Patience for Christmas

by Grace Burrowes

  “It shouldn’t go to waste.”

  Someday, Dougal wanted her to look at him the way she regarded that last half crumpet.

  “It won’t. Harry!” he called. “Come clear up this mess, please.”

  Harry trotted into the office, wrapped the paper around the last half crumpet, and swept the table free of crumbs.

  “Anything else, Dougal?”

  Before non-family, Harry was supposed to call his employer Mr. MacHugh. “Aye. Send ’round to the chophouse for two plates at half four. The usual portions, and tell the lads they can go home an hour early if the snow keeps up. Fill up the coal buckets before you go and sweep off the steps.”

  “Right, Dougal.”

  The instant Harry had gone, Miss Friendly was on her feet, hands at her hips. “I can’t believe you just threw away a perfectly good half of a delicious…” Her eyes narrowed. “You saved it for the boy.”

  “Nothing edible goes to waste when Harry’s on the premises. Now, about this letter?”

  She flounced back to her seat, and then the real arguments began.

  * * *

  Patience had never spent most of a day at her publisher’s office. The insights gained were fascinating. The pace of the work never let up, with clerks coming and going, errand boys and printer’s assistants adding to the traffic, and packages coming in by the hour.

  The bustle was distracting at first, but then it became a sort of music, like a string quartet playing in the background at a Venetian breakfast. Several hours of choosing and discarding letters with Mr. MacHugh also revealed that clerks did not always use refined language, and most of Mr. MacHugh’s staff spoke with thick Highland burrs.

  As for MacHugh himself, he was the biggest revelation of all. He was gruff, demanding, tireless, and devoted to his staff.

  “You sent your clerks home early,” Patience said, getting up to fetch a cushion from the sofa. “Will you dock their pay?”

  “Of course not. They’re paid little enough as it is, and they’d work late if I asked it of them. We should finish up here. We’ve chosen enough letters to last you the first six days, and it’s dark out.”

  Patience tossed the cushion onto her chair, then resumed her seat. To blazes with decorum when her backside ached.

  “The food was surprisingly good,” she said, surveying the remains of their meal. The chophouse had sent around a hot sandwich, ham and cheese, the cheddar almost melting but not quite, a perfect dash of mustard turning good food into a feast.

  At home, dinner would have been soup made from the leftovers of the Sunday joint, but mostly broth, potatoes, and carrots.

  “We’re faithful customers at the chophouse,” Mr. MacHugh said, moving the empty plates to the desk. “Shall we be on our way?”

  “You needn’t walk me home, Mr. MacHugh.”

  He leaned back against the desk, arms folded across his chest. At some point, he’d taken off his coat, and Patience had taken off her boots.

  A far cry from the propriety with which she’d been raised, but propriety did not keep the coal bins full.

  “Miss Friendly, I conceded to you on the matter of the child who’d pinched horehound candy from the sweet shop. I capitulated regarding the mother-in-law’s awful bread pudding. I compromised regarding the best way to scent tapers without spending a fortune, but I will not allow a woman in my employ to walk alone on the streets of London at night.”

  The snow had stopped, but slippery footing was not the worst that could befall a solitary woman on London’s streets, especially at night. Poor women took their chances, while wealthy women never went anywhere unescorted.

  Patience would never be wealthy again. “Can’t you send Harry with me?”

  “Can’t you accept my company for the distance of a few streets? You’ve spent the better part of a day with me, and we didn’t come to blows.”

  “A near thing, and only because I disapprove of violence.”

  “You disapprove of me,” he said, pushing away from the desk. “Get your boots on, and I’ll see to it you’re home safe in a half hour. I’ll send Harry around to fetch the first column from you tomorrow afternoon.”

  He passed her the boots, which needed new heels, but kept her feet reasonably dry over short distances. The temptation to argue was strong, also unwise. Patience put her boots on, then wrapped herself in her cloak and scarf and let Mr. MacHugh accompany her to the front stoop.

  Down near the corner, some elderly soul shuffled along, bent against the bitter breeze, but the thoroughfare was otherwise deserted.

  “Let’s be off,” Mr. MacHugh said. “A bit of fresh air is all well and good, but I don’t fancy a lung fever when the work is piling up.” He tucked Patience’s hand around his arm and set off at a surprisingly considerate pace, given the difference in their heights.

  Fatigue descended as they walked along, and in the privacy of her thoughts, Patience was grateful for Mr. MacHugh’s presence. The streets were unsafe for a woman traveling by herself at this hour.

  And they were lonely.

  After all the bickering, discussing, arguing, and debating, the silence of the December night was profound. The new snow muffled even church bells, and the smell—coal smoke on a frigid breeze—was desolate.

  They had turned onto Patience’s street when she broke the silence.

  “I don’t disapprove of you.”

  Mr. MacHugh made a disparaging noise between a snort and a huff.

  “I don’t,” Patience went on. “I might not…That is to say, I don’t know what to do with you. I was not raised to be in anybody’s employment. I don’t care for it, but I don’t care to rely on charity either.”

  “You’d rather be idle?”

  His curiosity was genuine, not a taunt aimed at a class of society for which Mr. MacHugh had little respect. At least he hadn’t asked if she’d rather be married.

  “I’d rather be the employer, if you must know. I cannot abide somebody telling me what to do, presuming to know what’s best for me, or how I ought to go on.”

  “Especially not a man?”

  “Not anybody.”

  Patience braced herself for a lecture on the way of the world, the dictates of the Almighty, nature’s laws, and other masculine flights of self-importance. If men were so infernally smart, competent, and ideally suited to ordering creation, then why was most of the Continent constantly at war, and why hadn’t men been chosen to endure the agony of childbirth?

  “I don’t care for being told what to do myself,” Mr. MacHugh said. “There are sheep and there are shepherds. I’m not a sheep, and I’m not convinced gender matters the way the preacher claims it does, but that’s just a former schoolteacher’s point of view.”

  They’d reached Patience’s doorstep, the only one on her side of the street with a lamp lit.

  “You were a schoolteacher, Mr. MacHugh?”

  “Aye, and still would be, except my grandfather left me some means. In the schoolroom, I saw what a difference knowledge could make to a receptive mind. I must admit small boys are not always ideal students, while little girls on the whole struck me as cleverer than the boys, more eager for knowledge. I had hoped that as a publisher, I might be able to do more to make knowledge available to receptive minds.”

  Mr. MacHugh’s high-crowned hat gave him extra height in addition to what nature had bestowed, and yet, a hint of the small boy remained in his gaze as he studied the lamp post.

  “Have you given up so easily on that dream of sharing knowledge, Mr. MacHugh? Your publishing house is not quite three years old.”

  He took off his hat and dusted a few snowflakes from the brim. “I’d planned to be the publisher who brought enlightenment to the masses, you see. Science, languages, tales of faraway lands, all for a reasonable price. No Gothic novels, scandal sheets, or fashionable nonsense for me. It hasn’t worked out that way.”

  Half the elderly women who dwelled across the street were probably peering out their parlor windows, h
orrified that Patience was having discourse with a man on her very doorstep.

  Warmth blossomed in her heart nonetheless, because Dougal MacHugh was not quite the pinchpenny taskmaster she’d thought him to be. He had dreams, he’d known disappointment. He’d not been above instructing little girls or noticing their intelligence.

  “If this project goes well,” Patience said, “you’ll have some latitude, some room to put a bit of knowledge before the masses and see if they like it. That will be my holiday wish for you, Mr. MacHugh, that your dream can come closer to reality.”

  He tapped his hat back onto his head. “Give the professor a sound drubbing, Miss Friendly. That’s all I ask. I’ll bid you good evening.”

  Patience made her way up the steps, while, like a suitor, Mr. MacHugh waited for her to safely enter her home. She closed the door behind her and, before she undid her cloak and scarf, peered out the window.

  Mr. MacHugh was already in motion, his stride confident, his dark cloak flapping against his boots. He hadn’t scoffed at Patience’s dreams, and he had dreams of his own. Watching him make his solitary way down the street, Patience considered she might have something else in common with Mr. Dougal MacHugh.

  Perhaps he was lonely too.

  * * *

  “You canna tell the woman to leave her husband,” Dougal shouted. “You’ll put me oot t’ business, ye daft woman. I’ll have preachers six deep on m’ doorstep citing Scripture, and a bunch of harpies quoting that Wollstonecraft woman in response.”

  For the space of a day, Dougal had pondered his walk through the snowy evening with Patience Friendly. From his perspective, their dealings had subtly shifted as a result of that walk, the shared meal, and the long afternoon spent shaping the details of their holiday project.

  He’d given her a piece of his past, something none of his competitors knew. The schoolteacher from Perthshire aspired to commercial success, and Patience Friendly had not mocked his ambition.

  Now, he aspired to turn her over his knee.

  “The poor woman’s husband is gambling and drinking away coin needed to feed her child,” Miss Friendly retorted, marching across the office. “If she stays with him, she and the child will die, or worse.”

  “Such drama over a man enjoying a wee dram or two. What could be worse than death?”

  She aimed a glower at him, magnificent in its ferocity. Up close, her eyes were storm gray rather than their customary blue, though she still bore the fragrance of lemons and spices.

  “Must I spell it out for you, Mr. MacHugh? You’ve lived three years in London. Are you still in ignorance of the Magdalene houses and foundling homes?”

  “Don’t insult me, Patience Friendly.”

  “Don’t ignore a woman whose child’s life is imperiled, Mr. MacHugh. I say my reply to the letter stands. If a man is fonder of his pint than he is of his own child, he’s a menace to the child. A father’s first obligation is to protect his young.”

  “Find me Scripture to back up that position, and I’ll let you quote it, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”

  “You arrogant varlet.” Miss Friendly’s voice cracked like a tree trunk sundered by gale-force winds. “Scripture is written by men, interpreted by men, translated by men, and preached by men. What would a man know of a lady’s plight in this situation? The mother—a countrywoman from your benighted Scotland—didn’t write to the all-knowing professor, she wrote to me.”

  The staff was accustomed to Dougal raising his voice, and heated arguments among the clerks were not unusual. Dougal wasn’t above dressing down a printer who failed to deliver on time, and some of the other authors—the male authors—could be colorful in their choice of words.

  To have provoked Miss Patience Friendly to shouting felt like both an accomplishment and a disgrace. A violation of some natural order that stood above even Scripture.

  “She’s right,” Harry said, sauntering through the open door with a bag of crumpets. “‘Let the women keep silent in the church,’ for example. Why wouldn’t God want to hear from half his children? Doesn’t make any sense to me, and yer auld mum would agree, Dougal.”

  “There you have it,” Miss Friendly snapped, snatching the bag of crumpets from Harry. “From the mouths of babes, or in this case, strapping youths coming into the full glory of their intellectual powers.” She tore open the bag and passed Harry a crumpet.

  Harry accepted the sweet, bowed, and smirked his way out the door.

  “We’ll set the letter aside for now,” Dougal said. “Plenty of others remain, and we needn’t tackle that one first.”

  Miss Friendly held her crumpet as if she were considering pitching it at him. “We can set the letter aside for now, but the misery of poor children ought to be a suitable topic for the holiday season. You will not convince me otherwise.”

  For them, this was a compromise. A show of diplomacy was in order. “Convince you to change your mind once you’ve formed an opinion? Daft I might be, but I’ve no desire to end my days prematurely. Enjoy your crumpets.”

  Dougal tried for a dignified exit, but Miss Friendly tore off a bite of cinnamon heaven and popped it into her mouth as he passed her.

  “You don’t care for a crumpet, Mr. MacHugh? They’re very tasty.”

  “I’ll have a half.”

  The rest of the afternoon went the same way, bickering and sweets, then the occasional philosophical argument, followed by a heated difference of opinion over the placement of a comma.

  All quite invigorating, and yet the disagreement over the gin widow’s letter left a sour taste in Dougal’s mouth.

  “Has Miss Friendly driven you from your own office?” Harry asked as the clerks began packing up. “I can still make a run to the chophouse if you’re going to demand more work from her.”

  Dougal eyed the closed door to his office, which sported his name—Dougal P. MacHugh, Publisher—in shiny brass letters. An hour ago, that door had opened enough for a disgruntled King George to be shoved into the clerk’s room, but Miss Friendly hadn’t emerged or demanded more crumpets.

  “She’s working,” Dougal said. “You lot go get the greenery, and mind you, don’t overspend. We’ve a budget in this office.”

  “We’ve a budget even for a frolic,” Harry retorted. “Is it any wonder the Scotsman has a dour, miserly reputation?”

  “Hear, hear,” old Detwiler chorused from his desk.

  “Traitor.” Dougal pushed a few coins into Harry’s hand. “Stand the lads to a pint when you’re finished outside. Detwiler must buy his own, though.”

  The office emptied, save for Dougal, King George, and the literary force of nature who’d taken over Dougal’s office.

  Miss Friendly had said she wanted to be the employer, an unusual ambition for a woman her age. Widows could own entire networks of coaching inns, breweries, and all manner of establishments, but a single woman of Miss Friendly’s age—a spinster—could dream of managing only her own household.

  “Rrrlf.”

  George stropped himself against Dougal’s boot. Dougal considered shoving the cat back through the door, a sort of reconnaissance maneuver, but decided on safety in numbers instead. He picked up George, did not knock on his own door, and entered the office.

  He faced a writer’s version of a battlefield. A dictionary lay open on the table. The remains of a bag of crumpets sat beside it. Foolscap had been crumpled and tossed toward the hearth, and more sheets covered with scrawling penmanship were scattered over the table.

  Miss Friendly sat at Dougal’s desk, her arms crossed on the blotter, her cheek pillowed on her forearm. Dougal set the cat on the mantel and crept closer, for his most popular author was apparently fast asleep.

  “Miss Friendly?”

  Her breathing continued in the slow, mesmerizing rhythm of exhausted sleep. A quill pen lay beneath her right hand. At rest, her features were more elegant, more delicate than when animated with her endless opinions.

  Dougal slid the quill from b
eneath her grasp, and still she remained asleep. George paced back and forth on the mantel, as if waiting for a laggard minion to build up the fire.

  Instead, Dougal lit a candle from a spill and took the candle to the desk. Better light didn’t change what he’d observed when he’d first approached his sleeping beauty.

  Miss Friendly was tired—her eyes were shadowed with fatigue, and her sleep was sound. She had also been upset, apparently, for in her left hand she clutched a lace-edged handkerchief, and her cheeks were stained with tears.

  * * *

  Patience dozed in that half-dreaming state where sounds from the waking world had no significance and thoughts drifted freely.

  At least she hadn’t cried in front of Dougal MacHugh. He wasn’t exactly dreadful anymore, but he was disappointing, which was worse. On Monday, he’d acknowledged that even a young female might have a nimble mind. Today, he’d gone right back to parroting hidebound attitudes merely because they’d keep his business from offending the good clergy of London.

  Let the women keep silent in the church, indeed.

  “Miss Friendly.”

  Patience wasn’t feeling very friendly. Other snippets of Scripture floated past, none of them useful when a child’s belly was empty. The cat rustled about the office, and Patience had the odd thought that she liked having George underfoot.

  “Madam, wake up. The lads will say I worked you to exhaustion.”

  That growling burr was familiar, and not.

  Somebody gently shook Patience’s shoulder. “Woman, ye canna be sleeping in my very office. We’ll stop at the bakery and get some tarts, for I’m certain you’ve eaten every crumpet in Bloomsbury.”

  The word crumpet had Patience opening her eyes. “I adore a fresh lemon tart.”

  Dougal MacHugh knelt beside the desk, his emerald eyes full of concern—for her?

  “I’ll buy ye a dozen. Why were ye cryin’, Patience?”

  Patience. He avoided using her given name, but she liked the way he said it.

  “How did you know I was crying?” For she had been, and dissembling would simply make her look foolish. More foolish. She sat back, knowing her sleeve had left a crease on her cheek, and her hair needed tidying.