At dinner, Camilla saw several servants she’d not realized the manor house possessed. There was a frigidly correct butler whose name seemed, however unlikely, to be Samson. Mavis did not serve, but an older maid whose quiet urging to “take another chop, do,” proclaimed her to be one of Mrs. Duke’s children.
Since the numbers were uneven and they only used half the large table, Camilla sat alone on one side, while Sir Philip and Lady LaCorte bracketed her at the head and foot. Tinarose sat next to the doctor on the other side.
In the golden glow of the many-branched candelabra, Dr. March glowed like a highly polished bronze statue. His thoughts and words were those of a man of science while his appetite was that of a young man who’d taken unaccustomed exercise in winter.
“I have been meaning to learn to ride, but there never seemed to be enough time now that I’m living here. There certainly was no time while I was training.”
“Of course, you lived in town then, didn’t you?” Tinarose said, making excuses.
“Edinburgh,” he said. “They have horses there, but they also have very hard streets.”
“Hard streets?”
“You know. Cobblestones and the like. I couldn’t see learning to ride there. All the falling off.”
‘You should learn to ride while the snow is still thick upon the ground. It will be safer for you.”
“I found it no less distressing,” he said, glancing with a half laugh at Sir Philip.
“Oh, come. It was only the once, and you landed in a large snowbank. Believe me, I didn’t get off nearly so gently when I learned. It was during the longest drought in years. The ground was like a sheet of iron. As I remember well,” he added with a reminiscent grimace.
“Yes, but how old were you?”
“Six, I think. It was the year before I went to school.”
“Ah,” the doctor said. Turning to Tinarose, he leaned toward her confidentially. “The young, Miss LaCorte, being more flexible may take a toss without harm. We who are older cannot so easily recoup from such a shock.”
At first, Tinarose’s eyes flickered in pained surprise when he seemed to refer to her as young. But the latter half of his comment, grouping her in the “older” category with him, made her smile hopefully and nod her complete agreement.
Camilla glanced at the black and silent figure at the end of the table. Lady LaCorte showed animation only whenever Sir Philip spoke to Camilla. Her own daughter’s lively interest in the doctor seemed to escape her notice.
As a good guest, Camilla tried to divide her attention evenly between her hostess and her host. She attempted to develop topics of interest to whichever of them she was speaking. Yet even while discussing the virulent weather with Sir Philip and praising the excellence of the dinner to Lady LaCorte, Camilla’s mind busied itself with the mystery of the Manor. It could not be that Lady LaCorte had transferred her affections so quickly from her husband to her brother-in-law.
Not because such matters were beyond the scope of the human heart in even less time than the length of Lady LaCorte’s widowhood, but she gave no sign of even being fond of Sir Philip. She lapsed into silence more often than she spoke, staring off at the dark corners of the room where the candlelight could not quite reach.
So if it was not love and its accompanying jealousy that plagued Lady LaCorte, what was the fount of her dislike for Camilla? Mere natural antipathy? The whim of a pregnant woman? All well and good, but what about the others? Surely the servants could not be so completely under her sway that they’d dislike someone on her orders?
Having lived with her mother for her entire life with often no more service than that offered by one maid who obliged by the day and spent the nights at her parents’ farm, Camilla had not enough experience of master-servant relationships to know how far a mistress’s influence might extend. But considering that the servants had disliked her long before Lady LaCorte could have heard of her presence, Camilla was still confused. She resolved to watch and wait.
“You said you like to read, Miss Twainsbury,” Dr. March said. “What is your field of study?”
“No field, sir, or all of them.”
“Ah, novels,” the doctor said, looking wise or, at any rate, arch. “A young woman’s Thousand and One Nights.”
“My mother does not approve of novels.”
A slight sound of malicious humor came from Lady LaCorte’s end of the table. “Wise creature, your mother. I don’t approve of them either. They pretend to be moral works, but they excite unnatural passions in young persons. Better to read a morally improving work.”
Camilla caught the whisper of an undercurrent that she did not understand. Something in Sir Philip’s expression, seen uncertainly in the glow of the flickering candles, made her believe his sister-in-law was somehow twitting him.
“At least so my mother believes,” Camilla said. “So to please her, I read a great deal of history.”
“History?” Tinarose so far forgot herself as to groan.
“That sounds safe enough,” young Dr. March pronounced.
Sir Philip nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“Is it any safer than novels?” she asked rhetorically. “I haven’t found it to be so. I took up history because my mother forbade me to read novels. Yet what did I find in history but the same passions that make novels so exciting.”
“But it’s all so dry,” Tinarose said. “Our governess, Miss Grayle, makes us read all the most dreary things. Dates and battles and tonnage moved from the principle ports.”
“You have to look past that,” her uncle said. “That’s only a kind of fog history wraps herself in. Once you make an effort to see more clearly, history begins to fascinate. Think of all the human passions found in history. Violence, ambition, a kind of lust that sends men mad at times. Not to mention arranged marriages, murders, and mysteries. Who killed the Princes in the Tower? Why was Darnley murdered ... or was it a royal execution? Was Lucrezia Borgia truly as black as she is painted?”
Camilla laughed and added her own set of fascinations. “Why did Shakespeare leave Stratford? Is the Dauphin still alive somewhere? And as for our own times—was Byng guilty? How did Napoleon escape from Elba?”
‘There’s not much doubt about Byng,” Dr. March said. “But I’ve always wondered about Dr. Dee. And the Comte Saint-Germain. Were they charlatans? Or did they know things about the universe the rest of us can hardly guess.”
Sir Philip seemed to have no doubts. “Definitely charlatans, if the kings of their kind,” he said. “But how did they work their magic? They easily persuaded kings and queens that they had gifts of prophecy and could turn base metal into shining gold.”
“It may be revolutionary to say it,” Camilla said, “but I’m not sure royalty is known for their intellectual gifts.”
Even Lady LaCorte chuckled while the gentlemen laughed. Only Tinarose looked shocked and that only slightly. “You have studied history,” Sir Philip said, chuckling.
When at home, through some excess of courage, she’d been tempted into making a comment during a philosophical discussion, her visitors would always agree with her. It left her feeling as if her comments were not worthy of argument. Eventually, on her mother’s advice, she’d learned to sit in silence, letting even the most crashing fallacies pass over her head. Mrs. Twainsbury was of the firm opinion that intellectual pursuits were not within a woman’s province and that no sensible man would wish them to become so.
Certainly she never would have dared to comment in such a way that could be considered openly seditious. Yet among these strangers, she felt not only secure enough to do so, but encouraged to participate to the height of her abilities.
“I make exceptions,” Camilla said. “Queen Elizabeth certainly had intellectual gifts.”
“Greater than Mary, Queen of Scots, anyway,” Sir Philip said. “I know women tend to make her story out to be romantic—”
“Not just women.” Even more daring, Camilla interrupted. “My father thought she was beyond reproach. I always felt she was a silly creature. Why didn’t she learn to be more moderate in her actions instead of continually stirring up trouble for herself?”
The doctor nodded wisely. “That’s a question I can apply to half a dozen people I know very well.”
“Which one is Mary, Queen of Scots?” Tinarose asked, with a shy glance at her mother. “There’ve been so many Marys.”
The doctor began to explain the delicate relationship between Queen Elizabeth and her cousin, the once-Queen of France and mother of the man who united England and Scotland. Camilla somehow believed that Tinarose would not forget this history lesson anytime soon. She had not yet met the LaCorte’s governess, but the woman could not possibly compete with the words of a terribly attractive man.
When Samson took a moment of his mistress’s time to hold her in whispered conversation, Camilla turned to Sir Philip. “I hope I did not speak out of turn just now.”
“Is there such a thing? After all, this isn’t Almack’s. Just a simple country dinner.”
“Be that as it may, I did interrupt you. Also, my mother does not like me to speak in company. She says it is unbecoming in the young to speak in the presence of those older and wiser.”
“She presumes wisdom: I don’t.” His voice was rather a growl. Camilla drew back, giving him a sideways glance, doubtfully. “I beg your pardon,” he said, noticing her reaction. “Only some people achieve wisdom with years. Many others remain just as filled with folly, pride, and self-importance as any green youngster.”
“Would you say that you are like that?”
“I hope not.”
“Then, I should indeed apologize for interrupting you.”
“That puts us back where we began.”
“Not at all. Before I apologized as a matter of form, in deference to your greater age and position. Now that you have proved yourself worthy of my respect, I apologize without reserve. Wholeheartedly, in fact.”
Though he smiled at her wit, she saw something of displeasure in his eyes. “I’m not that old,” he said. “You make me sound like a hoary-bearded grandfather, complete with bad leg and ear trumpet. I’m not even thirty, not until April. Though to someone as young as yourself—”
“I’m twenty-one,” she said, interrupting again. Realizing she’d risen to his bait, she the more willingly gave her attention to Dr. March when he claimed his turn to speak to Sir Philip.
“I was just telling Miss LaCorte about that cold winter we spent in Paris.”
“Yes, I remember your hospitality very well. You kindly gave me the bed while you slept rolled up in two blankets on the sofa. Kindness itself,” he added. “Until the roof started to leak. Ice-cold water. But it was colder by far in Badajoz, or so you told me.”
“Oh, were you there during the siege?” Tinarose asked.
“Briefly,” the doctor said. “But I was telling you about Paris. There I was, one of about fourteen doctors holed up in this tumble-down town house, assured by la concierge that her palace had housed doctors since the fourteenth century, and judging by the beds, I believed her.”
“Whatever were you doing in Paris, Dr. March?” Camilla asked, fascinated.
“A group of us were pressed into service by the army directly after leaving school. I knew it would be my only chance to see something of the world, and as my father made no objection, I went. After a little service in the south—”
“A little?” Sir Philip cried. ‘You were in that hellhole for six years, man! Tell her about Badajoz and Madrid.”
Camilla couldn’t help but be aware of the undercurrents at the table. Sir Philip, for whatever reason, seemed to want to turn his friend’s reminiscences into some other channel. The doctor, whether through having taken too much wine or just through a natural perversity, seemed intent on embarrassing his friend with his story.
“I want to talk about Paris,” Dr. March insisted. “So there I was, attached now in some convoluted fashion to Old Hookey’s Embassy to Louis, coming back to this dismal flat from a hard day’s service.”
“To wounded soldiers?” Tinarose asked, leaning forward with an elbow on the table.
“No, to some fat major’s wife who’d caught a bad cold just before some soiree or other. So imagine me, my coat flapping in the chill breeze blowing between the avenues, looking forward to a cut off the roast and a bottle of bad red wine, stumbling over a corpse on my very doorstep.”
“Dr. March!” Lady LaCorte said sharply. “We are at table, sir.”
But he only turned his handsome, smiling face in her direction. “Don’t be alarmed. He wasn’t quite dead. I rolled the body over and found, grinning up at me, my old friend from home. Rather a mess, he was, too. You see ...”
“Not a tale for the ladies, old chap,” Sir Philip said hastily, covering the doctor’s voice with his own.
But Dr. March simply repeated his remarks. “He’d been stabbed in the back.”
Everyone at the table, even the servants, stared more or less openly at Sir Philip. He only shook his head. “Coffee, I think, Samson.”
“Stabbed? Uncle Philip?” Tinarose looked at her uncle as if she’d never seen him before. “How... I mean, who did it?”
Sir Philip said nothing, turning his wineglass, seemingly absorbed in the tawny depths.
“He spun me some tale of an accident. Needless to say, I didn’t believe a word of it and still don’t. I patched him up, of course, and offered him a bed for the night. I swear I never thought about the roof leaking. He spent a few days with me and then disappeared. In another month, we all left Paris to accompany the Duke to Vienna.”
“I didn’t ‘disappear,’” Sir Philip said, speaking at last. “I simply arrived in Vienna before you. We met there, and I can’t say it was any warmer there than in Paris, except that waltzing is excellent exercise. Do you remember the Countess von Steich’s evening parties?”
At last the doctor let himself be led down another conversational path. Why had he told that story about Paris? She glanced at Sir Philip, now reminding the doctor of some chance-met young woman, and wondered, as perhaps she was meant to, about him and his past.
Samson returned and had another word in her ladyship’s ear. Camilla reluctantly gave her attention to Lady LaCorte when she tapped her knife against her crystal goblet.
“As our friends know, we have entertained but little since news came of my husband’s death.” Her voice sank for a moment; then she rallied. “Nevertheless, there are certain customs of the country that must be observed, more especially at this time of the year.”
Camilla had seen Tinarose look down into her lap and close her eyes at the mention of her father. But then she looked up and brightened at the hopeful trend of her mother’s words.
“Though it lacks some hours until midnight and the arrival of Stir-up Sunday, Mrs. Lamsard in the kitchen and Mr. Samson have persuaded me to stretch a point so that our guests might participate. Tinarose, will you ask Miss Grayle to bring down your sisters?”
“Yes, Mother. They’ll be so happy.”
* * * *
The kitchen looked very different from Camilla’s first visit there. Someone had hung ribbon-tied swatches of dried herbs and flowers from the ceiling beams, giving the whole room the mysterious, exciting smell of an apothecary’s shop. The cold glow of moonlight on snow that came through the high windows met the golden gleams of candles that burned lavishly on tabletop and counter, on windowsill and barrel.
Camilla heard whispering and perceived in the shadows of the large room that others had come for the ceremony. She felt her own strangeness. Everyone belonged to the Manor in some way, whether they served it in house or field, or lived under its roof and cared for it. For she’d known from her first conscious step in this house that it was well loved.
When she hesitated on the doorstep, knowing herself to be an outsider, Dr. March was behind her. “Is something wrong?”
“No, I... What is Stir-up Sunday?”
The doctor looked at her with surprise. “You don’t know?”
“No, sir.”
“And you do live in England?”
“Not a day’s journey from here. Is this custom so universal? I have never heard of it.”
The doctor tilted his head to one side in a motion that might have been a shrug. Whatever hilarity had affected him at dinner seemed to have faded. “Usually it is done among the lower classes; servants and so on seem fond of it.”
“Perhaps that’s why I’ve not heard of it. We keep only one servant, and she is unusually taciturn. Some weeks she hardly speaks at all.”
“You must find the Manor a most remarkable change,” he said with a lowered voice. “It’s an interesting house, nearly as interesting as the people who live in it. As for the pudding,” he said, in a more normal tone, “my father would no more miss stirring the Christmas pudding than he’d refuse to go out on an emergency visit.”
“But a doctor isn’t of the lower classes.”
“Perhaps not in such an enlightened place as you come from, Miss Twainsbury. What is the name of your place of residence?” She told him, and he nodded. “You wouldn’t happen to be in need of a doctor’s services there?” he asked with his quick smile. “Well, no matter; I can’t leave Bishop’s Halt while my father needs me.” He fell silent.
“And Stir-up Sunday?” Camilla prompted.
“Oh, yes. Pray excuse me. This is the time when every member of the household, oldest to youngest, gives the Christmas pudding three stirrings. Each person is to make three wishes, one of which is certain to come true before next Christmas.”
“What will you wish for, Dr. March?”
“The usual sort of thing, I suppose. Riches beyond avarice, long life, and a pair of warm slippers.”
“Warm slippers? Among such grand wishes, you wish for warm slippers?”
“I did say that only one wish would come true, didn’t I? Wealth and health may come or not, but my housekeeper always makes my father and me warm slippers for Christmas.”
“Perhaps if you didn’t wish for slippers, one of your other wishes would come true,” Camilla said.
He laughed. “I’ve never been one to take mad risks,” he said. “Unlike some I could name.”
“You mean Sir Philip? He hardly seems like the reckless sort.”
“Didn’t you hear what I told you at the table? I don’t know what happened in Paris, but I do know that wasn’t the only time I found him in mysterious circumstances. I used to know him so well. We were always friends. Lately, though, I feel as if I only know the outer man, this gentle squire pose he’s adopted since coming back to the Manor.”
“You think he is playacting?” Camilla asked.
“Can a man change so much? He was a wild boy, almost uncontrollable. As a youth, he took mad chances. True, he always came out of them well, barring a broken arm or some such, but I worry....”
“I’m a stranger here, Dr. March,” Camilla said, suddenly feeling as if she were being warned to stay away. Perversely, this warning only made her want to explore forbidden territory more closely. “Such things are not my concern.”
“No, of course not.”
Sir Philip came to them. “Come, come, no conspiracies,” he said. “You can’t share your wishes, you know. As guests, you must stir first.” He took Camilla’s hand in his warm clasp and tucked it beneath his arm. “Come along.”
They waited, however, until the younger two children came in, shuffling along in matching quilted robes with felt slippers upon their feet. The doctor and Camilla exchanged a glance. “Tell me the joke,” Sir Philip whispered in her other ear.
“Nothing important. What happens now?”
“Listen,” he said. His breath was warm and fragrant with the wine he’d drunk at dinner. She found herself breathing in a little more deeply, feeling how close he stood beside her.
Camilla had only ever drunk water or sweet cider at meals. She’d found the one glass of rich red wine she’d had, served with a chine of beef and removes of pigeon pie and salmi of woodcock, to be both delicious and drying. She’d had to request a glass of water from Mr. Samson and had been glad, thereafter, to be served the same drinks as Tinarose.
Nevertheless, the single glass of red wine must have done something to disturb her equilibrium.
Why else would she feel this urgent temptation to lean against Sir Philip, to feel his strong arm come about her waist in support? She’d been raised to stand firmly on her own two feet and to know right from wrong no matter what clever disguises wrong took on. It must certainly be wrong to wish to rub her cheek against the smooth wool of his coat like a cat finding her master. Only the unaccustomed taste of alcohol could explain this sudden sapping of her moral fiber. She vowed she’d never take another glass.
As though the entrance of the children was a signal, from every corner of the room servants stepped forward to stand beside the large, well-scrubbed table in the center of the room. Camilla saw now that an enormous bowl stood in the center, ringed about with garlands of dried flowers. A topiary tree made of some evergreen plant stood beside the bowl. The cook, Mrs. Lamsard, stood behind the bowl, wearing her dazzlingly white apron but having added what was evidently her very best bonnet.
At her nod, the servants broke into song. Camilla couldn’t quite make out the words, something about the sun or the Son. She found herself smiling at Sir Philip as he sang along, tunelessly and all but inaudibly under his breath. “This is my favorite part,” he said.
Merridew started it. “Suet for Bartholomew,” he said, leaning forward to touch the bowl, and then turned to the man next to him.
“Sugar for Matthew,” he mumbled, several front teeth missing. He touched the bowl and turned to a younger woman.
“Raisins for Mark.”
“Currants for Luke.”
“Crumbs for John.”
Camilla looked up at Sir Philip, puzzled.
“There are thirteen ingredients in a good Christmas pudding,” he whispered. “One for each Apostle and Christ, too.”
“What does Judas get?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know. The egg shells, perhaps.”
When the reading of the ingredients came to an end, Mrs. Lamsard beckoned Camilla forward. Camilla hesitated, not sure of her place in this ritual. Sir Philip gave her a little push. “Go on.”
Coming nearer, she saw that from several branches of the little tree, silver charms hung twinkling. As she watched, Mrs. Lamsard pulled the charms off, one at a time, and dropped them into the bowl, “Wedding ring means marriage,” she said, her curiously deep voice rumbling like heat in a chimney. “Button means bachelor. Thimble leaves an old maid. Tuppence is lucky.”
She dropped the last charm into the dark brown batter. The semisolid mass accepted it with the sound of a kiss. Mrs. Lamsard picked up a wooden spoon. “Three times you stir, sunwise, and you makes your wishes,” she said.
Camilla met the woman’s eyes and raised her eyebrows, mouthing, “Sunwise?” With a thick forefinger, Mrs. Lamsard drew a circle showing her the way to go.
Camilla knew just enough not to say her wishes aloud. The memory of childhood games played with her sister came back. One must never ever tell a wish, for that breaks the spell, spilling all the luck out of it so that it will never ever come true.
She had no intention of making a wish. She didn’t believe in wishes or dreams. Such things were for children and not always for them. Yet as she pushed the thick wooden spoon through the batter, knowing this was an ancient action carried out through the centuries, she found herself wishing that she might always have the warmth of friends, the nearness of family, and ... Her gaze lifted for one turn of the spoon, seeking out Sir Philip. Impulsively, she wished for a love that would banish her loneliness, outlast her youth, that would grow warmer and deeper with the passing of the years.
Was that too great a wish for a Christmas pudding? Perhaps she should wish for a packet of needles or a skein of wool, two things she was sure to receive this Christmas as at every Christmas. But she decided as she gave the last stir to be bold, to be, perhaps, foolish and to wish for love.