by M C Beaton
* * *
A few miles away Lord Ranger was sitting on the end of his friend’s bed. “The Davenport girls were enchanting tonight,” he said.
“I am glad they are enjoying themselves so much,” replied Lord Paul. “I had a talk with Sir John in the cardroom. He was quite incensed over their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Davenport. Seems the poor things have known nothing but strictness and beatings and corrections of one form or another. He was anxious I should not mention any of our conversation to his wife.”
“Odso!”
“Yes, and you will not like the reason, either. Sir John is monstrous fond of the Davenport girls, but he is worried that his wife has become a little carried away. He says that Lady Harrington sees us both as prospective husbands and begs us to keep clear.”
Lord Ranger thought with sudden anger of being barred from further enjoyable visits to Greenbanks. “We are always being seen in the light of husbands,” he said.
“I think perhaps he was not just talking about his wife. He more or less implied that we are perhaps raising the hopes of two young, innocent girls, girls who must soon go back to their strict Puritan home.”
“We have done nothing. We took Lady Harriet and Miss Lucinda in to supper, and no one thinks that means anything.”
“In the case of Lucinda and Harriet, neither I, you, nor anyone else cares what they think. They have both been out, both are accomplished flirts, and both are as hard as steel. Not only did they ruin the Davenports’ ball gowns, but I think they were behind some ruse to try to get Mr. Nash to stop the Harrington party attending the ball. But I can see the sense in what Sir John was trying to tell me… to tell us.”
Lord Ranger scowled. “So does that apply to Travers and Jensen?”
“Travers and Jensen are capable of being every bit as happy with either Miss Charteris or Miss Andrews.”
“Do you think either of the Davenport girls regard us in the light of future husbands?”
“No, I don’t,” said Lord Paul candidly. “But I am become fond of Sir John and I think the gentlemanly thing to do would be to keep away.”
“It is so dull here.” Lord Ranger sighed. “What do you say? Do we make our adieux and head back to London?”
Lord Paul’s black eyes held an unreadable expression. Then he said, “Perhaps after Christmas. Sir John cannot object us to calling during the Christmas festivities. I would like to see how Miss Mandy… I mean, how both of them enjoy their first, and probably their last Christmas.”
But it was before Christmas when Jilly and Mandy saw them again. Jilly and Mandy were helping with the festivities for Saint Thomas’s Day on the twenty-first of December. Mandy appeared more settled and happier now that there was no Lord Paul around to disturb her, but in Jilly’s case, absence had made the heart grow fonder and she sometimes told herself gloomily that while her sister was recovering from love, she herself was falling into it.
Saint Thomas was the patron saint of old people, so this was the day for giving them small presents of money to help them buy their Christmas food. The poor children of the parish also went around on Saint Thomas’s Day to ask for corn for their frumenty cakes, or sweets. Frumenty was a kind of porridge made from grains of wheat boiled in milk and then seasoned with sugar and cinnamon. After the special bags the children carried to put the corn in, it was called “going a-corning.” As they toured the village, they sang:
“Christmas is coming and the geese are getting fat,
Please spare a penny for the old man’s hat,
If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do,
If you haven’t got a ha’penny, God bless you.”
Also on Saint Thomas’s Day was wassailing, and after Jilly and Mandy had helped to distribute money to the old folk, they joined the singers who went from house to house with the wassail bowl, decorated with ribbons, garlands, and a gilded apple.
Wassail is in fact a centuries-old toast. Like Father Christmas, mistletoe, and the mummers’ plays, it was a tradition that the church did not try to stop. The word comes from the Anglo-Saxon wes hal, meaning “be whole.” It was customary for every family to have a wassailing bowl steaming away throughout the Christmas season. The traditional content of the wassail bowl was “lamb’s wool,” which was made by mixing hot ale with the pulp of roasted apples and adding sugar and spices. The full recipe went: “Boil three pints of ale; beat six eggs, the whites and yokes together; set both to the fire in a pewter pot; add roasted apples, sugar, beaten nutmegs, cloves, and ginger; and being well brewed, drink it while hot.”
The snow had melted since the night of the ball, and the remaining slush had frozen hard into long bluish white ridges which lay across the fields like the long fingers of winter. The sky was leaden when the girls went round the village with the wassail bowl. Jilly and Mandy were beginning to feel quite tipsy, for they and the other revelers helped themselves to a small tankard of the contents at each house. Both girls were crowned with garlands of holly and had a multitude of colored ribbons tied in bows on their gowns and tied into the fur edging of their cloaks.
They had given up watching for two mounted figures and so it came as a surprise when they looked up and saw Lord Ranger and Lord Paul, both on horseback, watching them.
Lady Harrington cried, “Welcome! We are just finished. Will you join us at the house? Sir John will give you something hot to drink, for this bowl is nigh empty.”
The men raised their hats and rode on. Lord Ranger was startled at the effect the sight of Jilly had had on him; Jilly like some pagan goddess with the holly wreath in her red hair.
With a feeling of coming home, both men entered Greenbanks. The maid ushered them into the drawing room and there was Sir John, mixing punch with all the single-minded concentration of a good child.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” he cried when the little maid tugged at his sleeve to attract his attention. “You must have some of my special mixture to banish the cold.”
Lord Ranger experienced an odd feeling of anticipation and excitement such as he had not had since a child. He and Lord Paul had stayed away from Greenbanks, and Mrs. Tenby had been assiduous in providing amusements to distract them. But the Christmas spirit had not yet come to the colonel’s, and Lord Ranger was sure it never would. Peter, the footman, had been heard asking if he should get the staff to decorate the rooms with holly and ivy, and Mrs. Tenby had said she did not want to risk any damage to walls or ornaments with that “filthy stuff.”
There were piles of the “filthy stuff,” ready-cut and lying just outside the front door. Lord Ranger was sure the Harringtons meant to throw themselves heart and soul into Christmas.
Jilly and Mandy came in, cheeks pink with the cold, laughing and saying they must get the holly wreaths out of their hair. “Why?” asked Lord Ranger. “They look most charming.”
Both men had stood up at the girls’ entrance. The colonel cried, “Punch, everyone. This is my best yet.”
“I think we have had enough to drink already,” laughed Jilly. “No, Mandy, you must not have any more.”
“I shall do very well,” said Mandy. “The fresh air has cleared my head.”
But she stumbled as she passed Lord Paul, and would have fallen had he not grabbed her around the waist to support her. For one brief, delirious moment she leaned against him, her head bowed submissively. For one brief moment he felt those young breasts pressed against him, smelled the scent of her hair, felt the sudden quickening of his senses. And then she had detached herself and with a nervous little laugh, turned to her sister. “Come with me, Jilly. This holly prickles so.”
The girls went upstairs together. “Steady,” admonished Jilly.
Mandy shook her head in bewilderment. “I thought I was getting over it,” she said. “I thought of him a lot, but I began to feel more at ease with myself, just grateful that I had met him, that I had the memory of him to take home. Now that I see him again, all those awful burning, yearning feelings have started up a
gain. Of course, you don’t know what I mean, sis. How could you?”
Jilly turned away and began to lift the holly wreath from her hair. “No,” she lied, “I don’t know what you mean. But both gentlemen have been extremely kind to us, so we must be as cheerful as possible. The best you can hope for, Mandy, is to leave him with a bright memory of you. So we will laugh and be cheerful, shall we not?”
“Yes.” Mandy sat down on the bed. “Yes. I will be better if I have a role to play. But do you think we can have them to ourselves for a little or will that precious pair, Lucinda and Harriet, ride over, do you think?”
“Perhaps. But if they do, we shall behave with dignity.”
“There is no moon tonight,” said Mandy. “Although it is but a short distance from here to the colonel’s, I don’t think they will venture out.”
Chapter Six
“That is the Harringtons’ boy,” said Harriet, looking out of the window, “and our gentlemen are gone from the house. Do not tell me they are back at Greenbanks!”
“It all points to that,” remarked Lucinda crossly. “What do we do now? Set off in pursuit?”
“We must be a bit more subtle than that.” Harriet sat for a while in thought. “Mrs. Tenby has proved a clumsy ally. Besides, she is too taken up with her husband at the moment, who is showing every sign of avoiding her at all times. She has been fretting and asking where he is. I know where he is, for I saw him setting off with his guns and his dogs. The servants are loyal to him and won’t tell her, something she does not seem to have realized.”
“I have it.” Lucinda brightened. “We shall tell her that the colonel has ridden to Greenbanks. We shall be sympathetic. We shall offer to accompany her.”
Harriet laughed. “Let’s go and do it now.”
They found Mrs. Tenby in the Yellow Saloon. Harriet was just wondering how to raise the subject when Mrs. Tenby said fretfully as soon as she saw them, “I do not know what has happened to the colonel. How many of us are there going to be for dinner? It is most inconsiderate of him. Your lords are gone to Greenbanks, I regret to say,” she added with a certain amount of satisfaction at spreading the misery around.
“And that is where Colonel Tenby is,” said Harriet lightly.
Mrs. Tenby looked startled and then furious. She had had to hand that valuable plate over to Mr. Nash, she had had to tell her furious husband that she had broken it. But Mr. Nash had lain low by going off to Oxford to stay with friends, and so Lady Harrington, when she called, had not been able to find out anything.
“He had no right to go to Greenbanks without telling me,” snapped Mrs. Tenby. “I shall go there directly.”
“We will accompany you, if you like,” said Harriet.
“No need. I am quite capable of going on my own, thank you very much.”
“With us, you would appear less the outraged wife,” said Harriet in a cool voice. “It would look more like a party and less like a warring raid.”
Mrs. Tenby opened her mouth to berate her for impertinence and then suddenly saw the force of the argument. “Very well,” she said. “But I have no intention of telling the kitchens we shall be absent for dinner. A brief call should suffice.”
To her surprise, Harriet and Lucinda, who were notorious for taking a long time to dress, were ready in under half an hour. As the carriage bowled down the drive, Harriet, looking out of the window in the failing light, saw the colonel strolling back with his gun under his arm and his dog at his heels. She quickly seized the red leather curtains and drew them close. “Such a dismal prospect,” she said lightly.
Lady Harrington was delighted with Mandy and Jilly. They were in sparkling good form, encouraging Lord Paul to give them all the London gossip, and laughing with delight at his sometimes wicked stories. The punch circulated, the fire crackled, and Lady Harrington smiled on them all and said that perhaps they should start to decorate the house. It was somehow accepted that the two lords should stay for dinner.
Lord Ranger was hanging holly on the picture frame above the fireplace, looking down at Jilly and saying that she looked like a piece of holly herself with her red hair and green eyes, and Mandy was sitting on the floor wreathing colored ribbons among fir boughs, when the maid entered and said, “Please my lady, Mrs. Tenby and party.”
“Rats,” said Lady Harrington inelegantly. “And just when we were having fun. Show them in.”
Lucinda and Harriet stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene: Lord Ranger and Jilly standing with bunches of holly in their hands, Mandy and Lord Paul sitting unceremoniously on the floor with fir boughs in front of them. The bright room smelled of rum punch and evergreens.
Despite their hurried dressing, Lucinda and Harriet looked as if they had stepped out of a fashion plate in La Belle Assemblée. Jilly and Mandy immediately became aware that they were still in their Saint Thomas’s Day fancy dress embellished with gaudy ribbons.
Immediately everything became formal. James and Betty scooped up their beloved baby and left the room. Mandy got up and sat down on a chair and smoothed down her skirt with nervous hands.
“I understood my husband was here,” said Mrs. Tenby, looking around.
“No, we have not seen the colonel,” said Sir John, “and more’s the pity. He is very good company.”
Mrs. Tenby looked nonplussed and then threw a sudden sharp look at Lucinda and Harriet, who gazed limpidly back.
Lady Harrington caught that exchange and interpreted it correctly. Harriet and Lucinda had told Mrs. Tenby that the colonel was to be found at Greenbanks so as to give themselves an excuse to call.
But Mrs. Tenby was jealous of Lady Harrington, for had not her husband obviously preferred her hospitality to that of his own wife? And so she was all at once determined to stay. Lady Harrington should not snatch these two matrimonial prizes from under her nose.
The relaxed atmosphere had left the room. Lady Harrington asked the maids to take out the decorations; they would finish them on the following day. Lord Ranger and Lord Paul were annoyed with Mrs. Tenby and paid particular attention to Mandy and Jilly. That was, until Sir John gently drew Lord Paul aside and said, “I hope you are going to heed my advice.” Lady Harrington’s sharp eyes noticed the exchange, and she wondered what her husband had said to bring that dark look to Lord Paul’s eyes. Then she marked the way that Lord Paul in turn drew Lord Ranger aside and the look of displeasure on Lord Ranger’s face.
It was borne in on Lady Harrington as she noticed the way the two gentlemen promptly turned their attentions to Lucinda and Harriet that her normally indolent husband had warned them off.
But try as Lady Harrington would to get a word alone with her husband for the rest of that dreadful evening, he seemed to escape her, and so she had to sit and fume, watching the sadness grow in Jilly and Mandy’s eyes, observing how Lucinda and Harriet were glowing in a vulgar triumphant sort of way, which unfortunately added considerably to their beauty.
She had to ask the Tenby party to stay for dinner, and hospitable though she normally was, Lady Harrington found herself becoming resentful. It had been such a jolly, pleasant day, a day in which she had been able to forget that “her” two charming girls were not a permanent fixture, that the day would come when they had to return home to a very bleak life indeed.
“Have you heard from your parents?” she suddenly heard Mrs. Tenby ask the Davenport girls.
Lady Harrington flinched. She had received several letters, some addressed to her, some addressed to Jilly and Mandy. She had opened and read them all but had not passed them on to the girls. They were full of such depressing admonitions.
“No,” said Jilly, “and I hope all is well. I put in our letters that we had not heard a word, but Lady Harrington made me take that bit out, for she said it would worry Mama and Papa unnecessarily.”
Lady Harrington saw the sharp look in Mrs. Tenby’s eyes. “How odd,” said that lady, “for my husband received a letter only the other day from friends in Yorkshire.”
“Yes, very odd.” Lady Harrington signaled to one of the maids. “Bring in the pudding, Mary.”
Lady Harrington was now seriously worried. She would need to tell the girls about those letters, should have done so before. But, she consoled herself, there was still plenty of time. The roads between the Cotswolds and Yorkshire would be too bad until the spring to allow Mr. and Mrs. Davenport to travel.
Normally they would all have retired to the drawing room and danced or played games, but Lady Harrington became as chilly a hostess as Mrs. Tenby and urged Lucinda to play the piano and Harriet to sing because that kept them from ogling and flirting.
At eleven o’clock Lady Harrington said firmly that she was extremely fatigued. It had been a long day. She remained standing until Lord Ranger and Lord Paul got to their feet, until Mrs. Tenby said they should be going home, until Harriet and Lucinda had been helped into their cloaks.
Lady Harrington noticed uneasily that Lucinda flashed a triumphant sort of I-know-something-you-don’t-know look in the Davenport girls’ direction and wondered what she had been plotting.
Lord Ranger and Lord Paul made very stately and formal good-byes. Jilly smiled and waved, but she put a protective arm around her sister’s waist and her eyes were sad.
When the party had disappeared into the night, Lady Harrington, her face grim, turned to her husband. “You cannot escape me now. A word with you in private.”
* * *
“That went very well,” said Harriet with satisfaction when she and Lucinda were alone again. “Did you mark those silly gowns they had on? Like peasant girls. And what do you think of what Mrs. Tenby said on the road home, that she believed that Lady Harrington had not been showing any letters from the Davenports to their daughters?”
