Coming Home for Christmas

by Carla Kelly

  Thomas sighed with relief to see Ralph lying there, his eyes bright with fever, to be sure, but alive still. He took a step back, jolted out of his pain, when his eyes registered in the late-afternoon shadows and he saw the man seated beside his patient.

  He was dressed much as Thomas had dressed four years earlier, in a plain navy blue uniform, with only the chains and knots on the collar to proclaim him a surgeon in the Royal Navy. The uniform was much worn, proclaiming a long cruise. The young surgeon stood up and held out his hand.

  “Ah, you are Surgeon Wilkie.” He laughed. “I guess you did not look in the harbor, did you?”

  Dumbstruck, Thomas shook his head. He groped for Laura’s hand.

  “His Majesty’s frigate, the Glenmore, lies at anchor. Don’t look so amazed! We’ve come to take you home.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The Glenmore well and truly rode at anchor in the harbor. A glance at Laura’s pale face told him worlds about her feelings. She probably had no idea what Surgeon Fletcher was saying, but her suddenly frightened eyes remained fixed on the man’s uniform and what it meant to her world. The only reassurance Thomas could offer her at that moment was her hand firmly held in his. He hoped it was enough.

  Fletcher had certainly noticed it. “Gone native, have we?” the surgeon said to Thomas in English, which brought a pithy oath from Ralph Gooding.

  “Remember yourself, carpenter,” the new surgeon said.

  “She is my wife,” Thomas said, suddenly hating Tobias Fletcher.

  “This complicates matters,” Fletcher replied.

  Thomas took a good look at the man: young, his uniform still fairly new, even after what must have been a long voyage from the other side of the world. “Ever been cast ashore, Surgeon?” he asked.

  A head shake.

  “In a Spanish dungeon? Away from England more than a year or two? On your own?”

  More head shakes.

  “Then don’t tell me about complications,” Thomas said.

  The Glenmore’s surgeon at least was wise enough to know when to stop talking. “And now, sir, I had better see to my patient,” Thomas said, moving the other surgeon aside. He took Ralph’s hand, hot and dry and even thinner than before.

  “Any more bleeding?” Thomas asked.

  “Aye, once or twice.” Ralph tried to smile and failed. “Father Hilario took good care of me, but he is more prone to prayer than styptic.”

  “A little of both probably didn’t hurt.” He spent a long moment looking at the carpenter’s widening tubercular lesion. With a chill, he noticed another one forming on Ralph’s chest. “Can I get you anything?” he asked, almost wincing with the inanity of his question.

  “A new body—barring that, no,” Ralph said. He tugged weakly on the surgeon’s hand. “Just do this: let your pretty wife sit with me this evening.” He glanced at the other surgeon without moving his head. “I believe you are to have dinner aboard the Glenmore.” He sighed then. “Time to make plans for the voyage…home.” He closed his eyes.

  “I still won’t leave you here,” Thomas said, wishing he sounded more positive.

  “You may not have a choice, laddie,” Ralph replied.

  Tobias Fletcher’s plans were precisely what the carpenter suggested. “You’ll have dinner aboard the Glenmore now,” he said; it was no suggestion.

  “I suppose I will,” Thomas murmured. He looked around for Laura and saw her in their sitting room. “Just a moment, please.” He went into their quarters and closed the door quietly behind him.

  “He will take you away,” she said, trying to hold her lips in a firm line so they would not tremble.

  “Not without you,” he assured her, holding open his arms.

  She hesitated for a small moment, then reached for him in that all-encompassing way he already cherished, holding as much of him as she could, and he was not a small man.

  “Not without you,” he said again, then made a monumental mistake. He held her off for a moment, to see her better. “Not unless that is your choice.”

  He knew he would never forget the look she gave him. It was as though he had struck her. Her eyes grew wide as she carefully extracted herself from his embrace. Her face turned pale and then solemn.

  “How could you even think that?” she asked, then added quietly, “Unless, of course, you are thinking that.”

  “Oh, no, never,” he replied quickly, but the damage was done.

  Fearful now, he watched her face as she calmly regained her Spanish dignity. She smiled, but there was no joy in her eyes, the joy he had seen in the last few days and nights, when they had worked as equals in San Juan and made love as husband and wife.

  He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to take her in his arms again, but he was afraid. “We’ll…we’ll discuss this when I return from the ship,” he said, afraid to meet her gaze and magnifying his wrongs by his cowardice. “Would you…would you sit with Ralph?”

  “You didn’t need to ask that,” she said quickly, stung, because he was trampling on her pride.

  “I’ll be back soon, Laura. We’ll talk then.”

  Silence. She had shouldered past him and opened the door into the ward. He watched her a moment as she sat beside the carpenter, her hand in his.

  “Well, then,” Tobias Fletcher began. He clapped his hands together, which made Laura jump. “To the ship, Thomas. I am certain you outrank me in years of service, but we are brothers in arms, after all. May I call you Thomas?”

  No, Thomas thought sourly. You may call me a fool, you mushroom. “Certainly.” In utter misery, he bared his teeth in a grin.

  Thomas couldn’t deny that his heart lifted to step aboard a frigate of his Majesty’s Royal Navy again. The Glenmore looked hard used, as most frigates did this far from Portsmouth or Plymouth. He sniffed the air—foul, indeed, after the fragrant blossoms and pine-scented cooking fires of San Diego.

  Captain Livermore introduced himself and invited Thomas to the wardroom, where the other officers were already at their dinner. He gestured toward the empty chair and the other officers began passing him their kegged beef and ship’s biscuit. Funny. According to Tobias, they had been riding at anchor for two days and were still eating kegged beef. He took a little on his plate.

  “Captain, you really should try some of the tuna and ceviche, while you are here in port,” Thomas said, by way of small talk. “In fact, I can—”

  Livermore waved his hand, as though dismissing a bad smell. “One of the local fishermen tried to cheat us with something he called tuna. ’Pon my word, it was brighter than a baboon’s ass and he claimed it was cooked!”

  “Oh, it was, Captain,” Thomas said. “Nothing tastes better than—”

  “And what did he have the nerve to do next but try to sell me a bucket of raw fish, by God, octopus and squid marinated in goo! With limes yet! I sent him packing. Does he think we are idiots?”

  I do, Thomas thought. “That was ceviche, and it’s delicious. I can arrange—”

  “You’ve been here too long,” the captain said, overriding him again. “Good thing we arrived.”

  “Aye, isn’t it?” Thomas replied. He pushed away the spoiled beef in front of him. “I think I’ll eat later, sir.”

  “Just as well,” Livermore replied. “Tell me your story. That fat Franciscan in the ward spoke a little English, but what he said sounded too fantastic.”

  “It wasn’t, sir,” Thomas replied. He pushed back his chair and made himself comfortable.

  For the next hour, he described the Splendid’s encounter with a much-larger French frigate that mauled them and sent them limping finally into the harbor where the Glenmore was now moored. He described the year in the dungeons, and their change of fortune when Spain’s alliance with France dissolved. He had to stop now and then to remember the English words.

  “This autumn the first mate jury-rigged a coasting vessel in hopes of seeking help from the Americans north of us at Fort Astoria.”

  The
Glenmore’s officers looked at each other and chuckled.

  “Thomas, we are at war with the United States now,” Captain Livermore said. “They’re probably in irons in Fort Astoria!”

  Thomas shook his head and continued his story of the Almost Splendid, foundering from a rogue wave after last week’s earthquake. “They’re all gone, sir, except for me,” he said, unable to keep the catch from his voice. “I’m only alive because I stayed behind with my two patients.” He looked at Surgeon Fletcher. “A foretopman died just a day after the ship sailed. And the carpenter remains as you see him. He’s still too ill to travel.”

  “I don’t give him more than a week, at most,” Fletcher said. “You can leave him with that Franciscan, or your wife.”

  Thomas couldn’t help the dismay on his face at the surgeon’s callous words. He looked around the table and saw no sympathy anywhere. “I cannot do that, Tobias,” he said quietly. “Could you?”

  The other surgeon flushed and drew his lips into a taut line.

  “Even if it is a direct order?” the captain asked, his voice genial, as though he spoke to an idiot.

  Lord, I have landed among Philistines, Thomas thought in disgust. “I, uh, have taken a higher oath, sir,” he said. “And I am married. I cannot just discard my wife.”

  The silence that settled was unpleasant in the extreme. Thomas looked around again at stolid faces, British faces. He had sailed with men like these for fifteen years, since he was lad of fourteen. It was as though he had never seen them before. “I know we are at war, but it is no hardship to take along my wife, especially since she is the best pharmacist’s mate I ever had.”

  To his embarrassment, everyone laughed. “She is,” he insisted, but quietly, because no one was listening to him. Think, Thomas, think, he ordered himself. Be devious, you plainspoken sawbones. Remember that you are dealing with the English now, more your natural enemies than the Spanish ever could be.

  He wasn’t much of a liar, but he knew he could bend a truth well enough. He willed himself to calm and looked at the captain for a long moment. “Sir, she is no ordinary female, but the daughter of the presidio’s subdelegado, a powerful man, indeed.”

  He had to admit that subdelegado sounded massively more impressive in Spanish than mere royal accountant did in English. No need to tell them that his last view of the subdelegado was of a humbled man in chains, sitting in a squeaking oxcart, bound for either Mexico City or death at the hand of Apaches on the way.

  “Indeed,” was all Captain Livermore said, but at least he had stopped laughing. “Where is this man?”

  “He is on his way to Mexico City right now,” Thomas said without a blink. “He has been summoned and is under orders to appear before the captain-general at the first opportunity.” He glanced around; the officers seemed to be buying that, and why not? It was true. Here came the bend. “Ah, sir, it would be a breech of protocol for you to anger our allies, the Spanish, if you forced me to abandon the daughter of grandees and hidalgos.” Well, his lovely Laura looked as though she was descended from Spain’s elite; probably, she was. He was no genealogist.

  The captain was silent, mulling that around. He poured himself more rum. “We entered the harbor here because of rumors of a frigate lost these past four years. And you are all that remains, eh?”

  “And the carpenter. I cannot abandon him, either, sir. I have a duty to perform,” Thomas said simply.

  “How much longer will he live?”

  Thomas knew it was not a callous question, not from the captain of a warship far from England and sailing in questionable waters.

  “A few days. My wife and I can probably sail by Christmas.”

  “And if he is not dead by then?”

  Thomas didn’t answer, but gave the captain the calmest look he could muster, the one that set him apart as a surgeon and made him different. I will not look away first, he told himself.

  Captain Livermore sighed and looked away. “And what are we to do in the meantime, Surgeon?” he asked. There was no overlooking his testy demeanor.

  Learn to love ceviche and rare tuna, you dolt, Thomas thought. “There is something. A week ago, this area had a terrible earthquake. I would like your permission for Surgeon Fletcher to accompany me and one of the priests into the back areas. I’d like to take whatever you think the Glenmore can spare from her medical supplies. There are people suffering.” No need for the captain to know that most of them were mere Kumeyaay Indians.

  “I suppose we must,” the captain said, sounding amazingly put upon. “They are our allies.”

  And people in need, Thomas thought. “I also recommend that you put your carpenter in charge of repairs around the pueblo.” He smiled around the table at the wary faces. “Yes, these people are Popish, but they are kind. I’ve noticed through the years that seamen can turn a hand at nearly anything. Your help would do a great deal to foster relations with our allies, even on this side of the world.”

  He knew he had the upper hand, invoking allies and diplomacy, even if no one in the world was destined ever to know about it.

  “I suppose we must,” the captain said at last.

  Thank you for your enthusiasm, Thomas thought. “We must, sir,” he said firmly. “And my wife comes with me, when we sail.”

  Captain Livermore smiled at that, but it wasn’t a congenial smile. “If you can convince her to leave her own kind, sail into danger for a year, and, if my ears don’t lie, settle in the land of chilblains, oatmeal and haggis, provided we survive.”

  Put that way, Thomas had his doubts. Damn the man.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The longboat took Thomas back to the dock and he stood a long time, watching the water and the Glenmore. What he wished for so fervently had finally happened—he had been rescued by the Royal Navy. Too bad he did not want to leave San Diego now. He ordered himself not to think of the captain’s words, which were making him doubt. Heavens, a Doubting Thomas! But what if Laura really didn’t want to leave?

  He could have asked anyone in the pueblo to give him a donkey ride back up to the presidio, but he preferred to punish himself with a long walk. It was a slow journey, because besides feeling sorry for himself, he knew he was duty-bound to look in on his San Diego patients.

  He made the mistake of stopping at the mayor’s house to check on the man’s wife and child and was met with hand kissing and exclamations of joy. Through eyes that threatened to tear up, he saw the San Diegueños as they were: kind people, for the most part, who had treated him well because he rendered service and learned their language. In their hour of need, he had been there and they would not forget it.

  After he had looked at la señora’s leg—the mayor watched him closely—and checked out the baby, whose only mishap had been a small cut on his forehead, Thomas let the maid bring him a bowl of bean soup. He listened with growing peace and satisfaction as the woman of the house chattered on about the posada.

  “You do not think the earthquake will stop the celebrations?” he asked, a smile on his face. La señora had given him her baby to hold.

  She laughed and waggled her finger at him. “Señor! Have you not lived here long enough to know that we do not postpone parties?”

  He had, but he wanted to let her have the last word. “Let’s see: Maria and José will go from house to house and then an innkeeper will finally let them enter?” he asked. “I forget.”

  She was generous with his stupidity and waggled that finger again. “You are a tease, señor! You have seen our posadas. I wonder that Laura Ortiz tolerates you.”

  So do I, he thought, reminded of his troubles.

  Saying her name had reminded the mayor’s wife, as well. She was silent a long moment, looking down at her leg that Laura had bandaged so expertly. “Señor, we may have been wrong about Laura Ortiz.”

  He could have cried with relief. Thank God the pueblo had seen his wife’s worth, as she had labored at his side without a murmur, all that terrible day of the earth
quake, helping the very people who had wanted nothing to do with her.

  “She is a kind lady,” he said simply. “Whatever her father’s faults, they are not hers.”

  La Señora nodded, the color high in her handsome face. “We were hasty. I am sorry.” She leaned closer. “In fact, after you went to the ship, I visited Señora Ortiz. I apologized, on behalf of all San Diego.”

  “That is kind of you, señora,” Thomas said. “I am certain it meant a lot to her.”

  She nodded and took the baby from him. “I also told her that when the ship sails, she is welcome to stay with us.”

  If the mayor’s wife had suddenly brained him with a stick of firewood, Thomas couldn’t have felt worse. “Oh, but—” he began.

  It was his night to be overridden in every conversation, apparently. The mayor’s wife looked at him kindly. “Señor, what kind of a life would she have, so far from her own kind? I assured her it was for the best.” She laid a hand on his sleeve. “You can sail without worrying about your wife. Never fear; we will take care of her here, where she belongs.”

  He mumbled something then about seeing his other patients and left the house, blinded by tears. Had Laura agreed to stay? He had to know.

  The night was cool in that pleasant way of San Diego that he knew could never be duplicated in Dumfries. With a feeling close to pain, he realized how much he would miss this fair land, this paradise that could turn treacherous when the earth shook. There was no question of remaining behind, because he was a warrant officer in the Royal Navy who had been rescued by HMS Glenmore. His country was still at war with France, and now with the upstart United States—heavens, would it never end? All he wanted to do now was survive the war with Laura, the woman he adored, resign his warrant and practice surgery with his father in Dumfries. The dear man had probably been writing him a Christmas letter for years now; if God was good, he was still alive.

  Thomas walked faster. He wanted to teach Laura how to grow roses in Dumfries, deliver their children and grow old with her, his Spanish darling. Was he asking so much? Was there a point at which war paled in the face of love? He doubted it supremely, but he hoped.