The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter

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The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter Page 28

by Lawana Blackwell


  The shopkeeper picked up a red paper package. “Sharps is what you want.”

  “But aren’t they all supposed to be sharp?”

  “That’s a good one, Mr. Langford!” Mr. Trumble declared, slapping a knee.

  Seth, who had not meant to make a joke, smiled. Then he sobered at the memory of the woman. “She’s poor?”

  Mr. Trumble did not ask of whom he meant but glanced at the empty window and sighed. “No poorer than any of the factory workers’ wives. But her husband’s wages have to stretch to provide for nine children. I offered to let her have that bolt at cost, but I take it she decided against it.”

  For once there was no levity on the good-natured face. “I do all I can to help folks, but I have to stay in business.”

  “Yes, of course.” An impulse took hold of Seth. “I’d like to buy the cloth.”

  “You? Didn’t know you was that serious about learnin’ to sew.”

  “Not for me—for that woman. At your regular price, of course. Will you deliver it?”

  “Why, I’d be happy to!” the shopkeeper declared, grinning widely.

  “But you mustn’t tell her who bought it.”

  “No, of course not.” Mr. Trumble cocked his head to study Seth. “You’re sort of like that Robert Hood, ain’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “You know—that fellow from up to Nottinghamshire. He gave lots of money to poor folk. And he had a fondness for green clothes.”

  “Oh.” Now embarrassed, Seth decided to hurry the process along. Reaching for the first spool of thread that caught his eye, he made a move toward the counter. Mr. Trumble hurried back behind the counter and tallied up the purchases, including the bolt of organdy, with a pencil and paper.

  “That’ll be four and sixpence,” the shopkeeper said, turning the paper so that Seth could see his ciphering. Seth gave it a cursory glance out of politeness and paid. He was on his way through the doorway a few seconds later, his needle and thread tucked into the pasteboard box containing the tins, when he noticed the young woman who sang hymns at chapel alighting from a wagon right behind his. A boy of about fourteen sat at the reins. Seth recognized him right away as one of the guinea sellers.

  Seeing the boy reminded him that he hadn’t asked Mr. Trumble about purchasing chickens, but he was loathe to go back into the shop with one of the Sanderses present, even if she was so kind as to give them a cake.

  But he was gentleman enough to wait and hold the door open for her. She thanked him and they exchanged unsmiling nods as she went through it. On to his wagon he went, storing his box in the bed. He was just about to give the reins a twitch when from behind him came a curious sound.

  “Pot-rack?”

  Seth twisted around to peer at the wagon behind him. The boy seated at the reins was working hard at studying the facade of Trumbles. But there lurked just the hint of a smile on his lips. Pressing his own lips tightly together, Seth snapped the reins a little more sharply than he had intended. As Bonny and Soot broke into an immediate trot, he heard it once again.

  “Pot-rack?”

  This time Seth did not look back.

  “I knew everybody had that Langford fellow figured all wrong,” Mr. Trumble told Mercy as he scooped out and weighed five pounds of sugar.

  “Yes?” Recalling the face that had practically glared at her at the door, she thought, Has he only murdered five people instead of ten?

  She wasn’t in the best of moods anyway. Jack and Edgar, nervous about their first day at school, had traded cuffs and jabs and kicks all the way. They were too far away in the bed of the wagon for her to seize them by the collars, as she had a mind to do, and they ignored her orders that they stop. To make matters worse, Fernie had egged them on by mugging faces at them over his shoulder.

  “ … paid for it himself, he did.”

  Realizing she had fumed through the first part of Mr. Trumble’s sentence, she begged his pardon.

  “Mrs. Kerns.” He lowered his voice. “Do you know the Kernses?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “Poor as last year’s corn, bless their souls. Well, Mr. Langford, he sees Mrs. Kerns starin’ at that bolt of organdy you so admired … you know, the Wedgwood Blue?”

  “Yes, that was the one.”

  “When she left here, he tells me to send it to her. Paid full price for it too. He didn’t ask for any discount. Then he says not to tell her who it’s from.”

  “He did?” Mercy asked, even though Mr. Trumble had the reputation of being truthful and surely wouldn’t make something like this up.

  “Aye, right in front of my eyes. Everybody has him pegged for a rotten apple and turns out he’s a phlebotomist.”

  Fernie was looking especially pleased with himself when Mercy climbed up in the wagon seat. She didn’t care to know why but spent most of the trip homeward wrapped up in a pleasant daydream about how surprised the poor woman Mr. Trumble had mentioned would be. You just can’t tell about people, she thought. It was reassuring to know that someone with the capacity for kindness occupied Mrs. Brent’s cottage, even though he clearly wanted no contact with anyone else.

  Of course if I lived next to my family, I don’t think I’d care to be neighborly either, she thought, feeling an immediate stab of guilt for her lack of loyalty. She was as much a Sanders as any of them, and that’s how it would likely stay for the rest of her days.

  Chapter 25

  Why, this is going just fine, Jonathan told himself after having each student introduce himself or herself to the others. He had been told that there would be ten new students, not counting the three graduating from Miss Hillock’s class in the next room, so it seemed that they should get to know one another. It would certainly help him to attach faces to the names he had memorized.

  Even his welcoming speech—he had chosen the one about the ship after all—was received well by them. Only two children, brothers with hair the color of straw, had looked at each other and snickered behind their hands. Jonathan had decided to allow it to pass as if he hadn’t noticed. There would be ample time to assert his authority in the coming days, and he hadn’t wanted to mar the morning with a reprimand.

  Presently, Vicar Phelps would be arriving to conduct Monday morning chapel. That thought made him anxious, and surely the minister had qualms about being anywhere where he was present. But there was nothing he could do about that.

  The former schoolmaster, a Captain Powell, had drafted a comprehensive daily schedule, so Jonathan knew that it was time for Aleda Hollis to go to the piano in a back corner of the classroom and accompany the students in the singing of hymns. He took up a hymnal Mr.

  Sykes had allowed him to borrow from the church, for having been a believer for only six months, he was unfamiliar with many of the hymns on Captain Powell’s list. He had never stood in front of anyone, much less a roomful, and led singing, but he looked to Mrs. Hollis at her desk in the opposite corner, and sure enough she sent back a reassuring smile that helped considerably.

  “We will sing ‘Abide with Me,’ ” Jonathan announced. He gave a nod to Aleda at the piano, and the first chords were struck, followed by youthful voices joining in.

  Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;

  The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide:

  When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,

  Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!

  Even as he directed and sang the first verse, Jonathan noticed that some students were as unfamiliar with the hymn as was he. They were supposed to sing three hymns, but he wondered if perhaps the time would be spent more productively at learning only one thoroughly. On impulse he raised a hand to signal for Aleda to cease playing. “Why don’t I read each line twice and then you repeat after me? That way those of us who aren’t familiar with it can learn the song.”

  Six hands shot up. “But Captain Powell never did it that way,” a girl with brown braids said when Jonathan called upon her. The other five bobbed heads
vigorously in agreement.

  “Well, that’s fine, but we’ve several new students, and I’m not familiar with this hymn myself.” Heads swiveled in all directions to gape at each other, as if he had announced he didn’t know the alphabet.

  “But you’re the schoolmaster!” one boy called out.

  Jonathan was again tempted to allow the indiscretion to pass without comment just this first morning, but he happened to catch Mrs. Hollis’s concerned expression. If you allow control to slip away, you’ll never regain it, seemed to be the silent message she was sending.

  “You must raise your hand, Mr. Casper,” he said, then noticed a relaxing of Mrs. Hollis’s posture.

  The boy obeyed and lifted his hand.

  “Yes, Mr. Casper?”

  “But you’re the schoolmaster.”

  “That’s correct.” Jonathan gave a helpless smile. “But you see, this is my first day as a schoolmaster. So I’m learning as you learn.”

  Heads again turned in all directions as students sought one another’s faces. Somehow, Jonathan felt he had made an error, but he was compelled to be honest, so what was he to do? Fortunately, the students obediently echoed the lines of the first verse. They had gone through it twice and were singing it along with the piano again when the door opened and Vicar Phelps walked in. He stood against the wall and listened to the singing, his face expressionless except for a softening when he glanced over at Mrs. Hollis. There was nothing in Captain Powell’s notes that told who was supposed to greet whom on Monday mornings, so Jonathan cleared his throat and said, “Good morning, Vicar Phelps.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Raleigh,” the vicar replied, not quite meeting his eyes. It was the first time he had spoken to Jonathan since his visit to the Bow and Fiddle, and it was painfully obvious that the man took no pleasure in being in his company. Jonathan moved several feet aside as the man strode to the front of the classroom. He was a commanding presence, and even the new students seemed to sit a little straighter. “And good morning to you, students.”

  “Good morning, Vicar Phelps,” they replied with a fair degree of unison.

  “Let us bow our heads for prayer.” The vicar prayed for the children, that they would learn much during the coming school year, but that they would also remember that knowledge without godly wisdom always led to folly.

  He smiled then and relaxed his posture, causing the students to do the same. He gave an inspiring little sermon on how Daniel practiced his faith even knowing it would lead to the lions’ den. “He cared more about pleasing God than protecting his life, and God gave his life back to him.”

  Even Jonathan found himself engrossed in the story. He had heard of Daniel and the lions as a boy, but the story had never meant anything to him until he came to faith himself. Now he was in awe of such courage. He doubted he would have the same fortitude if put to the same tests Daniel or any of the great biblical heroes had faced, and it made him ashamed. Perhaps Vicar Phelps was right about his lack of character after all.

  He realized his thoughts were drifting and turned his attention back to the sermon.

  “Was Daniel afraid of being put in the lions’ den?” the vicar was asking. There were almost unanimous negative shakes of heads save one of the brothers with straw-colored hair. That one nodded until noticing that he was alone in doing so, then switched to headshaking like the others.

  “Then does having strong faith in God mean you’re never afraid?”

  Now only half answered in the negative. The other half looked unsure, glancing at Jonathan for help. Jonathan couldn’t provide any, as he was caught up in wondering that same thing himself.

  The vicar smiled at the students, as if he realized he was making them too anxious to risk an incorrect reply. Softening his voice, he said, “I’ll ask you one more question that may help us understand how Daniel might have felt. Some of you older students will know the answer. Was Jesus Christ afraid to go to the cross?”

  Aleda Hollis, seated again in her desk, was the first to raise a hand. “Yes, sir,” she replied.

  “How do you know that, Miss Hollis?”

  “Because of how He prayed in the garden the night before.”

  “Very good. So it’s possible that Daniel was afraid of the lions?”

  The nods this question produced were finally confident and enthusiastic.

  “Then why do we always speak of Daniel’s great courage?” the vicar asked.

  A silence settled in the room as thirty-two students contemplatively screwed up their foreheads, chewed pencils, fingernails, or their bottom lips. Finally, one tall fair-haired young man in the back row raised a timid hand.

  “Yes, Mr. Keegan?” the vicar said, smiling again.

  In a strong Irish brogue, the boy replied, “Because he acted rightly in spite of his fearin’, sir?”

  Now it was Vicar Phelps who nodded. “Very good, Mr. Keegan. So we see that true courage doesn’t mean the absence of fear. Perhaps Daniel even trembled as he was being led to the lions. But his willingness to please his Father was stronger than his fear.”

  Absently Jonathan fingered a button on his coat. It had never occurred to him that the giants of the faith had possessed the same human frailties as himself. Even while reading of the failings of such as David and Moses, Abraham and Peter, he had still regarded them as almost superior beings who just happened to stumble occasionally. Vicar Phelps had put flesh and blood to someone whose presence Jonathan wouldn’t have considered himself worthy of being in had he appeared in front of him today.

  Jonathan realized something that he had missed in seven months of intensive Bible study—that God didn’t expect His followers to be anything more than human here on earth. How could they be? But if they would be obedient and faithful, He would supply what was lacking when it was needed. That gave him great hope.

  “Before I leave, I’ve a scripture verse for you to think upon,” the vicar went on. For the first time he looked directly at Jonathan. “Will you read it to them, Mr. Raleigh?”

  “Yes, sir.” In an effort to be helpful, Jonathan almost leapt to his desk to scoop up his Bible.

  “Thank you, Mr. Raleigh. It comes from the book of Saint Matthew, chapter seven and verse six.”

  He quickly flipped through the fine pages and found the passage. Clearing his throat, he began to read, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs. …”

  Jonathan looked over at the vicar again, thinking there must be some mistake. He had expected something related to the sermon on courage. But the man merely nodded him on.

  Again Jonathan cleared his throat. “ … neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Raleigh,” the vicar said. “There is something we can all learn from this verse.” He bade them farewell and moved to the door without a backward glance.

  When the door clicked shut, Jonathan, who had been stunned into a near stupor, snapped back to his senses and realized he was clenching his teeth together so tightly that they ached. For two shillings he would leave this town, he told himself, even walk the twelve miles to Shrewsbury if he had to. Let them find another schoolmaster!

  Only he hoped the school board would have enough integrity to inform any new applicant, “Oh by the way, the vicar will pop in every Monday to spear covert insults at you, and one of the mothers will sit in the back to make sure you don’t teach the children how to smoke cigars and tell bawdy jokes, and some of the children will snicker at your introductory speech while others remind you that you aren’t Captain Powell.”

  He became aware then that thirty-two sets of young eyes were trained upon him, as were Mrs. Hollis’s. She also had a little crease between her brows, as if she were wondering whether to send for medical assistance. Jonathan let out a sigh and then nodded lamely at her. He couldn’t really fault her for being here. If he had children, he supposed he would do the same thing. And of course her very presence gave him courage to
face these children, no matter what her reason. As for the vicar … he started to grind his teeth again but then stopped. He’ll change his mind about me one day. But there’s no use thinking about that now.

  “Students in the sixth standard,” he announced, drawing up his notes from memory. “Take out pencil and paper and supply the answers to the grammar exercise on the third page of your text. Remember to use complete sentences.” He raised an eyebrow. “Can anyone—from any standard—give me the definition of a complete sentence?”

  “Please, don’t get up,” Julia told the young man as he turned to look up over his shoulder from his place on the steps. He held half of a sandwich in one hand, and the other half rested upon the brown paper wrapping upon his lap. “I’ll join you.”

  He sent her a grateful look and moved over to give her room. “Would you care for half of a roast beef sandwich? It’s very good.”

  “No, thank you.” She sat and unwrapped her own lunch, which also contained a roast beef sandwich, this one prepared by Mrs. Herrick and likely far superior to the one produced by the Bow and Fiddle. But of course she didn’t point this out to Mr. Raleigh. There were only twenty children in the school yard—Mrs. Hillock’s students ate in their classroom and would come outside later, and a dozen students walked to their cottages nearby for lunch. The boys who remained found patches of grass upon which to plop themselves down, and the girls had discovered the temporarily idle merry-go-round a convenient place to sit with lunch pails at their sides and their feet dangling over the edge.

  “Mrs. Herrick—she’s our cook at the Larkspur—packed an extra fig pastry.” Julia held out a smaller paper-wrapped bundle to the young man. “Would you care for it?”

  Now surprise crossed his well-sculptured face as she put the wrapped pastry in his hand. “I thought you disliked me, Mrs. Hollis.”

  Julia could hear the dejection in his voice. That was wrong of Andrew to do that. She certainly intended to speak to him about it. In the first few seconds after Mr. Raleigh had read the verse aloud, she had seen signs of a struggle within him and had almost expected him to leave the classroom. He certainly deserved some credit for tenacity, if nothing else.

 

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