A Christmas Conspiracy Read online

  A CHRISTMAS CONSPIRACY

  Mary Chase Comstock

  Chapter One

  Tsk, tsk! Tsk, tsk!

  Each passing second of the mantelpiece clock seemed an impatient rebuke. Miss Eugenia Montmorency squirmed in her seat. Her twin sister, Octavia, younger by a mere eight and a half minutes, shot her a glance of silent commiseration.

  Tsk, tsk! Tsk, tsk!

  Could anything be more intolerable? Was it Genie’s imagination, or did the very pattern of the frost on the windowpane seem to frown down at them?

  “I had thought,” their father lectured in wounded tones as icy as the winter landscape, “I had imagined that young ladies on the brink of—less than a year away from—their introduction to society would know better than to—” He sighed heavily and pressed his fingertips to his forehead.

  Tsk, tsk! Tsk, tsk!

  What had they done that was so very wicked? Genie wondered. Certainly, wagering with the stable lads, childhood friends most of them, was not so bad as some of their other mischief. After all, gentlemen, and even some ladies, wagered. It was a great pity, of course, that the race between the three-horned goat and Old Martin’s weasel had ended in the kitchen. Worse still that Cook had fainted head-first into a plate of blanc mange, but that was hardly foreseeable, was it?

  Genie stole a glance at her father.

  No use arguing, Tavie warned silently, the message echoing in her sister’s head. Just look at Father! He looks as if his mouth were suddenly full of something exceedingly hot.

  A scolding that can’t get out! Genie shot back.

  Now don’t you start me giggling! I have enough trouble keeping my countenance!

  “It has been clear to me for some time,” Sir Giles Montmorency continued wearily, “that I have been remiss in your upbringing. When you were twelve and set Miss Worebuckle’s wig on her spaniel, I thought, ‘Ah, they are but children. These antics will pass.’ When you were thirteen and peppered Reverend Lucian's snuff before Easter services, I thought, ‘Well, they cannot possibly have known the commotion they would cause.’ Then, when you were fourteen—”

  Sir Giles stopped abruptly and took a deep breath. “In short,” he went on, “I had hoped—unwisely it seems—that the years would bring with them a more becoming maturity than you have evidenced. That someday I should be able to say, with pride, ‘These are my daughters.’ But blood will out, more’s the pity. Even if you had not flouted the rules and exhausted the patience of every finishing school in Bath, I must soon enough have sought for you a warden with a firmer hand, a more vigilant eye.”

  “But Father! We truly have tried—” Genie cried mendaciously.

  “Towards that end,” he went on implacably over his daughter’s protestation, “I have engaged for you a suitable companion who will begin the preparations for you to make your come outs.”

  A cold shudder passed simultaneously over the twins. Not only a companion, but a suitable one! Tavie bit her lower lip. You see! There is a limit to Father’s patience.

  Genie’s chin rose a fraction of an inch. But who should have thought this would be the final straw? That Cook’s swooning should have out-weighed all those raging headmistresses!

  Father must be fonder of blanc mange than one would have imagined! Tavie shot back.

  “I undertook some weeks ago,” that gentleman was saying, “to reply to a letter I received from our distant cousin, Miss Hortensia Walleye. Having heard of your ‘irrepressible spirits,’ as she has diplomatically referred to them in her letter, she has offered her services in just such a role as I seek. Her connections are superior and her reputation sterling. In short, she seems to be the very person for this task.”

  The twins exchanged a mental groan.

  “I am past the point of believing in miracles,” he said with a cold smile, “but perhaps, in the year that remains until your presentation, you can be made fit to be seen—if not heard. If the good woman is still in possession of her senses after that ordeal, she will accompany you to London and act as your chaperone during those months.”

  A glance of silent disbelief passed between the girls. Granted, their father was aloof and distant toward them, but he had never before abandoned them. Even when they had turned their schools topsy turvy, he had come to collect them himself, never abdicating that unpleasant task to a servant.

  “But will you not be with us for our come outs, Father?” Tavie asked tremulously. “Will you not come to London?”

  “Most probably not,” he said shortly. “I suspect that business on the Continent will prevent my participation in this particular theatrical. I therefore must make preparations that you do not disgrace me while I am away.”

  Tavie’s eyes widened and she bit her lower lip. “There is no hurry is there? After all, we shall not be sixteen until the new year. We should much rather delay our come out, should we not, Genie? It is so daunting to be among strangers . . .”

  “Your presentation,” he said repressively, “is a task to which I fear I am unequal, regardless of your age.”

  “But, Father!” Genie protested. “We shall be so good you will not know us.”

  “I daresay,” he said dryly, taking a paper from the desk before him.

  “Truly, Father,” Tavie said, her voice trembling on the verge of tears, “we’d no idea that Cook would . . . that the goat would—”

  “It is not the goat,” he broke in, “nor even Cook—although that was bad enough. But I will not countenance wagering. Not of any kind. Is that understood?”

  Mystified, they nodded solemnly. So that was it, after all. But how singular!

  “Miss Walleye arrives in time for Christmas. Let us hope that your mischief does not drive her out into the snow!”

  * * * *

  He does hate us! Genie fumed as they climbed the stairs to their chamber. I thought it was merely that Father did not actually love us, but this is inhuman! Why he does not merely send us to a convent and have done, I do not know! She flung the door open and threw herself down on the bed they shared, pounding her fists into the pillow.

  ‘Blood will out,’ he said. Surely he cannot mean. . . Tavie’s thought trailed off unfinished.

  “I am very much afraid he does,” Genie seethed, breaking the silence as her sister closed the door behind them. “He hates us because of Mama!”

  In general, the twins used their unspoken communication only when others were about. Raised without their mother’s presence, favored but seldom by their father’s attention, the silent thread of shared awareness bonded them more closely than sisters, more closely even than most twins, and they had been careful to keep it their secret.

  “In any event,” Genie went on more calmly, having spent her frustration in battering the innocent bolster, “I only hope Mama’s sin—whatever it was—was worth all this wretchedness! It gives me the fidgets to even think of it! Forcing us to London and then abandoning us to the untender mercies of a person named Walleye!”

  “I wager she squints,” Tavie muttered wickedly, rebelling against her father’s odd prejudice.

  “And I wager she has a great wart on her nose,” Genie giggled.

  “With a hair coming from it!”

  “I lay you odds she smells of camphor . . .”

  “... and a mouldy chemise!” Tavie concluded with a grimace. “This is beyond anything, Genie. I had always imagined that Father would present us, even if he ... does not love us. I used to picture him very grand, wearing regimentals and—”

  “Father wearing regimentals?” Genie puzzled. “Whatever for?”

  Her sister frowned for a moment, thinking. “I suppose because . . . only because he would be so handsome in them! Everyone would stare so, and you
and I would be the toasts of London.”

  “Indeed! The dazzling Montmorency sisters!” Genie laughed and continued melodramatically, “And poor lovesick gentlemen would throw themselves from turrets in despair if we refused them a second dance!”

  “Exactly,” Tavie approved. “But we should be unmoved, aloof. Beautiful, unreachable, like the Princess on the Glass Mountain. Pine though they might, we would refuse to marry until we found two who would let us continue together and do exactly as we pleased.”

  “What’s more,” Genie added wistfully, “they should shower us with presents even after we were married. Even if it wasn’t Christmas or our birthday.”

  “Poor, poor young men,” Tavie sighed. “Their hearts would be in thrall.”

  “But instead,” Genie groaned, swinging around to sit on the edge of the bed, “we are to be presented by Miss Walleye and must marry ancient squires with gout, or peevish clergymen . . .”

  “... and have horrid sons named Alcuin or Maurice or Boniventure ...”

  “... and wear wretched caps! All because of Miss Walleye!”

  “Squinty!”

  “Camphorated!”

  “Mouldy Miss Walleye!”

  “Christmas and then Miss Walleye—oh, dear!” Genie clapped her hands to her cheeks. “She is probably a Puritan on top of everything else. She will take down the garlands and give the house an airing.”

  “If only Mama . . .” Tavie sighed, her voice trailing off.

  “Yes—Mama.” Genie frowned. “Do you imagine she ever thinks of us?”

  “Perhaps on our birthday,” Tavie allowed after a moment’s thought, “if she is not at a rout party or the opera. Then, perhaps, a slight tear may well up and she may spare a half moment for her little daughters.”

  “I always picture her looking just like us,” Genie sighed. “Dressed in silver tissue, with diamond spangles in her hair.”

  “And dainty slippers that fall apart each night from dancing.”

  “If only Mama might . . .” Genie’s voice trailed off.

  “If only Mama might present us instead?” Tavie whispered.

  “Well, yes. She might, you know—if only Father did not hate her so.”

  “But he does, of course, for we cannot even speak her name. She must have done something deliciously dreadful.”

  “Or perhaps it only seemed dreadful.” Genie went to the window and frowned at the discouraging bleakness of the winter day. “Father does tend to put the worst face on things, as you and I can attest. Why, remember when Miss Fortescue gave in her notice? He would have it that we meant the frog we put in her boot to spew hundreds of tadpoles there. Why, perhaps Mama only appeared to flirt with other gentlemen. A good hostess must be attentive, you know.”

  “Poor Mama! You must be right, Genie. I have long suspected she is the one who was wronged. Perhaps all these years of gaiety and high living have only been a cover for her broken heart! Anyone who thinks of it must see that her frivolity must belie her wretchedness—she puts on a brave front to spite Father!”

  “Poor, wretched Mama!” Genie sighed. “Travelling endlessly between London and Brighton without our support. You know, Tavie, we really ought to try to do something for her.”

  “If only we could contrive a letter to her.”

  “Send it to the town house? Do you think we might?”

  Tavie paced meditatively. “We might, you know,” she allowed after a few moments had passed. “It is a challenge, of course . . .”

  “But when have we backed away from a challenge?”

  “Never!”

  “And surely,” Genie mused, “we could rely on Mama to come to us if only she knew we needed her. Why, it is the nature of mothers!”

  “I wonder, though. What if Father has put her in such a fright of him she would not dare to come here? Or if she did, would not allow her to stay.” Tavie joined her sister at the window to watch the silent onset of evening steal over the grounds. The frozen landscape was beginning to take on a faint purple cast as the sun set. If only Father might be compelled to forgive their mother—but how? He was surely as stubborn as he was cold and severe.

  “It wasn’t always that way,” Genie said softly, reading her sister’s thoughts. “Oh, I know those last few years before Mama finally left were horrid—the silences, the coldness. But I can remember them laughing together when we were very small. It was at Christmas and we had all gone out into the snow.”

  Tavie shut her eyes, summoning the memory. “Yes, I can see it now. There were crystals of ice in Mother’s hair, shining like diamonds, and she showed us how to make angels in the snow. Why, even Father made one. But how singular that he should do so! It must be only my imagining.”

  “No, I do not think so,” Genie’s voice grew excited. “We wore bright blue pelisses with rabbit skin hoods. I remember—can it be?—Father tumbling Mother and kissing her in the snow. What extraordinary behavior!”

  “Where once there was love . . .” Tavie whispered. “Do you think we dare try? Do we know enough of love?”

  “What a question!” her sister sniffed. “We have been reading novels these past three years. Besides, what have we to lose?”

  * * * *

  The candle was flickering its last light by the time the sisters had determined their course of action and completed their handiwork. They had first set upon the notion of sending for their mother to attend their father’s deathbed, but eventually rejected this scheme, realizing that on seeing the truth of it, the lady would have no other course than to turn her carriage about and return the way she came.

  They could, of course, have dosed his tea with something unpleasant, but, as Genie wisely pointed out, that course might not have at all the desired effect. One could not predict such niceties as the timing or severity of the resulting affliction, nor even depend on their Mother’s heartstrings being in the least wrung after these many years. All they should bring about in that event was an even more churlish father than they already suffered.

  That they should write their mother the truth was rejected out of hand as entirely too fanciful. If the lady had had any natural feeling for her daughters, she would not have allowed them to languish under their father’s austere command these five years. No, it was clear they must somehow play upon the fondness their parents seemed to have once held for each other. At last, Tavie hit upon a useful stratagem.

  “Father must beg her to return to him,” she announced bluntly.

  Genie raised her eyebrows. “Indeed? Shall I just go ask him if he will not oblige us?”

  “Of course not, gudgeon! Do you not see? We must write to Mama in his name. He will write such a letter as to rend her heart. He will beg her to return, beg her to forgive him.”

  “How romantic!” Genie gave a dreamy sigh. “And had we not better make mention of her daughters pining for their dear Mama?”

  “That,” Tavie pronounced with a grimace, “is not in the least romantic! Best she keep her mind trained on Father, for he is, remember, an exceedingly handsome man. All the girls at Miss Danbury’s thought so when he came to fetch us away.”

  “One tends to forget,” Genie said petulantly. “You are right, of course. I suppose we had best become a part of the backdrop, but do let’s make some small mention of ourselves in case she has forgot us entirely.”

  Tavie nodded. “I do not suppose a small reference will do any harm. Now, if we can compose the letter tonight and post it tomorrow, there is a fair chance Mama can be here in time to turn away Miss Walleye.”

  “But how shall we copy Father’s hand?”

  “Pooh! Surely after all these years she will not know it! Now, Genie, what should Father buy Mama for Christmas, do you think?”

  Chapter Two

  Lady Frances Montmorency reclined in unaccustomed languor on a chaise longue sipping chocolate before the fire, listening to the clock tick away the afternoon. By her side, a particularly indolent pug lay snoring on its back, the pink points of
its toes saluting the ceiling.

  London was decidedly dreary in the winter, Lady Fanny sighed. Almost as dreary as she felt. She scratched the pug under its chin.

  “If only someone would come and rescue us from our own company, Flops!” she mused. “What do you say?”

  In his sleep, Flops’ paws fluttered but slightly and Lady Fanny turned to stare gloomily into the fire. It was her own fault, of course. She had turned down any number of invitations to take part in Christmas house parties. This was, however, the one time of year she was unable to summon the high spirits for which she was famed. Season to Season, she danced until dawn, flirted, broke hearts, aroused jealousy—no mean feat at the age of four and thirty—and, indeed, challenged the very candles to burn more brightly than she.

  But Christmas was different. There was something almost irreverent in attempting to vie with the jollity that grew out of good fellowship and Christian charity. The very notion made her feel brittle and cynical.

  “Greetings, Fanny!” a familiar voice drawled. “What has got you into such a frightful pucker?”

  Lady Fanny looked up to see her cousin, Sir Hillary Falwell, stroll into her drawing room. Bold as brass—not even announced! Not, certainly, the company for which she had wished to break the afternoon’s tedium. And that costume he affected! If she had a grain of ambition, she would send for Bow Street. Pulling a gilt chain from an excessively ugly waistcoat, Sir Hillary lifted an ornate quizzing glass and scrutinized her with his usual rapt, unnerving attention.

  “Do go away, Hillary,” she told him unfeelingly. “Whatever do you mean by walking into my mauve drawing room dressed in that horrid puce waistcoat? You look like a headache about to come upon me.”

  “Ah! the ever intuitive Fanny!” he sighed, looking much struck by this assessment. “Why so I am, the megrims personified—though without the least intention of being so, I assure you.” He pulled a chair beside her and sat, reaching to test the weight of the chocolate pot as he did so. “ ‘What! Drunk all? And left no kind drop for me?’ ”