A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong: A Blackshear Family novella (B 0.5)

by Cecilia Grant

  “You’d better go and get warm.” He was the one to speak. “When I come to the house I’ll contrive to draw you aside so you can tell me all you’ve told Mrs. Porter, and we can square our stories.”

  “Very good. Good luck. Keep as warm as you can.” Those seemed like the sorts of things a wife would say. Fitted to the occasion too: they would both need luck in abundant measure if they were to carry off their charade, get the wheel back in working order, and arrive safely at their respective destinations in time for Christmas.

  She made a curtsey to her husband—to Mr. Blackshear—to Andrew—and started back to follow Mrs. Porter to indoor warmth and the promise of tea.

  “There, now.” Andrew patted the neck of the same horse he’d earlier walked into calm, and looped its lead strap over a peg on the barn wall. “You’ll have a short rest here out of the snow, and then, if luck is with us, we’ll be on the road again.”

  If luck wasn’t with them… it didn’t bear thinking of. He had to find a wheelwright; had to accomplish this repair; had to get Miss Sharp delivered to her party and get himself away from her perversely bewitching presence, before he compromised them both even further than he’d already done.

  Formality, he’d told himself. Correctness. Distance. And still he’d come right out with his name at her asking, and relished the fact that she’d asked. Clearly his better nature and good intentions went scurrying somewhere else when he got within three or four feet of her; therefore it was best he keep his distance and effect as early a parting as possible. Which fortunately aligned with her existing plans as well as his.

  He turned away from the horse, threaded his fingers together, and stretched his arms straight before him, palms out. His arms ached. His shoulders ached. His back ached. He’d walked alongside that damned crippled carriage for what felt like five miles, bracing up the broken-wheel corner while the other men took turns leading the horses and helping him support the vehicle’s left side.

  “Please allow me to thank you again.” He addressed himself to Mr. Porter and the stableman Ned, who’d managed to get the carriage’s bad corner propped on a barrel while he and John settled the horses in two empty stalls. “I’m sure you must have had to leave a good meal or a pleasant fire to come and help us. I appreciate it deeply.”

  Mr. Porter shook his head. “It wasn’t any inconvenience. And I think hospitality to traveling strangers is a suitable thing for Christmas Eve. At least I’ve heard something of it in church, this time of year.” He smiled, somewhat shyly, looking unsure of whether it was appropriate to joke with a gentleman.

  Andrew returned the smile, to put the man at ease and also because it was a fair witticism and probably not blasphemous, really. “You set a fine example of Christian feeling for us all. Now, I’ll be much obliged to accept Mrs. Porter’s offer of tea, and then to be directed to the nearest village.”

  On the way out of the barn he passed the falcon. Miss Sharp had found it a perch on a stall door, and fastened its tether to a hasp. It eyed the men, its beak agape, as they went by. Several of the birds had gaped in that manner when he’d seen them all in the mews. Maybe it was something they did when hungry? He’d ask Miss Sharp.

  Mrs. Blackshear, rather. The words ricocheted inside him, hitting everything from his lungs to his kneecap to the back of his top front teeth as he stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Snow covered the ground now, and still came steadily down. Faint, regular depressions marked where Miss Sharp and Mrs. Porter must have walked a half-hour or so ago, when they’d settled the bird in the barn and made their way to the house. His own footprints, and the other men’s, would be similarly obscured in another half-hour, if the snowfall didn’t ease. He’d better stay in the house only long enough to swallow his tea and get a bit warm before setting out again.

  They stomped snow from their boots and brushed it from their coats when they reached the back door, and once they were tolerably fit for indoors, Mr. Porter led them in to what proved to be the kitchen.

  It was a humble kitchen indeed compared to the ones in his family home and the London house, which were the only two into which he’d ever set foot. It had a fire, though, and four walls and a roof, and to a man who hadn’t been properly indoors since the posting inn at Downham Market, it might as well have been a palace banqueting hall.

  “There you all are. I think we’ve timed this near perfectly.” Past the intervening shapes of Ned and Mr. Porter and an aproned girl, all edging round each other to get to stove or hearth or cupboard, came the voice of his falsified Mrs. Blackshear. “We saw you through the window when you came in off the road. We knew it would take you some time to get everything put away in the barn, so we had to guess when to pour the hot water. But I think we guessed well, don’t you, Mrs. Porter?”

  Somewhere around the time she uttered the word barn, the kitchen’s traffic rearranged itself to give him a view of her. She stood at the room’s other end, taking cups down from a shelf and handing them to the comparatively diminutive Mrs. Porter. She was smiling already round her stream of good-cheered narration, but when she caught his eye she somehow shaped the smile into a greeting just for him.

  And for a moment he had the oddest sensation of homecoming.

  There was no rational basis to it, nor empirical basis either. Nothing about the scene bore the slightest resemblance to the domestic life he would one day lead. On those occasions when he did absent himself from home for any length of time, then if his prudently chosen, methodically courted, sensible-natured wife had not accompanied him, she certainly wouldn’t be busying herself in the kitchen in preparation for his return.

  Nor would he enter through that room, of course. He’d come in through the front door—not, Lord knows, with arms and back aching from physical labor—and be greeted first by the butler and then perhaps by his valet before he made his way to the parlor where his wife would ring for coffee instead of tea because she’d know him, as he would know her. Because they would have built their marriage on a foundation of such thorough, rich acquaintance as only time could make possible.

  And even that sort of homecoming was but a distant prospect. The homecoming that mattered was the one he had still to accomplish today, after he’d warmed himself in this kitchen and solved the problem of the broken wheel.

  He shrugged out of his coat and followed the other men’s example in draping it over one of several battered-looking chairs that stood on the hearth. He took off his hat, too, and turned to face the room with an acute consciousness of the sorry state of his clothes and hair—but nobody seemed to take note. Indeed Mrs. Porter was entirely occupied in apologizing for the fact that he must drink his tea in the kitchen, and the fact that she hadn’t had a better room to offer Mrs. Blackshear.

  “I’m afraid we hadn’t laid a fire in the drawing room today,” she explained, pouring the tea. “I’ve had the maid start one, though, and I expect the room will be warm by the time you’ve gone on your errand. Mrs. Blackshear will have a comfortable place to wait for you.”

  “I’ve enjoyed waiting in the kitchen.” Miss Sharp took the cup and brought it across the few feet of floor to where he still stood on the hearth. “Our cook scarcely allows me over the threshold of our kitchen at home. It’s pleasant to look about and see how things are done.” She stopped directly in front of him, offering both the cup and a private, significant look. “I think this tea will be just the thing for you. We made it the way you prefer, light and refreshing with none of that lingering bitterness.”

  Weak, she meant. The tea was going to be weak, so weak she felt she must warn him. His heart sank at the prospect, and plummeted pell-mell when he raised the cup and took a mouthful.

  All that long walk from the place where they’d broken down in the ditch, he’d rallied his flagging spirits with thoughts of something hot to drink. He’d reconciled himself to tea, since that’s what was on offer, but he’d been thinking of hearty, potent tea, the kind that could forti
fy a man for a miles-long march through cold and snow. This insipid swill wouldn’t fortify him for so much as a stroll across the room. They might as well have served him water straight from the kettle.

  He swallowed the mouthful and nodded. “Perfect. Just the thing.” Further praise he could not offer, not if his life depended on it.

  Miss Sharp beamed her approval, radiantly as if he’d committed some extraordinary deed of gentlemanly condescension rather than simply acting as common courtesy demanded. She set a bold hand on his forearm. “May I take Mr. Blackshear to see the drawing room?” She didn’t even turn to direct this over her shoulder, but kept her eyes on him, looking altogether like a wife eager to be alone with her husband. “I’m sure he’ll be pleased to know how comfortably I’ll be situated while he’s gone.”

  Distance. Formality. “Indeed I will. If Mr. and Mrs. Porter will excuse us?” Her arranging so soon a surreptitious conference was commendably pragmatic. His intense awareness of her hand’s soft weight on his arm was no fault of hers.

  The Porters raising no objection, she led him from the kitchen and across a hallway to another modest room, where she shut the door and put her back against it, dropping her hold on his arm. “I think they’re poor,” she said in an undertone, urgency taking the place of her former affectionate good cheer. “Mr. Blackshear, I truly believe the Porters haven’t much money at all.”

  “They’re not rich, to be sure. But it would have been a surprise if they had been.” He crossed to the fireplace and emptied his teacup on the bricks, where the contents hissed back at him in billows of presumably insipid steam. Maybe he could find a cup of strong coffee somewhere in the village.

  “I don’t mean simply that they’re not rich.” She gestured to his empty cup. “That tea was made from leaves that had been used before; I’m sure of it. I saw Mrs. Porter take them from where they were spread out on a pan by the hearth.”

  That was unusual for a farm family as respectable as the Porters seemed to be. And now that he took a look about this room, the furnishings did have a decidedly Spartan quality. There was no pianoforte, or bookshelf, or any other thing to suggest the family had leisure hours and the means to fill them. “It’s a fair sized house and grounds, though. Do you think they might have had some misfortune? A poor harvest?” What was he doing? What was she doing? They had troubles enough of their own. They didn’t need to engage themselves in the Porters’ fortunes.

  “I don’t know.” She pushed away from the door and took up a nearer position on the hearth, clearly assuming they were now united in concern for the Porters above all else. “Mrs. Porter didn’t say anything on the subject. But their daughter married this year, so they must have had to provide a dowry, and if you’re right about the harvest, they wouldn’t have had much money to spare. And now they don’t even have their daughter for Christmas, because she and her husband have gone to be with his family.”

  Andrew sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck. His Christmas and hers were enough for him to shoulder. The Porters would have to make the best of their own. “I’m sorry for them, Lucy.” His mouth shaped itself so naturally to her name. “But I don’t see what we can do about any of it, particularly in the short time we’ll be here.”

  “I don’t want to be a burden to them.” She folded her arms and scowled down at the fire. “Can I not tell them I’d rather wait in the kitchen? That would spare them having to heat this room.”

  “I wouldn’t advise it.” Her charitable impulses were admirable—again, he had to admit her father had brought her up very well in some respects—but she doubtless had too little experience of the world to understand every hazard in acting on such impulses. “No matter what you might tell them, they’ll suspect you’ve noticed their circumstances and want to spare them the expense of firewood.”

  “They’ll be embarrassed.” She nodded, still eyeing the fire. “They’ll think I pity them for being poor.”

  “One has to tread carefully around matters of hospitality, I find. Especially so when the hospitality is offered by people who can’t offer it lightly. I’ll be as quick as I can about my errand to the village, and with luck you won’t be here long enough for them to have to add much more wood to this fire.”

  She nodded again, this time angling her head to meet his eyes. “Can I at least refuse dinner, if they try to share theirs with me? Can I tell them I dined already on the road?”

  “That seems an excellent idea.” When had she begun to care for his opinion on what she should do? At Downham Market she’d bluntly dismissed all his arguments in regard to their traveling alone. Was it merely the exercise of being Mrs. Blackshear that had her believing he might have worthwhile advice to offer? “I fear it may be a good while before you’ve reached Hatfield Hall and a proper meal, though. I’ll see whether I can’t find a meat pie or some such in the village, and bring it back for you.”

  “I wish you’d find something for the Porters instead. Something for their Christmas dinner, maybe? I brought along some money for gratuities at the house party, but I doubt I’ll need it all. I’d be happy to—”

  “Keep your money. You’ll be having to borrow someone else’s maid, and I expect you’ll want to give her an especially large gratuity.” He tapped the pocket that held his purse. “Let me manage the gift. I’m the one whose carriage they pulled from the ditch. Maybe I can find them a fat goose.”

  “Oh, I hope you can.” Her eyes widened and went incandescent with her pleasure at the idea. “I’d feel so much better about the trouble we’ve put them to.”

  “Well, then, I’ll make it my mission. And may I say I’m glad to see I chose so thoughtful and generous a bride.” It wasn’t quite distant or formal, that remark. But why shouldn’t he encourage her better qualities when they showed themselves? “Now what did you tell Mrs. Porter of our married life, that I must be careful to not contradict? Among the men there was very little talking on any subject as we brought the carriage back, so I won’t have crossed your facts on anything.”

  “Likewise have I protected you.” Now the pleasure in her eyes took on a distinctly mischievous glint. “I told her all about the falcon, and from there I spoke generally and at great length on the practices of falconry. I believe Mrs. Porter learned more on the subject than she ever cared to know.”

  “Well done, Mrs. Blackshear.” He felt for his watch, and busied himself in consulting it. Really, he oughtn’t to be enjoying this so. Deceiving an honest husband and wife. Conferring in private with the same girl he’d taken to task mere hours ago for her indifference to the forms of propriety. He oughtn’t to be cataloguing the qualities of pleasure expressed in her eyes.

  All the more reason to be out of here and back on the road as soon as he could. He snapped his watch closed. “I’ll be off now. Wish me luck.”

  “Of course.” She put out her hand for the cup he still held. “Good luck, Andrew,” she said in the second when their gloved fingers touched.

  And yes, it did seem a matter of some urgency that he bring about their parting at Hatfield Hall as soon as he possibly could.

  * * *

  Five and forty minutes later he was grasping at thin threads of possibility, never mind luck.

  The one local wheelwright, Jem Ryan, was gone. Every merchant in the village of Thornton Cross agreed on that. Andrew had gone up one side of the high street and down the other, asking in every shop, and every time he had the same answer: nobody local, besides Jem, repaired wheels. Jem was gone away for Christmas. Might be he’d stay away through Twelfth Night; might be he’d come back sooner. On this point there was some difference of opinion.

  “It’s imperative I have this wheel repaired today, though.” He leaned a bit forward, gripping the edge of the bar, to cut off a budding debate between the publican and a customer on the likely date of Jem’s return, and to steer them to the more pressing matter of his wheel. The Goat and Thistle was a dreary place to be on Christmas Eve, its only patrons being of necessity tho
se forlorn souls who hadn’t any family or friends with whom to share the holiday. Every minute he spent in here was a minute too many. “The butcher said there’s a wheelwright at Downham Market, and the tailor said so, too. Is there no one any nearer?”

  The publican wiped his bar with a rag and twisted his mouth into a studious frown. “Think there may be a fellow down by Welney. Think I heard Jem speak of him, once. Said he ain’t as fine with his work, but I guess one wheelwright would say that of another. And I guess maybe fine work don’t matter so much to a man trying to get home for Christmas.”

  “Welney ain’t any nearer than Downham Market, in my opinion,” the argumentative customer muttered into his ale before taking another swallow.

  “Happens distance ain’t a matter of opinion, Bill.” The publican shot a look to Andrew, as if seeking his concurrence. “It’s something you can measure out in furlongs and miles, and know the facts of.”

  Andrew dragged a hand over his face. Even through a kidskin glove, the ragged texture of his cheeks and jaw asserted itself. A day and a half since his last shave. To say nothing of the state of his cravat. He must look as forlorn as any man in here.

  Never mind that. The point was, if the distance to Welney was so like the distance to Downham Market that these two could argue over it—as indeed they were doing, with such gravity as would do a Parliamentarian proud—then he faced the same difficulty of making the journey there and back in enough time to allow for the repair and the persuading and all the rest of the trouble he must go through if he was to deliver Miss Sharp and get himself home tonight.

  He curled his fingers round his sad bedraggled cravat. “There must be someone in or near this village who owns a covered carriage. I’d be willing to pay well for the use of it.” He could drive Miss Sharp to Hatfield Hall, and then go on to Welney and try his luck with this not-so-fine wheelwright. He might need to let go the hope of reaching home tonight. But at least he could get Miss Sharp to her destination and spare her from the scandal of spending a night who-knew-where without a proper chaperone.