Page 60 of Lady for a Season
Maggie thought he could do with eating more, so she encouraged him to buy the hot baked apples and spiced and iced gingerbreads on offer. Some were in the shape of an elephant to commemorate its appearance on the ice, though the shape had clearly been carved by someone who had only seen one for a very brief glimpse, appearing like a large circle with the addition of an extended trunk.
“I can eat no more,” she finally protested.
The skittles reminded her of playing games at Ivy Cottage, the first time she had heard Edward laugh out loud. Watching him throw the ball, she contrasted how he had been then, a spindly fearful youth in labourer’s clothes, barely able to eat for fear of the purging to follow. Now, he was a handsome laughing young man, his cheeks flushed with the cold, dressed in the finest tailoring London could offer and sporting a fearsome appetite. Maggie offered up a silent prayer that he might always be this way, that no matter what the future held, he would at least be happy and healthy, that nothing and no one might take that away from him again and reduce him to helpless misery.
Back at the plank to shore they found a young man loitering nearby, dressed well enough but very much the worse for drink.
“Spare a penny for the plank, sir?” he asked Edward. “I’ve lost everything I had on me on the Wheel of Fortune.”
Edward paid his penny as well as theirs, slipping the little boy a few extra coins at Maggie’s whispered request.
“God bless you, sir,” said the drunken man, wandering off unsteadily.
“He should think twice about which stalls he frequents in future,” said Edward, shaking his head with a grin.
It was twilight by the time they returned to Atherton House, cold but happy, so well fed that they barely touched their dinner. The Duchess retired after only a short time in the drawing room.
“Will you play the pianoforte, Edward?” Maggie asked. It would be a perfect end to the day.
“Only if you will sing.”
She nodded and he sat at the pianoforte, rifled through some of the music and then pushed it away and began playing from memory the song they had sung together back at Ivy Cottage. She joined him in singing the first verse.
“Did you not hear my Lady
Go down the garden singing
Blackbird and thrush were silent
To hear the alleys ringing...”
“Although it is hardly the time for gardens,” Edward pointed out, pausing for a moment. “Perhaps we should change it.” He thought, then sang.
“Oh, saw you not my Lady
Walking at the frosty Fair
Shaming the glittering snow
For she is twice as fair.
Though I am nothing to her
Though she must rarely look at me
And though I could never woo her
I love her till I die.”
Maggie laughed. “And then?” She picked up the refrain.
“Surely you heard my Lady
Go through the snow lands singing
Silencing all the songbirds
And setting the sleighbells ringing...”
