Part 34 (1/2)

60.

If we were to get serious,” Armand said, soon after his blasphemous display in church that thrilled her so, ”would you prefer not to live in a house where another woman has lived?”

She felt at home in his house. ”Our memories, Armand, are in our hearts, not in wood and fabric and gold.” She held out her hand, exposing her rings. ”The good ones should stay with us no matter where we are. This house, or another, won't determine what you and I are to each other.”

”I thought you'd say that, but I needed to know. So, I have a proposition.”

She tilted her head, waiting.

”We have long winters here and can be snowed in at times. Your work in the office has slowed, and I know you want to do things.”

She couldn't imagine where this was headed.

”I'd like you to consider redecorating the house.”

”Yes, I could do that for you.”

”In your style. What you like. How you think the house should look.”

He had told her much about Ami. She had been from a middle-cla.s.s family. Caroline knew now it had been Ami, and not Armand, who had decorated in the middle-cla.s.s style. Ami likely hadn't known a great deal about decorating. But they wouldn't have cared.

”Yes, I would love to do that.” She wasn't sure if she should add, for you, for me, for us. But already the wheels of her mind were turning. She'd contact Lydia. They could discuss this together. She wouldn't achieve anything near what Lydia described as her home, but it would be the kind of place that reflected much of who she and Armand were. Not pretentious, but elegant and welcoming.

Winter came early in November, and snow lay on the ground at the beginning of December. This slowed down any furniture deliveries. Darkness came early, and she'd look out the window and see lights on in the lake house and smoke curling from the chimney.

Armand and Willard went out into the woods and brought a huge Christmas tree for the house and a smaller one for the lakeside cottage. There were two things she wanted to do before Christmas.

The first, she needed to do at the office. She made a list of items. Logged them into the ledger. Wrote the tribute she knew better than anyone else, in memory of William Chadwick, a fine man who lost his life in the tragedy. What's in the heart is what mattered, but the rings she wore represented William.

She took the rings off her finger and laid them in a little box. She had no one to pa.s.s them down to and if she ever had children, they would not be a part of William. These would be kept in the room reserved for items to be put in a museum. A memory. She sealed the box and marked the appropriate number on it.

”I'll take these up,” she said to Jarvis. She needed to do it all. And while in the room, she shed a few tears. She could do that now. Not hold it in. Let go.

That done, she could focus on her second task. Armand sat in his office not looking at her. She marched right in, and he looked up, his eyes red-rimmed. ”Guess what?”

He did not look at her bare finger on the hand holding the edge of the desk. He looked everywhere else. She didn't think he would say, you took off your rings. And he didn't. ”I'm inviting you to Christmas dinner,” she said. ”I'm going to make Rappie Pie.”

”Rappie Pie?” That opened his eyes. ”That's harder to make than chi . . . chi . . .”

”Oh, you!”

The way he looked at her made her heart flutter. ”I'll be there,” he said.

He was the first to arrive on Christmas Eve for the drop-in after the service and play. It seemed the entire congregation came. They drank the punch, and ate the sweets Bess prepared. But they had really dropped by to see the colorful electric lights on the tree, a sight like none had seen before. Caroline loved to see the eyes of the children open as wide as walnuts and s.h.i.+ne bright as the lights.

She felt proud of her new living room, the only room she'd had time to redecorate. The old furniture had been donated.

After everyone left, even Bess and Willard, Caroline sat with Armand in the living room sipping Christmas punch and enjoying the lights. ”I'd like to ask you something.” He moved to the couch where she sat. ”I never thought I could love again, Caroline. But now I know loving and losing just prepares the heart for a greater understanding and a deeper love. Will you marry me?”

Her heart filled with joy. ”I really would like to do that.” He took a jeweler's box from his pocket, removed the ring, and slipped it on her finger. She asked that he switch on the lamps so she could see it better. ”It's perfect,” she said, and he took her in his comforting, loving arms and they sealed the commitment with a lingering kiss.

He soon left and Bess returned. They admired the ring, a large diamond circled with smaller diamonds and emeralds set in white gold. The kind of ring a very wealthy woman, who knew style, could wear without pomp but with pride.

Christmas day dawned with the ground covered with a beautiful blanket of snow. Armand and Willard came early for the gift exchange. They had promised to be conservative. They each had already made a donation to the church fund for helping the needy and making sure all the children in the area got something for Christmas.

Bess gave Willard a tackle box he'd mentioned to Armand, and Armand had filled it with fis.h.i.+ng needs. Bess and Caroline gave each other scarves and gloves they'd picked out together and pretended they'd never seen them before. Bess gave Armand an inspirational book. Caroline gave him phonograph records.

Just when everything was sailing along, happy and perfect, Caroline opened her gift from Armand. She gasped. It took her right back to the t.i.tanic and the night of the tragedy.

61.

Caroline had instructed Armand to sell the house and furnis.h.i.+ngs in London, including her clothes and jewels. The best ones were at the bottom of the ocean. At first she told him to get her books, particularly Once Upon an English Country Garden, because of the connection with Phoebe and Henry, then she changed her mind and said, no, she would break from everything in the past.

Now she held in her hands a copy of Once Upon, and her hands shook.

Armand apologized, ”Should I not have done this?”

”This is the best present you could give me. No, next to the best.” She waved her ring-finger hand. ”Negative memories of losses washed over me. But that's gone.” She looked at it lovingly. ”Now it brings the good ones. This is written by Phoebe and Henry's father.”

Of course he knew that. ”I suppose his books are available in America.”

”No,” he said. ”The attorney in California said Phoebe's relatives had a few copies but wouldn't part with them. But with a little effort, we managed to find a new copy in London.”

”Thank you. I'll cherish this. I'd like you to read it. You can identify with S. J.'s story.” She paused. ”And his recovery.”

That afternoon she hoped the Rappie Pie would turn out to be a good memory. Or at least a decent meal. Bess had heard about it from Willard, who said it had come from the French Acadian region in southwest Nova Scotia over 150 years ago. It was a delicacy people especially liked to make at Christmastime and Easter.

Preparation took time, being done in stages. The recipe called for chicken or beef, and Caroline chose beef. Bess cooked the beef in water with onions, chives, salt, and pepper.

Caroline grated potatoes and added b.u.t.ter, salt, and pepper. Figuring out the directions, she poured the broth in three stages over the mixture of potatoes. Bess read the instructions aloud while Caroline spread half the mixture into a greased pan, added chunks of meat evenly, covered the meat with the rest of the potatoes, set a timer, and stuck it in the oven to bake for three hours.

”To brown,” she said to Bess, ”not blacken.”

They laughed and checked the pie periodically.

Caroline dressed in green silk. Armand seemed to have a liking for that color. ”This time I brought champagne,” he said. It bubbled merrily in the flutes.

They celebrated her, and Bess's, successful dinner, along with Christmas day, as the savior's entrance into this world.