Page 5

…He hath some offences in him

that thou wouldst discover if thou couldst.

For the first time in her long career, Mrs. Lamb, postmistress of Iffley and landlady of the Tree Inn, failed in her self-appointed role of town-crier.

For though she—and indeed everyone in the village—knew of and looked forward to the arrival of the new temporary curate of St. Mary the Virgin, she—and everyone in the village—was caught thoroughly napping by the simultaneous arrival of Mr. Horace Langworthy.

She blamed herself. If she had not been so thoroughly distracted the morning the unusual letter arrived for Mrs. Sebastian Barstow, she would have remarked its uniqueness and never rested until she learned its contents.

But she had indeed been distracted. As a marriage gift to the departing Egertons, she had too generously agreed again to employ the rapscallion Harry Barbary as an errand boy, only to discover him, that precise crucial morning, scrawling mischievous postscripts to the outside of several outgoing letters!

As a result, the unprecedented letter to the younger Mrs. Barstow was bundled with the other Iffley Cottage correspondence without a second glance.

Mr. Langworthy, therefore, slipped into Iffley unheralded, sitting beside Dr. Rearden as the wagon from Oxford’s Angel Inn conveyed the two gentlemen to the rectory after nightfall.

And so it was that, when he paused at the front gate of Iffley Cottage the following day, that was the first the Barstows knew of him being anywhere about.

“Look, Mama,” said Maria from her favorite seat at the window, “it’s some strange gentleman.”

“Oh, yes?” asked her mother absently. The three older Barstow women were absorbed in inspecting a recent issue of The Lady’s Magazine for ideas to refurbish their wardrobes.

“Must be the new curate,” said Frances. “What about this for the spotted muslin?”

“I don’t know if there is enough,” Sarah frowned. “See the gathers at the shoulder? That would require—”

“He’s coming up the walk!” cried Maria, bouncing.

“Oh, bother,” sighed Frances, slapping shut the magazine as Sarah swiftly wound up the muslin and stuffed it in the nearest workbasket.

By the time the maid opened the parlor door, every Barstow stood neat, trim, and idle as you please, but their assumed tranquility received a blow when Reed announced, “Mr. Horace Langworthy!”

Mr. Horace Langworthy!

Today?

Sarah felt her blood turn to ice. But—but— here? Now?

Even as her knees wobbled, she carefully wiped all trace of horror from her features and took advantage of his first attention to Mrs. Barstow to study him beneath her lashes.

She saw a surprisingly tidy man of medium height and pleasant features—a straight nose, high cheekbones, candid blue eyes, reddish-brown hair with a slight wave to it.

She had always imagined he would be a disheveled person (a looser life, in her mind, entailing looser comportment), but he was cleanly enough in his plain blue coat, white frilled shirt, and trousers.

Her experienced eye noted the shirt and trousers were likely the ones he had worn for daily work on board, having sewn several of the like for her husband, and she found confirmation in the minute, nearly invisible repairs at places of common wear and tear.

For his part, Langworthy proved equally sly in his surveillance.

Even as he bowed to Mrs. Barstow and murmured apologies if his call came as an intrusion, and even as Mrs. Barstow demurred, saying she was only too glad to meet and welcome any friend of her late son, etc.

etc., he was gathering data on Mrs. Sebastian Barstow in a series of glancing glances.

His friend had never stinted in his praise of his wife.

According to Sebastian Barstow, his wife was peerless.

“A pearl in both character and appearance.” Langworthy had taken this with the requisite grain of salt, however, and now he congratulated himself on his good judgment.

That is, while he knew nothing yet of her character or personality, he thought Mrs. Sebastian’s appearance far inferior to Mary Pence’s.

Mrs. Sebastian was—pshaw!—mild as milk. Smooth, light-brown hair, eyes somewhere between grey and blue, a small nose and chin, a quiet air.

Whereas Mary sparkled, from her crown of red-gold hair, to the flashing looks she threw from her warm eyes, to the dancing feet which carried her light figure.

But the comparison brought pain, and he shied from it.

Forget Mary.

As she has forgotten you.

“—Mrs. Barstow, Mrs. Sebastian Barstow, Miss Barstow, Miss Maria.” With a bow toward each young lady as he repeated her name, he claimed the chair the elder Mrs. Barstow indicated for him.

“My younger son Gordon is at school at present, so that introduction must wait,” his hostess continued, “but here is my grandson—Sebastian’s son—also called Sebastian. Though we have nicknamed him Bash.” She gestured at the plump little boy stumping around in his frock, holding a wooden toy aloft.

“A fine, healthy boy,” Langworthy said politely.

“I see why Barstow was so proud of him.” For this he was rewarded with smiles from all around, with the exception of the child’s mother, whose expression remained impassive.

She had curtsied to him, and possibly her color rose a degree, but otherwise he might have been a new yarn sample, for all she betrayed.

Irritation pricked him. She might show a little interest in someone who had come quite a way and who might as easily have spared himself the inconvenience.

Did she not realize he could simply have written a letter full of heartwarming anecdotes accompanied by a few banknotes (not that banknotes were thick on the ground of late), and considered his duty done?

Miss Barstow, at least, who looked to be a fine young girl of perhaps seventeen, regarded him blushingly and said, “We didn’t expect you yet.”

“I am relieved to hear my letter reached Iffley, in any event,” he answered. “I should perhaps have been more precise about when you might expect me.” But precision had been impossible. That is, he left Portsmouth precisely when he could bear it no longer.

An awkward little silence fell, broken only by Bash making experimental b-r-r-r sounds with his lips as he now dragged his toy over the sleeping housecat.

Rarely at a loss, Langworthy was at one now. Should he launch into a few of those heartwarming anecdotes? Or should he come straight to the point of his visit and ask to speak to Mrs. Sebastian alone?

Mrs. Barstow helped him through the difficulty, eager as she was to draw him out. Indeed, she regarded him with such wistfulness that he felt his discomfiture ebb. “Mr. Langworthy,” she began, “I believe you served with my son under Captain Blackwood on the Penelope ?”

“Yes, madam, I had that pleasure. Your son was my friend and comrade from the time we were midshipmen. I am certain he must have told you how he fished me from the sea nearly the first week of our acquaintance and saved my life?”

He had not. As much from modesty as a wish to hide from his family the cruelties of the lieutenant who caused the incident.

But the chorus of gasps and questions which met Langworthy’s declaration obliged him to tell the story now.

He did so with as jaunty an air as he could, but instead of causing his listeners to beam with pride, the eyes of all the ladies save the youngest filled alarmingly with tears.

“Oh, my boy. My dear boy,” choked Mrs. Barstow, dabbing at her eyes. “Thank you for sharing that, Mr. Langworthy. My lost boy. How very…good and brave he was.” Miss Barstow openly wailed. And Mrs. Sebastian—Langworthy saw her swallow and hunch lower on the sofa, as if she had received a blow.

Unexpectedly, his own throat constricted—not for grief over Sebastian Barstow, though it was there, but rather because the sight of Barstow’s wealth of relations openly mourning his loss, even two years onward, gave Langworthy a hollow feeling.

If the earth were to swallow him up when he left Iffley Cottage that day, would anyone in the world notice, much less weep?

Another silence fell, but Mrs. Barstow was quicker this time in mastering herself.

“Do forgive us,” she said at last with a watery smile.

“Such a display will make you afraid to tell us anything else! But you mustn’t hesitate—we promise not to dissolve again, Mr. Langworthy.

Don’t we, girls?” They nodded apologetically, and she cleared her throat.

“No. We know your time is valuable as well. Are you long in Iffley or Oxford?”

“Er—I don’t know how long I will be here,” he confessed, “but for the time being the new curate Dr. Septimus Rearden has invited me to stay at the rectory.” This led to questions, naturally, and gladness—at least on Mrs. Barstow’s part—and he gave a brief version of his meeting with the clergyman at the Bull and Mouth in London.

“Fancy that!” laughed Miss Barstow. “You already know the new curate better than we do. You ought to have brought him along.”

“I did ask, but Dr. Rearden said he thought it better if I—met you all first myself.”

“Quite sensible,” agreed Mrs. Barstow, “for now we need not be shy about talking Sebastian, Sebastian, Sebastian. Tell me, sir…were you too involved in the Action of 31 March, where my son was wounded?”

“I was not,” he replied, in the same moment as Mrs. Sebastian said, “He was not.”

This being her first contribution, their simultaneity startled them into looking directly at each other, and at last she showed signs of awareness, color flooding her face. His curiosity piqued, Langworthy made an after-you gesture and sealed his lips.

Lowering her needlework to her lap, she said quietly, “Mr. Langworthy was in the hospital in Palermo at the time and could not rejoin the ship. Sebastian told me so in his—penultimate letter.”