Love Like the Dickens: A Heartswell Harbour Romance

by Mavis Williams

  Oscar stopped in front of her. He gently took her suitcase and set it aside.

  He took her face between his hands, warm and gentle, snowflakes melting on her skin. He tipped her head back and he kissed her.

  It was fire and ice, more of gravy than grave, and well worth the wait.

  “I thought you were Mrs. Crawley for a second,” she whispered. “You look good in Scrooge’s hat.”

  “I wanted to look like a stranger.” He ran his finger down her cheek. “I heard you like kissing strangers.”

  She smiled, stepping closer into his embrace.

  “I thought, if we were strangers, we could start again.” His voice rumbled against her ear as she held her head to his chest. “Only this time, I’ll get it right.”

  She gazed up at him, snowflakes dancing in the glow of twinkling lights. Savannah would love this. But this was not Savannah’s life, or Savannah’s decision. This was all Agnes.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you, Agnes. Will you stay?”

  She had found her destination. She would stay.

  She put her arm through his. They walked through the snow toward the Book Nook, a warm fire, a good book, and love.

  Epilogue

  Ellen took her first steps in the Book Nook.

  “My word, look at her go!” Mrs. Crawley held out her arms as Ellen toddled from the coffee table toward her, catching her just as her little legs stumbled after a few steps. “Why, she’s almost as clever as my Patricia was at her age. Patricia walked at eight months, you know. Ellen is a year old, so she certainly isn’t too far off target. Probably nothing to worry about. Patricia was simply brilliant, from day one—”

  “Irenia!” Belinda glared at her.

  “What?”

  “Have another slice of birthday cake, Irenia. Ellen is perfect, thank you.” Nora winked at Belinda as she scooped Ellen into her arms. She passed her to her father, Paul, who had been invited to the gathering even though he and Nora still lived apart. It seemed to be working for them, and Oscar was pleased to see Paul making the effort to be an involved father to Ellen. As a grandfather, he had to agree with Nora. There had never been a more perfect baby, ever. There had never been a better year, ever.

  Agnes curled up beside him on the big chair by the fire. It was Christmas eve. The play had gone well, to rave reviews, and Oscar looked around at the small gathering and felt completely at peace.

  “A toast!” Paisley raised her glass. “To Belinda, the best director Heartswell has ever seen!”

  Everyone clinked glasses, while Irenia scowled silently. Belinda had been unanimously voted to direct this year’s HAWC production, much to the chagrin of her older cousin. Irenia had been cast as a pirate, despite her best efforts to claim the lead role for herself.

  “To the cast of Peter Pan,” Belinda chirped, her cheeks flushed and her voice shaking with emotion. “You were all, simply, brilliant!”

  “To Captain Hook,” Agnes grinned, kissing Oscar on the edge of his beard. She leaned into him as the crowd cheered, whispering so only he could hear. “So, I get to shave you now, right? The play’s over, so the beard can go?”

  “Do we have to wait for a power outage?” he whispered back.

  “I have candles.”

  “I may have to kiss you.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Nick stood up from his seat beside Belinda, tugging his sweatpants up when they threatened to abandon him. “I just wanted to thank you all—” he gestured to the gathering as everyone quieted to listen “—for helping me to cope with my break-up from Agnes a year ago…”

  “Nick!” Agnes interjected.

  “I thought you’d like that,” he said, slapping his knee. “No, seriously. I love Aggie. We all love Aggie, right?” He nodded and raised his glass to the happy echo of the crowd. “But she prefers older gentlemen, as we know.”

  Oscar shook his head. Ellen had grown up more in the last year than Nick had.

  “I’m going to interrupt you, Nick, if I may.” Oscar stood up. Belinda tugged on Nick’s sleeve until he sat back down, grinning like he’d just done the best stand-up of the night.

  Oscar went behind the counter, returning with a plainly wrapped gift in his hand. He stood in the middle of the room for a moment, smiling at Agnes as she watched him curiously. He would never tire of the firelight sparkling in her green eyes.

  “I have decided to give my Christmas gift to Agnes tonight,” he said. He swallowed, a lump appearing in his throat out of nowhere. “It seems appropriate, since this is Christmas eve, and Ellen’s birthday, and it’s been a year since I stopped being an idiot and started being…”

  He paused, at a loss for words.

  “My boyfriend?” Agnes asked, smiling.

  “Agnes’ boyfriend.” Her forty-eight-year- old boyfriend. He liked how that sounded.

  He knelt on the floor in front of her and presented her with the gift.

  She looked at him, wide-eyed and curious. The gift was the size of a book, wrapped in plain brown paper. No ribbon. No card.

  She tore off the paper, and gasped.

  “It’s a copy of Dicken’s Christmas Carol,” she whispered, turning the old book over in her hands. “It’s beautiful.” The leather cover was tooled with scrolls and calligraphy, and the gilded edge of the pages caught the glow of the fire as she turned the book over in her hands.

  “Open it.” He could barely speak. He held his breath as she gently opened the cover.

  She turned the vellum of the opening page, running her fingers over the title page.

  And then she went very still.

  “I’m sure we all know the ending of the story, dear—” Irenia began.

  “Shhh!” Belinda jabbed her with an elbow.

  “What?” Irenia hissed. Belinda merely nodded quietly at Agnes.

  Agnes’ eyes brimmed with tears as she removed a ring from a tiny cutout in the first few pages of the text. Oscar had painstakingly cut out a small compartment, just deep enough for a ring to fit without damaging the main body of the old book.

  She gazed at him, the sparkle of the diamond reflected in her tears.

  “Will you?” he began. He cleared his throat and began again.

  “Dearest Agnes, will you marry me?”

  He held his breath as Agnes glanced over to see Nora smiling, Paisley nodding vigorously, and tiny Ellen waving her wee fists in the air.

  The gathered crowd of thespians… and Nick… erupted into cheers when she said yes.

  The End

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  Note from the Author

  For my thirtieth birthday my sister gifted me a trip to England. I was unhappily married, with four children and no way out. As is often the case when a marriage is dissolving, it’s not the people involved who notice, it’s their sisters who see it first. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’m pretty sure my sister recognized that I was wilting, and she wanted to give me strength. She booked tickets for myself and my ten-year-old daughter to spend a week in England.

  It took another ten years for me to get a divorce, but that trip gave me the deep breath I needed at the time. My oldest daughter and I left the three younger kids at home and had a much-needed escape!

  We ended that adventure in London. We saw “CATS”. We wandered Covent Garden in raptures. Eager to be reunited with my other children, I looked for the perfect present to bring home to a gaggle of feral children who only ever stopped moving and fighting and courting death in various ways when we all cuddled up for story-time.

  Dicken’s A C
hristmas Carol.

  But this wasn’t just any Christmas Carol. This was an advent calendar, complete with tiny windows and beautiful Victorian illustrations. Dickens’ story had been adapted to fit twenty-five tiny little books, each with a sparkling string attached so that you could read the story and hang each wee book on the tree as you made your way toward Christmas and Scrooge’s redemption.

  That wasn’t enough Dickens for us.

  On December 1, we read the first book. On December 2 we read the first book and the second. On December 3 we read the first book, the second book and the third. By Christmas morning, my kids had heard that first book twenty-five times, and all the rest in receding order. For years and years, this was our Christmas ritual.

  My children are now in their 20s and 30s. As I wrote this, misty-eyed with fond memories, I messaged them, asking if they remembered the lines of our Christmas Carol advent calendar that we read year after year after year until the wee books were soft and dog-eared. Until long after they stopped believing in Santa, or their parent’s marriage. And… yeah. Nope.

  One of them suggested: “Scrooge sat dismal in his something something counting house?”

  Sigh.

  “On Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge sat busy in his dismal counting house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather, but Scrooge did not feel the low temperature for he carried his own chill within him.”

  I love the Scrooge story. It has always been my favorite, so it was a natural choice to frame a Christmas story for the characters of Heartswell Harbour. And now I can read the little books to my grandchildren, so they can forget the lines also, but I can have the memory of cuddles and peaceful storytimes under the Christmas tree. I continue to adore my feral spawn, despite their weak memories.

  I hope you have enjoyed “Love Like the Dicken’s”.

  Thanks for reading!