes, Father, Jonathan was a scoundrel. And so that means I’ve no right to feel hurt?”

“No, of course not.” Anger rose in Andrew’s chest—at the man who had so smoothly trifled with his daughter’s affections, and at Elizabeth, for even having loved him in the first place. The level of his voice rose a fraction. “But I do wish you would have enough selfrespect to forget about him and get on with your life.”

In the short silence after he spoke, Andrew held his breath and waited for the eruption he knew was coming. Elizabeth worked her crimson-splotched face in a struggle to keep composure, then finally turned and dissolved into tears against his shoulder.

“There, there now.” While she wept, he patted her back awkwardly, wishing back the years when his daughters’ hurts were the results of less-critical issues such as a failed examination, a misplaced locket, or a blemish on the chin. Those hurts could usually be soothed away by such paternal consolation. He felt utterly helpless now. He could say comforting words from now until Christmas, but none had the power to wrench Jonathan Raleigh out of her wounded heart.

Chapter 23

“Why are you still so sleepy, Philip?” Julia asked the boy after his third yawn over his plate of bacon and eggs the next morning. On school days they breakfasted at the kitchen table, as in their “prelodger” days. The children had to leave early, and there was no sense in making the maids bring food to the dining room twice. “Didn’t you sleep well?”

He covered another yawn while replying, “Yes, Mother.”

“Perhaps he needs a good strong dose o’ liver tonic,” Mrs. Herrick suggested from atop her stool at the other end of the table, where she rolled out scones for the lodgers’ breakfast. “You can get a pint for sixpence over to Mr. Trumble’s. ’Course you’d have to keep it away from Miss Grace, or she’ll be pourin’ it over her head.”

This was said with an affectionate look at the youngest child, for Grace, a frequent visitor to the kitchen, was obviously Mrs. Herrick’s favorite. Grace colored a little, but when she realized everyone was smiling at the notion, she ducked her head and smiled.

It took Aleda to break the spell, for she said casually, while toying with her fork and coddled eggs, “I would be sleepy too if I woke up at five o’clock.”

“Aleda!” the boy hissed.

“Well, Mother
asked
.”

“But she didn’t ask
you
.”

“That’s enough!
Both
of you.” Julia took a deep breath to compose herself and turned to Philip again. “And why did you wake so early?”

Letting out a sigh that sounded suspiciously like another yawn, Philip replied, “I had to finish my homework.”

“Didn’t you finish last night?”

“I did, but I woke up worried that my composition wasn’t good enough.”

“Wasn’t
well
enough, you mean,” Grace corrected while tearing her bacon into tiny bits to sprinkle over her eggs. “Miss Hillock says you shouldn’t say ‘good.’”

“I doubt that very much,” said Aleda.

“But she did.”

“In what context?” Philip asked, his blue eyes intent upon his youngest sister, as if she’d made the most profound statement he’d ever heard.

Aware that the boy was attempting to keep the conversation steered away from himself, Julia buttered a scone and allowed the grammar lesson to continue.

Grace stopped tearing bacon pieces and stared blankly across at Philip.

“I mean, what was Miss Hillock talking about when she told that to the class?” he asked.

The child screwed up her face for a second, then answered, “She said if someone should ask how you are doing, you should answer, ‘I’m quite well, thank you,’ and never just ‘good.’”

“But that doesn’t mean you mustn’t ever use the word.” Aleda launched into a lecture about the correct usage of good and well, while Philip seized that opportunity to push away his empty plate.

“That was delicious,” he said to Mrs. Herrick, then asked Julia if he might be excused. She smiled and shook her head.

“If you will recall, I looked over your composition last night.” The subject of the three-page assignment was to be
My Most Interesting Day
, and Philip had penned a lively account of the balloon races at Brighton two years ago. He went even further to explain in succinct terms the workings of a hot-air balloon. “I thought it was a fine paper.”

The boy shook his head. “I began too many sentences with dependent clauses. You’re supposed to vary your sentence structure, you know.”

Julia didn’t know how to respond to this. It was good that he cared about maintaining good marks.
Or would that be “well”?
But he seemed to be carrying it a bit too far. How she envied families with fathers intact! Her husband may have been absent most of the time, but he was someone with whom she could share her concerns about the children—even though he had laughed most of them away.

It was on her lips to ask if this quest for perfection had anything to do with coming in second behind the new vicar’s daughter on an examination yesterday. Aleda and Helen had giggled about it at the kitchen table after school yesterday, until Julia silenced them with a warning look. Philip had a competitive streak, true, but surely a difference of one point on an examination hadn’t ruffled his feathers. “Well, you need your sleep, son,” she finally told him before granting him permission to leave the table. “So don’t be slipping out of bed so early anymore.”

“I won’t.” Looking relieved that the interrogation was over, he left the room to clean his teeth and fetch his book. When the girls had finished breakfast and all three children had left for school, Julia asked Mrs. Herrick if she would have time today to bake something she could bring to the new vicar’s family. She thought she would ask Fiona to accompany her to the vicarage after lunch for a brief welcome call. She would never forget how welcome Reverend Wilson and Henrietta had made her family feel when they first moved to Gresham. The vicar would have his church and parishioner responsibilities to occupy his time, but no doubt Mrs. Phelps was feeling a little like a fish out of water.

“The vicarage already has Mrs. Paget, so something sweet would be more appropriate than a meal dish … don’t you think?” she asked Mrs. Herrick.

“Aye,” the cook replied, motioning for Gertie, who had just come in from preparing the dining room for the lodgers’ breakfast, to bring over a pan for the scones. “And one of my chocolate and black cherry tortes would be just the thing.”

“But didn’t you hear?” Fiona asked later, when Julia and the housekeeper were halfway down Church Lane. They each held a handle of the basket that enclosed the torte in a loose wrapping of brown paper. From the south a bracing breeze carried a faint aroma of apples from the squire’s orchard and sent leaves dancing across the lane. “There isn’t any Mrs. Phelps. The vicar’s a widower, just like the Reverend Wilson.”

“Oh, dear.” Julia’s steps slowed. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He’s been one for a long time, ma’am.”

“Is it proper for us to be paying a call?”

“Proper?”

“You know.” Recalling her recent conversation with Mrs. Hyatt, Julia said, “I wouldn’t want him to think …”

Fiona’s violet eyes filled with amusement, but she tactfully refrained from smiling. “He’s our pastor now. And you’ve called on Vicar Wilson before, haven’t you?”