A Wreath of Snow (2 page)

Guilt, as sharp as the wintry wind, swept over Meg. Her parents had looked anything but joyful when she’d quit Albert
Place. Her brother, Alan, was the reason she’d left, yet Meg had hurt her father and mother all the same. “Forgive me,” she whispered, wishing she’d said those words earlier.

For two long years she’d avoided a visit home, praying time might dislodge the bitterness that had taken root in her brother’s heart. But when she’d arrived in Stirling last evening, she’d discovered the sad truth. Alan Campbell, four years her junior, was even more churlish and demanding than she’d remembered and greedy as well, a new and unwelcome affliction.

His parting words would follow her back to Edinburgh—to Thistle Street, to Aunt Jean’s house, to
her
house. “What a selfish creature you are, Meg.” She flinched even now, remembering the cruel look on her brother’s face and the sharpness of his tone. “You could have sold the house Aunt Jean gave you and shared the earnings with your family.”

You mean with you, Alan
.

Meg lifted the hem of her coat and stepped with care through the slush and dirt the horse-drawn carriages left behind. She could hardly deny Alan’s needs were greater than her own. But when she’d moved to Edinburgh to care for their late aunt, wrapping her aching limbs with compresses and feeding her bowls of hot soup, Meg had never imagined Aunt Jean would choose to bless her only niece with the gift of her town house.

“Father should have been her heir,” Alan had insisted. Aunt Jean’s will, written in her neat hand, stated otherwise.

Over the midday meal Meg’s conversation with her brother had deteriorated into thinly veiled accusations on his part and tearful denials on hers, until she could bear no more. To be treated so unkindly, and on Christmas Eve! Her parents had tried to intervene, but Alan’s temper was not easily managed. Their patience with him was a testimony to their Christian charity. And to their love, though Meg wondered if guilt did not play an equal role.

Meg wove through the crowd and kept her head down lest someone recognize her and draw her into a discussion. Much as it grieved her, she had no polite banter to offer, no cheerful holiday sentiments. By tomorrow her mood would surely brighten. Just now she wished to tend her wounds in private.

She stepped across the threshold into the railway station and brushed off the snow that clung to her coat, glad to be out of the wind. Inside the nearby booking office a cast-iron stove glowed with heat, steaming up the windows. But in the waiting area and across the broad, open platform, winter prevailed. Holly wreaths, their crimson berries bright against the dark green leaves, decorated the painted iron pillars supporting the roof. Everyone’s arms were filled with packages, as if Saint Nicholas had already come and gone.

Meg glanced at the clock mounted below the arched ceiling, then scanned the departure times posted for the Caledonian Railway. The southbound line, which stopped at Larbert, Falkirk, and Linlithgow en route to Edinburgh, departed at three twenty-six. Little more than an hour remained to collect her baggage.

When a middle-aged porter lumbered past, bearing a trunk far larger than her own, Meg hurried after him. “Sir, might I engage your services?” As he swung around with an expectant look on his face, she paused, her resolve flagging. How might her family respond when a porter asked for her belongings? Her mother would surely burst into tears. And her brother? He would probably want the contents of her trunk tossed into the street.

Determined not to lose heart, Meg reached for the small coin purse inside her satchel. “I’ve a single trunk to be transported from Albert Place onto the next train bound for Edinburgh,” she told the porter. She then informed him of the address and offered enough silver to guarantee his cooperation.

“I know the house, miss.” The coins disappeared into his pocket. “Soon as I deliver this trunk, I’ll see to yours.”

She sent him on his way, glancing up at the clock, hoping he would catch her meaning.
Hurry, hurry
.

The queue at the booking window was blessedly short. Before
she could join the handful of outbound travelers waiting to purchase tickets, a small dog appeared and began nipping at the hem of her coat. “Aren’t you a fine wee pup?” she murmured, bending down to stroke the young terrier. Even through her gloves she could feel his wiry coat and the light nip of his teeth as he playfully turned his head this way and that.

Above the din floated a high, reedy voice. “Can it be Miss Campbell come back at last?”

Edith Darroch
. Of all the gossips in Stirling, she took the prize.

Meg slowly rose to face the woman, who served up savory news and idle rumors like a hostess offering scones and jam. Though Edith’s hair had faded to the color of ashes, her eyes were bright with interest.

“Mrs. Darroch,” Meg said, “are you bound for Alloa to spend Christmas with your son?”

“Indeed not.” The older woman gave her terrier’s leash a swift tug. “Johnny is returning home for the holidays, as any loving child should do. I expect him on the next train.” After a cursory glance about the station, she asked, “Is your family not here to greet you?”

The question pierced Meg’s heart. Her parents had met her train last evening. But on this bitterly cold afternoon, she was very much on her own.

“I suppose your brother cannot brave such weather,” Mrs. Darroch continued, her voice oozing sympathy. “It would be a shame if he injured himself further.”

“He didn’t injure himself,” Meg said firmly, rising to her brother’s defense. However strained their relationship, Alan was her only sibling. “Gordon Shaw struck him with a curling stone.” Hadn’t Meg stood beside the pond at King’s Park that January afternoon a dozen years ago and watched in horror as a red-headed young man with whisky on his breath heaved a forty-pound curling stone through the air?

The damage to Alan’s lower back was invisible to the eye, but Meg could not ignore the pained expression on her brother’s face whenever he struggled to his feet, leaning hard on their father’s arm. He’d had a difficult young life, to be sure. And he’d made their parents’ lives difficult as well, not just because of his injury, but also because of his irritable nature, which their father and mother seemed unwilling or unable to curb.

“A tragedy,” Mrs. Darroch agreed and took a breath as if preparing for a lengthy discourse on the subject.

“Next customer, please,” the booking clerk called out.

Grateful for a swift end to any further discussion of Alan, Meg turned to find the queue empty and the clerk waving her forward. She hurried to the window, then leaned in to murmur her request, hoping Mrs. Darroch was out of earshot.

A pointless gesture, Meg realized. The woman would learn
of her hasty departure soon enough. So would their many neighbors on Albert Place. Meg could almost hear them now from a quarter mile away.

That Campbell woman wasn’t home a day
.

Aye, and left before Christmas
.

You can be sure she broke her mother’s heart
.

It’s not the first time nor likely the last. Poor Lorna Campbell
.

Meg fished out two more silver coins, swallowing the lump in her throat. Why had she not sent a note with the porter? She would write to her mother at once—on the train if she could keep her hand steady enough to form the words.
I am sorry, Mum. So very sorry
. Meg would also gently remind her parents that Edinburgh was her home now and only an hour away by rail.
Come visit me, Mum. Soon
.

The booking clerk, an amiable fellow with wavy hair and a slender mustache, gently pressed the ticket into her hand. “You’ll be wanting your tea.” He pointed toward a wooden counter facing the platform where passengers stood huddled about, cups and saucers in hand. “Ha’penny a cup.”

Her spirits somewhat buoyed at the prospect of a hot drink, Meg took a circuitous route to avoid Mrs. Darroch, who was busy scolding her puppy. No doubt the train pulling into the station numbered Johnny Darroch among its passengers. Wrapped in a cloud of steam, the engine rolled to a stop, the screech of metal against metal filling the frosty air.

Meg paused at the bookstall next to platform three, thinking a novel might offer a welcome distraction. She quickly made a selection, then approached the rosy-cheeked cashier dispensing tea and coffee. A whirl of snow blew across the railway platform and around Meg’s calfskin walking boots. The weather definitely was not improving. Some Decembers in Stirling were snowy, others merely cold. The winter she had turned fifteen, they’d had flakes the size of shillings and had measured the snow in feet.

She ordered tea with milk and sugar, eying the currant buns and sweet mincemeat tarts displayed beneath a bell jar. Later, perhaps, when her appetite returned. At the moment, her stomach was twisted into a knot.

“Anything else for you?” the cashier asked as she handed over the tea, steaming and fragrant.

Meg was surprised to find her fingers trembling when she lifted the cup. “All I want is a safe journey home.”

“On a day like this?” the round-faced woman exclaimed. “None but the Almighty can promise you that, lass.”

G
ordon Shaw stood at the far end of the railway platform beyond the roof, his footprints hidden under a fresh layer of snow. He grimaced at the irony.
Covering your tracks, eh?

No one had noticed him slip into Stirling early that morning, as dark as it was. He’d exited the train, pulled his tweed cap low over his brow, and walked with purpose to Dumbarton Road.

Even after twelve years, Stirling was quite as he’d remembered: an overcrowded hill town filled with endless regrets.
He’d not wanted to return, not even for one day. But what could he tell his newspaper editor without raising suspicion? Best to do the work and keep his wretched past to himself.

By noon he’d finished his assignment and had stuffed a sheaf of notes into his traveling bag. Last Thursday a photographer from the
Glasgow Herald
had captured a fair likeness of his interview subject. Nothing remained but writing the article itself. That could be easily handled once he arrived in Edinburgh, where another interview awaited him after Boxing Day.

“Surely you’ll not spend Christmas at the Waterloo Hotel,” his editor had said with an incredulous look on his face.

Gordon had shrugged, pretending not to mind. “Clean sheets, hot meals. As good as home, though don’t tell Mrs. Wilson I said so.” His housekeeper tidied his four rooms each weekday afternoon, then left a warm supper for him in the oven and the table set for one. He usually read the
Scotsman
while he dined, too absorbed with the rival newspaper to dwell on how quiet it was in his parlor.

As for the holidays, they were best spent elsewhere, keeping his mind off all that he’d lost and could not regain. In his lodging house he was surrounded by furnishings that had once belonged to his parents—the oak sideboard, the brass and copper table lamps, the blue-and-white china lining the picture rail, the upholstered sofa with its rich fabric and deep buttoning, the corner whatnots with their many shelves. Though he’d not
spent a penny of his inheritance, Gordon was grateful to use the household goods he’d known so well. On most days they were a comfort to him. But not at Christmastide.

Last December he’d found an excuse to head for Dumfries. This year it was Stirling, then Edinburgh. Leaving Glasgow for a few days provided another benefit: Mrs. Wilson would celebrate the Lord’s birth with her family rather than fret over him.

He peered down the tracks, listening intently, his gloved hands fisted inside his coat pockets, the
Stirling Observer
tucked under one arm. Though the southbound train was due any moment, the heavy snow made it difficult to tell if the engine was approaching. As other passengers began moving onto the platform, he turned his back toward them and hunched his shoulders closer to his ears, willing the train to arrive before someone recognized him.

It was not likely he’d be discovered, Gordon reminded himself. He’d left Stirling a smooth-faced lad of seventeen with lanky forearms poking out of his too-short sleeves. Now he sported a closely trimmed beard even redder than the hair on his head and a wool suit tailored to his fuller, taller frame. Time had done its duty by him. Once he reached Edinburgh, any fear of being identified could be put to rest.

His conscience prodded him.
Is that all that matters, Shaw? Your reputation? What about the injured lad? What about Alan Campbell?

Gordon shifted his stance, uncomfortable with such questions. Of course the Campbell boy mattered. He would be a man now. Twenty-two. Bedridden, perhaps, his legs all but useless.

Every detail of that January afternoon was seared into Gordon’s memory, from the fir trees beside the curling pond at King’s Park to the frigid weather, even colder than today. It seemed all of Stirlingshire had gathered along the edge of the pond, waiting for the match to begin, when he stumbled onto the ice, laughing and loose-limbed from too many drams of whisky. He grabbed his curling stone by the handle and swept the heavy, teapot-shaped stone around him in a lopsided circle, taunting the other lads by promising to crown one of them King of the Bean for Twelfth Night.