Welcome back to the Weekly Read! Are you all rested and rearing for your next escape from the daily grind?
Without further adieu, I present the continuation of Providence: The Tale of the Tamrins. Bonne lecture!
Part Two:
Fall’s Changing Colors
Chapter 7: Visits
“My,
my, I do declare,” Mrs. Huff muttered with a mouth full of crumpets. “Never in the history of Providence have
we seen so fair a fall.”
“I
couldn’t agree more,” Mrs. Winford affirmed with a curt nod. She dipped her
upper lip into her warm teacup before adding, “The weather has been so fine and the changing leaves are
simply gorgeous.” Mrs. Winford’s elaboration seemed a tad off, when just this
morning the woman profusely complained to her husband about the leaves making
such a mess across their porch and yard. She demanded that he take the sweep of
a broom to them at once! Luckily for Mr. Winford’s sake he had trained himself
to belie his attention away from Mrs. Winford the instant her babbling
commenced. Needless to say, the leaves remained. “So, my dear Mrs. Huff, who
then do you suppose will be matched with the young Ms. Thomas? She is more than
the proper age for marriage, would you not agree?”
“That
she is, but I would dare not say that she should marry a man in this town,”
Mrs. Huff mumbled. With a scowl on her face the elder of the two tea-sipping
ladies continued, “I would much rather see both of the Davis and the Thomas
families seen off if it meant that their war within our midst would end, so why
should we not see her married to a man outside of Providence like we tried all
those years ago with my ward?”
“Such
a terrible thing to say, Mrs. Huff, about the Thomas girl. About your ward,
well, that did not work out as planned, did it?” Mrs. Winford could find no
point to argue the first portion of her friend’s argument, and rarely could she
ever, but she had felt ashamed for years about what they had nearly done to Ms.
Grace. While the young lady seemed alright, Mrs. Winford often wondered if it
was not their fault for why she had not yet found a suitable suitor – perhaps they
frightened her away from marriage for life. Shaking her head to rid herself of
the ill feeling, Mrs. Winford proudly said, “You know, it’s quite a testament
to Ms. Grace’s character for returning to us after the trials that she
experienced here. I could not have blamed her for staying away, but I am only
too glad Ms. Grace returned to us. Could you imagine what our town would be
like without her?”
“Gracious,
no,” Mrs. Huff answered, this was as close to admitting defeat that the woman
would ever come. “Providence is blessed to have her. Just think at how dumb
witted every man, woman and child would be were it not for her school. Remember
the years before Ms. Grace reopened the then derelict schoolhouse? For decades people
were home schooled, if they were lucky, and most of them couldn’t so much as
read the words on a barrel of tea! We’d all be known as the town full of
half-witted, railing buffoons if Ms. Grace had abandoned us.”
As
though planned the two women raised their teacups together for a drink while a
chicken wearing a blue ribbon clucked her way past the teashop.
Mrs.
Winford had been among the fortunate few that came with pockets full of
pennies. Her parents had hired a governess to educate her, so reading and the
general applications of math were as almost as easy to her as speaking.
“Mmm,
I meant to ask you, Mrs. Winford,” Mrs. Huff quickly said after gulping down a
particularly large helping of tea. “How fairs your evening class with my former
ward? You and Mr. Winford are still enrolled pupils, yes?”
To
this inquiry Mrs. Winford rolled her eyes and flipped the tips of her fingers
as though they were reaching for something palpable, but invisible to all
others. She was clearly upset. “I am still an attending pupil, yes, but Mr.
Winford is always afflicted by this or by that, hours before class.” Mrs. Winford paused to take an angry sip from
her cup of tea. “Just this past Monday he complained of rheumatism in his knee.
Could you ever believe such a thing?”
“A rheumatism? Oh dear, that is quite
serious,” Mrs. Huff mumbled in her concerned sort of way. “Actually, my dear
Mrs. Winford, perhaps I could imagine such a thing. Time is slipping through us
all, is it not?”
Mrs.
Winford was hesitant to answer because she, like countless others throughout
the eons did not wish to believe mortality to be true. The more than sufficient
evidence providing otherwise was nothing more than a bouquet of poppycock in
her eyes. “I do suppose, Mrs. Huff, but every
night class meets it’s something different. Do you not think this fickle in
the slightest?” Mrs. Winford made an angry scoff, sounding much like that
chicken still wandering aimlessly about in front of them. “Half the town shows
up for the classes, I mean there is hardly a seat available once class starts,
and Mr. Winford cannot attend because he, a man who sits all day, has
rheumatisms in his legs! Oh, the nerve of that man. I told him, I did, that
perhaps God Himself were giving him such aches because of his apathy.”
“Half
the town, you say?” Mrs. Huff randomly interjected.
The
other woman had to pause a moment to recall that aspect from her ramblings,
which she already had forgotten. “Yes. Mr. Tamrin and Ms. Grace are well known
now to be an absolutely marvelous pair. You should see the way they teach and
work together! It is truly inspiring. I cannot believe that we did not think of
such an occupational pairing before.”
“How
is Ms. Grace?” Mrs. Huff once more interrupted Mrs. Winford’s progression of
thought and conversation. “I have not visited with my former ward in some time.
I see her on Sundays at church of course, but I cannot help to sense that the
child is remembering intentionally to forget me.”
“She
does not alight to visit?” Mrs. Winford inquired from around the backside of
her teacup.
“No,”
Mrs. Huff bitterly answered. As though coordinated again, the women raised and
drank from their teacups. With a reverential sigh, Mrs. Huff continued, “And
you would think that she would visit every chance she could what with what I
did and what I sacrificed for her.” Mrs. Huff sighed heavily, for in her most
secret of thoughts she did on occasion consider Ms. Grace to be ungrateful.
However, her conscious got the best of her as she remembered brief yet horrid
moments in the course of Ms. Grace’s life. Mrs. Huff checked the cats in her
tea shop with a glare over her shoulder before adding, “That poor girl’s life
has been so tragic, you know.”
This
was one of those few nearly magical moments when Mrs. Winford had nothing to
say. The early life of Ms. Grace was hardly ever spoken about among the town
folk. It was one of those rare subjects that was not touched. Conversely, Ms.
Grace’s future was discussed on a daily basis, for that was more than
acceptable here in Providence.
“But
at least she seems happy now,” Mrs. Huff eventually said. The woman finished
her tea and added, “Though I cannot understand how the girl does it without a
husband by her side! She truly threw away an ideal opportunity with that sailor
from Portland all those years ago, but I mustn’t dawdle on that toddle, for it
has come and gone. But it simply flusters me so to think that she is practically
our only lady in town above the age
of twenty who has yet to find a mate.”
“Is
Mr. Higley still in the race for her hand, do you know?” Mrs. Winford asked.
“I’ve not seen the boy in some time. His mother says he’s been ill these past
few weeks, nothing too serious she assures.”
Mrs.
Huff scratched her brow then suggested, “We may have to import a man from Dansend
or Portland, even though they are a salty lot, or maybe from Wick?”
“Oh,
no, not the Wicks!” Mrs. Winford adamantly protested. “My own Mr. Winford is
from Wick. The people there are far too somber a lot for our Ms. Grace. She
needs a man of Providence. No one else could claim her hand, plain and simple.
We wouldn’t want to lose her, would we?”
“No,
we would not,” Mrs. Huff answered dryly. She was lost in thought, trying to
recall the last time she saw Mr. Higley. “As far as I am aware, Mrs. Winford,
Mr. Higley is still in the run for Ms. Grace’s hands. He may be her only
option.”
The
chicken with the blue ribbon took a step too close to the porch of the teashop,
but Mrs. Winford was quick to shoo the bird off with a quick stomping of her
feet. And then acting as though nothing had interrupted their conversation,
Mrs. Winford verbalized her last thought, “I thought you were not particularly
keen to their union?”
“I’m
not,” Mrs. Huff replied as she dusted biscuit crumbs from her large and overly
decorated bosom. The chicken who now clucked on the other side of the street
watched the crumbs fall to the earth mournfully, for the hen doubted she would
ever achieve a taste of so delectable a wasted treat. “I would see to making
Ms. Grace a Mrs. Higley if it meant that she would obtain a little social
security. She does not so much as even have a cat to keep her company!” Mrs.
Huff paused to collect her thoughts. A cool wind blew across Providence in the
silence of the pair. The breeze scattered the leaves to and fro, chilling the
skin of the presently speaking women. Picking up where she left off, Mrs. Huff
continued, “Ms. Grace needs a man to hold her. She was so emotional as a child
as I am sure she still is now, yet she has grown into a reasonable, level
headed lady. However, I am sure that if she is alone much longer she will
publically fall apart. It would ruin her reputation indefinitely.”
“It
is unhealthy for a woman like her not to have found a husband by now,” Mrs.
Winford exclaimed as she and Mrs. Huff politely waved to Mrs. Elderbe, one of
the owners of the hat shop across the way. The pair on the porch waited for
their neighbor to disappear ere Mrs. Winford continued, “Lord! Could you
imagine her as a spinster?!”
Mrs.
Huff chuckled sarcastically, “I think I’d rather see her as a vampire, such
unlikely toddle and tash, Mrs. Winford.” The two sat quietly for a moment as
though subconsciously afraid that one of those wicked night creatures (words
used in their thoughts) would come out and smite them on the spot. However,
because this violent act did not immediately occur, Mrs. Huff turned back to
her tea shop only to see one of her fluffier cats dipping its paw into a bat of
milk. “Ginger!” she shouted at the cat, “Enough of that nonsense!”
~*~*~
“What
I’ll never understand is how they can rattle trash for hours and hours, day in
and day out and never tire of their own voices,” Mr. Winford protested as he
sketched a couple of words into his journal for the county’s weekly news. “Whenever
my lovely comes in and starts rattling off about our neighbors sounding like a
hen running from a fox, all I wish to say is, ‘How now my sweet creature of bombast? Unworthy though you are, I’ll
cope with all your codswallop.’ Can you imagine anything more preposterous
than the way our wives and women gossip here in Providence?”
While
the rest of the men in the barbershop laughed and agreed with Mr. Winford, the
reverend stepped forward with a smile to add the only thing that he could
imagine; “I’d say it’s the way Providence’s husbands and bachelors gossip and
complain all day about the way their wives and lady-friends gossip and complain
all day.”
Throughout
the barbershop, which seemed to be the closest thing to a saloon Providence
could claim, the men could not help to laugh and compliment the reverend for so
accurate a return. However, their laughter did die down once they realized that
they were the men toward whom his joke was intended to attack.
Mr.
Winford shook his head with a reverential smile of his own. “Touché, Mr. Tamrin,”
Mr. Winford said dryly. “Ho, Reverend, I envy you and your bachelor life. I
miss it and if it weren’t for my son I would regret even more deeply its
absence.”
The
barber who hosted Mr. Winford’s sanctuary from his wife gave a nod, for he felt
the same way with his wife. In fact, most of his patrons felt indifference and
mild annoyance from their wives and they frequently expressed their emotions within
the barbershop.
The
reverend became overcome with sadness from the convictions of these men. He did
not nor had he ever considered his lonely nights and empty home to be something
worthy of envy. The bees in the garden were hardly satiable company for a man
as social as the reverend. Standing tall, Mr. Tamrin addressed the men, “Do not
so easily scorn the blessings you have received with your matrimonies, gentlemen.
I performed the ceremonies for a good many of you and it pains me to hear you say
that a bond that I took part to bind is being shakily maintained. Marriage is a
process – it takes effort from both sides.”
The reverend took a moment to look at all of the thirteen men who hung around
the barbershop on this Saturday afternoon. Indeed, of the eleven married men
present he had overseen the marriage of ten. The reverend refrained from
saying, “It is I who envy you,” for he did not at this moment deem a speech
appropriate especially with his daily admiration of Ms. Grace growing as it was
– he did not wish to damage whatever chance he may have with a lesson of
humility to a couple of grumbling gusses. “I had better be going, gentlemen,”
the reverend softly said with a sigh. “I’ve many other people to visit before
the day is out.”
Mostly
everyone in the shop gave a simple nod to bid the reverend good day. Mostly
everyone in the men’s salon did not think anything of the man’s sudden decision
to leave. Save one, but his guilt was not seen by the men with him in the
saloon. The men were too occupied with boasting their finest crops or products
that soon would be displayed at Wednesday’s festival to have noticed the look
of concern and the nervous taping of a quill to a journal.
The
reverend had already made a good distance’s partition between himself and the
barbershop before the guilt-ridden writer came running out to stop him.
“Reverend!” Mr. Winford called.
Reverend
Tamrin stopped loathly in the middle of the road to hear what his fellow man
had to say.
“Reverend,
I, I feel a fool,” Mr. Winford admitted, holding his arms out defenselessly. “I
did not mean to offend. I did not take you into consideration. I did not even
think about how fortunate I am at least to have a…a, well…”
“Someone
to come home to at night?” the reverend completed Mr. Winford’s sentence.
Mr.
Winford nodded and dropped his arms to his sides. “I hope I did not offend you
in any way, friend.”
The
reverend shook his head, but before he could say anything the sight of a blossom
walking with the breeze caught his eye. The flower that his verdurous garden
envied most did not notice him (due to her eyesight) as she walked with a
friend toward the hat shop. The flower named Ms. Grace was seemingly too
engaged in conversation with her friend to have seen the gentle loving way the
reverend’s eyes fell upon her.
However,
Mr. Winford saw the look.
The
distraction passed for a moment whilst the women were delayed by a brief
conversation with a small family erecting their temporary cart for the festival.
Many people had begun their preparations for the big event though very few
stands yet dotted the main road through town.
The
men returned their gaze to one another. For a second neither men knew exactly
what to say. Mr. Winford was among those who were not certain if reverends were
permitted to wed and Mr. Tamrin was not sure if his expression had betrayed him.
The puzzled look on Mr. Winford’s face gave the answer to the reverend’s
question. Mr. Tamrin sighed again then said, “Do not fret over me, Mr. Winford.
I know where my heart lies, but I am afraid that, for the time being,” the
reverend paused a moment to have one last reverential look at Ms. Grace for the
day, “All I need is a place to rest; it is wrong of me to want for anything
else.” Though every instinct told the reverend that he was the front runner, if
not the sole runner, vying for her heart he could not help to feel insecure.
The
county’s journalist nodded. He assumed that maybe indeed reverends were not
permitted to marry. “If, if ever you should want to talk, reverend…I promise
that whatever you say won’t end up in my magazine,” Mr. Winford assured with a
smile as he tried to lighten the conversation. “I know that you are the one to
whom we all turn when our hearts are heavy, but should you ever need someone to talk to other than your bees, please, my
door will always be open for you.”
~*~*~
Chapter 7 is a tad lengthy, so let's take a breather here. Next week will be the second half of Chapter 7 when we'll get to see what draws Ms. Grace into that building!
See you next week, dear readers!
Your humble author,
S. Faxon
PS - GO CHARGERS!!!!!!!
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