May, 1913


Lucky Man


"We are so late!" Jerry muttered, pulling on his gloves as he and Jem jogged up the long drive to the elegant estate hosting the Queen's Academy convocation dance.

"No use bellyaching over it now," Jem scoffed. "Besides, what were you going to do to make the ferry go faster? Row?"

"If there had been oars, I would have," Jerry snapped. The Kingsport ferry had been three hours late. Three hours! On any other trip, it wouldn't have mattered, but Jerry had been dreaming of this night for weeks. And now it was almost certainly ruined. If only he hadn't had to stay at Redmond for that history exam . . .

"I see Faith and Di," Jem said, waving.

Jerry spotted them, too. Standing by the lilac bushes near the deserted entrance, both girls were dressed in their evening gowns, chatting. Di looked fresh and pretty in green, her long, red hair falling over her shoulders in ringlets. Faith, stunning in sapphire, wore her hair up like a grown woman. Well, Jerry thought, she was 18 now, and Di wouldn't be until August.

When Faith caught sight of Jem, she squealed and ran down the drive into his arms. Jem gave a whoop and whirled her around, stopping only to kiss her soundly right there in the middle of the empty lane.

Jerry did not pause to admonish them.

As if they'd hear me anyway.

"Hello, Di," he said, adjusting his white bowtie as he reached her.

"Late enough?" Di asked, shaking her head.

"The ferry was late!" Jerry protested. "There was nothing we could do!"

"Well, the first set is half over already. You'll be lucky if she has any openings at all on her card!"

"I know. I know!" As if Jerry hadn't been muttering the same thing to himself all the way through Charlottetown. "Was she very upset when Arthur canceled on her?"

Di shrugged. "She was a little disappointed. But since Faith and I were going without escorts, she didn't have to walk in alone. And she wasn't in the room a minute before she started getting dance requests. The Gold Medalist is in high demand, as you might expect."

"I know." Jerry was swamped by another wave of disappointment. All this planning and now . . .

"Here's your ticket," Di said, holding out an embossed card. "What are you waiting for?"

"Thanks, Di," Jerry said, swallowing.

"Get in there!"

Jerry obeyed, leaving Jem and the girls behind. In the foyer, a hostess took his ticket and waved him through to the ballroom, crowded with Queen's students celebrating their graduation. Jerry paused to make sure his coattails were in order, then plunged into the humming throng.

How will I ever find her in this crowd?

Jerry remembered the letter that Di had sent, going over the details of the plan; Nan's dress would be yellow. That was lucky; not many girls looked good in yellow, so she should stand out among the more common blues and greens. Jerry scanned the crowd. Blue, blue, red, green, blue, pink . . . yellow.

Yellow? Was Di kidding? Nan's dress wasn't yellow. It was a pale, soft gold, with something glittery in the netting over the silk. As she waltzed past in the arms of some unknown boy — whom Jerry hated on sight — she shimmered like candlelight. If Jerry had had any breath left, he would have laughed; trust Nan to have an appropriate dress on hand in case she happened to win the Gold Medal. He wondered briefly what she would have done if she had lost.

The dance ended and the conductor of the orchestra announced a 10-minute intermission.

Excellent.

Jerry pushed his way through the crowd to the spot where Nan's partner was bowing and taking his leave.

Bye.

Nan had her back to Jerry, her thick, nut-brown hair bouncing as she bobbed a curtsey in farewell to the boy.

Jerry took a deep breath. "Excuse me, miss. Does the Gold Medalist have any dances left on her card?"

Nan whirled around, eyes wide with shock. "Jerry!?"

He smiled, heart racing at sight of her rapturous expression. "Congratulations, Nan! As one Queen's Gold Medalist to another, I salute your achievement." He bowed formally, rising to find her blushing furiously.

"Jerry!" she gasped. "How? How did you get here? How did you get in?"

"Di gave me her guest ticket," Jerry shrugged.

"Di . . . ? But, she said she and Faith were just going to come together since Jem . . . wait, is Jem here with you? I thought he was staying in Kingsport through convocation."

"He's around here somewhere," Jerry said vaguely, not wanting to waste any of the precious intermission.

"It's very lucky Faith doesn't have an escort," Nan said. "Practically everyone asked her, you know."

"I'm sure they did. And how is it that you don't have an escort? I would have thought the Gold Medalist would have been much sought-after as a partner."

"Well, I did have one," Nan said, furrowing her brow. "Arthur Morrison. You must know him; he's a friend of Jem's. But he cancelled on me at the very last min . . ."

Nan's face froze in the middle of her thought. Jerry knew he couldn't possibly keep a straight face for another second. The muscles of his cheeks quivered as he tried to hold back a grin.

"This is a set-up!" Nan cried, her lovely brown eyes flashing with what Jerry fervently hoped was delight. She was smiling, wasn't she?

"But . . ." Nan's face fell. "Jerry, you should have told me you were coming! I wouldn't have filled up my dance card. And now I've promised all these dances . . ."

"I'm sorry, Nan," Jerry said, meaning it. "We were supposed to get in hours ago, but the ferry was delayed. I was supposed to come surprise you at your boarding house and be your escort from the first. But we just got in twenty minutes ago. We changed on the ferry and ran all the way here. I'm sorry I'm so late."

"I am, too," she said, blushing prettily. "I . . . I would have been glad to have you as my escort."

All at once, Jerry felt his disappointment melt away. So what if Nan didn't dance with him tonight? They had a whole summer in the Glen ahead of them. And soon enough, she would come to Redmond. There would be plenty of dances in Kingsport, far away from the watchful eyes of Glen folk who disapproved of the minister's children dancing at all. No, Jerry didn't care if Nan danced with every boy in this room except him, as long as she kept blushing like that when he looked at her.

Once more in command of his face, Jerry took Nan's hand lightly in the tips of his fingers and kissed it decorously.

"In that case, Miss Blythe, I must leave you to attend to your many admirers. But perhaps I may see you home at the end of the evening?"

Nan nodded, glowing pink to the ears.

Jerry smiled at her and turned to go, hoping to find a good vantage point from which to watch the dancing.

"Jerry, wait!"

I'm going to have to get better at keeping a straight face.

"Yes?" he said, lightly, turning back.

Nan had her dance card open. "I left a break! Just here, after the triple-step. I knew I'd need a rest after that, so I crossed out a dance so I could sit. But you could have that one. It's a waltz."

Jerry imagined her, face flushed from the faster dance, waltzing in his arms, and almost said yes.

Instead, he said, "No, you'll need that break." When disappointment flickered across her face, he smiled and gestured toward the French doors that opened onto the lawn, "But perhaps you'll meet me outside to rest? I'll fetch you some lemonade."

Nan's smile was incandescent. "Yes. I'll meet you right by the little elm with the crooked trunk."

Jerry gave a sigh of exaggerated exasperation. "You've been here, what? An hour? Mostly inside, dancing? And you're already on friendly terms with the trees?"

Nan giggled and slapped his arm with her dance card. "There aren't so many here. And they're quite starved for companionship."

"Then I shall go and keep this little elm company until you come to join me," Jerry said, bowing.

"Yes. After the triple-step. But . . . oh, I think I see my next partner coming to collect me."

Afterward, Jerry could not have said what possessed him to be so bold, but he did not stop to think. He stepped forward, bent to Nan's ear and whispered, "Lucky man." Then he kissed her cheek, feather-light.

In the next instant, Jerry turned and strode confidently toward the French doors, leaving Nan rooted where she stood among the swirling crowd.


Jerry leaned against the trunk of the elm, waiting. This was better luck than he had expected; most of the guests who wanted fresh air seemed to be choosing to promenade in the lantern-lit garden on the other side of the ballroom, rather than on the shadowy lawn. A few couples lingered here and there, but the light from the hall only extended so far. Beyond the glow, it was dark enough that their features were indistinct, deserted enough that their whispers went unheard. Nan's elm stood at the edge of the circle of light, but just because they met here didn't mean they had to stay here . . .

Jerry started. There was no mistaking the couple bounding down the lawn toward him now, dim light or no. Jem, tall and annoyingly handsome in his tailcoat, even if he did keep tousling his own hair, and Faith, her golden-brown curls having escaped down her back, for reasons Jerry was loath to imagine. Even in the poor lighting, they were as conspicuous as a full-rigged man-o-war in Four Winds harbor.

"You're out here alone?" Jem sighed, recognizing Jerry and steering Faith toward the elm. "Where's Nan?"

"She promised all her dances," Jerry said, feeling defensive. "But she's meeting me here on her break."

Faith rolled her eyes. "A dance card isn't an ironclad vow. March right in there and tell her to clear it! Better yet, I'll do it!"

"Faith, don't!" Jerry cried, taking a step toward his sister before he realized she was bluffing. He straightened his tie, trying to regain some of his dignity. "It isn't refined for a lady to clear her dance card at a social event. Though I notice that you don't seem to have any scruples on that front."

Faith shrugged. "Nope! But I didn't promise any of my dances to anyone."

Jem poked her in the ribs. "It isn't good manners to reserve all your dances for your escort, either."

Faith batted her eyes over-sweetly. "Luckily, Di is my escort and she hates to waltz."

Jem laughed and pulled her into a hug.

Really, the two of them are barely decent.

Jerry realized that he would probably have to put up with plenty more than this over the next few months. Jem and Faith had been writing to one another all year, but hadn't actually spent any time together except for a few weeks at Christmas. Certainly Jem had turned over a new leaf when it came to diligence in his correspondence. But now summer stretched before them and who knew what they were going to get up to without the Northumberland Strait between them. Jerry did not relish the prospect of being their chaperone. Though if Faith were going to keep Jem occupied, perhaps that would free up some of Jerry's own time . . .

The sound of a lively triple-step drifted down the lawn through the French doors. Jerry adjusted his collar.

"Excuse me," he said, bowing to Jem and Faith with mock formality. "That's my signal to procure some lemonade."

"Anything we can do to help?" Jem asked.

"Yeah," Jerry said. "Make yourselves scarce."

"Gladly," Jem grinned. A moment later, he and Faith were galloping down the dark lawn, farther and farther from the lights of the dance.

With a vague sense that he should probably be doing something older-brotherly to put a stop to all that, Jerry set out to find the refreshment table.


The wait for lemonade was longer than Jerry had anticipated, and he hurried back to the elm with not a moment to spare. As the last notes of the triple-step died away, he breathed deeply, hoping that Nan's own exertions would distract her from his discomposure. Realizing he had lost half the lemonade sloshing down the lawn, Jerry poured most of his own into Nan's so that he could offer her a full cup.

Just calm down.

Where was she? The triple-step had been over for several minutes, and now the orchestra was striking up the waltz. Was she coming? Had he misunderstood her instructions? Jerry looked up at the elm. It was a little crooked, but was there another with a more pronounced bend?

"Jerry?"

He nearly spilled the rest of the lemonade, but somehow managed not to. Turning, he found that the sight of Nan, rosy-cheeked and gazing up at him, did little to steady his hands.

"Lemonade?" he asked, offering her the nearly-full cup in what he hoped was a calm voice.

"Thanks," she breathed.

They sipped together in silence for a moment, suddenly awkward when they finally had the freedom to speak.

At last, Nan cleared her throat. "You've all been planning this for a while?"

"Weeks. Maybe months," Jerry admitted. "I'm so sorry we were late. It was a good plan."

"You could have just asked me outright," Nan observed. "Wouldn't that have been simpler?"

Jerry shrugged. "I wanted to surprise you."

Nan smiled sweetly. "I was surprised."

"Pleasantly?"

"Very pleasantly."

Jerry felt his heart begin to hammer again. For all the complications, this was going so much better than he had allowed himself to hope.

Suddenly emboldened, he reached out, plucked the cup from Nan's hand, and set it in the grass under the elm beside his own.

"Dance with me."

The music floating down over the lawn was loud enough for them to keep the rhythm, though Jerry didn't much care whether they were in time. All he knew was that Nan Blythe was in his arms, and happy to be there.

There was no rush.