Greetings of the Season and Other Stories (18 page)

So they bundled up in their warmest hats and Lady Selcrest’s new mittens, with hot bricks at their feet and heavy blankets over their laps. The rest of the sleigh was filled with baskets and boxes of roast goose and ham, a baron of beef, pies and punch and marzipan angels. The sturdy farm horses pulled the sleigh effortlessly, bells jingling, ribbons streaming from their harnesses.

The countryside was like a Christmas painting. No, Johna thought, it was like a magical glass snow globe that someone had shaken, with swirls and shadows and stars peeking through the clouds. She was sorry when they arrived so soon at a stone building set off the path. The structure was small but solidly built, with lights pouring from all three stories and an enormous wreath on the door.

“What is this place, Merle?”

“I’m not quite certain yet,” he said, lifting her out of the sleigh. “The Otis Ogden Home for Unwed Mothers? Hutchison Hospital? You’ll have to decide. I was hoping you’d select Lady Selcrest’s Girls’ School.”

The door was opened and Johna could see Lorraine and Kitty and a much expanded Mimi shepherding a flock of nightgowned moppets up the stairs, laughing and singing Christmas carols.

“You did this, for me?” she asked, standing in the hallway.

“Don’t you know I would do anything for you, my lady?” He unwrapped the muffler from around her neck. “But I did have help. Do you remember those gambling chits you were going to burn? Those chaps were so pleased to be out of Sir Otis’s clutches that they all decided to contribute to the maintenance of this place.”

“With a little persuasion?” Her heart was so full, Johna could have wept, if she weren’t surrounded by the children and the women. They were all talking at once, exclaiming over the baskets of food, explaining how they were learning to sew and cook and read—with real teachers, too. They could go into service or make good housewives, Mimi said, eyeing the viscount’s tiger, who was helping unpack the sleigh.

“So you better let him make an honest woman out of you, my lady,” Lorraine teased with a wink and a nod. “We’re counting on you for references, don’t you know.”

*

“One more surprise,” Merle told her when they were back at his home. By chance and by Merle’s maneuvering, she was standing under the mistletoe bough. So he kissed her. It was but a moment’s work to warm their cold lips, faster than the wassail could have done.

Johna’s thoughts went flying like the snow in the glass globe; they always did when he kissed her. And her toes were tingling. Eventually she recalled herself enough to say, “No, you’ve done enough. Truly, that house for the girls is the best present I could ever receive.”

“Then this one is for me.” He left, to return in a minute with a silver tray on which reposed a magnificent Christmas pudding.

“Oh, no, I never want to taste another spoonful of pudding!”

“You’ll like this one, I swear. I didn’t cook it but I prepared it myself, just for you.” Merle was having trouble, cutting the pudding. The knife kept hitting things.

“What in the world, did you put in that pudding?”

He handed her the knife. “Here, you try slicing it.”

So Johna pressed down with the blade, and a ring fell out, then another. With her next cut, more tumbled onto the plate or rolled to the floor with the nuts and candied fruits. Rings and tiny keys and little boats and coins and crumbs—but mostly rings.

“And this one goes with them.” Merle reached in his pocket for a velvet pouch, and removed a diamond-and-ruby ring. “Will you marry me, my dearest Johna, and make me the happiest of men? I’m not asking out of duty or to fulfill any notion of propriety. You’ve given me the gift of knowing there are so many things that are more important than maintaining my dignity. Your love is the most important of all, the finest Christmas present I can imagine.”

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,
g
rated, 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 budget. 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?”