Chapter 7 #2
She led him into the fair, and together they began distributing pies to increasingly confused villagers.
A slice for the miller's wife. A slice for old Mr Holloway, who accepted it with a grunt that might have been gratitude.
A slice for the children from the horse-petting incident, who fell upon the pastry with the voracity of small hungry wolves.
"You're doing it wrong," Lydia said, as he tried to hand a slice to the blacksmith's apprentice.
"I'm giving away pie. How can that be wrong?"
"You're giving it away like it's an obligation.
Like you're paying a debt." She took the slice from his hand, turned to the apprentice, a gangly youth with soot-stained cheeks, and smiled.
"Thomas, isn't it? Mrs Whitmore makes the best gooseberries in the county.
The duke's been buying everyone slices. Would you like one? "
Thomas looked at the pie, then at the duke, then back at Lydia. "Is it poisoned?"
"Thomas!"
"It's a fair question," Frederick said. "In his position, I might wonder the same thing."
"It's not poisoned," Lydia assured him. "The duke is just learning how to be friendly. Consider it practice."
Thomas took the pie with evident suspicion, bit into it, and his expression transformed into something approaching reverence. "This is really good."
"I told you." Lydia handed Frederick another slice. "Now you try. And this time, remember that you're sharing something nice, not dispensing charity from on high."
"There's a difference?"
"There's an enormous difference. Charity says, 'I have more than you.' Sharing says, 'I want you to enjoy this too.' The first makes people feel small. The second makes them feel included."
Frederick considered this. "No one ever explained it that way before."
"That's because the people around you were probably more interested in keeping you separate than in helping you connect.
" She handed him the next slice. "Try again.
The cobbler's daughter, there; her name is Sarah, she's twelve, and she's been eyeing the pie stall all afternoon, but her family can't afford extras. "
He approached Sarah with the pie extended. "Sarah? I'm told this is excellent. Would you like some?"
The girl looked up at him with wide eyes. "Me, Your Grace?"
"You. I bought too much, and I can't possibly eat it all myself. You'd be doing me a favour."
Sarah glanced at her mother, who gave a hesitant nod. She took the pie, bit into it, and her face lit up with uncomplicated joy.
"Thank you, Your Grace!"
"You're welcome." And this time, Frederick found that he meant it. Not as a formality, not as an obligation, but as a genuine response to her genuine gratitude.
"Better," Lydia said, as they moved on. "Much better."
"I'm not sure I understand what I did differently."
"You looked at her like she was a person, not a problem to be solved. That's the whole secret, really. People know when you're actually seeing them versus when you're just going through the motions."
With each pie given away, Frederick seemed to relax a little more.
The set of his shoulders eased. The stiffness in his jaw softened.
He still looked out of place, would probably always look out of place, but he was beginning to look less like a man at his own execution and more like a man who was merely awkward at gatherings.
"What do I do when the pies run out?" he asked, as they distributed the last few slices.
"Then you'll have to rely on your natural charm."
"I don't have natural charm."
"Everyone has some charm. Yours is just buried. Under several layers of aristocratic conditioning and what I suspect is genuine social anxiety."
He stopped walking. "Is it that obvious?"
"Only to someone who's looking." She met his eyes steadily. "You're not cold, Frederick. You're terrified. There's a difference."
No one had ever said that to him before. No one had ever seen past the ice to the fear beneath. He felt suddenly, dangerously exposed.
"How do you…Why can you…"
"Because I know what it's like to be afraid of people.
" She resumed walking, and he fell into step beside her automatically.
"When my parents died, I didn't speak for three months.
The village thought I'd gone mute. But it wasn't that I couldn't speak; it was that I was terrified that if I opened my mouth, I'd start crying and never stop.
I was afraid that if people saw how broken I was, they'd stop loving me. "
"What changed?"
"Mrs Wrightly sat with me one day. She didn't say anything, didn't ask me to speak, just sat there doing her knitting while I stared at the wall.
And after about an hour, she said: You know, Lydia, being sad isn't the same as being broken.
And even if you were broken, we'd still love you.
That's not conditional on you being whole," Lydia smiled at the memory.
"And then I cried for about six hours straight, and when I was done, I could talk again. "
"That's..." Frederick searched for words. "That's extraordinarily kind."
"That's Ashwick. That's what community means. People who sit with you in the dark, even when they can't fix anything. People who love you through the hard parts." She looked at him sideways. "You've never had that, have you?"
"No." The word came out rougher than he intended. "I've had people who wanted things from me. People who feared me. People who needed me to be a certain way for their own purposes. But someone who just sat with me? Without expectations? No. Never."
"Then I'm sorry. That's a terrible way to grow up."
"I didn't know it was terrible. I thought it was normal."
"That's the worst part, isn't it? When you don't know that you're starving because no one ever showed you what being fed looks like."
They walked in silence for a moment, past stalls selling ribbons and handkerchiefs and small wooden toys. The afternoon sun was warm on their faces, and the sounds of the fair surrounded them; laughter and music and the calls of vendors hawking their wares.
"Why are you helping me?" Frederick asked finally.
"I told you. You're not as cold as everyone thinks."
"But why do you care? You could have left me to stumble around on my own. It would have been easier. Safer, certainly; people are already talking about us."
"Let them talk." Lydia shrugged. "I've been talked about my whole life. The orphan girl. The blacksmith's niece. The woman who works the forge like a man. You learn to ignore it after a while."
"That doesn't answer my question."
She was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was thoughtful.
"Do you remember what you asked me? In the manor? You asked me what I saw when I looked at you."
"I remember."
"I saw someone who was drowning. Not dramatically, not waving their arms and calling for help, but quietly, slowly, in a way that no one else seemed to notice.
And I thought... I know what that feels like.
I know what it's like to be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone.
" She met his eyes. "I couldn't just walk away from that.
Even if you were a duke. Even if it was complicated.
I couldn't watch someone drown and not at least try to throw them a rope. "
Frederick felt something crack open in his chest, some wall he hadn't known he was still maintaining.
"You're an extraordinary person, Lydia Fletcher."
"I'm an ordinary person who's had extraordinary people help me. There's a difference." She smiled, taking the sting out of the correction. "Now come on. We've lingered too long; people will really start talking. Let me show you the rest of the fair."
***
"You're doing better," Lydia observed, as they paused near the old oak tree at the edge of the green.
"Am I?"
"People are staring less."
"They're still staring."
"Yes, but now they're staring with curiosity instead of hostility. There's a difference."
He considered this. "I suppose I'll have to trust your expertise on the finer points of villager staring."
"It's something of a speciality. Growing up as the blacksmith's niece who insists on working the forge gives one ample opportunity to study the phenomenon."
They had reached a quiet corner of the fair, away from the crowds, shaded by the oak's spreading branches. Someone had set up benches here, and they sat, not too close but not too far, with the noise of the fair a gentle backdrop to whatever conversation might follow.
"Can I ask you something?" Frederick said.
"You seem to be asking me things regardless of permission."
The ghost of a smile crossed his face. "You've noticed that."
"You're not particularly subtle about it."
"No, I suppose I'm not." He was quiet for a moment, looking out at the fair; the stalls and the people and the cheerful chaos of a community celebrating itself. "How do you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Belong." He said the word like it was foreign, precious, something he'd only ever observed from a distance. "You move through this village like you're part of it. Like you fit. Like you've always fit and always will. How do you or how does anyone learn to do that?"
It was such a strange question. Such a sad one.
"I don't think I learned it," Lydia said slowly. "I think it was given to me. When my parents died, the village took me in. They made space for me. They decided I belonged, and after a while, I believed them."
"So it's not something you do. It's something that happens to you."
"Partially. But you have to let it happen. You have to be willing to accept the space they make." She turned to look at him, at his profile against the afternoon light. "You have to show up."
"I showed up today."
"Yes. You did." She let herself smile, just a little. "It's a start."
Frederick was quiet again. The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable; it wasn't the loaded silence of things unsaid, but the easier silence of two people who were still learning each other's rhythms.
"I had a governess," he said eventually. "When I was young. Before my mother died. She used to read stories to me about villages like this one. About fairs and festivals and people who gathered together for no reason except that they wanted to. I thought they were fairy tales."
"And now?"
"Now I'm not sure." He looked at her, really looked, with those grey-blue eyes that saw more than they pretended to.
"Now I'm sitting on a bench at a Harvest Fair, covered in mud and gooseberries, talking to a woman who once told me my face looks like stone.
And it doesn't feel like a fairy tale. It feels terrifying and wonderful and like something I might actually be allowed to have, if I don't ruin it. "
Lydia's heart was doing something inconvenient again, and she firmly instructed it to stop.
"You haven't ruined it yet."
"The day isn't over."
"Then we'd better make the most of it." She stood, brushing off her skirts. "Come on. I promised to show you around, and we haven't even seen the sack race."
"The sack race?"
"It's exactly what it sounds like. Children get into sacks and race. It's deeply undignified and extremely entertaining."
Frederick rose, a little awkwardly, still clearly unused to the informality of the situation. "I'm not sure dukes are supposed to find things entertaining."
"Then don't be a duke for an afternoon. Just be Frederick." She held out her hand, not quite knowing why, just knowing it felt right. "It's not as hard as you think."
He looked at her hand, looked at her face and then, slowly, like a man stepping off a cliff, he took it.
"Show me the sack race, then."