Chapter Text
The new vicar for Lawton was apprehensive throughout the long train ride. The grimy cold did not help. He would reach his destination at less than his best. Hunger gnawed as well, but his recent student days had taught him to ignore the desires of the flesh. Food was a pleasure and not for the likes of someone prone to portly. He wondered what his new parishioners would be like.
Late afternoon dark found him footsore from a three mile walk as there had been some miscommunication about his transport to the village. He could have waited until morning but he wanted to be somewhere under cover before full darkness. He stood at the end of the main street, watching people hurry in for their tea. The vicarage was at the opposite end, sturdy but not beautiful. Still the lamps had been lit and he trudged with his valise handle cutting into his hand until he stood before the dark green door and winced as his knuckles rapped the damp wood.
She was an angel, the Madonna in a lace cap. Mrs. Lester, the village doctor’s mother but most assuredly working for the joy of it not the need. “My son the doctor and proud as goes before a fall says, ‘Be sure and tell the young vicar that I support my mother and her persistence in working is her own notion.’ I took care of the last three vicars to put Graham through his schooling and I won’t have him putting on airs about it now.”
Young Michael Hume was stripped of his outer garments and seated beside the kitchen fire.
“We’ll get to the formal dining room tomorrow, but tonight you need a mother’s care, sir. And as a mother, I shall be wearing young Sherman Lock out with a whip for neglecting his duty. His mother wouldn’t have anyone else to go for the vicar and I told her he would have his nose buried in a book and forget. But he’s perfect in her eyes and the rest of us hold our tongues and clean up the mess. She needs to fix her eyes on God and off of a son that isn’t all he might be. Now then, builder’s tea to warm your heart and belly. The kettle’s always a-boiling in my kitchen.”
All had been measured in advance so the water was added to the sturdy pot which was promptly swaddled in a knitted cozy. “Kind sir, if you’d like to hold the pot while it steeps, it will heat you up proper while I see to your clothing. I’ll hang your coat before the study fire. We’re not careless with our funds, but you only get to see a place for the first time once and these rooms are a sight prettier when they’re warm.”
Michael was nodding but comprehending her words long after she had moved on from the room and the topic. Able to hear her chatter as warning like a bell on a cat, he hugged the pot too him, the warming wool of the cozy prompting happy nursery memories of mittens drying on the fender. The heat of the steeping tea easily penetrated his threadbare waistcoat and ancient shirt.
She waddled back in. “Now sir, if you’ve warmed a bit, I shall fix your cuppa and then take your other coat.”
He enjoyed watching her chemist’s precision in preparing his cup, a squint and biting of the lip that perhaps her son employed in his surgery when making pills and potions.
“I’m giving you sugar and you shan’t complain. I’ve got to get enough on your bones for you not to blow away when that door opens. There’s biscuits too, fresh made this morning and only to comfort your stomach that a more sturdy meal is nigh. None of this plate on the lap business in here. You set this mug on the fender and I’m putting this extra chair here for your little table.”
She eased his coat off his shoulders and gave him a little pat. Then she bustled away. His mother had died when he was five and he had only distant memories of a gentle but wispy person who had never played with him. In his imagination, he always had a jolly mother like Mrs. Lester. Plump and accepting, she would not have minded her dress if her boy wanted to play ball or go for a nature walk especially if her poor boy’s father had died.
The tea was a surprisingly good blend, the likes of which he had only drank when invited to his professor’s home at the seminary. The biscuits were like none he had ever had. Three kinds, a short bread cinnamon with almonds, a little flat cake that was crisp on the outside and fluffy inside, and lastly a dear little frosted one in the shape of a fish with a little eye draw on. The butter cream frosting brought out the hint of orange zest in the batter. Three of each when he had only allowed himself one biscuit per day in his student lodgings. He tried to savor them but his stomach cramped with hunger, and he ate them all with abandon he would need to do penance for later.
Mrs. Lester entered the room, finally quiet. She took his plate and put the same amount of biscuits on again and held out her hand for his mug which she filled with more of the strengthening tea. Then she pulled a chair close, facing his. She retrieved a bit of knitting from her apron pocket. “I hope you won’t be offended, Mr. Hume, but we are a small village of simple people, and we love our vicar like he belongs to each and every family here. When Reverend Wilson died, we carried that loss like one of our sons had passed.”
Michael found that he had eaten two cookies while listening. He held his mug of tea to stay his hand, but one of the fish jumped into his outstretched fingers and thus to his mouth. Fortunately, no reply was expected.
“Before John, we’d had older vicars near retirement. John was young and beautiful and happy. He made our village sing with new life. He was my second son.”
She dabbed at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief and Michael saw real tears instead of the crocodile sort he was used to from ladies.
“I made him these slippers just before he got ill so he never had need of them, but if you could see your way to wear them, I’d be pleased. Not hand me downs but a welcome gift from him and from me. You can wear them in the evenings and I can dry and clean your boots before I go. Warm, dry feet will keep you well and with us a long time.”
She knelt to remove his boots, the mud staining her fingers. When he protested, she said that it was her honor and then tears ran down his cheeks at the servant’s heart, the washing of feet. She tutted at his thin and poorly mended socks and then the soft wool enveloped his feet with warmth. The biscuits had taken the edge from his hunger and he was finally warm after what seemed like months of chill. With the anxiety of the meeting over, she ceased the frantic chatter and turned her attention to his supper. In the warmth and silence, he dozed, imagining the flavor of the shepherd’s pie she had promised.
The new vicar had just been to visit David Tinsley, an old man who did odd jobs for meals. The old man was waiting for the doctor who was at a breach birth, the midwife calling him late in the proceedings because she couldn’t get the baby turned.
Mr. Tinsley had a severe abscess from a deep axe cut. The man seemed glad of company and Michael had managed to keep his lunch down thus far in the stench of the hut which was not just from the infected foot. He tidied as much as he could to keep Mr. Tinsely distracted and to better the situation should he have to return.
Michael dreaded the appearance of the doctor who had taken an instant dislike to him. While Mrs. Lester assured him that the doctor’s cold and harsh manner was due to the loss of his friend Brother John, Michael still viewed the clipped tones and glares as personal rejection. He was terribly lonely, being accustomed to the classes and close supervision of the seminary.
A long while later, Michael stumbled from the tiny house, his long foot catching the threshold. The sun was bright and there was a stiff breeze, but all he could smell was infection and the fug of an unventilated hovel. He walked several steps breathing hard, his handkerchief pressed to his mouth, but Mrs. Lester’s good breakfast was soon on the ground and a bit of it splashed on his shoes.
His first call with the village doctor and he’d puked like an infant. He would be mortified later, but now all he could do was take in small breaths that didn’t start the heaves going. The smell was all over him. He moved blindly away from the spot until a hand was on his shoulder. “Come over to the pump. At least the water’s clean.”
He was steadied and eased down to sit on the edge of the trough by the good doctor, who was stripping off his stained shirt. “A breech birth and an abscess, and the shirt Mother made me is not even fit for the rag bag.”
Michael’s bleary eyes were suddenly presented with an expanse of tan back, muscles cording as the doctor worked the pump. The water glittered like diamonds in the sun and Mr. Lester scooped handfuls over his chest and face before going to his bag. Out of its depths, he took a clean cotton towel. “My last, we’ll have to share.”
He dipped it into the cold water and handed it to Michael who rubbed at his clammy face. It had to be the nausea and the bright sun that he was so dizzy. It had nothing to do with the doctor’s bare chest, the damp hair glistening in the sun, the brown nipples erect from the cold water. Why would he be lightheaded from watching another man scrub himself with carbolic soap?
Michael did not think he could walk yet so he held the towel and watched as Mr. Lester worked the lather down each arm, the wet dark hair holding the suds until he pumped a stream over them, the muscles rippling again. He scrubbed at the back of his neck, and for a breath stopping moment, Michael feared or hoped that he would be pressed into service to scrub the man’s back.
Someone had spoken, and he looked up slack jawed into the sun, the healer’s face in shadow. Words were repeated and he still couldn’t understand. The doctor removed the towel from Michael’s hand and put the bar of soap there. Then he scooped water from the trough and moved the soap back and forth in Michael’s hands. His sturdy fingers were dark against Michael’s long pale ones. They worked in and out, cleaning the webbing, checking the nails, then all the way up to his wrists.
Michael knew that his breathing was heavy and ragged. He prayed that would be attributed to his nausea. Mr. Lester pulled on his wrist and he stood somehow and was led to the pump where one bare arm brushed against him. Soon the icy water was flowing down his hands. He wanted to climb in and have that water all over him, making him clean, but it would not reach his mind, the dirtiest place of all.
“You’re very flushed, vicar.” A hand reached up and touched his face, feeling his cheeks and forehead.
They looked at each other; Michael’s blush creeping to his neck, a tic jittering at the corner of his mouth. It was happening again. If he didn’t look at the good doctor’s eyes, he would have to look at his chest where drops of water ran slowly down, begging to be stopped by a long pale finger. One droplet clung to the tip of a hardened brown nipple, and Michael bit at the inside of his cheek. He stared at the ground to break the spell, but when he looked up again, their gazes were still locked. For just a moment, the doctor’s eyes softened and Michael hoped for a kind word, the start of a friendship.
In a tiny garden in Lawton, two men, a vicar and a doctor, faced each other beside a wheezing pump. The vicar needed a friend, and the doctor needed things that he could not bear to think about. He had softened momentarily, but he could not let another vicar into his confidence in any way. Michael was witnessing the change, eyes that had softened grew steely once more.
But the eyes stopped sparkling; the guard slammed back into place. “It’s too much for you seeing real life up close, smelling it. Best leave the visiting of the sick to me and get on writing your sermons and straightening the hymnbooks, parson.”
“He’s an old man who has outlived his family. He needed someone to wait with him until you could get here.”
“Are you saying I dallied?”
“Of course not. I’m saying that it is my task to give comfort where I can, and he needed some company while you did other very important and necessary things.”
The doctor scrubbed himself with the towel, his skin reddening from the harsh soap and an even harsher application of rough fabric. “I’ll not have you going into situations you can’t handle. You can get hurt or catch something, and you’re white as a ghost and rail thin now.”
“I’m quite sound, doctor.”
“This village won’t survive the loss of another young vicar. Stay in your study where you’ll live a good long life.”
Michael could see that the hands wringing out the towel were shaking, but he was turning over a new leaf here, not letting himself be trampled. “A long life of ease doesn’t attract me.”
“What does attract you, vicar?”
“Doing the will of the One who sent me.”
With a snort of derision, the doctor gathered up his bag and ruined shirt. “Get in the buggy, vicar,” he commanded and Michael obeyed, his stomach roiling again but not from the sick room.
When the doctor stopped at his home to fetch a clean shirt, Michael fled without another word. He spent the afternoon at the altar of their little church, begging God to take away the memories of that smooth tanned skin and the broad shoulders, but every time he stood, images of being pulled against that bare chest assaulted him so that he fell to his knees and started his prayers all over.