“Yet, the longer this continues, the greater the chance that she won’t survive.” Sarah’s heavy tone matched the difficulty of the situation.
“Life is difficult, Sarah. It asks so very much of us.”
She slipped her arm from his and tucked it around him instead. “I’m cold,” she explained.
He set his arm around her as well. “You’re cold,” he explained with a grin.
She laughed a little.
How was it that even when discussing topics as difficult as those they’d covered during this walk, she still managed to lift him and lighten him? He had needed her every moment since the first time they’d been together all those years ago.
“What was it you wished to talk with me about?” he asked.
“Mater,” she said.
His heart dropped on the instant. “Is something the matter with her?”
“No,” she assured him. “But I wanted your thoughts on something regarding her.”
“I’ll certainly help if I can.”
She adjusted a little, pulling her arm back and rubbing her hands over her chilled arms. Harold tucked her in more closely.
“Though I doubt she realizes it, Mater has mentioned more than once a vague wish to do some traveling. She always very quickly brushes it aside with an acknowledgment that she has many responsibilities here. Charlie told me he means to spend the term break with Mr. Lancaster and his family. He will not be at the Park. I think it is the perfect opportunity for her to pursue her wish to travel.”
All of this was news to Harold, every last bit of it. I talk to people, Harold. She talked, and she listened, and she remembered. A wonder. An absolute wonder.
“I don’t know this country very well. Where is someplace she and I—and Scott, if he is able—might go, not too far distant but far enough that she would feel it a bit of an adventure? And how would I go about making some of those arrangements so that she needn’t worry over it? I think if given the opportunity to pursue that still-vague dream with minimal obstacles, she would do it. And, Harold, I think it would bring her some much-needed happiness.”
Something in the way she said that made him wonder if there was more to be worried about where Mater was concerned than he realized. “Do you suspect she is unhappy?”
“To borrow a word from Sorrel, she seems adrift. Her boys are all grown. She has dedicated the last dozen years of her life raising the lot of you alone, and now that chapter in her book is finished. I think she doesn’t know what comes next. She needs a purpose, and she needs something to look forward to.”
He shook his head in amazement. “I have lived among my family all my life but have missed so much. That you see what we don’t is a blessing to us all.”
She looked up at him. Mischief danced in her eyes. “Are you finally conceding that I am a remarkably good vicar?”
“We Jonquils don’t concede defeat very easily.”
She laughed as he’d hoped she would. It always had been a joy to make her laugh.
“A stubbornness,” she said as if having pieced something together.
“A what?” He laughed in spite of his confusion.
“Charlie asked me what a gathering of Jonquils would be termed. We decided against herd or flock. I believe you would be called a stubbornness.”
“A stubbornness of Jonquils?”
She laughed again, setting his heart flipping about. “Accept it, Harold.”
He shook his head at her very welcome banter.
“I will talk with Layton and Philip about places you and Mater might visit. Your options will expand if Scott is available. I’m sure both of my brothers would happily lend her the use of a carriage, coachman, and footman, and whatever else she might need.”
“You all love your mother. It is the thing about you that reminds me most of your father. He loved her.”
“Yes, he did.” An unexpected lump rose in his throat. Father had most certainly loved Mater. Theirs had been a love story for the ages. If only the fates had granted them more time together.
Sarah’s gaze shifted to the landscape beside them, something like confusion in the pull of her features. “This is the east field?”
“Mm-hmm.”
She motioned toward the narrow rivulet of water nearby, patches of it frozen, the middle still running, but slowly. “Then this is the stream where—” Her face was red from the cold, but he swore her color deepened further.
This was the stream where he’d kissed her, the stream he’d landed in when she’d shoved him rather quickly afterward.
She slipped a bit ahead of him, closer to the stream. “You kissed me here.”
“Believe me, I remember.”
Her eyes remained on the icy, encrusted water. “And then you told me you would never write to me, you wouldn’t receive any letters from me. And you said it as if it was not at all surprising, as if it didn’t bother you at all to sever the connection between us.”
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his heavy outercoat. “It seems I should have pursued a future on the stage instead of in the church.”
She looked back at him, her gaze a bit softened. “Did you regret it?”
“Of course I did, but I’d created the situation. I was making commitments I couldn’t keep.” He was evermore ashamed of himself each time he reflected on those weeks they’d spent together. “My future was still entirely up in the air. It was wrong of me to not step away when I first began feeling a pull to you, but you gave me strength and kindness and—and you believed in me when no one else did. I needed that.” He hadn’t intended to make such an enormous confession. It was all simply pouring from him. “It was wrong of me though. I knew it was. You needed to be able to leave without the weight of impossible promises. I had done everything wrong during those weeks, and I was afraid I would simply make it worse. Remaining distant and unfeeling was the only way I knew of to get through that farewell.”
She watched him closely. “Did you ever wonder what might have happened between us if we’d been a little older, if you had been completing your education rather than beginning it?”
“Constantly.”
“We are older now, Harold,” she said. “You are not beginning your education. Aren’t there possibilities now that weren’t available to us then?”
“Yes.” Confessing that nearly brought a blush to his face, something that didn’t happen often. But they were being honest with each other. He wouldn’t be anything less than truthful about this. “There are very real possibilities. Hoped-for possibilities. Yet, there are also many of the same obstacles. Once again, I don’t know where my life is going. Your efforts, and Mater’s, and my own discoveries have helped me realize I do want to continue my life in the church, but the duke’s letter has sent so much back into uncertainty once more.”
She nodded, watching him with a hopeful intensity. How he wished he had something more encouraging to tell her.
“If I accept the livings he is offering, I would have the income I need to support a family, to begin building a future that could include something more than perpetual bachelorhood a breath away from poverty.”
“Is your current living so insufficient?”
“Throckmorten neglected the vicarage and the glebe. He left so much in need of repair that my living is being stretched beyond bearing. A vicar’s education focuses on theology, not the more practical concerns of life. There might be a better answer to these troubles, but I haven’t the first idea what it might be.”
She set her hand on his arm, the gesture one of support and empathy. “I am sorry.”
“I could have a less lonely future, but it would mean leaving Collingham. I very much fear I would be miserable if I did, no matter the increased comfort of my financial situation.”
She nodded her understanding. “And you being miserable would be a ter
rible foundation on which to build a new family.”
“Precisely.”
“Here we are again, then,” she said, “on the banks of this stream, your future uncertain once more. This time, though, there is honesty between us.”
“Honesty, but not a great deal of hope.”
She leaned in and placed the briefest of kisses on his cheek. “There is more hope than you know.”
“You don’t mean to give up on me, then, while I sort all of this out?”
“I mean to help you sort it, if you’ll let me.”
He took in a lungful of frigid air. “There isn’t an easy answer,” he warned her.
“But there is an answer,” she said. “And you will find it. I have every hope you will.”
Hope. Where was she finding that elusive promise? If he accepted the living he was being offered, he would have income enough to build a life with the woman he’d never stopped loving. But she would be away from her brother, and Harold would be away from his family and the people of Collingham he cared for so deeply. He would have her, but he would once again be pretending to fit the role he’d taken on. Yet, if he remained here, where he was learning to be himself as vicar and serve in the way best suited to him, he would, out of necessity, be alone.
No matter what he chose, he would lose something essential.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
At Sarvol House, Sarah had been often alone and isolated, and those had been the best days she’d spent there. Living at the Lampton Park dower house, on the other hand, was utterly joyful. Scott was with her. He was returning to himself by bits. She saw more happiness in his face. She watched with deep gratitude the maternal care Mater offered him and the transformative quality of it.
How very much they owed that dear woman.
Sarah had begun discussing with Marion places Mater might enjoy visiting. The suggestion had been made, and it was a wise one, that travels be postponed until summer. The roads would be less problematic and the weather more likely to be predictable. More importantly, whatever the outcome of Philip and Sorrel’s next few days or weeks, Mater would not be gone when that difficult time arrived. That a month had passed since Christmas without Sorrel’s time arriving was both hopeful and troubling.
Sarah and Harold had spoken many times since their walk down to the stream. They’d discussed Sorrel, the neighborhood, Scott, but not ever again the topic of his future.
She sat in the chapel as the choir practiced, occupying her usual pew. Harold sat in his usual spot as well. He still spent his time during practice doing his work, but he made absolutely certain to express aloud his sincere appreciation of their effort and to praise them when a piece was performed particularly well. Sarah had seen a profound change in the choir members since he had begun encouraging them. She had seen a change in many people in the neighborhood. She had seen a change in him.
He had his eyes closed now, not in sleep but in concentration. A small smile of enjoyment touched his lips. She saw that more often, proof that he was happier at his core. Harold deserved to be happy. Choosing the livings the Duke of Hartley offered was the only chance they had of building a life together, but she couldn’t bear the thought of him being miserable again, not when he’d come so far.
Should he choose to stay in Collingham, rendering himself too poor for them to create a life with each other, she would be heartbroken. She would find herself living near him, seeing him regularly, without the possibility of a future together.
She felt like her younger self again, all the heart-fluttering anticipation tempered by the heartbreak that had brought that previous connection to an abrupt end. Things were different this time though. They were both older, both wiser. He had told her of the difficulties they faced. He was being honest. She was keeping her feet firmly on the ground while doing her utmost to remain hopeful.
She didn’t know all the turns in the path ahead of them, but she wasn’t afraid to walk it. If fate chose to be kind, she would not need to do so alone.
He opened the eye closest to her and looked at her sidelong. Sarah dropped her gaze to her clasped hands. She hadn’t intended to be caught longingly watching a gentleman whose future might not include her. Again.
Harold rose and moved to where she sat. He carefully shifted the stack of music sheets away and sat beside her. “Is something the matter, Sarah?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head.
“There was worry in your eyes,” he said.
He had always been able to ascertain her mood. It had been something of a challenge between them when they were younger. She would attempt to hide her thoughts, and he would still manage to sort them out. She saw little point in requiring him to guess now.
“I was wondering if you had made a decision about the duke’s offer.”
He didn’t answer for a long moment. She looked at him once more. The worry he’d said he saw in her eyes she now saw in his.
“I still don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “The income would allow me to have a future, but I find myself recoiling at the idea of leaving this place that has always been home to me and the people I love.”
Was she one of those people?
“I wish I had known all those years ago when I set myself to a future in the church that I would be choosing between serving in the way I wished and avoiding poverty. You see, I take great delight in my work, but I also really enjoy eating.”
There was her Harold, the gentleman who had laughed and smiled even in difficulty. She saw him nearly constantly now. Such a change from the stern, unreachable Harold he’d pretended to be.
“I suspect you have spent a great deal of time lately sitting on the railing in your stairwell.”
He nodded. “Mrs. Dalton is beside herself. She finds the precariousness of my perch not at all to her liking.”
“Have you considered the possibility that your housekeeper is rather fond of you?”
Oh, how she loved his smile. “I most certainly have.”
Quick footsteps sounded on the flagstone floor, pulling both her attention and Harold’s to the back of the chapel. A stable hand from Sarvol House, one of the only servants still employed in that house, was rushing toward them.
“Miss Sarvol.” He addressed her in rough breaths. Apparently, he’d rushed through more than the chapel. “Your brother’s sent for you. Mr. Sarvol’s in a bad way. Real bad.” The stable hand looked to Harold. “You’re being asked for too, Mr. Jonquil.”
If Scott was sending for her and the vicar, it could really mean only one thing: her uncle was dying.
“Allow me a moment to gather what I need to administer to him,” Harold told her. “We’ll go over together.”
“Thank you.”
Sarah remained in the pew, attempting to settle her spinning thoughts and feelings. Her uncle was a decidedly horrible person. He had treated her cruelly. He had caused Bridget a great deal of misery as well. Scott had been rendered heavy and unhappy in the time they’d been in Collingham, and she knew that was owing to the tyranny of Uncle Sarvol. Yet she grieved to think he was nearing his end. Death was a difficult thing.
She rose, breathing calmly and setting her thoughts to the night ahead of her. When Father died, there had been very real and deep grieving. Mother had been devastated, as had she and Scott. This passing would be different. She and her brother were Uncle’s only remaining family, and while they would grieve the way one did with the ending of a life, there was not the closeness between them that brought soul-deep mourning.
Harold returned, a small leather case in his hand, just as she slipped from the pew. He offered not his arm in the formal manner but his hand in a gesture of very personal support. She walked with him out of the church and into the cold. A Sarvol carriage waited for them at the gate to the churchyard. They were settled quickly. The door closed, and the carriage rolled forward
.
While Harold had initially taken the rear-facing seat across from her, as was strictly proper, with the conveyance in motion and the two of them alone, he moved to sit beside her. He took her hand once more.
“What do you need from me, Sarah? This will be a difficult night. I will, of course, see to it your uncle receives his final rites, but you weigh heaviest on my mind just now.”
“And Scott weighs heaviest on mine. His life is about to change very drastically.” The oddity of worrying over Scott’s sudden inheritance and responsibilities when a man was dying struck her. “Am I a terrible person, Harold? I should likely be more heartbroken than I am to know my uncle is dying.”
“No one is obligated to mourn someone who abused her.”
“I still do, a little.” The realization surprised even her. “It is an odd sort of grief though, mourning the person he might have been and the relationship we might have had.”
“And perhaps mourning for the happier days you might have known if he hadn’t done what he did.”
Sarah leaned her head against him. He set his arms around her. She closed her eyes and shut out all the world, allowing her mind to process nothing beyond the comfort he offered.
“My father was a good man,” she said after a time. “Uncle could have been as well, but he chose not to be. I think that is what grieves me the most.”
Harold pressed a tender kiss to the top of her head. Sweet, loving Harold. She wanted him to have the steady and comfortable future he deserved, but what would they all do if he left?
* * *
Mrs. Tanner hung the black mourning wreath on the front door of Sarvol House just as the sun rose the next morning. Sarah sat in the sitting room, looking out over the front lawn. Harold watched her a moment from the sitting room doorway, knowing he had no more legitimate reason to remain but not wishing to leave her.
“He hurt so many people.” Sarah spoke without looking at Harold. “Bridget never knew life without him. I wish she had.”
The Heart of a Vicar Page 26
