Chapter 12
Alfred
“Iam sorry,” I pant, my pleasure fading quickly to distress.
With mortification, I realize that I have come all over her mantle. And her hand. And myself.
But Annabelle—Annabelle, as she asked me to call her—already has a handkerchief in her hand, wiping away the evidence of my spend.
“There is no need to apologize,” she says quietly, her voice softer than I have heard it before.
We are at my door. I quickly right myself, rebuttoning the placket of my trousers and doing what I can with my own handkerchief.
But once I am decent enough to leave the carriage, I still don’t move. It feels ungentlemanly to depart after she has given me pleasure and I have provided none in return. Even though I am well aware that I do not determine the parameters of our encounters.
“May I—could I—”
I cannot finish the sentence.
She shakes her head.
“I will call you to me when I desire you next. But remember my condition. You will not touch yourself when you are alone. I want you hard and aching for me, Mr. Saintsbury.”
“Alfred,” I say reflexively. For reasons I can’t understand, I hate my surname, my father’s name, in her mouth.
“Good afternoon, Alfred,” Annabelle says, her gaze out the window already.
I am not sure if I offended her, disappointed her, or she merely wants me gone.
I have no choice but to tender her a stiff nod and leave the carriage.
For the rest of the week, I try not to think of her. Not her shining golden hair, not her full lips, nor the way her bosom pushes up against the bodice of her gown when she says something particularly cutting.
After all, serious parish matters require my undivided attention. And which make my persistent thoughts of her, unable to be blocked or diminished in any way, and my inconvenient cockstands that continue unabated, very frustrating.
I must smooth over the carriage incident with my parishioners.
The most reasonable villagers will understand that attacking a woman in her carriage, especially when she is the biggest employer in the parish, is neither Christian nor practical.
But I also understand that some others will look askance at their vicar defending such a notorious woman in a loud and public fashion.
But I did not grow up a vicar’s son for nothing. My father long drilled into me that though we work for the Lord, the people we serve are creatures of flesh and blood. Approaching the men directly would be unproductive. They cannot be convinced by logic or arguments about decency.
No, instead I will take another route altogether.
I will appeal to their wives.
I have my housekeeper make a vast quantity of lemonade and cake.
And then I let it be known in the village that after the service on Sunday I will be having a party for the children in the churchyard.
After preaching a sermon about the virtues of forgiveness and not presuming to judge where only God can, I stand with the women in the churchyard as the children spin hoops and gorge themselves on cake.
I always enjoy having a reason to throw a party for the children in the parish.
As I hope for marriage, I also hope for fatherhood.
I want children very badly.
I am jealous of men of my age who get to be husbands and fathers. I am sure it is the life I am meant for.
To have children of my own, to watch them grow—I want it more than almost anything.
I shake off these useless longings.
I must attend to the matter at hand.
“We heard you got into quite the scrape the other day, Mr. Saintsbury,” Mrs. Carpenter says.
I did not see her in the crowd around Annabelle’s carriage and her voice is not unkind—but it is clear that she expects an explanation.
Mr. Carpenter is the village wheelwright.
Thus, while the Carpenters are as firmly outside of respectable society as Mr. Liddell, they are part of an honest, upright village leadership composed largely of shop owners and artisans to whom the cottagers and farm workers look up.
In short, I need Mrs. Carpenter’s good opinion.
When Mrs. Carpenter speaks, the other women around us, all of whom are similarly situated among the village elite, turn their attention to me.
“I suppose I did,” I say, carefully meeting the eye of each woman. “If that is how you term coming to the aid of a lady in distress. I hope I will get in many more then, too, for I would hate to think I would ever neglect a woman in need.”
“That is a handsome sentiment, Mr. Saintsbury,” Mrs. Reson, the butcher’s wife, says. “And an admirable one. But Miss de Lacey is not any lady.”
The women murmur in agreement. “Indeed,” I say. “She employs half of the men in the parish and keeps bread on their tables.”
“Does rank justify any behavior then?” chimes in Mrs. Pender, the wife of the blacksmith. “Is that what the church teaches?”
“Of course not,” I counter, working to keep my tone even. “But it also warns against calumny and rumor. Most of what is said about Miss de Lacey is unconfirmed.”
My gut churns as I say these words. I am not sure, of course, what is truth when it comes to Annabelle de Lacey.
And her behavior to me has justified every bit of her notorious reputation.
But the only way to lessen the evil of defending her in their eyes is to suggest that they may be mistaken.
The fact that I feel unaccountably protective over the woman is irrelevant.
It doesn’t matter that my stomach twists every time I imagine Annabelle de Lacey being harmed by a brute like Liddell.
“Calumny and rumors!” Mrs. Carpenter erupts. “You are a kind man, Mr. Saintsbury, and it is a credit to you. But we in Trescott know that what they say about Miss de Lacey is true—at least some of it.”
I bite back an objection. Really, I need to steady myself.
“Yes, she ruined herself with Frank Holster when she was just sixteen,” Mrs. Reson says, looking me in the eye. “Everyone knows it. She was a girl with every blessing of existence, and Frank was only a cottager’s son.”
I grit my teeth. I heard this tale in the village. It was one of the first about Miss de Lacey that greeted me at the tavern.
Ridiculously, I am jealous. Even more so because Mr. Holster comes to church regularly with his family. In the intervening years, he has acquired a small holding, and he is now married with a numerous family.
“Mr. Holster hardly seems the worse for the experience,” I manage, hoping to sound mild.
“And don’t forget Terrence French,” Mrs. Pender says. “He never speaks of it, and he has been married these many years, but we all know it is true. She had him too.”
I am growing exceedingly vexed. Are the women going to recite every one of Annabelle’s old lovers?
I did not know of this rumor. I try to fight back the soft edge of jealousy in my gut.
But I can’t stop myself from imagining Annabelle riding Terrence French, the slovenly town solicitor who only comes to church on Christmas and Easter.
“But that is not all,” Mrs. Carpenter says. “Then there was poor George Garrison. And what a bright, promising boy he was. Only eighteen and going to Oxford with his fees paid. But he drowned down by the lake—with her. They say she let him drown, Mr. Saintsbury.”
I start at this story. I had not known of this George Garrison either. When she inherited, the tavern keeper relayed details of Annabelle’s reputation, touching on Frank Holster and her reputed doings in London. I had not thought she had been involved with multiple local men.
“Yes, that is why Mr. Liddell was in a lather the other day beside her coach,” Mrs. Reson explains. “Mr. Liddell is brother to George’s sister—the boy’s uncle.”
I urge myself to keep my composure. The woman is intimating that somehow Annabelle de Lacey is responsible for the death of this young man, George Garrison, many years ago.
There is no way that the woman can be speaking the truth. Annabelle de Lacey is many things—powerful, exacting, cold, brutal. But the woman I know, who can treat me so roughly and so gently at once, could not have as good as murdered a young man.
My gut lurches. I am sure and not sure all at once.
“And not to mention what they say of her in London,” Mrs. Pender adds. “A new man every week I’ve heard.”
“Were you there, Mrs. Reson and Mrs. Carpenter? When this young man drowned?” I say mildly, knowing I will lead these women with gentleness more than force.
They have experienced much of force in their lives—and it has only made them harder.
“Were you able to observe Miss de Lacey’s conduct for yourselves? ”
“Well, of course not,” Mrs. Reson blanches.
“And in London?” I press.
The women say nothing.
“Then perhaps we should not pass judgment on events we did not witness. It is certainly not what the Lord would want. Especially when it is his job to judge, not ours.”
A beat of ashamed silence runs through the assembled women and I know I have found my advantage.
“I am not claiming that Miss de Lacey has not erred in her ways. But we all err and make mistakes in conduct.”
“But letting a boy die, Mr. Saints—” Mrs. Carpenter begins.
“You have no evidence to support such a fantastic claim, Mrs. Carpenter. And would you like people to make up lies about you or yours just because circumstances do not appear as they ought?”
I must tread delicately here. But I have to find some way to touch on the hypocrisy of these women.
Mrs. Carpenter’s niece has a baby, and the father died before he had been able to marry the girl.
Everyone in the village accepts that young couples anticipate their wedding vows.
Still, Jenny Carpenter was left in awkward circumstances when her fiancé succumbed to pneumonia last April and she welcomed a babe six months later.
“I—she—” Mrs. Carpenter splutters.
“I believe in the forgiveness of the Lord,” I say to the gathered women, “and the principles of Christian charity and beneficence. Do not forget: forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. I expect no violence to erupt in the parish in which I am reverend. Especially not against a woman who has employed so many and seen to so many improvements for my parishioners. And certainly not because my parishioners see fit to play the role of God and mete out judgment.”
The women bow their heads with real contrition. I was wise to touch obliquely on Jenny Carpenter even though I have no wish to impugn the young woman. But Mrs. Carpenter cannot be the only woman in this circle who has a relative or who even herself has not made some little mistake in this regard.
“And I hope I will always be a friend to any woman in my parish,” I continue. “For the role of women is a sacred one and of much importance to our society here in Trescott.”
I hope the women hear the words as I mean them.
Leave Annabelle de Lacey alone.