Endure My Heart (11 page)

“It would raise my position in society considerably,” he pointed out. “Not that I mean to say I could aspire to marry a—a proper lady” he added, with some of the humbleness and insincerity of Mr. Williams.

I was glad he added that touch of insincerity. I was sorely tempted to break down on the spot and confess my crime, but that brought me to my senses. He was the enemy, and I must not go letting myself fall in love and spoil everything. Nor must I allow him to become any fonder of me.

“You will break the heart of every improper lady in the neighborhood if you do, Mr. Williams,” I answered in a joking way, pretending to read nothing personal in his speeches.

He regarded me so intently I was half afraid he was going to crop out into a confession of his own. I really think for half a minute he wanted to do it, but soon he laughed, a cocky Williams laugh, and answered, “Ye must know, ma’am, those females have no hearts. It’s only ladies like yourself that are so encumbered.”

“I am not so encumbered, sir. I lost my heart aeons ago.”

“May I know the lucky gentleman? One does not hear in the town that you are attached.” There was a lively curiosity in the question.

“In my position, you must know, I have assigned my heart in advance to the first gentleman of fortune who comes along. My father left Andrew and myself destitute, and I am bent on recouping our fortunes by making a grand match.”

“You shouldn’t have any trouble.” Again I was bothered by that soft, sincere smile that I did not want to see. “No trouble at all, Miss Anderson.” The words were as gentle, as insinuating as a caress. Indeed I felt as flustered as if I had been kissed.

I wondered just how rich a gentleman I was whistling down the wind. There was something anticipatory in his smile, something that made me think he was looking into the future, to the day he had caught Miss Sage, and come back to Salford wearing his true identity, to claim me. “A lack of fortune produces some little trouble,” I pointed out, half distracted.

“I know that better than most,” he answered swiftly. So swiftly, and with such feeling, that I was drawn to the conclusion that whatever else Sir Stamford was, he was not wealthy. If I confess it did not detract from his suitability in my eyes, you will have a fair idea of how far I had slipped into insanity. “But if a gentleman has any brains and determination to make his way in the world, a lack of fortune need not stand in the way of his marrying where he pleases,” he hastened on to inform me.

I was allowed to misunderstand his meaning, as he spoke of “a gentleman,” which he was not yet acknowledged to be. We were at the door of the rectory. I did not dally a moment, as I occasionally did, but began discouraging him by going inside at once. Peeking through the window from behind the lace curtains, I was happy to see (well, anyway I saw) his heart was not entirely crushed by my abrupt departure. He drove Miss Trebar home.

Chapter Eight

As Williams had twice mentioned Devonshire, I assumed it was his own home territory. With an aunt from the same place, I decided to inquire of her if she had ever heard of Sir Stamford Wicklow, saying that someone had mentioned knowing him, and I thought she might be acquainted with him. I waited two weeks for my reply; when finally she answered, she wrote not one letter but two, on two consecutive days. They were well worth the wait.

Mr. Williams had proved impossible to set down in the interval, and my conscience was nagging at me. He by no means deserted the shore road or his late-night pursuits, but the early evenings he frequently spent at the rectory, using the excuse of organ practicing to drop in. He would play for an hour after dinner, then spend two in the saloon with Andrew, Edna and myself, or whatever combination was free, for Andrew was busy practicing his six tunes for the concert. I know what you are thinking, and I was not always free! Several times I stayed abovestairs on purpose to discourage him from dangling after me, but he usually stayed till I at least made an appearance, and it looked so very odd for me to stay away entirely. I could not even claim illness, as I was at work every day.

One evening I had a batch of papers with me, correcting them at a side table while he chatted to Andrew, but after fifteen minutes and about the same number of peeps in my direction, he arose and offered to help me.

“All this grammar stuff is fresh in my head, as I have been working at correcting my own grammar,” he mentioned, drawing up a chair beside me. “Let me give you a hand, so that you can finish up quickly and join us.”

“Your own grammar does not need correcting, Mr. Williams. I recall the first time I met you, you were reading John Milton. With such elevated literature, you must be perfectly aware of proper speech.”

 “I remember our first meeting very well, miss! You gave me a lesson in behavior I did not forget in a hurry.”

“I come to think it is time for another! But let us proceed with these students’ lessons first.”

“Just what is it you are doing?” he asked, picking one up at random and perusing it. “Correcting the spelling and so on?”

“Everything—spelling, punctuation, the sense of it.”

“Ah—I never could speak in semicolons,” he admitted, “but I am an expert at sentences and question marks.”

“We do not aspire to semi-colons, Mr. Williams.”

He picked up another paper and read it through, silently, without making any corrections, then picked up another. It too was set aside without using his pencil. “You are either a very undemanding marker, or have got hold of some other papers than the set I am working on. Don’t tell me there isn’t a correction to be made on either of these two.”

“What is this the students are writing?” he asked, frowning pensively.

“You suspect me of being a Jacobin, I suppose? The assignment was to write what they would do if they had ten pounds. It is interesting, is it not?”

“It is heartbreaking. Listen to this one. Spelled abominably, and highly ungrammatical, but the content! ‘I would buy my mammie a new dress a bright red one coz she likes pretty things and has no nice clothes I would buy pa a pipe coz he broke his and I would buy a bone for Fritz with real meat on it.’ Doesn’t that wrench your heart?”

“Unselfish—not a thing for himself.”

“It’s a girl—Mary Morrisey. That would be the family I had to refuse credit.”

“They are very poor. I believe Mrs. Morrisey is in an interesting condition again. They have pulled Sally out of school, in any case, and that usually augurs an increase in the family.”

“The other paper, the first, the fellow said he would buy glass for his window to keep out the wind but still be able to see the sky. He can’t see the sky through the oilskin. Are the people really that poor? I did not get the impression when I was at the Slacks’ or the Turners’ they were destitute.”

“Some are less poor than others,” I answered, not liking to mention the word smuggling.

“Morrisey and Slack both go out on the fishing boats. Both make a shilling a day according to Andrew.”

“There are other ways of making a little extra money.”

“Smuggling, you mean?”

“Possibly. I believe Mrs. Turner takes in washing as well. Fine washing for the gentry—linen tablecloths and such things that want careful pressing.”

He sat on, lifting up another paper and reading, still without making a mark with the pencil. “I begin to see why they do it,” he said at last in a very reluctant voice. “My God, I thought my family was poor till I read this.”

“With a patron so generous as Lord Hadley seems to be, I cannot think you have experienced real poverty at all, Mr. Williams.”

“I have not often gone to bed hungry, but I know what it is to be looked at askance by the richer boys at school, who wore finer jackets. I come to think my problem was pride, not poverty.”

“It is very hard for these people, and some of them have quite large families of youngsters too. Have you brothers and sisters?”

“No. Still, the law is the law, and smuggling, especially of brandy, is no solution. The government ought certainly to institute some make-work program here at Salford, though. Something must be done.”

“Oh pooh—about that law—smuggling—we are not so strict here.”

“If they break one, they’ll have no respect for any of them.”

“I never hear you speak against poaching. That is also illegal. Do you feel so strongly about it as well?”

“It is less harmful than smuggling, in my opinion, but ought also to be discouraged.”

“You speak like a soldier, all discipline and obedience.”

“You may imagine how impossible it would be to lead an army if commands were not obeyed.”

“You have the instincts of an officer, have you?” I asked lightly, as though I had no idea he had been one.

“And am working to acquire the instincts of a gentleman. I believe I am sinking myself in a paradox here.”

“It is not to be wondered at. I often find myself spouting gibberish after too long an exposure to the writings of the students. But alas, I must show the instincts of a schoolteacher, and set a red pencil to these paragraphs, however heart-wrenching they may be.”

He too set himself to the task, sometimes frowning over one, which I made sure to read later myself and sometimes pointing out that the instruction in mathematics was sadly neglected if a boy thought he could buy a carriage and team of four for ten pounds, and still have money left over for a castle on the side.

“Ten pounds is as high over their heads as ten thousand. Had I said ten pennies, they would have had a clearer idea.”

When the chore was finally done, we arose to join Edna and Andrew before the fire in the grate.

On another occasion, Edna was in the kitchen, working with Cook, trying to impart to her the secret of a light pastry. Under Edna’s tutelage, Cook was coming on. She occasionally served a piece of meat that did not bounce, and was slowly being weaned away from the notion that potatoes to be eaten at six need to be put on to boil at four. With our Christmas party approaching, the lessons increased. Andrew was called to his office to discuss parish business, leaving Williams and myself alone. Being a gentleman, he realized this was not quite the thing and began shifting in his chair, disliking to leave as he had just arrived, and disliking to stay lest I thought it bad manners on his part. “Perhaps I should return later,” he suggested uncertainly.

“If you cannot behave yourself, Mr. Williams, by all means do so,” I replied, smiling at his dilemma.

“Oh, I trust myself,” he answered quickly.

“It is my forward behavior that puts you on edge, is it?” I teased him.

“No, Mab, your reputation. A concern for it, I mean. I would not want anyone gossiping about your entertaining a man alone.”

“Especially a man notorious for his way with women.”

“I no longer flirt with the girls,” he told me blandly. This was not quite accurate, but certainly he had curbed his Don Juanish activities.

“In that case I must be safe with you, must I not?”

“You may feel safe from flirting. As to more serious intentions, you will know better than I whether you stand in any danger from me.”

I felt an uncomfortably warm flood at the serious look that accompanied his speech. Here was I being told he wished to court me, and I had determined I would not lead him on. I could not meet his eyes. I looked to my lap, where my fingers clutched at my skirt.

“Mab, you know I...” he began, all in a rush.

Edna was at the door to save me. “We’ve just baked up a batch of these cream buns. Won’t you try them for us, Mr. Williams, and see if you think they would do for the party?”

He was all smiles and easy conversation again, complimenting her on the cream buns, and partaking of two—a heroic feat, considering the consistency of the pastry. He stayed for some time, chatting to both of us as though it were an ordinary visit, but still the little dab of lovemaking had taken place, and I had not turned aside his ardor as I should have.

I felt perfectly wretched when I went to my bed that night. Wretched at misleading him, worse that I could not accept his advances as I wanted to. My aunt’s first reply to my letter, when it arrived the next morning, threw me into consternation. She was not personally acquainted with the Wicklows, but the reputation the family wore in those parts was unsavory. The father an out-and-out drunkard who had all but lost his estate, and the son a ne’er-do-well who had been turned from his ancestral door at an early age for some unspecified misconduct. I was saddened at the news, but being infatuated, had soon twisted it around so that all the discredit was heaped on the father. The son, I knew, had made his own way in the world.

A man of Wicklow’s age, still in the twenties, to have been a Colonel—obviously he had straightened out remarkably. Certainly there was no fear of the son’s turning dissolute from drink, for he drank very little. That would be in reaction to the father’s bad example, of course. A young man who had seen his inheritance dwindle close to zero because of drink would naturally be against it. And equally against the persons who brought the most pernicious of all drinks into the country. Here was a new dimension to my problem. If Wicklow considered his job in the light of a moral crusade, there was no hope left. I thought the situation could not be worse, till I received her second letter the very next day.

The first page of it cheered me enormously. She had been a little misinformed regarding young Wicklow. The papa, to be sure, was no better than he should be, but he was dead, and the son busy re-establishing himself to fortune and respectability. The fortune was still uncertain, but the respectability was well in hand. He was in the process of becoming a son-in-law to a neighbor and friend of my aunt, Lord Hadley. This was to come about through the person of Lady Lucy, the lord’s daughter, who, it was generally understood, was promised to Sir Stamford.

There were a dozen questions as well as to how I knew him, and why I had inquired after him, but this was routine stuff. The interest of the letter for me was that so far from being attracted to me, Sir Stamford was using me as he used all the other girls. He was promised to Lady Lucy, a great heiress, no doubt—he with his fine talk of a man not caring whether a lady had a fortune.