A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong: A Blackshear Family novella (B 0.5) (27 page)

“Just three days out of the five, to start. My youngest girl as well. Everett’s boys will help me out some, and my boys help him, and we’ll scrape by with the rest of it.”

“Do you mean the Everett children will go to school, too?” She wrestled her voice back down to a range that wouldn’t frighten the sheep.

“Three days out of five, aye. Maybe more in the winter.”

“I’m so glad to hear it. You do your children a great service by schooling them.”

“Well, they’ve got some cleverness.” He shrugged and turned his hat over again. “Pair that with education and a boy might choose his own course.”

She recognized one of the many lines of persuasion Mr. Atkins had rehearsed with her, and couldn’t suppress a smile. She’d done some good at Seton Park, even in her short stay. She’d been useful. When discontent threatened to overtake her, she would remember the new cottage roofs, and her part in realizing the curate’s long-cherished scheme for a tenant school.

She’d like to remember her improvements to his scheme, as well. “What of your Laura, and Adelaide? They’ll be attending the class on Sundays, I hope?”

“I cannot say they will.” He set his head on an angle and rubbed the heel of his hand along his jaw. “We’ll need them at home all the more with their brothers going to school.”

“Of course.” She’d heard this same discouraging response more than once. “Still, it’s only an hour of instruction, once a week. Perhaps in time you’ll find you can spare them after all.”

“Perhaps. Just now I’ve got Laura learning more of this work.” Mr. Farris nodded toward the dog. “She takes to it, you know. Ordering creatures about.”

“Well, a gift for command is certainly to be admired.” Cultivated, as well. A girl of such talent deserved education, more education than the reading and ciphering with which feminine schooling began and ended. She would speak to Mr. Atkins tomorrow. A stronger case must be made to these parents, and with her time here cut short, he must be the one to make it.

* * *

Two weeks ago, and for every Sunday of her married life, she’d sat beside Mr. Russell in the first pew on the right-hand side of St. Stephen’s church. This morning she sat three back on the left of the aisle, a gesture intelligible only to herself. That front pew was for the proprietors of Seton Park. She would sit there no more.

One saw things differently from the third row. One could see the spot where sunlight through the east wall’s lancet window struck the tile floor, for example. One could make a study of the backs of people’s heads. She shouldn’t have known, in the first row, which of her neighbors washed behind their ears and which did not.

From the first row, too, she should likely never have seen the stranger. She might have heard him, hastening up the aisle to an empty spot even as the rest of the church fell silent at the entrance of the curate through the vestry door. But she should certainly never have turned to glimpse the tall, finely clothed figure that slipped into the pew across from hers.

Neither did she turn now. People who came late to church deserved no notice, which fact one might wish could be impressed on those neighbors who were throwing furtive glances his way. Her peripheral view of him, as he seized a prayer book and thumbed vigorously through its pages, was more than sufficient, and she dismissed him altogether when the service began.

Mr. Atkins preached earnest, unaffected sermons, perhaps a bit longer than one might privately prefer, but usually with a worthy point to make at the end. He’d chosen for his text today the story of Mary and Martha, those sisters who differed on the proper way of receiving the Savior’s visit to their home—rather a confounding verse, endorsing, as it seemed to, the dereliction of duty. But she could bow her head and await the worthy point, and the end.

A child’s muffled giggle imposed itself on her attention some few minutes in. The little boy in the pew ahead of hers was craning to look at something over his shoulder. She followed his gaze and met with the figure of the stranger, sound asleep and listing a few degrees to the left.

Had he no notion of setting an example? She sent a quick look of reprimand to the little boy, who turned hastily forward, and then she marshaled her disapproval on the slumbering form across the aisle.

He dozed on untroubled, his head lolling at such an angle as to present her with a view of his hair, which grew in waves and had the pale raw hue of fresh-split boxwood. What features went with it, she could not tell. The turn of his neck left them to her imagination, not that she had any intention of imagining.

His posture spoke all over of indolence. Long legs he had, bent grasshopper-like to cram between his own pew and the one in front. His hands sat slack on the hymnal in his lap, still open to whatever place he’d been at when last he was awake. Doubtless he was one of those men who came to church primarily for the chance to subject everyone to his singing voice.

He subjected her now to something else: a snore, low and subtle like the buzzing of some wayward insect, but still, unmistakably, a snore. Then another, just in the pattern of the first.

Well, really. Why even bother coming to church? She faced front again. Mr. and Mrs. James Russell could have the pleasure of dealing with him. Worthier things must claim her own attention. The sermon, for example. Or the state of her prayer book, which smelled of dank winter even on a summer day. All the prayer books in St. Stephen’s had that smell, and this one, as she paged through it, revealed the additional offenses of dark spotting and pages warped by too much damp. A pity she’d never got round to having Mr. Russell replace—

Her skin prickled all over. Someone was watching her. Someone to her right. In one quick move she brought her chin up and around and looked into dark blue eyes; eyes the color of some faraway ocean. The stranger, just woken, his head nearly righted and his countenance revealed.

Sleep disheveled his features still. His cheek had a crease where it had lain on his shoulder. A curling lock of hair fell slantwise on his forehead. Beneath the disarray were aristocratic bones, a reddish full mouth, and lashes she could have seen from six pews away.

He blinked, and blinked again. Then his whole lower face melted into a smile, for all the world as though he’d glimpsed her across a ballroom and was hopeful of an introduction.

No. Worse than that. She turned quickly away, the blood already coming up in her cheeks. Women who woke in his bed saw that smile. Sleep-liquored. A bit surprised to see her. Ready to see more, just as soon as she’d oblige.

She put down the prayer book and folded her arms, hiding as much as she could from his view. The air on her bare neck felt suddenly like an uninvited caress. August or not, she wished she’d worn a shawl.

Once or twice more her skin prickled, but she kept her eyes fixedly forward, even when the service ended and the pews emptied about her. She was the last to pass through the doors onto the threshold, and last to shake the curate’s hand, and thank him for his edifying sermon.

At close range, perhaps even more so than when he was in the pulpit, Mr. Atkins looked precisely the way a churchman ought. His austere build lent an extra measure of dignity to his plain dark vestment, and his coloring was such that one might make a true likeness of him with only white paper and a bit of charcoal: charcoal eyes, charcoal hair, and thick black brows whose natural slant gave a melancholy cast to his pale, angular features.

“I think it a fine text,” he said in reply to her compliment, gentle mischief just evident in his smile, “though perhaps I shall have to choose livelier passages in future, for Mr. Mirkwood’s benefit. If he sleeps through my sermon on David and Goliath, I suppose I shall have none but myself to blame.”

“Is he a neighbor?” Over Mr. Atkins’s shoulder she could see the stranger, a good quarter-mile already down the path that would lead to the road. “I don’t know him by sight or by name.” He moved with a springy ease, hands thrust in his coat pockets.

“They own the property east of Seton Park, though we’ve rarely seen them there. Not at all, I believe, in your time, and even now it’s only Mr. Mirkwood the younger come down. But I’ve spoken too long without asking how you do.” The curate’s voice changed. “I did not expect you to be about so soon.”

His eyes would be keen, if she should look up into them. They would invite confidences, entirely respectable confidences such as were common between parishioner and pastor. “I do well enough.” She shaded her face with one hand as she followed the receding form of Mr. Mirkwood. “Thank you for asking. May I help you put things away?”

“Certainly you may.” Here, too, he was keen. He understood reticence and met it with a graceful respect.

Back inside the church Mr. Atkins busied himself with papers at his lectern while she collected books from the pews. Mr. Russell had not thought it suitable for the mistress of Seton Park to perform such tasks. But now she had only her own wishes to consult.

She picked up the hymnal Mr. Mirkwood had used, and locked her arms round all those she’d gathered. “I must confess an ulterior motive.” Feet set, she faced the pulpit. “I hoped to discuss the school.”

His hands went still for a second or two. “Ah, yes. I did expect this.” He set aside his papers and lifted his chin. “Come take a seat.” With one hand he gestured her to the first pew as he came down from the pulpit. Then he leaned against the pew opposite, folding his arms. “I understand Mr. Keene was at the house yesterday.”

“He was.” She set the stack of hymnals in her lap. “I find the estate is very likely to pass to Mr. Russell’s brother James. I shall probably be here but a few weeks more.”

“There’s some chance it may pass to you, though?” His upper body inclined slightly toward her.

“Some very little chance.” This was getting complicated. Lies so often did. “The question should be resolved within the month.”

“Ah.” Understanding colored his face and he took a sudden interest in the floor.

“At all events we face the prospect of my departure.” Onward. No time to indulge in embarrassment. “And in view of that, I should like to recommend certain actions in regard to the school.”

“Yes, of course.” He nodded, gaze still lowered, as though he were expecting her to say something grave indeed.

“Enrollment in the class for young ladies is not what we had hoped. But I’ve had an idea.” She had, surprisingly enough. “If you were to point to those places where one may find Scriptural support for women’s learning, these families must listen, I should think, and see the notion’s merit in a way they otherwise might not.” His eyes had slowly risen to hers, and the slant of his brows gradually steepened, putting urgency into her words as she went on. “Consider your text of today. Christ bid those sisters leave off their womanly pursuits, didn’t he, and learn from him the same as any disciple. If on your next visit to the Farris cottage, or the Cheathams, you could remind them of—”

“Forgive me, Mrs. Russell.” He held up one hand, and his face was all resignation and regret. “But surely you see the school cannot go forward, given what you’ve told me.”

“Not go forward!” Her heart lurched halfway up her throat. “But why?”

“Whether or not to have a school will be Mr. James Russell’s decision if you do leave us, and he might not consider it a worthwhile use of his funds.”

How could he so quickly give up what he’d so long worked for? “But if you began the school—I imagine he shouldn’t actually be in residence here for several months yet—he might accept it as something already in place.”

“And he might not.” His voice, like his gaze, was soft, sympathetic, and utterly unyielding. “Think of the disappointment if I were to get the school going only to have to shut it down several months later. I can’t do that to the tenants.”

He made a good point. But something like mutiny stirred up in her again. She’d pared away bits of her soul for his school. One did not do such a thing in vain. “What if…” She searched the floor for inspiration. “What if I were to write to Mr. James Russell, and tell him all about the school, and perhaps secure his support in advance?”

A glance at him caught the change in his face: he was guarded, indeed, but she could see how ready he was to grasp at any bit of hope. “Do you know very much of him?” Caution kept his speech short. “Do you think it likely he would approve?”

“Mr. Russell spoke of him sometimes, enough for me to gather he’s an amiable man, at least.” It might be true, that last bit. Why should he not be amiable?

“If you would undertake to write… If your own interest so compelled you…” The weight of his hope forced her attention down to the hymnals in her lap. The stack needed straightening. “I have the greatest respect for your powers of persuasion. You know I spent months working to convince Mr. Russell of the merits of educating his tenants, but I do not believe he would have agreed to it in the end without your intercession.”

Two books slipped from her lap and went skittering into the aisle. She bent to reach for them and nearly collided with Mr. Atkins, suddenly kneeling there before her. “I’m sorry,” she said, rather stupidly, as there had in fact been no collision.

He looked up. A faint whiff of almond came to her: he must use soap of that scent. A smile—modest, decent, kindly—played round the edges of his mouth. “The apology ought to be mine.” He lifted the books. “You’ve labored to no purpose—I haven’t actually been in the habit of putting these away.”

She took the hymnals and sat up straight. “You ought to.” Her finger traced along one’s failing spine. “Especially in the winter. The damp is bad for paper.”

“Indeed I ought.” He got to his feet, brushing absently at his cassock.

“These need to be replaced, at all events. Perhaps I will ask Mr. James Russell to approve it.” She forced a smile and he smiled back, his eyes lit with a trustful gratitude of which she had long since ceased to be worthy.

* * *

There was a new man in church today,” said her maid that evening while taking down her hair. “Across the aisle from you—did you see him?”

“Mr. Mirkwood, you mean. His family owns Pencarragh, just to the east.” She tipped her head forward as the hairpins were drawn out. Perhaps Sheridan could draw out her stupidity with them. What had she been thinking, to propose a letter to Mr. James Russell?