Мэри Бэлоу - Someone to Romance

Sometimes Lydia felt a little guilty about her contentment, even when it did not well up quite as abundantly as it did this evening, for she had been widowed only fifteen months ago and perhaps ought to be still prostrate with grief. It was what some of her neighbors might expect.

Her husband, the Reverend Isaiah Tavernor, had been the vicar here for only three years before his sudden death, but he had made a lasting impression upon the community, both by his life and by the manner of his dying. He had been a young man—only thirty-three years old when he died—and handsome, vigorous, and charismatic. His eyes had burned with zeal in the service of his Lord and in his duty to the sheep of his flock. Apparently he had been a great contrast to the quiet, elderly vicar who had preceded him, though Lydia had never known Reverend Jenkins. Many people had considered Isaiah a welcome change. Some, it had seemed to Lydia, had even come close to worshiping him, almost as though they had put him in place of the very God he preached about. He had worked indefatigably for his church and his people. He had died by drowning while rescuing young Jeremy Piper from a river swollen and flowing fast and furious after several days of torrential rain.

The general opinion in the days of bitter shock and grief that had followed the tragedy was that Jeremy was a bad, useless boy who had defied strict orders to stay away from the water and would surely come to no good for the rest of his miserable life. Meanwhile, he had caused the death of a man who was goodness through and through but had now been cut off from doing the work the Lord had appointed him to do. No one had thought to suggest that perhaps the Lord had appointed him to save the child’s life, even at the sacrifice of his own.

Lydia’s own shock and grief had been absolute. She had not collapsed or taken to her bed, but she had turned totally . . . blank, for days afterward, moving about as though in a dream. Or nightmare, rather. For her whole life had revolved about Isaiah’s. He had always called her his helpmeet—almost never his wife—and that was exactly what she had been. His work had been her work. His beliefs and opinions had been hers. She had not known for days on end how she could continue without him.

Yet here she was now, continuing on. She was invited almost everywhere now that her official year of mourning was at an end. Most of the time, she supposed, she was invited for Isaiah’s sake rather than for her own, as she could not be described as the life and soul of any gathering, and never had been. She far preferred to listen than to talk. Every conversation needed listeners, did it not? And in her experience, far too many people preferred to talk, pausing only long enough during a conversation to be polite while someone else spoke before launching back into speech.

Not that Lydia was overcritical of talkers, especially those who just needed a sympathetic ear into which to pour their concerns, their aches and pains, or their loneliness. She was particularly kind toward, and patient with, those people others habitually avoided if they could do so without being too obvious about it—the long-winded bores and those, usually the elderly, who liked to tell the same stories they had been telling to the same audience for many years past. Lydia could always be relied upon to listen attentively and to respond as though she were hearing the story for the first time.

No one was talking specifically to her at present. She was at leisure to listen to everyone and to look about and conclude that contentment was actually more desirable than active happiness. For where there was happiness, there was almost invariably unhappiness awaiting its turn. Extremes tended to be like that. They had a way of attracting their opposites, as though some cosmic balance needed to be restored. It was better and safer to settle for some position in the middle. Not that one could always choose, of course. Life was never that neat, nor its ups and downs that much within one’s control. But . . . Well, tonight she felt as though her life had turned out well for her.

She had chosen to remain in this place after her husband’s death because she liked the village of Fairfield and had grown fond of the people who lived here. She could have gone back home to her father’s house. He and her brothers had certainly assumed that she would. When Papa and James, her eldest brother, had come for Isaiah’s funeral and then accompanied her to his brother’s home for his burial in the family plot, they had expected to take her directly home with them afterward. It was their very assertiveness, perhaps, that had pulled her out of her dreadful lethargy. It would have been so easy to allow them to take charge—of her situation, of her life, of her. They had been astonished—not to mention alarmed—when she had announced her intention of returning to the village and staying there.

“Alone?” Papa had said. “Lydie! It is out of the question. You are not thinking straight—as how could you be? I cannot think of anything worse that could have happened to my dearest girl. Go get the bag you brought with you and come immediately, while you have James and me to give you our company and support and to protect you on the journey. The rest of your things can be sent for. James will see to everything. You must not addle your mind over it. You know this is what Isaiah would want.”

Oh yes, she had known that. And perhaps for the first time it had really struck her that Isaiah was no longer with her and never would be again. She had dug in her heels and insisted upon coming home. Home being here.

She could have stayed where she was, with Isaiah’s brother, Bruce Tavernor, Earl of Tilden, and his wife. They had been civil enough after the burial to offer her a home with them, even to urge her to stay, since she was their last surviving link to Isaiah. She had not been ungrateful.

“Though you will no doubt be going home with your father, Lydia,” her brother-in-law had said. “If, however, you would prefer to remain here to live with Ellen and me, even if just for a while, you would be very welcome. For Isaiah’s sake. It is what he would expect of us, and not without reason. We must all be proud of him, you know, even though it is difficult to feel anything but raw grief at present. He died a hero.”

His own grief had been profound, and Lydia had hugged him tightly and clung while Ellen wept into her handkerchief.

Both Lydia’s father and Bruce lived in mansions set in large private parks and run by a host of servants, both indoor and out. Both had offered her a life of ease and security, a balm to the great bruise that was her life. She had chosen instead to come back to Fairfield, though she had moved out of the vicarage a week after her return, of course, to make room for the Reverend Bailey, the new vicar, and his wife, who had both been unfailingly kind to her ever since. She had been fortunate enough to have been left enough money to purchase a small cottage on the edge of the village, and have enough remaining with which to live modestly for the rest of her life.

Her father had declared himself lost for words, though he had somehow found plenty anyway in the letter that had arrived after she announced the purchase. How could she possibly prefer to live in a house that would surely fit into a mere corner of his own? How could she possibly choose to live alone ? But to Lydia, her cottage soon became as precious as a palace. It was hers , and there, she was answerable to no one but herself. That fact, totally unexpected in her life, was a luxury surpassing all others.

Her neighbors had doubtless been as surprised as her relatives when she decided to stay and live all alone among them. She would not even consider hiring someone to be her companion, though her father—when he had understood that she was not to be budged, at least at present, when she was still clearly out of her mind with grief—had suggested an indigent female relative who would be only too happy to come and lend her some respectability. Lydia had said thank you but no, thank you. She did not invite Mrs. Elsinore, the cook and housekeeper Isaiah had hired to run the vicarage, to move in with her. While Isaiah had lived, Mrs. Elsinore had prefaced most of what she said in answer to Lydia’s directions with, “But the reverend says . . .” After his death, she had changed that habitual response to “But the reverend would say . . .”