Drops of Gold (8 page)

“So in fear of his father’s condemnation, the son ran away. He ran from his father’s continued calls and hid in the woods not far from the tree whose leaves dropped into the river every year. The son did not reply when his father called his name. He did not reveal his hiding spot, so entirely convinced was he that his father would want nothing to do with him if he knew what he’d done. On some level, the boy believed his father already knew and despised him for it.”

Mr. Jonquil had grown very quiet and still, but Marion was certain he yet listened. She felt compelled to continue.

“The boy’s sobs eventually led his father to him. ‘I’ve killed him, Papa,’ the boy said through his tears. ‘I’ve killed him.’ But his father didn’t rail against him or punish or berate him. He pulled the boy into his arms and held him, letting the lad’s tears fall. Together they buried the dog. Together they spoke at length of regrets and mistakes and forgiveness.

“‘No matter what you may do, my son,’ the father said, ‘I will love you always.’ And he did. He loved him through all of his mistakes and regrets.”

Mr. Jonquil didn’t reply or look at her. Only the sound of wind and flowing water broke the silence between them. She wondered if she’d gone too far, if she’d said more than she ought. Marion hoped she’d helped, at least given him something to think about.

“Please do not share that particular story with Caroline,” Mr. Jonquil eventually repeated quietly. “I fear she would be quite shaken by it.”

“I have plenty of others, sir.”

“And where, Miss Wood, do you get your stories?” Mr. Jonquil slowly rose to his feet.

“My mother told me that one.”

“And the other also, I seem to remember.”

Marion nodded.

“Did she know any happy stories?” He stepped a little farther away from her.

“The Drops of Gold story was happy, sir.”

He didn’t reply. “Good day, Miss Wood,” he said and slowly walked away.

They’d reached Twelfth Night, Caroline’s favorite holiday of the year, preferred even to Christmas. She’d mentioned last January’s festivities at least a dozen times over the year.

Layton, however, didn’t particularly feel like making merry. As much as he’d tried to dismiss it, Miss Wood’s story haunted him.
I’ve killed him, Papa.
Layton could almost hear the little boy’s voice, feel the pain there. He knew what Miss Wood had been trying to do, to say. She was attempting to convince him through her little tale that the Almighty forgave mistakes. The boy with the slingshot hadn’t intended to do what he’d done.

That was the real difference. Of course the boy’s father had been forgiving and understanding. The boy’s misdeed had been an accident. What Miss Wood didn’t understand, what she’d missed in her story, was that Layton’s guilt stemmed as much from what he’d done as from the fact that he’d committed his crime on purpose. And given the option, would do it again.

God, of course, knew that. What was the point in traipsing off to church on Sundays and kneeling in a pose of humble obedience when both he and the Almighty knew he was nothing of the sort? Or petitioning the heavens with his concerns, perhaps promising to be a dutiful Christian if only he were granted some request or another, when he’d given up any claim to being dutiful four years earlier?

No. God didn’t like hypocrites.

“Oh, Papa!”

Caroline’s cry of sheer glee startled Layton out of his contemplation. He turned away from the window he’d been blindly staring out of. Caroline stood in the doorway of the drawing room, her face framed by perfect golden curls, her tiny hand tightly clasping Miss Wood’s. A smile spread across Layton’s face, and he held out his arms to his daughter. She ran directly to him, hugging him tightly around the neck.

“It’s tonight, Papa! It’s tonight!”

“Yes, my dear. I know.” Layton chuckled, checking himself lest he squeeze her too tightly.

“Should I wait up for Miss Caroline, or would you prefer to put her to bed yourself?” Miss Wood asked from the doorway.

Layton looked away from Caroline toward her governess, who was looking on with a cheerful smile. He’d spent four years in a perpetual state of despondency, but in the two weeks since Miss Wood had arrived, her smile had succeeded in providing moments of uncharacteristic lightness.

“I can take Caroline to her room, Miss Wood. I am certain you will wish to join the celebration below stairs.”

Her smile slipped almost imperceptibly, and she mutely nodded.

“Please can she stay, Papa?” Caroline asked—pleaded. She continued before he had a chance to reply. “Maggie said that Mary, er, Miss Wood, was a fishy chicken, and I don’t think that is very nice and Mar—Miss Wood—won’t want to eat cake with someone who says that.”

“Fishy chicken?” Layton could not make heads or tails of Caroline’s words. He noticed, however, that Miss Wood’s smile had returned.

“‘Neither fish nor fowl,’ sir. Maggie, the chambermaid, commented on the fact that I do not particularly belong anywhere.” A hint of embarrassment pinked her cheeks. “I am a servant, but I am afraid my welcome below stairs has been lukewarm at best.”

“Have they treated you poorly?” Why the thought disconcerted him, Layton couldn’t immediately say.

“No, sir.” But she had hesitated. “A new person in the household.” She shrugged. “I suppose I haven’t found my place yet.”

“Can’t she stay here with us, Papa?” Caroline looked up at him this time, her bright blue eyes tugging at his heart.

“Servants do not take their meals with the family, Miss Caroline,” Miss Wood told her gently, her blush deepening. Obviously, the statement had cost her some of her pride. Governesses generally came from the gentry, families who would have had servants of their own but had endured financial setbacks requiring even their female members to seek employment.

Caroline wiggled out of Layton’s arms and crossed the room to where Miss Wood hovered one step inside the doorway. Caroline looked up at her governess, arms akimbo. When she spoke, she sounded decidedly petulant. “But you
aren’t
my servant.”

Miss Wood knelt in front of the frustrated four-year-old. “But I am your
father’s
servant, dearest.” Miss Wood ran her hand lightly along Caroline’s curls.

“You’re my
friend
.” Caroline’s voice broke on the last word, and she sniffed.

Layton instinctively moved to pull the child into his arms, but Miss Wood was there before him, holding and rocking Caroline. “A fishy bird, indeed,” she said quietly, as if to herself.

He suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of Miss Wood spending Twelfth Night alone in the nursery, unwelcome both above and below stairs.

“Caroline certainly has the right to invite her friends to celebrate with her,” he said.

Miss Wood looked up at him, her smile turned to one of gratitude tinged with resignation. “Oh, sir, can you not see that would only make it worse?”

He furrowed his brow. Worse?

“I will never be accepted below stairs if the other servants are made to wait upon me.” She gave Caroline another squeeze before rising. “My sitting to dinner with the family, even once, would only widen the gulf I am attempting to span, sir.”

Layton could not argue with the wisdom of her observation. Then Caroline turned her teary-eyed face up toward him. He wished he could do something. Caroline had no friends, and she considered this redheaded, fiery-eyed governess to be one. How could he allow her to be disillusioned?

“Perhaps, Miss Wood,” Layton said, extemporizing a proposition, “you would not object if Caroline and I were to bring our cake up to the nursery wing. If she is chosen queen for the night, she would certainly appreciate reigning over the part of the house where she spends her days.”

“Oh, please, Mary! Please!” Caroline clasped Miss Wood’s skirts in her tiny fingers.

Miss Wood smiled once more. “I think it an excellent suggestion.”

An hour later, Layton and Caroline joined Miss Wood in the nursery wing. His knees didn’t begin to fit under the miniature table in the schoolroom, and Miss Wood seemed to find his attempts to force his legs into cooperation particularly funny. She barely bit back repeated peals of laughter.

“You couldn’t possibly have chosen the taller table, I suppose,” Layton grumbled but without any real irritation as he shifted in his undersized chair.

He and Caroline had entered the schoolroom to find that Miss Wood had anticipated them. She’d spread a slightly yellowed tablecloth on the child-sized table and created a makeshift table decoration of pine boughs and slightly damp holly berries.

“Snow,” she’d explained with a shrug.

Apparently, the indomitable Miss Wood had spent her dinner hour decorating. Her cheeks were still pink from the cold or perhaps embarrassment. Layton couldn’t shake the feeling that she was uncomfortable. With him? And why was that frustrating?

“Miss Caroline, would you please help me with the cake?” Miss Wood spoke as if addressing another grown woman.

Caroline smiled quite proudly and nodded. Miss Wood sliced the small Twelfth Night cake into three pieces and laid each one on a nursery-sized plate.

“Give the first to your father, dearest.”

Caroline walked carefully, slowly, around the table and laid the tiny plate in front of Layton. “Did I do good, Papa?” she whispered.

“’Twas perfect, love,” Layton answered in a matching whisper and kissed her on the forehead. She giggled and returned to the cake, pulling one plate in front of her own chair before sitting down, the picture of feminine demureness. Miss Wood had, apparently, been instructing Caroline in her mealtime manners.

“Can we look for the coin now?” Caroline asked Miss Wood, her eagerness belying her patient demeanor.

“That would be up to your father, Miss Caroline,” Miss Wood answered gently.

Miss Wood turned to look at Layton, expectation brightening her eyes. Something akin to mischief showed in the pair of chocolate-brown eyes. Brown. Why had he never noticed that before? It was an unusual combination: red hair and brown eyes. Yet it fit her somehow, surprisingly and unexpectedly.

“I think we’d better begin our search, Caroline. I’m anxious enough I just might eat the coin and not realize it.”

“Oh, Papa!” Caroline giggled. “You are funny tonight!”

“Someone must have put funny pepper in the soup,” Miss Wood said, smiling at Caroline.

“Funny pepper?” Layton and Caroline said in unison.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of funny pepper.” Miss Wood looked like she knew they hadn’t and found it amusing.

“I have a feeling we are about to hear another story.” Layton smiled in spite of himself.

“Not if you are in danger of breaking a tooth on the coin hidden in your slice of cake,” Miss Wood answered.

“And how do you know the coin is in
my
slice?”

She shrugged. “I suppose I don’t, really. You just seemed so convinced you were about to swallow a small fortune in hidden change.”

“I want to hear about the funny pepper.” Caroline jumped into the conversation.

“Don’t you think we should eat our cake first?” Miss Wood asked.

Caroline appeared to think it over for a minute, obviously torn between the two choices. Finally, she nodded. Miss Wood opened her eyes wide as if overwhelmed by excitement. She held her fork ready and watched Caroline like she would a rival in a race, but with a laugh in her eyes. Caroline held her fork precisely the same way and looked at Miss Wood with the same mock rivalry.

Miss Wood nodded almost imperceptibly. In perfect synchrony, the two females tore into their cakes with their forks.

“I am going to find it, Caroline! I am going to find it!” Miss Wood called out as she dug with remarkable enthusiasm.

Caroline laughed so hard she could hardly search for the coin. Tears trickled from her crinkled eyes, and she gulped for breath. Miss Wood had reduced her slice of cake to a pathetic pile of crumbs and had begun picking apart Caroline’s. Squeals and giggles echoed off the walls of the nursery, a sound Layton had never heard, not once in the four and a half years since Caroline’s birth.

“It’s—It’s not—there,” Caroline gasped out between giggles.

“Where could it have gone?” Miss Wood asked as though she were completely baffled.

“Papa has it, Mary!”

“He’s hiding it from us, is he?”

Then they both turned to look at him, eyes running over with laughter. Layton felt his smile widen. He’d been certain when Miss Wood had arrived that she would be trouble. But watching Caroline, listening to her easy laughter, Layton was never more grateful for another person. Caroline had saved him four years earlier. And now Miss Wood was saving Caroline.

“That means he’s king,” Caroline said.

“Not if we get the coin before he does.” Marion laughed, an idea popping into her head.

Amusement flashed in Caroline’s eyes, and Marion was instantly glad she’d encouraged the girl in a little devilment. She needed to laugh and smile more. She needed to play more. If only Mr. Jonquil could shed a little of his composure so his daughter would feel lighthearted and playful with him.

Marion slipped an arm around Caroline’s middle and whispered in her ear. “Tickle take, Caroline. I think it is just the thing.”

Caroline giggled. “Like the daughter in your stories,” she whispered with childlike glee.

“Precisely.”

“What are you two plotting?” Mr. Jonquil asked warily. One look at his face, and Marion knew he was playing along. Marion’s heart soared. She would make a family of these two if it was the last thing she did.

Caroline clasped her hand over her mouth and giggled. Marion wiggled her fingers at Caroline. In the next moment, Caroline launched herself at Mr. Jonquil, her tiny fingers wriggling against his waistcoat, attempting to tickle him. He laughed heartily, though Marion was certain Caroline’s little fingers weren’t nearly strong enough to have any affect through several layers of clothing. Caroline’s giggles grew to full-lunged laughs.

Mr. Jonquil held his cake plate aloft and grabbed for Caroline, who managed to skirt away, all the while continuing her attempts to tickle him into submission. Marion swooped in and took the plate from her employer’s hand. The game
would
last if she had anything to say about it! They needed this.
She
needed this.