Chapter Nineteen
I am glad to enter you into the art of fishing by catching a Chub, for there is no fish better to enter a young Angler, he is so easily caught.
The week before the play performance promised to be a warm one, but Adam could persuade neither of his friends to take advantage of the morning’s coolness for a long walk.
“I may even wander all the way back to my rooms at Christ Church, if only to see if any letters await me,” he had announced late the evening before, when only the three of them remained awake.
“Letters? Nonsense. What you really mean is that you want a holiday from being stupid,” returned Tilson. It was he who had kept them up, having insisted on winning some money from them at billiards.
“I will certainly not join you,” yawned Midge. “It’s cool enough in the house, and I must save my energy for our first dressed rehearsal.”
“Never mind the dressed rehearsal. What I can’t understand is why you beat about the bush, instead of asking Miss Eveleigh to marry you,” Tilson rallied him.
“You do realize your prize winnings have dropped under seven pounds already? Or have you changed your mind about her, seeing she now only has eyes for Adam?”
“She hasn’t!” cried Midge, wide awake at this. “It’s merely that she has high spirits and feels comfortable with us.”
“Oh, is that it?”
“And I have been playing my own long game, you know,” Midge insisted. “You can’t have failed to notice how Miss Barstow and I share tender glances and smiles. Miss Eveleigh never paid any attention to Adam until she saw Miss Barstow had begun to notice me.”
“Then what are you waiting for, if both of you are only flirting to annoy the other?”
“I’m waiting for the play to be done,” Midge growled. “Because it might be uncomfortable for everyone else.”
“If she refuses you, you mean,” said Tilson. “Then it would be uncomfortable for the two of you most of all.”
His friend looked daggers at him, and there was silence until Adam knocked a ball into the corner pocket with a satisfying click-thump. Then Midge transferred the daggers to Adam.
“You do still remember, don’t you, Hearne, that you’ve promised not to woo Miss Eveleigh yourself.”
“I don’t need reminding,” he answered laconically. “She’s all yours.”
“Yes, but—I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve changed my mind about her, simply because of my efforts with Miss Barstow.”
“Very well, I won’t.” Fishing the balls from the pockets, he began to reset them. “I haven’t for one instant dropped my pose as the dullest sheep’s head in Oxfordshire, so you can’t blame me if Miss Eveleigh’s standard is low.”
Tilson shook his head in mock ruefulness.
“That’s rough on you, Midge, if she prefers beauty to brains.
But stand to your guns. When the play and the house party end she’ll give up on Adam and take you, though you might only win a guinea by it.
Still, I tell you, your time might be better spent chasing Miss Jarvis or Miss Barstow.
Miss Jarvis would bring a little dowry with her, in terms of her eighty-to-one odds. ”
“For the last time, John, no one has placed any bets but you,” Adam reminded him. He tossed his cue down. “I’m off to bed.”
The sun was climbing the sky as he descended from the Upper Field and neared the village, and he thought briefly of avoiding the Tree Inn with its chatty postmistress before deciding he might as well face her.
Perhaps he had received a letter from his mother at last. Adam could not remember the last time she let so many days pass.
Could she have fallen ill at Weymouth? So ill she could not tell him if the man she had seen there was indeed his older brother Reginald?
No Mrs. Lamb emerged from the inn to waylay him, however, and after a hesitation where he paused to peer down the lane toward Iffley Cottage, quiet in the sunshine, he walked on.
A head sprung up from the marsh grass in Iffley Meadow, and the boy it belonged to gave a yelp of surprise on seeing him.
“Good morning,” Adam greeted him, his gaze falling to the little canvas sack in the boy’s grip.
“Morning.” Having overcome his alarm, the blond-headed lad stared at him frankly.
“Did you find something?” Adam nodded toward the bag.
“Grasshoppers. For fishing. Chub like ’em.”
“Fishing! What a delightful enterprise. Will you show me your favorite spot?”
A minute later they had picked their way down the bank, the ground being pleasantly dry, even in the shade, and the boy pointed to where his bucket stood and his rod rested on the bough of a tree. Under Adam’s interested eye, he swiftly hooked one of his grasshoppers and let it hang near the water.
“Chubs are mortal afraid,” he explained. “We can’t even let our shadows or the shadow of the rod fall on the water, or they’ll all go and hide. Do you like eating chubs, sir? If you do I’ll sell you one.”
“Thank you. I suppose I might bring it back to Greenwood Hall and offer it to the cook.”
Again the boy’s round pale eyes fixed on him. “I knew it!” he exclaimed. “You’re one of the gennelmen at the Hall Mrs. Lamb talks about. The handsome one, I warrant.”
Adam smiled at this. “Modesty forbids me from claiming your kind description, but I am indeed one of the gentlemen staying at Greenwood Hall. You know Mrs. Lamb, do you?”
“Course I do. I work for her now. Have ever since Harry Barbary ran away to sea.” He leaned closer, as if the busy woman might be lurking within earshot. “Whatever I catch I sell to her. She says she knows how to cook chub so it isn’t watery and sour.”
Adam chuckled. “Don’t let me rob Mrs. Lamb, then. She may have all your catch, lest she feel cheated by me.”
The boy leaned still closer. “Begging your pardon, sir, but Mrs. Lamb already feels cheated by the Hall people.”
“My good lad, what can you possibly mean?”
“She says there’s a play to see,” he whispered, “with all her own acquainsenses in it, but nobody’s allowed to see it except for on the Greenwood Hall people’s say-so, and that in her opinion they’re worse even than her that is at Perryfield, which is a thorn in the side of Mrs. Lamb, world without end. ”
From this Adam understood the rector’s wife had guessed correctly, and the exclusive amusements at the Hall had led to resentment in the larger neighborhood.
He might have argued with his informant—explained how young ladies in amateur theatricals could not perform for just anyone who cared to see them, as professional stage actresses might—but he decided to save his breath.
Better than an unsatisfactory reason would be a satisfactory solution, and Adam had an idea for one.
As it was, he had only time to say, “I understand,” before the boy put a finger to his lips to hush him.
Taking up the rod slowly and stealthily, he advanced the hooked grasshopper by patient increments toward the water, letting the bait fall upon the surface.
In a flash it was snatched at and the horsehair line tightened!
Even Adam held his breath as the boy expertly gave the line some play to ensure the fish was good and hooked before lifting it out of the water.
“Excellent!” Adam cried as it flip-flapped, gleaming, in the morning air. “Well done. Mrs. Lamb will be pleased with you, at least. I wish you continued success, young man. And won’t you tell me your name, so I may tell my friends that I met you? I am Mr. Adam Hearne.”
“Jimmy Cramthorpe, sir,” the boy replied, screwing his head to one side in lieu of tipping his cap, as his hands were full. The wiggly fish slapped onto the bank and would have slithered back into the water if Adam hadn’t blocked it with his boot and helped manhandle it into the bucket.
“Thank you, sir,” Jimmy breathed, adding hopefully, “Are you certain you don’t want to see me catch some more?”
“What a generous invitation, but you will be glad when I go,” replied Adam. “I can be a noisy fellow.” It only occurred to him then that he had utterly forgotten his pretense of dull-wittedness, so the sooner he took his leave, the better.
Giving Jimmy Crampthorpe a tap on the crown in salute, he climbed the bank again.
He ought to have returned to the Hall then, where breakfast would soon be served, but instead he found himself repassing the Tree Inn, to wend through the village.
I might tell the Barstows of my idea for restoring village goodwill, was his excuse. Tell Mrs. Barstow, rather. Not that they know of any ill will yet, for who could resent the Barstows?
It must be admitted, however, that it was not Mrs. Barstow’s kind face he pictured as he bent his steps Iffley-Cottageward.
“Goodness, who can that be?” asked Mrs. Barstow when a knock was heard. The family was gathered at the breakfast table, Gordon and Maria with their playbooks open and Sarah helping Bash to more eggs and another roll, while Frances read her sister Jane Egerton’s most recent letter aloud to them.
“P’raps it’s Mrs. Barbary wanting to beg another jar of our strawberry preserves,” Reed suggested, wiping her hands on her apron as she went to answer, “though she should’ve come to the kitchen.”
The next moment the maid returned to announce in a neutral voice, “Mr. Hearne.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, directly on Reed’s heels. “Calling so early. Intruding on your breakfast. But I had a thought.”
“It is no intrusion,” Mrs. Barstow assured him. “Have you eaten yet? Won’t you join us?”
His drowsy gaze took in the six at table, the laden sideboard, and the empty chair beside Frances. “Thank you, madam. If you truly don’t mind…”
“Why would we mind, Mr. Hearne? There is plenty, and we are all friends here. Do help yourself and then come and tell us your thought. Frances was just reading to us a letter we received from my second eldest daughter Mrs. Philip Egerton…”