Chapter 7
W
“I don’t think Garrett and Julia believe me. They think I’ve made Anna up, and I don’t blame them. Sometimes I’m not even certain she is real.”
How long had it been since I’d woken up excited for my day? How long had it been since someone had mentioned the word tomorrow to me and I’d spent the rest of the evening looking forward to what tomorrow would bring?
At least six years.
Mama was very much in favor of me visiting with the Tate family and was happy to avoid the two-mile walk to the estate. I’d told her David would be certain to send the carriage the next time we visited, but I’d wanted the walk.
After finishing breakfast with Mama, I threw on my coat, boots, and gloves and dashed out the door.
My first stop would be the Mortensens’ home.
Mrs. Mortensen had been my favorite tenant to visit.
She had six children and always welcomed a second hand to help in holding the smallest of them.
In the past, I would have brought a basket, but our pantry was no longer full to excess.
I knew Mrs. Mortensen well enough to know she would be happy to see me with or without a basket.
I took the path that led to their home and, after a brisk walk, was once again surprised by how many improvements had been made over the past eight years.
Mrs. Mortensen had always done her best to keep the house tidy, but this was more than tidiness—the new thatch and plaster made the whole structure appear new.
I knocked on the door, and after a few excited yelps behind it, the door swung open to reveal a young lady of about eighteen with blonde hair falling over her shoulders. I quickly did the math in my head.
“Maren?” I asked.
Her eyes went wide. “Do I know you, miss?” Maren asked, her words clear, though I could pick up the slightest Danish accent. Maren had been only ten the last time I’d seen her. She might not even remember me.
Mrs. Mortensen stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and shooing two young boys away from her side. When she saw me, she pulled her hands from the apron and threw them up in the air. “Is that Miss Atwood? As I live and breathe, I didn’t think we would ever see you again.”
Maren’s eyebrows rose, and she pulled the door open wider. “Miss Atwood?” she asked, smoothing down her hair. “You used to bring us apples.”
I laughed. “Yes, I did. I’m afraid I don’t have any apples with me today.”
Mrs. Mortensen brushed her hand on her apron again and pulled me into her arms. “You don’t need to bring apples or anything else.
Come in.” Her accent was stronger than Maren’s, and the sound of it soothed me.
She practically pushed me into the rocking chair in the corner of the room, and I sank into it with a contented smile.
How often had I rocked little Samuel on this chair?
Besides Maren, two boys followed Mrs. Mortensen around. The older of the two looked to be about eight or nine.
“Is that Samuel?” I asked, and the boy’s eyes darted to his mother and back to me.
Mrs. Mortensen nodded, and he relaxed. “I used to rock you here in this very chair while your mother made dinner. But you were much too young to remember.” I smiled, and he held on tighter to Mrs. Mortensen’s side.
“And you—” I turned to the younger of the two boys. “I don’t think I’ve met you.”
“This is Jacob.” Mrs. Mortensen said, patting the boy’s dark-brown hair. “My youngest. He’ll be turning five next month.”
I grinned at him. “Next month?” He nodded shyly.
I wished I could promise him I would bring him something delicious on his birthday, but there was a good chance I would be gone by then.
A lump settled in my throat. Nowhere else would feel like home after living in Breckenridge.
“Happy Birthday,” I said. He smiled softly and relaxed enough to allow some space between him and Mrs. Mortensen.
“Where are the other children?” I asked, forcing myself away from the melancholy.
Mrs. Mortensen grinned. “They are at the school. Maren stayed home today to help bake bread, but she attends sometimes too—when the schoolmaster doesn’t send her home because of her saucy nature.”
“I’m not saucy. I simply like to help out by making a few jests now and again.” Maren tipped her head and lifted one corner of her mouth in a grin that would be hard to describe as anything but saucy. “The students learn better when class is more exciting.”
“You are one of those students, Maren.” Her mother huffed. “You’re fortunate not to have been expelled yet.”
“There is a school?” I’d been here in the summer when the children were typically busy working outside, but I’d never even heard them speak about a school. I didn’t think there had been one to attend back then.
Mrs. Mortensen brought her focus back to me. “Yes. Three times a week, Mr. Allen teaches reading and arithmetic to whichever children can make time to go to the school. It has been a great blessing every winter.”
“We eat lunch there too,” Maren said.
A male teacher in a small community such as this? Who was paying him—the vicarage? “How long has that been happening?”
“Since not long after Mr. David hired Mr. Allen to be his tutor. Apparently, Mr. David didn’t feel the need to be tutored as often as Mr. Allen was willing to tutor, so together they came up with this plan.
Despite Maren’s flippant attitude, she’s one of the more accomplished students. She has a quick mind for learning.”
Maren shrugged, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Books and numbers make a lot more sense than people half the time.”
Maren had grown to be a beautiful young woman, and her mother’s compliment brought a spot of color to her cheeks that suited her well.
I hadn’t been certain in what condition I would find the Mortensen family.
When I left all those years ago, their home had had holes in the roof, and the thatch had begun to rot.
A few of the children had already taken ill, and I’d been worried I wouldn’t find all of them here when I finally set foot in the home again.
And I didn’t, but it was because David had set up a school for them.
David.
The boy who would stand outside trying to be unnoticed whenever I entered a tenant’s home.
I thought he’d been unwilling to reach out to them or had been uncomfortable for some other reason, but in the end, he’d been able to do a lot more for the Mortensen family than I ever could have with baskets and willingness to hold babies.
“It is wonderful to see you doing so well,” I said.
Mrs. Mortensen smiled. “Even that is thanks to you. You don’t think I missed seeing young Mr. Tate following you around that summer?
As soon as his father left him in charge of the estate, the first thing he did was hire a thatcher to fix our roof.
He joined in the repairs too. I’ve never seen a young man so interested in something as he was thatching.
Before long, he was repairing the tenants’ roofs on his own using funds he got from selling one of his father’s carriages. ”
So David had become a thatcher, just not as an occupation.
But it certainly wasn’t fair for Mrs. Mortensen to think I’d had a role in that.
I shook my head. “You give me too much credit. Mr. Tate would have seen your need.” I couldn’t call him David in front of Mrs. Mortensen.
It would be too humiliating for her to find out we were engaged only to have it called off in a few weeks.
With a shrug, Mrs. Mortensen sat in one of the other two chairs set up in the room. “Perhaps, but he did ask about you every year or so, wondering if you’d ever reached out to us.”
I should have. I’d been too focused on my own problems to keep up on correspondence, and I regretted it now. “I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“Oh, it is no problem. We all have our own lives to live, and I’m certain a bright young lady like yourself has scores of friends to keep track of. And perhaps a husband and some children of your own by now?” she asked.
Even though her assumption about my family status wasn’t correct, her comment about me being a bright young lady had me wanting to tuck a strand of my own hair behind my ear. I hadn’t been called a bright young lady in a long time. “No, I’m not married. But that is nice of you to say.”
Mrs. Mortensen raised an eyebrow. “Have you been to see the young master? He will be most happy to hear you’ve returned.”
“I’ve seen him. We met by happenstance on one of my walks.”
“Good,” Mrs. Mortensen said as if that news had made everything right in the world. “No man deserves to have a bit of happiness more than Mr. David. And seeing you would bring him more than a bit of happiness, I should think.”
If Mrs. Mortensen knew I’d seen him three times already and on the second occasion, he’d felt compelled to become my fiancé, would she have different words for me? Or maybe she wouldn’t. She seemed a little too eager for the two of us to meet again.
“It was very good to see him,” I said noncommittally. “I was very impressed with the man he’s become.”
Mrs. Mortensen’s smile made her eyes twinkle. “As you should be. I’m certain you turned his head as well.”
I waved my hands while shaking my head. “Oh, no. Don’t go getting any ideas. I’m much too old and much too poor for a man in David’s position.”
Mrs. Mortensen’s lips quirked at my use of David’s Christian name. I needed to be more careful. “I think the two of us have very different ideas of being poor, Miss Atwood. Your family seemed quite well off to me.”
“We’ve come upon some hard times since my father passed away.”
Mrs. Mortensen’s cheerfulness melted away. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“We will be all right. I will be coming into some funds in just over a year, but I don’t think Mr. Tate”—I made certain to use his formal address this time— “would consider me interesting at all, in the way you were implying.”
Mrs. Mortensen shrugged. “If you say so. He hasn’t forgotten about you, that’s for certain.”
The morning passed away quickly as we visited. I asked about several other tenant farmers I’d known when I was here last, and all of them had either moved away not long after I’d left or were faring much better.
Thanks to David.
The oldest of Mrs. Mortensen’s children had married and moved to a farm two counties away. He’d been fifteen when I left—not much older than David, though he’d looked several years older than David at the time. They rarely saw him, but they were happy that he’d settled.
When I stood to leave, Mrs. Mortensen asked if I wanted Maren to walk me back to the cottage.
“I’m actually on my way to Tate Hall to visit with Miss Tate.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Mortensen replied, her face so still it must have been steadied on purpose.
I didn’t know why I was comfortable with Mama and the Prestons thinking I was engaged to David, but for some reason, I couldn’t bear the thought of the Mortensen family believing it as well.
They had known both of us when we were young and had far too high an opinion of me.
It was one thing to break off an engagement to a man people thought I didn’t deserve, but it would be quite a different story if word got back to Mrs. Mortensen.
She saw no disparity in our stations or age and, if anything, saw something positive in our temperaments.
It would break her heart for all the right reasons when the two of us went our separate ways. I was much more prepared to deal with Mama’s frustrations, which would be more about security and our position in life, both of which David and I would hopefully have an answer for when the time came.
I wrapped Mrs. Mortensen in an embrace to avoid any more confusion on my part.
I’d spent the better part of two days reminding myself my relationship with David was not a real relationship.
No one except Mr. Green had wanted to pursue me in the past six years, and that hadn’t changed overnight simply because I’d managed to get engaged.
I didn’t need Mrs. Mortensen’s kind opinion of me putting false hopes in my head.
Especially not moments before I had a mile of walking and thinking to do on my way to David’s home.