She had the morning off, it being Sunday. She sat on the riverbank, watching the water flow and looking for leaves. There wouldn’t be many leaves left on that magnificent oak so far upstream in Derbyshire. She wasn’t at all sure any of those leaves would reach this far downstream, but she always looked every time she was at the river’s edge.
She sighed. “Oh, Mama.” Marion missed her mother even more than usual. Mama would have known what to do for Caroline. The poor girl was far too pensive for her four years and, bless her little heart, seemed to expect abandonment at any moment.
Marion closed her eyes and clasped her hands on her lap. She sent a plea heavenward for strength and wisdom beyond what she knew she possessed. She’d seldom felt the absence of her mother more acutely than she had in the short time she’d been at Farland Meadows.
“Was there not sufficient time for prayer at church this morning?”
She knew that deep, rumbling voice in an instant: Mr. Jonquil.
Marion looked up at him and smiled. “It has been my experience that there is seldom enough time for all the petty concerns with which I am constantly bombarding heaven.”
Mr. Jonquil looked away from her, out over the river. “What petty concerns have brought you to your knees recently, Miss Wood?”
“Only the other day I prayed rather fervently for a miraculous change in hair color.”
That brought Mr. Jonquil’s gaze back to her, and he seemed surprised and almost amused. “Hair color?”
“I was told in not so many words that I would do better with a headful of something more subdued,” Marion said through her grin. “But, obviously, the Almighty disagreed.”
“He didn’t grant your petition, then?”
“Hardly.” Marion tugged at a loose lock of hair near her right temple. “Still as bright and obnoxious as ever.”
“No. It’s handsome. The color suits you.” Mr. Jonquil turned back toward the river. It was an offhand comment, but Marion felt certain he’d meant it, and she felt herself blush. Thank heaven he wasn’t looking at her.
“What have you petitioned the heavens for lately, sir?” Marion asked in an attempt to turn the subject away from herself.
Mr. Jonquil picked a stray branch off the ground. “I choose not to waste the Almighty’s time, Miss Wood.”
“No prayer is ever wasted, sir.”
“Give me one reason why God would want to hear from me.” A world of bitterness, pain, and disillusionment filled those few words.
Marion realized with shock that he meant it. Mr. Jonquil was convinced his prayers would not only be unheard but also resented.
He told Flip that God doesn’t like hypnowits. Marion thought over Caroline’s revelation.
“Forgive me,” Mr. Jonquil said after a moment of silence between them, though he didn’t sound very repentant. He swung the branch in his hand at the trunk of a nearby tree. “That was very un-Anglican of me.”
“It was, however, extremely human of you, Mr. Jonquil. In my experience, being human is a very good thing.”
“Except it can be deucedly unpleasant at times.” The twig broke against the tree trunk. “And now I need to apologize again.” Mr. Jonquil shrugged. “I really ought to watch my language.”
“That is precisely why I use words like double dungers. It can mean whatever I wish, and there is no need for apologies.”
She thought she heard a quiet chuckle and smiled at the sound. There was something so oppressively unhappy about Mr. Jonquil, an aura of tension that, at times, made him seem ready to explode. It didn’t fit him, like he wasn’t meant to be burdened so heavily.
“Do you truly believe God does not want to hear from you, sir?” she asked cautiously.
“Tell me this, Miss Wood.” Mr. Jonquil turned back toward her, a look of patient indulgence on his face as though he were explaining something quite simple to someone even simpler. “Think of the person who has done you the greatest disservice in your life—lied to you or cheated you out of something that was rightfully yours or something of that nature. How eager are you, Miss Wood, to hear from that person? I daresay you would rather resent the clod’s presumption.”
Hypnowit. “Hypocrite,” Marion whispered, suddenly understanding what Caroline had been trying to say.
“Precisely.” Mr. Jonquil turned back to the river, thwacking the branch in his hand repeatedly against the top of his boot. “No one likes a hypocrite.”
That, then, was the reason Mr. Jonquil never attended church and chose not to pray. It wasn’t a matter of not believing or being unreligious; for if that had been the case, he wouldn’t be so obviously bothered by his estrangement from the Almighty, and it did seem to bother him quite a bit. Mr. Jonquil believed in God and prayer but felt he’d disqualified himself from any association with the heavens.