The Widow of Larkspur Inn (46 page)

“A book?” Jeremiah blinked, looking a bit crestfallen. “There’s a
book
about fishing?”

The vicar smiled again. “
The Compleat Angler,
by Isaak Walton. It’s actually quite popular, I’ve since discovered. I wish I had a copy to show you.”

“What does it say about perch?” Philip asked, intrigued.

“Minnows.”

“Minnows?” Ben and Jeremiah said at the same time.

“They work like a charm, most of the time. Keep your crickets for the graylings, and trout, mind you … but why don’t you catch up some minnows as well?”

They thanked him, assuring him that they would heed his advice. He waved farewell and started for the vicarage. When he was out of earshot, Ben said, “Do you think we should have asked him to come along?”

Philip looked at him askew. “Ask the vicar?”

“Well, why not? You could tell he’s fond of fishing.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure he’s terribly busy.” He had other thoughts on the matter too but did not care to share them. As likable as the vicar appeared to be, he was still Laurel Phelps’s father. Let Laurel find out, as she would, that he’d fished with her father, and she would assume that her attempts to usurp his position as head of the class were just a trivial matter. Perhaps that would be so if he hadn’t already imagined a certain trophy occupying a place of honor on the chimneypiece in the
Larkspur
’s hall.

Chapter 27

“Want t’see the pig, vicar?” Mr. Towly asked around the clay pipe stuck in the center of his stubbled cheeks. He owned a small dairy farm to the far east of Gresham, past the manor house and along the edge of Gipsy Woods. Like the other dairy farmers in the village, he sold most of his herd’s output to the cheese factory.

“Why, yes … thank you,” Andrew replied, aware of the honor being bestowed upon him. He’d learned much about the rural folk of his parish during the three weeks since he’d moved his family here. Even the poorest cottage usually had a sty in the backyard, and the enclosed animal was treated as an important member of the family. Children on their way home from school filled their lunch pails with sow thistle and dandelions to supplement the pig’s diet of kitchen scraps, and they often roamed along the hedgerows on wet evenings collecting snails for the animal’s supper. In late autumn, the creature repaid such solicitous treatment by providing his keepers with bacon, hams, sausages, lard, and other parts…” nothing wasted except the squeal” was a saying Andrew had heard more than once.

He got up from his rush-bottomed chair and followed the man from the cottage, leaving Elizabeth listening intently as Mrs. Towly explained how to braid a rag rug. The pig, brown like its owner’s thatched roof, was one of the largest he’d seen yet. Andrew made sure to comment on his great size, which brought a flush of pleasure to his host’s stubbled cheeks.

“The little ones—they lets him run loose in the woods every so often.” A faint look of alarm crossed the man’s face. “Ye ain’t gonter tell the squire, are ye?”

“Why, no,” Andrew replied. He had become aware that Squire Bartley owned most of the land in Gresham, including Gipsy Woods, but surely he would have no objection to a pig rooting about in the shrubs for sloes and snails.

And if he did, well, Andrew was a guest in the Towlys’ home, bound under the same constraints of civility as any other guest. And he’d learned years ago to save most of his spiritual ammunition for the deadly sins that dishonored God and destroyed lives. But in that Mr. Towly’s confession had involved him in the matter, Andrew did feel compelled by conscience to add, “Just remember, Mr. Towly, there are no secrets from God.”

Later, as Rusty, the blue roan from the vicarage stable, pulled the trap bearing Andrew and his daughter down the tree-shaded Church Lane, he thought about how Elizabeth had kept her word about accompanying him on his calls. What made him especially grateful was that he was aware the visits bored her, no matter how adept she was at pretending interest in such things as rag rugs.

Immerse yourself in something else
, Mrs. Hollis, the owner of the lodging house, had advised her. Good counsel it was, for Elizabeth had a greater chance of finding something that interested her while out making calls than by sitting at home absorbed in memories.

The
Larkspur
happened to come into view on his right. Had he ever thanked Mrs. Hollis, he wondered? He certainly had intended to, but it was hard to recall what he said to people at the door of the church. And he’d not yet made a call at the lodging house.

Tomorrow,
he told himself. “I appreciate you coming with me, Elizabeth,” he said to his daughter. “I find it much less intimidating to have someone at my side when I knock on a door.”

His daughter drew her wool shawl closer about her shoulders, then looked askew at him. It was good to see a trace of her old humor returning, even though the haunted expression in her eyes still cropped up often.

“I never knew making calls intimidated you.”

“They never have before. Well, not counting my earlier days in the ministry. But I still feel a bit out of place here.”

“Like a fish out of water?”

“Yes,” Andrew said, smiling. “Or like a piano in the pantry.”

She thought for a second. “Like a mouse in the soup.”

“Good one.” Now he had to think. “Like a cabbage in a rose garden.”

“How about like a deck of cards in a church pew?” Elizabeth offered, but then put a quick hand up to her mouth. “Was that sacrilegious?”

“Why, I don’t think so,” Andrew told her. “Don’t you think God has a sense of humor?”

“I never thought about that.”

“Well, He made
me
, didn’t He?”

“Papa!” she exclaimed, giving him an indulgent smile while at the same time shaking her head in a reproving manner. “You’re quite handsome.”

“Now you’re going to make me vain.”

They rode in silence for a while, Andrew greatly encouraged by the lightness of their exchange.
Why, in another week or so she won’t even remember his name
.

“Do you regret moving us here?”

Andrew’s shoulders fell slightly at the flatness of her voice. “Moving
us,
” she had said, not even looking at him. Was there accusation in her tone, or was he just extra sensitive to her moods lately?

“No regrets, Beth,” he said in answer to her question. Her face was still turned toward the lane ahead, but he caught the tremble of her lip.
How can she be laughing one minute and ready to weep the next?

“I’m trying, Father.”

Patience,
Andrew reminded himself. “I know that. And I do appreciate it.” Taking a hand from the rein, he touched her cheek lightly. “You’re going to discover one day that you’re stronger than you think, Elizabeth Phelps.” At least he prayed that would happen.

Their last morning call would be to the Burrell cottage, south of the village on Short Lane. Mr. Burrell had been a skilled carpenter at one time, so said Reverend Wilson’s helpful notebook. But the bottle had ruined him, and now he kept himself supplied with drink by taking on odd jobs here and there. By poaching too, it was rumored. His poor wife kept their seven children clothed and fed by working at the cheese factory and shame-facedly accepting parish assistance when the rent could not be met.

Andrew had paid a call one evening last week, when Mrs. Burrell was home and her husband out, to reassure the overworked woman that he would continue to see about her family, as his predecessor had done. He now wanted to meet the man face-to-face. With the memory of Mrs. Burrell crying on his shoulder still fresh in his mind, he felt compelled to admonish the man for abandoning his role as provider and nurturer of his family. Likely it would bring no change. Vicar Wilson had made heroic attempts at the same for years … but he had to try.

He had almost decided to make this call at a time when Elizabeth wasn’t along. Drunkards were not pretty sights. But during his morning prayers, a strong impression came over him that she should be with him.

It was obvious that Jonathan Raleigh still occupied a great deal of her thoughts. She’d led too sheltered a life and could not grasp the severity of what happens to a wife when a husband hands his life over to the devil. Oh, he’d cited examples to her—keeping the names private—of sad cases he’d seen during his years in the ministry, but the lessons that made the deepest impressions were those that could be experienced firsthand.

He pulled Rusty to a halt in front of the Burrell cottage—a hovel, actually, of wattle and daub, showing numerous chinks and cracks. The first thing that caught Andrew’s eye was a small child of about three trying to lift the end of a large stick.

“Dear me, no!” Elizabeth exclaimed, quickly moving herself out of the trap. Andrew’s heart skipped a beat with the realization that the stick was an ax. He dropped the reins and jumped out on his side, but his daughter reached the child first.

“Here now, you mustn’t play with that,” she was saying, prying the little fingers away from the handle. The child gaped up at her with eyes that seemed extraordinarily blue in a small face begrimed with dirt. Her light brown curls were matted and uncombed, her gown—likely a sleeping garment—dirty, and there were no shoes on her feet despite the briskness of the early October air.

“Tha’s ack,” the child said and pointed to the ax that now lay on the ground.

“Yes, but it’s dangerous.” Elizabeth shook her head. “It’ll hurt you.”

“Is hot?”

“Yes, hot.”

The child nodded somberly. “Hot.”

Elizabeth looked up at Andrew, her eyes tearing. “How can a mother …?”

Giving her a sad smile, he said, “The mother leaves for work before the sun comes up.”

Now his daughter’s eyes shot to the cottage. “Who watches the child?”

Andrew recalled what had been written in Vicar Wilson’s notebook and what he had seen for himself last week. “One or another of the older children stays home from school when the father’s not around,” he replied. His lips tightened at the sight of the door hanging crookedly on its hinges. “But I suppose he’s here today.”

The inside was as desperate as the outside—a packed earth floor and mismatched pieces of furniture that had apparently been castoffs. Still, there were heart-rending attempts at beauty—hand-sewn curtains of cheap but colorful gingham in the windows and some blue mist flowers in a jar at the center of the crude trestle table. A partially open curtain sagging from a rope formed the only other room. The foot of a rusty iron bedstead was visible, and a grating sound came from that direction. It was snoring, Andrew realized.
At eleven in the morning!

He was on his way across the room when movement caught his eye. In a wooden box on the floor, obviously a makeshift crib, a child lay on a folded blanket. Andrew walked over to it and crouched down. The child appeared to be a boy, quite younger than his sister, and was so still that Andrew worried that he might not be breathing. Gently, he touched a soft cheek and let out a relieved breath when he stirred slightly.

Surely babies don’t sleep this late,
he thought. And while he couldn’t recall most of the particulars of his daughters’ infancy, he thought it was a bit too early for a nap.

“What’s wrong?” asked Elizabeth, standing behind him. She still had the other child in hand.

“I’m not sure.” He saw a glint of metal, partially hidden by a fold in the blanket, and picked it up. It was a tin spoon. “This is an odd thing to put in a child’s bed.”

“Perhaps he’s ill. There is some medicine out.”

He peered up at her over his left shoulder. “Where?”

“Right beside you,” she said, pointing. “The cupboard.”

Andrew turned his head to the right, then got to his feet immediately. Against the wall sat a massive old cupboard with one door wide open, and on its ledge was an uncorked amber bottle. He picked it up and sniffed.
Gin!
While setting it back on the ledge, the side of his hand brushed against something grainy. It was sugar, he realized, and it had come from a crock on the upper shelf, exposed by the open door.

“What is it, Father?” asked Elizabeth. The child at her side murmured something unintelligible and pointed to the curtain, apparently thinking she’d been asked the location of her own father.

“I hate to say out loud what I’m thinking.” Andrew still held the spoon in his left hand—he brought it up to his nose and sniffed. The odor of gin still clung to the metal. “Why, that good-for-nothing!” he muttered, turning on his heel.

“Father?”

There was alarm in his daughter’s voice, but Andrew was not in the state of mind to answer. He went through the open space in the curtain and over to the sunken bed where its occupant lay on his shirtless back, oblivious to the goings-on in his own cottage. Mr. Randy Burrell was a bull of a man, with greasy brown hair and a mustache as thick as a paintbrush curling over his upper lip. Stained teeth looked like a row of crooked headstones in the gaping mouth, from which came drafts of foul breath. Andrew grabbed a shoulder and shook him roughly.

“Mr. Burrell!”

A snort, and then “ugh?” came from the reclining figure.