Silent Night: A Lady Julia Christmas Novella

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“Do they not make a tonic for that? Or a sedative?”

“I am not dosing her with one of those foul patent medicines, Julia. She will be perfectly well in due course. I think.” Jane the Younger was Portia’s first foray into motherhood. The orphaned daughter of Portia’s life companion, Jane was not blood kin to us but she was dear nonetheless. 2 (#litres_trial_promo) And a good deal dearer when she was clean and quiet and dry, which was not very often.

Portia plucked her from the pram and shoved her into my arms. “Say hello to Auntie Julia, darling.”

Jane the Younger stopped howling long enough to lunge for my earring.

“Such good taste,” I murmured, prying at the chubby little fist.

“Yes, she has developed a penchant for things that sparkle,” Portia said, applying herself to her daughter’s miserly clutch. “Darling, you must let go of Auntie Julia’s ear. No, stop twisting it, my pet. Auntie Julia is starting to cry. Julia, stop being so melodramatic. It is just an earring.”

“It isn’t the earring,” I corrected tautly. “It’s the lobe.”

Jane the Younger released me sharply and opened her mouth to voice her feelings at being denied the pretty trinket as I rubbed at my tender ear. Portia rummaged in her pocket and found the mother-of-pearl teething ring I had bought for the child in the vain hope of purchasing a few moments’ silence.

“Perhaps we ought to board,” Brisbane suggested, his voice almost inaudible above Jane the Younger’s roars.

* * *

In an excess of holiday generosity one year, my father had gifted me with the tiny dower house on his estate. He had meant it as an independence for me, a small bit of property to call my own for the duration of my life, and a lovely property it was. I had decorated the place, lavishing care and attention and great expense upon it—and spent only a handful of nights there since. I was very much looking forward to snuggling down with my husband into the peace and quiet of our own home, a bolthole to which we could withdraw when my family’s boisterous spirits grew too high. I had already sent our butler, Aquinas, and my maid, Morag, down by the earliest train to remove the dust sheets and light the fires. I had ordered a simple supper of Brisbane’s favourites along with a hamper of the best wines from his cellar. Everything would be absolutely perfect for our winter idyll.

I sighed happily and settled my hand into the crook of Brisbane’s arm as the carriage swung onto the long drive leading to the Abbey. Father’s gardener, Whittle, stood just inside the gates with one of his under-gardeners, Wee Ned—a stooped, elderly man who was fondling a bit of topiary. They raised their caps as we passed, and I waved before turning to Brisbane.

“I am so happy we will finally be able to spend time here together, just the two of us,” I added with a meaningful glance at my sister. She put her tongue out at me, an action that Jane the Younger immediately copied.

“Julia! Look what you have taught her! She looks like a common ape.”

I opened my mouth to remonstrate, but the chimneys of the Rookery were just visible above the treetops. Nothing would induce me to quarrel with my sister when bliss was so shortly at hand.

Brisbane gave a slow smile and I remembered the very excellent bed I had ordered installed. Brisbane was most particular about the sturdiness of our beds, and with good reason, I reflected with a pleasant sigh of anticipation.

“I shall send word to Father that we will not be up to dinner tonight,” I whispered.

Before he could reply, Portia gasped. Jane the Younger, startled, shrieked in response, and I turned to where Portia was pointing.

In a little clearing of trees, nestled in a shrubbery of ancient roses, stood the Rookery. Or what was left of it.

The outer walls were still intact, but where the roof should have been there was nothing but rubble. The remains of an enormous oak listed drunkenly against the crumbling south wall, the ground beneath it gaping and wounded where it had torn free.

“My house!” I wailed.

Brisbane’s face was grim. “It looks as though we shall be spending Christmas with your family after all.”

The raven stirred in his cage, fluffing his deep, oil-black feathers and saying in an ominous voice, “Tragedy and woe.”

And from the depths of the basket on my lap, Nin the Siamese began to howl.

The Third Chapter

Call up the butler of this house,

Put on his golden ring;

Let him bring us up a glass of beer,

And better we shall sing.

“Here We Come A-Wassailing” Traditional English Carol

Settling into the Abbey was only marginally less demanding than the Peninsular Campaign. The staff turned out to greet us and it took every last one of them to shift the bags and boxes and cages and baskets from our carriage and the baggage wagon into the Abbey. Built by Cistercians, it was austerely beautiful and enviably spacious as long as one did not mind the occasional ghost. Portia and her assorted pets—she had brought not only Puggy but his greyhound wife, Florence, and an assortment of their ill-begotten pups—took her old room off the picture gallery while Jane the Younger and her nanny were whisked away to the nursery floor. Brisbane and I and our menagerie were given the Jubilee Tower chamber, a rather gorgeous room he had occupied during his only previous stay. It was situated just over the chapel and connected to the old belfry via the bachelors’ wing.

Brisbane looked around as the door closed behind us.

“At least it is removed from the rest of the place,” I soothed. “We shall have some privacy.”

“And hopefully rather fewer dead bodies than last time.” If he was feeling a trifle waspish, I could not blame him. I had promised him a peaceful retreat to the Rookery and instead we would spend the next fortnight nestled rather too firmly in the bosom of my tempestuous family.

Just then the door opened and my maid, Morag, entered. “It’s about time you’ve come. I take you’ve seen the Rookery? His lordship says it weren’t even a very strong wind brought that oak down last night. It were rotted through and through.” Since Morag is never happier than when disaster strikes, she was smiling.

“I saw. I presume you and Aquinas have both been given lodgings here for the duration?”

“Aye. And Mr. Aquinas has been given the task of butlering for the Abbey as Mr. Hoots is having a funny turn.”

“Hoots is unwell?” That was not entirely unusual. Hoots had always been prone to dramatic ailments, usually coinciding neatly with extra work.

“His mind’s slipped a cog. Claiming to be Napoleon, he is. Locked himself belowstairs with a bottle of the earl’s best Armagnac. Won’t come out until Wellington surrenders, he says, and that leaves Mr. Aquinas to do all the organizing of the household.”

I sat down and put my fingertips to my temples, rubbing hard. “We have one fallen tree, one destroyed Rookery, one delusional butler and no good brandy. Is that what you are telling me?”

“And the cook’s down with piles and more than half the staff are suffering from catarrh,” she added maliciously.

I looked to Brisbane, who was smiling broadly. “God bless us, everyone,” he said, spreading his arms wide.

* * *

The situation was rather worse than Morag had described. Hoots had taken not just a bottle of Armagnac but all the decent liquor and locked it up in his room along with the keys to the silver, the wine cellar and the pantry. The cook was indeed down with piles, but the rest of the staff had succumbed to a rather virulent cold that left them wheezing and hacking in various corners of the house. A few had taken to their beds but the rest dragged about, sniffling moistly into unspeakably sodden handkerchiefs. Father had given Aquinas carte blanche to manage the house until Hoots came around. No one had yet wrested the keys from Hoots, so dinner the first night consisted of bottles of beer from the village pub and bread toasted over the drawing room fire. Portia took hers to the nursery to eat with Jane the Younger while the rest of us made an impromptu party around the fireplace in the vast great hall.

Impromptu and awkward. Father, sunk in a sort of black gloom, said scarcely a dozen words, and Aunt Hermia—Father’s younger sister and the nearest thing we children had to a mother—struggled to fill the silences. I noticed none of the usual decorations had been hung, and I wondered if Father’s grim mood was a result of the fact that so few of us would be present for Christmas. No matter, I decided. He would come round as soon as everyone gathered for Twelfth Night.

I smiled at the footman who came to poke up the fire. A local lad, he had been with the family a number of years and, like all the footmen at Bellmont, was called William regardless of his real name. This one was William IV.

“Hello, William.” He gave me a courteous bow but did not smile.

“Is everything well with you and your family?”

“Yes, my lady. Thank you for asking.”

He withdrew at once and I turned to Aunt Hermia. “What ails William? He has always been such a pleasant, chatty fellow.”

She shrugged. “Heaven help me if I know.”

“He isn’t holding a grudge about what happened the last time is he?” I ventured. “I mean, we did apologise about him being poisoned.” 3 (#litres_trial_promo)

“He might still have died,” Father countered, levelling an accusatory gaze at Brisbane. “I seem to remember someone having to force the poor boy to regurgi—”

“That is quite enough, Hector. And you’ve got it very wrong,” Aunt Hermia cut in sharply before Father could continue. “The other victims required Brisbane’s interventions. William slept it off. He woke with nothing more significant than a towering headache.” She turned back to me. “He has been out of sorts for days now, as have most of the staff. So many are out with illness, the rest have worked doubly hard to carry on. We cannot seem to find replacements in Blessingstoke.” She broke off suddenly, darting a quick glance to my father.

Brisbane noted it. He turned to Aunt Hermia. “You are having troubles with the locals? But you have always hired in from the village.”

“Never again,” Father thundered. “I will not have a pack of cowardly, pudding-hearted—”

Aunt Hermia raised a hand. “That will do, Hector.” She spoke to Brisbane. “But he is not wrong. In the last few days, it has become impossible to entice them to work at the Abbey.”

“What reason do they give?” Brisbane enquired. I smiled to myself. He regularly worked on behalf of her Majesty’s government in essential and secretive ways, and yet he could take a healthy interest in domestic dramas.

“They say the place is haunted!” Father’s expression was disgusted.

“It has always been haunted,” I protested. “Everyone knows that.”

“That is precisely the point,” he returned. “We have always had our share of ghosts and they’ve always worked here in spite of it.”

“What has changed?” Brisbane asked, his black gaze thoughtful as it rested on the contents of his glass.

“There has been a fresh sighting inside the Abbey,” Aunt Hermia replied. “When the staff fell ill, I brought in a few new maids from the village. One of them saw a ghost on the servants’ stair and ran screaming home in the middle of the night. She has the busiest tongue in the village. They cannot help they are superstitious, Hector,” she added. “They haven’t the benefit of our education.”

He snorted by way of reply. Brisbane said nothing, and I knew we were both thinking of our previous investigation at the Abbey. A ghost had figured prominently in that adventure.

Father turned abruptly to Brisbane. “I suppose you are still capering about in the private enquiry business?”

Before Brisbane could reply, Aunt Hermia jumped up and took a crystal dish from the mantel. “Brisbane, you must try these sweetmeats. The stillroom maid and I concocted them, and I would know if I had too heavy a hand with the rosewater.”

Brisbane, ever courteous where ladies were concerned, took one while I breathed out a small sigh that the moment had been got past. Father and Brisbane had quarrelled dreadfully during our last investigation, largely over my safety, and hard words had been spoken. I had hoped they had been forgot, but Father apparently still nursed a grudge, as evidenced by his pointed remarks towards my husband. I could not entirely blame him. I had suffered considerable injuries at the conclusion of the case—through my own rash actions, to be sure—and Father and Brisbane had almost taken each other apart in their worry and despair. I smiled brightly from one to the other, but Father had lapsed into his chair, glowering, while Brisbane merely sat, graceful and lethal as a panther as he regarded Father with his inscrutable, witch-black eyes. I sighed. It was going to be a very long holiday indeed.

“I think I should do something to cheer Father up,” I told Brisbane later that evening as we prepared for bed.

Brisbane said nothing, but I heard the thud as a boot hit the floor.

“Aunt Hermia believes he is feeling a trifle downcast that so many of the family shan’t be here. Most of the children are keeping Christmas at home and only coming for the revels. It will be Plum and Portia and us for Christmas,” I said. “Benedick will come up from the Home Farm with his family, but that still makes only half of us.” The other boot hit the floor and I went on. “I thought of asking a special guest, someone Father would really enjoy seeing.”