A Christmas Waltz

by Josi S. Kilpack

  And David was here.

  Marta hoped she would have the chance to talk to him tonight, though she had no idea what she would talk to him about. Their worlds were more different than they had ever been before. She could not seek him out, but would he come to her? Was she a horrible woman—wife—to want him to? If he did seek her out, would it be the final time they talked to one another?

  He never stayed for the entire house party, and while she knew he was acquainted with a fair amount of the guests, he did not seem particularly close to anyone but Pauly. She suspected that his attendance these last few years was, at least in part, connected to their Christmas waltz. She would not blame him if he stopped coming now that she was not an . . . eligible partner. The thought made her feel foolish, because while she liked David and looked forward to their dances, they did not know one another. A single dance once a year did not account for much—her loneliness was surely twisting what they shared into unrealistic proportions. She thought back to the night of the Weatherbys’ ball almost two years ago now, the ball where he’d apparently come to see her and then left without doing so. What would have been different if he had approached her? She understood why he hadn’t but could not stop wishing that he had. So many things could be different . . . maybe. But, then again, maybe not. Maybe they were too different, as he’d said he’d determined when he’d watched her flirt. She felt her cheeks get hot with shame. She had played the games and lost so much.

  “Mrs. Henderson.”

  She turned away from the circle with a polite smile meant for the interrupter but then blinked at David standing before her. It was as though she’d willed him here with her thoughts. After a moment of shocked surprise, she bobbed a curtsey but did not extend her hand, as it felt too familiar. “Mr. Woodbury.”

  A dozen pairs of eyes watched them, and she quickly determined that she did not care a whit for the gossip his attention would inspire on the tongues of these women, who were always hungry for a story. He’d sought her out! His attention felt like the greatest Christmas gift she could possibly receive. “What a pleasure to see you.” She felt as though she owed him an apology, though she could not define exactly what she would be apologizing for.

  “I wondered if I might write my name in for the waltz.”

  “You want to waltz with me?” she said in barely a whisper. Her hand moved to her belly again to make sure that he had noticed. Women did not often attend social events when they were expecting, her aunt and uncle’s Yuletide Ball being one of very few exceptions to that rule because it was also a family event. To dance was a completely different level of exception, and yet he’d asked her, and in this moment she did not want anything more than to turn the floor with him. She blinked back silly tears, blaming her emotional state these last months on the pregnancy. She didn’t actually know if that was a fair accusation, since she’d been emotional all this past year. A woman had few choices regarding the direction her life would take, and Marta suspected she’d chosen poorly in having made her most important decision.

  David smiled, his eyes soft and embarrassingly sympathetic. “I cannot imagine waltzing with anyone else. This is the fifth anniversary of our first waltz, did you not remember?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I remembered,” she whispered back, then cleared her throat because it was worse to be observed whispering than it would be for people to hear what it was they said. “I took no dance card tonight, but if you are sincere in your request, I would like very much to waltz with you.”

  He smiled, creating a fan of lines around his eyes. There was a bit of silver in his hair as well, and she thought it looked very well on him. “I am abjectly sincere,” he said. “I shall return when the waltz is called.”

  Marta turned back to the conversation after he left, trying not to smile too much at his invitation and grateful that her mother had been visiting with other guests in another portion of the room. She joined Marta’s group some time later, raising Marta’s anxiety, but not enough to make her reconsider.

  When David came to lead her to the dance floor, Marta avoided her mother’s eye, knowing she would disapprove and not caring to see that disapproval. Plenty of married women danced with men other than their husbands, but pregnant women rarely danced at all, and last year, after Mother had fetched her from the floor after every other couple had exited, she’d had a great deal to say about Marta’s proper behavior and not giving the wrong impression and acting her place. Her place was now that of a married woman, with a husband who ignored her. Was it really so surprising that she would accept an offer of reprieve that would only last for the duration of one dance?

  David did not speak as they crossed the floor and took position with easy familiarity, though their arms were a bit more stretched than usual, to accommodate her belly between them. When she met his eye, she worried she’d see censure or embarrassment, but he was simply smiling at her, and it brought Marta more comfort than she had felt in months. “It is very good to see you, David,” she said, her voice almost a sigh.

  “As it is to see you, Marta.”

  He led them into the dance with smaller, gentler steps than usual, and she relaxed into the practiced motion.

  “How are you, Marta?”

  “Well enough,” she said with socially acceptable honesty.

  He cocked his head slightly to the side and squinted one eye. “Remember our pact.”

  That was all it took for the tears to blur her vision. She shook her head and forced the tears away; there would be plenty of time for that later, when she was alone in her room. “I am sorry. I blame this baby for my waterworks. It has made me completely ridiculous.”

  “Remember our pact,” he said again. “How are you?”

  She took a deep breath and met his concerned expression. The rising tears took his face out of focus—and that, more than anything, gave her the resolve to push them away. She had a few minutes in his company and wanted to see him clearly. “I honestly do not know how I am, David. I know what I am allowed to say and how I am supposed to feel, and of course I am excited about the baby.”

  “I did not ask about the baby,” David said. “I asked after you. Are you . . . well?”

  “Yes,” she said, secure with the truth of that answer. “My doctor says that I am well-built for childbirth, and though I am unsure that is necessarily a compliment for some women, I embrace it.” She smiled again, wishing she had only such positive things to say.

  “Are you happy?”

  She swallowed her emotion and looked past him, at the bright colors and glittering décor of the room, as she centered herself again. “I do not know exactly how to answer that, David. My needs are met, I have time to pursue whatever interests I can conjure, and I have as much independence as any woman can hope for.”

  He let out a heavy breath, and his hand holding hers tightened. “Is he unkind to you?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head slightly as David turned them smoothly. He was keeping them to a slower pace, which she appreciated even while she wished they were spinning and soaring through the other dancers at dizzying speed. She so wanted to feel something other than anxiety and regret and fortitude. “He is never in my company enough to be either kind or unkind.”

  David flicked a glance at her belly, and she blushed, which made him blush too and clear his throat. The intimate relationship was the only part of their union to which Greggory had been attentive, but she would not discuss those particulars with anyone, least of all David. She and David danced in silence until she could hold back her thoughts no longer. “He cares nothing for me,” she said, surprising herself with the honest confession and feeling a well of tension release at the statement. She had not been able to share this depth of thought and feeling with anyone for the whole ten months of her marriage, and it was freeing to be able to do so now. “We do not talk of our interests or our thoughts, we do not socialize as a couple, we are as much strangers now as we were a year ago; in fact, I do n
ot think I’ve had more than a dozen meals with him in all these months, as he prefers to be anywhere but our home. In my darkest moments I fear that . . .” She paused to check herself, but the relief of confiding overarched her fear of burdening him. “I fear I have made the mistake of a lifetime and will never feel joy again.”

  She could not look at him, though she felt the tightening of his grip on her hand. He took a deep breath, and for a moment she imagined him spinning her out of the room and taking her away from this life completely. They could live in exile in some far-off place like . . . Greece or America. Pretend she was not married to another man. Raise this child as their own. There had been a time when such ideas would have seemed shocking and scandalous. Now they just felt like the chance to be happy. Maybe the only chance.

  “You did not make a mistake.”

  Her eyes snapped back to meet his.

  He smiled at her. “You made a choice, and as every other person in the world, you are now charged with making the best of that decision, which is precisely what you will do.”

  She was oddly hurt by this attempt at comfort. She wanted him to agree with her, plot with her, but instead he was . . . encouraging her to make the best of things? That did not play into her romantic fantasy at all.

  David continued. “One of the few memories I have of my mother was her reading to me the story of the Christ child on Christmas Eve; she was a devoutly religious woman, which might be why she did not give way to the frippery of the holiday.” He cast his gaze about the ballroom decked with holiday décor, as though to indicate what his mother did not appreciate. Then he met Marta’s eyes again. “I hold this image in my mind of the mother Mary, cradling her baby in her arms and marveling at her part in the creation of another being. Scholars say she’d have been a very young woman, perhaps only fifteen or sixteen years old, and likely had little understanding of all that had happened to bring about this miracle, which means she would have looked into the face of her infant son with much the same awe as every mother looks into the face of their child. My mother told me that there is no love in the world like the love of a mother for her child, and I felt the beauty of the connection she shared with my sister and me every day of her life. Of all the things I am grateful to her for, I am most grateful that she did not hold back from telling us how precious we were to her, how much she treasured her role as our mother.”

  Marta felt tears rise to her eyes again, but not with self-pity this time as she stared at David. He smiled, looking a bit embarrassed. “I do not mean to discount the difficulty you are feeling, Marta, or make light of your disappointment. You deserve to be loved and cherished and—” He stopped himself and took a breath. “Pour your love into this child, cherish it the way you want to be cherished, and find joy there. Beyond that, remind yourself that both you and Mr. Henderson are young and new to this marriage. Do not be too hard on either of you for not yet knowing your way through it, and do not let your regret affect the love you give your child.”

  Marta felt herself open to his words, envelop them. They sunk into her bones, lifting her from her self-pity enough to see the wisdom of his advice. David was not married, and he knew nothing about the anxiety of having a child, and yet the image of Mary and her newborn babe and her imagination of his mother with David as a child was powerful in her mind’s eye. With David’s steady gaze upon her, she made the decision that when regret rose up again, she would bring these images to mind. His mother had not known she would not live to see her son as this grown-up man he was any more than Mother Mary had known how her own son’s life would end, but they had loved their children, and their children had known it. Her child would know it too.

  “I think you will be an excellent mother, Marta, and find great joy in that place.”

  “I will be an excellent mother,” Marta said, and she felt the conviction of it sow into her heart.

  David smiled, but she saw the tiniest glimmer of sadness in his eyes. “And keep hope for your marriage to improve. If you give up, there is no chance of reconciliation, because your heart will not be in it.”

  She looked away. Hope took so much energy and more and more felt like a fool’s errand in regard to Greggory, but she knew the truth of this advice too. If she decided that their relationship would not improve, it could not get better, because she would do nothing toward that end. If she allowed space for improvement, however, should Greggory put his own efforts forth, they would both be working toward the same goal. What did it say about her that she did not want to hope for more? Having been hurt so many times already, she did not want to give him another chance to love her the way she had expected her husband to love her.

  “Mr. Henderson is a lucky man, Marta,” David continued, drawing her attention back to him. He smiled at her, though it looked sad. “Even if he does not yet realize how very lucky he is. Work toward being your best self, seek joy, make your home a comfortable place, and see what might come of the effort.”

  They waltzed in silence a bit longer, until the rising music alerted her to the fact that the dance would soon come to an end. “Do you ever wonder, David, about . . . us?”

  He broke eye contact and looked past her. “You ought not ask such questions.”

  “I am sorry,” she said, her cheeks heating up.

  “You need never be sorry with me, Marta.”

  She said nothing more. The dance came to an end, and he stepped back, but with reluctance, she thought. “Only understand the position it puts both of us in to ask such questions.”

  She nodded her understanding and felt yet more tears. If she had written to David or waited to accept a marriage proposal until after last year’s waltz—could things have been different? She felt more connected to him than she felt to the man whose child she would bear in a few months’ time. That was not right. “Thank you for your friendship to me, David, and your good advice.”

  He reached up and brushed a tear from her eye with his thumb, while Marta noted her mother separate from the crowd and begin walking anxiously toward them. David took a step away from her. “Happy Christmas, Marta. I wish you a very good new year.”

  “Happy Christmas, David,” she said as her mother came to a stop at her elbow. “Thank you for the waltz.”

  Sixth

  David

  “You look beautiful,” David said as he and Marta took their position on the ballroom floor. It had only been a year, but her hair was a bit darker, and the changes to her figure were something he’d appreciated from across the room enough that he dared not look too closely now. She was dressed in a deep-red gown, with matching ostrich feathers in her hair: the colors and styles of a grown woman, even though she was only twenty-two years old. The physical changes were second to other changes he could sense. Maturity, he supposed, was the best explanation, perhaps wisdom too. She had seemed fragile last year, sad and unsure. It was good to see her stronger now.

  “Thank you, David,” she said with a smile, holding his gaze. “You look very well too.”

  He chuckled, making an exaggerated look at his own costume. “I am wearing the same evening clothes I wear every year.”

  She smiled a bit wider, and the truth of her contentment relaxed him. “And you look very well in them, as you always do.”

  “You look happy, Marta. Motherhood has been good for you, yes?”

  She fairly beamed. “Motherhood has been the very best thing I could possibly imagine, David. We named her Elizabeth Marie, but I call her Betsy. She’s absolutely perfect. I wish you could meet her.”

  He hated that meeting her daughter would never happen. There was no reason for him to meet her; he was not family and was barely a friend. That he’d never met Marta’s husband and therefore certainly did not have Mr. Henderson’s permission made meeting her child a line he would never cross. “I am so glad for your happiness, Marta.” He meant it, but it also burned. He’d thought so many times of what she’d asked him last year—if he ever thought about them, together. The answer he
had not said aloud was that he thought about that possibility far too often. She had become a measure he used when he met other women and considered his future. That was a dangerous game he could not stop playing. The amount of thought he’d spent on her question was why he had almost not come this year, unsure whether it was appropriate to dance with a woman he cared for this way when she was married to another man. In the end, however, he had not been able to keep his wicked self away. That she’d found happiness in her life was a very good thing, he repeated to himself.

  “As I am for your happiness, David,” she said with a smile he sensed hid some thoughts of her own. So much for their pact to always be honest with one another—yet he knew that without those boundaries they would not be able to dance this one dance. And so they stayed in the appropriate corners of the box and connected in the ways that ensured they could do so again. Marta continued, “Sophie tells me you are finally courting.”

  He chuckled and initiated a turn. Marta had met his sister in Leicester last summer. Sophie’s family had come to stay with her husband’s aunt, and the Henderson estate was a short distance away. According to Sophie, Marta had sought her out at a dinner party they’d both attended when Marta learned that Sophie had been a Woodbury before she’d married. Marta had hoped that Sophie was a cousin and had been very pleased to learn that she was in fact David’s sister.