Lark Rise to Candleford Fic: A Life Worth Living, Chapter 5
Title: A Life Worth Living, Chapter 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: chaptered fic, this chapter weighs in at 6239 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: Once again I must apologize for the delay between chapters! I'd hoped to finish before I went on vacation, but didn't manage it, and since my return, I've been, erm, waylaid writing for the Star Trek fandom. But I swore I'd finish this before I attempted any more fics in other fandoms, so here is the fifth and final instalment of "A Life Worth Living." It's been a pleasure to write and share this fic with you James fans, and I hope you've all seen the wonderful news that it seems we haven't seen the last of Mr. Dowland after all! I'll be a little sad for Clara's sake if he ends up with Dorcas, after all, but his happiness is, of course, what matters most to me. And who knows, maybe the Lark Rise writers have been stalking my journal and decided to sign Jason Merrells on again for another season to enact a storyline like this. ;) As always, many thanks and hugs and kisses to the incomparable Godricgal. I'd love feedback as much as James wanted feedback about his clock. ;)
1. The Competition | 2. The Audit | 3. Liabilities | 4. Assets |
5. Equity
"Oh! Mr. Thompson." James stopped short on the narrow staircase which lead to the family rooms at the back of the inn as its burly keeper shouldered through a swinging door into the dim corridor. He tugged at his cravat. "Good morning."
Thompson gave a grunt which could have been a return of the greeting or a sound of disapproval upon discovering a guest poking about private quarters.
James decided to apologise just in case it was the latter. "I'm sorry, but Clara--" At Thompson's deepening glower, he caught himself and quickly amended, "Miss Thomspon told me I might come back...Is she about?"
With another grunt, Thompson jerked his head, indicating the door behind him. "In the parlour. Getting ready for this tea party she's having for your Lark Rise...aunt?"
"Queenie Turrill took me in after my mother died. She's family to me, though we are not related by blood.
"But the boy she's bringing with her..." The creaking of floorboards beneath his girth underpinned Thompson's voice. Looking up at James, the heavy brows drooped so that the eyes were mere slits above his jowls. "He's a relation, ain't he?"
"Yes," said James, smiling even though Thompson's expression made him unsure whether this was the appropriate response. "Sidney is my ten year-old son. As he is on holiday from school, this seemed the perfect opportunity to introduce my family to Miss Thompson."
Thompson made no comment, apparently expecting further explanation.
So James explained, "I thought I should...No, I wanted her to meet them, given our...attachment." He was glad for the poor lighting, because he felt colour rising in his face. There was a reason why he had avoided dealing with ladies' fathers in his past affairs.
His hmmph was a little less gruff than usual, and the lines of Thompson's face softened subtly, though to the untrained eye would still have resembled a bulldog. "An attachment now, is it?"
James' hand slipped into his pocket, fingers closing around the cool smooth band he carried there.
"Yes..." He drew out the word, uncertain whether to read his prospective father-in-law's body language as accepting or astonished. Should he tell him that if today went as he hoped, the attachment would become a formal engagement? Probably there were other reassurances Thompson needed first.
"As it is such," James said, withdrawing his hand, "I believe I should be honest with you. I was never married to Sidney's mother. In fact I never knew Sidney's mother was a mother until--"
"Mr. Dowland," Thompson cut him off, not unkindly, if a little impatiently. James thought of Robert Timmins. "What business of mine are your past personal affairs?"
"I...I only thought that since your daughter and I are--"
"That's right. It's Clara you're courting, not me."
"Well, yes, of course, but--"
"Then it's Clara you need to be honest with."
"I have been," James said. "There have never been any secrets between us."
"Hmmph. Then get on with you. She's waiting." Thompson clomped on down the hall but as James descended the last of the steps, he turned back, his bulk filling the doorway to the saloon, making James feel trapped and cramped in the dark, narrow corridor, though there were in fact several feet between them. "Though if Sidney's ma had been my daughter, you'd have married her."
"I swear to you, Mr. Thompson," James broke in gravely, "I would never do anything to tarnish your daughter's reputation."
"If you were still breathing, that is."
After James had gathered his wits about him once again and made up his mind that Thompson's invitation to see Clara alone in the parlour was not a test of his vow not to disgrace her, he found his anxiety transferred to the business of staring out the parlour window for the first glimpse of sleigh runners cutting through the pristine blanket of snow that had fallen earlier in the morning.
The whisper of skirts as Clara sidled up alongside him diverted his attention long enough for him to smile at her as she hugged his arm. "You know what they say about watched pots, James."
"They do boil," James said, reverting his gaze to the stable-yard beyond the window. "And they do it in the precisely the same amount of time required for unwatched pots to boil."
Her breath tickled his neck as, laughing softly, she arched up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "Then there's no point in watching, is there?"
She tugged at his arm, urging him away from the window, but James remained rooted to the waxed floor. He took out his pocket watch and frowned at the face. "This pot should have boiled almost a quarter of an hour ago."
"I'm sure they're only off to a late start," Clara said. "Come and help me set the table, and try to stop imagining horses gone lame and sleighs stuck in snowdrifts."
This time he returned his watch to his pocket and obeyed the tug on his arm, her hand sliding into his as they crossed the small room to the table she'd laid before the crackling fire. "I'm certain you're right. I only want this day to be perfect--ow!"
He had reached for a slice of cake, only for Clara to swat his hand. "So do I -- and that means having a whole cake to serve Queenie and Sidney."
James looked her in the eye as he popped a morsel into his mouth anyway. "The cake is perfect." As he chewed, he watched her playful glower melt into a pleased expression. "And you have made the parlour lovely," he added, for the first time taking in the Christmas greenery she had artistically arranged on the mantel and over the doorway and window casings. There was, however, a deplorable want of mistletoe, for which he would have chided her and at once undertaken to remedy, if a framed photograph of a bride and groom, nestled among the pine boughs on the mantelpiece, had not caught his eye.
He went to the fireplace and picked up the photograph for closer scrutiny. Then, looking from picture to Clara, he said, "Either you have been married before, or you are the image of your mother."
"Ma's eyes were blue." Clara stopped setting the table and gave James a smile that became a little wistful as he came closer to her with the picture. "Blue as cornflowers." Her fingers traced the yellowed face through the glass.
Knowing full well the longing he had stirred up in her for her mother, James felt a pang of regret for bringing sadness to what he dearly wished to be the happiest of days for Clara. But the sadness did not linger. Grinning, she handed the photograph back to James and resumed laying the table.
"I do favour her, don't I?"
"Uncannily so. Though I would not have known your father."
"He hadn't had Ma to fatten him up with her fruitcake then."
"Is that your plan for me?" James eyed the tea table, laden with a good deal more than the cake he had sampled.
"I did try to stop you." Clara poked him in the stomach, and James caught her hand, drawing her to him as she looked him over appreciatively. "Pa's trouble was that he was never so active as you, with all your riding about and sledging." She added, more seriously, eyes sweeping over his face, "Is there any of your ma in you?"
The question caught him off guard, though not so much as the stab of envy that he had no such memento as a photograph of his own dear mother. Some nights he lay awake, unable to remember her face. Or, if he did conjure it up, it was the pale, sweat-soaked visage languishing on her pillow during one of the frequent fevers that eventually took her from him.
"James?"
A squeeze of his fingers brought him to awareness of Clara's flushed, healthy face looking up at him in some concern. He returned the pressure and gave her a smile. "When I was a boy, Ma always told me I was a miniature of my pa." Out of consideration for his recent conversation with Mr. Thompson, he omitted the bit about dimples that could charm a maid out of all conscience, though perhaps at a later time... "I have never seen him, though. I don't even know if he lives."
"What about Sidney? Does he take after you?"
James smiled a little, feeling again the hiccough of pride in his heart that had accompanied the first time he lay eyes on the boy, and recognized himself. "I think so."
"Then he must be a very handsome boy."
Setting the photograph of Clara's parents at the edge of the table, James took both Clara's hands, the left still holding silverware, and turned her to him.
"Thank you for having him -- and Queenie -- here today. It means a great deal to me to introduce my family to the woman I--"
Aware of the weight of the engagement ring in his pocket, he had nearly blurted the woman I hope to marry. He could yet do. He had the ring, and held her hands. He could drop onto one knee in this moment, and--
Movement in his periphery diverted him. "--love," he finished, and, brushing a quick kiss across Clara's cheek, he dashed to the window just in time to see the looked-for sleigh glide into the inn-yard.
"They're here!"
Clara only had time to lay the final setting of silver at the edge of the tea table, not in the correct places, before James caught her hand and pulled her through the door. She was scrabbling with one hand to untie her apron, and just managed to get it off as they approached the sleigh.
"We were starting to worry about you," James said as he offered a hand up to Queenie, who clasped him tightly to her as soon as her feet touched the ground.
Sidney stood in the sleigh. "We're late because Minnie wouldn't let us leave till she cooked us sausages, to keep up our strength on our long journey, she said."
"That sounds like Minnie," James said, trying not to think about the horrors the girl might manage to do to a sausage. "Though I hope you haven't spoilt your appetite for Miss Thompson's excellent fruitcake?"
"Or if you have," Clara said, "we can work up your appetite on that sledge of yours. If you brought it."
Blinking inquisitively at Clara through his spectacles, Sidney held up the rope attached to the front of his sledge. The tilt of the boy's head made James wonder if his son, continually surprising him with a shrewdness that far exceeded his ten years, realised what Clara was to him. Which he struggled to put into words as, arms around Sidney and Queenie, he introduced Clara.
"This is my..." He faltered, and Clara's eyebrows twitched upwards. Why were there no appropriate terms for women who were a good deal more than friends, but not yet fiancées? Why had he not proposed to her already? It would have made this so much easier. "My very dear friend..." She smiled and bowed her head politely, but James could see the corners of her mouth fighting against a smirk, or even, knowing her, outright laughter. "Miss Clara Thompson."
"Ah, Miss Thompson." Queenie left James' side to take Clara's hands (which had, apparently, found some place to stow her apron).
"Clara, please, Mrs. Turrill--"
"Only if you call me Queenie."
James' chest swelled as he watched the two women smile at each other, the elder beaming over her shoulder at James as she said, "You're just as lovely as James said."
Clara gave James a look of mock reproach. "Only just? You mean he didn't write flattering sonnets about my beauty that no living woman could live up to, so that I disappoint in person?"
"Not after you besmirched your Christmas present." James looked down at his son. "Sidney, when I made Miss Thompson a gift of a pretty green satin ribbon, she made no secret of her disappointment that I hadn't given her a sledge like yours."
"A silly old bit of ribbon's not a very good present," Sidney said in the exact tone with which he had pronounced his disdain for cricket. Thankfully this time James had Clara's clear laughter ringing out to dispel his slight embarrassment, reminding him of the delight in her warm brown eyes when she'd unwrapped his simple gift.
"I wasn't so very disappointed that I didn't tie it in my hair at once," Clara told the boy. "Though I do hope you'll let me ride your sledge, Sidney, as I've been boasting to your pa how Heatherley's got the best hill in the county."
The challenging tilt of her chin as she looked at James made him want to slide his hand behind her neck and pull her to him for a sound kiss -- and he suspected that Queenie, looking back and forth between them as if watching a badminton match, knew it.
He clasped his hands behind his back and said, "If you ask me, Miss Thomspon would not make such spurious claims if she had ever been to Lark Rise. Nothing could beat our sledging hill."
Clara bent toward Sidney, who leant in conspiratorially. "True. Mine doesn't have a hedgerow at the bottom."
Sidney clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle a squeal of laughter, and Clara winked at James before turning to fall back with Queenie as they set off in wordless agreement for the sledging hill. "Or was James telling falsehoods? Only he fell off his horse when we first met in October, didn't he tell you? Right into my waiting arms."
"The hostler's waiting arms, more like," James corrected her. "Not nearly as pretty a pair as Miss Thompson's."
"But rather stronger for carrying grown men upstairs. I'd have had to drag you, which would hardly have helped your head."
It was heady, flirting openly with Clara like this, remembering snatches of that night when she had undressed him and put him to bed and checked on him in the night, her cool hands upon his forehead, feathering his hair. He quite forgot they were not alone, until Sidney tugged at his sleeve and stopped walking, making James realize that the most effective chaperone was a child.
"Why did you fall off your horse?"
"I was still a little feeble from my riding accident," James answered. "After two hours on the road I became dizzy and fainted. I was humiliated at the time, but now I am thankful."
Looking back at Clara, he caught Queenie's eye. She beamed at him, clearly catching his meaning. But, noticing Sidney's silence, James looked back at the boy and found the eyes behind the spectacles gazing at him as they had the day he collapsed in the post-office. Only now, the guardedness was tempered by concern.
He asked, "Are you well now?"
At once James understood that Sidney had not been afraid of him, but of growing close to him only to lose him. Clara had asked if Sidney was like him; James had not imagined they might be alike on such a deep level -- though he supposed their shared experience of losing their mothers had led to them to cope similarly. The distant, secretive ways Queenie observed in James as a boy had been his own attempt at protecting himself against the pain of more loss. Undoubtedly that was why he had never been able to commit to a woman, and even when he had wanted to marry Dorcas, he had maintained his distance during his courtship of her, hoping she would recognise the clock as his eternal declaration to her, rather than uttering the irrevocable words of love.
But no longer was that his way, he thought with a look to Clara, to whom he had spoken his love, and would speak the words again, every day for the rest of his life.
He lay his hands on Sidney's shoulders. "I have never been in better health in my life. I have even been sleeping."
A grin banished the fear and too-wise look from Sidney's face, revealing unexpected dimples. "Race you to the top of the hill?"
Clara's hill might have been free of hedgerows at the bottom, but it was not lacking in snowdrifts. At Sidney's gentlemanly suggestion, she took the first turn on the sledge and fairly flew down the steep incline, whooping and laughing as father and son sprinted after her. The momentum was such that the sledge was pitched end-over-end upon hitting the embankment -- thankfully not before Clara saw the obstacle coming and evacuated to the side of the sledge. Laughing even harder, she flopped onto her back and flapped her arms and legs.
Sidney's nose crinkled as he watched her. "What are you doing?"
"Making a snow angel." James offered his hands down to Clara, which she accepted, and hosted her to her feet. "Look."
Seeing the imprint in the snow, Sidney's face lit with delight, and he scrambled to make a smaller angel of his own. Though she'd just stood up and dusted off the snow that powdered her dress, Clara went down again to make a second angel of her own.
"Pa!" called Sidney, raising his head. "Come try it, too!"
Despite mild admonishments from Queenie about the sorry state their clothes would be in, James could not very well refuse anything his son asked whilst addressing him as Pa for the first time. As he settled himself in the snow, mirth welling up in him as he flapped his arms and legs, he turned his head to look at Clara and found hers turned to him. He hoped she knew that to him, she was the angel who had made all of this possible.
After they had enough fun in the snow -- or rather, once their clothes had got thoroughly wet through so that they had no choice but to return to the Heatherly Inn, they at last sat down at the tea table Clara had so painstakingly laid. The cake would taste better, and be more filling, for their having worked up an appetite, the tea more soothing for having icy fingers in which to clutch the piping hot cups.
The wedding photograph of Clara's parents was still standing on the end of the table where James had left it in his haste, and Queenie remarked upon it much as James had -- and a bit further, as a woman would.
"What a lovely gown! I expect your ma put it away for your own wedding?"
"She did," Clara replied, replacing the photograph on the mantelpiece. She cast a half-shy glance at James as she came back to the table. "It's a little old-fashioned, but I've always imagined walking down the aisle on Pa's arm in Ma's dress."
James' heart stood still as he imagined it. "It will be as though a part of your ma will be there with you." Clara nodded up at him, and he allowed his fingertips to brush her arms as he seated her, and added, huskily, "You will be a beautiful bride."
He held her gaze for a moment before Clara grinned and averted her attention to the guests. "At the rate we're going, poor Sidney must think he won't get to eat till there's a bride's cake. I hope you like fruitcake, Sidney?"
"I like all cake," Sidney said as she cut him a generous slice.
"He's a ten year-old boy," Queenie said, as if this explained it.
"I am considerably older than ten," said James, "and I like all cake, too."
Queenie's eyes twinkled across the table at Clara. "And he's a thirty-six year-old boy."
"Talking of James as a boy," Clara replied, "I'm quite depending on you to tell me all the stories of his childhood that he's too embarrassed to tell me himself."
Sidney giggled, clapping a hand over his mouth to keep his tea inside.
Clara winked at him. "I think Sidney would like that, too."
As the boy nodded, James scowled playfully. "I would like to point out that I have told Clara a great many things about myself that might be considered embarrassing."
This attempt at self-defence proved ineffective, as Queenie told story after story about Lark Rise days gone by. Clara contributed a few tales of her own girlhood, and there was a great deal of laughter at the expense of both, but no one felt a moment's discomfort. All was exactly as James hoped and expected a meeting between Clara and Queenie to be -- although he had never expected or hoped for anything quite so splendid as this. He thought of what he told Queenie when she asked him, months ago, why he'd come back to Lark Rise. The family he'd found far and away exceeded anything he could have imagined it to be.
As the shadows in the room began to grow long, James found himself saddened that half his family must soon leave.
Before they did, however, Queenie had one last thing in mind.
"Would you like me to read your tea leaves, Clara?"
Not the slightest bit sceptical of this, Clara handed her empty teacup across the table to Queenie. "Yes, please. I've never had my leaves read before." Her eyes twinkled at James. "I would so like to know what my future holds."
Queenie peered into the cup as she watched its swirling contents settle. "Oh my," she said gravely after a moment. "It's...a wedding ring."
"Indeed?" Clara said as if she thought Queenie must be teasing her, which was James' thought, as well -- after all, Queenie had helped him pick out the engagement ring he currently carried in his pocket (which he reached in and fingered now).
But Queenie showed them the cup, and the ring shape in the soggy leaves at the bottom was indisputable.
"Do you love Miss Thompson?" Sidney asked James as he helped Queenie into the sleigh that would take them back to Lark Rise.
The question should not have surprised him, given the open flirtation in which he had engaged with Clara throughout the afternoon, and the talk of marriage, but James found himself a little wrong-footed, and not a little self-conscious, nonetheless.
"Are my feelings so obvious?" he asked with a puff of laughter which he stifled upon meeting Sidney's eyes, which were not amused. Heedless of the snow, he knelt in front of Sidney. "I do love her. Very much."
A dimple formed between Sidney's pale eyebrows. "Minnie said you wanted to marry Miss Lane."
That was something James had expected even less than Sidney's previous question -- though, again, given the factor of Minnie, it should not have done. James glanced up at Queenie in the sleigh, hoping something on her face would tell him what to say. She merely gave him a small smile of encouragement. In his mind, he heard her voice telling him to be himself.
So he placed his hands on his son's shoulders -- it was easy, he realised, to follow his heart when it was not being twisted by jealousy for Sidney's affections or bitterness over Dorcas' rejection -- and said, "Falling in love is a funny thing, Sidney. I did ask Miss Lane to marry me, but not for the right reasons."
The crease deepened. James sighed. Of course to a ten year-old, you either loved someone, or you didn't, and if you did, you married them. How did he explain something so that a child could understand when he did not even really understand it himself?
"We didn't know each other well enough to be husband and wife. I think we'd have made rather a disaster of marriage. Especially me."
Sidney considered this with much the same expression of trying to grasp a difficult new concept in mathematics. "How long have you known Miss Thompson?"
James chuckled, not at Sidney's logic so much as at the answer itself, which was so impossible to believe. "A little more than a week. But it's not how long we've known each other, it's how well. Miss Thompson -- Clara -- and I have been very honest with each other..." The grey eyes behind the spectacles were as glassy as the lenses themselves. "Am I making any sense at all?"
"No," replied Sidney. "Are you going to marry her? Is that what the tea leaves said?"
Another glance up at Queenie, who was grinning broadly. James was hard-put to keep his own smile restrained. He must approach this delicately, not make the boy feel as though his own wishes in the matter were not under consideration.
"I would certainly like to ask Clara to marry me. But perhaps I had better ask you first, since it would mean a change for...our family."
Sidney considered this for a moment, then grinned. "I like her."
As little time as James had spent around children, he must have had a bit of paternal instinct, after all, because he knew that, for a ten year-old boy, this was a stamp of approval.
"I like her, too," said Queenie, holding a hand out to James after he'd helped settle Sidney and his sledge into the sleigh. "She's a lovely girl, and most of all, she's made you happier than I've ever seen you. My Lark Rise Boy." She released his hand and stroked his cheek. "Now inside with you, and do something with that ring besides fiddle with it in your pocket!"
James required no further encouragement to do exactly that. He found Clara in the parlour, clearing away the tea things, interrupting her to pull her into his arms for a long, thorough kiss.
When he drew back to peer into her dark eyes, they glittered with their usual humour. "Does that mean I passed inspection and met with everyone's approval?"
"Absolutely," said James, leaning in for another kiss. "Not that there was ever any question. And," he added, realising how that might have sounded, "not that I brought them here for that purpose!"
"Then why did you bring your son and the woman who's like a mother to you here?"
"To get their blessing. And to get your blessing..." He searched her face. "You do like them, don't you, Clara?"
The amusement on her face softened, and her hands found their way up to cup his face, callused thumbs stroking his cheeks. "They feel like family to me. I love them almost as much as I love you."
"Good." He kissed her. "Excellent. It was so important to me that you love the people I love."
"So I gathered. Why would that be?"
James' heart hammered in his chest. He removed one hand from Clara's waist and slipped it into his pocket, fingers closing around the ring. Now was the time...
"Because...of the tea leaves."
"The tea leaves?" Clara echoed his own mind, inquiring why he had said that instead of another particular phrase.
"They say you're to be married."
"I see." She disengaged herself from his one-armed embrace and moved away from him, as if to resume clearing the tea table. "Well, I'm not sure they're right."
The pounding in James' chest stopped, then he felt hollow as a heaviness plummeted into his stomach, though he knew it was ridiculous to panic. Clara had made her feelings for him abundantly clear. He had not misinterpreted them. She was teasing him, as was her way.
Still, he sputtered, "You're...not...?"
"Only I haven't been asked yet." She smiled coyly at him over her shoulder. "Do you know anyone who's thinking about it?"
Confidence restored -- he would have to scold her later for putting him into agony
at such a time as this -- he approached her, catching her left hand with his free one, tugging at it gently so that she faced him.
"As a matter of fact, I am." He drew his other hand from his pocket at the same moment as he dropped to one knee. "I even have a ring."
"Oh, James..." She gasped down at the emerald surrounded by tiny glittering diamonds he held between his thumb and forefinger. "It matches my ribbon!"
Laughing a little, James positioned the ring at the tip of her fourth finger, but did not slide it on. "Clara Thompson..." He paused for breath. "Will you be Queenie's daughter, Sidney's mother, and...my wife?"
She did not hesitate for a second. "I thought you'd never ask!"
"Never ask?" James slid the ring onto her finger, stood, and caught her by waist again, swinging her around in a swirl of skirts. "You've known me for less than a fortnight!"
"Oh no -- I've known you since October!"
James stood still, holding her slender figure as close against him as he could. "At which time I was conscious in your presence for half an hour which you spent lambasting me about putting your pa's inn out of business!"
"Yes, but while I was lambasting you I was thinking you might be as good a man as you are a business man and that if you were, I could get used to watching you shave and dress every morning for the rest of my life."
"And you've decided I am? A good man?"
"Good enough."
James started to kiss her, but her hand on his chest held him off. "There's just one thing."
Her eyes were dark. Though James could guess where this was going, it did not cause him any panic. "Yes, my love?"
"I am to trust you are in fact a better man than you are a business man, am I not?"
"That's another question I have wanted to ask you." He reached into his pocket and drew out the handkerchief she had embroidered him for Christmas -- the one that said Heatherley Inn vs. Golden Lion Hotel. "Might I ask you to do me a new one? As the text on this one is very shortly to be rendered obsolete?"
A unison gasp went up when, at a New Year's Day ball held for the citizens of Lark Rise and Candleford, James stood up to announce to his guests that the New Year was to bring new changes to their community: namely, that the Golden Lion Hotel would be closing its rooms to guests. The restaurant would remain in open for business, providing employment to those who had formerly worked as chambermaids and attendants -- and of course, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, who would stay on as managers of both the restaurant and the ballroom, which would be available to rent for dances, parties, wedding receptions, and other social gatherings.
The reason for these changes, of course, was that the New Year would also bring changes to his personal life -- at which point he had extended his hand to Clara, who was at the front of the crowd in her green gown, and drew her to his side to announce that the very lovely young lady had agreed to marry him in one month's time, on the condition that the Golden Lion Hotel stop competing with her father's inn. Although a few shocked murmurs rippled through the room, no doubt at his having formed a new attachment so quickly, most of the surprise had turned to well-wishes from everyone he had come to know in the past year.
A few remarks, however, were not entirely congratulatory.
"We are Pearl and Ruby Pratt, of The Stores," said the elder sister over her sister's less enterprising greeting. "As we are well aware that no shop in Heatherley has equals our reputation of providing the finest and latest in fashions..." Pearl eyed Clara's gown. "...we would like to extend to you our services for your bridal gown."
"Thank you," Clara replied graciously in the face of Pearl's barb. Indeed, her squeeze of James' arm indicated she was amused by it, and he found himself choking back laughter when she added, "But I'm going to be married in my mother's gown."
This knocked the wind out of Pearl's sails, but Ruby added, helpfully, "We restore antique gowns, as well. We did Miss Lane's--" She cut herself off, no doubt realising that Miss Lane was not, perhaps, the best person to bring into this discussion, and flounced off with her sister.
The Misses Pratt were not, however, the only ones with Miss Lane at the forefront of their thoughts.
Minnie approached, inclined her head conspiratorially toward James, though her voice was anything but. "I always thought Miss Lane would change her mind about you, Mr. Dowland, but she's lost her chance now, hasn't she?"
James choked, though this time not from laughter.
"Ah well," Minnie continued, breezily, "I just love weddings, especially when there's sausages at the wedding breakfast. I don't expect Miss Lane'll object to me attending your wedding when you've been such a kind neighbour to us, even if she is--"
"--only happy to see a dear friend find happiness," Dorcas herself interrupted her chatterbox of a maid, Sidney at her side. She pursed her lips at Minnie, which sent the girl scurrying away, and extended a gracious hand to Clara. "Miss Thompson. Please forgive Minnie. Her tongue wags rather too freely, but she means no harm, and she is learning."
"Of course," said Clara. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lane. I've heard so much about you."
Dorcas' eyebrows flicked briefly upward as her gaze briefly touched James', but she retained her cordiality -- even her warmth. "I am sincerely happy for you both. Though I am sorry Candleford shall lose one of our most influential citizens."
"Perhaps you can take my place on the parish council," James said.
"Indeed." Dorcas' eyes flashed with mischief that made James confident -- and relieved -- that whatever Minnie said, the postmistress was sincerely happy for him, and harboured him no ill will. They had both made the right decisions.
Even so, his heart lurched a little for Dorcas' sake when, after she had gone off to congratulate Thomas Brown on his new occupation as restaurateur, Sidney asked, "Do you want me to come and live with you now?"
"Nothing would make Clara and me happier than for you to come and live with us--" James covered Clara's hand on his arm with his, and smiled at her. "--and any brothers and sisters who might come along."
"Brothers and sisters?" Clearly, this was not a possibility Sidney had considered until now.
"Would you like that, Sidney?" Clara asked.
Sidney nodded, slowly; he would, indeed. Then his nose crinkled. "So long as I don't have to change any napkins."
Clara laughed and looked affectionately up at James. "The apple doesn't fall far at all from the tree. That's exactly what your pa said."
"But..." Sidney glanced over his shoulder at Dorcas, who was watching them from beside Thomas. "I want to be with Miss Lane, too. And my friends at school. Could I...stay with you at the weekends? Just at first?"
It was more than James could have hoped for. He squeezed Clara's hand as he pulled Sidney against him in sideways hug. "I'll ride up every Friday afternoon and fetch you myself."
"Is that it?" Clara asked, releasing James' arm to point at a tower rising from the dark silhouettes of rooftops as they walked the silent streets of Candleford after their engagement party. "The clock you built for Miss Lane?"
"That is the infamous clock," James replied, looking up at carved stone panels, two on each side, four in total, and shook his head. "As Robert Timmins aptly described it, 'the most expensive roundabout declaration a man has ever failed to make to a woman'."
"I can't say I'm sorry you failed to make it."
James stepped up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder as she looked up at the tower. Strands of her long, loose hair brushed his cheek and smelled faintly of rosewater. "Neither can I."
Neither spoke for some time, and though it was a peaceful silence, James wondered if it bothered Clara that in a town not very far from where they would settle together as husband and wife stood a permanent reminder of a past love. Before he could inquire, however, Clara spoke softly.
"It's beautiful."
James kissed her cheek and continued to nuzzle her skin as he asked, "Shall I commission one in Heatherley for you? An even more splendid one? To chime every hour how much I love you?"
He expected Clara's laughter to peel out like the clock chimes. Instead, she turned in his arms, hands on his chest, the full December moon mirrored in her eyes as she looked up at him.
"Only tell me every day, and that will declare it clearer than any bell tower could."
James drew her hands up to his lips. He pressed kisses to each of her knuckles as he had the night he first confessed his love to her, lingering on the finger which wore his ring. "Every morning when we awake, and every night before we go to sleep, and as often as I think of it in between."
Clara stretched up on her toes and pressed her lips to his in a kiss that took his breath away, but broke away too soon.
"Anyway," she said, the impish light returning to her eyes once more, "you won't be able to afford to build clocks now you're only co-proprietor of the Heatherley Inn."
His laughter mingling with hers as the clock chimed midnight, James Dowland knew that despite his fall in fortune, he was the richest man in the world.
He had found a life worth living.
The End
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: chaptered fic, this chapter weighs in at 6239 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: Once again I must apologize for the delay between chapters! I'd hoped to finish before I went on vacation, but didn't manage it, and since my return, I've been, erm, waylaid writing for the Star Trek fandom. But I swore I'd finish this before I attempted any more fics in other fandoms, so here is the fifth and final instalment of "A Life Worth Living." It's been a pleasure to write and share this fic with you James fans, and I hope you've all seen the wonderful news that it seems we haven't seen the last of Mr. Dowland after all! I'll be a little sad for Clara's sake if he ends up with Dorcas, after all, but his happiness is, of course, what matters most to me. And who knows, maybe the Lark Rise writers have been stalking my journal and decided to sign Jason Merrells on again for another season to enact a storyline like this. ;) As always, many thanks and hugs and kisses to the incomparable Godricgal. I'd love feedback as much as James wanted feedback about his clock. ;)
1. The Competition | 2. The Audit | 3. Liabilities | 4. Assets |
5. Equity
"Oh! Mr. Thompson." James stopped short on the narrow staircase which lead to the family rooms at the back of the inn as its burly keeper shouldered through a swinging door into the dim corridor. He tugged at his cravat. "Good morning."
Thompson gave a grunt which could have been a return of the greeting or a sound of disapproval upon discovering a guest poking about private quarters.
James decided to apologise just in case it was the latter. "I'm sorry, but Clara--" At Thompson's deepening glower, he caught himself and quickly amended, "Miss Thomspon told me I might come back...Is she about?"
With another grunt, Thompson jerked his head, indicating the door behind him. "In the parlour. Getting ready for this tea party she's having for your Lark Rise...aunt?"
"Queenie Turrill took me in after my mother died. She's family to me, though we are not related by blood.
"But the boy she's bringing with her..." The creaking of floorboards beneath his girth underpinned Thompson's voice. Looking up at James, the heavy brows drooped so that the eyes were mere slits above his jowls. "He's a relation, ain't he?"
"Yes," said James, smiling even though Thompson's expression made him unsure whether this was the appropriate response. "Sidney is my ten year-old son. As he is on holiday from school, this seemed the perfect opportunity to introduce my family to Miss Thompson."
Thompson made no comment, apparently expecting further explanation.
So James explained, "I thought I should...No, I wanted her to meet them, given our...attachment." He was glad for the poor lighting, because he felt colour rising in his face. There was a reason why he had avoided dealing with ladies' fathers in his past affairs.
His hmmph was a little less gruff than usual, and the lines of Thompson's face softened subtly, though to the untrained eye would still have resembled a bulldog. "An attachment now, is it?"
James' hand slipped into his pocket, fingers closing around the cool smooth band he carried there.
"Yes..." He drew out the word, uncertain whether to read his prospective father-in-law's body language as accepting or astonished. Should he tell him that if today went as he hoped, the attachment would become a formal engagement? Probably there were other reassurances Thompson needed first.
"As it is such," James said, withdrawing his hand, "I believe I should be honest with you. I was never married to Sidney's mother. In fact I never knew Sidney's mother was a mother until--"
"Mr. Dowland," Thompson cut him off, not unkindly, if a little impatiently. James thought of Robert Timmins. "What business of mine are your past personal affairs?"
"I...I only thought that since your daughter and I are--"
"That's right. It's Clara you're courting, not me."
"Well, yes, of course, but--"
"Then it's Clara you need to be honest with."
"I have been," James said. "There have never been any secrets between us."
"Hmmph. Then get on with you. She's waiting." Thompson clomped on down the hall but as James descended the last of the steps, he turned back, his bulk filling the doorway to the saloon, making James feel trapped and cramped in the dark, narrow corridor, though there were in fact several feet between them. "Though if Sidney's ma had been my daughter, you'd have married her."
"I swear to you, Mr. Thompson," James broke in gravely, "I would never do anything to tarnish your daughter's reputation."
"If you were still breathing, that is."
After James had gathered his wits about him once again and made up his mind that Thompson's invitation to see Clara alone in the parlour was not a test of his vow not to disgrace her, he found his anxiety transferred to the business of staring out the parlour window for the first glimpse of sleigh runners cutting through the pristine blanket of snow that had fallen earlier in the morning.
The whisper of skirts as Clara sidled up alongside him diverted his attention long enough for him to smile at her as she hugged his arm. "You know what they say about watched pots, James."
"They do boil," James said, reverting his gaze to the stable-yard beyond the window. "And they do it in the precisely the same amount of time required for unwatched pots to boil."
Her breath tickled his neck as, laughing softly, she arched up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "Then there's no point in watching, is there?"
She tugged at his arm, urging him away from the window, but James remained rooted to the waxed floor. He took out his pocket watch and frowned at the face. "This pot should have boiled almost a quarter of an hour ago."
"I'm sure they're only off to a late start," Clara said. "Come and help me set the table, and try to stop imagining horses gone lame and sleighs stuck in snowdrifts."
This time he returned his watch to his pocket and obeyed the tug on his arm, her hand sliding into his as they crossed the small room to the table she'd laid before the crackling fire. "I'm certain you're right. I only want this day to be perfect--ow!"
He had reached for a slice of cake, only for Clara to swat his hand. "So do I -- and that means having a whole cake to serve Queenie and Sidney."
James looked her in the eye as he popped a morsel into his mouth anyway. "The cake is perfect." As he chewed, he watched her playful glower melt into a pleased expression. "And you have made the parlour lovely," he added, for the first time taking in the Christmas greenery she had artistically arranged on the mantel and over the doorway and window casings. There was, however, a deplorable want of mistletoe, for which he would have chided her and at once undertaken to remedy, if a framed photograph of a bride and groom, nestled among the pine boughs on the mantelpiece, had not caught his eye.
He went to the fireplace and picked up the photograph for closer scrutiny. Then, looking from picture to Clara, he said, "Either you have been married before, or you are the image of your mother."
"Ma's eyes were blue." Clara stopped setting the table and gave James a smile that became a little wistful as he came closer to her with the picture. "Blue as cornflowers." Her fingers traced the yellowed face through the glass.
Knowing full well the longing he had stirred up in her for her mother, James felt a pang of regret for bringing sadness to what he dearly wished to be the happiest of days for Clara. But the sadness did not linger. Grinning, she handed the photograph back to James and resumed laying the table.
"I do favour her, don't I?"
"Uncannily so. Though I would not have known your father."
"He hadn't had Ma to fatten him up with her fruitcake then."
"Is that your plan for me?" James eyed the tea table, laden with a good deal more than the cake he had sampled.
"I did try to stop you." Clara poked him in the stomach, and James caught her hand, drawing her to him as she looked him over appreciatively. "Pa's trouble was that he was never so active as you, with all your riding about and sledging." She added, more seriously, eyes sweeping over his face, "Is there any of your ma in you?"
The question caught him off guard, though not so much as the stab of envy that he had no such memento as a photograph of his own dear mother. Some nights he lay awake, unable to remember her face. Or, if he did conjure it up, it was the pale, sweat-soaked visage languishing on her pillow during one of the frequent fevers that eventually took her from him.
"James?"
A squeeze of his fingers brought him to awareness of Clara's flushed, healthy face looking up at him in some concern. He returned the pressure and gave her a smile. "When I was a boy, Ma always told me I was a miniature of my pa." Out of consideration for his recent conversation with Mr. Thompson, he omitted the bit about dimples that could charm a maid out of all conscience, though perhaps at a later time... "I have never seen him, though. I don't even know if he lives."
"What about Sidney? Does he take after you?"
James smiled a little, feeling again the hiccough of pride in his heart that had accompanied the first time he lay eyes on the boy, and recognized himself. "I think so."
"Then he must be a very handsome boy."
Setting the photograph of Clara's parents at the edge of the table, James took both Clara's hands, the left still holding silverware, and turned her to him.
"Thank you for having him -- and Queenie -- here today. It means a great deal to me to introduce my family to the woman I--"
Aware of the weight of the engagement ring in his pocket, he had nearly blurted the woman I hope to marry. He could yet do. He had the ring, and held her hands. He could drop onto one knee in this moment, and--
Movement in his periphery diverted him. "--love," he finished, and, brushing a quick kiss across Clara's cheek, he dashed to the window just in time to see the looked-for sleigh glide into the inn-yard.
"They're here!"
Clara only had time to lay the final setting of silver at the edge of the tea table, not in the correct places, before James caught her hand and pulled her through the door. She was scrabbling with one hand to untie her apron, and just managed to get it off as they approached the sleigh.
"We were starting to worry about you," James said as he offered a hand up to Queenie, who clasped him tightly to her as soon as her feet touched the ground.
Sidney stood in the sleigh. "We're late because Minnie wouldn't let us leave till she cooked us sausages, to keep up our strength on our long journey, she said."
"That sounds like Minnie," James said, trying not to think about the horrors the girl might manage to do to a sausage. "Though I hope you haven't spoilt your appetite for Miss Thompson's excellent fruitcake?"
"Or if you have," Clara said, "we can work up your appetite on that sledge of yours. If you brought it."
Blinking inquisitively at Clara through his spectacles, Sidney held up the rope attached to the front of his sledge. The tilt of the boy's head made James wonder if his son, continually surprising him with a shrewdness that far exceeded his ten years, realised what Clara was to him. Which he struggled to put into words as, arms around Sidney and Queenie, he introduced Clara.
"This is my..." He faltered, and Clara's eyebrows twitched upwards. Why were there no appropriate terms for women who were a good deal more than friends, but not yet fiancées? Why had he not proposed to her already? It would have made this so much easier. "My very dear friend..." She smiled and bowed her head politely, but James could see the corners of her mouth fighting against a smirk, or even, knowing her, outright laughter. "Miss Clara Thompson."
"Ah, Miss Thompson." Queenie left James' side to take Clara's hands (which had, apparently, found some place to stow her apron).
"Clara, please, Mrs. Turrill--"
"Only if you call me Queenie."
James' chest swelled as he watched the two women smile at each other, the elder beaming over her shoulder at James as she said, "You're just as lovely as James said."
Clara gave James a look of mock reproach. "Only just? You mean he didn't write flattering sonnets about my beauty that no living woman could live up to, so that I disappoint in person?"
"Not after you besmirched your Christmas present." James looked down at his son. "Sidney, when I made Miss Thompson a gift of a pretty green satin ribbon, she made no secret of her disappointment that I hadn't given her a sledge like yours."
"A silly old bit of ribbon's not a very good present," Sidney said in the exact tone with which he had pronounced his disdain for cricket. Thankfully this time James had Clara's clear laughter ringing out to dispel his slight embarrassment, reminding him of the delight in her warm brown eyes when she'd unwrapped his simple gift.
"I wasn't so very disappointed that I didn't tie it in my hair at once," Clara told the boy. "Though I do hope you'll let me ride your sledge, Sidney, as I've been boasting to your pa how Heatherley's got the best hill in the county."
The challenging tilt of her chin as she looked at James made him want to slide his hand behind her neck and pull her to him for a sound kiss -- and he suspected that Queenie, looking back and forth between them as if watching a badminton match, knew it.
He clasped his hands behind his back and said, "If you ask me, Miss Thomspon would not make such spurious claims if she had ever been to Lark Rise. Nothing could beat our sledging hill."
Clara bent toward Sidney, who leant in conspiratorially. "True. Mine doesn't have a hedgerow at the bottom."
Sidney clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle a squeal of laughter, and Clara winked at James before turning to fall back with Queenie as they set off in wordless agreement for the sledging hill. "Or was James telling falsehoods? Only he fell off his horse when we first met in October, didn't he tell you? Right into my waiting arms."
"The hostler's waiting arms, more like," James corrected her. "Not nearly as pretty a pair as Miss Thompson's."
"But rather stronger for carrying grown men upstairs. I'd have had to drag you, which would hardly have helped your head."
It was heady, flirting openly with Clara like this, remembering snatches of that night when she had undressed him and put him to bed and checked on him in the night, her cool hands upon his forehead, feathering his hair. He quite forgot they were not alone, until Sidney tugged at his sleeve and stopped walking, making James realize that the most effective chaperone was a child.
"Why did you fall off your horse?"
"I was still a little feeble from my riding accident," James answered. "After two hours on the road I became dizzy and fainted. I was humiliated at the time, but now I am thankful."
Looking back at Clara, he caught Queenie's eye. She beamed at him, clearly catching his meaning. But, noticing Sidney's silence, James looked back at the boy and found the eyes behind the spectacles gazing at him as they had the day he collapsed in the post-office. Only now, the guardedness was tempered by concern.
He asked, "Are you well now?"
At once James understood that Sidney had not been afraid of him, but of growing close to him only to lose him. Clara had asked if Sidney was like him; James had not imagined they might be alike on such a deep level -- though he supposed their shared experience of losing their mothers had led to them to cope similarly. The distant, secretive ways Queenie observed in James as a boy had been his own attempt at protecting himself against the pain of more loss. Undoubtedly that was why he had never been able to commit to a woman, and even when he had wanted to marry Dorcas, he had maintained his distance during his courtship of her, hoping she would recognise the clock as his eternal declaration to her, rather than uttering the irrevocable words of love.
But no longer was that his way, he thought with a look to Clara, to whom he had spoken his love, and would speak the words again, every day for the rest of his life.
He lay his hands on Sidney's shoulders. "I have never been in better health in my life. I have even been sleeping."
A grin banished the fear and too-wise look from Sidney's face, revealing unexpected dimples. "Race you to the top of the hill?"
Clara's hill might have been free of hedgerows at the bottom, but it was not lacking in snowdrifts. At Sidney's gentlemanly suggestion, she took the first turn on the sledge and fairly flew down the steep incline, whooping and laughing as father and son sprinted after her. The momentum was such that the sledge was pitched end-over-end upon hitting the embankment -- thankfully not before Clara saw the obstacle coming and evacuated to the side of the sledge. Laughing even harder, she flopped onto her back and flapped her arms and legs.
Sidney's nose crinkled as he watched her. "What are you doing?"
"Making a snow angel." James offered his hands down to Clara, which she accepted, and hosted her to her feet. "Look."
Seeing the imprint in the snow, Sidney's face lit with delight, and he scrambled to make a smaller angel of his own. Though she'd just stood up and dusted off the snow that powdered her dress, Clara went down again to make a second angel of her own.
"Pa!" called Sidney, raising his head. "Come try it, too!"
Despite mild admonishments from Queenie about the sorry state their clothes would be in, James could not very well refuse anything his son asked whilst addressing him as Pa for the first time. As he settled himself in the snow, mirth welling up in him as he flapped his arms and legs, he turned his head to look at Clara and found hers turned to him. He hoped she knew that to him, she was the angel who had made all of this possible.
After they had enough fun in the snow -- or rather, once their clothes had got thoroughly wet through so that they had no choice but to return to the Heatherly Inn, they at last sat down at the tea table Clara had so painstakingly laid. The cake would taste better, and be more filling, for their having worked up an appetite, the tea more soothing for having icy fingers in which to clutch the piping hot cups.
The wedding photograph of Clara's parents was still standing on the end of the table where James had left it in his haste, and Queenie remarked upon it much as James had -- and a bit further, as a woman would.
"What a lovely gown! I expect your ma put it away for your own wedding?"
"She did," Clara replied, replacing the photograph on the mantelpiece. She cast a half-shy glance at James as she came back to the table. "It's a little old-fashioned, but I've always imagined walking down the aisle on Pa's arm in Ma's dress."
James' heart stood still as he imagined it. "It will be as though a part of your ma will be there with you." Clara nodded up at him, and he allowed his fingertips to brush her arms as he seated her, and added, huskily, "You will be a beautiful bride."
He held her gaze for a moment before Clara grinned and averted her attention to the guests. "At the rate we're going, poor Sidney must think he won't get to eat till there's a bride's cake. I hope you like fruitcake, Sidney?"
"I like all cake," Sidney said as she cut him a generous slice.
"He's a ten year-old boy," Queenie said, as if this explained it.
"I am considerably older than ten," said James, "and I like all cake, too."
Queenie's eyes twinkled across the table at Clara. "And he's a thirty-six year-old boy."
"Talking of James as a boy," Clara replied, "I'm quite depending on you to tell me all the stories of his childhood that he's too embarrassed to tell me himself."
Sidney giggled, clapping a hand over his mouth to keep his tea inside.
Clara winked at him. "I think Sidney would like that, too."
As the boy nodded, James scowled playfully. "I would like to point out that I have told Clara a great many things about myself that might be considered embarrassing."
This attempt at self-defence proved ineffective, as Queenie told story after story about Lark Rise days gone by. Clara contributed a few tales of her own girlhood, and there was a great deal of laughter at the expense of both, but no one felt a moment's discomfort. All was exactly as James hoped and expected a meeting between Clara and Queenie to be -- although he had never expected or hoped for anything quite so splendid as this. He thought of what he told Queenie when she asked him, months ago, why he'd come back to Lark Rise. The family he'd found far and away exceeded anything he could have imagined it to be.
As the shadows in the room began to grow long, James found himself saddened that half his family must soon leave.
Before they did, however, Queenie had one last thing in mind.
"Would you like me to read your tea leaves, Clara?"
Not the slightest bit sceptical of this, Clara handed her empty teacup across the table to Queenie. "Yes, please. I've never had my leaves read before." Her eyes twinkled at James. "I would so like to know what my future holds."
Queenie peered into the cup as she watched its swirling contents settle. "Oh my," she said gravely after a moment. "It's...a wedding ring."
"Indeed?" Clara said as if she thought Queenie must be teasing her, which was James' thought, as well -- after all, Queenie had helped him pick out the engagement ring he currently carried in his pocket (which he reached in and fingered now).
But Queenie showed them the cup, and the ring shape in the soggy leaves at the bottom was indisputable.
"Do you love Miss Thompson?" Sidney asked James as he helped Queenie into the sleigh that would take them back to Lark Rise.
The question should not have surprised him, given the open flirtation in which he had engaged with Clara throughout the afternoon, and the talk of marriage, but James found himself a little wrong-footed, and not a little self-conscious, nonetheless.
"Are my feelings so obvious?" he asked with a puff of laughter which he stifled upon meeting Sidney's eyes, which were not amused. Heedless of the snow, he knelt in front of Sidney. "I do love her. Very much."
A dimple formed between Sidney's pale eyebrows. "Minnie said you wanted to marry Miss Lane."
That was something James had expected even less than Sidney's previous question -- though, again, given the factor of Minnie, it should not have done. James glanced up at Queenie in the sleigh, hoping something on her face would tell him what to say. She merely gave him a small smile of encouragement. In his mind, he heard her voice telling him to be himself.
So he placed his hands on his son's shoulders -- it was easy, he realised, to follow his heart when it was not being twisted by jealousy for Sidney's affections or bitterness over Dorcas' rejection -- and said, "Falling in love is a funny thing, Sidney. I did ask Miss Lane to marry me, but not for the right reasons."
The crease deepened. James sighed. Of course to a ten year-old, you either loved someone, or you didn't, and if you did, you married them. How did he explain something so that a child could understand when he did not even really understand it himself?
"We didn't know each other well enough to be husband and wife. I think we'd have made rather a disaster of marriage. Especially me."
Sidney considered this with much the same expression of trying to grasp a difficult new concept in mathematics. "How long have you known Miss Thompson?"
James chuckled, not at Sidney's logic so much as at the answer itself, which was so impossible to believe. "A little more than a week. But it's not how long we've known each other, it's how well. Miss Thompson -- Clara -- and I have been very honest with each other..." The grey eyes behind the spectacles were as glassy as the lenses themselves. "Am I making any sense at all?"
"No," replied Sidney. "Are you going to marry her? Is that what the tea leaves said?"
Another glance up at Queenie, who was grinning broadly. James was hard-put to keep his own smile restrained. He must approach this delicately, not make the boy feel as though his own wishes in the matter were not under consideration.
"I would certainly like to ask Clara to marry me. But perhaps I had better ask you first, since it would mean a change for...our family."
Sidney considered this for a moment, then grinned. "I like her."
As little time as James had spent around children, he must have had a bit of paternal instinct, after all, because he knew that, for a ten year-old boy, this was a stamp of approval.
"I like her, too," said Queenie, holding a hand out to James after he'd helped settle Sidney and his sledge into the sleigh. "She's a lovely girl, and most of all, she's made you happier than I've ever seen you. My Lark Rise Boy." She released his hand and stroked his cheek. "Now inside with you, and do something with that ring besides fiddle with it in your pocket!"
James required no further encouragement to do exactly that. He found Clara in the parlour, clearing away the tea things, interrupting her to pull her into his arms for a long, thorough kiss.
When he drew back to peer into her dark eyes, they glittered with their usual humour. "Does that mean I passed inspection and met with everyone's approval?"
"Absolutely," said James, leaning in for another kiss. "Not that there was ever any question. And," he added, realising how that might have sounded, "not that I brought them here for that purpose!"
"Then why did you bring your son and the woman who's like a mother to you here?"
"To get their blessing. And to get your blessing..." He searched her face. "You do like them, don't you, Clara?"
The amusement on her face softened, and her hands found their way up to cup his face, callused thumbs stroking his cheeks. "They feel like family to me. I love them almost as much as I love you."
"Good." He kissed her. "Excellent. It was so important to me that you love the people I love."
"So I gathered. Why would that be?"
James' heart hammered in his chest. He removed one hand from Clara's waist and slipped it into his pocket, fingers closing around the ring. Now was the time...
"Because...of the tea leaves."
"The tea leaves?" Clara echoed his own mind, inquiring why he had said that instead of another particular phrase.
"They say you're to be married."
"I see." She disengaged herself from his one-armed embrace and moved away from him, as if to resume clearing the tea table. "Well, I'm not sure they're right."
The pounding in James' chest stopped, then he felt hollow as a heaviness plummeted into his stomach, though he knew it was ridiculous to panic. Clara had made her feelings for him abundantly clear. He had not misinterpreted them. She was teasing him, as was her way.
Still, he sputtered, "You're...not...?"
"Only I haven't been asked yet." She smiled coyly at him over her shoulder. "Do you know anyone who's thinking about it?"
Confidence restored -- he would have to scold her later for putting him into agony
at such a time as this -- he approached her, catching her left hand with his free one, tugging at it gently so that she faced him.
"As a matter of fact, I am." He drew his other hand from his pocket at the same moment as he dropped to one knee. "I even have a ring."
"Oh, James..." She gasped down at the emerald surrounded by tiny glittering diamonds he held between his thumb and forefinger. "It matches my ribbon!"
Laughing a little, James positioned the ring at the tip of her fourth finger, but did not slide it on. "Clara Thompson..." He paused for breath. "Will you be Queenie's daughter, Sidney's mother, and...my wife?"
She did not hesitate for a second. "I thought you'd never ask!"
"Never ask?" James slid the ring onto her finger, stood, and caught her by waist again, swinging her around in a swirl of skirts. "You've known me for less than a fortnight!"
"Oh no -- I've known you since October!"
James stood still, holding her slender figure as close against him as he could. "At which time I was conscious in your presence for half an hour which you spent lambasting me about putting your pa's inn out of business!"
"Yes, but while I was lambasting you I was thinking you might be as good a man as you are a business man and that if you were, I could get used to watching you shave and dress every morning for the rest of my life."
"And you've decided I am? A good man?"
"Good enough."
James started to kiss her, but her hand on his chest held him off. "There's just one thing."
Her eyes were dark. Though James could guess where this was going, it did not cause him any panic. "Yes, my love?"
"I am to trust you are in fact a better man than you are a business man, am I not?"
"That's another question I have wanted to ask you." He reached into his pocket and drew out the handkerchief she had embroidered him for Christmas -- the one that said Heatherley Inn vs. Golden Lion Hotel. "Might I ask you to do me a new one? As the text on this one is very shortly to be rendered obsolete?"
A unison gasp went up when, at a New Year's Day ball held for the citizens of Lark Rise and Candleford, James stood up to announce to his guests that the New Year was to bring new changes to their community: namely, that the Golden Lion Hotel would be closing its rooms to guests. The restaurant would remain in open for business, providing employment to those who had formerly worked as chambermaids and attendants -- and of course, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, who would stay on as managers of both the restaurant and the ballroom, which would be available to rent for dances, parties, wedding receptions, and other social gatherings.
The reason for these changes, of course, was that the New Year would also bring changes to his personal life -- at which point he had extended his hand to Clara, who was at the front of the crowd in her green gown, and drew her to his side to announce that the very lovely young lady had agreed to marry him in one month's time, on the condition that the Golden Lion Hotel stop competing with her father's inn. Although a few shocked murmurs rippled through the room, no doubt at his having formed a new attachment so quickly, most of the surprise had turned to well-wishes from everyone he had come to know in the past year.
A few remarks, however, were not entirely congratulatory.
"We are Pearl and Ruby Pratt, of The Stores," said the elder sister over her sister's less enterprising greeting. "As we are well aware that no shop in Heatherley has equals our reputation of providing the finest and latest in fashions..." Pearl eyed Clara's gown. "...we would like to extend to you our services for your bridal gown."
"Thank you," Clara replied graciously in the face of Pearl's barb. Indeed, her squeeze of James' arm indicated she was amused by it, and he found himself choking back laughter when she added, "But I'm going to be married in my mother's gown."
This knocked the wind out of Pearl's sails, but Ruby added, helpfully, "We restore antique gowns, as well. We did Miss Lane's--" She cut herself off, no doubt realising that Miss Lane was not, perhaps, the best person to bring into this discussion, and flounced off with her sister.
The Misses Pratt were not, however, the only ones with Miss Lane at the forefront of their thoughts.
Minnie approached, inclined her head conspiratorially toward James, though her voice was anything but. "I always thought Miss Lane would change her mind about you, Mr. Dowland, but she's lost her chance now, hasn't she?"
James choked, though this time not from laughter.
"Ah well," Minnie continued, breezily, "I just love weddings, especially when there's sausages at the wedding breakfast. I don't expect Miss Lane'll object to me attending your wedding when you've been such a kind neighbour to us, even if she is--"
"--only happy to see a dear friend find happiness," Dorcas herself interrupted her chatterbox of a maid, Sidney at her side. She pursed her lips at Minnie, which sent the girl scurrying away, and extended a gracious hand to Clara. "Miss Thompson. Please forgive Minnie. Her tongue wags rather too freely, but she means no harm, and she is learning."
"Of course," said Clara. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lane. I've heard so much about you."
Dorcas' eyebrows flicked briefly upward as her gaze briefly touched James', but she retained her cordiality -- even her warmth. "I am sincerely happy for you both. Though I am sorry Candleford shall lose one of our most influential citizens."
"Perhaps you can take my place on the parish council," James said.
"Indeed." Dorcas' eyes flashed with mischief that made James confident -- and relieved -- that whatever Minnie said, the postmistress was sincerely happy for him, and harboured him no ill will. They had both made the right decisions.
Even so, his heart lurched a little for Dorcas' sake when, after she had gone off to congratulate Thomas Brown on his new occupation as restaurateur, Sidney asked, "Do you want me to come and live with you now?"
"Nothing would make Clara and me happier than for you to come and live with us--" James covered Clara's hand on his arm with his, and smiled at her. "--and any brothers and sisters who might come along."
"Brothers and sisters?" Clearly, this was not a possibility Sidney had considered until now.
"Would you like that, Sidney?" Clara asked.
Sidney nodded, slowly; he would, indeed. Then his nose crinkled. "So long as I don't have to change any napkins."
Clara laughed and looked affectionately up at James. "The apple doesn't fall far at all from the tree. That's exactly what your pa said."
"But..." Sidney glanced over his shoulder at Dorcas, who was watching them from beside Thomas. "I want to be with Miss Lane, too. And my friends at school. Could I...stay with you at the weekends? Just at first?"
It was more than James could have hoped for. He squeezed Clara's hand as he pulled Sidney against him in sideways hug. "I'll ride up every Friday afternoon and fetch you myself."
"Is that it?" Clara asked, releasing James' arm to point at a tower rising from the dark silhouettes of rooftops as they walked the silent streets of Candleford after their engagement party. "The clock you built for Miss Lane?"
"That is the infamous clock," James replied, looking up at carved stone panels, two on each side, four in total, and shook his head. "As Robert Timmins aptly described it, 'the most expensive roundabout declaration a man has ever failed to make to a woman'."
"I can't say I'm sorry you failed to make it."
James stepped up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder as she looked up at the tower. Strands of her long, loose hair brushed his cheek and smelled faintly of rosewater. "Neither can I."
Neither spoke for some time, and though it was a peaceful silence, James wondered if it bothered Clara that in a town not very far from where they would settle together as husband and wife stood a permanent reminder of a past love. Before he could inquire, however, Clara spoke softly.
"It's beautiful."
James kissed her cheek and continued to nuzzle her skin as he asked, "Shall I commission one in Heatherley for you? An even more splendid one? To chime every hour how much I love you?"
He expected Clara's laughter to peel out like the clock chimes. Instead, she turned in his arms, hands on his chest, the full December moon mirrored in her eyes as she looked up at him.
"Only tell me every day, and that will declare it clearer than any bell tower could."
James drew her hands up to his lips. He pressed kisses to each of her knuckles as he had the night he first confessed his love to her, lingering on the finger which wore his ring. "Every morning when we awake, and every night before we go to sleep, and as often as I think of it in between."
Clara stretched up on her toes and pressed her lips to his in a kiss that took his breath away, but broke away too soon.
"Anyway," she said, the impish light returning to her eyes once more, "you won't be able to afford to build clocks now you're only co-proprietor of the Heatherley Inn."
His laughter mingling with hers as the clock chimed midnight, James Dowland knew that despite his fall in fortune, he was the richest man in the world.
He had found a life worth living.
The End