A Christmas Resolution

by Anne Perry

  She crossed the road and passed a clump of bare trees that appeared like a lace tracing against the sky.

  What could she say that was not merely mean-spirited? What was practical? Marlowe would almost certainly lash out at her if she mentioned the letter. That would hurt two of the people she loved, Hooper and Clementine.

  Surely the letter writer was someone who hated or feared Marlowe. Perhaps if she were more a part of the village, she could learn who it was? Sometimes the only defense was attack.

  As she walked, she tried to think of all the people Marlowe had outraged or belittled at one time or another. There were lots of them, but were any hurt severely enough for this retaliation? It would take someone very brave—or very desperate—to fight back like this. Yet it had happened. Who might have secrets dark enough to provoke this? And, of course, sufficient knowledge of Marlowe’s life to provide the weapon?

  Would Arthur know? He would tell her he was bound to keep any secrets told to him. It was his sacred duty. But was it not also his sacred duty to prevent a crime? The wound to Clementine and to Marlowe himself would be deep—or it might be. What about the injury to the person who did such a thing? That would be lasting, a stain on the soul. Would Arthur not sooner prevent that?

  It was, at the very least, a consideration.

  But Arthur could only do that if he had some idea who it was. And did he?

  She was at Clementine’s door, surrounded by the bare vines of roses. Clementine was in the sitting room and had seen her through the window. It was too late to turn back.

  A moment later, Clementine opened the door. “Miss Drew is asleep,” she said quietly. “Come in.” She hesitated. “You look concerned. Has something happened?”

  Celia was still debating what to say, or perhaps whether she should say anything at all, but Clementine’s perceptiveness had robbed her of at least one choice: she could not deny her feelings. She accepted the invitation and walked in quietly so as not to disturb the old lady.

  Was it possible that Marlowe had already been here and said something?

  Clementine led Celia into the sitting room, with its large, chintz-covered armchairs, flowered curtains, painted flower vases, and photographs of people whose names Clementine admitted she had never known. She put another log on the fire, then sat down in the armchair with its back to the window and the fading afternoon light. “What is it?” she asked. “And don’t tell me it’s nothing. It’s clear in your face.”

  Celia plunged in, wishing now that she had not come. The last thing she wanted was to spoil Clementine’s happiness, and yet how could she leave her sudden silence unexplained and her visit purposeless?

  “I’m afraid I had something of a falling-out with Mr. Marlowe,” she began. “I think I was clumsy in what I said, and he has forbidden me to interfere in your arrangements. I didn’t explain myself to his satisfaction. I’m very sorry. I wish you so much happiness, perhaps I was too concerned in my views…” She stumbled to a halt, knowing that she was not making the situation better.

  Clementine met her eyes, then looked down at her hands folded in her lap. “I’m sorry, too,” she said quietly. “He has told me what happened. I can’t help but feel he misunderstood you. I tried to tell him that, but I’m afraid I did not make a good job of it. He thought I was agreeing with you, saying I preferred your advice to his.” She looked up at Celia, her face pale and miserable.

  Celia did not interrupt her. She could think of nothing to say.

  “He sees me as disloyal. Celia, I can’t do that to him. You understand, don’t you? He has suffered so much. I have to earn his trust, after all that Rose did to him. He’s so vulnerable.” Clementine looked very seriously at Celia. “I can’t imagine the pain he endured, and for years. He watched all the women he loved so dearly lose everything. His sister, Una, was ill most of her life, you know. Always delicate. Every winter they dreaded another chill, another fever, and each one left her weaker. Even though he had been expecting it, it broke his heart when she died. He and Arthur tried to console each other, but no amount of friendship in the world can combat the weight of grief, or the loneliness.”

  Celia nodded silently. She knew exactly what Clementine meant. She, too, had put on a brave face, but sometimes the loneliness cut deep into her soul. This was Clementine’s chance to give Seth Marlowe wisdom and care, to give love to someone who desperately needed it. Celia, of all people, should be happy for her. She despised herself for having any doubt about it, even for an instant. “Of course,” she said quickly. “Fears don’t have to be sensible to hurt.”

  Clementine smiled. “Thank you. Of course, I want your advice and your help. I’m suddenly aware of how little I know. It takes courage, doesn’t it, to change, to share your life with someone else? But I know how happy you are, and how your mood changes—your eyes, the way you smile—when you are going home and Mr. Hooper is there, waiting for you. You climb the slope as if it were nothing. When you are in repose, you are smiling, as if your thoughts make you happy. I would like to be like that—like you.”

  Celia could feel the heat rise up in her face. She had no idea she had been so easy to read. Had she come here without meaning? To waken a dream in Clementine’s heart that, in the end, would only hurt her? She drew in breath to speak, then realized she had no idea what to say. Whatever it might have been, it was now not important. A mistake would matter terribly. “I’m sure you will be the best thing that ever happened to him,” she said sincerely. It had never been about Seth Marlowe. She was beginning to have some pity for him, but the greater the distance between them, the more she liked it. “I have no wish to intrude or advise you against his wishes. Just to be here if you need me.”

  Clementine blushed. “I’m sure I will. But at least for now, I shall obey his wishes. I’m sorry. You could perhaps give me some domestic advice?”

  “I doubt it,” Celia said with a rueful smile. “You would do better to advise me. You are a better cook than I will ever be.”

  “I learned from my mother.” Clementine stopped. “I have told Seth a little about her, but…” she looked down, “…not a lot yet.”

  “The right opportunity will arise,” Celia assured her, although she could not imagine how. But then, being in love, even a little bit, was something she could not imagine in Seth Marlowe. She was going to have to try a lot harder if she was to meet any of the standards of charity required of her.

  “Thank you,” Clementine said, reaching out and clasping Celia’s hand impulsively. “If we are blessed with children, it will be a whole new life for Seth as well. I hope and believe in the future, and that love lasts.”

  “Of course,” Celia agreed. There was nothing else she could do. The man Clementine saw was so utterly different from the one Celia had seen in front of the flowers in the church. But she understood that the thought of losing a marriage that promised to be the brightest spot in Clementine’s life, illuminating all the rest of it yet to come, was impossible to entertain. Celia, of all people, should understand. Her own life had changed in just the way Clementine’s was about to. She could not be forgiven if she deliberately, or thoughtlessly, damaged that belief.

  Celia stayed a few moments longer, then took her leave. It had become awkward to speak of other things, and artificiality had no place in the friendship they shared.

  She walked very slowly, feeling more and more confused, as if she had sustained a loss, as if a piece of land with which she was familiar had broken off and was drifting away. It was only a break now, but she knew it would drift further away: the tide was set.

  The wind was in her face and she bent a little to ease the chill of it. She thought of the small things she and Clementine had shared, their pleasure in the earliest flowers to bloom, the first leaves of the willow, like a chiffon scarf thrown over the bare branches. Or the dark moments, joining together to help someone in trouble.
They shared a gentle humor that did not need words, only a glance. Sometimes it would turn into helpless laughter over something ludicrous. Would Seth Marlowe really stop all that?

  Clementine would change. Would she honestly be happier? Or was her need for belonging at last, her hope for children, a home, and dignity of her own, for respect where she believed that she had been only tolerated and pitied—was it all worth that price?

  Celia took a deep breath and pushed down the cry rising from her chest. With surprise she realized her fists were clenched. It was not her choice to make. She must not even try.

  * * *

  Hooper was home early that evening. Celia was delighted to see him and ask about his day, not only to avoid speaking of hers, but because she was genuinely interested. There was so much more life on the river than she had appreciated, simply looking at it from the shore. He had already told her about some of the great ships in the Pool of London: where they had come from, the vast seas they had sailed, the strange lands and wild shores. He described the tropics that he himself had seen in his years at sea, the blue and purple seas where the waters were broken by fish that flew! And in the north, the rivers of ice that barely moved and the mountains of ice floating on the face of the sea.

  Tonight, he spoke a bit but soon stopped and leaned forward, his face grave, his voice still soft. “What’s wrong?” There was no doubt in his eyes. He would regard a denial as a lack of trust. She was not prepared to lose that for anything. “Celia?”

  “I was arranging flowers in the church this morning.” She sounded as if she were being evasive, and she hated it. She must either tell him honestly, or not at all. She could not bear the thought of a lie between them, like a rock in the center of the bed. “Seth Marlowe came in.” She waited for him to interrupt, but he did not. “He told me not to give Clementine any advice, of any sort, but particularly in personal matters. He said he would give her all the counsel she needed. She was to be his wife, and that changed everything.”

  Hooper’s face darkened, but he did not interrupt.

  She could see in the line of his mouth that he was preparing for something he would not like, maybe would not even tolerate. “I argued with him, told him that she would need a woman to share certain concerns with. I shouldn’t have had to detail that, and he wasn’t listening anyway. Effectively, he wants me out of her circle. Polite in church, but nothing more than that. I know she will obey him; she is determined to love him, to protect him.” She heard her own voice; it sounded as if she were looking for words to cover a lie. It wasn’t a lie, except by omission. That was just as dishonest. No, more so, because she was lying to herself as well.

  He was waiting. Did she have to tell him about the threat? She would very much rather not. But if Marlowe thought she had defied him, he would act on it. And Hooper would know that she had lied. Even if Hooper didn’t work it out, Marlowe would make sure he learned. She swallowed. “He threatened me.”

  Hooper stiffened. “What?”

  Now she wanted to get it over. “He knows about the Exeter trial. He knows that I lied under oath. That’s perjury.”

  “You told the truth in the end. And you will not be charged,” he said levelly, but his voice shook out of anger.

  “I know,” she agreed. “But would anyone else see it like that? Would Clementine, if he told her that I would lie, even with my hand on the Bible, swearing to God that it was the truth?” She needed his answer, and she needed him to be completely honest. “Would you, if you didn’t love me?”

  He put his hand over hers gently. “I’m glad you know I do love you. Are you afraid?”

  “Yes. No. No…” She stumbled over the words. Not deeply afraid, not yet anyway. “But I care about Clementine. I know a lot of what she feels.” She smiled very slightly. “It was me, just a few years ago. She wants to marry and have children, and she knows her past has cost her all her chances so far.” She looked at him earnestly. “She’s terribly vulnerable, John. And I know what that feels like. It’s so easy to protect ourselves by not hoping, not letting us care enough to be hurt. And people see it. She would pay any price herself, as long as no one else suffers. She truly believes she could love Marlowe enough, make him feel safe, and quell the fear inside him so that he’ll be happy and change. I’ve seen it happen to others.”

  “Most of us can be happy when we have what we want,” he pointed out. “The true victory lies in being kind even when we don’t have it.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “But isn’t any victory worth having? And who are we to judge, anyway?”

  He smiled wryly. “No one,” he admitted. “You have the perfect reason to give him all the latitude Clementine asks. This time. What about next time?”

  “Next time?” For a moment, she was confused.

  “Next time he asks you to do something, or not do it, and threatens to tell people about your part in the Exeter case, and my part in the mutiny on the Mary Grace…if you don’t do as he wishes or take his advice regarding Clementine, or Arthur Roberson, or anyone else.”

  She froze. Realization of all that he had said—and in so few words—crept over her like ice water. She was surprised she could still breathe.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Do you want less than the truth?”

  She had no answer. Or to be more exact, she had several, and none of them was what she wanted to believe, or even to acknowledge.

  He waited.

  “Don’t you think he’ll change, after he marries Clementine?” she asked, searching his face. “When he’s happy, or beginning to feel his heart is safe?”

  “Oh, my dear.” He shook his head. “Would you really base your judgment on the probability of a change of heart? Do you think that will make Clementine happy? She holds him to decency only by pleasing him?”

  “I didn’t say…” she began, then stopped. “Do you think he’d really do it? I mean, tell everyone about the Exeter trial? Wasn’t it just an empty threat to frighten me?”

  “And does it? Frighten you?” he questioned.

  “No. I mean…” She thought of how much it hurt when people thought ill of her. This was her home. She had nowhere else where she belonged. There would be no defense against it, because the whispers would never be specific. People were embarrassed to repeat gossip, said they didn’t believe it, and yet they did. “What’s wrong with him?” she demanded. The stories were old, but the suspicion, the doubt, all remained after the fact had disappeared or had been forgotten.

  “Celia.”

  “Yes.”

  “When Clementine is alone, vulnerable, possibly with child for the first time, she will need you for all sorts of things, but most of all for advice without criticism—someone to walk with her along a path she doesn’t know. When you’re feeling strange and vulnerable, what you need more than anything else is kindness.”

  She said nothing. Suddenly, ridiculously, there were tears in her eyes. This was stupid. But he was right, that was the key to it: kindness. She loved Hooper profoundly, and what mattered even more sometimes, she was sure he loved her. But she still had moments when she needed to be alone, not to have to account to anyone. Least of all someone who was always going to be there, seeing, noticing even silly mistakes. And there were bound to be mistakes. Everyone made them. The gift of love, to overlook, even forget, was one of the most important anyone could have.

  Which brought her back to everything Arthur Roberson had said. Wasn’t that the real gift of Christmas, which they were fast approaching?

  She lifted her head a little. “He only threatened,” she said quite clearly. “He didn’t do anything. I don’t think he will.” She thought of the other thing Marlowe had spoken of, the letter: Should she tell Hooper of it?

  “Because of Clementine?” he asked, disbelieving. “Is it for her sake that you want to spare him?”

  She was
caught. “I don’t want to be the sort of person he is. He’s always finding fault, seeing guilt where there’s only ignorance or ordinary mistakes. Most people don’t purposely commit sin, John. They have their eyes on their own needs and are unintentionally robbing other people. It is self-preservation, not wickedness. Thoughtlessness, if you like.”

  “But is it just selfishness?” he probed.

  She did not answer. She hated lying to Hooper. And such gaping omissions were lies. Powerful lies could be built by omitting one terrible fact. It was the cornerstone of a wall that would eventually close him out. One lie created the necessity of another, and another.

  Sometimes she forgot that Hooper was a policeman. She thought of him on the river, especially when the weather was harsh. Often, he came home cold and exhausted, and she learned to deduce from his silences, the gentleness of his touch and his need to be with her, that he had seen tragedy. But he never described it to her. He told her about the funny things, the tales of the men he worked with: their names, their successes, and sometimes their failures—she felt as if she knew them through his eyes. It all painted a picture of his life that engaged her, and had led her to understand him so much better.

  She wished she had something of equal interest to share with him, but everything about her life was so small by comparison, so domestic and repetitive. She had made herself feel very dull, until he had pointed out how many times she had helped someone, had learned to understand them. People turned to her because she made time to listen to them.

  “All I do is listen,” she had said sadly. “So often, I can’t help.”

  “Listening does help,” he had answered. “Most of the despair I’ve seen is because there was no one to listen.”

  Perhaps that was true. It was a sweet thought.

  “Well?” he pressed, bringing her unwillingly back to the present.