She lifted more volumes from where she knew the little treasure had been.
It’s gone!
Franticness seized her as she shoved more and more books aside. Tears filled her eyes, blurring her search. She swiped them away with the back of her hand.
Did it fall to the ground? From the height, she surveyed the scene below, scanning it for a glimpse of red, fruitlessly.
Her search was over, she knew, but still she stood for a moment as the rung dug into the arches of her thinly-shod feet.
Stop crying.
Stupid.
Stupid!
It was just a little piece of paper.
She envisioned herself sitting on her bed back at Hillcrest, pulling the apple out of some hiding place, tears spilling down her cheeks, pointlessly.
Yes, it’s better this way.
Now stop crying. You need to pack your things and leave with Paul.
She breathed in deeply, and resituated the books upon the shelf before slowly climbing down the ladder.
Stop crying.
Watching a Departure
~ Jonathan
“Master Elliott,” Lydia said as they stood in the side yard. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Jonathan saw Elliott’s little nose crinkle as he gave her his full attention.
“I’ve just received a letter from my mother and she needs me back at the farm.”
“What farm? Is it far away?” His little hand reached out and grabbed hers familiarly.
“Yes, I’m afraid it is.”
Looking concerned, he asked, “When will you be back?”
“I…I won’t be. I am very sorry to have to say goodbye.”
“You’re leaving?” Elliott asked.
His lower lip began to tremble as Lydia nodded. He motioned toward the man who was several feet away, rearranging things in his wagon bed, making room for Lydia’s trunk. “With the Idiot Farmer?”
“Elliott! There’s no need to be unkind! Farmer Midwinter is taking me home to my mother.” Her voice broke on the last few words.
“But you can’t go!” he insisted. “You may go for a…a week, but then you have to come back.”
Though he wished he could say the same words, and that there was power behind them, Jonathan interrupted, “Elliott, she’s leaving. Don’t make it unpleasant for her.”
“I don’t want her to go, so she can’t!”
“Elliott…” sighed Jonathan.
“My mother needs me,” Lydia said softly.
“But I need you!” the little boy wailed, throwing his arms around the maid. Sobs shook his body as she held him, tears streaming down her own face.
“I’m very glad to have had all the time I’ve had with you,” Lydia said, rubbing her hand across his back. “We’ve done so many fun things together and you’ve made me so proud with how smart you are.”
Pulling his head back, Elliott looked up at her. “Is it because I gave you a black eye? I didn’t mean to!”
“No, it’s nothing to do with that. Please, Elliott…”
Looking completely unaware of the doleful scene before him, the farmer approached, nodding and said, “It’s a good thing I brought the wagon on this trip, Liddy, or we’d be squeezed into Zelda’s saddle together.”
Jonathan felt his chest tighten.
“Such crassness is unbecoming!” he barked.
The farmer shrugged, mumbling, “No harm meant.”
Lydia continued to shush the little boy who was clinging to her, then looked up at Jonathan and said quietly, “I must go now.”
Jonathan nodded and began to pull at Elliott’s arms, which quickly clasped themselves around Jonathan’s leg.
“Goodbye,” he said thickly, reaching to shake the hand she held out to him.
Their eyes met for one last confusing, misery-fraught moment before she walked to the wagon.
This can’t be goodbye, Jonathan determined as he watched her climb into the seat beside the now disinterested farmer.
But why wouldn’t it be? he asked himself. What could possibly bring us back together?
As he watched the wagon take the turn in the drive, the feeling of dread that had balanced itself on Jonathan’s shoulders from the day he sat in Harris’ office threatened to swallow him whole.
Elliott continued to clutch at Jonathan’s leg, sobbing.
Though Jonathan pressed the little boy’s head against his side, his eyes never drifted from the departing wagon.
When it had disappeared around the bend, Jonathan stood for a moment, knowing it was not going to reappear, then picked Elliott up and carried him into the kitchen. Settling himself at the table, he sat for an uncertain amount of time, staring out into nothingness.
Curled up on the bench, Elliott had laid his head on Jonathan’s lap, his sobs having devolved into an occasional hiccup or shaky inhalation. Jonathan patted the boy’s shoulder every now and then, as he continued to sit and think in the near stillness.
Finally, Jonathan reached for a pencil and his sketchbook, which lay before him on the table.
There, poking out of the leaves, was a crisp white corner of paper.
He felt a stab of hope and curiosity.
Has the dear girl left me something?
Opening the book to where the paper had been placed, he saw the drawing of Widdy examining his foot.
His mouth felt dry as he lifted the loose sheet, unfolded it and read:
‘Twas not enough ‘tis grossly wide
(Can barely in its shoe abide)
Nor that its scent which lingers long
Is putrid and unearthly strong.
Its biggest toe baits all to stare
And festers with unruly hair.
The coarsened skin across its sole
Well imitates the hide of troll.
One more misfortune to report…
Alas, a newly sprouted wart!
Apt, as always, Jonathan thought, a wry smile lifting the heavy corners of his mouth.
After reading it over several more times, Jonathan sighed and pulled his sketchbook toward him. Turning to a blank page near the back, he began to draw.
Within moments, the page was filled. In spite of the ache in his gut, he was pleased with the drawing as he tore it out of the book.
He thought for several moments as Elliott hiccupped beside him and then wrote a few lines of poetry of his own invention beneath the drawing. Reading it over, Jonathan smirked.
That’s perfectly awful, he thought before adding a final sentence.
Grabbing a candle on the table, he said, “Elliott, sit up for a moment. I need to light this.”
Unsteadily, Elliott did as he was told, peering out miserably from between puffy lids, his upper lip slick with mucus.
“For heaven’s sake, clean your nose,” Jonathan said as he stood up from the table. “You could grease an axle with it.”
He walked over to the fire, and stuck the candle’s wick into flame as Elliott dragged his shirt sleeve over his face.
Taking a few coins from the jar he had seen Lydia pay the laundress with, Jonathan returned to the table and tilted the burning candle over the bottom of the paper. Molten wax dripped onto its surface and Jonathan pressed the coins into it.
“What are you doing?” Elliott asked, his red-rimmed eyes fixed on the page.
“It may be a hardship for her to pay the postage, but if the post boy hears jingling, he might steal the money inside and throw the letter in a ditch.”
Tearing a second page out of his book, he fashioned it into an envelope, stuck the folded drawing and poem inside, and sealed the whole thing with more wax. On the front he wrote the address he had memorized a few days earlier:
Miss Lydia Smythe
Hillcrest Farm
Shinford, Coddingshire
Standing again, Jonathan announced, “Come, Elliott. We’re riding into town to post t
his and speak with Harris.”
Confounded by a Limerick
~ Lydia
Hillcrest Farm
When her mother went out to the hen house, Lydia let her face relax into the look of misery that had been attempting to seize her features for days.
Nearly a week earlier, Lydia had arrived home from Whitehall.
Sally had turned, startled from washing a few dishes in the sink. Bursting into tears, she had rushed to enfold Lydia in her arms, crying out, “Oh, dearest! Why are you here? What has happened?”
“All is well, Mama,” Lydia had lied, then added truthfully, “I wanted to come home and be with you.”
“Oh, my beautiful girl.” Sally, her eyes streaming, had smoothed Lydia’s hair away from her face and said gravely, “We shall face our trials together.”
Lydia nodded, though she wondered to which trials her mother was referring. She studied Sally’s features, noting that they had grown less distinct in her absence. It was as if their lines had been blurred, leaving a looser arrangement of nose, eyes and mouth, all sagging at the edges.
She is troubled, and I shan’t burden her further with my own worries
Squeezing her mother’s hand, Lydia had asked, “Have the chickens been fed yet this evening?”
Now, Lydia was taking the bottles and tins off the shelf in the kitchen, wiping the dust off each one and returning it to its place.
Examining a small bottle of ground nutmeg, Lydia recalled the occasional prodigal purchases Farmer Smythe had surprised his wife with years ago, when the farm was prosperous.
Suddenly, Lydia heard a knock on the door.
She answered it, still clutching the nutmeg, and saw a stranger standing before her.
The man’s hair was streaked with gray, and his face was tanned and leathery. Still, there was an element of youthfulness about him, as if his outer shell had aged far sooner than had his inside.
“Letter for Lydia Smythe,” he said.
“A letter?” Lydia’s mouth went dry.
The man nodded and examined the front of the envelope in his hand. “From…Whitehall in Bevelshire.”
Lydia’s eyes were riveted on the white rectangle.
Whitehall?
“I…” Lydia stuttered, her heart beating wildly. “I’ve only a penny…” She nearly added ‘to spare’, but caught herself. If the man knew she had more money, he might hold out for it before handing the precious envelope over to her. Even the one penny was an extravagance to spend when the hens weren’t laying well.
The man shrugged.
“That’ll do,” he said, thrusting his hand out, palm up.
“One moment, please.” Lydia hurried off to retrieve the money, hoping he wouldn’t overhear the jangling of any other coins as she dug the one out of the jar.
As if in a dream, Lydia dropped the penny into the man’s hand and he, in turn, handed her the letter. Then he was across the yard, swinging back up into his saddle. By the time he was gone, Lydia was still standing in the doorway, staring at the envelope.
It’s Sir Jonathan’s writing.
On shaking legs, she walked back into the kitchen and eased herself down into a chair at the table. With trembling hands, she loosened the waxen seal and pulled out a single sheet of paper. Two pennies were affixed to it with wax.
That was thoughtful.
She popped them off.
Unfolding the paper, she saw on it a fine example of one of Jonathan’s drawings. This one was of herself, she recognized immediately, on the roof of Whitehall. Standing, she was smiling happily, her hair blowing wildly around her face. Before her was Jonathan, tall and lanky. Leaning forward, he held out to her a stack of papers. Some of the sheets had broken free from his hands and were being swept away in the wind.
Below the drawing was written:
There once was a girl called Foote
Whose influence firmly took root
On all at Whitehall.
Then she left with Paul
(Who seemed to be a bit of a brute)
Underneath that, in smaller letters was penned:
Perhaps you could critique my rhyme and meter.
Lydia sat immobile, a mélange of emotions swirling within her.
What can he possibly mean? My ‘influence firmly took root on all at Whitehall’? Who is ‘all’? Elliott, of course. And perhaps Sophia with my noticing of the laudanum…but is he including himself? How did I influence him? And this bid for critique at the end…certainly that can’t be what he’s truly after…
She looked again at the picture, noticing that in the top left corner was a mob-cap flying off in the wind. The whole presentation was slightly amusing, yet it lacked the absurdity of so many of his other drawings.
Her mouth was drawn open, as if she was laughing.
Lydia’s face warmed as she remembered what thoughts had filled her mind as she stood on the roof that day.
I was such a fool.
She shifted her focus to the rendition of Jonathan.
He’s offering me…what? Papers that blow away in the wind?
What does that signify?
She studied the lines of his face. There was no trace of amusement in them, only solemnity, as his lengthy arm held the papers out to her.
Ugh…This is why I fled! Such confusion and ridiculous notions…I stopped searching for the apple for this very reason…but now I have this token to weep and wonder over.
She recalled the look of apology in his eyes when she realized she’d been wrong, realized that regardless of how he felt, he couldn’t allow himself to love her.
He was sorry for me…and still is now.
Tears pricked her eyes as she folded the paper and slipped it back into the envelope.
He’s apologizing for being born a baronet when I was born a farmer’s daughter.
He’s only trying to be kind. If I don’t send a response he might think I despise him.
The two pennies lay on the table.
I could post it tomorrow when I’m in town to sell the eggs…but what ought I to say?
I know that money and grandiosity on one side, and nothing on the other, makes for a disastrous imbalance, regardless of equal minds and temperaments.
But I can’t tell him that!
No, I must veil my meaning and emotion as well as he hid his in this. She laid her hand atop the letter.
Levity, she thought. Yes, levity has always worked well between us.
With a sigh, she rose from the table in search of paper, determined to concoct a witty reply, despite the ache deep within her.
The Selling of the Birthright
~ Elliott
Whitehall
Of all the strangers Mr. Harris had brought to Whitehall over the past several months, Mr. Caspar was the strangest.
He had a long flowing mustache that reminded Elliott of a dog he’d seen once in Plimbridge, and his voice was odd. He didn’t speak slow and choppy like Heldmann, but he pronounced words as if his mouth was full of something that he was about to start chewing. Mr. Harris said he was from a place called ‘America’.
Mr. Caspar’s enthusiasm for Whitehall was evident from the very beginning of the tour. He asked more questions than any of the other people had and wanted to look at certain parts of the house more than once.
Normally Elliott enjoyed accompanying Jonathan as he led the strangers around the house, but this tour was taking much longer than the previous ones had. He nearly wandered off to play with Sassy, but knowing his favorite part was drawing closer, he stayed with Jonathan.
Months earlier, at the end of the very first tour with two unknown women and a man, Jonathan had surprised Elliott by pushing aside a desk in the hallway. Behind it was a door that Elliott had never noticed before. To his delight, it was a passageway leading up to the roof of Whitehall.
All together, they had stood looking out over what Mr. Harris termed “the length, breadth and
beauty of the estate”. As they gazed out on the villages, near and far, and the woods, blackish green on the horizon, a train appeared, chugging along its barely-perceptible track in the distance.
Elliott was entranced.
Once they had tromped back down the little staircase, Elliott had asked Jonathan excitedly, “Why did you never show me this before? We ought to go up there every day!”
Though Jonathan had not seemed to hear a number of other things Elliott had said that afternoon, he paused at this and peered down at his little brother.
“Erm…one moment, please, Ma’am,” he said to the visiting woman who had begun to ask him a question. “Elliott, you’re never to go up there without me.”
Then looking around, he walked over to a bookshelf.
“Elliott, would you help me move this a few inches to the right?” Jonathan asked.
Surprised at the request, Elliott had made his way over. At Jonathan’s prompting, Elliott pushed with all of his strength on his side of the shelf, and was somewhat shamed at their apparent inability to shift it.
“Harris, would you be so good as to move that writing desk aside and help me position this there in its stead?” Jonathan asked.
Elliott watched as a few moments of the grown men straining resulted in the heavy shelf blocking the mysterious door.
I don’t think Jonathan was trying very hard when it was me helping him, Elliott thought peevishly.
There the shelf had stayed until each time a tour was concluding with Harris and Jonathan moving it aside to reveal the little door.
Now they were finally making their way down the hallway with Mr. Caspar, though he paused a long time to study a section of the wall.
“A fine example of late 17th Century solid oak paneling,” he murmured, his mustache nearly brushing the siding. This was one of the few things that came out of the man’s mouth that Elliott understood.
Come on then! Elliott wanted to push him from behind. There might be a train going past at this very moment!
When the man’s curiosity of the immobile piece of wood was at last satisfied, he turned to Jonathan and asked, “What wonder awaits us next?”
“This way please, to see the hidden passageway,” Jonathan replied with a flourish of his hand and a lift of his eyebrows.
Mr. Caspar’s face broke into a grin under his dense hedge of lip hair and he nearly trotted after his host.
“It’s just behind here,” Jonathan said, and squatted beside the heavy bookshelf. Seeming to anticipate what was about to occur, Caspar beat Harris to the other side.
A Girl Called Foote Page 27