The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark

by Lawana Blackwell

  “Papa…” he whined, only to be silenced by a severe look from the head of the table. His father had determined that a worktable was a waste of time and money and had yet to yield an inch. It was a wonder that the woman had stayed this long with Papa so stubborn, but then there were likely not many families in Gresham who would put up with Mrs. Winters’ bossy ways.

  “Fernie, you sluice out the milking barn,” his father said after crunching down on a piece of overcooked bacon. Mrs. Winters had prepared bacon perfectly until she got the notion for the worktable in her head. Turning to Harold, he said, “I want you and Dale to haul thet load of manure behind the haybarn over to the turnips.” The turnip patch was in the back pasture, surrounded by a wood rail fence to keep the cattle from eating until they bloated and died. Most of the vegetables would be stored to provide winter forage along with the hay.

  “We’ll have to wait for the wagon,” twenty-eight-year-old Dale replied, for Oram would soon be delivering milk to the cheese factory and then driving Edgar and Jack to school.

  “No need to put more wear on the wagon ’til we get another made. Use the wheelbarrow.”

  After an exchange of outraged glances with Dale, Harold protested, “But it’ll take all day!”

  Their father ignored the loud thump from the foot of the table, where a tight-jawed Mrs. Winters had just slapped down the mound of dough. “Not if you put your backs into it.”

  Later, after Harold had heaved what had to be his hundredth shovelful of manure into the barrow, he paused to wipe his brow with a grimy sleeve. “Papa ain’t got the right to treat us like this.”

  “No, he don’t,” Dale agreed but kept on shoveling. “Come on, let’s get it done with. I don’t wanter be here all day.”

  Now Harold was interested. Of the two, he was considered the fighter and Dale the lover. At least that was what they considered themselves. “You seeing somebody later?”

  A grin spread under Dale’s forest green eyes, so like Harold’s own. “Lucy Bates. She works on a pig farm in Myddle. She’s got a sister who ain’t too rough on the eyes. Wanter come along?”

  Just days ago the idea would have been tempting, but then Harold reckoned he had gained some maturity over the past few days. He was thirty-one years old, with nothing to show for it. Yes, the farm would go to him when his father passed on, but the man was strong as a stump and would likely outlive all of them. If he didn’t take hold of his life and make some plans for the future soon, Harold could easily see himself drifting along year after year, slaving for his father and having to put up with Mrs. Winters’ vinegary comments.

  It was his chance meeting with the schoolmistress, Miss Clark, that gave him a little ray of hope for the future. Schoolmistresses were paid wages, and besides that, her father owned the iron foundry. That meant there would likely be a good-sized dowry if she ever wed. He lifted another shovelful. Her papa’s likely wondering if he’ll ever marry her off. Why, a decent dowry would give him the funds to get his own farm. And nobody to tell me what to do.

  “What are you grinnin’ at?” his brother asked, leaning on his shovel to wipe his nose with the tail of his shirt.

  “Just thinking about Miss Clark.”

  “That school lady?”

  “I’m thinking about courtin’ her.”

  “Her?”

  Harold felt his temperature rising. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “She looks like a monkey for one thing, with those ears. And she’s tall as a maypole.”

  “But she don’t slop pigs for a livin’,” Harold shot back. “Looks ain’t everything, you know. She’s got a nice voice…and besides, her ears don’t stick out as much as Constable Reed’s.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t court Constable Reed either.”

  Just as he was on the verge of throwing down his shovel and taking Dale by the throat, Harold forced himself to calm down. He couldn’t fault his brother for having no idea about planning for the future. Dale wasn’t the brightest one in the family.

  With a grunt Harold hefted another load. “If she helps me get away from this place, it don’t matter what she looks like.”

  They both shoveled in silence for a few minutes, topping off the barrow. It was Dale’s turn to haul it across the barnyard and pasture to the turnip patch. He wiped his face with his shirt again and glanced at the cottage. “This is stupid…not bein’ able to use the wagon. We would’ha been finished by now.”

  “Maybe when I get my own place you can come work for me.”

  An eyebrow cocked on his brother’s grime-smeared forehead. “You think that schoolmistress will help you do that?”

  Harold nodded. “She still lives at home, so she must have a fair amount of wages saved up.” He mentioned his hopes for a dowry as well.

  Finally Dale seemed impressed. Picking up the barrow by both handles, he said, “Well, you’d best make sure you court her the right way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His younger brother actually wore an expression of wisdom. “I learnt with Mary, over to the Bow and Fiddle, that you can’t just go tellin’ a woman you want to court her. You have to make her want to court you too.”

  “How do you do that?”

  Dale raised a hand to scratch his head, which was a mistake because the top-heavy barrow tipped over to the right, dumping its contents to the ground. He let out a curse that would have curdled even Papa’s ears and righted the barrow again. Any other day Harold would have found some shade and sat out his brother’s refilling of the barrow, but curiosity led him to pick up both shovels.

  “Here,” he said, handing one over to Dale. They began shoveling again. “How do you make a woman want to court you?”

  “Well, I ain’t exactly sure when it comes to somebody like Miss Clark. All I had to do was whistle and wink at Lucy, but proper women don’t like that.”

  “Then how am I gonter know what to do?”

  Dale raised a hand again, but this time he wasn’t holding the barrow’s handles, so no damage was done. After a second or two of serious head scratching, he gave Harold a self-satisfied smile. “You ask Mercy.”

  Four hours later when the work was finished, Harold and Dale slipped off to bathe in the creek behind the pastures. Harold didn’t mind grime on his clothes and skin—a fellow couldn’t very well farm without it—but some grime was worse than others. They hadn’t thought to bring a change of clothes, so they beat their soiled shirts and trousers against the trunk of an apple tree on the bank.

  He couldn’t wait to get over to Mercy’s to ask her advice, but then lunchtime was upon him, and of course his papa had thought up other chores. “Scrub out the water troughs,” he told Harold around a mouthful of pork-and-turnip stew. “And have it done by milking.”

  That gave him only two hours until time to bring the cattle from pasture for the afternoon milking, but Harold worked harder than he had ever worked. When the chore was done he still had an hour remaining. He changed his clothes and ran the half mile to Seth Langford’s horse farm, thoughts of Miss Clark and her handsome dowry giving him speed. Panting, he let himself in the gate in front of the two-story stone cottage. His sister, Mercy, lived here with her husband, Seth Langford, stepson Thomas, who was nine and would be at school now, and baby Amanda. Harold heard his name and waved a greeting to Seth, who was leading a horse and newborn colt into one of the paddocks in front of the stables.

  He liked Seth. Everyone had thought the Londoner was daft when he first came to Gresham with the intention of raising horses, but he had shown them all. At last count he had three dozen wellbred Cleveland bays, not counting the recent batch of colts. And the word around Shropshire was that his stock was far superior than any animal a person could get in Wolverhampton.

  And Seth Langford wouldn’t allow Papa to boss him around, which made Harold admire and envy him all the more. Only two other people had managed to do that in Harold’s lifetime—Mrs. Winters, and that Mrs. Kingston, who was now Squire Bartley’
s wife, who had persuaded Papa to send Jack and Edgar to Mr. Raleigh’s school. He had to add his sister, Mercy, to that list, he supposed, though she had only stood up to their father during her last few months at home.

  He opened the door and walked on into the tidy parlor. “Mercy?”

  From above him came a muffled “Help!”

  Harold bounded up the staircase, two steps at a time, and found Mercy in her room bending curiously over the bed. He recognized Amanda’s gurgling chatter from beneath his sister’s long curly hair, then saw a little foot move. Mercy, whose face was hidden from him, said, “Seth?”

  “It’s me—Harold.”

  She gave a little laugh. “Help me get my hair loose. Every time I pry one hand open, she grabs another handful.”

  “All right.” Chuckling at the notion of a grown woman being trapped by a six-month-old, he sat on the edge of the bed and reached for a little hand. “Can’t you just pull it out?”

  “It might cut her. Just untangle that hand and I’ll get the other.”

  Soon his sister was freed, and Amanda, who must have thought it was a fine game, kicked her hands and feet and made cooing noises at Harold. She wore a pink flannel gown, and her soft fair hair quivered on her head like thistles in a breeze every time she moved. “Whew!” Mercy exclaimed, raising herself again. “I’ll know not to change a nappie halfway through repinning my hair again.” She handed him a cloth, rolled into a ball. “Would you toss that in the pail in the corner?”

  “Ugh!” Harold shied away as if she held a snake.

  “Sissy,” she teased and did it herself. Harold would have thrashed on the spot any man who dared to call him that, but now he just shrugged. Mercy had changed so much since her marriage to Seth, losing the tired, worried look she had worn at home all the time. Why, she even seemed younger to him now.

  “Hold Amanda and let me tend to my hair, will you?” she asked him.

  He picked up the baby and sat her on his knee, facing her mother, who sat only a couple of feet away. Amanda immediately twisted around and attempted to push her fingers in his mouth, so that he had to raise his chin to talk. “I come to ask you about Miss Clark. You know, the schoolmistress.”

  “Yes?” Mercy turned to him, hairpins between her teeth. “What about her?”

  “I want to court her, but Dale says you have to court women like her different.”

  “Different-ly.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  Still facing him, she wove her hair with both hands behind her head. It wasn’t until after her marriage that Harold realized his sister was comely to look at, somehow having escaped all the male Sanders’ deep-lidded, froglike eyes. Her eyes were a calm hazel, set over a slightly upturned nose in a serious face that could break into a smile at any minute. She looks like Mother, Harold thought with a little lump in his throat. Only their mother hadn’t smiled much.

  “I have to wonder…why Miss Clark?” Mercy was saying as she stabbed hairpins into the knot. “You’ve never shown interest in anyone like her before.”

  You too? Harold thought. He surely didn’t expect Mercy to be as snooty as Dale had been. “Just because she’s homely don’t mean she ain’t nice.”

  His sister shook her head, her mouth a straight line. “She’s not homely at all, Harold. That’s not what I meant. But to put it bluntly, she has high moral standards.”

  “I like women with high moral…what did you say?”

  “Standards.”

  “I like women with those,” he defended, though he still wasn’t quite sure what that last word had meant.

  “Yes? Name one that you’ve ever courted.”

  That hurt. “A man can change, Mercy.”

  “Yes, Harold. But usually not overnight.”

  “Weren’t overnight. I’ve been feelin’ this way since the Saturday before last. And by the way, Miss Clark gave me a ride to Shrewsbury in her papa’s trap, and we got along real good.”

  “You did?” His sister stretched forward to take the wiggling Amanda from his arms. “My mistake, then. But the way to get any decent woman interested in you would be to be decent yourself.”

  “How do you do that?”

  Now it was Mercy who tried to talk around the busy little fingers at her lips. “Any other time I would urge you to become a Christian, Harold. But not just so you can attract a woman. God’s salvation isn’t to be treated frivolously.”

  Harold hated it when she used big words, but he was relieved when she did not go on, for he had heard enough of Mercy’s sermons. “Is there anything else, then?

  “Well, church certainly wouldn’t do you any harm. And it just may happen that—”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Fernie went last Sunday.”

  “Only because Jack beat him at mumblety-peg.” He shuddered. He had only been in church twice in his life—his mother’s funeral at Saint Jude’s, and Mercy’s wedding at the Wesleyan chapel. They were both depressing places, with folks wearing dour faces that would dry the cows right up if they wore them to milking. And they talked about God too much. God was equally depressing, to Harold’s way of thinking, because He didn’t want people to have any fun.

  “But He changes your notion of what fun is when you give Him control of your life,” Mercy had argued once when he stated that opinion to her.

  Well, the last thing Harold wanted was someone else controlling his life. Papa was bad enough.

  “Well, what’s next on the list after church?” he asked, as if he was reconsidering that step.

  She rested her chin lightly atop Amanda’s little head. “I like it when Seth brings me flowers and leaves little notes where I’ll find them…”

  “Flowers and notes,” Harold said under his breath. He couldn’t read or write, but Jack and Edgar could. In fact, Papa complained that going to school had ruined them, for they always seemed to have their noses stuck in books lately. Just last week Jack had gotten the strap for balancing a book upon his knees as he milked a cow, getting more milk on the outside than the inside of the pail.

  “…and when he asks my advice,” his sister went on.

  This took him by surprise. Big strong Seth Langford asking advice of a woman? “About what?”

  “About anything. It makes me feel he thinks that I’m intelligent.”

  “What?”

  “Bright.”

  “Women like to feel bright?”

  “Why, yes,” she replied, giving him a curious look. “Don’t you?”

  No one had ever accused Harold of being bright, so he wasn’t quite sure. From downstairs the cabinet clock, a gift from the squire’s wife to Seth and Mercy on their first anniversary, sent up two chimes. He jumped from the bed. “Got to go, or Papa will skin me alive.”

  Later that afternoon when the two youngest boys had returned from school, Harold took Edgar aside by the well and said, “I want you to write me a note.”

  Immediately the fourteen-year-old balked. “I got the strap last time I did that.”

  “This ain’t to Mr. Pool.” It was just like Edgar to bring that up again, even after so many months. That plan would have worked, if only the innkeeper hadn’t known that Papa couldn’t read or write. Fortunately, Edgar had not dragged Harold down with him but owned up to asking for the bottle of gin on credit himself.

  “Why don’t you get Jack to do it?” Edgar asked.

  “ ’Cause you write better.”

  “How do you know if you can’t read?”

  Weary of his brother’s uppityness, Harold seized him by the shoulder. “I hear talk. Now, are you gonter do it, or do I have to…”

  “All right, then,” Edgar cut in, frowning and pulling away. “What do you want me to write?”

  He hadn’t considered that. “Put down…‘Miss Clark, I’m fond of you, you have a pretty voice.’ ”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “You like Miss Clark?”

  Harold gave him a warning scowl. “What’s w
rong with that?”

  “Nothing,” Edgar said hastily. “I’ll write it after supper. Do you want me to sign your name?”

  Harold nodded and went on to finish up his chores. Now all he had to do was get some nice flowers, but with a village full of gardens that wouldn’t be too difficult.

  The next morning Lydia left her parents’ cottage with Mr. Pitney’s handkerchief in her satchel, having received it back from Mrs. Moore with the rest of the laundry yesterday afternoon. She expected that she would see the archeologists, for she had passed both every morning since Sunday. Each time Mr. Pitney had given her a smile that, though retaining the same timidity as before, was altered somewhat by a slight lift of the brows. It was as if he wondered if she was completely recovered from Sunday’s humiliation at the crossroads, yet dared not embarrass her by asking in front of Mr. Ellis.

  And every morning Lydia had returned the smile with a little nod, which was her own unspoken message, Yes, I’m fine…thanks to your chivalry and kindness. She hoped that he would not mind her handing over the handkerchief in this manner as he was leaving for his work. It seemed too ceremonious for her to deliver it to him at the Larkspur, but too ungrateful simply to ask one of the inn’s servants to give it to him.

  Hearing the familiar crunches of gravel, Lydia paused at the end of the carriage drive. She was surprised when a lone figure came around the wing from the courtyard. She returned Mr. Pitney’s smile and reached into her satchel.

  “Good morning, Miss Clark,” he said when she raised her head again.

  Lydia returned the greeting, followed by, “I hope Mr. Ellis isn’t ill.”

  “Quite the contrary, thank you.” Mr. Pitney stopped a respectable two feet in front of her, his leather sack hanging from one broad shoulder. “He’ll be joining me later. An old chum from his university days is passing through Shrewsbury later this morning, and they arranged to meet between trains.”

  As he spoke, Lydia noticed Mr. Herrick leading one of the horses from the stables. The caretaker raised a hand to Lydia, and she waved back with the same hand that held the handkerchief.