Chapter Four

“ It’s not as bad as all that,” Mary said, suddenly unsure of herself. “She had a placard in the window, advertising employment. I answered the ad.”

The man took out his aunt’s letter and handed it to her. “This is what she wrote to me. Read it. If you can read, that is.”

That stung. Mary read the letter. She looked up at the man, noting the hardness in his eyes. In his own way, he looked as resentful as his aunt, when she first approached the woman and begged for work. Maybe suspicion was a family trait.

She saw something else that touched her more than she wanted it to, considering what a menace he was to her remaining employed. She saw the exhaustion of someone who had no idea what a day off, spent in leisure, might look like. What approach should she use?

She tried humor. “I do bully Miss Wainwright to eat and rest. And for stealing from her, I would never do that.”

“Why not? She is likely an easy mark.”

Even mild humor was making no impression. It embarrassed her, but total honesty might be best. “I was hungry,” she told him simply. “I had nowhere to sleep. I thought I could put this little shop to rights, and that is what I have done. Excuse me, sir. I’ll go find your aunt.”

She wanted to slap him silly, but she knew better. She turned toward the back of the store, but stopped instead to watch the child, who seemed to know just where a cat luxuriating in a pile of yard wanted to be scratched.

“Handsome, isn’t he?” she asked. “Do you like cats?”

The little girl nodded. “I wish I had one,” she confided.

“He’s a stray like me,” Mary said, on more sure footing now, for no discernible reason, except that she liked children. “He wandered in a few weeks ago, caught a mouse and ate it on the spot, then curled up in the yarn. He needs a name. Miss Wainwright hired him, too.”

She thought she heard a chuckle behind her, but it must have been her imagination.

“I am Sally,” the child said.

“I am Mary. Now I must find Miss Wainwright.”

“I’ll find her. I know this place,” the man said, brushing past her and into the back of the shop. Mary stared down at her hands, wondering why it was so easy for some to create a problem where there was none. Still, she thought he had laughed.

She soon heard the murmur of voices behind her in the sitting room, just a murmur, no shouting. When the front doorbell tinkled again, she pasted a smile on her face, even though she wanted to find a dark corner and mourn the probable loss of her job. “Good afternoon. How may I assist you?” she asked the prospective customer, who, to her surprise, turned out to be Squire Banford’s wife.

“I know you,” Mrs. Banford said.

“My father Frederick Cooper was one of the Squire’s tenants,” Mary said. “He died and I work here now.”

“My husband could have found something for you to do on the estate,” Mrs. Banford replied, as if it was Mary’s fault.

“She’s working for my aunt here in this shop, madam,” Mary heard behind her.

“I was only saying…” Mrs. Banford appeared surprised to be addressed by a stranger. “Never mind, sir. I have a matter to discuss with Mary Cooper.”

“Discuss away,” Mr. Wainwright said agreeably.

He didn’t back off, or leave the room. Mary felt herself relaxing. She wondered if this was what it felt like to have someone on her side. But that was silly. He was only trying to hurry things along so Mrs. Banford would leave, and he could fire her.

“Very well, sir, although I do not care for your impertinence. We have not been introduced,” was Mrs. Banford’s last shot across the bow. She returned her attention to Mary. “May I contract you to draw me ten such landscapes?” she asked, picking up one of the cards. “I will pay you three shillings.”

“I accept, Mrs. Banford,” Mary replied, stunned. “Wh…when would you like them?”

“The end of this week? I will pay you when I pick them up.” Mrs. Banford glared over Mary’s shoulder, which made her wonder if Mr. Wainwright was making faces. The squire’s wife picked up the scene with a house and smoke spiraling from the chimney. “These will make excellent decorations on Christmas packages.” She looked closer. “Imagine. Done with crayons?”

“Yes, Mrs. Banford,” Mary said shyly. “It’s what I have.”

“I like them. Good day.”

Luke Wainwright stood behind Mary. She addressed him without looking at him. “When she or her servant brings the shillings, they will go into the strong box with everything else.” No comment. “And do you know one things else, sir? In two short weeks, I have sold twenty little landscapes. All the money is in that box.”

Silence. He picked up that same landscape. She battened down her courage and turned around to see him smiling. He cleared his throat. “Miss Cooper, I owe you an apology,” he said. “My aunt tells me your miniatures have created more sales than anything except skeins of yarn, that is, when she can get the fat cat to budge off the merchandise.”

Mary laughed, which dissipated the tension in the shop to a noticeable degree. Or it may have been because Mr. Wainwright sounded completely sincere. He looked her right in the eye, and she saw lurking good humor, again something she did not expect. “Aunt Luella assured me that every word she wrote is true. You d o bully her to eat and rest – thank you for that, by the way. She also admitted that the only person robbing the till was herself, most recently this morning when she arranged for a beef roast to be cooked at the public house and brought over here tonight.”

“A beef roast? From the public house and not the tearoom?”

“Aye, miss. She said the public house does a better job,” he told her. “She declared that you are skinny and need feeding up.” He looked around a moment, as if embarrassed. “Thank you, Miss Cooper, for coming to her rescue when I did not. What is that expression I see?”

“A woman astounded that a man would ever apologize for anything,” she said promptly, which increased the size of his smile.

“Then I am a rare fellow.”

And he was, Mary decided, right down to fetching the beef roast himself from down the High Street, if such a street could be so distinguished in tiny Liddiard. He also proved remarkably adept at peeling carrots to simmer in the pot while Mary sliced and fried potatoes until they were brown and crispy.

She counted it surprising enough that a man could ever admit to a wrongdoing without sulking. Here he was, working alongside her in the kitchen while his daughter hovered close by, not wanting anyone to come between her and her father.

Mary remarked on Sally’s devotion when Aunt Luella coaxed the child into the shop to help sort a jumble of embroidery threads the postman delivered. “She’s your very own shadow,” Mary said to Mr. Wainwright.

“Aye, she is, and that worries me a little,” he said, wiping his hands on an improvised apron made of a dishcloth. “I recently moved a little farther away to Plymouth. We had been living in my father-in-law’s house in Devonport, but I wanted a place…” He moved the carrots slightly off the hob so they would simmer now. “There are many distractions in a household of that importance. I confess to needing some peace and quiet.” He chuckled. “Or as Sally says, ‘A piece of quiet.’”

“Did you find it?” she asked, intrigued by a man who only an hour ago had been ready to bite her head off for ill treatment of his elderly relative. Then, he seemed to be someone with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Now, not so much. “You know, your piece of quiet.”

“Yes and no. I have a good-enough cook, a maid of all work, and a nanny to tend to Sally.” He sighed. “Perhaps I should have stayed in the house of my late wife’s father. I confess I am not around as much as I should be. Did Sally prefer the…the noise? There is so much for me to do at the drydock.” He looked toward the shop. “I am not certain that Sally is happy. And so she clings. As the sole parent of a young one, I am baffled.”

“That’s honest,” Mary said. She fried the last of the potatoes, then transferred them to the oven alongside the roast to stay warm. She turned around and bumped into Mr. Wainwright.

“It’s a tight space,” he said, cheerful even as his face reddened.

“Aye, sir,” she agreed. “I just remembered something I needed to ask your aunt. Excuse me.”

She could have argued with herself that it was agreeable to share a tight space with someone she knew well, except that she didn’t know Mr. Wainwright at all. Besides that, she needed to know where these additional Wainwrights would sleep that night.

Miss Wainwright was in the shop, where Sally chatted with the cat, a one-sided conversation except that the cat seemed to be listening. Mary came closer. “Miss Wainwright, where will we put them tonight?”

“Oh my, I hadn’t thought…. When they visited before, they stayed in the room you now use. I have a folded cot under that bed.” She put her hand to her mouth. “What will you do?”

“I will do quite well on the sofa in the sitting room again,” Mary assured her. “I’ll get Sally to help me, while you visit your nephew. Sally, you and I have work to do. Follow me.”

“I will help if Gargantua comes, too,” Sally said.

“Gargan…” Mary laughed, which surprised her. When had she last laughed? “He is getting rather stout on scraps and left over dinner. Where did you ever hear of Gargantua?”

“Papa named him a minute ago,” Sally whispered. “He told me it was from a book not intended for little girls.”

They laughed together, conspirators. “Never mind. It is the perfect name, and I have been wondering what to name him.” She touched Sally’s shoulder, only a light touch, which made the child flinch. What is this? she thought, then covered up her surprise with a laugh. “Well, it is. Let’s get to work.”

The three of them went into Mary’s room, after she grabbed some sheets from the storeroom. As she stripped the sheets from her bed, Mary felt her old anxiety return – homeless, no food, no place to sleep. She swallowed it, reasoning with herself that this visit was not a permanent one and there would be a place for her again.

“There’s not much room,” Sally said. She brightened when Gargantua curled up on the cot. “Perhaps there is enough, if Gargantua can squeeze in.”

“Cats do that,” Mary said, even as she thought, And so do people, when they are desperate enough. I squeezed in .

Dinner was a delight. Mary ate more than she should have. She excused herself by crediting her appetite to the growing fear – she couldn’t help herself – that from a bed on the sofa again, the next direction was out the door.

Sally started drooping when Mary removed the plates and brought out the pudding, which perked her up noticeably. Mary noticed nothing like that in Luke Wainwright. He ate with a certain absentminded mien, as if food was needed to stay alive and that was all. He appeared preoccupied and eager to get away, which told her worlds about his responsibilities, left behind in terms of distance, but obviously not in terms of never-ending worry, which she knew was more portable. Who knew that frigates bound for His Majesty’s Royal Navy could fit inside a builder’s over-active brain?

But this was not Mary’s worry. True, he showed all the signs of a man ready to bolt back to his duty, now that the mountain he had imagined in Liddiard was not even a molehill. Or so she hoped. But were there other Wainwrights lurking about, waiting to pounce on a simple position in a quiet town? Her position?

Oh, enough. She could point out the obvious. “Mr. Wainwright, Sally is drooping. I can easily tidy her for bed, if you help your aunt in the kitchen.” She bowed to the inevitable. “I suppose you have matters to discuss.”

“I do,” he said, which confirmed Mary’s fears. He leaned across the table and touched his daughter’s cheek. “Very well, missy. I will tuck you in after I break a dish or two and Aunt Luella never wants to see me in a kitchen again.”

Mary knew all the signs. Mr. Wainwright had come here with questions, and she could tell he had plans, even if his initial worry had proved unfounded. He probably thought Aunt Luella was too old to be on her own, even with help.

“Come along, Sally. Let’s see if Gargantua is sleeping on your cot.”

The child danced ahead of her, but paused in the doorway for another look at her father. “My da won’t go anywhere while I am with you, will he?”

It was an odd question. Mary shook her head. “I don’t think your fathers knows anyone in Liddiard. Where’s your nightgown? I’ll get a little warm water from the kitchen.”

When she returned to the kitchen for warm water, a towel draped over her arm, Mary knew she had interrupted conversation more important than idle chatter. She apologized, got the water and hurried out, but she had heard Mr. Wainwright saying, “… room for you in Plymouth.”

“I can’t reach my back buttons,” Sally said as Mary returned, tears in her eyes, and shut the door. “Well, only one or two.” She turned around dutifully and Mary unbuttoned the pretty dress.

She sucked in her breath and stared at Sally’s back, wondering at a series of bruises, as if someone had pinched her over and over.

“I can do the rest now, Mary,” the child said. “I’m no trouble. Really, I am not.”

“Oh! Certainly you are no trouble, my dear,” Mary said, regaining her composure. “I can help, though. Raise your arms.”

Carefully she lifted the dress over Sally’s head, noting more such bruises along her upper arms, places where ill-use wouldn’t show. Too shocked to say anything, she hummed softly to herself, which, up to now, soothed her. No, not now.

She buttoned Sally into her nightgown, pushing back her sleeves, and noting with sorrow bruises around her wrists, as though she had been grabbed. Gently she touched the bruises, silently observing that like the bruises on her back, they would not be visible under clothing.

Unsure of what to do, Mary did what she would have wanted – she took Sally in her arms and hugged her close. She held her off a little, looked deep into old eyes and asked, “What happened to you?”

Sally shook her head. “She told me that I was a wicked child and not to ever say anything to my father,” she whispered.

“You’re not wicked,” Mary said. Gently she pressed her forehead against the child’s forehead. “You’re good and true and look how much Gargantua loves you.” It was completely illogical, but Sally sighed with relief and gathered the meaty cat close to her.

“Is it your nanny?” Mary asked.

Sally nodded, after a look around the room to make sure her nanny hadn’t suddenly materialized. “She likes to drink after Papa leaves in the morning, and the maid is busy. The first time she saw me watching her, she pinched my back.” She winced. “It doesn’t hurt now, but it did.” Tears came to the surface. “I shouldn’t have said anything to you. She made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Mary kissed her and tucked her in bed. “It’s not going to happen anymore.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am certain.”