“Of course, I won’t sack you! Do you really think I’m that cruel?”
“I was hoping you were,” Blythe said. What on earth was wrong with his sister? “Why can’t you be a real witch to me and take away my job for good?”
Molly chuckled as she busied herself with hanging freshly washed clothes behind the cottage. Blythe followed her, dragging the large tin tub filled with that week’s washing.
“I suppose I’ll have to resign myself to the fact that you’re going through a phase that no one else in the family had ever experienced,” she said. “You need to work, Blythe, even if it’s what you’re so fond of calling a girl’s job.”
“But when can I move on to something that fits me more?”
“Like what?”
Blythe paused. He still hadn’t figured that one out, and being stymied like this really dampened his chances of emerging victorious during arguments. “I’ll have to get back to you on that, but I know there’s something out there for me. I’m just—one of those special delayed-maturity sorts. Like one of those flower things that get stuck for a while before they manage to bloom or do what flowers do that make girls faint. Delayed blooming, I suppose. That’d be me. And it means a special kind of handling from loved ones—especially loved ones.”
Molly had stopped her clothes-hanging to turn and stare at her brother with a look that defied description. It wasn’t a frown, and it wasn’t a grimace. It was certainly not a smile. Blythe noted that the safest interpretation would be the kind of look that promised a swift death in her hands.
“Well, you did ask,” he countered, and Molly rolled her eyes and went back to her task.
“Blythe, you’ll move on when you develop a deeper appreciation of honest, hard work. You’re not stealing, and you’re no heir. Fortune gave you a specific path to follow, and it’s up to you to do what you can with what you have.”
“Can’t I deviate a little bit here and there?”
“Dear little brother, I’m not saying that you can’t, but life’s a good deal more complicated than that. I say stick to what you have, and if chances come up along the way, think first before running after them. Some of them might not do you good, but some will certainly help.”
Blythe frowned at his weathered shoes, chewing his lip. That sounded awfully familiar. Oh, yes, it was an echo, almost, of what Jack Wicket had said before. “And how would I know if one chance is a good thing or a bad thing?”
Molly sighed. “I can’t help you there. It’s always a gamble. Lord, I’m gambling with my cake sales, even with our modest success, but I feel in my gut that I’m on the right track, and I’m keeping to it.”
Gut instinct? Blythe mulled that one over some more, and in the end, he hoped his gut wasn’t so shrunken from years of illness and near-starvation that it wouldn’t be sending him the necessary signals to help him determine what was right or wrong with the choices he’d be facing.
Molly stopped her work and eyed a shirt she’d just hung, her wet hands on her hips. Then she glanced over her shoulder to grin at Blythe. “I’m optimistic about our chances. I think we can impress so many people at the market that we’ll receive enough orders to keep us busy between market days.”
Blythe cocked a brow. “I don’t understand. You mean to say that Upchurch has enough residents living with constipation for us to live comfortably?”
“It looks like it, but I’m not too sure yet about living comfortably. It’ll be extra income, to be sure, but it’s still too early to tell. As far as I know, we’ve generated enough interest to make me hopeful.” Molly held out a hand, and Blythe pulled up a dripping pair of trousers, which she took and wrung out thoroughly before draping it on the clothesline. “Success never happens instantly, Blythe.”
“Unless you’re lucky.”
“Unless you’re lucky, yes, and even then, good luck when it comes to riches rarely ever happens.”
“I told Jack that, and he says that makes it even more worthwhile to wait for good luck to come your way.” Blythe dragged the tub a couple more feet to follow Molly’s progression.
“And if it never happens?”
Blythe fell silent, considering. “I think he doesn’t believe that. He always says that good luck’s bound to happen, regardless.”
Molly chuckled and turned to regard him. “It happens to all people, I suppose—even those who murder and hurt and cheat.”
Blythe shrugged. “I never bothered to ask him about that part, but I’m sure he’s got answers to everything.”
Molly rolled her eyes again and indicated the tub. Blythe pulled out another pair of trousers and was relieved to find that no more wet clothes awaited him. “Your friend, dear, is a good-for-nothing who’ll justify his laziness in every possible way. Now, I don’t like dictating rules about friendship, but I hope that you at least try to think more critically about his philosophies.”
Blythe clamped his mouth shut and carried the empty tub off to the edge of their backyard and threw away residual water before taking it back indoors. Molly hadn’t said anything new. As she’d done so many times in the past, the key to one’s future lay in honest, hard work. And Blythe’s questions regarding life and whether or not there was something more to it grew more insistent.
“Never thought I’d say this, but I think Jack’s been right all along.”
* * * *
It had been almost a fortnight since Blythe was forced to take up the infamous Midwinter Morning Bread Job. He found, when his eyes reluctantly cracked open under Molly’s infernally cheerful early morning call, that he was getting used to the dreadful schedule. His mood remained black, of course, but it had lightened by a couple of very subtle shades, so he’d describe it more along the lines of “very dark gray”—almost as void as the tomb but with a bit of air to make it ever-so-slightly more bearable. He’d never been good with languages, let alone English, or, worse, poetry.
It also helped that Molly did take pity on him and took care to set aside a bowl or a plate of the previous evening’s meal for Blythe to eat in the morning. It helped in keeping him full and energetic, and he’d received a couple of sleepy compliments from bleary-eyed servants about his “improving looks”. The heavier breakfast lifted his mood as well, and he found it a tad—just a tad, he was quick to emphasize—easier to convince non-early morning risers of the benefits of Molly’s freshly baked bread. Or more like half-a-day fresh bread, however one more accurately described it.
As it tends to happen in life, however, he saw that he’d no choice but to take the bitter with the sweet. Younger servant girls continued to flirt with him, and he needed to come up with a better method of getting them to buy the bread than leaving the loaf on the ground with a little tin cup sitting next to it, waiting for their confounded money to be tossed inside.
The other issue involved Mr. Ruffle, whose energy and enthusiasm for outlandish gossip never once flagged. Oddly enough, Molly claimed to have never been harassed by the old man when she used to sell bread.
“He just smiled, complimented me on my bread, gave me money, and then said goodbye,” she said to an incredulous Blythe one time while he soaked his tired feet.
“Why’s he doing this to me? I never encouraged him or even ask about the weather. What’ve I done wrong?”
“I think you just have to the kind of face that invites wild stories and unnecessary attention,” Molly replied, tousling his hair. “Now hurry up with your foot soak. I need extra hands for vegetable duty.”
* * * *
“I don’t understand why we all have to look inappropriately decent,” Bertie groused from his usual corner as he glumly watched Molly fuss over Blythe. “Nobody buys something because the vendor’s dressed up like he’s about to be dragged off to church.”
Blythe nodded, and he’d have said something had Molly not forced him to wear that same too-tight waistcoat. It was all he could do to wheeze his support of Bertie’s complaint and feel a touch sympathetic toward those fashionable ladies who teetered about in bone-breaking corsets. Perhaps it was high time for him to acquire a castoff that was more his size, but the process, he told himself, was going to be a tedious one considering the competition and the low possibility of finding something that fitted him perfectly. Unless he enjoyed a sudden and extreme growth spurt, he couldn’t look to Bertie’s old clothes for something he could use without spending countless hours altering them, and heaven knew, Molly could do with less work piled onto her already full plate.
He bit back a curse as he pinched his eyes shut. Molly was now putting all her attention on his hair, which she combed vigorously.
“Unfortunately for you two, I received nothing but compliments from several folks who were, apparently, too embarrassed to tell you themselves. And, yes, they bought some cakes from us,” she said in that annoyingly sprightly way of hers. She stopped shredding Blythe’s scalp with the comb and stepped back to survey the damage with a pleased sound in her throat. “I happened to stumble across them during my quick walk, and they told me everything I’d hoped to hear.”
Blythe regarded her dubiously. “I’ve a feeling you’re just making that up,” he said.
Molly grinned. “I am. But you can’t deny that we’re the best-looking stall in the market, and if I want to rise above the competition—and I’ve got quite a stiff one out there—I need do everything I can to be noticed, pride be damned.”
“Cold comfort, that,” Bertie muttered as he shuffled stiffly out the door, looking like a well-dressed prisoner on his way to the gallows.
Molly followed him, still chattering endlessly about how “silly” her “two dashing brothers” were and other such nonsense. As Blythe walked out the door, still wheezing, he grudgingly had to admit that Bertie had drawn a great deal of interest among the female crowds, regardless of age. Blythe was sure that, in addition to the motherly urges roused by Bertie’s overgrown schoolboy look, there were likely those tender, romantic feelings stirred in the female breast by his “poor gentleman” appearance. The latter was, Blythe reasoned, nothing more than a more grown up description of his brother’s overgrown schoolboyishness.
As he followed his siblings to the hired horse and cart, he had to stifle a little smile. He also had to admit that Bertie, in his big, awkward, lumbering way, was very much the kind of fellow whom every woman would love to spoil rotten. As for him—Blythe made a face as he looked down at his too-small, spidery body—he’d quite a ways to go. Being stunted his growth made him appear two or three years younger, but he hoped that, with Molly’s steady rise up the baking ranks, Blythe would somehow make up for all those physical deficiencies with better, more solid food.
Bertie and Molly sat at the front, and Blythe hopped onto the back of the cart, his legs hanging down as he faced the road behind. With him were the cakes, all carefully set against and on top of each other. For this market day, Molly had decided to wrap each cake in very much the same way she wrapped her bread loaves. They certainly looked more appealing now, though that also meant losing some profits because Molly refused to raise the price of her cakes.
“It was Mrs. Brainswell’s first advice to me,” she’d said. “She’s a professional baker, and I trust her completely.”
The ride to the market was quite pleasant. Recovering—though perhaps only momentarily—from their discomfort at being so well-dressed, Bertie and Blythe were easily coaxed into a light, idle conversation with Molly. With other people on the road heading in the same direction, the siblings were soon drawn to a good deal of brief but high-spirited exchanges with fellow vendors and early shoppers. Much of the attention was focused on Bertie and Molly, with Blythe receiving a few scattered pleasantries and praises. Rather typical, Blythe thought, mentally shrugging, but then again, considering how terribly self-conscious he felt now, the friendly dismissals proved to be quite welcome.
As before, Mrs. Pugsley was there, waiting for them, and brimming with her usual good cheer and motherly attention. She’d already readied their table for them, bless her, and she even brought some of her own home-cooked dishes to share with them while at the market, and Molly nearly burst into tears. Blythe used to think that the woman was overly solicitous and even suffocating in the attention she lavished on the orphaned trio; however, he’d softened toward her once he learned that not only was she widowed, she’d never had children.
“Oh, there, there, dear girl,” Mrs. Pugsley cooed, leading a red-eyed and stammering Molly away from all the activity while Bertie and Blythe set up the table and laid out both their cakes and Mrs. Pugsley’s potions. “You know very well I consider you three to be family.”
And so on and so forth. Molly sat on a rickety stool that had been set against the tree, utterly lost to emotions. When Blythe turned to check up on her, she merely waved him away while blowing her nose.
“Lord, dear Molly’s such a soft heart,” Mrs. Pugsley said, clucking and blushing as she joined the two brothers in finishing up the table.
An idea struck Blythe. Sidling up to the widow after taking care that Molly wasn’t watching, he asked in a low voice, “Since you have such a strong influence on my sister, would you be so kind as to convince her not to dress us up so nice for market day?”
They’d busied themselves to finishing up their cake table, while Bertie led the horse and cart around the tree. A good deal of free space could be had, and they didn’t need to send both cart and horse back to the farmer they’d hired from. The cart, once emptied of all the cakes, provided them with a place of rest, away from the bustle at the tables.
“Oh, whatever for?” Mrs. Pugsley asked, grinning, as they took turns arranging the cakes in the most attractive yet practical display they could think of.
“We all look ridiculous. Molly insists that we attract more attention that way, but only Bertie gets all of that. Molly must have drawn people, too, but definitely not me.”
“Not you? What makes you say that?”
“Well—because it’s true. I’m just a child in most people’s eyes, and I’m perfectly fine with that if that means giving me a reason not to look so silly. So there’s really no incentive for me to go through all this trouble on market day.” Blythe swept his hands up and down his front to indicate his appearance.
Mrs. Pugsley regarded him, amusement lighting up her eyes. “You don’t want to be noticed? Is that what you’re saying?”
Blythe nodded, relieved. “You understand, then.”
“Oh, I quite understand, you dear boy. Unfortunately for you, though, you’re rather late.”
“Late? I don’t understand.”
“Oh, you.” Mrs. Pugsley laughed heartily, her round, ruddy face turning redder, her plump figure shaking. “You’ve already attracted attention, whether you like it or not. A boy came around quite early today, asking for you. I told him you haven’t arrived yet, and he promised to come back.”
Blythe nodded as he carefully arranged the last few cakes in a neat row. “Oh, him. That’s Jack Wicket, and I already know him. He must’ve been sent to the market for something, but I doubt if he was able to carry it through, knowing him. He probably wants me to sneak out sometime and go watch the madness at the Magicians’ Corner and maybe stuff ourselves silly with some pudding.”
“Jack Wicket? That insufferable, lazy lout? Heavens, no! It was a different boy—well-dressed and well-spoken. Very much a young gentleman in every way.”
Blythe froze and stared at her. “Gentleman?”
“And quite handsome, too, I might add—though in an engaging sort of way. He’s not like one of those overly attractive dandies who prance around for everyone to see. He’s quieter and more soft-spoken but so affable and engaging. It’s hard not to think of him as handsome, if you get my meaning, with those qualities. Definitely a far cry from that odious Wicket boy.” Mrs. Pugsley sighed as she regarded the tables in their shared space with a pleased grin, her hands on her hips. “Oh, but don’t worry, Blythe. He did promise to return, and as a gentleman, he’s sure not to break such a promise.”