A Magical Christmas Present

by Eugenia Riley

  “Will? Will!” Robert said, stirring him from his staring.

  “Huh?” he grunted, articulate as an ape.

  “Good lord, man, you look like you’ve been kicked in the head.”

  Will blinked, frowned, and tried to focus on his friend. Robert Linwood was a few years younger than he, but he and the Linwood family had become good friends over the past few years. Robert was a lawyer, who like many others in Woodbridge relied on the town’s position as the county seat—and thus the home of the county courthouse—for his business.

  “There is a saying amongst shopkeepers,” Will said, still half-dazed, “that customers do not know what they want. A man may come into a store seeking only boot black, but then his eye lights upon a pocket watch and suddenly he must have it. He did not know he wanted a pocket watch. He got along fine without one for many years. But now he must have it, and if he cannot afford it he will leave the store with that watch haunting his thoughts until he finds the money to buy it.”

  “Are you feeling quite well?” Robert asked.

  Will looked back to Catherine, who was introducing the stranger to her parents. Her excitement was palpable, even from across the room. “No, not quite.”

  Dinner was its own unique agony. The dining table was crowded, all its extra leaves put into use. Catherine was at the other end of the table, the newcomer, Mr. Rose, seated next to her and making himself the cynosure of the gathering.

  “‘Well, I never!’” Mr. Rose was saying, imitating the voice of an affronted woman of the upper classes, to the great amusement of those guests seated near him. “And then she tripped on the train of her gown, falling into a servant and sending his tray of glasses crashing to the floor!” A drumming of laughter followed the denouement to the story.

  Will did not laugh, watching instead how Catherine smiled, as if she had heard the tale before, and then glanced quickly at those near her, gauging their reactions as if seeking communal approval of this man. Her eyes flicked briefly down to his end of the table, squinting a bit, but then her attention went back to Mr. Rose, who had begun another anecdote about life among the upper crust in New York.

  “I don’t like him at all,” Amy whispered at his side.

  Surprised, Will turned to the girl with whom he had developed a small friendship during his visits to the house. She would not normally have been allowed to partake of a dinner party at her age, but an exception had been made tonight. “Do you speak of Mr. Rose?”

  “I don’t think he’s a nice man.”

  “He appears to be entertaining everyone very well.”

  “All he does is mock people. I don’t think that’s a kind thing to do, do you?”

  At the moment, Mr. Rose was doing a wicked impression of an Irish maid who did not understand the workings of water faucets. “No, not especially.”

  “I don’t trust people like that.”

  “Did he say something cruel to you?” Will asked, catching the fiery look of resentment Amy cast at the man.

  “No, it’s just…There’s just something about him. When we were introduced he said what a ‘little doll’ I was, and treated me like I was still in short skirts. I think he was even considering giving me a pat on the head. Then he ignored me completely.”

  “He and your sister make a handsome pair.”

  “Don’t say that!” Amy grimaced, and gave a theatrical shiver of abhorrence. “I shouldn’t like to have him as a brother-in-law.” She was silent a moment, her dark brows frowning as she stared down the table at the object of her loathing. Then her gaze switched to Will, and her lips curled in a mischievous smile that was a younger version of her sister’s. “I would much rather have you for a brother-in-law. Then Catherine wouldn’t go off again to New York. She’d stay right here.”

  Will choked on the swallow of wine he’d just taken, and after he finished coughing, tried to sound nonchalant. “Do you think I’d stand a chance against Mr. Rose?”

  “You’re a decent-looking fellow, and much nicer.”

  That didn’t sound a ringing endorsement. “Nice” and “decent-looking” had not been known to win female hearts away from the “dashing” or “amusing.” “I think your sister is barely aware that I exist. She never looks this way.”

  “That’s because she’s half-blind,” Amy said.

  “What?”

  “She’s nearsighted. Everything beyond about six feet gets blurry, and she refuses to wear eyeglasses. Even if she did look away from that man, she wouldn’t be able to tell who was who down here. I do think that if she got to know you, she’d see that you were a much better choice than Mr. Rose. You think she’s pretty, don’t you?”

  He swallowed, and suddenly found the plaster moulding on the ceiling to be of absorbing interest. “Uh…” he said noncommittally.

  “You must. I think she’s beautiful. And you need a wife. There’s no one else you’ve got your heart set on, is there? Wouldn’t Catherine do?”

  He brought his eyes back to her intense green ones. “I suppose she might,” he admitted.

  Amy beamed at him. “I would be aunt to your children. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Will blinked at her, thinking of the necessary steps to producing children with Catherine Linwood. “That would be…remarkable.”

  Voices from below were audible through the floorboards, the party continuing even as Amy got into her nightgown, shivering in the chilly bedroom. More guests had arrived after dinner, friends stopping by to welcome Catherine back. If she hadn’t had school in the morning, Amy knew she would have been allowed to stay up, but she couldn’t say she particularly cared to as long as he was here.

  She couldn’t put her finger on why, exactly, she did not approve of Mr. Stephen Rose. He seemed to have charmed most everyone, and she should have thought it romantic that he had followed Catherine home, taking up residence in the inn next to the courthouse so that he could be near her. Instead she found herself wondering why the man couldn’t go and impose his foul presence on his own family.

  Worst of all had been the glow in Catherine’s cheeks as Mr. Rose paid court to her. She deserved better than someone like that. She deserved someone kind and thoughtful, like Mr. Goodman. Even though Catherine was ten years older than Amy, she had never made Amy feel the age difference. She sent gifts from her travels, and wrote letters assiduously. Amy knew she couldn’t have asked for a better sister—unless, that is, she had a sister who lived in Woodbridge, instead of in New York and over half of Europe.

  If Catherine married Mr. Rose, she would never settle here, that much was plain. Mr. Rose would be quickly bored and dissatisfied with life in Woodbridge.

  Her only hope was Mr. Goodman. She’d marry him herself if she were old enough, but she loved Catherine enough to sacrifice him to her. He wasn’t as tall or handsome as Mr. Rose, and probably nowhere as rich, but he had kind, soft blue eyes that crinkled at the corners with humor. He didn’t say much, but one always felt he thought you were important when you spoke to him, and deserving of his attention.

  Not like Mr. Rose.

  But Catherine, she couldn’t see the truth of the two men, just as she couldn’t see more than six feet in front of her. Mr. Rose had blinded her heart, with his funny stories that made you feel a bit ashamed of yourself for laughing, and with his romantic good looks. How could she ever get her sister to see the pure, hidden light of Mr. Goodman, when Mr. Rose was busy burning like a bonfire?

  A wave of laughter rose up from the parlor below. Amy wanted to stomp her feet in frustration, get all their attention and tell them to throw Mr. Rose back on the train to New York.

  She went to the window, looking out at the snow that had begun to fall once again. The lantern at the end of the front walk was lit, creating a pool of yellow light in which to watch the flakes, blowing in the wind. The neighboring houses, large and white like their own, were dimly visible, one or two windows glowing with lamplight.

  If only the snow fairies were real, she’d ask the
m for help. She had a pure heart, after all, didn’t she? She might know about ladies of the night, but she’d never been kissed, and wasn’t that supposed to be part of the contract? Wishes were always meant for virginal young girls, and what use was being a virginal young girl if the legends were not true?

  A figure appeared beneath her, coated and hatted, walking down the path away from the house. She knew somehow that it was Mr. Goodman.

  What did it matter that the fairies weren’t real? She could still wish, couldn’t she?

  She left her room and went to the nursery, long since turned into a work and sewing room for her and her mother. She found a piece of white paper and scissors, and took them back to the slightly warmer confines of her bedroom.

  She folded and snipped the paper, tiny triangles and diamonds of white falling onto her writing desk. Minutes later she unfolded a paper snowflake, airy and delicate. She dipped her pen into ink, and very carefully, in tiny script, wrote her wish upon the spines and crystals of the flake:

  “I wish that Catherine could see Mr. Rose’s and Mr. Goodman’s characters as they truly are.”

  There. That was an honest wish, one that had Catherine’s fortune at heart, and not Amy’s own selfish desire to have her sister live in the same town. Amy loved her birth place, and intended to marry and raise her children here, when the time came. Life would be perfect if Catherine were living here, too.

  She went to the window and raised the sash. The wind blew and blustered, sending flakes dusting into the room, then quickly changed direction, pulling at her hair and dragging tendrils across her cheek.

  She kissed her paper flake, and threw it into the swirling snow. For a moment it dropped, and then it was caught in a gust and danced out away from the window, rising, rising, and she stuck her head out to see it go. Up it went, beyond the reach of the lantern’s light, and then she could see it no more. She stayed hanging out the window for a moment more, silently asking the snow fairies to answer her wish.

  Somewhere, in the distance, she could hear the faint jingling of sleighbells.

  “Are you asleep?” Catherine whispered, sitting on the side of her own bed, feeling weary now that the party was over. The lamp on the dresser across the room was turned low.

  Amy’s eyes opened, and she smiled, her young features barely visible in the dim light. “What time is it?”

  “Nearly one A.M. Everyone has gone.”

  “Mr. Rose, too?”

  “To the Woodbridge Inn. He says he’ll stay there through New Year’s, although he’ll have to go see relatives in Boston for a bit.”

  “Why did he come, Cath?”

  “What a silly question!” Catherine said. “To see me, of course.”

  “Doesn’t it seem a bit strange to you, his following you here? It makes him seem like a dog without a home of his own.”

  “Of course he has a home of his own, and family, too. Don’t you like him?”

  “Are all the men in New York the same as him?”

  “The same, how?”

  Amy shrugged.

  “Come, you needn’t worry about hurting my feelings,” Catherine said. “You don’t have to like him just because I do. What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s not right for you. I don’t think he’s a good man.”

  Amy’s words touched a deep, hidden doubt about Mr. Rose that Catherine had harbored for weeks, and she reacted against them. “You don’t even know him. He’s very attentive to me, and there is no scandal attached to his name. Why should you not think him good?”

  Amy gave another shrug, barely discernible beneath the blankets humped over her shoulder.

  “I think he’s quite delightful, really,” Catherine said crossly, and went to the dresser and began to remove her jewelry. “It was terribly romantic of him to come all this way to be near me. He charmed everyone who met him tonight. Even Papa seemed to like him.”

  “Papa seems to like everyone, but if you ask him, it’s not always the case.”

  “I shall ask him,” Catherine snapped. She tried to reach the buttons running up her back, and after a few futile tries gave a little huff of frustration and went back to Amy. “Give me a hand with these, will you?” she asked, presenting her back.

  “Don’t be angry with me,” Amy said softly, as she sat up and went to work on the fabric-covered buttons.

  Catherine’s head bowed under the weight of that gentle plea. “I’m not, darling,” she said quietly, and when the last of the buttons came free she turned and sat on the edge of Amy’s bed, meeting her sister’s eyes. “I’m tired of waiting, is all. I don’t know if you can understand that. I like Mr. Rose better than I’ve liked any other suitable gentleman I’ve met, and I want to believe that he is the one for me, so I can finally stop looking. I want all of you to like him, so that I will know I made the right choice if I marry him.”

  “I only want you to be happy,” Amy said.

  Catherine smiled, and couldn’t explain why Amy’s words put the sting of tears in her eyes.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Catherine, you have a package!” Amy exclaimed, bounding into the kitchen, still wearing her coat and hat. The cold, clear air of the outdoors came with her, caught in the folds of her coat, streamers of it invading the warmth of the kitchen.

  “Who’s it from?” Catherine asked, setting her rolling pin aside and wiping her floury hands on her apron. She was wearing a blouse and skirt, but the skirt’s train had become such a trial in the kitchen that at last she had pinned it up, the peacock-blue material twisted into an awkward pouch behind her knees. The heat from the ovens had brought out a fine sheen of perspiration on her skin, and tendrils of hair stuck to the sides of her face and neck. She was enjoying herself thoroughly, her mind having been lost for hours in the immediacy of dough and spices, fruit and sugars as she worked alongside the family’s taciturn cook, Mrs. Ames. There was a French apple tart cooling on the racks, as well as a variety of cookies.

  “It doesn’t say. Here,” Amy said, extending the small package toward her. “Ginger cookies!” she then cried, spotting her favorites, and quickly nabbed one off the cooling racks as Mrs. Ames raised a wooden spoon in mock warning.

  Catherine took the package, examining the neat copperplate writing addressing it to herself. There was no other mark on the brown paper wrapping, nothing to say from whence it had come. “Where did you find it? The mail has already come today.”

  “Perhaps he forgot this, and came back. It was on the front step.”

  Catherine turned it over in her hands, then with a facial shrug took a knife and cut through the string. She unwrapped the paper, and into her hand fell a flat box about six inches long, and less than half as wide. It was padded on its outside, and covered with a pale blue silk that shifted to silver when she tilted it. There were silver hinges at the back. “Curiouser and curiouser,” Catherine said, then opened the lid.

  On a bed of white satin sat a pair of spectacles. She pursed her lips, then slid her gaze sideways to Amy, who was standing beside her, eagerly peering in, cookie held to her lips.

  Amy looked up at her, catching her suspicious stare. “I didn’t send them! Honest!”

  Catherine looked back at the spectacles. No, Amy would not have had the money to buy them. The frames were gold, and so finely wrought that Catherine doubted their practicality. It would take barely a nudge, surely, to bend the ear pieces out of shape. The lenses themselves looked too thin to withstand a puff of air.

  There was something written on the inside of the lid. She tilted it, and brought it closer to her face. Spelled out in gold embroidery she read:

  See far

  And see near

  But let your heart’s

  Sight be clear

  She repeated it aloud for the benefit of Amy and Mrs. Ames. “What do you suppose that means?” she asked, genuinely puzzled now.

  “Put them on,” Amy said, her voice tight.

  Catherine glanced at her, noting the int
ensity of her expression. “My eyesight is not half as bad as you think it is. I assure you, I can see well enough to make my way around the kitchen without falling into the fire.”

  “Please, let me see them on you,” Amy asked, pleading.

  “My hands are dirty. I’ll try them later,” Catherine said, and shut the box with a snap. Why was her family forever after her to wear eyeglasses? She could see what was in front of her, and wasn’t that all anyone needed? It wasn’t like she was a hunter who needed to spot a deer two hundred yards away. “Perhaps Aunt Frances sent them,” she mused aloud.

  An hour later, with the last batch of cookies in the oven, Catherine went up to the room she shared with Amy. She opened the pale blue box and looked down at the spectacles, frowning, wondering if they truly were from Aunt Frances. The more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Her aunt was as eager as she to let vanity overrule practicality in the matter.

  She set the box down and took out the spectacles, carefully unfolding the ear pieces. She had her own pair of eyeglasses, but they were graceless, heavy things compared to these. With a glance at the door to check that Amy was not waiting and watching, she put them on.

  And took in a startled breath.

  The room around her was crisp and perfect. She blinked, and stared, and turned her head left and right. Her own spectacles improved her vision, but only slightly. They were nothing like this.

  Good heavens, she thought, is this how everyone else sees the world? It was no wonder her family implored her to wear eyeglasses, if so.

  She went to the window, and looked out across the narrow front yard and the street, to the large white houses opposite, with their black shutters and doors, and the brass knockers surrounded by green wreaths. The bare trees were frosted with snow where the wind had not blown it off, and above it all the clouds were delicate streamers of candy floss across a blue-white sky. She felt tears start in her eyes. She had never in her life seen the details of real clouds, only how artists had chosen to depict them in paintings.