A Basket Brigade Christmas

by Judith Mccoy Miller

  It took Zona a moment to change her thoughts from the pageant to the patriotic. “He’s got to be in his fifties.”

  “Fifty-nine. Amelia is upset.”

  “Rightly so.” Zona brought bowls close, and Mary Lou ladled in the stew. They sat at the table, bowed their heads for grace, then tore off pieces of bread and dunked them in the rich broth. “I used to be one of the only single ladies around, but this war has given me company.”

  Mary Lou shook her head. “Unlike the rest, you chose to live alone.”

  It was an old subject that still bore sharp teeth. Mary Lou was technically right, yet not completely. Fifteen years ago, Zona’s fiancé, Cardiff Kensington, chose to leave her to fight in the Mexican War. She hadn’t heard from him since.

  She hoped he was alive. Prayed so every night.

  Mary Lou reached across the table and touched her hand. “Forgive me. I’m grouchy today. It was wrong of me to open an old wound.”

  Zona offered a smile of forgiveness then pressed a mental hand on the sore subject, refusing to let the bleeding continue.

  Dr. Cardiff Kensington sat in the office of his medical practice in St. Louis, staring at the door. The door had done nothing to earn his scrutiny. It was a simple six-panel door, painted white, the doorknob shiny brass only because there had been little else for his hired attendant to do these past six months except keep it polished. His office had never been in better order, with every bottle dusted and labeled, every surgical instrument laid in a row, ready to meet a patient’s needs.

  The door was of interest because of its lack of use. Cardiff couldn’t remember the last time it had opened, letting in a patient who needed to partake of his curative abilities. Not that he wished accident or disease upon anyone. But to sit in the empty office day after day, accompanied only by the tick and tock of the mantel clock was driving him near crazy.

  What distressed him the most was his lack of foresight in anticipating this dearth of business. When the war started eighteen months earlier and the young men took up the call to arms, his thoughts and prayers went with them. He remembered heeding the call fifteen years earlier, when the United States had fought with Mexico over southern borders. He knew the lure of adventure in the name of patriotism. He also knew the awful trauma as adventure turned to panic and pain.

  His lack of foresight involved those left behind. At the risk of being indelicate—even in his own mind—with so many men gone off to war … he couldn’t remember the last baby he’d helped bring into the world. With no births, and no infants and new mothers needing care, his practice had dwindled to the occasional sprained ankle or sore throat. Nothing of particular interest, and nothing that provided an income that could sustain employing an assistant at all. He’d let Bobby go last month.

  Cardiff’s attention was diverted to the window as he saw Mr. Cooper peer inside. The man tapped on the pane and pointed at the door. At least the door would get some business.

  Cardiff remained seated as Cooper entered the office, his jowls vibrating with the effort. Although he was in his twenties, his penchant for rich food and poor drink had made him a man of extravagant girth long before the time of normal age-related corpulence.

  “Kensington.”

  “Cooper.” It was not Cardiff’s habit of omitting the Mister as he addressed any man, but in this case, since Cooper had yet to deem him worthy of his doctor-title, he followed suit.

  “Are you joining up?”

  Cardiff felt his right eyebrow rise. “Are you?”

  “I am.”

  Cardiff’s eyebrow lowered in shock. He restrained himself from sharing his initial reaction, which involved asking the question, “They’ll take you?” His second thought was in reference to the Union army ever finding a uniform with the required yardage.

  After a few moments of unspoken rudeness, he said, “Good for you.”

  Cooper’s chins rose. “I join the regiment tomorrow.”

  “I wish you Godspeed.”

  Cooper let out a huff, as if Cardiff’s response did not fulfill his expectations. “I thought you’d tell me not to go.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because of my gout. Because my mother needs me at home. Because—”

  “Why did you volunteer?”

  Cooper unbuttoned his waistcoat and lowered himself into a chair. “I didn’t plan to. I was spurred into it by some friends who are going. Actually, many have already gone.” He paused to corral a new breath. “Why aren’t you joining up? You’re not much older than me.”

  “I’m thirty-six.”

  “As I said. Plus, you have no family to keep you from service.”

  Cardiff didn’t appreciate the latter remark. To answer his other point, Cardiff took hold of the cane that was hooked on the side of his desk and raised it. “This. This is my reason. I doubt a regiment would want a soldier who hobbles, ambling across a field of battle, unable to aim and shoot the enemy. I’d be killed in the first volley.”

  Cooper considered this a moment. “You could help in other ways.” He spread his arms to encompass the empty office. “It’s not like you’re busy.”

  It bothered Cardiff that this fact had been noticed by others.

  Having had enough of the conversation, he stood, employing his cane for support. “I wish you well, Cooper.”

  The man’s fleshy cheeks reddened as he rose. “I will serve my country well and with honor.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  Cardiff saw him out and watched him waddle across the street. When the clock behind him struck five, he locked his thoughts away and headed home for his evening meal.

  Cardiff sat alone in his dining room, awaiting his roast beef and cauliflower. He knew what had been prepared by Mrs. Miller because it was Tuesday. He wasn’t keen on cauliflower but did enjoy Tuesdays for the cinnamon butter cake that crowned the meal.

  As if beckoned by Cardiff placing his linen napkin in his lap, Cardiff’s butler entered the room and served the dinner. “Thank you, Gregory.”

  “Sir.” Gregory moved to his place beside the walnut sideboard, his eyes straight ahead.

  Cardiff bowed his head for a moment of silent prayer then ate his meal. When he was finished, he put his knife and fork across the plate and it was removed. Cardiff drank his glass of wine down to the one-third mark just as the plate of cake was set before him. Although he would have liked to ask for another piece, he didn’t consider the inclination long. One piece was the norm, so one piece he would have.

  The rest of his evening was spent in carefully determined segments of time, with each portion accomplished with the satisfaction of completing another neatly ordered day in a neatly ordered life. Although Cardiff suffered an occasional thought about Cooper and their earlier conversation, he didn’t allow the discussion to ruin his evening. Cooper chose his course and Cardiff chose his.

  Later, with the time for sleep upon him, Cardiff sat on the edge of his bed and removed his slippers, set his spectacles on the bedside table, hooked his cane over—

  His routine was disrupted by a knock on the bedroom door.

  “Yes?”

  Gregory came in, rotating a folded letter in his hands. “I am so sorry, sir. I don’t know why I didn’t remember to give this to you, and if you’d like to wait until morning, I will gladly keep it until then.”

  With a sigh, Cardiff motioned him forward. He immediately saw it was a telegram. “When did this arrive?”

  “Just before you came home for dinner, sir. Again, I apologize for not giving it to you. Mrs. Miller had issues with the stove and my time was taken helping her and … it will never happen again.” With a nod he left.

  Cardiff opened the envelope and saw that the sender was Dr. Stephen Phillips.

  DEAR CARDIFF:

  I WRITE TO YOU AS A COMRADE AND FRIEND. YOUR HELP IS NEEDED AT ARMY HOSPITAL IN CHICAGO. PLEASE COME.

  SINCERELY SP

  Once again, Cardiff sat on the edge of the bed. H
e and Dr. Phillips were friends from the other war. Both had been commandeered to work as orderlies, assisting with amputations and battle wounds. Both had found purpose in medicine and had gone their separate ways in pursuing that occupation.

  They’d kept in touch. Cardiff had settled in St. Louis to work under their wartime mentor, Dr. Niles, eventually taking over his practice. Stephen had gone to Chicago, working in a hospital there.

  Cardiff’s earlier conversation with Cooper about enlisting returned with a strength that forbade him from casting it aside.

  “I will serve my country well and with honor.”

  Memories of gaping wounds, shattered limbs, and destroyed lives rushed into his mind. He pressed his hands against his eyes, willing the images to leave.

  He didn’t want to tend to soldiers again. He didn’t want to enter that world.

  He looked around his shadowed room. He was not a wealthy man, but he’d created a fine life for himself. His home was spacious enough for all his needs, its running kept on track by Gregory Miller and his wife. They were twenty years his senior, and Mrs. Miller had a bit of rheumatism in her hands, but they were capable and loyal. They depended on him as much as he depended on them. He couldn’t leave them and this carefully established life to go north to relive a life he’d left far behind.

  And Stephen shouldn’t ask him to.

  He refolded the telegram and set it on the bedside table. Then he blew out the lamp and went to bed. The chime of the clock noted that it was fifteen minutes past his bedtime.

  Zona turned over in bed, feeling like a flapjack on a hot griddle. Odd thoughts fueled her restlessness, with Mrs. Collins’s dreadful voice singing a duet with the squeaking young Richard. The issue of casting the Christmas musicale churned with no resolution, spurred on by a single image of a man from her past until—

  She flung off the covers and sat upright. “Stop it!”

  Fortunately, the voices of Mrs. Collins and Richard were silenced, the only sound being the heavy in and out of her own breathing. Zona cleansed herself of the moment with a deep sigh and rubbed her hands roughly over her face, trying to completely rid herself of the inner chaos.

  But with her hands resting over her eyes, the image of Cardiff returned. His blond hair was swept smoothly to the side, his pale blue eyes like the aquamarine brooch she inherited from her grandmother: clear, light, and pure.

  She got out of bed and went to her dressing table drawer, retrieving the daguerreotype of herself and Cardiff, which showed her sitting and him standing with a hand upon her shoulder. With an intake of breath, she realized that except for the lack of color, her mental image of him exactly matched the one before her. She slid onto the bench, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to capture a different image of his face.

  Many moments appeared—and disappeared—like flashes of lightning on the horizon, but she couldn’t hold on to any long enough to fully see.

  “Is this the only way I can fully remember what you look like?”

  Looked like.

  For this image was taken fifteen years earlier in commemoration of their engagement.

  She looked at the image of the girl. It was hard to comprehend that this was her. Zona looked into the moonlit mirror in front of her then down at the picture. It was difficult to reconcile that both were the same woman.

  And it wasn’t just because she’d grown older in appearance. She was no longer the girl in the picture in any way but that they shared the same name and body. The girl who’d just become engaged back in 1847 was spoiled and used to getting her own way. She’d been proud of procuring a proposal from Cardiff and was certain she could get him to permanently work with her father in his printing business. She knew Papa would be very willing to pass the successful company on to Cardiff. And as such, Zona knew her life would continue along its previous path, living within blocks of her parents, with a multitude of friends she’d grown up with, three children when the time came (two boys and a girl), and a life made better because she would rise in stature to that of missus instead of miss.

  A bitter laugh broke the moment, and Zona shut the photograph away in the drawer. Her life had no room for childish dreams or the regrets that were born when she realized they would never become a reality.

  “Leave it be,” she whispered, and got back in bed.

  She was too old for dreams.

  Or regrets.

  Chapter 2

  Zona brought her breakfast plate to the sink, still chewing her last bite of bread. “I’m off to post the cast list for the musicale, and then I’ll go to Lucy’s sewing bee to bring them the blanket you made.” She glanced at Mary Lou’s legs. “Your rheumatism must be especially painful for you to miss that.”

  Mary Lou sat at the table and rubbed her knees. “A storm must be coming.”

  Zona glanced out the window. The late-November sky was swathed in a coat of solid gray. She’d learned to believe in Mary Lou’s knees. She put on her cloak and tied her bonnet under her chin then took up the neatly folded quilt Mary Lou had made for the soldiers on the hospital train.

  She was just reaching for the cast list when Mary Lou plucked it away and had a look. “I don’t see Mrs. Collins’s name.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “She’s going to be upset.”

  Zona held out her hand for the list. “I have to be true to the ensemble as a whole. I will not be bullied into choosing anyone who does not deserve to be included.”

  “Her husband is a powerful man in town.”

  Zona was well aware. The stage curtains were purchased due to a contribution by Mr. Collins, who owned a bank. “I’ll find a way to use her. Everyone can contribute in a way that best suits their talents. Her talent simply does not involve singing.”

  Mary Lou shook her head. “Off with you, then. And may God be with you.”

  Zona laughed, but as she went outside to post the list, she repeated the prayer.

  The sewing bee at the Maddox mansion was buzzing when Zona arrived. The ladies were seated around the elegant parlor, their hands busy with various stitching and knitting projects. Lucy sat at a sewing machine as another woman cut squares out of fabric on the dining table on the other side of the foyer.

  “Morning, ladies,” Zona said, quickly closing the door against the cold air. “I’ve brought a blanket from Mary Lou. She sends her regrets, but her knees are acting up.”

  Lucy got up from the machine and nodded at the weather outside. “I wondered as much when it looked stormy.” She took the blanket. “She does such beautiful work. Give her our thanks.”

  “I will.” None of the ladies asked her to join them, which was fine with Zona. Sewing was not her gift, and the women had long ago made it clear her help was not needed in this capacity.

  Zona remembered the letters in her pocket and placed them in the basket on top of the piano. “Here are two letters for the soldiers from myself and Mary Lou.”

  “Very good,” Lucy said. “The men so appreciate kind words.” Then she added, “Zona … we ladies were thinking that once Advent starts, it might be nice if you and some singers met the train every evening and sang Christmas carols. Would that be possible?”

  Suddenly, a woman who’d been sitting in the corner stood up. “Oooh. I’d like to be involved in that.”

  It was Mrs. Collins.

  “But,” Mrs. Collins said, “I may not have time for that in addition to the musicale rehearsals. When do they start?”

  Time slowed as Zona tried to think of an answer, and in the interim, she gained the gaze of the entire room.

  “I … I posted the cast list this morning.”

  “Very good. Do we start this evening?”

  If only Mary Lou’s knees hadn’t been hurting, Zona wouldn’t even be here. Although a verse passed through her mind—“And the truth shall make you free”—she wasn’t so sure. But what choice did she have?

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Collins, but your name is not on the list.” It’s the lis
t’s fault, not mine.

  All movement stopped, and slowly all eyes moved from Zona to Mrs. Collins. The woman’s breathing turned heavy, and her cheeks reddened. “There must be a mistake.”

  “I’m sorry, but this year there were so—” Zona was about to say “so many talented singers,” but everyone knew the situation with the men gone off to fight.

  “Are you implying others were more talented than I am?” Mrs. Collins’s eyes widened, revealing a disturbing amount of white around her irises.

  Zona scanned the faces of the other ladies, who one by one took solace in the sewing work on their laps. She was in this alone.

  Mrs. Collins stood and tossed her sewing on her empty seat. “This is ridiculous. Back in Springfield I played the lead in every production and was the soloist everyone cherished.”

  Zona noticed a few eyebrows rise. “I’m sorry. Perhaps next year?”

  Mrs. Collins strode into the center of the sewing circle, taking her place on the oriental rug as if there were an X marking her spot. “Let’s let the ladies decide if I deserve to be in your silly musicale.”

  No!

  But before anyone could stop her, Mrs. Collins cupped one hand in the other at bosom level, closed her eyes, and began to sing. “‘Drink to me only, with thine eyes …’”

  The ladies’ reaction was immediate as eyebrows dipped and mouths grimaced. Then Zona had an idea. Perhaps if the woman saw her audience’s reaction … “Remember to open your eyes, Mrs. Collins.”

  The woman nodded once, opened her eyes, and continued singing.

  And then a miracle. As she sang, her eyes scanned the faces of her audience, and though the ladies politely tried to remove the pain from their faces, some were less successful or not swift enough to prevent Mrs. Collins from seeing their instinctive reaction to her voice.

  Her facial expression changed from pride to panic. When she stopped singing, more than one woman let out her breath as relief took over the room.

  Lucy began the applause, but the smattering that followed was pitiful.