Chapter Twelve
This is a most majestic vision, and
Harmoniously charmingly.
Letter in hand, Adam Hearne crossed the common, ignored by the shorn sheep.
With only a brief word to Mr. Eveleigh, whom he encountered at the breakfast table, he had slipped out alone.
Solitude was impossible, as the hay, now fully dried and gotten up in cocks, was ready to be carried into the barns, but the haymakers would not trouble him, other than to throw him curious glances.
His errand was hardly secret, but whenever it came to dealings with his family, the company of others somehow chafed him. As if, by merely looking at him, they might guess at the strife from which he distanced himself and which had left him with a core of loneliness nothing touched.
He had not been able to avoid writing a reply to his mother after her second letter came.
There had been more of her dissatisfaction with her companion Mrs. Blondell, more outrage over Hepworth Lodge, more regrets over her unhappy marriage—but then, in a postscript which he did not even read for a few days (having put off a thorough perusal as long as he could, as he always did), something new!
“Adam,” she wrote, “I dash this down just before sending it. You will never suppose who I thought I saw on my morning walk! It might have been your brother Reginald. I cannot be certain. It has been so many years. But this person looked like your father, only younger. I will write to you again when I learn more.”
Reginald Hearne in Weymouth? The memory of his brother had grown indistinct over the years, and Adam did not think he could have picked him out among passersby, but a mother’s eye must be different.
Supposing it was him? After writing to him so constantly with nothing to show for it, Pamela Hearne would certainly approach him, and what then?
Would Reginald try to avoid his mother in person as he did on paper?
One thing was clear: Adam acknowledged in himself that curiosity for the lost side of his family.
If Reginald Hearne chose to know his mother again, he must also know the brother.
The thought both drew and alarmed him. He would like a brother; he could not deny it, but what sort of brother would Reginald be?
Had he, too, grown to think wistfully of lost connections?
Adam could not blame him if, upon receiving letters from their mother, his brother, too, shrank from replying.
With each unanswered letter it would have grown more impossible to make a beginning, as each letter added, inexorably, to the burden of plaints and pleas.
If Reginald were to answer now, after so many years, he would surely be buried under the load of them, heaped upon him at one fell swoop.
But if he were to meet his mother in the street?
The bright-eyed postmistress hurried from behind her counter, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Good morning to you! You must be one of the guests at Greenwood Hall. Maggs came for the post already, and you might have given this to her, but of course you might have wanted to walk on such a fine day.”
Startled by this address, Adam hastily adopted his blank-blockhead persona, saying only, “Maggs?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lamb. “Maggs. Sealy’s cousin.
A maid at the Hall. You are all very welcome there and welcome to Iffley, and if there’s anything I can help you with, you have only to say so.
Horses hired, wagons hired, rooms let.” She waved her hand as she listed the Tree Inn’s services.
“I am Mrs. Lamb, the mistress here.” Peering at the letter he had given her, she observed, “Ah, Mrs. Pamela Hearne. Your mother, I suppose? I wondered when we would see something from you, as she’s written to you twice since you came.
Ah, you gentlemen! I suppose not everyone can be as good a correspondent as Mr. Langworthy.
He writes such long letters to Mrs. Langworthy, never less than two sheets, crossed, in tiny writing, but they only come when they can, you know.
The navy. The packets. The Barstows could hardly afford the postage on those, I tell you, if not for Lord Dere telling me that anything over sixpence must be charged to his account and not a word said!
They’re none the wiser, of course, for Mr. Langworthy only pays a penny when Mrs. Langworthy writes to him… ”
She raised her voice delivering this last bit of information because Adam was already bowing and backing away.
After a tramp through Iffley Meadow he turned back toward the village, taking the longer way past the church and rectory to avoid the Tree Inn.
Gordon Barstow had told him Iffley Cottage was “two storeys, with a low stone wall around it and a roof half slate and half tile,” a stone’s throw from the church.
An accurate description, as it turned out, but Adam was not prepared for the charm of the scene, and he paused to take it in.
Grass and flower borders filled the little courtyard, while roses climbed the walls past window shutters painted dark blue.
The new-built rooms which had been added were alone bare of foliage, though a trellis had been placed to coax new plantings upward.
In the yard a young boy was trotting about.
He showed the ball in his hand to a little white lapdog alluringly, but when he tossed it, crying, “Get it, Poppet! Go and fetch it!” the little beast did not stir an inch.
A laugh floated to Hearne’s ears. “Poor Bash! Poppet is too old for such activities, even if he were accustomed to them. And that ball is as big as his muzzle. Would you have him nudge it back to you?”
It was Miss Barstow, comfortable in a wicker chair, her playbook open on her lap and her bonnet dangling by its ribbons.
The sunlight bathing her gave her dark blonde hair a golden halo, and for a moment Adam thought he would be glad to lean against the wall the rest of the day, drinking in the sight, but the sound of footsteps roused him, and he turned to look over his shoulder.
“Good day to you,” the rector’s wife Mrs. Terry greeted him.
“I see you have found the place. Isn’t it enchanting?
I tell Mr. Terry that I would give up our old rectory in a snap if the Barstows would trade with us, but he says I never thought it half so appealing when Mr. and Mrs. Markham Dere lived there, and he is right!
” She gave a merry laugh. “So I said that perhaps what I really wanted was to be a Barstow. Come, sir. I see Frances has seen us.” Tucking a hand in his arm she called, “Frances! Look who I found in the street. We are here for the rehearsal. And if the parlor is too small for me, I will sit outside, and you may leave the window open.”
Frances scrambled up, embarrassed to be caught lolling, but she smashed her bonnet back on and bobbed in greeting.
“You are early, both of you,” she said, sounding more accusing than she intended.
Hastily she added, “I mean—welcome. Mr. Hearne, this is my nephew Sebastian. Bash, this is Mr. Hearne who is visiting our friends at Greenwood Hall.”
“Frances says I may be the changeling child,” said Bash solemnly.
“I didn’t,” she protested. “I said you were the only one small enough to be the changeling child. That is not the same thing. Won’t you come in? Mrs. Terry, you will be astonished how much space we have made, so there will be no need for you to sit outside, though today that would be no hardship.”
Hearne could only suppose the parlor must ordinarily be cramped indeed, if Miss Barstow thought this spacious.
Yes, there were several unoccupied chairs, but Peter and Gordon were chasing George Denver as he charged around, pretending to flap his fairy wings and knocking over a window stool; Miss Maria was scolding them for bending the wire; Mrs. Langworthy had a mouthful of pins and was retrieving a length of ribbon from the cat’s paw.
Unbothered by the commotion about her, Mrs. Barstow clutched a basket full of fur scraps and conferred with the maid.
With a delighted shriek, Bash joined the chase of George, and Miss Barstow had to raise her voice to be heard. “Stop that at once, boys! Don’t you see we have some guests?”
“You already had guests,” quibbled Peter Dere. “What do you call Denver and me?”
“I call you old friends, with whom we needn’t stand on ceremony,” Frances retorted. “And I would wager you’d be prim and proper enough if your mother walked through that door, Peter.”
“Not as prim and proper as George would be,” was Peter’s reply.
“If you call swooning in fear prim and proper,” said George, which made the others laugh.
But when proper salutations were exchanged and the boys took their seats, George carefully removing his wings before doing so, Mrs. Terry said, “We’re early, we know.
And, Mr. Hearne, I too am an old Barstow friend and not to be treated with any special courtesies, so this is all for you, I assure you. ”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” he said. “Stand on ceremony for my sake. I rather liked the rumpus.”
“See, Frances?” said her brother. “He says he doesn’t mind.”
“It must be because he has lived so long in a university setting, surrounded by dozens of George Denvers and their ilk,” suggested Mrs. Terry, retrieving Mrs. Langworthy’s ribbon length and giving the cat a scratch behind the ears.
“That may be,” returned Miss Barstow, “but the rest of the Greenwood party will be here shortly, and I assure you the Eveleighs’ apartments at Oriel never saw such noise and violence! Mr. Hearne will simply have to do without the Christ Church hurly-burly for another few weeks.”
Adam made no attempt to accept or refute Mrs. Terry’s interpretation of his words, but the exchange made him thoughtful. The rector’s wife was, in fact, mistaken. He was not missing the rumpus of Christ Church, such as it was. It was something else altogether.
He felt…happy.