Corinne glanced at Hazel before looking down. The glance was enough, however. It had been filled with desire and hope.
“I think you have found your first student, Mrs. Penhale,” Mrs. Randall said as she returned to her place and lifted her cup and saucer. “And a connection to the very girls you want to serve. In parishes such as this, a girl’s education is usually dependent on her mother; if the mother has limited learning, the girls follow. Change that pattern, and you change everything. Now, how else might I help, and when do you think you can start?”
By the following Monday, Hazel had three students: Corinne and two of her nieces, twelve-year-old Bonnie and fifteen-year-old Rachel. By the first of February, she’d added two of the girls’ friends, and by March, Corinne’s sister and two more girls from the parish had joined the class. Lessons were held for just one hour each morning as it was all the time they could spare from their responsibilities at home.
Each student was assessed to see what they already knew, and then Hazel and Mrs. Randall worked together to create an individual course of study. Mrs. Randall came every morning and read with the younger girls, while Hazel focused on factoring and recitation. Corinne could read, and her grasp of numbers was excellent, but she had almost no writing skills—something that shocked Hazel due to how competent Corinne was in her work. That she had risen to the service level of managing a home, even a small one, without the ability to write was rather astounding.
By April, all the students of her “parlor school” knew their letters and numbers as well as basic addition and subtraction. They were at different levels of reading and writing, but all of them were moving forward and were excited about what they had learned. Though Hazel had taught for many years, not all of the students in her classes had wanted the education she offered them. Every one of her students in Ipswich were hungry for it. Starved.
For payment, each student was expected to bring something each week for either Hazel or Mrs. Randall. It had been Mrs. Randall’s idea because she believed the students would better appreciate what they were given if they had to think of how to repay it.
Diane was an excellent cook and brought a pie each Monday. Corinne, who knew that Duncan and Hazel engaged in all manner of discussions in the evenings, found obscure articles and periodicals Hazel could use as the basis for discussions that Duncan was unprepared for. It was nice to know more about a subject than he did, and he was always eager to learn. The younger girls brought things like drawings or pieces of stitching.
Hazel graciously received each item and kept them in her writing desk as a reminder of the widow’s mite, a Bible story Duncan had chosen as his discussion topic a few weeks before.
On an afternoon during the first week of April, Hazel was reading in preparation for the evening’s discussion about the fall of the Assyrians. She’d taught for four hours that morning, and then had held an extra reading session with Diane’s girls. Hazel was ready to enjoy her own time when there was a knock at the front door.
Hazel listened for an indication of who the visitor might be and was surprised to hear a male voice at the door. A male visitor was enough of an anomaly in and of itself, but for a man to visit in the afternoon when Duncan was still at the office was simply not done. Not once in the five months of living in Lavender House had such a thing happened. Even the vicar—who felt driven to drop by every few weeks—came with his wife if he visited during the day.
Corinne’s voice rose in pitch, like a younger girl’s, and Hazel suddenly knew exactly who was at the door. She put aside the book, straightened her spine, and took a deep cleansing breath as his voice got closer. A rather glowing Corinne entered the room first, but Hazel looked past her until her eyes—hazel like their father’s—connected with eyes almost as familiar, though they were blue like the Mayfield side of their family.
Hazel forced a polite smile and put out a resigned hand to her brother, whom she had not seen since their mother’s funeral. She kept her tone even. “Harry, what a surprise.”
His eyes twinkled as he crossed the room. He bowed over her hand the way he used to when they played pretend as children—before she’d been sent away and play had disappeared from her life entirely. It was nice to be reminded that they had once been playmates and friends before she’d gone to school. How long had it been since she’d thought of that?
“A good surprise, I hope,” he said as he straightened.
Corinne left the room, reluctantly, Hazel thought. Harry made women ridiculous.
“Of course it is not a good surprise,” Hazel said evenly, putting her hand back in her lap, unwilling to give her softer side power in this moment. There was still so much ugliness in their relationship. So much disappointment and disapproval and discarding. “I had not time to fix my hair and change my dress.”
Harry laughed. “As though I would expect such flippant preparation.” He sat on the settee and crossed one long, lean leg over the other knee. “I am on my way to London and thought I would stop in to say hello to the sister who does not return my letters.”
There had been three letters over the last few months. One congratulating her on her marriage, one asking her to attend his, and one asking why she had not responded to the other two. She was not entirely sure why she had not responded, other than the fact that she did not want to, and she found a sense of control in knowing she did not owe Harry anything.
“I have been very busy.”
He held her eyes. “Apparently.” They fell silent. “I think you also wanted to avoid me because you are angry with me and believe me a nitwit.”
Hazel rolled her eyes even though he was exactly right. She felt unprepared for a face-to-face confrontation. “If you pull the cord, Corinne will bring a tea tray.”
“I already asked if she would bring one, and she said she would. I’m starving.”
“Of course you asked, and of course she agreed.”
He stared at her, and his smile changed from teasing—his usual expression when they sparred—to . . . what?
He leaned back on the settee, waving a hand about the room. “Look at you, Hazel. Mistress of your castle.”
She brushed at some invisible flaw on her skirt to avoid his eyes. “I would hardly call it a castle. There were not so many choices that—”
“Stop resisting my compliment,” Harry said, his tone serious. “It is a beautiful home, and you manage it. I am impressed and trying to share that with you. You’ve done well for yourself.”
Hazel was so unused to compliments, especially from him, that she could not think how to respond. Finally, she said, “Thank you.”
“I would have liked to have attended the wedding.”
She squirmed and brushed at her skirt again. Harry’s company had always changed her into a person she did not like but felt driven to play out. Cold, judgmental, impossible to please or impress. Here she was, twenty-nine years old, and she still reverted to this childish persona. Why did she do that?