“Maren?” I asked.
Her eyes went wide. “Do I know you, miss?” Maren asked, her words clear, though I could pick up the slightest Danish accent. Maren had been only ten the last time I’d seen her. She might not even remember me.
Mrs. Mortensen stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and shooing two young boys away from her side. When she saw me, she pulled her hands from the apron and threw them up in the air. “Is that Miss Atwood? As I live and breathe, I didn’t think we would ever see you again.”
Maren’s eyebrows rose, and she pulled the door open wider. “Miss Atwood?” she asked, smoothing down her hair. “You used to bring us apples.”
I laughed. “Yes, I did. I’m afraid I don’t have any apples with me today.”
Mrs. Mortensen brushed her hand on her apron again and pulled me into her arms. “You don’t need to bring apples or anything else. Come in.” Her accent was stronger than Maren’s, and the sound of it soothed me. She practically pushed me into the rocking chair in the corner of the room, and I sank into it with a contented smile. How often had I rocked little Samuel on this chair?
Besides Maren, two boys followed Mrs. Mortensen around. The older of the two looked to be about eight or nine.
“Is that Samuel?” I asked, and the boy’s eyes darted to his mother and back to me. Mrs. Mortensen nodded, and he relaxed. “I used to rock you here in this very chair while your mother made dinner. But you were much too young to remember.” I smiled, and he held on tighter to Mrs. Mortensen’s side. “And you—” I turned to the younger of the two boys. “I don’t think I’ve met you.”
“This is Jacob.” Mrs. Mortensen said, patting the boy’s dark-brown hair. “My youngest. He’ll be turning five next month.”
I grinned at him. “Next month?” He nodded shyly. I wished I could promise him I would bring him something delicious on his birthday, but there was a good chance I would be gone by then. A lump settled in my throat. Nowhere else would feel like home after living in Breckenridge. “Happy Birthday,” I said. He smiled softly and relaxed enough to allow some space between him and Mrs. Mortensen. “Where are the other children?” I asked, forcing myself away from the melancholy.
Mrs. Mortensen grinned. “They are at the school. Maren stayed home today to help bake bread, but she attends sometimes too—when the schoolmaster doesn’t send her home because of her saucy nature.”
“I’m not saucy. I simply like to help out by making a few jests now and again.” Maren tipped her head and lifted one corner of her mouth in a grin that would be hard to describe as anything butsaucy.“The students learn better when class is more exciting.”
“Youareone of those students, Maren.” Her mother huffed. “You’re fortunate not to have been expelled yet.”
“There is a school?” I’d been here in the summer when the children were typically busy working outside, but I’d never even heard them speak about a school. I didn’t think there had been one to attend back then.
Mrs. Mortensen brought her focus back to me. “Yes. Three times a week, Mr. Allen teaches reading and arithmetic to whicheverchildren can make time to go to the school. It has been a great blessing every winter.”
“We eat lunch there too,” Maren said.
A male teacher in a small community such as this? Who was paying him—the vicarage? “How long has that been happening?”
“Since not long after Mr. David hired Mr. Allen to be his tutor. Apparently, Mr. David didn’t feel the need to be tutored as often as Mr. Allen was willing to tutor, so together they came up with this plan. Despite Maren’s flippant attitude, she’s one of the more accomplished students. She has a quick mind for learning.”
Maren shrugged, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Books and numbers make a lot more sense than people half the time.”
Maren had grown to be a beautiful young woman, and her mother’s compliment brought a spot of color to her cheeks that suited her well. I hadn’t been certain in what condition I would find the Mortensen family. When I left all those years ago, their home had had holes in the roof, and the thatch had begun to rot. A few of the children had already taken ill, and I’d been worried I wouldn’t find all of them here when I finally set foot in the home again. And I didn’t, but it was because David had set up a school for them.
David.
The boy who would stand outside trying to be unnoticed whenever I entered a tenant’s home. I thought he’d been unwilling to reach out to them or had been uncomfortable for some other reason, but in the end, he’d been able to do a lot more for the Mortensen family than I ever could have with baskets and willingness to hold babies.
“It is wonderful to see you doing so well,” I said.
Mrs. Mortensen smiled. “Even that is thanks to you. You don’t think I missed seeing young Mr. Tate following you around that summer? As soon as his father left him in charge of the estate, the first thing he did was hire a thatcher to fix our roof. He joined in therepairs too. I’ve never seen a young man so interested in something as he was thatching. Before long, he was repairing the tenants’ roofs on his own using funds he got from selling one of his father’s carriages.”
So Davidhadbecome a thatcher, just not as an occupation. But it certainly wasn’t fair for Mrs. Mortensen to think I’d had a role in that. I shook my head. “You give me too much credit. Mr. Tate would have seen your need.” I couldn’t call him David in front of Mrs. Mortensen. It would be too humiliating for her to find out we were engaged only to have it called off in a few weeks.
With a shrug, Mrs. Mortensen sat in one of the other two chairs set up in the room. “Perhaps, but he did ask about you every year or so, wondering if you’d ever reached out to us.”
I should have. I’d been too focused on my own problems to keep up on correspondence, and I regretted it now. “I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“Oh, it is no problem. We all have our own lives to live, and I’m certain a bright young lady like yourself has scores of friends to keep track of. And perhaps a husband and some children of your own by now?” she asked.
Even though her assumption about my family status wasn’t correct, her comment about me being a bright young lady had me wanting to tuck a strand of my own hair behind my ear. I hadn’t been called a bright young lady in a long time. “No, I’m not married. But that is nice of you to say.”
Mrs. Mortensen raised an eyebrow. “Have you been to see the young master? He will be most happy to hear you’ve returned.”
