The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark

by Lawana Blackwell

  “Good morning, Mrs. Somerville. We missed you at breakfast.”

  “Thank you,” Noelle replied. “I’m afraid I overslept.”

  “You haven’t another headache, have you?” asked Mrs. Durwin with a concerned expression.

  Noelle was growing weary of that question, especially considering that she could recall having had only one actual headache since her move to Gresham. But she supposed it was her own fault for overusing such a convenient excuse. And she supposed she should be grateful somebody cared about her well-being. “I’m quite well, thank you,” she replied.

  “Would you care to take a stroll with us to Trumbles?” Mrs. Clay asked. “We can wait if you’d like to fetch a hat.”

  Noelle wondered exactly how many Parisian gowns the actor’s wife owned, for she couldn’t recall having seen the day dress of figured grenadine with fluted green trim she now wore. She swallowed her envy to reply, “No, thank you. But will you mind giving this to Mr. Trumble?” It would not reach London any sooner than the mail Mr. Jones would collect in the letter box today, but at least it would seem to be starting its journey sooner. She would take any condolence where she could find it, no matter how small.

  “Surely he was jesting,” Ambrose said as he brushed his wife’s hair at the dressing table that night. “You know how fond Mr. Trumble is of a good chuckle.”

  “No, Ambrose. He said rearranging the shelves took her most of a day, too.”

  “Our Mrs. Somerville?”

  Fiona stared at him in the mirror. “Why do you say it like that?”

  “I just can’t imagine her taking the time to do a good deed for anyone, to be honest.”

  “Even after she helped Julia get Andrew home from the dentist that day?”

  He opened his mouth to argue but found himself at a loss for words. I know I’m not imagining the way she looks at Fiona. But he hadn’t realized until just recently how prone to headaches the young widow was. Could he, in his desire to protect his wife, possibly have misinterpreted physical discomfort in Mrs. Somerville’s facial expressions for dislike? He reckoned anyone looking at his own face during one of his dark moods would assume he hated the whole world.

  Father, forgive me if I’ve judged her wrongly, he prayed while pulling the brush through Fiona’s raven hair. But please grant me discernment to know for sure.

  “I’m sorry for saying what I did,” he finally told Fiona, setting the brush upon the table. “A wise person once admonished me to be more charitable with myself. I should extend that charity to others as well.”

  “Oh, Ambrose.” She rose from the bench and turned to him, her violet eyes serious. “You’re one of the most charitable people I know.”

  “How can you say that, after—”

  Smiling, his wife put a finger up to his lips. “I didn’t say you were perfect, Ambrose. And I adore you even more for your little imperfections, if the truth were to be known.”

  “You do?”

  “I do.”

  Gathering her into his arms, he held her snugly while she rested her head upon his shoulder. “You know, I occasionally forget and use the wrong fork,” he murmured into her freshly brushed hair.

  “Mmm?”

  “And I’ve been known to dog-ear the page of a book….”

  Swallowing hard, Kermillie lifted her chin and boldly met his gaze. “You may own all the land in Keswick, Lord Wilffrith, but you will never own me!”

  There was derision and sympathy mingled in his dark eyes. “So you’ll allow your father to rot in debtor’s prison rather than marry—”

  “A man I do not love!” she finished for him. “And never will!”

  Lord Wilffrith took a step closer to whisper, “But you love your father, don’t you?”

  Jacob was so caught up in reading Kermillie of Keswick in the sitting room Friday night that he didn’t hear the next set of footsteps until they were almost upon him. He jumped from the sofa and went to the doorway, holding his place in the book with his hand. But it was only Mrs. Beemish, the housekeeper, walking up the corridor with a stack of freshly laundered towels in her arms. She stopped to smile at him.

  “Would you be wanting anything sent up, Mr. Pitney? Some hot chocolate?”

  “Oh, no, thank you.” Then wondering if he should explain, he said, “I just felt like reading in here tonight.”

  “Ah,” she said with a knowing nod that made him blush. “Well, I’ll leave you to your reading.”

  He thanked her and went back to the sofa. Surely Miss Rawlins—he couldn’t quite refer to her as Eugenia yet, even in the privacy of his mind—would happen by soon, if only to bid good-night to the lodgers still sitting downstairs in the hall. It would be so much simpler to knock upon her door and ask to speak with her, but had he the courage of Marc Anthony, he still couldn’t bring himself to step over the bounds of propriety.

  The story claimed his attention again. He hoped with all his heart that Kermillie wouldn’t be forced to marry the brooding, mysterious Lord Wilffrith. What did it matter that he was wealthy and tall and darkly handsome, if she didn’t love him?

  It’s the same situation Rosemarie found herself in, Jacob mused, though he didn’t think he should share that observation with Miss Rawlins. After all, there were important differences between this story and Rosemarie of Roubaix. It was Rosemarie’s brother, not father, facing debtor’s prison, and she was being pressured to marry a tall, wealthy, darkly handsome French marquis instead of an English lord. At least there was a ray of hope for Kermillie, for in the latter novelette Rosemarie had ultimately fallen in love when she realized that inside the marquis’ cynical chest beat a compassionate heart.

  He heard footsteps again and went to the doorway. This time his surveillance was rewarded, for Miss Rawlins was coming down the corridor. She looked wonderful in a loose-flowing beige gown, her short hair slightly tousled. Jacob broke out into a smile. “Miss Rawlins.”

  She walked over to him, returning his smile. “I was under the assumption our friendship had graduated to given names, Jacob.”

  “Forgive me,” he said as another blush warmed his cheeks. “Eugenia.”

  “Forgiven. Especially when I see you reading another one of my stories.”

  “Oh, I can scarcely put it down.”

  “I’m flattered.” She looked past him. “Do you always come in here to read?”

  “No…I…uh…actually was hoping to speak with you.”

  “Yes?”

  Shifting his weight to his other foot, he said, “The Anwyl is still muddy, you see, and we shipped out the artifacts from the cellar this morning, so Mr. Ellis plans to visit his family tomorrow. I would visit mine, but Dover is too far away to allow me to return Sunday, and besides, I spent Easter week there.”

  Her eyes seemed to glaze over a bit, and Jacob realized he was rambling. Get on with it, he told himself. “Anyway, I was wondering if you would care to accompany me to the tournament tomorrow.”

  “The tournament?”

  “You know, the school archery teams.”

  “Yes, of course.” Miss Rawlins shook her head. “I’m afraid I haven’t the constitution for crowds, Jacob.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, please don’t be. It’s just that an artist’s soul is best nurtured by solitude.”

  “Well, you should have plenty of it,” he assured her through his disappointment. “Almost everyone here is planning to go.”

  “Yes, I would imagine,” she replied with a preoccupied little frown.

  “Is something wrong, Mi—Eugenia?”

  “Why, no.” But then she shrugged. “Actually, I was just thinking that I should like to have your opinion of a scene in Valentina of the Apennines.”

  “You were?” Jacob knew he was grinning like a gargoyle, but he could not help himself. “Why don’t you bring it in here now?”

  “Because I’m not quite finished writing it. But I should be by morning.” Pursing her lips thoughtfully for a second
, she then said, “You know, I hardly ever sit in the garden because there are so many distractions that interrupt my train of thought. Passersby wishing to engage in small talk, Mr. Herrick planting and weeding, and so on. But tomorrow morning would be a lovely time, with everyone away.”

  But then she gave him a quick apologetic look. “How terribly selfish of me, Jacob.”

  “Selfish?”

  “It quite slipped my mind that you plan to attend the tournament.”

  He had to think hard to understand what his attending the tournament had to do with her enjoying solitude in the garden. Could it be?

  “You’re inviting me to sit in the garden with you?” he scarcely dared ask for fear of being presumptuous.

  “No, of course not.” But before Jacob’s hopes could go crashing down about him, she added with a dreamy cast to her expression, “It would be a lovely setting in which to read those scenes aloud, mind you. But I wouldn’t dream of asking you to miss the tournament.”

  He had never felt so flattered and was even comfortable enough to risk making a joke. “Tournament?” he asked, smiling. “What tournament?”

  The next morning Jonathan Raleigh determined that the green was still too damp for holding the tournament. Fortunately he had considered an alternate plan in advance, and so the targets were set up on the cobbled stones of Bartley Lane in front of the secondary school, out of the way of village traffic. By ten o’clock, carriages and wagons from Prescott, Lockwood, Clive, and even Gresham lined both sides of the lane, stopping at the roped area in which the teams would compete. Misters Johnson and Pool of the bakery and the Bow and Fiddle, having been also warned in advance that their potential customers would be moved to the east side of the village, had hastily assembled food stands already in place and were conducting business at the corner of Church and Bartley Lanes.

  All of this served to irritate Harold Sanders. He had looked forward to a fine opportunity to be distant with Miss Clark, but her family had already found places to stand directly behind the rope stretched from sawhorse to sawhorse across the lane—giving her no reason to look back and notice him. He craned his neck to send a glare down the lane at Mr. Raleigh, who was queuing his team in front of the rope. Did the schoolmaster have to invite practically all of Shropshire to compete?

  “Fernie says you can see the target and everything better from back there,” Oram said from Harold’s elbow. The sixteen-year-old pointed back to where their team and wagon waited. Fernie, standing in the bed, waved. But Harold shook his head. Though he would be standing above the people assembled in the lane, Miss Clark would have no reason to look back over her shoulder at him back there.

  “You go on then,” he told his brother. There was but one thing he could do—make a place to stand at the rope. Close enough for Miss Clark to notice him, but not close enough as to appear he was trying to be noticed.

  Elbowing his way through the spectators, he staked a place for himself up front, just four or five feet down from Miss Clark. A pair of elderly women made loud remarks to each other about rudeness, so Harold turned to one and offered an apologetic, “Beg pardon, but I have to stand in front. I’m feeling out o’ sorts and don’t wanter chuck-up on nobody.”

  He shrugged when the two hurried away to find other places to stand. Presently the tournament began, with the youngest members of the four teams alternating the first turns at the targets. All eyes were on the competition, but Harold kept his trained on Miss Clark. And occasionally, she did look in his direction. He was quick to jerk his face in the other direction every time. That’ll show her.

  But after a good half hour of this, his neck began to ache. His stomach sent up rumbles too, for all Mrs. Winters had prepared for breakfast was porridge. He figured he had ignored Miss Clark enough for a little while, and judging by the number of people standing in wagon beds, the porch of the secondary school, and in the lane behind the rope, Mr. Johnson would soon run out of meat pies. If he hurried he could make it back in plenty of time to watch Jack and Edgar take their turns.

  Not that he gave a farthing about archery, except for the excuses it had given him to ignore Miss Clark. But the two had pleaded with him this morning. With Papa still bitter about anything having to do with the school, and Dale having unhitched one of the horses to slip off to Myddle and visit Lucy Bates, Harold supposed it was his duty to watch. It was easier to make his way to the back of the spectators than it had been to get up to the rope. To his disgust, he could see a queue of about two dozen people in front of Mr. Johnson’s stand. Aren’t they supposed to be watching the shooting? He was just about to hurry on over when he felt a tug at his sleeve.

  “Mr. Sanders?”

  He turned to look at Lester Meeks, who stood there grinning at him as if he were Father Christmas. Impulsively Harold reached out to tousle the boy’s cowlicked blond hair. “Hullo, Lester.”

  “Hullo, Mr. Sanders. We came to watch Mark.”

  “Well, that’s good.” He realized then that the boy wasn’t alone. Besides Trudy, there was a woman who was even smaller than his sister, Mercy, with light brown hair showing from under a faded rosecolored bonnet. She had a nice smile, but in her brown eyes he could see traces of that worried look that his sister used to wear before she married Seth.

  “Mr. Sanders,” she said. “I’m Hannah Meeks. It was so kind of you to bring the children home Thursday. I was in the barn haying the cows or I would’ha come out to thank you.”

  “Aw, it weren’t nothing,” he told her while working loose a rock in the lane with the toe of his boot. He wasn’t used to folks, especially women, saying nice things about him.

  “Mr. Sanders played blindman’s buff with us at the castle,” Trudy told her mother.

  Now Harold could feel his cheeks grow hot. “They made me,” he explained right away, wishing he had stayed up by the rope.

  But Mrs. Meeks laughed—not like she was making fun of him, but like she appreciated the predicament he had found himself in. “They talked of little else for a whole week,” she told him.

  Unsure of how to reply and eager to forget all about playing blindman’s buff, he looked about him and asked, “Where’s Phoebe?”

  “She’s watching from Mr. Mayhew’s wagon with some of her classmates.”

  “Humph,” Lester snorted. “Not if she takes off her spectacles.”

  “She takes them off all the time,” Trudy added, nodding. “Even when we remind her not to.”

  “Now, you’re not to be carrying tales against your sister,” their mother scolded mildly. “She’s got to have time to get used to the idea.” With an apologetic look at Harold, she said, “Forgive us for keeping you, Mr. Sanders. It was good to meet you, finally.”

  “The same here,” Harold told them. With a farewell wave he turned to resume his walk to the bakery stand. Nice folks, he thought, happening to glance back over his shoulder. He stopped and turned.

  Now, how are they supposed to see? he asked himself, for they had made no moves to push their way for the rope. Instead they craned their necks, Mrs. Meeks even hefting Trudy up in her arms. He thought about the meat pies being sold behind him, sighed, and walked back to where the family was standing.

  “Mrs. Meeks?” he said just as cheers were going up all around him for the finishing third standard students. She did not hear him, so he reached up a hand to tap her shoulder, then reconsidered. Mrs. Meeks was one of those decent women Dale had mentioned, and he didn’t think a fellow was supposed to touch a decent woman without her permission. He tapped Trudy’s shoulder instead. From her mother’s arms the girl looked back at him, smiled, then whispered something in her mother’s ear.

  “You can see better from my wagon,” Harold almost shouted when the woman turned.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  He motioned behind him. “My wagon.”

  “It’s very nice, Mr. Sanders,” she said with a friendly, albeit puzzled, nod.

  “No, you can—” Realizing the cheering ha
d quieted down for the moment, he lowered his voice. “My brothers say you can see the whole thing just fine from our wagon.”

  Now Mrs. Meeks nodded understanding. “We wouldn’t be imposing?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, taking Trudy from her arms. “But we’d best hurry if you want to see Mark.”

  The meat pies were likely cold by now anyway, he told himself.

  Chapter 31

  Damp were the grasses and blooms of the Larkspur’s garden, and droplets of water beaded the leaves of the shrubberies and trees. Still, Jacob and Miss Rawlins were comfortably situated in a willow bench, thanks to Mr. Herrick’s kindly draping it with a thick carriage blanket before leaving for the tournament.

  “And here is my favorite passage of all,” Miss Rawlins was saying above the cheers drifting over from Bartley Lane. She looked lovely in a pink gown with tiny white dots and a narrow-brimmed straw hat over her short hair. Jacob was glad he had dressed up in his Sunday tweed and a new royal-blue cravat, for he wouldn’t want her to be ashamed to be seen with him.

  Lowering her gaze to her manuscript again, she read:

  Valentina Fabroni’s tiny nostrils flared with fury, her sapphire blue eyes clawing across the handsome officer’s face like talons. “Just because you’ve driven out the Austrians, Count Lobue, doesn’t mean you can march back up here to Pontremoli and expect me to fall at your feet like the rest of Italy! If the mountains couldn’t tame me in eight years, what makes you assume you can in two weeks?”

  “Well, what do you think?” she asked, watching him with anticipation in her gray eyes behind the spectacles.

  It’s very nice, were the first words to form themselves in Jacob’s mind, but he knew better than to speak them. And he certainly knew better than to tell her that the passage sounded vaguely familiar. If only Miss Clark were here, she would help him to find a satisfactory and honest answer. But she’s not, so you have to think, he told himself.