A Magical Christmas Present

by Eugenia Riley

  “Did you want to make those deliveries, since you’ll be out?” Greg, one of his clerks, asked.

  “Yes, fine.” It was an excuse to stay outdoors even longer, so he might as well.

  It was half an an hour before the team was hitched, the orders loaded, and the boys all installed with blankets amidst the groceries, gunnysacks, pruning shears, and handsaws. Will pulled on his monstrous bearskin coat and matching hat, and climbed up onto the buck-board. Behind him, the boys were already bragging about what they’d buy with their wages from the outing, their daydreaming far outmatching their imagined income. Their enthusiasm brought a half-smile to his face. He remembered what it was like to be ten and fundless, and how exciting the prospect of earning pocket money could be.

  As his mood lightened, his bumbling with Miss Linwood began to seem less of an irretrievable tragedy. She had. said she liked his store. She had been quite complimentary on that score, and that was after all the rest, including leaving her to count out sixty cards herself. He clicked to the horses and gave them a light slap of the reins, and the wagon lumbered out from behind the store and onto Elm Street.

  She had not recognized him immediately, but he imagined he must look different to her now that she was wearing spectacles. Perhaps Amy was correct, and Miss Linwood had never properly seen him at all. He thought she looked quite fetching in those fine gold frames, her liquid brown eyes gazing intently and, he assumed, clearly. He felt, somehow, that the spectacles made her a fraction more accessible to him, and a bit less an untouchable angel from another realm.

  A bobbing set of feathers and a swishing brown skirt, dragging in the snow like the tail of an exotic bird, caught his eye. His heartbeat thundered, and perspiration broke out under the heavy bearskin. Ridiculous! He had but barely made her acquaintance, and he was mooning over her as if he were in love.

  He slapped the reins again, the horses picking up to a trot. He eased them over to her side of the street, and slowed their pace.

  “Miss Linwood!” he called, not giving himself a chance to think better of what he was about to do. “Miss Linwood!”

  She turned, stopping, her expression one of utter surprise. “Mr. Goodman!”

  He was calling to her on the street from a wagon buckboard. He knew it was not the behavior of a gentleman to a lady. He drew the horses to a complete halt. “Miss Linwood! We’re going up to the woods to gather greenery. Would you care to join us?”

  She gaped at him, eyes going to the wagon load of boys, then back to his bearskinned self.

  He welcomed the gaping. Let her see that he was not Mr. Rose! Let her reject him outright, and avoid his company forever after, thus freeing him of any hope that she might someday greet his arrival with the same pleasure she had shown for her wealthy suitor. “I—”

  He waited. Let the ax fall swiftly, the stroke clean!

  “I suppose I might,” she said.

  Oh, good lord. He sat frozen for long seconds, immobilized by those simple words of acceptance. What new hell had he bought himself, full of false hopes?

  Dazed, he jumped down from the buckboard and took her parcels, handing them up to one of the boys. “Miss Linwood, may I introduce to you Joshua, Tommy, Eli, and George.”

  “My pleasure,” she said, nodding her head to the lot.

  The boys had fallen silent, shy where moments before they’d been swaggering young cocks. He remembered that feeling as well, and wished it were further in his past. Miss Linwood was neither sister nor classmate, mother nor teacher. She was a woman full-grown and lovely to look upon, and the boys were scared to death.

  There was a mumbled, barely discernible chorus of “Nice to meet you.” Will helped her up onto the buck-board, then climbed up beside her. He snagged a blanket from the wagon bed, and unfolded it over her lap.

  She smiled at him, arranged her skirts, then settled her gloved hands atop the blanket, her back straight as if held by an iron yardstick. “I had been intending to see the woods,” she said. “Thank you for inviting me to join your excursion.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” he said, and put the wagon in motion.

  Catherine swayed with the motion of the wagon, and held her chin up. As Aunt Frances had said, one could do the slightly scandalous as long as one behaved as a lady whilst one did it. She was chaperoned by four young boys, and Mr. Goodman was a friend of the family. There was no reason she should not be sitting here.

  She felt her lips twitch. Aunt Frances would not have approved, however much she tried to persuade herself otherwise. One did not ride wagons into the countryside with men of brief acquaintance.

  So why had she said yes? To see the woods through her new spectacles without her family to observe her, perhaps. Perhaps because she hadn’t felt like returning home yet, despite the cold that had seeped through her thin boots and was numbing her toes. Perhaps, just perhaps, because Mr. Goodman had piqued her curiosity, and now that that instant of startled attraction had faded, she wanted to know a little more about him.

  She turned her head slightly, trying to watch him without appearing to. He looked like a flustered bear, his blue eyes peering out with consternation from beneath his bushy black hat. He appeared, now that he had her in his wagon, to be not entirely certain of what to do with her. Mr. Rose would never have been at such a loss. It gave her a sense of power, to think that for once she was the one with the greater social ease. She was the one who was one step ahead, whereas she never was with Mr. Rose.

  “Tell me, Mr. Goodman, how long have you been in Woodbridge?” she asked.

  “Six years.”

  “Ah, indeed. And your family? Where are they?”

  “I have cousins in New Hampshire.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but was restraining himself. Perhaps he did not think she would find anything he said of interest.

  “And do you come from a family of merchants?”

  “My parents were farmers, not well off,” he said, and when she nodded, making eye contact to show her interest, he continued. “It was never a life that appealed to me. One of my earliest memories is of going to the general store, and the wonder I felt looking at all those things, and all that candy. I thought Mr. Johnson, the owner, must be one step down from God to be owning all that. Even getting a peppermint stick into my hand was like a holiday to me. Plowing and sowing and mucking out barns seemed to me a foolish way to spend my time, when working in a store might be an option.”

  “What did your parents think of that?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, the bear fur rising up to meet his hat. “Mother died when I was eight, and my father seemed to…fade after that. When I told him I’d gotten an after-school job at the store, he just muttered, and jerked his jaw forward in what I took to be acceptance.”

  He glanced at her. She nodded for him to go on.

  “When I finished school, I went to Boston, working at a large store there for a few years. I thought I needed the experience of working in a large city. Then Father died, I sold what was left of the farm, and came here and bought a small dry-goods store that was for sale.”

  “I remember it. ‘Cooper’s Dry Goods,’ wasn’t it?”

  “The very one.”

  “It seems you’ve made a success of your enterprise. Cooper’s was not much of a store.”

  “I’ve been fortunate.”

  Catherine thought it was likely more than that. The man might have a soft heart, but he plainly had business sense. His merchandise was of good quality and sold at fair prices, and the welcoming atmosphere of the store made it the type of place one wanted to linger and browse, even if there was nothing one needed to buy. She well knew that was a circumstance that had caused many of her own coins to flow through her fingers.

  They turned down a narrow lane, and followed it to a farmhouse. He drew the horses to a halt, and called over his shoulder to the boys, “Garfields’!”

  Joshua stayed in the wagon while the three other boys jumped down, then Joshua started passing goo
ds to them, which were carried up to the door in the passageway that connected kitchen to barn. An old woman came out a moment later, and waved to Mr. Goodman. He leaped down and went to talk with her, and after a few words the woman—Mrs. Garfield, she presumed—looked over at Catherine, met her eyes, and nodded in silent greeting. Catherine nodded back.

  Catherine sat and watched the rest of the exchange, and watched the boys running to and fro with their packages and burdens. She began to find herself feeling at a social disadvantage, sitting on the buckboard of a wagon in her fashionable, frivolous clothes, the jaunty, plumed hat atop her coiled hair ridiculously inappropriate to the occasion. Mrs. Garfield was wearing a dark woolen dress, apron, and half-mittens, her hair pulled simply back and covered in an outdated cotton cap. She doubted Mrs. Garfield would walk in the snow in thin leather boots with high heels.

  When they were all back in the wagon and on their way again, Mr. Goodman said, “I should have asked before: Do you mind my making a few deliveries while we’re out?”

  “Certainly not, I’m enjoying the ride,” she said. He seemed to sense her slight lack of conviction, his eyes on her for long seconds, and she felt a flutter of panic that he might actually turn the wagon around, drive back to town, and drop her at her house if she showed the least sign of wanting to return. She didn’t want that, however out of place she might feel in her finery. She might look silly and useless sitting there, but her curiosity about Mr. Goodman was yet to be satisfied, and she would not leave until it was.

  They rode in silence into the woods, the boys behind them having become accustomed enough to her immobile back that they had resumed their talk. She eavesdropped, smiling when one cursed and was abruptly hushed by the others in belated consideration of her presence.

  “I must have come to Woodbridge at about the same time you left for college,” Mr. Goodman said. “Robert tells me you went to Mount Holyoke, down in Massachusetts.”

  “I thought it was a huge adventure at the time,” she said, and at his prompting told him of what it had been like, and talked as well of her travels with Aunt Frances. She paused when he halted the wagon and gave the boys instructions on what greenery to fetch, but then he prompted her to continue, staying with her in the wagon, as the snowy ground was too uneven and wet for her to walk upon dressed as she was.

  It wasn’t until the boys were coming back with their loaded gunnysacks and, surprisingly, a tree, that she realized she had been talking for at least three quarters of an hour. Mr. Goodman exclaimed over the unexpected spruce and climbed down, and she listened with half an ear to the boys’ improvised explanations of how badly he needed a tree in his store. Her mind, however, was busy berating herself for talking on and on about herself and her travels.

  He must think her a pretentious, self-absorbed braggart. He had coaxed her to talk, nodding and murmuring in the right places, making eye contact and giving her the sense that he listened, in a way that few men ever did, but any woman should know better than to take that at face value. Hadn’t she herself gone through those very motions countless times with men these past few years, feigning interest in some stultifying tale, all the while wondering when the windbag would run out of air?

  She half-turned and watched with a distracted smile on her lips as they maneuvered the spruce into the wagon, the top of it hanging well over the back end. Why was she so concerned about what he might think of her, anyway?

  Because you admire him, a voice inside answered. Maybe she did. He was self-made, and yet maintained a kind and generous heart. He was free of pretension, and there was something honest and solid to him that she had found in very few men besides her father. He also looked, she thought, to be a happy man.

  He caught her watching him, and smiled while cocking his head at the boys, as if to say, See how they manipulate me? She wondered how much extra the boys were demanding to be paid, for bagging such a large piece of greenery as a spruce.

  Had Mr. Goodman ever married, ever been in love? It was not the type of question she could ask him on short acquaintance. She tried to imagine what it would be like to have him courting her, and failed. He was too far from the likes of Mr. Rose and the other men who had peopled her circle of late. Would he bring a small bouquet of flowers, that unruly lock of hair on his forehead ridiculously slicked back and subdued by pomade? Would he sit in the parlor with a cup of tea trembling on his knee, and try to make conversation?

  He climbed back up beside her, the boys scrambling in behind. “Are you warm enough?” he asked. “There are more blankets in back.”

  “I’m quite comfortable,” she half-lied, and felt a twinge of guilt for her thoughts on how he might court a woman. Whomever he chose to marry, she would be smart to count herself a fortunate girl.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Catherine shoved the needle through a cranberry, then carefully pulled the dark red berry along the string until it nestled up against its twin. She reached into the bowl for another, shoving aside those that had black soft spots or were half white. Papa was hunched on a stool next to the fire, shaking the long handle of the popcorn popper, the seeds rattling across the bottom of the black mesh container. Amy sat with her on the floor, sewing small lace pouches that would hold candies for the tree.

  “How late will Mama be?” Catherine asked her father.

  “I’m to fetch her at nine, and none too soon, I’m sure. That drama club causes her more grief than joy.”

  “I think she enjoys complaining about them,” Catherine said.

  “It’s worse this year. You know she and Maggie Walsch have written their own adaptation of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol for the stage, don’t you?”

  “Dear me, no. Mama did not mention that part of it.”

  “Well. You can imagine the state she gets in when our local thespians question their lines.”

  Catherine pursed her lips and raised her brows, imagining the scene very well indeed. Mama was a lamb in the general course of things, but on the occasions that a creative project was put into her direct control, she became a field marshal who brooked no opposition. Those who questioned orders or threatened desertion were put to the firing squad. “Is Mr. Goodman in the play?”

  “Mr. Goodman?” her father asked, eyes on the kernels that had just begun to pop. “Of course. He’s Scrooge.”

  “Scrooge?” Catherine cried. “You cannot be serious.”

  Papa looked over his shoulder at her. “Who better than a shopkeeper? They’re notorious for being tight-fisted.”

  “But Mr. Goodman! Or does Mama see it as a joke?”

  Papa frowned at her. “I don’t quite see what you’re getting at, Catherine. He’s an astute businessman, and living alone like he does in that new house of his, I think he fits the part rather well. It’s easier to imagine him in the role than, say, Mr. Tobias, who has a wife and six children and is on the library board.”

  “Do people think him a miser, then?”

  “I doubt that they think of him much at all. He’s a bit of a cipher, our Mr. Goodman, and keeps himself to himself,” her father said approvingly.

  “Papa!” Amy cried, pointing at the fire.

  “What? Oh, damn me,” Papa said, turning back to his task and finding the popper full of flaming popcorn. He used the long handle to open the lid, and dumped the lot into the fire. “That’s the third batch.”

  Catherine and Amy both giggled. Papa gave them a glare.

  “Why are you asking so many questions about Mr. Goodman?” Amy asked her, as Papa refilled the popper.

  “Who says I am asking ’so many’? I was curious, is all,” she said primly.

  Oh yes, she was curious, curious because at the second farmhouse where Mr. Goodman made a delivery he came back to the wagon with a pierced tin foot-warmer full of hot coals, knowing despite her denials that she was chilled. Curious, because when he had again prompted her to talk about herself, she had looked into his eyes and known that he truly was interested, and not merely feigning it out
of politeness.

  “Is he courting you?”

  “Amy! What a ridiculous question. Of course not.”

  “I don’t see what’s so ridiculous about it. I like him, and think he would make an excellent brother-in-law.”

  “Oh, really,” Catherine said, rolling her eyes, feeling a touch of embarrassment on her cheeks. Married to Mr. Goodman? She, the wife of the man in that enormous bearskin coat? How Mr. Rose would laugh!

  “Did you ever ask Papa about Mr. Rose?” Amy asked.

  “Eh, what?” Papa said, settling back onto his stool, casting another look over his shoulder at them.

  “I wanted to know if Catherine had asked you your opinion of Mr. Rose,” Amy said.

  “No. Why? Did you want it?” he asked Catherine.

  She busied herself with a cranberry, then glanced at him from under her brows. “If you were willing to give it.”

  “Things that serious, are they?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, Papa, but I trust your judgment and Mama’s.”

  He gave the popper a shake. “He’d be able to provide for you, there looks to be no question of that. He’s personable, and cuts a fine figure. He seems to have taken quite a fancy to you.” He chewed the inside of his lower lip, eyes focused on the distance.

  Catherine waited. “And?” she prompted.

  “Hmm?” he said, pulled from his reverie.

  “And what else?” she asked.

  “And nothing else. He appears an eligible enough young man.”

  “But—What of his character? What type of husband would he make?” Catherine complained, unsatisfied. “Is he a good man? Would he be a good father?”

  “I don’t have a crystal ball, Catherine, and I barely know the man. You are the one who has spent time with him. You know the answers better than I would.”

  She gave a little grunt of frustration. Why was it a parent never had an opinion when you most wanted one, but was free enough with advice when you were in no mood to hear it?

  “Damn me!” Papa cried again, and Amy shrieked in laughter as another batch of popcorn went up in flames.