by Carla Kelly
The cake and beef came along, too.
She sat next to Thomas in the post chaise, too shy to speak, while Suzie and Beth carried on a more animated conversation across the narrow space dividing them.
“Cat got your tongue?” Thomas whispered in her ear as they began the descent into Plymouth.
His face was close to hers and she didn’t mind. “Every year I think something might happen,” she whispered back. “It finally did. I intend to enjoy tomorrow.”
It was his turn to look away, and she wondered if she had offended him. His arm went around her shoulder next, so she didn’t think he was too upset. Since the chaise was such a tight fit for four people, she naturally leaned into him, remembering that nice place under a man’s arm where a smallish woman fit well. She closed her eyes, determined to remember every single minute of this evening and the next day.
The bedchamber was just as Suzie predicted, the walls painted a crisp white, with lace curtains, a fire in the grate, and a woolen comforter on the bed. Beth stared at Mary Ann and her eyes filled with tears. Mary Ann folded her child in her arms. “Let’s just remember everything. It will keep us warm a long time.”
Uncertain what to do after Beth slept, she went downstairs and into the sitting room she remembered. Thomas sat on the sofa with his shoes off, stocking feet propped on a hassock, reading his beloved Euclid, and Suzie wound a skein of yarn into a ball. She sat down next to Thomas and looked around at the room, which had been decorated with holly and ivy. A lace-covered table in front of the bow window held presents, so she excused herself, went upstairs, and came down with her few gifts, adding them to the pile.
She looked close at an apple on a tripod of twigs, stuffed with—she leaned closer for a sniff—cloves. Sticking from the top was a green sprig. She turned around to see Thomas watching her, a smile in his eyes and his finger stuck in Euclid.
“Go ahead. Pick it up,” he told her, setting the book aside. “We’re not so much for Welsh customs, but this one always reminds me of my childhood, what there was of it before the war.”
She held up the apple, enjoying the fragrance. “What on earth is it?”
“Calennig,” Suzie told her. “Little children like Beth take them around to the neighbors, sing, and get small candies in return for calennig.”
“What is it for?” Mary Ann asked. She took another sniff.
“Fertility,” Thomas said, and she set it down quickly as he started to laugh. He patted the sofa. “Join me.”
She did as he asked, but not as close, which made him laugh some more. “For heaven’s sake,” she said finally, and slid closer. She turned her attention to Suzie, who was winding yarn again. “Are there any other Welsh customs I should know about? Your brother is disreputable.”
“I know, I know,” she soothed. “Nothing here beyond Welsh spoons and a kissing ball.” She pointed to the mistletoe tied with red twine and hanging from the ceiling between the sitting room and the dining room. “Our ’tween-stairs girl is already trying to maneuver the constable’s son in here for the kissing ball.”
Mary Ann’s face felt hot, even though the room was a pleasant temperature. There must be a massive change of subject somewhere, but all she saw were a brother and sister comfortable in their house and with each other.
“How did you get to sea?” she asked Thomas.
He put away the Euclid for good, his face serious almost in a night and day sort of way, after his good humor over calennig. “I owe it to my mam and Suzie,” he said, and passed a hand across his eyes, as though it was a memory tender even now, after probably thirty years. She had no idea how old Thomas was.
“I was ten, and Da said it was time for me to go to the pit. He mined coal in Glamorganshire, like everyone else.”
“That’s young,” she said, tucking her legs under her and leaning back. If they could be casual, so could she. The atmosphere seemed to require it here at 34 Notte Street.
“Not in a coal mine, ten isn’t young. I was old enough to pick up the coal my father mined and put it in his numbered basket. Two weeks I was down there from black morning to black evening, and crying in my bed every night. Da was angry.” He blew his sister a kiss. “What does Suzie do but conspire with our mam. I played sick one morning. After Da gave me a whipping and left, they scraped together a pound between them and my aunt next door and told me to run away to sea. I did.”
“That’s young, too,” she murmured. “I suppose there is more to this story.”
“Aye, lass,” he told her, and touched one of her curls that had escaped from her widow’s cap before he realized what he was doing. “Oh, sorry. There’s more. I’ll tell you some day, but look over there. Suzie is yawning.”
She turned a little to face him. “Your father was a hard man.”
“I thought so at first. I may have hated him for a while. He was a desperate man, my dear, trying to provide for a family. I understand him now, and I certainly don’t hate him.”
“Did he know of your success?” she asked.
“Aye, right before he died.” He touched her hair again. “Your eyes are drooping.”
She struggled to sit up and he helped her with his hand on the small of her back.
“Now if this were Wales, I would probably get up at three of the clock, stand in the hallway upstairs and sing hymns and carols. I won’t.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you did,” she said, shy again.
“Go to bed, Mary Ann. Think good things.”
CHAPTER NINE
U
It wasn’t three a.m., but she woke up to singing. Beth still slept next to her, so Mary Ann got out of bed carefully and opened the door a crack, because her shawl was still in the bandbox.
Brother and sister stood in the hallway, singing, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Mary Ann clapped her hands and opened the door wider. In another moment, Beth sat up and rubbed her eyes, then leaped out of bed. Mary Ann grabbed her before she could run downstairs and closed the door, after telling Thomas and Suzie they would dress quickly.
“You’re going to like my present,” Beth told Mary Ann as she buttoned her dress up the back.
“I always like what you get me,” Mary Ann said, then knelt down so Beth could reach the one button in the middle of her back that she could not reach. She turned around and held her daughter close. They rocked back and forth, then Beth patted her cheek.
“It’s going to be a good day. I say that every day, but I really mean it today.”
Mary Ann kissed her and they went downstairs, hand in hand.
A fire burned in the sitting-room grate and the sky outside was as dark as it had been when she went to bed. Mary Ann thought of what Thomas had said last night about working from dark morning to dark evening. “What time is it?” she asked him.
“It is half five.” He nudged his sister. “Suzie couldn’t wait.”
She nudged back and Mary Ann could have died right then with the loveliness of their camaraderie. “He lies! He was up and singing first.” She went to the table of gifts. “I can’t wait, Beth. This is for you.”
Her eyes wide, her mouth a perfect circle, Beth took the box wrapped in tissue and tied with a red bow. She sat down as though her legs would not hold her, and Mary Ann sat beside her on the carpet. “You can open it,” she whispered, when her daughter just sat there staring at the box.
“Pinch me, Mama,” she said.
“No need. It’s real, child,” Thomas told her.
Beth gulped and carefully untied the string that looked like lace filigree. She set it aside and took off the paper. Barely breathing, she lifted the top off the box and took another breath and another.
Mary Ann felt her own breath come in little gasps as she watched her daughter pull a white rabbit fur muff from the box. Not raising her eyes from the lovely thing, Beth put her hands in the muff and leaned back against her mother. In another moment, Beth was in her arms, her face turned into her breast.
“Is it too much
?” Suzie asked anxiously.
“A little. She’ll be fine,” Mary Ann said. She rubbed Beth’s back until her daughter was calm again. “See there?”
“I bought her material for a new dress, too,” Suzie said, “but this was more important.” She reached over and took a smaller package off the table. “For you, Mary Ann Poole.”
She felt tears start in her eyes, and wondered what would have happened if she had decided to mail the package back to S.M. Thomas Jenkins, instead of delivering it in person. A week had passed. No more than a week, and here she sat with a present in her lap.
Beth had returned her attention to the muff. Taking off the glittering twine as carefully as Beth had done, Mary Ann set it aside and unwrapped the tissue paper. There lay a copy of Emma.
With trembling fingers, she touched the raised lettering of the title, then looked lower to see her own name embossed on the cover. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” she said, swallowing back more tears.
Beth handed her the brown-wrapped package they had brought from Haven, and Mary Ann opened her daughter’s watercolor rendition of the book. She handed her gift of the watercolor muff to Beth, and they put their heads together and laughed.
“Beth, we have something for our hosts,” she reminded her daughter.
Mary Ann got up from the floor and sat on the sofa beside Thomas again. “You are so kind to us,” she said.
“I have not been bored in a week,” he teased.
Beth handed the larger brown-wrapped, flat parcel to Suzie. “Happy Christmas, Mrs. Davis. It isn’t so much after your gift, but it’s something you can use in January.”
Suzie unwrapped Beth’s present and sat back, the picture of flowers in a vase in her lap. Her eyes filled with tears as she stared straight ahead at the fire in the grate, crackling away, making more noise than anything else in the room.
“A bouquet in January,” she said softly.
Beth was leaning over her shoulder, then leaning against her. “Pansies, and Johnny-jump-ups, and daisies, although Mama says they are common.”
“So are we, Beth,” Suzie told her. “Roses, too?” She kissed Beth’s cheek. “When I get in the doldrums and grouchy from January and February’s endless rain, I have flowers.”
Mary Ann felt almost too shy to hand her present to Thomas. She had stayed up late two nights ago and pondered it, which meant she had to find the proper scripture, just the right one for a man whose kindness filled her heart.
He took the picture from its holly and ivy sleeve and held it up so his sister could see. He said nothing, but Mary Ann noticed a muscle working in his cheek, and then his lips so tight.
“I … I know the River Tamar doesn’t look anything like that now, not with the dockyards and shipping lanes,” she said, keeping her voice soft because the room seemed almost holy just then. “It’s the Tamar flowing into the sound, for when you … you go back to sea and you might miss us all just a little.”
Suzie sat on the arm of the sofa, her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “‘He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still,’” she read. “‘Then they are glad because they be quiet, so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.’”
He still said nothing. Suzie kissed his head. “It’s the perfect gift for a sailing master, Tommy. Think of all the ships you have brought to their desired haven.”
“No words, Mary Ann,” he said finally, his voice sounding so strangled that Beth looked up from the muff. “No words. You couldn’t have done a nicer thing.”
“I wanted it to be just right,” she said. “A little thank you for roast beef and cake and … I’m not certain what else.”
She couldn’t tell him what she really felt, how he had somehow stuffed the heart back in her chest and made her brave again. She still faced ruin, but she knew she could face it calmly, because somewhere in the wide world and across an ocean or two, someone had done a kind thing. It was too intimate and she had no call or cause to say any such thing. Thomas Jenkins’s friendship was something to tuck in her heart and treasure through the rough times she knew were coming.
They ate breakfast in strange silence, but oddly companionable, passing around the dishes, going to the sideboard for more bacon. She poured Thomas more coffee when he held out his cup, and ate until she was full.
Thomas broke the unusual silence. He turned to her. “Get on your cloak, Mary Ann. We have to pay a visit. Beth, you help Suzie and Cook in the kitchen. I believe I smell turkey.”
She asked no questions. In a few minutes they were on the street, walking west toward Devonport. He held out his arm for her. “Icy,” he said, although there was no ice and she didn’t need his help. She took it anyway, her mind a jumble.
They walked toward the docks now, right at the edge of Plymouth, where warehouses began. She looked at him, wondering, and saw his now-familiar smile, which relieved her heart.
He stopped in front of a warehouse with the gate open. She looked inside and saw wagons and carts in front of what looked like loading docks. She had never been anywhere like this. Over the wide gate was a sign. “Beazer and Son, Maritime Victuallers,” she said. “Thomas, what is this place?”
“It’s a highly successful business run by an old diamond in the rough name of Rob Beazer. The ‘and Son’ part is difficult, because his son died a few months ago.” He pointed to a tidy-looking cottage next to the building. “Rob and Meggie live there. Rob said he would be inside the warehouse.”
She wanted to pelt him with questions, but she decided to hold her tongue and trust the man. He had her by the hand now. She gave his hand a squeeze, whether to reassure him or her, she did not know. Startled, he looked down at her and squeezed back.
They went inside the warehouse, which smelled of dried herring, coffee beans, leather, salt pork and other pungent odors she could not identify. Sitting at a tall table midway through the building was a little man who looked up when they came closer. He hopped off the high stool and just stood there. Mostly he looked at her.
“Mrs. Poole, this is Rob Beazer. He has been providing quality victuals through at least one long war,” Thomas said. He took a deep breath. “He needs a clerk and I have brought you here. Rob, meet Mrs. Mary Ann Poole.”
What have you done, Thomas Jenkins? she thought, dazed with the magnitude of his concern for her. With the fumbled delivery of a package, her life had undergone a sea change.
But here was Rob Beazer, holding out his hand. She was ready to curtsy, but she gave him a firm handshake instead.
“I’m going to stand over here by the window and you two can talk,” Thomas said.
Her first instinct was to ask him to stay close by, but this was business and he knew it. So did she. If she entered this man’s world, she had to prove herself. Drawing herself up, clasping her hands at her waist so they would not tremble, she told Mr. Robert Beazer what she knew of handling correspondence and filing, and doing rudimentary bookkeeping. She assured him she was never late to work and she could put in whatever hours he required.
“I would imagine yours is a business where flexibility is a virtue,” she said. “You probably need to receive goods at all hours, and disburse them in similar fashion, considering tides and all that.”
“It was worse during the war,” he told her. “There were days when Meggie brought my meals here and I slept on a cot by the loading door. I don’t miss those days. You could do that sort of thing, if needed?”
“I could. I have a daughter who is seven, but she is reliable.” She glanced at Thomas, whose eyes were on her. “Mr. Jenkins can vouch for her mathematical abilities, too, even though she is young. I would probably like her to check my figures.” She smiled then, suddenly at ease. “Perhaps yours, too, sir.”
He laughed at that, and then he was silent. He stepped back as though to observe her more carefully. She stood straight and as tall as she could make herself.
“I’ve never hired a female clerk,” he said finally. “No one
on the dock has, to my knowledge. Would you be uncomfortable working around men? You’re such a pretty lady.”
“I am a widow trying to support my daughter,” she replied. “My husband died at Corunna and I need this job.”
“No drinking? No swearing?” he asked, and she could tell he was teasing her.
“Never,” she said, biting off the word. “I write with a bold hand and my penmanship is probably better than any man’s.”
He turned and walked away, and her heart sank. I will not cry when he turns me down, she thought, and put her hands behind her back because they were shaking too much. She would have given the earth just then for Thomas Jenkins to put his arm around her, but this was her interview, her moment.
Beazer stood a moment by the front door. She thought she heard him talking to himself. He turned suddenly and walked back, taking his time, but his step was firm. When he stopped in front of her, he held out his hand again.
“Done and done, Mrs. Poole.”
They shook hands. He grinned up at her and put both of his hands around hers. “You’re shaking like a leaf, Mrs. Poole.”
“I’ve never been so terrified,” she admitted.
Still holding both her hands in his, he told what he would pay weekly. It wasn’t any more than what she’d earned before, and she wondered how expensive lodgings were in Plymouth. Maybe he would let her grow a little garden in a corner of the compound, anything to stay here.
“I also need to find a place to live,” she told him. “Until I do, I can walk from Haven. It’s not that far.”
He released her hand and slapped his head. “I’m getting daft in my old age, Mrs. Poole!” He pointed over his head, and then to a door. “Thomas, my knees are creaky. Take Mrs. Poole upstairs and show her the little flat. Two bedchambers, a kitchen and a sitting room, and it comes with the job.”
She gasped and put her hands to her mouth, tried to talk and failed.
“You’ll start December twenty-seventh? Seven o’clock to six in the evening, Monday through Saturday noon, or whenever you might be needed. I provide your noon meal, too. Meggie loves to cook.”
