Christmas Belles (2 page)

"No, a lump of gold!" Chloe cried triumphantly.
"The fates proclaim that Lucy is to marry a very wealthy man."

Lucy giggled. "Tell the fates I am much obliged to
them. And could he have a title as well?"

While she, Emma, and Chloe laughed at their own nonsense,
Agnes shook her head darkly. "Candidates for Bedlam, the lot of you."

She resisted all attempts to coax her to join in the game.
When Lucy went so far as playfully trying to drag her from the settee, Agnes
dealt her hand a ringing slap.

Lucy rubbed her stinging knuckles, but she still chuckled.
"All right for you, Madam Sourpuss. Let us do yours, then, Chloe."

Nodding, Chloe raised up the ladle for the last time. She
told herself that it was only a silly game, all in fun, but that did not
prevent her hand from trembling a little as she poured the lead She watched for
the shape forming in the water, her heart thudding with eager anticipation.

Her excitement quickly turned to puzzlement. She squinted at
the scrap of lead. "It looks like an arrow."

"I suppose that means you are going to marry Robin of
the Hood," Agnes called out derisively.

"No, it might not be an arrow," Lucy said.
"It's more of a sword or dagger."

Emma smiled. "Perhaps that means you are going to marry
a soldier."

"Oh!" Chloe exclaimed. "I shouldn't like
that. I would not want a soldier for my husband."

"What about a sailor, then?" a jolly voice boomed
from the doorway.

Chloe turned sharply at the same time as her sisters to
regard the stout, elderly gentleman who stood framed beneath the arch.

"Papa!"

Sir Phineas Waverly paused to blow on his palms, his hands
chafed raw from the cold. He had forgotten to wear his gloves again, likewise
his hat. The ends of his graying hair straggled across his brow, his
side-whiskers badly in need of a trim. Even though the hem on the cape of his
caped coat was slightly frayed, in Chloe's eyes, he still cut quite the dashing
figure, very much what he must have been on that glorious long-ago day he had
been named a Knight of the Bath.

As he shed his cloak, he looked about him, saying, "How
well the decorations look, my dears. But bless me, you've forgotten the
mistletoe."

It was a game of Papa's since the days of their childhood.
Sir Phineas always stood directly beneath the kissing bough, pretending to be
ignorant of its existence until he should be captured.

"Oh, Papa." Agnes groaned. "We are far too
old for such jesting."

But Chloe was already rushing forward, with Emma not far
behind. Lucy for once forgot her newly acquired sophistication and romped with
the rest. While Chloe launched a frontal attack, Emma and Lucy moved in from
the sides, surrounding Sir Phineas, covering his bewhiskered cheeks with
ruthless kisses. He struggled manfully, but as his defense took the form of
seizing each girl in a great bear hug, his protestations were not taken
seriously.

Agnes was at last driven to abandon her book and join them,
giving her father a prim peck on the cheek. Not, she was at great pains to
assure everyone, because it had anything to do with the mistletoe. No, she
always greeted her father thus when he returned from a long absence.

"Indeed," Lucy mocked. "Papa must have been
gone all of three hours."

Agnes glared at her.

"More like five," Chloe corrected. She regarded
her father reproachfully. "You have been at the vicarage forever, Papa.
You were not even here to hang the holly."

"It could not be helped, my dear." Sir Phineas
exhaled a deep sigh. The glow that had suffused through him from all the hearty
embracing seemed to fade. He crossed the room to hold out his hands to the
roaring blaze. "Ah, that feels better."

While Emma scolded Papa for forgetting his gloves, Chloe
surreptitiously sought to remove the bucket of water Not that she feared Papa
would be angry over the waste of shot, but he was bound to ask the nature of
the game, and Chloe did not want to explain. Papa would laugh at such nonsense,
but he would look rather sad as well. He always did at any talk of husbands for
them. Chloe was fully aware how much her father had worried of late about the
difficulty of providing suitable portions for his daughters.

Was it such worries that troubled him even tonight,
Christmas Eve? For Papa was troubled about something. The more Chloe observed
him, the more she was sure of it. Despite the pockets of age beneath Papa's
eyes, the eyes themselves retained the glow of youth, as bright as any candle
flame. But tonight not even the reflection of fire shine brought any sparkle to
his eyes.

"Papa," Chloe asked rather anxiously, "was
all well at the vicarage?"

Sir Phineas's brow was knit in abstraction, and Chloe had to
repeat the question before she gained his attention.

"What? Oh yes, quite well. In fact, I invited Mr. Henry
to come dine with us this evening, help drag the Yule log in."

"Did you, Papa? How splendid," Chloe said.

The vicar of St. Andrew's Church was a pleasant young man,
shy and a little too solemn, perhaps, but very earnest, eager to please. He was
new to their parish and having a difficult time of it, as the previous
incumbent, poor Mr. Bledsoe, held the living for some sixty-odd years. Squire
Daniels was heard to remark loudly every Sunday that he was having difficulty
becoming accustomed to being preached at by some cub not even old enough to
shave.

Chloe had indignantly told him that she was perfectly sure
Mr. Henry did shave, perhaps as much as thrice a day, but that had only made
the old squire roar with laughter. With Mr. Henry having a hard time gaining
acceptance hereabouts, Chloe was pleased that Papa had been kind enough to
think of the young man on Christmas Eve.

Lucy received the news of Mr. Henry's inclusion in their
party with indifference, and Agnes merely turned another page of her book.
Chloe thought Emma would be as pleased as she, but her older sister had fallen
unusually silent.

Chloe could not refrain from remarking triumphantly to Lucy,
"There! Did I not tell you when I was hanging the mistletoe that we might
have another visitor besides the squire. Someone young and handsome."

"Young, perhaps," Lucy said with a lift of her
brow. "But certainly not handsome. Mr. Henry's chin is too pointed."

"And he is thin as a broomstick," Agnes murmured
from behind her book.

Emma shot to her feet. "I do not see anything wrong with
Mr. Henry's chin, and he might not be so thin if—if he had someone to properly
look after him."

Chloe and the others only stared at her. It was rare to hear
Emma speak so sharply. Looking considerably flustered, she excused herself,
declaring matters in the kitchen warranted her attention, and bolted from the
room.

"Well! Whatever got into her?" Lucy asked.

"Probably worried that there won't be enough pudding to
go around," was Agnes's conjecture.

Emma might have been disconcerted at the prospect of providing
for an extra guest, but Chloe did not think so. She had never seen her serene
elder sister behave so oddly, nor Papa either. His air of melancholy only
seemed to increase after Emma's withdrawal. But when he caught Chloe staring at
him, he was quick to smile and shake off the mood.

He paced about the chamber, loudly admiring Chloe's
decorations, saying all that she would have wished to hear His voice was filled
with enough enthusiasm to have fooled anyone else. But although Chloe was
tone-deaf as far as music was concerned, she was pitch-perfect regarding
voices. And in her father's voice she detected an undercurrent of something
that filled her with unease.

After he had inhaled deeply of the evergreen swags adorning
the windows, Sir Phineas paused in front of the picture at the far end of the
room.

Chloe had woven a wreath of bright green sprigs about the
oval frame of her mother's portrait.

"Bless me, child," Sir Phineas said softly.
"You even remembered the rosemary."

"Aye, Papa." Chloe joined him, linking her arm
through his. "Rosemary for remembrance."

He said nothing but merely squeezed her hand, and for a
moment the two of them stood in silence, regarding the image of Maria Waverly
captured by the artist's velvet brush strokes. Mama could not have been much
older than Emma now was when the sitting had been done. Clad in one of those
quaint, old-fashioned gowns with the full skirts, her honey brown hair spilled
over her shoulders in sausage curls, her blue eyes seemed misty, and her lips
tipped in a shy smile full of secret dreams.

Chloe had always loved the portrait and regretted that her
mother had never sat for another that would have been more recent. Mama had
died when Chloe had been but nine. Although the precise image of her mother had
grown dim with the passing of time, memories remained of warmth and gentleness,
gentle hands, gentle voice, gentle smile.

Chloe sensed that even after seven years, Papa yet mourned
Mama's passing. Never in words, but in the way he sometimes gazed at the
portrait, his eyes lit with tenderness, his smile melancholy.

But when Chloe gazed up at her father, she was disconcerted
to see that he was not looking at the portrait but at her, and the expression
on his face was one of a deeper sadness than she had ever seen before.

"Papa," she whispered. "What is it? What is
wrong?"

She thought he might have answered her but for the presence
of her two sisters at the other end of the room. As it was, he merely shook his
head.

"Nothing, my dear.  You know what a sentimental old
fool I become on Christmas Eve. It seems to be a time when memories come
flooding back, often more than the heart can hold."

With that, he turned away from her, assuming the mannerisms
of his usual bluff self. Striding back toward the fire, he called out,
"For shame, Agnes. Close up that book. No more musty Greeks on Christmas
Eve. Lucy, my dear, open up that pianoforte and give us a song."

Chloe saw that all opportunities for confidences were at an
end, especially as Mr. Henry arrived shortly thereafter. The young man had been
dining at Windhaven so often of late, he seemed quite like an old friend of the
family. Of course, Lucy could not resist threatening to trap the solemn
clergyman under the mistletoe. He did blush so delightfully.

Emma was moved to protest as she rejoined them from the
kitchens. Chloe noted that Emma had removed her apron and tidied her hair.
"For shame, Lucy. You should not tease poor Mr. Henry so."

"I do not mind, Miss Waverly," Mr. Henry
stammered. "The custom of a kissing bough is pagan, and I would never
permit mistletoe in the church. But in one's home, I see no harm in it."

And Chloe fancied that Mr. Henry regarded her eldest sister
rather hopefully, but Emma, her cheeks firing as red as his, was quick to look
away.

Chloe could not say precisely that she failed to enjoy the
evening that followed. They had a fine dinner, and the custom of bringing in
the Yule log was ever dear to her heart.  She loved gathering before the
fire, watching the colors leap among the flames, telling stories of ghosts and
legends of days long gone by. Lucy might lament that they could not celebrate
the holidays as they did in the great manors with house parties and balls, but
what Chloe treasured most was these quiet gatherings, her family drawn so close
about her. For one night, at least, all of them were snug and secure against
the world.

It would have been perfect but for her feeling that tonight
somehow the world was managing to intrude. She knew not exactly how or in what
form, only sensing its disturbing presence in that look of anxiety that kept
creeping back into Papa's eyes.

Chloe was not sorry when the little party broke up early.
Mr. Henry insisted he must get back to the vicarage to go over his sermon for
the morrow, though Chloe did not doubt that he must have already rehearsed it a
dozen times.

Long after she and her sisters had retired to their beds,
Chloe lay awake, waiting for Agnes to cease her restless tossing. The room
Chloe shared with her younger sister had once been the nursery, relict of the
days when they had still had a governess. Windhaven had many bedchambers, but
the house was so badly in need of repairs, not many of them were habitable.

When Chloe was certain she heard the sound of Agnes's soft
snoring, she slipped out of bed, draping her robe over her nightgown. Tiptoeing
through the door, she crept back downstairs.

Chloe had been doing this as long as she could remember,
sneaking out of bed after her sisters were asleep. Sometimes Papa sent her back
to the nursery. But more often she ended up tucked on his lap while he read to
her.

After she had grown too old to sit upon his knee, she had
formed the custom of curling up on the rug by his feet, leaning against him. Reading
had often given way to talk about matters of great importance, why fairies
could no longer be found in Norfolk, what it felt like to fall in love, why a
man like Napoleon would want to conquer England anyway when he could have been
so much more comfortable at home by his own fireside.

When she reached the parlor, Chloe peered inside. Papa was
still up, as she had known he would be. Not reading as he often did, ensconced
in the wing-back chair, but simply staring into the fire, looking frighteningly
old. Chloe hesitated upon the threshold, fearing that perhaps this was one
night she should leave Papa alone. Whatever sorrow, whatever worry oppressed
him;  it might be too great, too private for him to share, even with her.
As she wavered, on the verge of retreating, he looked around as though sensing
her presence.

"Chloe!" His voice sounded harsh, almost angry
"You should be abed, child, getting your sleep."

"Yes, I am sorry, Papa. I did not mean to disturb
you."