Chapter Nine
Andrew knew someone came into his room in the early hours, that time when his prison dreams became more vivid.
The worst was the first time he stared into the piss hole to watch fellow Englishmen pleading for someone to pull them out.
Even worse was to be compelled to watch as the water rose and drowned them.
And here he was, begging for mercy. Thank God for Rosie’s gentle hand on his arm.
Over breakfast, he could tell from her tired eyes that his late-night disturbances were keeping her from sleep. ‘I am so sorry.’
‘No need for apology,’ she told him, then soothed his heart.
‘There is so little we landlubbers can do to comprehend even a fraction of your burden. You are saving us from a tyrant. That is sufficient for me.’ She surprised him then, and perhaps herself.
‘No, it is not sufficient! I… I…worry for you.’ She hesitated, then continued, ‘I truly do.’
The day was surprisingly balmy for December in Devon. Endicott was less than a half mile away, looking not at all like the wintry village with icy streets which formed his first view. ‘It’s not precisely the Mediterranean, but I am pleasantly surprised,’ he told Rosie as they walked along slowly.
He probably hadn’t fooled her when he announced that he would keep a slow pace because she was short. He had already watched her bustling about the kitchen to recognize a woman of great energy. He needed the slow pace.
He hadn’t fooled her at all. Partway there, when he wanted so badly to rest, she stopped and pointed down at a smooth path. ‘Rough ground,’ she lied. ‘Let me take your arm, please.’
He offered it gladly, and she steadied him.
They stopped twice more, once on her pretense that she had a pebble in her shoe. The other time when she stopped, he said, ‘Rosie Harte, you are walking slowly, taking my arm and complaining of pebbles, but I am on to you. You are no deceiver.’
She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look, then laughed. ‘Andrew Hadfield, there is no harm in taking care of you, and so I shall.’
What could he say to that?
Endicott wasn’t much of a village, but he admired Christmas wreaths on doors, and even some of the places of business. Rosie directed him toward the public house. ‘I will be across the street in Notions and Sundries. When you finish in here, you can save me from embroidery thread.’
‘I take it you are not a seamstress,’ he teased.
‘Ledgers and numbers are my forte. I know double entry and bottom lines. I do knit, but not well. Give me numbers any day.’
A husband of the seafaring type would never have to worry about you, Rose Harte, he thought with admiration as he entered the pub. You can manage money and probably people.
He knew no one, but the occupants of the pub all seemed to know him. Someone let out a huzzah, and others joined in. He looked behind him, wondering who of importance stood there, and they laughed.
‘Nay lad, ’tis you,’ a drinker said. ‘Farmer Harte told us your story, and now we want to hear it from the hero himself.’
Someone spotted him a tankard of hot buttered rum. A bowl of stew miraculously appeared. He downed both as he told them the whole story. In this second telling, he felt something inside him let go.
‘Now I am here, looking for the widow of my sailing master at the Battle of the Nile,’ he concluded, knowing he needed to find Rosie before she died of boredom in Notions and Sundries. ‘Do any of you know Mary Hale? She is the widow of Edward Hale, and I know she lived here.’
He looked around at men shaking their heads. ‘Sounds familiar,’ someone said. ‘Can’t place it,’ said another. ‘Recently?’ chimed in a third.
No one knew. Blast and damn, he thought, as he stepped outside. At least the sun was shining, even if he wanted to chew nails and spit them out. He turned his face to the sun, remembering the warmth of tropical climates, enjoying the moment.
He looked across the street at a fast-moving woman with a determined look on her face. He could tell Rosie knew something. ‘I thought I was going to have to wade into that pub and drag you out,’ she said, breathless.
He took her arm. ‘What did you learn?’
She took a deep breath and managed a smile, the sly kind that made him wonder about women in general and this one in particular. ‘I learned that I will never embroider, knit well or crochet, but I already knew that. The man I eventually marry—poor fellow—had better be able to afford a dressmaker.’
‘I am certain he will,’ Andrew said, mentally going over his accounts ledger at Carter and Brustein’s. He spotted an empty bench. ‘Over here.’
‘Well?’ he asked when they sat. ‘I came up short in the public house.’
‘I, on the other hand, discovered that the best way to find out about women is in a notions shop.’ She grasped his hand. ‘I learned that Mary Hale lived on Canterbury Street. When her funds ran out, she was taken to the workhouse.’
He shook his head, weighed down with such awful news. ‘Master Hale knew everything in the world about sailing, but he was a babe in the woods over money. Is the workhouse here?’
‘No. It’s in Ashburton, on the way to Exeter.’
‘May we go now? I am ready.’
‘Tomorrow. There is more bad news.’
She turned tear-filled eyes to him, and he was a no-hoping goner. I am the world’s most easily duped man, he thought. I am worse than Master Hale. It took every ounce of discipline he possessed not to wrap her tight in his arms. ‘What in the world…?’ would have to do.
‘You don’t know him, but Vicar Ewing has the living of St. Timothy’s Parish.’
That’s nice, he thought, wondering how this could possibly matter as much as a widow living hand to mouth. ‘And?’
‘The lady behind the notions counter said that Sir William Keeting is turning him out and replacing him with his nephew,’ she said.
Bless her heart, she took pity on his blank look.
‘Sir William, a baronet, controls the living of the parish. You can’t imagine how important Vicar Ewing is to us.
’ She sat a little straighter. ‘He taught a parish school for pupils such as I. Most of us here have little money and no titles, and so the vicar educated us.’ Her shoulders drooped.
‘Yes, his gout flares now and then, but he is our dear cleric.’
He knew this mattered to Rosie, even as he yearned to snatch Mrs Hale from a workhouse. Rosie looked at him as if he could say the word and solve the dilemma. ‘I am outgunned and outclassed in this matter,’ he told her, his air of capability a myth at the moment. ‘Can anyone help Vicar Ewing?’
‘Perhaps not,’ she said, after a moment’s silence. ‘But I will listen to him and cry with him. This way, Andrew.’
The vicarage was comfortable and timeless looking, built to withstand the wind and rain that often plagued Devon. ‘Rough ground,’ Andrew said as they approached the house, and took her hand. The path was clearly smooth, but she did not quibble.
The vicar opened the door himself, his face serious, until he took a good look at Rosie Harte and ushered them in.
Introductions went around. ‘Master Hadfield, stories are circulating about your escape from a prison in Spain in the middle of a raging gun battle,’ Vicar Ewing said, amusing Andrew how fast a modest tale of skinny men escaping a prison could turn into a battle with Boney himself.
Vicar Ewing hobbled over to a chair and gingerly propped his leg onto a footstool. ‘There now, my dear Rosie,’ he said. ‘It is improving.’
Thankfully, Rosie wasn’t one to chat when disaster loomed. She cut right to the source, like Alexander the Great’s bold action with a knotted rope at Gordium. ‘Vicar, the ladies in Notions told me you are being turned out by Sir William Keeting.’
‘Dear Rosie, you know Sir William can bestow the living of this parish on anyone he chooses. He controls it.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘It’s his right, child,’ the vicar said gently. ‘He has chosen to give it to his nephew Milton Keeting, who currently assists in a parish beyond Exeter.’
‘That’s not fair, sir,’ Rosie said. ‘You were our teacher, and…and…your sermons kept me awake.’
‘Well, most of them,’ Rosie said, when the vicar laughed. Andrew saw her lurking smile, and blessed them both for cheering up each other. ‘I mean, I really remember the Beatitudes.’
‘“Blessed are the peacemakers,” dear child,’ Vicar Ewing reminded her.
‘What will you do? Where will you go?’
‘I do not know.’ Andrew heard all the uncertainty. ‘I will have a small stipend, but beyond that…’ He shook his head.
‘I will write to the Archbishop of Canterbury,’ Rosie declared. Andrew knew better than to laugh. He could tell she meant it.
‘Please do,’ Vicar Ewing said. ‘In the meantime, come to Christmas Eve services as usual, Miss… But it is Mrs Hadfield now, eh?’
Rosie stared at him. So did Andrew. Then they stared at each other. ‘Oh, no, sir, he is not… I mean, he is a very nice man, but he is a hero in the Royal Navy and trying to find a widow and…’ She stopped. Andrew did everything in his power not to laugh, because she was adorably hilarious.
‘I am babbling,’ she said with some dignity. ‘Circumstances have made Master Hadfield our Christmas guest.’
‘You are a lucky guest, Master Hadfield,’ the vicar said.
He was calm, unflappable, and yet Andrew saw someone with a knowledge of human nature. And the Keetings, people he didn’t know and didn’t want to, were turning him out? Folly.
‘I am lucky,’ Andrew said. ‘This sounds like an unexpected Christmas for all of us. Mary Hale would have been one of your parishioners, I assume. Her late husband was my mentor in the sailing business. We learned she is in the workhouse in Ashburton.’
‘I have visited her there. She is keeping house for the workhouse guardian, his wife and four unpleasant children. Nasty little beasts.’
‘What can we do, sir?’ Andrew asked.
‘Get her out somehow.’
‘What can we do for you, vicar?’ Rosie asked.
‘Alas, not much. Vicar Milton Keeting and his wife are already in town, staying with Milton’s father, who is Sir William’s younger brother.
’ He smiled then. ‘You know him, Rosie, the younger brother who soiled his hands with trade and is now far wealthier than the baronet.’ He rubbed his hands together.
‘We do enjoy a bit of scandal now and then in Endicott.’
That declaration was followed by a sigh, and a glance at the mantelpiece clock.
‘Time for me to prepare for evensong, my dears. I will also gird my loins. I have been informed that Mrs Keeting is coming here during evensong to measure for curtains. I suggest you hurry home, dear Rosie and Master Hadfield.’
Rosie nodded. Dusk was on them when they left the vicarage. ‘Rough ground,’ she whispered, and put her hand in his. ‘Andrew, this is not the Christmas I bargained on.’
‘Neither did I,’ he said, ‘but what do I actually know of Christmas? I had initially planned to stay at the Drake, eat, read and wait for new uniforms.’
Her voice was soft, and he leaned closer as they walked slowly. ‘I was hoping for a Christmas with time to gather ivy for a wreath, and drape holly on unsuspecting nooks and crannies in the house, and sing carols and eat too much.’
‘You can still do that. I’ll be happy enough to locate Mrs Hale, and prepare myself for that letter from the Navy Board.’
He stood still with the foolish notion that he might be falling in love with Rosie Harte.
Surely not. No, no, not when the Navy Board could summon him any day.
After all those years at peril on sea, he knew better.
He had committed himself to duty until the end of an endless war. Only an idiot would fall in love.