The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark

by Lawana Blackwell

  Dear Miss Somerville,

  My client, the honorable Quetin Paxton, M.P., has instructed me to inform you that any further attempt at communication from you will result in an immediate cessation of financial support.

  Cordially,

  Osbert Radley

  Though Mr. Pitney had sent her and her parents a friendly wave across the green after church Sunday, Lydia was still a little surprised when he showed up for their Monday night meeting. He did not mention last week’s disagreement, nor did she. But judging by the way Miss Rawlins had clung to his arm yesterday, she could only assume that he had gotten hold of some poetry and impressed her.

  “There must be some significance to the crock of herbs in the parlor,” she told him from the sofa of her own parlor as she held Madeleine’s Quest open between them. Jeanie, having gotten used to this frequent caller, actually dozed in his lap instead of hers this time. But then, he had tempted the feline by arriving with a cloth bag of catmint he had picked upon the Anwyl just hours earlier.

  “Wouldn’t you agree?” Lydia asked.

  Mr. Pitney nodded, but the line between his dark eyebrows gave evidence to some doubts. And after a thoughtful second or two, he replied, “I just wonder why the crock appears only once. Usually when something is intended to be symbolic, she mentions it so many times that you want to rip the page from the—”

  He stopped short, gulping audibly. To save him from further embarrassment, Lydia pretended not to notice and jumped to another subject, the crack in the Dresden China vase—which was mentioned some dozen times in the novelette. She was convinced the crock of herbs meant something significant, but Mr. Pitney had studied more than enough symbolism to fan Miss Rawlins’ ego and could allow that one to pass.

  The cottage was quiet as she walked with him to the front a short while later. Her parents had again absented themselves soon after his arrival. At the door he reminded her of his earlier invitation to visit the ruin. “You have time, now that school is out, haven’t you?” he asked. “I would escort you, of course. And tomorrow would be a good day for it, weather-wise.”

  “I have time,” she replied, surprised that he would reissue the invitation. Wouldn’t Miss Rawlins mind? But of course, Lydia was painfully aware that she wasn’t exactly a threat to other women. “And I would be delighted to watch you and Mr. Ellis at work.” But as setting a proper example to Gresham’s schoolchildren was also important to her, she added, “You won’t mind if my father comes along, will you? We’ve hiked the Anwyl before, so you wouldn’t have to come down and meet us.”

  “Yes, do invite him,” Mr. Pitney replied with a pleased expression. “And your mother as well.”

  “I shall, but don’t expect her. She’s not fond of hiking and will be content to hear all about it when we return.”

  He smiled. “I didn’t even consider that your father would be interested, but he seems to be interested in just about everything, doesn’t he?”

  “Everything,” Lydia agreed. “Life is never dull around here.”

  “I suppose you’re aware of how blessed you are in that regard, Miss Clark. The closeness of your family, I mean.”

  “I am. And from the way you describe your family, so are you.”

  “Absolutely.” Brown eyes crinkling at the corners, he said, “That makes two blessings we have in common. Beloved families and beloved vocations.”

  Three, Lydia thought. We’re both in love. Only not with each other. And on second thought, her love for him couldn’t be considered a blessing as long as she had to keep it buried like a smoldering lump of coal under ashes. She realized he was waiting for her to speak. “Why don’t you allow us to bring a picnic?”

  “Oh, but you’re to be our guests,” he replied with a shake of his head. “And Mrs. Herrick has already assured me she doesn’t mind packing extra. I’ll just have to let her know that your father will be joining us.”

  Lydia was flattered that he had already taken some pains to plan out the day. If he was this considerate to her, someone he simply paid to tutor him, he must treat Miss Rawlins like a princess. But she couldn’t allow envy to spoil the special moments that did come her way. They were all she had, and in years ahead she would ponder them by her quiet fire.

  Later in the front parlor, as her father dabbled paints on his canvas to put the fine finishing touches on the Worthy sisters’ portrait and Lydia and her mother sat on the sofa with cups of cocoa, she related to them Mr. Pitney’s remark about the symbolism and tearing out the pages. “It was very much unlike him. Why, he seemed almost angry.”

  “He is angry,” her mother declared after a sip of cocoa.

  “I don’t think so. It was just an impulsive comment—for which he apologized right away.”

  But her mother shook her head. “He isn’t aware of his anger yet, Lydia. But you can be assured that little impulsive spark was just the beginning.”

  “Angry at what, Oriel?” Lydia’s father asked while frowning studiously at his work as it progressed. “I’ll warrant Mr. Pitney doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

  “At having to study all those shallow little stories as if they are university texts. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Raging. But then, I’m known far and wide for my fiery temper.”

  “Yes, Amos.” She smiled at Lydia over the rim of her cup. “Everyone knows what a bear you are. Anyway, Mr. Pitney will resent one day that he has to manufacture such enthusiasm for her occupation, while she has none for his.”

  This wasn’t like her mother, who usually had a charitable word for everyone. “We don’t know that for certain, Mother,” Lydia told her.

  “Then I assume that she’ll also be touring the ruins tomorrow?”

  “Why, I don’t think so. But she has to write, remember? And perhaps she has already been up there.”

  “Perhaps.” Setting her cup and saucer on the teatable, Lydia’s mother reached down to scoop Jeanie up into her plump lap. “But I doubt it very much.”

  Under a sky of pure lucid blue, Lydia and her father were given a guided tour of the ruins by Mr. Pitney. Mr. Ellis, who chatted affably with them when they first arrived, asked to be excused. “Making the climb every day is strenuous enough,” he explained. “Once I’m here, I generally plant myself in one spot and allow Mr. Pitney the heavy labor.”

  “And you consider showing us about the place heavy labor, Mr. Ellis?” Lydia’s father asked with a glint of mischief in his eyes.

  “Only if he takes a notion to carry you at the same time, Mr. Clark,” Mr. Ellis replied dryly, but with a teasing look in his own eyes as well.

  Mr. Pitney first took them to a large weeded area bordered by crumbling stone walls overgrown with brambles and ivy. “This was most likely a common dining area,” he said. “As you can see, we’ve yet to get to it.”

  The archeologist appeared more at ease than Lydia had ever seen him. She realized it was because he was at home on top of the hill. Pushing back her straw hat to hang by its ribbons, she looked about her. Only an area about thrice the size of her schoolroom showed signs of recent digging. Mr. Pitney had warned her that the work was painstakingly slow, but after two years of excavation work, she had half expected to see the whole ruin laid open, with artifacts glistening in the sun.

  “Why would the Society only send two people?” she asked him, quickly qualifying that with an added, “Not that you’re not doing a good job of it.”

  He smiled. “Mr. Ellis and I are what you could term a scouting party. Our duties are to collect artifacts, yes, but also to find proof that this ruin is of significant value. If it turns out to be so, this hill will be swarming with archeologists.”

  “Just like a giant ant bed, eh?” Lydia’s father suggested, tugging absently at his beard. “The jade bracelet wasn’t enough proof? Lydia told me about it.”

  “Not enough, I’m afraid,” Mr. Pitney replied with a glance in her direction. He looked both surprised and pleased for some reason. Because she discus
sed his work with her father? But why wouldn’t she?

  “Nonetheless, the bracelet was exciting to Mr. Ellis and me,” he went on. “And highly motivating. For who knows? One of us could be standing directly over the proof we need.”

  Lydia instinctively took a step backward, causing the two men to laugh. She smiled a little sheepishly. “It makes you treat the ground with a little more respect, doesn’t it?”

  “It does at that,” Mr. Pitney agreed.

  They resumed their tour of the ruins, then Mr. Ellis joined them under a hardy sycamore tree for an excellent lunch of cold roasted chicken, cheese, bread, and marmalade. Afterward, the older archeologist asked if Lydia and her father would care to look for artifacts.

  “You’ll allow us to dig?” her father asked with raised eyebrows. “I mean…brush?”

  Mr. Ellis smiled. “Allow you to assist us with our work? Certainly.”

  “We’ll team up then, shall we?” Papa said, then turned to Lydia and Mr. Pitney with a face as innocent as a choirboy’s. “I’ll work with Mr. Ellis. And you two youngsters can work together.”

  And so Lydia was led by Mr. Pitney to an uneven, man-made depression about three feet deep, bordered on three sides by the remains of a wall. Mr. Ellis and her father began work on the other side of one of these walls, some eight feet away.

  “What do you do with the dirt you collect?” Lydia asked.

  Mr. Pitney nodded over to a mound outside the wall area. “That’s the most tedious part, having to sprint over there to empty our pails. This whole area was a part of some family quarters—someone of the upper class, probably an officer.”

  “Possibly General Cerealis?” Lydia asked.

  “That’s what we’re hoping.” Glancing down at the pit, he looked at her again and said, “Hmm…I may need to assist you.”

  “Yes, of course.” By sheer will, Lydia kept her cheeks from blushing, for he was only being polite, as he would be to any visitor who happened to be wearing a gown and wished to maintain some modesty.

  “You should sit first,” he suggested after jumping down into the depression. He turned his back to her, giving her opportunity to do so.

  “I’m ready now,” Lydia told him, making sure her gown entirely covered the lower legs she dangled over the side.

  Taking a step toward her, he said with an apologetic look, “This will take some planning.”

  It isn’t far from the bottom of my feet—I can just jump, she started to assure him. But then some wicked impulse, perhaps springing from her mother’s observations last night, caused her to say, “Just show me how Miss Rawlins got down here, and I’ll do the same.”

  “Miss Rawlins?”

  They locked eyes, and she knew from the sadness that passed across his that the writer had not yet bothered to allow him to show her his world. See? Don’t you understand now? she wanted to shout at him, but of course could not. Instead, she smiled and beckoned him a step closer. “If you’ll just stand right there and allow me to put a hand on your shoulder, I can jump quite easily.”

  “You’ll injure—”

  “Nonsense. I’m almost as tall as you are.” And before he could say another word, she was standing next to him. “It does jar the teeth a bit, doesn’t it?”

  “A bit,” he agreed. “But I still have all of mine after all these years of hopping into pits, so fortunately no damage is done.”

  From the other side of the crumbled wall came the sound of shared laughter.

  “My father has found another soul mate.”

  “I had a feeling they would get along well,” Mr. Pitney replied, smiling and reaching for a short broom made of sedge on the bank of the depression.

  “What is this?” Lydia asked him.

  “It’s your brush.” He picked up another. “We go through them quickly, so we’ve always plenty on hand. The Keegan family makes them for us—you know the basket weavers?”

  “But I was expecting…”

  “Something like a hairbrush?”

  “A paint brush, actually.”

  “We do use brushes when we actually come across a relic. But to use them for moving away all of the dirt would be expensive and even more time consuming.”

  “I see.” She looked down at the earth below her. “Perhaps you should show me where to begin.”

  “You may turn up something over here,” he pointed to his left, showing her a hole the size of a loaf of bread where he had unearthed an urn just last week. “Often when you uncover one thing, there will be others close by.”

  “I hope so.” Figuring her poplin gown would have to be laundered anyway, she got to her knees and brushed the broom lightly against the earth. There was no sign of an artifact, so she repeated the action. She heard a faint chuckle and looked up at Mr. Pitney, standing with his arms akimbo.

  “You may move an inch of dirt a month at that rate, Miss Clark.”

  “But I don’t want to damage anything.”

  “You won’t. If being buried for centuries hasn’t hurt them, a more vigorous application of the broom won’t either. And we’ll switch to the brush when you do find something.”

  “Very well.” But she found herself too intimidated by the value of what could possibly be under the earth to allow herself to continue. She held the broom hovered over the earth for a second, then looked at him again. “Will you show me?”

  “Of course.”

  He set his broom down on the ground, which surprised her because she had meant that he should use it to demonstrate how she should proceed. Before she could explain that to him, he had knelt down beside her and covered her hand over the broom handle with his.

  “Imagine sweeping ashes from a stove,” he said, helping her guide the broom briskly to the left and right. “You’ve done that before, haven’t you?”

  “At school.”

  “Only, I like to alternate directions every so often and crisscross,” he explained as he guided her broom out away from her, and then toward her. “Would you care to guess why?”

  She had to ponder that one, which was very difficult, when all she could think about was his hand over hers. “So you can detect the first sign of an artifact more easily?” she finally ventured out of lack for any other guess.

  Smiling, he shook his head. “It makes patterns…see? When you have to do this several hours a day, it breaks up the monotony a bit.”

  “I see,” she told him. And this is anything but monotonous, Mr. Pitney.

  He moved to a spot about three feet away and went to work with his broom. Comfortable silence settled about them as they listened to the two older men joking and reminiscing about the good old days. A robin fluttered down to perch himself upon a section of wall still standing, angling his head to watch them curiously while spurting out his brilliant little fountain of sound. Lydia worked hard, daydreaming of uncovering the artifact which the archeologists were so intent upon finding that would prove once and for all their theory about Governor Cerealis. How nice it would be to watch Mr. Pitney’s face as she told him!

  But dirt led only to more dirt. It was her father who finally found something, letting out a whoop as he did so. Mr. Pitney helped Lydia up from their pit to join the older men, and they watched as Mr. Ellis used a brush to uncover the rest. The find turned out to be a drawstring pouch, the leather blackened and as hard as flint, with the outlines of several coins entombed inside.

  “I’m afraid we’ll not be able to open it up without destroying it,” Mr. Ellis explained apologetically. “We’ll have to send it to the Society and allow them to decide whether they want to keep it intact or have a look at the coins.”

  “But you did an outstanding job, Mr. Clark,” Mr. Pitney assured him.

  Lydia’s father gave him a delighted smile. “I did, didn’t I?”

  Two hours later, after Lydia had whispered to her father that perhaps they had imposed upon Mr. Ellis’s and Mr. Pitney’s indulgence long enough, they bade the archeologists farewell.

  �
��It was a pleasure working with you,” Mr. Ellis told them. “Mr. Pitney and I get along like peas in a pod, but the company has been good for both of us. Feel free to join us anytime.”

  Mr. Pitney smiled and nodded agreement. “Yes, anytime.”

  “Did you hear that, daughter?” her father asked as they walked down one of the footpaths. “He enjoyed your company.”

  “Of course he enjoyed my company,” she told him. She could still feel the touch of Mr. Pitney’s hand upon hers. “Just as he enjoyed yours. We’re all sociable people.”

  “Well, why not put it to good use? We could come back up here tomorrow.”

  “I’ll not be chasing him, Papa.”

  “Why not? Your mother chased me.”

  Lydia sent him a smile. “Mother knew you wanted to be caught.”

  “Well, mayhap our Mr. Pitney wants to be caught.”

  “I’m sure he does. But not by me.” She could no longer ignore the bruising little pain in one foot and motioned for her father to halt. With her hand upon his shoulder to steady herself, she leaned down to dispose of a troublesome pebble from her shoe. “Next time remind me to wear boots.”

  He raised white eyebrows hopefully as they continued walking. “So there’ll be a next time, then?”

  “It was just a figure of speech, Papa.”

  “But you heard what your mother said,” he told her with a frown. “He’s not suited to this writer-woman, and you know it. It’s just a matter of time before he knows it too.”

  Lydia gave a quiet sigh of regret that she had ever let her feelings be known to her parents. Not because of any exasperation for having to try to get them to understand how the situation actually stood, but because they had allowed their hopes to be raised so high. She felt guilty for constantly dashing them against stones.

  “Papa, whether or not he does know has nothing to do with me. Miss Rawlins and I aren’t the only two women in England.”

  Now it was he who stopped walking, and she had no choice but to do the same.