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Young persons, on their first entering into service, should endeavour to divest themselves of former habits, and devote themselves to the controul of those whom they engage to serve…

They should endeavour to discard every low habit and way of thinking…

[and] wisely take advantage of the opportunity which Providence fortunately presents to them.

Mrs. Sebastian Barstow had not guessed amiss in thinking the rectory servants Winching and Polly would object to taking on Harry Barbary.

“Polly and I have our hands full from dawn to dusk and beyond,” the cook told Langworthy politely but firmly.

“And the more so with so many of you.” Winching happened to be holding her rolling pin as she made this speech, giving the viands on her board a good whack at the conclusion, and he thought it best not to contest the point.

“Sir,” added the maid, “I know you mean to be kind, but all of us here have known that boy a great deal longer than you, and to teach him how to black boots or light a fire is more than my life is worth.”

“Very well,” replied Horace. He might have dropped the whole matter then, if he hadn’t thought how Mrs. Sebastian would find satisfaction in being proven right.

Therefore he continued, “But I hope the two of you will suffer him to be around the rectory a couple afternoons a week, that I myself might train him to do a few things.”

Winching gave the pork chops another whack. “That’s your business, Mr. Langworthy. But I don’t doubt some of your food and belongings might find their way into that boy’s stomach and that boy’s pockets if he’s left to himself for any length of time.”

“I am forewarned,” he answered solemnly, “and will consider any losses the tax I must pay on this whim of mine.”

Had Horace Langworthy been raised a landed gentleman, he might be helpless to teach an aspiring footboy anything of use, but as a navy man he was stuffed with humble skills.

Thus Harry eventually learned to clean and polish boots, knives, and brass.

To brush and dry Langworthy’s hats and coats.

To wash and clean his gloves. To mend shirts and stockings.

To oil the wooden furniture, remove ashes from the fireplace and build a new fire, clean the looking glass with spirits, and prevent the lamp from smoking.

To lay a table (though the accoutrements were merely drawn on a slate, to leave Winching and Polly in peace and ensure none of the silver disappeared).

And while Mrs. Lamb had already taught him to run errands and deliver messages, he never did it for her with the same alacrity as he did for his new master.

All this time, as Harry brushed and oiled and polished and sewed and scrubbed, Langworthy talked to him of the same things he did the other boys.

He spoke of lines, points, angles, ratios, heavenly bodies.

And like the other boys, Harry drank up the learnings and clamored to know more.

Nor had Harry lied about being good with figures—he could calculate sums as quickly as Tom Ellis, who was twice his age, and do so without writing anything down.

He could grasp concepts which Tommy Wardour and Peter Dere still frowned over.

And where Harry’s social betters hung on stories about naval life as Shahriar must have hung on Scheherazade’s Arabian tales, Harry Barbary not only paid attention but occasionally slipped in specific questions.

“How old were you when you went to sea?” “How old was the youngest boy on the ship?” “If you have to pay to be an officer, how were there other boys on the ships, ones who weren’t gentlemen?” “How old was the youngest volunteer?”

By the second week of this, when Harry finally asked, “When will you go back to sea, sir?” Langworthy eyed him beadily. “I can’t say. But one thing I can tell you, Harry, is that I will not be making the trip with you stowed away in my trunk.”

To this Harry only shrugged and went back to blacking Langworthy’s boot.

The next time he came, when there had been a half-hour lull in conversation and Langworthy sat reading a letter from his uncle Horatio, Harry broke the silence with, “You’ll go back to Portsmouth sooner, rather than later, I expect.”

Horace glanced up, his thoughts still far away. Harry continued to scour the plate cup in his hand with the whiting powder, adding casually, “Because a man your age withouten wife or family has nothing to keep him tied anywhere.”

Langworthy’s gaze sharpened. “Who told you that?”

“I hears things. Some guess you had a sweetheart who died or broke your heart, and you come here because you’ve naught else to do.

But you could do better back in Portsmouth even if the war don’t pick up again, I think.

In Portsmouth there’d be more ladies to marry and p’raps improve your fortunes.

” Giving the cup a few more swipes, he admired its surface.

“Here in Iffley, there isn’t much to choose from.

The richest lady is Mrs. Markham Dere, but you’ve no chance at her because she loves her position more ’n anything, and she’d have to give it up to marry you.

Then there’s the ladies at Iffley Cottage, and I suspect they’d take you, but they ’aven’t any more brass ’n you do. ”

“Suppose I married one of them anyway?” asked Langworthy. This was the mischief at work because he knew well he should tell the boy to hold his tongue. “Who needs ‘brass’? I could turn highwayman to support a wife.”

That suggestion brought the same leaping glow to Harry Barbary’s eyes that the tales of adventure on the high seas had, and Langworthy held up his palms with a laugh. “ That was a joke, and if you repeat it, I will deny it utterly.”

“I can keep secrets,” declared Harry. He set the cup down and picked up a candlestick to give it the same scrubbing. “But if you pick a Barstow lady, the best one is already taken. That was Mrs. Merritt—Mrs. Egerton now.”

“Mm,” grunted Langworthy. “‘More dregs than water’ left at the Cottage, you say?”

“’Cos the first Mrs. Barstow is too old for you,” explained Harry.

“I suspect she’s older than Mrs. Dere by twenty or thirty years.

” (However good Harry was with numbers, he had the tendency of youth to overestimate the age of his elders, and Langworthy hid a smile.) “And Miss Maria too young. Miss Barstow isn’t bad looking, but she’s hand in glove with Mrs. Dere, and then you’re back at the start because Mrs. Dere wouldn’t approve of you. ”

After a pause, Langworthy said, “There’s Mrs. Sebastian Barstow, I suppose.”

“Oh, aye, but she’s still sweet on her dead husband and never looks at anyone, though some as think she’ll take Dr. Rearden if he were to ask.”

Langworthy snorted. “A little old for her, wouldn’t you think?”

But Harry looked very wise. “I’ve heard it said the gennelman’s age makes no matter. If he has money enough, he can marry as pretty and young as he likes.”

Though Langworthy suspected the boy was only repeating what he overheard from Mrs. Lamb and company, it irked him all the same. “Well,” he rejoined, “it’s one thing for a gathering of hens to cluck about who should marry whom, and quite another for such things to come to pass.”

“Why that’s just what one old biddy said, only not in so many words,” marveled Harry, “but Mrs. L—er—another one—stood to her guns and said if Mrs. Sebastian don’t prove a goose, or if she has any friends who care for her, she’ll reckon what side her bread is buttered on and get to work on him, like it or not. ”

“Good luck to them all,” Langworthy said with a shrug. “And that’s enough on that candlestick, or you’ll wear right through it.”

What was it to him if provincial gossips thought old, bewhiskered Rearden a good match for Mrs. Sebastian?

Nothing.

Not one single thing.

And yet, Langworthy could not help thinking of a sure way to thwart such a match ever coming off, should the need arise.

Not that there was a need. It all had absolutely nothing more to do with him.

Whatever slender thread Sebastian Barstow had attached to his friend on one end and his widowed wife on the other had snapped at the first tug, leaving both parties at perfect liberty to go off in whatever direction they chose, Langworthy’s duty done and the life buoy tossed to Mrs. Sebastian by her dying husband utterly scorned.

And yet—

It was Mrs. Sebastian’s fault, really. Or the Iffley Cottage maid Reed’s.

Because on the occasion of the third navigation class, when Rearden happened to accompany Langworthy to Perryfield to see the baron’s insect collection, that was the very day the maid had a toothache, and Mrs. Sebastian was obliged to bring her young son along with her to the dancing lesson.

This time, when Langworthy and his pupils descended from the second-floor schoolroom, in addition to the sound of music being practiced, delighted screeches rent the air, and they entered the drawing room to find little Bash Barstow toddling and tumbling behind the sofa and chairs while the curate romped after him on his hands and knees.

“Oh, Dr. Rearden,” Mrs. Sebastian was gasping with laughter, “do be careful! You will surely hurt your knees or rend your—your inexpressibles.”

“Pah!” cried the curate, waving away this warning. “It would be one thing if the carpet had been rolled up.” And he lumbered again toward Bash, who retreated with another round of shrieks. Even Mrs. Dere was smiling, which surprised her son, but Langworthy failed altogether to notice.

By heaven—was there any truth to the gossip?

Look at the woman’s eyes shining and the way her amusement revealed a full set of even little white teeth!

Look at the color in her face and how the tips of her slippers peeped from beneath her skirts as she shook.

(Admittedly, the tips of her slippers had nothing to do with anything, and he did not know why they should catch his eye, but they did.)