Home for Christmas (14 page)

Sarah Stacey sighed and shook her head. ‘A suffragist! Whatever next?’ She too kept her voice down, keen not to wake anyone until she had everything under way.

Agnes was pulling on her simple navy blue dress followed by a large white apron and cap. ‘Then, after changing the world, I’m going to explore it. I think I might even take Lydia with me. We’re going to do all the things men do, only better.’

Sarah drew in her chin and placed her fists on her hips. ‘I see. Might I remind you that young ladies are not considered ladies if they do the things young men do.’

‘But they will. In time. Aunt Peridot has arrived. She’s Sir Avis’s aunt. It’s quite amazing really. He’s old, but she’s a lot older. Somebody told me she’s in her nineties, not that it stops her from getting in trouble. She told me all about the suffragists when I was unpacking her things. Do you know a stupid man can vote on who goes into Parliament, but an intelligent woman cannot? Aunt Peridot thinks it’s wrong, and so does Sir Avis. I think it’s wrong too. That’s why I think I might become a suffragist. I expect Lydia will become one too. Who knows, one of us might become the first woman to enter Parliament. One of us might even become Prime Minister. Imagine that.’

‘I can’t.’

Sarah Stacey shook her head. If there was one thing guaranteed to both amuse and worry her, it was her daughter relating how she saw her future. However, not this morning, and not just because there was so much to do.

‘I dare say you will make your mark on the world, Agnes,’ she said merrily, though still speaking quietly. ‘Though I think a woman being Prime Minister is hardly likely to happen in this century or the next. In the meantime we have things to do. Puddings to steam, a stuffed turkey to put in the oven.’

The kitchen smelled of rich fruit steeping in brandy, the aroma coming from six cloth-wrapped puddings, all awaiting the steaming pan.

‘That’s a lot of puddings, Mother.’

‘Four or five for the staff party. I think one will be enough for the family.’

‘There,’ said Agnes with a satisfied sigh as she lowered the first pudding into the first of three steaming pans big enough to take two at a time. ‘If Sir Avis is feeling a bit better, perhaps he’ll have some too.’

Sarah looked away so her daughter could not see the worry in her eyes.

‘I dare say he might, depending on how he’s feeling,’ she said. ‘Now give me a hand putting this turkey in the oven.’

Agnes looked sidelong at her mother. She’d always darted around the kitchen at breakneck speed, but today her movements had quickened. Once one task was finished, she immediately started on another. It was as if she didn’t want to waste a minute talking or thinking about what she had to do next.

‘Slow down, Mother. There’s plenty of time,’ said Agnes.

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ her mother snapped. ‘Now get on with those sprouts.’

Agnes could not read her mother’s mind, but if she could, she too would have been worried.

Sarah Stacey was no doctor, but she knew Sir Avis well. She knew how healthy he used to be, how frail he had become.

The appointment of Doctor Miller had given some respite, but in her opinion he’d come along too late to do anything except make the old man’s last days comfortable.

And there was something else.

Late the night before, the sound of somebody at the front door came as something of a surprise, despite the time of year when all manner of guests and staff were coming and going.

Quartermaster, looking forward to dousing the lights once Master Sylvester had drunk himself into a stupor, and then getting himself to bed, heard the front doorbell reverberating through the house, and went to investigate.

Earlier that day he had been feeling quietly optimistic that this would be the best Christmas ever. He’d just taken a cup of hot chocolate laced with brandy up to Sir Avis and had been delighted to find him still sitting upright in bed, almost his bright and perky old self.

There was something about that bell. Perhaps if it had been the old-style bell, a cast-iron monster, he might not have heard it. However, the old master did so love modern inventions, especially anything electrically driven.

The electric bell made a soulless sound, a thin buzzing noise that wasn’t remotely like a bell, more like the buzzing of a giant bee caught in an equally giant spider’s web.

‘Who the devil is it on a dirty night like this?’ he’d muttered, thinking as he slid back one large bolt at the top, one at the bottom, that no one of any good travelled on nights when the mist was thick as a pea soup.

‘Good evening,’ he said in a far brisker manner than he normally used. ‘Ah! Mr Credenza. We weren’t expecting you …’

He had been hoping that the traveller – whoever it was – had lost their way.

The moment he saw the dark man at the door, he knew his worst fears had come true.

‘Good evening, Quartermaster. Would you tell Sir Avis that I’m here and would discuss business with him?’

‘Certainly, Mr Credenza. Do you have luggage?’

Rudolfo Credenza, Sir Avis’s brother-in-law, boasted dark Spanish features, heavily hooded eyes and a nose that looked big enough to peck the meat off a dead hare.

Moreover, thought Quartermaster, that is exactly what he’s come for. He’s heard the master is dying and, given the chance, he’ll pick the bones clean.

Quartermaster had found Sir Avis still awake and asking who was at the door.

‘Your wife’s brother. He says it’s regarding a business matter.’

Sir Avis’s brown eyes, still bright with intelligence despite his debilitating illness, looked up. Whereas his hair was white, his eyebrows had remained dark, a fitting accompaniment to the velvet brownness of his eyes.

His smile was thin but sincere. ‘It’s Christmas. We’ll put up with him, won’t we Quartermaster?’

Once Lady Julieta’s brother was supplied with a room and supper of oxtail soup, cold chicken, bread and butter, cake, coffee and brandy, the old butler stomped along the landing meaning to inform Sarah. He found her halfway up the stairs, on her way from the kitchen to her bedroom.

‘Rudolfo is here.’

It was all he said. All he needed to say.

Fear gripped Sarah Stacey’s heart like cold fingers squeezing the life out of it. What would happen to her when her benefactor – Agnes’s father – was gone?

She shook herself back into the present and the preparation of the Christmas lunch and, stabbing the wooden spoon deeper into the mince pie filling, she stirred afresh. Concentrate on the here and now. Let the future bring what it may. She’d cope with it when it came.

Looking up at the ceiling of the ballroom at Heathlands was like gazing at a star-spangled sky.

‘Splendid, isn’t it?’ said the doctor, his noble head tilted backwards so he could better behold the spectacular ceiling.

‘It’s like Ali Baba’s cave in
Tales of the Arabian Nights
,’ Lydia whispered.

She had to agree with Agnes that Christmas at Heathlands was quite magical. Every room in the house sparkled with light from the overhead chandeliers. The smell of the apple logs piled high in the fireplace of each reception room vied with that of oranges, rich fruit puddings and freshly picked greenery.

A second Christmas tree, far larger than any normal house could cope with, gleamed with balls of coloured glass, each one reflecting light from myriad candles rising in tiers to the very top where Robert’s silver star looked slightly shabby but oddly fitting.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered, gazing at the sheer opulence of the room and its decorations. ‘And yet it makes me feel guilty. So many people have so little. I live a life of contrasts.’

Her father, this man who mostly looked dour with his sad memories at this time of year, agreed that it was beautiful. ‘Lydia, please remember that only a fool worries about that which he or she cannot change,’ he added.

Through the warmth and glitter, her eyes met those of Sylvester. He smiled and raised his glass. Lydia’s smile vanished. The nerve of the man, smiling as though what he’d done was just a joke.

She’d weighed up the consequences of telling her father what had occurred in the grotto, but had decided against it. This Christmas was so different from those in the past. They were together in a jolly environment and Doctor Eric Miller’s star was rising. Rich and influential people would follow where Sir Avis led. Besides that, she had never seen him looking so happy. It cheered her immeasurably.

No, she decided. Let it be. Sylvester had behaved badly. Robert, on the other hand, had rescued her and in doing so had stirred her emotions in ways she had not experienced before.

They learned that it was traditional for the staff to have their party before sitting down for a late dinner. Household staff and estate workers were enjoying themselves dining on rich food and cups of mulled punch served from a silver bowl big enough to bathe a baby in. A barrel of cider made from apples picked from the Heathlands orchard had been set up in a half-hidden corner tended by men with ruddy faces and stiff white collars. Everyone was dressed in his or her best.

Lydia was wearing a mint-green dress decorated with tiny seed pearls. The neckline exposed her shoulders and enough of her décolletage to be enticing but still decent.

The eyes of staff and guests had flickered in her direction when she’d entered the room. Sylvester was the first in line to greet them, acknowledging and saluting her father like an officer and a gentleman before turning to smile down into her face.

‘You look quite enchanting, my dear. Good enough to eat in fact.’

He licked his bottom lip, making Lydia decide that he had every intention of devouring her if he could. She would not put herself in a position where he could take advantage of her again.

‘Oh, I don’t think you want to get quite as close to me as that. I think I may be coming down with a cold,’ she murmured, glaring up at him.

‘Is this the young man responsible for you being late back last night?’ asked her father.

‘Yes,’ she responded sharply, but did not elaborate. Her father had been content with only half the story.

‘I hear he’s of good family, Sir Avis’s nephew in fact.’

‘By marriage only.’

Her father grunted. She fancied he was impressed, perhaps even thinking Sylvester might possibly be a suitor for her hand.

The room was wide, glistening with light and packed with people.

Even before she saw Robert, she knew he was there, as if he was longing to see her just as she was longing to see him.

Somehow, she’d known exactly where to look for him. Now all she had to do was get to him, but the room was crowded.

Staff and estate workers were milling around on the dance floor, all laughing and chattering at once. There was no break in the crowd, no sudden surging aside to let her through. At times, it seemed as though the crowds were no more than blobs of colour, subdued pieces of their surroundings. There was only the two of them, the light in each other’s face. Lydia smiled at him. He smiled back, raising his glass in a soundless toast.

The conversation and jolly songs erupted into three cheers welcoming the arrival of Sir Avis Ravening. Quartermaster pushed his bath chair in. The bath chair had been sitting in a corner of the house for weeks, but Sir Avis had shunned its use until his weakness had finally outstripped his pride.

He waved to everyone, his hands pale as weathered bones, and a rug across his legs. Unlike some patients Lydia had encountered in her brief nursing career who were close to death, his face was not skull-like, his smile stretched across his teeth. On the contrary, his eyes were merry in his broad face, his mood jovial, but his complexion was as pale as unbaked bread.

‘It’s like the old family Christmases I used to know,’ he cried in a voice that cracked between words. The laughter that followed was short lived, replaced by a bout of phlegm-filled coughing that only receded once he’d downed a brandy. Sir Avis had insisted that the Christmas feast would be exactly that; there would be no cutting back simply because his stomach wasn’t as strong as it used to be.

‘No milky puddings and eggnogs for me,’ he declared as Quartermaster wheeled him to the head of the table.

Crooking his finger, he beckoned his new doctor. ‘As for you, Doctor Miller, please do not tell me to drink only water or weak tea. Pour me another brandy, Quartermaster.’

Doctor Miller shook his head. ‘Sir Avis, I would advise that you adhere to the prescribed diet.’

Sir Avis waved away his advice. ‘It’s Christmas. I am over three score years and ten. I am on borrowed time. I shall enjoy these last years doing the things – most of the things – I have always enjoyed doing …’

His eyes misted with memories and his lips spread in a thin smile as he whispered in the doctor’s ear.

‘I have loved life, and I shall continue to do what I can,’ he said finally.

The cook, Sarah Stacey, Agnes’s mother, took Quartermaster’s place standing behind the wheelchair, her smile a little too tense to be one of happiness. Out of sight of prying eyes, the tips of her fingers brushed his shoulders. He was slipping away. She wondered how long it would be until he was gone, and prayed he would be around a little longer, long enough to ensure that she and his daughter were taken care of.

Sir Avis’s Aunt Peridot, a doughty woman with weasel-like features and chips of agate for eyes, who wielded an old-fashioned pince-nez as if it were a decorative fan, was the first to wish him a Merry Christmas.

‘Same to you, Perdy,’ he responded as she kissed his cheek.

‘Make the most of it. I may not be here for the next one,’ she shouted at him.

‘Don’t shout, Perdy. You’re the one who’s deaf, not me, and anyway, you said that last year. You’re still here. And so am I.’

‘Good God, man. What are you saying? Do you want me to promise not to be here next year? If that’s what you want, you need to have a word with the Good Lord above. He’s the one in charge of whether I’m on earth or in heaven – or elsewhere,’ she added with characteristic gruff wit and a flicking and clicking of her pince-nez, though the clicking could just as easily have been her arthritic wrist.