One Candlelit Christmas

by Julia Justiss

  ‘Nell,’ she whispered, raising his hand to her lips and kissing it fervently. ‘Oh, won’t you please call me Nell? Whenever anyone calls me Helena I feel as though I am being told off.’

  He laughed, and hugged her. ‘Nell it shall be, then. Darling Nell, how I wish I had made the effort to get to know you better when we first married,’ he said ruefully. ‘Now it is too late.’

  ‘Do not say that,’ she replied, her fingers caressing his lean cheek. ‘We will find a way…’

  Carleton shook his head grimly. ‘I have had more than my fair share of narrow escapes. And I don’t think I really knew how little I deserved any of them until I saw myself through your eyes. Even on the voyage back to England I was still conceited enough to think I was about to embark on a life worthy of José’s tremendous sacrifice. But it would have just been by being a fairer landlord to my tenants, maybe espousing a few charitable causes. I would soon have reverted to being the insufferably arrogant prig I was in my youth, considering myself better than everyone else because I was born to a position of wealth and privilege. But I’m not, am I, Nell?’ He gazed at her solemnly. ‘Even Squire Jeffers knows Peregrine has done a better job of being Viscount Lambourne than I ever did.’

  ‘No, no—you must not say that!’ Nell wished she had a tithe of the eloquence her well-educated husband possessed. But all she could come up with was, ‘Peregrine is the most hateful person I have ever met!’

  Carleton’s face broke into a smile. ‘You are a miracle. Do you know that, Nell? More of a miracle than a wretch like me deserves…’

  He fell silent, crushing her to his chest so tightly she could hardly breathe. She felt as though her heart would burst with pleasure. She no longer cared what anyone else might say about her. Not now Carleton believed in her.

  She would gladly have stayed like that, held tightly in her husband’s arms all day. But after only a few minutes of being her cradled against his heart Harry burst in through the door. The expression of shock on his face, swiftly followed by disgust, had her pulling out of Carleton’s embrace. Reluctantly he let her sit up, but he restrained her when she would have left the sofa altogether.

  ‘I know I have not been exactly the kind of father you might have wished for, Harry,’ he said. ‘But I am your father, nonetheless. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me, as your mother has forgiven me?’ He held out his hand. ‘Will you shake on it?’

  Harry’s face worked furiously for a minute or two, before he simply turned on his heel and dashed out of the room.

  Carleton let his hand fall to his side. Nell took it and cradled it between her own.

  ‘He has a hot temper, but he will come round eventually. He just needs time to cool down…’

  Carleton sucked in a sharp breath. Nell sounded so very much like his own mother—who had, he now realised, thoroughly spoiled him. She had never believed he could do any wrong, making excuses for all his youthful wildness. She had even sympathised with him when he told her how he had been tricked into marriage, never questioning his subsequent treatment of his wife.

  When it had been so grossly unfair.

  He sighed. Harry had every right to despise him. ‘He is my son, Nell,’ he said gloomily. ‘He is quite capable of stoking his anger indefinitely.’ Just as he had nursed his resentment towards Nell.

  For years.

  Early the next morning Nell received word that Peregrine was going to call the following day. Although she had no intention of falling in with his plans, his visit was still going to cause a momentous upheaval.

  Carleton had settled into an attitude of defeat. He had been through so much, was still so weak from his last bout of illness, and there seemed to be no fight left in him.

  ‘I do not suppose,’ he had said the night before, when she had gone to spend a few minutes with him after Harry had gone to bed, ‘that I will be celebrating Christmas at Lambourne Hall after all.’

  Peregrine did not want him to see the inside of Lambourne Hall again under any circumstances, she thought, angrily crumpling the note into a ball and tossing it into the fire.

  But the horrid man would not be coming till tomorrow. They still had today. And since it looked as though her tenure here was about to come to an end one way or another, with both Peregrine and Squire Jeffers ranged against her, she saw no point in being economical with the stores she had laid up to see her through the winter.

  If this was the last day she could guarantee spending in her cottage with her husband and son, she decided, marching down to the chicken coop, then she was going to make it a day to remember.

  Her last laying hen was soon plucked and stuffed and thrust into the oven, and her larder raided for suet and spices and dried fruits, which she blended and tied into a muslin cloth.

  The wonderful aroma of roasting chicken and steaming pudding was soon wafting through the immediate vicinity.

  She guessed it was the smell of dinner cooking that tempted Harry back to the house from wherever he had been skulking all morning. He checked on the threshold when he saw Carleton sitting at the kitchen table, scowling mutinously when he saw that three places had been set.

  But his mood did not prevent him from making hearty inroads into the meal Nell set before them.

  ‘That was wonderful, Nell,’ said Carleton as she gathered up the plates both father and son had scraped clean of their first course. ‘I cannot recall when I last enjoyed a meal so much.’

  ‘There is still pudding to come.’ She smiled, then experienced a strange pang when they reached for their spoons in unison, identically avid expressions on their faces.

  ‘The taste of Christmas,’ sighed Carleton rapturously, after taking his first mouthful. ‘All we need now to make the occasion really festive is a pound of flour to make a bullet pudding.’

  ‘Bullet pudding?’ Harry echoed, his spoon halfway to his mouth.

  Nell held her breath, marvelling that Carleton had managed to coax any response from the boy who was so stubbornly hanging on to his hostility towards his father.

  ‘You can’t eat bullets,’ Harry finished scornfully, obviously deciding his father was talking nonsense.

  ‘No,’ replied Carleton. ‘Of course not. It is a game. Haven’t you ever played it?’ He looked an enquiry at Nell.

  When she shook her head, he said, ‘Well, what you do is put a heap of flour on a plate, with a bullet on the top, and everyone takes turns to carve a slice away with a dinner knife. Eventually, of course, the bullet gets dislodged, and whoever cut the slice that caused it to fall has to nudge it from the plate with their nose. Which makes everyone else laugh, naturally.’

  Harry was watching him with his head cocked to one side as he chewed on his own pudding.

  ‘We used to play snapdragon too. You soak raisins in brandy and set them on fire. Then each player has to take turns snatching one out of the flames. You have to be quick for that one!’

  Both Nell and Harry sat spellbound while Carleton regaled them with tales of Christmases spent at Lambourne Hall in his childhood—until suddenly he sagged back in his chair.

  ‘I apologise,’ he said, as Nell gathered up the dishes for washing, ‘but I do not think I am up to helping you with those.’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ she smiled. ‘At least you managed to join us at table today. You are getting stronger all the time. By tomorrow…’ She faltered, her face falling. By tomorrow Peregrine would have arrived with his poison, and no doubt a whole new batch of threats to hold over her head.

  Harry stayed at table for a few minutes after Carleton had left the room, kicking his feet against the leg of his stool. But when Nell called to him from the scullery—‘Time to help me with these dishes, Harry!’—he was nowhere to be seen.

  Exasperated with him, Nell darted into the passage, hoping to catch him before he escaped the house. She was just in time to see him march into the parlour, a purposeful expression on his face.

  She clapped her hand over her mouth to hold bac
k a peal of laughter. He looked for all the world as though he meant to insist his father gave a strict account of himself.

  Perhaps he did.

  She returned to the kitchen, finishing the dishes and then preparing the chicken carcass for the broth they would be eating the next day. She dared not plan any further ahead than that. She sighed, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. What Peregrine would do when he found out she had no intention of falling in with his monstrous plans did not bear thinking about.

  But at least Carleton appeared to be winning Harry over. They spent the afternoon in the parlour together, and when Nell eventually joined them she saw a new light glowing in Carleton’s eyes. Harry still seemed a little subdued, but he was no longer being openly hostile. When darkness fell, and she sent Harry up to bed, she was gratified that for once he obeyed her without demur.

  ‘He’s a good boy,’ said Carleton, his eyes still on the door through which Harry had just gone.

  ‘He can be a very naughty boy,’ retorted Nell, suddenly gripped by foreboding that his display of docility meant he was hatching some mischief.

  ‘All boys can be naughty.’ Carleton smiled. ‘I would not want any son of mine to lack spirit.’

  ‘He has that,’ she said with some asperity, ‘in spades.’

  He laughed and drew her into his arms. For a few minutes they forgot everything but the delight of being with each other. Nell felt as though she had been waiting all day for this very moment. And she suspected from the way Carleton’s eyes had been following her every movement that he had been counting the minutes till they could be alone too.

  But at length she prised herself out of his embrace.

  ‘I must go and tuck Harry in, and hear him say his prayers.’

  Carleton kissed her lingeringly once more, then said with a twinkle in his eye, ‘Do not take long. I need you…’he lay back on the sofa, artfully dislodging one of the blankets that were stacked on a side table with his elbow ‘…to tuck me in too,’ he finished, as it landed in an untidy heap on the floor.

  Nell floated up the stairs to Harry’s little bedroom under the eaves. But her euphoria dimmed the minute she caught sight of her son. He was sitting up in bed, his face clenched as tightly as the fingers that kneaded the coverlet which he held up to his chin.

  ‘What will happen now, Ma?’

  She smoothed back an unruly lock of hair that had flopped into his eyes.

  ‘I do not know, Harry,’ she sighed. ‘What do you mean, exactly?’

  ‘The Viscount will be coming back tomorrow, won’t he? With the poison?’

  ‘Harry!’ she gasped. ‘However did you find out about that?’

  A tear escaped the corner of one eye. He angrily knuckled it away. ‘We heard you talking. We were outside in the garden. We heard everything. What are you going to do?’

  Nell felt sick to her stomach. It was bad enough that Peregrine had tried to involve her in such a repulsive crime, but to think a boy of Harry’s age should have overheard and been distressed by it was monstrous!

  ‘You are not to worry,’ she breathed, furious that her son must have been fretting about this for days. ‘I will think of something!’

  Harry’s face cleared instantly. ‘I knew you would, Ma.’ He grinned, flinging his arms round her neck and hugging her fiercely.

  When he lay back, she felt like weeping at the innocent trust he placed in her. She fumbled her way guiltily down the stairs, conscious that for the first time in his young life she had not been honest with her son. Far from having any idea what they should do, her mind was in complete turmoil.

  She really must sit down and discuss the threat with Carleton seriously. There must be some simple solution that would stop Peregrine in his tracks. Or some person unknown to her to whom they could apply for aid. Even though Peregrine meant to leave his poison with her the next day, he would not expect to hear news of Carleton’s demise for a while. In that time perhaps they could reach someone who could vouch for her husband’s identity.

  But when she opened the parlour door it was to see Carleton was fast asleep. She supposed she ought not to be surprised. It had been his first full day out of bed, she reflected, picking a blanket up off the floor and shaking it out. She sighed, bending to kiss his forehead as she gently tucked it round his slender form. And if Peregrine had his way it would be his last.

  She sat down in the armchair after she had banked up the fire, just to watch him sleep. He was so handsome, even pared down by hardship and illness, that she could hardly believe he appeared to have grown so fond of her so quickly. It was just typical of her life, though, that when something as good as this happened to her it was only with the knowledge that it would soon be snatched away.

  She could not bring herself to climb the stairs to her solitary bed and tear herself away from the husband who would only be hers for a few more hours. So she took another blanket and curled up on the armchair, with her head on the armrest. She did not care how uncomfortable it was. She did not want to waste a moment of the short time they had left together in sleep.

  If only she could persuade Peregrine to just leave them alone! He could keep Lambourne Hall and the stupid title, for all she cared. So long as they were all safe. She was sure she and Carleton and Harry could carry on living quite happily here, in this little cottage. After the things Carleton had been through, it would seem like luxury! And Peregrine could not really want to have a murder on his conscience, could he?

  She tugged the blanket up round her ears as a gust of wind rattled the windows, the sudden chill reminding her that such thoughts were foolish in the extreme. She might be content to live here, but Carleton had spent all day going on about how wonderful everything was at Lambourne Hall. He might seem as though he had accepted defeat, but that was only because the fever had brought him so low. Once he began to recover, the glowing fervour he held for his former home and position would flare up until it consumed all that stood in its path.

  She shifted uncomfortably. In a way she knew she did not want to hold him back. Because Carleton was the Viscount, and whatever Squire Jeffers said Peregrine did not deserve to hold that position.

  Carleton stirred in his sleep, flinging one arm up above his head. Nell sighed. Peregrine would never let them be. She had no chance of persuading him to be merciful. Carleton threatened all he held dear just by being alive.

  It was just as dawn was breaking that inspiration struck her. She had been drowsily replaying the events of the past few days, holding each one up individually in her mind like precious jewels, when it came to her. She sat bolt upright, the blanket slipping unheeded to the floor. She would beg Peregrine to let them carry on living in this cottage. And then…

  Her heart racing, Nell pelted up the stairs to shake Harry awake. For once she was glad he loved getting into mischief. He would take to the part she wanted him to play today like a duck to water.

  To her immense pride, he grasped her plan quickly. They went over it several times while he was scrambling into his clothes, just to be on the safe side, but she was pretty sure that if it did not work it would not be Harry’s fault.

  The morning dragged endlessly. Carleton was reluctant to leave his sofa, explaining to Harry in a listless manner that he had exhausted himself the previous day. But when his eyes met Nell’s she could read the despair in their depths.

  Finally, she heard the church clock striking midday.

  ‘Why don’t you go out and play?’ she said to Harry with a significant nod. ‘It snowed so heavily during the night I am sure there must be lots of ways you can amuse yourself.’

  ‘Thank you, Mama,’ he said, stiffly polite. ‘I shall go down past the church and see if the duck pond is frozen.’

  She bent to kiss him as he exited the back door, whispering, ‘You have not forgotten? The Rectory first…’

  ‘And then the Manor,’ he said solemnly. ‘I’ll fetch the vicar and the Squire for you, Ma, I promise!’

  Tugging his
cap down over his ears, Harry shot out of the door like a bullet from a gun.

  Now all she had to do was prime Carleton. She entered the parlour hesitantly, wondering how he would react to the way she was employing their son. He was lying flat out, his eyes fast shut.

  She backed away, closing the door softly so as not to disturb him. It was for the best that he should sleep through all that was to follow. Apart from the fact there was not really time to explain her scheme, she had grave misgivings as to whether he would go along with it. Just because he had kissed her once or twice, and called her dear, it did not mean he would suddenly become the sort of man who would believe a mere woman could outsmart a would-be murderer.

  While Harry was out assembling all the principal players, Nell still had to set the stage. To that end, she went into the kitchen and began to pull random items from her sadly depleted store cupboard. Once her pastry board was liberally dusted with flour, there was nothing to do but wait. She sank down onto a stool, nervously chewing at the ragged edge of her thumbnail. As the minutes ticked past she went over her plan again and again, wondering if it really could work.

  She had staked everything on the predictability of all the players concerned. But if Peregrine for some reason did not leave his carriage at the Blue Lion and sample their ordinary before walking over here, as he usually did…

  Almost beside herself with nerves, she got to her feet and went down the passage towards the front door. She paused outside the parlour, her fingers lightly brushing the door panels. I will not let him destroy you, Carleton, she silently vowed.

  And even as she made this promise she heard the sound she had been anticipating and dreading in equal measure. Booted feet marching up to her front door. Swiftly, before her visitor had a chance to raise the knocker and wake Carleton, Nell darted to the door and opened it.

  Peregrine stood there, scowling.

  ‘You have come to your senses, madam, I trust?’ he said, not waiting for permission to enter but just barging his way in.

  ‘Would you mind very much if we were to conduct our business in the kitchen?’ she replied in a subdued tone. ‘Carleton is asleep in the parlour, and I am sure you do not wish him to overhear us.’