The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark (63 page)

Noelle had finished her tea by the time the Phelps returned with apologies for leaving her alone for longer than they had anticipated. “Please,” she said with a shake of her head. “Don’t apologize. You’ve treated me more decently than I imagined you would.”

They sat down across from her, and with kind insistence in her green eyes, Mrs. Phelps said there were several conditions necessary to allow her to stay at the
Larkspur
, at least for a little while. “First, you must write to your parents.”

“Yes, of course,” Noelle agreed.
They’ll throw the letter away, but I’ll write
.

“Are you still staying downstairs?”

“Yes. But my knee is fine.”

“Good. Ask Mr. Jensen to have you moved back upstairs tomorrow.” An understanding little smile touched her lips. “Too much solitude isn’t a good thing. We all need accountability to others.”

Noelle nodded. “I’m learning that.”

The next two conditions were no surprise, yet Noelle’s cheeks still warmed when the vicar’s wife continued, “Even though I presume you already understand this, I have to warn you against going near Mr. Clay’s apartment. And, of course, you’re never to be alone in the same room with him.”

“I won’t,” Noelle whispered.

There was still another condition to come. “While you can trust that word of this won’t reach anyone else’s ears in Gresham, you understand that Mr. Clay will have to tell his wife when she returns. Husbands and wives don’t keep secrets of this magnitude from each other. And you’ll need to ask her forgiveness.”

Noelle’s heartbeat quickened. From the start she had disliked Mrs. Clay, who had only been kind to her. She couldn’t even recall why. Jealousy? Because she was Irish, like Meara Desmond? Now she dreaded terribly the thought of facing her. Giving Mrs. Phelps a panicked look, she pleaded, “Oh please, Mrs. Phelps. Can’t
you
tell her how sorry I am?”

“I’m afraid not, Miss Somerville.”

“We aren’t trying to be cruel,” Vicar Phelps assured her, and the compassion in his hazel eyes bore witness to his words. “But when we hurt someone, it’s not enough to ask God’s forgiveness. True repentance means making amends with the person when at all possible.”

Only for the briefest fraction of a second did Noelle regret making her confession. Had she thought hard enough, she could have invented some believable explanation for the things she had said to Mr. Clay. What was one more lie, after so many?

A little shudder of revulsion snaked down her spine.
God forgive me for even thinking that!
She looked at the vicar and his wife and nodded. “I’ll apologize to Mrs. Clay.”

They told her again that they admired her courage for being willing to change her ways, and that they would pray for her. The rain had stopped when they walked out onto the porch. At the gate the caretaker waited, while on the other side, the vicar’s horse stood hitched to the trap. “Keep it,” Mrs. Phelps said when Noelle started to unwind the shawl. “It’s an old one, but warm.”

“Thank you. It will remind me of how kind you were.”

“Reminders are good,” Vicar Phelps said, smiling.

She had taken up enough of their time and bade them farewell. But just as she was about to turn away, something occurred to her. “The squire has invited me to a luncheon tomorrow. Should I ask Mr. Herrick to deliver my regrets, or tell their driver when he comes for me?” It occurred to her to wonder who the
mystery guest
Mr. Clay had spoken of would be, but her curiosity wasn’t strong enough to compel her to socialize in her current frame of mind.

“We’ll ask Luke to do that on his way back.” To the man in the garden he called, “Will you take care of that, Luke?”

“Yes, Vicar,” the caretaker replied with his faint whistle.

“Thank you,” Noelle told him. As the trap carried Noelle down the vicarage lane, the caretaker made small talk about the sun coming out and a visit he planned to see his sister in Crossgreen next Sunday. Noelle responded politely, but her thoughts were heavy. The vicar and Mrs. Phelps had praised her for her honesty. If only they hadn’t. For she had not been able to share one detail that they would consider important. She had not admitted that Quetin’s solicitor was Mr. Radley, the same person who signed the cheques for her lodging. Truly she had repented of her sinful relationship with Quetin, but as long as she allowed him to support her, she was still a kept woman. How could she begin a new life when she was still attached to his purse strings?

Please help me sort out what to do about that, Father
, she said under her breath, hoping her prayer was being heard.

“And how do you like the
Chicken a la Marengo
, Vicar Treves?” Mrs. Bartley asked Saturday noon in the Manor House garden.

“Most excellent,” Paul replied, smiling. “As is everything else.”

“You don’t find it too lemony, do you?” asked the squire, who had only a bowl of bread soaked in broth.

“Not at all,” Paul reassured him.

The married couple smiled indulgently at him and then at each other. During the next span of silence, Paul wondered again why he had been invited, as he had met the squire and his wife only once since moving to Shropshire. They were so ill-acquainted with one another that he was hard pressed to help keep the conversation going. And he had the strange impression that they were disappointed about something.

He chewed and swallowed another mouthful, then tilted his head thoughtfully. “And I believe I detect a subtle amount of garlic, don’t I?”

Chapter 40

“Josette met the tall man’s dark mocking eyes without flinching,”
Eugenia Rawlins read to Jacob in the Larkspur’s library on Saturday afternoon.

“ ‘I would rather have dinner with a petty criminal in a viper pit than with you in your fine château, Colonel Nevelle!’ she seethed, tossing her head.”

But how did she speak without her head?
Jacob asked himself. The picture that his sleep-deprived mind painted of the scene was so ludicrous that he stifled a smile. Or rather, attempted to stifle one, for the next thing he knew, Eugenia was lowering her page with an annoyed expression.

“You find this amusing, Jacob?” she asked.

“Why, no.” He shifted his weight in his chair. “I just—”

“Because this is the most intense, heart-wrenching scene in the story, and if it’s going to cause people to burst into hysterics—”

“But I didn’t—”

“Only because I’m sitting here next to you, I suspect.”

You dim-witted ox!
Jacob scolded himself. She devoted long hours to her writing, and for him—who couldn’t write a line of fiction if his life depended upon it—to sit there grinning like a gargoyle was completely boorish of him.

“Please forgive me,” he told her, frowning miserably. “I’ve not been sleeping well lately and drifted off for a second. It’s a marvelous story—your best so far.” His words were not flattery because in his opinion it was a marvelous story, in spite of Josette’s head-tossing.

Pacified, Eugenia gave him an indulgent smile. “You poor dear. Why haven’t you been sleeping?”

The “dear” warming his heart, Jacob reached over to cover the hand she had resting on the arm of her chair. He was still struck with awe that she allowed him to hold her hand almost any time he wished. “I’ve just been staying up too late, and it catches up with me.”

“Well, you’ll have to put a stop to that, won’t you?” she said in a half-teasing, half-serious manner. “We can’t have you dropping off to sleep in the middle of my stories.”

“No, we can’t,” he agreed. If only Miss Clark hadn’t decided to discontinue the lessons! Between the excavation and the ever increasing time spent with Eugenia, his late night hours were devoted to poetry—he was now trying to commit to memory
A Love Token
by Adelaide Procter—and studying the novelettes. He did not share Miss Clark’s confidence in his ability to find symbolism on his own, so the speed of his work was impeded by more than a few self-doubts.

If only this wasn’t so much work!
he thought as Eugenia read on. A yawn crept up on him, but practice had made him an expert at yawning with his mouth closed so as not to insult her by making her think he was bored. Were all courtships beset with so many stipulations? He considered the Durwins’ marriage. Mrs. Durwin did not attempt to study the herbs that so fascinated her husband, neither did Mr. Durwin show any interest in needlepoint. Yet they got along famously.

But Eugenia was an artist, he had to remind himself. They were different creatures, without whom the world would be a very dull place with no music or paintings, sculpture or stories. She had added color to his life, like geraniums in the windowsill could brighten the barest cottage. He should be ashamed for complaining, even in the privacy of his own thoughts.

He was attempting to concentrate again on Eugenia’s
Josette of Manosque
when another scene crossed his mind, of Miss Clark staring at him with a curious hurt in her expression and saying, “I see a man having to jump through hoops like a circus pony to gain the favor of a woman who can’t appreciate him for the decent, kind person he is.”

Circus ponies have no choice
, Jacob told himself to take the sting out of the memory. He, on the other hand, had already won Eugenia’s affection and could stop studying so hard any time he wanted to. But why should he, when it made her so happy? Wasn’t making the other person happy the meaning of love?

Sharing a church pew with the Durwins, Miss Rawlins, and Mr. Pitney—all who treated her as graciously as always—Noelle fully expected to hear a sermon on forgiveness. Perhaps Jesus’ parable from Saint Matthew, where a king forgives a large debt of a servant, who in turn will not forgive someone lower than himself a small debt. She was ashamed of her presumption as the sermon progressed, for she should have known that Vicar Phelps would not use his pulpit in a calculating way and aim admonitions at selective members of his congregation.

The theme of the sermon was, in fact,
continuing in the faith even during times of hardship
. As his first example, the vicar cited Joseph’s steadfast loyalty to God when sold by his brothers, falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, and thrown into prison. He moved on to the widow who fed the prophet Elijah, but Noelle’s thoughts returned to Joseph. She knew the story well. Surely while spending those first menial years in slavery, torn away from his home and a father who doted upon him, he was human enough to have dreamed at least once of extracting revenge upon his brothers. Or later, while in prison.
I certainly would have!

Would the story have had a different ending if Joseph had allowed bitterness to take root and fester in his heart? Would Potiphar have promoted him to rule over his house had he been a sullen, hate-filled slave? And surely the chief jailer wouldn’t have turned the responsibility of the entire prison over to a prisoner who could only rant about the injustice of his sentence.

It was ironic that, as a girl, one of her favorite passages of Scripture was when Joseph granted forgiveness to the brothers who had so abused him. She recalled what the vicar had said just two days ago.
The hatred you’re carrying is a live coal in your heart—far more damaging to yourself than to them
.

With a quiet sigh she closed her eyes as the sermon moved on to Mordecai’s deliverance from the evil Haman. She had felt the scorch of that live coal, yet it still burned within her.
Father, is your back still turned? Will you distance yourself from me until I forgive Quetin and the others?
She felt the sting of salt tears.
But Joseph was able to forgive because he always had you with him
. Yes, it was she who had been the first to turn away, she freely admitted. But she was trying to make up for it. She had written her family and refused to allow herself to daydream about Mr. Clay.
How can I even begin to forgive without your help?