A Victorian Christmas

by Catherine Palmer

“I’m sure I do. Let me think . . . ah yes. When I don’t feel well, I must have someone read to me, someone dear and loving and warm. And what I want to be read is the book of Psalms, very softly.”

  “I see.”

  “And you might as well know that when I am angry, I weep.”

  “Weep?”

  “Indeed. All my rage boils up and then spills over in tears. But surely you have some minor flaws as well, Sir Michael. Or do you not?”

  He studied her for a moment, and she felt the intensity of his blue eyes. “I am not perfect,” he said finally.

  She let out a breath. “Well, of that I am mightily relieved! In fact, I feel myself more moved by this declaration than I did by your potted partridge. I declare, I am all atremble.”

  “Is it your practice to make light of every one? or only of me?”

  “Forgive my teasing, sir. But it’s true that hearing you acknowledge your shortcomings would move me more than receiving three pearl necklaces and seven silk gowns.”

  “Would it, indeed?” He leaned forward. “Then you shall hear that as a child I taught myself to swear most vilely by listening to the sailors on the docks of the Thames—but I have given it up since becoming an adult.”

  “I am glad of that.”

  “And I have a strong affection for garlic.”

  “Oh dear! I suppose you developed your taste for that flavor in India.”

  “Exactly right. Garlic and curry.”

  “But if you were in India as a boy, when were you learning to swear on the docks of the Thames?”

  He swallowed. “Well, I was . . . it was before, of course.”

  “Before? Before the swearing or the garlic?”

  “Dash it all, this is exactly why I never—”

  “Oh, there you are, Rosalind!” Caroline rushed into the alcove, her purple silks aflutter. “I have been searching everywhere. You must come at once!”

  “But what is the matter, Caroline?”

  “Your father! Lord Buxton has fallen down the stairs just now. William sent for a doctor at once, but we cannot make your father move or speak. Oh, dear Rosalind, I fear for his life!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Are you still in the library?” Sir William Cooper held a candle before himself to illuminate his path as he crossed the large room lined with countless leather volumes. “You’ve been in here for hours, Mick. May I inquire as to the object of your search?”

  “A book. Poetry, I should imagine.” He turned, aware for the first time how out of sorts he must appear in the eyes of his good friend. The engagement party had ended almost before it began, the entire assemblage returning to their homes on hearing the news of the Viscount Buxton’s dire condition. A doctor had been summoned, Rosalind had vanished into an upper room to be with her father, and Mick had been left to wander the house— uncertain and confused for the first time in many years. “Lord Buxton. Is his condition much altered?” Mick inquired.

  “No, I fear he is quite the same. My wife has visited the room, and she reports that he remains senseless and unmoving. The physician has determined that no bones were broken in the fall down the staircase. Yet, it may be that a blow to Lord Buxton’s head has rendered him permanently . . .” He stared at the candle flame for a moment. “It is feared he may never recover.”

  Gritting his teeth, Mick strode toward the library’s rolling ladder. “I must tell you I find absolutely no order within this collection of books, William. You have given your library no semblance of organization—neither by author name nor by subject matter. The volumes are shelved willy-nilly as though no one would ever think of actually reading—”

  “Mick, are you well?”

  He straightened and raked a hand through his hair. “Of course. I am simply . . .” He let out a breath. “No, I fear I am quite at sea in this matter. If Lord Buxton should perish as a result of this calamity, then I shall lose this opportunity of marriage. Left to her own choosing, his daughter will not have me, of that I am quite certain.”

  “But there were many other eligible young women on the list you and I wrote out. Rosalind is an intelligent girl and a good deal more than pretty. Yet I should think there are any number of—”

  “No, William. No.” Again, he crossed the room, unable to calm the agitation in his chest. “I selected Rosalind.”

  “It is not the loss of land and title that worries you, is it, Mick? You have come to care for the girl. You love her.”

  “Love her? Don’t be absurd, man. Rosalind Treadwell is willful and impudent and far too free with her opinions. She is not beautiful, though I grant you her hair is very fine.” He paused, thinking. “A sort of glossy brown, I believe, and the curls seem to shine in the firelight. Have you not noticed? And her eyes are bewitching. I cannot deny that. When she smiles, her eyes come to life with a sort of spark that I have been trying to identify. Is it mischief? or condescension? or mirth? or some odd mixture of all three?”

  “And she does look fetching in her new gowns and jewelry.”

  “Indeed, she does. Lovely. I was not wrong to take the path I chose. Showering her with gifts has brightened her. But she makes light of such things.”

  Mick climbed the first rung of the ladder and ran his finger across a row of books, searching the titles. “She would rather hear my confessions of fondness for garlic than receive a strand of pearls from me. I cannot make her out, William. She intrigues and vexes me . . . and, I confess, she delights me.” He stepped down and faced his friend. “As you well know, I am not a man of uncontrolled emotion. My life is planned and structured. I have long believed that one must keep one’s affairs in perfect order. Symmetry, William. Symmetry.”

  “Yet Rosalind makes you laugh and fume . . . and pace about the library at all hours of the night.”

  “Yes.” Acknowledging the fact that the young woman had thrown his carefully organized world into chaos gave him no comfort. He took the small carved lamb from his coat pocket and clamped it tightly in his hand. “I wish her father to recover . . . not because I hope to claim his lands and titles . . . but for her. For Rosalind. Because I know she loves him, and he is all she has.”

  William smiled. “She has you now, Mick. Why not go to her?”

  “She will not wish to see me,” he said, turning the lamb over and over in his palm. “I have blighted her life. I took her from her quiet home and her simple companions and her pleasant occupations. Perhaps she will blame her father’s accident on me. If I had not brought them here—”

  “I cannot believe Rosalind is that sort of woman.”

  “If I could find the book, I could take it to her. She mentioned it tonight, and I thought it might bring her some hope.”

  “Which book is that?”

  “The book of Psalms, she called it. Have you heard of it?”

  “But the Psalms are contained within the Holy Bible, Mick. How can you have forgotten that!” William walked across the room to a large bookstand on which lay an open Bible. “Here, take it upstairs, if you like. This one has been in my family for generations. I daresay it’s quite complete, and you shall find an appropriate psalm for your lovely—if vexing—Rosalind.”

  As William left the room, Mick took the heavy book in his arms and turned through the crinkled pages. He had not “forgotten” the Psalms were contained in the Bible’s leather binding—he had never known.

  In all the ambition and busyness of his life, Mick had not given matters of faith much thought. Religion was something upon which the elderly might dawdle away their time. Church was a place to go at Christmas and Easter in order to be seen by the right people. And God . . . Mick wasn’t sure about God. He thought perhaps there was a creator, someone outside himself who might have fashioned the world and might even hold some ongoing interest in it. He hoped there was a God. A heaven.

  He looked down at the tiny lamb in his palm, remembering how he had longed to show it to his mother. She would have admired the intricately carved figure, small thoug
h it was. But when he and his father had returned to their flat the night of the burglary, they found her lying stiff and cold upon her cot. Consumption, a neighbor woman told Mick, had killed his mother. The angels had taken her away to heaven to rest in the arms of God.

  Lifting his focus to the rooms overhead in the great house, he wondered what Rosalind Treadwell would have to say about angels and heaven and the arms of God. Tucking the lamb back into his pocket, Mick crossed the library toward the corridor that led to the stairway.

  “There you are now, Papa,” Rosalind said as she slipped another pillow beneath her father’s head. “That should make you more comfortable. Are you comfortable, Papa?”

  She stared down at her father’s unmoving face and felt hot tears brim in her eyes. Why could he not look at her? or squeeze her hand? Why did he say nothing? The physician suspected a head injury of grave consequence. But Rosalind could not understand why her father seemed to breathe so easily and how his heart beat so strongly—and yet he remained unmoving.

  “Papa,” she said, touching his cheek. “Would you like something to eat? I could send to the kitchen for some cold beef.” He didn’t move. “Beef!” she said more loudly, hoping perhaps he simply had not heard her. “Beef, Papa! BEEF! Oh, why won’t you say something? Why can’t you—”

  From behind, a pair of warm hands covered her heaving shoulders, lifted her, and turned her into the protection of a man’s arms. “Miss Treadwell . . . Rosalind . . . I am so sorry.”

  “I don’t know what I’m to do! He won’t speak to me. He cannot say anything at all.”

  “Perhaps your father needs to rest. As you do.”

  Wiping her hand across her cheek, Rosalind became aware of the man who held her against his chest. “Oh . . . I didn’t intend to . . . I’m very frightened, Sir Michael—”

  “Mick. You must call me Mick, and you must allow me to seat you here on the couch. You seem very cold, Rosalind.”

  “But I must stay near my father,” she protested as he led her toward a fainting couch near the window. He lowered her to the soft cushions and drew a woolen covering across her. “If he moves . . . if he opens his eyes—”

  “I shall sit with him and hold his hand. If he stirs, I promise to call you immediately.”

  “But how can I rest?” she asked as Mick took a seat beside her father and lifted the older man’s hand. “My father is all the family I have. I’m not ready to lose him. I cannot bear it.”

  Rosalind shut her eyes and tried to stop the endless flow of tears. Sir Michael had come. But why? To assure the status of his future, of course.

  She could think only of life without her father. How empty it would be without their lively discussions of Fordyce’s sermons and their heated arguments over politics. How lonely she would feel with no one to look after, no voice calling to inquire on the arrival of the post or the status of the blooms on the honeysuckle hedge in the garden. Would she never again stroll along a stone path with her father by her side, his hand gently patting her arm as they debated the merits of Stilton cheese, or pondered aloud the movement of the planets, or discussed the impact of the Napoleonic Wars? Oh, how could she bear it . . .

  “‘I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.’” The words spoken from across the room stilled Rosalind’s thoughts. “‘Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord—’”

  “‘O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul,’” she whispered, reciting the psalm she had learned so long ago on her father’s lap. “‘Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.’”

  “You know the words by heart?” Mick asked from his place beside the bed. “How is that?”

  “My papa taught me.” She swallowed hard. “You read from the one-hundred-sixteenth psalm, do you not?”

  “I do, indeed. But why would you memorize this poem?”

  “Because it is the Word of God.”

  “Word of God? What can you mean?”

  Rosalind opened her eyes and stared at the man across the room. He sat with a Bible propped open on his lap and his hand carefully clasped around the fingers of the older man. Was this hunched figure really Sir Michael Stafford, the arrogant parvenu who had presumed to purchase her heritage with his wealth and high connections? Why did he seem suddenly so tender? so disconcerted? How could he not know that the Bible was the written revelation of God Himself?

  “God gave the Bible to us,” she said, “so that we might know Him. Know what He wants of us. Know how to pray to Him. Know the history of His people, the promise of salvation, and the boundless grace of forgiveness and healing. Surely you have been to church?”

  “Of course. Many times. But I—”

  “‘What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?’” she whispered. “‘I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.’ Papa taught me that the whole of the life of Christ is foretold in Scriptures that were written hundreds of years before His birth. Because we—as Christians—have accepted the cup of salvation, we now have the privilege of calling upon the name of the Lord. Which is what I cannot seem to do since Papa . . . since the accident. I try to pray, but then I only weep and dwell on all my losses and mourn the future without him. If I could only think of a prayer . . . of some way to tell God how terribly lonely . . .”

  As her eyes flooded with tears, Mick left his place beside the bed and came to kneel at her feet. “I don’t know anything about praying,” he said softly. “But I know the sorrow you feel. My mother was ill for a very long time. I sat beside her bed when I was a child, and I begged her to get better. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. I understand that wanting . . . that terrible pleading you feel inside . . . and I know how helpless . . .”

  “But we are not helpless in times of trouble. God is with us, Mick. The words of the psalmist go on. ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.’” She paused, trying to compose herself. But as she continued to speak, the tears flowed down her cheeks. “‘O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.’ Will you pray, Mick? Will you pray for my father and for me?”

  “I don’t know how,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Rosalind took his hand in hers. “Oh, Father in heaven, I am Your servant,” she lifted up. “I bow before You, unworthy of Your great sacrifice. I offer You now my own sacrifice—the sacrifice of thanksgiving. I thank You for my papa, for all the years we have enjoyed together, for the great love he has given to me. And I call upon Your name, dear Jesus! Great God of healing, please make my father well. Please allow him to live—”

  Choking on her tears, she allowed Mick to draw her back into his arms. “Rosalind . . .”

  As she slipped her arms around him, she could feel his own chest tight with unexpressed sobs. “I, too, lost my mother at a young age,” she confided. “I loved her so dearly, and I did not see how I could go on without her.”

  “Yes,” he murmured. “Going on is . . . difficult. My mother had suffered many years from consumption, and I was away at the time of her death. She died alone. Alone without even a blanket to cover her . . . I never bought her a blanket . . . I didn’t have . . . I couldn’t . . . and I do not know where he buried her. My father took her away that night. When he returned, he told me I was a man, and I must make my own way in the world. We never spoke of her again.”

  “Then you must tell me about her. She must have been so good and kind.”

  He nodded, his dark hair feathering the side of her cheek. “She did everything she could for me. She held me in her arms and rocked me to sleep when the wind whistled through the window . . . and I was frightened . . . and she sang . . . hummed a
lullaby . . .”

  “Oh, I am so very sad for you. How you must have longed for her.” She stroked her fingertips across his shoulder. “Mick, were you poor in your childhood?”

  She could feel him stiffen against her. “It was long ago. I don’t remember much.” He pulled away. “I must see to your father. Excuse me.”

  Leaving her side, he returned to the bed. Sitting with his head bent, he seemed to read the Bible for long minutes at a time as Rosalind gazed at him through half-lowered lids. A drafty house, a blanketless bed, a mother dying of consumption, and a childhood spent among the dockworkers along the Thames . . . these images did not match with the man’s supposed grand upbringing in the care of a wealthy uncle in India.

  A curl of discomfort wove through Rosalind’s chest as she closed her eyes and attempted to return to her prayers for her father. Who was this man she had agreed to marry? And why did the outpouring of his painful loss touch her so deeply?

  Why did he not know how to pray? How had he never been told that the Bible was the holy Word of God? Who had he been, and who was he now? And why did she miss the comforting warmth of his arms clasping her tightly?

  “‘O praise the Lord, all ye nations,’” Mick’s voice echoed softly in the stillness of the room. “‘Praise him, all ye people. For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. Praise ye the Lord.’”

  “Mick’s parents were killed in a terrible carriage accident when he was but a baby,” Lady Caroline whispered as she sat with Rosalind in Lord Buxton’s room the following morning. “His unmarried uncle took him away to India at once, and he was brought up there as though he were a young maharaja. It is a sad tale, yet I think he did not suffer greatly, my dear. The uncle employed many servants who cared for Mick almost as a son.”

  “And this is what he has told you?”

  “Indeed, and he possesses many Indian items which now grace his London home. Sandalwood and teak chests, carpets of the most luxurious wool, and gold lamps inlaid with rubies and emeralds. I daresay he will show you everything when you are married. You will be quite overcome with the magnitude of the display.”