The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark

by Lawana Blackwell

  “Papa?” He looked at her, his aged eyes frank, but mingled with such pure affection that a lump came to Lydia’s throat.

  “Aye, daughter, but two of the three best women in England live in Gresham. I married one. And when our Mr. Pitney takes his blinders off, he’ll know who the other one is.”

  He was just being a father, but Lydia appreciated his words nonetheless. She slipped her hand into his as they continued the path. “Two of the three best women?” she asked. “And who would be the third?”

  “Why, the queen, of course,” he replied with a sidelong grin. “But she’s a mite too old for Mr. Pitney, so you’ve nothing to worry about on that account.”

  Chapter 36

  Early Thursday morning, Ambrose stood at the Shrewsbury’s busy platform holding both of Fiona’s hands, trying not to think about how much he would miss her. The Keegans were involved in their own farewells a few feet away. Not only was sixteen-year-old Tom accompanying her, but also Mrs. Keegan, who would be traveling on with her son to visit family in Dublin once Fiona was deposited safely in Kilkenny with hers. Figuring there was safety in numbers, Ambrose had been so happy to hear of it that he insisted on financing Mrs. Keegan’s trip as well.

  “You’ll be careful?” he asked Fiona. It was an unnecessary request, for his wife had her feet planted more firmly on the ground than did he, but he needed her assurance anyway.

  “Very careful,” Fiona promised, her violet eyes a mixture of excitement and sadness. “And you’ll not hide yourself away the whole fortnight?”

  He winked. “My social calendar is already filling. In fact, I’ll be lunching with the squire and Mrs. Bartley tomorrow, and the Phelps the next day.”

  That made her smile. “I’ll write to you,” she promised, the you being almost drowned out by the locomotive’s shrill whistle.

  “You’ll be back before your letter would have time to reach me. Just concentrate on spending time with your family.”

  So you won’t have to do this again for a long time, was the thought that guiltily crossed his mind.

  What to do? Noelle asked herself in her chair on Friday afternoon. For three days she had alternated her time between chair and bed, her crocheting abandoned and her knee providing excuse to have meals—which she merely picked at—brought to her on a tray. But Mrs. Beemish and the servants were beginning to look at her with concern in their eyes, and she could not fault them for that, for she lived in her nightgown and wrinkled wrapper. She had not even the energy to clean her teeth or brush her hair. Why trouble herself? She was twenty-one years old, and her future had been snuffed out like one of Quetin’s cigar stubs.

  The worst part was having no one in whom she could confide her fear and anguish. There was no crime in grieving over a lost love, but she had woven around herself the illusion of the grieving widow. Her lies were so precariously dependent upon each other that she could not afford to have even one taken up and examined more closely, for the others would come tumbling down like a house of cards.

  A knock at the door interrupted her self-pity. “Yes?” she called out.

  “It’s Mr. Clay, Mrs. Somerville. May I speak with you?”

  Mr. Clay? Pushing herself to her feet, she padded in her felt slippers over to the door and leaned against it. “Mr. Clay? What is it?”

  “I was just at lunch at the manor house, and the Bartleys asked me to give you this invitation personally.”

  “Who are the Bartleys?”

  “The squire and his wife, Mrs. Somerville. Haven’t you met them?”

  Vaguely she recalled meeting an elderly couple on the green her first Sunday in Gresham. “I remember them now.” Accepting social obligations was the last thing she cared to do. But it was good to have a distraction from wallowing in her loneliness, so she wanted to keep him talking for as long as possible. “An invitation to what, Mr. Clay?”

  “To lunch.”

  “But they hardly know me.”

  “They wish to remedy that, Mrs. Somerville.”

  She could think of nothing less appealing than spending the afternoon with virtual strangers—and elderly ones at that. “I don’t think I’ll be able—”

  “I would strongly advise you to accept.”

  “Why?”

  She could hear his sigh even through the door. “I’m not at liberty to go on about it, but they’re arranging for you to meet someone there.”

  “Meet someone? Who?”

  “That’s all I can tell you. But I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

  “Will you and Mrs. Clay be there?”

  “My wife is in Ireland, Mrs. Somerville. Weren’t you aware?”

  Noelle remembered some talk about that at the dinner table before her self-imposed confinement to her room. “Yes, forgive me. I quite forgot.”

  “Shall I leave it here by the door?” he asked with impatience creeping into his voice.

  For the fraction of a second she had the impulse to fly to her dressing table and repair her appearance. But running her tongue over her chalky, neglected teeth, and feeling the heaviness of her oily hair upon her scalp, she knew she would need half a day to make herself look like a human being again. “Yes, please,” she replied.

  “Very well. Good day, Mrs. Somerville.”

  “Good day.”

  She listened to his footsteps against the flagged stoned of the corridor, then eased open the door, bent down, and snatched up the envelope. It was of fine linen vellum, which was not surprising, considering its source. The seal was fresh and easy to break. She took out the single sheet of paper, unfolded it, and read the slightly unsteady script.

  Dear Mrs. Somerville,

  You are cordially invited to a luncheon to be held in the garden of the Manor House on Saturday, June fifteenth. We will send a driver and carriage for you at half-past twelve upon the date aforementioned.

  Very truly yours,

  Squire and Mrs. Thurwood

  Bartley

  Noelle read it again, puzzled at the commanding tone. There were no instructions for responding with either acceptance or refusal. Granted, a squire was an important person, but to the best of her knowledge, serfdom had been done away with years ago.

  But two reasons kept her from consigning the invitation to the ash bin. The first was a faint voice of reason. Unless Quetin had a change of heart, which was becoming more and more unlikely as time passed, Gresham was to be home for an indefinite amount of time. There was simply no other place for her to go. Why incur the displeasure of Gresham’s most prominent citizens?

  Curiosity was the second. Why would people she had met only once, and briefly at that, go to the trouble of arranging for her to meet someone? She knew instinctively this person would be a male. Who was he?

  Returning to her chair, she leaned her head against the high back. Mr. Clay was just there. The actor had become much more sociable to her during the past couple of weeks. And why had he not gone with his wife to Ireland? Could there possibly be trouble in paradise?

  Having learned firsthand, and through the experiences of her friends, the intrigue necessary for a relationship with a married man, she became suspicious that Mr. Clay had a part in this. He certainly couldn’t express any romantic interest in her here at the Larkspur with so many people underfoot. Perhaps these Bartleys were his best friends, whom he could trust with any secret.

  The more Noelle convinced herself, the more tumultuous her thoughts became. She had hated Averyl Paxton for two years, but now she was experiencing how cold-hearted and ruthless Quetin could be. Was it possible that he was at least partly responsible for the sad state of their marriage? He had led her to believe his wife was a cold, demanding woman who cared only for her daughters. What if, instead, she loved him intensely and was hurt by his infidelities? He had complained of her lack of physical beauty, yet no one had forced him to marry her. Could the reason have been the same money he now claimed she held over his head so that he would do her bidding?

&nb
sp; Noelle’s thoughts turned inward. Though she had had a longtime affair with a married man, she had held herself much higher on the social scale than the common women who lurked about on certain London streets—sometimes even in broad daylight. Being kept by one man was not the same as being kept by many. But by going from one married man to a second, would the gap between her and those haunted women not be quite so vast? And when the second man tired of her, and all prospects of a decent marriage were lost, would she have to seek the arms of a third, and then a fourth?

  And then what? She was already finding faint little lines at the corners of her eyes, no doubt from weeping long nights over Quetin. How much longer would she be beautiful and desirable to men?

  I’m so sick of this!

  The intensity of the thought startled her. But her sudden revulsion for the path she had chosen in life was at odds with a more compelling force—the terrible, relentless, soul-aching loneliness. And she knew she would be at the squire’s luncheon.

  “Dale! Papa says it’s time to get up!” Harold said for the second time, leaning on one elbow on the featherbed they shared and shaking his brother roughly by the shoulder.

  “Mmmph,” came from the blond head buried in the pillow.

  “Come on now. You don’t want to start the day by gettin’ him all riled up! You should’ha known better than to stay out all night anyway.” He had been asleep when Dale slipped into bed, but then, Myddle was almost an hour away by horse, even longer in the dark of night.

  “Mmm?”

  That was all Harold could take. Flinging back the covers, he hopped out of bed and took his trousers from the back of the chair and pulled them on over his linens. “Serve you right if Papa puts an end to your courtin’!”

  Finally Dale raised his head from the pillow and muttered, “All right. You ain’t got to go on and on about it.”

  “Then just lay there all—” Harold began while buttoning his shirt but then bit off his sentence in midair. For the left side of his brother’s bleary-eyed face wore an angry red scratch from cheekbone to jaw. Stepping closer, Harold asked, “What happened to you?”

  Dale grinned, pushed back the covers, and sat up. “I had to break up a fight between Lucy and Dorene, and got in the way of a fingernail.”

  “You did? Who’s Dorene?”

  “Lucy’s friend. Or at least she was ’til the fight.”

  Harold was stunned. Dale had courted some rough women in the past, but he had never heard of any carrying on like men. “Why were they fighting?” he asked.

  After a wide yawn that showed all his crocked teeth, Dale snickered. “Because I were talkin’ to Dorene, and Lucy thought we was being a little too friendly.”

  That made Harold suspicious. “All you were doin’ was talking?”

  “That’s all.”

  “I can’t see the harm in talking.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re a man, and we have a mite more sense than women. Women get jealous at the drop of a hat.”

  “Well, are Lucy and you finished?”

  “Finished?” Dale gave another snicker as he looked around on the floor for his trousers. “Lucy’s wantin’ me to marry her now. It’s the jealousy that does it, see? Makes ’em scared of losing you.”

  Harold was so busy digesting this bit of information at the breakfast table—along with his eggs and sausage and bread—that he didn’t notice Mrs. Winters had spoken until Oram elbowed him.

  “Uh-what?” he said, blinking up at where the cook stood behind Fernie’s chair.

  She crossed her beefy arms and gave him a thunderous look. Her good mood over getting the worktable had lasted about as long as one of Dale’s sober spells. “I said, eat them crusts.”

  “But they’re burnt.”

  “They’re just a bit sooty, that’s all. I don’t work my fingers to the bone so’s you can toss out good bread.”

  When Fernie snickered, she cuffed him on one ear. “And you—don’t lick your fingers at the table! You wasn’t reared in a barn, was you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Harold picked up a crust of bread. He had learned not to appeal to Papa, who was heaping spoonfuls of sugar into his tea at the head of the table, so he sopped the crusts in his egg yolk and ate them. At least the yolks weren’t runny anymore, so he expected the worktable was good for something.

  “My plan is to fill my days with as much activity as possible,” Ambrose Clay told Julia and Andrew in the vicarage parlor on Saturday afternoon after a simple but hearty meal of fish chowder and crusty brown bread. “The fortnight will drag on forever if I spend it moping in the apartment.”

  “That’s an excellent idea,” agreed Julia from the sofa while handing the cup she had just poured over the tea table. The children had resumed their own activities—Philip, fishing the Bryce with Jeremiah and Ben; Laurel and Aleda, helping to compose a play at Helen Johnson’s; and Grace, entertaining little Connie Jefferies and their dolls in the garden.

  “It was Fiona’s idea, actually. She made Mr. Durwin promise to challenge me to as many draughts matches as I could stand.”

  “And you’re to come here for supper on Monday and Wednesday, remember?” Andrew asked as he took his cup and saucer from Julia’s hands. “The following week as well.”

  “You don’t have to coddle me like a colicky child, you know,” Ambrose said. “I’ll manage just fine.”

  “But of course you will,” Julia assured him. “We would still enjoy your company.”

  With a nod, Andrew added, “Some people save up a week’s wages just to see you, Ambrose. All we have to do is put a little chowder and bread before you.”

  “How can I refuse such gracious invitations? Between you and the Bartleys and Mrs. Herrick, I should expect to put on a stoneweight before Fiona returns.”

  “I’m surprised Mrs. Bartley hasn’t talked you into moving out to the manor house so she can mother you every day,” Julia told him while her teaspoon clinked delicately against the side of her own cup as she stirred in the sugar.

  “Actually, she did suggest that yesterday—four times, I believe.”

  Andrew smiled. “Life would be dull around Gresham without our dear Mrs. Bartley.”

  “I’ll say. And she has a new matchmaking project. I had to deliver an invitation yesterday so she could get a certain couple together for lunch. Care to guess who they are?”

  “Paul Treves and Mrs. Somerville?” Andrew ventured as he rolled his eyes.

  “Very good!” Sitting back against the chair cushions, the actor took a thoughtful sip of his tea. “They would make an attractive couple, don’t you think?”

  “Et tu Brute!” groaned Andrew.

  “Well, you have to admit they’re both lonely. I have to confess I was unfairly harsh in my judgment of Mrs. Somerville at first, but she seems a decent woman. And a vicar’s daughter…what better choice for a young minister?”

  “Andrew still has nightmares about the way his mother tried to marry him off,” Julia explained.

  “Nightmares,” her husband agreed dolefully.

  “And which one of those women did you marry?” Ambrose asked with raised eyebrows.

  Andrew tilted his head as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “Marry? Why, none.”

  “Then, just because your mother paraded the lot in front of you didn’t mean you were forced to marry one. Mrs. Bartley isn’t going to wrap the two of them in chains and drag them to the altar, you know.”

  “You are referring to our Mrs. Bartley, aren’t you? She’s perfectly capable of doing just such a thing.”

  “But being that you’re the vicar,” Julia told him, “you could simply refuse to marry them in that case.”

  “Refuse to marry whom, Mother?” came Grace’s voice from the doorway as the girl walked into the room with little Connie Jefferies trailing shyly behind.

  Sending mirthful glances to the two men, Julia shook her head. “No one, Grace. We’re just being silly.”

  “Oh.” The
girl’s sober expression did not change. “May we have some biscuits for a tea party outside?”

  “You’ll have to ask Mrs. Paget. But don’t trouble her if she’s still having her lunch.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  When the girls had left the room, Mr. Clay said, “I can assure you both of one thing…your daughters will have no lack of suitors knocking at your door one day.”

  A sad smile touched Andrew’s lips. “The time may come sooner than we’re prepared for it. Ben Mayhew has passed Laurel a couple of notes.”

  “Indeed? Our little Laurel?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Narrowing his eyes, Andrew took on a mock, threatening manner, “So if Mrs. Bartley ever asks you to deliver a luncheon invitation to her …”

  Chapter 37

  On Sunday morning, Harold told Jack and Edgar that he would be using the horses. “But we need them to get to church,” they whined.

  “You can stand out front and fetch a ride with Mercy and Seth.”

  They went to their papa to complain, but the only good thing about being the eldest was that Harold usually got his way when it came to disagreements with his brothers. He made Oram hitch Bob and Dan to the wagon while he put on his good suit and combed some Sir Lancelot’s Fine Grooming Pomade for Distinguished Gentlemen into his hair. Upon reaching Saint Jude’s, he tethered the horses to a post outside the town hall, where Miss Clark would be sure to see them. Then he walked around the corner of the building and waited. Presently the green was filled with worshipers. Upon seeing a familiar figure wearing a blue dress, he raked his fingers through his hair and slipped from his hiding place.

  “Mrs. Meeks?” he called, coming up behind her.

  She turned and smiled. “Why, Mr. Sanders. How good to see you again.”

  “Thank you. It’s good to see you too.”

  Trudy, smiling happily, lunged toward him, but Mrs. Meeks caught her shoulder. “Don’t, Trudy.”