“Perhaps that is so,” Esther had said, a little dubiously.
“You were named for Esther, the brave and beautiful queen in the Bible,” Charity had exclaimed warmly. Being the daughter of a clergyman, she could not remember a time when she had not known the Bible almost word for word. “Surely that is a name worth living up to?”
“I believe I was named for my mother’s Aunt Esther,” Esther had replied doubtfully. “As I recall she was a rather poisonous old woman, although she died when I was but a child. I must confess that I hope I do not take after her in too many particulars.”
“You can take after whoever you wish to take after,” Charity had exclaimed in response. Having been steered by her father so firmly in one direction or another for her whole life, her early womanhood had been characterized by an independent streak that her father often described as ‘stubbornness’.
It was that very stubbornness that had led Charity to pursue an acquaintance with Mrs. Warwick, even though the old woman mostly kept to herself.
Charity knew perfectly well that Mrs. Warwick did not need any assistance, much less would accept any that was offered. But the truth was that she enjoyed the old woman’s company and had learned a great deal from her.
For as long as Charity could remember, the old woman had been a regular sight, gathering her herbs on the outskirts of the village and in the woods. She had always seemed to command respect, yet no one ever appeared entirely sure of how to address her.
As a little girl, Charity had been much taken by the sight of the old woman with her straw basket on one arm walking about so independently. Being an engaging sort of child, Charity had gone up to the old woman one day and inquired as to what she was doing.
“Making my medicines,” came the curt reply. “I know that your father is the vicar and he does his part in praying for the souls of the dead. I do mine in healing the living. I believe that between us we have the matter fully taken care of.”
Charity had laughed at this, which the old woman did not appear to have expected.
“Run along,” she had said. “I do not expect that your father would like to see the likes of you talking to the likes of me.”
“My father does not like a great many of the things I most like to do,” Charity had replied. “But I would be very deprived if I did not do them.”
Perhaps it had been her mature turn of phrase, or perhaps it had been the decidedness of her tone, but something had made the old woman laugh at these words. She had not said anything more but allowed Charity to follow her about her work.
Gradually she had begun to say “pick a few of those for me, would you? Your bones are younger than mine,” or “just the very tips of the leaves. Have care, child. Mind that you do not waste anything, it is all precious.”
So it was that Charity had struck up a friendship with the old woman. Although she no longer went out to spend the mornings in the fields with her, she still took care to look in on Mrs. Warwick from time to time.
Although Mrs. Warwick was proud, she was never above accepting an offering of flowers. And, of course, the heart of the matter was that Mrs. Warwick was lonely, and had been so since her daughter and grandson had died. As such, she was always eager to drink a cup of tea with anyone who she considered sharp enough to be her partner in conversation.
“You look quite different this morning, girl,” Mrs. Warwick observed as soon as Charity entered her tiny kitchen.
Mrs. Warwick always addressed Charity as ‘girl’ and never by her name. She seemed to have no notion of Charity’s being, in social terms, her better. That was partly why the two women got on so well with one another — Mrs. Warwick did not need to pretend to defer to Charity, and Charity did not need to perform the part of the virtuous clergyman’s daughter.
Besides, Charity had never much liked her own name and therefore made no objection to this, but she blushed at Mrs. Warwick’s words.
Surely the old woman could not have known what had caused the change in Charity’s countenance. The truth was that Charity did feel different, so perhaps she should not have been surprised that the change had extended to her face.
“I have seen that look before, though not on you,” Mrs. Warwick observed, turning her back on Charity and setting the great copper kettle on the fire. “Never known it to bode well.”
“I do not know what you are referring to,” Charity replied cheerfully, in what she knew was a categorical untruth. “The weather is a little brisk today, perhaps that is the cause.”
“Weather indeed,” Mrs. Warwick muttered. Mrs. Warwick was prone to muttering and had become more so in the past year. Charity did not pay it much mind but instead set about placing a bunch of wildflowers into a jug and removing a large seed-cake from her basket.
“He is back, you know,” Mrs. Warwick said, still facing the fire.
At this, Charity knew that the rush of blood to her cheeks must have been unmistakable and was grateful that Mrs. Warwick was not looking at her.
“Who is back?” she asked, marveling at the uncanniness of Mrs. Warwick’s speech, but surely they could not be referring to the same person.
“They say that he is the one who is responsible for the death of my daughter and for her son too,” Mrs. Warwick said. She spoke the words so matter-of-factly that, at first, Charity did not fully absorb their meaning. Her mind was full of Mr. Harding and the mention of the tragic death of Mary Warwick and little Freddie felt abrupt and out of place.
“Who can you mean?” Charity asked.
“Young Adam Harding, of course,” Mrs. Warwick said, straightening up from the hearth to look Charity in the eye.
At these words, Charity felt as though the very chair she was sitting on was dissolving, that she was about to fall to the floor. She knew full well what Mrs. Warwick had said, but she felt sure there must have been some kind of mistake.
“Oh, yes, half the village believes that it was his fault,” Mrs. Warwick said. Her eyes were very blue in her wrinkled face. Had it been any other old woman speaking, Charity might have wondered if she could be losing her faculties. But Mrs. Warwick still possessed the sharpest mind in the village of any man or woman, of any age.
“Mr. Harding?” Charity repeated. She felt the need to confirm the veracity of her own hearing, even though she knew full well what Mrs. Warwick was saying. “Can it really be so?”
At this, Mrs. Warwick gave a laugh. It was an unusual laugh — old and dry, but somehow devoid of any bitterness. “To be sure. There is no limit to the foolishness that people will believe, particularly when they are in need of gossip.”
At these words, the tension in Charity’s bosom eased, if only a little. It seemed that, whatever else was believed of Adam Harding, Mrs. Warwick did not hold him responsible for the deaths. Since Charity valued Mrs. Warwick’s instinct above almost any other perspective of anyone in the village, this was a relief, indeed.
“I tried to see the Duke, you know,” Mrs. Warwick said. “I went to the gates of Lawley Hall and said ‘Let me speak to that man. I have already lost my child, and her child besides. Let him not know the same grief, not when there is no need.’” At this Charity saw a glint of a tear in one of those blue eyes.
“But the servant sent me away,” she continued. A note of bitterness entered her voice at these words. “She said she would have none of my kind malingering about the place, causing trouble. None of my kind!” Here the gravelly old voice seemed to break as if snapping beneath the weight of her grief.
“None of my kind, when my daughter and grandson had died on that very land.”
Charity’s own eyes filled with tears at the memory of that dreadful day. Though she had not known Mary Warwick well and had never seen the child, she felt the loss of Mrs. Warwick’s only family keenly.
She sat with Mrs. Warwick for a little longer, but it became evident that, after the upwelling of emotion, the old woman did not wish to speak any more, on that matter or any other. She began muttering to t
he effect that she was tired and Charity took her leave.
Walking back to the vicarage, she remembered how her father had returned — that face which was usually so serene — and said that he hoped to God that he would never see such a tragedy again in his parish.
Charity had not gleaned many more details from her father of what had taken place, and all that was commonly known in the village was that both mother and child had drowned, although how they had come to meet their dreadful fate was not known.
And now she was learning that Adam Harding had been held responsible for their deaths.
Certainly, now his banishment made sense. It made sense, too, that he had come pleading to her father for his help, perhaps believing that he might be able to offer some aid, having been present himself on that tragic day.
And yet, she asked herself wonderingly, what manner of father believes the evidence of common gossip over the testimony of his only son?
It weighed heavily on her heart, furthermore, that Mrs. Warwick had known about this accusation the whole of the past year and had not taken Charity into her confidence. It made Charity realize that, although she believed the old woman to be her friend she had clearly not offered Mrs. Warwick sufficient support.
The truth was that Charity had withdrawn somewhat from Mrs. Warwick over many years, ever since Mary Warwick had disappeared. Although the cause of her disappearance was not known at the time, or at least, if it had been, it was not spoken aloud, it had come as no surprise when she had returned last year with her young son in tow.
No one seemed to know how the woman and the child lived. It was generally supposed that Mary had gone back to her mother, Mrs. Warwick, though she was never glimpsed in the little cottage and theirs was not a village where a young woman could easily hide, still less a young woman in a delicate condition. After a period of some years, it became evident to all who cared to consider the matter that Mary Warwick was gone and no one knew where.
And yet, a year ago, she had very briefly reappeared. Briefly — in that, there had been an interlude of mere days between her reappearance in the village and the abrupt and tragic death of herself and her poor son.
Nothing was known of the boy’s parentage. A husband had been invented, of course -— one whom, after having fathered little Freddie, had conveniently died. It would not have done to question the existence of such a husband too much in polite society, but it was quite clear to everyone that the boy was illegitimate.
The mysterious circumstances surrounding the boy’s birth and Mary’s hasty disappearance had allowed the Warwicks to save face somewhat, but all this truly achieved was to marginally lessen the impact of Mary Warwick’s disgrace. It had not needed to be said that she would never be in service again, not at Lawley Hall, and not anywhere else in polite society.
Charity had felt a good deal of pity for Mary Warwick and would have pitied Mrs. Warwick, too, if she had thought that Mrs. Warwick suffered at all as a consequence of the stain on her daughter’s honor. But Mrs. Warwick had never much cared what anyone else thought.
The Reverend Miller had outright banned Charity from visiting the old woman after that. On the surface, Charity had protested, but if she were honest with herself, she would have to admit now that her visits to the old woman had, at that point, become a good deal less regular and a good deal more perfunctory.
Charity wondered if she would ever be as brave as Mrs. Warwick. If she would ever truly succeed in discarding her concerns about what other people thought of her so that she would be able to follow her own heart completely.
As she mused on this matter, the face of Adam Harding drifted once again into her mind. This time she did not try to push it away, as she had all morning, but let the impression of the handsome young man remain in her mind’s eye.
She thought of Mrs. Warwick’s words and her heart ached.
She quietly reiterated the words, I have already lost my child and her child besides. Let him not know the same grief, not when there is no need.
It struck Charity that there was quite enough grief and sorrow in the world without people making matters worse by refusing to admit they were wrong.
She resolved, at that moment, that she would go to her father directly and ask that he, at least, consider interceding on behalf of Adam Harding. After all, if the young man was innocent — and Charity was sure in her heart that he was, just in the same way that Mrs. Warwick had appeared to be sure — then there was no sense in adding another tragedy to that which had already come to pass.
Chapter 8
Perhaps Adam ought to have discarded any hope that his father would receive him. Perhaps he ought to have realized from that terrible encounter that morning, that unless something changed, there was no question of his father’s forgiveness.
Nonetheless, it struck him like a knife to the heart, a wound that started as pain and quickly turned to anger, when the footman informed him that he was not to be permitted into his father’s bedchamber.
The old man is dying, Adam thought, with a combination of fury and despair. Surely he must know that the time for reconciliation is short?
His father’s refusal to see him was merely the latest and most painful of the myriad rejections he had received that day from the Reverend Miller, from Farmer Roberts, now from his own father, once again. Mrs. Reynolds was doing her best to convey her sympathy, but it had little effect on Adam’s mood.
He had felt alone before, of course. He had been deeply isolated during his time abroad which he had sought to alleviate by entertaining the elegant French and Italian young ladies. These women had been drawn to the son of an English duke like moths to a flame and had not seemed to particularly care that he was disgraced and estranged from his father.
This had provided some distraction, but the long sleepless nights in his rented lodgings had been quiet indeed.
Yet, this isolation was nothing compared to what he felt now. Loneliness experienced under a foreign sky, Adam was now realizing, was nothing compared to rejection under the roof of one’s own father.
And yet, just as the sense of alienation was more intense now that he had returned, so too was the sense of distraction.
Adam could scarcely get Charity Miller’s face out of his mind. He could not have said whether the fascination was simply the result of the heightened atmosphere he was experiencing due to his return home, or whether it was the product of more enduring interest.
The only way he could find out, of course, was to see her again.
He sat up for much of the night, thinking of his father Thinking of Mrs. Warwick and all that she had lost. Thinking, too, of Charity Miller and marveling that her face shone so brightly in his mind, even in the midst of all this terrible darkness.
He rose with the dawn and spent the early hours of daylight wandering Lawley Park in a state of some distraction.
He had to reason with Reverend Miller. Of that, he was quite sure. After all, it was Reverend Miller who had been talking to both Adam and his father that strange, terrible day. Reverend Miller had seen both the woman and her child and must have seen Adam too.
Through all his lonely time of banishment, Adam had marveled at how difficult it was to prove that a thing had not happened. The suspicion that Adam’s father held against him had become clear, and after that, it had been impossible to dissuade him from his conviction.
But the Reverend Miller, he was sure, would be his salvation.
Yet, the man had seemed so unwilling to offer help and so halfhearted in his promises when he had offered it.
Still, Adam was doing his best not to think about that too much, as he wandered the groves between Lawley Hall and the village.
If one had asked Adam what his motives for walking there, he would have said that he had no motive at all, only a great desire to be out in the fresh air.
And perhaps he did not even consciously realize how much he was hoping that he might meet Miss Miller while he was out walking. Perhaps he would have
said that it came to him as a complete surprise that she was out there walking too.
Yes, it would be true to say that when he recognized her figure, silhouetted against the airy clouds of the morning sky, his heart leapt, although perhaps that owed more to pleasure and anticipation than to any surprise.
As he approached, some small twig snapped underfoot, and Miss Miller turned. When she saw him, her countenance was difficult to read, but certainly, she did not appear surprised to see him.
Then her face broke into a smile that seemed involuntarily, that seemed to mirror the morning sunlight in the grove and make it stronger.
“It is a lovely morning,” she said, in lieu of any more formal greeting.
Adam walked over to where she was standing on the ridge, which then fell away into a grassy hillside. Below them, the village was nestled in the small valley. Plumes of smoke rose from the chimneys of the cottages, and the church spire reached gracefully into the freshly-blue sky.
Charity Falls for the Rejected Duke: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 4
