. . .


THE CRUCIVERBALIST COURTSHIP

Chapter Four - Spring 1936 (part 2)


The sun may have been out but the air was cold. Damp lingered everywhere as they walked in silence. The soggy lawn squished beneath their boots, but she walked quickly, letting the movement of her body warm her. She noticed a few snowdrops scattered about but the narcissi were only beginning to poke their stems up through the soft earth.

In the barnyard, Amy's boots sank into the brown mud although it was not nearly so deep as Sheldon described. When she pulled her foot up, it caused a sucking sound. Sheldon was watching her closely, so she refused to wrinkle her nose or cover her face at the smell.

Two men approached them, meeting them halfway, the first practically running. "Master Shelly!" he called.

Amy stopped in her tracks and looked over at Sheldon. Master Shelly? she mouthed to him but he ignored her to say, "Good morning, Billy."

So this was Billy Sparks. He was a big man, full-boned and a little chubby. His smile was wide, as though he was amazed at something - probably Sheldon in the barnyard, Amy realized - and it only served to emphasize his red, rounded cheeks. His hair was brown and curly but cropped very close to his head.

"You've come to see the goats!"

Sheldon cleared his throat. "Er, yes. Miss Fowler wished to see them."

Amy put her hand out. "Amy Farrah Fowler."

"Amy! I'm Billy!" He ignored her hand and waved instead.

The thinner man behind frowned. "It's Miss Fowler, Billy," he said softly. Then he touched his forelock, lowering his eyes a bit. "My apologies, Miss. Harry Ingram, at your service."

"Hello." Never once had someone shown her such deference.

Harry's eyes darted toward Sheldon. "I'm sorry, My Lord; we should have prepared. If we'd known you would be coming, we would have laid down some planks to save you the muddy boots."

"It was a spur-of-the-moment decision," Amy explained but Sheldon made a noise beside her, so she clarified, "My decision, that is. Lord Cooper is just indulging me. I knew it was muddy, but I wanted to see the new additions."

"We have some calves, too!" Billy explained, leading them to the largest of the wooden barns. The mud was not deep but it was slick, and Amy had to watch her steps carefully as Billy kept up his narrative. At one point, Amy slipped and feared landing in the mire when Sheldon finally appeared at her side and held her elbow while she managed to straighten.

"Do. Not. Say. It," she whispered through clenched teeth.

Thankfully, the next step was onto the wooden floor of the barn at the very edge of the large opening.

"Here's one, Master Shelly," Billy said, holding the creature securely in his arms at the edge of a stall. Sheldon stepped backwards from the animal quickly, his arms pinwheeling slightly as he stumbled off the edge of the floor.

The new kid was gangly, all brown legs and ears, and it tucked itself into Billy's arm. Harry lifted the other one away from the its mother, who bleated in protest, this one brown and white in pattern. Each of its long ears was white with a brown diamond in the center.

"They're so sweet!" Amy couldn't help but coo. "May I pet them?"

"They like their ears rubbed," Billy explained.

Amy reached toward each goat, stroking their floppy ears. "Sheldon, you should feel this, it's like velvet."

"I'll take your word for it." Amy glanced over at him and he could not have looked more out of place, in his fair-isle sweater and muddy boots, standing in a barnyard. He had backed even further away and there was a trough behind him, and a small grouping of cows milled about including what Amy saw as the newest additions to the herd; they had come closer, no doubt because of his presence. But Sheldon's arms were crossed, oblivious to the calves behind him. Or pointedly ignoring them.

"Would you like to hold one?" Billy asked.

"Oh, may I?"

"Here," Harry stepped forward, "take mine." It was an awkward transfer and the little goat bucked, but then he settled nicely into Amy's arms, pulling his front legs up close.

The kid was warm and soft and smelled like hay. "What's his name?" Amy asked.

"Master Shelly says not to name them," Billy said.

"What? Why?" Amy looked over at Sheldon.

He frowned. "They are not pets. It is best not to allow oneself to become attached to them."

His meaning sank in. It did not surprise Amy, as she knew where her meals came from, but she did expect to be confronted with it as she was holding a baby animal. And a goat at that.

"But do you ever . . . chevon?" she asked, reverting to the type of obscure French word she'd use in a crossword to distance the palette from the slaughter.

"What's chevon?" Billy asked.

Ignoring him, Sheldon answered, "No, not yet. But if they do not prove useful in other ways, it will be considered."

Amy turned back to Billy, trying to cover the previous topic with a slight change in words. "I understand you're going to try to make chèvre, goat cheese."

"Yes!" She let him prattle on in his excitement, explaining all he learned from talking to Mr. Johnson, the previous owner of the animals. "He's poorly, you see, and can't do it anymore so I said I would."

"That's very enterprising of you," Amy replied. "Do you care for all the animals?"

"Yes, me and Harry. We don't have so many here but I like to walk around and visit the other farmers. That's where I see the pigs and the sheep. I like to go out and see what they're eating and how they're living. I can tell if they're happy or not. They should only be happy."

"I see," Amy said, although she didn't, not fully. "Of course they should be."

"And I help kill them."

Amy jerked, upsetting the goat that had fallen asleep in her arms. "Are they not unhappy when you kill them?"

"No," Billy shook his head. "We make them happy when they are alive and then we kill them quickly before they know to be unhappy. It makes me sad but it's better that I'm sad than the animal. Master Shelly says that's the way it is at Medford. He says it's the right way, he calls it . . . what do you call it, Master Shelly?"

"Animal husbandry," Sheldon supplied.

Harry stepped forward, reaching for the kid in Amy's arms. "That's enough, Billy. His Lordship and Miss Fowler have other things to do, I'm sure." Then he lowered his voice, "I'm sorry, Miss, he does prattle on with strangers."

"I suppose he comes by it honestly," Amy answered.

A small chuckle escaped the man's throat. "Indeed, Miss, I see you've met Mrs. Sparks. Good woman, she is."

As Sheldon and Amy turned, Amy waved back at Billy with a smile. She waited until they were out of the barnyard, on firmer ground in more ways than one, before she asked, "A developmental delay? It's why he still calls you Master Shelly?"

"It seems that way. We'll never know for sure."

Amy rubbed her hands down her arms; even Sheldon's thick sweater was not enough for the chill. "Mrs. Sparks never sought an answer?"

"No. To her, he could still be a butler at Buckingham Palace. She either doesn't see or chooses to ignore it. If you bring it up to her, she changes the subject. He's her only child."

"How long have you noticed?"

"I cannot remember not knowing," Sheldon answered. "Everyone knew. Georgie used to tease me about it. Billy, my sister, and I are only a few days apart, you see. Georgie told me Billy is so dumb because I stole his brain from him, that as a baby I crawled into his cradle and ate it. I remember the nightmares it gave me."

"That's awful!" Amy wrapped her hands around Sheldon's arm, both for warmth and to pull him closer.

"It didn't last long, once I realized the physical development and anatomy structures of human infants wouldn't have allowed such a thing to occur. But he still pestered me with it."

"Mrs. Spark said Billy would sometimes join you for experiments with your tutor."

"Yes. He had no idea what was happening, what Dr. Sturgis and I were discussing, but he enjoyed watching. We weren't friends, of course, but he was mostly harmless."

"He seems good with the animals. He genuinely cares."

Sheldon nodded. "He always was. If you couldn't find him, he was in a barn or a chicken coop somewhere. No head for figures or breeding programs, of course - he can barely read - so that's what Harry does. But many a night Billy has slept in a pen, nursing a sick animal." He tugged her in a different direction. "Let's go in through the kitchen. I don't want to track this mud into the library."

They swerved together, walking in silence around to side of the grand house, past a glass conservatory, and into a simple courtyard Amy had yet to see. The ground was old cobblestones and pea gravel, and she eagerly followed Sheldon down a few steps as he opened a large but plain door.

"The servants' entrance," Sheldon explained as he held it for her.

Heat surged to meet Amy as she stepped through, recognizing the plain gray walls from her previous visit to the lower level. A hallway stretched in front of them with a row of pegs at eye level; the sounds of a bustling household came from the opposite end. Amy swung her head taking it all in. She was worried Sheldon would stride quickly through, but he paused to remove his mittens. "Cold storage. The old buttery," he gestured to his left. A few more steps and then toward his right, "Silver storage." Then "Linen storage. Clothes washing and repair. Shoe shining."

Lucy, the dark-haired maid that sometimes came to Amy's room, stepped out of a side room, a bucket in one hand and a mop in the other, and nearly dropped them as her already large eyes expanded further. "Your Lordship!" She hurriedly curtsied. "What are - That is, will you be needing anything?"

"No. I'm just giving Miss Fowler the tour. Carry on."

The slight maid scurried away, but at the end of the hall, over Sheldon's calm, "Broom closet. All the cleaning supplies are stored here," Amy heard Lucy's voice instead, "His Lordship is here!"

A murmur rose. "Where?" "Why?" "What's he doing?"

Lucy answered, "He's giving the Miss the lay of the land like she's the Lady!"

"Bless me!" "Fix your apron, before he sees it!" "Could it be?" "Not even Miss Penny has seen the broom closet." "May his mother's prayers be answered!" The last was the voice of Mrs. Sparks.

Amy smiled softly, but when she gazed over at Sheldon, his mouth was set in a firm line. He did not meet her eyes. "Dry pantry and root cellar."

"The door is open," Amy pointed out and she stepped into the threshold. She was curious and she wanted to give the servants more time to relax before they were interrupted. Sheldon flipped a switch and several bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling lit up. "It's mostly empty."

"We're a small household now. When I was a child, it would have been full. This hallway would have been busy. Missy was always sneaking down to steal sweets and coaxing me to join her, risking the ire of our nanny. We hid in here too often."

What a child-like story! Amy tried to imagine small Sheldon, in short pants, committing even the smallest of mischiefs. "I can't imagine you stealing sweets."

"I didn't. My sister did. I only joined her to escape from whatever deplorable woman was trying to contain us at the time."

Something brushed against Amy's ankle and she yelped, jumping back. "Eeek!" She caught her breath, looking down into a pair of green eyes staring back at her. "Oh, it's a cat! I was worried it was a rat."

Sheldon made a face. "Never. It's precisely why there is a cat."

Crouching down, Amy petted the soft black creature who leaned into her palm and purred before stepping away, her tail high. She looked back and meowed so Amy followed her deeper into the room.

"Where are you going?" Sheldon called after her.

"She has kittens!" Amy exclaimed as the cat jumped into a low box filled with straw. Arranging herself on the stone floor, she gently reached out to brush the tiny creatures. There were two, one a black like its mother and the other a pale gray. Their blue eyes were open and they gave the tiniest cries in response to Amy's attention, walking across the soft straw toward her. She picked up the gray one, clearly the more forward of the two, and sat it in her lap. She looked up at Sheldon, still standing. "Not even a kitten interests you?"

He sighed but sat down beside her, folding his long legs with some difficulty in the narrow space between the shelves. "Cats are the only acceptable creatures to allow in one's abode."

Taking that for more than she knew he meant by it, Amy scooped up the black kitten and sat it on his lap. "Feel how soft he is."

The kitten settled right into his new spot, tucking his little feet under him and letting Sheldon run his hand from his head down to his tail, which didn't take long as the black puffball wasn't any larger than his palm.

"He's purring," Amy pointed out. "Were there kittens when you hid down here with your sister?"

"Sometimes."

Amy's kitten was not nearly as still as Sheldon's, walking first one way and then the other on her lap, accepting but also fighting the gentle guidance of her hand. "This one's like mercury," she said. "Look at it, silver and slinky. And its fur is so sleek. Do you think it has a name already or shall we call it Mercury? And yours could be Coal - or Carbon; look how it sits so still."

"We won't be naming them," Sheldon said.

"Why not?" She looked over at him. "Do you think the servants already have?"

"Because they are not pets. They're working animals. This is the only animal allowed in the house because it serves a purpose."

"But it's not like the chickens and the cows. We aren't in the barn. It won't - you won't -" She shook the rest of the sentence away.

"Just because an animal is not raised for food does not mean it is not raised to work. Without working cats, we would have rodents. Here in the house, out in the barn, in all the outbuildings. There's even a couple of toms that live outside the laboratory."

"I know, but well . . . there were kittens here in the autumn, right?, because the night of - Well, Mr. Bloom mentioned them. So surely you have plenty."

Sheldon sighed and then said, his voice soft, "Amy, life is not easy for a farm cat. There are foxes and other predators. Even in the barn, a stray hoof can end a life. And some just disappear, possibly injured, but we never know."

"Oh." Amy pulled the little silver baby close to her chest. "But don't you want to save some?"

"We cannot save them all. Just as we cannot save the calves that are born too soon and die, frozen in the field. Or, because it was a complicated birth too soon, the mother becomes paralyzed and we have to put down a perfectly good milking cow. Or keep the chickens entirely shielded from the foxes. The farmers here cannot protect their horses from every broken leg or their rabbits from predators. This is a working estate, not a petting zoo."

"I don't see how you can be so cold and callous about it," Amy pouted.

"I'm not!" Sheldon snapped. "When I was a child, I never knew. And then, as an adult, I had to learn about the farm and I saw horrible, cruel things. Things my father had allowed because, to him, the farmers were nothing more than peasants. And things my brother allowed because he was - he wasn't in his mind enough to notice. They had hard lives and their animals had it worse. I had to change things. I wanted to be fair to the tenets, but I wouldn't allow the animals to suffer as a result. I studied animal husbandry and farming techniques. I would grant tenancy for life, at fair rates, but the farmers have to follow rules now, about how they will treat their animals. I bought tractors for communal use to save on horses. We only kill the foxes and deer that are a nuisance, no more hunts for sport. Every animal, even the tomcats, must be given warm shelter. If an animal is found sick or injured, we call the veterinarian immediately. Or, if it's too late, we do not allow it to suffer. I did not want this life, farming does not interest me in the least, but I am the keeper of this land. And this land is a farm, for better or worse. It is not just my livelihood at stake, it is theirs. I do not need this giant house to live in, but there are war widows and land girls and crippled men, and they need their houses or else they'd have nothing. And their food. And a job to do. You cannot just see a helpless kid or kitten, you have to see the whole system. And so, yes, these kittens will grow up to work, to protect the harvest in someone's storehouse or keep the mice away from our goat cheese or the moles out of our gardens. Because that is what living on an estate is about. It's also about order and doing things a certain way because traipsing around at odd times upsets the servants' schedule. Things are done a certain way at Medford. We do not trot out on a whim to see some goats, asking a farmer to stop his work, just because some city-girl enjoys the novelty."

Amy plopped the silver kitten next to its mother and scrambled out of the storeroom. She followed the sounds to the kitchen, her head down low lest someone see her, and she ignored the calls from the staff behind her. She ran up the servants staircase and stopped to remove her muddy boots at the top. Only because she did not want to make extra work for the servants, not because she was worried in the least about Lord Cooper's precious carpets.


Knock, knock, knock. "Amy?"

Amy ignored him, curled up as she was in her bed, still wearing Sheldon's oversized sweater. Hugging the sweater because at least it made her feel connected to him.

Knock, knock, knock.

Who was this man at her door? Not the man who had been writing to her. Instead, he was stoic and moody, leaving her alone and bored. The longest he'd spoken to her was to angrily lecture her about farming and the estate, as though she was a child. But only when she asked. Why was she not allowed to be interested in his work?

Knock, knock, knock.

Would she forever be expected to have no interest or say in running the estate or the house? She wanted a partner, not a caretaker. Or was he correct? Did he see that she had no idea how one even began to run such a place, with servants and tenets and employees and animals? It was all so overwhelming, so different from everything she'd ever known in London.

"Go away!" she called.

"It is my house and I have nowhere else to go."

"You have five thousand other rooms."

"Correction. It's only two hundred and eighteen other rooms."

"Fine. But only because quarters are so tight."

The sarcasm must have been lost on him, as her bedroom door opened behind her. She did not roll over to look at him.

"Are you ill?" Sheldon asked. "Is it - is it your courses?"

"Oh, good heavens! I suppose now you'll tell me I'm hysterical from a floating womb or some such nonsense."

This was met with silence that finally drove Amy to turn over. Sheldon stood inside the door and had the decency to look sheepish. "I'm not ill," she said more calmly, pulling herself upright. "I'm angry."

"I came to apologize. I should not have spoken to you that way, so harshly."

"No, you shouldn't have." He had not said which part he was apologizing for; in such a long rebuke, surely he could find more than one thing to regret.

"I realize this is all new to you. As it was to me once, despite growing up here. But I've had years to learn about the system, to adjust to it, to accept the things I cannot change. I should not expect you to understand how an estate functions."

"I'm not some foolish young flapper from the typing pool who doesn't know where her sausages come from."

"Are there still flappers?"

"Sheldon!"

He put his hands up in surrender and then said, "May I?" He waved a hand toward her bed. It was a surprising question; never would her mother have approved of a man sitting on her bed with her, even with the bedroom door open as it was. But Amy nodded and pulled her feet up out of the way to give him room to sit.

Looking down at the messed coverlet, Sheldon said, "I know you are not foolish or a flapper. Or just from the typing pool. I would not be courting you if that were so."

"Are we courting?"

His blue eyes looked up sharply. "Are we not?" Then he licked his lips and whispered, "Do you no longer wish to?"

"Of course I wish to be courted by you." Amy sighed. "I just - I love our letters and I was so pleased that you asked me to spend Easter week here, but I wanted to get to know you better than I can from the letters alone."

"But I tell you everything when I write."

"No, you don't. You say you go for walks on the estate or that you had to meet with a farmer or some such, but you never explain it to me. I wanted to see it for myself. I want to know about that part of your life. But you've only shut me out."

"Because it's not science and I didn't think you'd find it interesting."

Amy shook her head. "It is science. You said yourself: you studied and learned new ways or the proper ways to do things." She paused. "I won't pretend it's an area of science I'm highly interested in, either. But I am interested in you and the things you do."

His hand toyed along the stitches in the coverlet. "It is true I have tried to bring science to what is done here. But I only find it slightly more interesting than geology. Heaven forbid we find a Roman ruin in the field one day. I'd much rather be in my laboratory or my library. Or reading one of your letters. I wish I did not have to do it."

"And I wish for your sake that you didn't. But you do; you just told me how important it all is, the land and the farmers. You said it's your duty, so why not talk about it? It's the closest thing to a job you have."

"My job is a scientist."

"No, that is a hobby - an important one, yes - that you do because you enjoy it and happen to earn some money from it. But your primary financial concern and your duty as a peer is to manage this estate. Is that not correct?"

"Are you going to quote Shakespeare again?" Sheldon whined.

Sighing, Amy said, "No. I know it's a responsibility you don't want, but it seems to me that you're doing good here. And maybe it would be a easier to withstand the things you don't enjoy - that upset you - if you told me about them. If we're courting, I want to know - I deserve to know - all these things about you. If it's important to you, then it's important to me."

"I prefer to focus on our commonalities, not our differences."

"Well, I don't."

Sheldon was confused by her comment, his neck stretching in that way he had, so Amy continued, "If we were exactly the same, wouldn't that be boring? I love discussing our common interests, too, but I am more than my education and my puzzles, Sheldon. I like to knit and sew and read romance novels and go to the cinema if I would ever have the funds." Suddenly a thought occurred to her. "Do you - do you not like reading about those things in my letters to you?"

"I admit I cannot understand some of the things you write about, especially the gossip of the women in your boarding house, but I enjoy reading the way you describe it. It's . . . fascinating."

"That is my point. How can you expect me to learn all these vast secrets of an estate if you never tell me?"

Sheldon made an uncomfortable noise, as though he had a pain somewhere. "That is a valid point."

Normally, Amy would have liked to gloat, but the desire had left her, somewhere in that sound of acquiescence. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her knees and asked, "Tell me about the land girls."

"What?" Again, Sheldon looked confused, this time no doubt by the change in topic.

"Downstairs, you said something about the land girls as farmers, needing income. But that was during the war. What did you mean?"

Rearranging on the bed, Sheldon explained, "During the war, there were land girls assigned to Medford. I was studying at Cambridge at the time, so I had no interest or time to concern myself with them. And, after the war, as you know, I was at Oxford and rarely here. But after Georgie passed and I came back, I had to look over everything and take control." He looked away from her, gazing out the window. "I told you that things had gone poorly here, and most of that was related to the tenant farmers. Immediately after the war, the manager at the time sent all the land girls packing, even before The Land Army was officially disbanded. But so many of Medford's men had perished or been wounded in the war. He sent the war widows and the wounded away, too, because they couldn't pay their rent. And there weren't enough farmers for the land or enough food being produced and corners were being cut and animals were being neglected or overworked for what little income could be had. So much had fallen into disrepair. Fields and gardens, gone to seed. The worst was that so many, even here on this land, were starving. Meanwhile, of course, the manager took a grand salary for himself and either didn't inform my mother and brother of the true state of affairs or they didn't notice." He looked back. "The land, the farm, it was the only source of income then. And food. So I fired the manager and took over myself. We needed farmers, healthy strong young people to work the land. To work it properly, to treat it and the animals with respect. But there were so few men."

Amy nodded, thinking of all the women she had met during her years in London, not just seeking employment because they wanted to be liberated but because they would starve otherwise. There were so few men, just as Sheldon said. No one to marry. No one to provide. And so she, like so many women of her generation, had to find a way to provide for themselves in a world that saw them as less, that paid them less.

Continuing his story, Sheldon explained, "Mr. Ingram, whom you met today, he was one of the few who had not gone to war and he had married one of the land girls. I went to them, I explained what I needed. I needed his help and I needed to know if his wife was still in contact with her former colleagues. She was, and I wrote them letters, asking if they had enjoyed the work and if they would like a tenancy of their own -"

"Wait! The farmers here on the estate are all women?" Amy asked, her mouth agape. "And you're just now mentioning this to me? Why would you think I would not find that interesting?"

"Not all of them. There were older farmers, like Mr. Johnson, who had managed to hang on here during the lean years. And I offered all the wounded their farms back if they thought they could at least work in some fashion. And, in the past few years, the numbers of young men are equalizing again. But, yes, over half my tenets are female."

She let her arms drop in excitement. "Sheldon, don't you see? One of the largest intact estates in the whole country is being farmed primarily by women and no one knows? What you've set up here is unheard of. Revolutionary, even, at least for peacetime. It's perfect for my column."

"Is it?" Sheldon shrugged. "I needed good workers and I needed them quickly, so it seemed most reasonable to seek out those with experience on the farms here. There were positions to fill and they were willing and able. It was as simple as that."

"Just a moment." Scrambling from the bed, Amy went to the desk, grabbing a pencil and notepad that she had left there from working the day before. Then she crawled back across the bed, settling closer to Sheldon and curling her legs under her. "I have so many questions. Is Mr. Ingram your farm manager?"

"No," Sheldon shook his head. "I wouldn't have another, not after the one I let go. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. And why are you taking notes? Is this an interview?"

"Oh! That's such a brilliant idea!" Amy slapped the notepad with her palm. "I should ask them all my questions directly. I know! I should invite them all here for tea and I can get all their stories at once, find out about the work, how they meet the physical challenges, about any prejudice they suffer from their families or others in the village - is that a problem, do you know? Are they married?" Amy looked down to scribble her questions as they occurred to her. "Do they still work the land after marriage? I suppose you could give me those figures. We'll have to give Mr. Bloom and the cook some notice but I'm here this week. Sunday might be best for them, but I'm leaving -"

"Amy, wait," Sheldon said softly, "what are you doing?"

She looked up, surprised by his stern face. "Making a plan. I'll have the former land girls here to tea and -"

But she stopped when saw Sheldon shake his head. "That's not how it's done. You can't have them to tea."

"What?" A fire rose in her. "Why not? You just told me about your progressive, forward-thinking plan to use female farmers and now you're telling me they're not good enough to come to tea? 'It's not how it's done!' What a load of privileged rot -"

"Amy -" he rested his hand on her knee and that made her stop, staring into his blue eyes "- it's not that I wouldn't have the farmers to tea. Although I can hear my mother spinning in her grave from here." He looked down. "It's only your second visit to Medford, you see, and, well, you're not . . ."

The reality dawned upon her and she sat her notepad aside. She whispered, "It's not my house. I'm not the Countess of Medford."

"Yes."

They sat in silence, the warmth of Sheldon's palm seeping in through the rough fabric of the borrowed trousers. He had not moved it and it was the one thing Amy clung to at that moment.

"It was my understanding," Sheldon started, his voice hushed, "that you wanted to stay in London to finish your education. Because Cambridge will not confer degrees to women."

"I do."

"Amy, I - I -" Sheldon began toying with the seam of her trousers, plucking his thumb along it. "I don't know." He cleared his throat, "That is, perhaps it is too early to say this but I - I have fallen in love with your letters."

Her stomach did some sort of a flop, somewhere between giddiness and nausea, because of his words and his fingers tickling her skin. "My letters?"

"Yes. So much so that I've had some difficulty reconciling the reality of your presence here, the changes you might represent. I did not expect that and it has confused me. I think I've acted poorly as a result."

"I love your letters, as well," Amy answered, choosing her words carefully, "But I would like to court in person, as well." She placed her hand over his, stilling its worry along her thigh, as much as she was enjoying it. "Come to London. I know you do not generally leave Medford, but let me show you my life. And you can show me the same here. I think we both have some things to learn about one another."

He paused and then nodded slowly. "Alright. I do not, as a rule, enjoy London, but I do have to go from time to time, to see my tailor or my bankers or the House. And I have some upcoming appointments with the Academic Assistance Council."

"It's a date," Amy said with a smile. She threaded her fingers between his and his hand relaxed around hers.

"Yes." His smile back was small but sure.

To be continued . . .


How big is Medford Hall? Well, these things are relative. Biltmore Estate, the largest home in the US, claims 250 rooms but that includes closets, stairwells, passages, etc. Highclere Castle, famous for its use as Downton Abbey, claims 300 using the same criteria. Would Sheldon count such small ante spaces as rooms? Maybe, maybe not. So, let's say Medford Hall is roughly the size of Biltmore Estate.

The British Women's Land Army was created in 1917 to place women in agriculture positions that were vacated by men called up to serve in World War I. It was reformed in 1939 in preparation for World War II.

Thank you in advance for your reviews!