The Christmas Ornament.

by Carla Kelly.

It happened over tea in October, 1815, tea in London with an old friend who required few conversational preliminaries, beyond the observation that Napoleon was at long last taking a sea voyage to St. Helena, and the weather was unusually pleasant for fall.

"Excellent tarts, by the way, Lord Waverly," Sir Waldo Hannaford said, eyeing the table again. "Prune centers?"

"Yes, indeed, Sir Waldo," the older man replied. "Did'ye ever think a purgative could be so tasty?"

Sir Waldo didn't, of course. There was a time when he would have eyed the tarts with a fair amount of suspicion. But he was older now, and willing to indulge in something that might smooth out the effect of too much dinner last night at his daughter Louisa's house. He ate another, then settled himself before the fire, sharing the footstool with his older neighbor from Woodcote, Lord Waverly of Enderfield.

"Gilbert, I have something to ask you," he began after a long moment's thought.

"Ask away, Waldo. The only thing I have ever held back from you is the location of my favorite trout stream in Scotland."

It was a joke of long standing between the two, and they both chuckled, then settled back into the comfort they were born to. "Gilbert, I have a daughter," Sir Waldo announced at last.

"I believe you have three," the marquess replied, a smile playing around his lips.

"Indeed, I have. One is married and lives here in London as you well know, and the other followed her laird to Inverness, where, incidentally, he has an excellent trout stream on his estate."

Lord Waverly clapped his hands and then rested them on his comfortable expanse of waistcoat. "Good for you! And there is little Olivia, if I am not mistaken."

"Indeed there is, my friend, except that little Olivia grew up."

Lord Waverly looked at him over his spectacles, his eyes bright. "Did she do that, too? Children have that knack, haven't they?"

Sir Waldo nodded, pleased at his friend's good nature. "She is eighteen this month, and preparing for a come-out."

"Lord help us! Eighteen! I remember when Jemmy aided and abetted in pulling out two of her baby teeth. Eighteen, you say? A come-out?"

"That is the plan, except that Lady Hannaford and I are not so certain that a come-out is quite the thing for Olivia." He leaned forward to explain himself better. "Martha is determined that Olivia should marry within the district, because she cannot bear to see her last chick fly from the nest." He looked down at his hands, wondering how to say this. "I am not so certain that Olivia would be happy with what she would find here on the Marriage Mart, anyway."

"Picky?" Lord Waverly asked.

"No. Rather too intelligent for her own good," Sir Waldo stated, crossing his fingers that such an admission would not lower him in his neighbor's esteem.

He wasn't sure. Lord Waverly frowned and contemplated the sweets again. "I have one of those," he said.

"A prune tart?" Sir Waldo asked, following the direction of his host's gaze.

"No, no! A son too smart for his own good." He scowled at the dessert tray and motioned for the footman to remove it. "You cannot guess what he is studying now."

Sir Waldo couldn't. He had endured a year's incarceration at Magdalen College until his father was kind enough to die and provide a ready-made excuse to return home to run the estate. He had never found scholarship to his taste. "No, I cannot imagine," he said.

"He watches people move!"

"No!"

"Yes! He sketches all their motions and tries to figure out ways for them to do their tasks more efficiently." Lord Waverly made a face and moved closer. "He even attends autopsies here at London Hospital to study muscles."

"No!"

"The double firsts were bad enough, but Jemmy knows so much now that I have a hard time talking to him. He is a don at All Souls and he actually has students who write down every pearl of wisdom that issues from his overheated mind! I call it ungentlemanly, and so I tell him, but he just laughs ..." He lowered his voice. "... and ruffles my hair. The tall take liberties," he concluded.

A gloomy silence settled over the sitting room; a log dropped in the fireplace. "Is he attached to a female?" Sir Waldo asked, his voice more tentative, considering his friend's obvious irritation.

"Lord, no! He is twenty-eight and I despair-positively despair- of grandchildren."

This was obviously a sore topic with Lord Waverly, because it propelled him out of his chair to pace the room. "Since he has a fortune in his own right from his dear mama, I cannot compel him to find a wife by threatening to hang onto his quarterly allowance." He stopped in front of Sir Waldo, his hands out, the picture of frustration. "And even if he had only a small stipend, he is so frugal he would make do all year, and then probably invest the residue!" He put down his hands. "I'll wager that half our friends would wish for problems like this from the fruit of their loins." He sighed. "Truth to tell, there is a sweetness to his nature that always quells me when I think I will pick a fight with him. So would he be your perfect son-in-law?" Lord Waverly sat down heavily in his chair and stared into the fire.

"I believe he would be." Sir Waldo pulled his chair closer to his old friend. "I want someone who will be kind to Olivia, keep her in the vicinity, and not mind if she reads books."

"That would be James," Lord Waverly agreed. "Such a union might even produce grandchildren eventually." He was silent a moment, staring into the fire, then looked at his old friend. "He is also mortally shy. How do you propose to bring this about?"

"I'm going to ask him," Sir Waldo said. "You know I am not a fancy speaker. I'll put it to him straight out."

"You're going to propose to my son?" Lord Waverly could not help smiling.

"H'mm, I suppose I am," Sir Waldo agreed, struck by the thought. He picked up his gla.s.s. "What would you say to an engagement by Christmas?"

Without a word, his Mend picked up his own gla.s.s, and they drank together.

It was one thing to laugh about a proposal with an old friend, Sir Waldo discovered, but quite another to actually put the suggestion into motion. Even the harvest scenery between London and Oxford failed to rouse his interest as he contemplated the next step. My older daughters would call me the rankest meddler, he thought as he stared out the window. They would point out how well they did on the Marriage Mart, and a.s.sure me and their mama that Olivia would find a man on her own.

But will she? he thought, far from the first time. Even the vicar, who was not given to either reflection or observation, noted once that Olivia "looks at me as though I don't quite measure up." I should never had indulged her whim for scholarship, Sir Waldo told himself, again not for the first time. Who would have known she would outshine everyone in the family, with the possible exception of her oldest brother, Charles? She is too smart for her own good. And probably at the mercy of fortune hunters, considering her trusting disposition. That causes me worry, he thought.

G.o.d be praised that at least she was not difficult to look at, although no beauty, he knew. Still, even there, Olivia was a true original. She had the correct posture and deep-bosomed loveliness of her mother and sisters, but she was only a dab of a thing. "I hope James Enders has not grown too much since last I saw him," he said to his reflection in the carriage window. "He could be intimidating to a chit like Olivia."

He knew Olivia's hair was hopeless, red like his own, though darker, but with the added defect of curling like paper corkscrews that pop from a magician's box when the lid is removed. It wasn't a matter of taming the wild mop, but rather forcing it into submission. Olivia did not help the matter much, he reminded himself, not when she dragged it all on top of her head into a silly topknot. Well, not precisely silly, he reconsidered, smiling at the thought. I call it fetching, in a funny kind of way, even if her mama despairs. She is interesting to look at, he concluded, possibly even memorable. But a beauty? Alas, no.

He sat back, smiling at the thought of his daughter, thinking of her quick step, her outright laugh, and her absorption in books.

"It is this way, I should tell you, James Enders," he rehea.r.s.ed in the carriage as the Oxford spires appeared on the horizon and the land began to slope toward the River Isis. "An estate agent once told me that even the most oddly arranged house can find a buyer. It just takes the one person who happens to be the right buyer."

Even his admitted lack of scholarship never quite prepared Sir Waldo for Oxford. Whatever his inward turmoil, he took the time to admire the loveliness of Magdalen Tower, smile at the architectural eccentricity of the Radcliffe Camera, and listen as Great Tom tolled the hour from The House. Olivia should be here, he mused, and then chuckled at the impossibility.

In his own year at Magdalen, he had pa.s.sed All Souls numerous times, and never without a sense of awe, knowing that it housed the brightest among them, those who were finished with undergraduate years and embarked upon more study, a thing Sir Waldo could never imagine. He addressed the porter at All Souls and asked him to locate Lord Crandall.

"Ye timed it right, sir," the man informed him. "We are almost at Evensong, so the tutorials are over. I'll have him here directly, if you would wish to wait in the foyer."

Sir Waldo did not wish to wait there, not when the quad beckoned, with its trees of fall colors. Christmas is coming, he thought, looking at the late afternoon sky. I wonder what my dear wife will tell me that she wants me to surprise her with on Christmas morning? I shall have to ask her soon, he mused.

The day was cool, but the sun had warmed the stones in the quad. Flowers close to the warmth of the wall still bloomed. He heard footsteps and looked up to see Lord Crandall approaching him. He was content to stand slightly in the shadow of the corridor and watch the man come closer.

James Enders-Viscount Lord Crandall from one of the family's various honors-wore his black scholar's robe, which the wind picked up and made him seem larger than life for a moment. Sir Waldo smiled to notice that Lord Crandall's hair, dark like his own father's years ago, looked no tidier than Olivia's. Hair must be a nuisance to the brightest among us, he could only conclude. Louisa's and Mary's hair was always in place, and not even a loving father could overlook their lack of book wit.

He had not seen Lord Crandall since the death of his second son, Timothy, seven years before, killed in the retreat from Corunna and buried with all military honor in the Hannaford vault. James, an undergraduate at New College then, had attended the obsequies, his face serious, his eyes troubled. And I never invited him back, Sir Waldo thought with a pang. I was always afraid to see him again, because he was so closely allied with Tim. I may not have been fair to any of us. I wonder, first of all, if I owe him an apology?

James was even taller than before, with that purposeful stride of all Enders men. Not a lollygagger in the bunch, Sir Waldo thought, as he gazed with something close to fondness on his dead son's friend. Big hands and big feet and a wide mouth, he observed. The Almighty was generous in all ways to that particular twig on the branch of the human family. None of them handsome, but they do have an air.

And then he was standing in front of Sir Waldo, his hand extended. Wordlessly, Sir Waldo came forward, then found himself caught in a bear hug of an embrace, something he had not antic.i.p.ated, but which he found gratifying in the extreme. And then what would the young man do but take his hand and kiss it? Sir Waldo felt tears start in his eyes. What is it about you Enders? he asked himself as he allowed his hand to be kissed and then held. Such a gesture would seem strange indeed from another, but from James it seemed so fitting as to make him grateful he had come here, no matter the outcome.

"You have been too long away, Jemmy," he said simply. "Or I have."

"No matter," the viscount replied. "There's hardly a rip in the world that can't be mended. Come inside with me, and I'll send my man for beer and cheese."

Soon Sir Waldo was seated, warm and comfortable, in what must be Lord Crandall's favorite chair, all rump-sprung and soft, while his host sat cross-legged on a shabby rug in front of the fire, toasting cheese. "I suppose I should serve you something better than cheese and beer," he said, turning the fork with a certain flair that told Sir Waldo volumes about his young friend's dining habits. "I like it, though, and suppose that others should, too." He deposited the cheese on a plate next to a slice of toast and handed it to Sir Waldo. "And excuse me, sir, but Madeira is for old men."

Sir Waldo took the plate, relishing the fragrance of the cheese. "This is the perfect antidote to last night's dinner," he said. It was good, he decided, and as plain and ordinary-seeming as the man sitting on the floor.

"You've been dining in London, I'll wager," James said. "Visiting Louisa?"

"Indeed, yes," he said. "I have left Lady Hannaford there." He lowered his voice. "Louisa has just been through a confinement and finds her mother's presence to be a comfort, even if this is our fifth grandchild. A son again, Louisa's third."

"Congratulations, sir," James said. He forked another wedge of cheese onto Sir Waldo's plate, and nodded for his man to pour the beer. He turned his attention to the fireplace again. "And the rest of your family? What do you hear from Charles?"

"Still in Paris, and hoping-along with all Europe, I believe-that this Second Treaty of Paris will put a period to French trouble."

He fell silent then, thinking of his second son, dead at Corruna, who would be alive yet if Napoleon had not adventured where he was not wanted. To his gratification, James seemed to understand his silence. He leaned back and touched Sir Waldo's leg, giving it a little shake. The gesture was as intimate as his earlier kiss, and Sir Waldo's heart was full. This is the only man for my beloved Olivia, he told himself.

"I miss Tim," James said simply. "I am twenty-eight, dear sir, and I look in the mirror and see lines and wrinkles that were not there a year ago. But Tim is forever twenty-one and young."

"So he is," Sir Waldo managed to say. He took a deep drink from the mug in his hand. I cannot fault his ale, he thought. He may live like a student still, but he knows his victuals.

"We have all been too long from each other," James said after a bite of cheese and a quaff of his own. "I did not come around because I did not wish to give you added pain."

Straightforward like all the Enders, eh? Sir Waldo thought. You say what you think, rather like Olivia, and somehow, it is the right thing. "There was a time," he began, but could not continue. They ate in silence then, raising their gla.s.ses in tribute to the one who was not there. In his own book of life, Sir Waldo felt a page turn.

"Charles hopes to be home for Christmas," he said, handing his plate to the valet. "Louisa and her family, too, if she and the baby are strong enough to travel."

"How nice for you," James said. "I suppose I will go to London and Papa, although it would be nice to see Charles."

He waited then, expectant without appearing nosy, for Sir Waldo to explain his visit. Sir Waldo hesitated. As right as he is for Olivia, I have no business p.r.o.nouncing this scheme I hatched, he thought. I could merely say something about wanting to see him after all these years, and it would be right enough. I could extend one of those meaningless invitations to visit us for Christmas and leave it at that. He sighed. And I could throw Olivia onto the Marriage Mart with all the other hopeful girls and pray that one man in ten thousand will see and understand her special qualities, and even love her for them. Or I could speak. He cleared his throat.

"Jemmy, I have a daughter," he began.

"I believe you have three, sir," James said with a smile. He raised his knees and rested his arms on them, his eyes on Sir Waldo's face. "Has Lady Hannaford ever forgiven Tim and me for a.s.sisting in the removal of Olivia's two front teeth?"

Sir Waldo laughed, and his young friend joined in. "Oh, they were due out, lad! The only thing Martha took exception to was when Tim taught Olivia to spit through the vacant s.p.a.ce. I believe you were blameless in that."

"Actually, yes." He grinned. "How nice to have a pure heart for once."

How good to talk about Tim! "Jemmy, you are an antidote," he said simply. "I don't know when Tim was ever in more trouble. Olivia was six then?"

"I believe she was," James agreed. "Tim and I were almost eighteen and should have known better. How is Olivia?"

"She is planning for a come-out this spring," Sir Waldo said. "Martha and I have been long away from London, but Louisa is all eagerness to do this thing for her little sister."

"She is eighteen," James said, more a statement than a question.

"Or as near as." Sir Waldo paused again. I could still stop here, he reflected. Who is to say that my darling girl will not find the best man on her own? He frowned. And who is to say that she will?

"Jemmy, I want to talk to you about Olivia." He glanced over his shoulder at the valet, and James nodded to the man. Sir Waldo heard the door close quietly. "I want to find her a good husband, but I have certain requirements."

Sir Waldo went to sleep that night in his own bed, a happy man, a father with a clear conscience. I have explained to Lord Crandall my concerns for my dear daughter, he thought, warned him that she is often nose-deep in books, mentioned her considerable fortune in pa.s.sing, not overlooked a single freckle or her unruly hair, and stressed her clear-eyed way of doing things. He smiled in the darkness. I have told Jemmy of his own father's wish to see him married and setting up his nursery, and reminded him of the duty he owes there, and he took it without a murmur. Possibly I am trafficking on his own tenderness for Tim, and the sweetness of Jemmy's own nature. The word love never came up, but kindness did. I am a happy man.

He composed himself for sleep, thankful to be in his own bed, but restless without Martha nearby. I will leave it to James Enders to fill in the details. He knows his duty to his own family, and my personal interests to this little sister of his great good friend. Sir Waldo smiled into the darkness. One can hope for love, too. Stranger things have happened.

It took until the middle of November for James Enders to nerve himself to consider the next step-his step-in Sir Waldo's plan. When he should have been concentrating on student recitations in tutorials, his fertile brain was taxing itself with a plan of his own. He had earlier congratulated himself that while he had agreed to actively consider little Olivia Hannaford- great gadfreys, was she old enough for a man's bed?- as a partner in marriage, the matter was not chipped onto an obelisk somewhere. I can certainly take a month to visit Enderfield, he reasoned. If she takes my fancy, I can pursue the matter.

How, he had no idea, not one. True, his undergraduate days had not been without occasional visits to discreet women, and there was even one term when he was certain he was besotted with an opera dancer; the occasions pa.s.sed, as do all the storms of youth. He had gone to Almack's like the proper gentleman he was, bowed and danced, and carried on what light conversation he possessed, which was precious little. These females do not wish to know of autopsies, and quivering muscles of rats, and the beauty of motion, and the people who perform the world's labor, he decided, after one particularly profitless evening several years before. He would not thought it possible for a living woman's eyes to glaze over while he talked, but after that evening, he did not doubt it again. He never returned to Almack's.

He knew he wanted a wife. Enough of his friends were walking arm in arm with pretty things that bore their name and children. Despite the concentration of hours and hours of rational scholarship, he found himself longing late at night, or at odd moments in the day, to reach for something besides another pillow, or a second book off the shelf. "I want a wife," he declared out loud.

"My lord, we all do," said his student, grinning in spite of himself.

"Forgive that, Walters. I received a wedding announcement from a friend today, and the matter was on my brain," he lied. "Now, where were we?"

"I was describing the function of the female pelvic floor," the student said.

James had the good grace to laugh. "Walters, that accounts for it! Do proceed, and I will remember my manners."

He delayed in suggesting to his father that they return to Enderfield for Christmas, partly out of stubbornness, and partly from a certain delicate shyness that he knew was part of his nature, and which irritated him from time to time.

He did bring up the matter during dinner after one of his visits to London University. I wonder if frica.s.see of liver was the right choice tonight, he asked himself. I have been wrist deep in a hip reduction all afternoon, and this looks very like. He pushed away the plate. "Papa, let us go home for Christmas," he suggested.

The sentence had barely left his mouth when his father declared that it as a capital idea. "I am perfectly at liberty to go as soon as you wish, son," he said. He frowned at his own plate. "Ah, Jemmy, we have been so long away that things are probably shabby there. I wonder... do you think... do we dare impose on Sir Waldo to loan us Olivia to offer suggestions on refurbishment? If she is anything like her mother, she has some skills along those lines."

It was a wonderful suggestion, and James leaped on it. Only after he was lying in bed that night did he wonder if Sir Waldo had been discussing intimate matters with his own father. It seemed unlikely, considering his father's somewhat formal demeanor, and Sir Waldo's easygoing nature. Merely a coincidence, he told himself. And that probably accounted for his dream of dissecting frica.s.see while Sir Waldo smiled benignly from a seat in the surgeon's gallery. At least he did not dream about Olivia; those dreams left him a trifle embarra.s.sed with himself.

There is something about Sir Waldo's suggestion that is doing strange things to me, he thought the next afternoon as he walked from the Camera back to All Souls. Is the world in a conspiracy? Only moments ago among the books, he had chanced upon one of his brightest pupils and surprised himself by suggesting that they end the tutorial a week ahead of the Christmas holidays. He knew the lad-so intense, so eager to learn- would object, but he had not been prepared for the swiftness of his acquiescence.

"You don't mind?" James had inquired in all amazement.

"I'll bear the strain, Lord Crandall," was the reply, given in such a serious tone that James could not be sure if he was being quizzed. Students today are certainly more subtly layered than I ever was, he thought as he nodded and left the Camera.

He surprised himself further by his own heated argument with his valet that night as the poor man attempted to pack his clothing for the return to Enderfield. James knew that his was a mild disposition, absentminded even, in all areas outside of his studies, and he disconcerted himself with the vehemence he directed toward his own shabby shirts and collars. Mason, ever the soul of rect.i.tude, was finally driven to say in clipped tones, "My lord, if you will not go to a tailor, the result is what is laid before you!"

"You could have insisted more strenuously," James countered, but he knew his argument was weak at best. The valet only tightened his lips and maintained a stony silence that persisted throughout the remainder of the evening. I have been more pointedly ignored only by cats, James thought as he went to a cold bed unenc.u.mbered by the usual solace of a warming pan. I can only hope that Mason's miff wears off before he brings me shaving water with ice chunks in the morning.

To his great relief, the shaving water was hot. Mason unbent long enough to inform his master that he had taken the liberty of writing to Lord Crandall's London tailor to request an audience the next afternoon. "My lord, you are going to London anyway to retrieve your father," Mason reminded him. James thought it prudent not to argue.