Christmas MIRACLE

Would old Yuletide traditions reveal to Bess the face of her true love?

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England, 1570

‘So, did you dream of him last night?’ demanded Mags. ‘I saw you put the bay leaves under your pillow.’

‘What makes you think I want to dream of anyone?’ Bess retorted, wondering if she could get rid of the incriminating leaves without anyone seeing.

‘Elizabeth Field, I’ve eyes in my head. And I heard you, a couple of nights ago on St Thomas’ Eve... “Good St Thomas, do me right, send me my true love this night.” I can still smell that onion.’

‘No, you can’t!’ Bess said heatedly. She’d taken out the pins she’d stuck in it and thrown the onion away. It hadn’t worked, anyway. The girls who huddled in gossiping groups had told her that if you peeled an onion just before going to bed on St Thomas’ Eve and pierced it with nine pins, you’d dream of your true love. All she’d dreamt of was onions.

‘And I saw you tap the hen house roof yesterday. Did you get a cackle or a crow?’

The hens had cackled, the cockerel remained silent. No marriage in the offing, then.

Bess hoisted her skirt and squinted backwards at her foot, the heel showing white against the brown wool of her stocking.

‘These shoes are rubbing my hose into holes.’ Anything to stop Mags looking at her with far too much understanding.

‘I’ll darn it for you tonight. You can’t look down at heel at Christmas.’

‘God bless you. Your darns are so much neater than mine.’

‘If you’ll get the wood from the woodpile instead of me,’ Mags said.

Bess cast a suspicious glance at her. She knew what Mags was up to. Tradition said that a girl who brought the logs in at Christmas had to do so without counting them. When they were counted the next morning, an even number of logs meant the girl would marry in the coming year. If it was odd, she’d have to wait. And Bess would prefer to wait. Because what Mags didn’t know – what nobody must know – was that it was not young Tom, Sir Anthony’s groom, who Bess yearned to see in her dreams.