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“There’s something more to the story, I know it,” I said to Roderick as I tied the ribbon at the throat of my nightdress. I had already sent the maid away, so we were alone and could speak freely. “You should have seen her face, Roderick—it was like a shadow came across her eyes. Mentioning the curse definitely distressed her.”
“Perhaps she’s merely weary of people asking her about it.” His voice was muffled as he pulled his shirt off over his head. “I know I should be, in her position.” Emerging from the garment, his dark curls were ruffled, and I fought back an almost irresistible urge to plunge my hands into his hair and rumple it even further. That could wait.
“It’s more than that,” I said, stretching out on the bed with my chin cupped in my hands as he continued to undress.
“Are you concerned about the class difference between them? The baron seems quite a decent sort, and it’s plain that he adores her.” Seating himself next to me on the bed, he leaned over to kiss me before removing his shoes.
“I like him enormously,” I said. “And I’ve never met anyone less snobbish. He seems to have helped her become less guarded and more at ease. It isn’t the baron I’m worried about.” I remembered her expression when I had mentioned becoming a medium. Was she worried that I was a charlatan—or that I could actually produce a ghost?
Roderick made swift work of the rest of his disrobing, a process that was exceedingly pleasant to watch, and joined me in the bed. I was happy to slip beneath the goose-down counterpane and feel the delicious warmth of a hot-water bottle meeting my toes. Of course, once Roderick drew me close to him, I had no need of further warmth, but it was still a thoughtful touch on our hostess’s part. I nestled my head against his chest, the silky dark hairs tickling my cheek, and thought about all that I had learned for the first time about a woman who had once been among my closest friends.
But also a paid employee, and that did make a difference. Perhaps I shouldn’t have let it make that difference, though.
“What do you think of Clara?” I asked, curious to see her through a man’s eyes.
He did not have to give it a moment’s thought. “I like her. Serious on the whole, but with a sense of humor, as you said. She has great dignity and poise.” Then he grinned. “She’d have little patience with a scoundrel like me as a husband, so it’s just as well she wedded the baron.”
“I just hope she won’t regret it,” I murmured.
Roderick ran his fingers along my arm. Even through the thin batiste of my nightgown, his touch sent shivers of pleasure over my skin. “Why don’t you try just enjoying being here without waiting for an axe to fall,” he said, his husky voice low and warm. “Tomorrow is Christmas day, after all. How about giving yourself the Christmas gift of not worrying?”
Curled up in a warm, soft bed with my husband, it was difficult to summon up my former anxiety. Perhaps it was a spell he wove with his touch. “Maybe you’re right,” I sighed, snuggling closer, and received a kiss on my brow in reward.
“Telford said the almanac predicts a great deal of snow,” he murmured, his hand now moving to stroke my hair. “Imagine how picturesque this place will be, surrounded by drifts of snow.”
“Ugh.” I made a face. “Snow and I are not on good terms. Do you remember the day we met, at Brooke House? I had just been for my first country walk in the snow. It was a disaster.”
His burst of laughter broke the drowsy mood. “I do indeed remember. You were sitting on the staircase with your skirts hiked up so that you could look at your boots. Spectacular boots they must have been, considering all the colors of dye that were dripping into puddles beneath your feet.”
“So they were!” I said wistfully. “White suede embroidered with pink and blue flowers, trimmed in gold leather. Utterly destroyed, since Mrs. Tully hadn’t seen fit to tell me that there was such a thing as snowshoes. I’ve never seen their like again, not even in Paris.”
There was no point mourning them, though. I was so fortunate a woman in every way that it seemed silly to waste another thought on them. I stretched up to kiss Roderick’s chin, and the rasp of stubble made my lips tingle. Roderick was one of those men who ought to shave twice a day, but he rarely troubled to do so. “I shall never forget what a dramatic entrance you made,” I said. “You were the most magnificent man I’d ever seen.”
He grinned. “You did your level best to prevent me from knowing you thought so,” he said, moving to prop himself on one elbow so that he could gaze down into my face.
“Just as you were resolved not to show that I touched your heart as much as I stirred your blood.”
He bent his head and kissed me with a deep, slow kiss that guaranteed we would not be sleeping anytime soon.
“And how you do stir my blood,” he said softly. “Then, now, and always.”
The events that followed testified that the feeling was mutual.
* * *
CHRISTMAS DAY DAWNED sunny and bright, with snow adding a picturesque frosting to the landscape. Though it was not deep at first, downy flakes swirled around our coach on the journey to and from church, and they were falling steadily as the baron set out in a wagon to deliver gifts to those of his tenants who were infirm or otherwise unable to make the trip to Gravesend Hall.
To my astonishment, Roderick detained him long enough for a brief, muttered conversation, and then announced that he was accompanying our host. He winked when he saw my consternation. “We’ll be back all the sooner with twice the number of hands.”
“That won’t make the horses any faster,” I returned, but he only laughed and waved goodbye.
Soon, however, I was too busy to devote any more time to wondering why he had decided to join the baron. Clara had a thousand things to oversee, it seemed, and I enjoyed trailing after her to witness the bustle of preparations. Holly and evergreen boughs had already been arranged on every mantel and windowsill, and garlands bright with berries wrapped the great stair’s banister and decorated the dais at one end of the ballroom. Silver and crystal had been polished to a high gleam, and parcels for all of the guests were heaped beneath the tree. I knew that the ones for the Blackwood Homes women contained warm and gaily colored India shawls specially selected by Clara. Everywhere there were tantalizing fragrances of cooking, and above all there was an air of festivity different from anything I had known, never having spent Christmas at a great manor house before.
“Neither have I,” Clara admitted when I voiced this thought. “That’s one reason I’m so relieved that we won’t be entertaining the local gentry.”
“You won’t?”
She shook her head. She was simultaneously directing the trimming of the great fir tree in the ballroom, consulting with the housekeeper about the dinner, and sorting through wrapped parcels, checking that they were all labeled. “We held a house party earlier this year, soon after our marriage. That was quite enough social scrutiny for me, thank you very much! No, today we’re hosting people of our acquaintance who don’t generally get to enjoy lavish holidays. The women from the Blackwood Homes will be coming with their children, and many of our tenants as well. Then of course after dinner there will be the carolers and mummers—”
“How exciting! I’ve not seen a mummers’ play in years.” I remembered the traditional garish costumes of knights, heroes from history, and dastardly villains from foreign parts. Probably the actors would be mostly children, and the script so familiar that if any of the young actors forgot their lines the adults could cue them.
In time Roderick returned with Clara’s husband, smelling like snow and with melting flakes on his coat, but the outing must not have been an entirely pleasant one, for he seemed distrait. No such subdued spirits afflicted our host, however. Atticus greeted Clara with a kiss that was anything but perfunctory and two baskets full of gifts from the tenants who were unable to come to the manor. “Everyone asked after you,” he said. “I made sure to tell them that you would have joined me if it was possible. Soon enough they’ll understand why a ride in a jouncing coach is not advisable for you now.”
Drawing aside the cloth covering one basket, she reddened slightly. “I imagine they already know the reason. Look at these tiny garments they sent.”
Her husband laughed. He looked very attractive when he laughed, with endearing crinkles showing at the corners of his guileless blue eyes, and once again I felt that Clara had found a good husband. “Blockheaded male that I am, I thought that was a stack of dish towels,” he said. “I’m afraid I do have some bad news, though. The photographer I engaged wired to say he has been delayed.”
“Photographer?” I asked.
Clara explained. “Atticus thought our guests might enjoy the opportunity to have portraits made. In the normal way of things, many of them might never be able to justify the time and expense of a visit to a photographer’s studio, or at least not without the excuse of marriage or death. We had hoped to give them a treat.”
“And with luck, we still may,” her husband added. “Just not as soon as we had hoped. The weather is probably interfering with the trains.” The snow was coming down strongly now.
Luncheon was light fare, since we would have a magnificent dinner. Afterward we only just had time to open our gifts before the guests began to arrive. Clara gave her husband a jaunty caped coat of her own making (“from before I became too big to sit at the machine”) and a book on agriculture that I gathered must have been rare, to judge by his jubilant reaction to it. In return he had exquisite ruby bracelets and a length of antique brocade for her, and he told her that her sewing machine had been replaced with a new one, for whenever she was next able to use it. For Roderick they had a handsome dresser set monogrammed, alas, with his stepfather’s initials, but Roderick laughed mightily and said he would use it with pleasure.
“I’ll pretend the initials stand for Always Lucky,” he said.
For me they had selected a most beautiful antique miniature of Sarah Siddons, which touched me greatly. I had brought a dashing Parisian hat for Clara and was delighted when she declared it perfect to go with her visiting dress. The gold pen I had chosen for Clara’s husband was greeted warmly. (Roderick had been at a loss as to what to give him, but I had reasoned with myself that it was hard to go wrong with a gold pen.)
Roderick’s gift to me actually had to be carried in by two footmen, so large was the box—and when I tore the paper away I discovered that the box itself was, as it were, the gift, for it was a handsome new traveling trunk with many clever drawers and compartments, some of which he had already filled with pretty fripperies from Paris.
My gift for my husband was a triumph of engineering. Knowing how confining he found most clothing to be, especially when performing, I had consulted with a tailor in Paris to create a new tailcoat that made use of cunning features like hidden plackets and bias cutting and various other things that I did not understand but that Clara pronounced to be quite ingenious. The final result was a coat that would be less constricting for Roderick when he played. To say he was delighted would be an understatement.
The fun of exchanging gifts ended just in time, for as we threw the last of the discarded wrappings into the fire we heard wheels on the gravel drive.
The Blackwood Home ladies—or women, more accurately—arrived by the wagonload, and with them their children, rambunctious and excited. I confess I rather gawked at the women. I had seen women of ill repute before, of course, but rarely reformed ones. I was somewhat surprised to find them for the most part demure and modest in their demeanor, tidily dressed and beaming with pleasure as they removed their bonnets and cloaks. Some of them were the Homes employees, of course, including a woman with a gap-toothed smile and a mangled right hand, which made me wince. To my surprise, Clara fell into conversation with her and then, seeing me close at hand, drew me near to introduce me.
“It is high time that two of my oldest friends became reacquainted,” she said. “Sybil, you may not remember, but Martha here was a friend from my time in the factory. The very day that you approached me about sewing for you, Martha was with me. Now that she cannot sew much herself, she instructs others in the use of the machines.”
We shook hands, her whole left hand clasping my right one, and exchanged pleasantries. It was clear, however, that Martha was not finished with her discussion with Clara.
“That’s ’er, in the blue calico,” she said, nodding at a slight young woman with flaxen hair who was watching the antics of the children with a wistful smile. “Virginia Flood. Meek and biddable as you please, and she’ll be a fair hand with a needle some day if she keeps at it, but I’m that worried about ’er.”
“Why?” I asked.
Martha shook her head. Though probably only around Clara’s age, she bore in her face the ravages of poverty, and I guessed that whatever accident had claimed her thumb had put her out of work for a time until Clara had rescued her and given her her current position. “She takes on something terrible at times. Can’t even work for weeping some days.”
Clara looked distressed. “Has Mrs. Flood told you or the matron any of her history?”
“Just the usual—husband died, she had no people to help her, so she had to leave her baby in care while she looked for work. She fell ill for a time, and when she came to herself she was told the babe had died. Took up with a series of men to keep body and soul together.” When I made a sympathetic noise, Martha shrugged. “May or may not be true, any of it.”
“The poor girl,” Clara said, but then a new arrival burst upon us and obliterated the conversation.
“Aunt Clara!” It was a broad-chested young man with tousled brown hair and a particularly guileless face. “Merry Christmas. I bring sad tidings.”
“Oughtn’t that to be glad tidings?”
He wrapped her in a bear hug before answering, but I noticed that he took care not to squeeze her about the middle. “I’m dashed sorry, but Vivi won’t be coming,” he said.
“Oh, no!” She looked crestfallen. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, yes, nothing to worry about, but the doctor doesn’t want her traveling right now, what with the baby due in just a few weeks. It’s just a precaution, and she did her best to talk him round, believe me.” Then he caught sight of me and extended his hand with a smile. “I do beg your pardon, Miss Ingram. You are Miss Ingram, I take it? The pictures in the newspapers don’t do you justice.”
After that, naturally I was disposed to like him. “Delighted to meet you,” I said. “And who is Vivi?”
Clara answered for him. “Genevieve is Atticus’s niece and George’s wife, and I was so looking forward to your meeting her. I think the two of you would take to each other enormously. Won’t you stay for a cup of cider, George?”
“Thanks all the same, but I’d best be getting back. As it is, Vivi is pea green with envy that I get to see you today. She’ll be madly jealous if I linger, and I can’t bear to leave her alone and bored.”
Clara smiled. “Well, tell her we’ll miss her dreadfully and that we’ll call round tomorrow. And give her this.” Raising herself on tiptoe, she kissed the young man’s cheek. Once again I marveled that the restrained Clara Graves I used to know had grown so openly affectionate.
For his part, Mr. Bertram seemed delighted, but not so much that he forgot his manners. After returning Clara’s kiss he bowed very nicely to me as he took his leave.
The children were encouraged to disport themselves outdoors so as to work off their excess energy before dinner. Dinner itself also served to slow them down, so replete it was with delicacies. Goose and roast beef, syllabub, puddings, minced pie, sweetmeats, jellies...I had to summon a maid afterward to loosen my laces, for I did not want them to snap during the dancing.
Such a merry gathering! I had wondered if the simple country folk who worked the farms on the estate would shun the fallen women from the Blackwood Homes—or, worse, leer at them and treat them with disrespect. But as it turned out, everyone seemed to take each other at face value, exchanging greetings of the season and conversing in a companionable way about the hospitality. Clara, resplendent at the head of the table in a glorious gown of purple taffeta and black velvet, and her husband, at the foot, handsome in his evening dress, could congratulate themselves on the gathering.
But there was no time to rest on any laurels, for after dinner came charades and then dancing. Despite her condition, Clara led the first dance with her husband, which was a traditional dance around a bunch of greenery hung from the ceiling—a Cornish Christmas bush, an amiable young rustic named Fred Waring told me. Made up of holly, mistletoe, and ivy, and topped with a shiny red apple, it was a tradition that was new to me. It was wonderful to see Clara and her husband reveling in the party atmosphere they had created, and even Roderick seemed to forget his earlier preoccupation while we danced. He was rapt when the carolers arrived and performed traditional Cornish songs for us that were unfamiliar. These were not gentle hymns for church but vigorous tunes that roused the spirits with their energetic harmonies.
“Oh, go ahead,” I said to Roderick in a break between songs.
He raised his eyebrows at me. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Go fetch your violin. I can see your fingers fairly itching for it so that you can learn some of these tunes.”
Laughing, he kissed me and strode off to our room. When he returned carrying his instrument, there was a roar of appreciation from the musicians who now recognized him as one of their own.
The servants, who had had a celebration of their own belowstairs, as Clara told me, joined us to watch the mummers’ play. The vast ballroom was almost full as the local children and a few adults gathered on the dais at the end of the room. Outside I saw the snow continuing to come down heavily and felt a twinge of concern that the mummers would have to make their way to their next stop during this storm.
As the old story of Saint George and the Turkish Knight unfolded, I tucked my arm through Roderick’s and observed the audience. Clara, after so exhausting a day, had finally consented to sit down, and her husband stood by protectively. There was laughter at the costumes and makeshift masks of the mummers, but it was a comfortable sound, and cries of encouragement heartened the occasional hesitant or forgetful actor.
Only one person did not seem to be enjoying the revelry. From where I stood, I could see pretty young Mrs. Virginia Flood’s face, and her posture was taut with a strange urgency. Her hands clenched in her lap, she was watching with great concentration—and without showing one jot of pleasure. Rather, she looked as if something desperately important was unfolding before her.
Perhaps the antics of these children were reminding her of the child she had lost. Maybe that was why she was so despondent at times—she had not recovered from losing her child. It was a sobering reminder during this festive night that as much as I had seen Clara and her husband do to improve the lives of their dependents, they were only human and could not find an answer to every sorrow.
And, as mere humans, they could not control the weather either. When the mummers and carolers had had their fill of food and drink and at last made to go, the shout came back at once to those of us still in the ballroom: Gravesend was snowed in.
What a flurry there was then! Finding rooms to put everyone in; making certain all the beds had fresh linens; determining where the Blackwood Homes denizens would be placed so as to provide enough space between them and the bachelors to ensure everyone’s privacy; and finally looking for a place to put all the boys, who showed no signs of sleepiness and were liable to keep the adults awake. There, at least, my host was lucky.
“We’ve already cleared out the gallery of the most precious things and already have some cots there for the school,” Clara noted. “It’s a bit dark and cavernous, but we can get a good fire going to warm it and make it more inviting. I’ll tell Mrs. Threll.” She made to rise, but her husband gently repressed her.
“I wish you’d rest instead, my love.”
“So I shall—soon.” She tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, and he relented.
I tagged along, curious to see more of the house, and my first impression was that if I were a young boy, I would have been intimidated by the long gallery with its pools of shadow and its high vaulted ceiling that sent ominous echoes back at those who broke the solemn silence. The rugs had already been rolled up and propped against the walls, perhaps in preparation for some new flooring, and that made the echoes all the more insidious. It was not a cozy place—nor was it meant to be, I reminded myself.
Clara, yielding to her husband’s concern for her health, lingered just long enough to say goodnight to the boys and tuck in the smallest ones. It was plain to see that already they worshipped her. I helped Mrs. Threll distribute blankets, and after some discussion we left the drapes open so that moonlight would provide some reassuring illumination. Reflected as it was from banks of snow, the light was eerily bright, but the two youngest boys earnestly desired that we not leave them in darkness. There were only half a dozen boys, varied in age up to perhaps ten or possibly twelve. I confess that I am far from an expert in little boys and had no desire to become one. I could hardly believe that Clara would soon turn her home over to a crowd of them.
For one thing, they had such gruesome tastes. “That’s where the old baron died,” one lad whispered when I went to straighten his blanket. He was a slight curly-headed fellow, and he pointed at a door leading off the gallery. “His room had the faces of dead people on the walls.”
“Dear God, child, I don’t think that can be true.”
“He told me.” He indicated one of the older boys. “Warren. He heard it from the stable boy, he said.”
“Now, that is quite enough,” I said, hoping that briskness would lend me authority. “It’s time to put nasty stories out of your head and go to sleep.”
But when I at last climbed into bed next to Roderick, I found that my own mind was now filled with troubling thoughts. I wished that I had thought to ask George Bertram or one of the other guests about the Gravesend curse. To be sure, though, the day had scarcely offered a chance for much private conversation.
I looked over at Roderick, whose deep-set eyes were fixed pensively on the ceiling. “Are you better?” I asked.
“Hmm?”
“You seemed preoccupied earlier today, and not best pleased. Did Father Christmas disappoint you?”
He smiled and drew me close. “It’s not important.” He paused. “I will say one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I never realized before just what is involved in being the lord of a great estate. Telford seems to have learned the name, personal history, ailments, and individual crotchets of every single one of his tenants. It was astonishing to watch him today. They’d all lay down their lives for him, and one can see why.”
“Well, he is a remarkable man,” I said, wondering where this was going.
“I’d be dreadful at what he does,” Roderick said, “and dreadfully bored. I’m so glad we are free to travel wherever we wish without any great responsibilities weighing us down.”
“So am I, dear heart.” Thank goodness, he had not been contemplating settling down and becoming lord of the manor!
Tired but happy, we soon fell asleep. It was not until hours later that we were awakened by something most unexpected in a comfortable home at Christmas. By screaming.