The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark (24 page)

“…and when he asks my advice,” his sister went on.

This took him by surprise. Big strong Seth Langford asking advice of a woman? “About what?”

“About anything. It makes me feel he thinks that I’m intelligent.”

“What?”

“Bright.”

“Women like to feel bright?”

“Why, yes,” she replied, giving him a curious look. “Don’t you?”

No one had ever accused Harold of being bright, so he wasn’t quite sure. From downstairs the cabinet clock, a gift from the squire’s wife to Seth and Mercy on their first anniversary, sent up two chimes. He jumped from the bed. “Got to go, or Papa will skin me alive.”

Later that afternoon when the two youngest boys had returned from school, Harold took Edgar aside by the well and said, “I want you to write me a note.”

Immediately the fourteen-year-old balked. “I got the strap last time I did that.”

“This ain’t to Mr. Pool.” It was just like Edgar to bring that up again, even after so many months. That plan would have worked, if only the innkeeper hadn’t known that Papa couldn’t read or write. Fortunately, Edgar had not dragged Harold down with him but owned up to asking for the bottle of gin on credit himself.

“Why don’t you get Jack to do it?” Edgar asked.

“ ’Cause you write better.”

“How do you know if you can’t read?”

Weary of his brother’s uppityness, Harold seized him by the shoulder. “I hear talk. Now, are you gonter do it, or do I have to…”

“All right, then,” Edgar cut in, frowning and pulling away. “What do you want me to write?”

He hadn’t considered that. “Put down…‘Miss Clark, I’m fond of you, you have a pretty voice.’ ”

The boy’s eyes widened. “You like Miss Clark?”

Harold gave him a warning scowl. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Edgar said hastily. “I’ll write it after supper. Do you want me to sign your name?”

Harold nodded and went on to finish up his chores. Now all he had to do was get some nice flowers, but with a village full of gardens that wouldn’t be too difficult.

The next morning Lydia left her parents’ cottage with Mr. Pitney’s handkerchief in her satchel, having received it back from Mrs. Moore with the rest of the laundry yesterday afternoon. She expected that she would see the archeologists, for she had passed both every morning since Sunday. Each time Mr. Pitney had given her a smile that, though retaining the same timidity as before, was altered somewhat by a slight lift of the brows. It was as if he wondered if she was completely recovered from Sunday’s humiliation at the crossroads, yet dared not embarrass her by asking in front of Mr. Ellis.

And every morning Lydia had returned the smile with a little nod, which was her own unspoken message,
Yes, I’m fine…thanks to your chivalry and kindness
. She hoped that he would not mind her handing over the handkerchief in this manner as he was leaving for his work. It seemed too ceremonious for her to deliver it to him at the
Larkspur
, but too ungrateful simply to ask one of the inn’s servants to give it to him.

Hearing the familiar crunches of gravel, Lydia paused at the end of the carriage drive. She was surprised when a lone figure came around the wing from the courtyard. She returned Mr. Pitney’s smile and reached into her satchel.

“Good morning, Miss Clark,” he said when she raised her head again.

Lydia returned the greeting, followed by, “I hope Mr. Ellis isn’t ill.”

“Quite the contrary, thank you.” Mr. Pitney stopped a respectable two feet in front of her, his leather sack hanging from one broad shoulder. “He’ll be joining me later. An old chum from his university days is passing through Shrewsbury later this morning, and they arranged to meet between trains.”

As he spoke, Lydia noticed Mr. Herrick leading one of the horses from the stables. The caretaker raised a hand to Lydia, and she waved back with the same hand that held the handkerchief.

“It’s clean now,” she told Mr. Pitney as she handed it over, thinking how ludicrous that sounded. Would he have expected her to return it in any other condition? “I do appreciate your lending it to me.”

“You’re welcome.” After tucking the cloth into his coat pocket, he looked at her as if he wanted to say more. Indeed, his dark eyebrows lifted slightly.

“I’m fine,” Lydia volunteered impulsively.

“Yes? I wanted to ask, but…”

“I know.”

Relief washed over his darkly handsome face. “It’s as my mother said to my sister, Gloria, when she went through the same unfortunate situation—
time heals all wounds
. And now Gloria is married to a very decent—”

It was at his point that Lydia stopped smiling blankly and gasped, “You thought that Mr. Towly was breaking courtship with me?”

“Well, uh, wasn’t that…?”

She recalled being uncertain of exactly how long Mr. Pitney had stood on the other side of Market Lane on Sunday past. Truly, someone hearing Mr. Towly’s parting remarks could have drawn an incorrect conclusion. She shook her head with the same fervor she’d use if someone had asked if she were an anarchist. “I was informing the man that I would not be courted by
him
, Mr. Pitney.”

Color flooding his cheeks, he sent a quick glance full of longing toward the Anwyl’s crest. “Please forgive me, Miss Clark. I fear I jumped to the wrong—”

“Indeed you did, Mr. Pitney.” And the very notion that all week he had assumed that she was pining away for Mr. Towly’s removed affections suddenly struck her as funny. So much so that she let out a little chuckle.

Mr. Pitney’s eyes widened. “Miss Clark?”

“Oh, Mr. Pitney!” She covered her mouth with her hand as waves of mirth shook her shoulders. When she could speak again, she said, “Forgive me, but that’s rich!”

“It is?” Tentatively he smiled. “I confess he didn’t seem well-suited to you, Miss Clark.”

“But he considered himself well-suited to my dowry.”

“Indeed?” The archeologist directed a frown toward the crossroads, as if he could still see the dairy farmer in his wagon. “Well, you were well-rid of him then, weren’t you?”

“Like the whale was well-rid of Jonah, Mr. Pitney.”

Now it was he who chuckled, and so heartily that Lydia found herself caught up in another spate of laughter. When their mirth was spent, they stood there smiling until Lydia remembered that she had duties to attend, as did he. She moved her satchel to her left hand and held out her right. “I do appreciate your concern, Mr. Pitney.”

Still smiling, he took her hand. “And I appreciate your not being angry with me.”

“Not at all, Mr. Pitney.”

They bade each other good-day, and as she walked to school, her mind summoned up the whole exchange twice—as one would call for an encore to a particularly enjoyable performance.
I wonder why such a nice man hasn’t married yet?
But as her steps were turning onto Bartley Lane, she made herself turn her mind to the day ahead of her.

Should try to finish reading Lorna Doone so we can start something else Monday
, Lydia thought as she switched her satchel to her left hand and opened the schoolhouse door.
Something short so we’ll have time to finish
. It was hard to believe that April had only four more days remaining. Summer would be upon them before they knew it.

With the door open, she set the satchel down just inside and started drawing drapes and opening windows, her first duty of the day because one must have air and light before anything else could be accomplished. One of the windows on the north side was proving a bit stubborn, so she had to put her shoulder into it before it raised with a spine-chilling squeak.
I’ll have to ask Mr. Sykes to have someone fix it
, she told herself. Had the day been rainy, she might not have been able to raise it at all.

The Luck of the Roaring Camp
suddenly popped into her mind. She was positive Mrs. Dearing would lend it to her again. The collection of short stories by a San Franciscan news editor, Bret Harte, would not only acquaint the children with a time and way of life different from their own, but she could definitely finish it by the end of May.

Perfect
, she thought, smiling as she raised the second north-facing window. It never ceased to amaze her how God had created the mind to continue working when a question had been posed to it, even when the person has gone on to think about other things. A fitting scripture came to her mind:
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made
.

When she had made the full circle of the room raising windows, she collected her satchel from the door. That was when she noticed the bouquet of daisies in a canning jar upon her desk.
Mr. Pitney
was her immediate thought, irrational that it was. She quashed it immediately, for fantasies were for schoolgirls. “Please Lord, not Mr. Towly,” she prayed on her way across the room. She set her satchel on the edge of the desk and picked up the folded sheet of paper propped against the jar.

Dear Miss Clark,

I am mean as a snake and stupid as a box of rocks.

Will you marry me?

With fondest regards,
Harold Sanders

“Obviously he didn’t write this himself,” her father said that evening at the supper table, trying to compose himself after a good chuckle. He squinted at the neatly printed note. “I don’t think any of those Sanders can read except for the two in school.”

“And the daughter,” Lydia’s mother reminded. “She married that horse farmer, Mr. Langford.”

“I would assume one of his younger brothers played a trick upon him,” Lydia ventured. She did not tell them that it had stung a little, for it was a variation of a game that had been played occasionally in the school yard back when she was head and shoulders taller than all of the boys her age. When a boy wanted to tease another into trading fisticuffs, all he had to say was, “You’re going to marry Lydia Clark.” The Sanders boys had reputations as pranksters. She did not appreciate being the ammunition one used to play a prank on another.

But by the time Mrs. Tanner had served a dessert of chestnut pudding, Lydia had consoled herself with the thought that it was far preferable to be ammunition for a prank than the object of Harold Sander’s affection.

Chapter 16

“Mr. Trumble tells me you’ve assisted him with donating his marble collection to the British Museum,” Mr. Durwin said to Jacob and Mr. Ellis Friday night over a supper of stuffed breast of wood pigeon with marsala sauce. “I must say he’s excited about it.”

First dabbing his mouth with his napkin, Mr. Ellis replied, “We shipped them off with our last batch of artifacts—except for a handful that have sentimental meaning to him.”

“Have you found any more uphill?” asked Mr. Clay.

“Dozens, actually. It was a popular game among the Roman children.”

“And to think…I thought marbles were a new invention when my brother brought some home as a boy,” Mrs. Dearing declared, shaking her head with wonder.

Mr. Ellis chuckled. “They would have been had you lived in Egypt three thousand years before Christ, Mrs. Dearing.”

“Three
thousand
years?”