A Gentleman Under the Mistletoe (The Lord Julian Mysteries #7)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

“I thought you should be told.” Conrad Sigafoose, curate and local fixture since my childhood, regarded the large wooden box sitting in the wagon bed. “These fellows weren’t keen on the delay, but your lordship deserved to be informed.”

Some of my earliest ecclesiastical memories were of Mr. Sigafoose attempting to lead a children’s choir in preparation for a Christmas pageant, while Harry attempted to lead the choir astray. Little Lord Harry would purposely sing off-key, tie Mabel Potts’s braids in a knot, and make faces until Danny Bruderman burst out laughing.

Mr. Sigafoose had retaliated by assigning Harry a solo, and rehearsals had abruptly become more productive. Any deviation from strict decorum and, Harry had been warned, a children’s duet for his naughty little lordship and the soprano of Mr. Sigafoose’s choosing could be added to the program on short notice.

Over the years, Sigafoose had mellowed into a white-haired, genial, friend-at-large for all in the village. He offered spiritual comfort in the sickroom, a gentle voice from the pulpit, and rare dashes of subtle humor. He’d never married, and I had no idea if his unwed condition was due to lack of means or lack of a suitable parti.

The fellows Mr. Sigafoose had alluded to were four brawny specimens, collars turned up against the chill morning breeze. Their sallow complexions suggested they were London born and bred, as did their apparent unease in rural surrounds.

“May I see the bill of lading?” I asked.

Mr. Sigafoose passed me a single piece of paper. “Says paid in full, doesn’t say by whom.”

The bill of lading looked to be curiously in order, the letterhead recognizable as that of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.

“Let’s have a look at the goods.” I hoisted myself into the wagon and appropriated a short, hooked crowbar sitting atop the wooden box. Some prying and yanking revealed a lot of chopped straw. Digging down, I found what appeared to be the canon of a sizable bell.

A canon with delicately wrought angels facing the compass points.

“We’re not hauling that bell clear back to London without somebody in authority giving us the say-so,” the largest of the four men said. “That’s a proper tolling bell, bought and paid for, and we brung it here to Waltham village, exactly as directed. Don’t nobody turn away a bell from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry without good reason.”

He was tall, burly, and sporting at least a day’s growth of dark beard, and yet, the pride he took in his association with a venerable business came through.

“Can you tell me who ordered this bell?” I asked, sliding the lid of the box back into place and banging it down with the crowbar.

“Some toff. Don’t have a name. Youngish, but didn’t look too long for this world, according to the foundrymen. Said they moved his order up on account of his health being not the best. Nobody canceled the order, so he must still be among the living, and here’s his bell.”

“There,” I said, pointing across the green to the Goose and Gander, “is our local coaching inn, and they serve excellent fare. If you wouldn’t mind availing yourselves of their hospitality, compliments of Caldicott Hall, I would appreciate an opportunity to consult Mr. Sigafoose regarding this lovely bell.”

“Let’s eat,” said the smallest of the four, who had at least two inches of height on me and three stone of muscle. “Can’t feel me ears, and I lost track of me toes twenty miles ago.”

“Warm up,” I said, “thaw out, fill your bellies, and sample the local ale. You won’t get back to Town today even if you start off this instant. I do know that a bell was ordered for our humble house of worship, and the canon on this one fits the specifications described to me.”

The four men looked to the driver, the oldest of the lot. “What of the horses and the bell?” he asked. “I don’t like to leave a team standing in this bitter weather, and that bell cost a pretty penny.”

Sigafoose beamed at them gently. “I can vouch for the safety of the bell in our churchyard. You good fellows can take the team over to the livery.”

The driver nodded, and the little ballet of unhitching a team took place in less than a minute. Harness jingling in the breeze, the four equine behemoths were led around the green, their breath clouding white in the morning air.

“This is the right bell,” I said to Sigafoose. “I spoke the truth when I said the bell’s specifications had been described to me. The other bell has lilies atop it, while this one has angels.”

“We’ve a spare bell, then?”

“I am not commissioning a second bell tower, sir.” Somebody would suggest that a second tower could be constructed to house a dozen bells. Committees would be formed and prayers said. Complications would ensue of proportions only villages intent on good works were capable of, and I hadn’t the fortitude for any of it.

Besides, we already had a perfectly functional tower awaiting its perfectly functional—if incorrect—bell.

“My lord was never one for telling tales,” Sigafoose said, apropos of nothing I could divine. “But you know more than you are saying about this bell. It’s not stolen, is it?”

“As far as I know, both bells boast of having a legitimate provenance. Both have apparently been paid for. Both delivered to our doorstep. Where is Mr. Humboldt?”

“Off regaling the bishop with tales of our good fortune. I have a suggestion.”

“Now would be a good time to share it.”

“I am responsible for services in Hop Bottom twice a month. Their church is larger than ours and also lacks a bell. Melted down for the war effort in the last century, or possibly the century before, war efforts being the Englishman’s perennial burden.”

Hop Bottom, named for the preferred local crop and the low-lying land where it thrived, was a few miles north of Waltham. Too small to have its own market, it nonetheless had its own house of worship.

“You are suggesting this bell be sent along to Hop Bottom?” I disliked the idea. This bell was my bell, with angels where angels were supposed to be, and I wanted my bell tolling for my funeral—or my nuptials, should that happy occasion befall me.

“Does my lord have another idea? Folk in Hop Bottom are as hardworking and pious as folk in Waltham. We don’t need two bells, but if Mr. Humboldt sees that a second bell has arrived…”

“Right. Prayers and jubilation, committees and reports. I suppose I won’t care which bell is rung at my funeral, will I?”

Sigafoose studied the leaden sky. “Has my lord’s health taken a turn for the worse?”

“My health has slowly improved for the past six months.”

“I see.”

An entire book of sermons lay in those two words, little homilies about gratitude and deliverance, learned diatribes on generosity, and an exegesis or three on blessed are they who refrain from hoarding quarter-ton bells.

“Are you free today, Sigafoose?”

He fluffed his scarf, a sober navy wool article that made the Saxon blue of his eyes snap. “Mayhap I am. What does milord have in mind?”

“I can’t very well show up in the Hop Bottom churchyard bearing bells from afar, can I? Somebody might think the bell was my idea when, in fact, we have no notion who is sending these bells down from Town. If we must give one back come spring, we can sort that out later.”

“Back to whom?”

“Precisely. People intent on doing anonymous good deeds must reckon with the confusion their version of generosity can entail. I propose that we send our London friends along to Hop Bottom—it’s on the way back to Town—and that you accompany them as the bell’s ambassador. Get the thing unloaded, and when the crew comes along to hang Humboldt’s bell, we’ll have them toddle up to Hop Bottom and see to that one as well.”

If they weren’t already commissioned to do so.

“Then we are giving this second bell to Hop Bottom?”

“We’re finding an orphaned bell a good home. Now, my own ears are getting a bit chilled. Need we debate further?”

Sigafoose studied the sky at some length. “I suppose not. What do we say to Vicar Humboldt?”

“That both villages have apparently been blessed with bells. Gaudeamus igitur , and all that.” Therefore, let us be happy , though I was frankly puzzled by the appearance of two bells. “Please hire a closed conveyance and driver from the livery to get you to Hop Bottom and back at my expense, Sigafoose. I do not like the look of those clouds.”

Too cold to snow, some might say, but I’d never known the weather to accommodate such lore.

“Very good, my lord. I will negotiate with the good fellows from the foundry, and we will consider the matter resolved. Expect a toast or two at the Boxing Day reception to whomsoever provideth the bells.”

I was mentally accommodating myself to accepting the lily-bell in my home church and also accommodating myself to the thought of a restorative in the Goose’s snug prior to facing the ride back to the Hall, when the sense of Sigafoose’s words penetrated my mind.

“Boxing Day reception?” Mama had referred to a fete, and I’d been too preoccupied to take proper notice. Too much correspondence, not enough fresh air.

Sigafoose smiled, looking as benevolent as Father Christmas. “You needn’t look so worried, my lord. The reception moved from the Hall to the local assembly rooms after the death of the old duke. Expecting a house of mourning to host revelry was thought inappropriate, and thus the tradition evolved in a new direction. I’m sure Her Grace will send along some good wishes and good food. Her Boxing Day baskets are the pride of the shire. His Grace was most generous last year as well, and he did put in an appearance.”

That was a hint, and another homily.

“I will surely add the reception to my Boxing Day schedule, Sigafoose, and invite Her Grace to join me.”

He patted my shoulder, the holy rogue. “Very good, my lord. Now, if you won’t begrudge an old man a tot of fortification, I’ve a bell to deliver.”

Off he went across the green—which was covered in white—while I thanked the celestial powers for a narrow escape. I’d forgotten all about the Boxing Day festivities, but standing around sipping punch for half an hour could hardly be considered onerous. In years past, the reception had transpired at the Hall, an occasion of yet still more feasting, imbibing, song, and dance.

As a child, I’d thoroughly enjoyed the whole business, but I was no longer a child, and my perspective had matured accordingly. The entire village had tromped up to the Hall, the ballroom had been decorated as befit the season, and squire, duke, diker, and drover had enjoyed hours of merriment under the same roof.

The noise had been abominable, the punchbowl bottomless, and my subsequent bellyaches legendary.

A reception in the assembly rooms suited me quite well, thank you very much, and I would not blame the duchess if she sent me forth on that occasion as her designated emissary.

Perhaps I’d inveigle Kerrick, Laird of Many Flasks, into accompanying me.

A light snow was falling by the time I trotted Atlas back to the Hall, and my spirits were falling too. My grand gesture, my great anonymous benevolence to the village and surrounds, would toll in Hop Bottom forevermore.

Not quite the fate I’d had in mind for my bell, but Sigafoose had been right too: The neighbors to the immediate north were as deserving of a bell as the neighbors closer to the Hall’s gates.

I was silently lecturing myself along those lines when I swung down from a cold saddle, suffered the predictable, painful shock to my feet and ankles, and handed Atlas’s reins to a groom.

“We’ve company, my lord.”

The news was conveyed in less-than-cheery tones. “Company?”

“Aye, and you might want to take your time returning to the Hall.”

I hid from no man. “Who is gracing us with their presence, Peters?”

He glanced over his shoulder while Atlas waited patiently, snowflakes dotting his dark mane. “Two aunties. The older lads call them Bother and Crosspatch, but I don’t think those are their proper names.”

“Two aunties?” But Her Grace invited only the one. Or only the one had invited herself. “Aunt Bertha and Aunt Crosby?”

“That’s not what the lads call ’em.”

“I appreciate the warning.”

“Come along, horse, and there’s a bucket of oats in it for ye.”

Atlas trundled off, and I considered my options. The snow meant business, the estate was devoid of hiding places suitable for the occasion, and Hyperia would be attempting to handle the invaders all on her lonesome. She was equal to the task, of course, but I was the nominal host at the Hall, and duty called.

My first mistake lay in not changing out of my riding boots when I went to greet my guests. My second was in failing to comb my damp hair. My third was in my militarily correct posture. The list grew from there.

“This is not a parade inspection, young man,” Aunt Bertha said when I’d bowed over her hand. “You might have done us the courtesy of changing out of those wet boots, though. Tracking snow on your mother’s carpets is the behavior of a heedless boy.”

How Atticus would howl if he’d heard me scolded thusly. Aunt Bertha was shortish, roundish, and unpleasantish, though never more rude than her age and station entitled her to be.

“Wet hair will see you afflicted with an ague,” Aunt Crosby said. She was tall and slender, and perhaps more pale than I recalled her being. When properly addressed, she was Lady Thomas Caldicott. What she lacked in vigor she made up for in vigilance. No lapse, transgression, or shortcoming ever went unremarked in her presence. That she’d married jovial Uncle Tommie, who’d appeared to be headed for permanent bachelorhood, went under the heading of Family Puzzles That Had Best Remain Unsolved.

In the years since Uncle Tommie had gone to his reward, Aunt Crosby had become a yet still more severe judge of human nature. To say she was universally disliked was an overstatement, only just. She and Bertha got along well enough in a bickering and sniffing sort of way, and Aunt Crosby had a devoted lady’s maid by the name of Winters.

“I appreciate your concern for my health,” I said, bowing over Aunt Crosby’s hand. “I assume Miss West has sent for a tray?”

Hyperia slipped her arm through mine. “Of course, and I’ve offered to put Aunt Crosby in Lord Thomas’s old suite.”

Which a platoon of maids would be dusting and scrubbing apace, while footmen got a roaring blaze going, cleaned every sconce in the apartment, and hung the mattress over the balcony for a quick beating.

“I’d rather my quarters were less drafty,” Aunt Crosby said. “High ceilings are fine for keeping cool in summer, but grossly impractical in the colder months.”

Aunt Crosby always stayed in Uncle Tommie’s old apartment. Always. My mother had once offered her a change of scene to the Rose Suite, thinking to spare Aunt Crosby a longer traipse to the main staircase.

The resulting silence had made Lower Canada in January seem toasty by comparison.

“Will the Rose Suite do?” Hyperia asked sweetly.

“I suppose I can manage there as well as anywhere.”

Hyperia herself had been put in the Rose Suite, which meant the rooms were clean and warm and the bed laid with fresh sheets.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Hyperia said, “I’ll have a word with the housekeeper.” She deserted her post with a kiss to my cheek and a pair of curtseys, one for each auntie.

“You’d best marry her,” Aunt Bertha said, sinking into a wing chair beside the fire. Hyperia had put the ladies in the family parlor, doubtless because the fire was kept lit in here, whereas the formal parlor would have been chilly in the extreme. “She won’t wait about forever.”

“Perhaps she’s not keen on marrying you?” Aunt Crosby took the second wing chair. “One hears a great deal of unpleasant talk about your military career, sir. Have you frightened off the only lady who’ll have you?”

Happy Christmas to you too. “Miss West and I esteem each other greatly and have an understanding as to the possibility of a shared future. How was the journey down from Town?”

“‘Understanding,’” Aunt Bertha said with a snort. “In my day, we signed betrothal contracts. None of this mincing about beneath the kissing boughs.”

“I noted several of those,” Aunt Crosby muttered. “Encouraging licentiousness at the Hall, are we? Not all traditions deserve undying loyalty, my lord.”

I poked up the fire for something to do, and also because neither auntie had suggested I take a seat. I was torn between gentlemanly manners, which required me to wait for the permission of the ladies before getting off my cold, itching feet, and the ridiculousness of a grown man, host at the familial ducal establishment, shifting about like a small boy waiting to be acknowledged.

I ceased fussing with the fire and took a corner of the sofa. “The kissing boughs are decorative,” I said, “and the staff would mutiny if we denied them the holiday touches.”

“Now that is the sad truth.” Aunt Bertha was clearly prepared to launch into a discourse on disloyal staff, laziness, and knowing one’s place. The tea tray spared me that harangue.

Though, of course, the tea could have been hotter and was too strong for such a robust blend.

“The blend is His Grace’s choice,” I said. “I enjoy it.” I enjoyed Mrs. Gwinnett’s meadow tea more.

“Please recall,” Aunt Crosby said, “that Arthur is off gallivanting on the Continent with his dear friend. You will kindly instruct the kitchen that in future I’d like a pot of gunpowder on my trays.”

She was being contrary, which she did exceedingly well. Aunt Crosby had ever been a devotee of strong China black. The stronger, the better.

“Of course, Aunt. Have you any other instructions for the kitchen?” Any other excuses to send me poking my nose belowstairs where my nose had no business being?

“I’ll convey them through Dorothea. Where is your mother, Julian?”

If Mama had any sense—she had loads—she was halfway to London. Aunt Bertha and Uncle Terrence acted as a check and balance on each other. Each was careful to let the other be the most rude in a given conversation, to be the most critical. They competed, but they also attempted to goad one another past the bounds of civility, and with occasional success.

Aunt Crosby’s unannounced presence shifted the battle lines. Terrence would not take on both aunties, which meant he might ally with them. That notion made a seasoned officer tremble in his wet boots.

“Her Grace was intent on visiting Mrs. Swinburne,” I said. “Her cottage lies between here and the village, and the duchess might well have gone on foot.”

“In this weather?” Aunt Bertha sent a baleful glance at the windows. “Ah, youth.”

The duchess was a good twenty years Bertha’s junior, though only a few years younger than Aunt Crosby. Despite his own mature years, Tommie had taken a wife in her second Season, with the result that Aunt Crosby would likely spend far longer widowed than wed.

Which seemed to bother her not at all.

“Mama enjoys great good health.” Nobody had poured me a cup of tea, and I wasn’t about to ask for one. “And Mrs. Swinburne is dear to her.”

“Fraternizing,” Aunt Bertha said, sipping primly. “Just because a housekeeper earns her pension doesn’t mean she’s family all of a sudden. Mark me on this.”

Mrs. Swinburne was family. She’d swatted my little bottom when I’d stolen pies from the kitchen window and kissed my bruises better when Harry had got the better of our earliest brawls. When I returned from France the first time, she had enfolded me in a hug that had conveyed joy, relief, and love. My second homecoming had presaged the same welcome—from her.

She was getting on, and a grandmother several times over, though her extant progeny all lived in Philadelphia.

“What do you hear from Arthur?” Aunt Crosby asked, finishing her cup of too-strong, not-hot-enough tea. “He disdains to write to his aunts, and we live in hope that he is equally negligent toward Terrence.”

“Arthur is enjoying his travels. Banter is an art enthusiast, though they are both men of the land at heart. French roses, German beer, Austrian hops… His Grace has started sending me cuttings and seeds by the week.”

“Tommie was like that,” Bertha observed. “Harry too. Curious to the bone. Perhaps that’s what got Lord Harry killed.”

I poured myself a cup of tea rather than take that bait. My curiosity, my following Harry from camp by dark of night, might well have been why Harry had perished, but a pair of nosy old busybodies couldn’t be trusted with such a confidence.

The tea, with a dash of honey and a drop of cream, was just right.

“You’d best send some footmen to retrieve Dorothea,” Aunt Crosby observed. “She’s at that age where one’s declining powers are still coming as a surprise, and this snow is serious.”

“Do you suppose the snow will prevent Terrence from joining us?” Bertha seemed pleased by the prospect, the way a bettor was pleased when the pugilist he backed landed a stout blow.

“Delay,” Aunt Crosby said. “Not deter. Terrence will join us.”

A look passed between the ladies that suggested plots and schemes I wasn’t to know about, which was fine with me. My job at that moment was to keep them company until Hyperia informed me that she’d moved her own effects from the Rose Suite.

I wished she might join me in my apartment. We’d spent the occasional night cuddling and kissing, but such was the dreary state of my manly humors that I could offer her no real passion of the body. Not yet, maybe not ever.

I chased those thoughts off lest the aunties sniff out their presence by virtue of diabolical powers of materteral divination.

“There’s Dorothea,” Aunt Crosby said, going to the window. “What can she be thinking, trudging about in this snow? She’ll catch her death. Illness at the holidays is the height of inconsideration.”

Aunt Bertha joined her. “She’s looking spry enough. For now. Be wretchedly bad timing if she came down with something at Yuletide, but she’s not as young as she used to be.”

Who is? “More tea, ladies?”

They returned to their perches by the fire. “You haven’t told us the local news,” Aunt Bertha said. “If we’re to have the advantage of Terrence, you must tell us all the latest local gossip and tattle. Terrence hates to be late to the party.”

At that point, I’d have welcomed Uncle Terrible simply because he’d distract the aunties from their interrogation of me.

“We have a new bell for the church,” I said. “An anonymous benefactor has remedied a long-standing oversight. The crew should be along to hang the bell in the next week or so. Vicar Humboldt is in transports.”

“A new bell?” Cleary, Aunt Crosby found this news less than riveting. “Arthur finally bestirred himself to see to it, then. One knows when a church has no bell. One is reminded every Sunday.”

“And at every funeral,” Aunt Bertha noted piously.

“And every wedding,” I said, and earned two beady-eyed appraisals for my cheek.

“We live in hope,” Aunt Bertha murmured, “that nuptials are in the offing. You aren’t getting any younger, and Arthur has no proper heirs. Somebody had best do his duty and soon.”

The rising tide of melancholia threatened to slosh into my little holiday boat. I was Arthur’s proper heir, at least legally. True, I wasn’t the old duke’s progeny, but by law I was a legitimate Caldicott scion, and I loved the Hall dearly.

Her Grace had never told me who my father was, and I hadn’t asked. She and I did not enjoy that sort of relationship and had only recently progressed from civil to cordial dealings.

“Regarding the ducal succession, we must trust to divine providence,” I said, which was balderdash. I trusted to divine providence only as a last resort, when planning, hard work, and faithful allies had all been exhausted.

“Trusting to divine providence is for clergymen on Sundays and fools at their leisure,” Aunt Crosby said. “Your Mr. Humboldt is a bit of both.”

Now she was insulting a man of God, and Bertha looked ready to bring up the rear. Fortunately for their immortal souls and my patience, Kerrick strode into the room without knocking.

“Keeping all the best company to yourself, Julian? Not the done thing. Hello, darling aunties. Give a lonely laddie a kiss in greeting and tell me the best recipes for quieting teething babies.”

Bless you, bless you, bless you and your kilted blather . He entertained them for the next quarter hour, at which time Hyperia arrived and offered to show the ladies to their respective rooms. I gallantly tendered my escort to Aunt Crosby, but she waved me off, saying she had questions for Hyperia.

The ladies left, Kerrick offered me his flask, and I partook.

“That’s tea, you fraud.” Good, strong tea too.

“Aye. Could not be kissing the aunties with whisky on my breath. Married men learn these things. I really don’t know why you dread the elders so.”

“Not all elders. I am very fond of my godmother. The duchess is dear to me. Uncle Tommie was a scamp but good company. These women, though…”

“They are a warning to us. The curtain will come down. Be careful what we make of our own final acts. We will have many young critics and no encores.”

And that was why I not only liked Kerrick, but also respected him. He could play the charmer in plaid, though he’d served in uniform for two bloody years, seen human nature at its best and worst, and looked the world squarely in the eye.

“I had not thought of the aunties as admonitory tales,” I said. “I suppose they are. If you will excuse me, I am off to change my boots.”

“You’d best brush your hair while you’re at it, my lord. A married man learns to tend to such details.”

I threw his flask at him and left him laughing in the toasty parlor.