Twelfth Night

By Flora Speer

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 by Flora Speer

Copyright 1993, by Flora Speer

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Farmington, Connecticut

December 23

“Just where do you think you are going?’
Lucinda Carstairs glared at her older sister. She kept her voice
low, but Aline could tell Luce was angry. So was Luce’s husband,
Bill, who pushed his bulk in front of Alice to block her exit from
the dining room.

“Come on now, Ally,” Bill said. “You can’t
walk out on your own grandfather’s funeral. It wouldn’t look
right.”

“I am not walking out on the funeral,” Aline
replied. “I was there at the church and at the gravesite, and I
have been here at your house for more than three hours. I’ve had
enough of polite condolences and small talk – and entirely too much
of dainty sandwiches and cookies and tea. Gramps would have
demanded a slice of roast beef on rye and a glass of good Scotch
whiskey.

“Luce, it’s nothing you’ve done, or you
either, Bill. It’s just that I need to be alone for a while,” Aline
added, feeling guilty for her imminent defection from the social
duties her sister expected of her.

“But I have someone here I especially wanted
you to meet,” Lucinda protested. “A man I just know you will
like.”

“Not today,” Aline cried. “Good God, Luce,
can’t you stop the matchmaking even for Gramps’ funeral? I’ve told
you at least a hundred times, I do not want to get married again.
Once was more than enough.”

“Ally, you don’t understand.”

“Let her go,” Bill advised when Lucinda would
have continued to argue. “Any man who meets her when she’s in this
mood will only turn tail and run the other way.”

“Has anyone ever told you,” Aline hissed, all
patience gone, “that you are the most insensitive couple in the
history of the entire world?”

“Aline!” Lucinda glanced around to see if any
of her guests had noticed her dismayed exclamation. When she spoke
again, she lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I don’t understand
why you’re being so difficult. Gramps was almost ninety-three, he
lived a full life, and he was ready to go. He told us so on the day
he died. We all knew he couldn’t live much longer. He – and I –
accepted the inevitable. Why can’t you?”

“You’re right, Luce,” Aline said. “You don’t
understand. You probably never will. Thanks for your efforts today.
It has been a lovely party, but it’s time for me to leave.”

As Aline hurried out of the dining room she
brushed against a man she had never seen before.

“Sorry,” she muttered, assuming he was some
friend of Bill’s and unwilling to pause lest Luce or Bill should
come after her.

“I say, aren’t you –“

Aline was too eager to be gone from her
sister’s house to stop and chat. Grabbing her cape off the
Victorian coat rack by the front door, she ran across the porch and
down the steps. Only when she reached the street did she stand
still long enough to put on the cape. Shivering in the cold
December wind, she pulled the billowing folds of heavy grey wool
around her, then fastened the silver clasp at her throat and drew
up the hood.

Gramps had given the cape to her. Every time
she enfolded herself in it, she felt as if his arms were circling
her, holding her safe and warm. The cape was almost all she had
left of him. Almost, but not quite all. For there was another
legacy from Gramps that still survived: the illuminated Book of
Hours he had purchased in Europe early in the century. When he
learned he did not have long to live, Gramps had taken care that
his most valuable worldly possession would be permanently kept in a
safe place where others who cared about its beauty as he and Aline
did could see it and use it for historical or art research.

As firmly as the grey wool of the cape sat
upon Aline’s shoulders, so the desire came over her to see the book
again. If she could hold that beautiful object in her hands once
more, perhaps she wouldn’t feel so lost and alone. Perhaps some
part of Gramps would cling to the book and, like the cape, it would
comfort her.

She hurried to her car. Surprised to see a
dusting of snow on it, she brushed the flakes off the windshield,
then opened the door. Before getting into the car she glanced
upward at the heavy clouds that seemed ready to open and engulf the
world in white.

The Victorian Gothic architecture of the
college library remained unchanged since Aline’s days as a student.
At the windows, pointed arches framed small, diamond-shaped panes
of glass. Overhead, dark wooden beams traced the higher arches that
supported the ceiling. Two rows of oak tables with sturdy matching
chairs marched down the length of the room.

“The architect tried to make this place look
like the great hall of a medieval castle,” Gramps had told Aline
during one of their many visits. “He didn’t succeed, though.

There are too many windows and no big
fireplaces.”

Personally, Aline had always though the
library more resembled a Gothic church.

There was nothing medieval about the young
woman at the librarian’s desk just inside the entrance. Perhaps in
honor of the season, she was dressed in bright red from her
turtleneck sweater to her miniskirt and opaque tights to her
spike-heeled suede shoes. She was also thoroughly modern in her
abruptness.

“We’re closing in one hour,” she said.

“I don’t intend to stay long,” Aline replied.
“I just want to see one of the rare books.”

“You’ll need permission from the head
librarian.”

“I have this.” Aline presented the special
library card Gramps had obtained for her when he donated the book
to the library under the sole condition that Aline could have free
access to it.

“I chose that particular library in part
because it’s close to where you live,” Gramps had told her. “You’ll
be able to visit the book whenever you like, but you won’t have to
worry about keeping it clean and free from mildew or bookworms, and
the new vault they’ve installed ought to be safe from thieves.”

The librarian took the special card and
looked closely at it. She seemed impressed by what she saw.

“The rare book room is through there,” she
said, indicating the door at the far end of the library, “or you
can just use the big room As you can see no one else is here this
afternoon.” She disappeared on her errand to retrieve the book from
the basement vault.

Aline did not like the rare book room It was
small and dark, the walls filled with glass-enclosed, locked cases,
the air heavy from constant recycling. She chose a table in the
main room. After dumping her purse onto a chair and draping her
cape over it, she glanced toward the windows. A few flakes of snow
were drifting downward.

“You’re supposed to wear gloves while you
handle it.” The librarian placed a box in front of Aline. On top of
the box lay a pair of thin, white cotton gloves.

“I know. I won’t forget.” As the librarian
moved away toward the circulation desk, Aline opened the box and
pulled on the gloves. The dirt and oils on human skin could damage
the ancient vellum; Gramps had never handled the book without clean
gloves.

Aline lifted the book out of its acid-free
nest, holding the medieval relic reverently in both hands.
Originally created as a gift for a noble lady, the Book of Hours
was intended as a guide during daily church services. It also
contained prayers for private devotions. Every letter of each Latin
word was gracefully formed, the ink still unfaded after almost nine
hundred years. But, though the lettering was beautiful, the
illuminations were the true glory of the book. In addition to
elaborately decorated capital letters and margins at the beginning
of every prayer, the book contained a series of miniature
paintings, each depicting a month. Aline had always loved the
brilliant blues and greens and the tasteful accents of real gold on
the robes of the painted nobles shown in the miniatures.

“Blue was the color of the Middle Ages.” She
could almost hear Gramps’ voice at her shoulder, as if he were once
more looking at the book with her. “Never before or since has there
been a pigment so clear, so pure, so long-lasting. That blue makes
my old eyes rejoice.”

Rejoice
. Spreading her hands, Aline
let the book fall open where it would.
Rejoice
, she thought
again, and began to smile, for she was looking at the scene for
December.

Beneath an improbably blue sky, gaily dressed
nobles and peasants together were dragging a Yule log across a
snowy landscape toward the entrance to a great, turreted castle.
The castle doors were open wide and through the opening Aline could
see a fireplace already blazing with orange and red flames. Beside
the fire a noble lady sat, wearing a green gown and a crisp white
headdress. In her hands she held a book. It was, of course, the
very same book Aline was holding. She recognized the gold design on
the cover. Behind her, Aline imagined she could hear Gramps’
ghostly chuckle.

“Don’t ever think the monks who made this
book were all solemnity and prayers, Aline,” he had told her once.
“Those medieval folk had a fine sense of humor.”

A chill draft blew across the back of Aline’s
neck. Setting the book into its box, she took up her cape and
pulled it across her shoulders. Then she lifted the book again to
examine the December page more closely. In the painting there was a
figure following the men with the Yule log, a boy with his arms
full of holly and evergreens.

“A medieval Christmas lasted for twelve days
and twelve nights,” Gramps’ voice said in her memory. “Castles were
decorated with greenery. There was usually plenty of food
available. The harvest was over, the animals for whom there
wouldn’t be enough fodder to see them into spring had been
slaughtered and the meat cut up and preserved by salting or drying.
The sausages had all been made from the leftover scraps of meat and
the innards. Work in the fields was finished until spring, so
people had some free time and they were ready to celebrate. Even
the worst winter weather couldn’t stop them.

Being snowed in meant nothing to those hardy
medieval folk. They had everything they needed to get through the
winter, right there in the castle storerooms and cellars. They knew
how to work hard and how to enjoy life.”

Rejoice. Celebrate. Enjoy life
. Gramps
had gone on to describe the feasting, the riotous games and
dancing, the hilarious foolishness of Twelfth Night. Aline smiled
again, recalling his stories.

“I remember, Gramps. How could I ever
forget?” But the memory made her eyes misty. Fearing to allow a
salty tear to drop onto the precious painting and damage it, Aline
lifted her head to look up from the brilliantly colored December
page to the window a few feet in front of her. Great, fat flakes of
snow were coming down fast.

“I really ought to start home before the
roads get too slippery for driving.” But she did not move. She sat
with the Book of Hours in her hands and her gaze on the falling
snow. Her eyes were dry now, but the diamond-shaped outlines of the
glass panes were blurring. Aline blinked once, twice. The pointed
stone arch surrounding the window began to waver. She blinked
again. The window, the arch – in fact, the entire row of stone
arches and windows along that side of the library – began to
dissolve.

The wind caught at her cape, nearly pulling
it off her shoulders. Aline clutched at it. She was standing –
standing?
– beneath darkening grey skies in an open field
and the wind was blowing hard. The library had disappeared, the
Book of Hours was gone, and her hands were bare of the white cotton
gloves she’d been wearing.

“What’s happening? Where am I?” A blast of
wind nearly knocked her off her feet. Aline stumbled on uneven
ground. She stared at the earth beneath her feet.

Ruts. Deep ruts frozen into a mud road.

She was so confused and the wind was blowing
so hard that she did not hear the horses until they were almost
upon her. Great, galloping beasts pounded down the sides of the
road, avoiding the dangerous ruts that could trap and break a
horse’s leg. With a frightened scream Aline threw herself to one
side. The dead grass at the edge of the road was slippery with
frost and the first thin layer of snow. She almost slid under the
hooves of the lead horse. Its rider pulled hard on the reins and
the horse reared upward. Aline saw flashing hooves, bared equine
teeth, and the shadow of a black mane.