Ring of Flowers (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

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K
ATHRYN
V
ICARS SAT
at the dining table half-listening to her father and wholly feeling sorry for herself. She sat with slightly hunched posture in an armless wooden chair, her arms crossed and folded tightly under her bosom, her legs together, ankles crossed and tucked beneath her seat. She rocked rhythmically, as if trying to soothe herself to the melody of some silent lullaby. What her father was asking of her was unfair. More than that, it was a horrible, cruel, eternal penance. A lifetime’s subservience to Ethan Cromwell was more than anyone should have to bear. The thought of his hands on her made her skin crawl, worse than if a thousand millipedes were swarming all over her with their hundred million tiny pincer feet. If her mother were still alive, she would never have supported such a union. If her mother were alive, her father would still possess the courage to stand up to men like Ethan Cromwell. She decided to send a stinging barb flying in her father’s direction; one she knew would draw blood.

“If mother were alive, she would be ashamed of you, Papa! She would tell you that you are being selfish and weak, and that just because a man is rich in the pocketbook does not mean he is rich in the soul.” She had barely articulated the last word before she burst into tears. “Why would you do this to me, Papa? Why? Why!” she added between choking sobs.

Vicars stood frozen—staring down at his weeping child—bereft of words. The funny thing was, he had rehearsed this play a thousand times in his head. In his version of the script, this scene did not exist. In his version, Kathryn listened quietly to his fine phrases and fatherly wisdom. She recognized that marrying Cromwell was in her best interest, and while she didn’t understand it now, she knew it was the right decision because she trusted her Papa. She smiled and blushed when he called her feelings for Paul Foster a meaningless schoolgirl crush. She nodded approvingly when he promised her that she would learn to love Ethan Cromwell, despite the twenty-three-year difference in age. His script, however, was disintegrating before his eyes, like an inked papyrus in the pouring rain.

He walked over to his writing desk and pulled open its only drawer. From within, he took a small, leather-bound book. He shut the drawer and walked back to the dining table with the book raised so Kathryn could see it clearly. He tried again, this time saying, “Now sweetheart, I know you think you have feelings for the Foster boy, but we both know there is no future in—”

“MY DIARY!”

Kathryn shot up from her chair as if the seat had suddenly burst into flames. She closed the distance between them and snatched the diary out of his hand before he had time to blink.

“I cannot believe you read my diary!” she shouted.

He tried to lay a conciliatory hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off and turned her back on him.

“I’m sorry about that, Kathryn, but I meant to know how you feel about the boy. I can tell from what you’ve written that Paul Foster is nothing more than a summertime romance. You are suffering from infatuation, is all.”

“Infatuation?” she retorted. “At least I can take satisfaction in knowing that while you may have read my diary, you paid no attention to the words. What Paul and I have is not infatuation. I love him, Papa. And he loves me.”

“Even if that were true, you must accept that there’s no future in marrying a boy like that.”

“A boy like what? A farmer? Is that so much worse than a tailor, Papa? I love him. To say there is no future in marrying Paul is to say that there is no future in love itself.”

“That’s not what I meant, Kathryn. What you need to understand is that love is part of marriage. You will grow to love the man who you marry, whoever he may be, regardless of your feelings before the wedding. You will grow to love Mr. Cromwell,” he said, with less conviction in his voice than he had hoped for.

Kathryn was ready for this jab, ducked it, and punched back. “Oh, is that so? Did you have to grow to love mother? Did she have to grow to love you? The answer is no. Mother told me a hundred times the story of how the two of you met, fell in love, and got married. You asked for her hand because you loved her. She said yes because she loved you. Your marriage was neither arranged, nor forbidden, by either of your parents.”

“That’s different. Both our families were poor. We didn’t have an opportunity like you have.”

“How would you have felt if Mother’s father had ordered her to marry someone else just because he was rich?”

“I would not have liked it, but I would have accepted it. I would have been happy knowing she was getting an opportunity to live a life better than the one I could have provided for her.”

“That’s a lie and you know it, Papa.”

She stood, ran up the wooden stairs to her attic bedroom, and slammed the door. The window that faced the church was open. Of the two windows in her room, this window could be accessed from the sloping roof at the rear of the cottage. Paul Foster had figured that out all by himself, and had taken to regularly sneaking in to see her. She did a quick survey of the room, hoping her beau was hiding in the corner waiting to envelop her in his arms, but the room was empty. Then she saw it. A single daisy weighed down a hand-scrawled note on her pillow. She picked up the note and read it.

Cucklett Delf at Sundown. Yours Forever. P

She held the daisy to her lips and kissed each of the ivory colored petals. Paul had plucked it from the grassy meadow basin of Cucklett Delf, their secret meeting place on the outskirts of town. No matter what her father said, she refused to marry Ethan Cromwell. She would run away with Paul if she had to. In all her seventeen years, she had never traveled further than the outskirts of Eyam, and she did not own a valet or a knapsack. Improvising, she selected a very particular dress from her standing wardrobe and knotted it at the waist. She opened the skirt bottom to form a compartment and started packing those items she estimated to be essential for travel— a change of undergarments, socks, a heavy woolen sweater, her hair brush, a necklace given to her by her mother, her favorite dress, her diary—and threw them all inside. She then cut the ribbon that was sewn into loops along the bottom of the dress and pulled both ends. The ribbon worked like a drawstring and cinched the skirt part of the dress closed, forming a pouch. She then knotted the ribbon, and flung the loose arms of the dress over her shoulders and around her neck. She tied the ends of the sleeves together and walked around her tiny room with the impromptu knapsack bouncing between her shoulder blades.

She surveyed her bedroom one final time, climbed out the open back window, and as quietly as she could, crept down the sloping shingled roof. She lowered herself down carefully from the eave onto the lawn and set off at a brisk pace toward Cucklett Delf.

•   •   •   

I
N THE TAILOR
shop below, Vicars paced. He made two approaches toward the attic stairs, but aborted both times before his foot connected with the first step. He chastised himself for being such a coward. A coward for not standing up to Cromwell. A coward for not marching up those stairs and comforting his daughter. Kathryn had been right about one thing. If Mary Vicars were still alive, she would not permit her daughter to marry Ethan Cromwell, not for all the wealth of England. His wife had been a believer in what she called the five principles of life: Love, Honor, Truth, Courage, and Faith. The most important of these principles was Love, she said. Nowhere on her list were Ethan Cromwell’s defining attributes: Wealth, Title, and Power. What attributes young Paul Foster possessed, he did not know, for he had never given the boy a chance. Since the day Ethan Cromwell had informed him he intended to take his daughter’s hand in marriage, Vicars had paid little mind to anything other than Ethan Cromwell.

He put on some water for tea.

After a nice cup of tea, he would talk with Kathryn. With a clear head, he was certain she would come to see the merits of marrying Cromwell.

And so, George Vicars sat alone.

Waiting.

Incubating.

CHAPTER 3

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K
ATHRYN WADED THROUGH
the knee-high wild grasses of Cucklett Delf, alternately humming and singing a simple song and verse of her own composition. Earlier that day, when she had been out gallivanting with Paul, the late August sun had been uncomfortably hot. Now that the sun had fallen to the horizon, its long rays had lost their intensity. A northeast breeze kissed her cheeks and flowed in and around the V-shaped neckline of her dress, cooling her skin. She felt emboldened, and for the first time in her life, she was a woman in control of her own destiny.

She did not care if her father was worried or angry. She was angry with him. Furious, in fact. She would do whatever was necessary to escape Ethan Cromwell, even if that meant running away. With or without her father’s blessing, she would marry Paul Foster.

Eventually, she grew tired of traipsing through the tall, scratchy grass and decided to sit and wait for Paul. Cucklett Delf was a natural bowl-shaped amphitheater formed by the intersection of a meadow and a semicircular tree-lined ridge. She marched up the western sloping hill and settled in under the stout branches of an ancient English elm where she and Paul would regularly come to kiss and cuddle. She doffed her improvised knapsack and set it on the grass beside her. She sighed. Where was Paul? The sun was setting, and in thirty minutes it would be dark. In her haste to run away, she had forgotten to bring a lantern. Her stomach growled. She had forgotten food as well! Not to worry, Paul would arrive soon and that was all that mattered. Together, they could face any obstacle.

Her thoughts meandered from Paul in the present, to the future they would make together. She subconsciously laid a hand on her belly. How many children would they have? She contemplated baby names. For a daughter, she favored Elizabeth, and also Francine. For a boy, William was her first choice. Maybe George. Both were proud and kingly names. Papa would be so honored to have a namesake! A sudden and surprising pang of guilt washed over her. Since her mother died, not a day had passed without a kiss goodnight from her Papa. This night would be the first of many, and the thought suddenly made her sad. She loved her father, and despite his clumsy attempts to express himself, it was obvious his love for her was unconditional. She knew that in his heart, he believed that arranging her marriage to Cromwell was his duty. It was a father’s way to elevate and safeguard his only child. This was the cool and pragmatic logic of a middle-aged tailor, long since widowed, with no dowry to speak of. The more she thought on the matter, the more she began to understand his point of view. Nonetheless, Kathryn was not in the same place as her father. She was young, and vibrant, and hopelessly romantic. Like a cold metal candlesnuffer lowered onto a glowing flame, marriage to Cromwell would extinguish her spirit. She would wither and die inside. She would miss her Papa. Terribly. But she knew what she must do.

Hugging her knees tightly, she began to cry.

A warm, heavy arm enveloped her upper back and shoulders, and she heard the grass shift as Paul settled in beside her. She looked up at him, and met his gaze. He flashed her an easy, confident smile. With his other hand, he wiped the tears from her cheeks. Her composure returned in his presence, and she wondered how she could manage a life without him.

“Did you miss me so much, Lady Kathryn?” he teased.

“Oh Paul,” she gushed, and then kissed his mouth fiercely.

After their embrace, he nudged her makeshift knapsack with his foot. “What is this?”

“All my worldly possessions.”

He took both her hands in his. “Kathryn, what’s going on?”

“I’m running away.”

“Running away? What are you talking about, Kathryn?” For an instant, Paul looked at her bewildered and confused, before the obvious dawned on him. “It’s Cromwell … isn’t it?”

“Yes. The rumors are true. It’s been arranged; I am to wed Mr. Cromwell. Papa said Mr. Cromwell intends to propose to me in three days, when he returns from London. So, I must leave now.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. But … I was hoping you would come with me.”

“Of course I’m coming with you.”

She blushed, but he could not see this because the sun had dipped below the horizon, and the gloaming had taken them.

“Oh, Paul. I knew you’d say yes.”

Then, epiphany struck him. “Wait a minute. We don’t need to run away. You can stay with me, at the farm. We have plenty of room.”

Her brow furrowed. “No, Paul. Papa and Mr. Cromwell are not stupid. The first place they’ll look for me is at your house. I must altogether leave Eyam.”

“You’re right,” he said, rubbing his chin. “So we leave Eyam tonight?”

She nodded.

She had been thinking about running away for hours, but Paul had just begun to consider the implications. She knew that in the passion of the moment, he was forgetting something, something so important that he might resent her later if she did not mention it to him now. She did not want to do it, but if they were going to be together, then they needed to trust and support each other.

“What about the harvest? You’ve been talking about it for weeks,” she said, tentatively. “Are you sure you can leave?”

His mind raced. The harvest! He had completely forgotten about that. Paul was the eldest son in a family of seven. The mantra of duty and responsibility had been pounded into his head by his father from the time he was six years old. If he ran away with Kathryn, he would feel like a traitor to his family. On the other hand, if he abandoned her, he would feel like a traitor to love. His heart pounded. His feelings for Kathryn were ferocious. All-consuming. He knew the answer before the question was even posed.

“I will die if you marry Cromwell,” he said, his voice cracking, “and I will die if you leave Eyam without me. Father will be angry at my leaving, but my brothers will help him bring in the harvest. My duty is to you now.”

“And my devotion is to you.”

He dropped down on one knee. He plucked a wildflower from the grass and stripped off the leaves. With care, he bent the taut stem into a loop, and then wove the remainder repeatedly around itself, creating a rope-like twist. When he was finished, a violet flower sat atop an impromptu engagement ring.

Taking her by the hand, he said, “Kathryn Vicars, I love you, and I want to be your husband. Will you marry me?”

“Yes. Most positively, definitely yes!”

He slipped the wildflower ring onto her finger. She lifted his hand, motioning him to stand. They kissed in the twilight, held each other tight, and then kissed some more. It was Kathryn who broke away first.

“What do we do next?”

“We leave tonight, and we don’t look back. You wait here. I’m going back to the farm to fetch some clothes and ‘borrow’ one of father’s mares. We’ll take the road to Chesterfield; I know it well enough to travel in the dark. I have kin there, a bachelor uncle on my mother’s side who has no love for my father. Hopefully, he will let us stay a couple of days and not report our elopement to my mother. If we’re lucky, I can work for him in his tavern. If not, I can travel to Sheffield and look for an apprenticeship there. The rector in Sheffield can make our union legal, as well.”

She buried her face in his chest and squeezed him hard.

“Hurry, my love. Don’t make me wait one second extra to start our life together.”

“Not one extra second,” he replied, blowing her a kiss.

“Don’t forget to bring a lantern,” she called after him as he set off. “It’s dark.”

“I will.”

“And some food. I’m famished.”

“Yes, I’ll bring food.”

“Money, Paul. Don’t forget money,” she added, giggling.

“And shoes, and britches, and a saddle for the horse … Not to worry. I’ll pack everything we need. I love you, my bride.”

“I love you … husband.”