Regency Christmas Gifts (9 page)

“
You’re going to like my present,”
Beth told Mary Ann as she buttoned her dress up the
back.

“
I always like what you get me,”
Mary Ann said, then knelt down so Beth could reach the one button
in the middle of her back that she could not reach. She turned
around and held her daughter close. They rocked back and forth,
then Beth patted her cheek.

“
It’s going to be a good day. I say
that every day, but I really mean it today.”

Mary Ann kissed her and they went downstairs,
hand in hand.

A fire burned in the sitting-room grate and the
sky outside was as dark as it had been when she went to bed. Mary
Ann though of what Thomas had said last night about working from
dark morning to dark evening. “What time is it?” she asked
him.

“
It is half five.” He nudged his
sister. “Suzie couldn’t wait.”

She nudged back and Mary Ann could have died
right then with the loveliness of their camaraderie. “He lies! He
was up and singing first.” She went to the table of gifts. “I can’t
wait, Beth. This is for you.”

Her eyes wide, her mouth a perfect circle, Beth
took the box wrapped in tissue and tied with a red bow. She sat
down as though her legs would not hold her, and Mary Ann sat beside
her on the carpet. “You can open it,” she whispered, when her
daughter just sat there staring at the box.

“
Pinch me, Mama,” she
said.

“
No need. It’s real, child,” Thomas
told her.

Beth gulped and carefully untied the string
that looked like lace filigree. She set it aside and took off the
paper. Barely breathing, she lifted the top off the box and took
another breath and another.

Mary Ann felt her own breath come in little
gasps as she watched her daughter pull a white rabbit fur muff from
the box. Not raising her eyes from the lovely thing, Beth put her
hands in the muff and leaned back against her mother. In another
moment, Beth was in her arms, her face turned into her
breast.

“
Is it too much?” Suzie asked
anxiously.

“
A little. She’ll be fine,” Mary Ann
said. She rubbed Beth’s back until her daughter was calm again.
“See there?”

“
I bought her material for a new
dress, too,” Suzie said, “but this was more important.” She reached
over and took a smaller package off the table. “For you, Mary Ann
Poole.”

She felt tears start in her eyes, and wondered
what would have happened if she had decided to mail the package
back to S.M. Thomas Jenkins, instead of delivering it in person. A
week had passed. No more than a week, and here she sat with a
present in her lap.

Beth had returned her attention to the muff.
Taking off the glittering twine as carefully as Beth had done, Mary
Ann set it aside and unwrapped the tissue paper. There lay a copy
of
Emma
.

With trembling fingers, she touched the raised
lettering of the title, then looked lower to see her own name
embossed on the cover. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” she
said, swallowing back more tears.

Beth handed her the brown-wrapped package they
had brought from Haven, and Mary Ann opened her daughter’s
watercolor rendition of the book. She handed her gift of the
watercolor muff to Beth, and they put their heads together and
laughed.

“
Beth, we have something for our
hosts,” she reminded her daughter.

Mary Ann got up from the floor and sat on the
sofa beside Thomas again. “You are so kind to us,” she
said.

“
I have not been bored in a week,”
he teased.

Beth handed the larger brown-wrapped, flat
parcel to Suzie. “Happy Christmas, Mrs. Davis. It isn’t so much
after your gift, but it’s something you can use in
January.”

Suzie unwrapped Beth’s present and sat back,
the picture of flowers in a vase in her lap. Her eyes filled with
tears as she stared straight ahead at the fire in the grate,
crackling away, making more noise than anything else in the
room.

“
A bouquet in January,” she said
softly.

Beth was leaning over her shoulder, then
leaning against her. “Pansies, and Johnny-jump-ups, and daisies,
although Mama says they are common.”

“
So are we, Beth,” Suzie told her.
“Roses, too?” She kissed Beth’s cheek. “When I get in the doldrums
and grouchy from January and February’s endless rain, I have
flowers.”

Mary Ann felt almost too shy to hand her
present to Thomas. She had stayed up late two nights ago and
pondered it, which meant she had to find the proper scripture, just
the right one for a man whose kindness filled her heart.

He took the picture from its holly and ivy
sleeve and held it up so his sister could see. He said nothing, but
Mary Ann noticed a muscle working in his cheek, and then his lips
so tight.

“
I … I know the River Tamar
doesn’t look anything like that now, not with the dockyards and
shipping lanes,” she said, keeping her voice soft because the room
seemed almost holy just then. “It’s the Tamar flowing into the
sound, for when you … you go back to sea and you might miss us
all just a little.”

Suzie sat on the arm of the sofa, her hand on
her brother’s shoulder. “ ‘He maketh the storm a calm, so that
the waves thereof are still,’ ” she read. “ ‘Then they
are glad because they be quiet, so he bringeth them unto their
desired haven.’ ”

He still said nothing. Suzie kissed his head.
“It’s the perfect gift for a sailing master, Tommy. Think of all
the ships you have brought to their desired haven.”

“
No words, Mary Ann,” he said
finally, his voice sounding so strangled that Beth looked up from
the muff. “No words. You couldn’t have done a nicer
thing.”

“
I wanted it to be just right,” she
said. “A little thank you for roast beef and cake and … I’m
not certain what else.”

She couldn’t tell him what she really felt, how
he had somehow stuffed the heart back in her chest and made her
brave again. She still faced ruin, but she knew she could face it
calmly, because somewhere in the wide world and across an ocean or
two, someone had done a kind thing. It was too intimate and she had
no call or cause to say any such thing. Thomas Jenkins’s friendship
was something to tuck in her heart and treasure through the rough
times she knew were coming.

They ate breakfast in strange silence, but
oddly companionable, passing around the dishes, going to the
sideboard for more bacon. She poured Thomas more coffee when he
held out his cup, and ate until she was full.

Thomas broke the unusual silence. He turned to
her. “Get on your cloak, Mary Ann. We have to pay a visit. Beth,
you help Suzie and Cook in the kitchen. I believe I smell
turkey.”

She asked no questions. In a few minutes they
were on the street, walking west toward Devonport. He held out his
arm for her. “Icy,” he said, although there was no ice and she
didn’t need his help. She took it anyway, her mind a
jumble.

They walked toward the docks now, right at the
edge of Plymouth, where warehouses began. She looked at him,
wondering, and saw his now-familiar smile, which relieved her
heart.

He stopped in front of a warehouse with the
gate open. She looked inside and saw wagons and carts in front of
what looked like loading docks. She had never been anywhere like
this. Over the wide gate was a sign. “Beazer and Son, Maritime
Victuallers,” she said. “Thomas, what is this place?”

“
It’s a highly successful business
run by an old diamond in the rough name of Rob Beazer. The ‘and
Son’ part is difficult, because his son died a few months ago.” He
pointed to a tidy-looking cottage next to the building. “Rob and
Meggie live there. Rob said he would be inside the
warehouse.”

She wanted to pelt him with questions, but she
decided to hold her tongue and trust the man. He had her by the
hand now. She gave his hand a squeeze, whether to reassure him or
her, she did not know. Startled, he looked down at her and squeezed
back.

They went inside the warehouse, which smelled
of dried herring, coffee beans, leather, salt pork and other
pungent odors she could not identify. Sitting at a tall table
midway through the building was a little man who looked up when
they came closer. He hopped off the high stool and just stood
there. Mostly he looked at her.

“
Mrs. Poole, this is Rob Beazer. He
has been providing quality victuals through at least one long war,”
Thomas said. He took a deep breath. “He needs a clerk and I have
brought you here. Rob, meet Mrs. Mary Ann Poole.”

What have you done, Thomas Jenkins?
she
thought, dazed with the magnitude of his concern for her. With the
fumbled delivery of a package, her life had undergone a sea
change.

But here was Rob Beazer, holding out his hand.
She was ready to curtsy, but she gave him a firm handshake
instead.

“
I’m going to stand over here by the
window and you two can talk,” Thomas said.

Her first instinct was to ask him to stay close
by, but this was business and he knew it. So did she. If she
entered this man’s world, she had to prove herself. Drawing herself
up, clasping her hands at her waist so they would not tremble, she
told Mr. Robert Beazer what she knew of handling correspondence and
filing, and doing rudimentary bookkeeping. She assured him she was
never late to work and she could put in whatever hours he
required.

“
I would imagine yours is a business
where flexibility is a virtue,” she said. “You probably need to
receive goods at all hours, and disburse them in similar fashion,
considering tides and all that.”

“
It was worse during the war,” he
told her. “There were days when Meggie brought my meals here and I
slept on a cot by the loading door. I don’t miss those days. You
could do that sort of thing, if needed?”

“
I could. I have a daughter who is
seven, but she is reliable.” She glanced at Thomas, whose eyes were
on her. “Mr. Jenkins can vouch for her mathematical abilities, too,
even though she is young. I would probably like her to check my
figures.” She smiled then, suddenly at ease. “Perhaps yours, too,
sir.”

He laughed at that, and then he was silent. He
stepped back as though to observe her more carefully. She stood
straight and as tall as she could make herself.

“
I’ve never hired a female clerk,”
he said finally. “No one on the dock has, to my knowledge. Would
you be uncomfortable working around men? You’re such a pretty
lady.”

“
I am a widow trying to support my
daughter,” she replied. “My husband died at Corunna and I need this
job.”

“
No drinking? No swearing?” he
asked, and she could tell he was teasing her.

“
Never,” she said, biting off the
word. “I write with a bold hand and my penmanship is probably
better than any man’s.”

He turned and walked away, and her heart sank.
I will not cry when he turns me down
, she thought, and put
her hands behind her back because they were shaking too much. She
would have given the earth just then for Thomas Jenkins to put his
arm around her, but this was her interview, her moment.

Beazer stood a moment by the front door. She
thought she heard him talking to himself. He turned suddenly and
walked back, taking his time, but his step was firm. When he
stopped in front of her, he held out his hand again.

“
Done and done, Mrs.
Poole.”

They shook hands. He grinned up at her and put
both of his hands around hers. “You’re shaking like a leaf, Mrs.
Poole.”

“
I’ve never been so terrified,” she
admitted.

Still holding both her hands in his, he told
what he would pay weekly. It wasn’t any more than what she’d earned
before, and she wondered how expensive lodgings were in Plymouth.
Maybe he would let her grow a little garden in a corner of the
compound, anything to stay here.

“
I also need to find a place to
live,” she told him. “Until I do, I can walk from Haven. It’s not
that far.”

He released her hand and slapped his head. “I’m
getting daft in my old age, Mrs. Poole!” He pointed over his head,
and then to a door. “Thomas, my knees are creaky. Take Mrs. Poole
upstairs and show her the little flat. Two bedchambers, a kitchen
and a sitting room, and it comes with the job.”

She gasped and put her hands to her mouth,
tried to talk and failed.

“
You’ll start December
twenty-seventh? Seven o’clock to six in the evening, Monday through
Saturday noon, or whenever you might be needed. I provide your noon
meal, too. Meggie loves to cook.”

“
Aye, sir,” she managed to
say.

He made a shooing motion. “Take her upstairs,
Tommy! Give me your address in Haven, Mrs. Poole, and I’ll send one
of my carters ’round tomorrow to pick up your effects.” He bowed, a
funny little bow from a man who would never be mistaken for a
gentleman, but who had just changed her life. “I’m going home to my
dinner now. Just leave your direction on the desk. That’ll be
your
desk, by the way.”