A Yuletide Treasure (17 page)

Tinarose laughed. “Uncle Philip, you’re a coward!”

“When it comes to matters of the heart, yes, I am. But I’m getting braver in my old age.”

Camilla froze, knowing that if she should look up, she would find Philip’s gaze fixed on her. Though he’d said nothing as yet, she’d begun to feel that his friendship for her had started to change. Sometimes, she was sure she must be the victim of her own too-vivid imagination. Other times, she felt sure it was only her comparatively unprotected state that kept him from seizing her in his arms. Nor could she constrain the sudden thrill that filled every atom of her being at the thought of his acting so impetuously.

“What else does Mrs. Twainsbury say?” Tinarose asked. “It’s a long letter just to announce a birth.”

Camilla reined in her wild thoughts and focused on her mother’s neat script. Despite the clarity of her hand, Camilla soon found herself frowning.

“Not... bad news?” Tinarose added.

Looking up, Camilla saw both her friends looking at her with mild alarm. “Oh, nothing of importance,” she said, forcing a smile. Philip looked as if he wanted to question her further, but Mavis entered and bobbed a curtsey to find them all there.

“If you’re none too busy, miss, her la’ship asks if you’d come up.”

“Of course. Certainly. Tell her ... I shall be with her directly.” Camilla shook out the folds of the little dress. “Shall I press this, Tinarose, or give it to her now?”

“Oh, now, Camilla. It will cheer her up even more; it’s so pretty. I’ll take it and press it later.”

* * * *

She rapped gently on Lady LaCorte’s chamber door. Despite having been in the house more than a week, she’d yet to cross this threshold. After a moment without reply, she hesitatingly turned the knob. She saw a pleasantly appointed room, the walls a mix of cream distemper and a green-striped wallpaper.

Though the colors were feminine, the furnishings were not. Of dark wood, massive posts heavily carved, the bed dominated one end of the room while a pair of immense wardrobes stood like sentinel towers against each wall. The gold-framed paintings were of naval battles, complete with cottonwool smoke and heaving seas. A brass spyglass on a wooden easel stood by the window, throwing off gleams from the winter sun.

Beside this was a chaise, upholstered in a deep moss green velvet that matched the curtains. Lady LaCorte lay upon it, a book fallen upon the floor below her drooping hand. She looked as if she were asleep. Camilla prepared to shut the door.

“No, come in, Miss Twainsbury,” the woman said without rousing.

“I don’t wish to disturb you, ma’am.”

“Oh, well...” Lady LaCorte moved her shoulders with a kind of restless discomfort. “I’m so sleepy these days. I’m not resting well at all. It’s always so in the last weeks.”

Though Camilla remembered perfectly the insult offered her sister when she’d first met Lady LaCorte, she decided to impart her good news. “My mother writes to inform me that my sister was safely delivered of a child last week.”

“Indeed?” Lady LaCorte smiled. ‘You must be very pleased. What sex is it?”

“A girl, ma’am.”

“Another girl... poor thing. There are too many of us as it is. I fear for our daughters, Miss Twainsbury. What is to become of them?”

“One may always be a spinster and keep house for more fortunate relations.”

“But you would never settle for so menial an existence. I have observed you, Miss Twainsbury; you have gifts quite out of the common way.”

“Not at all, ma’am. As for a menial existence, I have lived that very comfortably since my childhood. I can truss a bird, paint a room, scrub a floor, and sew a frock.” With that, she handed Lady LaCorte the gift she’d held behind her back. Wrapped in a square of tissue and tied with a chance-met ribbon from Tinarose’s sewing box, it looked mysterious and interesting.

With an effort, Lady LaCorte pushed herself into a more upright position. “What is this?” she asked, her gloomy eyes lightening,

“A little token of my thanks for your hospitality and kindness.”

She found herself the recipient of a searching glance. “I believe you mean that,” Lady LaCorte said, her long fingers smoothing the thin cloth wrapping.

“Of course.”

“Won’t you be seated, Miss Twainsbury?” She indicated a chair with a graceful gesture. “Bring it nearer.”

She waited until Camilla was seated before she opened the gift. Her smile when she held up the little dress was all Camilla could have hoped for, tender with maternal dreams. “What fine stitches,” she said, looking more closely.

“I hope I made it the right size. I guessed by Grace’s old clothes.”

“It will suit. I only hope ...” She let her other hand rest a moment on the rise of her abdomen. Camilla couldn’t help but notice that her hostess looked noticeably larger than she had at breakfast but was too well-bred to speak about it.

“Would you care for some water, Lady LaCorte? Or anything?”

“No, thank you, child. I am to have a glass of my cordial before long. So you’ve had a letter from your mother, then?”

“Yes. She wrote to me almost immediately.”

“And all went well?”

“Apparently so. Furthermore, she writes that she feels she need not stay more than another week or so. The nurse has proven to have a satisfactory grasp of her duties.” She didn’t mention that this was the second nurse and the third nursery maid. The first servants had been dismissed almost as soon as Mrs. Twainsbury arrived. “So you see, ma’am, I shall not have to impose upon you much longer.”

“Imposition?” Lady LaCorte repeated as if her earlier hostility had been only a joke. “You’ve been an exemplary guest, helpful, courteous and unobtrusive. We shall miss you, Tinarose most of all.”

“I like her very much.”

“She’s a dear child. I’m afraid I haven’t been the most attentive parent of late. She feels the loss of her father keenly. When he was at home, they were all but inseparable.”

Camilla nodded, remembering her own father so well. “I don’t know that anything you could have done would help her. We each must find our own way through grief.”

“You are very wise for one so young. I won’t scruple to confess that when you first came among us, I was suspicious of your motives.”

“Were you, ma’am?” Camilla said noncommittally. She recalled Sir Philip telling her how much Lady LaCorte dreaded the thought of losing her home to some interloping female.

“I believe you may remember how very rude I was to you?”

“No, I have no recollection of it at all.”

Lady LaCorte laughed, pressing her hand against her side. “I know now that I was foolish to be so concerned. I thought you were another of those low, scheming creatures who besiege my poor brother-in-law.”

“I’m not interested in his title.”

“Oh, they buzzed about him even before he inherited here. There’s something about very dark hair and those light eyes that draws the ladies like bees to honey. My husband was not so handsome, but he and I never wanted anyone else.”

“I envy you that,” Camilla said. “For all that has happened, I envy you the security of knowing that your husband loved you.”

Lady LaCorte pressed her hand to her cheek, catching the sparkling tear. “Yes. I had that at any rate.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t wish to overset you. That was tactless of me.”

Lady LaCorte chuckled, despite the tears that still glittered in her eyes. “I wish some of my friends had half your tact. If you only knew how many dreadful letters and visitors I’ve received in the last several months. Condoling with me on the one hand, terrifying me with tales of miscarriages, stillbirths, and other horrors on the other. I’ll never understand why women feel compelled to tell other women the worst sort of stories at a time like this.”

Camilla could only look sympathetically. Bearing Tinarose’s concern in mind, Camilla wanted to encourage her ladyship’s lighter mood and not again cast her into the dismals.

“I don’t mean to frighten you,” Lady LaCorte said. “No doubt it will be different when your turn comes.”

“I doubt it. Some of the women at home are dreadful gossips and pass along every tale they hear, proclaiming that they only speak as they do because ‘I thought you would like to know....’ ”

“That’s it, exactly. They are all so eager to tell you, from motives of purest charity, of course, all those things you have fought so hard to drive from your thoughts. As if I needed to be reminded that sometimes dreadful things happen.”

“Or as if I wanted to know that one of my beaus was seen at the Assembly with another young lady, far prettier and better dressed than I could ever hope to be. Not that they saw her themselves—no, it is invariably a secondhand report.”

“Or the disaster happened to the sister of a cousin’s old schoolmate. Yes, I know that one. Heaven preserve us from ‘kind friends.’ “

“Heaven preserve us from our ‘own good,’ ” Camilla echoed with a shudder.

Lady LaCorte laughed again, more freely than Camilla had ever heard her, though still tinged with bitterness. “My favorite is always ‘I know you better than you know yourself,’ usually as a preface to some piece of advice you’d not take if your soul depended upon it. I had a maiden aunt who was fond of that phrase. She also liked ‘When I was your age.’ Which we knew to be impossible. She could never have been younger than fifty-five, even when she was a babe in arms.”

“We?” Camilla asked.

“I have three sisters and two brothers. We are scattered to the winds, these days. My younger brother emigrated to America, two sisters married attorneys, another teaches school in Winchelsea, and my older brother is a gentleman farmer in the north. He was always my favorite. If... If by some miracle, this child should prove to be a boy, I want to name him after Tom.”

“An excellent name.”

“I think so. Although I loved my husband dearly, I never cared much for the name Myron. It’s Greek, of course. So is Philip. I think his father was fond of Ancient Greece.”

“He must have anticipated the modern madness for anything that smacks of ancient glories.”

“When Myron and I first came to this house, there were the most dreadful copies of Greco-Roman statues in every corner and cranny. Over the years, I have arranged their disposal. I remember I gave one to old Dr. March. I believe he set it up in his back garden. It’s all right for him. He’s used to looking at naked torsos.”

They went on talking, laughter coming more often and more easily as the minutes slipped past. Though Camilla never ceased calling her formally as ma’am or Lady LaCorte, and the older woman never forgot Camilla’s innocence, they found much common ground in their shared sense of the ridiculous and absurd. Yet, despite her unexpected enjoyment of Lady LaCorte’s company, Camilla was prey to the curious sense that Lady LaCorte was holding something back.

When Mavis came in to give Lady LaCorte her strengthening cordial, both ladies blinked in surprise at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. “It can’t be time for that yet!” Lady LaCorte said in protest.

“Tis, my lady. Regular as clockwork.”

Mavis gave her mistress a small wineglass filled halfway with water, then a small brown bottle. Lady LaCorte tipped some purple-brown liquid into the glass and, giving back the bottle, stirred the mixture with a glass rod.

“Vile stuff,” she said. Grimacing, she tossed it off with the ease of a dedicated toper; then her expression grew even more squeezed as if she’d bitten into a lemon or tasted alum.

“Thank heavens it’s only twice a day.” She sighed heavily and resumed her easy position on the chaise, her legs out in front of her, her back against the velvet-covered back.

“I should go and let you rest. What Dr. March will think of me for chattering at you for so long.”

“No, wait a moment. Thank you, Mavis. That will do.”

When the door closed behind the little maid, Lady LaCorte took a firm grip on Camilla’s wrist. “Please be so good, Miss Twainsbury, to open that door, to see if she’s listening,” Lady LaCorte said in an urgent undertone.

“Why should she?” Camilla asked.

The tug on her arm spoke of desperation. “Go see.”

More curious than concerned, Camilla did as she asked and reported back smartly. “Not a mob-cap to be seen,” she said.

“Good. Sit down. Miss Twainsbury, I’m most reluctant to bring this up now....”

Camilla sat down and leaned close to catch the hurrying words that tumbled out. “If something isn’t done very soon, not only will the children have almost no gifts, but the servants, too, will go away from Christmas empty-handed.” She stopped, swallowed as if the next words took great effort. “If you could see a way to possibly help me, Miss Twainsbury?”

“Of course,” Camilla said, reassuringly patting her hand. “Whatever you want to do, let me know. I’ll be more than glad to assist in any way possible.”

“You really are a very good creature. I’m determined, you see, not to let my husband’s... absence ... interfere with our usual holiday festivities. But, alas, in my present state, I can hardly tiptoe lightly into the attics for that special box or scramble up and down ladders arranging the holly and the ivy. If you will be my mobility, Miss Twainsbury, I believe I can give my children the kind of Christmas-tide I wish to give them.”

Camilla felt certain that it had cost Lady LaCorte to thus approach a girl she did not care for in order to ask a favor. Aware of Lady LaCorte’s jealousy, Camilla felt the only answer was to reiterate what had already been said. “I will do whatever I can to make Christmas at the Manor into an absolute delight. You have my word on that, Lady LaCorte.”

In the late afternoon, with the golden light of a clear winter’s day sifting through the library curtains, Philip paced before the windows. As he came to each turn, he shot an anxious glance at Camilla’s bent head as she sat on the sofa, reading. In a burst of white-hot creativity, he’d written an entire chapter in one night. His right hand still felt cramped, and the pages, ill-spelled and ink-spattered, showed the effort. Also, his head ached from frustration.

All day, he’d attempted to steal half an hour of Camilla’s time, longing to hear her opinion of what he’d done. Yet she always seemed too busy to draw aside. Ever since she’d spent an hour closeted with Beulah two days before, she’d been scurrying about like a home-loving mouse, up attic and down cellar, whispering the corner with Tinarose or one of the other two children. When she wasn’t afoot on some errand, she was sitting, her hands full of busywork, with Nanny Mallow. Finally, he’d cornered her by promising her an uninterrupted tea. Uninterrupted, that was, by everybody but himself.