Page 39 of Christmas Comes to Little Valentine

“Well, yes, though I don’t believe I have given you any obscure quotes,” she replied with a frown.

“Go on, then,” he said, smiling now.

Meg stared at him, confused.

“Give me an obscure one.”

She considered the question for a moment and then smiled. “No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.”

“Very impressive. I like that,” Nat said thoughtfully. “Everything constantly changes. Each day is a new one for a new man. Hopeful, that. Makes a fellow think he might not make the same daft mistakes again too, which is encouraging.”

“Yes, though it’s not terribly obscure,” Meg admitted, wondering if he’d think she had cheated. “But it’s by Heraclitus of Ephesus, and he was known as ‘the obscure,’ you see.”

“Ha! Still impressive, you were clever enough to bend the rules, I like it. Well done,” he said appreciatively.

Meg glanced at him, feeling the oddest sensation, as if she was basking in the warmth of his approval. Even her father, who had loved her very much, in his own vague way, had never delighted in her cleverness as Nat seemed to do.

She glanced back, noticing that Della and Vinnie were some distance behind them, having stayed to play their game.

“Should we wait?” Meg asked.

“They’ll catch up, they know where we’re going,” Nat said easily. He was silent for a while as they carried on. “Why did you ask?”

Meg glanced at him. Though he and his family, seemed to consider him less than bright, she was very aware that was not the case. He was insightful and often seemed to know exactly what she meant or what she was thinking, often before she had worked it out herself.

“I don’t know. I just wondered,” she said evasively, though she knew this would not satisfy him.

She avoided looking at him but could sense his scrutiny. “Was it because of what Della said? About my bringing home a beautiful featherbrain? I wouldn’t, you know.”

“You wouldn’t?” Meg replied, far too eagerly. She blushed and looked away from him, wincing inwardly and praying he would not notice.

“No, certainly not. I cannot abide these simpering girls who agree with everything one says. Not their fault, of course, it’s how they're bred, and I know many fellows who think that kind of girl is just what they want, but I think life must be very dull with such a creature.”

He shook his head, frowning, and then said in exasperation, “Look at my mother, she’s a clever woman, but she never had the kind of education that would have helped her deal with the life she lives and make the best of it. The poor darling is bored to flinders most of the time, so she’s become a silly chatterbox because she doesn’t know how to be anything else. She doesn’t think she’s allowed to be anything else and, to be fair, when my father was alive, she’d have been right. But he’s gone, and she’s stuck. I’ll be honest, Meg, after last night, I had even hoped that meeting you might be an inspiration to her. But as for marrying such a one, Lord, if a woman needs to look to me for the answers to everything, I’d say we were both sunk,” he said with a laugh.

Meg sighed. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

He sent her a quizzical glance, and she felt a sudden, intense desire to shake him.

“You just gave me an intelligent and thoughtful answer and then made a joke at your own expense. Why do you always undermine yourself like that?”

“It was only a joke,” he replied, looking a little offended.

Meg stopped, turning to look him in the eye. “But if you keep saying it, people believe it, but worse than that, you believe it too. Don’t believe it, Nat, because it is not true. Not at all.”

Nat watched as Meg turned back to rejoin Della and Vinnie, who had almost caught them up. He remained where he was, rooted to the spot and oddly discombobulated.

She had a most disconcerting way of upending a fellow’s world with a few words, and the way she had looked at him, so earnest and sincere. Nat rubbed his chest where a peculiar sensation had settled about the vicinity of his heart. Well, she was an odd creature to be sure, but not in the way she had feared. Not an oddity to be laughed at or reviled, but something out of the ordinary, something rare and lovely of a kind he had never encountered before.

“Come along then, slowcoach, or are you going to stand there all day?” Della called over her shoulder.

Nat realised that the three of them had overtaken him and he hurried to catch up, still feeling slightly off balance.

The bookshop was on the road behind the promenade and had obviously been refurbished. The new bright blue paint had the shop name emblazoned upon it, announcing Brooks’ Books. Nat remembered that it had been a stationer’s shop, and whilst it still sold such items on the ground floor, the new owner had transformed the upper floors into the bookshop.

The bell jingled merrily as they entered, and a man of perhaps sixty years looked up from behind the counter. He was rather stooped and almost as bald as an egg, save for a little fringe of neatly trimmed white hair that encircled his head. Delicate pince nez sat atop his nose and he removed these and set them carefully aside, smiling at them.