The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark

by Lawana Blackwell

  “It looks like that Missus Hayes again.” Luke’s voice came from behind his shoulder, unmistakable for the whistled “s.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Andrew was unable to restrain himself from saying, even while he raised a listless hand to greet his visitor.

  “You should’ha stayed away a little longer, Vicar.”

  Andrew turned his head to grin at the caretaker and was dismayed to receive the same look that had haunted him from other faces for most of the morning. At my own home too? he thought. But the trap had come to a halt, and he stepped forward to assist Mrs. Hayes as Luke took charge of the horse.

  “I want you to talk with my Luther!” the woman declared before her feet had even touched the ground. She was a waspish little woman in her late forties, with hair drawn back into a severe knot under a little straw bonnet and a high-pitched, whining voice.

  “Mrs. Hayes, this is not a convenient—”

  “He said he was just going to deliver the morning milk to the factory…four hours ago!” The veins in her forehead stood out in livid ridges. “Well, sure enough, he’s been at the smithy all morning, trading lies with that other lot of slackers!”

  “Now, Mrs. Hayes, just because they like to visit—”

  But she continued on as if he hadn’t attempted to speak. “You don’t find me wasting time at those charity women’s teas and such nonsense!”

  And they thank you for that, Andrew thought.

  “And when I went there to fetch him, he sent me away! I want you to go over there and tell him his duty is to be at home with his wife!”

  “I cannot do that, Mrs. Hayes.”

  She fixed Andrew with a look that would curdle milk. “Well, I don’t see why not! You’re the vicar. He listens to you.”

  “Then I’ll pay a call later when he’s at home. I’ll not embarrass him in front of his friends.”

  “Well, he didn’t mind sending me away in front of his friends!”

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right, Mrs. Hayes.” Taking her gently by the arm, he guided her toward the runabout, which Luke had had the good sense to abandon after tying the reins. “I’ll be over this afternoon. Until then, why don’t you find a good book to read or sit in your lovely garden with a cup of tea? You’ll find Mr. Hayes will be home before you know it.”

  By the indignant primp of her mouth, Andrew could tell the woman wasn’t favorable toward his advice. But she allowed herself to be assisted into her carriage. As he handed her the reins, she lifted her chin and allowed two parting remarks to drift down to him.

  “Vicar Wilson would have come at once, you know. And he conducted himself with dignity!”

  Wounded by the implications of both statements, Andrew watched with gaping mouth as she drove back down the lane. Then he turned and walked woodenly through the garden. He was at the door when the sound of another approaching carriage caught his ears. He turned, his heart sinking. Apparently, Mrs. Hayes had thought of more insults to fling at him.

  But when he reached the bottom step, he realized that it was his wife at the reins. He hurried out to the drive. Luke appeared again from wherever he had gone to hide.

  “Was that Mrs. Hayes who turned down Church Lane?” she asked as Andrew helped her from the trap. “I only saw her from the back.”

  “Then you had the best vantage point, didn’t you?”

  She gave him a worried look. “Oh dear.”

  “It’s nothing—all that matters is that you’re home.” He held her hand as if it were spun of fine glass and thought he had never appreciated her so much. Should the whole world turn against him, here was the one person who would stand by his side, no matter what! Holding the gate open for her, he asked, “How was the meeting?”

  “Very pleasant, but it went a little long.”

  Feigning a shudder, he said, “That’s the trouble with meetings—they always go too long. It seems that about seventy percent of the discussion of any given subject is superfluous.”

  They had reached the steps leading up to the stoop, and she paused to level her eyes at him. “Are you implying we women talk too much?”

  “Not at all, dear wife. We do the same in our diocese meetings. Every minute point has to be discussed ad nauseam. It’s as if the vicars are paid by the…”

  His voice trailed off as he realized she was not paying attention. Or rather, not to his words, for his face had her full bemused scrutiny. Oh no! he groaned under his breath. Not you too!

  She tapped her upper lip. “You have something…”

  “Here?” he asked, touching his blond mustache.

  “No, between your teeth in several places. Something dark.”

  Using his tongue, he pried away something hard and round. It sent a mildly bitter taste through his mouth when he crunched it between his back teeth. “Oh.” Andrew shrugged. “Seeds. I had a slice of blackberry bread at the Worthy sisters’. I’ll clean my teeth inside.”

  “You mean they actually stopped spinning long enough to offer you refreshment?”

  “Well, not quite.” Taking her by the elbow, he said, “Here, careful with those steps. So tell me…how did the discussion commence about the pulpit? I want to know every word that was said.”

  She gave him a sidelong look as they climbed the steps. “After what you said about meetings, don’t you think that would bore you?”

  He reached for the doorknob. “I can’t think of any subject that would fascinate me more right now, Julia.”

  However successful he was at steering Julia away from the unpleasant subject of his misspent morning, he could not avoid Mrs. Paget’s query after she served them bowls of wild mushroom consommé.

  “Did my fig bread make it over to Mrs. Ramsey’s?” she asked.

  “Absolutely, Mrs. Paget.” Though wounded at the shade of doubt in her tone, Andrew flashed her a seedless smile. “This soup is quite tasty. Do I detect fresh basil?”

  She shook her head. “Thyme.” She was a graceful, thickset woman in her midfifties, with graying blond hair and fine wrinkles webbing her eyes. “Queer little woman, that Mrs. Ramsey.”

  “Why do you say that, Mrs. Paget?” Julia asked.

  “Why, it is thyme after all.” Andrew took another bite and smacked his lips appreciatively. “I was so certain it was basil. Not that I’m disappointed, mind you.”

  For a second both women stared at him with expressions that were becoming all too familiar. “Thank you, Vicar,” Mrs. Paget said presently.

  And then to Julia she replied, “Well, I had Dora nip over to Trumbles this mornin’ for lard. And she met up with Mrs. Ramsey. Only the woman was gushing on about the blackberry bread I’d sent her, telling Dora to make sure she told me it was the best she’d ever tasted.”

  “Yes?” Julia shook her head. “That is a little odd. But I sometimes say one thing when I mean the other, don’t you?”

  Bless you, wife! Andrew thought. “I’ve done that countless times myself.”

  “You’ll find yourself doing that more and more as you get older,” the cook conceded. “I’m forever callin’ my daughters by each other’s name.”

  “And I mistook the thyme for basil,” Andrew reminded her.

  “That’s so, Vicar.” Empty tray in hand, Mrs. Paget turned to leave the dining room. Only she paused at the door and turned toward them again. “Funny thing is, Dora said it looked like she had blackberry seeds in her teeth.”

  Andrew met his wife’s puzzled look with a sheepish one of his own. It was so tempting to shrug his shoulders and change the subject again, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He sighed, just as the cook was turning to the door again. “Mrs. Paget, will you please sit with us?”

  She stared at him as if his brains had been coddled, for it was very likely that she had never lowered her stout form into one of the dining room chairs in her thirty-four years of service at the vicarage. “Begging your pardon, Vicar?”

  Andrew rose to pull out the chair adjacent to his left and across from
Julia. “Please? I have a confession to make.” He glanced at his wife again, who was observing him with a worried expression. “To both of you.”

  “Very well.” She reluctantly allowed him to take the tray from her and place it at the other end of the table. When they were all seated, Andrew cleared his throat.

  “I’ve not been truthful,” he said, spreading his hands upon the cloth on both sides of his bowl. He took another deep breath and dove into an account of how he had left the basket on the schoolhouse stoop, ending with his return to the vicarage with purple teeth.

  He was not prepared for the reaction he received, for after a second of uncertain silence, Mrs. Paget convulsed into such violent laughter that Andrew feared she would rupture something.

  “Oh, Vicar!” she exclaimed between gulps of air. “That’s rich, it is!”

  Andrew turned a concerned face toward Julia and was startled to see her shoulders shaking as well. Any hope of decorum vanished, for the two women fed upon each other’s mirth and could not look at him without bursting into laughter. Finally Andrew gave up and joined them, smiling self-consciously at first, and then chuckling to the point that he had to wipe tears from his face with his napkin.

  “You won’t tell anyone…will you?” he asked when Mrs. Paget finally pushed herself to her feet, jovially declaring herself almost too weak to walk.

  “Why, no, Vicar,” she assured him. Her dancing eyes became shrewd. “But you know…I could use an extra day off to visit me daughters next week. Nettie just had another little boy, and of course I can’t be neglecting Myra’s little ones.”

  Shock rendered Andrew speechless for several seconds. When he found his voice, it was to say, “Blackmail, Mrs. Paget?”

  “Why, Vicar!” She raised a hand to her bosom and said with an injured tone, “I was going to ask you after supper tonight anyway. Just figured now would be a better time, seeing as how you’re in such a jolly mood.”

  Andrew looked at Julia, who appeared suspiciously close to laughter again, and then back at the cook. “Have I ever refused you anything, Mrs. Paget?”

  “Now, that you haven’t, Vicar,” she replied with a shake of her head.

  “Well, take your extra day. Take two, in fact, and we’ll have our meals at the Bow and Fiddle while you’re gone.”

  Clasping both hands together, she cried, “Oh, bless you, Vicar!”

  “But I would rest more comfortably if I had your assurance that you’ll forget about what happened to that fig bread.”

  “Fig bread?” Mrs. Paget took the tray from the table and raised her eyebrows innocently. “Why, yes…we do have some loaves in the cupboard, Vicar. However did you know?”

  “Ambrose?”

  Ambrose Clay smiled at Fiona, who had just greeted him from the midst of the garden at their London townhouse. How nice it is to come home to her. As he reached the gate, a rustling sound drew his attention to one of the shrubberies near her. From behind it slunk a large rat with beady, malevolent eyes. Desperately Ambrose fumbled with the gate latch and tried to alert his unsuspecting wife, but his throat would not obey. No!

  “Ambrose?”

  He became aware of a gentle but insistent pressure upon his shoulder. Turning his head upon the pillow, he opened his eyes. Fiona was seated upon the side of the bed, watching him. Ambrose took a deep breath and felt his racing heartbeat. “Fiona.”

  She smiled, unaware that she had just snatched him from the jaws of a nightmare. “You asked me to wake you in an hour?”

  “Yes.” Raising himself upon an elbow, he rubbed his eyes with his other hand. “It seems I just fell asleep.”

  “Would you like to rest a little longer?”

  “I don’t know if I can stand any more rest like that.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Ambrose grimaced self-consciously. “A nightmare.”

  His wife combed her fingers through his dark hair. It made him feel like a small boy being comforted—not an unpleasant sensation.

  “Would you care to tell me about it?” she asked.

  “I would just as soon forget about that one,” he said. “You don’t believe dreams are prophetic, do you?”

  “Surely some are. But you mustn’t take bad dreams too much to heart, Ambrose. If most foretold anything, I would have shown up at church in my nightgown by now.”

  Ambrose chuckled. “You consider that a nightmare? Wearing your nightgown to church?”

  “I suppose you have to be a woman to understand it,” she said, smiling. “Why don’t we take our walk now?”

  Physical exertion of any kind was the last thing he desired during such times as today, but thanks to Fiona, Ambrose had learned that exercise helped to lighten the despondency. Being accompanied by the person dearest to him didn’t hurt either. He quickly dressed again, and minutes later they were strolling up Market Lane.

  “How many matches did you and Mr. Durwin manage to finish?” Fiona asked after sending a wave to Mrs. Summers, who, though bent with age, was briskly sweeping the stoop of the lending library.

  “Three,” Ambrose replied. “We were just about to start a fourth when Mrs. Beemish announced lunch.”

  “And?”

  “I won all three, of course.” He gave her a little sidelong grin. “I’m telling you, he holds back when I’m out of sorts like this. Or why else would he manage to win other times?”

  “Then why don’t you just ask him to stop?” she asked, threading her arm through his.

  “Because it obviously gives him pleasure to do so. Or perhaps he fears I’ll become suicidal if I lose?”

  “Ambrose.” A little furrow appeared in her brow. “Don’t joke about such things.”

  “Forgive me. Of course I didn’t mean that.” It struck him then that he was being very self-centered. Mrs. Beemish had called everyone to lunch as soon as the three women returned from the meeting, and then Ambrose took his nap without thinking to ask Fiona about her morning. “And I must beg your pardon again. How was your meeting?”

  “Interesting. You were almost committed to another one-man drama.”

  He grimaced. “Almost, did you say?”

  “To raise money for another pulpit. The present one’s about to fall apart from age.”

  “I can identify with that,” Ambrose quipped, but then felt a stab of guilt for not having the energy to involve himself in such a project.

  “Anyway, Julia came to your rescue,” Fiona continued.

  “I’ll have to be sure to thank her.”

  They became silent upon reaching the blue waters of the Bryce. A benign east breeze carried with it the nectarlike aroma of golden catkins frosting the willow trees along the riverbank. Among their branches hovered and darted legions of bees collecting pollen. By the end of the month, their humming would be replaced by youthful laughter and banter as the Irish Keegan children gathered the limber twigs for their father’s baskets.

  After they had crossed the bridge, Ambrose continued as if no time had lapsed. “You know, this village has been good to us. We could donate funds for a fine pulpit.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Ambrose. But the idea is to allow as many people as possible to have a part in it. That way, every worshiper can look at the pulpit and feel a sense of ownership.”

  “Hmm. That makes sense.” He still couldn’t let go of the guilt. “But can your ladies raise enough that way?”

  She squeezed his arm. “Just be sure to buy your sandwiches from me, Ambrose Clay, and I’ll see that you pay dearly for them.”

  Fiona and Ambrose went to supper in the Larkspur’s dining room that evening, as usual. It was good for Ambrose to be in the company of other people who understood his mood swings. Fiona could recall when he arrived in Gresham in the grip of severe depression three years ago. Julia had wisely insisted that he could stay only if he came to the dining room for meals with the other guests. It was to save the servants from having to run up and down stairs with trays, but joining the others had
also kept him from becoming totally reclusive during his dark episodes.

  And Fiona enjoyed mealtimes as well. Some of the faces around the table had changed since the last time she lived here, but the atmosphere was one of mutual affection, and interesting conversation flowed as freely as did food from the sideboard. That evening over roast trout with beetroot sauce, the subject drifted to the Roman ruins atop the Anwyl. This was to be expected with two archeologists lodging under the same slate roof. Mrs. Dearing, who had followed her late husband to the California gold fields and wore her white hair in a long braid, asked if any treasures were uncovered today.

  “Actually, a very exciting find,” Mr. Ellis, in charge of the excavation commissioned by the British Archeological Association, replied. He would have been perfectly cast if he were an actor playing the role of an archeologist, for his tall, slightly stoop-shouldered frame and graying beard lent him a scholarly and occasionally preoccupied appearance. “A Celtic hand mirror that likely predates the Roman fort.”

  “How can you tell that it’s Celtic, Mr. Ellis?” asked Mrs. Durwin. Petite and soft-spoken, with gentle gray eyes and soft wrinkled cheeks, she enjoyed helping the servants lay the table for supper. She and seventy-three-year-old Mr. Durwin, founder of Durwin Stoves, had been married in Saint Jude’s less than two years ago. “And was the glass still intact?”

  “We can tell its origin chiefly by the design on its back, Mrs. Durwin. And the face is actually of polished brass, not glass. We haven’t packed it up for shipping yet, so I’ll bring it up from the cellar later if any of you would care to see it.”

  Mrs. Latrell nodded. “Please do, Mr. Ellis.” The head movement caused her to raise a hand to hold her wig in place. It was of a style popular a decade ago, parted in the center with corkscrew curls over both ears. The stark black tresses leeched the color from her face, for her eyelashes and brows were still white. Vain though she was, the widow had traveled the world extensively on her own and possessed an unwaveringly cheerful outlook on life. “But do tell us, when did glass mirrors come to be?”