Regency Christmas Gifts (4 page)

“
Fearsomely so, madam,” he told her,
pleased to hear the word ‘master’ applied to his name again. “Turn
it over to Beth. What would you do with seven pence?”

Beth didn’t even have to think about it. “I
would buy watercolors,” she said promptly.

You were born to command
, he thought,
amused.
No hesitating there
. “What would you
draw?”

“
Not here, Beth,” her mother said
quietly, then turned away because Suzie and maid had come into the
sitting room with parceled macaroons and cloaks. In another minute
she was drawn into a conversation with his sister.

“
What would you draw?” he whispered
to Beth.

“
I don’t know why she doesn’t want
you to know,” the child whispered back. “We look in store windows
and decide what we want for Christmas. We draw little pictures and
give them to each other for Christmas.” She clapped her hands.
“Think how wonderful our pictures will look if we can color them! I
hope she will let me spend a few pence on that.”

It was a good thing that Mrs. Poole called her
daughter over to help her into her cloak, because Thomas Jenkins,
sailing master hardened through years of war, suddenly found
himself close to tears. A few deep breaths and a surreptitious dab
with his fingers tamped them down, and he was able to walk with
Suzie to the door and wish them Happy Christmas.

When the door closed on their unexpected
guests, he leaned against the panel, trying to control
himself.

Suzie touched his back. “Tom! What on earth is
the matter?”

He took her hand and walked her to the stairs,
where he sat down with a thump. Mystified, she sat beside him. When
he told her what Beth had said, she dissolved in tears. He put his
arm around her and they sat together until the maid returned to
light the lamps.

“
We have to do something to help
them,” he said finally, when he could speak.

Suzie nodded. She blew her nose. “We have to do
it without rousing any suspicions.”

“
How in the world can we do
that?”

“
You’re the smart one,” Suzie told
him, her words ragged. “You had better think of
something.”

“
I will,” he said and tugged her to
her feet. He gave her a little squeeze. “Suzie, I am not bored
now.”

M
ary Ann could think of at
least fifty ways to spend an unexpected seven pence, but she had no
trouble leading Beth by the hand right up to a Plymouth stationer’s
shop.

Beth got no farther than a small set of
watercolors in miniature metal pans. “Mama, you used to paint with
these, didn’t you?”

“
I did. I am surprised you
remember,” she replied. “What I would give ….”

She picked up the tin box with wells of
powdered colors in red, yellow, and blue and set them on the
counter, while the old man minding the store watched them with
interest. She selected two brushes, one for her and one for Beth,
and two black pencils, and added those to the pile. Finally she
stepped back, afraid to ask the price, prepared to be disappointed,
and not so certain just what she would do if he named a huge sum.
She had schooled herself not to cry over fate, but something inside
her wanted to paint, wanted a tiny pleasure, even though she was
about to lose her job, and so far, no other employment had wafted
down from heaven above on angels’ wings.

Trust Beth. “This really mustn’t be more than a
shilling,” her daughter told the shop owner, her eyes anxious,
too.

“
No, no, seven pence, my dear,” Mary
Ann said, unmindful of the man who watched them with such interest.
“Five will get us back to Haven on the conveyance. Remember? That
was our plan.”

“
I can walk, Mama. It isn’t that
far, and it isn’t too dark yet. Besides, what road agent is going
to accost
us
?” Beth assured her. “We need this. It would be
nice if we had paper, too.”

They both looked at the stationer. Mary Ann
felt Beth’s fingers seeking hers and they held hands. She was loath
to pray about something so unimportant to the Lord Omnipotent, who
had far bigger fish to fry, but she hadn’t asked for anything in
ever so long.
Please, Father
, she prayed silently.
Just a
little diversion for a change
.
It’s
Christmas
.

“
I won’t sell it to you without
paper, because you need the right kind of rough texture for the
colors to stick,” the owner said. He looked from one to the
other.

“
My father died in the war,” Beth
announced all of a sudden. “He never saw my face.”

Mary Ann felt her own face go hot. “Beth, we
don’t do that,” she said quietly. She raised Beth’s hand, kissed it
and turned toward the door. “We don’t have enough money, but we
aren’t pitiful yet.”

“
I’m sorry, Mama,” Beth whispered as
she opened the door.

“
My dears, you haven’t even heard my
offer,” the shop owner said. “Come back here, please.”

Too embarrassed to turn around, Mary Ann stood
where she was and took a deep breath. “We didn’t mean to trouble
you,” she told the half-open door.

“
You haven’t. Come, come. Let us
consider this.”

As one, they returned to the counter. The man
stared hard at the colors, then shook his head. “I could sell you
the colors alone for a shilling. They came from Conté in Paris.
That is the best I can do.” He brightened. “I can set aside the
rest for you and you could pay me next week.”

Next week there wouldn’t be a spare shilling,
not with Lady Naismith ready to cut her loose. “We will just take
the pencils then,” she said.

“
No,” said Beth. “I want it
all.”

“
So do I,” Mary Ann said, wanting
the whole day to be over. Somehow, their visit to Thomas Jenkins
and Suzie Davis had raised her expectations, never high in the
first place, and certainly not after Bart’s death in
battle.

She thought the unthinkable and touched the
necklace her mother had given her so many years ago. It was nothing
but a simple gold chain, but she had never removed it.

She removed it now. Beth gasped as she laid it
on the counter, along with the shilling. Mary Ann said nothing. It
took all her courage, but she looked the shop keeper in the
eye.

Silence. Somewhere a clock ticked.

“
Done, madam,” the man said as he
scooped up the necklace. “This will buy you a lot of paper,
and … and,” he handed back the shilling, “your change.” He
leaned closer, his eyes merry. “I wouldn’t want you walking back to
Haven with all of this. You might drop it.”

Thomas watched Mary Ann and Beth through the
front window after they left, a frown on his face. “They didn’t
turn toward the conveyance stop, Suzie. Do you suppose they are
going to find a stationers and buy those colors and pencils and
walk home? It’s dark out.”

He felt Suzie’s fingers in the small of his
back. “Follow them, or I will,” she ordered and gave him a push. “I
don’t care what you have to do, but get them on that
carriage.”

He needed no further insistence to fling his
boat cloak around his shoulders, grab his low-crowned beaver
hat—criminy, but he hated the thing, after years of wearing that
intimidating bicorn—and set off into the Barbican.

He stopped as he saw them enter the only
stationers’ shop he knew of and blended into the shadow as much as
a fairly tall man could blend anywhere. They were in there a long
time. At one point he saw them turn around and head to the door,
but no, they returned to the counter. He saw Mary Ann lift her arms
to her neck.

“
You’re giving him a treasure,” he
whispered, which made a passing sailor step back in surprise then
hurry around him.

Impatient now, he waited until they came out of
the shop, Mary Ann carrying something bulky that must be paper, and
Beth holding a smaller parcel. This time, they hurried toward the
carriage stand in the next block, heads together, laughing. For one
terrible moment, he felt as though a cosmic hand smacked him with
the sorrow of knowing that but for war and Napoleon, Bart Poole
would have walked alongside his girls. He closed his eyes, thinking
of his own lost opportunities, and decided to make the most of this
holiday season for a widow and a child he had only met
today.

When no one was in sight, he crossed the street
and went into the stationers’ shop. “That lady and child,” he
began, without any prologue, “what did they buy and could they
afford it?”

The old fellow gave Thomas a wary stare, and he
certainly deserved one. “I am Thomas Jenkins of Notte Street. Mrs.
Poole and her daughter recently visited my sister and me. I am
hoping they did not spend their carriage money.”

The man shook his head, the wary look gone.
“The little minx even told me that her father died in battle! Oh
my, I would hate to have been the recipient of that look her mam
gave her!” He turned serious quickly. “She took off a necklace,
this necklace, and asked if that would do.” He rummaged under the
counter and held out a gold necklace, the modest sort that a woman
of simple means might receive as a wedding gift. “I was able to
give her the watercolors, brushes, and lots of paper, plus return
their shilling.”

He leaned closer, looking most benevolent and
like the grandfather he probably was. “I would never have let them
walk back to Haven in the dark.” He straightened up. “I suppose
they are drawing something grand for someone for
Christmas.”

“
Actually, no,” Thomas said. “They
are barely getting by. What they do is draw a picture of something
they know the other one wants Father Christmas to give them, then
present the picture because they cannot afford the actual gift.” He
wasn’t sure how he managed to say that without his lips trembling,
but he was made of stern stuff himself.

The stationer was silent a long time. He tried
to speak, failed, then tried again. “At least they are not walking
to Haven tonight.” He turned away to collect himself.

“
Bless you, sir,” Thomas said. He
reached for his wallet. “Let me pay you for the necklace, and I
will see that it is returned.” How, he had no idea, because
whatever he did would brand him as a meddler. He knew he would
think of something, because he was a resourceful man.

Necklace in his pocket, Thomas Jenkins walked
slowly home, planning his next maneuver in what he already thought
of as the Second Battle for Corunna.

T
he next day was Sunday.
Accompanying his sister, Thomas twiddled and fumed his way through
a boring sermon about loving his neighbors and remembering to be
charitable at Christmas. He wanted to stand up and ask the vicar
what would be the harm in being charitable all year.

He must have made a motion to get to his feet,
because Suzie grabbed his arm and hissed in his ear that if he
didn’t behave himself she would confine him to his room and feed
him bread and water. That made him smile and settle down, but still
he wondered, he who knew better, why the world was so
unfair.

He spent the afternoon just standing at the
window, hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels.
He longed to be at sea so much that it was almost a physical ache.
Suzie finally threw up her hands and told him in pithy Welsh that
he was behaving worse than a small boy, and would he grow
up?

Such admonition always sounded worse in Welsh,
so he stomped off to his bookroom and took down his well-worn
Euclid. He reread favorite portions until he felt better, then
stared at his battered sextant, reduced to hanging on the wall now,
until his shoulders relaxed.

Thomas slept the troubled sleep of the worried,
because he had stayed awake far too long, pacing the floor in his
room until he had a serviceable idea. It would involve a bit of
snooping worthy of a secret agent, but needs must, as his mother
would have said.

I don’t look like a secret agent
, he
thought as he shaved and stared back into his mirror at a man
tallish for a Welshman, but with the requisite dark hair and eyes
that branded his race. He was common as kelp and nothing more than
an able-bodied seaman who had risen to senior warrant officer
because of true facility with numbers.

One of his lowly tasks at the age of fourteen
aboard the mighty
Agamemnon
had been swabbing decks, of
which that ship of the line had plenty. Topside, he always seemed
to find his way to that corner of the quarterdeck where the sailing
master, a dragon of a fellow, schooled the current crop of
midshipmen in determining distance and latitude, and shooting the
sun with a sextant. Not one of the students had seemed willing to
make an acquaintance with Euclid, so it took all of Thomas’s
discipline to scrub away, but not too fast, while he listened and
absorbed sines, cosines, and tangents.

He might well be an able-bodied seaman yet,
except that when the midshipmen straggled away, leaving the
improvised classroom empty, he had boldly gone up to the blackboard
and finished the equation no one had understood. He knew he was in
for trouble when the sailing master returned to retrieve his
blackboard, found the correct answer, and demanded to know who had
done it.