by Carla Kelly
“I am, James, and that is why I have come.” Lord D’Urst stared down at the floor as though expecting to see a message written on the carpet. James peered at him in some surprise. I could almost suspect contrition, he thought, or at least a near relative to it.
“Pete?”
Lord D’Urst looked up, roused from whatever reverie he had permitted himself. “I don’t go to church often, Jemmy, but own to a certain squeamishness about a subject sitting somewhat sore on me.” He cleared his throat. “I did push you on the steps, and I wanted to apologize.” He sat on the edge of his chair, as though in a hurry to end such self-reflection. “I had no idea you would fetch such a sprain, but, Jemmy, I wanted time to court Olivia, because for some reason I cannot fathom, she seemed to favor you. I hope you’ll be understanding.”
James could think of nothing to say.
“She is all magnificence,” Lord D’Urst continued, his eyes lively. “And so charming! When I think of what I can make of her, I am almost bereft of speech.”
“What you can make of her? I do not understand.”
“Jemmy, sometimes you are so simple! What man could resist to tinker with such a female?”
I could now, he thought. “Have you made her an offer?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And… and did she accept?”
Lord D’Urst smiled. “She said she would let me know tomorrow. I am ready for the best news.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out an elegant case. “What do you think of this?” He touched the clasp and revealed a single ruby on a gold chain.
“Beautiful,” James said, and he almost meant it.
“I have written a note, and I will give it to her first thing. I’ll own that you are good with a phrase. What do you think of this?” he asked, handing a sheet of paper to James.
James read the little note, gulped, and read it again, his spirits rising. “My beloved, you are my Christmas ornament, my own pretty bauble.—Peter.”
He let his breath out slowly. “Precisely the right words, Pete. I couldn’t possibly have said it better.” He returned the note, willing his hand not to shake.
“Yes, I thought it would be the right touch,” Lord D’Urst said modestly. “She is a pretty bauble, isn’t she?”
She is, if that is all you see, James thought. “She certainly is. I don’t know that I feel full of forgiveness for this thick ankle, Pete, but I do know that you’ll get what you deserve tomorrow.”
“No hard feelings, Jemmy?”
“Not one.”
He could hardly wait for Peter Winston to quit the room. He broke into a sweat that left him trembling, but he managed to hobble to his bookshelf and retrieve a dusty volume. He shivered in his nightshirt but sat at his desk a long moment, staring at Euclid’s theorems, before he dipped his pen in the inkwell. “I am no great shakes at mathematics, Olivia,” he wrote on the flyleaf. “Between us, I believe one plus one equals one. Somehow, it equals two as well. Marry me?”
He wrapped the geometry text in brown paper discarded from another book, tied it with string, and wrote in big letters on the outside, OPEN AFTER LORD D’URST’S GIFT. His heart peaceful, he summoned his footman, let the man help him to bed, and then told him to take the package to Hannaford’s. He went to sleep then and dreamed of pleasant doings.
He woke early, refreshed and hungry for the first time in a week. Even his father was surprised at the prodigious breakfast he packed away.
“Now, Father, if you would help me to the window seat, I am expecting a visitor.”
“Olivia?” his father asked, his expression full of concern.
“If I am supremely lucky, and I wager I will be.” What a sunny Christmas day, he thought as he leaned back against the pillow his father had thoughtfully provided. The blanket was warm against his bare legs. He needed a shave, and he had spilt porridge on his nightshirt, but he didn’t think Olivia would mind.
“If I recall Tim’s habits from earlier days, you Hannafords will eat breakfast first and then open presents,” he announced to the winter birds that fluttered around the suet ball outside his window. He made himself comfortable, reached for his treatise, and turned to page twenty where Olivia said he had lost the drift of the argument again.
He found the spot and was beginning a correction when he saw Lord D’Urst’s traveling carriage moving at a rapid pace down the road. “Oh God, Thou art kind to sinners and foolish men on this Thy day,” he prayed out loud. No matter that he understood anatomy, his heart was so high in his throat that he knew if he opened his mouth, it would flop into his hand. He swallowed mightily and then almost shuddered with delight at his next sight from the window.
Olivia hurried down the lane. She had not taken the time to do her hair, and it perched in his favorite topknot. He peered closer, noting his book clutched to her heart. He held his breath as she stopped and stared at his house for the longest time. To his everlasting joy, she began to run. With a wince and a gasp, he hobbled back to bed. In another moment he heard light steps on the stairs, and then Olivia threw open the door and practically catapulted herself into the room. Without a word, he pulled back the covers.
“Just look out for my ankle,” he warned as she threw off her cloak and lay down beside him.
She kissed him, and he quit worrying about his ankle.
“Yes, I will marry you,” she said when he let her up for air.
“I take it you said no to Lord D’Urst,” he said, pillowing her head on his arm.
She raised up to look at him, indignant. “He had the nerve to write that I was his Christmas ornament! Can you imagine such a thing?”
He could, and did, and then tucked the words away, never to be used again. She pillowed her head on his chest. “And then I opened your package. Thank you, my love, from the bottom of my heart.”
“That was what did it?” he asked, relishing the warmth of her. She laughed and touched his face. “No! Well, it helped, but I had resolved to marry you weeks ago, James Enders.”
He stared at her in surprise. “Even when I was bumbling, and erring, and apologizing around the clock?”
She nodded, burrowing herself in closer to him. “Before that. I have a confession to make. Before you arrived, Papa took me aside and told me that he thought you would make an excellent husband. He said that you were coming home for Christmas to make me an offer, and that I should accept it, as you were the best possible choice for me.”
James could only gape. “Even when I was looking like your worst nightmare?”
“I own you did strain it, James,” she agreed, her breath soft on his neck. She kissed his ear. “I trust my father. I always have. He told me that you would do, and I trusted him until I could see for myself that he was right.”
Sir Waldo, I will be a most grateful son-in-law, he thought as his heart filled with love for his neighbor. He held Olivia close.
“You realize, of course, that it would be easier to marry Peter.”
She nodded and looked at him, and he could see how serious she was. “That occurred to me as I was walking over here, love, and I had to stop and think a moment,” she told him. “How simple it would be to let someone take charge of my life! But you will not do that, will you? That’s a little scary, James. Are all women loved so much, or only a privileged few?”
“Your life is your own, Olivia,” he whispered in her ear. “All I ask is that you share it with me and our children. I will protect you and shelter you, but before God, I will not try to change you.”
There were tears in her eyes now. “And it will be the same with me. I love you.” She kissed him thoroughly.
This is a better cure than powders, he told himself when he could think again. “I’m not so certain I will be up to cutting much of a dash in a wedding dance, Olivia, unless you prefer a lengthy engagement.”
She shook her head. “We should wait only just long enough for the crisis to pass at my house.”
“Crisis?” he asked. “I take it you
r mother is not too excited about this turn of events.” He kissed her. “Face it, Olivia, you are marrying a shag-bag instead of an elegant diplomatist.”
She turned her lively eyes on him. “Oh, the crisis is much more diverting, James. What should my nephew David do this morning but throw out spots! Louisa is certain it is chicken pox. Those tidings of great joy sent her stupid brother-in-law Felix into a dither from which I am certain he will never recover. Charles is still laughing about it.” She gasped then and put her hand to her mouth. “Lord D’Urst doesn’t even know about this! Should Papa write and tell him? Suppose he breaks out in spots in Paris at the treaty table?”
“Our elegant Lord D’Urst?” James said. “Such a crisis! Oh, I wish it did not hurt to laugh!”
Olivia’s eyes opened wider still. “Do you suppose du Plessis or Louis the Eighteenth have had the chicken pox?” She started to laugh. “Oh my, what a Christmas gift that will be!”
It required no real imagination to pick up the thread of her thoughts. He settled himself more comfortably on his back and tightened his arm around his darling, who gratified him by resting her head upon his chest and putting her arm across him in a gesture he could only call possessive.
“Think of it, my love; the source of contagion will be traced to Lord D’Urst, and there will be diplomatic reprisals of the worst kind. He will be sent in disgrace to… to… oh! what is the dreariest capital imaginable? Perhaps Washington, D.C., where the politickers conspire and duel with one another. What do you think, lovely lady?”
She was far too silent. He glanced down at her, snuggled so peacefully within the circle of his arm, and chuckled to himself to notice how even her breathing was. Oh, so you have also discovered what an exhausting business love can be? he thought. He kissed the top of her head. “Olivia?”
“I was just thinking,” she defended herself, her voice drowsy. “Only a ninny would sleep at a time like this.”
“And what were you thinking?” He had made a pleasant discovery of his own; he never would have thought that such wondrous hair could be so soft. He kissed her head again.
“I was merely enjoying the oddest phenomenon, James,” she told him. “How is it possible that when I am lying here with you, I have the feeling that no one in the world has ever experienced such wonder?”
He laughed. “Do you think this is worth a scientific study?”
He felt her laughter, even though he did not hear it. “I think not, my love,” she told him, “although I do anticipate any number of excellent collaborations with you.” She sighed. “James, for being no Christmas for you, and a worrisome one for me, this is the best Christmas.”
How peaceful this is, he thought as his eyes started to close. I could tell you that scientists should not deal in absolutes at this stage of the hypothesis, particularly since I have the wonderful suspicion that our Christmases will only get better each year.
“I love you, Olivia,” he said instead, and he knew with a conviction that left him almost breathless that this was an indisputable absolute.
on, I own that being a Christian is onerous at times.”
Like many of his mother’s pronouncements, this one was a bolt out of the blue. Peter Chard smiled behind his napkin as he blotted the remnants of dinner from his lips, and then did the same for his little daughter Emma. He winked at Will, who sat next to Mama on the other side of the table.
“How do you mean, Mama?” he asked. He draped his arm over the back of Emma’s chair so he could fiddle with her curls. “Seems to me that Our Lord mentioned on at least one occasion that His yoke was easy, and His burden light.”
“Peter, Jesus could say that because He never had to deal with our vicar!”
Chard laughed. “Mama, some would argue that He probably deals with the vicar more than we do! But please explain yourself.”
It was all the encouragement she needed. “Pete, I find myself trussed as neatly a Christmas goose and it is only October.”
“Grandmama, if you would not stop to talk to Mr. Woodhull, but only shake his hand and walk on, you would stay out of trouble at church,” Will said as he reached for the last apple tart.
Peter laughed again and pushed the bowl a little closer to his son. “Mama, it seems I cannot take you anywhere!” he teased. “And here I thought Sunday was harmless. Am I to assume that you have promised something that you are already regretting?” He pulled out his pocket watch. “We are only two hours out of church, and you are already repentant. It must be serious.”
Louisa Chard, the Dowager Lady Wythe, sighed. “Oh, Pete, what a stupid thing I did! Son, I made the mistake of asking about the Christmas choir.”
Will ceased chewing. Emma, as young as she was, tensed under Chard’s hand. Are my insides churning? Dare I blame it on dinner? he asked himself.
The choir. Too little could not be said about it, and here was Mama, tempting the devil. By some awesome, cosmic twist, St. Philemon’s Christmas choir was a freak of nature. During the year, a choir occasionally accompanied services with no complaint. But Christmas? He shuddered. Are we too proud? Do we not listen to each other? Are there poor among us that we ignore too much? Does the Lord use the annual parish choir competition at Christmas to flog us for sins real and imagined?
It seemed so. What had begun when he was a boy as a friendly competition between three small parish churches had grown into a monster. “What, Mama, did the vicar ask you to assassinate one of this year’s judges, and you have second thoughts?” he quizzed.
“I would not have second thoughts!” she exclaimed, and blew a kiss to her granddaughter, who regarded her with large eyes. “Emmie dear, I would never,” she assured the child. “No, son. In a weak moment, I agreed to help in this year’s recruitment. That is all.”
Chard relaxed. “Mama, I know how much you love to gad about and drink tea. Now you are only adding recruitment to your agenda as you career about the parish boundaries.”
Lady Wythe sighed again. “People will run from me,” she declared as she rose from the table and signaled to the footman to do his duty.
“Papa, I am tired,” Emma said as he picked her up.
“So am I, kitten. If I tell you a story, will you take a nap?”
“If I don’t take a nap, I know you will, Papa!” she teased as he carried her upstairs.
Emma love, if I were to tell you how much I like Sunday afternoon and napping with you, my friends would hoot and make rude noises, he thought as he stretched out on her little bed and let her cuddle close to him. The rain began before he was too far into a somewhat convoluted story about an Indian princess and her golden ball. The soothing sound of rain sent Emma to sleep before he had to create an ending where there was none.
Funny that I am forgetting my stories of India, he thought as he undid the top button of his breeches and eased his shoes off. It has not been so long since I adventured there. He seldom thought of Assaye anymore, a battle cruelly fought and hardly won. When the morning paper brought him news now of Beau Wellington in Portugal and advancing to retake Spain, he could read the accounts over porridge with detachment unthinkable six years ago in humid, bloody India—
That is what hard work does to my body, he thought as he kissed Emma’s head and let her burrow in close to him in warm, heavy slumber. I can be kinder to the Almighty than Mama, he thought as his eyes closed. Thank thee, dear Lord, for my children, my land, and our own good life. He frowned. But please, Lord, not the Christmas choir.
When he woke, the bed was absent Emma, as he knew it would be. He turned onto his side and raised on one elbow to watch his children sitting on the carpet, playing with Will’s wooden horses and cart. Will looks like me, he thought with some pleasure, and not for the first time. He will be tall and will likely stay blond, too. He has Lucy’s eyes, he thought, but not her pouty mouth, thank God. Both children had his mild temperament, and he was more grateful for that than any physical blessings. There will be no tantrums in these darlings, he told himself. N
o railings, no bitterness, no accusations where none were warranted, and no recriminations. When they go to their wife and husband someday, pray God they will go in peace and confidence.
It was his continual prayer, and he could see it answered almost daily. He and Mama were raising beautiful, kindly children. If that meant doing without wifely comforts, so be it. He had known few enough of those, anyway. He lay on his back and covered his eyes with his arm. To be honest, he thought, I know that someday I will have to face a heavenly tribunal and receive some chastisement for the relief I felt when I learned of Lucy’s death. I will take my stripes and I will not complain. God is just, and quite possibly merciful.
How peaceful it was to lie there and listen to his children play, knowing that tomorrow he would be in the fields again—always in the fields—seeing to the last of the harvest and attending to the thousand duties that a man of considerable property rejoiced in. Tomorrow night he would likely fall asleep before Mama was through talking to him over her solitaire table, or before Will had finished explaining his latest lesson from Mr. Brett’s school. He would quickly fall asleep again in his bed. There was no wife to reach for; he was too tired, anyway.
By breakfast next morning, Mama had still not relinquished her agonies over the Christmas choir. “I can count on you, can I not?” she asked.
“Of course! What is it that our choirmaster wants us to torture this year?”
“I heard him mention something about Haydn and ‘The Heavens Are Telling,’ “she said.
He winced. “Perhaps our salvation lies in our simplicity?” he suggested.
Mama regarded her tea and toast somewhat moodily. “It lies in good voices, son, and you know it! Why is it that no good singers lurk within parish boundaries? I call it unfair.”
“They are only hiding. You will find them, Mama,” he assured her. “I have every confidence in you.”
She glared at him again. “All I want is to win just once, Peter. Just once.”
If you say so, Mama, he thought later as he swung his leg over his horse and settled into the saddle for another day. His route took him past St. Philemon’s, and as usual, he raised his hat to Deity within and raised his eyes to the distant hill where he could see St. Anselm’s—only slightly larger, but filled with singers apparently. A half turn in the saddle and a glance over his left shoulder showed him St. Peter’s, a parish blessed with golden throats. He smiled, wondering, as he always did, what strange geographical quirk in property and parish boundaries had located three churches so close together. The living at St. Phil’s was his to bestow, and he had been pleased with his choice. Mr. Paul Woodhull was young, earnest in his duties, and genuinely cared about his pastoral sheep. He had a little wife equally young, earnest, and caring. Too bad neither could carry a tune anywhere.