by Rose Lerner
He laughed. “I’m having a much better time in here than I would be out there.”
Her face brightened. She looked at him through her eyelashes. He hid a smile. What an incorrigible flirt he’d married. “Really?”
“It’s noisy and crowded out there.” He started on the chemisette’s stain, though he wasn’t worried about that one. The collar itself was untouched and could be sewn to a new shift if necessary.
The scullery maid brought in Sukey’s pelisse bundled neatly around her everyday gown. Sukey pulled the gray serge over her head with a sigh. “I didn’t have time to go and drop it at home. Turns out it was for the best.”
John accepted his coat back with undeniable regret. “You did nothing wrong,” he said, buttoning her dress for her. “She shouldn’t have behaved as she did. It isn’t your fault when other people are cruel to you.”
“That’s worse,” she said, her voice a little thick. “Then there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” She rubbed the rough serge discontentedly between her finger and thumb. “Why did you marry me, anyway?”
“I was terribly lonely,” he reminded her, the corners of his mouth curving up in spite of himself. “And I badly wanted the job at the vicar’s. You took pity on me.”
“No.” She looked up at him, her tip-tilted blue eyes brimming with tears. “I was terribly lonely, and I wanted the job at the vicar’s, and you took pity on me.”
John felt sick. Was it true? Had he taken advantage of her after all? She’d said she wanted to marry him, that she wanted a helpmeet. A tear slipped down her cheek, and he scrambled for a way to cheer her. “If you like, you could go back to the party and I could stay here and finish with this. Since you have a dress, it seems a shame to waste the occasion.”
She drew back, shocked. “And leave you here alone? I don’t think so.”
“Thank you. But I wouldn’t mind.” He changed the rags, remarking with satisfaction that the punch seemed to be coming out.
“If I leave, you might as well be at work. I’m not going to let you work seven days in the week.”
At least her tears seemed forgotten. He dried his hands carefully on a clean rag and tipped her chin up. “It’s not work when I do it for you.”
She glared at him. “Yes, it is.”
He didn’t know how to explain that it mattered to him, that these skills he’d acquired for pride and coin could comfort her. It sanctified something temporal and mundane. “Don’t you think there’s a difference between doing something for love, and doing it for money?”
When her frowning brows went up and her narrowed eyes rounded, John flushed scarlet. For love or money was a set phrase, and all he’d meant. If he left it there, she might think—well, that was better than hurrying to correct himself.
He’d been quite eager to correct any misconception Maria had had about their connection. Overeager, he supposed. He’d never meant to be unkind, only to have things clear between them. Because while he’d liked her very much, he’d never thought he might want to spend his life with her.
It was too soon to be in love with Sukey, and certainly far too soon to say any such thing. But he could imagine it being true one day. He saw her flaws—more clearly than was any credit to him, sometimes—but none of them seemed untenable.
She’d been silenced by his slip. Now she seemed to be trying to regain her balance. “Would you leave me in a kitchen laundering your clothes while you went to a party?”
He smiled at her. “I suppose not. But—”
“There’s no but,” she said, exasperated. “If you wouldn’t do it, why do you think I would? If it’s not because you think I need your charity. Being a provincial little nobody barely out of her teens.”
John felt as if she’d slapped him. He tried to be kind, and she threw it in his face.
“You don’t think of me as your equal,” she said. “Why should you? I hate how much I want you to take care of me. But you don’t have to do it just because I want it. You can expect more of me.”
His ears rang. So it was his fault he thought she might want his help, and his fault that she did want it? She wished him to—what? Withhold it from her so she could feel independent? Perhaps she should try having some backbone instead. A grievance, carefully suppressed, broke free and leapt from his tongue.
“I can expect more? More what, precisely?” he demanded. “I would love your help in supervising the staff, but as far as I can glean, your chief concern is that none of them ever be annoyed with you.”
“Quarreling doesn’t solve anything.”
“Neither does ignoring problems and hoping they go away on their own.”
Her chin went up. “I’m ignoring less problems than you are. And I am helping supervise the staff. I—” Her mouth snapped shut. “I can’t break confidences, or I’d tell you about it,” she said, clearly aiming to wound. “But I’m doing plenty to help you.”
Confidences? What did she know? Who Molly had been meeting? Whatever it was Thea insisted he wouldn’t understand? How much better might he manage the house, if he knew what she knew!
Of course she had a right to her own counsel, just as he did, and she would hardly be the recipient of confidences long if it was realized they were being repeated. But it was easy enough for her to make friends with everyone if he was obliged to give all the reprimands.
“Whatever you may think, I have never expected you to spy for me,” he said. “But as you seem to have no difficulty leaving the unpleasant part of our work to me at home, you cannot blame me for thinking you might wish to do the same here.”
For a moment he wondered how his father felt, seeing his wife universally adored. And he hated that he wondered it. There was no comparison; there could not be.
Her hands fisted at her sides. “Well, I told you I didn’t! I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yes, and see how much my evening is improved thereby.”
He heard her sharp intake of breath. Her eyes slitted, shooting cold blue sparks. “I do believe you’d be happier slaving away alone in here. I think that’s pathetic.”
“You’ve made that very plain,” he clipped out. Even as he said it, he knew it was pathetic, that he liked her so much and couldn’t seem to be agreeable to her. It was pathetic how wistfully he imagined working in here alone, quiet and steadfast. A man ought not to long to express his affection to his wife without the inconvenience of her actual presence.
She crossed her arms. “You asked me to marry you,” she said. “I suppose you’d never have blushed for Maria before Mr. Summers, or had to tell her how to make a bed. So elegant and worldly she is—ha! She started a fight, not me. Well, she’d have married you. But you picked me. I suppose you thought with me around, you’d always have someone to feel superior to. And now I expect you’re sorry and wish you’d picked someone better. Someone you’d like spending a quiet evening with.”
It felt like something heavy had smacked into his chest. “You don’t have any idea how I feel.”
“No? Then tell me, Mr. Upper Servant!”
He knew she was right. It was like making the bed or polishing the silver; he told her the bad and expected her to guess the good on her own. He expected it to be obvious. How could it not be obvious?
He could not manage to tell her more plainly how much he liked and admired her, because that required him to believe she’d be pleased to hear it.
Maybe she would be. Maybe she wanted desperately for him to say he loved her. Somehow that idea was worse. Because he’d picked her, just like she said. He’d looked all over England, he’d had more lovers than he could count on both hands, and he’d never found anyone he liked so well.
Nearly every man she knew was in the next room.
She’d been lonely and afraid, young and inexperienced, and he’d used it to talk her into a marriage that she’d turned down when she had a jo
b.
The more he wanted her, the more he needed her, the more he asked her for—the less chance she would have to be the woman she’d wanted to be, who stood on her own two feet, who had nothing between her and the sun. The less chance she’d have to discover what she really wanted. He’d been collecting his burdens for forty years. Even if they’d grown heavy for him, she was too young to be asked to shoulder half.
If he hadn’t married her, she’d be out there enjoying herself instead of trapped in here, miserable.
“Faith, it’s like being married to a rock,” his wife muttered as she turned her back on him, stubbornly staying even though there was nothing to stay for.
* * *
“Is everything all right?” Larry asked Molly at breakfast.
Molly frowned sharply, looking up from the sandwich she was making out of a slice of plum pudding, a goose’s wing and a stale dinner roll. “Why?”
Larry shrugged. “I didn’t see you dancing at the ball last night.”
John felt guilty. He’d spent most of the ball in the kitchen with Sukey and hadn’t looked in on his staff at all.
“At least I went,” Molly said. “Thea, you promised to meet me there.”
Thea shrugged. “I fell asleep.”
Molly frowned again, this time in concern. “Do you think you ought to see a doctor?”
Thea rolled her eyes. “I’m a growing girl. I need my rest.”
“I don’t know, Thea, you’ve been sleeping dunnamuch.”
John noticed that this had successfully turned the conversation from her own behavior at the ball. He tried to meet Sukey’s eyes, but she was staring at her plate.
“You’d ought to find better friends, Molly,” Mrs. Khaleel said. “They all look like watering pots to me.”
“They’re having trouble,” Molly flared up. “They need me.”
“Yes, but do you need them?” the cook asked.
Molly pressed her mouth into a tight line. “Of course I do. They’re my friends.”
“A friend is a joy, not a burden.”
“Everybody’s a burden sometimes,” Molly snapped.
Sukey sighed heavily. I hate how much I want you to take care of me, she’d said.
John set down his own toast and marmalade, unable to take another bite. He didn’t see her as a burden. He needed her as well. He did. If she knew how much—if she knew how false his appearance of calm, competent certitude could be—
His stomach turned over. She wasn’t much older than Molly, really. They both should be enjoying themselves, not worrying about anyone else.
After breakfast, he caught her as she was leaving the kitchen. “Mrs. Toogood?”
She squared her shoulders, clasped her hands behind her back and fixed her eyes firmly on the middle distance. “Yes, Mr. Toogood?”
He blinked. “Might I see you in the butler’s pantry for a moment?”
It was also their bedroom, though the pallet was rolled up in the corner now and the room was his place of business. Last night had been the first night since their wedding they hadn’t coupled on that pallet.
He didn’t mention that. “I wish to apologize for my sharpness last night. It was unfair to reproach you for not taking more responsibility here at the vicarage.”
Her mouth twisted like she’d bitten a lemon—but then it smoothed out. She still didn’t look at him. “No matter, Mr. Toogood.”
“I’ve been thinking about when I was your age. I was fourth footman at Tassell Hall.” He’d been ambitious, his eye on valeting and escape, but quietly so. “My days were long and my work demanding, but it was not a position of responsibility. I worked under more experienced men and gave orders to no one. It was a pleasant time in my life, if rather devoid of sleep.”
She didn’t look at him. He could feel the point he was trying to make slipping away. If she would only smile! “Young people sharing living quarters—well, I can tell you that the amount of wine I consumed on an average evening would probably kill me now.”
Her lips didn’t so much as twitch.
“My point is that it is Mrs. Khaleel’s task to manage the female staff. I should not have reproached you for not doing what is not yours to do. I want you to be happy, not give yourself gray hairs.” He rubbed at his chin. He had no gray hairs on his head yet, thank goodness, but his beard was slowly but surely frosting over.
Her mouth compressed. “Yes, Mr. Toogood.”
“Sukey, what are you doing?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Toogood.”
He felt like a mouse talking to a brick wall. “Is there something you would like to say to me?”
“No, Mr. Toogood.”
“Stop saying my name,” he said in exasperation. “What have I done to offend you?”
“Nothing, Mr. Toogood.”
He threw up his hands and went to the silver chest to begin his midmorning work.
“May I go, sir?” she said behind him.
He glanced at her in surprise. “Of course.”
She bobbed a curtsey, actually bobbed a curtsey at him, and enlightenment dawned. She wasn’t just standing stiffly and refusing to look at him. She was mocking him by pretending to be the sort of highly trained, impassive servant she imagined he wanted her to be.
“Is this about Maria?” he said, relieved to think that her anger was only jealousy, after all. “I assure you, I would not rather be married to her.”
Now she did look at him, a contemptuous, pitying look. “I don’t think you listen when I talk,” she said, and walked out.
John stared after her, a frightened, sorrowful, empty place in the center of his chest. But anger quickly rushed in and filled it. She punished him for not guessing what she wanted? She parodied him to his face? Was that how she thought he spoke? He knew that anger towards her served no purpose, but the more he tried to crush it, the harder and denser and hotter it became, a stone inside his ribcage.
By dinnertime his jaw ached, he had compiled a list of approximately four hundred counterarguments and he was quite incapable of being civil to her across the table. He kept his eyes on his bowl as he filled it. “I’ll take my dinner in the cellar, thank you, Mrs. Khaleel.”
* * *
Sukey had been fuming all morning. The gall of him, the pigheaded blindness, to give her a speech about how young she was and how she’d ought to be gamboling about like a little lamb, when just yesterday she’d told him she wanted to be treated as an equal.
She was angry because last night he had just stared woodenly at her when she asked him to tell her how he felt about her, and he thought she was jealous? Of a woman he’d thrown over and forgotten?
But a pit opened in her stomach as she watched him disappear through the door with his bowl of stew. He was avoiding her?
If she made him hate her, he could leave town and go anywhere. Would she have to leave town? Lively St. Lemeston was her home. But would an abandoned wife dismissed without a character by the town vicar be hired anywhere respectable?
And that would be it. Her one chance at marriage, because she was no bigamist. She twisted her ring on her finger. Let us share in joy and care.
She’d never have anyone to share in her joy and care again.
“Are you well, Mrs. Toogood?” Mrs. Khaleel asked. Everyone looked at her.
“Oh, Mr. Toogood and I had a little quarrel, that’s all,” she said with a nervesome laugh.
Mrs. Khaleel put a hand briefly to her shoulder. “Married people quarrel. Don’t take it to heart.”
Molly frowned. “He’s not kind to you. I don’t know how you put up with it.”
“Shh.” Sukey glanced at the kitchen door.
Molly’s frown deepened. “You shouldn’t be afraid of your own husband.”
Sukey threw her hands up. “I’m not.
You’ll hurt his feelings terribly if he hears you. And he’s very kind to me.”
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Thea muttered.
“He’s been kind to me,” Larry said, but very quietly. Molly gave him a withering look.
Sukey stabbed at a piece of beef with her spoon. “He is. That’s what we quarreled about. I told him…” It was so stupid. “He’s just so much older than me.”
“Too old,” Thea agreed in an undertone.
Sukey ignored her. “He behaves like I’m a child who needs taking care of. He doesn’t listen to me.”
“Uch,” Molly agreed. “I hate it when men don’t take me seriously.”
“Why did you marry him?” Thea asked.
Because he made me feel safe. As if I didn’t have to do everything on my own. “I think I wanted someone to take care of me,” she admitted miserably. She could remember being small and feeling safe and warm and loved. She remembered her mother’s hands in her hair, her father lifting her onto his shoulders. She missed it with a howling, childish grief.
She felt sick and disgusted with herself. Had she wanted a father all along, and not a husband? How could she be angry with John for giving her what she’d wanted?
“Don’t we all?” Mrs. Khaleel said wryly. But Sukey knew that she’d been strong. She’d sent Mr. Bearparke away and stood on her own two feet. A friend should be a joy, not a burden, she’d told Molly. Surely that was doubly true of a wife.
Molly snorted. “Women need to stop expecting men to take care of us, because they won’t. We need to take care of each other instead.”
Sukey was a little overwhelmed. At Mrs. Humphrey’s, she’d seen her friends at the servants’ balls, and now and then on Friday afternoons. She wasn’t used to having women about, whom she could talk to whenever she liked.
She hadn’t ought to have confided in them about John, not when he already thought she was making friends with them at his expense. But she’d done it anyway, because she craved their kindness so much. Just as she’d been unable to resist those two brandy-sprinkled raisins. She was weak—and contrary besides, because the more they sympathized, the more in the wrong she felt.
