“No, it’s you we want to see.”
Puzzled, Rachel bade them sit down at the kitchen table. “May I get you a cup of tea?”
Greta’s cheeks were pink too. “No, thank you. I’m about to impose upon you for far more than that.”
She looked very different from when Rachel had last seen her. She was plumper and didn’t have the pale, haunted aspect that she’d left Puddling with. For a girl who had been placed in the village for her health, her eyes had been deeply shadowed, her smile wan as she’d been driven away that last morning.
“I’ll help you any way I can,” Rachel said, not having the faintest idea what she could possibly do for a countess.
“I know this is an inopportune time, Rachel, with your father being ill, but Gr—Lady Bexley needs a place to stay for tonight.”
“Stay? Here?” She knew she sounded rude, but Rachel’s cottage was nothing like what Greta must be used to. She was an heiress, for heaven’s sake, and now a countess!
“You have an extra room,” Vincent reminded her.
She did, and there was no bed in it. It had been carried downstairs to the parlor for her father’s use.
“I could help you take care of your father,” Greta said quickly.
“Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Rachel said. “My father can be difficult.”
“My husband can be difficult,” Greta said quietly. “I’ve left him.”
“Oh! I…I see.” Although she didn’t.
“If you agree, I won’t be any trouble. I spoke with the Marquess of Harland this afternoon, and he’s pledged to help me. I’ll return with him to Kings Harland when he leaves tomorrow.”
The Marquess of Harland? Rachel swallowed. “He thinks it’s a good idea that you stay with me?”
“I cannot stay at Sir Bertram’s. He has his position as chairman of the governors to consider. And since we might be suing the Puddling Rehabilitation Foundation—”
“What?”
“I don’t think it will come to that, but it never hurts to threaten. Lord Challoner thinks we have a case for collusion and fraud and coercion between Mama and her lawyer and the governors, and has convinced his father to be my champion. I plan to get an annulment of my marriage in any case. We have never, thank goodness, consummated it.”
The Greta before her was full of confidence and was very matter of fact, a far cry from the unhappy girl who’d spent three months drooping about Puddling.
“You would have been amused to see Sir Bertram wriggle,” Vincent said. “The Marquess is none too pleased with Puddling’s methods at the moment. Who would have thought he’d have such a soft heart for Gr—Lady Bexley?”
“It’s all due to Lord Challoner,” Greta said. “He’s a lovely young man, and explained everything so well. B-but not as lovely as you, Vincent.”
Rachel looked from one of her uninvited guests to the other. Vincent was the color of raspberry fool.
Oh, Lord.
“Of course you can stay,” Rachel said.
“I’m afraid I don’t even have a change of clothing with me,” Greta said, blushing more. “Could I borrow a nightgown?”
“Certainly,” Rachel said faintly. She turned to Vincent. “Do they know about you two?”
“No! That is to say, Henry does. Lord Challoner, I mean. But he’s been sworn to secrecy. It wouldn’t do for there to be any question of Greta’s innocence.”
“And I am innocent,” Greta said, sounding exasperated and giving poor Vincent a look that said she wished he’d change that status as soon as possible.
“All in good time, my love. Henry has promised his assistance.”
Henry! The man who until two weeks ago couldn’t keep his own trousers buttoned. Suddenly he was a magician.
“Oh, and I have a message from him,” Vincent remembered. “I’m to take your plan book and deliver it to him. I’ll introduce him to the children tomorrow morning and smooth his way.”
Rachel had hoped Henry would come by himself so she could explain her routine. Warn him what to watch out for. She swallowed her disappointment and pushed the canvas bag that she’d thrown on the table in her rush to see her father toward Vincent.
“Everything he’ll need is in there. Seating chart. Lesson plans. I wanted to give them a picnic on the last day.”
“Excellent. And you’ll be pleased to know the Marquess of Harland is terminating his son’s stay here. Henry will teach for the next three days as a favor, but then it’s back to civilization for him. He won’t bother you anymore.” Vincent smiled at her benignly, and Rachel wanted to punch him.
Rachel schooled her face to hide the terrible shock. What about their engagement? Henry had proclaimed it in front of all the neighbors!
“He told me to tell you not to worry. He has everything in hand.”
Did he now? Rachel was glad someone did.
What would she tell her father? He was so set on her marrying Henry and living a new life. How could Henry have changed his mind between lunch and supper?
The Marquess of Harland had probably changed it for him.
Rachel’s bitterness threatened to choke her. She rose and stirred the pot of boiling potatoes just for something to do. The wooden spoon slipped from her shaking hand and fell to the flagstones.
“I’ll get it!” Greta said, leaping up and rinsing it under the pump handle. “I would so like to be useful tonight. Can I read to your father? I did enjoy doing that for Mrs. Flint. Even though it was my Service, it was very enjoyable. She’s a remarkable old lady, isn’t she, living all by herself even if she is blind.”
Would that be Rachel’s fate here in this cottage in fifty years? She might become someone’s Service project in the future. Poor Miss Everett, who used to teach school before she lost her five-hour fiancé and her marbles.
She was perilously close to losing them now.
Vincent left them after giving Greta a discreet kiss on her cheek. Rachel had no time to feel sorry for herself. She needed to mash potatoes and slice ham and make up a clean bed for a temporary countess. She would give her bed to Greta and sleep in the weaving room on some old blankets. It wasn’t as if she was going to sleep much anyway. Dr. Oakley would be here any minute and she’d ask him to stay for supper. He was a kind man who could carry the conversation with his former patient while Rachel’s mind lay in tatters.
Chapter 44
Henry’s respect for Rachel had reached new heights. He’d only had three days with the little blighters, and he was almost ready to commit himself to an asylum.
He’d survived the early obstacles—one being the mischievous rearrangement of the children from their seating charts. If he’d not recognized shrieking Mary Ann, he might have called her Helen for the duration. But Rachel, bless her, had a diagram of who sat where, and once Henry reshuffled the children with a stern stare, they mulishly sat through their lessons until they discovered this old crippled soldier wasn’t so bad after all.
Vincent, who was supposed to have been assisting to prevent such pranks that first day, had not arrived until nearly lunch time. Farewells to his beloved had taken longer than expected, but at least Greta was now safely at Kings Harland, meeting already with the marquess’s legal and spiritual advisors. There had been a scrawled missive from Henry’s father yesterday relating the progress, with a reminder to give up Rachel Everett, or he’d withdraw his hospitality and his help from Lady Bexley.
Henry was a man of honor. He’d made promises to quite a lot of people lately, some more obvious than others. A public proposal and a pledge to an elderly man was one thing, a brief silent twitch of acceptance with his fingers crossed behind his back was something else altogether.
A childish trick, true, but the latter had achieved the desired result. His father thought Henry had given up Rachel. He had not. But how to let her know that fact was a bit of a conundrum.
Mrs. Grace was at his elbow night and day, even decidin
g to sleep in, as though she expected him to make a run for it. By the time he came home from school at the end of the session, he could barely walk, much less run. If it was in his power, he’d flatten every hill in Puddling. Patrolling desks all day, supervising lunch and recess and then climbing that damned cliff to his house would be his undoing. He might be ready for a Bath chair before all this was over.
He looked at his watch. One hour. There was the picnic to get through, and then he’d be a free man, free from Mrs. Grace at least.
Ostensibly she was in Stonecrop Cottage to assist him through his abbreviated stay and Service, but Henry knew better. She was in the pater’s employ, a paid spy in Henry’s household. There was no possibility of a midnight stroll with the house locked up tight from inside, no chance of dropping a letter at the post office.
Vincent had told him all Guests’ mail was opened, and usually destroyed. Henry wasn’t supposed to know there was a telegraph room in the back of the store, and that wouldn’t have served anyway. A message to Rachel would only have telegraphed their situation all through Puddling.
Henry couldn’t even say he was paying Pete a visit—Dr. Oakley had mandated absolute bedrest for the old gentleman, no company allowed. So he’d repeatedly reminded Vincent to tell Rachel he had everything in hand.
He hoped. One more hour. Then his father’s coach was coming for him.
He rang the small brass bell on his desk. He’d become quite proprietary about it, discovering an organizational bent he’d never known he’d possessed. Graded papers were stacked neatly for Rachel’s perusal. A cache of shiny apples, and one confiscated slingshot, was on top of them. He was, apparently, a popular fellow. It had been touch and go at the beginning, but he took more pride in the children’s capitulation than he’d ever done with his troops.
“Attention!”
Pencils dropped, books slammed shut. His little crew sat up, hands folded, eyes fixed on him in expectation.
“Catch!” Nine pairs of hands raised, one of the children being absent, having a putrid sore throat. Henry pitched an apple, aiming at the littlest children in the front row. His nemesis Mary Ann was the victor.
“Mary Ann, how can you make one apple feed two children?”
“Cut it in ’alf, Captain C.” It had been easier to dispense with the “Lord” altogether. The class was bloodthirsty and Henry had spent a good portion of time discussing various battles in their geography and history lessons.
“Very good. Come on up.” The little girl handed him her prize, which Henry used his knife to slice into two pieces. “Now then, Mary Ann, I expect you have more than one friend.”
She nodded solemnly.
“What shall we do?”
“Cut each piece in half again.”
“Very well. How many friends will that feed?”
“Four!” Charlie Motley cried out.
Henry remembered getting rapped in the knuckles every time he gave a wrong answer. He didn’t believe in that—it wouldn’t teach anyone anything but to damage their hands and develop a hatred for schools and teachers. And why punish the boy for speaking out and trying?
“You are partly right, Charlie. There will indeed be four pieces, but if you give them all away to friends, what will be left for you?”
“None.”
“What’s the mathematical word for none?”
“Zero!” A whole host of voices called out.
“So, Charlie, how much of the apple are you willing to give away? Remember, you’re a hungry lad.”
Charlie grinned. “Three of them, sir. Three-fourths of the apple.”
“Excellent,” said Henry. He cut the apple up. “But I see nine children here, and only four apple slices. What should I do?”
The children discussed dividing up the apple nine ways. Henry invited one of the older girls he trusted with his knife to come up and try to turn four pieces into nine.
After making a juicy mess and just eight slices, she licked her fingers and grinned up at him. “What about the other apples on your desk?”
“Yes, we’ll start again. How can three friends share an apple?”
It was trickier to cut the fruit into thirds, trickier still to cut each third in three even pieces. While his student was cutting, some of the other children came to the chalk board to draw apples and show the problem with numbers. The littler ones just looked hungry.
“Knowing how to multiply and divide will help you with cooking, you know.”
“You mean we’ll make applesauce?” Charlie asked.
Tommy snorted. “Boys don’t cook!”
“I beg to differ,” Henry said. “It’s a useful skill to know your way around a kitchen or a campfire. Think of an army cook, who, Tommy, is most certainly a man. A very important one. His unit depends on him—an army travels on its stomach. He could feed a hundred soldiers if he knows how to take a recipe that feeds four and multiply the ingredients.” He passed out the unsanitary apple slices and wiped his hands on his handkerchief.
“Now then. It is our last day of the term, and you are to have three whole weeks of holiday. Miss Everett suggested we have our lunch, and the rest of these apples, out of doors, and perhaps have some races. Charlie, you may ring the dismissal bell, since you were willing to take a guess on an answer. Risk should be rewarded.”
The children spread out under the biggest tree in the schoolyard, the very same one Henry had had to climb on his first day to disentangle naughty Holly Smith from its branches. There was no tree-climbing today, just eating and a few relay races. The maths lesson continued as they figured out how to divide themselves into even teams. Henry sat in the shade, proud he’d survived.
Charlie rang the bell when the time came, and Henry shook each child’s hand as they went through the gate. He hoped they wouldn’t forget everything they’d learned—three weeks was a long time in a child’s life.
His, too. He’d been in Puddling for three weeks and everything had changed.
He returned to the schoolroom and sat down at the desk. Pulling a piece of lined paper from Rachel’s drawer, he began to write. He poured his heart—he had one!—out on the page, and slipped the letter to Rachel between worksheets. He wished he could be there to watch her face as she read it.
And hoped she could read his handwriting.
***
School would reopen in a few weeks for the summer term, and adjourn again in July. Rachel was responsible for tidying the school building as well as teaching, and she trudged down the hill to see what sort of mess the building had been left in.
Despite everything, for some reason Sir Bertram had taken pity upon her and she still had her job. Things were very unsettled at present in Puddling, and her tenure was one less thing for the governors and school committee to worry about.
Thank goodness, for she was not getting married after all.
There had been no word from Henry. His father’s traveling coach had rolled into town the last day of classes and he’d climbed in with no objection. Stonecrop Cottage was now being readied for its next inhabitant, who was due any day.
There was worry that several Guests on the waiting list might not be sent here after all. The Marquess of Harland had great influence, but at least it wasn’t Rachel’s fault that Puddling had fallen into some disrepute.
She was impervious to the scents and sounds of the perfect cloud-free day. It may as well have been raining all around her, her spirits were so low. Who knew what chaos she’d find in her classroom? She’d seen a few of her students in church the past two Sundays, and they had been full of Henry’s wild war stories, wondering if he would come back and help her teach.
Not bloody likely. He was now in training to be a marquess, much too exalted for the likes of Puddling.
Drat. She was crying again, for all the good it would do. Even “old Vincent” had given her a sympathetic look from the pulpit. Rachel was certain his Prodigal Son sermon referenced Henry
.
Rachel was trying to trust in the Lord as Vincent suggested after the service, but just now she felt unequal to the task.
The classroom was, surprisingly, orderly, except for a sticky spot on the demonstration table next to her desk. She scrubbed at it ineffectually, her tears adding to the soapy water of the bucket.
With the windows shut, the aroma of apples permeated the air. Odd. The scent was more than pleasant, but the room was too hot and stuffy to work in. Rachel put her rags down and threw the windows open. A fresh breeze stirred the children’s papers on her desk, and she caught them before they fell to the floor.
When she saw the children next, their mistakes would be three weeks old. Rachel was a big believer in fresh beginnings, and she tossed the old schoolwork into the trashcan. She’d have to start fresh too.
Chapter 45
“What’s that you’ve got there, Dad?” She knew perfectly well what it was, but had yet to get a straight answer from her father.
Pete Everett folded up the paper and stuck it in a book. It was unusual for him to get mail, and he’d been fiddling with that letter ever since he got it the other day.
“Just something from a friend.”
“Oh? Who?” She’d asked him before, and hoped he’d forgotten she had.
“An old army chum.” He plucked the plaid blanket off his legs and tossed it over a bush. “I’m hotter than hell.”
It was warm. The garden was wild without her father’s careful daily tending and heavily perfumed. “I bet you’re glad you got permission to get out of bed,” Rachel said, smiling fondly at him. He’d been a bear for days, complaining that Dr. Oakley was an old woman, far too conservative in his diagnosis and treatment.
“That’s not all I’ve got permission for. How would you feel about that trip to London?”
Rachel’s first inclination was to say no, not only because she worried such a journey would be too much for her father. She was…in a mood.
It was very hard to be positive. Here she had free time, yet she couldn’t settle onto anything. And every time she stepped foot onto New Street, she knew her neighbors were talking about her. Feeling sorry for her.
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