The Widow of Larkspur Inn (33 page)

But she still could not let go of the feeling that something was wrong. If only he had a father in which to confide! Even Philip, as preoccupied as he had been with his own career and amusements, would have at least been able to understand the emotions of a thirteen-year-old boy.

And then the thought struck her that perhaps that was the very thing troubling the boy. Because the children had no idea their father had gambled away their livelihoods, Julia had assumed that their mourning was a simple sorrow over the loss of a loved one. It was not mixed with misgivings and even downright bitterness, as was hers.

Or so she had assumed. She stared across at the closed door and after a while prayed,
Father, please help him to understand that we aren’t meant to carry burdens alone—just as you taught me.

Chapter 19

Four days later, Fiona sat at the dining room table and held up a polished soup spoon for a final inspection.
I’m rich,
she thought. Perhaps not in material things, but how many housekeepers were made to feel so beloved by the families they tended? Last night’s cake, her first birthday cake ever, had been painstakingly trimmed with dozens of iced violets. And yesterday morning Mrs. Hollis insisted that she take the day off and had presented her with a ready-made dress of cornflower-blue silk. Even the children had given her gifts; Philip, a lovely basket and comb, Aleda, an alphabet sampler she’d stitched under Mrs. Hyatt’s tutelage, and little Grace, some sachets tied with lace. The female lodgers and servants had surprised her with little tokens as well. Fiona had wondered if Queen Victoria herself had ever felt so honored.

How could she have guessed, ten years ago, that life would be so peaceful and the people in her life so kind? There was a lesson to be learned from that.
Valleys don’t last forever.
Neither did the mountaintops of life, but if a person just had faith and held on, each valley would eventually end. “You’re rich indeed, Fiona O’Shea,” she murmured.

She held up another spoon and was startled as a strangely distorted reflection of a person appeared on the back of the bowl. Mr. Clay’s voice came from the doorway just as Fiona was turning in her chair.

“Miss O’Shea?”

“Mr. Clay.” Embarrassed this time at being discovered talking to herself, she asked, “How long have you been standing there?”

“I just now walked up,” he said, holding up the palm of his hand in a pacifying manner. “Please forgive me for startling you.”

It was impossible to do otherwise, and Fiona’s face relaxed into a smile. “Of course, sir,” she said while pushing out her chair.

“Please don’t get up, Miss O’Shea. May I join you for a little while?”

“Join me?”

He walked over to the side of the table, and she could see now that he held a hand behind his back. “I wasn’t aware of your birthday until the cake was served last night. I felt badly that I had nothing to give you.”

“But, Mr. Clay, you know I can’t accept any gift from you.”

“Just wait until you see it.” He put a hand on the back of the chair he was standing behind. “May I sit?”

“Of course.” She waited until he had done so to protest again. “Mr. Clay, it was kind of you to think of me, but—”

“And yet you accepted gifts from the women lodgers.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but you know there’s a difference. You can’t be buying gifts for me.”

“But I didn’t
buy
anything, Miss O’Shea. And are all Irish as stubborn as you?”

“I believe so, sir. Now please … don’t offer me anything.”

He rolled his eyes and was silent for several minutes while she continued to polish the silver. Then he picked up the tin of hartshorn powder and sniffed. He wrinkled his nose at the sharp odor. “Ammonia?”

“Alcohol too.” Fiona showed him the fork she’d just finished. “You get used to the smell. And it does the job.”

“So it does.” Now a corner of his mouth quirked. “Aren’t you even curious, Miss O’Shea?”

“About the gift?”

“You could have just turned down a diamond tiara, you know.”

She couldn’t help but return his smile. “If I admit to some curiosity about what’s behind your back, Mr. Clay, will you give me your word not to offer it again?”

“Oh, if you insist,” he grumbled. “But I certainly wouldn’t begrudge you the pleasure of giving
me
a birthday gift.” From behind his back he brought a leather-bound book and held it up to show her. “
Our Mutual Friend
,” he said, “signed by Charles Dickens himself.”

Fiona put down her cloth and reached out to touch the fine tooled leather. “You’ve met Mr. Dickens?”

“I have indeed. It’s quite an interesting story. Have you read it?”

“No, sir, I haven’t.”

A mischievous light came into his gray eyes. “Care to change your mind, Miss O’Shea?”

“I can’t, Mr. Clay.” Again she smiled at him. “But it’s beautiful. And so kind of you to offer it.”

“Then I suppose I should get out of your way.”

Fiona wondered if she were imagining things. There seemed to be a question in that statement, a hope that she would contradict him and insist that he wasn’t in her way at all.

But she could only thank him again and pick up another fork. As his footsteps faded behind her, she discovered that the contentment she had experienced just minutes ago had vanished. In its place was the old familiar longing for something as unattainable to her as the moon.

“I do believe I have you again, Mr. Clay,” Mrs. Dearing said one afternoon in late July, snatching another of Ambrose’s red wooden pieces from the draughts board. She spoke a little louder than usual, for a heavy rainstorm lashed against the windows of the
Larkspur,
and claps of thunder rattled the glass. “Your other two are cornered. Will you concede defeat?”

“Have I any choice?” Ambrose asked but smiled at the elderly woman. His mood had lightened enough this afternoon to allow him to spend some time in the hall in the company of the other lodgers. “You’re rather merciless, aren’t you?”

“Quite so,” she smiled. “Which is why Mr. Durwin refuses to play against me anymore.” She nodded toward the gentleman, who was at that moment seated next to Mrs. Hyatt on one of the sofas, allowing her to wrap knitting yarn around his upheld hands. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Durwin?”

Mr. Durwin’s reply was delayed by a rumble of thunder. When it had passed, he said, “What Mrs. Dearing isn’t telling you, Mr. Clay, is that she and the late Mr. Dearing were professional draught players in California.”

“Is that so?” Ambrose asked the woman across from him, who wore not a trace of guile in her matronly face.

“Not quite, dear.” She expertly snapped the black and red draughts into their squares as she spoke. “But the winters in Coloma could be harsh. When the weather prevented panning for gold, prospectors would spend hours around the fire at our place of business. There wasn’t much else to do, and so to give them something to help keep boredom at bay, we organized draughts tournaments. By the way, it’s called checkers over there.”

“Well, in that case, I believe you should allow Mr. Clay some advantage,” said Mrs. Kingston from her chair near the pianoforte. She had been reading so intently from the gardening book she’d gotten from the subscription library that it was a wonder she had heard the conversation around her. “It isn’t quite fair, do you think?”

Ambrose turned to nod at her. “I wholeheartedly agree, Mrs. Kingston. What do you think—shall we blindfold Mrs. Dearing?” There were smiles at this, even an indulgent one from Mrs. Kingston.

“That sounds reasonable to me,” Mrs. Dearing said after a thoughtful second or two. “I would rather play with a handicap than frighten off all contenders. Shall I remove two pieces?”

All eyes swiveled to Mrs. Kingston, who waited for another clap of thunder to subside before answering with a simple word. “Three.”

Miss Rawlins walked into the room from the corridor as Ambrose and Mrs. Dearing were beginning their game. “I can’t possibly work with all of that noise,” she sighed, dropping into a chair.

“Poor dear,” Mrs. Hyatt said sympathetically.

“Oh, well. Suffering sharpens creativity, or so I’m told.” The writer looked over at Mrs. Kingston. “Who was that young man with you in the garden, Mrs. Kingston?”

“I beg your pardon?” was the elderly woman’s reply, her eyelids blinking as if she hadn’t understood the question.

“You know, this morning, before the rain. I saw you both from my window. He didn’t look like anyone I’ve seen around Gresham.”

“Oh,
that
young man.”

Ambrose caught the evasive tone of her voice and noticed that the others had as well, for all activity had ceased in anticipation of a forthcoming answer.
If she’d have just acted normal, we wouldn’t have paid the subject any mind,
he thought, then reminded himself that she’d not had the benefit of almost twenty years on the stage. Deciding to come to Mrs. Kingston’s rescue, as she had come to his only minutes ago, he said lightly, “I’ll wager it was some learned botanist who heard about Mrs. Kingston’s gardening skills and came to learn at her feet.”

But the rescue was ironically ineffective. She made a startled blink of the eyes and then paled a little when Mr. Durwin said, “Actually, there is a young man staying at the
Bow and Fiddle
for a week or so—a Scotsman. He’s studying the flora and fauna of Shropshire, according to Mr. Pool, but I daresay he’s not out gathering in this deluge. Was he your visitor, Mrs. Kingston?”

“Yes,” she answered a little
too
casually for Mr. Clay’s ears, but it seemed that no one else had noticed. “When I learned about the young man’s residence among us, I simply asked him to lend me some of his expertise regarding the spots on the begonia leaves. If one cannot trust a botanist for gardening advice, then what is this world coming to?”

No one seemed to care to rebut that, and the lodgers resumed their draughts game and yarn winding. Miss O’Shea came into the hall bearing two periodicals the post had delivered earlier,
The New Monthly Magazine
and
Bentley’s Miscellany
. She returned Ambrose’s smile in a polite if not somewhat distant manner, as if she had never made him hot chocolate at midnight, watched him beat a carpet, nor discussed books and silver polish in the dining room. And he knew instinctively that she no longer spent late nights in the library.

Insomnia swooped down upon Ambrose that night with a vengeance. It was past midnight when he finally gave up and slipped out from under his quilt. For a while he sat in his chair and stared out at the black night beyond the windowpane, then he grew weary of that and lit a candle. He was without something to read, he realized, and put on his dressing gown and slippers to go downstairs.

The library was dark and empty, as he knew it would be, and he felt a strange pang in his heart because of it. He returned to his room later with a well-worn copy of Benjamin Disraeli’s
Coningsby
, a story he’d read twice before. Perhaps words that his eyes could travel by rote would put him to sleep faster than something that required him to think. He was into the fourth chapter when the sentences began melting into one another.

A series of light knocks woke him the next day. Ambrose glanced at the clock upon the chimneypiece.
One-thirty
!