A Christmas Promise

by Joanna Barker

  “But—”

  “I have taken care of the Browns. Of all of it. You needn’t worry yourself about anything in that regard.”

  Norman’s kind words took Jacob aback. He didn’t quite dare believe his brother’s sudden altruistic spirit. “I don’t understand.”

  “I knew you would be fit to be tied over it all, and when you fell ill upon hearing the news—”

  “What exactly did I fall ill with?”

  “A broken heart?” Norman shrugged. “The doctor couldn’t say for sure, but you were mad with delirium.”

  “Whatever it was, I’m well now, as you can see,” Jacob said. What “medication” had he been given for days at a time? “I must go find them, bring them back to Audbury.”

  Norman stopped Jacob’s effusion by placing a firm hand on his shoulder. “Listen to me.”

  “What?” he said, his tone less demanding.

  “Martin was kind enough to lend me the use of Bertram, one of the stable hands. I have instructed him to find the, eh, remains and personally see to their transport back to Audbury. There, Bertram will give a letter I wrote myself to Pastor Wright so they can be properly buried.”

  “You—you’d do that?”

  “I’ve done that.” Norman looked pleased at Jacob’s reaction. He lifted a shoulder and let it fall again. “You were unwell, and I knew you would worry.”

  “Th-thank you.” Jacob stammered, not entirely able to comprehend his brother’s generosity. “I couldn’t bear the idea of them being buried in a mass grave. If I can’t be present for the burial, at least I can know that it’s taking place in Audbury. Or has taken place?”

  “Likely has by now,” Norman said. He released Jacob’s shoulder. “I haven’t yet ordered a headstone. I wanted your input on the text before I sent the order to the mason.”

  Whatever had birthed this version of his brother, Jacob did not know, but he was grateful for it. “Thank you, truly. I can never repay you the kindness.”

  “Ah, well, we’ll see about that.” Norman patted his back and led him toward the guest bedchamber Jacob had been staying in. “Doesn’t look like you’ve eaten yet. Go. Eat and rest. I’ll let you know more when I hear word from Bertram.”

  “Very well.” Jacob stood there in bewilderment for a moment, hardly recognizing this smiling man as his elder brother.

  Perhaps he had ulterior motives, believing that Jacob would agree to the plans of him becoming an MP in exchange for the generosity. The prospect didn’t disgust him as it once had, but as he went back into the room and closed the door behind him, he knew that he’d make a sorry MP now. He wouldn’t care enough for any cause to debate or fight for it, not while he grieved Miriam. The people deserved a leader. A man with a broken heart, stuck in the past, was not that leader.

  Jacob crossed to a small bookshelf in the corner and selected a volume of poetry by Lord Byron. He sat in a padded chair beside the window and began to read. Perhaps he’d find some catharsis in the words of passion and love contained within the pages.

  He tried to read, but the words swam in his vision and their meaning wouldn’t resolve into anything. After several attempts, he closed the book and set it aside. Perhaps he did not deserve any kind of catharsis, any relief.

  After all, if he hadn’t been so selfish as to plan a clandestine wedding, Miriam would yet be living. He had orchestrated the journey on which she had died. He would never see her face. She would never draw another breath. She’d died, and it was entirely his fault, a fact he would have to live with for the rest of his life.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The time since the accident could be counted in days, thought the time felt much longer. Jacob had been confined to his guest bedchambers, unable to leave the room for any reason. Early each morning, a young servant boy came to start a fire in the hearth. Later, Lipton brought him food and drink throughout the day and cleaned the chamber pot, took soiled clothing to launder, brought books to read.

  His sounded like a life of gentlemanly leisure, but Jacob had nearly lost his mind. His sanity’s only salvation was the window that overlooked rolling green hills that reminded him of Audbury. And, yes, of Miriam. Thinking of her brought the greatest mixture of happiness and bitter sorrow he could have imagined. When the days and nights grew particularly long, he’d dreamt of her and awakened happy, only to be struck down by reality as if it were the flat of a sword.

  Norman’s new attempt at behaving as a caring brother was what finally got Jacob out of the house. Jacob pleaded for days, and after more than a week, they risked breaking the quarantine, seeing as he hadn’t been exposed to anyone at the ball and had barely encountered anyone in the household for more than ten days. Norman whisked Jacob out to a waiting carriage with his trunk already strapped atop, and without so much as a proper farewell to his aunt and uncle, Jacob was free.

  They did not return, as Jacob had assumed they would, to Audbury. Rather, Norman had business in London, and he’d let a flat until he could, in his words, “Find something more fitting a man of my station.”

  Jacob hadn’t been to London for years and had only vague memories of the time he’d come along with his father on business. The city had certainly grown, expanding for miles more, and with all of the new buildings came more and more people, packed into tall, cramped spaces.

  His sense of freedom, however, did not last long. They’d spent but one night in the flat—Jacob on the floor with a pillow and rug—when Norman sat him down at a table in the corner of the flat, insisting that he had something serious to discuss.

  “It’s time to begin planning your election campaign,” he began. He opened a leather-bound notebook and uncapped a fountain pen.

  “I will do no such thing,” Jacob said firmly, despite his brother’s sudden clenched jaw.

  “You will not?” He sat back and regarded Jacob with hooded eyes. “And what do you plan to do instead? Live with me forever, paying for your clothing and shelter and food?”

  “No, I—”

  “I can help you become MP, and together we can create influence and power. I understand that you didn’t want to before, but now . . .”

  Jacob just shook his head. “Yes, my situation has changed, but my intent in that regard remains the same. I will not run for MP.”

  Norman put the cap back onto the pen, closed the notebook and set the pen atop it. “Very well. If you do not wish for my aid, then unfortunately, I cannot allow you to live here—or at Stonecroft Hall, either. Remember it will be let soon.”

  “Where am I to live, then? What am I to do?”

  “That is not for me to determine. You wish to live in your own way? That is your decision to make.” Norman stood and took the notebook and pen with him, tucking them under his arm. “You may stay here for another fortnight. After that, however, I will be moving into a permanent residence, and you will need to find your own.” He consulted his pocket watch. “I’ll be back for supper, if you change your mind.”

  Norman left the flat, and Jacob spent the next two weeks trying to find a place to work that would pay more than a pittance, and trying to find a place to stay that didn’t require a rent so large that it might as well be a king’s ransom.

  Then the fortnight was past. Jacob had one last night available to him in Norman’s flat, and come morning, they would leave the lodging house. Norman would move into a townhouse somewhere in or near London—he wouldn’t say precisely—and Jacob would be left standing on the street with his trunk and nowhere to go. Norman was the only family Jacob had left, which meant that in truth he had no family at all.

  So much for brotherly affection, he thought miserably as he trudged along a snowy street in the East End. At least his coat was relatively new, his boots were free of holes, and his belly, while not full, hadn’t been empty for days. That was all more than could be said of many he encountered on the streets.

  He hadn’t found anyone willing to hire or house him. Unwilling to return to the flat and admit defeat to
a gloating Norman, he wandered the streets well after dark.

  Father hadn’t intended any of this to happen—for Jacob to be left destitute after his death—but he was. He’d spent his only money on the expedited marriage license and the private stagecoach that was to bring Miriam and her father to Harton. Norman had cut off any further money, and Jacob had no way of knowing whether their father truly hadn’t been able to leave him more, or whether Norman merely claimed as much. Jacob’s accounts were empty, and though he’d written to his solicitor, he hadn’t yet received any kind of explanation, and he wasn’t let in to see the man, either.

  Most businesses were locked up for the night, but Jacob came across several pubs that were open, with song and drink flowing. After passing a number of them, he came to The Red Lion and paused at the window. He watched the men inside, laughing and smiling with pints in their hands, their faces rosy—with warmth or drunkenness, he didn’t know. Whatever the cause of their seeming happiness, he wanted a piece of it for himself. He wouldn’t ever be truly happy again, but perhaps tonight he could drink his sorrows away and forget them for a brief spell.

  The door jangled with bells as two men stumbled out. Jacob held the door for them, then entered himself. For the first time in his life, he intended to drink himself into oblivion, if that was possible to do with the few coins he still had in his pocket. With any luck, he’d have a few hours free of grief and guilt over the accident and losing Miriam, as well as a spell without having to worry over where he would sleep or how he would eat. How he’d survive the cold winter nights on the streets of London.

  He’d never been much of a drinker, so getting utterly foxed didn’t prove difficult. At one end of the pub, men took turns singing, often in groups, sometimes accompanied by a fiddle. Jacob remembered laughing so hard at some of them that he had tears streaming down his face. Were the songs that humorous, or was the alcohol so strong that he laughed at silly things? No matter. He’d gotten some relief.

  As if he were looking at the world through another’s eyes, he stood and went to the front of the room to take his turn—an action very unlike him, but the alcohol must have removed his usual social judgment. There, standing up before the full room of mostly men, with a handful of rather scantily clad women, he joined two men in a drinking song, “Whiskey, You’re the Devil.”

  When it was over, he laughed until he cried, and others in the room shouted, “More, more!”

  For some reason Jacob would never be able to explain, he complied, not with a drinking song but with a tune of his own creation, something he’d hummed to himself during quarantine while thinking of Miriam and staring at the ceiling. And after reading plenty of Lord Byron’s works. The poet’s words returned now, fitting the tune as perfectly as it had when Jacob had quietly sung it to himself day after day:

  And thou art dead, as young and fair

  As aught of mortal birth;

  And form so soft, and charms so rare,

  Too soon return’d to Earth!

  The riotous laughter died down, and all eyes in the room were trained on him. In the corner, an older woman sitting alone sniffed and wiped a tear, then gave him a nod, encouraging him to continue. He did, singing on and on, the words of Lord Byron reflecting on his young love, too soon dead, as his own Miriam was. He finished with the second-to-last stanza of the poem:

  As once I wept, if I could weep,

  My tears might well be shed,

  To think I was not near to keep

  One vigil o’er thy bed;

  To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,

  To fold thee in a faint embrace,

  Uphold thy drooping head;

  And show that love, however vain,

  Nor thou nor I can feel again.

  His voice grew quiet, and he stopped singing. The room was silent for several seconds. He felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment for injecting sadness into the fun evening. Yet as he moved to return to his seat, the audience applauded, long and loud. Jacob stood there in stunned silence, hardly believing it.

  Many a time, Miriam had praised his singing, but he hadn’t thought much of it; after all, she loved all of him. She probably would have complimented him if his singing sounded like an aging warbler in a tree. However, these strangers had tears flowing from their eyes, and not from laughter. He’d sung about love and death, about his grief and his loss. And they were applauding him. Several men thumped his back with congratulations as if he’d just won an award.

  The moments after he finished singing were something he’d remember forever: a London pub filled with people of all backgrounds, their attention rapt, their faces filled with the very emotion he’d been feeling. Jacob, realizing he’d just bared his soul to strangers, awkwardly bowed a couple of times, then stumbled back to his table. At his chair, however, he thought better of sitting and instead walked—rather unsteadily—out the door and into the darkness of the newly fallen snow. He’d been plenty warmed by the Guinness; he needed to escape these prying eyes.

  He’d walked a block when a man ran up from behind and stopped him. “You’re the one who just sang in The Red Lion, aren’t you?”

  Jacob turned, glanced back toward the pub, and nodded. His eyes were burning now, and the pain of losing Miriam threatened to overtake him in another wave. Strong drinks didn’t take away the pain; they merely numbed it for a moment, only for it to rush back. “That was me.”

  “Where did you train?”

  “Train? For what?” Jacob asked. “I attended school at Harrow.”

  “I meant your voice,” the man said with a friendly smile. “I work with performers. Singers, mostly. Get them concerts around the country—London, Brighton, Edinburgh, Dublin. And outside the country too. I’ve had singers touring the Continent in Paris, Copenhagen, Rome. Even New York City.” He reached into his breast pocket, withdrew a card, and held it out. Jacob took it with a suspicious look before reading the text on the card, which identified the man as Richard Wright.

  “What has this to do with me?” Jacob asked.

  “I would like you to consider a career in music. Have you truly never had singing instruction?”

  “Never.”

  Richard shook his head in amazement. “I’ve never heard the like from someone not trained in a conservatory.”

  “That’s very kind of you, but—” He stepped forward to move on, holding the card out.

  Richard held his hands up, refusing the card—and walking alongside Jacob, too. Apparently he wasn’t going to let this go. “Just consider it. You can find me at the address there. It’s in Belgravia.”

  At that, Jacob’s head came around, and his step came up short. “You live in Belgravia?” He was new to London, but even he was aware that only the rich and influential lived there.

  His reaction brought a smile to the other man’s face. “You could, too.”

  Jacob waved the card back in the direction of the pub. “If you’re so well-to-do, why are you frequenting pubs in squalid neighborhoods like this?”

  “In the hopes of finding someone like you.” He pressed the card into Jacob’s palm and waved, heading back toward the pub. “Call on me tomorrow at noon. I’ll be waiting.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  December 23, 1824

  Bath

  One year. Miriam could scarcely believe that it hadn’t been a decade or two, but the calendar said otherwise. Exactly one year ago today, she and her father had been on their way to Harton so she could marry Jacob—a journey that had set into motion events that had her crippled, in pain, and alone. She’d lost her father in the accident, and her grief was magnified by losing Jacob just as fully, if in a different way. How much easier would grieving have been if she’d been given a chance to be held in Jacob’s embrace as she cried over her father’s death?

  The stairs outside her bedchamber creaked with Evie’s steps—the caretaker whom Norman, true to his word, had hired. As Miriam could no longer navigate stairs, her bedchamber was on the ground flo
or of the townhouse, where others, no doubt, would have set up a dining room. One more part of her living situation different from most: Evie, the servant, lived upstairs in what was arguably the nicest room of the townhouse, with full use of the drawing room to herself. As servants’ lives went, Evie had a good one.

  She rapped on Miriam’s door and called, “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Evie,” Miriam said, shifting in her bed as she could and wincing at the throbbing pain in her legs. Movement hurt dreadfully, but not moving made the joints and muscles stiffen up, which led to even worse complications. She and Evie were constantly trying to balance the benefit of stretches and attempts to strengthen her legs while ever mindful of not causing undue harm or unnecessary pain to her already serious injuries. Injuries she’d likely healed from as much as she ever would.

  The bedchamber door opened, and Evie appeared with a tray. “I’ve your breakfast,” she said, crossing to the bedside table, where she lay the tray, then put an infuser with fresh tea leaves into a cup. “Sleep well?” she asked, glancing at Miriam as she poured hot water over the infuser.

  “As well as can be expected,” Miriam said with a smile. She sat up—carefully—but she must have made a face, because Evie set the teapot back onto the tray and helped her into position. She added a pillow to help keep Miriam in a comfortable sitting position, then returned to her work at the tray.

  Oh, how grateful Miriam was for Norman to have found a caretaker as kind and gentle as Evie. Truth be told, Miriam wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d found the most bitter, disagreeable person possible, but Evie had become a friend in the months they’d been together. She was yet in her twenties, and Miriam both hoped and feared that Evie would herself find a husband. Miriam the friend wanted Evie to be happy, to have a family, or at least to have a life outside the walls of their townhouse, but Miriam the patient could not fathom a future without her.

  Evie placed the tray onto Miriam’s lap. Everything was arranged exactly so, and beautifully. She’d even included a small piece of a deep-purple shrub as decoration, cut from one of Miriam’s favorite plants out front. “I’ve called for Dr. Swenson,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “He’ll visit this afternoon.”