The first thing Aubrey noticed when he opened his eyes was the smile on Miss Prophet’s face. He wished he hadn’t. Her smile was lovely. Wrenching his gaze away from her, he said to Becky, “That was a very nice blessing, Becky. Thank you.”
He’d suffered a slight pang when she’d mentioned the. Pilgrims, recalling his temper fit earlier in the day. He’d been wrong to shout at Becky and Miss Prophet, although he’d sooner beat his head against a brick wall than apologize to Callie Prophet.
Callie seemed unfazed when she said, “Yes, Becky, that was a very nice prayer. It’s good of you to remember our founding fathers, too.”
Becky, who was seated across from Miss Prophet at the large and imposing dining table, gazed at her with interest.
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?” Callie asked. “Oh, You mean our founding fathers?”
The little girl nodded. Aubrey noticed how her blond braids caught the lamplight when they bounced, She was the image of Anne, God bless her. God, being the cruel fellow He was, had better not take Becky from Aubrey. That would be too cruel, even for Him.
He hadn’t been paying attention to Callie’s answer to Becky’s question in regard to the founding fathers, His mind swerved to the present again, however, when he heard Becky ask, “But why don’t they talk about our founding mothers, Miss Prophet? Didn’t the ladies come, too, along with the gentlemen?”
There went Miss Prophet’s smile again. And her green eyes did twinkle quite charmingly. Aubrey wished he hadn’t noticed. Fortunately for him, Delilah, the maid who served the meals, ladled out a plate of soup, forcing him to drag his gaze from Callie.
“The ladies came, too, Becky, but the people who write history books generally tend to ignore women’s contributions to progress, no matter which country’s history they’re recording.”
“How come?”
“That,” said Miss Prophet, smiling brightly at Delilah as she served soup before her, “is one of the mysteries of life.”
“Thank you, Delilah,” Becky said perkily as her own soup appeared in front of her. She picked up her spoon and took a sip before she spoke again.
“This is delicious soup,” Callie murmured.
“It’s real good,” agreed Becky. “Mrs. Granger’s a good cook.” She set her spoon carefully on her plate. “You know what I’m going to do when I grow up, Miss Prophet?”
“No, I don’t believe we’ve discussed that yet,” said Callie, with her beautiful smile and her twinkly eyes. “Do you have plans?”
After spooning up another sip, Becky nodded. “I’m gonna write a history book about the ladies.”
“What a brilliant idea!” Callie beamed at the little girl.
Aubrey glanced from one young lady to the other, feeling left out, as if Becky didn’t need him anymore now that she had Callie.
He cleared his throat, drawing their attention to him, and then he felt embarrassed. “I think,” he said in a judicious voice, “that’s a very good idea, Becky.”
Becky grinned, pleased. “You do?”
She sounded surprised, which made Aubrey want to frown Dash it, the girl acted as if she were afraid of him, and at was nonsensical. He’d never done anything to foster fear in his child. He’d always loved her. Always. In fact, now that Anne was gone, Becky was the most important person in his life. If he’d been a little distant these past few months, it was only because of circumstances.
He caught Callie eyeing him ironically and disliked her for it. A lot.
*****
As Callie helped Becky dress for bed, she congratulated herself on surviving her first day on the job. It had been truly hellish at times, although Becky was a darling. Callie think she’d ever want to leave Becky.
Becky’s father, however, was another matter entirely. She was still amazed that he hadn’t fired her earlier that afternoon when she’d confronted him about his bellowing fit.
As she folded back the bedclothes and Becky climbed into her pretty four-poster bed with its pink-and-white tester and counterpane, Callie said, “Would you like me to hear your prayers sweetheart?”
“Yes, please. Mama used to hear my prayers every night before bed.” Becky sighed deeply.
“Did she?” Callie sighed, too, remembering how her own mother had done the same for her, “Does your papa ever come up to hear them?”
Becky shrugged. “Sometimes. But most of the time, it’s Mrs. Granger who comes upstairs with me.” A sad look passed over Becky’s face only to be replaced seconds later with a glowing smile. “But now that you’re here, you can do it.”
“I’m very happy to be here, Becky, and I promise to hear your prayers whenever you want me to.”
“I’m happy you’re here, too.” She wiggled into a more comfortable position on her soft pillows.
Good. That made two happy and one grouchy household inhabitant. Callie imagined she’d get along well with the rest of the staff. Most of them lived in Santa Angelica and she’d known them for years. She wished there was some way to get through to Aubrey.
With a small pang of guilt, she wondered if she’d been wise to confront him so boldly this afternoon. Once one confronted a man without mincing one’s words, it generally took the rest of one’s life to get him to climb down from his high horse.
On the other hand, Callie had perceived no other course of action. She couldn’t, in good conscience, have allowed the incident to pass by unremarked upon. If she’d used subtlety, she knew good and well he’d have either ignored her or pretended not to understand. Therefore, she guessed she’d done the best thing for Becky, and that was what mattered. He’d probably hate her forever, but that couldn’t be helped. She didn’t know why her heart ached a little at the notion of Aubrey Lockhart hating her, but it did.
“Miss Prophet?”
“Yes, Becky?” Callie scolded herself for letting her mind wander.
The little girl hesitated, then said, “Do you think Papa likes me?”
“Oh, Becky!” Callie scooped Becky into her arms and hugged her hard. “Of course, he likes you! He loves you. Very much.”
Becky hugged her back without speaking for a moment.
Callie, for perhaps the hundredth time that day, felt like crying. She settled Becky back on her pillows and stroked her cheek. “Darling Becky, your papa has suffered a lot, just as you have, because your mama got sick and died. I think it’s taking him some time to adjust to not having her around.”
“He used to laugh a lot,” Becky admitted. “He doesn’t laugh anymore. I guess it’s ‘cause he’s not adjusting.”
“Well,” Callie said in a bracing voice, “we’ll just have to help him learn to laugh again.”
“How?”
Children could ask the most awkward questions sometimes. Callie admitted softly, “I’m not sure. We’ll have to put on our thinking caps and try to find some way to make him laugh. All right?”
Becky smiled up at her. “All right.”
“Let’s hear those prayers now, young lady.”
So Becky said her prayers, which included a lot of blessings for the grown-ups in her life, and Callie listened with a tear in her eye and an ache in her heart.
*****
Callie Prophet had been living in the Lockhart mansion for a week, and Aubrey needed to get some work done. He could neither understand nor justify his compulsion to stand at his library window and watch Becky and Miss Prophet frolicking on the back lawn.
Although it was only midmorning, Miss Prophet had lugged out a big wicker picnic basket and set it under a tree. She and Becky were ignoring the basket at the moment, and were playing some. kind of game that included a lot of running around and shouting.
His thoughts retreated into the past, and he recalled watching Anne and Becky together. Anne had been much more decorous than the rollicking Miss Prophet, but she and Becky had loved playing together. Evidently Miss Prophet didn’t know the meaning of the word quiet.
Torn between amusemen
t and irritation, Aubrey pushed the window up in order to hear better. The joyful sounds of laughter smote his ears. Becky had picked up a big stick and held it thrust out before her with her hands horizontal to the ground.
“They call me Little John,” she roared, making her voice go as low as she could, which wasn’t very.
“Little John? But you’re enormous!” Callie propped her hands on her hips and adopted a swaggering pose. “Let me pass, you varlet.”
Becky giggled. “Make me.”
“All right for you, then I shall!”
With feigned menace, Callie strode toward Becky, who stood her ground fiercely and waggled her stick at Callie.
The two met and engaged in a counterfeit battle that ended with Callie taking a tumble on the lawn. Her skirts and petticoats went flying, and Aubrey was privileged to a view of her shapely legs encased in plain cotton drawers.
In the time it took him to blink in astonishment, not untainted by appreciation, she’d popped up again and started shaking her fist at tiny Becky. “Why, you big overgrown scoundrel, you!”
“Aha!” cried Becky. “I bested you in battle, Robin Hood! How do you like that?”
Aubrey shook his head and wondered why he hadn’t figured out what they were playing at before now. He’d been so engrossed in watching, it hadn’t occurred to him that they were enacting the Robin-Hood-meets-Little-John scene from The Adventures of Robin Hood. Now he remembered that Becky loved to be read to from that book. Anne used to read it to her and now she’d obviously talked Miss Prophet into doing the same.
He was ashamed of himself for not having thought to read to his daughter before this. Reading only required his voice and some time. He wouldn’t even have had to think of how to keep a conversation going. He’d only have had to read words someone else had already made up and written down. But he’d been too involved in his own grieving to read to Becky, and now she had Miss Prophet to do it and didn’t need him anyway.
“Damnation, will you stop that, Aubrey Lockhart?” Hearing his own voice startled him. Yet the question that had prompted the command was a valid one, and Aubrey contemplated it as he gazed out the window and onto the happy scene.
Why did he always put the worst connotation on things? He turned away from the window and wandered to his desk. He didn’t used to be such a dismal specimen of mankind. He seemed to have turned a corner somewhere in the last couple of years, however, and now it was as if he barred good thoughts at the door of his consciousness and only allowed the depressing ones to enter. Frowning, he sat in his big chair and drew a ledger forward. He needed to get some work done.
Although he forced himself to concentrate, from time to time snippets of song and conversation came through the open window from Becky and Callie. They were having a marvelous time. Aubrey knew he had no right or reason to harbor this sense of ill-usage in his breast. It was his own fault if Becky turned away from him and clung to Miss Prophet, who was paying attention to her. Dash it, he was jealous. What a lowering reflection.
Later, he heard the word. “monster” every now and then and assumed the play had turned from Robin Hood to something along the lines of Frankenstein. Aubrey didn’t know that he approved of Miss Prophet reading Mrs. Shelley’s eerie book to such a young child. He might have to have a talk with her about it. The prospect made him grip his pen more tightly and grit his teeth.
Irked with himself, both for being distracted and, more, for being envious of Callida Prophet, he finally rose and walked over to shut the window. He had to get some work done. Rearing children was women’s work. He’d finally hired a woman to do it. He had no reason to be offended because she was doing it.
No matter how hard he tried, however, Aubrey couldn’t rid himself of the notion that Becky’s adoration of her new nanny would be easier to take if her new nanny were eighty-five years old and hard of hearing,
*****
Callie Prophet had been working as Becky’s nanny—although it hardly seemed like work to her—for three weeks before Becky showed her the letters.
During those weeks, Callie had helped Becky write letters to her mother in heaven. She’d answered the letters she’d helped to write as well, feeling only a little bit guilty about continuing to do so. After all, she reasoned, it was important for Becky to know that at least one of her parents cared about her thoughts and feelings.
Becky’s father certainly didn’t.
Well, she temporized, forcing herself to be honest, it wasn’t that he didn’t care, exactly. Actually, he’d seemed a little less withdrawn lately. He might even turn human one of these days, although Callie wouldn’t have laid any bets on the possibility. But Callie wanted Becky to be absolutely certain of her late mother’s love.
Children were so apt to misunderstand the loss of a loved one, believing themselves to be somehow responsible for it. Therefore, Callie persisted.
The summer had started fading into autumn, the days were getting shorter, and the nights had begun to contain a decided nip. Callie and Mrs. Granger had got out the quilts that had been packed away during the hot weather.
It was eight o’clock, Becky’s bedtime, and Callie had just brushed and braided the little girl’s hair.
“You have the prettiest hair, Becky. It’s just like your mama’s.” Callie didn’t know that for a fact, although she imagined that when Anne was young, she had looked just like Becky.
“That’s what Papa and Mrs. Granger say,” Becky told her complacently.
Callie smiled. She said, “Your mama was a beautiful woman, inside and out, Becky. If you try hard, you’ll be like her when you grow up.”
“That would be nice.”
Callie thought she detected a shade of dreaminess in Becky’s voice. “Yes, it would.”
“Everybody loved Mama,” Becky acknowledged.
“Indeed, they did.” Callie put down the hairbrush and patted Becky’s shoulder. “There you go, young lady. Hop into bed now, and I’ll listen to your prayers.”
Becky was silent when she climbed into her bed and pulled up the covers. She scrutinized Callie’s face with an intensity Callie hadn’t seen before.
A trifle unnerved by the child’s unusual demeanor, Callie asked, “Is anything the matter, Becky? Do you need to tell me anything or talk about something?”
Becky shook her head. “No.” She pressed her lips together for a moment, then burst out with, “But you could help me, maybe.”
Startled, Callie said, “I’d be happy to help you, sweetheart, but first you’ll have to tell me what you need help with.”
Spots of color burned in Becky’s cheeks. She hesitated for another moment or two, then said, “I want you to read some letters to me. I can’t read the big words.”
“Some letters?” For goodness sake. Was Becky carrying on a clandestine correspondence with someone other than her mother? Callie knew the child was enterprising, but she couldn’t imagine her being this enterprising. She was, after all, only six years old, “I’ll be happy to help you, Becky.”
Quick as a wink, Becky climbed out of bed, walked to her closet, and opened the door. With a glance back at Callie, she stooped, reached, and grabbed the handle of a suitcase that had been sitting on the floor since Callie’s arrival in the Lockhart mansion, and, Callie assumed, for a long time before that. The little girl struggled to haul the suitcase out of the closet.
“They’re in here.”
“Would you like me to help you?”
Becky shook her head. “No, thank you. I can do it.” She grunted. “I do it every night.”
“You do? I didn’t know that.”
“Nobody knows. They’re my secret.” Becky had managed
to pull the suitcase out of the closet. Now she sat in front of it and pressed the latch.
When she opened the lid, Callie saw a stack of letters, tied with a pink ribbon. It looked to her as though Becky had untied the ribbon and tried to tie it again, without much success. Little-girl fingers had to learn ribbo
n-tying skills over a number of years. Six years wasn’t long enough.
Callie experienced a sinking feeling in her stomach when Becky picked up the letters and trotted over to her bed. She laid them carefully on the pink-and-white counterpane and stood back. “I found these,” she said simply. “It was after Mama died. I was sad, and I was walking around the house, thinking about things, and I found these in a drawer of Mama’s desk.”
Oh, dear. “I see. Urn, they belonged to your mama?”
The little girl nodded. “My papa wrote them to her.”
Good heavens. Callie wasn’t at all sure she wanted to delve into love letters, if these were indeed love letters, written by the bereaved Mr. Aubrey Lockhart to his dead wife. It seemed so . . . intrusive. Snoopy. Sly, even.
“They made me feel better, so I put them in my closet and I read them after you tuck me in bed. Only I don’t read as good as you do.”
Becky handed Callie a couple of the letters. Callie took them, feeling more uncertain than usual. It wasn’t proper to read someone’s private correspondence. It was interfering and meddlesome. She turned the letters over on her lap so that the penmanship wasn’t visible.
“They make me happy,” Becky said simply.
Callie was lost. Although she knew she shouldn’t, and that she would hate herself for what she was about to do, she took up the first letter and opened it. Becky climbed back into bed, snuggled against a pillow, folded her hands on the counterpane, and said, “He called her Annie.”
There was wonder in the small voice. Callie swallowed hard. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.
Carefully unfolding the paper, she saw the firm, crisp, bold hand of a man. She cleared her throat. She read. “ ‘My Darling Annie . . .’ ”
Chapter Five
Callie lay in her own bed for hours that night after reading Becky two of Aubrey Lockhart’s letters to his late wife. Becky had been wide-eyed and sparkling with joy to have all of the words pronounced for her. Callie herself had been fascinated, but not awfully joyful.
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