The Heart of a Vicar

by Sarah M. Eden

  She slipped from her bedchamber and down the dim, narrow stairwell. The large entry hall was empty, the impression only emphasized by the sparse and unfamiliar portraits that hung there. Once upon a time, this space had been warm and inviting, the walls covered with portraits of family members greeting new arrivals and residents alike. Now it was merely an echoing cavern. Once Scott was master of the estate and she was in a position to dictate some aesthetic changes, she meant to see to it that the house felt welcoming again.

  The door from the entry hall leading into the library was open. She hesitated. Uncle made her so uneasy. He had never physically hurt her, but he could be viciously unkind.

  Sarah rallied her courage, then stepped through the bookcase-lined doorway and into the library. It was not so large as some, encompassing only a single level, but the bookcases stretched from floor to high ceiling. A short rolling ladder was necessary to reach the uppermost shelves. The room was dark, the rugs and tapestries heavy, yet it was not an uninviting space.

  Her uncle sat in his wheeled chair at the round table in the middle of the room. Mr. Clark was with him. Scott, however, was nowhere to be seen. She hadn’t intended to make this request without him there to take her side.

  Mr. Clark rose.

  Uncle glared at her.

  “I apologize for the interruption,” she said. “I have a matter of business I had hoped to discuss.”

  Uncle made something like a growl. “Proper ladies do not discuss business,” he muttered.

  His physical health was not good, but his voice certainly still functioned. And he was even more gruff than he’d been before. No matter that he had always been a difficult and often unkind person; she suspected he was far worse now because he was a little miserable. She could be patient with him.

  “This is a matter pertaining to the household staff,” she said. “That falls within the acceptable scope of a lady’s concerns.”

  Uncle scowled. “Are you criticizing how I run my household?”

  Be patient, she reminded herself. “I am in need of an abigail. I did not bring one with me from America, knowing I would be more likely to find an appropriate choice once I was here.”

  “And I am to pay that expense, am I?”

  She wasn’t certain what to say. The expense of personal servants was always borne by the household. She was not asking for anything extravagant. She knew with certainty that Uncle Sarvol had a valet. She was relatively certain Scott did as well.

  “Adding a servant to the household is not an extravagance. Indeed, chambermaids must be spared now to assist me, which causes difficulties for the staff.”

  Uncle’s expression hardened. “If the staff are neglecting their duties, I shall have to have a very stern talk with Mrs. Tanner. I expect more of her.”

  Sarah had meant only to explain the necessity of an abigail, not turn Uncle against the servants. They certainly didn’t deserve to be blamed for the havoc Sarah’s arrival had caused.

  “They aren’t being neglectful.”

  He narrowed his gaze on her. “You said they were. Are you lying to me?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  His aged hands quivered as he took up a paper. “They’re managing, then. No need for further expense.”

  This was not going well at all. “I need a lady’s maid. I cannot even dress myself without one.”

  “I thought you Americans were supposed to be independent.” The words spat from him. He had spoken very little to her since her arrival, and all of it had been tinged with annoyance, but this was the first time his voice had dripped with enmity. “You are not my daughter. You are not my heir. I have made room for you in this house. Do not make me regret that by being selfish as well as wasteful.”

  She looked to Mr. Clark, hoping for some explanation for this unexpected attack. The secretary simply stood quiet and waiting. There would be no help from that quarter.

  “While you are here,” Uncle said, “I have another bone to pick with you.”

  He did?

  “I’ve heard that you’ve been traipsing about the neighborhood making a nuisance of yourself.”

  “I have heard no such rumor.”

  Mr. Clark gave a subtle shake of his head, the gesture clearly one of warning. Her attempt at humor, apparently, was likely to make things worse.

  “Bridget knew her place. She stayed home and out of everyone’s way.” He pointed a trembling paper at her. “You’d do well to learn that yourself.”

  “I’ve only left to attend church, visit a tenant in need, and assist the parish choir in their rehearsal. Nothing in that is inapp—”

  “She also didn’t argue.” Spittle shot from his mouth. “This is my house, and you are here as a poor relation. Do not forget that.”

  He shook his head back and forth, tiny repetitive movements more like a twitch than a gesture. His gaze, however, never moved from her face.

  “I don’t understand why you are so angry with me.” It made no sense at all. “What have I done?”

  His wrinkled lips pressed together. His nostrils flared with a breath. “Bridget never should have married Farland.”

  “Farland” was Layton Jonquil’s future title.

  “They decided that.”

  Sarah had helped the young couple get messages to each other, but she hadn’t forced nor even suggested the match.

  He slapped his papers on the table once more. “You cost me my daughter. Consider yourself on very thin ice.”

  Retreat seemed her best option in that moment. “I will just be in my room.”

  “That would be wise.” His eyes returned to his papers.

  Mr. Clark motioned her away, not in dismissal but in clear concern. She slipped from the library, her mind spinning. Her uncle’s behavior was decidedly different, even threatening. Putting distance between herself and him was wise.

  She took the narrow stairs toward her room. Perhaps being assigned the isolated governess’s chambers had been a blessing in disguise. Uncle could not navigate this dark and secluded stairwell. He couldn’t reach her here, so he couldn’t hurt her. She couldn’t imagine the staff would do his bidding for ill. Heavens, she needed to make certain they didn’t too often do her bidding; simply mentioning them had turned her uncle against them.

  She stepped into her bare sitting room, trying to reclaim a sense of home. She would be living here for some time. This space, her tiny corner of the house, needed to be her haven. She could not change her uncle’s disposition or anger, but she could give herself a place of peace.

  I make my own happiness. I always have.

  Houses this size often had discarded bits of furniture and decorations tucked away. She would wager the attics contained a few items she could put to use. She set to work.

  The attics proved relatively easy to find. She moved around the dusty space, looking over the various offerings. A dinged and scratched Queen Anne table desk. Another small table, one plain and rough-hewn. It had most certainly been used by a servant rather than having served a purpose in a public room. It was a good size for the location Sarah had in mind.

  What else?

  Behind a muslin-draped crate, she found a small stack of paintings. She carefully set them upright before looking through them one at a time. They were all familiar, though she could not identify the subjects of every single one. Most of these had, as of her last visit to Sarvol House, hung in the entryway. Her father’s portrait would be among these.

  She found it near the back. Despite the ill-advised, haphazard way it had been stored, the painting was undamaged. She didn’t have to give it even another moment’s thought. Father’s portrait would go with her to her rooms. She found another of her and Scott, painted during a visit when they were very young. It was small and would easily fit above the mantle in her little personal sitting room.

  At t
he very back of the stack was a portrait Sarah knew the moment she saw it: her cousin Bridget. She knelt in the dust and looked into that well-known face. Despite many years difference in their ages, she and Bridget had been friends. Sarah had rejoiced when Bridget and Layton had decided to marry. At the time, Uncle had been within a breath of promising the hand of his only daughter to an old and lecherous man. Through letters Sarah had clandestinely delivered between Layton and Bridget, Layton had offered himself as an alternative. He was heir apparent to a barony, in possession of a very comfortable income, and, unlike Bridget’s other option, not a horrible person.

  Bridget and Layton had been married shortly before Sarah had returned to America. Sarah never saw Bridget again; she died not long after Caroline was born.

  She sat a moment on the dusty floor and simply looked into that dear face. Bridget had been such a kind and loving person, so very different from her father. Layton’s tender affection for her had endeared him to Sarah. She would love him like her own cousin for all his life in gratitude for the happiness Bridget had known during their all-too-brief time together.

  She set Bridget’s portrait with the other items she meant to claim for her rooms, then went to find someone who could assist her.

  Fortune was on her side; she passed the housekeeper on her way to her isolated stairwell.

  “Forgive the interruption,” she said, knowing the woman was always quite busy. “There are a few items I’ve found in the attics that I would be ever so grateful to have in my rooms, but I know I cannot bring them down on my own. Would you be so good as to send a footman—whenever one can be spared—to collect the items and bring them down for me?”

  “Of course, Miss Sarvol,” Mrs. Tanner said with a quick dip of a curtsy.

  “But, please, do not pull them away from any of their duties,” Sarah insisted. “I do not wish to add any burdens to the household.”

  Far from annoyed or put out, Mrs. Tanner smiled a little. “It will be seen to, Miss Sarvol. And it will be our pleasure.”

  Within a half hour, Sarah had all she had claimed. The housekeeper even sent a maid in with a few more items, having grasped quickly what Sarah was attempting to accomplish: a tablecloth—not new but in good condition—for her tiny dining table, an inkwell with a bit of ink, a couple of quills, and a small stack of parchment, as well as a chipped but lovely pitcher and bowl for her washstand.

  “Thank you so very much,” Sarah said. “I meant to make this space a bit more personal and pleasant, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to go about it.”

  The housekeeper nodded. “These additions will help.” Her glance around the nearly bare room was a bit embarrassed. “I know this isn’t the finest room, but it seemed best. You have your own corner of the house, space all to yourself, where no one will . . . bother you.”

  Ah. Mrs. Tanner had selected this room for her and not out of neglect or disapproval but to protect her. “I am convinced I will love these rooms once I’ve had a chance to make them my own.”

  The housekeeper nodded but looked only a little reassured. “Do let me know if I can do anything else to help you put things to rights in here.”

  “I will.”

  Despite the effort required to get the items to her room, setting everything out took only minutes. Sarah hung the portraits on whatever nails were already in the walls. In time, she would decide on a more permanent location and ask the servants to provide her with nails in the right locations. This would do for now.

  There was but one thing left to set out, an item that had been in her bedchamber in America for six years. She had packed it very carefully, afraid it would not survive the sea journey otherwise, and had checked it on her very first day at Sarvol House but hadn’t pulled it out. She’d needed the perfect place for it first.

  Sarah opened her traveling trunk, which was functioning as a bench at the end of her bed, and pulled out a frame. Sandwiched between two pieces of glass was a small pressed bouquet of wild flowers. Some were delicate, others bold. Reds and yellows and purples sat against dark-green leaves and pale-green stems.

  How well she remembered the day she’d received the humble but tender offering. She had been walking along the banks of the Trent with Harold, something they had done so often during her last visit. He had paused now and then to pick a sprig of flowers, adding it to the collection in his hands.

  Just when she thought it couldn’t possible grow any larger, he had spied a determined spray of pale-yellow flowers growing out of the side of an old stone bridge. He’d been unable to reach them.

  “They’d be perfect,” he said, eyeing the taunting blooms with a fervent expression.

  “What you have now is perfect,” Sarah said, wanting to reassure him.

  He shook his head. “I’ll need you to hold these.” He placed the bouquet in her hands, and then, in what would shock anyone who knew the staid and proper vicar now, pulled off his jacket and hung it over the side of the bridge. He pulled off his boots next and set them beside his jacket. His hat and gloves joined the other discarded items. She nearly fell over in shock when he pulled his stockings off as well.

  She held to the flowers as tightly as she dared, not wanting to bend or break any stems, and watched as he climbed over the side of the bridge and moved with careful, heart-stopping movements, his toes gripping the thin ledge of stones, all the way to the flowers he sought. Possessing a nimbleness a cat would have been hard-pressed to summon, he picked a few sprigs, then made his way back to where she stood. With a hop and a flourish, he was back on his feet beside her, slipping the flowers in with those she held.

  “Risking your life—no matter that your mother will love the flowers—hardly seems necessary.” She remembered pressing the flowers to her nose and taking in the wild and sweet aroma.

  “The flowers are for you, my darling Sarah,” he’d said. “And it was, I assure you, well worth it.”

  Her heart had been fully and wholly his in that moment. She’d thrown her arms around his neck and embraced him, something no proper English young lady would have done. She hadn’t been able to help herself.

  How clearly she recalled his smile, both tender and amused. He’d held her hand, the one not holding his flowers, and walked with her for the remainder of that afternoon.

  She had been so deeply happy. These flowers, flattened between glass, their colors faded and muted, were all she had left of those blissful days. The blooms did not, however, bring her any sorrow. They simply transported her and lifted her and gave her a brief moment to reflect with both nostalgia and longing on what might have been.

  Chapter Eight

  Scott appeared in the doorway of Sarah’s miniscule sitting room, a look of anxious anticipation on his face. “Fetch your bonnet, Sarah. We’ve been granted a reprieve.”

  “What—?”

  “I’ve managed to convince our uncle to allow us to attend the festival today, but I cannot guarantee he won’t change his mind if given the opportunity.” He crossed swiftly to the door of her bedchamber. “Where is your coat?”

  “In the armoire.” She followed him. “Uncle is allowing us to go?” She had attempted to obtain his approval the day before and had received for her efforts a thirty-minute lecture about remembering her place and being grateful for his generosity in housing and feeding her. She’d been called a number of unflattering things and had, in the end, simply given up trying to change his mind, just as she’d stopped inquiring about an abigail after his chastisement on that topic a few days earlier.

  Scott pulled open the doors of her clothespress and snatched out her coat. “I mentioned to him that all the important local families will be in attendance and that I wished I had a better connection with the masters of those estates, as that would be beneficial to the future of this one.” He set the coat in her hands and grabbed her bonnet off the top of her bureau. “Mr. Clark subtly concurred, fur
ther pointing out that the future master of the Sarvol estate ought to be seen attending a fair designed specifically to benefit the poor, that it would assure the neighborhood that I meant to be a responsible keeper of my inheritance. Uncle, to my shock, then agreed I ought to attend.”

  “You ought to attend.” She shook her head. “He did not give me permission, then.”

  “I told him I meant to take you with me, then left before he could say anything.” Scott plopped her bonnet on her head, a little askew, ribbons hanging limp around her.

  “I am not wearing the right shoes for an outdoor festival.”

  “Then grab them.” His sharp tone set her aback. He closed his eyes and pushed out a tense breath. “I’m sorry. I just cannot bear to be in this house any longer, never leaving that blasted library, listening to him drone on and on about things he thinks I am too thickheaded to understand. I never go anywhere and never see anyone, including you, and I cannot endure it any longer without some kind of reprieve.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a quick hug. “I can change my shoes in the carriage.”

  He nodded. “A good idea.”

  She pulled her shoes from the bottom of the armoire, then grabbed his hand, pulling him from the room and down the stairs.

  “If today goes well, he may allow us more freedom moving forward,” she said. “That would be a godsend for both of us.”

  “It would, indeed.”

  They reached the entryway. Scott caught the footman’s eye. Most of the staff had gone to the festival. “Is the coachman here still?”

  The footman nodded.

  “Would you tell him that if he will hitch up the carriage and take Miss Sarvol and I to the alms fair, he can remain for the festivities without earning the ire of his employer? And if a stable hand is here yet, he could act as tiger and participate in the fair as well.”

  The footman watched with widened eyes. “Would you be in need of a footman, by chance?”