The Widow of Larkspur Inn (34 page)

“Yes?” he called out, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“It’s Miss O’Shea, sir.”

“Oh.” He threw his legs over the side and whipped his dressing gown from the back of a chair. When he was finally presentable, he said in a somewhat calmer voice, “Come in, please.”

She bore a tray of tea and sandwiches and looked at him anxiously. “Are you all right, Mr. Clay?”

“Please … come in. I overslept, that’s all.” He moved aside some things from his bedside table to make room for the tray. “I can take this in the sitting room if the maids need to clean.”

“No need to do that, sir.” She came into the room, leaving the door open. When she’d set the tray down upon a little crisscross table, she turned to him. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just straighten your bed myself right now while you begin your lunch. And since the dusting was done yesterday, that should do it.”

“Yes, of course. May I lend you a hand?”

“No, thank you, sir.” She was already picking up pillows and tossing them to the foot of the bed.

He poured himself some tea and sat down in his chair. “Is Mrs. Hollis angry? We had an agreement about my coming down for meals …”

“She’s not angry—just a mite worried.”

“I’m rather ashamed.”

“Ashamed, sir?” Miss O’Shea asked, not pausing from her work.

Running a hand through his hair, he said, “Being so blasted weak! Having to be mollycoddled by everyone—like an infant.”

She turned to face him again. “Mr. Clay,” she said in her calm brogue. “You shouldn’t speak of yourself that way.”

“Why not?” He laughed bitterly. “It’s the truth.”

“Well, truth can sometimes be distorted.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She looked ready to say something but shook her head. “It’s not my place to lecture you.”

“Please, Miss O’Shea. I’m drowning. If you’ve a lifeline, then throw it for mercy’s sake.”

“It’s just that I’ve given your condition some thought lately,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.

“Please.” He motioned to the other chair. “Have you time to sit?”

“Give me just a minute, sir.” After finishing the bed, Miss O’Shea slipped into the facing chair as he’d requested. “May I be blunt, sir?”

“I wish you would.”

“It seems to me that you blame yourself when your mood turns despondent, Mr. Clay. Yet how is it that sometimes you are the happiest person in the house? What do you do to bring about such a change?”

“Why, nothing,” Ambrose answered. “I just wake up feeling full of life some mornings.”

Knitting her brow thoughtfully, she continued, “If you don’t do anything to cause the good days, then why do you hold yourself responsible for the bad ones?”

“Well, I …” He suddenly found himself at a loss for an answer. “I’ve just always assumed it was some weakness in my character. A man should be able to take care of himself.”

“Aye, he should, sir,” the housekeeper agreed. “But would you fault a man for not being able to care for himself due to consumption or a crippled leg?”

“Of course not.”

“Then, perhaps if you treated yourself more charitably, Mr. Clay, the bad days could be a bit more bearable.”

While his initial reaction was to bristle at such simplistic advice, her words brought to mind something he had never considered. Was the self-loathing he felt on his dark days actually adding to their intensity?
It can’t be that simple
, he thought, yet what had the plaque above the dining hall door at Saint John’s College said?
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he
.

“Well, I’ll leave you to your lunch,” she said, starting to rise from the chair.

She looked as if she had more to say, though, and Ambrose wondered if she’d mistaken his silent contemplation for a desire to end the discussion. “Do stay a little longer, please?” he asked her. “What you’re saying is quite provoking. And I’m grateful that you would give my condition some thought, when I’m sure you’ve worries of your own.”

“It’s nothing, sir,” she said and resumed her seat.

“It means something to me—more than you can know. And you’ve other thoughts on the matter as well, haven’t you?”

“I have,” she replied right away.

Ambrose found her forthright manner refreshing. The beautiful women he’d known in the past seemed to inevitably be one of two extremes—either tediously coy or fashionably jaded.

“Please, go on.”

She nodded. “I don’t pretend to ever have suffered from the severe despondency that grips you, sir. But sadness has been no stranger to me. And there are two sources of comfort that have carried me through the sad days.”

He was earnestly sorry to hear that she had days that were less than happy, but he couldn’t help the wry smile that came to his lips. “You aren’t going to attempt to save my soul, are you, Miss O’Shea?”

“I expect that I am, sir,” she replied, obviously nonplused. “If knowing the Lord has helped me, then why would I hesitate to tell you so?”

“And you think if I turn to religion, my despondency will vanish”—he snapped a finger—“like that?”

“It’s God I’m referring to, Mr. Clay … not religion. And I would no more tell you that than tell a blind man his sight will be restored. God’s ways are not our ways, Mr. Clay. Sometimes He heals, but sometimes He doesn’t.”

He admired and even envied her uncomplicated faith, but such talk caused him discomfort and he did not wish to hear any more about it. At least not now. “Miss O’Shea, will you be offended if I ask you to defer any talk about reli—” He nodded agreeably before she could correct him. “About
God
until a later date?”

“As you wish, Mr. Clay.” She did not seem offended but made a move to get to her feet again.

Ambrose held out a hand. “Wait … please. You said there were
two
things that could help me.”

“That I did, sir,” she said softly, then took in a deep breath. “It cannot be good for you to spend so much time closeted in your room on your bad days. If you could find something useful to do, sir, it would take your mind away from your troubles for a while. And a good long walk every day would restore your appetite and perhaps even help you to sleep better.”

“Useful?” Ambrose thought for a minute and then shrugged. “I’m afraid I’m good for nothing but acting. And I don’t do much of that anymore.” In spite of the ache inside he was unable to resist teasing. “Do you think Mrs. Hyatt would teach me to do needlework?”

“It would be better than brooding, sir,” she replied.

The frankness of her answer surprised him, and he raised an eyebrow. “Miss O’Shea, I asked you once if all Irish were as stubborn as you. Now I wonder if all housekeepers are as outspoken as you are.”

A self-conscious smile touched her lips. “That I wouldn’t know, Mr. Clay.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve only been employed at two houses in my whole life. Both had butlers instead of housekeepers.”

She got to her feet, and Ambrose knew that he could not keep asking her to stay, no matter how refreshing her company. Besides, he was suddenly embarrassed that he’d allowed her to see him this way, with his hair in need of a comb and his chin in want of a shave. But when she got to the door, he couldn’t resist saying, “You know, I believe some fresh air and exercise would serve me well.”

She turned in the doorway and gave him another little smile. “Absolutely, Mr. Clay.”

“And as soon as I’ve dressed and finished lunch, I plan to give your advice a try.”

“Very good, sir.”

A pleasant picture drifted across his mind—himself, walking beside Miss O’Shea, conversing easily over little things as did normal, happy people. He did so enjoy her company and making her smile. But dare he ask her to accompany him when she’d made it obvious that she did not care to spend time with him on a social basis?

It can’t hurt to ask.
“I just hate the thought of going out alone …” he finally told her.

Silence stretched between them for several seconds, and then she nodded. “I’ll see what I can do about that, sir.”

Forty minutes later, he was groomed and fed and just about to go downstairs when another knock sounded.
Why, I’m starting to feel a little better already,
he told himself on the way to the door. He swung it open to find Mrs. Kingston standing in the corridor, stout walking stick in hand.

“Miss O’Shea said you were in need of a walking partner, Mr. Clay. Are you quite ready?”

“Ready?” he said somewhat confused.

“You’re not the sort to dillydally about, are you?” the elderly woman asked with a raised eyebrow. “I cannot abide someone who won’t keep up.”

Ambrose gave a shrug and joined Mrs. Kingston out in the corridor. Offering the crook of his arm, he told her, “Then I’ll just have to keep up, won’t I?”

Chapter 20

On the evening of Monday, September thirteenth, Andrew Phelps peered out the window of the hired coach.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds.

Poet Thomas Gray’s words seemed to have been penned for the passing north Shropshire farmland. Though Andrew had lived in cities all of his life, some inexplicable voice out there seemed to be calling to him, telling him that he had come home at last.

“Father?” The voice of Laurel, coming from the seat facing him, brought him out of his reverie. “Are we almost there?”

“Yes, I’m quite certain.” Andrew sat back against the seat and gave her a wink. “Excited about our new home, Pet?”

Smiling, she replied that she was anxious to see what Gresham looked like before dark. “Are you sure there will be other children?” she asked, not for the first time during the past month.

“No, Laurel,” Elizabeth sighed from beside her. “There are no people living there at all. Father is going to preach to an empty church every Sunday.”

“He is
not
.”

“Then why must you ask every thirty minutes?”

The strain of the long train ride to Shrewsbury, as well as a half hour of being jolted about in a coach, suddenly caught up with Andrew, and he opened his mouth to snap at his older daughter. The resignation in her expression stopped him. She was simply sitting there, hands folded in her lap, her brown eyes staring dully ahead.
Like a convict on the way to the gallows,
he thought.

He couldn’t fault her for that. She was trading the home she’d known for ten years for a place none of them had ever seen. And even though Jonathan Raleigh had returned to Kensington after being awarded his degree, Andrew knew that he still occupied a good deal of her thoughts. “Once we settle in and you make new friends, you’ll be happy,” he had assured her, hoping that by saying it often enough he could make it come true.

He was about to send a new homily in her direction, but Laurel caught his eye.
This is not a good time,
her expression said, with a slight shake of the head for emphasis. Andrew nodded back. When dealing with her older sister’s recent heartache, Laurel had shown herself to possess a maturity beyond her thirteen years. He thanked God for that, for he was aware that his attempts at consolation were feeble, at best. And his mother, who chose to stay in Cambridge, had been too occupied with social obligations to be of much help.

I pray she can forgive me for this one day.
But he’d had no choice. He thought about the letter that had come in the post three weeks ago, addressed to him in a familiar bold script. Fortunately, it hadn’t reached Elizabeth’s eyes. It read:

Dear Reverend Phelps,

I am returning to Cambridge in two months to join my uncle’s legal firm.

Andrew had felt inclined to throw the loathsome scrap of paper in the fireplace immediately, but some morbid curiosity forced him to read on.

I have pictured a thousand times the look that was in your eyes when I disgraced myself. The only thing worse is imagining the hurt that must have been in Elizabeth’s eyes.

If the young man’s words had been intended to soften Andrew’s feelings, they’d had the opposite effect, but still he’d read on.

I have always lived an easy life, Reverend Phelps, never having wanted for anything. I can see now that has been a curse, for I never learned to appreciate the things I had. Character can only be developed through hardship, my grandfather used to tell me. Now I understand.

Is there any way I can earn your forgiveness? I have never felt such pain as I feel now at the thought of possibly never seeing Elizabeth again.

If only I had known then, how much love …

There was more, but it had been then that Andrew balled the letter up in his fist and pitched it into the fireplace. The flames licking around the paper had brought only scant satisfaction, for he knew that even if he continued to forbid Mr. Raleigh entrance into his home, there was no way he would be able to keep the young man and Elizabeth from eventually seeing each other—not if they lived in the same town.