If the various illustrious personages noticed, they were too polite to comment.
It was well into the afternoon before Allan, his brothers, and their wives could all gather at Clara’s for Twelfth Night celebrations. Phineas and Harmony were there, too, of course, as were Harriet, Lydia and Benjie. Thomasina’s aunts came, too, and so did Nottwick, Phineas’s brother, and his wife and their two children.
All the children were delirious with excitement and joy. Not only did Lydia and Harriet have their respective parents with them, but every aunt and every uncle had bought or made each child a present.
The Twelfth Night cake was served first, with heated wassail to drink—sugar, nutmeg, orange juice, other spices, andcider. And a second version for the children, with apple juice substituted for cider, as Mel explained to Allan when he went to prevent Lydia from taking a third helping. Clara’s kitchen had also produced a range of other edibles.
Phineas, who found the bean in his slice of cake, seemed nonplussed at being thus elected to be King for the night, but made a manful attempt to suggest silly games and even sillier forfeits, egged on by the other men.
The schoolroom party had come up with a play that involved the whole group. It featured the visit of the three kings to the baby Jesus, with Benjie, Lydia, and a cloth doll doing duty as the Holy Family, and Harriet providing commentary in the persona of the innkeeper’s wife.
Allan, Phineas, and Cornelius were instructed to be the three kings, and the whole assembly was ordered to line up and think of a gift to bring to the baby. “It can be something real or something imaginary,” Harriet said.
It took nearly an hour for everyone to present their gift. Most of them had chosen to amuse, and the company was often disabled with laughter, as when Harriet turned her nose up at the myrrh, because it was smelly, or when Allan solemnly presented a string of imaginary camels as being more versatile than a donkey.
Mel won acclaim from the ladies when she presented an invisible sack of clouts. “The sack never runs out, and the clouts in it are always clean. The discards will dissolve in water and never be seen again,” she assured the very young Mary, who was not as impressed as the mothers in the room.
After that, the other ladies competed in presenting useful but extravagant gifts that could only be imagined. Baby clothes that grew with the infant. A self-replenishing dish of pottage. A baby carriage that was easy to push and pull, even over rough ground, and that also rocked on command. “Might as well give it a voiceto sing lullabies,” one of the brothers commented, and the lady who had suggested the device promptly added that to the list.
The children were allowed to stay up for dinner, though they had been snacking ever since the party started, and the littlest Nottwick was already sound asleep on her father’s shoulder.
After that, parents began to make noises about bedtime. Allan, who wanted Lydia and Harriet to be present when he offered for Melody, signaled to Clara. This was the time.
*
Something was goingon. Everyone kept looking at Mel. Did she have cake crumbs on her face? Surreptitiously, she peered into the glass on the cabinet doors. No. She could see nothing to explain the glances.
Allan was a target, too. Clara had just looked at him, then at Mel, then back at Allan. And there! Winifred was doing the same.
Mel sought to catch Allan’s gaze. When he saw her looking and smiled at her, she became lost in his eyes. So much so, she was barely aware that he was closing the distance between them until he was directly before her.
There he stopped, and—without warning—went down on one knee. “Melody,” he said, as her heart leapt and began to beat faster. “Melody, I never thought I would marry again. After my first wife, I was unwilling to risk such betrayal ever again, and why should I? I have a child who is the world to me. I even have an heir in my brother’s son. Why marry?”
He smiled up at her. “But then I met a lady who made me reconsider. A lady who made me question my determination to spend my life alone. A lady of courage, integrity, and pride. You, Melody. You have filled the empty spaces in my heart and in my mind, and I can no longer imagine life without you. Yourstrength, your intelligence, your trust in me give me confidence that we shall never meet a challenge we cannot discuss and find our way through.”
He took one of the hands that hung limp at her side. “Melody, my beloved, will you be my wife, my companion, my partner in life? Mother to our daughters and any other children God might grant us? My one and only love from this day until I take my final breath? Will you marry me?”
For a moment, Mel could not speak past the lump in her throat. His face dropped as he processed her silence. She shouldn’t, couldn’t bear his mistaken disappointment. “Yes,” she croaked, forcing out the sound. “Yes, I will,” she added, more normally, the one word having broken whatever blockage had disabled her.
Allan grabbed her other hand, grinning up at her, tears running down his cheeks. “You will?” He turned to glance over the gathering, grinning broadly, and shouted, “She will!”
Then Harriet and Lydia needed to be hugged and kissed, and assured that the family would all live together from now on. All those present had to assure one another they had seen this day coming, which was a surprise to Mel, for she had been certain it would never happen.
And finally, the children had their long-delayed bedtime, Allan and Mel escorting the group upstairs hand in hand with their two daughters.
Teign remained the only cloud on their horizon, and surely he would be captured soon?
