The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter

by Lawana Blackwell

  The next morning he and Thomas walked up the main road of the village, Market Lane. At the stone bridge they noticed a group of fair-haired children moving in the shallow water near the riverbank. Seth watched, fascinated, as the older children harvested the tall grasses and passed them on to younger hands on land. The Irish brogue in their young voices was unmistakable, and he supposed they were the children of basket weavers. One girl, who couldn’t have been much younger than Thomas, graced them with a smile. The boy lifted his hand for a timid wave. His cheeks were getting flushed from the sun, and Seth realized he should have a cap.

  They ambled on back toward the south. When Trumbles General Merchandise came into view, Seth asked the boy if he would like some candy.

  “Sir?”

  “Candy,” Seth told him. “You know what it is, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. Mrs. Briggs gives it to us at Christmas.”

  “Well, it’s Christmas now.”

  Thomas’s blue eyes grew wider. “It is?”

  “No, of course not. I was just …” Seth didn’t quite know what he was doing, so he gave up and ushered the boy forward. The man behind the counter turned from dusting merchandise-laden shelves with a white cloth. Thinning blond hair framed the top of his round face, and a smile stretched under a drooping walrus mustache.

  “Good mornin’ to you!” he said, reaching a hand over the counter. “Orville Trumble is my name—welcome to Gresham.”

  Almost at a loss as to how to respond to such friendliness, Seth stepped up to shake his hand. “Thank you. Seth Langford.”

  “What can I do for you today?”

  “He would like some candy, and he needs a cap as well.” Seth couldn’t quite form the words my son, though that was legally the case.

  The shopkeeper seemed not to notice the awkward moment. “The children like sour balls and these new cinnamon candies the best,” he told them, nodding to two jars on the counter filled with yellow and white hard candies. “And sweetmeats for them who don’t want incarcerated taste buds.”

  He must mean “incinerated,” Seth thought, but the morbid humor did not escape him. Incarcerated was what his taste buds had been for ten years.

  “Of course we’ve peppermint sticks as well,” Mr. Trumble was saying.

  Seth looked at the boy, who seemed to be having trouble making up his mind. “Would you like to try a couple of each?”

  “Oh … may I, sir?”

  “If you don’t eat them all at once.”

  “As to the cap,” the shopkeeper said regretfully, “I’m all out of boy’s sizes. Should have some by next week, though.”

  “I don’t mind a man’s cap, sir,” Thomas said with hopeful timidity.

  Seth had to smile. “Have you ever owned a cap?”

  “No, sir.”

  Some minutes later, Thomas held the candies wrapped tidy in a square of brown paper, save a sour ball tucked away in his bulging jaw. Only his ears prevented a short-brimmed cap of corded brown cloth from swallowing his face. “Good enough,” Seth said and paid Mr. Trumble.

  The shopkeeper, like Mr. Pool, seemed inclined to chat, for he leaned upon his counter and said, “You’ve a polite boy there, Mister Langford.”

  Seth was aware that he should express his gratitude for the compliment, but how could he take credit for Thomas’s manners when he’d had nothing to do with them? “It’s good of you to notice,” he finally said instead, then touched the boy’s shoulder and motioned toward the door. But Mr. Trumble wasn’t deterred that easily.

  “Thinking about Mrs. Brent’s place, are you?”

  “How did you—?”

  The shopkeeper smiled and tugged on an earlobe. “I can tell you’re from the city. You know that telegraph cable they got stretched under the Atlantic now?”

  Seth actually didn’t know.

  “That’s nothing over Gresham,” Mr. Trumble went on. “Or any other village, I’ll warrant. Gossip is just as much a reformation as cricket and horseshoes.”

  Does he mean “recreation”? Seth wondered.

  “She was a sweet old soul, Mrs. Brent. Had Elliott drive her here every Tuesday back when she was able to sit in the wagon. Want to warn you, Mr. Langford. A wife would be powerful lonely out there, if she’s used to the city.”

  “Well, thank you,” Seth said, aware that within the shopkeeper’s friendly warning was a hope that he would feel prompted to volunteer more information about himself. He supposed that strangers were a novelty here, and so if he were to stay, he would have to guard his privacy zealously. But surely that couldn’t be too difficult when one lived at the end of the world.

  Chapter 13

  On Wednesday mornings Octavia Kingston’s walks took her to the southern outskirts of Gresham, far past where the cobbled Market Lane had turned into macadamized roadway. Pink knapweed had all but taken over a field that had become her halfway marker. After pausing to admire the hundreds of butterflies drawn to the flowers, she would then turn and retrace her steps to the Larkspur.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Sykes!” On her way south, she called to a young woman supervising a tot’s frolic through a cottage garden. “And how are little Jimmy’s ears?”

  The young woman, the churchwarden’s daughter-in-law, smiled and returned the wave. “Doctor Rhodes recommended drops of warmed cod liver oil. As you can see, they worked quite well.”

  “Excellent!” Mrs. Kingston called, pushing on. Yesterday she had not seen any sign of her shadower, presumably the squire’s boot boy. This caused her great relief, for she had been mightily tempted to approach the old blister after church Sunday and show him the rough side of her tongue about having her followed. One thing alone had prevented her—that it wouldn’t be honoring to the Lord’s Day to have a row right outside Saint Jude’s.

  Now she wondered again if she had imagined the whole thing, or if perhaps the Worthy sisters had been mistaken. It wasn’t against the law to wander the lanes of one’s village, she thought, or she certainly would have been arrested by now.

  Seth rolled over in bed, gathered his pillow up under his neck, and yawned as he became aware that the room was no longer dark. He opened the eye not pressed into his pillow. The curtains were still drawn, but not enough to disguise that the morning had started without him. Daylight already?

  The night had seemed endless, until the wee hours of the morning when God had given him some peace about the matter. Still Seth had asked for a sign, like Gideon’s fleece. If I’m supposed to stay here, please let the squire agree to sell me the land. Having lived in places belonging to other people all of his life, he had a longing to own the little piece of paradise on Nettle Lane. To walk across his own threshold, sit at his own table, and not be beholden to any landlord. It seemed the only way he could think of to ensure that Thomas would always have a place to live.

  When the cobwebs had sufficiently cleared from his mind, Seth raised his head. Thomas’s side of the bed was empty, save the toy horse propped at a restful angle upon his pillow. For a second or two he wondered where the boy had gone, and then sensing a presence, he turned his head to look over at the side of the bed behind him. Thomas stood there watching him. Seth blinked. “How long have you been standing there?”

  Anxiety crossed the boy’s face, as if he feared he would be scolded. “I don’t know, sir.”

  Assuming a more moderate voice, Seth asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I didn’t know if you wanted to be awoked.”

  “Awakened,” Seth corrected. One of the few good things that had occurred in Newgate was that he shared a cell for three years with a Professor Thorndike, who had killed a rival in a duel for the hand of a young woman. He was eventually hanged outside the walls of the prison, but not before giving Seth an appreciation for proper grammar. “But yes, I suppose I can’t stay in bed all day. Are you hungry?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You haven’t been at the candy, have you?”

  “No, sir.”

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nbsp; “Well, the next time I oversleep, I give you permission to clout me on the head.”

  Horror filled the boy’s expression, causing Seth to modify his statement to “give me a good shake.” The waifish face still did not lose its stricken look. Seth sighed and realized he had never seen the child smile, even when offered candy yesterday. Am I that fearsome-looking?

  He dressed hurriedly so that the boy would not faint from hunger. About one third of the tables in the dining room were filled when they sat down to bacon and eggs. Mr. Pool’s wife served them, but fortunately she was kept too busy to attempt to needle personal information out of him. Seth was sopping the remainder of his egg yolk with his bread when Mr. Pool paid their table a visit.

  “Would you mind directing me to the squire’s house?” Seth asked him after politely enduring some idle chat about the likelihood of rain this afternoon.

  “So you’ve decided to stay,” the landlord said, using the tail of his apron to wipe a bit of what appeared to be gravy from his chin.

  In a polite tone that did not invite questions, Seth replied, “That depends.”

  Mr. Pool shrugged. “Just watch yourself, I would advise. Th’ squire’s a sharp one when it comes to negotiating. That’s free advice, young man.”

  “I appreciate it,” Seth replied sincerely.

  “You just go up Market Lane, see—”

  “The squire’s just outside.” The interruption had come from Mrs. Pool, newly returned to the room. “I seen him walking by.”

  Raising eyebrows, the innkeeper said, “You saw the squire walking?”

  “Couldn’t ha’ been the squire.” The bearded older man who had been at supper two days ago occupied a table by himself now. He grinned wickedly when all eyes turned to him. “He don’t even walk to his own privy.”

  “Now, that ain’t true and you know it,” Mrs. Pool said sharply. “Besides, the manor has lavatories. Everybody knows that.”

  Seth, who had been attempting to get a word in edgewise since Mrs. Pool first made the announcement, seized upon the fraction of silence to ask, “Do you recall in which direction he was walking?”

  “South.”

  He looked uneasily at the boy, who still had half a plate of food remaining. The idea of negotiating with the squire out in the open was infinitely more appealing than turning up at a manor house with hat in hand. But if he waited for Thomas, there was no hope of catching up with him. “I’m going to leave you for just a little while. Will you play in the courtyard if I’m not back when you’ve finished?”

  The blue eyes became anxious, even as he answered, “Yes, sir.”

  Seth swallowed his guilty feelings, for he was in a hurry, and turned away. He almost reconsidered and turned back at the front door, but then he thought of the cottage again and hastened his steps.

  How thoughtful of you to have fashioned such lovely creatures for us to admire, Octavia Kingston prayed silently as she watched butterflies flitting this way and that. Why, it was like a tonic to her soul to see such beauty—and there was something lovely to see on each of her routes, from sunflowers to butterflies to children at play. But she couldn’t stand there idling all morning, not with the Larkspur’s garden requiring her almost constant attention.

  She turned and began to retrace her steps, humming the chorus of “She Wore a Wreath of Roses,” a song Mrs. Dearing had been trying to master on the piano. But at the sight of a certain man walking in her direction, the tranquillity that had nestled in her mind all morning evaporated.

  “Why, is that you, Mrs. Kingston?” Squire Thurmond Bartley called when within range, waving his hand as if he were Caesar returning home victorious from war.

  Mrs. Kingston did not consider herself to be in possession of great intellect, but she could be rather shrewd when it came to judging a person’s motives, and she knew that this meeting was not accidental. Still, she stretched her lips into a smile over her clenched teeth and returned his wave—albeit with less vigor. That of course motivated the squire to hasten his pace, and the gap between them rapidly closed. Then she let him have it. “You knew very well I would be here, you old blister! Didn’t you?”

  He froze, openmouthed. “Why, how could I—?”

  “You’ve had me followed!”

  “Followed?” The gray eyes, topped by belligerent tufts of white eyebrows, grew indignant. “That’s ludicrous beyond comprehension, Mrs. Kingston!”

  “Oh, don’t play the innocent with me!” She shook the knob of her walking stick at him. “I’ve seen him darting amongst the shrubbery, that shoe boy of yours.”

  “Boot boy,” he corrected, just before his eyes widened with horror at the slip. “What I meant to say was—”

  “Another falsehood, no doubt! I think it would be fitting of a gentleman to admit when he has been caught, Squire Bartley.”

  He opened his mouth and then closed it a few times, then hung his head. “I was driven to desperation, Mrs. Kingston. You wouldn’t accept my gifts.”

  “You know why, don’t you?”

  “Why, no.” This time his expression seemed sincere. “I haven’t the foggiest. I thought we got along nicely when you toured the manor gardens.”

  He sounded so much like a wounded child that Mrs. Kingston found herself taking pity upon him. She was just about to admit she actually had enjoyed his company that day at the manor and that her recent aloofness had only been because she didn’t want to be discarded like an old shoe when he grew bored with her affection, but then she stopped herself. He had pursued her, actually sent his boot boy to spy upon her, because her remoteness had worked. She knew next to nothing about fishing but had gathered from overhearing conversations between Philip and his young friends that when a certain bait proved effective, one continued to use it.

  Yet she didn’t think it prudent to discourage him totally. So it was with a slight softening of the voice that she admitted, “I will confess the day was tolerable.”

  “Tolerable?”

  “Very well, then … somewhat pleasant.”

  “Then why do you act as if I’ve the plague, Mrs. Kingston?” They had started walking slowly back toward Gresham, with the squire on her left. She switched the walking stick to that side too in case he had some notion of seizing her hand.

  I have to give him a reason, she thought. But how could she do so without fabricating, which would be terribly shabby behavior after just having spent several minutes in prayer.

  “Is there someone else?” the squire asked.

  She slowed her steps and thought about what an obliging man he was for providing her with a solution. “What a question to ask,” she replied demurely.

  He gave her a sidelong look. “Yes, but you didn’t answer it, did you?”

  “I didn’t answer because it’s a silly question.” She concentrated on smoothing a wrinkle from her sleeve, all the while thinking that dear Mr. Clay would be proud of her performance. “Do you think it will rain this afternoon?”

  “I would appreciate an answer to the question, Mrs. Kingston.”

  “Very well.” She sighed. “Yes, I believe it will rain.” From the corner of her eye she could see crimson creeping up from his chin to his bushy eyebrows, which needed pruning shears more desperately than her azaleas.

  “So … you’ll see some other man, but not me. Does he send you flowers and cheeses?”

  “Well, not exactly …”

  “Is it that Mr. Ellis? A shifty-eyed Lothario if I ever saw—”

  “For your information, Mr. Ellis is married and extremely devoted to his wife.”

  His shoulders slumped forward. “I … beg your pardon. But it isn’t at all fair of you, Mrs. Kingston, to allow some other suitor the pleasure of your company while refusing mine. Won’t you even allow me to prove to you that I can be quite an agreeable companion?”

  Pursing her lips and pretending to think the matter over, she allowed several seconds to pass before conceding, “I suppose I haven’t been exactly fair.”
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  “Not fair at all, Mrs. Kingston,” he agreed stoutly.

  “Very well, then. You may call upon me occasionally.”

  Finally some life came back into his face. “Indeed?”

  “But please bear in mind that I’m a busy woman. What with the gardening and charity work—”

  “And that other fellow …” he interjected, causing Mrs. Kingston to send him a disapproving look.

  “Jealousy does not become you, Squire.”

  “Forgive me—I could not stop myself.” A hopeful note crept into his voice. “Will you take my arm, Mrs. Kingston?”

  She considered his question and supposed that it wouldn’t hurt. But if he attempts to kiss me, I shall clout him with my stick. “The road surface is rather unstable,” she said, surrendering her walking stick to him and resting her left hand upon the inside of his crooked elbow.

  “Frightfully unstable,” he agreed but smiled as if the instability of the road was a source of great happiness to him. But the smile lasted only a moment. “Oh bother!” he said. “Who is that coming this way?”

  “Why, I haven’t the faintest.” Mrs. Kingston removed her hand from his arm, lest this stranger form the mistaken opinion that she was a woman of dubious morality.

  “Sir?” the man addressed them when in range enough not to shout. Tall and muscular-looking, he wore the clothes of a gardener or groomsman, yet seemed too pale to be employed in those capacities. “Squire Bartley?”

  “Yes!” her companion snorted. “What is it?”

  The man caught up with them and took the cap from his head. “My name is Seth Langford,” he said, clearly sensing that his presence was not welcome. With an apologetic look at Mrs. Kingston he said, “Forgive me for disturbing your walk, but I’m interested in the place on Nettle Lane.”