The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter

by Lawana Blackwell

  There was a brief silence, in which Mercy could picture her father trying to place the name. And then, “Is this about thet school?”

  “It is indeed, Mr. Sanders. How very perceptive of you!”

  This time the grunt that issued from above had a distinctive familiar ring. Mercy felt her cheeks grow hot, and she prayed that the woman beside her hadn’t figured out what he had actually said. But Mrs. Kingston seemed to be concentrating on something else, for after listening to the resumed hammering with pursed lips, she turned to Mercy and said, “Tell me, how does one get up there?”

  “You want to climb up in the loft?”

  “Frankly, dear, I am not looking forward to it. But there seems to be no other way.”

  With great misgivings Mercy led the older woman through the wide open barn door. Just inside, Mrs. Kingston paused. “Will you close and bolt that door?” She glanced down at her skirt. “Modesty, you know.”

  Mercy complied at once, plunging the barn into darkness save for the daylight seeping through the cracks between the door boards. After allowing a second or two for Mrs. Kingston’s eyes to adjust to the dimness, Mercy pointed to a ladder. She felt compelled to give another warning at the bottom. “He may swear at you.”

  Mrs. Kingston again gathered her skirts about her knees, then lifted her foot to the first rung. “I’ll box his ears if he does.”

  After the initial shock had passed, Mercy smiled to herself, gathered her skirts, and followed. Perhaps this woman would be a match for her father after all. This was much more interesting than picking vegetables.

  “Would one of you gentlemen mind lending me a hand?” she heard Mrs. Kingston say, whose head and shoulders had disappeared into the floor of the loft. Mercy listened to the hammering cease and cringed at the expected explosion of words, but to her surprise, none came. Perhaps Mrs. Kingston’s tenacity had rendered her papa speechless.

  “Help her, Fernie,” she even heard her father mutter, and Mrs. Kingston’s feet presently disappeared. Her father and brother did not extend the same courtesy to Mercy when she reached the top of the ladder, but she had played up here hundreds of times as a girl and easily swung herself to the floor. Papa was on his knees staring, openmouthed, as Mrs. Kingston brushed stray bits of straw from her sleeves and surveyed the stacked bales of new hay as if they were fine furnishings.

  “Your cattle will be nourished all winter, I can see. How wise of you to provide for them, Mr. Sanders.”

  Her father sent Mercy a look that would have set her to trembling had she been younger. Fernie resembled a kitten watching a pendulum as he shifted his attention from his papa to this visitor, and then back again.

  “Just like the biblical ant, storing for the lean times,” Mrs. Kingston was saying. “Some things never change, do they? I find that very reassuring.”

  “I ain’t gonter send the boys to thet school,” Mercy’s papa finally glowered.

  “No?”

  “No!” He jabbed in the direction of the ladder with his hammer. “So’s you may as well go away.”

  Mrs. Kingston merely shrugged her regal shoulders. “Very well then, Mr. Sanders. I can see it’s useless to attempt to change your mind.” Turning back to Mercy, she said, “Would you mind helping me with those top rungs, dear?”

  As her father expressed his contempt with a resumed barrage of hammering on the patched floor, Mercy lowered herself by four rungs and then held out both hands toward Mrs. Kingston. The elderly woman leaned down as if she would take them but then straightened again.

  “Oh, by the way, Mr. Sanders.”

  Mercy’s father held the hammer poised above his repair work. He directed a grunt toward Mrs. Kingston, but mercifully it did not sound like any recognizable profanity.

  “Would you happen to know of anyone in the market for a cow?”

  “What?” he growled.

  “Silly woman that I am, I happened to come into possession of a fine heifer from Mr. Fletcher of Arnold Lane this morning, and I don’t quite know what to do with her. You see, I reside at the Larkspur and—”

  Sitting back on his heels, he said in a disbelieving voice, “Mr. Fletcher sold you one of his cows?”

  “Actually, we made a trade. You see, my morning rambles take me down almost every lane in Gresham. On Thursdays I pass their farm and have had the privilege of making the acquaintance of Mr. Fletcher and his lovely wife. I’m not surprised you’ve heard of them. Their herd—”

  “The finest milk producers in Shropshire!” Mercy’s father interrupted again. “But Fletcher won’t sell to nobody, the stingy—”

  “As I made mention, it was a trade.” Mrs. Kingston picked another bit of straw from her sleeve.

  Mercy could read her father’s thoughts as he studied the woman standing at his hayloft ladder. To have such an animal among his herd would result in some outstanding calves one day, thereby increasing milk production considerably in just a few years.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willin’ to sell her to me, would you?” It was a statement, not a question, for clearly he was beginning to understand that she had some other motive in mind.

  “I’m afraid not, Mr. Sanders.”

  His green eyes formed slits. “What do you want, Mrs. …”

  “Kingston,” she supplied. “I believe you already know the answer to that.”

  “Thet school,” he said resignedly.

  She smiled. “A little education never hurt anyone, Mr. Sanders.”

  It was with a sense of great awe that Mercy accompanied the woman back through the barnyard. Finally when the gate was behind them, she sent out a long breath. “You knew you could make him change his mind, didn’t you?”

  “Why, of course not, Miss Sanders,” Mrs. Kingston replied. “I’m not a prophet. I’m just as surprised as you are.” But the look in her blue eyes said otherwise.

  Mercy smiled. She had seen something remarkable this morning—an elderly woman had accomplished what four men couldn’t.

  She beckoned to Oram, who came trotting over right away and gladly accepted the responsibility of driving the visitor back to town. Handling the team and wagon was more enjoyable than scrubbing milk pails any day. “My papa doesn’t believe women should drive,” Mercy explained after Oram had hitched up Dan and Bob, the two speckled drays, to the wagon. “Or I would take you back myself.”

  “That’s quite all right, dear.” Mrs. Kingston allowed Oram to help her up into the seat beside him, then she patted his shoulder. “I do appreciate this young man saving me from that long walk.”

  “Yes’m,” Oram mumbled. But before he could pick up the reins, Mercy stepped toward the wagon again.

  “May I ask what you traded Mr. Fletcher for the cow?”

  Mrs. Kingston smiled down at her. “Certainly you may, Miss Sanders. It was a bicycle.”

  “You have a bicycle?”

  “You’ve heard of them, haven’t you?”

  Mercy nodded. She had seen an advertisement for one in an issue of The Sunday Visitor at the lending library. But she had never seen one on the lanes of Gresham.

  “I haven’t actually taken possession of it yet,” Mrs. Kingston went on to explain. “Mr. Fletcher is well aware of that and knows I’m good for it. You see, my son, Norwood, has written that he’s sending one for my birthday next week.”

  “Happy birthday,” Mercy said, and Mrs. Kingston smiled.

  “Thank you, dear.” She shook her head. “Now, no doubt you’re wondering why someone would send a sixty-four-year-old woman a bicycle. Norwood is obviously under the impression that, as much as I enjoy my morning walks, I would enjoy peddling along at breakneck speed even more so. I dare not send back his gift for fear of injuring his feelings, but I shan’t go gadding about on a contraption that looks like something out of a medieval torture chamber. And if I were to keep it at the Larkspur, the Hollis children would no doubt ask to ride it, thereby risking their lives and limbs.”

  Mercy smiled. “Then it was g
ood that Mr. Fletcher wanted a bicycle.”

  “Isn’t it, dear?” Mrs. Kingston smiled again. “And I find people much more agreeable when there is something they want.”

  As easy as stealing a drunk man’s purse, thought Mrs. Kingston, who would of course never actually do such a thing. And her conscience was quite clear about it all, for she had made no promises regarding Mr. Fletcher’s heifer producing more milk than any other cow in Mr. Sanders’ herd.

  She smiled to herself and waved away a curious bee with a slow motion of her hand. It was odd that she, who had no experience with dairying, would have figured out what the rest of Gresham considered a big mystery. She had simply put two and two together one Sunday morning in church, or rather added one incident with another to form a theory.

  The first incident had been Mr. Fletcher’s rendition of “Come, Thou Almighty King” in the choir gallery. There was nothing unusual about that, as the self-educated Mr. Fletcher often played his violin before the church. Clearly he loved the instrument, for his eyes closed and rapture filled his expression as the bow swept across the strings. Even the children ceased to fidget when the sweet strains of his music floated out among the congregation.

  It was the following message Vicar Phelps delivered about young David in the palace of his nemesis King Saul that set Mrs. Kingston to thinking. Just as the chords of David’s harp had refreshed Saul’s troubled spirit, couldn’t music also lull animals into a relaxed state? Even she knew that agitated cows produced less milk—didn’t it stand to reason that relaxed cows would produce more?

  She had the opportunity to voice her theory to Mr. Fletcher during her walk the following Thursday. His reaction had stunned her. Redness stole up from his collar over his clean-shaven face before he practically tore his gate off the hinges in his lunge through it and seized her hand.

  “I don’t know how you came up with such a notion, Mrs. Kingston,” he protested.

  “Are you saying it’s not true?” She had him there, for a man who stood up in church and played hymns on the violin could not in good conscience stand on the side of Arnold Lane and perjure himself.

  “If I tell you, will you promise to keep it a secret?”

  “But I should think if you have a technique that will boost milk production, you would be happy to share it with everyone,” she told him in the same tone she’d used when lecturing her son when he was a boy. “It seems rather selfish to keep it to yourself.”

  “It’s not so simple, Mrs. Kingston. Please?”

  In the end she had yielded to the pleading in his eyes. “Very well then, Mr. Fletcher. I’ll tell no one, but only if you can give me a good reason.”

  “Thank you.” He dropped her hand and let out a heavy sigh. “You’re correct. I do play for my cows.”

  “Indeed?” It had been an exhilarating feeling, knowing she’d guessed correctly. “Now would you care to tell me why it’s not so simple to share such a method?”

  Mr. Fletcher nodded. “I am not a selfish man, Mrs. Kingston. How many times have you heard Vicar Phelps announce that I would be giving free violin lessons in the Village Hall on Saturday afternoons?”

  “Well, several,” she admitted. “But what does that have to do with—”

  “Everything! Because though that announcement has been made many times, do you know how many people have come to take advantage of them?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Two! The Casper boy and Mrs. Moore. They are progressing well, but neither is in the business of dairying. I realize that there are few wealthy people in Gresham, but most make good livings. And a decent German violin can be ordered through Mr. Trumble for little more than a half-sovereign.”

  Mrs. Kingston felt sorry for him then, for there was nothing so disheartening as being enthused about something in which others had no interest. “But surely if you told everyone your secret, you could fill your class.”

  “That’s exactly why I cannot do so … don’t you see? If a person wishes to learn the violin for any reason other than a love of music, he will never master the instrument. Yet I would be obliged to give lessons to those who are simply eager for more profit, for how could I refuse a fellow villager?” A shudder seized him. “I can think of no greater agony than attempting to teach music to a room filled with people with wooden ears. And the poor cows, Mrs. Kingston—they’re such helpless creatures and a captive audience in their milking barns. The violin in the hands of a novice can produce sounds that are simply torturous.”

  Again Mrs. Kingston could see his point but had to ask, “But what will you do if a dairy farmer asks you for lessons? Simply because he loves the music, I mean.”

  For the first time during their exchange Mr. Fletcher produced a smile. “Should that wonderful event ever happen, Mrs. Kingston, I would feel privileged to include such person in on our secret.”

  “Our” secret, Mrs. Kingston thought as the Sanders wagon continued up Nettle Lane. A clever way of reminding her that she had given her word. “People are interesting, aren’t they?” she said to the boy beside her.

  “Yes’m,” he mumbled, with his eyes still straight ahead, and no apparent curiosity as to why she would make such an observation out of the blue.

  Probably any observation she could make, such as hares have long ears, would have gotten the same response. She didn’t know what was taxing the boy’s brain so, for it wasn’t driving. Clearly in no hurry to return to his chores, he was allowing the two horses to meander along at a snail’s pace.

  “Interesting, indeed,” she said.

  “You should have seen the way she talked to Papa,” Mercy said to Mrs. Brent after easing another spoonful of potato soup into the ailing woman’s mouth.

  Propped up on her pillows, Mrs. Brent swallowed, then smiled weakly. “So your father changed his mind about the schooling?”

  “He did, indeed.” Mercy chuckled at the memory.

  “What did she give Mr. Fletcher for the cow? Did she tell you?”

  Mercy wiped her friend’s lips with an edge of the napkin she had tucked under her chin. “A bicycle.”

  “A what, dear?”

  “It looks something like a dogcart, but with the two wheels frontto-back instead of on each side. It has handles to hold on to in front, and you must pedal it with your feet.”

  “Do tell? But how does a body keep from toppling over?”

  “I’m not quite sure about that part,” Mercy admitted. “Let’s have another bite, shall we?”

  Mrs. Brent obeyed, taking a spoonful of soup into her mouth and then another. Presently the effort of eating something even as easy as soup took its toll on her, and she held up a trembling hand just as Mercy was lifting the spoon from the bowl again. “No more, Mercy.”

  “You really should try to finish the bowl,” Mercy admonished gently. “You’re wasting away to nothing.”

  “Ah, but my soul is fat, child, from feasting on the Word. Take it away—I’ll have Janet give me some more later.”

  It was useless to argue once Mrs. Brent made up her mind. In her own softer way she was perhaps as stubborn as Mrs. Kingston. Setting the bowl and spoon on the bedside table, Mercy leaned over to take her friend’s bony shoulders, move two of the pillows from behind her, and ease her back onto one. Mrs. Brent lovingly smiled up at her, and after Mercy had taken her chair again, she said in a voice growing hoarse, “When you take my little herd, dear, remind your father that they’re yours.”

  The subject of Mrs. Brent’s cows was not a pleasant one for Mercy because they would be in her possession only because of her friend’s death. But to comfort her, Mercy mumbled something in agreement. However, that didn’t satisfy the elderly woman.

  “Of course they will be pastured with his herd, and he will profit from the milk. But only until your husband comes along,” Mrs. Brent said.

  “Yes, Mrs. Brent,” Mercy replied obediently. She could not match Mrs. Brent’s adamant faith regarding a husband but would not have argued with
her dying friend had she declared that a prince would ride into Gresham upon a white horse and claim her for his bride.

  “Thank you, child.” Even the frailty of Mrs. Brent’s voice could not prevent her affection for Mercy from coming through. “Now run along and tend to your chores at home. You’ve enough to do without listening to an old woman ramble.”

  Mrs. Brent’s six cows had their heads loped over the drystone wall separating the pasture from the yard. Mercy could feel their gentle brown eyes following her as she walked out to the lane, as if the small herd had assembled themselves to inquire about their mistress’s condition and were now mutely calling her back to them. Finally Mercy could stand it no longer, and she turned and went over to the wall. She pulled some long stalks of hawkweed from the ground. “There, there now,” she cooed as they nudged one another gently for a better position to receive the treat. Her vision blurred. “Everything will be all right.”

  She had doubts about that herself, but she didn’t think God would fault her for saying it to reassure a few pitiful cows.

  Chapter 6

  Andrew left Luther Sloane’s small dairy farm north of the river later than he had intended and now wondered if he would reach the vicarage before his guests arrived for supper.

  The Sloanes’ four-month marriage had reached a crisis state when Mrs. Sloane demanded that her husband make a choice between her and his collie, Shep, that had enjoyed the run of the cottage and slept at his master’s feet long before she was carried across the threshold. In reply to her demand, Mr. Sloane had requested a day or two to consider his answer, causing his wife to pack her belongings and threaten to leave.

  As Rusty pulled the trap up Church Lane, Andrew flicked the reins lightly to coax a little more speed. Thankfully he’d been able to negotiate a compromise between the husband and wife. Mr. Sloane was brought to the understanding that wives were more important than pets and offered to clear a space in the hay barn for the dog’s bed, keeping him outside from now on. Warmed by that concession, Mrs. Sloane had decided that a blanket in a corner of the gardening hut would provide more comfort for sleeping, and that the animal could continue taking meals at the cottage hearth.