The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark (69 page)

She had decided it would be best to go ahead and move to the attic room at the
Larkspur
before starting her library position, even though the new lodger, a Mrs. Grant from Derbyshire, wouldn’t be arriving for another three weeks. Now that she had gotten used to the idea, Noelle decided it was rather novel and even exciting. With her own hands and skills she was providing a living for herself. She likened herself to a nestling falling from a branch but suddenly discovering its wings. And while she found that analogy romantic, she was aware that it was flawed, for she couldn’t have gotten anywhere without God’s grace and the help of the Phelps and the Bartleys.

The only fly in her ointment was that her family had yet to write. Surely they had received her letter, sent almost three weeks ago. While she had decided to stay in Gresham regardless, being assured of their forgiveness would help heal some of the scars that remained from her wicked past.

At half-past five that Tuesday afternoon she was at her desk printing
Property of the Bartley Subscription Library
on the inside cover of each of a dozen books that had arrived by post earlier, when she heard footsteps on the stoop. She finished printing
Library
and then looked up at the person opening the door. “I’m sorry but the library is clo—”

It was Vicar Treves, his tall frame stooping to enter the room. He approached her desk with hat in hand and an odd expression on his clean-shaven face. “Good afternoon, Miss Somerville.”

Noelle flushed at the
Miss
. So he had heard. “How did you know?” she asked, replacing the stopper in the ink bottle.

“Surely you’ve lived long enough in a small town to know the answer to that one.”

She nodded somberly and sat back in her chair. It was good that he knew. She owed him the same apology she had given the lodgers. As for the talkative mother and daughter planning the wedding on the train, she did not feel quite as responsible because she couldn’t remember their names and, therefore, could not write to them. She hoped God didn’t mind.

“I hope you can forgive me, Vicar Treves. I’m very ashamed.”

“I can forgive you for that,” he replied, his blue eyes staring down into hers. “But there is something else I’m having difficulty forgiving you for. So I thought we should talk about it.”

Again heat came to her cheeks. How had he found out, when the Phelps and Clays were the only ones who knew about the rest of her past? She couldn’t imagine any of them breaking their promise not to divulge it. “There is?”

He nodded and held his bowler hat over an empty space on the desk. “May I?”

“Please.” When he had put his hat down, she said, “You might as well get a chair from the other room.” It would have been more practical for the two of them to go back there and sit, but propriety seemed best served by staying in the front, where she had not yet drawn the curtains.

Bringing a chair to the front of her desk, he sat down and looked at her for a second or two with an expression Noelle could not comprehend. She waited with growing dread for accusations like
harlot
and
doxy
.

But instead he told her, quietly, “You have every right to turn down an invitation for a social outing with me, Miss Somerville. But it is unfair to make a blanket assumption that because your own father neglected your family for his parishioners, all ministers are guilty of the same. If your father had been a neglectful blacksmith, would you assume all blacksmiths were the same?”

Relief came over Noelle, but it was short-lived. He would not be here unless he still cared for her. And she had no choice but to put an end to that, for his sake. “I didn’t say all ministers do the same,” she protested. “In fact, I distinctly recall mentioning that Vicar Phelps and you were different.”

“Actions speak louder than words, Miss Somerville. I was willing to forget about attempting to see you again, but my heart would not cooperate. And so I’m here to say that if you find my personality disagreeable, I shall have to accept that and trouble you no more. But if the only reason you shun my company is because I’m a vicar…you need to know that when I have a family, I’m resolved to make them my primary ministry.”

“My father would consider that blasphemy, Vicar Treves.”

“Then that’s his loss, Miss Somerville, and his family’s. God ordained the family first. And He did not excuse ministers from training up their children in the way they should go. That involves spending time with them.”

“Did Vicar Phelps teach you that too?”

He smiled. “One of the many things he has taught me without even having to speak about it. I can see by his example that if all is right at home, it will be right in the church as well.”

She could not help but believe that he was sincere. If only her father had had such a mentor when he was young! Surely things would have been different. But there was no use in prolonging this conversation. “I’m very glad you feel that way, Vicar Treves.”
And I envy the woman you’ll eventually share your life with
, came into her thoughts. “But I cannot see you socially.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and the hurt was obvious in his blue eyes. “I’m not so bold as I pretend to be, Miss Somerville. It took days for me to work up the courage to approach you again. If there is something offensive about my character, you would be doing me a great service by pointing it out.”

“Your character is above reproach,” she told him, truthfully. “It’s mine that is lacking.”

“Because of the fabrication about your husband? While it was certainly wrong, you did eventually tell the truth and ask forgiveness. I’ve told lies in the past as well.”

Noelle shook her head. Telling him seemed the only way to put an end to his persistence. If only she didn’t have to! If only she could boast of an untainted past! Yes, God had forgiven her, but if He had forgiven her for murder, her victim would be just as dead. Some things were simply not repairable.

“I cannot allow you to call, Vicar Treves, because lying was not my only sin.” It seemed she could hear her own strained voice coming from somewhere outside of her.

“What do you mean?” he asked, studying her face.

But shame would not allow her to go any further. “Please ask Vicar Phelps for the rest. Say that I insist he tell you.”

“Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because I would rather drink hemlock.”

“You shouldn’t try to move it by yourself,” Lydia told her father on Wednesday as she followed him from the parlor.

“Not a job for a woman,” he said without turning.

It’s not a job for an old man either
, she thought. If only her mother wasn’t visiting Mrs. Alcorn this morning! “Well, then wait until Noah comes over. It takes me almost no time to pack. And I still have three more days, so there is no hurry.”

But he shook his gray head and started up the stairs. “I’ll have it down before you can say
Bob’s yer uncle
.”

“How about before I can say
sprained back
?”

Her father simply wagged a finger over his shoulder and continued climbing. Lydia was about to follow when someone knocked at the door.
Please let it be a male, Lord
, she prayed on her way through the front parlor. She was so overjoyed to see Harold Sanders that she could have kissed him—almost.

“Miss Cl—” was all he got out, for Lydia grabbed him by the hand and pulled him through the doorway.

“I need you to help my father bring a trunk down from the attic before he kills himself,” she said, propelling him through the parlor. She took his hat from his hand and tossed it to the sofa.

“Uh—all right.” At the bottom of the staircase he turned to give her a bewildered look. “Is he up—”

She waved him upward. “Yes, yes, he’s up there now.” While Mr. Sanders obeyed, Lydia followed until the first landing. Presently the two men came grunting down the stairs with the trunk. She held her bedroom door open for them, grateful that Mr. Sanders had taken the most difficult position, walking backward in front. When the trunk was set down on her rug with a thud, she and her father turned to their caller.

“Thank you,” they both said almost at once, and her father shook his hand. It occurred to Lydia only then to wonder why he was here, but it would be rude to ask, and she was more disposed to treat him cordially after the favor he had performed. “Would you care for some lemonade?” she asked instead.

“Uh, no, thank you,” he answered, staring down at the carpet. “I were wonderin’ if I could speak with—uh, well, with Miss Clark.”

“Certainly,” Lydia told him. “But I’m sure you won’t mind my father along. He’s very discreet.”

Mr. Sanders blinked at her. “Beg your pardon?”

“Discreet. It means—”

“I think I’ll take a nap,” Lydia’s father said, his eyes shining as he covered a yawn with his hand. “I’m old, you know. Why don’t you and Mr. Sanders have your chat in the parlor?”

Lydia almost wished she had allowed her papa to struggle with the trunk himself. But she smiled at their visitor and walked with him out into the corridor toward the staircase. “Very well. But I’m afraid I won’t be able to visit for long. I have to pack.”

“Where are you going?” he asked as he followed her down the stairs.

“To Glasgow. For the rest of the summer.”

“Oh.” He said no more until they were seated in the front parlor—Mr. Sanders on the sofa next to his hat, and Lydia in a chair. And even then he stared at her shoes as if working up the courage to speak.

“And what did you wish to discuss?” Lydia finally asked him.

“I came to ask you to be truthful with me about something, Miss Clark.”

“Very well,” Lydia replied, willing herself not to smile at his overly solemn expression.

He hesitated, and then, “Are you any closer to agreeing to our courtin’ than you was before?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sanders.”

“Do you think you might change your mind one day?”

“Not in a hundred years,” she said with as gentle frankness as possible.

“I see.” Inexplicably, relief flooded his expression. “Well, I s’pose Seth is right.”

“Who?”

“Seth Langford. My brother-in-law. He says it’s time to give up trying.”

“Mr. Langford is an astute man.”

“He’s a what?”

“He’s bright.”

“This one just arrived,” Noelle told Mrs. Sway on Friday morning as they both looked over the copy of George Eliot’s
Middlemarch
. “So you would be the first in Gresham to read it.”

The greengrocer’s wife dimpled happily. “I would?”

“Unless someone has purchased one from Shrewsbury. But still, you would have read the first
library
copy.”

When the woman was gone with the novel cradled in her arms, Noelle sat back down at her desk and picked up the scissors she had borrowed from Mrs. Beemish. Yesterday she had
tsked
at a book returned with two dog-eared pages and wondered if the squire would provide a lettered placard requesting that patrons use bookmarkers. But then an idea occurred to her—wouldn’t supplying the markers be more effective? One inserted in each book, showing only fractionally above the pages so as not to make them look untidy in their rows on the shelves. The notion had so excited her that she hurried to
Trumbles
on her way back to the
Larkspur
for lunch and bought a package of colored paper with her own money.