Page 39 of The Twelve Days of Christmas
She had never been inside the farmhouse.
Mr Hodge had always shewn her such courtesy, and understanding that propriety might not extend to their being confined to interiors, was always very careful in not inviting her inside, even though Prudence had expressed an interest. She was curious as to how Mr Hodge lived all alone, and now as she entered the kitchen she discovered the answer – the small, low-eaved room was sparsely decorated but tidy, and Prudence was gratified to find it comfortably cosy.
She watched as Mr Hodge set to lighting a fire in the grate with swift and capable hands (strong hands, Prudence thought), and accepted the small cup of beer from him with a shy word of thanks.
Buck – claws tapping away at the stone floor – trotted to a small straw bed in the corner by the range, and settled his wiry head upon his paws.
‘Miss Brown—’
‘Mr Hodge—’
They both laughed nervously. Nathaniel clutched his cup.
‘What did you want to say?’
Miss Brown flushed. ‘Only that you wished to shew me something?’
‘Yes. Yes.’ He put his cup down on the dresser behind him, then gestured to the tablecloth spread upon the kitchen table. ‘I wanted to shew you this.’
She looked confused. Nathaniel cleared his throat.
‘My ma made it,’ he said, shy again. ‘It was her way of commemorating Hodge Farm, my father, me …’
He watched as Miss Brown tilted her head, saw how the confusion melted away to reveal fascination as she ran a finger over the Ayrshire herd, little Buck, Nathaniel’s younger self.
‘’Tis beautiful,’ she said softly, placing her cup upon the table. ‘Your ma had skill with the needle.’ She paused, her attention drawn then to the milkmaids at the hem. ‘And who are these?’
Nathaniel hesitated.
‘My sisters.’
She looked up.
‘Your sisters?’
‘The daughters she lost.’
‘Oh …’
‘Except,’ Nathaniel said, stepping forwards to stand closer both to Miss Brown and the cloth. ‘This one.’
He shifted the cloth so she could see the unfinished maid. The porridge stain had dried in his absence, and did not appear quite so bad as it had before, but even so, Nathaniel hoped she would not notice.
‘Ma did not finish her, and so I never thought of her as one of my sisters.’
Miss Brown squinted at the figure. ‘Who did you think of her as?’
Nathaniel hesitated again. Now it came to it, he was shy, frightened. If Miss Brown were to shun his advance then all his hopes would be dashed, and he did not know what he would do in the event of it.
‘I call her Prudence-Maid.’
Prudence froze. A feeling of wonderment enveloped her then as she looked closely at the unfinished milkmaid, her pretty pink skirts that matched in shade so perfectly the colour of the spray roses from Miss Juliette’s wedding bouquet.
Her heart thundered fiercely in her chest, and scarce daring to believe the words she heard, she met Mr Hodge’s gaze and sucked in her breath.
He was looking at her with what could only be an expression of hope in his gentle eyes, and Prudence’s heart struck a faster beat.
‘You named her after me?’
Mr Hodge stepped even closer.
‘She is you. Or at least I hoped her to be, if you were to finish her.’
Prudence stared. He cleared his throat.
‘Prue, I’ve loved you near since the moment I set eyes on you,’ he said, voice uneven with the force of his emotion.
‘I hoped you might, in time, feel the same, and these past three years I believed we had grown to understand one another. That we had come to share one thought. But then I saw you in the forest with Ralph Hornby, and I felt so wounded. The pain I experienced on the Peninsula was nothing to how I felt that day.’
‘Oh,’ breathed Prudence. ‘Nathaniel, I—’
‘Please,’ he said, holding up his hand, ‘let me finish,’ and so Prudence clamped her mouth.
‘I was hurt,’ he said, a bitter tone creeping in, ‘sick at the thought I had been so mistaken in you, that you should have favoured such an insensitive man. I had not thought you capable. But then I considered – why, after all, would you chuse a cripple like me and the drudgery of farming life when you had such comforts at Wakely Hall?’
He looked at her then with such an expression of misery that Prudence – without a further thought – took his head between her hands, drew him to her, and planted a gentle kiss upon his lips.
When they parted, his eyes expressed such shock that a laugh slipped from her, and she gently stroked his freckled cheeks with her thumbs.
‘Do you know,’ she whispered, ‘I have been in such agonies these past few days that you thought me taken with Ralph Hornby. I felt so wretched, knowing you had misunderstood and had been hurt by it. But Nathaniel … You were not mistaken in me!’
The farmer raised his hands and took hers in his.
‘Truly? You do not see me as just a friend?’
‘I never have!’
For the first time in her memory, Mr Hodge smiled with such unreserve that it lit up his face, and Prudence vowed then and there to make him smile like that for every day ever after.
‘But Prue … can you really be happy as a lowly farmer’s wife?’ he asked, and again Prudence laughed.
‘A home of my own, animals to care for, with the man I love at my side? I could not want for anything else.’
And as Mr Hodge joyfully took her into his arms, Prudence found herself thinking that the superstition behind wedding bouquets might not be quite so silly, after all.