Chapter Twelve
The summer days had lingered on, warm and buzzing with bees, who, knowing cold days were coming, were storing up food for themselves and their queen.
Mr. Fielding’s strength improved daily, until he was able to help Cynthia with the hens, and Will with the trimming and cutting.
Not yet the hoeing or digging. Cynthia forbade that.
She came upon him one day chatting with Will about the asparagus.
“Yes,” he was saying, “it was always a fine treat when Cook was able to get some. I can’t think why we didn’t ask the gardener to start a bed of it, like you did.”
This revealing reminiscence was cut short by Will, who said, “I prefer a plate of peas meself. That spargus don’t half make yer piss stink.”
The other man laughed, “Indeed, it does!”
Catching sight of Cynthia, Will muttered, “Beggin’ yer pardon, Miss Cynthia. I dint see yer there. Mr. Andrew and me was just passin’ the time o’day.”
Mr. Andrew, was it? she thought. Was Ruby also on such familiar terms with their guest? It wasn’t surprising, for he had such a charming way with everyone, she could see it was hard not to respond.
But then a pair of visitors made her glad he was still the formal Mr. Fielding to her.
She was in the parlor alone the following afternoon.
Ruby was resting, and the men had driven into the village with some of the last vegetables of the season.
It was Mr. Fielding’s first such excursion and she had urged him not to overtire himself.
“I’m not persuaded you are fully recovered yet,” she said, knowing she sounded like a fussing female. “Will, please make Mr. Fielding sit down if you see him looking weary.”
Will had nodded, but then she caught him winking at the other man.
Cynthia watched them leave together. She supposed Will must enjoy having a man to talk to, their masculine complicity a bulwark against what they perceived as the foolishness of women.
She had barely settled down, when a knock came at the front door.
She opened it to find the vicar and his wife on the doorstep.
“Do come in,” she said, surprised. It wasn’t unusual for the vicar’s wife to pop in, but her husband usually only visited when there was an emergency.
“May I offer you tea?” she said, though it was a little early in the afternoon for that.
“No, no, my dear,” said the vicar. He looked at his wife, who picked up the relay. “We were just passing and thought we might have a little word.”
Cynthia knew perfectly well they could not be passing her home by chance.
It was some way out of town and didn’t lead anywhere they might reasonably be going.
She and her mother had walked the two miles every Sunday, rain or shine, for years.
It wasn’t until her mother’s legs could no longer support the walk that they’d bought the gig.
So she sat down and waited for clarification.
A silence fell in the room. It had just begun to be uncomfortable when, at a nudge from his wife, the vicar began, “We thought …” He cleared his throat and began again.
“We thought, my dear, that we should, er, mention… well, the truth is, we have been hearing gossip about a man living here with you.”
“A man?” Cynthia couldn’t at first think what he meant. Then she understood. “Oh, you mean poor Mr. Fielding.”
She didn’t know why she said poor. Now he had largely recovered, he didn’t deserve the epithet.
“He literally collapsed on our doorstep and it was our Christian duty to take him in. I know you’d have done the same.”
The visitors could hardly disagree. “But, if you will forgive the question, where… where has he been, er, sleeping?” The vicar’s wife was pink with embarrassment. “You are quite alone upstairs.”
“Oh,” replied Cynthia, airily, though she was disturbed at the implication, “we made up a bed for him in my papa’s study, near to Ruby and Will in the back of the house.”
“Oh. Well, that’s very, er… appropriate,” said the vicar.
“We saw him going into towards the village in the gig with Will. He’s quite a young man, isn’t he? Good-looking, too.” The vicar’s wife wasn’t giving up.
“I suppose so,” said Cynthia, refusing to be drawn.
“He was dreadfully dirty when he arrived. And he was very poorly with inflammation of the lungs. He nearly died. I thought I was going to have to send you a note at any minute, vicar.” She gave a little laugh.
“But by God’s grace, he has made a recovery.
He’s been helping with the vegetables.” She didn’t mention their companionable trips to the henhouse in the mornings, and how he made her laugh by pretending to have conversations in different voices with the hens.
“I expect he’ll be leaving soon. He’s an itinerant artist, you know.
He draws peoples’ animals - horses and dogs and even cats. Look.”
A number of drawings of Teacup had appeared around the house, and Cynthia showed one to the visitors now.
“Oh,” said the vicar’s wife, looking at the image of Teacup trying to climb up Cynthia’s skirts, an element of regret in her voice. “It’s charming.”
She would have been more interested if she had known that Mr. Fielding was, in fact, still trying to draw Cynthia, and was using Teacup as an excuse for sketching her.
The vicar appeared relieved by Cynthia’s detached attitude, or perhaps by the assertion that the handsome young man would soon be leaving.
He disliked poking into people’s business and wouldn’t have come unless driven to it.
He would have discounted his wife (you know what women were!), but Ben Vernon’s remark had made him sit up and listen.
He now seemed happy with Cynthia’s explanation of the situation and even commended her on her charity. His wife would have liked to ask a few more questions, but knew her husband disliked prying, so they were soon standing up to take their leave.
But their visit disturbed Cynthia more than she liked to admit.
She didn’t like to think she was occasioning gossip in the village.
And had her explanation to the vicar been entirely truthful?
She didn’t know what Mr. Fielding’s intentions were.
He was fully recovered. Was he intending to leave soon?
She had to admit she didn’t want him to go, and she sensed he didn’t want to leave, but he wasn’t a family member, he wasn’t a servant, he wasn’t a lodger…
what was he, precisely? She shrank from doing it, but knew she’d have to speak to him.