The Widow of Larkspur Inn

by Lawana Blackwell

  “I wish I could have made one,” Grace said from his side. Philip turned his face to her and smiled.

  “You will when you’re my age.”

  “But that’s so long to wait.”

  “Then I’ll help you make one this summer.” The way her eyes lit up added to his feeling of well-being, and he found himself asking Aleda if she would like to join them on the project. “It could be even larger than this one. Perhaps we could divide it into four sections and make scenes from a fairy tale, like Jack and the beanstalk.”

  “Perhaps,” Aleda said with just a little less enthusiasm, but still she smiled back at him. “Don’t forget I’ll be assigned one next year.”

  “Well, there, you see? If you begin it this summer, you’ll have all year to make it as good as possible. Why, even better than this one, and that’s saying a lot.”

  “I wonder what Laurel’s will be like?” his sister remarked.

  There was no maliciousness in her words, but they seemed to carry an unspoken implication—we won’t truly know if yours is the best until we see hers. And he wouldn’t put it past her to have portrayed something like the guillotine scene from A Tale of Two Cities, complete with a screaming mob. Tightening his lips, Philip thought, I wish I could go to school one day without having to see that face!

  Helen Johnson met them at the side of the schoolyard. Philip held his shadow box tighter in anticipation of the cuff she would give him before running away squealing. But it was to Aleda that the baker’s daughter gave her attention. “Have you heard about Laurel Phelps?” she asked in a breathless voice.

  A broken leg! Philip thought miserably, all euphoria about his diorama crumbled to dust. As the news had been on everyone’s lips in the school yard that morning, it had not taken long for him to hear the whole story. Last night she had gone into the cellar of the vicarage to look for some linseed oil to rub on the outer wood of her shadow box, and on her way back up the stairs, the tin had slipped from her hand, causing her to lose her balance.

  I didn’t mean I wanted something bad to happen to her! he thought over and over during morning prayer and Scripture recital. And when Captain Powell asked for a volunteer to deliver Laurel Phelps school assignments to her, he slipped up a hand.

  After asking his sisters to tell his mother he would be late, Philip accompanied the five chattering Burrell children to the vicarage; Mark, Jacob, and Anna from the upper standards, and Nora and Peter from Miss Hillock’s classroom. He had expected Ben and Jeremiah to rib him after school for the errand he had taken on, but they had been strangely silent about the matter, which made Philip feel worse. Had the words he’d spouted concerning Laurel Phelps been so hateful that everyone expected penance from him now?

  I didn’t mean any of it, he told himself and God one more time while shifting Laurel’s books to his other arm. Perhaps if he thought it long and hard enough, both would believe him.

  Dora Healy, a housemaid Philip recognized from church, let everyone in the vestibule as if she had been expecting them, which of course was true concerning the Burrell children. There was a bustle of activity as Miss Phelps brought the two smallest children out to them, handed them over, and passed out raisin biscuits. When they were gone and he still stood in the vestibule, the vicar’s older daughter seemed to notice him for the first time.

  “Why, Philip Hollis, good afternoon.”

  “Good afternoon, Miss Phelps.” He nodded down to the books in his arms. “I brought Laurel’s assignment. How is she?”

  “She’ll be fine. But why don’t you come see for yourself?”

  Philip felt a bit of panic. He had halfway hoped to hand the books over to whoever would happen to answer the door. But there was the matter of relaying the assignments, and he had raised his hand.

  He had assumed that Laurel would be upstairs in bed, but he was led to the parlor, where she sat propped sideways on a sofa. Her dress covered both legs, but he could see part of a splint above her right foot, which was encased in a felt slipper. The vicar sat nearby, and both looked up from books when he entered the room.

  “Laurel, Papa, Philip Hollis brought over some books from school,” Miss Phelps said with a hand on his shoulder. Philip stretched his lips into what he hoped to be a smile and waited for the admonitions that were sure to come, but the vicar got up from his chair and approached him with an outstretched hand. “Good day to you, Mr. Hollis. How thoughtful of you!”

  “Thank you, sir.” In the face of such a welcome, it seemed easier to stand there and talk with the vicar than to think of approaching Laurel with humble pie, so while his hand was being pumped he added, “Captain Powell says there’s no hurry to finish these assignments. And he and Mrs. Powell would like to call this evening after supper.”

  “Very good.”

  There seemed nothing more to say except good afternoon, but then he remembered his manners. “Uh, and how is Laurel feeling?”

  His ears grew hot when he noticed the amused glance the vicar and Miss Phelps exchanged. “Why don’t you have a seat and you can ask her yourself?” the vicar said.

  “Oh … thank you, sir.” He dared a glance over to Laurel’s face again as he was led to a chair. While she studied him curiously, he could detect no trace of hostility in her expression.

  “How are you?” he managed.

  Laurel frowned, but at her leg, not at him. “I’m already tired of having to sit. And Dr. Rhodes says it’s going to be six weeks!”

  Philip grimaced. “Does it hurt?”

  “Only a little.” She looked up at him again. “Have you ever broken a bone?”

  “No, never.” That sounded a little like one-upmanship to his ears, so he softened the denial with, “But I shouldn’t be surprised if I did. Living in Gresham is rough on bones.”

  The vicar gave a short chuckle in the chair across from him. “It is at that, isn’t it?” Though he hadn’t meant his statement to be humorous, Philip found himself joining in the smile. Dora came back into the room then and served glasses of lemonade, and the vicar read a short article to them from a periodical called Nature, the Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science, about the massive destruction of fruit orchards in New England by gypsy moths, which had been accidentally introduced into the United States. Later, he was admiring Laurel’s shadow box—the Ghost of Christmas Past approaching a bed curtain; admirable, but not nearly as nice as his—when the chiming of a cabinet clock informed him that he had been there a whole hour.

  He was surprised when, after he had bade them farewell, Vicar Phelps rose from his chair and accompanied him to the front gate.

  “How are your mother and sisters?” he asked casually.

  “Fine, sir.” It struck Philip, then, that aside from a couple of brief visits in the hall with the lodgers, the vicar hadn’t been spending time at the Larkspur and hadn’t accompanied his mother anywhere since their outing on the Anwyl. Perhaps he was busy or had even lost interest in Mother. The thought should have brought him comfort, but he found that it made him feel a little sad.

  The next afternoon he determined he would stay only long enough to give Laurel the day’s assignment, wish everyone good-day, and leave. He had gone the second and even third mile yesterday—probably more than enough to make up for the harsh things he’d said and thought about her. Any more visits like yesterday, and she would assume they were friends, and that just couldn’t be.

  But he didn’t count on the Phelps having a table set up in the parlor, waiting for him to join them in a game of Whist. “I’m staying home to be with Laurel every afternoon this week,” the vicar said, as if he felt a need to explain why he wasn’t out making calls.

  Just half an hour, Philip told himself while listening to Miss Phelps explain the rules of the game. Not a minute longer. But that was before he realized four people were absolutely necessary to play. It seemed rather rude to call a halt to everyone’s fun by leaving early. And afterward, Laurel asked him to describe his shadow box. He was a guest in her h
ome, and there she was with a broken leg. What could he do but oblige her?

  The vicar resumed his calls the second week and there were no more games of Whist. It occurred to Philip, then, that he was explaining Laurel Phelps’s daily assignments to her, then going home and working on his own. Wouldn’t it be a more efficient use of time for them to study together? Not for one second had he given up his intent to win the top student trophy, but he wanted to win it fairly and not have to wonder if it was because she was unable to compete at school.

  “This is very kind of you,” Laurel told him one day during the third week after they had checked each other’s answers for a mathematics assignment. “I’m sure you’d rather be with your friends.”

  Philip shrugged but found her gratitude rather touching. He almost liked her then. “We still get to do things on Saturdays. Fish and play cricket and such.”

  “You do?” Her brown eyes brightened, and the dimples appeared in her cheeks. “I caught two bream in early April. I even baited my own hook.”

  “You like to fish?”

  “I always wanted to in Cambridge, but my grandmother said it wasn’t a proper activity for a young lady. Papa says we’ll fish again when my leg is healed.” She gave him a conspiratorial grin. “We didn’t mention the bream when we wrote to Grandmother, though.”

  He was almost sorry, six weeks later, when the splints were removed. Not sorry that she could walk, he had to remind himself. But sorry they would have to go back to being enemies during the three remaining weeks of school.

  Yet when she smiled at him from across the schoolroom her first day back, he found himself smiling back. Having an enemy hadn’t been all that fun, after all.

  Chapter 44

  Mr. Randall Ellis arrived at the Larkspur in late May to take Mr. Clay’s old room. He was a courtly looking older gentleman with the tall, slightly stooped frame and graying beard that one would naturally assume someone in his field of study to possess. Commissioned by the British Archaeological Association to conduct some excavations amidst the ruins on the Anwyl, he would be staying in Gresham for at least two years.

  “Would you possibly have room for my assistant, Mr. Pitney?” he asked Julia over cups of tea in the library. “I would like to send for him as soon as possible.”

  “I’m sorry,” she had to tell him. “But I won’t have another room free until two of my lodgers marry in September.” Mr. Durwin and Mrs. Hyatt had decided they would like to stay on at the Larkspur after a honeymoon trip to Scotland. “Perhaps Mr. Pitney could room at the Bow and Fiddle until then?”

  “Yes, I’m sure that will do,” the man smiled. “It’s just so much more convenient to stay in the same place so we can record our notes together in the evenings. You won’t mind his coming over to do that, will you?”

  “Of course not.” An idea occurred to Julia then. Jensen’s room? While the butler’s last letter had stated a desire to move to Gresham upon his retirement, Julia knew that he still had a few years to go. After thinking the matter over while refilling Mr. Ellis’s cup, she said, “You know, I’m saving a room for a friend. But I doubt very much if he’ll come to claim it any time before September.”

  “Are you offering it to Mr. Pitney?” the man asked with a hopeful lift of the brow.

  “With the understanding that should my friend appear, Mr. Pitney would have to move to the Bow and Fiddle until the other room is free in September.”

  Mr. Ellis nodded, clearly relieved. “Thank you, Mrs. Hollis. I shall write to him at once.”

  Out of idle curiosity, she asked, “What is his given name?”

  “It’s Jacob.”

  “Jacob Pitney?” Julia wondered why the name sounded so familiar. She knew very little about archaeology and couldn’t recall ever meeting an archaeologist before Mr. Ellis’s arrival today. And then it occurred to her. To the man across from her, she said, “Would you happen to know if Mr. Pitney is ever called Jake?”

  Mr. Ellis tilted his head thoughtfully. “Why, I believe I’ve heard his sister address him as such. You know how young people are about pet names.”

  “Yes.” Julia smiled. “And I’ve no doubt Mr. Pitney will feel right at home here.”

  “Life is full of changes, all right,” Mrs. Kingston said to Philip, who had his arms draped over the front gate and was watching her prune an azalea bush. The hammering and sawing noises had finally ceased over the stables, but the mid-June day had its own sounds. Mrs. Kingston’s pruning shears clicked to an irregular cadence, a baker’s dozen of birds trilled and sang in a nearby elm, children made playtime noises on the green, and from across the Bryce came the sounds of approaching carriage wheels and hoofbeats.

  “Even when you’re old like me,” she went on with another snap of the shears. “I used to fear change, but now I’ve learned it can be rather exciting.”

  “Like your winning the blue ribbon?”

  She stopped and smiled, absently scratching her chin with the tip of her shears. “Exactly like winning that blue ribbon. And of course you should know how that felt.”

  Philip knew she was referring to his “top student” trophy. While he had been very happy to be presented with the award in the town hall last week, his joy was mingled with sympathy for Laurel Phelps, who had desired the trophy just as much. She had been quite decent about congratulating him after the ceremony. He doubted if he would have been able to show such good sportsmanship had she won, and his opinion of her went up another notch.

  Now Mrs. Kingston had moved over to her prized Rosa Allea, and she leaned down to drink in the fragrance of one of the flowers. She’d had no misgivings about accepting her award. Framed with oak and matted with ivory satin, the blue ribbon now occupied a place of honor on a wall in the hall, next to Mrs. Hyatt’s and Mrs. Dearing’s Noah’s Ark needlepoint.

  The sound of carriage wheels grew much louder, and Philip turned to see the squire’s barouche approaching, pulled by two black horses. His attention was drawn to the elderly passenger, who was glaring at him with so much venom that Philip could only stare back openmouthed. His eyes grew almost as wide as his mouth when Squire Bartley called out to his driver. “Stop at once, Charles!”

  “Will you be gettin’ out here, sir?” the servant asked after the carriage had come to a halt. But the squire ignored him.

  “You, there!” he shouted to Philip.

  Fighting the urge to turn and flee, Philip took three hesitant steps toward the barouche. “Sir?”

  “Have you no respect for your betters?” the man snapped, leaning over the side of his carriage.

  “Sir?” Philip repeated.

  “Your cap, young man! It would seem that simple courtesy would—”

  Suddenly the gate swung open and Mrs. Kingston stalked toward the barouche with blue eyes blazing and the pair of pruning shears clasped at her side like a saber. “It’s not enough that half the village is terrified of you!” she said in a scathing tone. “But you now feel compelled to vent your spleen at a little boy?”

  “I’m fourteen,” Philip reminded her, but she would not release the squire long enough from her steel gaze to correct herself.

  “If you are any kind of gentleman,” she went on, “you will apologize to him this very minute!”

  “Now see here—” the squire began indignantly, but she silenced him with a look, stepping so close to the carriage that their faces were only inches apart.

  “I don’t know how someone like you manages to sleep at night. But I pity your miserable old soul.”

  His face crimson, Squire Bartley opened and closed his mouth several times, like a trout on land. When he finally did speak, it was to mumble, “I beg your pardon.”

  Philip could not have been more surprised had one of the horses turned its head to speak the same words.

  But the apology did not satisfy Mrs. Kingston, for she snapped, “It’s the young man you’ve offended, not me.”

  Philip held his breath as the squire looked at him again and
cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Yes, sir … thank you, sir,” Philip responded awkwardly, undecided now between excusing himself or waiting to see if Mrs. Kingston would lecture him further. He opted to stay, just in case he should miss something. It would be great fun repeating the whole scene to Ben and Jeremiah. But instead of lecturing, Mrs. Kingston looked up at the squire with an expression bordering on admiration.

  “Why, that took some courage, Squire. I take back everything I said about you.”

  “That’s quite all right,” the elderly man sighed. “It was wrong of me to scold the lad.”

  “Well, now. Everyone has a bad day. I’ve been known to burn a few ears myself.”

  The squire didn’t seem surprised at this. His bushy eyebrows raised. “Mrs…. Kingston, is it?”

  “Octavia Kingston. And I suppose you’ve another name besides squire?”

  “Thurmond.” He shrugged a little self-consciously. “Passed down from my great-grandfather.”

  “It’s a good strong name.”

  “Why, thank you.” Squire Bartley looked out toward the Larkspur’s garden, then back at the Mrs. Kingston’s stalwart face. After some hesitation he said, “I wonder if I might …”

  “You wish to see the rose bush, Squire?”

  “Please, if I may. And then, perhaps you would care to tour the garden at the manor?”

  Mrs. Kingston lifted the pruning shears still in her hand and seemed to consider them thoughtfully. “I’ve still quite a bit to do.” Then a mischievous glint came into her blue eyes. “But I’ve a whole year, haven’t I?”

  Chapter 45