Carla Kelly - The Wedding Ring Quest

His chief bosun’s mate insisted on piping him over the side himself, which was flattery, indeed. Because all eyes on deck were on him, Ross did his best to descend the ropes with dignity, never easy with a leg and a half. When he was safely settled in his launch for the pull to shore, he raised his hat and saluted his crew. It’s only two months, he reminded himself as he felt unfamiliar tears gather behind his eyelids.

Although there were hackneys waiting to take him anywhere in Plymouth, Ross waved them off. He wanted to walk from the harbour to Maudie Pritchert’s house. He knew his sorely tried leg would start to ache before he got there, but he needed the opportunity to shake off his sea legs. In parts of England far from the coast, the watch would probably be summoned to deal with men lurching and rolling down the street. Not Plymouth, a Navy town that understood what it meant for its men to remind themselves how to walk on a flat surface that didn’t pitch and yaw.

A peg-leg presented its own challenges, but he arrived in good time at the base of Flora Street, with its pretty pastel houses. As always, he stood there a long moment, wondering how much his boy had changed. Nathan was ten years old now. No one knew what his actual birth date was, because there hadn’t been time to register anything before the earth moved in Oporto. A few visits back, the two of them had picked June 7th, an unexpected compliment, because that was Ross’s birthday.

When he had asked his son why he wanted to share a birthday, Nathan’s answer confirmed for all time that while it was possible to take a Scot far from the land of his ancestors, the economy remained. ‘Simple, Da,’ his son had told him. ‘It’s a tidy thing to do. We’ll have cake but once a year, but we’ll have twice as much.’

It was the perfect answer. Nathan, whose mother had been a heavy-lidded, sloe-eyed daughter of Portugal and deeply fond of cake, was a fitting combination of Dumfries and Oporto.

‘Twice as much,’ Ross agreed.

With the war over, he had plans this time, since a prodigal amount of leave stretched ahead that would take them through Christmas. The two of them were bound for Dumfries, where Ross’s older sister lived with her surgeon husband. He hadn’t seen her in years, but that was nothing because he had always been a prodigious correspondent and so was Alice Mae Gordon. She had promised them a good visit and hinted that she knew of a piece of property in need of a landlord in nearby Kirkbean. ‘In sight of open water,’ Alice had written, to further entice him.

He stood a moment more, wondering at the half dread he always felt, hoping his son hadn’t changed too much since the last visit, but well aware that children grow. Will he remember me? he always asked himself. If he passed me on the street, would I know him?

Ross took the customary deep breath and continued up Flora Street, his eyes on a yellow house, where flowers still fought the good fight against late autumn. He knew that in Scotland, the flowers had long surrendered to winter, but this was lovely Devon.

He walked slower because his leg pained him and because there was always that moment when he wondered who would greet him. For the first time since Inez’s death, for the first time in the terrifying and fraught years since, he wanted a wife to greet him, too. It was a heady thought and he entertained it cautiously, thinking of all the times he had assured his officers and wardroom confidants that he would find another wife when the war ended. Maybe the time was now.

Ross stopped outside Number Six Flora Street and looked up at the second-storey window that he knew was Nathan’s room. His heart skipped a little beat as his dear son looked down on him. The boy disappeared from the window and Ross watched the front door. It slammed open and his son hurtled outside and into his open arms.

Ross was home from the sea.

Chapter Two

For someone without much choice in the matter, Mary Rennie had finally had her fill of relatives. Maybe it was the season; more likely it was her Cousin Dina. Maybe it was simply time for an epiphany.

Her father, long dead, had been a clergyman in the Church of Scotland. He knew a thing or two about epiphanies, especially the January 6th one involving the Christ and the Magi. Mary had a different epiphany in mind, the one where you realise something startling that probably should have happened years ago.

She blamed it on her propensity to be a late bloomer, but there she was, twenty-seven years old and tired of relatives, especially Dina. And so she told Mrs Morison, her only confidante, when they were peeling potatoes in the kitchen.

Mrs Morison was cook and not generally the peeler of potatoes, except that Betty, the scullery maid, had a toothache and Mrs Morison never seemed to mind a good chat with Mary, especially over tea and biscuits on a raw October afternoon in Edinburgh. Dinner was a long way off, and there was time to peel and chat and drink tea.

‘Oh, my dearie, Dina is engaged to that prosy foreign fellow and she is blue-devilled,’ the cook announced, after heaving herself up to retrieve more biscuits. ‘Never trust a man from over the border.’

Mary smiled to herself. She had never been over the border, herself, but Papa had assured her years ago that Englishmen were only doing the best they could and Presbyterians could be charitable.

‘Aye, Mrs M.,’ she said, applying herself more diligently to the potatoes. She stuck the potato on the end of her knife and wagged it at the cook. ‘But why must I suffer because she is engaged? She whines and carries on, and I don’t know why. Isn’t a bride-to-be supposed to be cheerful?’

Mrs Morison peered at her over the top of her spectacles. She lowered her voice and leaned closer. ‘I think she is already afraid of her wedding night.’

‘That’s months away,’ Mary whispered back. ‘Besides, I would think that once you find a man to love, that wouldn’t be a consideration.’ She leaned back as another epiphany followed hard on the heels of the first. ‘Ah. Maybe she doesn’t really love Mr Page?’

Mrs Morison gave her a sage look and shook her head, tut-tutting as she peeled.

‘Then why...?’ Mary put down her knife. ‘Oh, dear. Is she afraid she’ll never get another offer?’

She considered the matter. It was probably true. Dina Rennie wasn’t high on good looks. Mary couldn’t help but smile, remembering the time last summer when one of the street sweepers neighed when Dina passed by. But it was wicked to joke about Dina’s long face, or so Papa would have told her. Mrs Morison was saying something, so she glanced up.

‘You have the family looks—all of them, I think,’ Mrs Morison was saying. She shook her head and returned her attention to the root vegetable in her lap whose skin was starting to turn a little brown from lack of attention.

Maybe, but none of the money, Mary thought, knowing that the cook was too kind to mention it. Not that any of the Rennies were particularly attractive, she knew, but Papa had married a Maxwell from Spring Hill and there was the difference: lips a little fuller than the Scottish norm, a trim and tidy figure, deep auburn hair—none of the Rennie carrot hue—and snapping green eyes. Mary felt the freckles were a discount, but Mama always said they were a happy sprinkle across her nose and no detriment.

‘I wish I had money,’ she admitted, because she knew Mrs Morison was no tattletale. ‘I’m twenty-seven and something should have happened to me before now.’

* * *

When she lay in bed that night, Mary considered her age and virgin state. She smiled in the dark, remembering how carefully her Aunt Martha had skirted around matters of procreation, how it was accomplished and women’s subservient role. Since they were much the same age, Dina had been party to the same conversation, her eyes wide, her mouth a perfect O. Mary had listened to Auntie’s red-faced circumlocutions and kept her own counsel. Before Mama had died when Mary was fifteen, she had been more plain spoken.