Chapter 30
“Do you think I relish squeezing money from those who have so little to begin with? That I wake each morning, eager to go about this bloodthirsty business?” continued Mr. Norcroft, the anger thinning into something brittle.
“But if I do not do as my master and mistress dictate, I will find myself in my predecessor’s shoes. ”
Letting out a heaving breath, he ground his teeth.
“The Whitcombes want profitability, and if I do not produce, I will be sacked as well. Do you think they will give me a reference? Or that any other employer will take me on when I was let go for dereliction of duty? I will lose my income, and my family will starve. It is as simple—and as ugly—as that.”
“There are limits. Some lines mustn’t be crossed,” argued Samuel. “Mr. Colby will die because of what was done today.”
Mr. Norcroft gave a short, humorless laugh. “That is easy to say when your position is secure. No matter how you anger the Whitcombes, they cannot remove you. I have no such protections.”
“It is not as easy as that, sir—”
“Aye, and neither is it for me, sir,” he retorted. “You know better than most how narrow the margin truly is. How quickly a family can slip from respectability to dependence, from comfort to destitution. Losing my position may be a blow from which we will never recover.”
“Just as Mr. Colby will likely never recover,” said Samuel.
Shoulders sagging, Mr. Norcroft’s gaze fell away as the fire within them dimmed. “There was no persuading her to turn a blind eye once it was brought to her attention. Though I do not agree with the law, I cannot go against it any more than I can go against her. This is not my doing nor my will.”
The truth of it settled between them, cold and heavy. Samuel thought of the vestry table, of the papers folded and stacked, of the way decisions hardened once set down in ink. Different roles. Different leashes.
“You play the Whitcombes’ eager admirer,” Mr. Norcroft continued, bitterness edging his whisper.
“But I play the Whitcombes’ hard fist. I am the boogeyman who is hated by half of the parish, unable to even attend Sunday services without being glared at or harangued by people begging for mercy that I haven’t the power to grant.
Neither of us can afford to refuse the Whitcombes’ whims, or others will suffer for our pride. ”
Silence settled between them, heavy and unyielding as Mr. Norcroft’s words hung in the cold air. Samuel felt the chains that bound them together, and his anger toward the steward ebbed, replaced once more by cold futility.
“I do not envy your position,” said Samuel at last. “And I apologize if I have made it more difficult than needs be.”
Mr. Norcroft let out a sharp breath that sounded more like a surrender than relief and scrubbed a hand over his face, erasing the last of the heat in his eyes. “And I apologize for my behavior at your dinner party. What I said was shameful and born from a frustration that was not of your making.”
And though he did not meet Samuel’s eyes, a faint smile crossed the steward’s lips. “You should know that Mrs. Norcroft hasn’t given me a moment’s peace about it since.”
Samuel drew a slow breath, the cold air biting his nose, and he inclined his head, accepting the apology without ceremony. It was not peace. It was not an alliance. But it was an understanding, fragile and incomplete, forged from shared pains.
They stood there a moment longer, the church looming behind them, the yard hushed and indifferent. At last, Mr. Norcroft stepped back, drawing his coat closer about him as he turned away.
“I will keep you and your family in my prayers,” said Samuel.
The gentleman paused, glancing back to acknowledge the words before continuing, and Samuel remained where he was, a silent petition pouring from his heart as Mr. Norcroft disappeared into the streets of Kingsmere.
Whatever common ground they had found did nothing to change what would happen tomorrow or the battles to come, but it softened the blows. However slightly.
Turning from the gate, Samuel set off down the path, his steps heavy, his coat pulled tight against a cold that reached deep into his bones. Mr. Colby. The vestry. The law, which stood like iron bars between the two.
Samuel drew a breath, slow and deliberate, and let it out again as he moved quickly through the streets, eager to embrace the comfort of home.
Hang his schedule. The work could wait until tomorrow.
After a wretched night and afternoon, he’d earned a respite.
The familiar outline of The Parsonage came into view at last, and Samuel felt liable to collapse as he stumbled over the threshold.
“I am so glad you are home. I have just come from the village.” Phoebe was on him in a flash, bursting from the parlor. The words spilled out one atop the other before he set aside his coat as she fretted about starving children, bare pantries, and poor harvests.
“Why are you forcing the issue when they are struggling so?” she demanded, her brows pulled low. “The Hollises will pay their rent in due time, and it is no burden to us if it is tardy.”
Samuel stood there with his coat stuck halfway off, his head throbbing with his quickening pulse, and forced his voice to remain level. “Things are not as dire as you think. Lean months come after poor harvests. They always do. And yet, somehow, the rent is found. It always is.”
Phoebe’s head came up at once, eyes flashing. “Do you think I cannot tell when a cupboard is bare? Or the difference between inconvenience and hunger?”
“That is not what I meant,” he said, weariness tugging at every syllable as he ripped off his coat. “But I have known the Hollises for years. If they are short, it is because they have spent too much at the inn—”
“But their children do not deserve to starve, regardless of their parents’ behavior.”
His jaw tightened. “I am not saying they do, but protecting people from the consequences of their actions is nice but not kind. I will not enable them.”
Phoebe scoffed. “And in the meantime, the children go to bed hungry. I didn’t think you were capable of such cruelty!”
The color rose in her cheeks, and her posture stiffened as the corridor closed in around him. Samuel’s remaining patience frayed at the edges, straining to keep hold of his tongue—yet she still pestered him, those accusations clogging the air and burrowing into his skin like midges.
Clenching his jaw, Samuel forced himself to breathe. Phoebe didn’t understand how much damage even the best of intentions could do. It was no small task to learn the ways of another parish, and he couldn’t expect her to find her footing when it had taken him a good many months to gain his.
Yet as he tried to extricate himself, Phoebe followed him into the parlor, heaping more petitions and judgments upon him. Refusing to listen. Once more, she was sticking her nose in things she did not understand. And once more, Phoebe insisted she knew what was right.
And in the meantime, Mr. Colby was packing his meager possessions, readying himself to be tossed from his home.
Samuel drew another breath, slow and deliberate, and let it out again. The fault lay with a system that left little room for mercy. He would not allow his weariness to sour into blame.
“Phoebe,” he said, more sharply than he intended, but she did not stop.
The words flowed one right after the other, quickly enough that Samuel could not keep them all straight.
There was some nonsense about misjudgments and asking too much of a wife, but he could not follow the logic, for there was none to be found.
“Why can you not simply listen?” he snapped at last, the words breaking free. “You cannot fix everything the instant you lay eyes upon it.”
Silence followed, sudden and taut.
Head throbbing dully, Samuel felt everything piling one atop the other, the day’s weight surging up at once.
The pressure built, tightening behind his eyes, his chest, his throat.
He felt it in the way his hands trembled before he clenched them into fists, and the bitterness he had tried so hard to keep at bay finally found its voice.
“I apologize if I am not in the mood to deal with yet another of your troubles, but the last one you unleashed on the parish has done me in. Because of your interference, Mr. Colby is to be removed from our parish. He is leaving us tomorrow morning.”
*
The words slipped past her as though spoken in a foreign tongue. Familiar sounds, though their meanings were lost. Phoebe’s thoughts skidded about uselessly, reaching for something solid and finding nothing to hold as he detailed the council meeting.
“The journey will be his death,” she whispered. “His lungs have grown worse of late, and his knees pain him something terrible—”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” demanded Samuel.
“But surely if we explained it to them,” she insisted, though Phoebe did her best to keep her voice even. “The council must not understand how frail he is.”
“And you think I did not attempt to convince them?” he scoffed, his arm flinging wide as he jabbed a finger toward the church. “I did what I could! I am but one man on the council, and I have little power to do anything in this parish without their support and permission!”
Pressing a hand to her head, Phoebe turned away. “This is madness. To send an old man to his death out of spite?”
“Are you not listening?” he barked once more. “As I told you long ago, this is not personal. It is the law. Why can you not simply stop and consider that perhaps you are not the font of all wisdom and understanding? That when others act, there is reason behind it?”
Phoebe straightened. “Do not raise your voice at me, Samuel Godwin! I only wished to help him.”
“And I only wish to fulfill my duties—something you are making infinitely more difficult. I am doing my best, and yet you call my efforts insufficient and heartless.”
“That isn’t fair—”
“No,” he cut in. “It isn’t fair to be told, again and again, that I am complicit in cruelty because I refuse to tilt at windmills.”
Her mouth opened, but he pressed on, the words gathering force as his muscles tightened, the anger visibly building in him.
“Mrs. Whitcombe and those like her hold all the power. Land. Money. Influence. The law. The vestry bows because it must, and we cannot alter the shape of the world by indignation alone.” Samuel shook his head once, a sharp, frustrated motion.
“The only thing I can do is learn how to play the game well enough that the people I serve do not lose everything.”
“I didn’t know I was upsetting the rules,” she said.
“Precisely!” The word was sharp, forced through gritted teeth as Samuel scowled. “Yet you sit around, judging me for how I treat my tenants and how I behave in the parish.”