Now it was she who interrupted. “But where are you going, William?”
As succinctly as possible he explained, and when tears sprang to her eyes, he assured her, “I’ll be back for the wedding, so it isn’t as if I’ll spend the whole time away.”
“But still . . .” Her lip trembled. “I thought we’d finished saying good-bye.”
“So did I.” He shrugged. “I didn’t foresee this.”
“This isn’t because of Mr. Knight, is it?” she asked. “Grandmother asked the vicar to invite him, or I’m certain he wouldn’t agree to accompany—”
Again his finger touched her lips. “No. Not because of Mr. Knight.” But because you don’t know how you feel about Mr. Knight. “And because your grandmother will have someone looking for you any minute, I need to tell you something, Sarah.”
“Yes?” she said in a small voice.
“I love you, Sarah. With all my heart.”
“I love you too, William.”
It was music to his ears. He smiled and took up her hand. But it was not the proper time to ask if she meant it as love shared by a brother and sister or the kind that led to a lifetime commitment. He would always wonder if her disappointment over his leaving had colored her emotions.
“You’ll write to me?” This time he had no hesitancy about asking.
* * *
“I’m afraid it’s my fault,” Naomi said to Daniel as they sat on a bench and watched the young couple stroll on the bank of the Serpentine. “I advised William to tell her how he feels and then give her some time instead of trying to outdo Mr. Knight in a courting contest.”
“That was wise counsel, Naomi. Sarah’s not going to forget about him.”
His words gave her some comfort, for indeed she did not forget him when he was at Oxford. But then, Mr. Knight was not in the picture in those days. Yet as much as Naomi loved William, how could she fault the young curate for recognizing those qualities in Sarah that caused everyone at 14 Berkeley Square to adore her? What if God was orchestrating circumstances as part of a divine plan to draw the girl and Mr. Knight together?
I don’t even know what I’m supposed to think, Father, she prayed silently while Daniel held her hand. I have to turn all of this over to you. Please give me the faith not to keep taking it back again.
“Why don’t we put you on a hansom so you can spend the rest of the day with William?” Daniel said. “I’ll chaperone Sarah and Mr. Knight myself and then join you both with supper in a little while.”
Naomi gave a quiet sigh of relief and wondered why such a plan had not occurred to her. Whether or not God intended for the young couple strolling in the distance to be together did not negate her obligation to her nephew, or even her longing to spend some more time with him.
“It’s dear of you to think of it,” she said as they rose from the bench.
* * *
“Would you like me to rent a boat?” Mr. Knight offered.
Sarah looked at him, aware that she had not spoken for several minutes. Laughter rippled over the water of the Serpentine from boats occupied by family groups or courting couples. A handful of children, under the watchful eyes of nursemaids or parents, held strings attached to toy boats that bobbed in the shallow water near the bank. She had not the heart to bring William’s boat. It didn’t seem right to launch it the first time without him.
“Forgive me . . . I’m not very good company,” she said.
He smiled sympathetically. “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong? Sometimes it helps to talk.”
Salt stung Sarah’s eyes. She blinked and hoped she would not start weeping. She needed to talk, to give some release for the melancholy filling her chest. “William’s going away for six months.”
“Miss Doyle’s nephew, you mean.”
“He’s been offered an assignment with the Hassall Commission . . .” she began, and catching his blank look, she realized she had not the energy to explain. “Anyway, I’ve not had time to get used to the idea. We barely had time to say ‘good-bye.’”
The curate nodded. “And you’re very close, aren’t you?”
“Yes, since we were children. At least I was a child.”
At the sound of footsteps from behind, Sarah and Mr. Knight turned. Mr. Rayborn and Naomi were approaching, her hand resting in the crook of his arm.
“I’m going to slip away for a minute and help Miss Doyle find a hansom,” Mr. Rayborn said.
“You’re going to see William?” Sarah asked Naomi.
“Yes.” She was smiling, but lurking in her blue eyes was the same loss Sarah was feeling. “He’ll need some help packing.”
“Why don’t you all go?”
It was Mr. Knight who spoke. Everyone looked at him.
“Good soul that Mrs. Blake is, I realize she rather sprang me upon you,” he said with a self-effacing smile. “I’m sure it would mean a lot to Mr. Doyle to have all of you with him, as well as give you more time for farewells.”
* * *
Ethan stepped back a bit from the hansom at Hyde Park corner when the driver snapped his reins. He smiled and returned Miss Matthews’ wave, and when the cab was well on its way toward Piccadilly, he started looking about for a hired coach. It wouldn’t do to walk several blocks out in the open when the vicar assumed him still in the company of Miss Matthews and her friends, and a hansom wasn’t private enough. He found one and ducked inside after giving the driver the address.
He smiled at his own cleverness. He had no worries about giving Miss Matthews opportunity to be with Mr. Doyle, even if there was any sort of romantic feeling on either side. In the first place, they had known each other for years, as she said. What was one more time, especially with her tutor and cook present?
The beauty of his “sacrifice” of his afternoon plans was that he raised Miss Matthews’ esteem of him more by his absence than by offering sympathetic little platitudes on the banks of the Serpentine. Even the tutor and cook had thanked him, and he was certain that their opinions meant much to her.
Meanwhile, he was free to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening with Myra, who would be closing shop soon. Tapping his thumb on his crossed knee to match the clip-clop of the horses, he smiled and thought how relieved he was that courting was even easier than he anticipated. Especially with Mrs. Blake doing most of the work—God bless her sweet feeble self.
When guilt threatened to come out of the mental box he had shoved it into, he reminded himself that he would make Miss Matthews a fine, attentive husband. Just because he had some secret indulgences did not mean he intended to be any less than a gentleman, and he despised any man who would abuse his wife.
She’ll never know I married her for money, he vowed to himself, and the guilt subsided again.
****
At nine o’clock, William walked Aunt Naomi, Sarah, and Mr. Rayborn downstairs, and when the cab he hailed pulled to a stop, he embraced Aunt Naomi. “I love you,” he said and almost changed his mind about leaving when she began wiping her cheeks with a handkerchief.
He embraced Sarah next, quickly, but could not say the words he had voiced in the dining room earlier, or anything else. And so he patted her back and then helped her into the cab next to his aunt.
He shook hands with Mr. Rayborn. “Thank you for taking care of them,” he said.
Mr. Rayborn wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “And we’ll thank you to take good care of yourself, William.”
“I will,” William promised. He watched the hackney until it was swallowed up by fog and darkness. He was thankful Aunt Naomi understood that he would not be at Saint George’s tomorrow. There were other churches even closer—perhaps he would even worship at King’s Chapel with Mr. Rayborn. He had already said his farewells once at 14 Berkeley Square and did not have the heart to go through them again. And hopefully by Monday afternoon he would be on a train heading northwest.
Please make the time pass quickly, Father, he prayed on the way back to his flat.
Six weeks later on Thursday, the first of July, Grandmother closed her eyes to breathe in the fragrance of white, yellow, and purple irises that had been delivered from the vicarage garden.
“They’re not too overpowering, are they?” Sarah asked, pushing the Wedgwood vase out of danger of getting knocked off a chest of drawers in the former library. “I can move them to the other side.”
“And have Marie pretend they’re hers? It’s bad enough that I allow her to frolic all over London with those sisters. You’ll have a wretched time keeping her in line when I’m—”
“Grandmother . . .”
“And I do wish you would stop shushing me every time I speak about passing on.”
“Yes. Forgive me.” She had actually protested without thinking, for she had not yet reconciled herself to the inevitable. But Ethan, with his vast experience at comforting the dying, had helped her to understand that it was good for Grandmother to make requests concerning how life should go on afterward. In soft jest, Sarah said, “I’ll rule Marie with an iron rod.”
“Hmph! Just make sure she’s not ruling you with one.” Grandmother nodded toward the note in Sarah’s hand. “What did he write this time?”
Sarah read the lines aloud:
“‘Dearest Mrs. Blake,
In reply to King Solomon’s famous query of Proverbs
thirty-one . . . Ethan Knight has found two!
With fondest regards,
Ethan’”
“Proverbs thirty-one.” A smile eased some of the pain in Grandmother’s expression. “Who can find a virtuous woman? Isn’t he a dear?”
“Yes, he is,” Sarah replied, smiling back. No one in Mayfair would disagree with that. A hand went up to the little gold cross on the chain about her neck. An identical one was draped over a picture of Jeremy on Grandmother’s bedside table. It was not proper etiquette for an unmarried man to give jewelry to an unmarried woman, but Grandmother had allowed Sarah to accept hers, since he was a servant of the Church who had presented both gifts as reminders that he prayed for them daily. He was constantly doing thoughtful things like that, causing Sarah sometimes to worry that Ethan would take Grandmother’s passing even harder than she would, for it would be like losing his own beloved grandmother a second time.
She leaned to refasten a button on the yoke of the elderly woman’s gown. Sometime in June Grandmother had decreed herself weary of black bombazine cloth, and that she would spend her remaining weeks garbed as comfortably as possible. Penny Russell, whose skill with a needle was all that Stanley had boasted it to be, stitched her several simple calico gowns with pleated yokes, suitable for the sitting room and yet comfortable enough for napping without changing into nightgowns.
The white of Grandmother’s hair and pillows caused her to look a little more fragile in the afternoon sunlight slanting in from the garden window. At times Sarah thought she resembled an angel, sweet-faced and ethereal.
Her grandmother pulled a hand from beneath the covers. Carefully Sarah took it.
“It is such a comfort to me,” Grandmother said, smiling up at her, “that Ethan cares so deeply for you. I have fretted so often over who would care for you when I’m gone.”
Sarah kissed her fingers and wondered whether or not to believe the complete innocence in her expression. Surely Ethan wouldn’t have told Grandmother that she had asked for more time to consider his proposal. But he often did stop by on his way to pay other morning calls when she was at lessons. Sometimes it seemed that the two were aligned against her, or rather, in favor of Ethan’s place in her future.
If only William had not left! With the two in the same vicinity, she would clearly know whom she loved the most. She could not bring her inner struggle to Naomi, simply because of her kinship with William. Marie was too outspoken and would scold Grandmother for pressuring her. Hester was for putting off any decision until William returned, but Grandmother’s longing to see her wed before she passed on was a difficult tide against which to row.
“The flowers are beautiful,” she told Ethan in the sitting room when he stopped by about an hour later. They sat alone on the divan with the sitting room door propped open for the sake of propriety. “But I’m afraid Grandmother’s napping, so she can’t thank you.”
“I’m just glad she’s able to sleep,” he said with a little smile. He rested his head sideways against a back cushion, his eyes a little glazed from having sat up most of the night with an ailing widow on the other side of the square.
“You’re so good to her. And why don’t you be good to yourself and go back to your apartment for some sleep? Vicar Sharp would understand.”
“Because I enjoy your feeling pity for me.”
She feigned an exasperated sigh. And because she was finding it easier and easier to confide in him, said, “I think you remind her of what she wished her son could have been, if that makes any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” His half-closed eyes filled with understanding. “You’re speaking of your father.”
“I’ve entertained horribly wicked thoughts lately of the satisfaction it would give me to toss his portraits in the fireplace when Grandmother is gone.”
“And you think that would take away the pain of being abandoned?”
“I’m not sure, Ethan. But I confess I do get some comfort from picturing the flames licking the canvases. I suppose I’ve inherited more of his character than I imagined.”
“That’s not so,” he said, his hand covering her left one on the upholstery between them. Immediately he lifted his again.
You can’t hurt it, she would have reminded him had Jeremy Blake’s intrusion into her thoughts not sobered her mood.
Ethan was now so accustomed to extending sympathy to those with real sufferings that he still did not quite understand that she was no more fragile than any other healthy young woman. “In fact,” he went on, “you’re the best person I’ve ever known. I understand now why God sent me so far from home and family, when I certainly railed against it in my prayers. His reply was a very discernible ‘wait and see what I have for you’ . . . just as He said to Abraham.”
“It’s kind of you to say that, Ethan.” If God would make such a promise to Ethan, who walked so closely with Him, was that her answer?
He got to his feet and held out his hand to assist her to hers. “But you asked me to give you some time, and here I am going back on my word. Do forgive me, Sarah.”
Sarah smiled up at him, her right hand still clasped in his. “Of course, Ethan. And thank you for understanding.”
“You would bring out the best in any man, Sarah. I do love you so.”
She held her breath and even automatically raised her chin. But mercifully he only touched her cheek and smiled when she, lightheaded, could only blink at him.
He left then, saying he had more calls to make. Sarah went upstairs to transcribe some Latin phrases but found herself thinking how much harder it was to construe the feelings of her own heart. Won’t you show me just as clearly, Father, as you did Ethan and Abraham?
****
“Mrs. Bacon is going out to the shops in a little while,” Naomi said in the sitting room the following morning. “I just wonder if you have any cravings for any particular soup for supper.” It was so difficult to encourage her mistress’s appetite that Naomi sometimes found herself at a loss as to what to prepare. Thankfully, even if Mrs. Bacon planned no shopping trip, one of the maids was always happy for a stroll to market.
Mrs. Blake lifted a hand from the chair arm. “Whatever you wish to prepare, Naomi.”
“Madame is fond of peas,” Marie said when Naomi sent her a helpless look.
“Well, yes,” Mrs. Blake said, brow furrowed beneath her white topknot. “Are they in season, Naomi? Because I don’t care so much for the dried.”
Naomi smiled. “They are, Madam. Green pea soup it is.”
“With butter? It makes me miss the salt a little less.”
>
“I’ll be sure to remind Trudy.”
“That’s right. It’s Saturday.” Mrs. Blake smiled. “Where are you and Mr. Rayborn taking my granddaughter today?”
“Saint Paul’s, Madam,” Naomi replied, returning her smile.
“Hmm. I wonder if Vicar Sharp would allow Mr. Knight to accompany you? He really doesn’t see much of London, you know, and it’s a shame with it being an important church—”
Naomi seldom interrupted her mistress, and she felt sympathy for her constant pain. But she could no longer hold her tongue. “Mrs. Blake, I admire Mr. Knight as much as you do. And if God wills him to court Miss Matthews, I will have to accept that. But I do not think He requires me to participate in the courtship . . . nor should you. Not when my nephew cares so deeply about her.”
“William? But he’s not even here.”
“His heart is here, Madam.” Naomi pressed lips together and stared back at the pale blue eyes that regarded her with such consternation. She would not budge even if it cost her her job. Daniel would marry her tomorrow if she needed a place to go, or she would simply move into William’s empty flat.
It was Marie who eased the tension from the air by saying, “It is a reasonable thing that Naomi says, Madame. Besides, too much familiarity takes the mystery from a young woman in a man’s eyes.”
****
“It’s quite remarkable that they found each other,” Dorothea said to Ethan at the lunch table Sunday, after telling him of Mr. Rayborn’s sad past and how Naomi seemed to “glow” these days.
She glanced at Sarah, who pushed her roast lamb and vegetables about on her plate, her head obviously in the clouds. If only she could see that she had the same opportunity for happiness as Naomi, instead of torturing herself with indecision! What did she expect? An answer to be written in those same clouds? I just want you to be cherished and protected, dear Sarah. And who would do that better than a man of God—especially one to whom family meant so much? I can’t rest until I’m certain of your future. And I’m growing so tired.
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