Rhys Bowen - The Twelve Clues of Christmas

“On the contrary,” Lady Wormwood said, “we are expecting the rest of our family to join us. Hilda’s sister, Matilda, and her husband and daughter. I believe you met them in France earlier this year.”

Oh, God. Not Ducky, her lecherous husband, Foggy, and their dreadful daughter, Maude!

“Maybe you can help Maude with her French lessons again while she’s here,” Fig said. “You two became great chums, I remember.”

In fact, it had been a case of mutual loathing. I cleared my throat. “Ah, well, I don’t think I’m going to be here after all. I’ve decided to go down to the London house, if it’s all right with you. There are parties and things going on, and I know you all want me to meet a suitable chap, don’t you?”

There was a silence you could cut with a knife, punctuated only by the clink of silver spoon against tureen as the footman ladled out soup.

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question, isn’t it, Binky?” Fig said.

“Is it?” Binky looked up from his soup, clueless as usual. “If that’s what Georgie wants to do I think it’s a splendid idea. Young thing like her needs her Christmas parties, what?”

“Binky!” Fig’s voice developed a knife edge to it. “We discussed this before, remember? We decided it was far too expensive to open up the London house in winter, even with the small amount of coal and electricity that Georgiana would use. So I’m afraid you’re stuck here with us, Georgiana, and you can make yourself useful for once keeping Maude amused.”

With that she turned her attention to her cock-a-leekie soup.

I sat fuming, but could find nothing to say. I wanted to remind her that I had only come here in the first place because she had begged me to keep her company. I had only stayed on so long because Binky had begged me to do so. Surely they owed me something for my months of enduring Fig. But she didn’t seem to think so. Rannoch House was the property of the current duke and I no longer had any claim to it. In fact, nothing belonged to me. I began to feel like a Jane Austen heroine. I was stuck in Scotland with relatives who didn’t like me and didn’t want me there. Frankly, I couldn’t think of a worse Christmas ahead, but I also couldn’t think of a way to escape from it.

Then a lovely idea popped into my head. I’d stay with my grandfather! That would shake them up. You see, my mother’s father is a retired Cockney policeman who lives in a little semidetached house in Essex with gnomes in the front garden. All the years I was growing up I wasn’t allowed to meet him. I had since made up for those years and I adored him.

I took a deep breath. “Then I think I may go and stay with my grandfather if the London house isn’t available to me.”

Spoons clattered. Someone choked.

“Your grandfather?” Lady Wormwood said in the same tones Lady Bracknell used regarding a handbag in the Oscar Wilde play. “I thought your grandfather had been dead for years.”

“Her mother’s father,” Fig said coldly.

“Oh, her mother’s father. I don’t believe I ever met him.”

“You wouldn’t have met him,” Fig said. “He’s not . . . you know.” Then she lowered her voice and muttered, “N.O.C.D.” (which is upper-class shorthand, in case you don’t know, for “not our class, dear”).

Binky was looking rather red around the gills. “I say, Georgie. Your grandfather’s a decent old stick and all that, but it’s simply not on. We’ve been into this before. You can’t stay in a cottage in Essex. Think of the embarrassment to Their Majesties if the press found out about it.”

“Anyone would think it was the Casbah or a den of ill repute,” I said hotly. “Anyway, how are they going to find out? It’s not as if the society reporters follow me around the way they do my mother. I’m nobody. Nobody cares if I stay in Belgrave Square or in Essex.”

Suddenly I felt tears welling at the back of my eyes, but I was not going to allow myself to cry in public. “I’m over twenty-one so you can’t stop me from doing what I want to,” I said. “And if Their Majesties are embarrassed by my behavior, they can give me an allowance so I don’t have to live as a penniless hanger-on all the time.”

With that I got up and walked out of the dining hall.

“Well, really, such hysterics,” I heard Lady Wormwood say. “Takes after her mother, obviously. Bad blood there.”

* * *

I HAD JUST reached the top of the first flight of stairs when the lights went out. This was a normal occurrence at Castle Rannoch, where electricity was a recent addition to a centuries-old building and the wires were always coming down in gales. Thus we had candles and matches all over the place. I felt my way up the last two steps, then along the wall until I came to the first window ledge. There, sure enough, was a candle and matches. I lit the candle and continued on my way. Outside, the wind was howling like a banshee. Windows rattled as I passed them. A tapestry billowed out to touch me, making me flinch involuntarily. I had grown up in this environment with stories of family ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night and usually I took them all in my stride. But tonight even I was on edge.

The hall went on forever with darkness looming before and behind me. My candle flickered and threatened to go out every few yards. There was no sign of another living soul although the house was full of servants. I realized that they must all be at their supper down in the depths of the servants’ hall. At last I reached my door. As I stepped into my room a great gust of wind blew out my candle. I felt my way to my bed, knowing there were more matches on the bedside table. As I reached out for the bed my hand touched cold, flabby flesh. I stifled a cry as a white shape rose up at me, looming larger and larger until it seemed to fill the room.

“Bloody ’ell?” muttered a voice.

“Queenie?” I demanded and fumbled to light my candle. My maid stood before me, hair disheveled, cap askew, blinking in the candlelight.

“Cor blimey, miss,” she said. “You didn’t half give me a nasty turn there. Scared me out of me ruddy wits.”

“I scared you?” I tried not to sound too shaky. “How do you think I felt when I touched a cold hand when I was expecting to feel an eiderdown? What were you doing on my bed?”

She had the grace to look somewhat sheepish. “Sorry, miss. I came up after me supper to put your hot water bottle in and I just sat down for a minute on the bed and I must have nodded off.”

“I’ve told you before about lying on my bed, haven’t I?” I said.

“I know. And I didn’t mean to, honest. But I get so sleepy after all that stodge they feed us in the servants’ hall. I swear we’ve had stew and dumplings three nights in a row.”

“You should be glad you have enough to eat,” I said, trying to sound like a mistress putting her servant in her place. “When I was in London you should have seen all those poor wretches queuing up for soup. You have a job and a roof over your head, so you should work harder to make sure you keep them.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I do try, miss,” she said. “Honest I do. But you know I’m thicker than two planks. You knew that when you took me on.”

“You’re right, I did.” I sighed. “But I had hopes that you might improve, given time.”

“Ain’t I improved at all, then?”

“You still haven’t learned to call me ‘my lady’ and not ‘miss.’”

“Strike me pink, so I ain’t.” She chuckled. “I try, but when I’m flustered it goes right out of my head.”

I sighed. “What am I going to do with you, Queenie? My sister-in-law is badgering me every day to get rid of you.”

“Spiteful cow,” Queenie muttered.