Chapter Twenty-Three

Briggs

“I believe I’m better suited to the farmer’s life,” says August as we cross the back pastures toward the Hugheses’ farm the next morning.

“Rather than a gentleman’s?” I ask.

The sky above us is a crisp blue, but there are wisps of clouds on the horizon that threaten this perfectly sunny day. August was awake well before dawn, outfitted in what he described as “workable breeches,” then he lunged deeply to show me just how workable they were and threw a pair at my face.

I’ll admit it, they’re refreshingly workable.

“I like being out of doors with the horses and learning things so much better than balls and…” He winces at the next word. “Operas.”

“I can’t say I’m terribly fond of operas, either, but it’s only one night. I can handle one night. Besides, Miss Dixon is excited.” This is a lie. Not the part about Miss Dixon being excited, because she most certainly is. But I know she’s not the reason I’m going.

I’m going to the opera to see Blythe. To watch her watch the opera. To have her show me why it matters, and to witness firsthand how she’s slowly falling for Colchester. Maybe if I see it, if I see her touch his arm, whisper to him, her full, perfectly pouty lips close enough to brush his ear, then maybe I’ll convince myself that Sabrina is the better option for me—the only option for me.

“Yes,” August agrees, “I can tell by the way Miss Dixon left for London a full day ahead of us.”

I swipe my hand through the tall grass, plucking a few blades in my upswing. “Yes, she has friends she had to pay a visit to or something.”

“I admire how closely you listen when she speaks,” August observes.

“ When she speaks, being the operative phrase. Being with her is like living with a little ghost.”

“But you like her?” August asks.

“I hardly even know her.”

“A very solid foundation for a relationship, I’d wager. Sounds like Mother and Father.”

I take a moment to observe my brother. My little brother who so rarely speaks to me of anything as personal as this. “What do you mean?”

August shrugs, taking a blade of grass from me and then placing it between his two thumbs. He blows against it, and it lets out a sharp whistle. “Our parents hardly knew one another when they got married, and when they finally did become better acquainted, they couldn’t stand one another. I can’t remember the last time our parents spent an hour in the same house together, let alone the same room.”

I look up to the sky, as though that would help me recall the exact moment my brother is looking for.

“Don’t pretend like it’ll come to you,” says August softly. “You were far too busy partying your way across Europe.”

I nod. It’s rather pointless to deny it. “They were rather unhappy, weren’t they?”

“I always just assumed that they married because that was what was expected of them. The joining of two ancient families. Mother had a sizable dowry, and Father, well, he was a Goswick.”

I don’t add to this. I’m not certain how much August knows about Father’s financial situation both before and after his death. Now our financial situation. I’m suddenly ashamed that I haven’t told him myself. I’m about to admit it to him, everything that I know I’ve been keeping from him and Mother. But August interrupts me.

“Someone’s riding in our direction,” he says, raising his arm and pointing.

I try to make out who this could be, but the horse is far too fine an animal to belong to anyone on this side of Brumbury. When it gets closer, the rider slows the animal to a trot, and finally, I recognize him.

“Lord Colchester,” I say.

He brings the horse to a complete stop and then grins down at me. “Goswick! I hardly recognized you in those clothes. What on Earth are you doing?”

“We’re taking in the hay,” August replies for me, his tone implying that it should have been entirely obvious.

“Ah, the younger Goswick,” says Colchester with a grin. You just can’t insult this man. “How have you been?”

“Fine and well,” August replies tersely.

“Where are you headed?” I ask. As if I didn’t know.

“Wrexford Park. Miss Rowley and her family will be joining me in my box at the opera this week, and I thought I’d ride out ahead of my carriage. Take in the beautiful countryside.”

“Indeed,” I say. And that’s literally all I can think to reply with, but there’s something boiling within my gut at the prospect of Colchester taking in the countryside with Blythe— my countryside, the one I’ve shared all summer with her. I fist my hands at my side and take a deep breath.

“Well, then,” says Colchester, “I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you’re doing. I’m looking forward to spending the day with Miss Rowley.”

I blink several times. “Mmm.”

“Good day,” says August, shoving past me. “And once again, we’re taking in the hay.” He turns to me when Colchester finally disappears on the horizon. “I don’t think he believed me.”

We climb the sloping hill until we crest the top, the Hughes farm just below us.

“He’s going to ask her to marry him, you know,” says August, surveying the land.

I put my hands on my hips. “Yes, I know.”

“As long as you know.”

“I know , August. I know.” I know, and I can’t help but think that I’m the one at fault for thrusting them together. Blythe could never be a lord’s wife. Everything about the position is strict, and formulaic, and false. Everything that Blythe isn’t. Everything that she could never be.

I follow August down the hill to begin our day’s work.

And even though there is hay to be taken in at the Hughes farm, even though I have joined several of my tenants in order to aid the family, and there is physical labor to distract me, Blythe is all I can really think about.

I don’t know when exactly Miss Rowley transformed from tiresome company to someone I find myself preoccupied with entirely too often. She’s Blythe Rowley, for God’s sake. The annoying girl who spent her childhood going out of her way to find all my faults and put them on display. Mock me in ways I was never able to anticipate. No one had ever done that before. I suppose I’ve always thought I was meant to live some charmed existence. But no one is so faultless. It just took Blythe Rowley to bring it to my attention.

And I think I’m all the better for it.

As it turns out, taking in the hay is a demanding job. The horses pull the cart, and the men then use their pitchforks to toss it onto the back. We’ve managed six horses, three carts, and ten men altogether.

“I read several essays on this process prior to this morning,” August explains over his shoulder to me as he works effortlessly. “Would have done you some good to research rather than pine after Miss Rowley.”

The other men all laugh at this, and now I look like a tremendous ass, leaning against my pitchfork and obviously distracted by a girl who isn’t here.

“I don’t pine after Miss Rowley,” I mutter, stepping forward and heaving my fork into the line of cut hay before me.

“You do, actually,” says Mrs. Hughes. She sits in the wagon, directing the horses. “If you don’t mind my saying, sir, I saw the way you looked at her yesterday.”

Again, the men all laugh. “She must be a pretty lass, for all the lagging behind you’re doing,” says Mr. Walker.

“Just pretend she’s the one in the wagon instead of Mrs. Hughes and follow along,” says another.

I realize, then, that they’re teasing me. Like they would tease one another. They’re trying to include me, and I find that I don’t mind it at all.

We lift hay, toss it, carry it over to the great stone barn where two other men unload it, and then another horse and cart pull back into the field. There’s a sense of completion in this work that I haven’t experienced anywhere else in my life. The routine, the tradition, the physical proof of our labor is grounding. Working together with these people, something I never imagined myself doing, has proven eye-opening and reassuring. This is our land, not just mine, and when we cooperate, we prosper. I take a moment to look around me, my muscles aching, sweat dripping down my back, and my heart so full I think it could burst.

From her place before the horses, Mrs. Hughes begins to sing. She warbles out a line of a song about a gentleman gone walking, and in response, two of the men, barely distracted from their task, reply in harmony about the maiden he finds in the meadow. It sounds vaguely familiar, reminds me of a far-off place I used to know, used to inhabit, and slowly the memory trickles back to me.

The sight of my father and me kneeling in the dirt of the gardens just outside the walls of Mistlethrush. How he taught me which vegetables should be planted side by side, because they help one another grow. He sang this song, too. I sang it with him.

To my left, August continues to lift the hay from the ground, but I can hear him singing. I join him in the next line, though admittedly I have no talent in singing, and he peers over at me, a half grin pulling at his mouth.

“Aye, you know the words, lads!” cries a man, and one by one, we sing louder until the entire field echoes with our chorus. I suspect my off-key braying has scared off all the crows in the field. But I don’t care.

We spend the rest of the day exchanging songs and bringing in the hay. By midafternoon, I’ve discarded the waistcoat I thought was appropriate attire and my white shirt clings to my back with sweat. Two of the Hughes children bring out huge buckets of cool water, and we ladle gulp after gulp down our parched palettes.

As evening hovers on the horizon, the sky begins to cloud over, and the air stirs with the smell of the imminent storm, earthy and pungent. We race now, the end in sight, and just as we pull the last cart into the great stone barn, the sky splits apart in a rapture of thunder and lightning, and a heavy downpour soaks the scoured field.

We whoop and cheer under the safety of the roof of the barn, lingering in the open door as sheets of rain fall from the eaves. Relief washes over me, that we were able to complete our task, and I’ve never felt so accomplished or such a raw sense of vitality. We hug one another and marvel at our success.

When the others have retired back to their homes for supper, August turns to me. “When I get home,” he says, “the first thing I want is a bath.”

I squat down, lifting a stray piece of hay from the ground, and I twirl it between my fingers. I realize that when I get home, the first thing I want to do is tell Blythe about my day. I want to share with her my newly acquired rustic sensibilities. And the high from my day dulls into a low ache in my stomach at the realization that she won’t be at Mistlethrush. She won’t even be at Wrexford Park. She’s far away, and the distance is troubling. The recognition that I need her, want her close by, is troubling.

“Do you think Father would have joined us today?” I ask August.

He won’t look at me, but I can see his mouth twist with unspoken emotion. He nods.

“He’d have been proud of us,” I say, looking down at my feet. “Thank you for coming with me.”

August takes a deep breath, then swipes at his cheek. “You can include me more often, Briggs,” he says. “If I can help you.”

I hesitate before I say what I want to. I’m afraid of his reaction. I’m afraid of losing him, I realize. But he deserves to hear it from me. “Then there’s something I need to confess to you,” I say. “Something I should have told you months ago, but I was trying to protect you and Mother.”

“Is it about Father?” August asks quietly.

I nod, a lump forming in my throat.

“I’m sure I already know whatever it is you’re about to tell me,” he says. “You forget that while you were off gallivanting across—”

“Across Europe, yes, I know,” I finish for him.

“I was stuck here at Mistlethrush, listening to Mother and Father bicker. There’s only so much that reading in my room could block out.”

“It’s not just that,” I tell him. “Father had a gambling problem, and we’ve been left with very little. It’s why I’ve spent so much time in London with Uncle Richard, trying to find a way to mend things, but…we may lose Mistlethrush.” I stare out into the fields as the sky explodes with a crack of lightning. “We may lose all this.”

August is quiet for a moment, then offers me a soft, “Oh.” He studies a blade of grass in his hand. “Which is why you insist upon courting Miss Dixon and not Miss Rowley. It all comes down to dowry.”

I nod silently, pressing my lips together, like that’s going to hold in the sob that’s forming in my throat. When my brother says it out loud, it makes me feel like such a fraud.

“I’m glad you told me,” August says. “It’s easier when you can share the weight of a burden. Does Miss Rowley know?”

“Yes.” I stand next to my brother. “She’s been helping me secure Miss Dixon’s affections.”

August snorts.

“What?”

“It’s just comical,” he says. “Your sworn enemy now suddenly your friend and helping you court the dullest girl on the planet.”

“Miss Dixon is not—” I try to say.

But August turns before I can complete the sentence. “Miss Dixon is not Miss Rowley. No one else has or ever will be Miss Rowley for you.”

He steps out into the rain and begins walking home.

“You’ll get soaked!” I call to him.

He turns to me, walking backward and spreading his arms out wide, as if welcoming the storm.

“Little brothers,” I say. But I follow him anyway.