A Wreath of Snow

by Liz Curtis Higgs

  “Anything else for you?” the cashier asked as she handed over the tea, steaming and fragrant.

  Meg was surprised to find her fingers trembling when she lifted the cup. “All I want is a safe journey home.”

  “On a day like this?” the round-faced woman exclaimed. “None but the Almighty can promise you that, lass.”

  Chapter Two

  I’ve that within—

  for which there are no plasters!

  DAVID GARRICK

  Gordon Shaw stood at the far end of the railway platform beyond the roof, his footprints hidden under a fresh layer of snow. He grimaced at the irony. Covering your tracks, eh?

  No one had noticed him slip into Stirling early that morning, as dark as it was. He’d exited the train, pulled his tweed cap low over his brow, and walked with purpose to Dumbarton Road.

  Even after twelve years, Stirling was quite as he’d remembered: an overcrowded hill town filled with endless regrets. He’d not wanted to return, not even for one day. But what could he tell his newspaper editor without raising suspicion? Best to do the work and keep his wretched past to himself.

  By noon he’d finished his assignment and had stuffed a sheaf of notes into his traveling bag. Last Thursday a photographer from the Glasgow Herald had captured a fair likeness of his interview subject. Nothing remained but writing the article itself. That could be easily handled once he arrived in Edinburgh, where another interview awaited him after Boxing Day.

  “Surely you’ll not spend Christmas at the Waterloo Hotel,” his editor had said with an incredulous look on his face.

  Gordon had shrugged, pretending not to mind. “Clean sheets, hot meals. As good as home, though don’t tell Mrs. Wilson I said so.” His housekeeper tidied his four rooms each weekday afternoon, then left a warm supper for him in the oven and the table set for one. He usually read the Scotsman while he dined, too absorbed with the rival newspaper to dwell on how quiet it was in his parlor.

  As for the holidays, they were best spent elsewhere, keeping his mind off all that he’d lost and could not regain. In his lodging house he was surrounded by furnishings that had once belonged to his parents—the oak sideboard, the brass and copper table lamps, the blue-and-white china lining the picture rail, the upholstered sofa with its rich fabric and deep buttoning, the corner whatnots with their many shelves. Though he’d not spent a penny of his inheritance, Gordon was grateful to use the household goods he’d known so well. On most days they were a comfort to him. But not at Christmastide.

  Last December he’d found an excuse to head for Dumfries. This year it was Stirling, then Edinburgh. Leaving Glasgow for a few days provided another benefit: Mrs. Wilson would celebrate the Lord’s birth with her family rather than fret over him.

  He peered down the tracks, listening intently, his gloved hands fisted inside his coat pockets, the Stirling Observer tucked under one arm. Though the southbound train was due any moment, the heavy snow made it difficult to tell if the engine was approaching. As other passengers began moving onto the platform, he turned his back toward them and hunched his shoulders closer to his ears, willing the train to arrive before someone recognized him.

  It was not likely he’d be discovered, Gordon reminded himself. He’d left Stirling a smooth-faced lad of seventeen with lanky forearms poking out of his too-short sleeves. Now he sported a closely trimmed beard even redder than the hair on his head and a wool suit tailored to his fuller, taller frame. Time had done its duty by him. Once he reached Edinburgh, any fear of being identified could be put to rest.

  His conscience prodded him. Is that all that matters, Shaw? Your reputation? What about the injured lad? What about Alan Campbell?

  Gordon shifted his stance, uncomfortable with such questions. Of course the Campbell boy mattered. He would be a man now. Twenty-two. Bedridden, perhaps, his legs all but useless.

  Every detail of that January afternoon was seared into Gordon’s memory, from the fir trees beside the curling pond at King’s Park to the frigid weather, even colder than today. It seemed all of Stirlingshire had gathered along the edge of the pond, waiting for the match to begin, when he stumbled onto the ice, laughing and loose-limbed from too many drams of whisky. He grabbed his curling stone by the handle and swept the heavy, teapot-shaped stone around him in a lopsided circle, taunting the other lads by promising to crown one of them King of the Bean for Twelfth Night.

  Then it happened. Gordon lost his grip on the handle just as ten-year-old Alan Campbell darted onto the ice. The granite curling stone struck the lad squarely in the lower back. Alan cried out in such pain that every spectator turned to see who was injured. And who was responsible.

  I didn’t mean to hurt him.

  How many times had Gordon said those words? Though his apology that night was sincere, it could not heal the little boy or comfort the sister who held him across her lap, weeping.

  The town turned against him overnight. When he knocked on the Campbells’ door to apologize, he was not received. When he wrote to the family, the letters were returned unopened. Within weeks he left Stirling in disgrace to seek a fresh start in Glasgow. His parents had remained in Stirling until they could bear the shame no longer and moved south to England, his mother’s home.

  Since that January afternoon Gordon hadn’t touched a drop of whisky, hadn’t missed a Sunday in church, hadn’t given any man or woman further cause to despise him. He’d also refused to touch a curling stone, praying the Lord would heal Alan and undo the damage his carelessness had wrought. But here in the town of his birth, memories ran deep, and forgiveness was hard to come by.

  In the distance a shrill whistle pierced the air. Gordon eased closer to the rails, anxious to be gone from Stirling, to disappear like the Ochil Hills that were now hidden behind a thickening curtain of snow. When the train finally entered the station and ground to a halt, he bolted through one of the narrow wooden doors, then headed toward two vacant seats at the front of a second-class carriage. He chose the spot by the window and placed his bag beside him, hoping no one would have need of the aisle seat.

  Seeking refuge behind his newspaper, Gordon scanned the columns of ink. The choppy cadence of the voices around him marked them as Stirling men. “Sons of the Rock,” they were called, a nod to the massive crag that dominates the town, with old Stirling Castle at its pinnacle. As a lad he’d chased many a ball down Castle Wynd. Some of the men conversing behind him had probably done the same. He might even find fellow curlers among them. Old friends who’d long forgotten him. Or who remembered him all too well.

  Gordon looked over his shoulder. Was the dark-haired fellow one of the Gillespie brothers? Hard to be certain. Stuart and Roy would both be in their thirties now. He eyed the other travelers, recognizing none of them. Not the older man clenching his unlit pipe between his teeth or the surly lad with a jagged scar across his chin or the small woman bearing a rambunctious toddler in her arms.

  He was about to face forward again when a burst of icy air heralded another passenger’s arrival. A young woman wearing a large black hat hastened through the carriage, her expression troubled. She claimed the seat across the aisle from him, placed a small satchel at her feet, then folded her hands in her lap. Her movements were efficient, her posture straight as a plumb line.

  Gordon regarded her out of the corner of his eye. Most Scotswomen of his acquaintance had dark or coppery hair and freckled skin, but this one was fair-haired with a porcelain complexion. Not a woman he’d likely forget if he ever had the good fortune of being introduced. Was she a Stirling lass?

  When she glanced at him from beneath the brim of her hat, Gordon noted the hint of sorrow in her clear blue eyes. Perhaps she was bound for a funeral. A sad thought, especially on Christmas Eve.

  He returned to his Stirling Observer, but the printed words blurred as his mind wandered back in her direction. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar. Had their paths crossed before? In a restaurant, perhaps? A theatre lobby? Her bright eye
s suggested an equally bright mind. If she was from Glasgow, he might have seen her at a lecture or noticed her across a shelf of library books at the university. Gordon ventured a sidelong glance, then waited for her to look his way again.

  After a bit she raised her chin to meet his gaze once more. Though he saw no spark of recognition in her eyes, he did note a slight flicker of interest. Or was he imagining that too?

  When she looked away, Gordon reluctantly did the same, then folded his newspaper, weary of the pretense. Without a proper introduction he could not engage her in conversation, much as he might wish to. Little remained but to stare out the window, willing the snow to stop and the train to move.

  A long ten minutes crawled by, then twenty, then forty. Consulting his pocket watch did not improve things. He looked at the wind forming snowdrifts—wreaths, his Scottish granny had called them—against the base of the platform and over the wheels of the train. They had no hills to climb en route to Edinburgh and only a minor curve in the track before Falkirk station. Was it not better to press on rather than wait for even more snow to accumulate?

  When the railway conductor stepped into the back of the carriage, the passengers turned to him as one, seeking answers.

  “You’ll be wanting to know what’s delayed our departure,” the conductor said matter-of-factly, his broad face chapped from the wind. “Ice on the tracks. The wheels cannot get any purchase. We’ve sent men ahead to clear the way, but …” He shook his head. “Could be six o’clock. Could be later.”

  Gordon didn’t like the sound of that. How much later?

  “Disembark if you wish.” The conductor gestured toward the platform, dusting the nearby passengers with snow from his coat sleeve. “Spend the night in Stirling.”

  Impossible. Gordon nearly said the word aloud.

  The fair-haired woman across from him looked distraught as well. “Will you not keep trying, Mr. McGregor?”

  “Aye,” the conductor assured her, “for we’ve passengers at each station down the line waiting for our arrival. You’re welcome to stay on board. As long as the ashpan doesn’t become caked with snow, we’ll have enough draught to keep the coal burning and the carriages warm.”

  Gordon glanced out the window at a sky now the color of ink. Nightfall came early in December, swiftly dropping the temperature.

  The conductor moved toward the door. “The weather may yet improve, Miss Campbell.”

  Campbell? Gordon was taken aback, though her surname was common enough. Campbells resided in every corner of Scotland.

  “Then I shall wait,” she replied, turning forward in her seat.

  Gordon didn’t move, riveted to her silhouette. That small upturned nose. That determined tilt to her chin. Why had he not noticed such details earlier?

  Her mouth was not shaped in an anguished O, nor were her blue eyes filled with tears as they had been on the curling pond twelve winters past. But Gordon had no doubt of her identity.

  The young woman seated across from him was Alan Campbell’s sister.

  Chapter Three

  Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

  snow on snow,

  In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

  Meg clasped her hands so tightly her fingers ached. Spend the night in Stirling? She could only imagine what her brother would say if she reappeared on Albert Place. Whatever the hour, whatever the weather, the train had to reach Edinburgh tonight.

  While many of the passengers collected their luggage and abandoned their seats, Meg smoothed her plaid wool scarf around her neck and settled in for the duration. She tried not to think about the mincemeat tarts at Stirling station. At least she’d had a cup of tea. And in one of her coat pockets was an apple that had traveled with her yesterday. She might be grateful for it by journey’s end.

  The second-class carriage grew decidedly quieter. Colder too. Beyond the slender glass windows, the wind howled down the tracks, pushing the snow like a plough. Only the mother with her small child remained aboard, along with the attractive bearded gentleman sitting across from Meg.

  When they’d exchanged glances earlier, Meg thought she’d noted a hint of interest on his part, so she’d responded in kind. But now he was merely staring at her, a look of distress on his face.

  When she could bear it no longer, Meg asked, “Is something wrong, sir?”

  He straightened at once, a tinge of red rising above his collar. “No, miss. I beg your pardon.” With a dutiful lift of his cap, he turned away.

  Meg sank back against the seat, wishing her tone had been gentler. Instead, she’d sounded like the teacher she was, questioning him as if he were a disruptive student.

  No wonder men kept their distance! Hadn’t they always, even before she went to university? Over the years her quick tongue and independent spirit had driven away the few suitors who’d knocked on her door. Most of the time she’d been relieved, but once or twice she’d been very sorry indeed.

  Inside the chest of drawers in her bedroom on Albert Place was a scarf she’d knitted years ago for a promising fellow named Peter Forsyth. After they’d walked out together several Sundays in a row, she’d made the handsome blue scarf for him, convinced they would be engaged by Martinmas. Later that autumn, when Mr. Forsyth stopped calling, the woolen scarf was hidden away, along with her disappointment.

  Then there was Mr. Wallace, who’d grown weary of her correcting his grammar and told her so. And Mr. Alexander, who’d briefly courted her until she admitted her fondness for tidy desks and freshly sharpened pencils. And provincial Mr. Duff, whose ardor waned when she confessed her longing to explore the world beyond Stirlingshire.

  If this red-haired gentleman’s interest in her was genuine, Meg feared she’d already put a stopper in it. Would she never learn?

  Meg sighed, then unbuttoned her coat long enough to consult the round silver watch pinned to her bodice. Four thirty. If Mr. McGregor was right, it could be more than an hour before they were under way. Only then did she remember the book she’d purchased at the station—The Master of Ballantrae, a slim, clothbound volume by the late Mr. Stevenson. Meg reached into her coat pocket to retrieve it, glad for the company of a story.

  But even Lord Durrisdeer’s century-old secret couldn’t hold her attention on such a night. After a few pages she slipped the novel into her satchel. Too much weighed on her heart—the endless snow, the uncertain delay, and most of all the painful conversation with her brother. Grievous words stir up anger. However long ago Meg had learned that proverb, she’d witnessed the truth of it this day.

  She shifted in her seat, trying to find the last bit of heat in the metal foot warmer, stocked earlier with coals from the locomotive’s firebox. Soon enough she would be safe and warm in her Thistle Street house with her fireplace glowing and a teakettle whistling on the stove.

  On her walk home from the Princes Street station, candles would be burning in nearly every window, and rich, crisp shortbread would be baking in countless ovens. She’d not left much in her larder, thinking to be gone for a full week. But she had enough butter, sugar, and flour for one circle of shortbread notched around the edges like yule cakes of old.

  At the moment, however, the weather was foremost in her mind. Hours into the storm, the snow had turned into a sharp, fine dust, like ground glass, whipping past the windows of the train. A sense of foreboding washed over her. What if the signal posts became frozen and two trains were inadvertently directed onto the same track? It had happened before, on the Great Northern Railway. Or what if the ashpan became caked with snow, and the engine stopped, leaving them stranded in the countryside without heat?

  Go home. Her heartbeat quickened at the strong and unexpected urging.

  Home to Edinburgh? Or home to Albert Place?

  She eyed the carriage door. A handful of people were still milling about the platform. Might the same porter reclaim her trunk? Arrange for it to be delivered to her parents’ house and her with it? Meg knew
the answer. Not in this weather, not for any amount of silver. Nor was she prepared to face her brother and hear yet again all the ways she’d disappointed him.

  To Edinburgh, then.

  As if at her bidding, the train whistle blew loud and long. Then the engine jolted forward with a great burst of steam. Though two hours behind schedule, the three twenty-six was finally under way.

  Relieved, Meg glanced back at the woman traveling with her child, thinking to exchange smiles with her. But the toddler, apparently frightened by all the noise, was whimpering against his mother’s shoulder. Or perhaps he was hungry. Meg remembered Alan, as a boy, making such noises whenever mealtime drew near.

  She pulled the apple out of her pocket. Was the child old enough to eat it? Might she offend the mother by offering it? Meg stood and made her way back through the carriage as it jostled her to and fro. When she reached the twosome, she held out her gift, such as it was—free of bruises anyway and a good size for a red pippin.

  “Oh!” The mother’s eyes widened. “Look what the kind lady has brought you.” When she took the apple with a nod of thanks, the toddler wiped his nose with his sleeve, his misery forgotten. She beamed at him. “Mum will take a bite, then share it with you, aye?”

  Meg watched them, touched by the way the mother carefully bit into the fruit, peeled away the skin, then fed her son. He was none too patient with the process until his mother made a game of hiding each bite and then producing it with a look of astonishment.

  “You were brave to stay aboard the train with your son,” Meg said, surveying all the empty seats.

  The woman kissed her son’s head, then looked up. “My husband works in Edinburgh and cannot come home for Christmas. So we thought we’d surprise him. We’ll be there in less than an hour, aye?” She smiled at her boy chewing on another bit of apple. “Thanks to you, miss, our son won’t arrive hungry.”