A Matchmaker's Christmas

by Donna Lea Simpson

  It was peaceful. Sheaf of papers in hand, supposedly reading, Chappell watched her covertly. The atmosphere was cozily domestic, with only the crackle of the fire and faint sputter of the guttering candle to break the hush. The last time he had experienced anything comparable was before his mistress had died, three years before.

  Lydia had been older than him. When he was thirty-four, her age of forty-two had seemed to make little difference, but she had aged quickly, probably because she was ill, though she never told him that. Passion between them died early; what was left was their political alliance and deep friendship. But then, he had never truly loved her. He had been flattered when she made advances to him, for she was the widow of a very powerful man, and it was whispered that she only took under her wing—and into her bed—those whom she felt would become politically important. She was an intelligent, and more importantly, astute woman.

  But still, he had never loved her. He hadn’t wanted love, for love meant betrayal and he had sworn, after Melanie’s death, that he was done with the softer feelings of the heart. Never again would he trust a woman with his emotions. Lydia had known that—he had told her his story early on—and had never asked for more than he could give. And yet he knew his aloofness had hurt her. Toward the end he had realized that though he had never been in love with her, he had still come to love her, as contradictory as that sounded.

  Her last words to him had been a plea to let go of the hurt once and for all. And he thought he had until the emotions swept back over him that evening. It was different though. Now he knew that he had to forgive himself for who he had been then, the twenty-seven-year-old David Chappell, unsure of himself, hurt by his adored wife’s infidelity. And in turn, it helped him forgive Melanie. Spoiled and petted her whole life, she had been, he knew now, suffering from his preoccupation with his work and his obsession with Alexander.

  And that brought him back to the present, sitting in a pool of golden light watching Miss Beatrice Copland, who seemed to him to be everything that Melanie had not been. As a young man he had chosen a wife with a young man’s needs. Melanie was pretty, flirtatious, vivacious, a diamond her first year and even as a young matron the center of a circle of devoted admirers. He had been proud when she chose him to marry, and thrilled when she presented him with a child in their first year.

  But with the wisdom of the years he could look back and see that their marriage would have devolved to the bickering, quarreling misery he had seen some of his friends suffer, or it would have grown cold and aloof, with each partner having a separate life, separate friends and separate lovers. With age came insight, and now at forty-seven, he would choose someone like . . . well, someone like Miss Copland. Quiet, intelligent, modest, giving; she was everything a discerning man could want and more.

  But how to approach her? How to touch a cool heart? She seemed, at times, almost repelled by him. He knew there were women who preferred other women, but in his experience it did not mean that they disliked men, and often they were the easiest friends for a fellow to have, undemanding and with no fear of entanglements or untidy emotions. But Miss Copland withdrew when he approached, though she did not do so with the other gentlemen, so it was him. Was it just that she was aware of her employer’s clumsy attempt to matchmake? For that was what was in Lady Bournaud’s mind, he was now sure of it. Perhaps Miss Copland had been hurt by a man and did not wish to repeat the experience. Or perhaps . . . he went back to the remark he had made to her just that afternoon and how it had stung her, the remark about her Season.

  It was a puzzle, and he dearly liked unknotting the intricate weave of an enigma. It was what made him good at his job, which involved a good deal of diplomatic language, the greatest tangle ever devised by man. And yet this mystery was none of his business. He must be mindful of that.

  He glanced down at the papers in his lap. It was an opening, and he wished to start a conversation with her while he had her as a captive audience.

  “Listen to this, Miss Copland,” he said. He knew he had a good reading voice, and he used it as he read, “In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hill and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster—”

  She looked up and smiled. “Is it a travelogue, sir?”

  “No,” he said, pleased that he had engaged her interest.

  “A history then? For that is Yorkshire, south of us in the West Riding.”

  “No,” he said. “It is not a history. It is the opening of a work my friend Walter Scott proposes, his first book set in England. It has to do with the tensions between the Normans and the Saxons shortly after the conquest, and is set, as you pointed out, in this very county. He is tentatively entitling it after the hero, Ivanhoe.”

  “Walter Scott,” she said, clipping a thread.

  “He has written poetry, mostly, until now, though he has published a couple of novels. His poetry is very good: The Lay of the Last Minstrel and The Lady of the Lake?”

  “Of course I know of whom you speak.” She tilted her head to one side and observed him. “I did not know you were interested in poetry.”

  “I think it is safe to say, Miss Copland, that there is much you do not know of me.”

  Her ivory cheeks stained with rose, and he was caught by the youthful glow it gave her. Why a blush? He had not said anything outrageous. Who was she? And why did she fascinate him so? He could not imagine, and yet there was something between them. It almost felt like unfinished business, though that, of course, was ridiculous. They had only just met.

  “I have no doubt,” she murmured, and got up, gathering her sewing together as if she was going to leave.

  “Don’t go,” he said. “Stay. Do you like poetry, then?”

  “I do.”

  He watched her face for a moment. “Do you perhaps write poetry, Miss Copland?” He knew he had hit on something by the deepening blush in her cheeks. “You do. You do write poetry.”

  “Very bad poetry, sir,” she said with spirit, looking him directly in the eyes. “I write very bad poetry, and only for myself.”

  “Let me read some. Let me be the judge.”

  “No. It truly is only for my own perusal, sir. Good evening, Mr. Chappell. I hope your stay so far is enjoyable.”

  And she was gone. No amount of persuasion would entice her to stay.

  • • •

  With all of the miracles of the modern age, Lady Bournaud thought, why could someone not create glasses that would not slide down to the tip of one’s nose and pinch off one’s breathing? She pushed them up once again and tried to follow the inanity of a novel that chronicled the adventures of a young girl who seemed to be perpetually idiotic and unlucky, in that every house she entered was haunted, and yet still she ventured abroad after dark with only a guttering candle and no weapon.

  A tap at her door did not make her jump or scream, as it would have the imbecilic heroine of the novel. She merely called out, “Enter.”

  When Chappell entered, closing the door behind him, she smiled and indicated the edge of the bed. “Come, Davey. Do you, by the way, mind that I insist on calling you by your childhood name, even though you are a mature man and a statesman of some repute?”

  “No,” he said. “It takes me back to when I was a tow-headed child following around the great lady of the house and getting underfoot.”

  “I’m glad. It would not have changed anything if you had minded, but I am still glad,” she said as the bed creaked under his weight. She examined him closely. They wrote often, but there was nothing like having him in the house again, right there for her to examine. He was a handsome man, though the beginnings of age were showing. His mouth was bracketed by faint lines, and the skin under his chin was getting softer. Nothing like her own great wattle of skin, of course, she thought. When she looked in her own mirror now she did not recognize herself, for all of her form
er healthy fat had melted away, leaving too much skin. She had always been a big woman; handsome rather than beautiful, they had called her. When she was twenty it had mattered to her, but when she was forty, and meeting François Bournaud for the first time, it had not because he thought her beautiful, and by then that was all that mattered.

  She watched her protégé’s eyes and saw in them worry over something.

  “What is it, Davey? Why have you bearded the lion in its den?”

  “Why does Miss Copland seem so frightened of me?” he asked without preamble.

  “Frightened?” Lady Bournaud removed her glasses and laid her book down on the snowy coverlet. “Is that true? Beatrice is not a coward. Have you said something to her?”

  “Nothing but the most bland banalities. Or . . . well, she made some reference to ruining one’s life with a misstep, and I did ask her if that was what had happened to her. But it was just a passing reference and she had been avoiding me before that. I make her uncomfortable.”

  “Well, whatever it is, Beatrice Copland is not a coward. Though she has never told me so, I think that she has suffered great hardships in her life, and not been bowed by them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lady Bournaud pursed her lips and fingered her chin. What should she say? How much? But she did so want this to work. Beatrice deserved it, and yet there seemed to be obstacles of the woman’s own making. So anything she could do to encourage the interest Davey was clearly feeling . . .

  “I shall tell you a story. I don’t know if I have ever told you this.” She settled back in her pillows and sighed. “Your father gave me a list of all of your kinfolk to write to after his passing.”

  Chappell nodded.

  “He did not want to leave all the work to you, because he knew you had your own concerns.”

  There was a moment of silence. The senior Mr. Chappell’s death had come a bare month and a half after Melanie’s. Lady Bournaud rarely referred to that time, for it was horrible and dark, both of them grieving, she for her recently deceased husband, and then her protégé’s sadness, and then the death of her dear friend, Arthur Chappell. It had seemed for a while as if God had deserted them both, and she had spent her share of time weeping disconsolately in the dim reaches of the chapel, though she would have denied it if anyone had confronted her with that weakness.

  “And so,” she continued, “I struck up a correspondence with a distant relative of your father’s, a very old woman . . . or so I thought her then, for she was my age now.”

  Chappell shifted restlessly, and Lady Bournaud put out her hand. “Patience, my dear boy. You must learn to humor the elderly. Surely you have learned that in your profession, dealing with all the lords in the house. Anyway, your ancient relation told me, about eleven years ago, of a girl, the niece of a friend of hers, who needed a position badly. She was of a good family, but due to the profligate ways of her father and the self-absorbed selfishness of her mother, she was left penniless after their death. He died of pneumonia in a sponging house and the mother died shortly after of shame, for all I can tell. This young woman, a Miss Beatrice Copland, had obtained a position of governess, but had been let go. Your kinswoman did not say, but I think the scion of the family expressed a dangerous preference for Miss Copland and the female head of the family dismissed the girl rather than have her son make a fool of himself. When I first heard the tale I thought that perhaps Miss Copland was an adventuress, but upon meeting her, I dismissed that idea. By that time she had been alone for almost two years with no family, no position and nowhere to go.”

  Chappell was still now, perhaps sensing that she was coming to the meat of the story.

  “She was a bundle of bones. She was thin and threadbare, and looked like she had not had a decent meal in weeks.” Lady Bournaud turned her face away, for she felt the water come to her eyes and she hated the sentimentality that occasionally overcame her great pragmatism. “I think she had been eking out an existence on whatever savings she had managed to put by, but when she arrived here she could not have had enough to even hire a carriage, for she walked up from the village with her meager belongings. If I had not taken her on, I do not know where she would have gone.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Lady Bournaud turned her face to look into his eyes, her snowy eyebrows knit. “So you will understand her better, I suppose. She could have used her suffering to gain sympathy. She could have told me the story to convince me to hire her, but she did not. She conducted herself in the interview as if she had a choice, too, and was evaluating me. It was foolhardy, I suppose, but I respected her then, though I was not sure how much use she would be as a companion. So self-contained! So withdrawn. I had a chatterbox before her and so she was a welcome relief, but she could not have known that.”

  Chappell shook his head. “None of this explains why she shies away from me. Am I repulsive?”

  “Davey, do not be absurd. You are not a coxcomb, but you must know you are a pleasing young man. I am sure Mistress Lydia thought so,” she added, a wicked glint in her eyes.

  “You are not supposed to know of my amorous adventures,” he scolded.

  “Precious few adventures, seems to me,” she retorted. Becoming serious again, Lady Bournaud said, “She has never reflected back on that time, except to occasionally speak feelingly of how valuable a warm bed and good food are.”

  “We spoke for a while,” he said, plucking absently at the coverlet. Lady Bournaud smacked his hand and he grinned, stopping his unconsciously destructive behavior. “She told me she writes poetry, but she will not let me read it, she says. It is too bad, according to her. I would prefer to judge for myself.”

  After a brief internal struggle, Lady Bournaud said, “It so happens that I have at least one sample. If I let you read this, Davey, you must promise not to tell her about it.”

  “I promise,” he said, with only a moment’s hesitation. “Where is it?”

  She directed him to her writing desk in her sitting room, and guided him, with her stentorian voice, to the secret compartment.

  “One would think these were the secret papers of the immortal bard, so well is it hidden,” Chappell said, bringing it back into the bedroom.

  She shrugged. “Read it.”

  He did so out loud.

  Autumn creeps o’er the moor on chilly feet,

  Soon to be tucked under the snowy white mantle

  Of winter’s bright night, to sleep,

  And dream of spring’s warming, so gentle.

  But I . . . I dream of a fire in winter,

  Warming, melting, thawing a heart

  Froze by a disconsolate longing so bitter,

  Buried in arctic tears glazed by old hurt.

  “It is so . . . sad. So very sad.” He laid the paper on his lap, after tracing the fine slanted writing. He looked up and smiled. “But she is right. It is rather bad poetry.”

  “We judge differently, my dear boy. I judge it good because it gives me the faintest glimpse into her soul, and that is a rare, rare sight, seldom offered. As I said, I was happy she was so closemouthed when first we met. I cannot abide senseless nattering on. But Beatrice has been with me for over ten years, and yet sometimes I think I know no more about her now than I did that first day. There is a melancholy deep within her. It is not so much a morose disposition, nor a gloomy or tragical outlook, but more a . . . a sadness from the heart, as if there is a wound that has never healed.”

  “Never healed,” Chappell repeated. He slipped off the bed. “I would ask to keep this, but I think it is not wise, so I will tuck it back in its hiding spot.”

  “I think that is best,” Lady Bournaud said drowsily, “since she does not even know I have it.”

  “I thought that this was given to you,” Chappell said, holding the paper by one corner and gazing at it. He was horrified by the invasion of privacy he had just committed unknowingly.

  “No, idiot. Did you think she would freely gi
ve me something so revealing of her inner self when we were just speaking of how self-contained she is? I was still able to get about a few years ago, and I came across the poem slipped under a blotter in the desk in the library. She must have been interrupted as she wrote, and it does have an unfinished air, to me. She used to do the household accounts in that room—probably still does—and I think she must have been sitting there writing and hid it when a maid came in or some other interruption occurred. She never said anything about it, so she either forgot it was there or assumed some maid found it and used it to light the fire with.” There was a long pause. “I would give much to know what it means.”

  “I don’t know.” He bent over his elderly patron and kissed her cheek, hearing her breathing slow, and the soft snuffling that meant she was dozing off. “Thank you, my lady, for the insight into the fascinating Miss Copland’s character. You are a disgraceful old meddler, but I love you anyway.”

  She chuckled sleepily, and he left the room humming a tune, a piece of music that was on everyone’s lips the year of Melanie’s death. At one time he could not abide it for that reason, but for some reason it was stuck in his brain. The words, if he remembered correctly, were about a village maiden deserted by her cavalier.

  At one time the tune had reminded him of a particularly vicious argument he and Melanie had had while she badly played the tune on their piano. He thought perhaps it was the first time he had accused her of having a lover. In hindsight he could see that she used the piano as an excuse not to look into his eyes.

  But now he hummed the tune as he closed the door to the comtesse’s suite. Strangely, it brought back the few pleasant memories of that time: holding his son for the first time, his pride in his family, the brilliant future plans he was working so hard toward. He was long past the depression, even though the memories were still painful. And he had forgiven Melanie, and himself, too. Or at least he hoped he had.