Page 64 of Indecently Employed
Shortly after beginning, she was rinsing her hands at the dry sink when she was startled by a noise behind her. She turned tofind Orville standing at the threshold to the kitchen, his hands clasped awkwardly in front of him.
“Mr. Felstead,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “Is there something you require?”
“Oh no, no no no, nothing like that. At least, nothing from the kitchen,” he stammered, his eyes darting about as if he could not look her in the eye. Susanna found herself puzzled by the fact that she’d once admired him, and indeed had thought him the best young man she’d been acquainted with. Perhaps that had made sense at a time when her horizons had not extended beyond Deverill Green, but now…
While there was nothing necessarily patently wrong with the curate, he was not Ajax. Though it seemed unfair to compare them, as Mr. Sedley had the advantage of wealth and several more years of worldly experience, not to mention his defined jaw, sharp cheekbones and wide-set blue eyes… Susanna blinked and returned to the here and now.
“… only that Maddy has been wondering, actually, telling, telling me to put the question to you, that is, if you are willing.” Orville forced a smile.
Susanna turned away and tucked a loose curl over her ear, worried that Orville might have caught her daydreaming. She would never admit to losing her senses in the manner of a girl the age of those she instructed, so she instead raised her eyebrows and replied, “The question?”
If Orville had been wondering at Susanna’s momentary idleness, her governess voice appeared to have knocked the thought out of his head. “Oh, right, right. Only that she—we, we were, we were hoping that perhaps you’d consider staying on here. With your family. Hand in your notice to the Sedleys.”
Susanna frowned. “But why?”
He flushed and turned toward the wall, pretending to be incredibly interested in the pots and pans hanging from hooks.He examined a copper kettle with particular attention, only to disrupt it enough that it fell to the floor in a spectacular cacophony of clangs, taking out several other pieces of cookware as it went.
“Oh dear, oh dear dear dear,” he mumbled, lowering into a crouch, his flaming red ears emphasizing the peaked nature of his complexion.
Susanna dropped down on her knees to help him, gently arranging the pans in a neat stack. They worked together for a silent moment until Orville sighed deeply, holding the kettle against his chest along with a saucepan.
“Madge is growing quickly, so quickly,” he started, eyes still on the floor.
Realization dawned on Susanna. She stood, and attempted to force the heat of anger away from her cheeks as she began restoring the pans to their proper hooks. She heard Orville grunt as he stood back up; felt him looming silently behind her, far too close for propriety. It made her skin crawl.
“Maddy thinks, well,wethink it would be so beneficial for her, for Madge, to have you as her… as her…” He allowed his words to peter out, no doubt hoping she would jump in and finish the impossible request he was about to make of her.
She would not. Susanna Abbotts the parson’s daughter might have, but not her. Not anymore. No longer was she a shy, sheltered maiden thrilled by the young, fair-haired curate’s brief flickers of a smile, or his requests for her opinion on a certain verse of scripture. No, she wanted more than that. With the pans hung, she turned on her heel and crossed her arms, pinning him with her stare.
At least he had the decency to look away. “Would you care to stay on, and work as Madge’s governess?” The kettle banged against the tiled wall as he hung it.
“No, I would not.” Susanna held her gaze steady.
His sallow face was now red as a beet. “Oh? Are you certain, I mean, is that for certain?”
“Yes,” she said, casting a glance back to the stove, where the rendering fat had imparted a greasy smell upon the room. “I have a position, to which I expect to return shortly, once the family has grieved.” Her heart caught in her throat. She’d been praying every night, selfishly, that she would in fact return.
“Well,” Orville started, then cleared his throat and adjusted the final pot on its hook. “Then it’s all settled.”
“It is.”
He made to leave, but halted at the door, one finger at his lips as if he were thinking. Then he turned back to face her, his eyes pleading. “Susanna,” he said—a bold choice, as she couldn’t recall him ever calling her anything but Miss Abbotts—“I wonder if you might reconsider, perhaps as a recognition of the friendship between us.”
Susanna felt a shock. Never before had Orville Felstead ever alluded to anything between the two of them, including a friendship. Even as she had expected him to propose to her that spring day so many years ago. Instead, he’d avoided her eyes for weeks, only for her father to announce the curate’s engagement to Maddy one evening after dinner. The anger that had been simmering beneath her polite words boiled over, startling her with its intensity.
“No. Absolutely not,” she responded in her sternest governess voice. “You asked and I have responded, and I daresay applying this further pressure on me is unseemly, especially for you, Mr. Felstead.”
He looked as if she’d come at him brandishing the sharp kitchen knife set on the table behind her. He stumbled back into the door, his eyes wide.
“No, no. Of course. Of course you are correct, Miss Abbotts. Let’s not speak of it again.”
With that, Orville Felstead bumbled out of the kitchen. And uncharitable though it was, Susanna had only one thought:Good riddance.
“Susanna. Orville tells me you spoke roughly to him today.” Maddy kept her eyes on her darning, weaving her needle in and out, but Susanna still caught the telltale raising of her brows. Orville sat at her side on the couch, eyes downcast, pretending to be focused on the newspaper he held open. But the reddening of his ears gave him away. A verbal flogging had begun.
Instead of protesting as she once might have, Susanna merely responded, “Oh? Did he?”
Over by the fire in her usual rocker, her arthritic hands swathed in warm wool mittens, her mother stared at her, mouth open. She’d always been a small thing, but the years had worn her down to skin and bone, and there was nothing left of Thirza Abbotts the mother, only Thirza Abbotts the crone. “Susanna!” she cried out.
