The Heart of a Vicar

by Sarah M. Eden

  The portrait was of Bridget, painted when she was likely about Sarah’s age. There was, indeed, a remarkable resemblance between the two. Harold hadn’t realized how much until that moment.

  He turned Caroline’s hand enough for Sarah to see the miniature. Sadness filled her face on the instant.

  “Oh, my dear Caroline.” She set her other hand atop the one of Caroline’s she already held. “That is a painting of your mother. I would know her anywhere. She was my cousin and my dear friend.”

  “But this looks like you.” A hint of argument entered her tone but not belligerence. It was an insistence that rang with desperation. “It looks exactly like you.”

  “Have you noticed that your father’s brothers look like each other?”

  Caroline nodded.

  “It is because they are family. Your mother and I were family.”

  Caroline lowered her head, her eyes on the portrait she held. She didn’t say anything. Harold looked at Sarah just as she wiped a tear from her eyes.

  “She really is dead,” Caroline whispered, agony clear in every syllable. “I thought maybe—I wanted to meet her.” She dissolved, not into gentle tears but weeping. Harold took her in his arms and held her fiercely. Her little body was racked with soul-crushing sobs as he held her.

  Sarah rose and stood next to him. She set her hand against Caroline’s back, rubbing it in small circles. Tears fell from Sarah’s eyes as well. He remembered with perfect clarity how deeply Sarah had mourned her cousin’s passing all those years ago. She had arrived in England so soon after Bridget had died, missing seeing her again by less than two weeks.

  Hesitantly, Harold set his other arm around Sarah, holding both the girl and Sarah in what he hoped was a comforting embrace. He met Sarah’s eyes. The grief he saw there pulled at him fiercely.

  “I didn’t know she was going to ask that.” He spoke as close to silently as he could.

  “The poor, sweet girl.” Sarah spoke as quietly as he had.

  For long moments, they stood there, the two of them in Harold’s arms. Was he helping? He hoped so. Caroline’s crying grew quieter, less desperate, whether because she felt comforted or because she was exhausting herself, Harold didn’t know. After a time, she lifted her head enough to look at him only briefly. Her red, swollen eyes and damp cheeks broke his heart anew.

  “Will Mama be upset?” she asked, sniffling.

  “She will be sad that you have been sad,” Harold said.

  Caroline wiped at her face with the palm of her hand. “She will think I don’t want her to be my mama.” The tears began again.

  Sarah spoke before he could. “She will not think that at all, Caroline. She knows that you love her, and I know she loves you dearly. Wanting to meet your mother does not change any of that.”

  “I don’t want her to be sad,” Caroline said.

  “And I don’t want you to be sad,” Sarah said. “Would your heart be happier if I told you stories about your mother? I knew her very well.”

  Caroline nodded quickly but minutely. There was a nervousness to her eager response.

  “I have a portrait of her,” Sarah said. “Bigger than the one you brought. She was younger when it was painted, so she looks a little different.”

  “It’s here at your house?” Caroline asked.

  “It is in this room,” Sarah said. “See if you can find it.”

  Caroline’s eyes widened. She shifted a little in his arms, looking around the small space. Harold set her on her feet. She stepped away and began her search.

  Only Sarah remained in his embrace. Propriety dictated he should drop his arm, but she wasn’t pulling away, and he was surprised at how reluctant he was to let her go. Having her there again, holding her, felt like coming home after years of wandering.

  Sarah leaned her head against him. His heart pounded ever harder. “I wondered why she looked at me so strangely when I saw her at Lampton Park. The poor dear must have been so confused.”

  “All of this must be a lot for one so young to make sense of.”

  Sarah looked up at him. If he was not mistaken, there was some fondness in her eyes. “You always were good with children, Harold, careful of their often fragile feelings. I am pleased to know that has not changed.”

  He was not at all prepared to hear such a compliment. “Are you granting me a point in our competition?”

  A smile blossomed. “I suppose I must, though I doubt you brought her here for that reason.”

  “To be honest, I hadn’t given our competition a single thought since seeing Caroline at my front gate.”

  “And it did not enter my thoughts even once after the housekeeper announced that the two of you had come to call.” Sarah shook her head. “If neither of us remembers that we are in this battle of abilities, how is anyone ever to be declared the winner?”

  She leaned into his embrace once more. He felt her take and release a deep breath, the sound filled with comfort and ease. She had once told him she felt peaceful when she was with him. He had always been happier in her company than anyone else’s. If only life had taken a kinder path.

  “This is her portrait,” Caroline called from across the room. “I know it is.” She pointed up at a painting Harold knew to be Bridget. He had grown up here, after all. She had been his near neighbor, though older than he. In the portrait, she was likely sixteen or seventeen years old.

  Sarah slipped from his arm and moved toward the little girl. A sudden, deep urge to call her back, to reach for her seized him. She’d felt so right, so natural in his embrace. Comfortable. At home. His heart remained partial to her, no matter that he tried to deny it. He cared for her still. Enough so that he had, without thought, tossed propriety to the wind and held her for an exceptionally long time. He was not exactly setting a good example for his parish. Yet he couldn’t fully regret holding her. Sometimes he felt he would never escape the contradictions that lived inside him.

  At Caroline’s side, Sarah pulled the portrait off the wall and set it on the floor, leaning it against the side of the empty fireplace. The two of them knelt in front of it.

  “Her hair is brown like yours,” Caroline said.

  “Yes. But your nose is exactly like hers,” Sarah said.

  Caroline leaned closer, studying her dear, departed mother’s face.

  “You have her smile as well. I noticed it straight away on the day we played our games at your uncle Philip’s house.”

  Caroline looked at her. “Mama says I have a beautiful smile.”

  “You most certainly do.” Sarah set an arm around Caroline, tugging her nearer. “Your mother knew me from the time I was a tiny baby. I visited her often. Did you know she lived here when she was a little girl?”

  “In this room?”

  Sarah shook her head. “No, but in this house.”

  Harold chose to give them a little privacy. Sarah was doing more to assuage Caroline’s grief than he could have managed.

  He slipped into the nearest doorway, only to realize it was not the one that had brought them in from the narrow stairwell but was the doorway to her bedchamber. As sparse as her tiny sitting room was, this room was barer still, the lack of furnishings and wall hangings more obvious in the larger space.

  When he made to step back into the sitting room, his attention was claimed by a small frame on the mantel. Beneath the glass was a pressed bouquet of flowers. Flowers he was absolutely certain he had given her during her last visit to the neighborhood. Flowers he had offered as a token of his very real, very tender affection for her.

  He could not possibly forget that afternoon or that bouquet. He’d added flowers as they’d walked, expanding the offering a little at a time. When he’d fetched the final sprig from the side of a stone bridge, he’d felt certain she was impressed. That was a heady feeling for a young gentleman, especially one who had
been the butt of nearly every joke he’d heard over the course of his life. The enthusiastic embrace he had received in gratitude for the flowers had left him walking on clouds.

  He often thought of that day and that moment and how very happy he had been. He’d assumed Sarah had forgotten all about it. But she had not only kept his flowers but had preserved them as well and now displayed them in her bedchamber, the only decoration in that room.

  He slipped back into the tiny sitting room, confused and upended. He had assumed after all that had happened and her pointed disapproval of his efforts as a vicar that any tender feelings she might have once had for him had long since dissipated.

  But she had smiled at him.

  She had stood in his arms.

  And she had kept his flowers.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fully confident Mrs. Dalton had informed Layton and Marion that Caroline was safe and looked after, Harold drove his niece, along with Sarah, to Lampton Park that evening instead of the Meadows. Seeing Caroline’s heartbreak, he had pieced together the likely reason for Layton’s matching heaviness.

  Sarah’s arrival was revealing some painful, unhealed wounds in the Farland Meadows family. Telling Marion and Layton the full reason for Caroline’s disappearance and the heartbreaking scene he had witnessed might not be wise. But keeping it from them didn’t seem the right answer either.

  If Father were still alive, Harold would have brought the matter to him without hesitation. He hesitated to bring the difficulty to Mater, not wishing to burden her or cause her grief, but he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t want to be wrong in his approach, not with a heart as dear as Caroline’s hanging in the balance.

  “We are visiting Grammy?” Caroline broke her silence as they turned off the Lampton Park drive and down the smaller one leading to the dower house. Though the sun was hanging quite low in the sky, there was light enough to see their destination.

  “Yes, as well as Flip and Swirl and Charming.” The entire family loved the odd little names she had for them. Though she didn’t use them exclusively any longer—she had all but outgrown calling him “Holy Harry,” though he was often still “Harry”—they continued using them when speaking with her.

  “Mama says Aunt Swirl is ill.” Caroline looked up at him from her place on Sarah’s lap. “Is she ill?”

  Harold nodded. “I’m afraid she is. Dr. Scorseby has said she needs to stay in her bed nearly all the time. She must be quite weary of being in her bed, don’t you think?”

  She nodded firmly. “I wouldn’t want to have to stay in my bed all day.” She twisted a little and looked up at Sarah. “May we see her in her room? She will like to have me visit her.”

  “We will ask your uncle Philip if your aunt is feeling well enough for visitors.”

  “Did you know Flip when he was a boy like you knew my papa and mother?”

  Sarah nodded. “I knew all your uncles and both of your grandfathers and your grammy.”

  Caroline bounced a little, her excitement at odds with her earlier lowered spirits. “Did you know Arabella? She lived here for a while, but then she started to love Minus, and she went to live with him.”

  Sarah looked at him. “Arabella Hampton?”

  Harold nodded. “She lived at the Park for a time, acting as Mater’s companion while Mater was making the transition to the dower house. It was her wedding Philip left to attend in Shropshire.”

  “Her wedding to ‘Minus’?” Sarah’s eyes danced with amusement.

  He smiled back. “Linus Lancaster,” he explained. “His sister is the Duchess of Kielder. Another sister is the Countess of Techney.”

  Caroline jumped back in. “And his other sister is Charming’s worst enemy.”

  Sarah looked from one of them to the other. “Truly?”

  Harold hadn’t been present for much of the house party where his younger brother and the duchess’s youngest sister had met, but he’d heard enough reports of it from Mater to know the lay of the land. “Charlie and Miss Lancaster are equally unfond of each other. They argued a great deal and generally disliked each other, and, I daresay, when they parted company, neither of them was particularly brokenhearted about it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like him,” Sarah said. “He was quite easy natured when I spoke with him yesterday, very like the Charlie I knew before.”

  Harold acknowledged that with a slight nod. “Miss Lancaster managed to wriggle her way under his skin quickly and entirely.”

  They pulled up in front of the dower house. Eventually, it might not feel strange visiting Mater here instead of at the main house. Did it feel as odd to Mater?

  Caroline whispered something in Sarah’s ear. Sarah nodded, urging Caroline to turn to him.

  “If Sarah and I go ask Uncle Flip if we can visit Swirl, Grammy won’t be sad, will she?”

  “ Grammy will, I hope, be happy enough to visit with me that she will not be sad that I am the only one coming inside.”

  Caroline furrowed her brow, mouth turned down in a fierce frown. “Of course she will be happy to see you. Why do you think she wouldn’t be?”

  He chucked her under the chin. “Sometimes I forget.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Caroline said firmly.

  Sarah’s gaze turned very pointed. “You really shouldn’t, Harold.”

  “I have accumulated ample evidence over the years to know I am not anyone’s first choice companion.” He was “Holy Harry.” He was no one’s favorite.

  “There was a time, Harold, when we were each other’s first choice.”

  Sarah had begun tugging at his heart again. Watching her so tenderly comforting Caroline, laughing with her, smiling, Harold saw snippets of the young lady he’d loved so dearly when he’d been younger. A young lady who had saved his flowers.

  “What happened?” he asked quietly.

  She didn’t look away. “Everything fell apart.” Her tone was soft but burdened.

  “Harry.” Caroline whined his name. “We need to see Aunt Swirl, and you need to see Grammy.”

  Sarah looked away and held out her hand to Caroline. They walked hand in hand in the direction of the main house. Harold watched them a moment.

  “Everything fell apart.” She’d sounded so regretful, so mournful. Did she wish as much as he did that things between them had turned out differently?

  He shook his head, dismissing the unanswerable questions. He had enough to sort out without trying to make sense of all that. He pulled his gloves and hat off as the housekeeper led him to the front sitting room. The dower house was not large; he didn’t have time to fully collect himself before his arrival. Mater greeted him with an embrace, something he appreciated likely more than she knew. With her, he never doubted himself. That could not be said of any other person, including himself.

  “What has brought you around, Harold?” She motioned him to the sofa, sitting with enough room for him to sit beside her.

  He set his hat and gloves on an obliging table and took the seat she offered. “I have been presented with a question I don’t know how to answer.” A weight settled in his stomach. “My brothers would mock me mercilessly if they heard me say that.”

  “Well, I am not your brothers, and I am not laughing.”

  Thank the heavens for Mater.

  “I will remind you that I am no theologian,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not a doctrinal question, a personal matter.”

  Her brows popped up in interest. “I had wondered how everything was with Sarah back in the neighborhood. Do not think for a moment I was unaware of your attachment to her during her last visit.”

  “No, not that.” He swallowed against the thickness rising in his throat. “This isn’t to do with her—Actually, it does involve her, but not in the way you think.”

  “Now I am intrigued.�
�� Mater turned a bit to look more closely at him. “What has happened?”

  “Caroline asked me to take her to visit Sarah today—Miss Sarvol, I mean.”

  Mater smiled in amusement. “Call her Sarah, Harold. I know that’s how you think of her.”

  “A vicar ought to be proper and appropriate.”

  “And a son ought to be a son before a vicar when speaking candidly with his mother,” she countered.

  Yet again, his attempts to conduct himself correctly proved wrong. More and more, he wondered if he’d ever manage to do the right thing the first time rather than bumble his way through things.

  “Tell me what happened with Sarah,” Mater pressed.

  “Caroline wished to see her, so we called.” Harold didn’t know any better way to explain except directly, though he knew it would distress her. “Caroline asked Sarah if she was her mother.”

  Mater paled and grew very still, looking away from him.

  “She has a little miniature of Bridget that looks shockingly like Sarah.”

  “I did notice the resemblance when she called on Sunday,” Mater said quietly.

  “Sarah was very sweet when she explained the actual connection, but Caroline was shattered. I’ve not ever seen her cry like that, Mater.” He ached again at the memory of her agony. “Sarah told her stories about Bridget and showed her another portrait of her. I believe Caroline feels a little better, but I am certain she is still grappling with her grief and disappointment.”

  Mater nodded. “And you are wondering what to tell Layton and Marion.”

  “Precisely.” Harold pushed out a breath. “I suspect Layton is struggling with Sarah being here. She is a reminder of a difficult period in his life. Knowing his daughter is so heartbroken would only add to his burden.”

  Mater pressed her clasped hands to her lips, gaze unfocused as she thought. “I did notice he was more distant, but I could not sort out the reason why. I ought to have realized.”

  “I don’t want to add to his grief nor increase the weight Marion is no doubt carrying, but I do think they need to know what Caroline is struggling with.”