A Victorian Christmas (10 page)

“Hyatt claims he never shot anybody in Phoenix,” the reporter said. “Claims he has an alibi. Though Hyatt did confess to the train robberies and the horse rustling, he says James Copperton must have plugged another man. Probably a fellow with the same name—poor old cayuse.”

Another man. Who?
Hardly able to breathe, Fara handed back the newspaper and drifted to the tea table. Taking her place among the servants, she began pouring out tiny porcelain cups of the finest black tea laced with frothy milk and sugar. The children lined up to receive their tea with both hands outstretched.

Who had been in the cabin in the forest? Whom had she dragged out of the snow?
Hyatt
. But who was Hyatt? Who was the man she had grown to love?

“Thank you, Miss Canaday,” a child said, drawing her attention.

“God bless you,” she murmured in return. “William, one lump of sugar or two?”

“She knows my name!” The boy laughed as he and his companions retired to the hearth to sip the sweet beverage.

Yes,
Fara thought, trying to order her thoughts.
Papa, I know
his name. And I will reach out beyond my Christmas tea to touch
his family and his life.

The ache and confusion in her heart mellowed as the town choir began to sing carols and the children settled down, balancing on their knees plates heaped with turkey, cranberries, potatoes, and hot rolls. Fara slipped out her pocket watch and opened the lid. Five o’clock—almost time for Santa Claus. She wondered if Manuela had managed to tie the white beard on Old Longbones’s chin.

When she closed the lid on her papa’s watch, she remembered Hyatt’s snapping blue eyes as he had chastised her for being late. Her focus misted, but she swallowed at the gritty lump in her throat and stepped out into the midst of the children.

“Boys and girls,” she said. “Every year, we come together at Christmastime to remember the precious gift God sent to earth so many years ago.”

“Baby Jesus!” a husky voice called out.

“That’s right, William. God sent His own son to be born on Earth. Jesus grew up to teach us that we must all learn to love each other—no matter what kind of food we eat, or the color of our skin, or the clothes we wear, or the words we speak. We must love each other as much as Jesus loved us. And do you know how much that was? He loved us enough to die for us.”

She looked around at the shining eyes and wondered how many of these children had ever heard the message of Christ’s saving grace. “At Christmas, we remember God’s gift to us by giving gifts to each other.” Recognizing the signal of what was to follow, the children began to elbow each other and whisper. “And do you know who has come to visit us tonight? Right here at Canaday Mansion?”

“Santa Claus!” they began to shout.

“Santa Claus! Santa Claus!”

Fara turned and held out a hand. “Santa Claus,” she said.

Into the room walked a tall, brown-haired man clad in a fine black suit, a bright red tie, and a jaunty top hat. His blue eyes twinkled as he swept the hat from his head and gave Fara a deep bow. She caught her breath as he swung the sack of toys from his back and set it on the floor. Before the children could move, he bent down on one knee and took Fara’s hand.

“Miss Canaday,” he announced. “I am Aaron Hyatt, the son of William Hyatt of Sacramento, California.”

“Of the Golden Hyatts!” Mrs. Ratherton whispered loudly to Mrs. Auchmann. “He’s worth a fortune!”

“Before his death, my father asked me to travel to Silver City to meet you—the daughter of Jacob Canaday, his oldest and dearest friend.”

Fara clutched her throat, unable to speak.
Him?
This was Aaron Hyatt, the man she had dreaded meeting so much she had run away to Pinos Altos? The man she had tended so faithfully— whose clothes she had washed and whose arm she had nursed— was Aaron Hyatt?
This
was Aaron Hyatt?

“I come to you now on bended knee, Miss Canaday,” he said. “I want you to know I love you with my whole heart. Filly . . . will you marry me?”

Mrs. Ratherton let out a muffled shriek. “Run for cover, Mrs. Finsch!” she cried. “It’s another suitor. She’ll go for that shotgun!”

In the midst of the confusion, Fara looked down into blue eyes that mirrored a love so deep and true she could not have believed it, had she not felt it in her own heart. Smiling, she fought the tremble in her lips.

“Mr. Hyatt,” she said softly. The room fell so still not even a child wiggled. “Your love has made me the happiest woman in all the world. Yes, I will marry you.”

The crowd erupted into cheers. The children leapt to their feet. The choir began to sing “Jingle Bells.” Mrs. Ratherton fainted, and Mrs. Finsch, Mrs. Tatum, and Mrs. Auchmann drew out their ostrich-feather fans and tried to revive her. The photographer snapped wildly, sending puffs of black smoke through the room. Old Longbones wandered into the chaos, the white beard dangling from the back of his head, and began doling out presents.

“Merry Christmas,” Fara said, drawing Hyatt to his feet.

Strong arms slipped around her and folded her close. Fara drifted in the heady security of a future bright with glad tidings of comfort and joy. When she lifted her head to gaze into the blue eyes of the man she loved, Hyatt’s warm lips brushed against hers.

“I love you,” he whispered. “My Christmas angel.”

BISCOCHITOS
From the kitchen of Grandma Rufina and Aunt Tillie

1 lb lard (or margarine)

1½ cups sugar (granulated)

2 eggs

1–1½ tsps anise seeds

6 cups flour

3 tsps baking powder

1 tsp salt

¹
3
–½ cup sweet red wine (or grape juice)

½ cup sugar mixed with 1 tsp cinnamon (can be adjusted to taste)

Cream sugar and lard (or margarine) until light and fluffy. Add eggs and anise seeds. Mix well. Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Add to sugar and egg mixture a little at a time (4 to 5 additions). Knead until dough holds together. (Avoid overmixing as this makes dough tough.) Add wine (or grape juice) as needed to help hold mixture together. Roll out dough to about ½-inch thick. (Cookies should be thick.) Cut using seasonal or traditional fleur-de-lis shapes.

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 10 to 12 minutes. Note: Cookies do not brown.

Remove cookies from cookie sheet and allow to cool. Dust both sides of the cookies with the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Store in an airtight container. Cookies freeze well.

LONE STAR

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are
plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future
and a hope. . . . When you pray, I will listen. If you
look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.”

J
EREMIAH 29:11-13

CHAPTER ONE

December 1886
London, England

“Howdy, mister.” Star Ellis snipped off a length of cotton thread and laid her diminutive swan-neck scissors atop the piecework on her lap. “Colder than frog legs out there, I’d say.”

“I beg your pardon?” The gentleman entering the coach paused to appraise her with a pair of eyes the exact shade of a Texas bluebonnet. He took off his top hat and sat down on the leather seat facing hers. “Did you mention amphibians, madam?”

“I was talking about the weather. Polite conversation, you know.” Shaking her head, Star threaded her slender silver needle. As the passenger coach began to roll away from Victoria Station, she picked up the length of bright cotton diamonds she was stitching together and began to work the needle back and forth through the fabric. If the only other traveler on this journey couldn’t grasp the rudiments of good manners, so be it. She didn’t have much of an appetite for talk anyway.

Weeks of steamship travel from Houston to New York to London had frayed the edges of her patience. Star had never had much patience to begin with, and her current circumstances left little room for feminine niceties and grace. Back in Texas, terrible blizzards had descended on her father’s cattle ranch for the second winter in a row. Ahead on the frigid moors of northern England, a British aristocrat—a total stranger—waited to marry her. The first calamity had pushed her toward the second. She was trapped in their midst with no way out.

This would be her first Christmas away from home. The carriage driver had decorated his rig for the season, and his efforts at festivity were consoling. He had tacked a sprig of mistletoe over the door, and he’d tied garlands of fragrant pine twined with red ribbons on the window frames. All the same, memories of the Ellis family fireplace hung with bright knitted stockings, the cinnamony scent of hot apple cider bubbling on the stove, and the chatter of brothers and sisters threading popcorn into long garlands made Star’s heart ache.

“Excuse me, madam, are you mending?”

She lifted her head as her traveling companion’s voice penetrated the cloud of gloom and irritation swirling through her. “Mending?” She picked up the carefully stitched fabric on which she had labored for two months. “This is a quilt, buckaroo.”

“Bucka-who?”

“Quilt, quilt, quilt.” She thrust out the piecework. “I declare, you act as if you’ve never seen a quilt.”

“Haven’t,” he said, tugging off his kid leather gloves and leaning forward, elbows on his knees, to examine the fabric. “Has this
objet d’art
a purpose, or is it merely decorative?”

“Both, I guess. You lay it across your bed like a blanket. Or you hang it over the window if your shutters won’t keep out the cold. You wrap it around your shoulders in the wintertime. You bundle up your newborn baby in it. You spread it under a tree for summer picnics. And if worse comes to worst, you cut it up and feed it to the fire when there’s no wood around for chopping. It’s a quilt.”

“May I?” Those blue eyes pinned her. “I’m fascinated by primitive handicrafts.”

Star reluctantly surrendered her patchwork to the man.
Primitive?
She could teach this British tenderfoot a thing or two. After all, who was the best quilter in the whole county? Who had won the blue ribbon at the fair last summer? Whose quilt went for twelve whole dollars at the harvest auction? She watched the man holding her fine piecework up to the light from the coach window and studying the tiny stitches.

“Intriguing,” he pronounced. “Calicut, I’d say. The fabric.”

“Calico, you mean.”

“Calicut, actually. It’s a port on the west coast of India. They export inexpensive cotton fabrics in little prints of flowers and such. You’ve a selection of Calicut cottons here in your quilt. This yellow one I’m sure of, and this blue, as well.”

“The blue patch is from my granny’s best bonnet, and don’t try to tell me it’s cheap. I happen to know Grandpa brought the bolt all the way from Abilene when he came back from his last cattle drive right before he died. We made Granny’s bonnet, a skirt for my sister Bess, and a tablecloth out of that bolt of blue calico. Granny wore the bonnet to Grandpa’s funeral, and everyone said she looked as pretty as a picture, even though she’d been crying her eyes out for three days.”

“Good heavens.”

“Give me that, please.” She took back her quilt. What did a man like him know about fabric, anyway? “I’ve been sewing and piecing all my life. Mama taught me how to use a needle when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and she says I have a way with cloth.”

“Knee-high to a what?”

“To tell you the truth, I think it’s all in the colors. Before I start to cut the pieces for a new quilt, I work with the fabrics, arranging them this way and that, until I’m sure they’re just right. Some gals will put any old colors together, but not me.”

“I see.”

The corner of the man’s mouth was twitching, and Star had the distinct feeling he was trying not to laugh. She shrugged. Let him mock her. This wasn’t the first time she had felt alone and awkward since leaving the ranch. It wouldn’t be the last. By the following evening, she would be cooped up in a stone manor house with portraits of dead aristocrats hanging on the walls. By Christmas, she would be betrothed to the son of her father’s business partner. By the new year, she would be a married woman far from the loving support of home, family, and friends. But she wasn’t completely alone. Long ago she had entrusted her life to Christ, and now she would have to depend on Him more than ever. Though she knew she was far from perfect, Star believed her Creator had a good plan for her life. Oh, she had made mistakes, and those had brought consequences. Yet when she stumbled in her walk of faith, God never let her fall headlong. He held her hand, guided her, and brought joy in the midst of sorrow. Now He had brought her to England to marry Rupert Cholmondeley. She didn’t understand this plan of her heavenly Father’s, but how could she argue?