Читать книгу Make Her Wish Come True Collection - Ann Lethbridge - Страница 11
ОглавлениеLife resumed its normal course in the next few days, as normal as anything was before Christmas. Aunt Sal spent more time sitting with clients in the dining room when the meals were done, planning Christmas catering, and one party at Mandy’s Rose itself.
Mandy continued fixing extra sandwiches for the sailing master to take to Walthan Manor and let him tease her about her legacy, still not forthcoming. Perhaps her father had changed his mind. Ben didn’t linger over dinner any more and spent time on solitary walks. She was usually in bed before he returned, but never asleep. Her heart sad, she heard him pace back and forth in his room. She wondered if he was trying to wear himself out so sleep would come. She convinced herself that he was wishing for Scotland and his father. ‘I would want to be with my father, if I had a good one,’ she whispered into her pillow, trying to drown the sound of pacing on boards that squeaked.
In the next week, a solemn-faced fellow in livery delivered a note to Amanda Mathison, requesting her presence at Walthan Manor at eleven of the clock. She nodded her acceptance to the servant, then hurried into the kitchen.
‘Here it is,’ her aunt said, after she read the note.
‘I would rather go to Mr Cooper’s office,’ Mandy said, then tried to make a joke of it. ‘I doubt my father will invite me to luncheon with him.’ She sat down, struck by a sudden thought. ‘I have never seen him up close. Aunt, did he ever lay eyes on me?’
‘I can’t recall a time,’ Aunt Sal replied. She fixed a critical eye on Mandy. ‘I wouldn’t wear Sunday best, but perhaps your deep-green wool and my lace collar will do.’
Mandy changed clothes, her eye on the clock. The simple riband she usually wore to pull back her hair would have to do. She looked down at her shoes that peeped from under her ankle-length dress, grateful she had blacked them two days ago, when she was desperate to keep busy so she would not think about kissing the sailing master. It hadn’t worked, but at least her two pairs of shoes shone.
Her aunt attached the knitted lace collar with a simple gold bar pin. She indicated that Mandy should turn around so she did, revolving slowly.
‘I believe you will do, my love,’ her aunt said. ‘Hold your head up. Use my woollen shawl. Heaven knows it only goes to church on Sundays. This will be an outing.’ She settled Mandy’s winter hat square on her head.
‘I don’t even remember when you grew up,’ Aunt Sal said. ‘Could it be only yesterday?’
‘I grew up quite a few years ago, Aunt,’ Mandy teased. ‘You know very well that I will be twenty-seven soon.’ She fingered the fringe on her aunt’s shawl. ‘With the money—let’s think about a little holiday at Brighton this summer. We can close the Rose for a week and visit the seashore.’ She recognised Aunt Sal’s worry frown. ‘We’ll be frugal. We have never had a holiday. We are long overdue.’
Mandy took a deep breath and started for Walthan Manor. The morning mist had broken up enough for weak sunshine to lighten the normally gloomy December. Soon she would have to hunt the wild holly and ask the butcher prettily for some of the ivy on his house. She had finished the stockings she had knitted for Aunt Sal, useful stockings. She had wrapped them in silvery paper the vicar’s wife had found in the back of a drawer.
Mandy wished she had something for the sailing master. If she hurried, she could knit him stockings, too, because stockings weren’t a brazen gift. Maybe he would think of her upon occasion. She knew she would never forget him.
Her courage nearly failed her at the long row of trees, with Walthan Manor at the far end. The leaves were gone now and no one had raked them into piles for burning yet, which suited her. She left the drive and walked through the leaves, enjoying the rustle and remembering leafy piles in the vicar’s yard. He had never minded when she stomped through the church leaves, because Mandy’s Rose had only three windows and two storeys in a row of buildings. There were no leaves to run through, so he had shared all of God’s leaves at St Luke’s with one of his young parishioners.
I could never leave Venable, she told herself, her heart full. There would never be a reason to, which suited her. Why she sighed just then puzzled her. Maybe Brighton this summer would be the perfect antidote for the sudden melancholy that flapped around her like vultures around the knacker’s yard.
The dry crackle kept her company all the way to the gravel half-moon driveway that fronted the manor. She had never been so close before and she sighed with the loveliness of the grey stone and white-framed windows. Certainly there must be grander estates in Devonshire, but this was so elegant, despite the small-minded people that lived within. She looked at the ground-floor windows and saw the sailing master looking back at her, his hands behind his back. On a whim she regretted immediately, she blew him a kiss. He was far too dignified to do anything of the sort in return, but his head went back in what she knew was silent laughter. Obviously her half-brother was in the room, probably sweating over charting a course.
She knocked and the door was opened immediately by a grand personage that might even be the butler, although something told Mandy that the butler himself wouldn’t open a door for her. At least the man bowed her in and didn’t tell her to find the servants’ entrance. Whether the supercilious look on his face was worth one hundred pounds, she couldn’t have said. Think of Brighton in summer, she reminded herself. Aunt Sal deserves a holiday.
With a motion of his hand, he indicated she was to follow him down the hall. He didn’t slow his pace, so she hurried to keep up.
Mandy stopped for a moment at the grand staircase, because a young woman had started down from the floor above. She hadn’t seen her half-sister Violet in several years, not since the time Violet and Lady Kelso stopped in Mandy’s Rose for tea. She wanted to say hello, but there was nothing in the look Violet gave her that suggested she would respond. Two London Seasons, Mandy thought, feeling suddenly sorry for the young lady who glared at her down a nose too long, in a face designed by a committee.
The servant Mandy decided was a footman opened the door and she entered a small room lined with ledgers and a desk so cluttered that it lacked any evidence of a wooden surface. There sat her father.
She had seen him a time or two from the dining room window of Mandy’s Rose, once on horseback, but generally in a barouche in warm weather and a chaise in winter. The years had not been gentle to his features. His red complexion suggested he drank too much, as did the myriad of broken blood vessels on his nose.
The nose was familiar; she looked at it when she gazed in the mirror: a little long for general purposes, but thankfully not as long as his other daughter’s nose. Beyond that, she saw little resemblance.
Elbow on the desk, his chin in his hand, Lord Kelso appeared to be studying her, too, perhaps looking for a resemblance to the young woman he had loved so many years ago. Mandy knew she bore a pleasing likeness to the miniature that Aunt Sal kept on her bedside.
‘My lord?’ she asked, when the silence continued too long.
Mr Cooper was on his feet. He took her hand and led her to the chair beside him, squeezing her fingers to either calm her or warn her. She could not overlook his serious expression and vowed to make this interview brief. The air seemed charged with unease.
The silence continued. Mandy leaned forward, ready to rise if no one said anything. Glancing at the solicitor’s deep frown line between his eyes did nothing to reassure her.
After a put-upon sigh from the earl, Mr Copper cleared his throat. ‘Miss Mathison, you are no doubt aware of the codicil to your…grandfather’s will that the sailing master found.’
‘Yes, sir. Master Muir told me about it and took me to see the vicar, who had witnessed the codicil. Reverend Winslow explained the ma—’
‘A damned nuisance,’ the earl said, glaring at her.
‘It is the law,’ Mr Cooper said with firmness. He looked at Mandy. ‘Lord Kelso has agreed to the hundred pounds.’
She nodded, afraid to speak because she saw the warning in the kindly man’s eyes. In her mind, I should leave, warred with, I’m no coward.
With a great show of ostentation, Lord Kelso rummaged on the desk and finally picked up the document right on top. ‘Pay close attention. “Lord Kelso, James Thomas Edwards Walthan, earl, agrees to pay Amanda Mathison, his daughter, one hundred pounds, at the rate of five pounds annually for the next twenty years, if she will come to Walthan Manor and petition for it.” Sign here.’
Mandy’s mouth went dry. She swallowed and blinked back tears at the humiliation.
‘My lord, what did I ever do to you to deserve this?’ Her own words startled her, even as she started to rise, eager to leave the presence of a man who was no father at all.
‘Sit down!’ he shouted and slammed his hand on the desk, which only caused the inkwell to tip over. He stared at the spreading stain, his face as pale as milk, then changing to an unhealthy brick red.
‘I will not sign anything so humiliating. Good day to you.’
Her eyes cloudy with tears, she turned towards the door, only to see Ben Muir standing there, Thomas Walthan looking over his shoulder, his mouth open. ‘Please move aside, Ben,’ she said.
‘No.’
The sailing master’s eyes were mere slits and his cheeks alive with colour. ‘Lord Kelso, you are going to make this kind lady crawl to you each year for five pounds?’
‘The codicil does not say how I have to deliver her…inheritance.’ The earl spat out the word.
‘What…? Father, what is going on?’ the midshipman asked.
‘Oh, don’t…please don’t,’ she whispered to Ben, when the realisation dawned that her half-brother probably had no idea of their relationship, if he even knew who she was.
Ben took her arm, even as she tried to pull away and get to that door that looked miles away. ‘Thomas, let me introduce your half-sister, Amanda Mathison.’
‘Please, no, Ben!’
‘You’re bamming me,’ Tom said and started to laugh.
When no one else laughed, he stopped.
‘Your father married my mother over the anvil in Gretna Green,’ Mandy said, since there was no retreat now. She shook off Ben’s hand and moved closer to the door. ‘Your grandfather annulled it.’ She looked at her father, terrified at what she saw. His choler had been replaced by something worse—a cold stare that turned his eyes into specks of granite. ‘Believe me, Lord Kelso, I had nothing to do with any of this.’
She couldn’t help herself in the face of her sudden anger, anger building over the years without her even aware of its breadth and depth. She pointed a finger at her chest. ‘I was the baby! None of this was my fault!’ She took quick strides to the desk and slammed her hands down, too, in perfect imitation of her father. ‘I wouldn’t take even a ha’pence from you now, you vile man. I hope you choke on your wealth.’
She ran from the room, snatching up her cloak from the astonished footman and taking the front steps in one leap. She pounded along the lane. The wind had picked up, banishing the few leaves still clinging to the elms. The unfairness of the situation washed over her, drenching her with shame at actions not of her own making and sorrow for Thomas, of all people. He had no skill for mathematics and no interest in the career his father must have chosen for him. And now he had learned that he was brother to a woman who served people at Mandy’s Rose.
With any luck, she could get all the way home before Ben came after her, as she knew he would. She ran across the field, taking a roundabout route that he didn’t know. You have made my life immeasurably more difficult, she thought. What told her that, she couldn’t have said, but she knew it.
Mandy stopped, breathing hard, dreading what she would have to tell Aunt Sal. There wouldn’t be any little holiday to Brighton, as modest as it would have been. There would be no momentary easing of her dear aunt’s life of constant work. Maybe that was the lesson, she decided. Depend on no one, and for God’s sake, never count chickens before they are hatched.
The sailing master had paid six shillings for three weeks. As little as she knew her father, Mandy knew he would not keep the sailing master near his son, even if it improved Tom’s chance of passing his lieutenancy exam. Ben would want some of his shillings back, before he returned to Plymouth, or wherever he had a mind to go. She couldn’t help the tears that filled her eyes.
Mandy started walking, her chin up, the same way she had walked towards Walthan Manor. She slowed down even more, not eager to face her aunt. Her plans for a pleasant Christmas had evaporated. Whatever his motives—and she was not inclined to extend her surprising charity from Thomas to their father—Lord Kelso had reminded her of her own insignificance in cruel fashion.
‘What will happen now?’ she asked the geese high overhead, the last stragglers from the north of Scotland, bound for Spain or North Africa. ‘Take me with you, please.’
‘Can this nonsense possibly be true?’ Thomas asked, his eyes unpleasantly pop-eyed. ‘Really, Father.’
‘Yes, it’s true,’ Lord Kelso snapped. He looked at Mr Cooper, who returned his levelling gaze. ‘I made my offer and she has refused.’
You really are a bastard, Ben thought, disgusted. ‘I am done here,’ he said quietly, appalled at the scene he had witnessed and full of sudden dread for Amanda, a woman he admired. Oh, hang it—the woman he loved. He doubted supremely that she would ever speak to him again. By blurting out Amanda’s relationship to Thomas, he had muddied the waters beyond repair. Only a foolish woman would take him now and he knew Amanda Mathison was not foolish.
‘I won’t pay you a pence,’ Lord Kelso said. ‘For all I know, it’s your fault that he cannot pass the stupid mathematics test! Why should this be a requirement, anyway? My son is Quality and you are less than nothing.’
Ben heard Mr Cooper’s sudden intake of breath. There was far more at stake than his pride, however much the earl might wound it. The last thing Ben’s beloved navy needed was one more nincompoop with gold lace and epaulettes. He took a deep breath, trying to frame his thoughts carefully, because he knew every word out of his mouth would make Amanda’s life more difficult.
‘My lord, every midshipman must pass a test detailing his knowledge of navigation. He must also sit before a board of four captains or ranks above, who ask a series of questions, all for the good of the service.’ Ben spoke softly, even as he edged towards the door. Lord Kelso seemed a simple sort of spoiled man. Maybe out of sight, out of mind would ease Amanda’s way.
But he couldn’t stop yet, not for the good of the service. He turned his attention to his unwilling pupil, who still needed to think about his own future. ‘Thomas, think this through.’ Ben hoped his words didn’t come across as bare pleading and then he didn’t care. ‘I have seen too many good men dead because of foolishness on the quarterdeck.’
‘How dare you?’ Lord Kelso stormed. ‘I will talk to the Lords Admiral about you! We’ll see how long you remain in the Royal Navy!’
Ben shrugged, in no mood for another moment in such a poisonous place. No wonder Thomas was a weak excuse for a midshipman. He turned on his heel and left. He took his time gathering up his charts and navigation tools, certain that Amanda would be long gone.
He was right. She was nowhere in sight. Ben walked down the lane, head bowed against the wind. On the way through the village, he stopped at the posting house and enquired about the fare to Kirkcudbright. He couldn’t face Plymouth right now—Plymouth and more duty, endless duty—and a return to the blockade. His plans for Christmas had settled around his ankles like trousers with no braces to hold them up. For the first time in years, probably since he had received a year-old letter telling him of the death of his mother, Ben Muir, senior warrant officer on one of His Majesty’s frigates, was desperate to go home.
He sat a long while in the kitchen of Mandy’s Rose, sipping tea with Sally Mathison. With sad eyes, she listened to his version of the events in Lord Kelso’s book room and the shame on her niece’s face.
‘Mandy told me as much,’ she said when he finished his recitation, and poured more tea for them both.
‘I would like to speak to her,’ he asked. ‘Apologise, at the very least. Lord knows I made a muddle of the whole business.’
It was Sal’s turn to look uncomfortable. ‘She told me she would rather be alone. Let’s give her the evening off and all should be better tomorrow.’ She passed him a plate of biscuits. ‘Besides, what can Lord Kelso do, except fume and froth?’ She gave him a worried glance. ‘Do you fear for your own career?’
‘Oh, no,’ he assured her. He looked down at his cup, wishing absurdly that he could read tea leaves and have a medium tell him his own future. ‘It’s just… Miss Mathison, would you be surprised if I thought I was in love with your niece?’
She gave him a genuine smile. ‘I’d be astounded if you weren’t.’
‘It’s out of the question, I know, but…’
‘Why do you say that?’
She caught him by surprise. ‘I am thirty-one,’ he said, casting about for a good reason.
‘Mandy is twenty-six.’
‘I’ll be gone all the time, until Napoleon decides to end this war, and he shows no such inclination.’ Even to his own ears, it sounded like a weak argument.
‘She has ever been a resourceful child,’ said the lady who had raised the woman he adored. ‘Mandy would be lonely, but she would manage. You would get amazingly wonderful letters.’
Why that made him blush, Ben couldn’t have told a roomful of Mr Coopers, or even a chief magistrate. He stood up. ‘Some things are not meant to be,’ he told her.
‘Why?’ she asked so quietly.
‘What man in his right mind would marry, when the prospect of death in battle is so high aboard each Royal Navy vessel that plies the waters?’ There. That should do it.
‘Oh, I expect that a man who loves a lady would do precisely that,’ Sal replied, as calmly as you please. ‘P’raps it’s better this way, since you have no respect for the bravery of women in general and my niece in particular. Good day to you, Master Muir.’
She had him, even as he cringed inside at the complete truth of her words. ‘I’ll be leaving in the morning.’
Ben ate dinner in silence, wishing with all his heart that Amanda would come down the stairs. She did nothing of the sort and his forebodings grew. He knew how poorly he had shown himself to Sally Mathison, probably the one person that Amanda would believe. He had a greater worry. He had met vindictive men before and he feared what Lord Kelso might do.
By the time he went to bed, he had convinced himself that his fears were unfounded. After all, what else could Lord Kelso do? Ben packed his clothes, took a long look at The Science of Nautical Mathematics, still untouched, then lay down to compose himself for sleep that he knew would not come.
He stared at the ceiling all night. In the morning, he got up, washed and shaved in cold water and dressed. He had already told Sal that he was leaving on the northbound mail coach before dawn and just to leave a pasty for him.
His timepiece told him that he had better hurry. He opened the door to his room to let himself out quietly and there stood Amanda in her nightgown and shawl.
He exclaimed something because she had startled him, but she didn’t step back. Without a word, she put her hands up on his shoulders, which made him stoop a little.
She kissed one cheek and then the other. ‘God keep you, Ben Muir,’ she whispered, her eyes on Aunt Sal’s closed door. ‘I was a ninny yesterday and I apologise.’
‘I am the fool,’ he contradicted.
‘Bother it,’ she whispered and kissed him again.
He picked her up and kissed her back, then set her down. Her body pressed against his had given him a bigger jolt, but he had to hurry to the mail coach. He touched her nose, which made her sob, then put her hand to her mouth to stifle it. Unsure of himself, he who was self-assured in every aspect of naval operations, he went down the stairs quietly.
He turned back to look up at her, wanting to declare himself, wanting to propose to her, wanting to tell her the deepest feelings of his heart. A realist, he knew he could do none of those and still catch the mail coach, so he remained silent. No, not a realist; a coward.
‘Wait a moment.’
Miserable, Ben stood still in the darkness of the hall that led into the dining room.
‘Catch.’
He held out his hand as the love of his heart, the mother of children he would never have, tossed something soft to him.
‘I only had time to knit you one stocking,’ she whispered, ‘so it’s a poor kind of Christmas. Perhaps one is better than none.’
With that, she blew him a kiss and disappeared back into the upper-floor gloom. He heard another stifled sob and then a door close on every one of the expectations he hadn’t known he possessed, until he went to Venable to tutor a miserable excuse for a midshipman.
He tucked the stocking into his uniform front and let himself out Mandy’s Rose for the last time.
He had forgotten the pasty, so he bought pasteboard and lint at the posting house and ate that instead. As he chewed and swallowed doggedly, he wondered if there was a more cowardly man in all of England. Someone else would make her a good offer some day. Besides, he didn’t even know how to propose marriage.
He would have managed quite well, if the mail coach hadn’t passed Mandy’s Rose on its journey to take him briefly to Plymouth, and a change of coach onto the Great North Road. He should have known better than to look out the window.
There Amanda stood in the rain, that shawl still clutched tight around her nightgown, her feet bare. She locked her eyes on to his and he could have died with the pain in his heart.
‘Shameful, forward piece,’ said the woman seated next to him. ‘She’ll come to no good end.’
Ben closed his eyes in perfect agony.
Aunt Sal scolded her for standing in the rain, but Mandy could tell her heart wasn’t in it. She let her aunt lead her upstairs, strip off her wet nightgown and towel her dry, then wrap her tight in that towel and hold her close.
Neither of them spoke. Sal finally turned to the door. ‘Get dressed, missy,’ she said. ‘We have a lot of work to do today and we have Christmas plans.’
Mandy stared at the closed door for a long time, then did as her aunt had dictated. She had wasted a whole day yesterday. Breakfast seemed like a burden, so she shook her head over pasties when she came downstairs.
‘Amanda Mathison.’
Mandy looked up, startled, as her dearest aunt took her chin firmly in her hand and gave her a shake. Wounded at ill treatment, she let Aunt Sal slap that pasty in her hand and obeyed her command to eat. She had the hardest time swallowing around the lump in her throat, but she managed because Aunt Sal expected her to manage.
‘Aunt Sal, why didn’t he declare himself?’ she asked finally, when she knew she wasn’t going to cry. ‘I believe he cared for me.’
‘He more than cared for you,’ Sal said finally. She hadn’t eaten, but there seemed to be an impediment in her throat, too.
‘Doesn’t he understand that the man has to do the asking?’
Aunt Sal seemed to consider the question. ‘Perhaps he didn’t know how to declare himself,’ she said. ‘I doubt anyone teaches that in the Royal Navy, and didn’t he say a ship has been his home since he was thirteen? And there’s a war to consider. He probably convinced himself he was sparing you.’
‘That is utter nonsense,’ Mandy said, and her aunt nodded.
They sat close together in silence, just breathing in and out, probably what women had done since for ever, when matters went contrary to desires.
‘Will I recover?’ Mandy asked finally. ‘We didn’t do anything to regret.’
‘I almost wish you had,’ her aunt whispered.
‘Aunt!’ Mandy put her hands to her face. ‘I wanted to, oh, I did.’ Miserable beyond words, she looked up as the morning light changed. The rain had changed into snow. She sat there and watched the snow fall, covering ugly woodpiles and ash heaps. If only there were such a remedy to disguise a broken heart.
Mandy folded her hands in her lap. You can survive Ben Muir, she told herself. Look at Aunt Sal. She never married. Look how well she has done.
She looked at Aunt Sal, shocked to see tears on her cheeks. She wondered if, years ago, there had been a Ben Muir for her aunt. She put out her hand and clutched her aunt’s balled fist. We’ll just sit here and breathe, she thought.
Just breathing never paid a single bill, so Mandy turned the horrible day into a usual day, with work and diners who expected her good cheer and happy commentary. By the time the last dish of the evening was dried and the dough set for tomorrow’s bread, Mandy knew she could manage.
She wasn’t so certain next morning, when everything fell apart with an official-looking document delivered by Mr Cooper, more solemn than she had ever seen him. She wanted to offer him some refreshment, but she accepted the blue-sheathed document instead, with Sal Mathison, Mandy’s Rose, Venable, Devon, written in plain script.
Sal had come into the dining room, wiping her hands and ready to chat with Mr Cooper. She stared at the paper in Mandy’s hand, then took it. Her face went white and she dropped the document. Mandy picked it up and read without permission. She read it again, then looked at Mr Cooper’s equally stricken face.
‘He can do this?’ she asked.
‘He can and did.’ The solicitor took the pages from her slack grip. ‘He has entered into verbal agreement with your landlord to purchase this row of buildings for the sum of three hundred pounds.’ His voice shook with emotion. ‘You will be gone by December the twenty-fourth, 1810.’
Sal burst into tears and buried her face in her apron. Mandy watched her in horror, beyond tears because she had already shed all the tears in the entire universe last night in her bedroom. There weren’t any more, so she did not cry.
‘Do you have any money at all?’ Mr Cooper asked.
Mandy knew the books as well as her weeping aunt. She shook her head. ‘Nothing beyond fifty pounds,’ she said. ‘How…?’
Mr Cooper paced the room, his rage evident with each step he took. ‘Lord Kelso paid a visit to Mr Pickering. You know how foggy the dear old man is! I doubt Mr Pickering has any idea what he has done.’
‘Has any money changed hands yet?’ Mandy asked.
‘No, but Mr Pickering gave his word and I have been charged to draw up the papers, to be signed as quickly as possible. Mandy, I cannot tell you how sorry I am.’
He let himself out of the tea room and Mandy held her aunt close. A wave of anger passed over her as she remembered the scene in the book room—from her father’s indignation, to her half-brother’s stupefaction, to Ben Muir’s fury and his ill-timed revelation to Thomas Walthan. She thought forgetting Ben Muir might suddenly become much easier. She could blame this mess on him, except that she couldn’t. After all, who had refused the terms of the codicil and stormed out of the room?
So much blame: if Lord Kelso had been a stronger man, he could have resisted old Lord Kelso’s decision to annul that Scottish wedding so many years ago. If the old earl hadn’t experienced some change of heart through the years, he would never have altered his will and raised even miniscule hopes. If Ben Muir hadn’t been looking in Euclid’s Elements he never would have found that scrap of paper and given the damned thing to Mr Cooper. If she had accepted her father’s humiliating terms, the matter would have rested, with her half-brother none the wiser.
Without a word, she helped her sobbing aunt upstairs and set to work by herself. When the first diners arrived, Aunt Sal had joined her in the kitchen, her eyes red-rimmed and her lips pinched, but her fingers as sure as ever as she chopped and diced. Her love for her aunt nearly took Mandy’s breath away. They were in this mess together.
Mandy was almost on time to choir practice, even though she had to run. She slipped and slid along the snow-covered path, yearning for Ben Muir’s steady hand. She knew she would be late, but Aunt Sal lost all strength after the last dinner guest left. She helped her aunt upstairs to bed again, told the dishes just to rest for a while in the dishwater and hurried to church.
She paused inside the chapel door to catch her breath. ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’ calmed her heart, even though she missed Ben Muir’s commanding second tenor, that voice he had assured her was only half the size of his voice in battle when his crew manoeuvred the Albemarle close to enemy guns and he kept his ship trim through turmoil she couldn’t imagine.
* * *
When the rehearsal ended, Mandy remained. The wind blew cold as the other choir members opened and closed the door. She likened the cold wind to the disaster soon to envelop Mandy’s Rose and knocked on the vicar’s study door.
Reverend Winslow didn’t seem surprised to see her. She saw the worry on his face and knew that Mr Cooper must have whispered something to him during the rehearsal. She told him everything.
The vicar paced the room much like Mr Cooper that morning. ‘Christmas Eve?’ he asked. She knew he had heard her, but she also understood his disbelief. Her disbelief had faded more quickly, but Mandy was only beginning to appreciate her own courage.
‘I fear so,’ she told him. ‘Sir, do you know of anyone in Venable who could use a cook and an assistant?’
His tear-filled eyes dismayed her, but she kept her gaze clear. She had already cried every tear, but she wanted advice. ‘I need you to think of something,’ she said. ‘Please help us.’
Her quiet words seemed to brace him. ‘Mrs Winslow and I need a cook and an assistant,’ he said, after long thought. ‘Her joint ache is growing worse by the day and you know how busy I am.’
She nodded. ‘You needn’t pay us.’
‘We can’t afford to,’ he said with real apology in his voice and not a little shame. His expression hardened and, for just a moment, he was an angry man and not a servant of the Church of England.
Mandy shook her head. ‘We’ll cook for you this winter, and maybe by spring we’ll think of something else.’ What, she couldn’t imagine, but her own grief hadn’t driven away all her optimism.
He gave her a searching look then. ‘Would you consider writing a letter to Master Muir? He might take an interest.’
She had mulled over the matter for a long time that afternoon, then tucked it away. ‘I’m not the brazen sort,’ she said. ‘I have no leave to write him a letter.’
Reverend Winslow nodded. ‘Just a thought.’ His slight smile died on his lips. ‘I doubt the Royal Navy pays sailing masters much, if he took a tutoring job with Thomas Walthan.’
He stood up as the clock chimed nine. It was time for Mandy to hurry home and lie in bed wide awake for another night.
‘Perhaps you and your aunt could come here before Christmas Eve.’ Anger gleamed in the vicar’s eyes again, plus something else, a stubbornness she had never noticed before. Evidently vicars were not perfect, either. ‘Let’s not give Lord Kelso the satisfaction of ordering the magistrate to evict you. There’s room here for you to store whatever you wish. I’ll send round a note to some of my able-bodied parishioners and we’ll move the matter along.’
She gave her vicar the bob of a curtsy, feeling a weight leave her shoulders. Perhaps they could avoid the poorhouse, after all. Her heart full, she left the vicarage, relieved to have good news for Aunt Sal. It is good news, she thought, as she walked with her eyes down, since snow was falling again. Perhaps not as good as we would like, but better than destitution.
She stopped by the bench where she and Ben had sat so close together. She brushed aside the snow and sat there again. She closed her eyes, thinking of what Christmas catering they could complete before Mandy’s Rose closed forever.
Her heart nearly failed her at the thought of all the cooking equipment and furniture to pack and store in the shed behind the vicarage. If they could hold an auction, they might be able to eke out a few weeks or months of independence. Someone else would have to represent her and Aunt Sal, if there was an auction. The idea of watching her life and livelihood selling to the highest bidder was harsh and wrong. Her father would get what he wished—they would have to leave Venable and try their fortunes somewhere else, never to embarrass him again.
Maybe Christmas truly was the season of forgiveness. As she sat there, Mandy began to feel sorry for Ben Muir, instead of distressed at him. If happiness with a tired and wrung-out but immensely capable sailing master had come to nothing, well, no one ever died of a broken heart.
‘I will keep Christmas,’ she whispered to the falling snow. She decided to knit that other sock and mail it care of the Albemarle in Plymouth. ‘I am better off than many.’
