Esther’s words made Charity ashamed of what she felt. She backtracked, doing her best to rephrase.
“If I implied that I felt that I did not think Mr. Edwards was good enough for me, then I regret the implication,” Charity said immediately. “I meant no such thing. I intended to express only that I feel Mr. Edwards to be a very good young man — a very kind and pleasant young man. I have always thought those to be the ideal traits in a young man, and certainly in a husband. It is those traits, indeed, that leave me so perplexed.”
“Perplexed by what?” Esther asked.
“By my own feelings, of course!” Charity burst out. “I cannot understand why it is that despite all my friendliness toward such a man as Mr. Edwards, all my feelings of admiration, I cannot summon up even one-hundredth of the feeling that I harbor for Mr. Harding. How can it be so, dear friend? It defies reason!”
Esther did not say anything at her friend’s words but sat very still.
“I thought that you believed Mr. Harding to be a blackguard and a libertine,” she said. “I thought that you believed him guilty of the most terrible of crimes.”
“I do, and I do not!” Charity exclaimed. “I think he is guilty, and I think he is not. I think that he is the most wonderful young man of my acquaintance, and yet I do not. All I know about Mr. Harding is that I do not know what I think about him, and know only too well how I feel about him. My feelings triumph over my thoughts, and I am greatly disturbed by the magnitude of the triumph!”
At that, she sighed and looked at Esther beseechingly.
“If at the snap of my fingers, I could force myself to fall in love with Mr. Edwards, I would do so immediately. Such love would offer me the prospect of splendid stability as is the life of a clergyman’s wife. It is a good life. It is one that many would envy.”
At this, she fell silent. Perhaps it was because she was in Esther’s house, and could see that it was relatively humble compared to her own, but she felt suddenly that she had been very absorbed in her own concerns, and thought very little about how her friend might feel.
It was all very well, she now realized, for her to scorn the idea of stability, to dismiss it as a minor virtue to be sought after by those who lacked imagination.
But, Charity had to admit, she had never really feared poverty, the way she knew that her friend did. She had never known its sting, its indignity.
But she would be prepared to risk everything, even the humiliation of poverty, for the sake of her own independence and liberty of mind. In a way, it was liberating to know that, despite her father’s continued efforts to dominate her, she would always be able to walk away from him if she felt it be necessary.
“Do not be embarrassed, Charity,” Esther said, apparently sensing the thoughts of her friend. “I can tell that you do not wish to marry Mr. Edwards, and there is no shame in that wish. What I would say to you, however, is that you should not heap scorn upon those whose choices do not precisely resonate with your own.”
Charity nodded. Her friend was right, as she so often was.
* * *
Returning to the vicarage, Charity caught sight of a figure emerging from the churchyard and stopped dead.
It was Mr. Harding.
He was strolling slowly, and even from a distance, she could see the look of intense preoccupation on his face. Charity stood frozen for a second, unsure of what she might best do. Ought she acknowledge him and act like they were nothing more than acquaintances? Certainly, she could not snub him.
For a few moments, she panicked, and then made a hasty decision and stepped into the shadow of a nearby tree.
A coward’s choice, she thought ironically, but, nonetheless, I think, probably the wisest course of action.
From her hidden vantage, she was able to look at Mr. Harding without him looking at her. She took in all the details of him that had preoccupied her so — the tall and slim frame, the broad shoulders, the decisive step.
She looked at him and knew that, despite all the reasons why it should not, her heart still longed for him.
She waited in the shadow of the tree for a long while, until she was quite sure that he had gone away, and then stepped out of her hiding place. Her heart was pounding so hard that she could feel the beat of the blood in her fingertips.
How could a man she knew — or at least, believed — to have done such terrible things make her feel the way that he did? It made her realize with a wave of sadness, that perhaps her heart was not to be trusted. Maybe from now on, she would be wiser to use her head only, as it was clear to her that her feelings were capable of betraying her.
She thought back to Esther, how she had chided her for her dismissal of Mr. Edwards. Perhaps, she thought, she would do better to discard her strong feelings, since they were so obviously failing her. Perhaps she ought to change the way she felt about things like love and marriage.
Perhaps she ought to give Mr. Edwards a chance.
She stood outside her house for a very long while. She did not wish to go in, feeling as soon as she did, the weight of her father’s expectation would be heaped upon her once again, and she did not know if she could bear its crush.
All at once, she felt exhausted, as if all the suffering and revelation of the recent days had been a form of physical exertion. She went inside to rest, and when she lay down, she fell immediately into a sleep filled with dreams of young men shifting shapes, from Mr. Harding turning into Mr. Edwards and back again.
Chapter 27
Adam’s first impulse as he walked away from the graveyard, was to reprimand himself for how he had hitherto been thinking about the situation with his father.
He contemplated the fact that, while he had been mired in self-pity, the deaths of his own flesh and blood, and the boy’s mother, had gone unresolved and unpunished.
He resolved at that moment that his endeavor would no longer be to convince his father of his innocence. That aim was purely self-interested, a salve for his own wounded pride, and would do nothing to bring his father peace or justice for the deceased.
No, instead his task would henceforth be to discover what had happened that day and to make sure that the perpetrator received his just deserts for his actions. So preoccupied had Adam been by his own situation that he had not thought sufficiently about the fact that a shocking crime had been committed on the grounds of his own ancestral home, no less.
If he could not resolve the matter, he decided, then he was not worthy of the Dukedom at all. He vowed to move heaven and earth to discover the truth of what happened on that terrible day.
The vow gave his movements new energy, a determination, and purpose. He strode down the lane and soon reached the crossroads where, if he were to turn, he would reach the vicarage.
He thought of Miss Miller, of her soft eyes and sharp perceptions, her evidently impeccable sense of honor.
He realized that if he did not obtain justice for Mary and Freddie, then not only would he be unstable for the station of Duke, but he would be unworthy to court a young woman of virtue such as Miss Miller. It was time to stop railing against the world for treating him unfairly and start thinking about what he might do to improve the world.
Until then, he would not make any further attempts to court Miss Miller, no matter how deeply he longed to see her, no matter how much his heart longed for respite.
* * *
He arrived back at the Hall, energized by having walked back from the village at a swift pace and greeted Mrs. Reynolds with more dynamic cheer than he had displayed to the good lady since his return.
“Good day to you, Mrs. Reynolds, I do hope that you are well?”
He had expected the housekeeper to offer her usual rosy-cheeked smile of response, but instead, he noted that she was pressing her lips together tightly, as if in some distress.
This was most unlike Mrs. Reynolds; for the most part, she was the model of calm, an implacable figure in the household who was always prepared to weather any storm for the
sake of the family that she served.
“I pray you, is there something the matter?” he inquired of the housekeeper, with the concern in his voice betraying the fact that she was, and had always been, a great deal more than a mere member of staff as far as he was concerned. Indeed, she was the closest thing that he had ever had to a mother.
Mrs. Reynolds shook her head quickly so that the little lace ribbons on her cap danced about her wrinkled face. Her distress was still evident, despite her valiant attempts to hide it.
“Nothing the matter at all, sir,” she said quickly, in a way that did not deceive Adam even for a second. “There is nothing amiss in the household, only…”
“Only what?” Adam pressed. He stepped closer to the housekeeper and took her hand, the way that he had always used to do so naturally when he was a child. She looked a little taken aback by the motion, but he could see by the flush of her cheeks that she was pleased by the evidence of his affection. “My good lady, if there is something distressing you, then I pray you tell me at once.”
Mrs. Reynolds took the proffered hand in both of hers, which were clad in little mittens of black crochet and looked down at it as though she was recalling the childish one where this large hand had once been.
“I am not distressed for myself, sir,” she said, speaking with the clarity and composure that had so distinguished her in all her time in service. “However, I feel that there is something that you ought to be informed of. I fancy that your father does not wish for you to be told, yet my own conscience will not allow me to conceal the information.”
“What is it?” Adam asked with some alarm. “Is my father worse? Do I need to send for the physician again?”
He wondered at the fact that he had previously been so reassured by Mrs. Warwick’s claim that there was no cause for fear, that his father was not close to dying and would not be for a long time. There was still so much danger, and he felt it keenly whenever he reentered Lawley Hall.
He was halfway back to the front door, the command on his lips to fetch his horse so that he could send for the doctor himself when Mrs. Reynolds’ reply came, her voice throaty and seemingly much aged by the increased heaviness that her duties had taken on of late.
“He is not worse, sir. But I must tell you that he has sent a letter to Sir Toby Mornington, and I believe that the gentleman is making haste to come to Lawley Hall.”
She let the words hang in the air, for she did not need to explain her meaning any further. Adam froze where he was.
Sir Toby Mornington was his father’s brother’s son, and second in line to the inheritance of Lawley Hall and to the Dukedom. The two cousins were of almost the same age, but beyond that, they had never had a great deal in common.
They had been as unalike as two boys of the same age could possibly be, and the more that Adam had known Toby, the more he had been certain that he never wanted to emulate any of his cousin’s behavior.
Toby had been a domineering sort of boy as a child, fond of throwing stones at cats and upsetting chambermaids, and even from a very young age, he had offended Adam’s own sense of honor.
His father had liked him even less, always referring to him dismissively as ‘that young knave’ and only addressing him in his gruffest tones. The Duke hated cruelty above all other vices, and Toby had always possessed cruelty in excess.
He had been a pale, fair-haired boy with eyes such a light blue as to be almost colorless. Now he was a pale, fair-haired man, although his cheeks were given to ruddiness due to the large quantities of port he drank daily, and which were a central part of his general carousing. He had such a reputation as a womanizer that it made Adam blush to acknowledge that they were blood relations.
Adam saw him often in London during the season and had always felt great pity for whichever unfortunate young lady had been too polite to refuse to dance with him. Sir Toby was equally lascivious with every young lady that he met and generally got away with his shocking behavior by claiming that he had been induced by the powers of drink to behave as he did.
In recent years, whenever Sir Toby Mornington had come to visit, Adam had always done his best to dream up some urgent matter that called him to town. But that could not be his tactic today.
There was far too much at stake.
“Has Sir Toby sent word that he has begun his journey?” Adam asked. He carefully kept his voice neutral, knowing that if he were to show any signs of distress, then Mrs. Reynolds would immediately mirror them, fond as she was of him. He had no wish to be comforted; he realized now that as the proxy master of the house — at least for now — it was for him to do the comforting.
“We have received word that he will arrive with us this afternoon,” Mrs. Reynolds said anxiously. “I should have put him off, sir, knowing that you would want to know beforehand if we were to have the honor of a guest, but it seems that he has already set off on his journey.”
Of course, he has already begun his journey, Adam thought darkly. I expect he has a horse waiting by his front door just in case word should ever come that he must rush off to steal someone else’s dukedom.
For this was what it was all about, surely. Clearly, his conversation with his father, intended to claim truth and exact justice, had had the opposite effect. Clearly, it had motivated him to move faster in cutting Adam off and making Sir Toby his official heir.
Adam thought of Mrs. Warwick’s promise — that his father was not really dying, that there was a great deal of life in him yet. Adam knew that Sir Toby would try to taunt him, to draw him into a rivalry that would distract him from the true task of obtaining justice for Mary and Freddie.
I must not be distracted, of course. He clenched his fist. But I also must not allow Toby to exert his unpleasant influence over my father.
Summoning up all his resolve, he smiled at Mrs. Reynolds.
“It will be a great pleasure to have a guest with us at the Hall,” he said, a thread of steel running under his cheerful tone. “Have the first guest bedroom prepared for him, would you? And order a good dinner.”
Sir Toby Mornington is a bully and a cad. He took a deep breath and breathed it out slowly. I will not sink to his level by neglecting my duties as a host, no matter how unpleasant the task may be.
Mrs. Reynolds nodded, apparently grateful for guidance from the man who she considered her master in spirit, if not in name.
Adam set off across the entrance hall of Lawley Hall, his resolve sounding out in every strike of his boots upon the marble. Sir Toby Mornington would be an unpleasant distraction, of course.
He hoped that he would be able to rely on his father’s longstanding dislike of Sir Toby, that too much mischief could not take place. But he simply must not allow himself to become distracted. He had been distracted from what really mattered for far too long.
Chapter 28
Charity had not really asked herself whether she expected Mr. Edwards to call again soon. It was the sort of question that young ladies who were in love asked, or at least, young ladies who were toying with the possibility of being in love.
She thought back to how she had felt the day that she had been hoping that Mr. Harding would call. The flood of fears and feelings, the heady sense of joy when she had heard his approach.
When she was informed that Mr. Edwards was waiting in the drawing room she was somewhat pleased. Nothing more, nothing less. The idea of seeing the lively young man was a pleasant one, but there was no accompanying quickening of her heartbeat.
When she entered the drawing room, her father was already sitting with Mr. Edwards, wearing an expression more jovial than she had seen on his countenance for a long time indeed.
“Is not it a glorious day outside?” the Reverend Miller asked cheerfully, gesturing out of the window. It was true that there were patches of blue sky here and there, peering tentatively through a thick layer of white cloud. It was not bad weather, but it was not the sort to convince one to stir outdoors if one was already disinclined to d
o so.
“You’re so fond of walking, Daughter,” he continued. “I wonder if you and I and Mr. Edwards might take a little turn together. Perhaps there is some pleasant path that I am not well acquainted with. Certainly, I would like for Mr. Edwards to see the neighborhood to the greatest advantage, is it not so?”
“Of course, Papa,” she replied. She did not look at Mr. Edwards, but she was sure that if he were half as intelligent as he had seemed in their previous meetings, then he would be able to see through her father’s orchestrations. She knew that the Reverend Miller would stir a few paces and then insist that his rheumatism was troubling him, urging the young people to walk ahead so that he could rest a while.
It was not nearly as subtle a plan as he seemed to believe it to be.
Nonetheless, she saw no reason why they should not take a walk together. It would be better, at least, than sitting stiffly on the uncomfortable furniture of the drawing room, trading in banal niceties. At least, she might be able to have a rational, distracting conversation with Mr. Edwards, if her father was not hanging on their every word and doing his best to orchestrate the direction of their talk.
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