Page 81 of The Virtues of Christmas
My wish for the readers is that they will take comfort and pleasure in the knowledge that not one, but two, articulate and compassionate authors are available to address their difficulties and concerns.
I look forward to the day when our swords figuratively cross again, Professor. Until that day, I remain, with all best wishes, your good friend,
Mrs. Horner
Dougal read the letter twice, finding not a single comma he could bear to move. “Mrs. Horner and the professor aregood friendsnow?”
Patience tugged off her gloves and took the sheet back. “Very is such a weak word, but good friends struck the balance between dignified and warm, don’t you think?”
Dougal took the letter back and set it carefully aside. “Patience I want to be much more than your good friend. I am exceedingly sorry I lied to you. It won’t happen again.”
“You were being my publisher,” she said. “You fed me crumpets to inspire my productivity, and you fed me a challenge when my readership was ready for one. Had I known the professor was a creature of your imagination, my responses might not have been so vigorous.”
Well, yes, and yet, a lie was a lie. “Are you making excuses for me?”
She rose and went to the window, and even her posture struck Dougal as more regal. “I understand what you did, Dougal. I might wish you’d brought me in on the scheme, but I suspect you initially lacked confidence in it. The professor was an experiment, a lark, a private risk. I tried selling my watercolors once upon a time—I signed them Placido Amadeus. When few people bought them, the failure belonged to a fictitious Italian man, not Patience Friendly.”
“Exactly,” Dougal said, getting to his feet. “What if the professor’s words garnered ridicule? What if you demolished him in a single column? What if he took a position that revealed his ignorance of all matters parental and domestic? Where would his publisher be?”
Patience turned to face him. “I wrote to the professor.”
“I beg your—” Her words weren’t difficult to decipher, and yet, Dougal’s mind stumbled over them. “Youwrote to Pennypacker?”
“I wrote to you,” she said, striding away from the window. “If I wasn’t confident of my response to a reader, if I wanted to test my judgment, or offer the reader a choice of approaches, then I’d put a comparable situation before the professor.”
“The philandering brother-in-law was you? I thought the readers were pitting us against each other.”
“I changed my handwriting, my tone, my everything, lest my letter sound too much like Mrs. Horner to a man who’d read every word she’d written. I meant what I wrote in my letter, you see. To bear sole responsibility for guiding a reader through a difficulty is a heavy burden. The professor was the only person I could turn to, and he never failed to share the load.”
“You wrote to the professor…” Dougal caught her hand as she marched past him. “You fanned the flames of controversyon purpose. You considered Pennypacker your colleague. You, you—”
“I mispresented myself. I lied. I’m sorry, Dougal. I’m—”
He caught her up in his arms. “You’re a genius! You’re brilliant. You’re the most clever, insightful, delightful—” Dougal kissed Patience on the mouth, and a few other places, and then set her back on her feet, but kept his arms around her. “You beat me at my own game, Patience.”
She sighed, then slipped free. “No, Dougal. I’ve thought about this. Mrs. Harmon Dandy came to see me.”
“Who? Oh, her.” The gin widow. “She didn’t learn your direction from me.”
“She followed me home earlier this week. She wanted to leave a note for me here at the office, but then saw Harry walking me home and suspected that I am Mrs. Horner. You did a fine thing for her, Dougal, but you might have told me.”
Dougal had the nagging sense that his brilliant, ingenious, though not always entirely honest, author was maneuvering toward a conclusion.
“I sent her to my cousins in Perthshire, Patience. They have a large household and won’t mind making accommodations for a new mother who’s an accomplished seamstress.” Thank goodness for wealthy relations who weren’t above the occasional charitable act.
“You probably saved that baby’s life, if not the mother’s too. I’m endlessly grateful, but we must learn to trust each other, Dougal. We must be partners pulling in the same direction. We each have strengths and abilities, but we’re stronger together. You can’t write as Mrs. Horner does, and I can’t browbeat the printer into doing a special run on Christmas Eve.”
“He refused you?”
Patience nodded. “He said the professor had used up the entire crew’s store of holiday generosity and for no amount of money would they stay late on Christmas Eve. You would have talked him ’round, wheedled, negotiated. You’re a fine publisher, Dougal, and I’m a literary genius, but we cannot succeed without being in each other’s confidence.”
“I will make a fine husband as well, Patience, if this trust you speak of can go both ways. I think Harry should read law, but he’ll never listen to that suggestion from me. He might if you brought it up.”
Her brows knit, her expression suggesting Mrs. Horner was on the job, figuring the best way to pass along advice so it might be heeded.
Dougal ran his finger down the center of her forehead. Mrs. Horner hadn’t solved the greater problem Dougal had created, but Patience had. He would always love her for that, for giving a promising piece of work one more polishing, for making it the best it could be, despite all the effort involved.
Patience trapped his finger in her own. “Did you mention crumpets earlier, Dougal?”
