Carol-Lynn Waugh - The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

When Cork told him of our invitation and the curious accompanying note, the officer gave a low whistle. “The van Schooners, no less! Well, we shall share the festivities, for I am also a guest at the affair. The note is a little disturbing, however. Dame Ilsa is the mistress of a large fortune and extensive land holdings, which could be the spark for foul play.”

“You think she sent the note?” I asked.

“Nonsense,” Cork interjected. “She would not have had to purloin her own invitation. What can you tell us of the household, Major?”

I don’t know if Tell’s fund of knowledge is part of his duties or his general nosiness, but he certainly keeps his ear to the ground. No gossip-monger could hold a candle to him.

“The family fortune was founded by her grandfather, Nils van der Malin-patroon holdings up the Hudson, pearl potash, naval stores, that sort of old money. Under Charles the Second’s Duke of York grant, Nils was rewarded for his support with a baronetcy. The title fell in the distaff side to Dame Ilsa’s mother, old Gretchen van der Malin. She was a terror of a woman, who wore men’s riding clothes and ran her estates with an iron fist and a riding crop. She had a young man of the Orange peerage brought over as consort, and they produced Ilsa. The current Dame, is more genteel than her mother was, but just as stern and autocratic. She, in turn, married a van Schooner-Gustave. I believe, a soldier of some distinction in the Lowland campaigns. He died of drink after fathering two daughters, Gretchen and her younger sister, Wilda.

“The line is certainly Amazonite and breeds true,” Cork said with a chuckle. “Not a climate I would relish, although strong women have their fascination.”

“Breeds true is correct, Captain. The husbands were little more than sire stallions; good blood but ruined by idleness.”

This last, about being “ruined by idleness,” was ignored by Cork, but I marked it, as well he knew.

“Young Gretchen,” Tell went on, “is also true to her namesake. A beauty, but cold as a steel blade, and as well honed. They say she is a dead shot and an adept horsewoman.”

“You have obviously been to the van Schooner Haus, as our correspondent calls it.”

“Oh, yes, on several occasions. It is truly a place to behold.”

“No doubt, Major.” Cork poured a glass of Apple Knock. “Who else lives there besides the servants?”

“The younger daughter, Wilda. of course, and the Dame’s spinster sister, Hetta van der Malin, and an ancient older brother of the dead husband-the brother is named Kaarl. I have only seen him once, but I am told he was quite the wastrel in his day, and suffers from the afflictions of such a life.”

“Mmm,” Cork murmured, offering the glass to Tell. “I change my original Amazonite observation to that of Queen Bee. Well, someone in that house feels in need of help, but we shall have to wait until tomorrow night to find out why.”

“Or who,” I said.

“That,” Cork said, “is the heart of the mystery.”

The snow started falling soon after dinner that night and kept falling into the dawn. By noon of the twenty-fourth, the wind had drifted nature’s white blanket into knee-high banks. When it finally stopped in the late afternoon, New York was well covered under a blotchy sky. The inclemency, however, did not deter attendance at the van Schooner Ball.

I had seen the van Schooner home from the road many times, and always marveled at its striking architecture, which is in the Palladio style. The main section is a three-story structure, and it is flanked by one-story wings at both sides.

The lights and music emanating from the north wing clearly marked it a ballroom of immense size. The front entrance to the main house had a large raised enclosure which people in these parts call a stoop. The interior was as rich and well appointed as any manse I have ever seen. The main hall was a gallery of statuary of the Greek and Roman cast, collected, I assumed, when the family took the mandatory Grand Tour.

Our outer clothes were taken at the main door, and we were escorted through a sculptured archway across a large salon towards the ballroom proper. We had purposely come late to avoid the reception line and any possible discovery by Dame van Schooner. We need not have bothered. There were more than two-hundred people there, making individual acquaintance impossible. Not that some of the guests were without celebrity. The Royal Governor was in attendance, and I saw General Seaton and Solomon deSilva, the fur king, talking with Reeves, the shipping giant.

It was difficult to determine the identity of the majority of the people, for most wore masks, although not all, including Cork and myself. Tell fluttered off on his social duties, and Cork fell to conversation with a man named Downs, who had recently returned from Spanish America and shared common friends there with the Captain.

I helped myself to some hot punch and leaned back to take in the spectacle. It would be hard to say whether the men or the women were the more lushly bedizened. The males were adorned in the latest fashion with those large and, to my mind, cumbersome rolled coat cuffs. The materials of their plumage were a dazzling mixture of gold and silver stuffs, bold brocades, and gaudy flowered velvets. The women, not to be outdone by their peacocks, were visions in fan-hooped gowns of silks and satins and fine damask. Each woman’s tête-de-mouton back curls swung gaily as her partner spun her around the dance floor to madcap tunes such as “Roger de Coverly,” played with spirit by a seven-piece ensemble. To the right of the ballroom entrance was a long table with three different punch bowls dispensing cheer.

The table was laden with all manner of great hams, glistening roast goose, assorted tidbit meats and sweets of unimaginable variety. Frothy syllabub was cupped up for the ladies by liveried footmen, while the gentlemen had their choice of Madeira, rum, champagne, or Holland gin, the last served in small crystal thimbles which were embedded and cooled in a silver bowl mounded with snow.

“This is most lavish,” I said to Cork when he disengaged himself from conversation with Downs. “It’s a good example of what diligent attention to industry can produce.”

“Whose industry, Oaks? Wealth has nothing more to do with industry than privilege has with merit. Our hostess, over there, does not appear to have ever perspired in her life.”

He was true to the mark in his observation, for Dame van Schooner, who stood chatting with the Governor near the buffet, was indeed as cold as fine-cut crystal. Her well formed face was sternly beautiful, almost arrogantly defying any one to marvel at its handsomeness and still maintain normal breathing.

“She is a fine figure of a woman, Captain, and, I might add, a widow.”

He gave me a bored look and said, “A man would die of frostbite in her bedchamber. Ah, Major Tell, congratulations! You are a master at the jig!”

“It’s a fantastical do, but good for the liver, I’m told. Has the mysterious sender of your invitation made herself known to you?”

“Not as yet. Is that young lady now talking with the Dame one of her daughters?”

“Both of them are daughters. The one lifting her mask is Gretchen, and I might add, the catch of the year. I am told she has been elected Queen of the Ball, and will be crowned this evening.”

The girl was the image of her mother. Her sister, however, must have followed the paternal line.

“The younger one is Wilda,” Tell went on, “a dark pigeon in her own right, but Gretchen is the catch.”

“Catch, you say.” I winked at Cork. “Perhaps her bedchamber would be warmer?”

“You’ll find no purchase there, gentlemen,” Tell told us. “Along with being crowned Queen, her betrothal to Brock van Loon will probably be announced this evening.”