Circled Heart (31 page)

Despite Jennie’s subdued behavior and appearance, her parents clearly enjoyed themselves. Uncle Hal indulged in more sherry than he probably should have, but he became more amiable and sentimental each time he refilled his glass. Aunt Kitty was full of information about the upcoming wedding. I recognized a happiness in her voice I’d never heard before and a certain relief, too. She could finally stop worrying about Jennie once her daughter was in the care of a willing husband who met Aunt Kitty’s requirements of a prominent family and suitable wealth. If she noticed that Jennie was quieter than usual and too pale, her comments led me to believe she thought it was wedding jitters.

“Every bride gets nervous,” she said kindly, patting Jennie’s hand, “but Jennie knows how very fortunate she is.”

“I hope Carl realizes his good fortune, too,” I interjected, “because Jennie’s a jewel. It’s not a one-sided arrangement and she doesn’t have to be grateful for being the chosen one.” As soon as I spoke, I wished I hadn’t because Aunt Kitty’s good humor disappeared into a frown.

“That’s not at all what I meant.”

“I know you didn’t, Aunt Kitty. I’m sorry. The words didn’t come out as I intended. Please forgive me.”

My quick apology so took my aunt by surprise that she was momentarily speechless. Then she rallied to say graciously, “Of course, Johanna. You’ve been with foreigners and out of polite company for nearly two years, and one’s social skills can be diminished when they’re not practiced regularly.”

I swallowed a laugh, turned it into a cough, and when I was sure my voice was steady, replied, “That’s true, Aunt. I do seem to have forgotten some of the nuances connected to social success. It’s a good thing we’re only family tonight.”

“And Mr. Gallagher,” Aunt Kitty replied, giving Drew what, for her, was a kind and inclusive look. Evidently he was on her short list of approved persons.

“Ah, yes, of course.” I knew the exchange had amused him and kept my tone bland. “If anyone understands social nuances, it’s Mr. Gallagher.” Then, to cover the way my heartbeat sped up when he looked at me in the laughing, intimate way he had, I made a tactical but purely unpremeditated error. “Peter, would you mind bringing in the punchbowl from the kitchen? I’m afraid I’ll drop it,” sending Peter into the kitchen and into a temptation he could hardly be expected to resist.

Peter did exactly as I asked and continued to help throughout the evening, carrying items back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room without complaint. Caught up in the warmth of the evening, the fire in the hearth, the glow of candles on mantel and table and because of Drew’s presence happy in a way that made me forgetful of anyone else, I never gave Peter’s eager assistance a thought. Only after we finished eating and sat contentedly around the table did I realize Peter had been gone much longer than it would ordinarily take to carry in the platter of holiday cookies, cakes, and breads that May had spent the last week baking.

The repercussions of Peter’s delayed appearance didn’t dawn on me until Aunt Kitty rose to her feet with unexpected lightness and with a touch of affectionate impatience said, “What could be taking Peter so long? With his sweet tooth, I wouldn’t put it past him to be sampling all the confections first.” I moved to rise, too, and she waved a hand at me. “Sit down, Johanna. If you hadn’t sent Mayville away this evening, we wouldn’t have to wait between courses, but I suppose it was the right thing to do.”

Her tone didn’t suppose that at all, but with a sinking heart I didn’t give a thought to my aunt’s talent for damning with faint praise. All I could think was that she mustn’t be allowed to enter the kitchen unannounced. I pushed back my chair and went after her but knew as soon as I reached the kitchen door that I was too late. She stood immobile in the doorway and when I went up behind her, I saw what had frozen her to the floor. Peter stood defiantly with both arms around Crea, staring at his mother as Crea tried to push herself out of his embrace. For a moment I was as frozen as Aunt Kitty.

“Mrs. McIntyre, it’s not what it appears,” Crea began, tears clearly close to the surface, but when she would have backed away from Peter, he took her arm.

“Don’t, Crea.” No one, not even my aunt in her outraged state, could have mistaken the tenderness in Peter’s tone. To his mother, he stated calmly, “It’s exactly what it appears, Mother. Exactly. I love Crea, and I’ve been asking her all evening to allow me to publicly pay my regards to her.” When his mother still did not speak, he went on, “I wish you’d try to know and love her as I do, but if that’s not possible, it doesn’t matter. If she’ll have me, I intend to marry Crea O’Rourke someday.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll have you.” Aunt Kitty found her voice, so much scorn and loathing in her tone that I saw Crea flinch. “No doubt it’s the culmination of all her well-laid plans. Her kind of woman knows what to use to appeal to an uninitiated boy like you.”

“Mother, don’t say—”

“Really, Peter, young men sow their wild oats but they don’t marry them.” To Crea, she asked, “How much do you want? I hope you’re not foolish enough to believe there will ever be a wedding because I assure you there won’t. I guarantee it. Within reason, we’ll pay you to go away. I have plans for my son that don’t include bringing an Irish whore into the family.”

“Aunt Kitty, stop,” I said. “You’ll be sorry if you go any further.”

She turned to me, her face close to mine but still raising her voice so that it must surely be heard in the dining room. “This is your fault. You and your progressive ideas. No one’s ever wanted to discipline you or tell you your faults to your face because the fact that your parents were dead afforded you some special privilege. Do you think I don’t know what kind of women frequent that place where you work? What good can it possibly serve to bring that kind of woman into our world? What purpose but to fulfill your selfish and undisciplined sense of superiority?” My aunt was furious, her words brittle and distinct and as slashing in their own way as the knives used to murder my parents.

Uncle Hal, coming up behind me, must have figured out the situation from the motionless tableau of Peter and Crea and from his wife’s words carrying into the dining room. “Kitty, enough. You’re making a scene.” I had never heard him speak to her so sternly.

“I’m making a scene? What do you think that is?” She flung out a hand toward Crea, who finally broke free from Peter’s touch. Without a word or glance our way, Crea headed for the doorway that led through the pantry and to the back stairs.

When Peter started after her, his father said, as sternly as he had spoken to his wife, “Not now, Peter. You have upset your mother and you owe her an apology.”

“When she apologizes to Crea or when hell freezes over, whichever comes first,” responded my usually even-tempered cousin, who then shouldered his way past us, stomped into the hallway, and eventually exited the house, slamming the front door behind him. At the sound my aunt gave me a look with enough poison in it to kill before straightening her collar with hands that trembled.

“I wish to go home.” She lifted her skirts, apparently certain they would be soiled by any contact with me. “Now.” Jennie and Drew, who stood behind Uncle Hal, parted for her as the Red Sea must have done for Moses. “Come along, Jennie.”

Jennie opened her mouth to argue, met her father’s look, and meekly fell in step behind Uncle Hal without a word.

“You may explain to Mother what happened here, Johanna, because I’m damned if I know.” That said, Uncle Hal followed Jennie out into the hallway and proceeded to help his wife and his daughter on with their coats, the scene made bizarre by the complete absence of word or sound on anyone’s part. After the door closed behind them—no slam this time but only a hushed click of the latch—I looked at Drew standing in the shadows of the hallway. In the silence I heard the rap of Grandmother’s cane on the floor as she stepped into the hallway, too, the three of us arranged in an uneven triangle.

“What happened, Johanna?” she asked. I told her in as few words as possible.

“I’ve never seen Aunt Kitty that beside herself or Peter either. I didn’t know what to do.” I paused, then added in a rush, “If it was my fault, I’m sorry. I didn’t intend or plan such a thing.”

“You never do, Johanna, but chaos seems to follow you nevertheless.”

“Why is it my fault that my cousin is in love and my aunt hates me?” Grandmother gave me a chiding look, giving the distinct impression that the question was unworthy of me.

“I never said it was your fault. It isn’t about fault and it isn’t about you.” Then in a quiet voice she added, “Poor Kitty.”

“Poor Crea, you mean,” I retorted. “She was more of a victim than anyone else in that nasty scene. This is 1912, not 1812, Grandmother. We’re past the poor scullery maid warming herself over leftover coals and bowing to the master of the house. It’s a different world now.” Grandmother held up a hand.

“Not really as different a world as you like to think, Johanna, nor ever will be as far as I’m concerned, but never mind. I hope I’m wrong about that.” She gave Drew an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry that you were exposed to the dark side of our family, Mr. Gallagher. It’s not always so. Sometimes we all manage to coexist quite amicably.”

“Don’t give it a thought, Mrs. McIntyre. Compared to some scenes I’ve had the misfortune to witness, this was innocuous. I hardly noticed anything out of order.”

“You are a man of true diplomacy. If you ever decide to take up a career in political service, I volunteer to write you an endorsement. Johanna will have to see you out. I am fatigued and ready for bed. Good night.” When I went forward to help her up the stairs, she brushed me away. “I may be slower than I used to be, but I am still capable of seeing myself to my own room.” She placed a foot on the bottom step and reached to grasp the banister when I heard Crea’s soft tread on the stairs.

“Let me help you, Mrs. McIntyre,” Crea offered. She looked remarkably composed, her expression suggesting that she was the recipient of vitriol on a regular basis but had grown so accustomed to it that she could afford to be nonchalant. Where she had refused my help, Grandmother smiled, propped her cane against the hall table, and reached out a hand to take Crea’s arm.

“Thank you, my dear.” Wordlessly I watched the two of them make their slow but steady way up the staircase and then turned to find Drew watching me.

“I feel this was all my fault,” I admitted miserably, “but I still don’t know what I did that was wrong. Crea’s my friend and I like her. I honestly don’t understand why her past or her nationality should matter so much. Do you?” When he didn’t answer, I sighed. “Poor Drew. Were you anticipating carols at the piano and chestnuts roasting over the hearth fire? We aren’t exactly the Cratchets.” Drew laughed aloud at that and came closer.

“I’ll grant you that.” He put a hand under my chin and lifted my face to his. “Johanna,” he began when we heard banging from the kitchen. Reluctantly I stepped away.

“May must be home. Wait for a moment before you leave, will you?”

“I didn’t plan to leave just yet.” My heart lifted at his words.

“Good. There’s something I want to show you after I check in with Mayville.”

When I returned, Drew had settled comfortably into the chair by the fire, his feet stretched out toward the flames. He looked a question at me as I sank inelegantly into the chair opposite him.

“May doesn’t want my help. She said she wasn’t surprised tempers flared because my presence in the kitchen is always a recipe for disaster. I offered to help clean up, but she ordered me out of the room.”

“A prophet is never respected in her own country,” he responded soberly, forcing me to bite my lip to keep from grinning at him. Drew Gallagher had the ability to find the ridiculous in a situation and make me laugh at myself, a gift not to be underestimated in a world of people who took themselves much too seriously.

“Yes, well, I don’t feel very respectable right now. Just tired and annoyed.”

“Annoyed with—?”

“Myself, I suppose. No, that’s not exactly true. Most annoyed with Aunt Kitty and her precious society that demands a certain breeding and behavior and is so unforgiving. And a little annoyed with myself that I wasn’t paying attention this evening. If I’d been more alert, I might have been able to head off the whole incident.”

“From what little I observed, you would only have postponed the inevitable.”

“I suppose, but I hated ruining Grandmother’s evening.”

“She strikes me as a strong woman. She’ll manage.”

“I know.” We sat in front of the fire quietly until I roused myself and reached for a box on the side table. “Here. I have something for you.” With sudden diffidence, I reached to hand him a small wrapped package.

Instead of taking it from me, he only looked at the present, surprise on his face at first and then suddenly no expression at all. I was reminded of our first meeting and the way he had been briefly immobilized by the unexpected sight of his brother’s jewelry.

“You don’t have to look so suspicious, Drew. I have no ulterior motive. It’s Christmas and presents are a tradition. This is only a memento, anyway, hardly anything to speak of.” He took the little wrapped package from me, his fingers stroking my palm in the process so that I shivered from the contact. “You’re supposed to open it,” I instructed and watched as he tore away the paper to reveal the small leather-bound volume beneath.

“Longfellow.”

“Yes,” I said happily.

I could tell by his expression that he was surprised and pleased and so I was pleased, too. For me that moment crystallized life into something obviously, ridiculously simple. If what I did made Drew Gallagher happy, then I was happy, too. Fatuous and adolescent, perhaps, but true. I felt such a tenderness for him that if I hadn’t looked away and muttered inanities, I might have blurted out much deeper feelings that would have surprised and embarrassed us both.

“His sonnets. The man at the bookstore told me it’s old and rare, the only published edition of just the poet’s sonnets. He said that after publication, Longfellow decided he wanted to include the sonnets in a larger work and tried to recall the earlier small volume but wasn’t entirely successful. This was one of a few books that apparently got away. I hope the story is true, but even it it’s not, the poetry is valid.” I was conscious that I was talking too much and too fast and quieted myself, content to watch Drew’s hands caress the little book, touch the leather binding, turn the pages gently, skim his fingertips over the engraved title on the cover.