Page 41 of The Twelve Days of Christmas

‘I’d like one of those.’

The little girl pointed, whereupon Lord Heysten and Miss Pépin looked confuddled, unable to perceive the item at which their charge gestured.

It took a moment for Barnabus himself to realise the girl’s interest was held by a dusty cabinet in the topmost corner of the toyshop, and he felt a peculiar twisting in the seat of his stomach.

‘I’m afraid those are not for sale,’ he said.

In fact, Barnabus should have packed them away two years ago.

That would have been the easier thing to do and certainly would have cost him less pain, not to be reminded of his son day after day after day.

But he had been so very proud of them at the time and Barnabus simply could not bear to let his creations dwindle at the bottom of a storage chest at the mercy of woodworm.

Nor, however, could he bear to have them in the cottage and so – by way of compromise – he had put them in the glass cabinet as a kind of monument, up high and in shadow where no child should chance to see them.

And none had, until now. Barnabus blamed his empty shelves, the lack of other more appealing distractions which would have prevented the girl from noticing it.

Lord Heysten in that moment was squinting into that topmost corner, and proceeded to step closer to inspect the cabinet’s contents.

‘Ah,’ he said, his face clearing at last into a more dubious countenance. ‘Yes, I see them now. Soldiers.’

Before Barnabus could press upon his lordship that they were for display purposes only, the little girl squared her shoulders and raised her chin.

‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘soldiers. Charles, I should like a soldier!’

In response to the child’s claim (who was she to him that she should call Lord Heysten by his Christian name?) his lordship’s lips thinned as if displeased, and Miss Pépin – if Barnabus was not quite mistaken – bestowed upon him a smirk.

‘Did I not tell you?’ the lady murmured. ‘Not every girl requires a doll.’

Lord Heysten, ignoring this glibly delivered remark, looked to Barnabus with raised brows and opened his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by the girl tugging at the sleeve of his lordship’s greatcoat.

‘Please, Charles! Please?’

The child was staring at him so imploringly that Lord Heysten, it seemed, was prevailed upon to at least consider the matter, and so turning back to the toymaker said:

‘Why, Mr Jenkins, are they on display if not for sale?’

Barnabus hesitated.

It would be nothing to reveal the reason for it.

Those who knew Barnabus Jenkins understood well enough.

But to think of it, let alone speak of it, still hurt, and he was just considering how to phrase his next words when Alice entered the shop, a basket filled with Reverend Soppe’s weekly linens overflowing from the wicker rim.

‘Oh,’ his wife exclaimed, at seeing the company her husband kept. ‘Good morning to you.’

To which Barnabus said:

‘Alice, my dear. This is Lord Heysten.’

Her eyes widened. Lord Heysten, upon her soul!

Now, Mrs Alice Jenkins was no stranger to a Heysten.

She had served Witherington Soppe for a good many years, after all, but it was easy enough to forget that the vicar was originally from such an unpleasant family.

Certainly, aside from his sometimes terse tongue (which had, Alice must confess, not been near half so bad these past few days on account of his upcoming nuptials), one would not recognise Mr Soppe as being the natural brother of Archibald Heysten.

Not that Alice had much experience of the gentleman personally, mind, but she had often heard from the Merrywake women – girls who had once been in his service, or that of the father – that he was a very bad sort.

And now to discover this newest Lord Heysten standing in her husband’s shop, with a Miss Pépin and a child in tow …

Well, this was a great shock to her nerves.

Surreptitiously Alice looked at her husband.

The flushed expression he wore upon his dear face was one she knew well – it was a look which only appeared when Barnabus felt acute discomfort or was deep in his cups, and since the latter occasion happened but rarely and definitely not on a work day, nor before the hour of noon, Alice was inclined to consider it the former.

Which meant Lord Heysten had upset him. And though Alice Jenkins was inferior to his lordship in rank and (so some might say) gender, this was a circumstance she would not tolerate.

‘My lord.’

She lowered her basket which then swung against her apron as she dipped her knees in a polite curtsey, a curtsey she then bestowed upon his companion, Miss Pépin, though she knew not which daughter it was.

Too old to be Miss Rosalie, Alice thought, and too handsome to be Miss Louisa, yet not pretty enough for Miss Juliette.

Was this Miss Maria then? Or Miss Charlotte?

In any case it did not matter – though the Pépins had a much more favourable reputation than that of the Heystens, if Barnabus had suffered on account of any of them, then Alice was set to say something most scathing!

‘Is everything to your satisfaction?’ she asked carefully, to which Lord Heysten replied that it was, and turned to look at the pretty little girl who held Miss Pépin’s hand.

‘We have just come to select a toy for my Faith here. She ah … she missed Christmas, you see, and I wanted to purchase something to mark the day. We were just discussing with Mr Jenkins here a sale.’

Alice blinked, somewhat nonplussed, for – aside from a child missing Christmas being a very strange thing – his reply had been exceedingly pleasant, no haughtiness in it at all.

In fact, he appeared perfectly agreeable.

So why, then, did her poor Barnabus look so out of sorts?

At that moment the child named Faith (his daughter, she presumed, for she looked exceedingly like him) released Miss Pépin’s hand and stepped forward, clasping her own within her skirts.

They were ill-fitting, she saw, as if the dress did not belong to her.

‘I was saying that I preferred a soldier to a doll,’ the little girl told her now in dejected tones. ‘But Mr Jenkins declares they aren’t for sale.’

Ah.

Alice looked again to her husband who would not meet her gaze, and sighed quietly with a tiny shake of her bonneted head.

She knew his feelings on the matter, of course.

But how many countless times had she told Barnabus that letting those toy soldiers moulder away in a dusty cupboard was a shameful waste?

By all means, make no more of them if he felt so strongly about the matter …

but to refuse to sell the nine that were left and deprive pleasure from the children who might otherwise enjoy them?

’Twas needless, she always did think it.

‘But Faith,’ Lord Heysten was saying, his tenor somewhat strained. ‘A soldier! A doll is much more in keeping for a …’

He trailed off for the child pouted and turned her rosy face up to Miss Pépin.

‘But I really would prefer a soldier to a doll. You understand, Charlotte, don’t you?’

The third daughter, then. But this fact barely had time to register for the manner in which the child had implored the woman made a peculiar emotion turn within Alice Jenkins’ chest.

George had implored her exactly in that manner when he was little. He could ask for anything, and she would have given it. Just as she would give anything to this little girl, now.

‘Come, Barnabus,’ said Alice, in the gentle cajoling manner in which she always spoke to him when broaching the delicate subject of their son. ‘Let the child at least look at the soldiers. There can be no harm in that.’

Her husband stared. Alice saw plain the trouble this request cost him, the battle he held within himself … but then his face fell under the child’s pleading gaze, and Barnabus reached for the small steps set behind the counter which he used to fetch toys from their topmost shelves.

There can be no harm in that .

But oh, there was harm, Barnabus thought as he grudgingly climbed the steps and opened the dusty cabinet door. There was harm to him. And as he looked into the cabinet upon those nine wooden soldiers, that harm felt most acute.

There had been twelve at first. Twelve to denote his son’s regiment, each holding a painted drum. A drum to represent George’s position in the army.

Barnabus had made George a drum once, a glorious bodhrán that hung with gold tassels, which at four years old he had pounded so enthusiastically it near drove his despairing parents mad.

But oh, how he loved his music. George even taught the Denby boy to play the tin whistle, and so adept did they both become that the pair were often invited to play at the assemblies held in Merrywake’s village hall.

Often, Barnabus wondered what would have happened had he not made his son a drum.

Would George have stayed and run the toyshop with his father, as Barnabus always imagined he would, or would he have enlisted anyway?

He chose the name of the shop with his son in mind, after all – Jenkins & Son.

How fine that looked on the sign! How worthless, now.

The toymaker reached in, selected a soldier from the front, rubbed his thumb against the ridges of its red-and-green drum. This batch of wooden figurines had not been the first set he made. In fact, they had been Barnabus’ last.