Chapter Nineteen

E vangeline’s day had not been going well. That morning, Mr. McCormick had informed her, in chilled tones, that Ronan would be walking home with the Crossley children rather than remaining with her after school, no doubt the result of her disapproval of his firing of Mr. Palmer. The children were increasingly frustrated with their attempts at piecing together words, something which likely would have been alleviated had they the advantage of a teacher who actually knew how to teach. Her newest students were progressing, but slowly and with obvious concern that they were falling behind their friends who had been attending school longer. To top all of it off, Hugo Palmer was worse than usual.

He questioned everything, spoke sharply and at times unkindly to his fellow students, and refused to do many of the things she asked of him. Knowing the strain that existed in his home, Evangeline tried to be patient and understanding, but his behavior was both discouraging and disruptive.

“If you stop trying,” she told him for perhaps the hundredth time, “then you will never learn.”

“What’s the point of learning owt? We’ll all end in t’ factory no matter what we do.”

It was exactly the argument she had attempted to counter in the churchyard, that education was pointless when set against the inevitability of the mill. “Wouldn’t you like to learn to read?”

His shoulders slumped. “What would I read?”

She attempted to maintain an encouraging tone despite having nearly expended the last of her patience. “Books and stories.”

Hugo harrumphed. “They’re all written for south folk.”

“I am looking for books written for Yorkshiremen,” she told him. “I simply do not know yet where to find them or whom to ask.”

Hugo folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. “I’ll read those stories if tha finds them.”

“You will refuse until I find something I don’t even know for certain exists?”

“Aye.” His expression and posture spoke of such stubbornness that she could not doubt he was fully in earnest.

She pushed out a long, deep breath. Remaining calm was as much the mark of a proper upbringing as was serenity of countenance and precision of posture. “Oh, Hugo. What am I to do with you?”

Footsteps sounded in the entryway, pulling all eyes in that direction. They never had visitors. Evangeline watched with as much confusion as curiosity. Perhaps one of the children was being called home early. Perhaps another student would be joining them.

The footsteps reached the top of the stairs.

The new arrival wasn’t a student or a parent. Aunt Barton had arrived without warning or welcome.

Worry and discouragement filled the children’s faces. For Evangeline, the arrival brought a feeling of dread.

She gave a quick signal to her students, having practiced the appropriate action for this scenario. They all rose quickly to their feet—all except Hugo, who maintained his contrary air.

“Class,” she cued them.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Barton,” they all said, nearly in unison.

In what amounted to something akin to a miracle, Aunt Barton actually looked impressed. Perhaps this visit would not end with the same disappointment as the others had. Evangeline had not been privy to the reports her aunt had sent to her grandfather, but she had no difficulty imagining what they had said.

“Continue with your work,” Aunt Barton instructed the class.

Evangeline gave a smile and nod of encouragement to her students. “You may be seated.”

With a fervor that she hoped her aunt would interpret as an eagerness to learn rather than the fear Evangeline knew it to be, the children bent over their slates.

“They are very studious,” Aunt Barton acknowledged, eyeing the children the way one would an unwanted annoyance or a difficulty that is beneath one’s dignity to address.

“They wish very much to learn. It is an admirable trait.” Somehow she kept the response serene.

Aunt Barton merely nodded.

Pushing back her nervousness, Evangeline gestured to the left side of the schoolroom. “These are our students who are learning fastest. Many are beginning to read basic words. Beside them”—she indicated the middle benches—“are our students who are making progress toward the goal of reading. And this group here”—she motioned to the cluster of students gathered around Susannah—“are children who have only joined us in the past few days and are, therefore, beginning their studies.”

Aunt Barton indicated Susannah. “This girl was here last time. She is not new.”

“No. Susannah Crossley is our most advanced student and quite bright. She is assisting the newer students.”

“Assisting students is your job, Miss Blake.” Aunt Barton turned a piercingly disapproving gaze on Evangeline. “Are you so incapable of it?”

“Providing more direct instruction will allow them to progress more quickly and catch up to the other children. It is not a matter of being capable or not.”

“Odd that.” Aunt Barton lifted her chin a fraction. “I understand the school in Greenborough has far more students and only one teacher, and there are no reports of any difficulty keeping the students progressing.”

Evangeline clasped her hands together, maintaining a calm demeanor. “I am doing what is best for my students. Surely that is what a teacher ought to do.”

Aunt Barton’s disapproval did not ease. “My purpose in visiting is to determine whether or not you are, in fact, doing what is best for the children of Smeatley. Your defensiveness gives me reason to doubt it.”

Defensiveness? Evangeline had been reasonable, offering answers to Aunt Barton’s questions without accusation or undue emotion. She had acted precisely as she ought, yet she was being criticized. Had she stepped out of line? She didn’t think so. Maybe Aunt Barton simply needed to see for herself that all was well in the classroom.

“Perhaps you would care to see what the children have learned, to measure their progress by witnessing a demonstration of it.”

The corners of Aunt Barton’s mouth tipped ever-so-slightly upward, but her expression was far from warm or kind. “I believe your attitude tells me all I need to know—and all Mr. Farr requires.”

With that, she turned and swept from the room with a regal posture and without a single glance in the direction of the children in whose interest she claimed to be acting. That was to be it? On one brief visit, not one moment of which was spent actually observing anything, Aunt Barton meant to denounce her efforts to her grandfather?

It was unfair. Surely Aunt Barton could be made to see that.

Evangeline followed in her wake, tossing instructions to her students to continue with their studies and the assurance that she would return quickly.

“Mrs. Barton.” She caught up with her at the bottom of the stairs.

“It is no use begging,” Aunt Barton said. “I have seen all—”

“What is your grievance with me?”

“I beg your pardon?” She truly sounded surprised by Evangeline’s question.

“Every interaction we have had these past weeks has begun with your already established disapproval, and I am at a loss to understand why.”

Anger flashed in her aunt’s eyes. “Your behavior is hardly ladylike.”

The accusation stung. She had tried so hard to behave as she ought despite her unfamiliar and difficult circumstances.

Aunt Barton stepped closer to her, skewering her with contempt. “So sure of yourself. So very top-lofty. I knew you would be. Elizabeth could not have raised a daughter who was anything but her equal in pretentiousness.”

Elizabeth was Evangeline’s mother, and Aunt Barton’s sister. How could she speak so ill of a woman who had possessed such a gentle heart?

“I told Father that you would be this way,” Aunt Barton continued, “but he simply would not listen. He never saw the truth about her, either.” Aunt Barton took hold of the door handle, but spared Evangeline one last look of condemnation. “Give a thought to your future, Miss Blake, as it seems you think too highly of your capabilities.”

Evangeline sat at her table that evening, her head down and her heart heavy. She was too overwhelmed to even think of preparing herself a meal and too exhausted to drag herself to her bed.

Her aunt’s condemnation sat uneasily on her mind. Though she did not think she had truly pushed the boundaries of decorum in their discussion, she could not say the same for all of her interactions of late.

She had grown agitated with the local seamstress when she had, without explanation, raised the price for a front-fastening corset.

She had spoken sharply when Old Bob stepped inside to drop off school supplies without knocking. He hadn’t had any nefarious intentions, he’d simply forgotten.

She’d had more than one conversation with Mr. McCormick that would not have passed the scrutiny of her governess or her mother. She had scolded, accused, contradicted. Ladies were meant to influence with quiet gentility.

She had acted out of character in those instances. Yet, had she been so wrong? Was she truly deserving of her aunt’s censure or of the castigation she was heaping on herself?

Life had grown so discouraging, and she felt helpless to do anything about it. Arguing with those who were contributing to her frustrations had, in the moment, offered some relief. Now, however, she felt dissatisfied. She knew who she was raised to be, and she was failing.

Someone knocked at her door. She was not particularly in the mood for visitors, but she had breached enough rules of etiquette already. Summoning her best manners, Evangeline rose, crossed the small room, and answered the door.

She hid her surprise at seeing Mr. McCormick, of all people, standing there. “Good evening.”

“You were meant to come for a cooking lesson this evening,” he said.

He had still been expecting her? “I thought, after our discussion yesterday and Ronan not staying after school ...” Her explanation trailed off at the hurt look in his eyes.

“You think me as petty as all that, Miss Blake?” Heavens, he sounded offended as well.

“I suppose I don’t know what to think.”

He nodded. “Fair enough. From this point forward, you can think of me as a man who keeps his word. Now, come along. Tonight I mean to teach you to make colcannon.”

The invitation brought relief and warmth. Perhaps it was simply the joy of receiving a kindness on a difficult day. Perhaps it was the reassurance that yesterday’s poor manners were not to be held against her.

She fetched her key and sent a silent word of affection to her family, watching her from within the frame on the mantel. She often greeted them or bid them farewell and even spoke to them during the long, lonely evenings. Outside of school hours, those shadows of her loved ones tucked behind the unyielding glass were her only companions. They alone listened to her worries and hopes and struggles. They alone sat with her during the quietest, coldest hours.

Who was looking after Lucy during her hours of need?

As they walked the dirt path leading away from the schoolhouse, Mr. McCormick pulled a folded parchment from his jacket pocket. “Mr. Barton asked me to deliver this to you.”

She accepted it with a small degree of nervousness. Had her aunt made a scathing report to her husband? Was she to be scolded or dismissed? No, the paper was a letter, folded and sealed.

“It is from Lucy,” she said in surprise.

“A friend of yours?”

“My sister,” she explained. “We are separated just now. I have longed to hear from her, and had nearly given up hope.”

“Read it, then.” Mr. McCormick tucked his hands in his jacket pockets as they walked, his posture easy and calm. “I’ll not begrudge you learning how your sister fares.”

“I will be terrible company,” she warned him.

“’Twill make you easier to recognize.” He immediately caught her eye. “That was a moment of teasing. I know you don’t always recognize it as such.”

She almost smiled at him. “We need to work on your approach to teasing, render it a little less biting.”

“Very well. You learn to make colcannon, and I’ll set m’ mind to some more tender jests.”

That was an unexpected concession. “Are you in earnest?”

“I am.” He spoke with conviction. “I know I am woefully out of practice at kindly conversation. I’ve had little enough opportunity for it this past year. Mark you, though, I’m willing to try m’ hand at it, and I’m hoping you’ll do as you have been and point out to me when I’m being more peevish than I ought to be.”

Would the surprises of this man never end? “You wish for me to tell you when you’re being grumpy? That is not generally encouraged or welcome.”

“I’ve backbone enough to endure criticism, Miss Blake. And I’ve human nature enough to need it now and then.” He opened his yellow door. “I’ll quit my blatherin’,” he said. “You’ve a letter to read.”

Once inside, she exchanged waves with Ronan, then set herself at the table. Nervousness tiptoed over her. Lucy had written at last, but what had she said? What if she’d written to say she didn’t miss Evangeline and didn’t wish to live with her? How could she bear that?

With shaking hands, she broke the seal and unfolded the parchment.

Dear Evangeline,

Please do not leave me here.

With those six words, her sister broke her heart.

My room is cold, and the other girls do not like me. The teachers never smile, and they are unkind when I answer a question wrong. I am so very lonely. Please come and fetch me. Please.

That was all she wrote. Even her name was hastily scrawled without the customary valediction. The hurried nature of Lucy’s pleas only added to her urgency.

“Miss Blake?” Mr. McCormick sat at the table by her. “You appear to have received bad news. Are you needing to talk about it? I’m a dab hand at listening.”

She shook her head, her spirits sinking. “You don’t wish to hear my troubles.”

“On the contrary. It’ll help pass the time while we chop and mix our supper.” He pushed a bowl of boiled potatoes and a large spoon toward her.

She hesitated. Had she not just spent a long hour berating herself over the proper way to behave? Speaking so personally was not terribly appropriate, but, heaven help her, she needed someone to talk with. She needed to lift some of the weight on her heart.

“What do I do with the potatoes?” she asked.

“Crush ’em up as best you can. When you’re done, we’ll add a touch of cream.”

She nodded her understanding and set to work.

Mr. McCormick crossed to the pot hanging over the fire and stirred something inside. The steam smelled heavily of cabbage, as it often did. When he didn’t press her further to share her worries, her faith in him rose. He was inviting the confidence; it would not be wrong of her to accept.

“My sister is all the family I have left,” she heard herself say as she crushed and stirred the potatoes. “We are separated, though, and we are neither of us happy about it.”

“Why are you apart?” he asked, scooping heaps of dark, limp cabbage from the pot.

“Our grandfather was given full control over our residence and my occupation after our parents died. He has determined that my sister should be in Leeds.” Evangeline chose not to explain that he had also insisted she come to Smeatley and be the teacher. Admitting that she had not had any choice in the matter felt oddly like giving up on it, on herself, even on her students. She had not sought the position, but it had become important to her. “Grandfather is not convinced that I am capable of caring for her and won’t allow her to live here with me until I can prove otherwise.”

Mr. McCormick returned to the table with a bowl of boiled cabbage strips. “What is it your sister’s written that’s added so much to your misery?”

“She tells me she is unhappy.” Her shoulders drooped at the reminder. “She is pleading with me to help her, but I cannot.”

He dropped his cabbage into her bowl of potatoes. “Stir it all together.”

She obeyed with vigor, finding satisfaction in being able to accomplish something .

“You know the pain of being separated from those you love,” he said, fetching a cream pitcher. “Now, seeing that same pain in your wee sister, you’re finding yourself desperate to save her from it.”

“You speak as one who understands.”

His eyes turned sad and distant. “I’ve not seen m’ family since I was as young as Ronan, there. I’ve missed them ever since.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

He poured a bit of cream in the bowl and indicated she should stir it again. “’Tis a difficult thing not having those we love with us.”

“You have Ronan with you,” she pointed out. He was not entirely alone.

“I do, at that.” He looked on the boy with unmistakable love. “I have him because I couldn’t bear to see him endure what I had, being alone in the world and aching for someone to care about him.”

That answer did not make a great deal of sense. Why would a father be worried about his son being alone in the world if they were together? “Was there a risk of you being separated?”

He set bowls out for them and began scooping the potatoes and cabbage mixture into them. “I’ll tell you something I’ve not told anyone hereabout. I’m not ashamed, mind you, I simply prefer to keep private matters to m’self, especially where Ronan is concerned.”

She glanced at the boy, who had not looked up from his wooden figurines, then returned her gaze to Mr. McCormick.

He sat and pulled a bowl over to himself. “Ronan’s not m’ son.”

Shock silenced her. Of all the things he might have said, she would never have guessed that.

“At an age just younger than I was when my family apprenticed me to a brick mason, Ronan found himself in the same situation, except the man charged with his training was a brute.” Mr. McCormick took up his spoon, though he didn’t eat. “I knew the sort of life Ronan would have, the misery awaiting him. I couldn’t stand by and let that happen.”

“What did you do?”

“I convinced the man to apprentice Ronan to me instead. Took a fair bit of doing, but he eventually allowed it.”

“But Ronan is not a bricklayer.”

Mr. McCormick shook his head. “He’s a child, as he ought to be. As I ought to have been. As your sister, no doubt, deserves to be. You worry for your sister, just as I worried for the lad while trying to secure his release from the misery life had placed him in.”

Evangeline scooted her chair closer to his. “How did you manage it?”

“How? By being as dogged as I knew how. I never stopped pushing or trying. In time, I found the thing that motivated the man who kept him from me. Once I knew that, ’twas finally possible to convince him.”

“What was it?” Perhaps it was something she could use to bring Lucy home.

“Money.” He took a bite of his supper. “Not in the direct sense, though. I offered the man a project of mine that was sure to make him a fine sum. I knew he had no care for the lad and was certain he’d make the trade. He did.”

Evangeline tried to imagine Ronan with such a person, someone who could toss him aside so easily for the sake of financial gain. The thought brought a thickness to her throat and a burning sensation to the back of her eyes. “What a terrible man.”

“That he was.”

“My ability to do well at my job will serve as proof of my ability to care for my sister,” she said. “But my grandfather’s knowledge of my success is limited to Mrs. Barton’s reports on my progress.” Heavens, she was tiptoeing close to revealing secrets she had sworn not to disclose. “Mrs. Barton, however, has as much as admitted that she does not intend to make a flattering accounting of my abilities, regardless of what I may or may not accomplish.”

He did not seem as puzzled as she’d thought he would be. “Why not tell your grandfather yourself? Send your own report.”

“He’d likely not believe me.” Her heart dropped. “And he would not approve of me being so bold. A lady is not meant to be assertive.”

“Aye, but you’d be acting as a sister, not a fine lady. Sisters are family, and family is meant to fiercely protect one another.”

She had never, in all her twenty years, imagined a situation where the rules of conduct could change entirely. Yet, she was eating a meal she’d helped prepare, fretting over her employment, and pondering the possibility of contradicting the witness of her aunt and of arguing her point directly to her grandfather. For one taught from the cradle to be unfailingly prim, it was a daunting prospect, and a confusing one. She doubted her own ability to choose the correct course of action.

“I do not know if I have the boldness to contradict Mrs. Barton.” She shook her head.

“You give yourself far too little credit,” he said. “I think you have fire enough for this.”

His words touched her. So few people had shown confidence in her of late, including herself. “Thank you, Mr. McCormick.”

“Dermot,” he said. “I think we’ve shared enough confidences to be on less formal footing.”

Before coming to Smeatley, she would have rejected the idea out of hand. Such familiarity was unheard of between a woman and a man to whom she was not related. Yet, she felt nothing but reassurance in that moment.

“Dermot,” she acknowledged. “And I am Evangeline.”

He shook his head and sighed in unmistakably feigned annoyance. “That is a mouthful, that is.”

She grinned back at him. “I think you have fire enough to manage it.”