The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark (11 page)

“I understand,” Lydia said, though up until this minute she had blithely assumed that the worse part of being poor was the lack of material things. She had never considered how humiliating it would be to have to ask for assistance. And now she felt embarrassed for barging in and thinking she could wipe away a problem with the loosening of her purse strings. “Please forgive me, Mrs. Meeks. It seems I’ve led a sheltered life.”

“Oh, Miss Clark, there’s naught to forgive. It’s so good of you to offer.” She pressed her lips together for a moment and then added, “And for Phoebe’s sake, I have to accept. I suppose I just needed time to grieve over it.”

Lydia decided she liked this woman for her honesty. “I appreciate that. May I bring her to Shrewsbury on Saturday morning?”

“Yes, thank you. Will you come early and have breakfast with us?”

Lydia’s immediate thought was that she didn’t want to take anything from people who had little enough for themselves, but then she understood it was the woman’s way of retaining a remnant of dignity. Graciously Lydia accepted, stifling the impulse to offer to bring something from the bakery. Mrs. Meeks walked her to the door, but before going through it, Lydia turned to say, “Phoebe has impressed me with her self-discipline and character, Mrs. Meeks. I’ve even noticed it in your younger children. And you’re seeing to it that they have an education and spiritual upbringing. I daresay you won’t have to worry about their futures.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Meeks whispered with brown eyes clouding.

In the yard again, Lydia bade farewell to the children outside, answering more questions from the younger ones as they escorted her to the lane. Henry Temple happened to be passing by in his delivery cart and paused to give her a ride as far as his father’s butcher shop. She thanked him, walked another half block, and even though the afternoon was being rapidly swallowed up by eventide, she stopped for her usual brief chat with the Worthy sisters.

“What did ye boys and girls learn today?” Jewel asked while her nimble fingers wound threads around pins.

“I’m introducing the younger ones to algebra,” Lydia replied.

“Alge—?”

“Algebra. It’s—”

Before Lydia could explain, a “Humph!” of disapproval rasped from the elderly woman’s throat. “Now, where are they going to talk that? It’s just like them French lessons Mr. Raleigh brought here with his high-town ways. Do you know anybody in Gresham who’ll ever see the likes of France?”

“Jewel,” said Iris in a long-suffering voice when her sister-in-law’s tirade was finished. “It’s not a language, dear. It’s the green we see growing on the bridge stones when the Bryce is low.”

Again Lydia was opening her mouth to provide tactful contradiction, when Jewel subjected her to the scrutiny of two faded blue eyes.

“You know, Ezra Towly was askin’ about you in
Trumbles
today, accordin’ to Mrs. McFarley.”

Lydia recalled a leathery-faced dairy farmer receiving condolences in the churchyard some three months ago. “Mr. Towly? But we’ve never even met, aside from his wife’s funeral. Why would he be asking about me?”

“He was speculating on the size of your dowry, if you were to marry,” Iris said with a little frown of disapproval.

“My
dowry
?”

“Talk is that he’s considering courtin’ you…and doubling the size of his herd.”

Jewel made several tsks of disapproval and grumbled, “And the grass not yet covering Willa’s grave! He should’ha least waited six months.”

“Jewel!” her sister-in-law exclaimed.

“That’s my way of seeing it,” Jewel said with stubborn defensiveness.

“But you’ve said yourself many times that anything less than a year is a disgrace.”

“Well, there’s the fact that he needs a wife right now for those five young’uns and that farm to tend. And Lydia ain’t gettin’ any younger. Mayhap she needs to think about findin’ a hus—”

“Excuse me!” Lydia interjected when she could bear it no longer. Both women stared up at her again, clearly stung by the sharpness of her voice. She forced herself to take in a deep breath before saying in a calmer, but no less insistent, tone, “I’m not interested in Mr. Towly.”

Jewel’s eyes fluttered in her parchmentlike face. “I were just sayin’ that—”

“I know what you were saying, and I appreciate your concern about my future. But there are worse things than being a spinster. And at the very
top
of this list I would put being married to a man who would walk into a public place and ask about someone’s dowry…and only three months after the mother of his children has died.”

She bade them good-day and turned to leave before the subject could be discussed any further. The anger that hastened her steps toward home was not at the Worthy sisters, for Lydia allowed them the same indulgence one would give to beloved aunts—even though their words could sometimes make her cringe.
How dare he ask about me in public!

The sight of her family’s two-story stone cottage on Walnut Lane gave her some comfort. Her mother’s sunflower blossoms had not yet attained enough height to peer over the picket fence, but they would be radiant in late summer. Pots of red geraniums sat in every windowsill. As she opened the gate, she could see her father sitting with his chair propped back against the trunk of the elm tree with Jeanie the cat curled in his lap. His mouth was gaped slightly, producing contented snores that stirred his white beard with the rise and fall of his chest.

Lydia smiled at the realization that both of his feet, planted beside the book that had fallen to the ground, were bare. Amos Clark believed in comfort, which was why five years ago he turned over control of his iron foundry to Lydia’s older brother, Noah. He had worked hard for most of his sixty years, he declared back then, and would spend his later years doing the things he had never seemed to have enough time for. His days were now primarily filled with reading, painting, and walking to the smithy to sit and reminisce about earlier years in the village with some of his longtime friends.

Jeanie woke, stretched, and jumped weightlessly down to follow Lydia into the house, causing her father to stir slightly and alter the rhythm of his snoring for a second or two. Lydia let herself in the door and into a front parlor filled with overstuffed furniture around a colorful rug. Her father’s easel was set up in a corner near the large, east-facing windows that allowed the best sunlight to filter in each morning. Walls displayed the landscapes he finally had time to paint. Her mother looked up from her perch at the edge of the sofa, where she was sorting fabric quilting squares onto the tea table.

“Lydia.” The matronly voice was a verbal caress. “You’re home. I was beginning to worry.”

Lydia walked over to kiss the top of her mother’s head. She had to lean down quite a bit to reach the graying brown hair. It was as if her typical selflessness had compelled Oriel Clark to ask God to give height and leanness to the rest of her family, while she gladly took the leavings. “What a day,” Lydia sighed, tossing her satchel into a chair and dropping down beside her mother on the sofa.

“What’s wrong, dear?”

“Oh, the Worthy sisters tell me Mr. Towly was in
Trumbles
apparently telling anyone who would listen of his intention to court me.”

Her mother’s hand went up to a plump cheek. “Oh my.”

“
If
my dowry is adequate enough to buy some cattle, that is.”

“But his wife…”

“I know.” A little shudder snaked down Lydia’s spine. “If that odious man comes calling here, you won’t ask him in, will you?”

“Absolutely not! Anyway, after I tell your father about it, he’ll not be welcomed beyond the gate.”

Lydia breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear.”

“But I’m still curious as to why he would take it upon himself to court someone he only met briefly at his wife’s funeral.”

Her mother could be a little naive at times, Lydia thought. “He obviously assumes that plainness and desperation go hand in hand.” Banishing Mr. Towly from her mind, she picked up a square of blue calico. “I remember this. You made Mrs. Tanner an apron from the rest, didn’t you?”

Mrs. Tanner was their cook, their only servant, because even though the iron foundry provided a good income, Lydia’s mother’s greatest joy was tending her own house. Her only other concession to convenience was having the clothes and linens sent to Mrs. Moore’s to be laundered.

“I did.” Her mother took the square from her and set it back on the table. Mahogany-colored eyes looking into hers, she said, “You know, most women with gardens pride themselves on their roses, but I’ve never cared to grow them. To me, my sunflowers are far more beautiful.”

“Yes?” Lydia had no idea what this had to do with Mrs. Tanner’s apron, but her mother usually had a plan in mind when she strayed so far from a subject.

“There is beauty in all God’s creation, Lydia. You mustn’t think of yourself as plain. And if you would have stayed here instead of spending fourteen years isolated at that girls’ school, you would have been long married by now.” There was no recrimination in her tone, just a statement of what she perceived to be fact.

“Thank you for saying that, Mother.”

“Well, it’s the truth.”

Lydia squeezed her hand. “Then I’m happy to be one of your sunflowers.”

That night as she lay in that tranquil space between prayer and sleep, Lydia thought of the fair portion of her life spent at
Saint Margaret’s
. It had seemed to her more of a ministry than a vocation. Though her students came from the wealthiest families, they had been little more than orphans, shuttled away to boarding school so that their parents could take grand tours without the encumbrance of little ones to distract them. Lydia, with no family to tend and little interest in the gossip cliques of the other schoolmistresses, had given every scrap of free time to her girls. And it seemed what they had needed most was someone to offer them a listening heart and ear.

God had spoken to her at the end of those fourteen years, impressing upon her that it was time to come home to stay. Her aging parents would not be around forever. Once she arrived, her availability had hastened the founding of a secondary school. Two very good reasons for her to be in Gresham again.

And yet sometimes she caught glimpses of a vision that God had something else planned for her. She couldn’t begin to explain it, even to herself, but occasionally she sensed that the road ahead of her would take some unpredictable turns. God had been good to her, and she was willing to set out in whatever direction He determined was necessary for her life to continue to have meaning.

But please, Father…
she prayed.
Don’t let it be in the direction of Ezra Towly!

Chapter 7

Early Wednesday afternoon, Julia accompanied Andrew to pay calls on the Fletchers, Putnams, and Sloanes across the Bryce. On their return down Market Lane, they could see Ambrose and Fiona entering the
Larkspur
’s garden up ahead. The couple turned to wave as the trap drew closer, and Andrew reined the horse to a stop.

“Have you time for a visit?” Ambrose asked after greetings were exchanged, to which Julia and Andrew agreed. With an hour and a half still remaining in the children’s school day, they were glad to have some time to spend with their dear friends.

Julia was happy to observe that the actor, flush from his walk, appeared in brighter spirits than he had so far since arriving from London.

“You’re looking well, Ambrose,” she commented when the two couples had settled into adjacent willow benches in front of a young May tree on the verge of blooming.

“Thank you,” he replied and drew in a deep breath appreciatively. “I feel as if I could run all the way up the Anwyl today.”

“It seems the bad spell is over for now,” said Fiona, smiling and looking lovely in a two-piece costume of mauve and white patterned chintz.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Andrew said. “I only wish your good days would last forever.”

“That would be nice, old friend,” Ambrose agreed. “But you know, every cloud has its silver lining, as the saying goes. With Fiona’s help, I’ve learned something through all of this. Remind me to tell you about it one day.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I don’t want to spend the first decent chance we’ve had for a chat droning on and on about myself. Tell us, Julia, how are the children?”