Page 35 of The Seaside Homecoming
“Thank you.” She slipped her spencer on again and began doing up its buttons, turning toward Mary as she did so. “Now, go back to sleep.”
But Mary already had.
On her way downstairs, Claire walked through the first floor, planning to make sure the bath-room had enough towels.
As she did, she passed Mr. Filonov’s room and, hearing someone speaking, paused outside the door, wondering who he might be talking to so early.
The voice was low, and Claire could not make out the words. She leaned closer and realized their guest was speaking in a foreign language—his mother tongue, no doubt. But to whom?
Perhaps he was talking to himself, an artist’s eccentricity. Or perhaps he was dreaming and didn’t realize he spoke aloud.
She was about to walk on when a second man spoke in the same language—at least the intonations seemed similar. This second voice sounded younger and quite familiar, despite the unfamiliar words.
Footsteps approached the door from within, the voices drawing nearer. Claire quickly hurried to the bath-room, looking over her shoulder just as the door opened.
Mr. Hammond emerged, said something to the older man that sounded like “Spah-see-bah,” and stepped into the corridor. The artist responded with another foreign phrase and shut the door behind him.
Seeing Claire in the nearby doorway, Mr. Hammond paused and looked at her as though waiting for her to speak.
Should she say something? Or pretend she had not heard?
She made do with, “Mr. Filonov is Russian—is that what you told me?”
“From St. Petersburg, yes.”
She slowly nodded, watching his face as he watched hers. He offered no further explanation, so she decided not to press him.
Claire had no idea why a boarding-house keeper in the south of England would speak Russian. She thought again of the coin and letter she had found.And perhaps other languages as well.
He consulted his pocket watch. “Almost time to set off for church. Have you seen Mira?”
“Here I am, Papa!” Mira came down the stairs, Miss Patel holding her hand. Today Mira was once again dressed as a traditional English miss: printed cotton gown, short spencer, and a bonnet tied under her chin. In gloved hands, she held a small prayer book.
Once she’d delivered the girl to her father, Sonali retreated back up to the attic.
Father and daughter started down the stairs to the front hall. He glanced back. “Will you be joining us, Miss Summers?”
“You two go ahead. I will ... catch up.”
She did not want to walk with them. To draw attention. To potentially cause rumors that might further injure her family. And if she went alone, she could always turn around if her courage failed her, which it very well might.
Claire followed at a distance, and upon reaching St. Giles and St. Nicholas, tarried until the Hammonds had disappeared through its doors. She had no intention of sitting with them. No intention of sitting with anyone she knew.
As she stood there on the churchyard path, Claire’s heart pounded hard. Could she do this? Should she? There was little doubt her family would be there—especially as it appeared Mamma was no longer too weak to leave her bed. Claire half wished and half feared to see her again.
She had no desire to make a spectacle of herself or to upset anyone. Yet she needed this—needed God’s presence and the comfort of corporate worship, even as she felt unworthy to join the faithful.
The door opened again as another straggler entered, and from inside, she heard the chords of an organ prelude. Palms perspiring in her gloves, Claire timidly entered behind two elderly women and slipped into a pew on the left, near the back.
Looking down the row, Claire realized she had most likely seated herself among the poor widows and spinsters. Yet who was she, after all?
She thought of the Scripture about the Canaanite woman to whom Jesus said,Let the children first be filled....And the woman answered,Yes, Lord; yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.
That’s how she felt. Unworthy to sit at the Lord’s table, but still longing for its crumbs.
Several older women in the same pew sent her curious, even disgruntled, glances. She had probably taken someone’s usual place. Claire kept her eyes averted, trying to ignore their stares.
The parish clerk announced the psalm they were to sing, and the congregation soon raised their voices in worship.
