Page 52 of A Winter’s Romance
T hey walked back in the same configuration as they had come, Elisabeth taking James’ arm and her father leaning on Wilf.
“I take it that young lady – I think you called her Anthea – is a friend from London?” began Elizabeth. “And I heard her call you James. You didn’t give us your Christian name, and I wondered why. Then I thought perhaps it was something odd like Ezekial or Thor or Marmaduke.”
James laughed. “I have a friend called Marmaduke. Is it an odd name? I’ve never thought about it. We all call him Duke. He isn’t, though. A Duke, I mean.” He hesitated and seemed to be about to add something, but then said, “But I like Thor. I wouldn’t mind being called that.”
“It would be hard if you were a dull, unprepossessing sort of boy, though.”
Like the curate , thought James, and couldn’t help asking, “What is the curate’s name?”
“Oh, I see,” she replied, smiling at him. “That’s what you think of him.”
“I think he’s unworthy of you.”
“His name is Ernest and it suits him. He has a very good opinion of himself. Won’t that do?”
“No. You deserve better.”
“The trouble is,” she said softly, “In this village there is nobody better. I am a woman of twenty-four, moderately good-looking but with no money and a father I cannot leave by himself. Where do you think I’ll find someone else to take me on?”
He tried to find a way to respond to that, but couldn’t, so said nothing.
“Coming back to Anthea,” said Elisabeth after a pause. “I take it you are good friends? She called you darling.”
“I don’t know what to say without sounding like a poltroon. Yes, I know her. Yes, she calls me darling but I do not call her the same. Does that answer the question?”
“You mean, she wants you but you don’t want her?”
“If your father was as direct as you,” said James Fortescue, “I can see how he got into trouble.”
“Oh, when you live in the country amongst very literal-minded people, you get used to being direct. When we first moved here, before we had our own hens, we used to buy from a farmer’s wife who invariably gave us cracked eggs. My mother said, ‘Mrs. Jones, your eggs are excellent, but several I bought last week were somewhat damaged’. But the next time, it was just the same, and the time after. So when she came to deliver her eggs the time after that, I said, ‘We will pay you after we’ve examined the eggs. If any are broken, we will refuse to take them all.’ And they were, so we did. She never gave us broken eggs again.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Miss Wilberforce,” James smiled. “I hope I never have to do business with you.”
By now they were approaching the front door of the cottage. “The only business we have before us, Mr. James Fortescue,” she said with a laugh, “is to bring in the Yule Log. You will not disappoint me, I hope.”
“Not if I can help it,” he replied, “but what is it?”
“It’s a very big log we put on the fire on Christmas Eve and hope to keep burning till New Year’s Day. The tradition is that it will bring luck and prosperity. I cannot say it’s ever been visibly successful, but on the other hand, who knows if things would have been worse if we hadn’t done it. That’s the thing about traditions – we keep them up because we don’t dare not to! One of the trees at the bottom of the garden was hit by lightning in September and a big branch fell down. I paid one of the farm lads to trim it, but now we have to drag it in. We’d best do it straight away, while we have our coats on.”
“Show me the way to this magical log!”
It was not an easy job, not so much because the log was from an oak tree and very heavy, but because it was almost five feet long and unwieldy. But between them, Wilf and James pulled it through the kitchen and into the main room. Elisabeth had deliberately let the fire die down before they went to church, so they rolled it onto the now smoldering coals.
“Wilf, please watch it doesn’t flame up,” said Elisabeth. “We need it to just smolder and not be consumed. Mr. Fortescue and I are going to take the hot bricks up to the beds.”
“He ain’t rightly Mister Fortescue,” said Wilf, but met such a quelling look from his master that he closed his mouth firmly.
“What did he mean?” asked Elisabeth busily wrapping up the warm bricks she had placed in the kitchen hearth before leaving for church.
“I don’t listen to him. He has odd fancies. Just ignore him like I do.”
“But you gave him such a look!”
“Because I’m tired of his nonsense. He was flirting with one of the village maidens when he should have been paying attention in church.”
Elisabeth laughed. “What fun! Better than listening to the vicar. I swear, he gives the same sermon every Christmas. Besides, everyone has the right to a little nonsense now and then! Can you carry two of these?” She gave him two bricks.
“All three, if you like.”
“Now you’re just showing off!”
Since Mr. Fortescue was a keen amateur boxer and regularly trained with heavy sandbags, he could have easily taken them all, but he just smiled. Elisabeth realized that the petulant look he’d had about the mouth when he arrived had disappeared. But, she reflected, the less he smiled at her like that, the better for her poor heart.