Free Toblethorpe Manor by Carola Dunn Page B

and thoughtful and gay.
    She shivered as she remembered the feel of his arms around her, then sternly put such thoughts away and turned to her book.
    The next few days passed uneventfully. Miss Carstairs spent a good deal of time in the village, where sickness had broken out as she had predicted. The weather continued unseasonably warm, and by the fourth day, Monday, Miss Fell was able to take a brief stroll in the shrubbery, well wrapped up by Mary, and with Thomas hovering near at hand. Here she won over her last critic. She stepped around a beech hedge, crinkly brown leaves still clinging to the twigs, and found herself facing a stone wall against which flowered a fountain of forsythia.
    “Oh, how beautiful!” she exclaimed aloud, startling old John, who was leaning on his spade with his back to her, contemplating the sight. He turned slowly to face her.
    “Ar,” he said.
    “Is it not early for forsythia?” she asked. “And oh, look! Scilla and crocuses already!”
    “‘Tis a sheltered spot,” the gardener muttered unwillingly. “Gets all t’sun. T’warm weather do bring ‘em on. We calls ‘em squills,” he added belligerently.
    “Yes, of course,” soothed Miss Fell. “I have heard that name. You must be Mr. Carstairs’ head gardener?”
    “Oh, aye. Bin here fifty year, man an’ boy. ‘Ud ‘ee like a bunch o’ that there yaller stuff?” he inquired grudgingly. “Some outlandish foreign name, but it do last well in a vase.”
    “How kind of you. Would you cut me some?” The conquest was complete.
    Miss Fell’s next trial was the vicar, Mr. Crane. She had been ten days in the neighborhood without attending church, and Miss Carstairs’ habit of going every morning to early service pointed up her absence. Mr. Crane felt she must be in need of spiritual sustenance, and, besides, his curiosity had been sharpened by Miss Carstairs’ total, though tactful, refusal to satisfy it. In spite of her devotion to the Church, Miss Carstairs could not bring herself to approve of clergymen—after all, they did belong to the despised male sex.
    On Tuesday morning the wind turned chill and clouds started to gather, but Mr. Crane was undeterred. It was his duty to visit the mysterious Miss Fell, and he was not to be put off by the threat of rain. He understood that Miss Carstairs would be visiting old friends at some little distance, so he would be free of a presence he found rather overwhelming.
    Mr. Crane called for his horse and set off up the hill. He regarded without pleasure the prospect of the village below and the towering moors beyond it, revealed now and then by a twist in the road. Lincolnshire bred, he had never been able to reconcile himself to having to go up or down to get anywhere, and the treeless slopes and rocky outcrops made him shiver. He was, in fact, even now negotiating for a living in his home county. It would be worth slightly less, but he felt oppressed by the gloomy hills and the cold courtesy of his patron, Mr. Carstairs. The hills grew gloomier as his horse plodded upward, and large drops of icy rain began falling.
    By the time the vicar reached the manor, his coat was soaked and he was in a very bad humour. The servants greeted him without enthusiasm. (“Nasty, nosy creature, even if he be a man of God.”) Thomas took his coat and Bedford showed him into the back parlour, a chilly, formal room used by the family to entertain visitors they did not wish to encourage.
    “I shall inform Miss Fell of your arrival,” said the butler, and left him to kick his heels.
    It was at least twenty minutes before Miss Fell hurried in.
    “I beg your pardon, sir, for keeping you waiting. I was not dressed to receive visitors.” Her apology in no way effected a thaw in Mr. Crane’s demeanor. While waiting, he had been reflecting on this nobody who had been taken into the bosom of the family that barely tolerated him. He proceeded to preach a sermon on the danger to the soul of avoiding regular