When his wife did finally arrive, he barely had time to screw up the doodling and toss it in the bin before she swept into the study.
“I’ve never enjoyed a charity knit so much in my life,” she announced.
“Good.”
“Instead of being trapped in a corner near Mrs. Grey, I sat next to Sophia Thorpe, who by the way is an excellent hostess and conversationalist. I really do rather like her.”
“Good.”
“And how was your morning?” she asked, removing her bonnet.
“Very interesting.”
“Oh, have you had visitors?”
“No, a letter.”
“From whom?”
“From Uncle Hector.”
“You said it was interesting.”
“It was. Sit down and read it yourself.”
Jack watched Rebecca’s face as she read the letter. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows rose, and then she collapsed back into the chair.
“Well, I never! How very, very kind!”
“It is unbelievably generous.”
“We are rich!”
They looked at each other and smiled uneasily.
“I don’t think anyone need know,” said Jack, breaking a long silence. “It would feel awkward.”
Rebecca thought about this. “Yes, people might treat us differently.”
“Or expect us to treat them differently.”
“We must continue as normal,” said Rebecca.
“But you must choose a new Sunday dress and hat.”
“And you must choose new boots and a much-needed greatcoat.”
Opportunities to spend money are never in short supply. Only the following week a letter addressed to Mrs. Hayworth dropped onto the doormat. Jack recognised the neat, copperplate handwriting. He had never met Miss Miller, but the proper and precise lettering on the envelope seemed to sum her up: prim and business-like. Although Rebecca spoke warmly of her, Jack failed to warm up to her. He was grateful for Miss Miller’s involvement in comforting Rebecca when her parents died, and for welcoming her to Broadstairs for a much-needed break a couple of years ago; but in his mind’s eye, Miss Miller remained a formidable spinster of impeccable, unbending character, who viewed the best of men as a necessary evil. With unerring regularity, a letter from her arrived the third week of every month, and with the slightly reluctant air of a favourite pupil completing an assignment, and in her best handwriting, Rebecca faithfully replied.
Nothing in the solitary life of Miss Miller had changed since Rebecca’s visit. She taught in the same small ragged school, she lived in the same spartan house. She probably wore the same plain dresses and ate the same bland food. She may become acquainted with a few more people, but none would become a friend. She neither needed nor sought friendship—not because she was selfish or uncaring, but simply because she was both self-sufficient and self-contained. This combination of attributes is admired in men, but when displayed by females, society either despises or pities them. Maybe I’m just being mean to the old girl, thought Jack.
Expecting no real news, Rebecca saved the letter to read during the evening. Jack lent her his pocketknife to open the envelope, then pulled out the Diocesan Gazette with equally low expectations.
“She’s going at last!” exclaimed Rebecca jubilantly. “She’s going to Africa.”
Down went the Gazette, and down went Jack’s jaw.
“How? When?”
Rebecca reread the letter.
“She has been accepted by the London Missionary Society as a tutor and companion for a missionary’s family in Southern Africa. She and the missionary’s wife are to start a work for women and abandoned girls. The family is there already, and she is to embark on her journey there as soon as is convenient. A replacement teacher has been found for the ragged school in Broadstairs. She will commence her language studies on the boat—and knowing her, she will be fluent by the time she disembarks. She has given the address of a guest-house in Southhampton for my next letter and—I quote—‘all subsequent correspondence may be sent via the mission headquarters in London.’”
“And all this happened since her last letter to you?”
“Apparently, yes. She has never mentioned anything about it before.”
“Well, I never.”
“Good for her! It is just what she wanted. She has been praying about it for years and had almost given up hope.”
“How will she get on living in with a family?”
Rebecca smiled. “I reckon she will insist on having her own mud-hut.”
“I’m sure she will be very useful.”
“She’ll put her all into it,” agreed Rebecca. “She may not be the most companionable companion—what a tongue twister!,—but she will master the local language, revel in the simplicity of life, be an excellent tutor, and do her very best for the local women.”
Rebecca sipped her tea and gazed into the crackling fire.
“Why are you smiling at the fire, my dear?”
“Oh, Jack, I was just thinking about how, two and a half years ago, Miss Miller and I sat in her chilly sitting room talking about our unanswered prayers. She was longing to go to Africa, and I was longing for a godly husband. Now look at us both! God is very kind.”
“Kind to me too.”
“You know our newfound wealth?”
“Yes,” replied Jack cautiously.
“Can we send Miss Miller a bit for her passage to Africa?”
“How much do you suggest?”
“What about ten pounds? It can be like a tithe—for the Lord’s work.”
“I think that is a wonderful idea.”
Jack looked fondly at his wife, but her serious face was turning playful.
“Shame you’ll have to forgo your greatcoat,” she teased.
“Pity you’ll have to have less frills and furbelows on your dress,” Jack replied, springing up to make a grab at his wife.
CHAPTER 27
VIOLET WISHED MR. THORPE HAD twice as many ewes. By the end of April, all the lambing paraphernalia had been put away, the hurdle pens removed from the Orchard Meadow and Four Acres, and the sheep were allowed to graze undisturbed.
“That’s not the end of it,” Joe told Violet when she said something about the job being done. “Those lambs demand more than their share of my attention, right up until the day we send them to Tunbridge Market and they meet the mint sauce.”
Violet knew from listening to her father of all that could go wrong with a sheep: wet, stodgy grass could cause foot rot, and dirty wool attracted flies, leading to maggots. Ewes got bad udders or the shudders. Lambs got sore mouths and runny eyes. They died if they ate wool or rhododendrons. In fact, they could die for little or no reason.
Lambing might not be the end of the sheep work, but it marked the end of Violet’s visits to the lambing hut, and she wondered if Joe would miss her. Having nowhere to go now, she slowly and mindlessly washed up the dinner dishes. Her mother was trimming the lamps, ready to sit down to an evening of darning, and her father was peacefully snoring in an armchair, toasting his toes on the fire-fender. His steaming socks gave off a musty smell of old cheese and wet wool. I’m in for an exciting evening, sighed Violet as she hung her tea towel to dry by the stove.
Much to her annoyance, right from early on in lambing, her mother had put two and two together and made four. With a parent like Mrs. Brookes, one could not disappear from the house (especially if one is an unmarried daughter) without questions being asked. Violet had to smile at her mother’s dilemma as to how to react—encouraging her daughter to fraternize unchaperoned in the dusk with a man was unthinkable. But the man happened to be Joe. Trustworthy, reliable Joe—the very man she had recommended (with no success) to her daughter for many years. So, Mrs. Brookes did something she was unaccustomed to doing: she turned a blind eye. Violet knew she was bursting to ask a barrage of questions about the friendship and, much to her own surprise, Violet was bursting to talk about Joe, but they bot
h held their peace, as if Violet’s evening visits were a thing of little or no consequence. And now Violet had to act as if the termination of the visits was also of little or no consequence.
Without an ounce of enthusiasm, Violet wandered upstairs to her room for her knitting bag. Instead of finding it and joining her mother in the warm kitchen, she flopped on her bed with a sigh. She lay, staring at the wooden beams, unwilling to move despite the chill penetrating through her clothes.
She looked at the pine-cones in her fireplace—what a ridiculous rule her mother insisted on! “No fires in bedrooms.” When Violet was younger the excuse had been the fire hazard, but now it was the unsociability of sitting in her own room. “Fires in bedrooms break up family unity.” Family unity!? When there is only you and your parents left in the family house, and the female parent is inclined to nag and criticize your every decision! Still, it was not really Ma Violet was fed up with today, just life in general and Canada in particular.
“Violet!” her mother called shrilly up the stairs.
“I’m just coming,” she said a slight groan, sliding off the bed onto her feet.
“We’ve got a visitor!”
Probably only one of the snotty grandchildren, thought Violet, grabbing her knitting bag.
On entering the kitchen, she found it wasn’t a niece or nephew wanting help with homework. It was Joe. And her parents were being embarrassingly attentive. Ma had captured his hat and coat to ensure he stayed a while, and Pa seemed to have forgotten that they had worked together all day and greeted him like a long-lost friend.
“Put on the kettle, Violet,” instructed Mrs. Brookes, although her daughter was already doing so.
Without being asked, Violet also found the biscuits she had made the evening before. Then, acutely aware of her parents, she turned to the visitor.
“Good evening, Joe. So, you have an evening off.”
“Not entirely. I’ve just put a few hurricane lanterns around the fields to deter foxes.”
“Good lad!” praised Mr. Brookes, “Saves me a job.”
As she hovered by the stove, waiting for the watched kettle to boil, Joe and her father talked shop. There seemed no end of observations that could be made about grass growth, the weather, ewe health, and Tunbridge auctioneers. It was not until Violet approached them with a tray of clattering cups that her father’s attention turned to things nearer home.
“Why, haven’t we got anything stronger to offer the lad?” he asked.
“The cellar and its contents are your business,” Ma replied.
“How about a cider, Joe?”
“Your own brew?”
“Of course!”
“Then the answer is obvious.”
“Good lad!” Mr. Brookes said with a wink before he headed for the cellar door.
Violet turned over two now-unneeded cups. She was pleased with her father’s actions—he never offered his cider to anyone he disliked or to children. She had suspected him of considering Joe and her as children and almost expected him to offer them a glass of milk or a candy.
However, she was not pleased with her mother. Right there, in front of a visitor, Ma sat darning Violet’s ancient stockings! Violet flushed with discomfort. How embarrassing to have her undergarments so on display—and holey ones at that! She hoped Joe wouldn’t notice, or at least not realize they were hers. Knowing her mother, she would probably further humiliate Violet by saying something like, “There you are, Violet, nicely mended for you.” Violet sipped her tea and wished she was drinking out of a tin mug in a shepherd’s hut, far away from parents and holey stockings.
Once the cider had been suitably appreciated, the conversation continued to flow. Violet’s contribution was minimal, and she was puzzled. Why had Joe come? Originally, she imagined it was for her, but now, seeing him comfortably ensconced in an armchair, laughing at her father’s worn-out witticisms, she began to wonder. The evening ticked past, and she became none the wiser.
“Speaking of lamps . . . ” (they hadn’t been), “how much oil did you put in them fox lamps?” Mr. Brookes asked.
“Not as much as I would have liked. I ran out.”
“Well, they don’t ’alf burn it up.”
“Should I top ’em up?”
“Best do, lad. I’ve got some paraffin oil from the farm in me lean-to.”
Joe got up to take his leave, and Mr. Brookes turned to Violet.
“Vi, be a darling and show Joe where me cans are. The lean-to is a bit of a muddle.”
“Careful with the lamps near the paraffin!” called out Mrs. Brookes as Violet ran to get her shawl.
The lean-to was indeed a muddle, and it took a while to identify the correct can.
“Does your father ever throw anything away?” asked Joe as he shone his lamp around the shed and inspected the contents.
“Not if he can help it because ‘It might come in handy sometime.’”
On completing his inspection, Joe turned to Violet. “Come with me to top up the lamps.”
“All right.”
An hour later, Violet returned home.
“Why, Violet, what took you so long?” asked her mother.
“I helped Joe top up the lamps.”
“There must have been an awful lot of lamps.”
“Them lamps can’t ’alf be troublesome,” her father said, laughter in his voice and a wink in his eye.
Violet couldn’t help the twinkle in her own eyes. “Terribly troublesome,” she agreed.
It was late, and she had to work in the morning. After the family Bible reading, Violet kissed her parents goodnight.
“I assume I’m the only man you kissed tonight,” teased Mr. Brookes, in a whisper so as not to be scolded by his wife. Violet playfully punched him on the arm and said nothing. How she wished he was wrong!
From that evening on, the lighting of the hurricane lamps was a task for two. Never in the history of sheep husbandry were fox lamps better trimmed or tended. Maybe it was the stillness of the meadows or the tranquility of the twilight. Maybe it was soft radiance of the lamp light itself, or the peaceful presence of the sheep. But whatever it was, Violet found the evenings almost magical—the company, the surroundings, and the conversation was just perfect. Perfect . . . except Canada. The thought of Joe leaving Capford was the fly in the ointment, the maggot in the apple. For evening after evening it was on the tip of her tongue to ask about his plans, but she was too scared of what she might hear.
Then one evening it seemed as if she would burst if she was left in suspense any longer. It was better to know the truth than live a dream. If she was going to lose him, it would be best to know.
“Joe, when are you going to Canada?” The question jumped out her mouth, and it was too late to take it back. Her mouth went dry, and her fingers shook as she waited for a reply. What a long wait it was. Unusually long. He is probably figuring out how to break the news gently.
Joe continued changing the wick with painstaking slowness. Violet felt a sudden urge to kick the lamp—glass and all—as far as possible. She resisted. Why be so ridiculously fastidious about the wick size right now?
“I don’t know,” Joe eventually replied. “It depends on a few things.”
Violet impatiently waited for more enlightenment. He lit the new wick, but that was not the enlightenment she needed.
“I’ve got to save up for my passage across and the journey there. They are practically giving land away, but I want to take enough money to buy agricultural equipment, stock, and timber. Half my wages go to Mother, so I am not saving as fast as I would like to.”
By now they were plodding across the muddy meadow to the next lamp.
“But also, I am not as enthusiastic about it as I used to be.”
“Oh.”
“Somehow, since us getting more friendly, a life alone doesn’t appeal as much as it once did.”
“Then don’t leave.”
“But I do want to go to Canada.”
; “Take me with you.” Violet blurted out, desperation making her bold.
Joe swung around, and the light of his lamp blinded her eyes.
“What are you saying? Do you really mean that?”
“I really want to go with you, Joe.”
“Because of Canada, or because of me?”
“Both.”
“I can’t expect such a big thing of you—to leave your family and friends and all that.”
“I’ll be with you.”
Joe stepped closer. “Vi, I love you with all my heart. I’d give up Canada or anything else to be with you.”
An overwhelming wave of joy swept over Violet, weakening her knees and flushing her cheeks. “I love you too, Joe. I’d give up anything for you.”
Joe dropped his lantern in the mud and wrapped his arms around Violet. Her whole body tingled when he kissed her. Tearing himself away, Joe knelt down on one knee.
“Vi , will you marry me?”
“Joe!” cried Violet. “Don’t kneel there!”
Joe remained in position. “Violet Brookes, that is not an answer.”
“Joe Mason, I would be delighted to marry you, and for you to get up out of the mud and sheep-muck.”
CHAPTER 28
SOPHIA AND REBECCA SAT IN Biggenden Manor drawing room and giggled like naughty school girls.
“At first I couldn’t make head nor tail of her explanations,” said Sophia. “She was all breathlessness and apologies. ‘Oh, Mrs. Thorpe, I am sorry to disturb you,’ she said, ‘but I can’t find Mrs. Hayworth or Mrs. Brookes anywhere.’ ‘I am sure they are all right, Mrs. Grey,’ I assured her. ‘Oh, no, no, I don’t mean that. I mean that sloping meadow is ploughed up, Mother has broken her arm, and I don’t want soggy egg sandwiches.’ ‘Did your mother fall in the ploughed field?’ I asked. ‘Oh, no, no, no,’ she said. ‘She fell at home, and now she is with me.’ I asked if her mother liked egg sandwiches, and she said, ‘Oh, no, no, no, she only eats jam ones.’ Well, by that time I was completely bewildered, so I sat her down, rang for a pot of tea, and tried to get to the bottom of the field, the arm, and the soggy sandwiches. It turns out she is most concerned about the Sunday school outing. The field of Lord Wilson’s that it is normally held in has been ploughed up. Her mother is staying with her, so she feels unable to help, and she normally makes the egg sandwiches for the event. Anyone else tends to make them too soggy.”
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