The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter (45 page)

From the schoolhouse steps, Julia was the first to catch sight of Elizabeth. She lifted a hand to wave, but the young woman did not turn her face to the left. In fact, she walked on the opposite side of Church Lane, as if trying to distance herself as far from the school as possible.

Julia was not tempted to call out to her. For one reason, she would have to screech like a fishwife to be heard over the squeals and shouts of the children at play. And her main reason was that if Elizabeth did not want to look in this direction, then she would respect that. She had no doubt that the reason was sitting near her finishing up the square of shortbread Mrs. Herrick had sent him.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” she heard Mr. Raleigh say softly beside her. She turned to look at him. He was staring off at Elizabeth, his gray-green eyes sorrowful.

“Yes, Mr. Raleigh,” Julia replied, grateful that Miss Hillock had not appeared with her students yet, for only a handful of people in Gresham knew of Elizabeth’s and Mr. Raleigh’s past courtship. “Her character as well as her looks.”

“I only cared about the looks before,” he admitted. Then he turned to Julia. “You know, that’s not entirely true, Mrs. Hollis. As wicked as I was, I always respected the goodness in her. I never tried …” His voice trailed off and he stared out again at Elizabeth, now shielded from sight every few feet by the row of elder trees.

He does love her
, Julia thought. But she agreed with Andrew. Love without commitment and moral standards was shallow and ultimately damaging. That she knew from personal experience.

Chapter 27

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Andrew said to Julia as they sat in the
Larkspur
’s garden Friday afternoon. September breezes eddied pleasantly about them, stirring the fringe upon Julia’s forehead and wafting over the scent of the Worthy sisters’ white jasmine. “I’ve seen so little of you this week.”

“Next week will be a little less hectic,” she smiled. She wore a chartreuse silk gown that made her hair seem as russet as changing leaves, and she could see in his eyes that he liked the effect. “I’ve told Mr. Raleigh that I won’t be back in the classroom.”

“You did? I suppose he was happy about that.”

“Actually, he seemed a little distressed.” The memory of the anxiety on the young man’s face brought a small pang, and again Julia questioned if she should have offered to stay another week.
But he assured the school board that he was capable of the position. And without me looking over his shoulder, perhaps he’ll have more confidence in himself
.

Andrew’s voice nudged her out of her thoughts. “Julia, are you sure you’re ready to trust him with Aleda and Grace? I’m certainly not ready to trust him with Elizabeth.”

“I trust Mr. Raleigh as their
schoolmaster
, Andrew. It’s not the same as with Elizabeth.”

“Yes, I suppose so …” His broad shoulders moved with a sigh. “Life was so much easier before
he
decided to come here.”

“Easier for us, Andrew,” Julia said. “But what about for Elizabeth?”

“Why, she was happily planning a future with Mr. Treves.”

“I don’t know about the ‘happily’ part.”

He looked shocked. “What are you saying, Julia?”

“Something you’ve pointed out to me yourself. It doesn’t seem she’s totally committed to Mr. Treves.”

“Well, that does seem the case,” he conceded heavily after a thoughtful hesitation. “Even more so lately, I’m sorry to say.” But then his jaw tightened. “Surely you’re not suggesting I allow Mr. Raleigh to court her. Because it’ll be a cold day in July—”

Leaning over the tea tray to raise fingers lightly to his lips, Julia said, “I’m suggesting no such thing, Andrew.”

Miffed as he was at Mr. Raleigh, he still managed enough ardor to catch up that same hand and plant a quick kiss upon her fingertips. “Then what
are
you suggesting?”

“That you do nothing at present. Mr. Raleigh isn’t staying here
just
to prove to you and Elizabeth that he has developed some character. I believe he wants to prove it to himself as well.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “And I sincerely hope you won’t be needling him at chapel anymore. It’s quite beneath you.”

Andrew grimaced. “I had hoped you’d forgotten about that. I suppose he has sulked over it all week?”

Julia smiled to herself at the faint hope in his tone. She could appreciate how hard this was on him—how torn he was between protecting his daughter and attempting not to influence her plans for the future too strongly. “He hasn’t sulked at all, Andrew.”

Saturday morning, Andrew borrowed the
Larkspur
’s landau so that he and Elizabeth could make the trip to Shrewsbury to collect Laurel from school. “If you’d like to wait here, I’ll go inside,” Elizabeth told him after he had reined Donny and Pete into a circular drive crowded with other carriages in front of Saint Julien’s Academy.

“That might be best,” Andrew told her, leaving the reins long enough to help his daughter from the landau.
How blessed I am!
he thought as he watched Elizabeth weave her way around waiting carriages to walk into the red brick building. He had seen more cases than he cared to recall during the years of his ministry of children from all social levels who had grown up only to bring sorrow and shame upon their families. While his daughters were often an enigma to him, he was immensely proud of the women they were becoming. The thought of seeing Laurel again after a week’s absence brought sunshine into an overcast September morning.

“Why, good morning there, Vicar Phelps!” From Andrew’s left boomed a voice as familiar and as bothersome as a recurring toothache. Andrew turned his head as Vicar Nippert and his wife and daughter sent threefold grins at him from a carriage facing the opposite direction only two feet away. “Fetching your daughter, eh?”

“Good morning.” Andrew tipped his hat to Mrs. Nippert and the young Miss Nippert. “How are you today?”

“Oh, most excellent as usual, what ho? Ernestine here tells us that it looks as if she’ll be the head of her class again this year. Good thing your daughter’s in a lower form, eh? Wouldn’t want to have hard feelings among friends, would we?”

“Laurel happens to be very bright,” Andrew replied, still smiling but with an edge to his voice. Which was of course lost on Vicar Nip-pert, because he opened wide his mouth and rolled out a thunderous laugh.

“Spoken like a true father, eh? Well, no doubt she’ll do fine, won’t she?” That last question was directed to his wife and daughter, who both bobbed heads in agreement.

Andrew detected an underlying smugness in the looks they sent to each other, and it irritated him. However, he was determined not to allow Vicar Nippert to spoil the day he had looked forward to all week, so he allowed the smile to stay upon his face and sent a meaningful glance to their two horses in harness. “I suppose you have a long drive ahead of you?”

None of the Nippert smiles wavered. “And it isn’t getting any shorter, is it?” replied the vicar. “As pleasant as it is chatting like this, you will excuse us, won’t you? Ernestine here is teaching our chancel choir an arrangement she composed over the summer this afternoon.”

“By all means.” Now Andrew’s smile required less effort. Tipping his hat again to the female Nipperts, he bade them all good day.

“And to you as well, eh?” Vicar Nippert returned as he lifted the reins and his horses began to move. “Why, with our fetching and delivering our daughters here every week, we’ll soon be as tight as Jonathan and David, won’t we?”

“Hello, Papa!”

At the sound of Laurel’s voice, Andrew turned his face quickly to the right. With Elizabeth at her shoulder she stood there, grinning and looking much older than he had remembered her. “So our Pet is coming home for a little while!” he said, jumping down from the landau. He embraced his daughter and thought that this was worth even bearing the company of Vicar Nippert every week.

Cricket was so important an extracurricular activity at the Josiah Smith Academy that it was said the reason enrollment was limited to sixty-six students in each of the four forms was so teams could be divided evenly. And Philip’s latest problem began that Saturday when Mr. Morley, one of the two mathematics lecturers, counted out twenty-two students for the first match of the day. He chose two captains, upperclassmen by the names of Quain and Whitby, and instructed them to divide their teams from the remaining twenty.

It was a gray day that smelled of rain, but the weather didn’t matter to Philip. He loved the game second only to fishing, so much so that he thought he would play in a deluge if the choice were that or not playing at all. The upperclassmen had all been chosen by the captains, and now players were being taken from the underclassmen. Philip straightened and attempted to look as capable as possible.

“They’ll fight over having to take me,” Gabriel Patterson whispered nervously from his side.

There was no use denying it, because that was likely what would happen. But in an attempt to bolster his spirits, Philip said in a low voice, “Just give it all you’ve got, and you’ll show them.”

“I’ve never played.”

Philip looked askew at Gabriel. “Never?”

Staring down at the ground, Gabriel replied shamefacedly, “There was never really anyone to play with.”

They’re going to torment him
, Philip thought, grateful that his own mother had allowed him to experience the everyday things of life. “Do you know the rules?” he whispered.

“Yes.” For a second Gabriel looked hopeful, as if this would indeed save his day, but then he bit his lip. “Most of them.”

“Well, just do the best you can. If we get on the same team, I’ll try to explain them as we go along.”

“You there!”

He became aware then that he had just been chosen for a team. Glancing helplessly back at Gabriel, Philip walked over to join the boys assembled behind Whitby. Soon afterward there were only two boys remaining—Billy Lowry, the smallest boy in the third form, and Gabriel. It was Quain’s turn to choose, but before he could do so, Whitby became indignant.

“You’re not going to leave me with the fat one, are you?”

“I won the toss. I can choose whomever I want,” Quain shot back.

“But you’ve got Clayton!” Whitby said, indicating an upperclassman head and shoulders above his teammates. “You ought to have to take the last one.”

“That’s not in the rules and you know it!”