Page 89 of Ordered Home for the Holidays
Chapter Eight
By the time Pearl made her way to the drawing room, Christmas had assembled itself with an almost military exactitude. Lamplight cast lances of gold onto the walls, reflecting in the polished surfaces and spangling the garlands of fir, spruce, and yew that crisscrossed the ceiling.
The girls had woken at dawn, as children must do, and had already managed two full circuits of the house before being corralled by the dowager into a holding pattern outside the drawing room. Now they hovered at the threshold, kept from the tree by the thinnest veneer of manners, quivering like foxhounds before a hunt.
Susie was dignified but alert, her hands clasped in a controlled imitation of adulthood. Alice, in contrast, bounced on the balls of her feet, eyes round and ravenous, hair already escaping its Christmas ribbon. Their mother, moving quietly in their wake, felt both immense affection and an echo of bewilderment. How, she wondered, did the world keep finding new ways to begin?
Victor stood by the fire, one arm braced against the mantel, the other dangling a small cup of coffee. He wore a simple blue coat over a gold waistcoat, but even stripped of finery, he seemed to fill the room. He regarded the proceedings with a reserve that was more watchful than detached. Pearl was amused to note the faint, permanent indentation on his brow, as if some distant ledger was ever in need of reconciliation.
The dowager swept in last, impeccable in mauve satin, a white camellia pinned at her breast. She clapped her hands twice. “Let us have order!” she commanded, as if the mere possibility of chaos was itself a personal affront. The girls stilled, then, at a nod, advanced on the tree with the solemnity of a coronation.
Pearl hung back, letting her daughters take the lead. She felt the old, contradictory impulses building in her chest.
The first present to go was Alice’s, a small, lumpy parcel wrapped in red tissue and tied with twine. Her hands, usually so clumsy, found their focus in the tearing of paper, and she let out a shriek when she found inside a hand-painted puzzle box, its surfaces alive with miniature scenes of knights, horses, and improbable dragons. She turned it over and over, mouth open in a soft oh, before hugging it to her chest. “Mama, look!”
Pearl did and smiled, then watched as Susie, with the patience of a chess player, untied the knot on her own package, a slim, blue-bound volume with gilt-edged pages. She read the title aloud. “A Woman’s Guide to Natural Philosophy.” For a moment, the room was silent, then Susie’s cheeks went pink. “Thank you,” she said, eyes flicking from her mother to Victor, who nodded once, satisfied.
“I thought you might prefer something with more substance than the usual Christmas fare,” he said, his voice pitched low.
“I will read it at once,” Susie replied, and Pearl saw the dowager’s mouth tighten, not in disapproval but in suppressed laughter.
The next flurry of gifts erupted in a mess of tissue and ribbons. There was a tin of sweets for Alice, a set of watercolors for Susie, a pair of gloves for the dowager, dove-grey, lined with silk, the very color she had declared impossible to find in England. There was also, to Susie’s delight, a brass magnifier on a walnut stand, and for Alice, a simple wooden birdhouse.
It was Pearl’s turn then. The dowager presented her with a scarf as soft as down, in a deep green that brought out the red in her hair. Susie and Alice conspired to deliver a parcel wrapped in the fashion of children everywhere, uneven, the ribbon knotted into a nest. Inside was a small, framed portrait—a quick study in ink, clearly Susie’s hand, showing the three of them in profile, hair and eyes exaggerated. Pearl’s own likeness looked braver than she felt, and she wondered if this, too, was a kind of gift.
She thanked her daughters, pulling them both into a careful embrace. For a moment, she felt the world balance on the head of a pin—so precarious, so perfect it almost hurt.
Victor’s present came last. He accepted it from Pearl with a slight bow, his fingers brushing hers just long enough to set her nerves ablaze. The box was small and flat, wrapped in ordinary brown paper, and as he tore away the covering, she watched his expression—curious, then uncertain, then, for an instant, utterly unguarded.
Inside was a watch chain, silver, its fob a tiny coin pressed with the image of a swallow in flight. She had found it weeks before in London. She waited suddenly anxious.
Victor turned the fob in his palm, his thumb worrying at the edges. “It’s beautiful.” He cleared his throat, glanced at her, then smiled—a real, unpracticed thing that was, she realized, not for the room, but for her alone.
“Thank you,” he said, and let the fob dangle from his hand, the swallow spinning in lazy, impossible arcs.
For a while, the room was noise and motion, the girls constructing small civilizations out of their gifts, the dowager admiring her gloves in various lights, Victor and Pearl orbiting each other with increasing frequency. The fire snapped, the scent of pine thickened, and outside the windows the world had shifted from pearl-gray to a weak, tentative blue.
She caught Victor’s gaze, saw in it a question, and for the first time in years, felt herself answer with neither fear nor apology.
They would have breakfast together, then go to church, then have a round of games and petty negotiations. The girls would squabble, the dowager would preside, Victor would find something to argue about, and Pearl would, somehow, belong to it all. Not as a guest, or a relic, but as a force in her own right.
As she watched her daughters, one hunched over her book, the other building a fortress for the puzzle box, she realized she no longer cared about the precise shape of the future. Whatever form it took, she would meet it with open eyes, and perhaps, if the world was kind, with the same unguarded smile she had seen on Victor’s face.
“Isn’t it perfect, Mama?” Alice called, waving the puzzle box above her head.
Pearl nodded, unable to speak with the lump in her throat. “Yes, darling,” she said at last. “It’s perfect.”
And for that morning, in that room, it truly was.
Victor had been uncharacteristically silent for a time, content to watch from his station by the mantel, but as the room quieted, he straightened and cleared his throat.
The girls looked up at once, twin faces expectant. The dowager arched an eyebrow, sensing the approach of something momentous.
Victor glanced around the room, then at Pearl, and she saw in his eyes a flicker of mischief, quickly tamped down by the gravity of the moment.
“If I may,” he began, and the timbre of his voice instantly drew everyone’s attention. He stepped forward, shoes muffled by the rug, and paused at the edge of the light, casting a shadow that flickered momentarily across the tree.
“I find myself in a somewhat unprecedented situation. For the first time in my life, I am in possession of something I want more than I can possibly deserve.”
