Love Like the Dickens: A Heartswell Harbour Romance

by Mavis Williams

  “You ain’t going to jail, Oz,” Nick said, waving his claw in Oscar’s direction. “You gots a show to put on. I wouldn’t want to let Belinda down, so let’s just call this a dust-up and move on, eh?”

  “A dust-up?” Constable Wells grinned.

  Agnes sighed. Thank goodness.

  “Excellent. Thank you for seeing reason, Constable. The dedicated theatre-goers of Heartswell Harbour applaud you.” Irenia adjusted her wilting night cap and turned to the assembled cast. “We have a show to do, people. Places! Places, I say!”

  Everyone shuffled and mumbled and the cast made their way out of the office, leaving Oscar, Agnes, Belinda and Nick looking at each other while the constable handed Oscar back the offending missile. He slid the appendage onto his hand.

  “What, exactly, were you thinking, Nick?” Agnes asked. “Kidnapping me in a lobster costume? Why?”

  Nick shrugged. He looked at Belinda sideways and mumbled something unintelligible.

  “What was that? Try again, Nick. I think I deserve some kind of explanation.”

  Nick sighed like the lonely lobster he was. “It was a grand gesture, ok? A grand, you know, whoop-dee-do thing to get you all excited and then bam! You fall for me and Bob’s yer uncle.”

  Agnes shook her head. “You lost me somewhere between whoop-dee-doo and Uncle Bob.”

  “Oh Agnes, I’m afraid this is all my fault, isn’t it?” Belinda wrung her hands, looking miserably at the melting ice pack in her lap. “I was just trying to help, really. I didn’t think it would turn into—” she gestured at the lobster suit, the ice pack and the fake hand all at once “—into this.”

  Oscar leaned his head back against the wall and took a deep breath. Agnes wanted to move over to him, to touch him and feel his vibrant warmth beneath her hand but she held herself back. He was annoyed with her and she couldn’t help but feel he blamed her for the entire situation. She had contacted Nick in the first place, so maybe this whole ridiculous scenario was her fault.

  She preferred to blame Savannah.

  “Is it safe to say that you thought you could literally sweep Agnes off her feet and make her fall in love with you, Nick?” Oscar asked. “That she would somehow be attracted to your outlandish actions and that would translate into adoration?”

  “That’s a lot of big words there, Oz, but yeah.” Nick wiped his nose on his loose lobster claw. “Belinda said women love a big show. Like in those books? Them romancy ones?”

  “I’m afraid I did suggest a grand gesture,” Belinda said. She looked like she was about to burst into tears. “I didn’t anticipate a kidnapping, mind you. Just an overt demonstration of his affection. I didn’t expect it to end in violence.”

  Agnes looked from Nick to Belinda to Oscar. She shook her head and smiled.

  “Nick, that is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

  Oscar stared at her. She avoided his gaze, knowing Nick was ridiculous but not willing to dismiss him when he was really just a fun-loving buffoon. She was touched by his foolish antics. She knelt down on the floor in front of him and took his hands in hers.

  “You… liked it?”

  “Well, no. Not really,” she laughed. “It felt like riding a camel over rocky terrain, and I nearly lost my kneecap in the fall, but as a romantic gesture? You win all the prizes today.”

  Nick threw back his shoulders and nodded his head at Oscar. “Hear that, Ozzie? She liked it.”

  “No more grand gestures, Nick. Promise?” Agnes rose to her feet, still smiling. “And I do not want to be your girlfriend.”

  “So, just lovers?”

  “No!”

  Oscar’s rescue was incredibly romantic as well, but his brooding silence kept her from approaching him. She would wait until after the performance to thank him for his single-handed chivalry. No pun intended. “It was a great performance, but—"

  “Oh, good heavens, the performance!” Belinda leapt to her feet, pulling Nick up with her. “We’ve got to get to the theatre. Irenia will lose her mind!”

  Nick shoved his hand under Agnes’ elbow and they followed Belinda out of the precinct, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come following their shadows behind them.

  Seventeen

  Agnes pressed her eye against the crack in the curtain and immediately recoiled. The theatre was full. Packed. Wall to wall people, all facing the stage, all expecting to be entertained. She could hear the low rumble of their conversations as they awaited the dimming of the lights, and she prayed mightily that she might sink directly through the floor to Hell. Or at least to the basement, where she could hide until this horrendous night was over.

  What had she been thinking, taking a role in a play, for goodness sake?

  She wiped her hands on her costume, sweat trickling down her back as she peeked through the curtain again. Her costume was a delight of gossamer and silk, ethereal fabric that flowed and shifted with the slightest movement. She glanced down at herself to see her costume trembling like an earthquake was underway. Her hair was curled and loose, falling over her shoulders in a glossy wave. Irenia had bemoaned that fact that it was black, but Agnes had been steadfast in her unwillingness to bleach it. She was grateful now for the thick curtain it could provide between her and the audience. Couldn’t she say her lines, hiding behind her hair?

  “Get out there and show them what you’re made of.” She heard Savannah’s voice in her head and she bristled at her dead sister’s insistence that she was anything other than a mousy librarian. She should be sitting by the fire with a good book. That’s where she belonged.

  She looked for Oscar, but with his dark graves clothes he was impossible to see in the dim half-light of backstage. She paced in the small space behind the curtain, muttering to herself and cursing under her breath.

  “The audience can see your feet under the curtain.” Nora appeared out of nowhere and tugged Agnes away from the curtain to stand behind several large set pieces waiting in the wings. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I am a ghost. That’s the problem,” she said bitterly.

  “A bit late to moan about it now,” Nora pursed her lips, but then seemed to soften in the face of Agnes’ trembling chin. “Listen, I’m the queen of figuring things out too late. You’re not alone.”

  She gestured to her belly and shrugged.

  “Oh, Nora. I’m sorry. My stage fright doesn’t hold a candle to what you must be feeling.” Agnes couldn’t even begin to imagine having a baby, never mind having one without the father there by her side. “Maybe you’re wrong about Paul. Maybe he’ll be a great dad after all.”

  “I doubt it.” Nora smiled sadly. “But that’s the thing, isn’t it? I have to be enough without him. I have to go forward assuming I’ll be doing it alone. If he can keep up, fine. But I can’t wait around, babysitting him when I have a child to care for.”

  “You’re the strongest person I know,” Agnes blurted, wrapping her arms around Nora and giving her an impulsive hug.

  “You’re plenty strong yourself, you.” Nora whispered. The crowd grew silent and the lights dimmed.

  “I can’t do this,” Agnes croaked, waves of anxiety constricting her throat and making dark patches swim before her eyes.

  Nora shook her by her shoulders, forcing her to look at her in the shadowed half-light.

  “Listen to me,” she said. Agnes swallowed, focusing on Nora’s voice. “You are not the best Ghost of Christmas Past ever to tread the boards. You are not the best actress. You are not the best performer.”

  “This is supposed to help?” she asked weakly.

  “You are not the best, but you have enough.”

  “Enough.”

  “You have enough of whatever it takes to get you out there and do this thing. Enough guts, enough madness, enough willpower. You have enough life pulsing through your veins to go out there and nail this performance. Do you hear me?” She shook her again.

  Agnes blinked.
>
  “I have enough. Life. I have enough life.”

  Nora looked at her quietly. Savannah’s presence hung between them, silent and watchful. Agnes felt a lightness in the air and her chest opened up enough to take a deep breath. And another.

  “In life, I was your partner, Jacob Marley…” Doink’s sonorous voice pealed across the stage.

  “Do you still think your dad is too old for me?” Agnes asked impulsively, the rush of adrenaline fueling her.

  “Yes,” Nora said, but she smiled. “But you’re way too old for Nick. That man acts like he’s twelve.”

  ∞∞∞

  The lights were brighter than she ever imagined they would be. She walked on stage, eyes cast down over the shimmering gossamer of her costume that caught the light and reflected it back at her, blinding her. She stood centerstage, blinking into the lights, sweating and wondering what on earth she was supposed to say.

  She was supposed to say something.

  The audience hushed, and there was a thrum in the air as the crowd watched her expectantly. She could see the stage lights reflected off people’s glasses. Someone coughed. She stood, immobilized under the glare of the lights and the stares and the impaling stage fright that pinned her to her spot on the stage.

  Somewhere to the left she sensed Irenia, Scrooge’s dressing gown stark in the lights. She shifted her body slightly toward her. Scrooge. That’s who she had come to visit. There was something important she was supposed to say, but what on earth was it?

  “What’s that you said, Spirit?” Scrooge sounded stressed. Like he was actually a little old lady dressed up like a man and afraid her co-star was about to let her down in front of half the town.

  “I said—” she stammered.

  Over Scrooge’s shoulder she could see the safe haven of backstage. There was a tall ominous figure standing in the wings. Dressed in black. Looking super creepy.

  The figure thrust back the hood covering his head, revealing dark hair and dimples.

  And a smile.

  Oscar. She wanted to smile at him, but five hundred people were staring at her and she could feel her heart beating in her eyeballs. Smiling seemed out of reach at the moment.

  He mouthed something to her, but she couldn’t understand.

  “Spirit! Speak to me!” Scrooge implored. Agnes glanced at the audience. A man stood up suddenly in the aisle.

  Oh God, not Nick!

  “Three spirits, Aggie!” he yelled. “I am the first of three spirits!”

  “I am the first of three spirits,” Agnes squeaked, turning to Scrooge and raising her arms imploringly. Scrooge gave her a look like he had just killed Marley, Fezziwig and Tiny Tim and taking out The Ghost of Christmas Past would be a mere blip on an otherwise disastrous day.

  “Is that so?” Scrooge sounded exactly like a pissed off Irenia Crawley. Scrooge cleared his throat and tried again. “Tell me more, Spirit!”

  And just like that, she remembered. She remembered every line and every movement. She shut her mind to the audience, and to Nick and to Oscar and even to Irenia herself and she gave herself over to the heat and excitement and the pulse of life running through her veins.

  She nailed it.

  Eighteen

  “It was the most terrifying thing I have ever done. Ever.”

  The cast gathered back-stage after the applause and the curtain call and the lights going down as the audience filed out of the theatre. Everyone talked at once, congratulating each other and joking about missed lines and botched entrances and wonky lighting cues.

  Agnes was effervescent.

  She had done it. She had really, really done it.

  She found Irenia peeling off her wig at the dressing table, the lights like a Hollywood movie set illuminating her makeup and the severe hair net restraining her silver curls.

  “Irenia, I am so, so sorry.” Agnes sat beside her and took her hand. “I promise. It will never happen again. I just froze, I don’t even know what came over me.”

  Irenia held her gaze in the mirror. She looked at her sympathetically, her eyes shining as though she might actually have real feelings, like normal people.

  “You were magnificent, my dear,” she said. “Not at first. No. I was standing in peril for the first few moments, but then. Then, my darling, you shone.”

  “Thank you, Irenia,” Agnes gushed. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

  “I have some idea what it means to that young man.” Irenia’s tone changed as she mentioned Nick. “May I say, and excuse me for being crude my dear, but… shit or get off the pot.”

  Agnes gasped, her eyes wide.

  “Either take that young man by the hand or tell him to move on. You aren’t a child, and neither is he, although you wouldn’t know it by his behavior.”

  Irenia frowned and Agnes swallowed the laughter rising in her throat.

  “He saved me tonight,” she offered.

  “We can’t have audience members shouting lines from the house, dear. It’s just not done.”

  “I know, but—”

  “And you might want to consider the emotions of your elders also.”

  “I’m so sorry, Irenia, really,” she said. “I’ll talk to Nick—”

  “It isn’t my emotions I’m concerned about, child.” Irenia wiped at her stage makeup with a cloth, gesturing to the males’ side of the dressing room. “Age doesn’t negate feelings, Agnes. And you are toying with his.”

  Agnes glanced over to the other side of the dressing room, where the men had their racks of costumes, shoes and hats. Oscar quietly tidied the countertop and hung his costume hung up behind him. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, long and lean and looking incredibly lonely despite the ongoing celebration milling around him. She found him impossibly sexy, in a literary hero kind of way.

  Suddenly, all she wanted in the world was a warm fire and a cup of tea and a chance to touch those dimples. He had tried to help her, from the wings. She realized now, belatedly, that he had mouthed her lines to her, but she had been too rattled to understand. Nick had plowed in and rescued her, loudly, while Oscar stood steady and solid and reliable.

  He looked up and caught her eye.

  She rose to her feet to go to him.

  Nick appeared out of nowhere, as Nick tended to do, and lifted her off her feet in a lung-crushing hug.

  “What a show! I cried, you know that? I actually cried,” Nick bellowed, putting her back on her feet and wiping at his eyes with one meaty hand. “Tiny Tim doesn’t die!”

  “Yes, Nick, I know.” She couldn’t help but smile at him.

  “I didn’t see it coming, you know?” He shook his big head, looking around suddenly. “Where’s Scrooge? Where is that gal, I gotta tell her how much I loved that scene with the gravestone.”

  Nick thundered off toward Irenia. Agnes looked over to where Oscar had been standing, but he was gone.

  ∞∞∞

  One more performance. The Christmas Eve matinee was the next afternoon and then life could go back to normal. Oscar slipped on the sidewalk, still icy from last week’s storm. He caught his balance and continued toward the Book Nook, leaving the lights of the theatre behind him. He had snuck out the back door of the theatre, managing to avoid the crowd of well wishers gathered by the front doors. He knew Paisley would be looking for him, but he would text her later. He would skip the cast party. It wasn’t unexpected.

  It was what boring old men did, skipped out on parties, stood in the wings while younger more outgoing people lived out loud. And got the girl.

  The snow crunched under his shoes and he shrugged his coat closer around his shoulders. It felt like snow, the night air held the heavy promise of weather although the sky was clear. Tiny stars winked at him as he approached his book shop.

  He let himself in, welcoming the enveloping silence of old books and quiet corners. He had enjoyed being in the play, despite his usual reticence. Watching Agnes confront her fears and be so determined to do this t
hing she hated, to rise above what she called her usual way of operating, had been delightful. She wasn’t the mousy librarian she thought she was. Far from it.

  She had taken a year’s leave from her job. Moved to a strange town. Auditioned for a silly play. Broke into a bookshop. Made an old man sit up and take notice.

  And he had taken notice.

  “I’m not that old,” he muttered into the silence of the bookshop.

  His response to Agnes’ presence in his life proved that beyond the shadow of a doubt. But… echoes of his ex-wife’s judgements haunted him. Boring. Dull. Emotionless.

  A woman like Agnes needed a man like Nick.

  He winced. Maybe not exactly like Nick, but definitely someone more outgoing than Oscar. He made a cup of tea and stirred the embers in the fire, congratulating himself on shelving the issue of Agnes so tidily out of his heart and off the page.

  He stared blankly into the flames.

  Alone.

  Nineteen

  Agnes could hear the crowd murmuring about the impending storm from her place behind the curtain. Gentle flakes of snow had just started drifting from the sky when she had arrived at the theatre for the final matinee performance of A Christmas Carol. It was so romantic that there would be snow on Christmas Eve. The performance would be over by late afternoon and everyone would head home to their families, full of Christmas good will.

  She loved that she was a part of that festive feeling. She had been dreading this first Christmas without Savannah. Being in the play had given her purpose and focus, instead of wallowing in her grief. She had a growing insight into some of Savannah’s choices for her Bucket List and she quietly blessed her missing sister for having the foresight to know Agnes would need to be busy over Christmas. It hadn’t just been a random choice of a Dicken’s play. It had been an opportunity to be with people and to feel the sense of family she would be missing.

  Oscar was avoiding her, and it hurt her feelings. She had greeted him when they arrived at the theatre doors together, and he had been cordial but distant. She wanted to talk to him, but the press of cast members had kept them apart, and he was notably absent at the cast party the night before.