see to everything. You must not addle your mind over it. You know this is what Isaiah would want.”
Oh yes, she had known that. And perhaps for the first time it had really struck her that Isaiah was no longer with her and never would be again. She had dug in her heels and insisted upon coming home. Home being here.
She could have stayed where she was, with Isaiah’s brother, Bruce Tavernor, Earl of Tilden, and his wife. They had been civil enough after the burial to offer her a home with them, even to urge her to stay, since she was their last surviving link to Isaiah. She had not been ungrateful.
“Though you will no doubt be going home with your father, Lydia,” her brother-in-law had said. “If, however, you would prefer to remain here to live with Ellen and me, even if just for a while, you would be very welcome. For Isaiah’s sake. It is what he would expect of us, and not without reason. We must all be proud of him, you know, even though it is difficult to feel anything but raw grief at present. He died a hero.”
His own grief had been profound, and Lydia had hugged him tightly and clung while Ellen wept into her handkerchief.
Both Lydia’s father and Bruce lived in mansions set in large private parks and run by a host of servants, both indoor and out. Both had offered her a life of ease and security, a balm to the great bruise that was her life. She had chosen instead to come back to Fairfield, though she had moved out of the vicarage a week after her return, of course, to make room for the Reverend Bailey, the new vicar, and his wife, who had both been unfailingly kind to her ever since. She had been fortunate enough to have been left enough money to purchase a small cottage on the edge of the village, and have enough remaining with which to live modestly for the rest of her life.
Her father had declared himself lost for words, though he had somehow found plenty anyway in the letter that had arrived after she announced the purchase. How could she possibly prefer to live in a house that would surely fit into a mere corner of his own? How could she possibly choose to live alone? But to Lydia, her cottage soon became as precious as a palace. It was hers, and there, she was answerable to no one but herself. That fact, totally unexpected in her life, was a luxury surpassing all others.
Her neighbors had doubtless been as surprised as her relatives when she decided to stay and live all alone among them. She would not even consider hiring someone to be her companion, though her father—when he had understood that she was not to be budged, at least at present, when she was still clearly out of her mind with grief—had suggested an indigent female relative who would be only too happy to come and lend her some respectability. Lydia had said thank you but no, thank you. She did not invite Mrs. Elsinore, the cook and housekeeper Isaiah had hired to run the vicarage, to move in with her. While Isaiah had lived, Mrs. Elsinore had prefaced most of what she said in answer to Lydia’s directions with, “But the reverend says . . .” After his death, she had changed that habitual response to “But the reverend would say . . .”
Lydia hired no one to replace her. The house was not so large that she could not keep it clean and tidy herself. She did not possess so strong a personal vanity that she could not groom herself to look decent in company. She did not have a stomach so large that she could not feed herself, though she had never in her life had to do so up until that point. She discovered that she actually enjoyed cooking and baking, once she had gathered some recipes from her neighbors and done some experimenting and made a few adjustments until she was able to produce edible and eventually even appetizing meals. Even dusting and polishing could be satisfying when she looked upon the results. For jobs like scything the grass and cleaning the outsides of the windows and running certain heavy errands, there was the blacksmith’s middle son, a lad who was happy enough to earn a little pocket money.