Christmas Surprises

by Patricia Rice

  She heard his laughter behind her and smiled. It was good to have him home. She wouldn’t wish him to leave too quickly, despite everything.

  * * * *

  They came in from the quiet, dark snow, the sounds of the joyous choir still ringing in their ears, greetings of “Merry Christmas” still on their tongues, smiles on their faces. Despite his bandaged hand, Jonathan gallantly removed Diana’s pelisse as the others removed theirs. The foyer filled with coats and scarves and stamping feet as they tried to shake the chill from their bones.

  The yule log had been left to burn merrily, and they naturally gravitated toward the drawing room. Elizabeth and Marie led the way, and their outburst of giggles gave fair warning of mischief ahead. With a worried frown, Mrs. Carrington hastened after them.

  Diana glanced suspiciously at Charles’s grin, but he shrugged nonchalantly and gestured for her to precede him. Then he made a point of seeing that Jonathan followed her through the doorway.

  Diana gasped as she saw the silver-and-gold-beribboned mistletoe dangling from the center of the kissing bough. It was more elaborate than any attempt her father had ever made and it glistened in the firelight, swaying teasingly with the draft from the hall. Marie placed herself beneath it, studiously contemplating its brilliance with an innocent air.

  Elizabeth looked at Diana, then glanced furtively at the man behind her. Jonathan was admiring the bauble without expression, but he did not appear eager to sample the forbidden pleasures offered under the protective auspices of the garland as she had hoped. Charles, to everyone’s surprise, quickly took advantage of the poised beauty beneath the berried leaves. Skirting around Diana and Jonathan, he quickly caught Marie’s hand and lifted it to his lips.

  The loud cough behind them reminded Diana of why her usually reckless brother had limited himself to such circumspect behavior. Gently taking Jonathan’s arm so as to include him in the conversation, she turned to Mr. and Mrs. Drummond as they entered.

  “It appears Father Christmas or some mischievous elves arrived while we were out. I do not remember half so many gifts hanging among the garlands when we left.’’

  The frown on Mr. Drummond’s face faded as he noted Charles properly escorting Marie from her improper position. However, the sight of his son dutifully keeping Diana from the compromising mistletoe brought an irritated tic to the corner of his mouth. Why this should be so, he could not fathom, and he attempted some measure of humor.

  “Well, let us investigate, shall we?” He nodded to where Charles was already reaching up among the branches to bring down a package addressed to his mother.

  “I concur.” With some formality but a trace of a smile playing along his lips, Jonathan steered Diana toward the garlands where Charles had already begun to reach for a package addressed to Marie. It was Christmas, and he intended to reward himself with the gift of knowledge, even if knowing the answer hurt more than the shrapnel in his leg.

  Diana knew her brother had only followed the custom set by their father of tying tiny surprise packages to the greenery, but she could not help a slight flutter of anticipation as Jonathan purposely guided her toward the low-hanging branch where he and Freddie had snitched the apples. The Drummond family had been with them enough Christmases to join in the game also, but it could scarcely be expected that Jonathan would have had time to purchase any gifts.

  Still, while everyone else was merrily tearing into their surprises, Jonathan reached among the evergreens and pulled out a poorly wrapped and oddly shaped parcel addressed to Diana. His expression as he handed it to her was guarded.

  “I have no roses as a reminder, and I’m not at all certain that my gift is appropriate any longer, but if it still lies where I left it four years ago, I would like you to have it anyway. If it has already been found and discarded then I understand that, too. I only want all your Christmases to be happy ones.”

  Jonathan’s words were spoken so low none could hear except Diana, but the blush rising to her cheeks revealed enough to those who cared to observe. As Diana tore open her package, Charles distracted the others by discovering more surprises hidden in the evergreens, and the contents of his sister’s package went unnoticed by all but the giver and receiver.

  Diana held the key in the palm of her hand and stared up into Jonathan’s dark face, desperately striving to keep the hope welling up inside her from showing. “The attic key? However did you ...” Then noting the tension behind his stiff stance, she continued hurriedly, “Shall we try it? Do you think anyone will come look for us if we do?”

  “We shall be home free before they find us.” Using the words of the child’s game they had once played, Jonathan caught her elbow and escorted her hurriedly from the room.

  Although their departure was noted, none interfered. Even Mr. Drummond kept his opinion to himself. It was Christmas, and the joy of this day needed to be shared, if only for a little while. The consequences of their yesterdays would be acted upon on the morrow. Even consequences have holidays.

  With relief, Jonathan saw Diana needed no explanations of the paltry gift hidden in the evergreens for her. He had not come prepared for the welcome he had found here, and the only fitting gift he knew either rested somewhere in the attic above or had already been rejected. He had taken his chances when he clumsily wrapped that key with one hand. Now his heart rested in his throat as Diana unerringly turned up the attic stairway.

  He carried only the lamp from the bottom of the stairs, and it threw incongruous shadows over the walls as Diana bent to insert the key in the door. With the sudden anticipation of two children about to engage in mischief, they kept their voices to whispers as they rattled the lock.

  “I feel like the twins must whenever they’re about something they shouldn’t be.” The latch clicked and Diana gingerly pushed against the door.

  “That’s because you were always forbidden to hide up here and you always did, anyway,” Jonathan reminded her. “I’m surprised the two of them aren’t on our heels or in the midst of the company below. Their nanny must have given them laudanum.”

  Diana giggled. “At the very least. Ugh. I’ve just walked into a spider web. Shouldn’t we have saved this expedition for All Hallow’s Eve?”

  “No.” Jonathan’s reply was almost curt as he lifted the lamp and led the way to keep her from encountering any more unpleasant surprises. “It has waited too long as it is.”

  Diana sent him a searching glance, but in the shadows from the lamp she could scarcely discern his face and certainly not his thoughts. He had changed his coat and cravat to attend services, and the elegant figure he cut in the dusty shadows of the attic brought a smile to her lips. Had she been permitted, she would have blurted out the words “I love you” just because of that anxious frown between his eyes right now. She had never stopped loving him, of course. She couldn’t imagine why she had thought she ever would. He was as much a part of her heart and soul as the air she breathed. She didn’t know what nonsense had brought him up here in the middle of the night while all else drank punch in the warmth below, but she would have followed him into darkest Africa had he asked.

  “There it is.” Jonathan pushed an old trunk out of the way so Diana could maneuver her skirts around it with a minimum of damage to the hem on the dust-coated floor. He set the lamp upon the scarred old secretary and turned to take Diana’s hand.

  “Did you ever once think to open this after I left?” He watched her face quizzically as she stared at the battered remains of their childish hiding place. In the lamplight her eyes glowed with a mysterious softness that sent his heart plunging from his throat to his stomach when she lifted her head to answer him.

  “You hadn’t been home in months. You ran off to join the cavalry instead of coming home for Christmas. I thought you were gone forever. I put it aside as I did my childish toys.” She could have said she had put the desk aside with her childish dreams, that she couldn’t bear the heartbreak of seeing that empty chamber and knowing there woul
d never be another message waiting for her again. But she was not so outspoken as to reveal thoughts she had never said to herself. She turned from the intensity of his stare to trace her fingers through the thick dust upon the burnt surface.

  “Open it now, Janey, one last time. Please, for me?”

  Startled by the urgency of his tone, she sent him a darting glance, then turned to do as told. The charred drawer moved with difficulty, and Jonathan had to help her. But he stood aside as she reached behind the drawer to spring open the secret panel. They had thought themselves so clever when they found that hiding place when she was less than the twins’ age. Now it squeaked open with less vigor than before, but two pairs of eyes studied it with the same excitement as then.

  Diana’s fingers searched the small chamber, quickly discovering the package hidden from sight. Her exclamation of surprise brought a smile of mixed relief and joy to Jonathan’s lips. So she had not known it was there. That removed one heavy burden, although it opened the way for further pain. Still, the knowledge that she had not deliberately rejected him all those years ago was all he had asked. And now he had it.

  “Come, let us take it below where it is warmer. We can open it there without sneezing.”

  Diana’s fingers closed tightly around the gay ribbons of the package, and she said nothing, only nodded in agreement at his suggestion. She didn’t dare hope too much, but her fingers trembled as she felt Jonathan take her arm. She didn’t want to leave the darkness. She wanted to stay here with Jonathan’s hand at her back, his long frame close to hers, pretending this was their world and the problems below did not exist.

  But she followed him obediently, closing the attic door and locking it without conscious thought while Jonathan stood patiently behind her. As they descended the stairs the light from the wall sconces illuminated the narrow passage more adequately than the dark attic. She could see the brownness of long fingers closing around hers as he brought her to a halt at the bottom, and they took their childhood seats on the stairs.

  “l have no right to ask you to open that package any longer. I gave up that right when I left my home against my father’s wishes. But for what we once had, I would like you to have it. Open it here, Diana. I would not wish to embarrass you by declaring my feelings in public.”

  Those words gave her the courage she needed, and Diana raised her gaze to meet his. At the sight of the warmth in those gray eyes, she opened her lips to speak but could find nothing to say. Jonathan touched a gentle finger to her chin to close them.

  “Open it, Diana. I cannot say more until you do.”

  With shaking fingers she ripped the bright wrappings off the oblong box. She was surprised it had fit in the secret compartment, but then, the hiding place must once have been meant for letters. The package was too thick to be a simple missive, but the right length for one.

  A thick vellum letter fell into Diana’s lap as she unsealed the package, and from between the pages, a fragile golden ring fell. Diana made a soft exclamation of surprise and gently lifted the ring, but before she could look to Jonathan for explanations, a scream rang out from below, shattering the fragile bonds of anticipation drawing them together.

  “Fire!” That panic-stricken cry destroyed any further thought. Even so, Diana carefully continued to clutch her treasures when Jonathan helped her to her feet. They both ran down the corridor toward the front stairs where more cries and shouts echoed upward. Diana’s heart took on a frantic beat as she smelled the smoke. Fire in the old wood and heavy draperies of the drawing room would spread with terrifying swiftness. If not stopped at once, it could not be stopped at all.

  They entered the large room into a scene of chaos. The twins, thoroughly chilled from the hiding place they had taken in the window seats when the company had returned from church sooner than they expected, had taken the first opportunity to escape. When everyone wandered into the dining room to sample the frumenty Cook had brought in, they had crept from their frozen seats. But the temptation of the gifts dangling in the kissing bough had been stronger than the discomfort of the cold or danger of getting caught. While everyone dined festively in the other room, they had stacked one chair atop another in an attempt to reach the elusive garland.

  The result confronted Jonathan and Diana as they dashed into the drawing room. Freddie dangled precariously from the chandelier he had grabbed when one loop of the garland came undone. The candles that came tumbling down with the evergreens had ignited the ribbons wrapped about the garland and the litter left on the floor from the unwrapping of gifts. Flames now danced across the carpet, fed by the drafts along the floor, while Mr. Drummond and Charles stamped ineffectively at the tiny fires trailing dangerously closer to the older draperies and giving off clouds of smoke. The women milled frantically beneath the dangling child, ignoring the fire perilously close to their long skirts as they tried to bring the terrified boy down before he fell into the flames below.

  Frankie, crying, carried the tea pot from the table to douse the flames closest to his brother when Jonathan jumped across the burning debris to grab it from him.

  “Go fill the punch bowl with snow!” he yelled at the terrified child. “Charles, the coal scuttle! Anything else you can think of!”

  Goudge tottered into the room with a bucket of water from the kitchen and nearly tripped and spilled it before Diana grabbed it from his hands to throw on the largest fire.

  Understanding Jonathan’s meaning immediately, Charles and Mr. Drummond scooped up the largest containers they could find and dashed outside for snow. Not only was it closer at hand and more abundant than the water from the old plumbing in the distant kitchen, but it would smother the flames more effectively.

  Standing in the puddle Diana had created with Goudge’s bucket of water, Jonathan reached up to grasp Freddie by his trouser waistband. “Steady on, old fellow. I’ve got you. Now let go.”

  With only one hand to grasp him by, Jonathan had to put all his strength in his one good arm as the terrified little boy released his grip on the fragile chandelier. With a shout from the others, he managed to swing Freddie down into the arms of his mother.

  By this time, sleepy maids had joined them with all the pots and pans from the kitchen and mounds of snow lay melting all over the drawing room. The stench of burned carpet filled the air, and half of the kissing bough hung bedraggled and scorched to the floor, trailing smoking ribbons and bruised apples. With the flames finally doused, the company slowed their frantic activity to survey the damage.

  Jonathan smiled with tired relief as he found Diana still clutching the crumpled letter and presumably the ring, although the objects were now wrapped around the bucket handle along with her hand. Sensing his gaze, she looked up, then blushing, she glanced down again at the mess she had made of his careful missive. She could tell by the look in his eyes what the letter contained, but she wished desperately for time to read the words.

  “Good show, Drummond. Now I know how your troops made it through all those battles.” Charles wrapped a weary arm around his friend’s shoulder and gazed about him. “Now admit it. We never caused this much trouble. The twins have us whipped.”

  “At least this is the kind of war you can fight in relative comfort.” Jonathan shrugged off the praise, his gaze never leaving Diana. She seemed bewildered and alone and he wanted to go to her again, but she had not yet given him the right to do so. His heart ached as she set down the bucket and carefully smoothed his letter between her fingers.

  “You are too modest, son.” Mr. Drummond stepped into the breach.

  The twins’ voices could be heard overhead protesting as Mrs. Carrington led them back to the nursery. Mrs. Drummond was on the point of ushering Elizabeth and Marie off to their rooms to remove their wet clothing, yet she hesitated at the proud but embarrassed sound of her husband’s voice. Hope rose in her eyes as he approached Jonathan with his hand held out.

  “You thought more quickly than any of us. You would be a valuable asset on th
e battlefield, or anywhere else you chose to apply your efforts.”

  Recognizing this as the only apology he would ever receive for all those long years of agonizing silence, Jonathan accepted his father’s hand in his undamaged left one. “I learned that trick in service, sir. You would have thought of it soon enough. I thank you for the kind words, though.”

  Smiling, Mrs. Drummond hastened the younger girls away, but Diana remained behind. It was her future they were deciding with these hesitant overtures of forgiveness. She had a right to stay. Almost absently, she slipped the lovely ring on her finger while she listened to the battle of wills.

  Jonathan saw her gesture and a wide smile brought his browned face to life. Instead of the cold, formal man accepting his father’s stilted apology, he became a boy again, a boy filled with life, laughter, and love. The change startled everyone in the room but Diana, who smiled back.

  “You will have to forgive me, Father. There is the matter of an unopened Christmas gift that the excitement interrupted.” To his father’s amazement, he stepped away from the all-male circle to stand before Diana. He lifted the hand wearing the ring and met her smiling eyes with hope. “You have not read the letter yet,” he reminded her.

  “I trust it includes some explanation of your abrupt departure,” she answered solemnly, a teasing twinkle in her eye belying her tone.

  “That, among other things. I asked your father’s permission before I wrote it, of course.”

  “Papa? You spoke to Papa?” That knowledge brought tears swiftly to her eyes as she gazed at him in astonishment.

  “His reply is in the letter, Janey. I wrote him from Oxford. He did not know I intended to leave, but his letter gave us his blessings. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I did not know it was to be my last for a long time.”

  “I didn’t know, Johnny.” She lifted her eyes to his and read the love and steadiness there. “He said nothing to me.”

  Charles came up behind his sister and grabbed the letter from her hand. “You mean to say there is a letter from my father in here? A kind of posthumous blessing, as it were?”