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

by Cecilia Grant

  And still, he might take that risk, if only he could be sure he’d be doing a kindness to the Porters instead of causing them pain. They’d been very good, as Miss Sharp so liked to point out. They were very good. All apart from what they’d done for him, they were worthy people who deserved whatever sort of Christmas they’d like best.

  “He needs our cart, though.” Was he imagining, or did Mrs. Porter show signs of a weakening resistance? She glanced to her husband, to Andrew, to Miss Sharp. “If we were to go to the party, he’d have to wait until we were all ready to leave, or else take the cart and leave us with no way to get home.”

  “I’m sure someone there could deliver us home, if it came to that.” Now Mr. Porter spoke up, gently, leaving his wife room to decide in either direction. “Or perhaps someone else would lend Mr. Blackshear a cart or a good saddle horse.”

  “Oh, there can be no doubt that someone would. Any number of people, I’m sure, would be glad to spare a cart or horse for such a good purpose.” Mrs. Long smiled brightly, at the same time eyeing him with such intensity it wouldn’t surprise him if his waistcoat caught fire. She seemed to have decided the matter lay in his hands, and was determined to will him into giving the answer she wanted.

  Was it the answer the Porters wanted, though? All he could do was guess. He flexed his fingers over Miss Sharp’s hand. “I suppose a fearsome pudding might be a sight worth seeing. I suppose I might delay my errand by a bit for that purpose.”

  “You can bring your pie.” Miss Sharp bent her head forward, looking round him to address Mrs. Porter. “Mrs. Porter made a dried-apple pie just this morning.” Now she spoke to Mrs. Long. “Maybe she’d like to bring it to your feast.”

  Mrs. Long naturally praised the yet-unseen pie, identifying it as the very item that had been wanting to make her Christmas dinner complete; and then came the final remarks about what time they ought to be there and which would be the clearest road by which to travel.

  And it was done. He’d put off his departure by at least another hour, and submitted to the uncertainty of finding other transport for either himself or the Porters and Miss Sharp. He smiled, to look as though he were part of the general merriment, and hoped the impulse to kindness hadn’t just led him into yet another grievous mistake.

  What must the merrymakers be doing now at Hatfield Hall? Snapdragon, possibly. Singing carols round the piano. Or assigning parts for a play which they’d go off and practice, some lucky girls acting opposite men they fancied, and rehearsing over and over again the scenes that put them in sweet, scandalous proximity.

  It all sounded exceedingly jolly. And none of it could compare, even nearly, with the gaiety here at Mrs. Long’s.

  “Mrs. Blackshear.” The hostess herself sat heavily down, or as heavily as her tiny frame was capable of, on the sofa beside her. Like most of the people at this party, she’d been enjoying the mulled wine. “I hear rumors you were partly responsible for that splendid apple pie.” Mrs. Porter, standing some little distance from the sofa, overheard this and glanced away from the conversation she was having with another neighbor to send Lucy such a smile as Mama might have done, had she lived to see a similar situation.

  “I only stirred with a spoon, to keep the apples from scorching.” She must have had too much wine too, because her heart felt like a fruit ripened almost to bursting. “Mrs. Porter measured out the right amount of everything and found the right place on the stove. Not to mention making the crust. Really, all I did was stir.”

  “Well, you must have done it excellently. I never knew fine ladies could cook.” Her gray-blue eyes stared up into Lucy’s for a moment, apparently contemplating the wonder of a lady wielding a spoon. Then a look of strong sentiment overspread her features, and when she spoke again it was in a confidential tone. “I think they’ve been so pleased to have you, the Porters.” She patted Lucy’s hand. “I think it’s a blessing your carriage spilled you out there, if you’ll forgive me saying so.”

  It was a blessing. She couldn’t agree more. A blessing to the Porters, maybe, but undeniably a blessing to her. She might never have known such a Christmas; never learned she had a talent for the decorative arrangement of greenery; never known the joy of kind-hearted, motherly women patting her hand and approving her part in the pie, if not for the broken wheel.

  “I’m glad you invited them to the party, and glad they decided to come.” She, too, kept her voice low, leaning in to be audible and feeling all the pleasure of benevolent conspiracy. “I fear they’re lonely, having their first Christmastide without their daughter.”

  “Oh, my dear, you can’t imagine. It was such a hardship for them to have her marry a man who doesn’t live in the neighborhood. And they had some money troubles which I’m not to speak of, and they wouldn’t accept any invitations after that, though I’ve tried and tried.” Her eyes glittered with tears. “Then when I saw you and your husband with them at church, I just knew I had to try again.”

  “Mr. Blackshear and I guessed something of the sort.” They’d discussed it, during the brief stop at the Porters’ house where they’d gone to fetch the pie. She’d taken the opportunity to change into a more festive gown, a yellow-silk-under-white-chiffon that had seemed too worldly for church, and Mr. Blackshear had done up her buttons while steadfastly deflecting any praise for the generosity he’d shown in agreeing to come to this party.

  “We must defer judgment on the wisdom of that choice,” he’d said, “until we see what it means for my ability to get to Downham Market.” And he’d been right, of course. So much depended on his ability to get to Downham Market, and then his ability to persuade the wheelwright to travel and work on Christmas Day.

  But Mrs. Long had been right, too. Within ten minutes of their arrival he’d met a man he recognized from the public house where he’d purchased the rum, and from that man he’d secured the use of a two-wheeled cart. He’d be leaving soon, in fact, now that he’d eaten of roast goose and fearsome pudding and declared the food excellent while Mrs. Long puffed up pigeon-like with pride.

  “I could see that you’d guessed.” Mrs. Long took both her hands now, gripping them with fervent feeling as she spoke. “Indeed I could see the whole matter unfold on your husband’s face. But I knew from the first look at him that he’d be quick to understand, and quicker to do what would benefit others. He has that air about him, hasn’t he?—that air of a gentleman by actions as well as by birth.”

  “He has. He is. I’m lucky in my marriage.” She lowered her eyes to their joined hands, and didn’t say more. Dissembling about Mr. Blackshear ought to get easier, the longer she was at it, but it seemed somehow the opposite was true.

  “I’m sure he’d say the same. Ah—perhaps he’s come to say it now.” Her voice lifted, to reach across the room. “How did you do at cards, Mr. Blackshear? I hope you didn’t let those rascals persuade you to wager money.”

  Lucy turned, and there he was, with that air about him. There he was, looking handsomer and more upstanding than any man who’d traveled two days and slept in his clothes and sinned in his sleep had any right to look.

  He could have been her husband.

  He crossed the room in easy strides and stood before their sofa, making some answer to Mrs. Long while Lucy took back her hands and folded them in her lap. He was coming to tell her he was leaving, no doubt, and when she saw him next he would tell her it was time to gather her things and prepare her farewells to the Porters. Then they’d be together only for the length of the journey to Welney, though not even truly together, since she’d be in the carriage and he up on the box.

  Well, she’d known that would be the way of things. This morning she’d even wished herself at Hatfield Hall, and dreaded the prospect of facing him. The few hours elapsed since then were not enough for her to have undergone any true change of heart. She must probably blame the mulled wine.

  “Is it time for you to set out?” Her wifely good cheer sounded dissonant and false. She was tired of counte
rfeit. It was too much work.

  “Very nearly so.” He put one hand behind his back and held out the other to her. “But as I came by the large parlor I saw them mustering for a dance. Might I have the pleasure, Mrs. Blackshear?” His dimple notched itself deep at the side of his mouth, proclaiming his mood for anyone to see.

  Mulled wine or no mulled wine, her fledgling melancholy promptly dissolved before the prospect of dancing, and the pleasure of seeing Mr. Blackshear so easy and merry. She couldn’t have lost her heart, could she, if her spirits could be so easily revived? “If Mrs. Long will excuse me,” she began, but Mrs. Long was already waving her away, so she took Mr. Blackshear’s hand and rose to let him lead her from the room.

  “Do you think Mrs. Porter is enjoying herself?” he asked once they’d drawn out of earshot. “She’s not regretting having come?”

  “I think she’s having a fine time. She’s hardly had a moment to herself, from what I can see. I suspect this is the first opportunity in quite a while for some of these neighbors to visit with her. I hope Mr. Porter is pleased to be here as well?”

  “Oh, indeed. Perfectly pleased, one might say.” His dimple showed again, and his teasing familiarity made her insides dance. “The last I saw of him, he and some of the other men and most of the young boys were going outside for a war of snowballs.”

  “It was beneath your dignity to join them, I collect.”

  “Hardly.” He cocked his chin and tugged at his cravat in a preening manner. “My brothers and I were great throwers of things when we were younger. Rocks, darts, snowballs. I have a formidable arm, I’ll have you know, and a sharpshooter’s eye.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” The fact fit so well with her pirate fancies of yesterday: so easily she could picture him, unshaven, throwing a knife with such accuracy as to pin some pirate foe’s sleeve to a cabin wall without even grazing the flesh. “You abstained so as not to give one team an unfair advantage, then.”

  “No.” His smile had a different, almost boyish quality this afternoon. As though being at a Christmas party allowed him to let at least part of his guard down. “No, in fact—” He let out a huff of breath; a sort of surprised half-laugh. “In fact I didn’t go out because I was playing cards with a set of such men as I would normally scarce acknowledge except to disapprove, and I was having an exceedingly enjoyable time.”

  He fell a step behind her and laid a hand on the small of her back—she could have mapped the precise placement of each fingertip—to usher her into the parlor, where perhaps a dozen young men and that many young women were crowding up to form a set.

  Someone had put great care into decorating the house for Christmas, and this room might be the most resplendent of all. Evergreen boughs hung over the windows, tied with gold ribbon that trailed gracefully down. More boughs lay atop the piano, with more gold ribbon threaded among them, and ivy winding here and there. And suspended from the room’s chandelier, to the probable delight of all the young unmarried people, was a sprig of white-berried mistletoe.

  She was one of the young unmarried people, strictly speaking. It was easy to grow confused on that point, with a man’s hand so comfortably on one’s back, and the lines of a friendly husband-and-wife-ish conversation still echoing in one’s ears.

  The piano trilled out a warning scale—last chance for people to join the dance—and she and Mr. Blackshear had just enough time to slip in at the end of the line. He bowed, as the opening figure demanded, and came up grinning. “Didn’t I tell you I would dance with you?” he said, and then it was time to dance in earnest.

  The first thing she’d do, once settled in at Hatfield Hall, would be to thank Aunt Symond for having engaged Mr. Bedlington. She’d wished ill fates upon the man every time he’d criticized her gait or waxed dour about the chances of such a giantess ever being much sought after in a ballroom, but he’d nevertheless taught her the steps and she’d learned them. And now here she was, stepping and turning and joining hands with Mr. Blackshear, or occasionally with other men, when the progress of the dance reshuffled the pairings—but most often with Mr. Blackshear, who danced with muscular grace, and a musicality she would not have predicted, all while looking handsome enough to break a lady’s heart.

  In the proper sequence of things, their bodies would be taking first notice of each other now. They’d clasp hands or link elbows and feel all the thrill of contact and nearness where there had been no contact or nearness before. One or both of them might steal glances at the mistletoe with a simmering of pleasant apprehension in the blood.

  Certainly the mistletoe was an object of much interest to the other dancers. From time to time the jolly-looking girl at the piano would abruptly halt the tune, and whatever couple found themselves underneath the sprig at that juncture must kiss: the other dancers all teased and harassed them until they had done it, and then would come a riot of cheering and applause.

  It lent intrigue and amusement to the dance, as certain couples dragged their feet going down the line in order to prolong their chance under the chandelier, while others hastened past it with looks of evident dread. One dapper young man found himself stopped under the plant so many times, with this partner or that, as must begin to raise suspicions.

  “He greased the piano girl’s palm. Do you think so?” Mr. Blackshear stepped near to murmur this, as the dancing paused for the lucky—or shrewd—man to claim his kiss from a plump ginger-haired girl.

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps he’s the agreed-upon beau ideal of the village, and the pianist is doing a favor for her friends.” A real wife and husband would speak so, comparing observations and trading private opinions in the midst of every jovial crowd.

  “I didn’t think of that. I was prepared to disapprove the young man, and now perhaps I must disapprove the young women instead.” But there was no disapproval in his voice. Rather, he spoke with an undercurrent of self-aware humor. She’d seen from the beginning he was excessively staid and severe; only later had she begun to see how well he recognized that fact himself.

  Mr. Blackshear, I’ve changed my mind. I think you might suit me as a husband after all. I’d like to withdraw my rejection of your offer.

  That was the wine talking, and the dance, that had made everything so corporeal and immediate; had made it easy to imagine that the harmony with which they tripped a measure could swell out like long and longer notes played on a violoncello until that harmony breached the walls of this parlor to reverberate in their everyday interactions, today and for years yet to come.

  “It will be interesting to see whether and how she’s repaid for her generosity,” she said, instead of saying anything foolish. “Perhaps someone will spell her at the piano later, and we’ll see her be the one most often under the mistletoe.”

  We was the wrong word, though, because by the time there was any spelling at the piano, Mr. Blackshear would have long since left.

  In fact some five or ten minutes later, when the set wound to a close, he had that look of leaving about him. He took her hand and bowed over it, and when he came back up he smiled at her, a softer, less mirthful smile than he’d worn before. “I’m glad I had the opportunity to dance with you, Miss Sharp.” His voice sank and hovered in a range too quiet for anyone but her to hear. “I think I’ll always remember this.”

  Warmth went spiraling through her limbs, and this time it had nothing to do with the wine. She was glad, too, that they would each have this memory of innocent pleasure to overlay the awkward and disconcerting memories of last night. “I’ll remember it too.” She dropped her eyes to the hand he had not yet released. “I know I’ve already said this, but I’m so glad you decided to—”

  “We don’t need a whole pantomime with a prologue!” The waggish shout came from a man somewhere to the right. “Just get to it and kiss her!”

  The man might as well have stuck her with a pin. Her chin jerked up and she saw every couple to the left, every couple to the right, watching them with vulpine anticipation. And yes,
she and Mr. Blackshear were the nearest couple to the mistletoe, but the music hadn’t been stopped for them. It had only come to its natural end.

  She looked left and right again. “I don’t believe this counts as part of the game. I thought it was only if we were still dancing.” Lord, what a stupid thing to say—who was she, a stranger, to be correcting them on the rules to their game?—and now she must probably appear to all of them like a wife who didn’t want to kiss her husband.

  “Are married people included as well?” Mr. Blackshear managed a bit more aplomb than she had, adopting a tone of polite curiosity. “We hadn’t realized.”

  “Married people are included most of all!” Heaven help them, there was another wag off to the left, this one possessed of a ruddy complexion and a receding chin. “You’re the ones as have had practice, and can show the young men and maids how it’s done.”

  Was that supposed to be good-natured fun? It wasn’t fun. It was vulgar, and presumptuous, and impertinent in the extreme, and all of a sudden she couldn’t seem to loosen her panicked grip on Mr. Blackshear’s hand.

  She didn’t want to be kissed this way, with a crowd looking ghoulishly on and expecting to see the fruits of “practice.” She hadn’t any practice. She’d wager Mr. Blackshear hadn’t any either. She wouldn’t show these rude people even if she had.

  But what could she do? She was drawing more suspicion to them with every second that she stood here, frozen and cowering like a rabbit cornered by a pack of hounds.

  She forced her eyes to her partner’s. He watched her, poised to do something or nothing. He knew of her agitation—how could he miss it, with his hand clamped so hard in hers?—and he would not take this liberty without some sign of permission.

  That made her feel a bit better. She gave a slight nod, and he worked his fingers free of hers and took hold of both her arms a little way below the shoulders. Her heart pounded so hard it must be audible even to the girl at the piano. Now that they’d come to this juncture, there seemed a hundred details of which she was utterly uncertain.