“But—”
“Captain Horsley is in port at Folkestone with the yacht. I contacted him this morning. He might well be away by now, depending on the tides. I am sending him to make a personal delivery. Traveling by water will be quicker than going by horse. He can bring her back the same way, should she wish to come.”
“What about Miss Hope Jones?”
“I have sent Jimmy Puller with a letter and our traveling chaise to fetch her, if she chooses to come.”
“You keep saying:if she chooses,” Sir James observed. “Why wouldn’t they come at word of their mother’s death?”
“They were unhappy that they did not know they were not the vicar’s daughters, and I admit I rather crassly announced it when I met them in town. They had had no idea, and I bumbled into that lack of knowledge. They had been looking for positions for some time, but not aggressively. When they learned the truth and the gossips in the village had it on the tips of their tongues, they decided they must leave.”
“Why have their locations been secret?”
“It is what they wanted. I don’t know why. It has been three years since they left. Hopefully, they will have forgiven their mother in some way.”
“I hope so,” Cecilia said softly.
“If you don’t mind, I should like to change the subject of our conversation to something perhaps less melancholy,” Sir James said.
“I welcome it,” said Mortlake.
“Tell me about your brewery. I’ve noted that your brewmaster is young for that position.”
“Haydon Vernon?” Mortlake laughed. “Don’t let his youth fool you. He has been involved in beer brewing since he could walk! His father was our former brewmaster and well-known among brewers for his talent. Many tried to hire him away from me, but he wouldn’t go as his family was from the area. Haydon learned from him, and now he is being courted just as his father was. We have been so successful with Haydon as the brewmaster that I am looking to expand the brewery. I’ve hired the architect who designed the Raleigh Brewery to do designs for us.”
“Your plans might dovetail well with my plans,” said Sir James. “I am planning to build an oast house.”
Mortlake laughed. “Competition for mine?”
“I’d like to consider mine as complementing yours. I do not want to see a repeat of last year with our cool summer when harvests quickly became musty if they could not be processed quickly.”
Mortlake frowned and reluctantly nodded. “That was a bad time. My apologies if you lost much. And I can see that with my expanded brewery, I shall need more dried barley and hops. I suppose I must welcome your oast house—until I can see my way clear to expanding that facility as well,” he said with a side smirk.
“Excuse me, my lord,” said the Mortlake butler from the doorway. “Dinner is served.”
“Excellent!” Mortlake said. He rose from his seat and motioned the others to follow him to the dining room.
CHAPTER 7
GOSSIP AND CASUAL CONVERSATIONS
The sunlight through the apse windows shone down on the pulpit as Sir James and the Summerworth carpenter, Elmore McCurdy, studied the pulpit platform. In the bright, unexpected sunlight, James could see that the platform was in worse shape than he’d observed the previous day.
“What do you think, Mr. McCurdy? Can this be fixed before Sunday services?”
“Och, aye, sar, if’n I takes off the skirt with the decorative carving nice and easy-like, to build the platform, can be done in a tick. Then we stain it and put back these purty skirt pieces, and it be better than ever. You want as how I should go ahead and do this?”
“What other jobs do you have?”
“Reet now only a new gate in the back pasture.”
“The one we talked about connecting to the Aldrich property?”
“That be the one. And the new bed for young Master Hugh.”
James nodded. “Both of those can wait on the church repairs. I’d like this platform completed first, then the Vicar has other repairs here I’d like you to look at as well. Take as long as youlike on the repairs for the church property. The vicar needs a good ear right now.”
“I catch your meanin’, sar. I’d be happy to,” the carpenter said, with a wide grin and a conspiratorial wink.
