by Sandra Byrd
I came close and forced myself not to recoil at the scent of their dirtied clothing, wishing I could help in some further manner.
Jeanette caught me out. “Only the rich prisoners gets the laundry,” she said. Ah, yes . . . the rich prisoners. There might have been equality in sentencing, but in prison, the equality of treatment stopped. Prisoners with the funds to afford better treatment were allowed services, special meals, suites of rooms, and even servant help, if they could pay for it.
Those who could not—which was most—did without the most menial of help. And spiced salt.
I sat down and asked if they’d like us to take turns recounting the Christmas story.
“You tell it, Miss Sheffield,” one of the ladies said. “We hear our own voices often enough.”
So I did, and as I did, it struck me that most of the people in that story were as poor as the families these ladies had come from. “I have something for you. Gifts!”
“Father Christmas,” one of the women said.
“I don’t thin’ she looks like no one’s father.” Little Nancy smiled for the first time since I arrived.
“For coming to my defense, you get the first gift,” I jested. I pulled out three back issues of one of my ladies’ magazines.
She nodded warily. “Improving literature?”
I rubbed my neck. I had worried that the women might grow discontent or sad by looking at issues women outside the prison faced. Perhaps I’d been right. “No, I’m sorry. But perhaps something entertaining? Would you have preferred something more improving?”
“No, indeed, miss. This agrees with me just fine.” Nancy read aloud some of the article titles. “‘Society is now one polished horde.’” She looked up and laughed. “Ain’t that the truth!” She paged through one more. “I do like these dresses, I do. When I get out, I’m going to learn to sew. Or maybe do up hair for some fancy ladies. I’ll enjoy reading these; thank you, miss.” Little Nancy clasped the periodicals to her chest. “Much better than those who always want to improve us in one way or t’other.”
“When you’re done, you can tear the papers out one by one to roll up your hair into curls.”
They all clapped. “Ooh, what a lovely idea,” Nancy said.
I handed out the pairs of soft gloves and tiny jars of ointment which I had scooped from my own. Each woman came in turn to thank me; one curtsied, which touched me deeply.
“I’m like you,” I said. “There is no need for that.”
Jeanette came to speak with me last, just before I took my leave. “Thank you for the gloves and the trinkets for the young ones. But the best gift is that you come here and sit with us and don’t forget us. That’s what matters the most.”
I could not speak for a moment; then I told her how I looked forward to our hours together and said that I should see her in the New Year. “We are friends.”
I heard a voice call my name as I walked the road to the thoroughfare. “Miss Sheffield!” A fine carriage pulled alongside me and stopped. “I just now see you are walking. Please, allow me to escort you to your home.”
It was Mrs. Denholm. For a moment, I was ashamed that she’d seen me walking, hem dragging in the mud once more, boots all spattered underneath. I wanted her to see me as strong and capable and worthy of her company.
I looked at her friendly face. Would I, then, turn down the very charity offered me by someone with better circumstances when my friends in prison had no such pretensions?
“Thank you, Mrs. Denholm.” Her driver helped me inside. “The offer is very kind and much appreciated.”
We talked companionably all the way to my Bloomsbury home and workshop, and she bid me good-bye. “I shall hope to see you after Christmas!” I said as I stepped from the carriage, and she responded in kind.
I opened the door and shook the snow from my shoulders. Orchie stood there, smiling, holding out a telegram. “Your Lord Lydney will be round first thing tomorrow to take you and your uncle to Glastonbury. The journey is long, so he’s made arrangements at a coaching inn for accommodations that evening. He and your uncle will stay in one room, and you in another.”
“How kind.” I kept my voice and, I hoped, my spirits calm. But inside, my heart sang. My Lord Lydney!
CHAPTER
Twenty-Two
Orchie helped me to pack a bag, and when she left the room to prepare one for Uncle Lewis, I slipped a few additional items into that bag and then closed it tight. I was not certain if Uncle completely understood that he was going to Glastonbury before Christmas, his fondest desire.
Harry’s driver arrived very early in the morning to take us to the London Waterloo station. We soon settled into the first-class compartment, and within an hour of departure, the train’s gentle rocking motion lulled Uncle Lewis fully asleep, head resting against the window. His mouth hung open a little, and a bit of drool eased from its corner; he looked rather like a young boy.
I wondered what his hopes and dreams had been. Had he wished for a wife? For children? He’d had neither, and now it was up to me to care for him.
Harry talked about his time in Italy and the few affairs he was completing for his father, but he did not bring up the collection. We talked about our past and the state of my business.
“We have fallen upon some rather difficult months,” I admitted.
“Can I be of assistance?” he offered.
“I’m afraid not,” I said. He could not help me in any material manner while the decision was still outstanding. Year’s end, when Sheffield Brothers’ commission with the Lydney Collection would end, and by when my decision must be made, fast approached. I had little more than a fortnight. “I believe things to be well in hand and getting better,” I added.
“You will let me know, at any time . . . if you need anything or if things become urgent.”
I smiled. “Thank you. I will.”
Conversation and laughter knit us together during the travel, and some hours passed before the call for Westbury, three-quarters of the way through our journey.
“You know, there is a chalk horse etched upon the high hills on the Salisbury Plain outside of Westbury.”
“I did not,” I said. There were many horses carved upon the white chalk hills throughout England, some going back many hundreds of years, each with a legend of its own.
He nodded. “Knowing how I loved them, Mother always arranged for us to see it when Father insisted upon a family visit to Glastonbury—he and Mother, Arthur and me.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Father?” Shock pitched his voice and Uncle stirred.
I shook my head. “No. Arthur.”
He squeezed my hand once before releasing it. “Yes. I do. He and I were quite close as boys, at least during school holidays. My father poisoned the well from which we were both required to drink, so that changed things.” He looked up and smiled. “He once had a white horse, too, you know. Before we were certain he was sensitive to their hair. Named Excalibur, of course.”
“I found Arthur’s armor,” I said.
He looked past me, through the window, though addressing my statement. “Had it been missing?”
“I thought perhaps it had been.” I could not discern from his voice whether he was surprised or had known. He had not sold it, in any case, as his father had secretly accused.
We changed trains once, then arrived at Glastonbury and took a hired carriage first to deliver our luggage to the coaching inn, which used to be the inn the old abbey used for pilgrims. I thought of Mr. Herberts and his pilgrim’s coin and wondered if he treasured it as my father had. The George, as the inn was now called, was three stories high with a castle crenellation on top; Harry had arranged for us to have an entire floor, for privacy, and dinner that evening as well.
We left our bags and then departed for the sights.
“I’m surprised at how well he is walking,” Harry said as we made our way across the dormant green lawns. My uncle had brought along a walking
stick—whether to steady himself or to recall the legend of Joseph of Arimathea, I did not know. If I were to hazard a guess, ’twould be the latter.
To the unprepared eye, there was not much to view. There were no amusements or cafés or shops to draw visitors. There was a trinket seller peddling false thorns, in the damp; they had been poorly encased in glass. Uncle Lewis waved them away impatiently.
We picked our way into the stones of the ruined abbey. The walls were uneven in height, open to the elements, skeletal. All sort of opportunistic plants availed themselves of the cracks and crevices which damage had left, in which to generate a new life. The silence resonated in a manner that voices never could, and if I believed in ghosts, I would have said they tarried here, warning, hoping, seeking, hiding. I settled my uncle on a derelict bench and then sat down myself. Closing my eyes, I felt the weight of a place where Christians had worshiped for more than one thousand years. I sensed that holy presence; we were in a church, after all, only one that had been destroyed during the Reformation and was now open to the air, its pitted stones heaving and black moss hiding in its cleaves. I opened my hands and lifted my palms; my breath curled upward toward heaven, echoing Psalm 141. “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”
“It’s like a reliquary,” my uncle said. I opened my eyes at his mention of those little jeweled boxes we had appraised so many years ago when he was teaching me. “The whole place is. Except instead of holding fragments of questionable bone and wood, the abbey ruins hold the hopes and dreams and prayers and worship of twelve hundred years’ worth of pilgrims and believers.”
“That’s beautiful.” I took his arm and felt him shiver. “Shall we return for dinner?” I asked.
He nodded, and as he turned to Harry, I saw tears in Uncle’s eyes. “Thank you, young man.”
Harry clapped him on the back and then we returned to the George. We were all to refresh ourselves before meeting in the dining room. An hour later, a knock came at my door. I opened it to see Harry alone.
“Your uncle is very tired. I do not think we should wake him. I will ask my driver to stand guard near the room, if you like, and are willing to dine with me alone? There will be others in the dining room,” he hastened to add.
I smiled. “I should say no on principle, but I’m hungry now and do not want to wait.”
He held my gaze, the lines on his face sketching in the weathered angles. “Nor do I.” Unlike our evening of games at Lady Charlotte’s home, the waves of intimacy rushed in and did not recede.
I smiled to myself. Perhaps I should consider putting Alice’s gift to good use this night.
The fire was lit in the dining room, and though it was not truly late, the room was cleared of everyone except for Harry, myself, and the serving girl.
“I thought there would be others here. The offer holds. Would you like to have a tray sent up rather than eating together downstairs?”
“Can you be trusted?” I teased.
“No,” he teased back and held out the chair for me to sit. We stared at each other in the flickering light. “You have ruined me for other women,” he finally said.
I held my breath, surprised both by the admission and the rise of emotions it brought forth. A carriage rolled by in the street outside; the horse hooves clopped rhythmically as they disappeared into the night mist. I looked at the wooden plank table at which we sat. For perhaps five hundred years or so people had sat round this very table, eating, drinking, laughing, talking, arguing. What had they been thinking? Hoping? Fearing? The inn’s walls were a good three feet thick, but I could still hear muffled voices and laughter on the floors above us. I told all this to Harry, and he took my hand in his own.
“I do find that interesting, my lovely Ellie. But I am most interested in the two of us who are here, now—so very thankful that we are here. But as you have kindly shared your stories with me so faithfully, perhaps it’s time I share one dear to me. This afternoon, I meant to tell you the story of the Westbury horse.”
“Please, tell me!”
The serving girl placed a platter of roughly cut bread and cheese on the table between us, then a pitcher of water and two glasses of soft cider.
“Well, when we were younger men and Father dragged us out here, Arthur and I would threaten that when he and Mother were asleep, we would ride off into the night toward the Westbury horse.”
“Why?”
“Legend says that when the church chimes exactly midnight, the chalk horse comes to life on the hill and walks to Bridewell Springs to drink. We wanted to see that!”
I raised my eyebrows. “Did you?”
He shook his head rather somberly and waited for the serving girl to set our plates of meat in front of us and then leave. “No . . . Arthur, you remember, was sensitive to horses. So we’d have to take the carriage, and then Father would know.”
I reached across the table and took his hand. “Arthur was a good young man.”
He nodded, and we began to eat. After a few minutes, he said, “You’ll remember the Uffington chalk horse.”
“Of course! The most famous in England.”
“Because it’s on the road to Watchfield House, whenever we returned for the school holidays or were back in Oxfordshire after one of Father’s diplomatic journeys, I always knew I was home when I saw the white horse on the hill. It comforted me as nothing else could.”
I wished I could have comforted him.
“Do you know the stories about the Uffington horse?” he asked with eagerness.
Some of them, for certain. But I did not let on. “I should love to hear you tell it.” I had dined sufficiently and pushed my plate away.
“The Uffington horse is said to be a wish fulfiller. If one wants to have a wish granted, he should stand on the hill, on the eye of the horse, and turn three times to the right, then whisper his wish—or for me, a prayer.”
“Have you done that, then?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Recently. But just nearby. I’m not about to stand on the eye of a horse, even one made of chalk.”
I laughed and waited for him to tell me what his wish—his prayer—had been, but he did not.
“I love those stories and am delighted that you have shared them with me, for by doing so, you’ve shared your heart. I should have known your favorite stories were about horses,” I jested.
“And yours about collectibles,” he quipped right back.
I nodded. “You have me. I think treasures mean so much to me because they remind me of people, even when time has passed and I may no longer believe what I once did. Perhaps it’s much like the relic collectors. They want a fragment of bone or of the true cross because when things seem dark, and it appears God is elusive and does not seem to be responding, they want something to hold on to. Something to prove that the one in whom they trust, at the deepest level, is who they believe him to be.”
“That is true.” He picked my hand up and kissed it. “I should return you to your room, though I’d prefer to stay and talk through the night.”
“That would not do at all,” I agreed. “I should like to go upstairs first, and then perhaps you could join me outside my room two or three minutes later?”
He nodded a puzzled agreement, and I took my leave.
Once in my room, I removed the mistletoe ball—Alice’s gift—and the hook with the small bit of thread that I’d packed in my bag.
I cradled it in my hand. Should I hang it?
Properly, I was not to engage in an overly personal manner with him until I had made a decision about the future of the Lydney Collection.
However, I could honestly say that my decision would be based upon the facts, as presented to and interpreted by me, no matter how I felt about Harry.
I then went outside the door to my room and hung the ball with care on the lintel above. When Harry rounded the corner a minute later, he laughed, though softly, as not to wake the othe
rs. I smiled in return.
He came close and reached up to brush my hair back from my face. My face was flushed, I could tell, both from his nearness and from the fire by which we had been sitting for an hour or more.
Harry cupped my face in his hands, and I closed my eyes and savored the moment. Then he bent toward me and kissed my lips, gently at first and then more insistently. I remembered the first time he’d kissed me—awkwardly, hesitantly, worriedly.
Now he was confident and sure. The first time, I hadn’t kissed him back properly. Now, I did.
When he pulled away from me, we both stood reorienting ourselves to time and place, and it took me an unwelcome moment to catch my breath and focus my mind.
“I’d best say good night and leave,” he whispered. “This time.”
CHAPTER
Twenty-Three
BLOOMSBURY, LONDON
The bells rang out joyously on Christmas Day—it was a clear, sunny day, but I hung on to my uncle’s arm so we didn’t slip on our way into or out of church. Orchie had attended a service much earlier in the morning; though she worked for us, officially, she had no family but ours, so we three would spend our days together. Mr. Clarkson had undertaken to spend some time in Bristol with his family.
“I smell Cornish pasties!” Uncle called out as we stepped into the house.
“You do, indeed.” Orchie greeted us at the door. She whispered behind her hand, “And goose and pudding and a mince pie and all such as you and I want to eat, too.” She handed a box to me. “This just arrived.”
I opened the box, and in it was a small card that said only, Merry Christmas! Yours, Harry.
There were three Christmas crackers. One marked Mrs. Orchard, one marked Mr. Sheffield, and one marked Miss Sheffield.
Carolers knocked at the door, and Orchie ran to greet them with a fresh tray of biscuits—where she’d procured the ingredients for them, I did not know. But I was glad to offer the joy-filled singers a treat, and as I held the door open, listening to their songs of faith, cheer, and hope, I wondered if, perhaps, 1867 would be the year in which all three might be restored. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. May it be so.
