“But just because she can play the pianoforte doesn’t mean she can play the organ,” Martin reasoned.
“There’s still ten days before Christmas Eve. Mama can teach her. She taught Georgina Marsden to play Greensleeves, and Georgie’s just a dumb girl.”
Martin was beginning to permit himself to be convinced. “But Miss Viola never goes to church. Why should she do it for us?”
“She’ll do it if the vicar asks her special.”
“I’m not writing any more letters,” Martin announced. “Two jaw-me-dead lectures were enough. ’Sides, we made up Dr. Goodboy; copying the signature of a man of God has to be a sin.”
“You don’t have to write another letter, ’cause Mr. Davenport said we could invite her, plain and simple, he did. Only he didn’t know her name.”
“And if that doesn’t work,” Martin said eagerly, “we can get Benjy to cry. That always works with Mama.” Benjy was way ahead of them. “And she and the vicar can get married! Then we’ll have all our good deeds done!”
Even serious-minded Jasper had to laugh. “The vicar isn’t going to marry Miss Viola, noddy! She’s a Bird of Paradise. I heard Squire Marsden say so once.”
“So what? Mr. Davenport is always going on about paradise, too, isn’t he?”
*
While the boys were at their lessons, or so he supposed, Connor called at Sabina’s cottage. He told himself it was just polite to see how she was going on, and to deliver in person the tin of soothing salve.
“You shouldn’t have bothered your kitchen staff at a time like this,” Sabina said when she answered his knock on her door. “They must be frantic with the Christmas preparations and the company coming.”
“Actually, I didn’t bother the cooks at all. I had my head groom mix up the stuff from a recipe I had in Spain. It won’t smell as good as the kitchen’s, but ought to help heal the burn faster.”
After such a kind gesture, Sabina had to invite Connor in, as much as she wished to keep her distance. She gestured him to follow her to the little parlor, which was strewn with fabric, trims, sewing supplies, and a sheepskin.
“Dash it, Sabina, not using your hand would help more than any ointment. What the devil are you doing, anyway?”
She gathered some of the material into a pile to make room for him to sit. “It’s the costumes for the children’s Christmas pageant. I thought that, since we will not have organ music, perhaps I can improve on the Nativity.”
“With your hand bandaged? I suppose you’re still cooking and cleaning besides.”
“Oh, no. Molly is doing everything. She’s in the kitchen right now making gingerbread while the boys are away.” She would not let on that the gingerbread was going to be almost the only Christmas delicacy for her sons. With new clothes to replace those damaged in the altercation and new spectacles for Jasper, her meager stock of coins would be nearly spent.
“Is she making gingerbread men?” Connor asked, his blue eyes lighting up. “With currant eyes?”
“Of course,” Sabina said with a laugh, remembering how much he’d always loved the treat. “They’ll be ready in an hour or so. You could come back then for a taste.”
“Or I could wait here…?”
Sabina bit her lip, not knowing how to answer. The man was definitely not healthy for her equilibrium, but, oh, how sweetly he smiled at her now, flashing a well-remembered dimple in his right cheek. She nodded, then picked up some gold braid to pin on one of the Magis’ robes. She was awkward in his presence, and the bandage didn’t help. The pins kept falling.
“Why are you the one doing this?” the viscount demanded as he retrieved them from the floor at Sabina’s feet, then took the fabric from her and proceeded to fasten the braid on, all higgledy-piggledy, but on. “Surely one of the other women in the congregation could help.”
“Who? The village women are too busy with their cooking and cleaning and helping their husbands at work. The farm wives have animals and gardens to tend. And the vicar has no wife, Mrs. Marsden has the rheumatics in her fingers, and the castle has no lady bountiful to oversee the needs of the community. I at least have help with the chores.”
This last, pointed reminder destroyed Connor’s good humor and determination not to argue with her again. Besides, he was pricking himself with every pin he put in. “Thunderation, Sabina, do you have to take on the responsibility for the whole town now?”
“I find that more estimable than not taking responsibility for anything, even one’s own actions, my lord. The life you’ve led…and you are pinning the trim to your coat sleeve.”
“Blast!” He tossed the wretched mess aside. “I have a seamstress at the castle who does nothing all day that I can see. I shall send her down with a wagon this afternoon to pick up this whole jumble, and your instructions. And no argumentation for once, miss, if you please. Now let me see your hand. It would be just like you to put the medicine on an injured rabbit rather than use it for yourself.”
He sat on the floor next to her chair and unwrapped the bandage. While he worked, he told her some of his plans for the castle and its holdings. He thought he might start a small hand-weaving guild, or a pottery to employ more local residents. And he’d see a dam built along the stream, so the workers’ cottages wouldn’t flood come spring. Sabina thought he ought to move the whole lot to higher ground and start anew, since some of the houses were no more than ramshackle huts. Soon they were talking like old times, passing comments back and forth, building on each other’s ideas and opinions. If he could have wrapped a mummy in the time he spent rebandaging her hand, Sabina did not complain.
This was madness though, she told herself. He was bored in the country without his opera dancers and actresses, that was all. That was why he was spending time with his estate managers…and with her. Connor was flirting with her, she decided, trying to seduce her with his newfound respectability. Then he’d leave. He always did.
“Oh, I forgot,” he was saying, reaching into his pocket. “I brought a pair of spectacles a guest left behind at the castle. I don’t know if they’ll do for Jasper until you can have another set made up, but these were going to waste.”
Sabina smiled. “Between the boxing lessons and your offer to let the boys ride Espinham’s cattle, they already think you are top of the trees. Pulling new spectacles out of thin air should convince them you can walk on water.”
And their hearts would be broken when he left, too. “You…you won’t disappoint them, will you?”
“What? Go back on my word? Such an accusation would be cause for a duel among gentlemen, by Jupiter. I have been waiting until their bruises are healed, is all. But, thunderation, do you really believe me to have so little honor as to lie to innocent children? I keep my promises, madam.”
Except for the ones that hung between them: I’ll love you forever. I’ll be back.
Connor got up from the floor and strode to the mantel, where he stared at the framed miniature of Jessup Greene. “Did you love him, Sabina?”
Sabina could have taken umbrage at his familiarity, but she felt she owed him an honest answer. “I…I respected him. He was kind.”
“Kind? Is that all you can say about the man who fathered your children?”
She shrugged. What more was there to say, except that Mr. Greene was not used to children, not used to women having thoughts, and not used to his steady, bachelor life being continuously disrupted. She’d always wondered what he thought would happen, taking a young wife. And she still resented his giving the trustees absolute control over her finances, as though she could not balance her bank accounts. “I did not know him well. He kept himself apart. But I was not unhappy,” she quickly added. “And I had my sons. Other women fare much worse in their marriages of convenience.”
“Yet you wore my locket.”
Sabina’s hands flew to her throat, where the locket usually rested on its chain. She’d removed it after Connor’s first visit, hoping he hadn’t recognized the only pi
ece of jewelry she had on, other than her wedding ring. Silly notion, that. “I don’t have much jewelry,” she tried to explain. “Mr. Greene was a frugal man.”
“So he was a nip-farthing besides a lecher. But to wear another man’s token, Sabina?”
“He believed it had come from my mother. I saw no reason to disabuse him of the thought. And, very well, if you must know, I wore the locket to remind me of those other times. Days when I was neither caretaker for my father or for my children, nor a necessary inconvenience to my husband. I wore the locket to remind me that once, very briefly, I was loved for myself, and in love with the world. It was a magical time.”
“Just like Christmas.”
She ignored him. “And I took it off because I am not that girl anymore.” And because she did not want him to think she’d been wearing the willow for him all these years. She’d never say that, though, so she told him, “I have a rich, full life, with people who love me and need me. That’s enough.”
But was it? she asked herself. Had it ever been enough? Could it ever be again, when he was gone? Sabina had no answers.
6
Viola Gaines almost burst her stays, laughing, when the little boys asked her to play the church organ. What a chuckle the girls back in London would have over this. But she wasn’t back in the city; she was in a tiny, respectable town, and she was bored with her own company. Besides, Viola was used to being the center of attraction, not being treated as if she had the pox. What she had was the lease to this cottage from her last protector, and no desire to go back to her old way of life. So why shouldn’t she perform at Christmas, especially if that prim and proper young Widow Greene was sending her boys over to second the vicar’s invite? Miss Gaines had played for merchant princes and members of Parliament. What was a bishop or two? Viola was fairly confident she could master the pipe organ, too.
Viola did not need a great deal of convincing. Neither did the vicar—he needed smelling salts. Oh, dear.
When Mr. Davenport found his breath again to speak, he addressed the three red-haired imps grinning up at him, instead of the woman by the door. “What trouble have you wretched children gotten into now?”
“Remember how you said you’d welcome Beelzebub himself if he’d play the organ?” Jasper asked. “We couldn’t get the devil, but we did get Miss Viola.”
The next worst thing to the vicar’s thinking. “Oh, my. Can she play?”
“Like an angel,” Martin told him. “Like the one you sent us to find.”
“Like an angel in Paradise,” Benjy chirped. “It’s a miracle, isn’t it?”
’Twould be a miracle if lightning didn’t strike the little church during Christmas Eve services. And bring the rotting roof right down on the bishop’s bald head.
*
With two good deeds accomplished, the boys were stymied. They couldn’t think of anyone else who needed their help, and Christmas was coming. Bad enough their mother was injured; her holiday would be ruined beyond hope if the vicar told her about the broken window. She’d feel obliged to pay for the replacement, and the trustees would never deem that a necessary expense, the old nipcheeses. Heaven only knew where she’d get the money.
“Maybe we could teach Chocolate to count like that horse at the fair last summer.” Benjy was taking his turn riding the old pony while his brothers walked alongside. They were on their way to Espinham Forest to finish gathering the deadwood for the poor. “Everyone paid tuppence to see him add.”
“We can hardly teach you to count, gudgeon. How are we going to teach Chocolate?”
“The viscount is richer’n Golden Ball,” Jasper pointed out. “I heard Molly telling the egg man.”
“So? We can’t ask him to lend us the money, ’cause we couldn’t pay him back. That’s not honorable.”
They each got to thinking on the rest of the walk, about good deeds, good incomes, and their good-as-gold mother. No one wanted to be the first to voice the obvious connection, for fear the others would only laugh.
There was no laughter when they reached the meadow, where Wilfred Snavely was supposed to have his donkey cart ready for loading. Wilfred and his son were there, and the cart, but the donkey had fallen over, dead. Old Wilfred and Young Wilfred were cursing and shouting at the beast, cracking the whip over her head, but she was beyond caring. The Snavelys cared, for they’d have to pull the cart all the way back to the village themselves. And the donkey foal, nuzzling its dead mother, cared. The baby donkey was braying for all it was worth, trying to waken its mother. Young Wilfred kicked out at the thigh-high creature, which ran, still shrilling its distress, into the woods.
“Good riddance to it,” the elder Snavely snarled. “Damned noisy nuisance’ll be no use to me for over a year, eating its ugly head off at my expense. Bad enough I’ll have to come back with the cart and a winch to haul the mother off. I ain’t feeding and cleaning up after some useless creature. I already got my boy for that.” He cuffed his son on the ear and laughed.
“You mean you’re just going to leave the baby out here alone?” Martin wanted to know.
“At night?” Benjy asked, jumping off Chocolate. “In the dark?”
“With nothing to eat or drink?” Jasper peered into the woods.
Snavely eyed Chocolate, and the empty traces of his laden cart. He calculated the odds of the viscount killing him if he took the boys’ pony, then shook his head. It was a sure bet. “Makes no difference. The beastie’ll be dead by morning anyway less’n it learns to eat grass quick-like. Ain’t weaned yet, and I ain’t wet-nursing no ass.”
Jasper said, “We’ll take him, Mr. Snavely.”
Both of his brothers turned to him. “We will?”
“We can’t just let him die, can we?”
Benjy shook his head. So did Martin, after a momentary hesitation. “We’ll take him home with us, then. Mama will know what to do for him.”
“If not, Viscount Royce is sure to. He knows everything about horses, and donkeys can’t be all that different.”
“Hold on, Carrot-top. Afore you go making plans for the spawn, what are you going to give me for it?”
Martin tried to be reasonable. “Why should we pay you for something you were throwing away? If you wanted the baby, you’d put it in the cart and take it home with you.”
“’Sides, you said it was going to die,” Jasper added.
Snavely scratched his armpit. “But the little bugger just might surprise us all and learn to eat grass and stuff. It’s mine till it dies or I say different, understand? So how about we makes us a bargain, eh? How about if I trade you the asslet for use of your pony there? It’ll just be for a few days so I can deliver the wood for the reverend, and get the jenny out of here. His Grace won’t like no dead animal littering his property.”
Benjy started sniffling, and Jasper said, “He’ll never give Chocolate back, I know it.”
Martin eyed the heavily loaded wagon, the whip in Snavely’s dirty hand, and the dead donkey. “No, sir. We can’t let you have Chocolate, even for a day. Our Mama wouldn’t let us, even if we wanted to. But we can find the viscount and tell him how you beat your poor donkey to death and left its baby in his woods. He was calling on us this afternoon, wasn’t he, Jas?”
“Viscount Royce said he was bringing Mama some medicine. They’re old friends, don’t you know, Mama and Viscount Royce,” Jasper contributed, deciding it couldn’t hurt to invoke their powerful protector’s name a few times.
“The jenny died of old age, and don’t you go spreading no tales, hear? And the viscount’s too busy to get himself in a swivet over no orphan ass, so we’ll leave him out of this. Iffen you won’t lend your pony, I figure I’ll have Young Wilfred go put the spat out of its misery. You got the axe there, son?”
“We’ve got some money. You can have all we’ve got,” Martin offered in a rush.
Snavely rubbed his chin. “Well, that’s more like. You brats cost me’ some wages, so it’s only right you hand over some blunt
. How much’ve you got?”
The boys did not have enough for a church window, and not enough for a dress length, but it seemed they had just the right amount for a useless, dying baby ass. Snavely took all of the boys’ coins, along with Jasper’s pocketknife and Martin’s handkerchief, which was of finer fabric than any he owned. And if you held the thing upside down, the embroidered M could be a W for Wilfred.
“Better’n nothing, I guess,” he said. “Enjoy your purchase, brats, while you can.” He gestured to his son to hoist the wagon pole, and they started off, leaving three pale-faced boys in the meadow, with no coins, and no little donkey, either.
The boys dove into the woods where they’d seen the baby run. Jasper tripped over a protruding root and landed in a mud puddle. Benjamin thought he’d climb a tree to get a better view, and tore his pants. Martin listened quietly till he heard the baby’s whickers, then he located the beastie where it was all tangled in briers, panting. He took off his jacket, remembering Mama’s laments over their clothes, and pushed through the prickers to free the infant. His shirt, of course, was torn to shreds, but he got the donkey. The small creature was shivering, so he wrapped his jacket around it and tugged it back to the clearing.
Chocolate took offense at the baby’s nuzzling attempt to find milk, and was not having any hoofed creature ride on her back, either. The baby was too heavy for the boys to carry, and protested too much anyway, so all three removed their belts, cinched them together to make a collar and lead, and half carried, half dragged the donkey along the path toward home.
With such slow going, they had time to reflect on their new acquisition.
“Do you think this counts as a good deed?” Jasper wanted to know.
“We couldn’t let them kill him!” Benjy wailed.
Having looked beneath the donkey, Martin reported that Baby, as they were calling the donkey to encourage it along the trail, was a girl. “And the reverend always said we are all God’s creatures, big and small.”
Greetings of the Season and Other Stories Page 17
