Lark Rise to Candleford Fic: A Life Worth Living, Chapter 4
Title: A Life Worth Living, Chapter 4: Assets
Author: MrsTater
Fandom: Lark Rise to Candleford
Characters/Pairings: James Dowland, Sidney Dowland, Queenie Turrill, Pearl Pratt, Ruby Pratt, Minnie, Dorcas Lane, Clara Thompson (original character); James/Clara, past James/Dorcas
Rating: PG for innuendo
Format & Word Count: WIP, this chapter weighs in at 5485 words
Summary: An unexpected stop at a country inn introduces James to a new business rival who forces him reconcile the Lark Rise boy he used to be with the London businessman he has become. Will his choice bring him closer to his son and bring him the love he so deeply desires? [set after Series 2]
Author's Note: Apologies for not being more prompt in posting this chapter. I knew what I wanted to write, but came down with a nasty sinus infection last week that prevented me from sitting down and writing it! As always, thanks to my beta reader, Godricgal. I'd love feedback as much as James wanted feedback about his clock. ;)
1. The Competition | 2. The Audit | 3. Liabilities |
4. Assets
James knew before he had rounded the corner of the building that the voice, raised in song, belonged to Clara. Not that there was any other young woman at the inn who would be singing while about some chore or other in the yard, but this was Christmas Eve, and soon enough girls and boys alike would be stood at the doorsteps of the houses and shops of Heatherley, piping carols in return for fruit or sweets or even a penny. But despite never having heard Clara sing, James thought he could have picked out her voice -- strong, unstudied, and steady, just like herself -- if she were part of a choir, like the one in her song:
"The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown.
Oh, the rising of the sun and the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ, sweet singing in the choir."
Lost in her song and intent upon her task of clipping boughs of holly from a shrub that grew up over the ground floor window of the inn and collecting them from a basket over her arm, she didn't notice James standing in her periphery, hat clutched in his leather gloved hands as he watched her. Or, as would be more in character for Clara, she had noticed him, but was allowing him to think she was unaware of his presence, the better for her to catch him in the act of staring and tease him.
Well, thought James, stifling a grin, today he was going to show Miss Clara Thompson he could give as good as he got. He cleared his throat, and spoke over her song:
"I see you've decided to combine the onerous task of hedge trimming with your seasonal decorating."
Clara turned to him, her dark eyes twinkling above pursed lips so that James couldn't tell whether he had surprised her or not. "And my carol singing."
"Very efficient," said James. "And efficiency is to be valued in the accommodations business. Although that particular carol has always confused me."
"Has it?" Clara frowned as she struggled to cut through a holly branch with what appeared to be a pair of kitchen shears.
Donning his hat, James approached her and gently stepped between her and the shrub. "Allow me."
He drew his penknife from his jacket pocket and easily snipped off the sprig, which he presented to Clara with a flourish. She took it gingerly, her hand brushing his; he regretted having already put on his riding gloves, though her touch still made him tremble within and forget what they had been talking about.
Apparently the touch had no such affect on Clara's memory, though James fancied her low voice was a little softer, and unsteadier, than usual as she asked, "What confuses you about 'The Holly and the Ivy'?"
"Why is it holly and ivy? Holly and evergreen branches are the traditional Yuletide decorations."
"'Evergreen branches' has too many syllables to fit the tune."
"And I suppose 'branches' would disrupt the rhyme scheme, as well."
Clara made a hmm of agreement. "You could sing 'the holly and the pine tree'."
"Though wouldn't that be treading a bit too close to 'O Christmas Tree'?"
Abruptly, Clara's face, which had been upturned and flushed with their banter and the morning cold, fell. She withdrew her hand and added the holly to her basket. The tremulous sensation in James' stomach was now plainly identifiable as panic. Had he overstepped with his flirtation? After their candid chat in the barn two nights ago, he had been certain that Clara approved of his attentions. Perhaps she had only meant that the revelations about his romantic history had not made his friendship unwelcome to her.
"Not in the Heatherley Inn," she said, with a dark glance at the window. "We haven't had a Christmas tree to tread anywhere near since I was a girl."
"Why on Earth not?" James hoped he sounded jokingly astonished rather than relieved. Clara must not know he'd had a moment's doubt of her affection. "You know Prince Albert was such a champion of the Christmas tree, he pressed Parliament to pass a bill making it illegal not to have one?"
"Even a law wouldn't change Pa's mind." Clara snipped off another holly branch almost savagely. "He reckons if the good Lord had intended man to live among the trees, he wouldn't have invented houses. He wouldn't be hearing it when I pointed out that the good Lord did make man to live among the trees when He put him in the Garden of Eden. Though he did say if Martin would chop down a tree for me, I could have one." She hefted a sigh. "But Martin won't be bothered to swing his axe except to split firewood. Which I've told him the tree eventually will be..."
The glare she shot the stable was the sort that would make a man with any wits at all about him quake in his boots and immediately carry out the commission that would pacify the lady's ire. As it was, not being the recipient of Clara's scowl (committing the image to memory so that he might endeavour never to do anything that might earn it), James felt his own energy reserves mounting in direct response to her passion.
"How would Martin be disposed to someone else swinging his axe for a task other than splitting firewood?"
He half-expected Clara to tease him about whether a city businessman such as himself knew how to use an axe, and prepared a bantering response about his humble country upbringing.
"Would you, James?" she said, instead, clasping his hand, apparently unaware that she did so; when James pressed it, she withdrew it -- self-consciously, he thought -- and at the same time turned her gaze from his to the sky. "But you ought to be on your way to Candleford," she said, her voice pitched with a minor note of melancholy. "It looks like snow."
With a glance upward at the thick grey clouds rolling in like a blanket over the rooftops, James made an impulsive decision.
"The snow will wait," he said, and took Clara's hand again. This time she made no protest, neither in word nor deed, pausing only to set her basket of holly on the porch before running across the yard with him to the stable.
They were still holding hands as they made their way through a frosty field, broken stalks of harvested grain here and there poking through the snow where it had been trodden. Clara was leading the way to common land at the outskirts of town. At first she set a brisk pace, either eager to reach their quarry or unconvinced by James' assertion that the weather would accommodate the delay in his travel plans. He measured his longer strides, happy to make the most of the weight of the axe in his other hand, the crunch of snow or the crack of dry twigs beneath the soles of his riding boots, and most of all the slender feminine fingers curled around his and the occasional brush of Clara's shoulder against his arm, whether intentional or the result of the uneven terrain, mounds of ploughed earth, bringing them together.
In an hour's time he would be parted from her for as long an interval as had passed since his return to Heatherley from London: for Christmas Eve celebrations would keep him in Candleford later than he could safely ride back to Heatherley on unlit roads, especially if it did snow, and he thought it only appropriate that he accept Dorcas' invitation to Christmas breakfast at the post office (to be cooked, thank God, by the postmistress and not Minnie) and attend morning worship with his son. Queenie, despite having a houseful of Arlesses to feed, wouldn't hear of those she had claimed as son and grandson taking their Christmas dinner anywhere but in her cottage in Lark Rise -- not that James would have it any other way.
But the thought that he would be spending Christmas in the company of friends and family did not sate the gnawing loneliness he felt at the prospect of being separated from Clara. For Sidney would likely just as soon attend church with Thomas Brown than with his own father, while Clara had approached him at breakfast the previous morning to say that if he was going to be in Heatherley on Christmas morning and so desired, she would be pleased if he would accompany her to church. Though it had been many years since James had darkened the door of a church, he could think of nothing more natural and proper than to pass a Christmas morning seated in the pew of a country parish beside Clara. (Except, perhaps, lingering beside her in one of the inn's superb beds, though that was perhaps best not imagined about a lady not his wife. Yet.)
He tightened his hand around hers, only to find his fingers suddenly bereft as she broke free and darted to a fir tree at the edge of the wood.
"This one!"
Clara's enthusiasm brought a smile to James' lips. No need to dwell on being apart; now he was with her, enjoying the flush their exercise brought to her cheeks, the brightness enthusiasm put in her eyes. He must not allow his bout of low-spiritedness to diminish her joy -- and, by extension, his own. There was a spring in his step as he joined her to admire the tree. It stood just at Clara's height, four or five inches shorter than him, and would undoubtedly clear the low ceiling of the saloon. A full, even spread of branches compensated for lack of height.
"Its proportions look exactly correct for a corner of the tavern," he said.
"I expect you've a great tall one at the Golden Lion," said Clara, casting him a sidelong smirk. "With candles and glass baubles and ribbon? And a full toy shop wrapped up beneath?"
"Mrs. Brown did oversee the installation of a beautiful nine-foot fir in the foyer," James said, conscious of what he had admitted to Clara about Dorcas thinking he flaunted his wealth, especially in light of Mr. Thompson's financial woes for which he was inadvertently responsible. "And there are a few presents under it for Sidney, yes."
"What are they?" Clara could not have looked more eager inquiring about her own Christmas presents.
"A number of books which Miss Lane insists any boy would like, on which I shall simply have to take her word, as I am by no means a great reader myself." James paused, but a soft laugh from Clara reassured him that she did not resent the means he possessed to spoil his son at Christmas, and she genuinely wanted to know everything. "For the boy whose favourite pastime is working in the post office, a book for collecting stamps, and a few from abroad to start his collection."
"He'll love that, surely!"
"I think so. As for the very fine sledge, I have no idea what Sidney will make of it, but I should be a poor excuse for a father, indeed, if I failed to provide my son with the means to make use of the excellent sledging hill in Lark Rise."
"If Sidney doesn't like it, you can give it to me. It's been far too long since I made use of Heatherley's far more excellent sledging hill."
James raised an eyebrow in playful challenge. "Your hill superior to mine?"
"You shouldn't be so surprised. So are my beds."
"You know you're being quite naughty," said James, reaching his free hand into his coat pocket, fingering a paper-wrapped parcel. "I'm not at all sure I should let you have your Christmas present. It's probably just as well I had no notion you enjoyed sledging, or I'd have got you one, too."
Indeed, he was half-tempted to pick up a second sledge for her when he arrived in Candleford, so clearly could he envision her flying downhill, mouth open in a squeal of thrilled laughter, hair whipping freely about her flushed face. Her hair had, in fact, inspired the gift he now clutched in clammy gloved fingers.
"You got me a Christmas present?"
The delight -- more like hope fulfilled -- was such that James could not meet her eyes as he drew out the package and offered it to her, withdrawing the instant she accepted it to clutch the axe in both hands behind his back. Here was the answer to Queenie's question about why he always gave in secret. He had been bashful as a schoolboy; as a man, he had not outgrown the apprehension that what he had to give would not be enough. Especially when, so recently, even a clock tower had not been. Whatever on Earth had made him think this could be? He braced himself for the tear of the gift wrap and the inevitable ensuing silence as Clara grasped for something polite to say about such a pitiful gift from a rich man.
Neither came.
The soft, low voice did fill his ears: "I have something for you, as well. Only it's at home."
Looking up, James saw his very insecurities mirrored on Clara's down-turned face. The axe thumped softly to the ground behind him as he cupped her hands, present and all, in his. "You can give it to me later. After we've arranged your Christmas tree at the inn."
"I could wait to open mine."
"Open it now."
Without further hesitation, Clara tore into the paper. James watched as her fingers pulled it back to reveal green satin. At the local milliner's (which wasn’t a patch on the Pratt sisters' for rural couture, but did have the advantage of offering privacy for the gentleman who did not wish to be the object of town-wide speculation as to which lady would be the recipient of his attentions), he had passed the better part of an hour wavering in indecision between hand-worked lace to trim a gown, which he thought would suit Clara's delicate features and pale skin, and this hair ribbon. In the end the memory of her plait dancing about her waist and the way the light brought out the auburn undertones in her loose waves of hair and his dreams (for the past two nights, sleep had come to him) of silken strands sliding between his fingers had won out in favour of the latter.
"Have you been snooping in my wardrobe, Mr. Dowland?"
At Clara's sharp tone of voice, James' head snapped upright, but, catching the twinkle in her eye, he chuckled. "Now, Miss Thompson, that would hardly be gentlemanlike behaviour, would it?"
"Then how did you know my best gown is exactly this colour?"
James couldn't stop his grin from stretching from ear to ear. Clara, returning it, stuffed the gift wrap into her apron pocket, flicked her plait over her shoulder, and tied the ribbon at the end.
"I knew green would suit you." James' throat felt dry. He swallowed and added, "Perfectly. I'm pleased you have a gown to match it."
"I'll wear it tomorrow."
"I'm sure you will look...very festive."
Clara's plait swung as she turned once more to her Christmas tree. Glancing back at James, her forehead dimpled. "You aren't dressed suitably for this. I'd not like anything to happen to your fine jacket and waistcoat just to cut down a tree for me."
"Then I shall entrust them to your safekeeping."
James made quick work of those garments, which a slightly bemused but not displeased-looking Clara draped over her arm. She giggled as he placed his too-large hat on her head, and he untied his cravat, loosened his collar, and rolled up his shirtsleeves for good measure. Clara protested that he would freeze, but James insisted the work would soon warm him up, which it did. Not only externally, but some inner part of him that had been frozen since he left Lark Rise as a youth and cast off the country way of life.
The act of swinging an axe -- the friction of the rough wooden handle sliding against the supple leather of his gloves; the jarring of his hands as the wrought iron head sliced into the tree trunk, splintering bark, and stuck there; the burn in the muscles of his shoulders, back, and sides as he jerked it free again -- carried him back twenty years to a time when doing chores for Queenie had been a balm for the ache of losing his mother. Most probably in the morning he would be in need of a balm for the ache of little used muscles, but at the moment, he thought he could get used to this type of intensely physical labour. Especially as, if his eyes weren't deceiving him, that labour, at the moment, involved a pretty female spectator who seemed to be fixated on his bare flexed forearms.
But no sooner had he noticed this than Clara disappeared from his periphery. By the time he turned around, grinning as the fir tree fell to the ground behind him, his clothes were draped over a barren shrub, hat neatly on top, Clara's shoes and stockings discarded beneath it. Eventually he spotted Clara herself a good ten feet up in an oak tree, climbing higher still in its boughs. Though she did so with the confidence and dexterity of a squirrel, thanks, in no small part, to her barefooted state, James was dizzied and a bit nauseated to see her stretched out and upward, reaching for what appeared to be a bunch of tenacious leaves that had not got the message from their mates that it was well past time to fall; she clung with only one hand to a bowing vertical branch, the thicker one beneath her feet swaying with her inconsiderable weight.
"Clara!" James dropped the axe and dashed toward her tree. "What the devil are you doing?"
Not sparing him a glance (for which James was grateful, considering her precarious perch), Clara replied, her features rigid with concentration, "I ought to be scandalised to be out with a man who'd talk about the devil in front of a lady."
"And I ought to be scandalised to be out with a woman who'd traipse about with bare legs and bare feet in front of a gentleman," James returned, unable, even under the circumstances, to stop his eyes raking appreciatively over her slender ankles. "But as it is, I am far more troubled by prospect of you falling to your death!"
"I won't fall!" Clara arched up on the balls of her feet, the branch swaying more noticeably as she swiped overhead. It was almost too much to watch, but James couldn't tear his eyes away from her.
"Or to risk catching your death of cold from going about with bare feet, and ruining everybody's Christmas!" As Clara appeared to be ignoring him, her tongue just poking out in a look of intense deliberation, James decided to change tacks, adopting her playfully flirtatious approach to getting a point across. "Not least of all mine. You haven't even given me my present yet."
"That's true!" cried Clara, and, retrieving her quarry, added, "Ha! Be right with you!"
Her scrambling descent from the tree didn't do significantly less for James' anxiety than her upward climb, as her skirt and petticoats kept entangling around her feet and catching on twigs and small branches. He held his breath until his lungs burned, only exhaling when Clara had got low enough for him to reach up and place his hands about her waist to lower her down.
"Now," he said, shakily. He kept his hold on her to steady himself as she turned to face him, making no attempt to distance her body from his. "What was so deucedly important that you had to give me apoplexy?"
"That's a little more gentlemanly than devil, I suppose." Clara raised her hand so that James had to look up to see what she dangled between her thumb and forefinger over his head. "Mistletoe."
James blinked. Before he could collect his wits and bend to kiss her, Clara disengaged herself from his arms, throwing a coy glance over her shoulder as she as she dashed, tiptoed, almost elfin, across the snow to her personal effects.
Joining her, James put on his hat as a few snowflakes began to fall, and found his voice. "I do hope you will leave that charming bit of decoration hanging until I return from Candleford."
In fact his eyes searched for the mistletoe before they searched for Clara when he stood just inside the inn door on Christmas night, shaking snow off his hat and coat and stamping it off his boots on the stoop. Stepping inside and nudging the door closed behind him, he spied the greenery dangling from the exposed beam over the foot of the staircase and grinned. Had Clara chosen that spot because she envisioned the scene he saw now, of accompanying him to the stairs on his way up to bed to bestow -- or receive -- a goodnight kiss? The wide smile stretched cheek muscles which ached already from a day of laughter.
And a day of injury -- of which Clara clearly took note as her eyes locked on him across the mostly empty saloon and over the hunched figures at the bar. James' smile became a wince as he watched her slosh ale from the flagons she set down too hard in her rush from behind the counter; she bumped into a patron, then into an errant chair, as she wove an alarmed path through the inn.
"Lord almighty, James! What have you done to your face?"
Doing his best to retain whatever shred of dignity was accessible to a man whose face was a latticework of angry red scratches (at which not only Clara was staring, but the men at the bar and her father, who had taken over behind it, as well), James held his hat behind his back and said, "It seems that since the last time I sledged in Lark Rise, a quite violent hedgerow has grown up at the bottom of the hill."
The men sniggered, but Clara hissed as though she had sledged face-first into the thorny bush. "It's a mercy you didn't put out an eye! Those scratches look painful enough."
She lifted a hand as though to stroke his cheek, but it hovered just a fraction of space from his skin, her eyes darting sideways in awareness that they were not alone enough for so intimate a gesture. Even so, her soft eyes conveyed a touch every bit as tangible as a caress.
"They looked -- and felt -- much worse before Queenie rubbed one of her ointments on." James hung his hat on the tree beside the door and reached into his coat pocket. "Regrettably, I used one of the handkerchiefs you made me to staunch the bleeding."
Clara eyed the white cotton, now splotched with the brownish red of dried blood, along the hem of which she had painstakingly embroidered Heatherley Inn vs. Golden Lion Hotel. How he had laughed when she presented it to him by the Christmas tree they had together stood in the corner by the stairs, how pleased he had been to reach into his pocket during the past two days and have something of her to hold on to in her absence -- and how disappointed when he had come to himself after his accident and realised he had ruined it.
"A bit of salt and lemon juice will take that right out," Clara said cheerfully, tucking it into the pocket of her green silk gown, which, though obviously not a new fashion, looked even more fetching on her than he had imagined when he conjured her up to help him fall asleep in his bed at the Golden Lion. (Which had proved ineffective, though the most pleasant way he had passed a sleepless night in some time.) She wore her long hair loose about her shoulders, except for a section pulled back from her face and tied with the matching green ribbon he had given her. "What about that ointment?"
James reached into his pocket again and drew out a small jar. "She sent me back with more to apply as needed."
"I think it's needed. Come with me."
As she dragged him through the tavern by the hand, James caught Thompson's wary eye, though he did not give it another thought after the kitchen door swung closed behind them and Clara pushed him onto a rustic ladder-backed chair, fingers grasping his chin to tilt his head back as she slathered ointment onto his forehead. Her nose crinkled.
"What's in this?"
"Lord only knows." James closed his eyes and relaxed as he felt the sticky ointment, cold from his long ride, soothe the stinging scrapes. "Honey, I shouldn't wonder, knowing Queenie."
"Honey?"
"She keeps bees. No, not just keeps, speaks to them."
Chuckling, Clara said, "I think I like Queenie."
"She likes you, too."
Clara's hands left his face, and James opened his eyes as she straightened up and put her hands on her hips, carefully avoiding touching her skirt with the two fingers covered in ointment. "James Dowland, have you been telling tales about me?"
"I might have mentioned becoming friends with the Heatherley innkeeper's daughter..."
"Friends." The corner of Clara's mouth twitched. "Is that all?"
In fact, when Queenie had taken him into the house to tend his wounds, she had asked what on earth had got into him to make him act like a careless child. He had replied that Clara had got into him, made him feel like a boy again -- a Lark Rise boy who had not yet lost his mother or seen her sickly and languishing, who was penniless but in possession of the freedom of which riches had robbed him. And Queenie had known: Oh, my James, she had said, enfolding him to her bosom. You're in love.
He smiled softly at Clara and shook his head.
She suppressed a look of delight and took his chin in hand again. "Well, that's all right." Dabbing at a cut on his cheekbone, her thumb brushed the edge of his lower lip. "I'm sure she'll have plenty of tales to tell me about you when I meet her." Before James could tell her that he had already made plans with Queenie to bring her to Heatherley for tea, Clara went on, "Such as whether you really went sledging."
"How else would I have done myself such mischief?"
"Falling off your horse in a faint into a hedgerow?"
James was too happy to even make an attempt at feigning indignation over her ribbing. "If I had, the end result still would have been worth it. Sidney found my escapades vastly amusing. He's never laughed like that, you know, for me."
He paused, scarcely able to believe he was enjoying having been a fool, and the object of a child's laughter. When he had joined in the mirth, he had laughed all the harder to see Dorcas' look of utter befuddlement that Mr. J.D. was laughing at himself. He had changed, and no one could understand how.
He continued, "Then Sidney helped me scout out a new sledge run that was clear of shrubs, and stayed by my side all afternoon, asking for advice on how to go faster. He even asked if I would take him again tomorrow."
"That's wonderful, James." Clara's face reflected the joy he felt.
"You were right," he said. "I didn't have to try to impress Sidney. I simply had to be patient, and be myself in the meantime. Who, as it turns out, is a Lark Rise boy after all, not a London businessman."
Clara's fingers went still, curled lightly against his cheek. The other hand had released his chin and now clutched the front of her skirt, twisting the fabric nervously.
"Then..." She seemed to be holding her breath. "You won't be returning to London?"
Smiling a little at the hope suggested by her demeanour, James shook his head, as much in answer to her question as in disbelief that now was the moment. It had finally arrived.
"Not just because of Sidney. Clara..."
He covered her hand with his, unfurling her fingers to feel her lightly callused palm against his skin. He caught her other hand and gently prised her skirt from her grasp. Opening his mouth, he found himself once again rendered speechless as he gazed up at her, heart in his throat, pounding to match the pace he'd ridden from Lark Rise to meet her. He drew her hand from his cheek to his lips, and placed a soft, careful kiss upon each knuckle.
"You have changed my life, utterly," he told her, and kissed the knuckles of her other hand. Bringing both her hands to his heart, he said, "Do you remember in the stable, when I asked you if you were one of the people whose opinion of me matters? Since then I have discovered that you are the only person who matters to me."
"Except for Sidney."
Surprised to be interrupted in the midst of his declaration -- with something like an argument, no less -- James did his best to hold on to his smile as his brows knit. "Well, yes, of course Sidney matters. But you--"
"And Queenie."
"And Queenie. And a score of other--" Catching her grin, James realised Clara was teasing him. As usual. He squeezed her hands, and the silk of her skirt whispered against his trousers as he pulled her between his knees. "Dash it all, nonsensical girl! I'm trying to tell you that I love you!"
Clara stood perfectly still, her face frozen in laughter, just as James' heart hung, not beating, in his chest, his breath caught in his partly open mouth. Not in dread of how the words would be received, but in wonder at how easy it had been to say what he had before agonised over conveying in the carved face of a clock tower. It was one of those moments in which time stood still, and James was supremely grateful for the chance to savour the sweetness of those words, this feeling...
Not that he wasn't equally grateful to hear them echoed by Clara.
Or to feel her hands come to rest on his shoulders, fingertips brushing his neck and his hair at the nape as his curved around her hips. He tilted his face up to hers, and she bent slightly at the waist to meet him in a gentle first kiss. It felt like a first kiss to James; though he was a man of considerable worldly experience, he had never kissed a woman with this sort of intent. Now his lips opened and closed on Clara's, and hers on his, reiterating the promise of the words they had exchanged and pledging to commit further to one another and create a true partnership.
And, James thought as his lips curved upward in a smile against hers, make each other happy. For in this week in Heatherley, he had found a happiness that had eluded him during all the years spent anxiously pursuing wealth and importance in London and the months haplessly courting Dorcas in Candleford. With Clara happiness had come to him so easily, so naturally, as it seemed to come to the poor, simple folk of Lark Rise -- as it came to Queenie and Twister and Robert and Emma Timmins. The words had welled up from his heart and fallen effortlessly from his mouth, requiring no work orders or mechanised parts or craftsmen to assemble them or artisans to give them splendour.
Laughing, James spoke them again now, realising with a small measure of surprise that in the haze of his ardent expressions, he had pulled Clara onto his lap, his arms holding her body snugly against his.
"Well," said Clara, her breath warm against James' neck as she leaned her head on his shoulder. "I reckon I didn't need to hang that mistletoe so I could work it out to get caught with you underneath it."
"Oh, you can still carry out that plan." James moved his knees, indicating she should stand. "I'll say I should say good night..."
Clara's arms encircled his neck as he rose, hands still about her waist, fingers moving in little circular patterns in the small of her back. "And then I'll offer to see you to the stairs..."
Some minutes passed before they carried out their plan.
5. Equity
Author: MrsTater
Fandom: Lark Rise to Candleford
Characters/Pairings: James Dowland, Sidney Dowland, Queenie Turrill, Pearl Pratt, Ruby Pratt, Minnie, Dorcas Lane, Clara Thompson (original character); James/Clara, past James/Dorcas
Rating: PG for innuendo
Format & Word Count: WIP, this chapter weighs in at 5485 words
Summary: An unexpected stop at a country inn introduces James to a new business rival who forces him reconcile the Lark Rise boy he used to be with the London businessman he has become. Will his choice bring him closer to his son and bring him the love he so deeply desires? [set after Series 2]
Author's Note: Apologies for not being more prompt in posting this chapter. I knew what I wanted to write, but came down with a nasty sinus infection last week that prevented me from sitting down and writing it! As always, thanks to my beta reader, Godricgal. I'd love feedback as much as James wanted feedback about his clock. ;)
1. The Competition | 2. The Audit | 3. Liabilities |
4. Assets
James knew before he had rounded the corner of the building that the voice, raised in song, belonged to Clara. Not that there was any other young woman at the inn who would be singing while about some chore or other in the yard, but this was Christmas Eve, and soon enough girls and boys alike would be stood at the doorsteps of the houses and shops of Heatherley, piping carols in return for fruit or sweets or even a penny. But despite never having heard Clara sing, James thought he could have picked out her voice -- strong, unstudied, and steady, just like herself -- if she were part of a choir, like the one in her song:
"The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown.
Oh, the rising of the sun and the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ, sweet singing in the choir."
Lost in her song and intent upon her task of clipping boughs of holly from a shrub that grew up over the ground floor window of the inn and collecting them from a basket over her arm, she didn't notice James standing in her periphery, hat clutched in his leather gloved hands as he watched her. Or, as would be more in character for Clara, she had noticed him, but was allowing him to think she was unaware of his presence, the better for her to catch him in the act of staring and tease him.
Well, thought James, stifling a grin, today he was going to show Miss Clara Thompson he could give as good as he got. He cleared his throat, and spoke over her song:
"I see you've decided to combine the onerous task of hedge trimming with your seasonal decorating."
Clara turned to him, her dark eyes twinkling above pursed lips so that James couldn't tell whether he had surprised her or not. "And my carol singing."
"Very efficient," said James. "And efficiency is to be valued in the accommodations business. Although that particular carol has always confused me."
"Has it?" Clara frowned as she struggled to cut through a holly branch with what appeared to be a pair of kitchen shears.
Donning his hat, James approached her and gently stepped between her and the shrub. "Allow me."
He drew his penknife from his jacket pocket and easily snipped off the sprig, which he presented to Clara with a flourish. She took it gingerly, her hand brushing his; he regretted having already put on his riding gloves, though her touch still made him tremble within and forget what they had been talking about.
Apparently the touch had no such affect on Clara's memory, though James fancied her low voice was a little softer, and unsteadier, than usual as she asked, "What confuses you about 'The Holly and the Ivy'?"
"Why is it holly and ivy? Holly and evergreen branches are the traditional Yuletide decorations."
"'Evergreen branches' has too many syllables to fit the tune."
"And I suppose 'branches' would disrupt the rhyme scheme, as well."
Clara made a hmm of agreement. "You could sing 'the holly and the pine tree'."
"Though wouldn't that be treading a bit too close to 'O Christmas Tree'?"
Abruptly, Clara's face, which had been upturned and flushed with their banter and the morning cold, fell. She withdrew her hand and added the holly to her basket. The tremulous sensation in James' stomach was now plainly identifiable as panic. Had he overstepped with his flirtation? After their candid chat in the barn two nights ago, he had been certain that Clara approved of his attentions. Perhaps she had only meant that the revelations about his romantic history had not made his friendship unwelcome to her.
"Not in the Heatherley Inn," she said, with a dark glance at the window. "We haven't had a Christmas tree to tread anywhere near since I was a girl."
"Why on Earth not?" James hoped he sounded jokingly astonished rather than relieved. Clara must not know he'd had a moment's doubt of her affection. "You know Prince Albert was such a champion of the Christmas tree, he pressed Parliament to pass a bill making it illegal not to have one?"
"Even a law wouldn't change Pa's mind." Clara snipped off another holly branch almost savagely. "He reckons if the good Lord had intended man to live among the trees, he wouldn't have invented houses. He wouldn't be hearing it when I pointed out that the good Lord did make man to live among the trees when He put him in the Garden of Eden. Though he did say if Martin would chop down a tree for me, I could have one." She hefted a sigh. "But Martin won't be bothered to swing his axe except to split firewood. Which I've told him the tree eventually will be..."
The glare she shot the stable was the sort that would make a man with any wits at all about him quake in his boots and immediately carry out the commission that would pacify the lady's ire. As it was, not being the recipient of Clara's scowl (committing the image to memory so that he might endeavour never to do anything that might earn it), James felt his own energy reserves mounting in direct response to her passion.
"How would Martin be disposed to someone else swinging his axe for a task other than splitting firewood?"
He half-expected Clara to tease him about whether a city businessman such as himself knew how to use an axe, and prepared a bantering response about his humble country upbringing.
"Would you, James?" she said, instead, clasping his hand, apparently unaware that she did so; when James pressed it, she withdrew it -- self-consciously, he thought -- and at the same time turned her gaze from his to the sky. "But you ought to be on your way to Candleford," she said, her voice pitched with a minor note of melancholy. "It looks like snow."
With a glance upward at the thick grey clouds rolling in like a blanket over the rooftops, James made an impulsive decision.
"The snow will wait," he said, and took Clara's hand again. This time she made no protest, neither in word nor deed, pausing only to set her basket of holly on the porch before running across the yard with him to the stable.
They were still holding hands as they made their way through a frosty field, broken stalks of harvested grain here and there poking through the snow where it had been trodden. Clara was leading the way to common land at the outskirts of town. At first she set a brisk pace, either eager to reach their quarry or unconvinced by James' assertion that the weather would accommodate the delay in his travel plans. He measured his longer strides, happy to make the most of the weight of the axe in his other hand, the crunch of snow or the crack of dry twigs beneath the soles of his riding boots, and most of all the slender feminine fingers curled around his and the occasional brush of Clara's shoulder against his arm, whether intentional or the result of the uneven terrain, mounds of ploughed earth, bringing them together.
In an hour's time he would be parted from her for as long an interval as had passed since his return to Heatherley from London: for Christmas Eve celebrations would keep him in Candleford later than he could safely ride back to Heatherley on unlit roads, especially if it did snow, and he thought it only appropriate that he accept Dorcas' invitation to Christmas breakfast at the post office (to be cooked, thank God, by the postmistress and not Minnie) and attend morning worship with his son. Queenie, despite having a houseful of Arlesses to feed, wouldn't hear of those she had claimed as son and grandson taking their Christmas dinner anywhere but in her cottage in Lark Rise -- not that James would have it any other way.
But the thought that he would be spending Christmas in the company of friends and family did not sate the gnawing loneliness he felt at the prospect of being separated from Clara. For Sidney would likely just as soon attend church with Thomas Brown than with his own father, while Clara had approached him at breakfast the previous morning to say that if he was going to be in Heatherley on Christmas morning and so desired, she would be pleased if he would accompany her to church. Though it had been many years since James had darkened the door of a church, he could think of nothing more natural and proper than to pass a Christmas morning seated in the pew of a country parish beside Clara. (Except, perhaps, lingering beside her in one of the inn's superb beds, though that was perhaps best not imagined about a lady not his wife. Yet.)
He tightened his hand around hers, only to find his fingers suddenly bereft as she broke free and darted to a fir tree at the edge of the wood.
"This one!"
Clara's enthusiasm brought a smile to James' lips. No need to dwell on being apart; now he was with her, enjoying the flush their exercise brought to her cheeks, the brightness enthusiasm put in her eyes. He must not allow his bout of low-spiritedness to diminish her joy -- and, by extension, his own. There was a spring in his step as he joined her to admire the tree. It stood just at Clara's height, four or five inches shorter than him, and would undoubtedly clear the low ceiling of the saloon. A full, even spread of branches compensated for lack of height.
"Its proportions look exactly correct for a corner of the tavern," he said.
"I expect you've a great tall one at the Golden Lion," said Clara, casting him a sidelong smirk. "With candles and glass baubles and ribbon? And a full toy shop wrapped up beneath?"
"Mrs. Brown did oversee the installation of a beautiful nine-foot fir in the foyer," James said, conscious of what he had admitted to Clara about Dorcas thinking he flaunted his wealth, especially in light of Mr. Thompson's financial woes for which he was inadvertently responsible. "And there are a few presents under it for Sidney, yes."
"What are they?" Clara could not have looked more eager inquiring about her own Christmas presents.
"A number of books which Miss Lane insists any boy would like, on which I shall simply have to take her word, as I am by no means a great reader myself." James paused, but a soft laugh from Clara reassured him that she did not resent the means he possessed to spoil his son at Christmas, and she genuinely wanted to know everything. "For the boy whose favourite pastime is working in the post office, a book for collecting stamps, and a few from abroad to start his collection."
"He'll love that, surely!"
"I think so. As for the very fine sledge, I have no idea what Sidney will make of it, but I should be a poor excuse for a father, indeed, if I failed to provide my son with the means to make use of the excellent sledging hill in Lark Rise."
"If Sidney doesn't like it, you can give it to me. It's been far too long since I made use of Heatherley's far more excellent sledging hill."
James raised an eyebrow in playful challenge. "Your hill superior to mine?"
"You shouldn't be so surprised. So are my beds."
"You know you're being quite naughty," said James, reaching his free hand into his coat pocket, fingering a paper-wrapped parcel. "I'm not at all sure I should let you have your Christmas present. It's probably just as well I had no notion you enjoyed sledging, or I'd have got you one, too."
Indeed, he was half-tempted to pick up a second sledge for her when he arrived in Candleford, so clearly could he envision her flying downhill, mouth open in a squeal of thrilled laughter, hair whipping freely about her flushed face. Her hair had, in fact, inspired the gift he now clutched in clammy gloved fingers.
"You got me a Christmas present?"
The delight -- more like hope fulfilled -- was such that James could not meet her eyes as he drew out the package and offered it to her, withdrawing the instant she accepted it to clutch the axe in both hands behind his back. Here was the answer to Queenie's question about why he always gave in secret. He had been bashful as a schoolboy; as a man, he had not outgrown the apprehension that what he had to give would not be enough. Especially when, so recently, even a clock tower had not been. Whatever on Earth had made him think this could be? He braced himself for the tear of the gift wrap and the inevitable ensuing silence as Clara grasped for something polite to say about such a pitiful gift from a rich man.
Neither came.
The soft, low voice did fill his ears: "I have something for you, as well. Only it's at home."
Looking up, James saw his very insecurities mirrored on Clara's down-turned face. The axe thumped softly to the ground behind him as he cupped her hands, present and all, in his. "You can give it to me later. After we've arranged your Christmas tree at the inn."
"I could wait to open mine."
"Open it now."
Without further hesitation, Clara tore into the paper. James watched as her fingers pulled it back to reveal green satin. At the local milliner's (which wasn’t a patch on the Pratt sisters' for rural couture, but did have the advantage of offering privacy for the gentleman who did not wish to be the object of town-wide speculation as to which lady would be the recipient of his attentions), he had passed the better part of an hour wavering in indecision between hand-worked lace to trim a gown, which he thought would suit Clara's delicate features and pale skin, and this hair ribbon. In the end the memory of her plait dancing about her waist and the way the light brought out the auburn undertones in her loose waves of hair and his dreams (for the past two nights, sleep had come to him) of silken strands sliding between his fingers had won out in favour of the latter.
"Have you been snooping in my wardrobe, Mr. Dowland?"
At Clara's sharp tone of voice, James' head snapped upright, but, catching the twinkle in her eye, he chuckled. "Now, Miss Thompson, that would hardly be gentlemanlike behaviour, would it?"
"Then how did you know my best gown is exactly this colour?"
James couldn't stop his grin from stretching from ear to ear. Clara, returning it, stuffed the gift wrap into her apron pocket, flicked her plait over her shoulder, and tied the ribbon at the end.
"I knew green would suit you." James' throat felt dry. He swallowed and added, "Perfectly. I'm pleased you have a gown to match it."
"I'll wear it tomorrow."
"I'm sure you will look...very festive."
Clara's plait swung as she turned once more to her Christmas tree. Glancing back at James, her forehead dimpled. "You aren't dressed suitably for this. I'd not like anything to happen to your fine jacket and waistcoat just to cut down a tree for me."
"Then I shall entrust them to your safekeeping."
James made quick work of those garments, which a slightly bemused but not displeased-looking Clara draped over her arm. She giggled as he placed his too-large hat on her head, and he untied his cravat, loosened his collar, and rolled up his shirtsleeves for good measure. Clara protested that he would freeze, but James insisted the work would soon warm him up, which it did. Not only externally, but some inner part of him that had been frozen since he left Lark Rise as a youth and cast off the country way of life.
The act of swinging an axe -- the friction of the rough wooden handle sliding against the supple leather of his gloves; the jarring of his hands as the wrought iron head sliced into the tree trunk, splintering bark, and stuck there; the burn in the muscles of his shoulders, back, and sides as he jerked it free again -- carried him back twenty years to a time when doing chores for Queenie had been a balm for the ache of losing his mother. Most probably in the morning he would be in need of a balm for the ache of little used muscles, but at the moment, he thought he could get used to this type of intensely physical labour. Especially as, if his eyes weren't deceiving him, that labour, at the moment, involved a pretty female spectator who seemed to be fixated on his bare flexed forearms.
But no sooner had he noticed this than Clara disappeared from his periphery. By the time he turned around, grinning as the fir tree fell to the ground behind him, his clothes were draped over a barren shrub, hat neatly on top, Clara's shoes and stockings discarded beneath it. Eventually he spotted Clara herself a good ten feet up in an oak tree, climbing higher still in its boughs. Though she did so with the confidence and dexterity of a squirrel, thanks, in no small part, to her barefooted state, James was dizzied and a bit nauseated to see her stretched out and upward, reaching for what appeared to be a bunch of tenacious leaves that had not got the message from their mates that it was well past time to fall; she clung with only one hand to a bowing vertical branch, the thicker one beneath her feet swaying with her inconsiderable weight.
"Clara!" James dropped the axe and dashed toward her tree. "What the devil are you doing?"
Not sparing him a glance (for which James was grateful, considering her precarious perch), Clara replied, her features rigid with concentration, "I ought to be scandalised to be out with a man who'd talk about the devil in front of a lady."
"And I ought to be scandalised to be out with a woman who'd traipse about with bare legs and bare feet in front of a gentleman," James returned, unable, even under the circumstances, to stop his eyes raking appreciatively over her slender ankles. "But as it is, I am far more troubled by prospect of you falling to your death!"
"I won't fall!" Clara arched up on the balls of her feet, the branch swaying more noticeably as she swiped overhead. It was almost too much to watch, but James couldn't tear his eyes away from her.
"Or to risk catching your death of cold from going about with bare feet, and ruining everybody's Christmas!" As Clara appeared to be ignoring him, her tongue just poking out in a look of intense deliberation, James decided to change tacks, adopting her playfully flirtatious approach to getting a point across. "Not least of all mine. You haven't even given me my present yet."
"That's true!" cried Clara, and, retrieving her quarry, added, "Ha! Be right with you!"
Her scrambling descent from the tree didn't do significantly less for James' anxiety than her upward climb, as her skirt and petticoats kept entangling around her feet and catching on twigs and small branches. He held his breath until his lungs burned, only exhaling when Clara had got low enough for him to reach up and place his hands about her waist to lower her down.
"Now," he said, shakily. He kept his hold on her to steady himself as she turned to face him, making no attempt to distance her body from his. "What was so deucedly important that you had to give me apoplexy?"
"That's a little more gentlemanly than devil, I suppose." Clara raised her hand so that James had to look up to see what she dangled between her thumb and forefinger over his head. "Mistletoe."
James blinked. Before he could collect his wits and bend to kiss her, Clara disengaged herself from his arms, throwing a coy glance over her shoulder as she as she dashed, tiptoed, almost elfin, across the snow to her personal effects.
Joining her, James put on his hat as a few snowflakes began to fall, and found his voice. "I do hope you will leave that charming bit of decoration hanging until I return from Candleford."
In fact his eyes searched for the mistletoe before they searched for Clara when he stood just inside the inn door on Christmas night, shaking snow off his hat and coat and stamping it off his boots on the stoop. Stepping inside and nudging the door closed behind him, he spied the greenery dangling from the exposed beam over the foot of the staircase and grinned. Had Clara chosen that spot because she envisioned the scene he saw now, of accompanying him to the stairs on his way up to bed to bestow -- or receive -- a goodnight kiss? The wide smile stretched cheek muscles which ached already from a day of laughter.
And a day of injury -- of which Clara clearly took note as her eyes locked on him across the mostly empty saloon and over the hunched figures at the bar. James' smile became a wince as he watched her slosh ale from the flagons she set down too hard in her rush from behind the counter; she bumped into a patron, then into an errant chair, as she wove an alarmed path through the inn.
"Lord almighty, James! What have you done to your face?"
Doing his best to retain whatever shred of dignity was accessible to a man whose face was a latticework of angry red scratches (at which not only Clara was staring, but the men at the bar and her father, who had taken over behind it, as well), James held his hat behind his back and said, "It seems that since the last time I sledged in Lark Rise, a quite violent hedgerow has grown up at the bottom of the hill."
The men sniggered, but Clara hissed as though she had sledged face-first into the thorny bush. "It's a mercy you didn't put out an eye! Those scratches look painful enough."
She lifted a hand as though to stroke his cheek, but it hovered just a fraction of space from his skin, her eyes darting sideways in awareness that they were not alone enough for so intimate a gesture. Even so, her soft eyes conveyed a touch every bit as tangible as a caress.
"They looked -- and felt -- much worse before Queenie rubbed one of her ointments on." James hung his hat on the tree beside the door and reached into his coat pocket. "Regrettably, I used one of the handkerchiefs you made me to staunch the bleeding."
Clara eyed the white cotton, now splotched with the brownish red of dried blood, along the hem of which she had painstakingly embroidered Heatherley Inn vs. Golden Lion Hotel. How he had laughed when she presented it to him by the Christmas tree they had together stood in the corner by the stairs, how pleased he had been to reach into his pocket during the past two days and have something of her to hold on to in her absence -- and how disappointed when he had come to himself after his accident and realised he had ruined it.
"A bit of salt and lemon juice will take that right out," Clara said cheerfully, tucking it into the pocket of her green silk gown, which, though obviously not a new fashion, looked even more fetching on her than he had imagined when he conjured her up to help him fall asleep in his bed at the Golden Lion. (Which had proved ineffective, though the most pleasant way he had passed a sleepless night in some time.) She wore her long hair loose about her shoulders, except for a section pulled back from her face and tied with the matching green ribbon he had given her. "What about that ointment?"
James reached into his pocket again and drew out a small jar. "She sent me back with more to apply as needed."
"I think it's needed. Come with me."
As she dragged him through the tavern by the hand, James caught Thompson's wary eye, though he did not give it another thought after the kitchen door swung closed behind them and Clara pushed him onto a rustic ladder-backed chair, fingers grasping his chin to tilt his head back as she slathered ointment onto his forehead. Her nose crinkled.
"What's in this?"
"Lord only knows." James closed his eyes and relaxed as he felt the sticky ointment, cold from his long ride, soothe the stinging scrapes. "Honey, I shouldn't wonder, knowing Queenie."
"Honey?"
"She keeps bees. No, not just keeps, speaks to them."
Chuckling, Clara said, "I think I like Queenie."
"She likes you, too."
Clara's hands left his face, and James opened his eyes as she straightened up and put her hands on her hips, carefully avoiding touching her skirt with the two fingers covered in ointment. "James Dowland, have you been telling tales about me?"
"I might have mentioned becoming friends with the Heatherley innkeeper's daughter..."
"Friends." The corner of Clara's mouth twitched. "Is that all?"
In fact, when Queenie had taken him into the house to tend his wounds, she had asked what on earth had got into him to make him act like a careless child. He had replied that Clara had got into him, made him feel like a boy again -- a Lark Rise boy who had not yet lost his mother or seen her sickly and languishing, who was penniless but in possession of the freedom of which riches had robbed him. And Queenie had known: Oh, my James, she had said, enfolding him to her bosom. You're in love.
He smiled softly at Clara and shook his head.
She suppressed a look of delight and took his chin in hand again. "Well, that's all right." Dabbing at a cut on his cheekbone, her thumb brushed the edge of his lower lip. "I'm sure she'll have plenty of tales to tell me about you when I meet her." Before James could tell her that he had already made plans with Queenie to bring her to Heatherley for tea, Clara went on, "Such as whether you really went sledging."
"How else would I have done myself such mischief?"
"Falling off your horse in a faint into a hedgerow?"
James was too happy to even make an attempt at feigning indignation over her ribbing. "If I had, the end result still would have been worth it. Sidney found my escapades vastly amusing. He's never laughed like that, you know, for me."
He paused, scarcely able to believe he was enjoying having been a fool, and the object of a child's laughter. When he had joined in the mirth, he had laughed all the harder to see Dorcas' look of utter befuddlement that Mr. J.D. was laughing at himself. He had changed, and no one could understand how.
He continued, "Then Sidney helped me scout out a new sledge run that was clear of shrubs, and stayed by my side all afternoon, asking for advice on how to go faster. He even asked if I would take him again tomorrow."
"That's wonderful, James." Clara's face reflected the joy he felt.
"You were right," he said. "I didn't have to try to impress Sidney. I simply had to be patient, and be myself in the meantime. Who, as it turns out, is a Lark Rise boy after all, not a London businessman."
Clara's fingers went still, curled lightly against his cheek. The other hand had released his chin and now clutched the front of her skirt, twisting the fabric nervously.
"Then..." She seemed to be holding her breath. "You won't be returning to London?"
Smiling a little at the hope suggested by her demeanour, James shook his head, as much in answer to her question as in disbelief that now was the moment. It had finally arrived.
"Not just because of Sidney. Clara..."
He covered her hand with his, unfurling her fingers to feel her lightly callused palm against his skin. He caught her other hand and gently prised her skirt from her grasp. Opening his mouth, he found himself once again rendered speechless as he gazed up at her, heart in his throat, pounding to match the pace he'd ridden from Lark Rise to meet her. He drew her hand from his cheek to his lips, and placed a soft, careful kiss upon each knuckle.
"You have changed my life, utterly," he told her, and kissed the knuckles of her other hand. Bringing both her hands to his heart, he said, "Do you remember in the stable, when I asked you if you were one of the people whose opinion of me matters? Since then I have discovered that you are the only person who matters to me."
"Except for Sidney."
Surprised to be interrupted in the midst of his declaration -- with something like an argument, no less -- James did his best to hold on to his smile as his brows knit. "Well, yes, of course Sidney matters. But you--"
"And Queenie."
"And Queenie. And a score of other--" Catching her grin, James realised Clara was teasing him. As usual. He squeezed her hands, and the silk of her skirt whispered against his trousers as he pulled her between his knees. "Dash it all, nonsensical girl! I'm trying to tell you that I love you!"
Clara stood perfectly still, her face frozen in laughter, just as James' heart hung, not beating, in his chest, his breath caught in his partly open mouth. Not in dread of how the words would be received, but in wonder at how easy it had been to say what he had before agonised over conveying in the carved face of a clock tower. It was one of those moments in which time stood still, and James was supremely grateful for the chance to savour the sweetness of those words, this feeling...
Not that he wasn't equally grateful to hear them echoed by Clara.
Or to feel her hands come to rest on his shoulders, fingertips brushing his neck and his hair at the nape as his curved around her hips. He tilted his face up to hers, and she bent slightly at the waist to meet him in a gentle first kiss. It felt like a first kiss to James; though he was a man of considerable worldly experience, he had never kissed a woman with this sort of intent. Now his lips opened and closed on Clara's, and hers on his, reiterating the promise of the words they had exchanged and pledging to commit further to one another and create a true partnership.
And, James thought as his lips curved upward in a smile against hers, make each other happy. For in this week in Heatherley, he had found a happiness that had eluded him during all the years spent anxiously pursuing wealth and importance in London and the months haplessly courting Dorcas in Candleford. With Clara happiness had come to him so easily, so naturally, as it seemed to come to the poor, simple folk of Lark Rise -- as it came to Queenie and Twister and Robert and Emma Timmins. The words had welled up from his heart and fallen effortlessly from his mouth, requiring no work orders or mechanised parts or craftsmen to assemble them or artisans to give them splendour.
Laughing, James spoke them again now, realising with a small measure of surprise that in the haze of his ardent expressions, he had pulled Clara onto his lap, his arms holding her body snugly against his.
"Well," said Clara, her breath warm against James' neck as she leaned her head on his shoulder. "I reckon I didn't need to hang that mistletoe so I could work it out to get caught with you underneath it."
"Oh, you can still carry out that plan." James moved his knees, indicating she should stand. "I'll say I should say good night..."
Clara's arms encircled his neck as he rose, hands still about her waist, fingers moving in little circular patterns in the small of her back. "And then I'll offer to see you to the stairs..."
Some minutes passed before they carried out their plan.
5. Equity