1
“Good morning, Marina,” my mother’s friend greeted me as we met on the road.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pugh. It is a lovely day for a walk.”
“It is indeed. How is your mother?”
“She is well. I’m sure she’d welcome a visit.”
“I may call on her after I finish my errand. Have you seen Mrs. Clavell yet? She has some news for you.” Mrs. Pugh raised her brows at me.
“Oh? I’m on my way to see her now.”
Mrs. Pugh pressed her lips together as if she wanted to say something more. But then she caught sight of the bundle under my arm.
“Is that one of your little stories that you share with her?”
“It is.”
Mrs. Pugh frowned and shook her head as she went on her way.
I already knew what Mrs. Pugh thought of my “little stories,” so I put that aside and wondered what news Jenny might have for me. She’d only just had her first baby, so I didn’t think she could be expecting again so soon.
I might have asked Mrs. Pugh about Jenny’s news, but the sky had been threatening all morning. There could be little doubt that we were both hoping we could accomplish our errands and return home before we muddied our shoes and hems.
I had a particular reason, besides Jenny’s news, for going first to her house.
The newest chapter of my novel was safely wrapped in oilcloth and tucked under my arm.
After Jenny read my last chapter, she grabbed my arm and said, “You must hurry and write the next chapter. I need to know what will happen to poor Catherine.”
I hurried down the lane to Jenny’s home. My friend was now Mrs. David Clavell after marrying two years ago. Her husband’s father had been in trade in London, but no one was supposed to remember how he made his money. His son had inherited his fortune and was now a gentleman landowner in Glenby.
Jenny was standing at the door with the baby on her hip. Her eyes lit up when she saw me. “There you are. I would have come to you, but the nurse is sick and Bessie hasn’t come back yet to watch the baby.”
“What is it?”
“I have just heard—it’s still a rumor and not confirmed yet—that . . .” Jenny stopped and swallowed, jiggling the baby, whose face was scrunching, bottom lip protruding, as threatening as the dark clouds.
“What is it, Jenny?”
“Oh, I suppose I must just come right out and say it. Mr. Scranton gave George Gainsford the living. He is to be the new rector for Glenby.”
“Oh.” The breath rushed out of me. Too late, I felt the pages slipping to the floor.
Jenny picked them up, even with the baby on her hip, before I could react.
George Gainsford, the new rector? Numbly, I reached for the bundle of pages, but Jenny clutched it to her chest.
“These are mine. Till I finish reading them.”
My heart skittered, stopped, and started again.
“Marina? Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course. Only a little surprised.”
“Will you be glad to see him?”
Jenny led me to a chair. I sat but nearly missed the edge altogether before quickly righting myself.
“I don’t know.” I hadn’t seen him in five years, not since he asked me to marry him and I had to tell him that I had just accepted Ezra Ashcombe’s proposal of marriage. Which turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.
“How he must hate me.” I leaned forward and put my head in my hands.
“I don’t think he hates you,” Jenny said, just as the baby started to fuss and whimper.
“Forgive me.” I jumped up from the chair and pressed a hand to my cheek. “You don’t need me disturbing you while you’re taking care of little Malcom. I should go.”
“You’re not disturbing me, and you don’t need to go. You know I always enjoy your company. The baby just needs a nap. Can you stay while I read your pages?”
“I think so.”
She went to put Malcom down for a nap in the bedroom, but I could hear him crying harder, drowning out the lullaby she was singing.
I sat back down to wait.
How many times had I tried not to think about George Gainsford and what might have been? So many. I could never get the look on George’s face out of my mind, as if I had just kicked a puppy.
He’d found me feeding the swans in the little pond beside the rectory where I lived with my mother and father.
“I am too late,” he’d said. “Or perhaps too . . . something else.” He blew out a quick breath. “I wish you every happiness, Miss Miller. Forgive me for . . . Good day.”
He put on his hat and hurried out of the yard.
Five years ago, my father was still the rector for Glenby parish, I was nineteen years old, and George Gainsford was a twenty-one-year-old curate. “A lowly position that pays very little,” he’d once said to me, “but I will not always be a curate.”
He liked reading history and philosophy and studying the sciences, and I loved poetry and essays, but especially novels.
His father was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge, so we both had always been surrounded by books, as clergymen were known for their scholarly ways.
But the same time that Mr. George Gainsford arrived in Glenby, Mr. Ezra Ashcombe, the second largest landholder in the area surrounding Glenby, began to show an interest in me.
Ezra Ashcombe was handsome and fifteen years my senior. George Gainsford was also very handsome, but he seemed a boy in comparison.
My mother had said, “Mr. Gainsford is only a curate, and there is no guarantee he will ever be given a living of his own. But Mr. Ashcombe is wealthy and has a large estate. Just think. You will be mistress of Ashcombe Manor, such a grand house, and on a hill, to boot.”
She seemed to be the voice of wisdom. I had trusted in her judgment, and even Jenny had said something about George Gainsford being “only a curate.”
Looking back, I hadn’t known either man very well.
Certainly, I had no idea what kind of man my husband was until I married him.
He’d come to me with such fervor, only the day before George Gainsford’s proposal.
He’d clasped my hands and said, “I am overcome with love for you, my sweet Miss Miller. I am prepared to love you all my days as the lily of my valley, the object of my love.”
He’d seemed so sincere, so in love with me, and I’d immediately said yes. If only I’d known . . . he hadn’t been in love with me at all.
Jenny came back into the room with only my pages in her hands. She sighed. “He’s asleep. Now I can read your chapter.” She stared hard at me. “Are you sure you’re all right? I can get you a glass of wine. Truly, you look pale.”
“No, I am well. Go on and read. I want to know what you think about the story.” And I was afraid the baby would wake up before Jenny was finished.
Jenny yanked the string and untied it, quickly freeing the pages from the oilcloth, then began to read silently.
I was left to my own thoughts again.
Was George Gainsford now married? How terrible to face his wife, knowing I could have been in her place if I had accepted him instead of . . .
It would only be awkward for a moment—as long as George Gainsford had not told her how I had rejected his offer of marriage. If only he was not still bitter about my refusal. If only he didn’t despise me for choosing a wealthy man over him.
I remembered him being thin and shy, with a gentle, boyish face.
But when I rejected him, he immediately left Glenby and joined an army regiment that was bound for the Iberian Peninsula, where he ended up fighting under Major General Wellesley.
I learned he was wounded a year later and was left with a permanent limp.
I always felt some guilt in that. If he had not been disappointed by me, he might never have joined the army, gone to war, and been injured.
It made me feel sick to think about it. He’d always seemed more sensitive than most men, kinder and more thoughtful, not at all like someone who would enjoy being a soldier.
For myself, I’d thought I wanted someone more manly, someone more like Ezra Ashcombe, who was tall and bold.
But what I’d seen as confidence before the wedding afterward had seemed like arrogance and a disregard for other people.
How foolish I’d been! How much better to have chosen someone with kind sensibilities.
Wealth and status were very poor substitutes for love, a lesson I’d learned well.
After I was wed, I told myself that there was danger in holding George Gainsford up as a perfect man, of comparing my husband to him.
It would be wrong. I was married and, for better or for worse, Ezra Ashcombe was my husband.
I would be loyal to him, and I would love him no matter what.
I could not let myself wish for another.
So I put George Gainsford out of my mind.
Every time my thoughts went to him, I forced those thoughts away.
It was only a year ago, after my husband died, that I allowed myself to think of Mr. Gainsford again.
But those thoughts had brought nothing but painful regret.
And now he was returning to Glenby.
He would never think of marrying me now. I’d been married to Ezra Ashcombe for four years without having a child, without ever having been pregnant, so it was assumed that I was barren. And George Gainsford deserved a wife who could give him children.
Jenny had been steadily tucking each page underneath the others after she read it. Suddenly, she looked up and said, “More, if you please!”
I let out a hollow laugh, which ended in a cough. “I will do my best.”
I stood to go, wishing I didn’t still need to fetch meat from the butcher.
“Marina?” Jenny looked at me with concern in her eyes. “It is good news, is it not, that George Gainsford is come back?”
I hesitated, then shrugged. “How can it affect me?”
“He might still be in love with you. You could be married to our own parish priest and be mistress of the rectory, your childhood home.”
“Why would he marry me?” I said in a hoarse whisper. “I cannot give him children.”
“You do not know that. Besides, he may love you enough to overlook that.”
I tried to smile but my face betrayed me and twitched instead. “Thank you, Jenny. You are a good friend.”