The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter (64 page)

He blinked. “This year?”

“If the squire could be persuaded to sponsor it.”

“But we’re already well into the school year. Besides, there is no teacher.”

“A mere matter of catching up, which would not be too difficult with a small class.” She took a deep breath. “And we’ve already a teacher.”

“Who?”

“Miss Clark.”

“But she’s already committed to the grammar school.” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “And without her, we’ve no
permanent
teacher to take her place.”

In for a penny, in for a pound
, Julia thought, urging herself on. “I believe Mr. Raleigh could be persuaded to stay the whole school year, giving the board all that time to advertise for someone to replace him next year.”

He was shaking his head, his lips pressed together in a stubborn line, but she did not allow that to deter her. “In the first place, Andrew, I believe Miss Clark’s health will still be too delicate to control that large of a class, even if she waits until after the tournament.” She took a deep breath before advancing to her second point, the
coup de grace
. “And secondly, if you were Ben Mayhew, would you be willing to wait another whole year to pursue your dreams … just because the vicar doesn’t like a certain young man?”

Her barb found its mark, for he peered back at her with a wounded expression, even raising a hand to his heart. “Julia …”

“I had to say it, Andrew,” she said lovingly, but firmly.

Chapter 37

On the morning of October fifteenth, Andrew was waiting at the reins of the
Larkspur
’s landau as Elizabeth went inside Saint Julien’s for Laurel when a familiar voice assailed his ears. “Hullo there, Vicar Phelps!”

He turned his head. Vicar Nippert had apparently sent his wife inside to fetch his daughter, for he sat alone at the reins of the carriage drawn next to his. “Good morning, Vicar Nippert,” Andrew replied with a polite smile.

“Collecting your daughter, eh?”

“Yes,” he replied, and then to his chagrin, he found himself responding to the obvious question with a rhetorical, “And you?”

“The same indeed! Say …” Vicar Nippert leaned a little closer, his eyes taking on a challenging glint above his toothy smile. “Looks like we’ll be competing against each other next month, eh?”

“It would seem so.”

“Well, you may wish to announce from your pulpit that our school board has commissioned a local metalsmith to fashion up a plaque. For the winning village to display on the wall of its school or town hall, you see?”

Andrew was truly impressed. “Why, that’s a very generous gesture.”

“Oh, not when you consider we’ll more than likely be keeping it, eh?” Vicar Nippert slapped his knee, roaring with convulsive laughter at his own wit. This went on for several seconds, and when he finally chuckled down to a stop, he was panting as if he had run a mile. “Phew! Ever laugh so hard your sides ache?”

“Not lately,” Andrew replied with the dignity befitting his avocation. “And have you ever considered that we might win that tournament?”

Vicar Nippert grinned and held up a silencing hand, the other digging into his ribcage. “Have a heart, eh? My sides!”

Stay calm
, Andrew ordered himself. He reminded the vicar, “Your team isn’t much older than Gresham’s, you know.”

“True, my worthy colleague … but all of Prescott is behind ours. Makes a difference when you have the support of your village, eh?”

Andrew could feel the skin on the back of his neck burning by the time he spotted Elizabeth and Laurel strolling up the walk, absorbed in chatter with arms linked. He quelled the urge to hurry them on with an impatient beckoning of the hand. “Good day to you, Vicar,” he aimed through his teeth toward the general direction of the neighboring carriage before hopping down sooner than necessary to assist his slowly ambling daughters.

“And to you as well, my good vicar!” Vicar Nippert chuckled to his back.

The ring of a hammer in the near distance told Mercy that Mr. Langford and Thomas were either repairing or building something behind their barnyard. She was relieved to hear it, for it meant she could get the meal underway—a Shropshire pie of rabbit and pork with a flaky crust—without having to undergo Mr. Langford’s protests. Henry lent a courteous hand in getting the foodstuffs into the kitchen, and with a “see you next week?” left her to her own devices.

She had taken pity on her own family today, who grumbled every Saturday morning about the tinned meats and Fernie’s propensity to either scorch them in the pot or serve them as gelled lukewarm clumps. On the back of the stove, she put a beef-and-turnip stew that would only have to be warmed. Her father seemed to have reconciled himself to her Saturday routine, for he had grunted “good bacon” over breakfast this morning—the first compliment she could recall ever receiving from his lips.

Her father was not the only person in her family to have acted in an uncharacteristic manner lately, she thought as she cut a lump of lard into some flour to make dough. Jack and Edgar, who still wrestled like fox cubs and were the scourge of the guineas, had returned from school an hour later the past few days actually declaring that Mr. Raleigh “weren’t so bad a feller after all.” Last night over supper they even begged their father to order a bow and some arrows so they could practice for the archery team at home, too, but thankfully her father had refused. “A waste o’ good shillings,” he had declared, while Mercy added silently,
A waste of good guineas would be more likely
.

Mr. Langford and Thomas appeared almost exactly at noon just as Mercy was considering going to look for them. Hearing them at the back door, she was struck by her usual nervousness at the boldness of her actions but covered it by taking up dry cloths to bring the pie to the table. Thomas brightened and hurried over. For just a second it appeared that he would embrace her, until his natural timidity asserted itself and he smiled up at her instead. “You’re here, Miss Sanders?”

Mr. Langford, a few feet behind him, met her eyes and smiled at the boy’s obvious question. She returned his smile—before her
own
natural timidity took over—and stared down again at the young face.

“Aye, that I am, young Thomas. Have you brought me an appetite today?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “We could smell it all the way to the pasture. Mr. Langford said it was likely—”

“Why don’t we sit now?” the man behind him interrupted, pulling out a chair. His tone of voice matched the suddenly gray expression of his face. “We’ve still work to finish.”

The boy’s expression took on the same somber cast, but he climbed into the chair and lowered his eyes. Mr. Langford pulled out a chair for Mercy, sank into one himself, and without looking around to see if anyone else was ready, he bowed his head and mumbled, “Father, we thank Thee for the food we are about to receive. Bless the hands that prepared it. Amen.”

The meal was eaten in silence except for a polite request now and then to pass a bowl or dish. Eyes were seldom raised, and when they did, it was to dart back down at their owner’s plate. The years came rushing back to Mercy. She recalled the times she had pushed her hands against her ears in an effort to shut out the belligerent slurs her father would spew at her mother whenever he was in his cups. She felt as helpless now as she had back then and more than a little guilty. After all, if she had not come here uninvited, there would be no tension permeating the room.

And yet she could not stop herself from wondering.
Why did Thomas call him Mr. Langford?

“Will you excuse us, Miss Sanders?” Mr. Langford asked afterward, pushing out his chair and putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’ll help you tidy up in a few minutes.”

Mercy glanced at Thomas and bit her lip. Softly, she asked, “He’s not to be punished, is he? I shouldn’t have—”

“He’s not going to be punished.”

The tone of his reply did not invite query. The two walked back through the pantry to the outside, leaving Mercy with a knot gnawing in the pit of her stomach. Dully she cleared dishes from the table, storing the rest of the pie in the cupboard for their supper. After what seemed an hour but couldn’t have been because she had just poured the kettle of hot dishwater into the dishpan, a set of heavy footsteps sounded through the pantry again. She turned to meet Mr. Langford’s eyes across the room. Without the softening of a smile, his face had assumed its usual deep-set lines.

“Thomas is tending to his pony,” he said in reply to the question that must have been on her face. He pulled out a chair. “Will you sit for a moment, Miss Sanders?”

Mercy nodded and complied. Mr. Langford sat in the chair next to her, stared at the fingers he held woven together on the table top, and looked at her again. “Thomas isn’t my natural-born son. I adopted him from a London orphanage just before we settled here.”

It was startling news, but relief eased through Mercy that it was nothing more serious than that. The nurturing he lavished upon the boy seemed no less strong than that of a natural father.
Perhaps even stronger
, she thought, considering her own family.

He spoke again before she could summon a response. “I wanted to keep that secret because it would surely lead to questions about his parentage. His father and mother perished in a fire, but they
were
married, Miss Sanders.”

In spite of her nervousness, Mercy took umbrage at the distinct implicating tone of that last bit of information. “Mr. Langford,” she said quietly, raising her chin a bit. “Do you think I would hold against any child the circumstances of his birth?”

“Why, no …” Now it was his turn to look uneasy. “I just wasn’t expecting him to blurt out my name like that.”

“Children forget, Mr. Langford.”

“Yes.” He passed a hand over his face, which now appeared weary. “But it’s been ‘sir’ up until then. I just imagined after all this time …”

When he didn’t finish, Mercy finished for him. “That he would call you ‘father’?”

“I might as well be the postman or the baker.”

“Now, it’s not that way, Mr. Langford.” Mercy did not know where her nervousness had fled, but she was glad to be shorn of it for the moment. “I’ve seen the affection shining in his eyes for you.”

“You have?”

“Surely you have so yourself.”

“Well …” he mused reflexively. “He
is
a winsome little fellow at that, isn’t he?”

“A charmer, to be sure,” Mercy smiled. “Perhaps it’s shyness that makes the word so hard for him. Have you asked him again lately to address you so?”

“Again?”

“You
have
asked him, haven’t you?” A hand raised from the table top briefly in what she could only assume to be a negative reply. Mercy peered up at him through widened eyes. “You expect a boy of such a tender age to take that on himself?”

“I wasn’t quite sure how to ask him” was his sheepish admission. “What if it’s something he’d rather not do? He had a real father once, after all.”

“He has a real one now as well, Mr. Langford,” she replied softly.

As much as Seth prized self-sufficiency, he found it a relief to be able to talk about the thing that had troubled him for weeks. Indeed it was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
How could a Sanders be so wise?
he thought, then winced inwardly at his own arrogance. She had expressed that she would never hold a child’s parentage against him, and all along
he
was guilty of doing so—even conveniently forgetting that his own family circumstances had been far from ideal.
At least her father stayed with his children
.

But as much as his esteem of her was increased, he would not be goaded into marrying her. And he felt no guilt over
that
, to be sure. If she wished to spend her Saturdays chasing rainbows, well, had he not insisted over and over again that she was wasting her time? She was a comely young woman, soft of voice and surely capable. But she deserved love, no matter how much she claimed it unnecessary to her contentment. If she would be patient, surely some young man would love her as much as he had loved Elaine. He had no intention of selfishly robbing her of some future happiness so he could have a cook and maidservant.

But he did intend to help her clean the kitchen, over her protestations. Twenty minutes later, after seeing about Thomas, who was happily brushing his pony’s coat, he walked her home again. “I do want to thank you, Miss Sanders,” he said as they moved along. “I’ll talk to Thomas this evening.”