A Christmas Betrothal

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘But I refused,’ Barbara said, dashing her hopes.

  ‘Oh,’ said her mother, properly disappointed.

  ‘He offered again—including the family. When I told him that there was no way Father could manage such a gathering, he offered a selection of books as Christmas gifts—to keep him home and quiet over the holiday. He said he would send something written, so that I would know he spoke with sincerity.’

  ‘A written invitation to the manor?’ Her mother positively glowed with the prospect.

  ‘I doubt he will remember,’ Barbara said hurriedly. ‘I am sure it was said only in passing, to make conversation. It was just an effort to be social.’

  ‘A most curious effort, then.’ Her mother was looking closely at her, trying to determine what she might be concealing. ‘He has made no attempts at civility to the rest of the village. And yet he singles you out. A gentleman would know better than to make promises he cannot keep—especially when he is courting another.’

  ‘One can hardly call him a gentleman, Mother. He is in trade. He admitted to me that he was a weaver’s son.’

  ‘Really?’ Her mother’s eyebrows arched. ‘You speak like your father, my dear. It is idealistic to set men of business firmly below us and to act as though birth is all. Perhaps realism would be a better path, considering our circumstances. It is possible to be a gentleman and poor as a church mouse, while the weaver’s son dines and dances in a manor. The world is changing. While we might not approve of all the changes, we must make the best of them. Let us hope that Mr Stratford is as good as his word.’

  And his offer proved true. A short time later, while her father still pondered his latest diatribe, there was a knock on the door. Outside, the same coach that had deposited her waited for the liveried servant who held a properly sealed and decorated invitation and a package of books.

  Before her father could say otherwise, her mother had snatched it from the poor man’s hand and instructed him to wait upon the response. Then she pushed her husband’s work aside and reached for paper and pen.

  ‘As usual, Satan sends his handmaidens in fine garments to tempt the unwary,’ her father barked.

  The footman looked rather alarmed and peered behind him, unaware that he was the handmaiden in question.

  ‘Nonsense, dear. It is an invitation to the manor. Nothing more. It can do us no harm to accept, surely?’

  ‘Well, then.’ Her father beamed. Then he waved a hand at the man who waited. ‘My regards to Lord Clairemont, his wife and his daughters. Tell them to be wary, just as they are merry.’ Then he opened the first of the books and immediately forgot the source of his discomfiture.

  The man gave a hesitant nod, and waited upon the hurriedly scribbled response from her mother before returning to the carriage.

  Mother and daughter returned to the kitchen.

  ‘You cannot mean for us to go, Mama,’ Barbara whispered. ‘Look at Father. There is no way for us to keep the pretence that it will be as it was. And no way to predict, once he is there, what he will say in front of Mr Stratford and his guests. It would be better if we refused politely and stayed home.’

  ‘It would be better if your father and I stayed away. But there is no reason why you cannot go,’ her mother said firmly. ‘While I like dinner and a ball as well as the next person, I am content to sit here with your father and allow you to get the benefit of an invitation. He said there might be gentlemen?’

  ‘Friends from London.’

  ‘Stratford means to marry Anne. She and her parents will be there to recommend and chaperone you. I am sure, if you wrote to her, she would offer you a space in their carriage so that you needn’t walk to the manor.’

  ‘That was what Mr Stratford suggested as well. He said he would speak to them. But I do not think they would like it very much. Perhaps there is another way.’ Although Barbara could think of none.

  ‘I will not let you walk to the manor in dancing slippers. Nor will I allow you to refuse this invitation,’ her mother said, giving her a stern look. ‘I will write to the Clairemonts about it. I will choose my words with care. Perhaps, after six years, you should not blame yourself for something that was no fault of your own, and they should find it in their hearts to forgive you.’

  It was not nearly enough time, Barbara was sure. It had been just this morning that she’d met Lady Clairemont walking down the street and seen the way the lady looked sharply in her direction, and then through her. ‘Please, Mother, do not.’

  ‘There is no other way. This is an opportunity that you dare not turn down. If there were other suitable men anywhere in the area I might think twice. But if there is a chance of a match amongst Mr Stratford’s guests we must seek it out for you. One of your old gowns will have to do. But we can trim it up with the lace you bought this morning and I am sure it will look quite nice.’

  ‘Mother!’ Despite her best efforts, her mother had seen into the shopping basket. ‘That was intended as a gift.’

  ‘For someone who has less need of it than you,’ her mother said, laying a hand on hers, ‘it would do my heart good to know that you are out in society again—even if it is only for a day or two. I will write the letters, and then we will see what can be done with the gown. You must go where you are invited, Barbara, and dance as though your future depended on it. For it very well might.’

  Chapter Eight

  Joseph went to his bed that night in the knowledge that his rest would be well and truly settled. He had managed his guests—impressing the men with his plans for the mill, and charming the ladies without appearing ill-mannered or common. He had skated Miss Anne Clairemont twice around the millpond without falling or precipitating a fall in her. Then he had gone into the village, located Miss Lampett and presented his proposition.

  If the ghost, or whatever it had been, had meant to upbraid him on the fate of that poor girl, he had done his best to return her to the society to which she was accustomed. Although why her fate should fall to him, he had no idea.

  Perhaps it was because he was the one with the most power to change it. When his future mother-in-law had protested that she would not be seen in the company of ‘that girl’, he had explained tersely that it would be so because he wished it so, and that was that.

  He wondered for a moment what Barbara had done to deserve such frigid and permanent rejection, but concluded it was nothing more than the usual fall from grace involving some young man—possibly a suitor of Anne or the departed Mary. If that was the case Miss Lampett had well and truly atoned for it, after years of modest dress and behaviour.

  And more was the pity for it. If the kiss they’d shared had been any indication of her capability for passion, he’d have liked her better had she not found her way back to the straight and narrow. He smiled, imagining a more wanton Barbara, and the sort of fun he might have had with her.

  The clock in the hall struck two.

  ‘Leave off having impure thoughts about the poor girl, for your work is far from finished.’

  Joseph sat bolt upright in bed at the sound of another unfamiliar voice, booming in the confines of the chamber. He had not even risked wine with supper, and had shocked his valet with a request for warm milk before bed. But now he wondered if perhaps it might have been better to forgo the milk and return to a double brandy in an effort to gain a sound and dreamless sleep. ‘Who might you be, and what makes you think you can read the contents of my mind?’

  ‘You are young enough, and healthy enough, and smiling at bedtime. If you are not thinking of a young lady then I do not wish to know what it is you do think on.’

  This night’s ghost wore a scarlet coat of a modern cut trimmed in gold braid. His buff trousers pulled tight across his ample belly as he laughed at his own joke. The brass of his buttons was gleaming as bright as the gold leaf upon the coach he must drive. But tonight it seemed to be even brighter than was natural, as was the coachguard’s horn he carried in his right hand as further indication of his job.
/>
  ‘As to who I am, you may call me Old Tom, and know that I departed this life just a year ago, along the Great North Road. You would not have had to ask my name had you lived any great time in this country. All know me here. At least those who are not so high and mighty as to have no need of public conveyance.’

  Joseph snorted. ‘Although I have no real memory of you, I’ve heard of you—driving drunk and taking your passengers with you to the next life when you upset the coach. I must be running out of ideas. I am reduced to populating my own dreams with little scraps of facts that do not even concern me.’

  The driver laughed again. ‘You give yourself far too much credit, Joseph Stratford. Even if you think yourself clever with machines, you are rather a dull sort for all that, and not given to colourful imaginings.’

  ‘Dull, indeed.’ Joseph rather hoped the ghost was real. If it was not, it was proof that his own imagination was prone to self-loathing and insult. ‘If I refuse to believe in spirits it is a sign of a rational mind, not a slow one. For ghosts do not exist.’

  ‘If you do not believe in ghosts, then why are you sleeping in your clothing?’ asked the shade, drawing back the bedclothes to reveal Joseph still in shirt, trousers and boots.

  ‘Because I woke this morning near naked in a downstairs hallway. Ghost or not, the situation will not be repeated.’

  ‘Very well, then. You are not dull. More like you are so sharp you’ll cut yourself. You are willing to believe anything, no matter how unlikely, so that you don’t have to accept what is right before your eyes.’ Old Tom glared. ‘For your information, I was not drunk on the night I crashed. I did sometimes partake, when a glass was offered. Who would not, with the night air being chill and damp? But that night I was sober as a judge and hurrying to make up time. A biddy at the Cock and Bull had dawdled over her supper and left us to run late.’ He leaned closer and added in a conspiratorial tone, ‘And she will not leave off nagging and lamenting about the time, even now on the other side. Some people never learn, as you well know.’

  The ghost looked him up and down and laid a finger to the side of his nose, as though Joseph should learn something from the comment. Then he went on. ‘I was late, and pushing the horses to their limit, when a rabbit darted out from the hedge and right under ‘em. It spooked the leader and he got away from me. Just for a moment. And that was that.’

  Joseph swung his feet out of bed and sat up to face the ghost. ‘An interesting tale, certainly. But there is no way to prove it, and nor am I likely to try.’

  ‘You would not believe it even if you found the truth,’ Old Tom replied in disgust. ‘You are cold as ice, Joseph Stratford, and just as solidly set. I gave you too much credit when I arrived. It is just as likely I found you warming your thoughts not with some beautiful lady but with fantasies of machinery and ledger books.’

  ‘So I have been told,’ Joseph said with bitterness. ‘Yet I have spent a portion of this day seeing to the wants of others, with no chance of personal gain likely to come of it.’

  ‘No gain at all?’

  He remembered the way he had phrased his offer to Barbara, as an effort to keep her father safely at home. ‘Very little gain. The majority of the good done will benefit others. After last night’s visitor, I made a change in my plans and invited Miss Barbara Lampett back to the manor house. There is my proof that I have learned something and rendered tonight’s lesson unnecessary. I am making an effort to help the daughter of my enemy.’ He gave a wave of his hand. ‘And so you may depart.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Yer Lordship,’ the ghost said with a sarcastic bob of his head. ‘But for your information it is I who will set the time of my departure, and not you. Before I can complete my final journey I have been called back for one task alone to make up for the carelessness of my end. I mean to do the job properly. When I leave here you will be well and rightly schooled.’

  The ghost shuddered for a moment, as though uncomfortable in his surroundings. ‘I’d have thought that if called to haunt I could have taken to the road, just as I did in life. Instead they sent me to this dreary place, colder than a moor in December.’

  Again Joseph was annoyed that his spiritual visitor seemed less than satisfied with surroundings it had taken him half a lifetime to afford. ‘This is the finest house in twenty miles, as you should know. The fire is lit, as are the candles. There is tea on the hob and brandy in the flask. Or perhaps you would like a shawl, like an old woman?’

  Tom snorted. ‘As if I could take pleasure in such, here on the other side. I am quite beyond feelings such as that.’ He shuddered again. ‘But I can see things you cannot. There is a cold coming off you like mist from a bog.’

  He raised a finger to point at Joseph. In an instant the friendly driver was gone, and before him Joseph saw only a tormented spirit with a dire warning.

  Then Tom smiled. ‘But I have been set to warm you up a bit. A hopeless task that is like to be. Now, come on. We haven’t got all night.’ The ghost reached out a hand. ‘Tonight you will walk with me, and if you are lucky you will learn to see the world as others do. At the least you will see what you are missing when you cannot take your nose from the account books and your feet from the factory floor. You will learn what people think of you. It should do you a world of good. Now, take my hand.’

  Joseph’s mind warred with itself, but the battle was shorter than it had been on the previous two nights. Whether real or imagined, Tom would not leave until he was ready to. And Joseph did not like being afraid of men—in this world or the next. So he reached out and grabbed the hand that was offered to him.

  To touch it was even worse than touching Sir Cedric the previous night. Old Tom’s hand was large and doughy, and thick with calluses from handling the reins. But it was freezing cold—like iron lying on the ground in December. The instant Joseph touched it his own fingers went as numb as if they’d died on his hand. And this, more than anything else, made him believe. His father might have been a memory, and Sir Cedric a walking dream. But in his wildest imaginings, he’d have conjured nothing like the feel of this.

  He withdrew quickly, and after a stern look from the ghost adjusted his grip to take the spectre by the coatsleeve instead. That was cold as well, but not unbearably so.

  ‘The first stop is not far,’ the ghost assured him, as though aware of his discomfort. ‘Just beneath you, as a matter of fact.’ Then they seemed to sink through the floorboards until they stood in the first parlour.

  Though he’d thought that she had gone home with her parents, he found Anne sitting in a chair by the fire and weeping as though her heart would break.

  ‘There, there,’ he said awkwardly, reaching out a hand to comfort her.

  ‘Have you not yet learned what a pointless gesture that would be?’ Old Tom asked. ‘While you are with me she will not notice you.’

  ‘Perhaps she will.’ Joseph reached out to pat her shoulder, only to feel his hand pass through her as though she was smoke. He looked helplessly at the ghost. ‘Last night, it was not always so,’ Joseph argued, remembering the young Barbara.

  ‘And tonight it is,’ Old Tom said.

  Behind them, the door opened. Though he needn’t have bothered, Joseph stepped to the side to allow a man to enter the room.

  Robert Breton glanced into the hall, as though eager to know that he was not observed, and then shut the door behind him and went quickly to the seated woman and took her hand.

  ‘Bob?’ Joseph knew then that he must indeed be invisible, for never had he seen such a look on his friend’s face—nor was he likely to. The gaze he favoured Anne with was more than one of sympathy to her plight. It had tenderness, frustration and—dared he think it?—love.

  On seeing him there, Anne let her tears burst fresh, like a sudden shower, and her shoulders shook with the effort of silence.

  ‘Tell him,’ Breton said. ‘I have confronted him on the subject. He will not break off at this late date for your sake. He fears for your reputatio
n even more than you do. If you do not end it for yourself, it is quite hopeless. I will not speak if you say nothing, no matter how much I might wish to. I have said more than enough already. You must be the strong one, Anne.’

  ‘And I never was,’ she answered, not looking up. ‘Perhaps if Mary was here … ‘

  ‘Then the lot would have fallen to her. Or it might never have occurred at all. But it does not matter,’ Breton said firmly. ‘She is dead and gone, much as no one wishes to acknowledge the fact. You cannot rely on her for help. You must be the one to speak, Anne.’

  ‘Speak what? And to whom? To your father? To me?’ Joseph took his place on her other side, as though he could make himself heard to the woman through proximity. But she said no more and, realising the futility of it, he looked up at the ghost. ‘What do you want? I will give it to you, if I can. I am not totally without a heart, you know.’

  ‘I think you can guess what she wants,’ the ghost said. ‘And why she does nothing about it.’

  ‘It is not as if I am forcing the union on her. She agreed to it. And what does Bob have to do with any of it?’

  ‘Not a thing, I expect, if it all goes according to your plan. He is a gentleman, is he not?’

  ‘But he is a man first,’ Joseph said. ‘If he wants the girl for himself, then why does he not say something?’

  The coachman laughed in response. ‘You make it all sound quite simple. I envy you, living in a world as you do—where there are no doubts and everyone speaks their mind. The woman he loves has chosen another. He has been bested by a richer man. He will step out of the way like a gentleman.’

  ‘But not before warning me to care for her,’ Joseph said glumly. Their conversation in the hall that morning made more sense to him now. ‘I cannot cry off now that there is an understanding. Unless she finds the courage to speak, we must all make the best of it.’ But now that he knew the mind of his would-be fiancée it would be dashed hard to pretend a respect where none existed.