by Carla Kelly
Before he dozed off, he experienced the magnificent epiphany that he had always believed in himself, even when times were at their worst, here in Dumfries, and in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. He thought about his conclusion to every letter of Faithfully Yours, and realized that he truly was a loyal and faithful man, the kind a similarly inclined woman might want.
Still, he felt something remarkably close to fear as he approached the village school. He stood out of the way and watched as the school emptied of children, all of them especially happy because Mr. Wilson had mentioned this was the last day of class until December 28.
When the last child was out of sight, he walked what felt like fifty miles to the door, took a deep breath, and knocked.
“Do come in,” he heard. He opened the door.
Sally Wilson sat at her desk with his little note in front of her. She had folded her hands on the desk, her pretty eyes trained on him. He loved how they grew smaller and smaller as her smile increased. He had remembered that about her—little chips of blue glass in the kindest face.
“You’re back,” she said so softly.
He looked behind her to what must have been spelling words on the blackboard and knew he had been right all along. He knew that handwriting. A decade of work and worry tumbled from his shoulders because he knew he was looking at a friend, at the very least. Under the cloak of another, she had written to him, worried about him, and buoyed him up, whether she knew it or not.
As he came down the aisle toward her, she stood up and walked out from behind her desk. She cocked her head a little to one side in a gesture he remembered from the years she had been his only friend in school.
“I like your hat,” she said and then blushed. “What a silly thing for me to say. But I do like it.”
And then she was in his arms. He couldn’t have said which of them first covered that small distance dividing them; maybe it was a tie. He held her close and then started to chuckle. Just a little laugh, and then a bigger one, which she joined in.
He finally held her off and just looked at her. “All right. Confess. Whose idea was it?”
“Margaret didn’t tell you?” she asked. “I didn’t think she would.”
He kissed her then, because explanation could wait until he did what he had been wanting to do probably since that morning in the rain when she alone saw him off at the beginning of his adventure. It was a long time to wait for a kiss, and he wasn’t in the mood to add one more second to his longing.
Another kiss, and another. There might have been another one, but he wasn’t counting. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her to her desk. He sat beside her, their feet dangling, their hips touching.
“Margaret wanted to humiliate you,” Sally told him finally, after a real effort to bolster her composure. “She thought it would be great fun to leave you thinking that any day now you would get a letter from home.”
“You didn’t see it that way,” he said, when she seemed unable to continue.
“It was an unkindness no one deserved,” she said, with a sudden flash of anger. She made no objection when he took her hand in his. “I told her I would write you, even though you hadn’t asked me to.”
“I wanted to, but …” John shook his head. “I had enough manners to understand that would have been improper.”
She turned slightly to face at him. “If Margaret didn’t tell you today, how did you know?”
“I’ve always thought it was you,” he began, then corrected himself. “At least, I hoped it was. Well, I knew for certain after that two-year gap. Margaret—you—had written a pile of letters that stacked up in the company office in Montreal, and finally found me in New York City. You didn’t give up.”
“I was so afraid you were dead,” she whispered, then rested her head on his shoulder. “Then Margaret brought over that letter, the one where you said you were now working for the Astor Company.” She put her hand to her mouth, her anguish almost palpable. “This is hard,” she whispered, turning her face into his shoulder.
“We have time,” he told her.
“Margaret had forgotten to give it to me,” Sally said at last. “Six months on top of two years! I started to cry and she just laughed.”
He tipped his head toward hers, after sending his beaver hat sailing. “She’s a mean-spirited female, Sal. You should keep better company,” he teased.
Sally slapped his chest. “Wretch!”
She left her hand on his chest, and he could have lost consciousness with the pure pleasure of her touch. I am a hopeless case, he thought, with no regret.
“I went to the Patterson manor first this morning. Mr. Patterson pumped me for information, and I told him that I am one, well off; and two, set on a course to become even wealthier.” He chuckled. “He was so pleased! He took Margaret aside and told her, and then she was so pleased, too.” He laughed out loud. “What a transformation. She might be hoping that I will return this evening for dinner.”
“You won’t?” Sally asked.
“Not in a million years.” He put his arm around Sally’s waist. “I have a fine position with the Astor Company and I live in New York City. I have a well-appointed flat, and am thinking about buying some farmland just south of an area called The Bronx. It’s some distance from Manhattan, so I am still undecided.”
“You’re a businessman, according to your letters,” Sally reminded him. “Why a farm?”
“It seems like a good place to raise a family. Someone—you, for instance—could stay there with … with … children perhaps. Let us consider that.”
“We could,” she replied, so agreeable.
“I would be home every weekend,” he continued.
She pressed against his chest with her hand. “Oh, no! If that someone is I, we’ll be together in New York City or not at all. No more letters or long distances.” She laughed. “That is, if you are speaking of me.”
“I am. Sally Wilson, I have loved you for more than the ten years I was in North America. Will you be my wife? I know it means leaving Scotland and …”
She kissed his cheek, and when he turned his head, kissed his mouth, which busied them both for a time.
“That appears to be an aye,” he said, when he could talk. “In the interest of honesty and good faith, there is the distinct possibility that Mr. Astor will send me to St. Louis, Missouri, to be his liaison with Pierre Chouteau, his Upper Missouri partner.”
“St. Louis? Will I like St. Louis?”
This was not a lily he could gild. “Probably not, at least at first. It’s humid and scruffy looking. Pigs in the streets. More taverns than churches. Painted Indians now and then, and fur trappers smellier than I used to be. You’ll need to learn French to converse with Chouteau and some of his partners and their wives, but I’ll teach you. Is it still aye?”
Her sweet eyes filled with tears. “Aye over and over,” she whispered.
He helped her down from the desk, mainly because it was another excuse to put his hands on her waist and pull her close. Arms around her, he asked what she thought about marrying in the next day or two.
She rested her forehead against his chest. “Oh, goodness, the school!”
“I spoke with your father earlier, and he is perfectly willing to take over until the town finds another teacher.”
“You already talked to my father?”
“Aye. I am no fool. I told him what I am worth now, and assured him I could take care of you in a style to which you will rapidly become accustomed, since you are a fast learner.”
Her face grew solemn. “Can I leave him?”
“I invited him to sail with us, or to come whenever he feels like it. He’s considering the matter.”
“Well, then,” she said. “I have no wedding dress, but I don’t care.”
“That’s my girl,” he told her, practically tingling with the opportunity to finally use those words. His girl. His wife. The mother of his children. “Since Scottish churches are much more
flexible than those institutions south of the border, what about the day after Christmas?”
She nodded, and wouldn’t look at him. In some ways, Sally Wilson was still the shy girl who befriended him so many years ago.
“Did you already ask my father to marry us?”
“Aye, miss. I’m not one to let grass grow underfoot.”
Just then he remembered the blue beads in his pocket. He pulled out his little gift and gave the necklace to her. “I bought these in Bristol, of course. No one else can create vivid blue. I wasn’t even certain why I bought them. Can I find a wedding ring in this town?”
T
At the beginning of this story, there was mention of another letter to end it. Margaret sent a note that evening to Sally by way of her lady’s maid, who delivered it while Sally and her future husband were cuddling on the sofa and Mr. Wilson was reading and trying not to laugh at their total lack of interest in rational conversation.
The lady’s maid looked at Sally and John sitting so close together, blanched, and handed the note to Sally with shaking fingers. Mr. Wilson’s housekeeper showed her out and swore later that the poor thing was muttering about the storm and thunder about to descend on the entire Patterson household, and how soon could she find other employment?
Sally opened the note, read it quickly, gasped, and handed it to her beloved, who groaned, and handed it to Mr. Wilson, who shook his head.
He handed it back to Sally, who read it again, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “She has written to Mr. Mallory calling off their wedding,” she said in amazement. “ ‘I never told John McPherson that I didn’t write those letters, so don’t say a word, if he should happen to drop by. I have great plans for him.’ Oh dear.”
So ends this tale of a Christmas in Dumfries. For those who are interested, the McPhersons went to St. Louis, Missouri, where they raised an excellent family of Americans. To the end of her long life, Mrs. McPherson always wore six blue beads on a gold chain—one for her, for John, and for each of their children. She never took it off, her gift from the hay wain lad who remained hers, faithfully.
Lucy’s Bang-Up Christmas
CHAPTER ONE
U
December 5, 1815
Dear Cousin Miles,
Thank you for writing. By all means, dear boy, join us when the Michaelmas Term is done, and after your parents have seen you. Believe me, you are not inviting yourself in vain. I am drowning in paperwork and testy females. I am tempted to bury your cousin Clotilde up to her neck and retrieve her only an hour before the wedding, no matter how illustrious the groom. My sister Aurelia Burbage means well, but she is a wretchedly poor substitute for my dear late wife. She flutters about, making my cook’s life miserable with her demands. If Honoré tenders his resignation, I swear I will open my veins.
And Lucy! Lucy mopes about wishing for Christmas in this house, instead of Clotilde’s wedding. I tell her that our thoughts must be on her sister’s Christmas Eve nuptials this year. I know that Lucy misses her mother and all of my dear wife’s holiday traditions. I have promised her a Yule log, Christmas pudding, wassail, and caroling and all the rest next year. “Can’t we have both now, Papa?” she asks, pleading with those big blue eyes. When was the last time you saw Lucy? Contrary miss. Aurelia is preparing her for a come out and Lucy could not care less.
Your father tells me you are returning to Oxford for more study. I break out in hives just thinking about that much time devoted to books, but to each his own. It is a fact that you Bledsoes come from the brainier side of our mutual family tree!
Join us, cousin. I can’t offer you anything but tumult this season, but if you can keep me above water by dealing with correspondence, receipts and milliner’s bills, I’ll—heaven knows what I’ll do. I can’t think!
Abandon the hallowed halls of Christ Church College and come soon to the wilds of Kent at your own peril. See if you can jolly Lucy into a better mood. Let us make that your primary task.
Sincerely,
Cousin Roscoe Danforth
T
Miles Bledsoe tipped his chair back in the confines of his carrel in the Bodleian Library, which meant he banged against the partition separating his space from the one beside him.
“Bledsoe, do that again and you’re a dead man,” came the voice of the aggrieved scholar whose concentration he had broken.
Miles smiled to himself. Lord Hartley’s aggravation would only last until Miles bought him a pint at the Eagle and Child on St. Giles Street.
“I just received good news, Hart,” he said, louder than a whisper, but softer than the occasion warranted, since this was even more than good news and deserved to be shouted from a rooftop or two. He waited, knowing that Lord Hartley liked a bit of gossip as well as the next earl.
“Well, tell me,” Hart said. “This jaw-me-dead treatise on tenth-century tenants and land rights is calling my name like a diseased harlot.”
Miles laughed out loud, which meant a chorus of shushes and foul words from other carrels. He stood up and looked over the partition at Lord Hartley.
“I have a cousin … words fail me,” he whispered. He waved Roscoe’s letter. “I’ve just been given carte blanche by her father to jolly her out of a bad mood incurred by the approaching marriage of her sister.”
“The old green-eyed monster, is it?” Lord Hartley asked.
“Lucy’s not jealous that her sister is marrying. She is upset because the wedding is on Christmas Eve, making the usual Christmas traditions null and void this year.”
“So you’re going to … to—”
“Tidwell, Kent, to try my luck. Lucy knows me so well—we’re second cousins, after all—but Hart, I think I love her.”
Hart leaned back this time. “My first cousins are barely tolerable, my second cousins even worse.”
“Lucy is much more than tolerable. I’ll have to play this carefully. She has no idea of my feelings. Wish me luck, Hart.”
“Very well. Good luck!” Lord Hartley said. “Now leave me alone so I can keep reading this fascinating bit of British history. The entire civilized world is waiting for my paper on the subject.”
Miles laughed louder, which earned him several paper missiles lobbed in his direction, plus an apple core. He caught the apple core and threw it back, then sat down to read his cousin’s letter again.
Lucinda Danforth, he thought. Could a fellow even hope for a nicer Christmas gift?
CHAPTER TWO
U
“Things are not shaping up well, Miles,” Lucinda Danforth announced as she flopped into the chair in her father’s bookroom, a place Papa avoided at all costs. She knew better than to flutter about with die-away airs for her cousin from the quieter Bledsoe side of the family tree. “Not at all well.”
“Nonsense, Lucy,” Miles Bledsoe said, after he blew gently on the drying ink. “You cause half of your own problems by bludgeoning about in your graceless fashion. How in the world are you going to convince some hapless rich man with a title to marry you someday?”
She slumped lower in the chair. “Don’t remind me that I am coming out in a few months. I call that monumentally unkind.” She folded her arms and glared at the disgustingly calm man seated behind her father’s desk.
And what did he do but laugh at her? She bore it with what she considered remarkable grace by grimacing at him, rather than sticking out her tongue.
He took out his timepiece and stared at it. “Another fifteen seconds and your face will freeze like that permanently,” he told her, which made her laugh.
“That’s better. What is wrong now?” he asked.
She had a million retorts and complaints, but Miles had a way of giving her his full attention that reduced them to one fact she had been avoiding since the start of Advent.
“I miss my mother,” she said simply.
“I miss her, too,” he said, and folded his hands on the paper-strewn desk. “Cousin Penelope would have gone about in her quiet way and organi
zed this whole circus, without any pain to anyone.” He took out his handkerchief. “Have a cry, Lucy, and blow your nose.”
She took the handkerchief and did as he said. When she finished, she folded the material into squares. “I’ll launder it. Thanks, Miles.”
“Anytime, cuz.” He gave her his patented familiar look, which meant permission to carry on, if she felt like it, and she did.
“All Clotilde does is moon about and cry if anyone looks at her. I thought that being in love and getting married meant a smile or two, at the very least. Doesn’t it?”
He shrugged. “What would you do if you were in love, Lucy dear?”
She smiled at that, wondering for a second why some female didn’t snatch Miles to her bosom and refuse to let him go. He was tall and handsome and had big brown eyes, round ones that made him look younger than she knew he was. Maybe his black hair made him intimidating. How did she know? He was Miles—the cousin, out of all her relatives, who never failed to make her feel better.
She thought about what he said. “You know, I doubt I would be any different than I am right now.”
“I doubt you would be, either,” he agreed. “You’re sensible and smart.”
“Implying that my sister is not?” she asked, wondering what it would take to actually ruffle her cousin’s even temperament. No wonder he was considering a career in diplomacy.
“Clotilde is beautiful and pours tea better than you ever will, scamp. I want to be a diplomatist, so that is all I will say. Stop laughing!” He gave her a more serious look. “You know you’re going to miss her.”
If someone else had told her that, Lucy would have supplied an instant denial. Since it was Miles, she gave the matter her attention. He was right, of course. Everything was changing before her eyes and she didn’t know how to stop it.
“Whatever her mental acuity, I love her, you wretch. When she comes back to visit, she won’t be my big sister anymore,” Lucy said finally. “She’ll be a married woman. She won’t want to crawl in bed with me and laugh about things, or tell me ghost stories, or even go for walks with her shoes off.”
