Carla Kelly's Christmas Collection

by Carla Kelly

  I am worried, Chard thought, with another look at Rosie. When the choirmaster released them, Chard rose to go to her, only to be collared by Mrs. Barker, the doctor’s wife, who chose that moment, of all the moments in the cosmos, to thank him for his clever idea of finding all those Welsh singers. She went on and on as he watched Dafydd help Meg and Rosie into their cloaks.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Barker,” he said finally. He hurried down the aisle and outside, holding out the letters from his children as Williams lifted Rosie into the gig. “Mrs. Wetherby, these are for you,” he said, handing them to her.

  Williams took his seat in the gig, made sure the blanket was snug around Meg, and then looked at Chard expectantly. Rosie opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. She tried to smile and handed him letters for his children. “Good-bye, sir,” she said as Williams spoke to the horse.

  To the best of his memory, she had never said good-bye to him. Usually it was, “Next week then, sir?” The thought troubled him all the way home.

  The next morning, he remembered the letters and went to the bookroom for them. There were three instead of two. With fingers that shook, he opened the one addressed to him, read it, and then called for his carriage. He ignored the startled looks of his butler and downstairs maid as he ran down the hall, pulling on his overcoat as he went, and not even bothering to stop for his hat. “Spring ’um,” was all he said to his coachman after giving the direction of the Wetherby estate.

  Halfway there, he became aware that Rosie’s letter was still crumpled in his fist. He smoothed it out and read the words again. Not that he had forgotten them from the first reading—he knew they were burned in his brain forever. “They are turning me out, sir, because they do not want me around when their precious Claude marries his high stickler from Durham. I am not sure precisely what their plan is, but Lady Wetherby has made it quite plain that I am not part of the family circle. She swears she has proof that my baby is not Junius’s, but she does not produce it. I am sorry that I could not accommodate you and sing in the Christmas choir, but they have assured me that I will be gone by then. Please accept my kindest regards for your good health and fortune. Remember me to your children.”

  He didn’t bother to raise the stupid gargoyle knocker on the Wetherby’s front door but barged into the house, shouting for Rosie. Lady Wetherby, teacup in hand, came from the breakfast room followed by Claude, looking more oafish than usual.

  “Where is Rosie?” he demanded, grabbing Claude by his shirtfront and backing him up against the wall, where he began to cry and plead for his mother. Chard shook Claude like a terrier shakes a rat and repeated his question six inches from the sobbing man’s face.

  Lady Wetherby’s shrieks of “Murder! Murder!” brought Sir Rufus from his bookroom. As Chard slammed Claude against the wall again and Lady Wetherby screamed, Sir Rufus leaped back inside the bookroom and locked the door. Well, I like that, Chard thought as he gave Claude a final shake and let go of him.

  A door opened upstairs. Chard looked up to the first-floor landing and then took the stairs two at a time to stand by Rosie Wetherby. “I need some help,” she said simply. “If you could—”

  “Get your cloak,” he interrupted.

  Without another word she did as he said. He followed her into her room, one quick glance telling him about the paucity of Rosie’s life with the Wetherbys. There was no fire in the grate, no carpet on the floor—nothing of any color besides the pictures Emma had been drawing and sending each week. He was almost surprised to see that they had allowed her a bed.

  “Is there anything you want to take with you?” he asked, furious with himself for his lack of courage in love.

  “N-no,” she stammered, “just my bonnet.”

  “No baby clothes, nothing of your own?” He wished his voice was not rising, but it was.

  She shook her head and took a step away from him.

  “I have nothing.”

  “Come then.” He took her by the hand and helped her down the stairs, taking them slowly because she could not move fast and trying to calm himself because he knew he was frightening her.

  The door Sir Rufus had retreated behind was still closed, but he gave it a good kick as they passed it. He stopped in front of Lady Wetherby and narrowed his eyes. “You people are deplorable,” he said, all his fury focused now in those few words.

  Lady Wetherby glared back. “Dear Lucy must be spinning in her tomb. I am amazed what lengths you will go to for a soprano,” she sneered.

  “You don’t know me,” he replied.

  Rosie burst into tears in the carriage, and he had the good sense to hold her close. When she wiped her eyes finally with his handkerchief and blew her nose, he held her away from him a little and took a deep breath.

  “Mrs. Wetherby—Rosie, if you please—would you mind terribly if we took a bolt over the border and spliced ourselves?”

  He could not overlook the surprise in her eyes. “You can’t be serious, my lord,” she said.

  “Never more so, Rosie. I can’t have my best soprano vanishing a week before we sing,” he teased. This won’t do, he thought as he saw the confusion in her beautiful eyes, red now with weeping. “I love you, Rose. Won’t you marry me?”

  She nodded and then blew her nose again.

  As man and wife they returned from Scotland quite late that night, both considerably shocked by what they had done. Well, I am shocked, Chard reasoned as they rode in silence. I had no idea I was so impulsive. He glanced at Rosie’s profile, calm now after a storm of tears before and after the brief ceremony. And you, my love?

  The house was dark, which suited him. He helped Rosie upstairs to his own room, found one of his nightshirts for her, turned down the coverlet on the side of the bed that would be hers, and went downstairs to write to his mother. When he came to bed, Rosie was asleep. She made no protest when he gathered as much of her close as he could and went to sleep. He couldn’t remember a better night’s rest.

  In the morning, Will and Emma were pop-eyed, astounded, and then silent for the space of a few seconds when they heard the news. Then Emma burst into tears and threw herself into Rosie’s arms, which only set off his wife again. Will leaned against him. “Papa, why do they do that? I’m happy, but it doesn’t follow that I want to cry.”

  “Oh, Will,” was all Chard could manage. Let him find out someday on his own time how skittish pregnant women were.

  In answer to his letter, Mama was home in jig time to gasp and scold and storm and rage about the sitting room while he listened, his hands behind his head, his long legs stretched out in front of him, content. The sight of him so relaxed seemed to set her off further, but he could not help himself. He had never felt better. Rosie was upstairs in his—their bed, because Dr. Barker said she needed rest. Already her complexion was pinking up again and her eyes had that familiar sparkle.

  “Son, you have not heard a word I have said!” Louisa Chard concluded. She had not even removed her traveling coat and was only now stripping off her gloves.

  “I have,” he replied. “Let me see: the entire village thinks I have run mad in my attempt to retain my best soprano. And my favorite: Lord Wythe is cuckoo, probably the result of inbreeding among England’s better houses.” He gave his mother a sunny smile. “Was that the gist?”

  Mama gave him a look that would melt glass. “You have made us a laughingstock. You are giving the protection of your name, position, and honors to a common soldier’s daughter who is bearing a child of this shire’s most notorious scoundrel!”

  He smiled. “That’s it, Mama.” He straightened up then. “Mama, I am a farmer. Time passes pretty regularly here. I’ll continue farming, Will and Emma will thrive, the new little one will fit right in, and we’ll be happy. I hope you can adjust, Mama. If not, there is the dower house, or Bella.”

  Mama left that afternoon, after another row when he asked her to remain to at least hear the choir he had got together, “At your command, I might add.�
�� She chose instead to return to Bella’s for a good sulk, and it bothered him less than he would have thought.

  Rosie came downstairs a day later, her serenity restored. She didn’t say much to any of them, and he did not press her. Every now and then he would catch her just watching him. You are wondering what kind of a queer fish you have caught, aren’t you, my dear? he thought. There was a question in her eyes, but until she found the courage to ask it, he would not intrude on what remained of her pride and dignity.

  Christmas Eve brought a skiff of snow in the morning. The house smelled of candied fruit, rum sauce, and cinnamon. Chard and Will spent the afternoon finding baby clothes in the storeroom. They took their findings to Rosie, who was resting again. He knew she would cry at the sight of all those clothes, and she did, sobbing into another of his handkerchiefs as she folded and unfolded the mound of nightgowns and blankets.

  He helped her dress that night for the competition, buttoning up the back of her dress, pausing to kiss her neck before the last few buttons. She looked around in surprise and then smiled at him. “I know I am a trial.” She took his hand where it rested on her shoulder. “I do need to ask you something, Peter. It’s a favor. No, no, it is not that—” She stopped. “It’s something I need to know.”

  “Do I really love you, or have I done this to secure a soprano?” he asked softly.

  She gasped, turned around, and took his face in both hands. “No! I do not doubt that you love me,” she said with sudden ferocity that made him go weak inside. “I’ve always known that. It is something else.” She raised herself to kiss his lips, standing sideways to accomplish this because of her bulk.

  His arms were around her, his face in her hair. He wanted to kiss her again, but Emma bounded into their room and tugged at his shirt. “Papa, Will says we have to hurry.” She grinned up at Rosie. “Do you like to kiss my father?”

  “Very much, my dear,” Rosie replied promptly. She released him and sat on the bed. “Emmie, if you will help me with my shoes, that will give your father time to tuck in his shirttail and slap a little color back into his face.”

  They rode to St. Anselm’s, the most distant of the three churches, but the largest. He was pleased to see the nice fit of the kid gloves he had bought Rosie that morning. She rested her hand in his, gripping it tight at intervals.

  “Nervous?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Can we talk tonight?” she asked as the carriage stopped and the children clambered out. “I still have a question. Please.”

  Suddenly he knew what it was she needed to know, and he also knew that he had a great secret for her, too. We will certainly have to trust each other, he thought. He felt a rush of love for her that left him almost reeling. “Of course,” he whispered back as he rose to help her from the carriage.

  At the entrance to the church, she stopped suddenly and leaned against him for a long moment. “Afraid?” he asked.

  She nodded but said nothing. People stared at them as they came into the church, but he did not care. His life and happiness were no one’s business but his own. He knew his neighbors; in time they would come to know and appreciate his wife.

  He was about to sit down with the rest of St. Phil’s choir when his old bailiff, who never came to church, shouldered his way through the crowd. “My lord! My lord!” he was shouting, as the church fell silent. “Your barn! It’s on fire!”

  Without a word, the Welshmen in the choir rose at once and followed him out of the church. In minutes they were on their way across fields to Wythe and the distant barn. Let it be a little thing, he pleaded as they rode toward the high, thin plume that grew more black and dense as they approached.

  To his intense relief, the new barn was intact. “Look here, sir, just beyond,” one of the men shouted. “It is the old cow barn!”

  So it was. The old structure that had probably been a tool shed since the Bishop of Durham’s days was blazing away, the roof gone, the stones so hot they popped. He motioned them all to stand back and then looked around to discover that everything he had stored there—old tools, extra pails, spare rope, harness needing repair—was lined up neatly on the grass.

  He smiled. It didn’t take a genius… “I think that St. Phil’s marvelous, majestic choir has been diddled by an Anglican arsonist,” he said. “Someone from St. Anselm’s or St. Pete’s has thoughtfully selected my most expendable, distant outbuilding to burn, after removing anything of value inside.”

  Dafydd Williams shook his head. “I don’t know, sir, but what you Northumberlanders aren’t more trouble than all those Mahrattas at Assaye,” he murmured.

  Someone started to laugh. “How did the Welsh get a name for being troublemakers, sir?” someone else asked.

  Chard looked around him, in perfect charity with his wonderful choir. “Ah, well, maybe next year. Come, lads. Since they so thoughtfully left us the pails, let us extinguish this little diversion. Let us sing, too, while we’re at it.”

  Smoky and soot-covered, they returned to St. Anselm’s long after both the competition and services were over. Another Christmas had come. It only remained to collect his wife and children and go home. “Mr. Woodhull,” he said to his vicar who waited inside the church, “it was only a small blaze, and not my new barn. Merry Christmas!”

  “Don’t you want to know what happened?” the vicar asked as Chard looked around for his wife.

  “Eh?”

  Mr. Woodhull gripped his arm, completely forgetting his place. “My lord, we won!”

  “That’s not possible,” Chard said. “Almost the whole men’s section was with me. And may I suggest that you advise the vicars of our neighboring parishes to preach an occasional sermon on repentance!”

  “We won,” the vicar repeated. “When it looked like you would not return in time, the choirmaster suggested that we turn to the Messiah. You know, that selection you had been using as a warming exercise?”

  He nodded. The vicar smiled. “And when Mrs. Weth—Lady Wythe sang that part, ‘And gently lead those who are with young,’ there was not a dry eye in the building.”

  As the words sank in, he stared at the vicar. “But… but who sang the other parts? The Welsh men were gone!”

  “We had the Welshwomen, of course, and let us say that either our Lord chose to smile on us for one night, or perhaps—just perhaps—our choir has been learning from masters. Congratulations, my lord.”

  “I’m delighted,” Chard said, suddenly tired and in need of his own bed and Rosie to keep him warm. “Where’s my wife?”

  It was the vicar’s turn to stare. “I thought you came from Wythe.”

  “No. We came right here from the upper pasture. What’s wrong?”

  Mr. Woodhull took his arm and started him for the door. “When Lady Wythe finished singing, she asked to be taken right home. Lord Wythe, I do believe you had better hurry there. It may be that our Lord is sharing His birthday with someone else.”

  He set records getting to Wythe, his mind a perfect turmoil. She had been so quiet all day, and then she kept gripping his hand at intervals on the ride to St. Anselm’s. I remain an idiot, he told himself in exasperation. She was in labor and I didn’t even know it. What a dolt Rosie has yoked herself to! Obviously she hasn’t a clue in the world how to choose a husband. I had better be her last one, or no telling what trouble she will get into.

  Emma and Will were both asleep on the sofa in the upstairs hall, and he passed them quietly. The doctor stood on the landing, as well as two of the Welsh women.

  “Didn’t you say January?” he asked the doctor. “I distinctly remember January.”

  The women laughed. “They come when they’re ready. She has a daughter,” one of them said as he opened the door.

  He went inside on tiptoe, taking off his smoky overcoat and washing his hands and face before coming to the bed where Rosie lay with her little one. He sat beside them, staring at the pretty morsel cradled so carefully in her arms. She was as beautiful as her mother, with the
same dark hair.

  “Rosie, she’s a wonder,” he whispered.

  Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was awake.

  Too tired to open her eyes, he thought. And I was putting out a stupid fire. “I wish I could have been here, Rosie,” he said simply. “It won’t happen again like this. You had to know the baby was coming. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She opened her eyes and his heart melted with the expression in them. You’re going to love me, even if I am stupid and stodgy and unimaginative, aren’t you? he thought.

  With an effort, she moved her hand from the baby to cover his hand. “I don’t think you really cared if we won or not, did you?”

  He shook his head and kissed her. “You know it never really mattered. Did it matter to you?”

  She nodded. “Singing matters. I had to be there.”

  He got up, took off his shoes, and lay down on her other side. “I think you cut it a little close, love.”

  She nodded again. She turned her head to look at her baby. “I have something I should have asked you sooner.”

  He put a finger to her lips and raised up on his elbow so he could watch her expression. “Let me spill my budget first. If I am not mistaken, it will answer your question.” He cleared his throat, wondering just how far back to go. Begin at the beginning, he told himself. “After Will was born, Lucy didn’t want anything more to do with me.”

  “She was an idiot,” Rosie murmured, her eyes closed again.

  “Well, yes, but that’s neither here nor there. I was in Ireland with the regiment, and we were headed to India. I was summoned home.”

  “Summoned?”

  “Yes, and it did surprise me, because I was pretty sure from things I had heard that Lucy was grazing in other pastures.”

  Rosie opened her eyes wide and stared at him. “Did you know the man?”

  “Yes, indeed. Someone rather high-placed in the government. You’d know the name, but I can be a gentleman. Lucy obviously wanted me to share her bed, but I chose not to and left the next morning for India as I had planned.”