The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark (2 page)

“Mrs. Paget asked me to remind you to stop by the kitchen,” Julia told her husband as they sat on the sofa with teacups and saucers. One of Andrew’s usual Monday errands, after conducting chapel at the grammar school, was to call upon seamstress Mrs. Ramsey and her mother, Mrs. Cobbe, for prayer and a condensed version of the sermon that Mrs. Cobbe’s frail health had prevented them from hearing at Saint Jude’s the previous day. As Mrs. Paget usually began her baking for the week on Monday mornings, she often had a treat to send along for the two to enjoy.

“And please don’t let anything happen to whatever she sends with you,” Julia felt compelled to add, for Andrew had a habit of misplacing things whenever he was in deep thought.

He nodded sheepishly. “I’ll have to remember not to leave it in the schoolroom.”

“Pray do, or Jonathan will assume it’s for him.” Their son-in-law’s sweet tooth was notorious, especially for baked items from Mrs. Paget’s kitchen. “But why can’t you just leave it in the trap?”

Lowering the teacup from his lips, he replied, “Because I’m not taking the trap, dear. Don’t you remember—your meeting?”

“Oh, but Mrs. Bartley is hosting it today. The manor house isn’t that far.”

“Neither are any of my calls.”

Sighing, because she was aware that any argument she could present would not pierce his stubborn chivalry, Julia nonetheless made an attempt. “Andrew, how do you think I managed my way around Gresham before we married?”

He simply gave her a maddening grin. “You walked, of course. And a handsome sight you were. I used to go out of my way down Market Lane in the hopes you would be on your way to
Trumbles
or somewhere. Remember the time we both slid and almost collided on the ice?”

It was unfair that he could coax a smile out of her even when she was exasperated with him. “Yes, I remember.”

“You had on those outlandishly huge boots,” he said with a chuckle.

“And your hat flipped right into my hands.” She forced herself out of the pleasant reverie. “Your calls are much farther away than my meeting, Andrew.”

He set his empty cup and saucer on the tea table, then took hers from her hands and did the same. “I’ll not ride when my wife is walking, Julia Phelps. And I must leave soon, so we’re wasting valuable time arguing that could be spent more profitably.”

“More profitably, Vicar?”

His arm cradled her shoulders. “A kiss, dear wife! Two if there’s time.”

As it turned out, there was time for three, but that meant Andrew had to grab his bowler hat and hurry out the door. Just as he was unlatching the garden gate, Dora came rushing outside with a basket upon her arm. “Mrs. Paget says not to let this out of your sight this time,” she said, indicating the bundle wrapped in a white towel tucked inside.

Andrew winced, recalling the reproachful looks the cook had given him for days just last month after it was discovered that an apple pie had grown stale in the boot of his trap. Mrs. Paget, good soul that she was, did not appreciate having the fruits of her labor wasted. “I’ve already been warned,” he replied, and as the delicious aroma wafted up to his nostrils, he added hopefully, “Fig bread?”

“With walnuts, too,” the maid replied with a knowing smile.

“Perchance she’s keeping some aside for us?”

“Oh, you know how Mrs. Paget is when she gets to baking. She’s set aside a loaf for the missus to take to Miss Elizabeth and put two more to the cupboard.”

A breeze scented of apple blossoms from the squire’s orchards met Andrew in the vicarage lane, quivering the new leaves of the aspens to his right like harp strings. Beyond, the village green was sprinkled with yellow cowslips, blue and pink wild forget-me-nots, and ragged robin. He could faintly hear the moving waters of the River Bryce and, farther in the distance, the exquisitely soothing sound of a cowbell.
Oh to be in Gresham now that April’s here!
he thought, taking liberty with Robert Browning’s poem. As much as he looked forward to heaven, he was grateful to God for the bits of heaven on earth he had experienced in his lifetime.

A quarter of an hour later he reached the steps of the mellow brick building in which many of Gresham’s inhabitants had first learned their alphabets and numbers. Faintly he could hear youthful voices trailing off with the final notes of “We Bless the Name of Christ the Lord.” Andrew was reaching for the doorknob when he remembered the basket upon his arm. The heavenly aroma was still noticeable, so there would be no hiding that he carried baked goods with him. Being an adult, Jonathan would understand—albeit reluctantly—that the treat was intended for someone else. But how could Andrew justify tempting thirty-three children when he had not the liberty to share? In one fluid motion, he set the basket down on the stoop behind him and advanced on into the classroom.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he greeted the schoolchildren after Jonathan’s nod to indicate that he was finished leading hymns.

“Good morning, Vicar Phelps,” a chorus of voices returned.

Andrew’s message centered around the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, for he could not stress enough to the children how precious even the most seemingly insignificant life was to their heavenly Father. He labored as diligently on his school messages as he did on his Sunday sermons—he would not justify appearing at the school once weekly just for the sake of a ritual. And he received occasional encouragement that his ministry was bearing fruit, such as the conversions of two of the most irascible students, Jack and Edgar Sanders, now faithful members of the Wesleyan chapel.

Coming to faith seemed to have made them only slightly less irascible, but Andrew had to remind himself that even Saint Peter had had a few rough edges to his personality. Thinking about the Sanders brothers caused him to notice, as he concluded his devotion, that their back row desks were empty. And at that same moment, the door opened slowly, and two boys with sun-bronzed faces shuffled into the room.

“We’re sorry we’re late, Mr. Raleigh,” Edgar, the oldest, mumbled to the floorboards. “A wheel broke off the wagon, and Harold made us fix it.”

“He wouldn’t even get down to help,” Jack threw in.

“Well, take your seats,” Jonathan told them with a glance in Andrew’s direction.

Andrew nodded that he understood and waited until the two empty desks were filled before directing the students to bow their heads for prayer.

Back on the front stoop, Andrew noticed two speckled drays pulling the Sanders wagon away from the stand of elder trees in front of the school yard. Shocks of straw-colored hair peeked from under the driver’s felt cap. Just before another tree blocked Andrew’s view of him, the man turned in his seat and they locked eyes. It was Harold, the oldest son, Andrew realized. With courtesy usually found lacking in most Sanders males, he sent Andrew a cheery wave. Andrew raised his arm to return the greeting, then bent down to pick up the basket—which felt considerably lighter. He gaped down at it for several seconds before his mind would accept that it was indeed empty.

Indignation quickening his pulse, he tightened his grip around the basket handle and considered giving chase. He would certainly do so if he had the trap. But there were certain restraints imposed upon him by his vocation, and one was that vicars did not sprint down village lanes trying to outrun a pair of horses—much less pull young men from wagon seats to throttle them for some offense.

Sighing, he stepped down into the school yard and considered facing Mrs. Paget straightaway to confess how he had not kept the basket in sight at all times. It was usually better to get unpleasant tasks over with rather than dread them all day. And being that there were two more loaves in the cupboard, surely she wouldn’t mind sending another.
Would she?

He scratched his bearded cheek and thought of the lecture she would deliver. In the bounds of the kitchen, it was easy to forget that he was the master of the house and Mrs. Paget the servant, for she had cooked at the vicarage for years before his arrival and had the knack for making him feel like a small boy at times.

And then an idea rescued him from his dilemma.
Bakery
. And Mrs. Paget wouldn’t even have to know. He hushed the little twinge in his conscience by reminding himself that the cook’s intent was that Mrs. Ramsey and her mother receive a loaf of fig bread. And he would carry out that intent to the best of his ability.

The bell over the door tinkled a welcome as Andrew entered
Johnson’s Baked Goods
, a red brick building with cheerful sash windows on Market Lane. Josiah Johnson ceased wiping the counter with a rag and lifted in greeting the one dark eyebrow that slashed across his beefy face. “Good mornin’ to you, Vicar.”

“And to you, Mr. Johnson,” Andrew replied, removing his hat. He set the basket upon the counter. “I would like a loaf of fig bread, please.”

“Haven’t any,” the baker replied with a shake of the head.

“Couldn’t you bake some?”

“If you’ve a mind to pick it up this afternoon.”

“That long?”

“Yeast has to rise, you know, Vicar.” The baker grinned. “To my way of thinking, some nice pear tarts would be just what you’re needing.”

“I can’t wait until this afternoon.” He would see Mrs. Paget at lunch, and without doubt she would ask him if he had made the delivery. Andrew scrutinized the pastries and cakes behind the glass counter, as if he could make a loaf of fig bread materialize if he looked hard enough.

When one didn’t, he frowned. “What is the closest thing you have to fig bread?”

“Blackberry?”

He frowned again. While he had rationalized that one loaf of fig bread could take the place of another with no explanations necessary, he could not in good conscience pass off blackberry bread for fig. But surely it would mollify the cook somewhat if he was able to report to her that he had brought Mrs. Ramsey and Mrs. Cobbe
something
.

“Blackberry will be fine.”

Leaving the bakery, he made his way over to Thatcher Lane and the vine-covered cottage with its gray stones brightened by blue morning glories. Mrs. Ramsey answered his knock with her usual welcoming smile. She was a plain woman with pockmarked cheeks, but according to local historians her late husband, who was considered one of the most handsome men in Gresham, had doted upon her their whole married life.

“The dear woman!” she gushed, scooping out the loaf from the proffered basket. “Always so thoughtful of others. It’ll be just grand with our lunch.”

Guilt swept through Andrew, but since he had not actually
said
who had baked the bread, he told himself that there was no deliberate deception. It was one thing to have to confess to his cook that he had not kept the basket in sight, but he did not care to allow the incident to become a topic of conversation over every garden gate. Not that Mrs. Ramsey was malicious, but gossip in a small village was almost impossible to stem.

“Would you care to have a slice with some tea now, Vicar?” Mrs. Ramsey asked apologetically, as if she had mistaken his silence for disappointment that the treat was to be set aside for later.

He thanked her but refused the offer. Even though he happened to like blackberry bread just as well as fig, he wanted no part of it.

After Julia finished dressing, she took up her reticule, notebook, and a towel-wrapped loaf of fig bread for Elizabeth and went out front where Luke had hitched Rusty to the trap.