by Decca Price
“You mean the copyrights? Claire, you are being foolish. With the help of Mr. Chambers and Carter’s literary friends, you could discharge that obligation from Thurn Hall, Australia or the moon.”
“There’s more, Cameron, much more,” Claire responded with heat. “Josiah had such dreams for this place, for the people here. I shared those dreams with him. I must try to make them happen!”
“Well, good luck to you then, Claire,” he sighed. “You’ve had no education, you’ve seen next to nothing of the world. You’ll soon find you are a lamb among wolves.”
Claire offered her brother a grim smile, and Cameron next turned on Miss Simms.
“And you? She has some excuse, but you should know better than to encourage her. I shudder to think what sorts of notions my sisters have picked up from you unbeknownst to our family.”
“I—“
“Don’t accuse her, Cameron,” Claire cut in. “She has been Josiah’s chief enemy after my family and she did her best to talk me out of this step.” Claire gave her a loving look and her voice softened. “I’m sure she only stays now because she wants to be here to pick up the pieces when I fail. But I won’t. I won’t.”
Sir Henry and his son were gone at first light, and Claire felt relief mingled with guilt. She filled the day with rides about the property with Mr. Carey while Simmie wrestled with Mrs. White over the household management.
In the evening, she and Simmie settled snugly in Claire’s upstairs sitting room, which overlooked the lawns and river, and worked on a scheme to open a village school.
When Simmie retired and a hush fell over the house, Claire threw on a warm dressing gown and descended to Josiah’s study. After her first chilly nocturnal visit, she thanked the assiduous Noonan for the fire she found blazing in the enormous carved stone fireplace just inside the door, and the small jug of sweet cider simmering on the hob.
“Miss Simms’s orders,” he said curtly as he glided out of the room, which suddenly felt colder again.
At first it was enough to sit in the vast silent room and steep herself in memory. Their introduction at Mama’s at-home. The chance meeting in St. James Park the next morning. The daily walks that followed. Shared glances down the table at dinner parties. Exquisite moments in the rare and always proper waltzes they shared. Encircled in his arms, she forgot the crowded rooms, the buzzing people, the hissing gaslight. Josiah created the world for her, then filled it.
His boyish good looks and animated manner suggested a much younger man. Thick wayward locks were forever falling over his impetuous eyes as he talked, to be flicked aside as his mobile hands helped shape the story pouring forth from his lips. Josiah loved to talk.
And how he made her laugh! At first she thought he mocked her gravity, but she soon welcomed his teasing ways.”
Every stolen word, every secret glance returned in perfect detail as she sat before the fire in the heart of his private kingdom. And no wonder, she realized after three nights of this forced reverie. In the six months of happiness before they parted, their moments together numbered in the mere dozens and they were alone just three times.
On the first occasion, he mistook the time and called on Mama when she and the girls were out, finding Claire unchaperoned in the house. She should have sent him away, but the force of her desire to see him crushed all sense of propriety. The intimacy of his looks and touch were almost more than she could bear. Her blood fizzed like Champagne.
On the second occasion, in that same room, he proposed. How thrilling he had been, and so direct. “Miss Burton, may I claim the right to call you by your Christian name always—and to claim you entirely as my own, body and soul?” It was like a scene out of one of his novels, and she melted into his arms immediately. She lost all sense of time and place lost in his embrace.
The third occasion came that same hot, oppressive August day, when he strode angrily into the room to deliver Papa’s verdict. Angry tears glistened on his chiseled face as he recounted Papa’s insults. Papa and a footman cut off his opportunity to say more when they all but threw him out of the house.
There was no living with Papa after that, of course, and a month later, in the Times, she spotted Josiah’s name listed among the saloon passengers sailing for New York. For a mad moment, she pictured herself dashing to Liverpool, seeking him on the bustling dock, flinging herself into his arms.
But she had never traveled alone, had no idea what trains went to Liverpool. She settled for a visit to Aunt Maud, to begin the weary months of pretending she was unchanged.
The night’s chill crept into the room as the fire died. She drank the last of the cider, which made her oddly sleepy. So much to do, while she sat and dreamed instead. The school, the farm improvements. His papers. Unlocking the mystery of his bequest.
She thought about erecting a monument to Josiah on the grounds. Since news of Josiah’s death, Carey said, strangers frequented the churchyard or drove up to stare at Oak Grove’s front door. As the weather improved, they picnicked in the woods and Noonan discovered one daring couple spying through the library windows. Directing them to a sanctioned spot to visit might preserve their peace in the house.
Even if no one came, she felt, it was no less than Josiah deserved. He would want it.
A large portrait of Josiah in the style of Holman Hunt hung over the fireplace. Posing the great writer at his desk, the artist caught Josiah in the fever of composition. Against a dark, richly detailed backdrop, Josiah’s upturned face glowed, his light grey eyes fixed on the characters of his imagination as they danced in the air like faeries, his pen poised above the parchment where he so deftly captured them.
Claire studied the enraptured face, the expression so unlike the petulant glare that marred her final memory of those beloved features. She frowned and drew closer. Hadn’t Josiah’s eyes been hazel? She couldn’t remember.
Chapter 5
Claire awoke Sunday unrefreshed. Rain thrummed against the windowpanes, but as she and Miss Simms set out for church, the sun broke through ragged clouds and a stiff breeze ruffled the surface of the puddles.
Claire passed up the fancy matched bays meant for the bright phaeton Josiah kept in his carriage house and opted for an unremarkable cabriolet hitched to a sober brown mare.
Still, she almost wished the journey longer than the fifteen minutes it took them to reach the church. “Honestly, Simmie,” she said to her companion as they tooled down Oak Grove’s drive behind the deceptively spritely horse, “if Josiah had talked horseflesh to Papa rather than literature, he could have won him over in the end. There isn’t a one in his stable Papa wouldn’t be proud to own.”
St. Michael the Archangel stood just outside the village at the very top of the steep high street. Encircled by the centuries-old churchyard, it commanded a breathtaking vista across undulating ridges and valleys into the misty reaches of Wales.
Behind the Romanesque nave ran the walls of Oakley Court’s extensive park. A small gate gave the family access to the church and village. Across the road, the ample rectory, built within the last 50 years, stood in its own handsome garden protected by an iron picket fence.
Claire drove cautiously around a handful of people walking in the road to the far side of the lych gate, where a small boy attended a half-dozen other equipages.
“It’s Bobby Tressel, isn’t it?” she said to him. “I’ve seen you about the stables at Oak Grove.”
“Yessum,” he replied. “I helps out there most days. I’m fixin’ to be a coachman.”
“Really! You look so young.”
He gave her a defiant look from under the brim of his crooked cap. “I won’t allus be. I’m 12 come Boxing Day.”
“How right you are. My apologies. It’s good to be ambitious.” She handed him a coin and he took the mare’s reins. “I needn’t worry with you standing by, then.”
They walked back toward the gate, Miss Simms pausing to admire the view and to read the weathered headstones nearest the chur
chyard wall.
“Shouldn’t we go inside, Simmie?” Claire asked over her shoulder.
“But we’re so early, Claire! There’s scarcely anyone here yet. I daresay Mr. Latimer is still enjoying a last cup of morning coffee at the rectory.”
“Yes, I wanted to be early. All I could think about last night was how awful it would be to parade down the aisle to our pew with everyone looking. Particularly as I’m not even sure where the Oak Grove pew is.”
“Well, here’s Mrs. White coming with the housemaids. They must have taken the footpath across the fields. She can guide us.”
Not having seen the housekeeper in her Sunday finery before, Claire couldn’t judge whether the woman always decked herself out so elaborately for church, but today she looked formidable in a costume of Paris green.
Her bonnet, which added a foot to her height, was a veritable bower of red and white cabbage roses. In her left hand she carried a reticule large enough to hold a small child and in her right she clutched a prayer book that must have been presented for some special occasion, judging by its size and extravagant gilding. The upstairs maid carried the woman’s large black umbrella.
“Oh, Mrs. White. How thoughtless of me!” Claire exclaimed. “I should have told you to take the carriage on a wet day like this.”
Mrs. White looked shocked. “And what about them, Miss Burton?” she said with a nod toward the maids coming behind her. “Besides which, it wouldn’t be fitting.”
“The wagon then,” Claire said. “You would all fit in the wagon.”
“We’ll see, mayhaps,” Mrs. White said. “Mr. Carter liked the horses to rest, like, on Sundays. He’d say bad weather on a Sunday was the Lord’s way of telling us to take a day of rest—at home. Always enjoyed his little jokes, Mr. Carter did.”
Claire forced herself to smile at the older woman. “Yes, yes, he did. Shall we go on? I am counting on you to show me where we sit.”
Mrs. White threw her a disapproving look. “It’s not for me to lead the way,” she said and stood aside.
They paraded like ducklings through the gate—Claire and Miss Simms, then Mrs. White, followed in descending rank (and size) by the upper maid with the footman, the tweeny and the house boy, the scullery maids and the boot boys. So much for avoiding notice, Claire thought wryly. Though next to Mrs. White, she in her charcoal grey merino and ivory lace felt invisible.
The church was strange. The neo-Gothic parish church back home was graceful and light, every line reaching towards the heavens, but this church was low and bulky, rooted in the ground like a tree stump. Built of the local red sandstone, its Romanesque exterior suggested a fortress, fronted as it was by a massive square tower out of proportion to the building that squatted behind it. The principal entrance was a low arched door at the side sheltered by a peaked wooden porch.
Weathered stone carvings of fruits and vines surrounded the plain windows, which were glazed with clear diamond-paned glass. When Claire looked up at the corbels under the eaves, rudely carved faces grinned, scowled and leered back at her.
The interior was blinding as the morning sun bounced off whitewashed walls, unadorned except for elaborate blocks of text here and there colorfully painted into the plaster.
“We’re just here,” Mrs. White said at Claire’s elbow, indicating a long box pew to the left high against the wall. Claire led the way up the shallow steps and they filed in, all chatter at an end. They sat in silence for a quarter hour before the church filled, an organ somewhere out of sight began playing the processional, and everyone rose.
Claire’s thoughts turned to Josiah as two small boys in white surplices led the village choir down the center aisle, followed by Mr. Latimer in his vestments.
How many times Josiah must have sat in this very pew, joined his voice with these very people in song and prayer, gazed on these ancient walls!
She touched the old wood, worn smooth by the years and the touch of many hands. Just as he must have done so many times.
Claire peered over the edge of her hymnal to see a stout woman looking at her with open curiosity. They made the briefest of eye contact and Claire’s slight nod was returned before the woman turned her attention back to her book.
“Lor’, fancy that!” Mrs. White breathed. “She’s not one usually to come off her high horse.”
Claire endeavored to focus on the service.
As Latimer ascended to the pulpit, Claire glanced around the sanctuary and saw all female eyes, from maid to mistress, were fixed on the rector. Even Simmie wasn’t immune. Now, in his element, he radiated authority. The sheeplike expressions reminded her of the women Josiah had attracted in London.
She, too, felt Latimer’s magnetic pull. His rich baritone thrilled and compelled. She wondered why he had remained at St. Michael’s for so long when men of lesser gifts advanced.
Latimer’s subject, though, made Claire uncomfortable. At home in Surrey, sermons tended to be gentle admonitions to care for the poor, trust in God’s wisdom and cultivate gratitude for one’s place in the world.
For his text, Latimer took up the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, likened to “whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” She shifted uneasily, unaccustomed to thundering rhetoric and dark admonitions to repent. His passion struck her as almost indecent and his subject out of keeping with the joyous post-Easter season. Papa definitely would have deplored the emotional display.
The congregation ate it up, however, and from the back where the villagers sat en masse, a few fervent “Have mercys” were audible. Dead silence filled the church when Latimer concluded, yet the worshipers rose with enthusiasm to sing the choir out with “Onward, Christian soldiers.”
Altogether an unsettling morning, Claire mused as she gathered her skirts and led the way out of the pew.
A hand gently took her elbow and she turned to see the thickset woman who had caught her eye earlier. “Step out into the sunlight with me, Miss Burton. I would appreciate a word with you.”
They passed under the small porch and onto the path, where small clusters of women halted their chatter and tried not to look obvious as they watched.
“Smile, dear. These biddies need to see that we are, if not old friends, at least acquainted. I am about to vouch for you.”
Claire did as she was told and put a bright smile on her face.
“I am Mrs. Hanniman, dear, Miss Milford that was,” the older woman said. “Your Aunt Maud and I came out together in ... well, never mind the year. She has charged me with looking out for you. She’s told me all about your ridiculous father and none too soon. Why that man can’t see that he just made matters worse for you...”
They approached a matron with two girls about the age of Cat and Francie, Claire judged. All three were well dressed and obviously “somebody” in village society.
“Mrs. Talwell, may I introduce you to my good friend’s niece, Miss Burton?” Mrs. Hanniman said.
Mrs. Talwell bowed stiffly and indicated more than introduced her daughters, Margaret and Mary Rose.
“Mr. Talwell is the owner of the fine house you no doubt noticed just outside the village,” Mrs. Hanniman said. “The decoration in the drawing room is said to be in the style of Mr. Adam. I’m sure you will admire it when you see it, Miss Burton.”
“Er, yes,” Mrs. Talwell responded. “Perhaps we will see you there. After you are settled in, that is. I warn you, though, we lead a rather retired life.”
“And you are most welcome at Oak Grove.” Claire responded as though Mrs. Talwell’s invitation were genuine. “I and my friend, Miss Simms, intend to be ‘at home’ on Thursdays.”
Simmie smiled, Mrs. Talwell moved on, and a few other ladies offered chill nods when caught staring. When the last of their stiff backs disappeared down the hill, Claire let out a laugh.
“I am quite speechless!! Would you have ever thought, Simmie, that Aunt Maud’s managing reach could ext
end so far??”
Mrs. Hanniman said merely, “Now, you will come back with me for nuncheon. It’s not far. Nothing elaborate, mind, since it’s the sabbath. A cold collation. The boy can bring your gig along. We must get to know one another better.”
“How can I thank you, Mrs. Hanniman? You’ve taken such a worry away, you can’t know.”
“Oh, I do know,” the woman replied. “I came here as a bride 30 years ago and had a hard time of it then. There’s still some who regard me as an incomer. You would have never stood a chance on your own, no matter the circumstances.”
Claire looked around for Edward Latimer, hoping for a word or a glance, but the rector had not followed his congregants into the sunshine.
The trio set off. As they passed the boundary of the churchyard, Claire stopped. Simmie put her hand on Claire’s elbow. “I know what’s on your mind, dear,” she said softly.
“It all looks so peaceful, so normal, I barely feel anything,” Claire replied softly as she gazed at the worn lichen-covered headstones nearest the road. “These old churchyards have such melancholy charm. But he is in there somewhere. I must beg Mr. Latimer to escort me as soon as he is able. I dare not go in there alone.”
Then she caught sight of two figures back under the trees, at the farthest reach of the enclosure. They were standing close and absorbed in conversation. One was Edward Latimer. The other was a tall woman in black who was gesticulating angrily.
Before she could get a closer look, Latimer took the woman by the arm and they disappeared behind the church.
No one called as the days passed. Not Mrs. Talwell and her daughters, and not even Edward Latimer, to Claire’s keen disappointment. The quiet of Oak Grove was a shock after life at Thurn Hall. The routine making and receiving of calls with Mama had seemed positively tedious until there was no one to share the tea table with each afternoon but Simmie, though they had plenty to talk about.
So when Mr. Chambers’ gig rolled up to the front door early Friday afternoon, Claire greeted him eagerly. Her dismay was evident when he plucked only his portfolio of legal papers from the seat as he stepped down to the gravel.
