Carla Kelly's Christmas Collection

by Carla Kelly

  “That has not been my experience, Miss Partlow,” he said, his voice sharp. “If it has been yours—and I cannot see how considering your own less-then-sanguine circumstances—then rejoice in it.”

  To his shame, Sally leaped up from the table as though seeking to put real distance between them as fast as she could. If he could have snatched his spiteful words from the air, crammed them back into his mouth, and swallowed them, he would have, but as it was, Sally only stood by the window, her head down, as far away as the moon.

  “That was poorly done, son,” his mother murmured.

  “I told you I had changed, Mother.” Where were these words coming from? he asked himself in anguish.

  “Not for the better, apparently.”

  The room was so hot that he wondered if he had been wise to order more coal.

  “Excuse me, please,” he said as he left the table.

  He kicked himself mentally until he passed through the copse and could no longer see the dower house. In his mind he could still see the calm on Sally’s face and the trouble in her eyes. It takes a thoroughly unpleasant customer to tread on a woman’s dignity, Lynch, he told himself, and you’ve just trampled Sally’s into the dust. Too bad the Celerity ’s carronade didn’t belch all over you instead of her uncle. She’ d certainly have a better Christmas.

  He wanted to cry, but he wasn’t sure he could stop if he started, so he swallowed the lump in his throat and walked until he looked around in surprise, the hair rising on his neck.

  He stood in the orchard, barren now of leaves and any promise of fruit, the branches just twisted sticks. How does it turn so beautiful with pink blossoms in the spring? he wondered. I have been so long away from land and the passage of seasons. He closed his eyes, thinking of summer in the orchard and then fall, especially the fall twenty-two years ago when two brothers had squared off and shot at each other.

  Why did I let him goad me like that? he thought. Why did I ever think that his fiancée preferred me, a second son, greener than grass, unstable as water in that way of fourteen-year-olds?

  He stood a moment more in thought and then was aware that he was not the orchard’s only visitor. He knew it would be Oliver and turned around only to confirm his suspicion. “Does it seem a long time ago, brother?” he asked, hoping that his voice was neutral.

  Oliver shook his head. “Like yesterday.” He came closer. “Did you mean to kill me?”

  I was cruel only minutes ago, so what’s the harm in honesty? Lynch thought. “Yes. I’m a better aim now, though.”

  Oliver smiled. “My pistol didn’t fire.”

  “I thought as much. And then you shot yourself later, didn’t you?”

  His brother nodded. “I wanted to make sure you never returned.”

  “It worked.”

  They both smiled this time. Lynch noticed that Oliver was shivering. “Your cloak’s too thin for this weather,” he said, fingering the heavy wool of his own uniform cloak. “Oliver, why do you live so cheap? Is the estate to let?”

  He didn’t think Oliver would answer. “No! It pleases me to keep a tight rein on things,” he said finally. “The way Father did.”

  “Well, yes, but Father lit the house at night and even heated it,” Lynch reminded him.

  “I control this estate.”

  To Lynch, it seemed an odd statement. He waited for his brother to say more, but the man was silent.

  They walked together out of the orchard, and Lynch wondered what he was feeling, strolling beside the person he had hated the most in the world for twenty-two years. “You ruined my life, Oliver,” he said as a preamble to the woes he intended to pour out on the skinny, shabby man who walked beside him.

  Oliver startled him by stopping to stare. “Michael, you’re worth more than I am! Don’t deny it, I’ve checked the Funds. You’ve done prodigious well at sea. You aren’t ruined.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And you don’t have a wife who is so boring that you must take deep breaths before you walk into any room she is inhabiting. And someone unfeeling enough to… to drop her whelps before they’re big enough to fend for themselves!”

  “I doubt that Amelia ever intended to miscarry,” Lynch said, startled, and he wondered if now he had finally heard everything.

  “And the deuce of it is, brother, I cannot unburden myself of her and take another wife who might get me an heir!”

  Dumbfounded, Lynch could think of no response to such a harsh declaration, beyond the thought that if Amelia Lynch had been a horse with a broken leg and not a wife with an uncooperative womb, Oliver could have shot her. He had the good sense not to mention it. “No heir,” was all he could say, and it sounded stupid.

  Oliver turned on him. “Oh, I have an heir,” he declared, “a by-blow got from the ostler’s daughter at the public house, for all the good that does anyone. Naturally he cannot inherit. There you are, free to roam the world, tied to nothing and no one. As things stand now, you will inherit this estate.”

  As they walked on, Lynch felt a great realization dawning on him. It was so huge that he couldn’t put it into words at first. He glanced at his brother, feeling no anger at him now, but only the most enormous pity and then the deepest regret at his own wasted time.

  “Brother, can it be that we have been envying each other all these years?”

  “I doubt it,” Oliver snapped, but his face became more thoughtful.

  “You were the oldest son and successor to the title, and you won Amelia’s affection, but I wanted her then—and Father’s love,” Lynch said. “Didn’t you get what you wanted?”

  Oliver sighed. “I discovered after six months that Amelia only loves lap dogs. Father never loved anyone. And Mama, who used to be such a scatterbrain, has turned into the most… the most…”

  “… respected and wise woman in the district,” Lynch concluded, smiling at the irony of it all. “You and Father broke her of bad habits out of your own meanness, didn’t you? And she became someone worth more than all of us. That must’ve been a low blow.”

  “It was,” Oliver said with some feeling. “And look at you—a handsome big fellow. I’ve been ill used.”

  The whole conversation was so unbelievable that Lynch could only walk in silence for some minutes. “So for all these years, you’ve either been wishing me dead or wishing to change places. And I’ve been doing the same thing,” Lynch said, not even attempting to keep the astonishment from his voice. “What a pair we are.”

  If it weren’t so sad, he would have laughed. Father sentenced me to the sea, and I was the lucky one, Lynch thought. I’ve not been tied to a silly, barren woman, forced to endure years with that martinet who fathered us, or tethered to an estate when just maybe I might have wished to do something else. And Oliver thinks I am handsome. I wonder if Sally does?

  He took his brother by the arm, which startled the man into raising both his hands, as though in self-defense. “Settle down, Oliver. I have an idea. Tell me how you like it.” He hesitated only a moment before throwing his arm around the smaIler man, enveloping him in the warmth of his cloak. “I’ve given some serious thought to emigrating to the United States. I mean, since I refuse to die and oblige you that much, at least if I became a citizen of that nation, I certainly couldn’t inherit a title, could I? Who would the estate devolve upon?”

  “Our cousin Edward Hoople.”

  “Hoople.” Lynch thought a moment and then remembered a man somewhat near his own age.

  “Yes! He has fifteen or twenty children at least, or it seems that way when he troubles us with a visit and as many dogs,” Oliver grumbled. “But I’d much rather he had this estate than you.”

  “Done then, brother. I’ll emigrate,” Lynch said. “At least, I’ll do it if I survive another year on the blockade, which probably isn’t too likely. My luck has long run out there. That satisfy you?”

  “I suppose it must,” Oliver said. He looked toward Lynch Hall. “Do you want to put it in writing?�
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  Lynch shook his head. “Trust me, Oliver. I’ll either die or emigrate. I promise.”

  His brother hesitated, nodded, and then hesitated again. “I suppose you can come to luncheon,” he said, his reluctance almost palpable. “I usually only have a little bread and milk.”

  “I’ll pass, Oliver. I think I’ve promised to take some dolls to the vicarage for Mama.”

  Oliver sighed. “That woman still manages to waste money!”

  Lynch surprised himself by kissing Oliver on the forehead. “Yes, indeed. She must have spent upward of ten shillings on all those dolls for orphans. What can she have been thinking? Tell you what I will put in writing. I’ll take care of Mother from now on, and relieve you of that onerous burden and expense.” He looked at Oliver closely, trying to interpret his expression. “Unless you think you’ll miss all that umbrage.”

  “No, no,” Oliver said hastily and then paused. “Well, let me think about it.”

  They had circled back to the orchard again. Lynch released his brother and put out his hand. “What a pair we are, Oliver.”

  Oliver shook his hand. “You promise to die or emigrate.”

  “I promise. Happy Christmas.”

  Oliver turned to walk away and then looked back.

  “You’re not going to marry that chit with the red hair, are you? It would serve you right to marry an object of charity.”

  The only objects of charity are you and I, brother, Lynch thought. “That would please you if I married her, wouldn’t it?” he asked. “You’d really think I got what I deserved.”

  Oliver laughed. “It would serve you right.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he offered, “but my credit with Sally is on the ground right now. I think she wants me dead, too.”

  Oliver was still laughing when Lynch turned away.

  He didn’t hurry back to the dower house, because he knew they would have gone on without him. He sat at the table in the breakfast room for a long moment, wondering if it would be better if he just left now. He could make arrangements with his solicitor in Portsmouth for his mother and add a rider to it for Sally and Tom, even though he knew that scrupulous young woman would never touch it. In only a day or two he could be back on the blockade conning another ship.

  The thought of the blockade turned him cold and then nauseous. He rested his forehead against the table until the moment passed. He knew that he needed Sally Partlow far more than she would ever need him.

  The vicarage was much as he remembered it, but this new man—vicar since his old confidant had died five years ago—had taken it upon himself to organize a foundling home in a small house just down the road.

  “My good wife and I have no children of our own, Captain,” the man explained after Lynch arrived and introduced himself. “This gives us ample time to help others.”

  Lynch nodded, thinking of his own childless brother, who spent his time pinching pennies, denying his mother, and squeezing his tenants. “It seems so… charitable of you,” he said, realizing how lame that sounded.

  “Who among us is not a beggar, sir?” the man asked.

  Who, indeed? Lynch thought, turning to watch Sally Partlow bend over a crib and appropriate its inmate, a child scarcely past birth. He watched as the baby melted into her, the dark head blending into her own beautiful auburn hair. He thought of years of war and children without food and beds, left to shiver in odd corners on wharves and warehouses and die. “I am tired of war,” he said, his voice quiet. I need that woman.

  “How good that you can leave war behind now,” the vicar said.

  “Perhaps,” he told the man as he watched Sally. She has an instinct for the right thing. I wish I did. He sighed. If she turns me down flat, then my sentence is the blockade and I will die.

  He shuddered at the thought; he couldn’t help himself. The vicar looked at him in surprise and then touched his sleeve. “Can you leave it behind?” he asked.

  That, apparently, is the question, he asked himself as he went to Sally. “Please forgive me,” he murmured, and without another word he took the sleeping child from her. To his deep need and intense gratification, the baby made those small sounds of the very young but did not even open her eyes as she folded into his chest, too. He felt himself relax all over. Her warmth was so small, but as he held her close, he felt the heat of her body against his hand and then his chest as it penetrated even the heavy wool of his uniform. He paced up and down slowly, glad of the motion, because it reminded him of his quarterdeck. The baby sighed, and he could have wept when her little puff of breath warmed his neck.

  He wasn’t aware of the passage of time as he walked up and down, thinking of nothing beyond the pleasure of what he was doing, the softness of small things, the impermanence of life, its little span. What would it have cost me to forgive my brother years ago? Nothing.

  Stung by his own hypocrisy, he walked on, remembering the Gospel of Matthew, which he read from the quarterdeck to his assembled crew on many a Sunday after the required reading of the Articles of War. With painful clarity, he recalled the parable of the unmerciful servant, who was forgiven of a great debt, and then inflicted his own wrath on another who owed him a tiny portion of that which had been forgiven. “‘Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?’ “he whispered to the baby.

  He never prayed, but he prayed now, walking up and down in the peaceful room with a baby hugged to his chest. “Forgive us our debts,” he thought, “as we forgive our debtors.” How many times as captain have I led my crew in the Our Father and never listened? Forgive me now, Father, he thought. Forgive me, Sally. Forgive me, and please don’t make me go back on the blockade. For too many years I have nourished my animosities like some people take food. Let us now marry and breed little ones like this sweet child, and walk the floor of our own home, and lie down at night with each other. Please, not the blockade again.

  He stood still finally. The baby stirred and stretched in his embrace, arching her back and then shooting out her arms like a flower sprouting. He smiled, thinking that in a moment she would probably work up to an enormous wail. It must be dinnertime, he thought. She yawned so hugely that she startled herself and retreated into a ball again. He kissed her hair and walked on until she was crying in earnest and feeling soggy against his arm. In another moment, the vicar’s wife came to him, crooning to the baby in that wonderful way with children that women possessed: old women, young women, barren, fertile, of high station, and lower than the drabs on the docks. “The wet nurse is waiting for you, little one,” she whispered. “And did you soak Captain Lynch’s uniform?”

  “It’s nothing,” he said, almost unwilling to turn loose of the baby.

  She took the baby and smiled at him, raising her voice so he could hear over the crying, “You’re a man who likes children.”

  I know nothing of children, he thought, except those powder monkeys and middies who bleed and die on my deck. “I think I do,” he replied. “Yes, I do.”

  He stood another moment watching the woman with the baby, and then he took his cloak from the servant, put it on, replaced his hat, and stood on the steps of the vicarage. Sally Partlow waited by the bottom step, and he felt a wave of relief wash over him that he would not have to walk back to the dower house alone, he who went everywhere alone.

  “I sincerely hope you have not been waiting out here all this time,” he said.

  She smiled that sunny smile of hers that had passed beyond merely pleasing to absolutely indispensable to him. “Don’t flatter yourself! I walked home with your mama and Thomas, and then she told me to return and fetch you.” She tugged the shawl tighter around her glorious hair. “I told her that you had navigated the world and didn’t need my feeble directions. Besides, this is your home ground.”

  “But you came anyway.”

  “Of course,” she said promptly, holding out her arm for him. “You’re not the only biped who likes to walk. The path i
s icy, so I shall hang on to you.”

  He tucked her arm in his gladly, in no hurry to be anyplace else than with Sally Partlow. “I am thirty-six years old,” he said and thought to himself, that ought to scare her away. Why am I even mentioning my years to this woman? was his next thought, followed by, I have not the slightest idea what to say beyond this point.

  “Only thirty-six?” Sally said and gathered herself closer. “I’d have thought you were older.” She smiled at him.

  “Wretched chit.”

  “I am twenty-five.” She gripped his arm tighter. “There, that’s in case my advanced years make you want to flee.”

  “They don’t.” To his gratification, she didn’t let loose of him.

  They walked on slowly, Lynch gradually shortening his stride to make it easier for the woman beside him to keep up. I’ll have to remind myself to do that, he thought, at least until it becomes second nature.

  In far too short a time, he could see the dower house at the bottom of the slight hill. Beyond was the copse, and then the manor house, all dark but for a few lights. It was too close, and he hadn’t the courage to propose.

  He sighed, and Sally took a tighter grip on his arm.

  “I hoped this would be a happy Christmas for you,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Perhaps we can remember this as the necessary Christmas, rather than the happy one,” he replied and wondered at his effrontery in using the word “we.”

  She seemed not to heed his use of the word, as though something were already decided between them. “Well, I will have food for thought, at least, when I return to the blockade,” he continued, less sure of himself than at any time in the last decade.

  “Don’t return to the blockade,” she pleaded, and stopped.

  He had no choice but to stop, too, and then made no objection when she took the fork in the path that led to the village and not the dower house. “You’re going the wrong way,” he pointed out.

  “No, I’m not,” she said in that unarguable tone that he had recognized in her uncle. “We’re going to walk and walk until you have told me all about the blockade.” She released his arm so she could face him. “You have told us stories of the sea, and personally I thank you, for now Tom has no urge to follow his uncle’s career! You have said nothing of the blockade, beyond watch and watch about, and you look so tired.”