by Merry Farmer
“They won’t find out,” he assured her.
She sent him a doubtful glance, then shook her head. “It’s not even me I care so much about. It makes me furious to think about how cruel they were to James and—” She pinched her lips shut.
“And?” Arthur prompted her.
She swallowed and glance guiltily toward him. “And how mean they were being to you.”
He laughed, which surprised her. “Clara, people have been saying mean things to me for my whole life. I can take it.”
“But they shouldn’t,” she insisted. “And…and I don’t like it.”
For a conversation about people displaying the worst in themselves, Arthur certainly felt much too happy. “I’m glad to have such a staunch defender,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze.
She rewarded him with a laugh, even though it was short and a little sad. He had to let go of her hand in order to steer the pram around a corner as they headed into town.
“To tell you the truth,” she began again as they headed past the town’s scant, small shops, receiving nods from their neighbors as they went, “I don’t know how I’m going to bear to stay in that house, knowing that the others feel the way they do. It’s like torture to be around those people.”
A strange, pulsing sensation coursed through Arthur at her lament. Not because it raised in him the same kind of helplessness that she obviously felt, but because his mind instantly came up with a solution to her problem. To his problems too, and to James’s. In fact, one easy remedy to everything that ailed all three of them was boldly obvious. So what if it meant dashing his insistence that they keep their romantic distance to pieces? Some things were more important than hastily-made pacts.
“Clara,” he began, dizzy with the leap he was about to take. “Would you—”
“Rev. Fallon. There you are.”
Arthur’s wild declaration was cut short as Dr. Miller stepped out of the house that served as his office and intercepted them.
The interruption was so badly timed that it set Arthur’s teeth on edge, but he gathered himself enough to say, “Good afternoon, Dr. Miller.”
Dr. Miller wasn’t as polite. With only a brief nod to Clara and hardly a look at James in the pram, he said, “It’s about time I had a talk with you about the child.”
The child. As though James weren’t right there.
Arthur exchanged a quick, wary look with Clara. Her out-of-sorts mood had hardened into the same sort of borderline offense and caution that he felt. Knowing she was on the same page helped, though.
“James is settling in nicely,” he told Dr. Miller. “It was tricky at first, but with Miss Partridge’s help, we’ve been able to get him on a schedule. He’s taking his bottle and sleeping as well as can be expected.”
Dr. Miller waved the information away with an irritated gesture. “That’s all well and good, but when are you going to find a home for the boy?”
The impatience with which Dr. Miller asked the question put Arthur on the defensive. “I attempted to find a suitable foster home for him, but no one in town was willing to open their doors.”
“No, no.” Dr. Miller continued to address him with more annoyance than concern. “Not a home in that sense, a home. There are several likely institutions within Wiltshire that would suit.”
James began to fuss, so Clara scooped him out of the pram and held him to her shoulder. Arthur had the impression that she was sheltering the boy with all the fierceness of a mother to boot.
“That was my original intent, and I discussed the possibility with Mr. Croydon,” Arthur began, feeling as though it was none of Dr. Miller’s business. “I encouraged it, even, but Alex forbid it. He wants James raised here, in his home.”
Dr. Miller snorted and shook his head. “No doubt, Mr. Croydon isn’t thinking straight. He is experiencing some kind of grief or remorse, not to mention over-indulging in spirits.”
Arthur clenched his jaw and forced himself to remain calm. He was a man of the cloth, after all, not a pugilist. “Nevertheless, Mr. Croydon was specific in his request. James stays here.”
“The man is half out of his mind,” Dr. Miller argued. “I doubt he would even notice if you shipped the boy off to a proper institution.”
“I made a promise.” And he was getting tired of the conversation.
“Has Mr. Croydon been to see the boy at all since thrusting him into your care?”
A sting of defeat stiffened Arthur’s back. He shared another look with Clara. She seemed just as wary of the question as he was, and just as reluctant to admit the answer.
“No,” Arthur said at last. “But as you mentioned, he’s deep in grief at the moment. I’m sure once—”
“And I’m sure that if you deposit the boy in the appropriate place, when he comes to his senses, Mr. Croydon will thank you for it,” Dr. Miller rode over him.
Arthur was so incensed that he didn’t know what to say. At least, he didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t involve some un-clerical verbiage.
“James is happy at the moment,” Clara spoke for him. “And while I appreciate the wisdom of delivering a baby to a place where they might find a better home than the one they were born into, it’s not necessary right now.”
A wave of tender admiration broke through Arthur’s frustration with the situation. All things considered, Clara’s statement was incredibly brave. He couldn’t help but smile at her in approval.
Dr. Miller glanced between Arthur and Clara, then humphed, shaking his head. “I see how it is,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t think what you’re doing is a terrible mistake.” Before Arthur could reply, Dr. Miller nodded and said, “Good day to you.” He then turned and walked back into his house.
Arthur stood where he was for a moment, staring after the man and wondering if discretion was the better part of valor in this case or if he should chase after him to tell him what he really thought. In the end, discretion won. He grabbed the pram’s handle and pushed on, knuckles white, jaw clenched.
He and Clara walked on in silence until they reached the end of the row of houses and businesses, near the vicarage. Arthur searched for a way to return to the question he’d almost asked before they were interrupted.
“He might have a point, though,” Clara blurted before he could have a chance.
Arthur blinked, scrambling to figure out what she was talking about. “What point?”
She stopped and let out a breath, rubbing James’s back as she did. “Perhaps there is a better place for James to be raised. The way that lot back up at Winterberry Park were talking about him….”
She let her words fade off, but she didn’t need to finish what she’d been saying for Arthur to understand. The problem was, he could see her point.
“Just because people are gossiping now doesn’t mean they won’t forget the whole thing and move on to the next scandal,” Arthur said, half to convince himself.
Clara gave him a significant look. “There’s every chance that scandal could be mine.”
“Nonsense.” He didn’t mean to dismiss her concerns, but his determination to make her as happy as she’d been making him for the past week was so strong that he wasn’t willing to tolerate any doubts. “Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”
He pushed the pram on, rounding the corner into the vicarage garden when they reached it. The moment to propose had passed. It occurred to him that the question would mean more if he found a special time to ask it instead of springing it on Clara after everything Dr. Miller had said. One thing was certain, though. He wasn’t going to let a few gossips and nay-sayers ruin what felt like the most precious blessing to touch his life in, well, ever.
CHAPTER 8
C lara took her time walking back to Winterberry Park that evening. She alternated between grinning over the lovely time she’d had with Arthur and the fondness in his eyes every time he looked at her, and frowning over the startling confrontation with Dr. Miller. How could anyone think of d
isposing of a baby as though he were a book that had been purchased, found distasteful after one chapter, and discarded the next day?
And wasn’t that precisely what she had done with her own baby?
No, she told herself. Her circumstances had been wildly different. She never would have been able to raise her daughter the way she deserved to be raised. Her girl would always have run the risk of falling into the same life she had, simply because of how she’d been born. Painful as it was, she’d done the right thing by giving her daughter the chance to grow up in a respectable, loving family. And baby James deserved the same consideration. Arthur might not have been much of a family on his own, but he was certainly better than shipping James off to a cold, unfeeling orphanage. And maybe, just maybe, there was a part she could play in James’s life too.
Her thoughts were such a jumble as she crossed through the gate and walked up the lane on the back side of the property, that she almost didn’t notice Ada fleeing from the house to the stable. The girl’s face was pale, and she twisted her hands in her apron, glancing over her shoulder toward the kitchen door.
“Is something wrong?” Clara asked, picking up her pace in an attempt to intercept her.
Ada jumped and gasped as Clara spoke to her. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” she said, her frightened look turning wary.
“Why?” Clara shrugged and shook her head. “Has something happened?”
Before Ada could answer, the kitchen door slapped open a second time, and Jonah, the hall boy, scrambled out. He dashed around the corner of the house and disappeared into the twilight-dimmed garden.
The worry and indecision that had hung around Clara as she walked back from town evaporated like a morning mist dispelled by the sun. She left Ada and walked toward the kitchen door, a sense of purpose in her stride. If she could handle a displaced baby and a struggling vicar, then she could face whatever was happening in the house. She might even be able to lend a hand in solving the problem.
As soon as she stepped through into the kitchen hall, she changed her mind. The entire downstairs area was in complete chaos. Mary and Martha darted from the servant’s hall to the kitchen and back again, carrying random objects. Mrs. Carlisle was in tears in the kitchen as she worked frantically—though Clara couldn’t tell if she was preparing food or disposing of it. There was no sign of Ben or Robby, but as Clara walked deeper into the hall, she heard a commotion in the store room at the far end of the downstairs hallway.
All of that faded into the background when she heard Mr. Croydon bellow, “I’ll not stand for it, do you hear me. I won’t.” His drunken shouting came from the servant’s hall.
“Sir, please let me accompany you back upstairs,” Mr. Noakes’s pleading followed. “You’ll be much more comfortable in your study. Or perhaps your bedchamber. I could fetch Mr. Jameson to—”
“I don’t need any bloody valet,” Mr. Croydon raged on. “I need a constable, a whole force of policemen to arrest the lot of you for vicious slander.”
Clara swallowed and pressed her hand to her stomach as she continued down the hallway, stepping into the doorway leading to the servant’s hall. The scene that met her was like something out of a gothic novel. Mr. Croydon was clearly drunk. He was in his shirtsleeves, and his clothing looked as though he’d been wearing it for days. He hadn’t shaved either. His blue eyes—which had seemed so striking to Clara when she’d first met him—were dim and bloodshot now. And even though rage was etched in every line of his face, what Clara saw more than that was grief.
“Unhand me, you cur,” Mr. Croydon shouted when Mr. Noakes tried to hook his arm through his. “This is my house, and I’ll go where I want in it.”
“No one is forcing you to leave,” Mrs. Musgrave told him. Clara hadn’t seen her at first. The housekeeper stepped out of the corner, approaching Mr. Croydon with her arms outstretched, as if he were a rabid dog. “We’re simply suggesting that there are more comfortable places for you to speak to Mr. Noakes and myself about what troubles you.”
“What troubles me is the scurrilous—” He slurred and stumbled over the word. “The scurrilous nature of gossip below stairs. I’ll not have anyone in my employ speaking ill of a woman who was…a good and kind…a diamond of the highest….” His shoulders sagged with each attempt to describe who Clara assumed must be Violetta. “She deserved so much better than this.”
“No doubt she did,” Mrs. Musgrave said, inching toward Mr. Croydon as though he might bite.
Clara pursed her lips, stepping into the room. As far as she could see, Mr. Noakes and Mrs. Musgrave were handling the situation entirely wrong. She’d dealt with enough drunkards and men on a tear at Bonnie’s Place and at The Silver Dollar saloon to know that kindness worked best. Her experience emboldened her.
“It’s all right, Mr. Croydon, sir.” She stepped all the way into the room, keeping her voice calm and sympathetic. “You miss Violetta. I understand. She meant a lot to you. Now why don’t you sit down in Mr. Noakes’s chair there and we can talk about her.”
Mr. Noakes and Mrs. Musgrave both recoiled in shock at Clara’s interruption. Clara could have ignored their reactions and poured all of her focus into soothing Mr. Croydon, but instead of responding to her attempts to calm him the way the drunks in Haskell had, Mr. Croydon turned an alarming shade of red and took three long—if unstable—steps toward her.
“Talking about Violetta is exactly what you’d like, isn’t it? You haughty, ungrateful wretches. Talking about her is the last thing I want any of you doing.”
A ripple of fear spread through Clara. “Okay, then we’ll talk about something else. Why don’t you sit—”
“You of all people should know better than to disparage a woman like Violetta,” Mr. Croydon roared on, swaying toward Clara. “You of all people. What right do you have to gossip about women who give themselves away? Hypocrite.”
Clara’s ripple of fear turned into a tidal wave. She glanced anxiously at Mr. Noakes and Mrs. Musgrave, darted a glance into the hall to see if Mary and Martha were still close enough to hear. She didn’t see them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking. “Please sit down, Mr. Croydon,” she said, her voice shaking.
“I won’t allow this,” Mr. Croydon went on. Clara wasn’t entirely certain whether he’d heard what she said. “I won’t have Violetta’s memory disrespected by a…by a….”
Clara was saved in the most unlikely way. Mr. Croydon turned a dangerous shade of green and swayed to the side, vomiting on the floor near the door. Twin squeals of disgust and retreating footsteps confirmed that Mary and Martha had been eavesdropping right around the corner. Clara ignored them, ignored Mr. Noakes’s wide-eyed panic, and rushed to put her arm around Mr. Croydon. She held him steady as he vomited a second time. The fumes from all the alcohol he’d consumed were almost worse than the sick itself.
“We need water,” she said over her shoulder to Mrs. Musgrave. “And coffee, if you’ve got any.”
“I’ll make some,” Mrs. Carlisle said from the hallway. Clara assumed she’d been eavesdropping on the scene as well.
“And some damp washcloths would be a good idea too,” Clara added.
“I’ll fetch those at once,” Mr. Noakes said, then fled from the room as fast as Ada had run from the house.
Clara sent a disapproving look at his retreating back, then shifted to slip her arm under Mr. Croydon’s shoulders. For once her size came in handy. She was able to lift him to a standing position and walk him to Mr. Noakes’s chair. He collapsed into it, pale and clammy, but apparently not in any danger of losing more of the contents of his stomach. But his emotion hadn’t entirely worn itself out yet either.
“Calling her names,” he mumbled on, his voice weak. “Disparaging her character.”
Clara sent a wary look Mrs. Musgrave’s way as she came up to stand by Mr. Croydon’s other side. Clara used the corner of her apron to wipe Mr. Croydon’s face, not unlike the way she’d cleaned James up just that aftern
oon.
“Hypocrite,” Mr. Croydon slurred. Clara wasn’t sure if he was talking about her or himself.
“Miss Partridge has been caring for Violetta’s baby,” Mrs. Musgrave said, half like a scolding schoolmarm and half as if she didn’t trust herself to say the right thing. “She’s been down at the vicarage every afternoon, looking out for him.”
Mr. Croydon’s bloodshot eyes widened. “You?” His shoulders sagged, and he muttered something incoherent.
Clara’s hands shook as she finished tidying Mr. Croydon and took a step back. “James is the sweetest baby,” she said, no idea if it would help.
Something that might have been a sob escaped from Mr. Croydon. He pinched his eyes closed.
Mrs. Musgrave glanced to Clara as if she didn’t know what to do. That was enough to make Clara’s stomach flip. If Mrs. Musgrave didn’t know what to do, they were all sunk.
“Maybe if we—” Mrs. Musgrave started.
Mr. Croydon shifted blearily to look at her. “She’s a whore, you know,” he said.
“V-Violetta?” Mrs. Musgrave asked.
Mr. Croydon nodded at Clara. “She is. Came straight from an American cathouse.”
Mrs. Musgrave’s eyes went wide. Her mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything. She looked utterly overwhelmed by the entire scene.
Clara’s whole body trembled, but she had a mission in front of her. She tried to redirect the conversation. “James is thriving under Arthur’s care, sir. If you would only come down and see him, I’m sure you would—”
“See him?” he barked, then swayed as though the outburst made him dizzy. “I’ll do no such thing, and neither will you.”
“What?” Clara’s voice failed.
“You’re just like her. All wrong. I won’t have you corrupting my…I won’t have him…I don’t want you anywhere near that baby.” Mr. Croydon clamped his hands to his head and shut his eyes.