Chapter Fourteen #2
Once this assembly was over, and once his daughters had left Northfield Hall, they could return to their previous quiet arrangement. So long as gossip in Thatcham didn’t take hold to frighten Lord Preston from ever speaking to her again.
With a sense of foreboding, then, Martha arrived at the schoolroom with Caroline to assist in setup.
It being an informal assembly, the food was provided dish by dish from each family attending, and Martha was stationed at the buffet table to direct where the plates were laid.
It surprised her how good it was to see these faces she had grown used to seeing every Sunday.
Though Northfield Hall was only five miles from Thatcham, she had gone from weekly conversations in the churchyard to not catching up with these acquaintances at all.
Riding with Caroline in the carriage, Martha had felt brittle with anxiety, fearing that if any person so much as looked at her with too much meaning, she would crumble with embarrassment.
Instead, as the old barn filled with young mothers she had counseled on swaddling their babes and farmers who always paid a penny into the collection plate and the rabble-rousers who only came when Kenneth performed Communion, Martha relaxed into a version of herself she had thought had died with Lucas.
These were more than the sheep her husband had shepherded; they were her friends, and she had missed them, and she was glad to see them after three months at Northfield Hall.
An ordinary assembly began its dancing when the musicians took up their instruments and the caller announced the first set. This one began with Mrs. Croft climbing atop a crate so she could better address the crowd.
“Thank you all for coming this evening. I know it seems strange to celebrate my Mr. Maulvi when we already miss him so much. This is what he asked of us. He lived here his whole life, first at Northfield Hall and these last forty years in Thatcham, and he admired most of all the way we neighbors care for each other. He would want us to spend tonight reminding each other that we will support each other through good and bad, that we will give each other grace in disagreements, and that we will not be mean about how we define ‘we.’ So, please, help us give his soul one last blessing by opening your purses for the Lascars, and join us in his favorite dance!”
Martha knew she wouldn’t be dancing. Lord Preston wouldn’t dare invite her, and no one else would think a sixty-two-year-old widow would want to.
She helped herself to a cup of punch—spiked with some of Thatcham’s local grain alcohol—to watch the country dance.
Solemnly, Lord Preston led Mrs. Croft to the top of the line.
He didn’t quite approve of any of this, even though it had been Mr. Maulvi’s request. Martha felt a mix of amusement—that she could read him so easily—and protectiveness over him.
Others might consider him judgmental; certainly, his daughters had little patience for his discomfort surrounding the assembly.
To Martha’s eyes, however, he was not trying to shame anyone.
He was thinking too hard about everything, measuring each movement and word, and as a result, he seemed as remote and reserved as a lord should be.
She wished she could take his hand or lean her head against his shoulder. Anything to remind him he need not be perfect to be admired.
He was an elegant dancer, as one would expect.
No doubt he had taken dancing lessons from a French master back in the days of young King George III.
Through his sheer aptitude, he made Mrs. Croft look clumsy as she needed to be nudged to turn this way or prompted to cross the line in a diagonal.
But the widow laughed at her own mistakes, earning a smile from Lord Preston, and the dancers all carried on merrily.
When the dance came to an end, Martha held her breath, hoping Lord Preston would next come to the table for some food. He could say a word to her without anyone finding it strange. They could smile at each other.
He turned to Ellen instead, and they headed to the top of the line for the next set. Martha released her exhale. At the next dance break, then.
Mr. Cropper, the publican, approached. “Would you be my partner, Mrs. Bellamy?”
“Oh.” The offer surprised her so much that she could barely say anything, though she put her hand in his and allowed him to lead her into the formation.
It was to be a quadrille, which Martha knew well from her younger days, and she said on a laugh to Mr. Cropper, “Good thing it’s one I know, otherwise you’d be sorry you asked me. ”
“We danced it together at the Yuletide ball a few years ago, otherwise I wouldn’t have dared,” he replied. “I figured if Mrs. Croft is dancing, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be, too.”
The quadrille was slow enough to provide them time and breath to carry on conversation. “It was a nice idea of Mr. Maulvi’s to ask us to celebrate instead of be morose,” Martha said. “Or perhaps I only say that because I have spent so much of my last year closeted in mourning.”
“It is just like him to make us do something strange for our own benefit,” replied Mr. Cropper with a smile.
“I remember my father complaining about all the favors Mr. Maulvi used to ask on behalf of Northfield Hall, only for them to turn out best for everyone involved. He had us add a private room with a window facing east, which seemed a huge expense, but we now have Mohammedans come out of their way from the turnpike so they may say their prayers in peace.”
“I wish I’d known him better. He didn’t call upon Mr. Bellamy or myself too often, since after all, he wasn’t a churchman.”
“He was a man who lived on his own terms, but without hurting a soul. In fact, more often than not, he would stop you on the street to tell you this or that reason he admired you. Everyone in this room has a story like that, I wager. He looked for the good in people, and he said it aloud when he found it.”
Martha wondered what Mr. Maulvi would have said of her, had they known each other well enough for him to stop her on the street.
She wondered if Martin had confided in his friend about their affair, and whether Mr. Maulvi had approved.
The dance called for them to cross the line and change partners for a figure. Now Martha was with the wheelwright, a young man who was already sweating from the heat of dancing. To ease his obvious nerves, Martha asked, “Did you know Mr. Maulvi well?”
“Not well, ma’am, no, but he was the one who told me to stop dawdling and propose to my wife.
I wasn’t done with my apprenticeship, see, so we couldn’t yet marry, but he said, ‘Tell her you love her and that you plan to marry her, and then it will all work out.’ And so I did, and she said she loved me too, and she waited for me.
If not for Mr. Maulvi, she might have married Joseph Duncan in Reading, and then we’d both be miserable. ”
It was a beautiful story, and it filled the time they had together.
She and Mr. Cropper moved up the line while the wheelwright and his partner moved down it.
Mr. Cropper said, “I’ve often thought of Mr. Maulvi as the heart of Northfield Hall.
His lordship must set the example about right and wrong, you see.
Mr. Maulvi was the one who saw gray, and never with judgment. He made allowances for us to be human.”
Martha chewed on this as they changed partners again for the next figure.
Before she had known him, she had considered Lord Preston upright and reserved—the epitome of what a lord should be, rather than rakish and loud and overly familiar with everyone.
He certainly held himself to high standards when he made decisions, but wasn’t that right when his decisions impacted so many people?
Did Lord Preston not allow the people around him to be human?
Did he not allow himself to be human?
She was so absorbed in this line of thought—and, perhaps, growing winded from the quadrille—that she didn’t notice that Lord Preston and Ellen were the couple beside them until Lord Preston met her in the middle of the line to dance the change-in-partner figure.
One moment she was woolgathering, and the next, her eyes were filled with him.
“Good evening, Mrs. Bellamy.” His words were stiff, but Martha felt his true feelings in the way he gripped her hand as if he would never let go.
“Mr. Cropper asked me to dance,” she said. As the words came out, she cursed them as a waste of these precious instants they had together as figure partners.
“I’m glad. It can be good for the soul to dance.”
“Everyone has wonderful things to say about Mr. Maulvi. I begin to think he was an angel who walked among us.”
Martin smiled. Her breath stopped for that moment. She was so accustomed to him in his home, but here he was in a formal black evening coat, his cravat perfectly starched and tied to frame his chin. He was so handsome that she wanted to kiss him right there on the dance floor.
“He inspired Adam Grigg to confess his love to his sweetheart so that she would wait to marry him. Isn’t that romantic?”
“Indeed, Maulvi was quite the romantic.”
Which wasn’t quite the same thing as agreeing with her. Martha added, “I think he was right that it is better to be courageous and honest than to stay silent and hope your love story will work itself out.”
Lord Preston tugged her closer, which was part of the dance, and didn’t say anything.
He held himself to too-high standards. He didn’t allow himself to be human. He did not consider that he could be in love because he did not think he should be in love.
And, Martha realized, he had lost his best friend, who would have told him to listen to his heart instead of gossip.
She wouldn’t do it now, in the middle of the dance floor with everyone from Thatcham and Northfield Hall watching.
But as they stared at each other through the tune of the quadrille, Martha resolved that when this was all over, she would not permit him to retreat to the quiet arrangement they had enjoyed before.
When they finally were able to speak plainly again, she would tell him she loved him madly—and see what waited on the other side of that confession.