Page 6 of The Heart of Bennet Hollow

Lizbeth plunged a trowel into the earth and popped a radish loose like a button on a shirt. She repeated the motion as though the trowel were a seam ripper, and this row of radishes a mistake. Snap. Pop. Soil splattered the skirt of her apron.

Beside her, Jayne sighed. “Is it that man? The one from last night?”

“If you mean the proud one with scarcely a few words to his name, then yes.” The one who had sidestepped a dance with her.

How could she ever have thought that such a man might be a match for Jayne?

Lizbeth blew out a breath. Best not to dwell on Mr. Drake.

There weren’t enough radishes in this garden to make sense of the man.

Worse yet, she had the niggling sense that something was about to change for the town of New River.

Perhaps not for the better. “Tell me of the fella you danced with instead. Three times, if I’m not mistaken.

” The idea alone cheered Lizbeth and she leaned back, resting soiled hands on her apron.

Much easier to think on Jayne’s evening than her own.

“Callum Brydolf. Oh, Lizzy.” Jayne’s blue eyes rivaled the sky overhead. “He was so refined. And friendly. The whole town knows him as Mr. Brydolf but he asked me to call him Callum.” Jayne waved a hand at the notion. “Not that it means anythin’, or that I would—”

“I say that means something.”

Jayne’s cheeks colored rosier than the crisp air accounted for. “Think so?”

How to strike the balance between encouraging the intrigue that Lizbeth saw blossom last night with the very real fact that Mr. Brydolf would only be in town for a short spell? “I think he saw a young woman who was so lovely and gracious and good that he had to make every moment count.”

Jayne’s smile widened as she fiddled with the amethyst tied to her wrist.

“And it seems like he’s a wise man to have noticed those traits. Was he a good dancer?”

“We fumbled the steps since the dances were new to him, but he was so warm and kind that we laughed about it.”

The row of radishes finished, Lizbeth wiped at her hands and stood.

She fetched up her full basket and together, she and Jayne slipped out the crooked garden gate that Eugene the mule had made a mite more lopsided.

One more reason Ma fussed that he should be sold.

But Lizbeth couldn’t. Never would she forget the day when she was just a girl who had walked with Pa to town, helping him lead two mules in harness.

She’d stood at the entrance of the coal office as Pa exchanged money with Mr. Jorgensen.

Money that put food on the table. All at the cost of sending the unsuspecting mules into the depths of the earth, never to surface again.

Lizbeth swallowed back the regret, still wishing there might have been a different way. For the animals and for her family. At least Pa had let her keep Eugene, on account of his only having one ear. Pa had suggested the mine might not want such an animal and that Lizbeth could raise him.

In the pasture, Eugene and Sassafras grazed contentedly, just far enough from the mine that they weren’t as affected by coal dust as the rest of town. Overhead, the morning sky held puffs of clouds, as though the early-autumn weather matched the lightness of Jayne’s spirits.

Lizbeth nudged the kitchen door open.

Lacey and Maryanne looked up from their baking—two bowls and several spoons coated in dough. “Tell her, Jayne! Tell Ma the way you danced three times with Mr. Brydolf.”

“Tell me everythin’!” Ma sang from her spot at the stove. “I was all the way on the other side of the room and could scarcely see what was happening.”

Lizbeth plopped the basket down and smiled, knowing better, because Ma never missed a lick.

Lacey twirled around them, the dough now abandoned. She turned in a circle, humming one of the tunes from the night before. The same waltz that Lizbeth herself would have danced had Mr. Drake not sidelined them.

“Mr. Brydolf was so polite.” Jayne seemed to choose her words wisely in front of the younger girls who were prone to gossip and giggles. If Jayne stated too much, she’d never hear the end of it. “He asked good questions. I don’t think we stopped talkin’ the whole time.”

“And what about you, Lizzy?” Lacey crooned. “I saw you on the arm of that other fella.” She scrunched her nose. “The one in need of a good thaw.”

Jayne brightened. “I want to hear more of this man too.”

Lizbeth snuck Jayne a look that said she’d share more later. In secret. “Oh, there’s little to say.” In truth, she didn’t want all her sisters to know she’d been passed over on the dance floor by him.

“Oh, Lizzy. At least a few tidbits!” Ma declared.

Just then, Lizbeth spotted Hattie through the window, strolling up the lane with an envelope in hand.

She swiped again at her apron. “It looks like Hattie’s brought us some mail and I promised I’d give her sash back before church on Sunday.

Then I’ll be back to help scrub the dishes.

” Lizbeth pulled the sash from a pile of shawls near the door.

“Promise you’ll tell us when you get back!” Lacey cried.

Lizbeth flicked the end of her sister’s braid playfully. “You’ll hardly know I’m gone!” She hurried out the door, the sash trailing from her hand.

She met her friend on the lane where they linked arms.

“I’ve never seen you run so fast before.” Hattie handed over the envelope.

“Thank you. I’ll get this to Pa, and you just set me free from talkin’ about last night.”

“But that’s just what I came to hear about!”

Lizbeth elbowed her. “Oh, don’t you start. I don’t even wanna remember it.”

“Fiddlesticks. You danced with the wealthiest man any of us has ever seen. Or will ever see again. He owns more than we could even imagine and Pa said his farm in Vermont is an actual estate .” Her eyes widened.

“Says it’s a sight to behold with dozens of servants and groomed gardens just like in some of the books we’ve read.

And you danced with him, Lizbeth Bennet. ”

“I stood with him holdin’ a cup of cider, that’s what I did. I hardly think that’ll make headlines.”

“But you were the only woman he spoke to the whole night—cider or not.”

She was?

“So, tell me more. Tell me somethin ’. These are days that’ll never come again ’round here.”

Was that what their world whittled down to? That last night was the best to ever come?

Lizbeth stilled on the pathway. “Fine.” Might as well draw this out in a way that satisfied. Leastways, she could put an end to it. “He was fine spoken. A real gentleman. Refined and sturdy.”

“Sturdy? Oh, you can do better than that.”

Lizbeth laughed. Then again, when she thought back on it, though stoic, he wasn’t brash.

It had made her feel comfortable. Even safe.

Lizbeth shook off the thought. Now for details more thrilling.

“He took my hand and then touched my waist just here.” Brief as a lightning flash, it was, but it seemed to satisfy Hattie’s curiosity.

Still arm in arm, she and Hattie continued up the path as leaves crunched underfoot.

“He stayed quiet, rather.” Lizbeth twirled the sash around her finger. “Sort of like the sky after a storm. Or maybe before one.” She was yet to know. “His eyes were brown, but the warm sort. The color of gingerbread.”

“And was he a good dancer?”

“As stated... we did not dance.” The memory prickled again. “More or less, he stood stiff as a fence post and stubborn as a thorn. Anything else?”

Hattie brushed a low oak branch aside as the path curved up the grassy knoll that led toward the New River mine. From here, Lizbeth could just envision the clatter of dozens of men and their mule teams. A place where young women her own age had already birthed a baby or two.

“Just one more thing. Somethin’ else that’s nice,” Hattie said. “I think he might have fancied you.”

“Nonsense.”

“Well, you were the only one I saw him watchin’. He might have been the quiet type, but he didn’t take his eyes off you for the rest of the night.”

“Fiddle-faddle.”

“Just statin’ what I saw.”

They walked farther down the lane—Pa’s pasture to their right, wild woodland to their left. A robin fluttered past. Finally, Lizbeth drew in a slow breath. “If I give you one more thing, do you promise to put an end to it?”

“Promise.”

She pressed the rolled-up sash into Hattie’s hands.

“I have to hurry back for my chores, but first...” She closed her eyes briefly then opened them.

“He was tall. Taller up close than I thought he was from far away. It made him seem very present. Like you couldn’t help but reckon with the fact that he was there, standin’ beside you.

” She let that settle as Hattie breathed in deeply.

“It was as though he was tryin’ to understand me somehow but couldn’t.

As though we spoke the same language but began at different ends of a story.

” With it time to part ways, she released Hattie’s arm.

“A promise is a promise so that’ll be the end of it? ”

“Fair. But—”

Lizbeth held up a hand. “You just worry about having a good day.” She shifted back.

“And I’ll focus on not worryin’ about Mr. Drake ever again for as long as we both shall live.

Mr. Brydolf can linger and marry Jayne if he likes—and I certainly hope he does.

Mr. Drake can leave alone and the rest of us’ll carry on with our lives. ”

Alone. Something told her he might be rather good at that.

Something else told her that her wounded pride spoke a little too loudly.

“How can you already dislike the man so?” Hattie shielded her eyes from the sun as it broke through the clouds.

“I—I didn’t say I disliked him. It’s simply that I don’t trust him.”

“Well, by the way you put it, Lizzy, it’s startin’ to sound like the same thing.”

Though her friend’s words chafed, Lizzy watched as Hattie gave a small wave and continued back up the path. She thought of the embroidery she worked on by candlelight whenever time allowed.