Endure My Heart Read Free

or permit for anything, if you want to hire a parish child for a servant or apprentice, if you want a road opened or closed, if you want any improvement made in the town, or in your taxes, you speak to Sir Elwood. He is the parish officer, and a number of other things as well, including the husband of Lady Ann Burack, whose late papa was a gentleman of great importance. This last is more than a coincidence, I expect.
    “A new overseer must be chosen. Certainly he will pick Andrew. Go to see him at once. Meanwhile, you must speak to the squarson.”
    I explained in vague terms that this was impossible. So vague was my explanation that she misunderstood it entirely, and leapt to the conclusion I feared only his advances if harbored under a roof belonging to him.
    “He is a shocking flirt to be sure, but would never make improper advances to Magistrate Anderson’s daughter.”
    “To be expected to marry him is worse,” I replied.
    “Unthinkable!” she laughed. “He is ancient enough to be your papa, child. What a ninny he would look, making up to a slip of a girl. A rare laughingstock; he is much too proud to risk it. Stay right where you are, and I’ll send a note off to Holly Hill this minute telling him what you are about. You’ll be in the rectory before nuncheon. See if you ain’t.”
    I opened my mouth to object, but thought better of it. He had got the lion’s share of my father’s considerable income out of him over the past decades. It was no more than just that he pay the small interest of letting us have the use of an empty house. If it could be done, I wouldn’t say a word against it. I doubted he would announce to the village he had been turned off by me. Refusing to let us have the house would make him look as mean as he is, which would not please him, for he makes some attempt at a good reputation.
    Miss Aldridge was slightly out in her reckoning. We were not into the house till three. We took luncheon with her, and while we were at table, Porson arrived. I did not go into the parlor to meet him, but let Andrew do it. Within a quarter of an hour, he was gone, and Andrew told us with a great deal of disinterest that he had been appointed church warden, and was to help the squire write up his sermons, keep up the parish register, and perform other such functions. The house, sans any servants or salary, was to be ours.
    It seemed a small, mean and crabbed little cottage after the grace and spaciousness of Fern Bank. But then next to the boardinghouse, it was a mansion. In actual fact it was a decent whitewashed house two stories high, with eight habitable rooms. There was a parlor done in oak paneling, rather like my little sewing room at home. But comparisons are pointless. It was a roof over our heads—that was the important thing.
    The church sits at the east edge of town, the rectory about two dozen steps away from it, toward Salford. On the other side of the church stands the bell tower. The bells have not been played within my memory, but Miss Aldridge thought a few of the old men might still know the method. The church itself was not pretty. Interesting architecturally is the strongest praise overheard in its honor. It is rather low and dark, dating from a very early age. The nave, folks say, is from the fourteenth century, the huge baptismal font at the front fifteenth, the pulpit (dark, oaken and very high), late sixteenth. A hundred or so years later the horsebox pews (the cause for the high pulpit) had been replaced by more modern boxes. There was a strange set of carved stairs at the back of the church that went halfway up to the ceiling, then stopped, leading nowhere at all. Andrew thought they were rood stairs, leading in days gone by to the rood loft, demolished by Edward VI.
    The most modern item in the church is a sumptuous organ in the gallery, which has not been there but three years. It is a gift from Lord Aiken, an earl who has a summer home nearby. They do say he collected it in