Greetings of the Season and Other Stories

by Barbara Metzger

  Her hands full of rings and raisins, Johna couldn’t reach out for him, but she could say, “Then Merry Christmas, Merle, for I have loved you for ages, ever since I saved you from choking to death.”

  Selcrest didn’t care how sticky she was, or how she still persisted in her rattle-pated rescue. He took her in his arms, crumbs and all. “I do love you, Jo. More than I can ever say.” And he placed the ring—the ruby-and-diamond one—on her finger. “According to your sister, tradition says that the girl who finds the ring in her pudding will marry within the year. What would you say to within the week?”

  “I’ll marry you tomorrow, Merle, on one condition.”

  “Anything, my love.”

  “Tell me why Kitty called you Silky.”

  “Now that, my precious, I can only show you.” He picked her up and headed for the stairs. “What was that little key for anyway? A grand opportunity, was it?”

  *

  Christmas Pudding

  (makes 4)

  2 cups raisins, halved and stoned

  1 tablespoon orange peel, grated, plus 1/3 cup juice

  2 cups sultanas, halved and stoned, or figs

  rum for soaking (optional)

  1/2 pound beef suet, finely chopped

  11/2 cups currants, washed and dried

  4 cups bread crumbs

  1 1/2 cups candied fruit peel and candied cherries

  2 cups flour

  1 cup brown sugar

  1 cup almonds, blanched and shredded, or mixed nuts

  1 teaspoon allspice, grated

  1 teaspoon salt

  1/2 of one nutmeg, grated

  1 green apple, peeled, cored and chopped

  6 eggs, well beaten

  1 cup brandy

  1 carrot, grated

  More rum for soaking (optional)

  1 tablespoon lemon rind, grated, plus 1/4 cup juice

  1/2 cup brandy for flaming (optional)

  Soak the fruits in rum, at least one month in advance. This makes them plump, as in plum pudding.

  Mix the fruits and dry ingredients well. Separately, mix the eggs, juice, and brandy, and add to the mixture, stirring thoroughly. Everyone in the household can take a turn stirring and making their pudding wishes. Let the whole thing stand, covered and cool, overnight.

  Divide the mix into four greased pudding basins, molds, or bowls, covered with foil, or tie into boiling bags. Place the puddings into large pots of water and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, reduce the heat, and steam the puddings for 8 hours. (Make sure the water doesn’t boil away.)

  Remove and cool, then cover and store in a cool, dry place, for a month.

  One week before serving, soak the puddings in rum if you wish. Just before serving, steam the puddings again, 1-2 hours, before unmolding. This is when coins, tokens, and such can be pressed into the pudding.

  To set on fire, warm the brandy and light it, then pour over the puddings.

  Three Good Deeds

  1

  No noise is louder to the ears of a boy than the sound of a window shattering when he is left holding the cricket bat. Unless, of course, the unfortunate pane of glass happens to have been in a church. At least this one was not a centuries-old stained-glass work of art. That noise would have made the crack of doom sound like a snowflake landing.

  The boy could have run, as the other local lads had, disappearing through the village streets like so many leaves fading into the forest floor. This boy’s sense of honor kept him in place outside the tiny chapel. Honor kept him there, as well as his bright red hair, which would make him visible for miles. Besides, he’d just left the vicar’s study, his Latin lessons not ten minutes past. So he stayed, waiting, and his two brothers stayed with him.

  “Oh, dear.” The Reverend Mr. Davenport had been working on his Christmas sermon. That is, he’d been thinking of working on his Christmas sermon, which meant he’d been dozing when the glass shattered. He wheezed himself out of his comfortable chair and into his coat and muffler against the December chill, then joined the three boys outside in staring at the jagged edges of the window. “Oh, dear Lord in Heaven, and the bishop is coming.”

  ‘I did it, Vicar,” confessed ten-year-old Martin, the eldest of the Greene siblings.

  “No, sir, I hit the ball.” The middle boy, Jasper, adjusted the spectacles on his nose. “Mama told me not to play with my glasses on, and I couldn’t see where I was aiming.”

  Benjamin, the baby of the bunch at five years of age, was not to be left out. “I made them let me bat, Mr. Davenport. Honest, I did.”

  “Oh, dear.” The vicar huffed into the scarf around his neck. “What’s to be done? Whatever is to be done? We’ll have to go inside to discuss this; yes, we will.” He turned to trudge back into his warm office, where Martin had so recently been reading his assigned passage of Vergil, and Jasper had struggled with Caesar through the Gallic wars. Little Benjamin had practiced his letters with first declension nouns. Now Benjy was the first to voice the dismal thoughts of all three boys.

  “Do you think he’ll cane us?” he whispered as the Greene trio followed in the vicar’s wake, like felons to the gibbet.

  “He didn’t last time, when we left the gate open and Maude Binkum’s cow got in and ate his roses.” Still, Jasper handed the bat over to his older brother.

  “No, but he told Mama, and she was that upset she cried.” As one, the three slowed their steps, falling farther behind the vicar and their fate.

  “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” Mr. Davenport kept repeating as he lowered himself back into his study chair. “I’ll have to call in the sexton and send him off to the glazier’s with measurements, and hire a carpenter, and oh, my, I don’t know what else. Paint, I suppose, if they have to take the frame out, and caulking. Oh, and I so wanted St. Jerome’s to look perfect for the bishop. We cannot very well ask him for the funds for an extension when we don’t care for our little church now.”

  “We’ll pay for the repairs, sir,” Martin offered, emptying his pockets. His brothers did likewise. Soon a collection of stones and string and colored chalk rested on the vicar’s desk, with a few coins buried in their midst. Mr. Davenport used his penknife to poke through the pile, separating two shillings and some copper pennies from the rest.

  “We’ve been saving for Mama’s Christmas present,” Jasper confided.

  Martin nodded. “We were going to buy her a dress length of velvet.”

  “Red velvet,” Benjy put in, “so she’ll have something pretty to wear to the duke’s dinner for the bishop.”

  The vicar shook his head, whether at the alarming thought of Sabina Greene in red velvet, her with the same flaming hair as her three sons, or the unlikelihood of the young widow’s being invited to Espinham Castle for the festivities. “It is not enough, boys. Glass is expensive, and the workmen need their wages.”

  The youngsters looked to one another, but it was Martin who spoke. “We’ll work, sir, we’ll do anything, so long as you don’t tell our mother.”

  “No, no. The dear woman has enough in her budget without this. Why, I feel bad already, taking her money in exchange for your lessons, but she insists.”

  “We’ll give up the lessons!” Benjy volunteered.

  “No, that won’t do. Perhaps I should go to the duke and ask him for the funds.”

  “No! Please don’t,” three desperate voices chorused.

  “You can beat us, or…or take our pony, Chocolate. Just don’t go to the duke.” They all recalled the incident last spring involving a ram and a ewe and the Duke of Espinwall’s garden party. His Grace had demanded Mama’s presence, then thundered at her for a day, it seemed, leaving Mrs. Greene pale and shaking, weeping for a sennight. No, they would sell Benjy as a chimney sweep before they let the duke berate their mother again.

  “Let me think, let me think,” the vicar muttered, rubbing the penknife along his whiskered jaw. “I can take some money from the roof fund, and replace that with a bit of the choir robe budg
et. And, yes, I do believe you three can work to repay the cost. His Grace has generously offered the dead wood in Espy Forest to the poor of the parish, if we come and get it, of course.” The vicar did not mention what he thought of such generosity. The fallen limbs would keep the poor warm this winter, no matter how cold the duke’s heart. “You can go along with Wilfred Snavely and his son to gather the firewood, so the job will get done that much sooner and the parish can save a few pence there.”

  The boys grinned. “We’ll pick up every twig, sir! In fact, we can climb the trees and knock down broken branches. Old Wilfred’s too big to climb trees, and Young Wilfred’s too lazy. And Chocolate can help carry, so you won’t have to pay them so much to use their donkey.” Martin slapped Jasper on the shoulder, and Benjamin bounced up and down.

  “Ahem. That’s not all, boys.”

  Three similar freckled faces turned pale again.

  “No, you cannot learn to believe that money alone fixes wrongs. That would be a poor lesson indeed. Why, they say that two rights don’t even mend a wrong, so we’ll try for three, shall we?”

  “Three, sir?” The boys looked to each other in confusion.

  “Aye, lads. Three rights to make up for the broken window. Three good deeds to repay the parish for the aggravation of having you three rapscallions loose among us.”

  “We don’t understand, Mr. Davenport,” Martin spoke for all of them. “Just what is it you would have us do?”

  “I don’t know, lad. Use your heads for once. It might be a good exercise. Look around and see who needs help this holiday season. And I don’t mean using your pennies to buy candy for the needy children, or getting money from your dear mother to give to the poor. That’s too easy. And helping each other with your homework assignments and chores won’t count either. I mean you should perform three selfless acts, ones that aren’t just for your own benefit, and do it anonymously, too. That means no one is to know who helped them,” he added for Benjy’s sake, “because this is not about winning praise for yourselves. It is about helping the Lord at His busy season. You look around the village and see who is unhappy and what you can do to ease their souls. And make sure you complete your three good deeds before Christmas, mind you, or I’ll have to go to your mother after all, or the duke. Do you understand?”

  The boys understood they’d be carrying firewood to stoke furnaces in hell if the duke got hold of them, so they nodded, but they weren’t entirely sure they did comprehend the vicar’s penance, nor what to do about it. So that night, when they were gathered around their mother for the evening story, Benjy asked, “Mama, who is the most unhappy person you know?”

  Sabina squeezed her youngest, there in the old worn leather chair at her right side. Jasper sat on her left, and Martin was perched on the stool by her feet. “Unhappy, dear? Why, I don’t think I know anyone who is unhappy. Mrs. Cotter could use more milk for her children, but Jed Hanks said he’d lend her a cow. And Mr. Jordan at the inn is worried about his son off with the army, so we must remember to add young Tom to our prayers, along with the other brave soldiers.”

  “Gads, I hope Mr. Davenport doesn’t expect us to end the war,” Jasper whispered to his older brother, at which Sabina’s brows came together.

  “Now what is this about?”

  “Oh, the vicar was just practicing his sermon,” Martin quickly told her. “Something about windows to the soul, I think. What did you hear, Jas?”

  “He definitely mentioned windows, all right. And…branches of knowledge. Isn’t that right, Martin?”

  Sabina shook her head. “Mr. Davenport must be preparing for Christmas Eve, hoping to impress the bishop if the children’s pageant and the chorale don’t sway His Eminence enough to loosen his purse strings.” She only hoped the vicar didn’t put everyone to sleep.

  Seeing her frown, and worrying more over their thorny dilemma than over the bishop’s visit, Benjy asked, “You’re not unhappy, Mama, are you?”

  Speaking of purse strings, Sabina would have been a lot happier if she did not have to worry about her finances all the time. She managed on her tiny income, but without the luxuries, nay, the comforts she wished she could provide for her children, especially with Christmas coming. But her late husband’s clutch-fisted man of affairs had no idea of how much three boys ate, or how quickly they outgrew their clothes. Still, she made do. “No, darling, I am not unhappy. How could I be, when I have the three finest sons a woman could wish?”

  “Even if we are not rich?”

  “Especially. Money doesn’t bring happiness, darling. Just look at the duke. He never has to worry about paying the butcher or the wine merchant, so he overindulges himself right into the gout. Then he is even more discontented.”

  “But why is the duke so unhappy, Mama? He has the finest stable in the shire.” Martin couldn’t imagine anyone with such prime horseflesh not being delighted with his lot in life.

  His Grace of Espinwall was the meanest, most ill-tempered old curmudgeon of Sabina’s acquaintance. She believed he must have been born raging at the midwife, and he’d likely die swearing at St. Peter for interrupting his schedule. Sabina couldn’t say that to her sons, of course, especially not if the vicar was trying to instruct them about goodness and mercy, along with their Latin. “Well, I suppose he is so downcast because his wife has passed on and his son never comes to visit. Think how wretched I would be without you and your brothers. Espinwall has that whole enormous castle to himself, with no one to talk to except his servants. Perhaps he is lonely.” And perhaps pigs had wings.

  “Why doesn’t his son come?”

  Sabina fingered the locket at her throat. “They had a disagreement a long time ago, before any of you were born. And I suppose both have too much pride to mend the rift now. Viscount Royce makes his life in London, and his father stays in the country, so they never have a chance to reconcile their differences.”

  Benjy nodded somberly, but Jasper and Martin winked at each other. “What about Reverend Davenport, Mama?” Jasper asked before Sabina could resume her reading or announce bedtime. “Do you think he is happy?”

  Sabina laughed. “Oh, Mr. Davenport frets himself to flinders, but I believe he enjoys worrying over all of us. I always thought he’d be better off with a wife to look after some of the parish duties for him and see that he gets a proper meal, but he hired Mrs. Hinkle to keep house for him, most likely with your Latin lesson fees, so I am even more pleased that he agreed to take you on.”

  Jasper nudged Martin with his foot, and the older boy nodded, already making plans. “Someone else in the village must need our prayers, don’t you think, Mama?”

  “Well, I suppose you could ask God to look after everyone in Chipping Espy, darling. That would be lovely, and wouldn’t leave anyone out.”

  “What about Miss Gaines?” Benjy wanted to know. “Should we pray for her, too?”

  “She doesn’t even go to church, you noddy!” Jasper ridiculed. “You can’t pray for a—”

  His mother clamped her hand over his mouth. “Of course you may pray for Miss Gaines, Benjamin. She is one of God’s creatures, too.”

  “And she needs it more, ’cause she has no friends. No one ever calls on her. Do you think that makes her unhappy?”

  “How should Mama know, cloth-head? Miss Gaines ain’t respectable. Besides, that toff from London used to come visit every few weeks. Ty Marshall says—”

  “I do not think we need to hear what Ty Marshall has to say about Miss Gaines, Martin. In fact,” Mrs. Greene quickly added, “it must be time for bed.” She jumped up, nearly tumbling Benjamin out of the chair in her efforts to head off any more awkward questions. Giving each boy a kiss on the forehead, she said, “Good night, my darlings. Sleep well. And please try to remember to wear your old clothes tomorrow, and to be more careful near the briers. I am so proud of you for volunteering to help bring in the firewood for the poor families, I could burst. What would I ever do without my good boys?”

  Sabina G
reene’s good boys stayed up for hours, plotting and planning. The next morning, before they went off to the vicarage for their lessons, the three redheads detoured to the posting office, where they parted with one of their hoarded coins to see a letter delivered. They were not entirely sure of the complete address for the missive they’d spent half the night composing, but another tuppence convinced the post rider to discover Viscount Royce’s direction. “Th’fella can’t be that hard to locate,” the rider declared, pocketing his fee. “Famous rakehell, ain’t he?”

  2

  Connor Hamilton, Viscount Royce, rode as if the hounds of hell were snapping at his stallion’s heels. Why he was in such a hurry, cutting across fields and taking barely remembered shortcuts through the home woods, he was not sure. The demons that were urging him on were nothing to the devils that waited ahead.

  He hadn’t wanted to come. He hadn’t wanted to see his father. Despite the lack of affection between them, Connor certainly had no desire to see the old dastard stick his spoon in the wall. He didn’t want to be duke, didn’t want to live in Espinham Castle, with its foolish turrets and crenelations, arrow slits and drafty halls with rows of armor, where he and his best friend had played for hours. He did not want to rule Espinham’s acres of fields and spinneys and ponds and forests, where he and his best friend had rambled. Most of all, he never wanted to see that best friend again. Friend, hah! The jade had married someone else as soon as his back was turned! By George, Connor didn’t even want to be in the same county as Sabina Martindale. No, Sabina Greene.

  He’d managed to avoid her for years—eleven, to be exact. She did not attend his mother’s funeral; she was lying in, he was told at the time. And he did not attend her husband’s. He’d thought of sending his condolences, but that would have been the height of hypocrisy. Connor wasn’t the least bit sorry the old lecher was dead, nor that Sabina was left alone with a passel of brats to raise. She’d made her bargain, hadn’t she?