The Clergyman's Wife

by Molly Greeley

  Though the garden is still blooming, the blossoms are growing blowsy and losing petals; the sun, rising swiftly now, is still bright, but there is a particular smell to the air, sharp as autumn, like damp leaves underfoot even though they have yet to turn and fall. The world is in transition, and I stand inert as it changes around me.

  It was not so long ago that I stood in this garden with my hair in disarray and my baby in my arms and came upon a strange man removing a tree stump. I look down at myself, at the thin fabric of my nightgown, then over my shoulder self-consciously; but of course there is no one there.

  I HAVE COME halfway down the stairs after laying Louisa down for the night when William hurries into the hall. He is all nervousness, and I pause, watching; he holds his prayer book in one hand and retrieves his hat from its peg with the other. When he reaches for the latch, I say, “William,” and he gives a great start, turning to look at me.

  “Where are you going?” I say. It is nearly time for dinner, and he knows I ordered his favorite soup this evening.

  “Mr. Travis’s lad just arrived,” he says. “I am needed there.”

  “Needed . . . ,” I say; my voice comes out as a wheeze.

  “The elder Mr. Travis was . . . stricken during the night. He has not been able to make the walk to church for some time; I must go and administer Communion and hear his confession.”

  My hands fly to my mouth. “Oh, no—”

  “Do not hold dinner; I do not know how long this will take.”

  My words are reflexive, for I am entirely numb. “I will have Mrs. Baxter keep something warm for you.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” William says. He has tucked his prayer book under his arm and is turning his hat over and over in his hands. I look away, uncomfortable with his discomfort. William is not well suited to the role of consoler of the dying.

  He moves to go once more, and I look back at him. The words seem to throw themselves from my mouth. “I will go with you.”

  William looks puzzled. “Charlotte—that is unnecessary.”

  I curl my fingers around the handrail. “But—”

  “No, no—you must stay here. I am sure the thought was kindly meant, but . . .” He waves a hand at me and opens the door. The rest of his sentence is lost to his own distraction; he puts his hat on his head and closes the door behind him. My eyes are burning. I sink slowly down upon the stair and remain there until Mrs. Baxter finds me to say that dinner is ready and waiting.

  I AM IN bed when I hear the knell of the church bell. Nine slow, solemn peals, and then silence. I weep, face pressed into my pillow, fingers clutching at the bedclothes.

  When William comes to bed, I am still awake. I lie quietly, my grief spent, as he settles in beside me—he breathes loudly, shifting this way and that until he is comfortable—and wait for him to speak, but he only looks surprised to find me watching him, and squeezes my fingers together beneath the quilt.

  “You should be asleep,” he says, closing his eyes.

  “Wait,” I say, and he looks at me. It is dark enough that I cannot see his annoyance clearly. “What happened? Mr. Travis is—”

  “He has ascended from this place,” William says. I feel again the sudden tightness at my temples and behind my jaw. I hold my lips together and swallow several times.

  “Was it—peaceful?” I say at last. William stirs.

  “He was insensible, for the most part, and too weak to take Communion.” William presses his thumb and forefinger into the inner corners of his eyes. “Though he could not speak to express it, I flatter myself that I gave him great comfort, in the end.”

  Agitation comes over me; I curl my toes against the mattress to hold myself in place. “And his son?” I say, more sharply than I intended.

  “We will hold the funeral as soon as the coffin can be made,” he says, which does not answer my question. I stare at the ceiling; dampness trickles from the corner of one eye and down my temple, pooling uncomfortably in my ear.

  “Who is readying the body?” I say. As far as I know, Mr. Travis has no female relatives living.

  William yawns. “He will send his lad for the midwife in the morning, I imagine. Or perhaps his maid; it was not something we discussed.”

  Of course. I think of Mrs. Fletcher’s capable hands upon me as she brought my children forth from my body and into this world. A little of the turmoil inside me quiets.

  William sleeps then, but my mind insists on dwelling upon the thought that even now Mr. Travis must be holding vigil over his father. Though I try to sleep, I hold my own vigil through much of the night.

  WILLIAM IS GONE to the burial. I wander out to the garden; it is blustery, the sharp wind promising a coming storm, and I hope that the rain will hold off until the funeral is over even as I rail inwardly at the custom that keeps gently bred women from attending burials. I wrap my arms around myself and walk the gravel paths. My hair, dragged from its pins, whips around my face.

  I stop near the lane and look down at the roses. Their leaves rustle, green and gold together, straining in the wind against their stems. I stand for some moments, arms crossed, head bowed, skirt and petticoat twisting around my legs; and then I go inside.

  At dinner, William tells me that the funeral was held with quiet ceremony, attended by the old man’s son and nearest male neighbors. My husband speaks highly of his own sermon, which he gives me to read, and which I am sure, as I skim through it, the younger Mr. Travis must have hated. I hand the pages back to William with a few murmured words of praise, then rise early from my place at the table, pleading tiredness.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The maid answers when I knock at the cottage door. Around one arm she wears a black band.

  “Is Mr. Travis at home to callers?” I say. My voice is steadier than I expected it would be, given the extent of my apprehension. I spent the walk here reminding myself that it was right and proper for me to visit a bereaved family, but my nerves still buzz, distracting as houseflies, just under my skin. I am torn between a desire to see him, to offer sincere expressions of comfort, and a peculiar sense of fear. I hold myself still, uncertain whether I want the maid’s answer to be yes or no.

  The other woman nods and beckons me inside with one reddened hand.

  She leads me into a long kitchen with a scrubbed wooden table, where Mr. Travis sits mending a harness. He looks up when we enter, and I see surprise in his expression when he notices me.

  “Mrs. Parson to see you,” the maid says.

  Mr. Travis stands and bows. “Mrs. Collins,” he says. “Would you—may I offer you some tea, or—”

  “No,” I say quickly. “That is—thank you, but I—I came to offer my condolences.” I raise the basket I am carrying. “I brought you some dinner, as well.”

  His lips press briefly into a thin line, and then, “Thank you,” he says.

  I glance at his maid, who steps forward to take the basket from my hands.

  When I look back at Mr. Travis, he jerks his hand oddly. “Please,” he says, and moves toward the fireplace, in front of which two upholstered chairs are arranged. “Sit down.”

  I do, and he sits beside me. His maid takes up the broom leaning against the wall and resumes the work she must have abandoned when I arrived, moving to the doorway and sweeping dirt through it with broad, practiced motions. The rasp of the bristles against the floorboards is very loud. My hands grip together, hard. Mr. Travis shifts in his chair, his own hands curled around his knees.

  “I was—so very sorry to hear about your father,” I say.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Collins,” Mr. Travis says again. “It is good of you to visit.”

  “He will be missed,” I say, and then I grit my teeth. Our words are stilted, rote, and though they are the same words I have uttered many times to William’s parishioners since I came to Kent, here, now, they feel dreadfully inadequate. I swallow and look away; the maid has leaned her broom up against the wall once more and is walking out the door, a
bucket over one arm. I turn back to find Mr. Travis watching me.

  “Mr. Travis,” I say. “I realize that you must think I am here because it is . . . expected. And of course, it is—that is—I would of course come regardless of . . .” I stop and look down at my fingers, still clasping one another fiercely in my lap. “What I mean to say is that I—when I say that I am sorry, I mean it completely. I regret very deeply that I did not have the opportunity to know your father better, but what I knew of him was . . .” My tongue stumbles, my throat tightens, and I keep my eyes on my hands, struggling for mastery of myself.

  “I am sorry for him,” I say at last, “and I am sorry for you, and I wish my—my words were not so useless.”

  There is silence, and then he says, for the third time since my arrival, “Thank you.” But this time his voice is rough, and when I gather the courage to look up at him, he is passing a hand across his eyes. Then he looks at me, and a smile, genuine this time, passes like a ghost across his face.

  “Do not thank me,” I say. “I regret—I wish that I had been able to . . . help somehow.”

  Another smile, and a small shrug. “There is nothing anyone could have done.”

  I nod slowly. Looking at him more fully, now, I can see that the skin under his eyes is shadowed; his cheeks are slack. “What happened?” I say.

  Mr. Travis shakes his head. “Nothing—nothing. He simply . . . he went to bed as usual, and in the morning, when he was not awake at his usual hour, I tried to rouse him. He would not respond to me, but he was breathing. I went for the doctor, and he . . . Well. He said there was nothing to be done. And I . . . I should have expected this, I suppose. My father was an old man. But it happened very suddenly.”

  He turns his head away from me so that I cannot see his face, but I can see the muscles of his jaw working. We sit so for a time, I with my hands folded in my lap, he with his shoulders hunched. He is not a tall man—he stands scarcely taller than myself—but he has a physical power formed by hard work. Now, however, in his grief, he looks small. I have an impulse, barely checked, to put my hand upon his.

  At last, Mr. Travis draws in a shaky breath. “I apologize,” he says, and turns back to me. He looks faintly embarrassed.

  “There is no need. I have been lucky—it is hard to imagine the misery of losing a beloved parent.”

  “Oh, yes.” He is rubbing his hands against his thighs. “You were visiting your family—are they all in health?”

  “Perfectly. Thank you.” I look around the kitchen; it is largely unornamented, the objects generally of a useful nature, but I spy two coats on pegs beside the door and feel a spasm of sadness, for I recognize the shabbier of the two as old Mr. Travis’s. I drag my eyes away, to find his upon me, once more.

  “Have you lived with your father all your life?” I say.

  He shakes his head. “When he worked for Lady Catherine, he and my mother and I had a cottage on the grounds of Rosings. He and I lived there for some years after my mother died, and then I took on the tenancy here and he lived there alone. It was not until he finally admitted he could not do his work any longer that he came to live here with me.”

  I glance at the coat, and he follows my gaze, then huffs a soft laugh. “I should give it to Henry Peters—it will be a little large for him, still, but he’s a growing lad—but I have not yet been able to . . . That is, it will be strange, not to have it there beside my own.” He squints, swallows. “Would you—Mrs. Collins, would it be a terrible imposition to ask you to give it to him? It is—I know it would be easier for me, I see him daily, but—”

  “Of course, Mr. Travis,” I hasten to say. “Please—think nothing of it. Indeed, you are doing me a service—I so often find myself at a loss as to how to help, in such cases as these.”

  His smile is faint, but it is there, and he opens his mouth as if to speak, only to be interrupted when the maid comes back into the house, her bucket full this time, her gait uneven from the weight of it. She sets it down without looking at us before continuing about her work, going out into the yard once more.

  “My father lamented the expense of hiring someone to keep house,” Mr. Travis says. His expression is pensive as he looks at the empty doorway. “He was . . . disappointed, that I never married.”

  There are many things I could say in response, none of which are prudent. “He clearly had the greatest affection for you,” I say instead.

  “He was a good man.” His words are a near echo of his father’s, all those weeks ago: Robby’s a good lad. I blink hard. “My mother died when I was so young—he really had the raising of me.”

  “He must have been a great deal more . . . present than my father,” I say; and then I wince at my own disloyalty. My father has never known quite what to do with any of us; like William, he is a master of the superficial and uncomfortable with anything weightier. I never knew what he thought as I grew older and remained in his house, still unmarried, for he never said a word; I remember his distant smiles, the awkward way he patted my hand. But I also remember the surprising gladness I felt upon his first visit to my new home, the way we clutched one another, the smooth fabric of his waistcoat against my cheek.

  Curiosity flickers in Mr. Travis’s face, but, politely, he does not ask me to elaborate. There is a little silence, and then he says, “He was . . . present, as you say. But we—I think he resented me, or at least, resented what he saw as his reliance upon me, near the end. And he never tired of needling me about grandchildren.” He pushes one hand through his hair, leaving it wilder than before. “And now I wish . . . I feel very selfish, for not giving him that. He would have been a most affectionate grandfather.”

  We are both, it seems, constantly catching ourselves just at the brink of impoliteness, for I want to ask why—why did he never marry, when he is such an amiable man, when he has the means to provide, however modestly, for a family? He is so easy and natural with Louisa—did he never want children of his own?

  Mr. Travis’s smile is tight, and he is looking at me with a peculiar intensity, as if he guesses my thoughts. I have the distinct feeling that he wants me to voice them. I look back and hold my peace, and at last he says, “How is little Miss Collins? My father—he looked forward to your visits with her. I cannot thank you enough—”

  “I wish that I had brought her again sooner after we returned from Hertfordshire,” I say in a rush. “Watching them together was such a delight. I meant to come in a day or two—”

  I suddenly realize that in my earnestness I have leaned forward across the space between our two chairs. I sit back very quickly.

  The maid comes in once more. I have been here for much longer than the customary visiting time. “I am sorry,” I say, rising. Mr. Travis looks startled but rises as well. “I have stayed too long—I should not keep you from your work.”

  “Not at all,” he says, but he steps back to allow me to pass before him. We pause at the door; I am hotly aware of the maid’s eyes upon us. I look at the coat.

  “May I . . . ?”

  “Oh—yes.” He takes it from its peg, folds it gently in half, holds it pressed for a moment between his hands. His thumb strokes the worn fabric once. “Thank you, Mrs. Collins. Very much.” He hesitates, but whatever he might say is forestalled by the maid, edging past us with murmured apologies. I step back to let her pass, and when I look at Mr. Travis, I can see that he will not speak again.

  He holds out the coat, and I take it.

  I LOOK, BUT the boy Henry is nowhere about as I leave the farm. I will have to bring the coat to him another time, and just as well; it is an easy excuse to call again. The thought makes me shake my head; I open my mouth and begin to sing a song Maria used to practice often. My voice is off-key, but when my muddled thoughts persist in intruding, I sing more loudly. There is no one around to hear.

  At home, I set the coat down beside my worktable, for there are loose threads that should be tied off before it is given away. I brush my fingers along the fabric�
�warm and roughly woven, worn to shiny smoothness at the elbows—then step back. My breathing is slow and regular in my ears, but inside I am unsteady. I want—something. I lick my lips and look out the parlor window.

  And blink, as William ambles past. He is muttering to himself, likely practicing his next sermon. I watch him round a bend in the path. My breath, which caught at the back of my throat at the sight of him, releases in a sigh.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  There is a packet of handkerchiefs sitting on the desk in William’s book room. I saw them once before when William and I were newly wed and, as now, I needed to resupply my writing desk with fresh paper. But then they were tucked away in a drawer. When I asked William about them he replied, “My mother made them.”

  He did not add anything else, and I was not yet sure enough in our new alliance to pry further.

  I touch the faded blue ribbon binding the packet together, trace the intricately worked flowers embroidered along the edge of the handkerchief at the top of the pile. William’s mother was skilled with a needle.

  I draw my hand back, unexpectedly near tears.

  WILLIAM JOINS ME in my parlor after dinner. We sit together near the fire, I with a gown I am letting out for Louisa and he with a letter from Mr. Bennet, one that I know must be in answer to a letter William wrote him long before we journeyed to Hertfordshire.

  “William,” I say, and wait until he has marked his place with a careful fingertip and looked up at me inquiringly. I return my own eyes to my work and say, striving for a diffident tone, “What exactly was the nature of your father’s disagreement with Mr. Bennet?”

  There is a pause; I can easily imagine the surprise in his countenance, the wrinkle in his brow. “I never knew,” he says at last. “My father was always . . . vociferous in pronouncing his dislike of his cousin, but as to why . . .” Another pause. “Why do you ask, my dear?”