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Althea rose because she need not sit like a penitent at confession either. Nathaniel had taught her that.
“You do not see. The present Duke of Walden came late to his letters, as you put it. A cousin who was a teacher eventually instructed him, though by then my brother was in domestic service. His Grace learned to read and write with the same ferocious tenacity he brings to everything, but his lack of education has always bedeviled him. Walden escaped a life in livery only because he’d become literate, and because even a boy who can’t read can become highly proficient with numbers.”
Quinn also had a gargantuan memory, which Cousin Duncan, who had taught him to read, said was typical of the illiterate. Unable to record any part of life in written form, they carried it in their heads instead.
“So you want to open circulating schools,” Vicar said, sipping his tea with all the complacence of a dowager at her tatting.
“If half of Wales can learn to read because of the tenacity of one preacher, certainly I can take on a few of York’s worst alleys.” This compulsion todo something, to engage the world constructively, had grown since Althea had turned her back on Nathaniel nearly a week ago. She’d forbidden herself to walk by the river at any hour, and she’d closed all the curtains on the windows that looked out on Rothhaven land.
She’d even let Milly and Stephen talk her into planning a ball, of all the demented notions, but her interest in entertaining, in anything social whatsoever, had sunk to a new nadir. Her energies were absorbed in grieving a future with Nathaniel that could never be. Finding a distraction from that sorrow had grown imperative.
“I will speak to my colleagues in York,” Vicar said. “Give me a fortnight. How do you fare otherwise, my lady?”
What was he asking?
“You look surprised at the question,” he said, setting his teacup aside. “I am more than just a brilliant biblical orator, you know, more than the agreeable fellow to make up the numbers at Squire Annen’s dinners.” His tone was humorous rather than bitter. “I am your neighbor, and I know that you’ve chosen to bide at Lynley Vale rather than join your family in London this spring. I suspect that’s why Lord Stephen has troubled himself to visit. He’s worried about you, as others might be.”
Others,meaning Pietr Sorenson?
“I am well.”Except for a severe case of heartache.“Stephen’s company enlivens life at Lynley Vale, though he’s a younger brother.” Or he used to be. Now he was a gentleman of independent means and a very independent nature. Althea could no longer guess his thoughts, just as she could no longer carry him piggyback through the backstreets of York.
Another peculiar sorrow.
“Would you tell me if you were lonely?” Vicar asked, leaning forward in his chair. “Most widowers are well acquainted with the condition. We know the temptation of the brandy decanter, of ill-advised company, of self-pity. One needn’t lose a loved one to fall prey to the same dismal comforts.”
He bore the scent of lavender, a pleasant, brisk fragrance that suited him. Althea hoped she could avail herself of Pietr Sorenson’s embrace and find a purely platonic hug, though he’d mentioned loneliness, and lonely people did not make the soundest of decisions.
She turned to gaze out the window, and what should she see but the Rothhaven walled orchard on the top of the hill beyond the common.
“I appreciate your concern,” she said, “but you will be pleased to know that my brother and my companion have talked me into hosting an entertainment later in the month. We are all awhirl at the Vale, planning this great event, and you will soon receive your invitation.”
He rose as any good host would. “I will be pleased to accept. Won’t you finish your tea?”
“No, thank you. I must be off to the lending library. Mrs. Peabody says the inventory could use some refreshing, and I have the means to address that situation.” Althea wanted out of Vicar’s pleasant little parlor, away from the sense of unrelenting gentility his household wore like a favorite shawl.
The housekeeper appeared in the parlor’s open doorway. Her usually cheerful countenance looked worried.
“I am sorry to interrupt, Vicar, but a situation has arisen requiring your attention.”
“A busy day,” he said, his smile back in evidence. “Lady Phoebe did me the great honor of calling upon me earlier, and now somebody has doubtless had a spat with a sweetheart. A vicar’s work is never done.”
“You like it that way,” Althea said as he walked her to the front door. “You like being constantly faced with challenges, like making a contribution that’s seldom acknowledged.”
“And you,” he said, holding up her cloak, “learned to read far more than mere books. I admire you tremendously, you know.” He went about fastening the frogs of her cloak, as if Althea permitted anybodyeverto assume that familiarity. “You don’t simply sing the hymns, you exemplify the teachings.”
One could not bat at a vicar’s hands as if he were a presuming brother, so Althea tolerated his assistance.
“Literacy matters, Vicar. It can matter a very great deal.”
He stepped back, his gaze conveying that he knew exactly what point she made. “A system of circulating schools in an urban situation will take some thought.”
“I know. Because the impact could be faster and far greater than what was accomplished over decades in the Welsh countryside. All the more reason to be about it.” She dipped a curtsy and bid him good day, uncertain what, exactly, to make of the encounter.
Sorenson was a good man, mature, intelligent, handsome in a severe Nordic way, and possessed of a sense of humor. Althea was almost certain he’d been flirting with her, but then again, her inability to gauge flirtation accurately was yet another of her many social shortcomings.
She spent nearly an hour with Mrs. Peabody going over the lending library’s inventory and hearing stories of Mrs. P’s girlhood. That courtesy meant Althea stayed a good thirty minutes longer in the village than she’d planned to. For that reason, and that reason only, Althea chose for her homeward trek the trail that crossed a corner of Rothhaven land, rather than return to Lynley Vale by the lanes.
She was passing through a copse of slender, greening birches when she became aware that she was not alone on the path.
