A Yuletide Treasure (6 page)

“Vanity, all is vanity,” she said and sneezed twice.

Still squinching along in her too-large, damp boots, Camilla sought the warmer regions below stairs. Of course in this unconventional household, she did not know what she would find. Anything from bacchanalian revels to a quiet spot of tree worship, she imagined.

The house breathed quietly. A pleasant scent like fresh flowers filled the air, odd in winter. As she walked down the stairs, the scent was slowly replaced by that of baking apples. Her mouth watered as she realized how long it had been since she’d eaten, Except for a little pink cake, she’d not tasted anything substantial since the slice of bread and butter with which she’d started her day. Hard to believe that it had only been this morning that she’d left her home.

If the Manor were anything like Sir John Fuster’s house in her own village, the door to the servants’ quarters should be under and behind this staircase. She made a sharp turn, and to her pleased surprise, the green baize door was exactly where she’d surmised.

In Mrs. Twainsbury’s phrase, it was not “done” for a lady to enter another house’s servants’ quarters without the express permission of and possible accompaniment of the hostess. But the beckoning fragrance of baked apples was impossible to resist, and Camilla did not hesitate to push open the door. A deep voice upraised in song, so deep that she wasn’t certain at first if it was a man’s or a woman’s, reached her along with a stronger scent of cinnamon and cloves.

“And the judge laid down, with a fearful frown, the sentence from on high; Allen Ramsay must die, must die. Yes, Allen Ramsay must die!” The last high note told her the singer must be woman, or that a great tenor was lost to the stage.

“Hello?” she called, penetrating further.

“Who’s that?” the voice said, breaking off in mid-verse, something about a maiden’s tears.

“It is I. Miss Twainsbury.”

“Oh, is it, then? Come. Let me get a good look at you.”

“Well, if it isn’t the heroine of the hour,” the cook said, turning like a battleship to unmask her guns. Her dazzlingly white apron would have made a fine mainsail, a yard long and twice as wide. It was tacked to a bosom that would have done any bowsprit proud below a pair of shoulders that any able-bodied seaman would have squared with pride. A drop of sweat glistened on the woman’s brow, sliding down from iron-colored hair bound and wound about with dozens of elaborate braids.

Camilla had never met with so much hostility in her life as she’d found at the LaCorte Manor. She was beginning to worry that her own behavior was somehow calling forth this reaction. Yet she couldn’t remember any pride or arrogance on her part that would account for it.

The guns did not fire. The cook swept her hard eyes over Camilla, and if her expression did not soften, her tone altered. “You’re not old at all, are you? That Mavis told me you was an old lady.”

“It’s this hairstyle,” Camilla said, smiling as she dragged a damp hunk off her cheek. “It makes me look more mature.”

A smile twitched the corner of the down-drawn mouth. The cook stretched out a brawny arm, heavy with muscle from beating batters and hammering cuts of meat wafer-thin. Hooking a finger around a sturdy chair, she pulled it in front of the massive blackened iron stove.

“Sit ye down,” she ordered. “Take off them clodhoppers of Mavis’s and get warm.”

Camilla obeyed.

With the side of her hand, the cook slapped open one of the iron portals of the big stove. As though a dragon had opened its mouth, the roaring and rattling of the fire in the chimney filled the kitchen. The flames, orange and bright yellow, snapped like the banners of hell’s army while heat, blessed heat, wrapped around Camilla.

Slowly, she moved to obey the cook’s commands, wiggling off the boots and the thickly knitted woolen stockings while the woman’s back was turned.

A moment later, the cook was lifting her feet and placing them in a round, flat copper basin. A heaping tablespoon of mustard went in followed by a stream of hot water from a high-held kettle.

Camilla sank against the back of the chair as the cold retreated from the cloud of steam that enveloped her. Inch by inch, the chill of her bones was chased away. Between the mustard footbath and the dragon’s breath from the stove, she felt as if she were melting. Soon nothing would be left but a grateful puddle.

But the cook’s treatment wasn’t complete.

Camilla found a tall, curve-sided mug in her hand, the most delicious aroma arising from the sludgy-looking liquid. She could have sworn something went “plop” in the depths, as the dark brown liquid roiled. There were yellow flecks of butterfat amid the frothing milk on the top.

She looked doubtfully into the mug, then glanced up at the cook. Standing over her with her arms crossed, deep-dimpled elbows showing under the rolled-back sleeves of her day dress, the cook gave a brief, but encouraging nod. Even more encouraging, however, was the beguiling fragrance beckoning to Camilla’s taste buds.

With a hesitation that did not last beyond the first sip, Camilla tasted the hot cocoa. Mixed with cinnamon, cardamom, and other spices that danced on her tongue, it was a taste more blissful, or sinful, than any she had ever tried. She opened the eyes she had not realized she’d closed to savor the exquisite blend of chocolate and spice. “Amazing,” she said. “What’s in it?”

“A pinch o’ this ‘un and a dash o’ that. ‘Tis a family receipt.”

“My compliments to you.”

She nodded regally, a goddess on her own hearth. “Puts the pink in your cheeks.” Slapping her side with a noise like a fish flapping on the water, she smacked her lips. “Puts the flesh on, too. Need it, this weather.”

“I suppose so.” Camilla looked down into the mug. The level of cocoa had already dropped significantly, and she hadn’t even realized how much she’d drunk. “Good heavens,” she said, undoing the top button of her woolen dress. “I’m already feeling ever-so-much warmer.”

The cook judged her again with narrowed eyes. “Not yet.” She picked up a log from the wood basket and pitched it easily into the open stove. The flames licked up even higher. “Don’t get up. Have another.”

The cocoa in the chocolate pot didn’t pour; it blupped out, stopping and starting as rich lumps of chocolate caught and were released through the narrow spout. Camilla had practically to chew her way through her second portion. Dinner, which had seemed of such desperate interest, suddenly retreated to the mildest of curiosities. With cocoa like this, she didn’t care if she ever ate dinner again.

After a few more swallows, the cook gave her a towel to dry her steaming hair. It seemed curlier than ever before. Camilla wasn’t sure if it was the combination of steam, heat, and the quick drying, or the cocoa. If it put roses in her cheeks and meat on her bones, mightn’t it make her hair curl?

She couldn’t help but undo her second button. Though now more than warm, she felt too enervated to move. The very idea of entering that chilly bedroom was more than she could face. She felt like a child again, retreating to the kitchen where, provided you didn’t make too much noise, you’d be left in peace to read, to steal an apple or two, and to eavesdrop on fascinating servant gossip.

Thinking of those carefree hours, Camilla laid her head back against the top of the chair, lassitude invading her every atom. Perhaps she slept a little, for she suddenly found herself listening to voices even while aware they’d been speaking unintelligibly in the background of her dreams for some time.

“—that lost-lookin’, like she’d been dragged backward through a hedge and no more color to her face than you’d find on a sheet of paper.”

Camilla recognized the grunt that followed. Merridew was in the kitchen. “Foolhardy courage,” he said. “The captain would know what to say to her, I reckon.”

“Miss Tinarose would’ve done the same,” Mavis chirped. “If her mother’d let her go.”

“Don’t say anything ‘gainst her la’ship,” the cook warned in a low growl.

“I ain’t. Just... Miss Tinarose never seems to get her chance.”

“Wants to be found facedown in a blizzard, does she?” Merridew scoffed. “Though’ she was a downed tree, at first. Or a drowned dog. She sure looked as good as dead when he brung her into the house.”

It was a good thing, Camilla thought, that she had no exaggerated notion of her looks. Otherwise all these compliments would swell her head. She decided to make herself known, before their comments grew any more commendatory. Next they’d be congratulating her on being marginally less gargoyle-like than they remembered.

She shifted in her chair, kicking a little water out of the basin before she remembered her feet were in it. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.

“Mavis ...,” the cook said.

“An right, all right.”

The towel Camilla had used to dry her hair had fallen across her lap when she’d drifted off. Now, carefully lifting her feet from the water, she let Maws drag the basin aside and then reached down to start drying them. She felt a little dizzy and had to stop.

“Mavis ...,” the cook said again.

“Never you mind, miss,” Mavis said, running the mop over the spilled water. “I’ll dry ‘em for you.”

“Thank you, Mavis, but I’ll take care of my own feet.” Feeling that she had been a little ungracious, she added, “Thank you for the loan of your boots. They kept me beautifully dry.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Camilla turned now to see the cook and Merridew watching her. They sat at the big kitchen table which had been scrubbed so often the wood was worn white. Yellowish bone dominoes splayed across the service, a great untidy pile. “Who’s winning?” she asked brightly.

“I am,” the cook said, as if it were too commonplace an occurrence to discuss.

“She always wins,” Merridew said, glancing at the woman across from him. For an instant, Camilla saw in his tired old eyes a flash of wonder, all mixed with pride. He seemed unable to believe that the marvelous creature across from him could spare him so much as a thought, let alone deign to play games with him. As soon as he saw Camilla looking at him, he frowned and cleared his throat shatteringly loud.

She turned again to Mavis. “How is Nanny Mallow?”

“They were quarreling like a new cat and an old dog,” the parlor maid said. “Never thought I’d live to see the day someone could outtalk Mum. But that Nanny Mallow never stops long enough to draw breath, let alone get her thoughts in order. The words just come spilling out, like water from a downspout.”

“She looked so wan and drawn,” Camilla said. “She should have quiet.”

“Oh, I reckon Mum’ll start using silence on her soon enough. But don’t worry none, miss. Mum’s a good nurse; she’ll see to it Nanny Mallow gets better. She’s got her pride, same as anybody.”

“That’s right,” the cook said.

Camilla put her hand to her head and found that her hair was all but completely dry. Pushing it back, her fingers tangled in it. She had no need to glance in a shiny pot bottom to see herself. Her hair had become one great knot at home on two or three occasions, and it had taken hours of eye-watering effort from her mother to return all to smoothness. “I hope I shall be able to get the knots out without cutting it,” she said to herself.

She thought about getting up to brush her hair, to sponge her dress back into respectability, and again to pull on the uncongenial boots. But she felt too boneless to move. When the cook removed a dish of baked apples from a side compartment of the stove and laid it on the table, Camilla couldn’t even muster the energy to ask for one. Actually, after two cups of the cook’s chocolate, she felt as a South American boa constrictor must feel after swallowing a small pig, but the scent of cinnamon, clove, and apple would have tempted a monk sworn to austerity to climb down from his pillar to demand a taste.

It brought Sir Philip instead. He opened one side of the double doors at the far end of the kitchen. Camilla caught a glimpse of a passageway made of glossy beige bricks behind him. He must have hung his greatcoat up in the passage, but snow still crusted his boots. He stamped twice upon the mat to remove it.

“What’s that smell?” he asked, sniffing the air like a hound catching a scent. “Baked apples? I adore ‘em.”

“They’re for the nursery tea,” the cook said.

“What, all of them? Are we feeding children or baby elephants?” Then he saw Camilla, and a bright smile took over his face, replaced an instant later by concern as he walked up to her. His cheeks were red from cold. “Miss Twainsbury, you look all in. Hasn’t anyone in all this great house offered you a place to lie down?”

She noticed that both Merridew and Mavis had become very busy with his entrance. Merridew was scraping up all the dominoes and replacing them in their rosewood box. Mavis had seized a mop and immediately attacked the wet footprints Sir Philip had made.

“I’m very well, thank you. Everyone has been so kind. Nanny Mallow is resting. Mrs. Duke is with her.”

“Yes, the doctor has gone upstairs. I simply came in this way after seeing to the horses.”

“Eh?” Merridew interjected. “What’s that?”

“They’re well bedded down for the night. Now for you, Miss Twainsbury....”

“I should be glad of a stable,” she admitted. ‘Though your cook has taken excellent care of me, as indeed everyone has.”

“Mum’s likely got the other room ready for you, miss.”

As no one seemed to notice her bare feet or her reluctance to move, Camilla felt it incumbent upon her to make an effort. Anything was better than sitting here helpless while Sir Philip stood over her. He had praised her courage, which had been unexpectedly sweet. She didn’t want to endanger that good opinion, since everyone else seemed to be reserving judgment.

“Mavis,” the cook said. “Show Miss Twainsbury upstairs, then come right back, mind.”

“I’ll show Miss Twainsbury the way,” Sir Philip said. “You’ve work to do.”

“She can do it,” the cook urged.

“ ‘At’s right,” Merridew added. “Lazy little thing. Do ‘er some good t’trot up them stairs.”

“I don’t mind, Sir Philip, ‘deed I don’t.”

He held up his hand. “Nonsense. It’s my pleasure.” He bent his arm and offered it to Camilla. Surprised by the eagerness the servants had shown to assist her, she wondered if accepting her host’s arm was some breech of etiquette. Nevertheless, she took it.