The Christmas Boutique

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  “I’m so sorry,” said Agnes. “I know something about broken hearts too.”

  His brow furrowed in concern, and she told him about Richard, how they had met and how she had lost him. Joseph clasped her hand in both of his and simply listened, his sympathetic silence a balm for her heartache.

  One day Joseph invited her to lunch, confessing an overwhelming curiosity to know how she came by so many remarkable antiques. Agnes had been without a confidante for so long that before she could think better of it, the story of her miserable existence at Elm Creek Manor spilled from her.

  When she finished, she felt strangely lighter for having unburdened herself.

  “I wish I could help, and I think maybe I can,” Joseph said, his blue eyes meeting hers, his expression profoundly kind. “I have a colleague in New York who could sell your antiques for a higher profit than you could get here in Waterford. I’ll put you in touch, but please don’t tell Peter. He’s a good friend, but he won’t stay one for long if he knows I’m steering business to his competition.”

  “I think Peter would understand, but I promise I won’t breathe a word.”

  “You also mentioned that you regret not graduating from high school.”

  “I’ll never regret leaving school to marry Richard,” she hastened to explain. “But now that I find myself in desperate need of a job, I wish I had earned my diploma.”

  “Would you settle for a bachelor’s degree? Waterford College has a scholarship program specifically for veterans, their spouses, and their children—a four-year tuition waver for qualifying students.”

  It sounded wonderful, but Agnes knew it was not for her. “That rules me out, doesn’t it? One has to finish high school to be accepted into college.”

  “Not if you pass the entrance exams, which someone with a fancy Philadelphia boarding school education ought to be able to manage easily. Unless I misunderstood you, and it was all etiquette and flower arranging?”

  Agnes feigned indignation. “Miss Sebastian’s Academy is a fully accredited academic institution, offering young ladies a rigorous education in the classics, with additional emphases on the arts and public service.”

  “Then a few college entrance exams shouldn’t give you any trouble.” He smiled and finished his coffee. “I have a friend in the admissions office who owes me a favor. He’ll help you register.”

  “Joseph, this is—this is an answer to a prayer.” Overwhelmed, Agnes rose from her chair and threw her arms around him. Startled, he laughed and held her, patting her back reassuringly.

  True to his word, Joseph spoke with his friend in admissions, and two weeks later, Agnes was sitting in the auditorium of Kuehner Hall, flying through the exams in English literature, composition, mathematics, history, and French. Joseph also arranged for her to sell Bergstrom heirlooms through a dealer in Manhattan, and soon her income from antiques sales nearly doubled. But even then her earnings could not keep up with Claudia and Harold’s runaway spending.

  In early September, Agnes enrolled in Waterford College and began attending classes, relieved to be away from the manor but nervous to find herself in a classroom again after years away. Often Joseph met her between classes for coffee or lunch, although the first time she addressed him as Professor Emberly, conscious of their altered status and his greater authority, he threw back his head and laughed. “Please call me Joseph,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll make me feel ancient.” She smiled and agreed, and for the first time since Richard went off to war, she felt a glimmer of hope for her future.

  Then Claudia and Harold began selling off Bergstrom land.

  Agnes fought to preserve every acre, but every time a tract came up for auction, Claudia and Harold argued that they had no other source of revenue. Frustrated, frantic, sick and tired of feeling like a helpless bystander to their self-destruction, she decided she must take drastic measures before nothing was left of Richard’s beloved childhood home.

  Again she turned to Joseph for help. He engaged an astute, circumspect lawyer who transferred most of the estate to Sylvia’s possession, an ingenious and perfectly legal maneuver founded on Sylvia’s status as an employee and owner of Bergstrom Thoroughbreds, a role Claudia too had been offered upon her eighteenth birthday but had declined. When the last documents were filed, the lawyer assured Agnes that no one else could sell the manor or the remaining protected acres as long as Sylvia lived.

  If Claudia and Harold had investigated, they would have discovered how recently the arrangements had been made, and if they dug deeply enough they would have uncovered Agnes’s involvement, but they did not bother. Perhaps they were too angry, or too hopeless, or too reluctant to spend money they did not have hiring a lawyer to sort it out. Whatever they truly felt, they accepted it as an inviolable entanglement of the late Mr. Bergstrom’s will, a sign of his preference for Sylvia, which Claudia had suspected all her life and of which she believed she now had proof.

  It pained Agnes to hear her kindly father-in-law unjustly maligned, but not enough to compel her to reveal the truth.

  Unable to sell off any more land, Claudia and Harold brought their lavish spending to an abrupt halt. In their frustration they turned upon each other, arguing with intensified fury, hurling spiteful insults and bitter accusations. Distressed, Agnes moved from the second-floor bedroom she had briefly shared with Richard to a suite on the third floor, but that was not far enough to block out the sounds of sudden angry shouts, the startling bang of slammed doors, the dull thuds or sharp crashes of objects either thrown or knocked over in their raging.

  Then, one day, as if in her misery she wanted everyone else to suffer too, Claudia blindsided Agnes with Andrew’s secret, that Richard and James would have survived the attack if not for Harold’s cowardice. As horrible as it was, Agnes knew it must be true. Andrew never would have invented such a nightmarish tale. At last she understood why Sylvia had left, and she desperately wished to follow.

  Amid the ashes and rubble of their marriage, Claudia withdrew into solitary bitterness. Harold spent his days strolling about the grounds, walking stick in hand, thwacking at underbrush as if to scare up pheasants, making a show of managing the estate for an audience of none. In the evenings he sequestered himself in the library, where the friends of his youth occasionally joined him for cigars and whiskey, drinking themselves giddy until they passed out, slumped over on Mr. Bergstrom’s fine leather sofas or sprawled out on the Persian rug. In the morning, Claudia would march into the library, seize an unwelcome guest or two by the collar, and haul them, half awake and stumbling, out the back door.

  Agnes tried to lose herself in her studies and by taking up quilting again, determined to learn on her own what Sylvia had failed to teach her. Her classes at Waterford College offered her an escape, and her coffee breaks and lunches with Joseph, immeasurable solace.

  When Joseph asked her to marry him, she felt as if the door to her prison tower had been flung open, the portcullis raised, the drawbridge lowered. On the other side stood Joseph, hand outstretched, beckoning her into sunlight and freedom. But although she was very fond of him, she did not feel the same dizzying rush of passion she had felt for Richard. Would fondness and admiration and gratitude be enough to sustain her, to sustain a marriage, for the rest of their lives?

  He was too good a man for Agnes to deceive him. “I care for you, very much,” she confessed, tears filling her eyes, “but I will never love you the way I loved Richard. I’m sorry.”

  Joseph looked pained, but he managed a rueful smile. “That’s all right. Maybe you’ll learn to love me in another way. I know you like me, and that’s a start.”

  “You would still marry me, knowing how I feel?”

  “If you’ll have me.” He thrust his hands into the pockets of his tweed coat and shrugged. “What do you say, Agnes? You have to admit I’d be much better company than that pair up at the manor.”

  She surprised herself with a laugh, an abrupt, choked sort of sound. “Of course, but
I don’t need to compare you to anyone to know that you’re wonderful company.”

  Suddenly she realized that indeed, there was no one on earth dearer to her than Joseph. Perhaps that was love, or at least the seed of it.

  And so she accepted his proposal.

  She needed a week to stoke her courage before breaking the news to Claudia. She found her sister-in-law alone in the parlor with a skein of yarn and knitting needles forgotten on her lap. Agnes cleared her throat to interrupt Claudia’s reverie, and then, with little fanfare or preamble, she announced her decision to marry.

  Claudia stared up at her bleakly. “How could you have forgotten my brother so soon?”

  Stung, Agnes struggled to keep her voice even. “I’ll never forget Richard. I’ll always love him, but he’s been gone almost five years. He would never begrudge me the happiness I’ve found with Joseph, and I hope you won’t either.”

  Claudia studied her, cheeks flushed, mouth pressed in a thin line. “I suppose you’ll need to take different rooms,” she finally said. “I know you like the view from the west wing, but the suites in the newer wing are larger and more modern. Joseph might—”

  “Joseph and I aren’t moving into the manor,” Agnes interrupted, startled. “He already has a house, a lovely Cape Cod within walking distance of campus. You can visit us anytime—”

  “But that’s entirely unnecessary. We have so much room here. Invite Joseph to visit, let him see for himself—”

  “Claudia—”

  “How could you abandon me? Do you have any idea how I’ve suffered with—with him, how much worse it will be without you?”

  “That’s not fair. You can’t blame me for your unhappiness. You don’t have to live this way.” Claudia tossed her head, scornful, but Agnes persisted. “Divorce Harold. Throw him out. Let him find a job and make his own way in the world. Write to Sylvia and urge her to come home. Together you can save the estate. The orchard is still thriving. You could earn a living from that, and from renting out the pastures—”

  “I don’t know where Sylvia is.”

  “Ask James’s parents. Surely they’ve kept in touch—”

  “Sylvia is not coming back,” Claudia shrilled. “If she cared about Elm Creek Manor enough to save it, she never would have left!”

  Shocked, Agnes regarded her for a long moment, heart pounding. “I don’t believe that,” she said. “But even so, you can still change your own fate. Harold is no good for you. Separate. Send him away. Make the farm profitable again. It won’t be easy but Joseph and I will help you.”

  “I can’t divorce Harold.” Claudia bolted to her feet, sending yarn and needles tumbling to the floor. “Don’t you understand? He is my penance.”

  “Claudia, no,” Agnes protested, but her sister-in-law fled the room without looking back. Penance for what? For knowingly marrying the man who had refused to save Richard and James? For calling Sylvia a liar rather than accepting the truth, and thereby compelling Sylvia to flee her beloved home? Whatever Claudia thought she was atoning for, Agnes could not see how staying with Harold would accomplish any good.

  In the days that followed, Claudia avoided her and barely spoke when they unexpectedly came upon each other in the manor. As for Harold, Agnes saw him not at all, but she knew he was living there still from the sounds of his perpetual arguments with Claudia and of drunken carousing from the library on evenings when his friends met. For Agnes, knowing that her departure was imminent somehow made each day more excruciating. Joseph agreed that they should marry as soon as possible, and as soon as the banns could be announced and the marriage license obtained, they wed at the small Catholic parish on Second Street. The groom’s side of the aisle was nearly full of smiling family, friends, and colleagues from Waterford College; the bride’s side, nearly empty. Peter, his wife, and two other employees of the antiques shop had kindly sat on the left, where several of Agnes’s classmates were also scattered among the front pews, doing their best to create the illusion of a crowd.

  Agnes had invited Claudia to the wedding, knowing she would refuse to attend; she had also left an invitation for Harold on the desk in the library, doubtful he would even bother to reply. She had written to her parents at her childhood home in Philadelphia, imploring them to come and asking them to forward the invitation to her brother and sisters and their families, if they had married and moved away. She had sent one invitation to her grandparents at their country estate in Chester County and another to their home in Georgetown, just in case they had decided to remain in the Washington area after her grandfather retired from the Senate. She had written to a few friends from Miss Sebastian’s Academy, and their affectionate replies wishing her every happiness warmed her heart, even though each one wistfully regretted that they would be unable to attend the ceremony. At least her friends had replied. Not one member of her family had.

  She had expected as much, but their cold silence still pained her. She had hoped her siblings might have broken their mother’s embargo, but perhaps she had discarded the invitation and said nothing of it to the rest of the family.

  Agnes told herself it did not matter. Joseph’s family had welcomed her with open arms. She had already made a few friends in Waterford and looked forward to making many more, now that she would be living in town. A few dozen mostly empty pews would not spoil her beautiful, sacred wedding day.

  It was to be the first of many beautiful days by Joseph’s side.

  How could she ever have worried that she did not love him enough? Within months, she understood that the dizzying rush of youthful passion she had shared with Richard was a brief, dazzling flare compared to the warm, enduring, steady fire she and Joseph built together. This new, different love did not sweep her away, but rather held her up, grounded her, filled her with certainty and strength.

  In those first radiant years of marriage, Agnes embraced her dual roles as college student and professor’s wife, attending study groups at the library one day and hosting a cocktail party for the history department faculty the next. Upon completing her degree, she accepted a job with the college library’s Rare Books Archive, sorting acquisitions, preserving aged volumes and ephemera, and helping students and faculty with their research.

  She also assisted Joseph when Peter consulted him about particularly intriguing antiques that passed through his shop, where the unknown stories behind the furniture and artworks evoked her sympathy and wonder. Had a lovely young woman admired her reflection in the silver hand mirror, or had she lamented over minuscule imperfections invisible to everyone else? Had a doting grandfather carved the intricate circus scene into the lid of the oak toy chest, or had an indulgent uncle with no children of his own purchased it from a master woodworker? Each artifact had been well loved once, or at least well used. How had they ended up in Peter’s shop, parted from the families that had left the patina of their lives upon them?

  Agnes was four years married and carrying a happy secret she and Joseph had not yet shared with even their dearest friends on the afternoon she made an extraordinary discovery.

  It was a blustery, overcast day in late November, when icy raindrops striking the windows warned of winter’s swift approach. Joseph and Peter were in the back of the shop examining a cherry armoire recently acquired from an estate sale when Agnes’s attention was drawn by an armchair that from a distance seemed to bear identical floral carvings. Curious, wondering if the two pieces separately acquired were somehow connected, Agnes went to examine the chair, but she was still several feet away when she realized the designs were quite dissimilar after all. Turning away, her glance fell upon a maple chest nearly hidden behind a Shaker china closet and an umbrella stand. Moving the umbrella stand aside, she let out a soft gasp of admiration as she took in the chest’s fine details, the rich wood burnished to a soft glow, the brass fixtures marred by only a few scattered nicks and dents, the intricate Art Deco floral pattern of inlaid wood on the top and sides.

  A memory stirred, the sense tha
t she had once seen something very much like it, and as she knelt before the chest, it suddenly came to the fore: her grandmother’s hope chest, which Agnes had last seen as a young girl at her grandparents’ estate in Chester County. Perhaps this finely crafted piece had also once held a young woman’s quilts, bed linens, tablecloths, even china and silver, as she prepared to manage a household of her own one day, dreaming of her true love, whomever he might be.

  There was a latch and a keyhole, but when Agnes tested the lid she found it unlocked, and when she lifted it, the fresh scent of cedar wafted out. Peering inside, she found nothing within but a small iron key, which she assumed fit the chest’s lock. As she picked up the key to test her theory, her fingertips brushed against the wooden bottom. Its unexpected roughness gave her a moment’s pause. How strange that an artisan who had put so much care into the exterior of the chest would have neglected to sand the inside to a flawless finish. Stranger yet that—she looked again and touched the surfaces to be sure—the interior sides were of smooth, fragrant cedar, but the bottom was of simple plywood.

  Puzzled, Agnes sat back on her heels, but as her gaze fixed on the front of the chest, she discovered another curious feature: Either the height of the chest was a clever illusion, or the interior was several inches shallower than it should have been.

  Reaching into the chest with both hands, Agnes pressed gently upon the bottom—and the plywood bottom shifted.

  Quickly she dug in her purse for her nail file. Mindful of how one careless scratch could diminish the value of an antique, she carefully wedged the file into the narrow crack between the cedar wall and the plywood bottom and applied a hint of pressure.