The Making of a Gentleman

by Ruth Axtell Morren

  Jonah marveled at the image. When he’d been a boy, all he could remember was trying to get enough to eat and thinking of animals as things to hunt. If it was too small to eat, it could be toyed with. He and the cat had had that in common. Since when was an animal something to be rescued and cared for, much less prayed over? He shook his head and turned his attention to the next row.

  “What about Miss Hathaway?” he asked after several minutes. “Why didn’t she marry and set up her own household?” He remembered the way she’d blanched when he’d called her an old maid. Every time he thought of it, he felt ashamed of himself.

  Albert straightened and stuck his hoe in the damp earth. “You have to understand Miss Hathaway. She had to shoulder a lot of responsibility when their parents passed away. Her brother was still away to school and she had to keep things going for him. Since he’s been ordained a clergyman, she runs everything the way her mother did before her. As I said, she’s very protective o’ young Hathaway.”

  Jonah nodded his head, having begun to suspect as much. “She sure seems to think the sun rises and sets on him.”

  “That she does.”

  “Was she always so—” How could he put it? Demanding? Bad tempered?

  Albert chuckled. “Exacting?”

  “Aye, that’s the word.”

  “Well, I remember Miss Hathaway as a young thing, like our Betsy is now. ’Cept she was always so serious, too serious, Mrs. Nichols and I always thought, but it was understandable after their folks died. Miss Hathaway took care o’ them in their illness and then felt responsible, you see.”

  “Responsible? What, for their deaths?”

  “No, nothing like that, although I know she took it hard. No, she felt responsible for young Damien. He’s always been her special charge, ever since he lost the leg, you know.” He chuckled. “She used to defend him at school if she heard he’d been picked on by the other boys. She weren’t afraid of any boy, no, not her.”

  Jonah pictured a slim young girl beating her fists against a youth’s chest. He smiled, remembering the way she had wrestled the gin bottle away from him.

  Albert looked off in the distance. “I do recall a young gentleman calling a few times. That was when Miss Hathaway was, let’s see, not quite twenty.” He squinted one eye as if to calculate when it had been. “Nice young lad. Mrs. Nichols paid more attention to the goings-on than I did and used to tell me there’d be a wedding ’fore autumn that year.”

  “What happened?” Jonah crouched over the row, feeling the sun warm his back. He tried to imagine a young Miss Hathaway with a gentleman courting her.

  “Don’t rightly know. Her parents both fell ill and she had to nurse them. A few months later the parson was marrying the young gent to another miss in church. Mrs. Nichols was stunned, I can tell you.”

  So the cove had jilted Miss Hathaway? Worthless scoundrel. She might be an exasperating woman at times, but she didn’t deserve that.

  Jonah turned his attention to the next row, wondering why he was so bent on Miss Hathaway’s courting days. She was his teacher, a hard taskmaster whose compliments were rare.

  Why was it, when she did bestow one, it warmed him more than a tumbler of gin and a meat pie hot out of the oven?

  Where was Quinn?

  Florence glanced at the long case clock in the entry hall. They needed to be at the chapel in a few minutes. On Sundays, they barely had time to dress and down a hurried breakfast of bread and tea in the kitchen, then head over to the chapel before the first parishioners arrived.

  She looked anxiously at Damien, who sat on an ottoman, his Bible opened on his lap. As usual, he seemed unperturbed, though he was often quiet before delivering his Sunday morning sermon.

  Her own nerves were another story. Where was that man? Still struggling with his new clothes? She whirled around at the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. It would be Quinn’s first public appearance, and she had grave misgivings. She had prayed long and hard about it last night and early this morning as she lay in bed awake.

  Damien looked up with a smile. “There you are, William. Well, Florence? He’s here. Let’s be off.”

  She said nothing, too busy scrutinizing Quinn from head to toe. His rugged jaw was clenched, as if he, too, realized the risk they were all running. At least it was freshly shaved, she thought, noting the nicks here and there.

  He’d chosen one of the new suits the tailor had delivered just yesterday, this one a deep-plum-colored jacket with matching cloth-covered buttons. The buff-colored waistcoat blended seamlessly with his knee breeches of the same shade. She nodded her approval at the subdued color. White stockings and black shoes with small buckles finished the outfit. Her gaze traveled up a bit and she frowned at the wrinkles in the white material.

  “I say, William, you do look a proper gentleman,” Damien said.

  “Thankee, si—I mean, Reverend Dami—Hathaway.” By the time he’d finished, his face was red. “You look like a regular minister.”

  “Thank you, I think,” Damien replied with an amused glance down at his own familiar attire of knee-length black coat, white preaching bands at his collar, black vest and knee breeches. He turned to her. “Well, what do you think?”

  She frowned at Quinn, continuing her inspection. “Your stockings need smoothing and the cravat needs to be redone.” She clucked her tongue. They were running out of time. “Damien, you must remind him of how to tie a proper cravat.”

  “I rather think you are better at that since my clerical collars are mere stocks.”

  “Come along to the parlor. We haven’t much time,” she said to Quinn. “Please remove your neckcloth.”

  The two men trooped after her into the sunny front room. “Here,” she said, “stand by the mirror so you can see how it’s done.” She pulled over a low stool and climbed onto it in front of Quinn, leaving him enough room to look over her shoulder into the wall mirror behind her. She was now at eye level to him. He stood obediently, holding out his neckcloth to her, his shirt unfastened at the collar.

  Trying to ignore his sudden proximity, she took the white linen square from him and shook it out. “It’s already wrinkled, but it will have to do.” She stopped and frowned. “What’s this?” She showed him the reddish-brown stain.

  “Must be blood.” He rubbed his jaw. “I nicked myself shaving. Not used to shaving every bless—’scuse me, every day.”

  She noticed the small cut on his jaw and heaved a sigh. “We’ll need a clean neckcloth.” Her eyes met his inches from hers. The bright sunlight turned his irises a startling green. “Ahem. Please—uh—fetch a fresh one from your room.”

  His fingertips touched hers as he took the linen back from her. “Yes, miss.”

  She stepped down from the stool, dismissing her silly reaction as merely nerves over the whole morning. As Quinn left the room, she called after him. “You’ll have to take that one to the kitchen. Ask Bet—Mrs. Nichols to put it to soak.”

  In the silence following his departure, she noted the ticking wall clock.

  “Don’t fret. We’ve still time,” her brother said softly.

  She looked across at him. “Perhaps you should go on over. We’ll be there directly.”

  He took out his pocket watch and snapped it open. “I’ve a few minutes yet.”

  She continued looking at him.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Florence pressed her lips together, her earlier misgivings returning. “Are you sure you know what you’re about?”

  “You mean taking William to church?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Everything…dinner today with the rector. Are you sure he’s ready?”

  “We must trust the Lord to guide us through.”

  She wrung her hands together. “I know. Yet one slip. You saw how clumsily tied his cravat was. And his stockings, as wrinkled as a farmer’s. You may put him in finely tailored clothes, but he’s still nothing but a laborer be
neath them.”

  “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, you mean?” Damien replied with a slight smile.

  “Something like…”

  He came up to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Isn’t that what our Lord does to us?”

  Trust Damien to have a suitable spiritual reply. “Yes, but in His case, it’s an unfathomable miracle. And He takes a lifetime to accomplish it.”

  Damien nodded. “Ah, there you are, William. Just in time.”

  Florence whirled around, not having heard him come in. How much of their conversation had he overheard? He walked over to her and handed her the neatly folded linen. “Here you go. Truss me up like a dandy.”

  “That I’ll not do,” she said, stepping back onto the stool. “I shall merely tie a respectable knot so your neckcloth doesn’t shame the rest of your fine suit of clothes.”

  “The little man outdid himself, didn’t he, making a suit to fit the likes o’ me?” he said, glancing down at himself.

  “Mr. Bourke is a fine tailor.” She shook out the long strip of linen and proceeded to fold it. “Please lift your collar completely so it comes up above your ears.”

  She found herself staring at the wisps of dark hair visible at his parted collar. “Please tuck your shirt closed.”

  He did as she said, hiding the slice of his chest from view.

  She helped him fold his collar in place, her fingertips inadvertently brushing the smoothly shaven skin of his jaw in the process. The contact was barely a whisper yet sent a shivery streak down her arms.

  “We bring the neckcloth around like so,” she said as she wrapped the linen around his neck from front to back, then brought it back to the front. She had to reach her arms past his neck in order to do this. She leaned in closer, working the cloth snug about him, so close to his face she could hear his breathing.

  Her heartbeat quickened and heat flushed her face. She fumbled with the length of material, wanting to rush and break the close contact but knowing she would ruin the starched cloth if she did so. She concentrated on the linen in her hands, careful not to look at Quinn. She had never performed this task on anyone but her father and brother.

  As if sensing her thoughts, he asked, “How did you ever learn how to tie a man’s neckcloth?”

  “I needed to teach my brother.” Flicking her gaze upward, she was startled to see how closely he was observing her. “I told…you to, uh, look in the mirror to see what…I’m…doing.”

  Damien stepped over to them. “Yes, when I went up to Oxford for the first time, I was a hopeless ignoramus.”

  Florence concentrated on forming the three pleats on one side of the cravat. “I didn’t want him shamed before all those gentlemen’s sons, so I taught him how to tie a proper cravat.”

  “And how did you know how to do it if he didn’t?”

  Despite directing him to look in the glass, she could feel Quinn watching her as she carefully folded the material.

  “I studied it in the illustrated fashion magazines and asked the tailor. I practiced on Damien until I got it right.”

  Damien laughed. “She’d have a whole pile of linens crumpled at my feet before she pronounced herself satisfied.”

  She allowed herself a brief smile. “Now, then, I am doing a ‘Mathematical’ on you, one of the simpler styles. Take care not to crease the material except in these three places, here by your ear—” she pointed out to him, holding one end of the cravat in place with the other hand “—and here in the middle of the cloth, and lastly, here below it. Then the other side,” she murmured, following suit. “Then we make a knot in the front like so.” She straightened slightly, maneuvering the stiff material into place. Finally, she patted the knot down. “That should do it. You need to tuck these ends into your waistcoat.”

  His hands came up to take the two ends of the linen from her. His fingers brushed against her knuckles, and for a second she felt a tingling all the way to her toes. She dropped her hands immediately. “You may, uh, button up your waistcoat, too.”

  While he finished doing as she bade, she stepped down from the stool, but not before his hand came up to her elbow to help her down. She stepped away as soon as she was back on solid ground, feeling a need for some distance from him.

  “Excellent,” Damien said.

  Florence walked a few paces away and tilted her head, surveying her work. Quinn’s hair had grown out a little more, appearing fuller and darker. What was more, his natural broad-shouldered posture lent him an air of dignity she hadn’t quite noticed before.

  He glanced at her then and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

  “Do I pass inspection?”

  Slowly she nodded. “Indeed, you appear a gentleman.”

  Damien rubbed his hands together. “Shall we go to the chapel then?”

  “Oh, yes, let’s not be late.” Florence hurried toward the door. Here she’d been standing admiring Quinn, when the service would soon be starting. What had she been thinking? She was no longer a foolish young girl of nineteen, but a mature spinster of eight-and-twenty. She mustn’t forget that. One mistake was enough for a lifetime.

  Chapter Nine

  “Amen,” Jonah echoed the others around the dining table after the Reverend Hathaway’s grace. He opened his eyes.

  The table was laden with all kinds of tempting dishes. After the long church service, Jonah would have done such a fine dinner justice if it hadn’t been for the presence of the Hathaways’ guests. He looked at the rector seated directly across from him. His elderly mother, her gray hair arranged in a profusion of ringlets around her wrinkled face, sat at the rector’s side.

  Jonah had been introduced to them after the service. For a few seconds, beneath the rector’s assessing look, Jonah had been certain the man saw him for who he truly was. But after a curt nod, Doyle had given his attention to Miss Hathaway.

  Jonah had forgotten his own fears as he observed the two chatting together. The rector’s manner went from autocratic to charming in a matter of seconds as he bent his tall, austere body to listen to Miss Hathaway. What had amazed Jonah more than the rector was the transformation in Miss Hathaway. Suddenly, she was no longer the strict, serious taskmaster, but a shy, blushing lady who looked more like a schoolgirl. Jonah had stood riveted, not realizing his mouth hung open, until someone had bumped into him and he’d snapped it shut and turned away.

  Now, in the dining room, Jonah forced his attention from them and turned to Damien, who sat at the head of the table carving the joint of lamb. The sight of it should have made his mouth water, but now all he could focus on was not committing any blunders.

  Betsy brought in more covered serving dishes, giving him a saucy wink as she turned his way, but which he was too nervous to return.

  “Here, William, let me serve you some of this succulent lamb.” Jonah handed the curate his plate. Hathaway handed it back to him piled high with slices of the rosy meat.

  “Would you care for some gravy or preserves?” Miss Hathaway’s voice startled him.

  He stared at her, trying to glean from her expression which he was supposed to accept, but her face gave him no clues. “Gravy—er—both,” he finally answered.

  She merely filled his plate, her attention no longer on him as she answered something the rector said. Jonah frowned at the man who seemed to be the only one to bring out a gentler side to Miss Hathaway, and wondered why the notion should bother him so much.

  As the conversation flowed around him, he looked down at his plate but could hardly bring himself to take a bite, too afraid was he of picking up his knife and fork. He couldn’t remember anything Miss Hathaway had taught him over the past week.

  This morning in church, he’d been the object of many curious stares as he’d sat beside Miss Hathaway in the exposed chancel reserved for the curate’s family. Now, looking up, he saw old Mrs. Doyle observing him, but when he smiled uncertainly, she merely smiled back and r
eturned her attention to her plate.

  He gulped down a mouthful from the heavy crystal goblet at one side of his plate then almost choked when his glance met the rector’s.

  Although dressed in the same clerical black as Hathaway, Doyle had a stately, dignified air far different from Hathaway’s simple, friendlier manner. His full head of salt-and-pepper hair contrasted with his still unlined face. His eyebrows were dark, like his eyes, his nose aquiline. Right then, his glance seemed to slide straight down its narrow length to Jonah, looking past the fancy cravat to the fugitive who lay beneath.

  “And what is it you do, Mr. Kendall?” Doyle proceeded to take a small bite of lamb—a part of Jonah’s mind registered the fact that its size was exactly what Miss Hathaway had recommended—and chew as his dark eyes rested on Jonah.

  There was a momentary lull in the conversation around the table, and he felt all attention directed his way.

  Jonah coughed and quickly brought the goblet back to his mouth. Easy now, he told himself. They had rehearsed this beforehand. He swiped the napkin across his mouth, remembering too late to “pat” it across his lips. He turned his eyes back to the rector. “I was…uh…a farmer in Bedfordshire.” Oh, no, he was supposed to be from up north.

  “Yes, he had a small holding in Bedfordshire,” added Hathaway quietly.

  Jonah laid his napkin down on the table, irritation rising at his own timidity. He imagined the rector, like most, owned some substantial estates, in addition to drawing the earnings from several parish livings. How much did he get from Hathaway’s chapel? he wondered.

  Forgetting his earlier fear, Jonah pushed his plate back and stuck his elbows on the table. “I farmed till I lost my land.”