Free Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind by Carla Kelly

She heard the front door open, and then close quietly. “Lord Denby would … would ….”
    â€œ Would what, Miss Mitten?” the mill owner asked as he crossed to the sitting room door. “With your skills, you could easily find other employment, should he ask you to leave.” He looked at her, his hand on the knob. “Someplace where you needn’t keep wearing black, and where there isn’t still a black wreath on the door, six months after the fact.”
    She could think of nothing to say, and still he regarded her. “Or perhaps you prefer this, Miss Milton.”
    â€œ Actually, I have never thought of it that way,” she said, when he appeared to expect some conversation from her, even as his hand rested on the knob and she could hear Andrew’s footsteps on the parquet. “I could never leave Andrew!” she burst out, then put her hand to her mouth.
    If the mill owner was surprised at her outburst, he didn’t show it. “Take him with you,” was his mild comment as he opened the door. “Andrew, come in! From the looks of things, your day has been a grind. Oh, laddie, no tears now!”

    After a silent dinner that evening with no company but Andrew, who wouldn’t even look up from his plate, Jane continued to sit at the dining table. She knew Andrew was watching her, but to her further dismay, he did not fidget. He sat as quietly as she, resignation announcing itself in every line of his body.
    â€œ What happened, my dear?” she asked finally. She was not sure that he would answer. After his tears in Mr. Butterworth’s sitting room, they had walked home in silence. “I want to know,” she said, and folded her hands in front of her on the table. “In fact, I insist upon it.”
    He looked at her, and she could tell she had surprised him by the unexpected iron in her voice. “I didn’t do too badly, Miss Mitten,” he said, his voice so low that she had to lean forward to hear him across the table. “I think I could almost like Latin.”
    â€œ Mr. Butterworth does,” she said, striving for calmness in her voice. “He claims to still have his Latin texts and glosses from his grammar school days.”
    Andrew got up from his chair and came to sit beside her. Wordlessly, she put out both her hands to him and he grasped them. “Miss Mitten, I was afraid at first, but nothing happened.” He shuddered, and tightened his grip on her hands. “Really, I did, and then when I went to the door to leave, Lord Kettering’s son—the one with spots and bad teeth—told me to look both ways when I crossed the street so I wouldn’t get squashed flat like my mother.”
    He started to cry and Jane pulled him onto her lap, holding him close to her. “Everyone laughed,” he said when he could speak again.
    â€œ The vicar did nothing?”
    Andrew shook his head. “He even smiled before he turned his head away and pretended it didn’t happen.” He sighed and leaned against her. “Miss Mitten, do you ever hear people laugh, long after they have stopped laughing?”
    â€œ Oh, yes,” she said, remembering all over again the event in the scullery she had described only that afternoon to Mr. Butterworth: the maids’ laughter as they uncovered her pitiful handkerchief of scraps. She thought of the butler as well, and kissed the top of Andrew’s head. “But I had a champion, my dear, and he made them stop.”
    â€œ I wish I had a champion, Miss Mitten.”
    My dear, you do, she thought, although I have been too timid by half. She kissed Andrew again and then pulled him gently away from her so she could see into his eyes. “Andrew, you are not returning to the vicar’s Latin School,” she said. “I will arrange something else. Wash your face now and get into your nightshirt, and I will come up and read to you.”
    She could