A Christmas Conspiracy Read online

  “Why, yes,” Genie quavered, her cheeks flushing scarlet, “but be assured we are quite up to date on such matters, for we were at school with a number of young ladies whose mamas frequented both Bath and Sadler’s Wells. One of them even had a maiden aunt who lived in Brighton!”

  “Sadler’s Wells? How . . . heartening,” Fanny managed. “Why it is altogether clear, then, you are the very ones to instruct me.”

  At this encouragement, the twins launched into detailed descriptions of such finery as had come in (and out!) of fashion in the last two years. Fanny listened imperturbably to their recommendations as to line and color, as well as their none-too-subtle suggestion that a rouge pot might be employed to good effect.

  “Now,” Genie concluded, “we must set about furbishing up your wardrobe as best we can. What a shocking thing it is that we are such deplorable needlewomen, Mama, but it is a sorry truth. Somehow, we contrive to make a great muddle of everything we set our hands to, and end by pricking our fingers grievously, but I daresay Sally might—”

  “I imagine I can save us all a good deal of distress,” Fanny interrupted. The twins exchanged a worried glance.

  “I am well aware,” she continued, attempting to keep the irony from her voice, “that my attire is not ... er ... what you have been used to expect here. I did not wish to distress you with my dowdiness, for I suspected that you would be quite up to the nines, my dears. With that in mind, I petitioned my good friend, Lady Madden, to fit me out for this journey. She has quite exquisite taste, as you will see. Now, as to the rouge pot—”

  “Do not say you have not got one!” Genie exclaimed.

  “Not got one!” their mother equivocated. She did not, but, now she was having such fun, it seemed a shame to admit that her pallor resulted more from the combination of having been thoroughly chilled the night before and not sleeping at all well. “In an hour’s time,” she assured them, “you will not know me.”

  The twins looked at each other doubtfully, but said no more on the matter. Instead, as they hurried on to yet another topic, Fanny could almost see them ticking items off their list of ways to “Thwart Miss Walleye.”

  “We wanted also to talk to you about the Christmas masque,” Genie began.

  So she was correct. Masque had quite definitely been on that list, she remembered.

  “Yes?” she prompted. “A masque?”

  “It is quite a tradition here, as you must remember. In the past, Tavie and I have played parts in it along with the servants, but this year . . .” Genie looked at her sister.

  “As you are come home . . .”

  “And as it would be great fun . . .”

  “We wondered if perhaps you and Father would not play the roles.”

  Intrigued, Fanny asked, “What is the nature of the masque to be?”

  “Oh, do not worry, Mama,” Tavie assured her. “Genie and I shall write something for the two of you to perform. Now all we must do is ask Father.”

  This was altogether too good to miss, Fanny decided, although the notion of the twins continuing in any literary endeavor sent a cold chill up her spine. “Perhaps,” she said with a slight smile, “I shall ask him for you.”

  And perhaps, she added mentally, she might endeavor to discover more about this Miss Walleye.

  Chapter Eight

  Under the twins’ tutelage, Fanny dressed with such untoward elegance as she knew could not fail to raise eyebrows among her own set were they to see her thus clad before evening. Having rejected several quite appropriate morning gowns as antediluvian, her daughters settled at last on a claret velvet with a shockingly low décolletage.

  “Now,” Genie proclaimed, “you look very much the thing, Mama!”

  Tavie also smiled with glowing approval, commenting speculatively, “I know most young ladies make their come outs in white, but do you not think, Mama, we would look splendid in something more along these lines?”

  Fanny maintained her countenance with an effort. “To be sure, you would, my dears, but I am afraid the patronesses would never approve. Mrs. Drummond-Burrell, you must know, is a dreary old quiz. You do wish to gain vouchers to Almack’s, do you not?”

  Genie looked troubled. “But, Mama! Miss Fortescue vowed we should never be approved.”

  “She declared the Thames would freeze solid before such hoydens as we were admitted,” Tavie continued in aggrieved tones.

  “Perhaps it may not come to that,” their mother smiled. “I am old friends with Sally Jersey, and, barring claret velvet gowns, I believe arrangements can be made. Now, who is this Miss Fortescue?”

  “An ogress!” Genie cried uncharitably.

  “Ah!” Fanny nodded knowingly. “A governess, I take it.”

  “Our last,” Tavie sniffed. “But now it is even worse, for we must have this dreadful Miss Walleye to direct our lives.”

  At the mention of this name, Fanny leaned forward with redoubled interest.

  “Indeed,” Genie seconded, “I do not know what Father can have been thinking of. It is true we wagered with the stable boys, but it was all in fun.”

  “One would think,” Tavie grumbled petulantly, “gambling was tantamount to capital crime. His face turned quite ashen with rage. Now he says he must set a musty, mouldy paragon on us to counteract our bad blood.”

  “I believe I see,” Fanny said quietly, attempting to quell the tremor in her voice.

  Genie and Tavie looked suddenly stricken.

  “Oh, Mama!” Tavie cried, throwing herself at her parent’s knees. “We ought not to have said that at all!”

  “To be sure,” Genie declared as she joined her sister in this supplicating position. “I do not believe you can be held to account for your bad blood any more than we!”

  “Pish!” Fanny drew them to her and took several deep breaths before continuing in what she hoped was a composed manner. “You are granddaughters of an earl,” she told them firmly, “and spring from an ancient and noble family. ‘Bad blood,’ as your father terms it, has nothing at all to do with you. As for his remarks about wagers, all you must know is he once taxed me with having made a bad one. He has difficulty forgetting what he perceives to be past wrongs.”

  As the girls nodded vigorously at the veracity of this determination, Fanny swallowed the shame and anger she felt erupting in her breast. Granted, considering the scene he had interrupted all those years ago, Giles had had reason enough to suspect her of more than a flirtation with Quentin Willoughby. However, if he had truly loved her, he would have listened to her explanations.

  “Now, run along,” she told them with forced cheerfulness. “I am certain you have much to do.”

  After the girls had humbly begged their mama’s pardon once more, they kissed her shyly and departed quietly. When they had done so, Fanny arranged her golden curls under a scant bit of lace that served as a cap and made her way down the stairs to the breakfast parlor. There, she discovered Giles, all by himself, absently pushing his food about his plate.

  She did not immediately address him, but stood a few moments in silent observation. This room had been hung with greenery, as well as the rest of the house, but her husband’s troubled countenance seemed more a reflection of the chilling, crystalline picture beyond the window than the seasonal cheer within. She had known, to be sure, her sudden arrival would discomfit, perhaps even offend, him. She had not anticipated, however, he would be cast into the blue devils by it.

  She realized with a sudden tremor, though, as she stood silently in the doorway, that her return to her former home had cast her down as well. And the reason? she asked herself rhetorically. Why, of course, because she still must love him so. Seeing him again had given lie to her former protestations that she got on quite nicely without him. When all was said and done, her life was naught but an empty shell. For all its apparent gaiety, it was no more than a stage role she assumed whenever an audience appeared. When the curtain came down at the end of the day, she lay in the dark, alone. The girls h
ad been more right than they knew: without the mask of her London life, she was nothing but a dismal creature, without light or hope.

  “Fanny!” Giles exclaimed, looking up at her at last, and half rising from his seat. “I did not see you there. Pray, sit down.”

  “Good morning, Giles,” she smiled with what she hoped was tranquility. Feeling more than a little awkward in her unsuitable costume, she picked up her gown’s demi-train and entered the room. Rather than face his probing gaze immediately, she stopped a moment, at the buffet, poured herself some coffee and selected a few items from the various covered dishes. Then she sat down beside him.

  A few more moments passed in silence, punctuated only by the ticking of the mantel clock. Unconsciously mirroring her husband, Fanny pushed the bits of food about on her plate, lifted her cup, stared into its depths, and set it down again untasted.

  “Do you think the weather will clear?” she asked him at last.

  He looked up at her, startled. “You mean to go on then?”

  “I do not know,” she answered simply. “I ... I am unsure of my welcome.”

  Unsure, himself, of the answer, Giles rose and walked to the window where he stood gazing out at the grounds for some minutes. To the west he could see another bank of heavy clouds crouched on the horizon. No, the weather would not clear soon. She must stay, welcome or not. He glanced back at her, sitting quietly in her oddly chosen ensemble, the epitome of what drove him to near madness: beauty, eccentricity, and absolute defiance of conventionality. He could not tell whether he felt more like abandoning all wisdom and clasping her to his heart in spite of everything, or turning from her and raising another wall of defense about his heart.

  When at last he faced her, he merely said, “This is, after all, your home, Fanny.”

  She smiled ruefully. “That’s as may be, Giles, but that fact does not make my welcome here any more or less apparent. What is it to be, Giles? If I have been unwise in coming, pray instruct me to keep to my chamber until I can make my remove. Or else,” she said, the firmness of her voice belying the quaking of her heart, “let me be a part of this family again, if only for the holiday.”

  He paced a few moments more before turning to answer her. “I am past knowing what wisdom is, Fanny,” he confessed.

  “And I,” she replied, lifting her chin a fraction of an inch, “have never had a grain. Perhaps we must ask our daughters what is best to do.”

  He looked at her in mild surprise.

  “That,” he replied dryly, “would be exceedingly efficient, for we should be assured that their suggestions must reflect nothing but sheerest folly.”

  “Why, Father!”

  Sir Giles and his wife were startled to find that their daughters stood in the doorway, looking the very picture of wounded, youthful pride.

  “It is quite true,” Tavie protested tremulously, “we have had our troubles in the past, but you must own, Father, we have been pattern cards of propriety these last two or three days!”

  “Ah, a record ne plus ultra!” Sir Giles congratulated them. “Forgive me for having slighted your efforts.”

  Fanny, well aware of her daughters’ most recent transgressions, held her smile in check as the twins sniffed self-righteously. After only a few more wounded looks cast in their father’s direction, however, they allowed themselves to be mollified.

  “What Mama says is right,” Genie declared with conviction. “Perhaps it would be best if you were ruled by us.”

  Giles and Fanny exchanged a momentary glance of comradely dismay. “Pray explain yourselves,” he requested.

  Here we are being given an unlooked for opportunity, Genie! What shall we say?

  We must be very cautious. We should not want to arouse their suspicions.

  Indeed not! That would ruin everything. They must think we are quite pure in our motives.

  Why so we are, Tavie—almost. Now, what think you of playing the wronged children who long for their parents’ reconciliation?

  That is not playacting. That is merely authenticity. Although, she hesitated for a moment, perhaps we could not suffer by merely telling the truth of it. Not the whole truth, mind you, Genie, but some part of it.

  What a novel concept! Carry on!

  “Father,” Genie began tentatively, lowering her eyes. “Mama. Tavie and I do not wish to give offense. But we feel impelled to tell you the truth of how we feel.”

  “The truth will not offend us,” their father returned gravely. “Pray, proceed.”

  “These years have been . . . difficult . . . for us,” she said, lowering her eyes. When she looked up, tears glistened in them. “We do not know what occurred to make you so unhappy with one another, but know you have not suffered alone. We have felt rent to our very cores by your troubles. Beneath these gay exteriors,” she said wistfully, taking Tavie’s arm, “are concealed the broken hearts of two orphan girls—orphans of the heart!”

  Taking up this tune, Tavie chimed in, “Our imprudent escapades, you must know, have been naught but cries for you to restore our life as a family to us. We need our own Mama, Father!”

  “Not,” Genie said in tones of distress, “a person named Walleye!”

  “Walleye?” Fanny exclaimed with mock incredulity. “There’s a person named Walleye?”

  “We shall speak of Miss Walleye another time,” their father said evenly.

  I fear you have gone too far! Tavie scolded.

  What a tangle! I had not the least intention of saying that noxious name again today, but out it came like an ill-trained dog!

  “Your pardon, Father,” Genie said demurely. “Mama? Have you asked Father yet?”

  Giles turned to her. “What is it you wish to ask me, Fanny?”

  “A favor,” she said softly avoiding his eye. “I had wondered, if it were not possible to revive the Christmas masque—for old time’s sake?”

  “We have not let go the masque,” he replied.

  “Truly? But remember how you and I used to take part. Do you not think we might again?”

  The twins held their breath.

  Their father was silent a moment. “For old time’s sake?” he asked at last. “Why not?”

  The girls clapped their hands. “We shall begin writing at once!”

  Chapter Nine

  “It must be a romantic masque,” Genie mused, staring at the blank sheets of paper before her, “but what is to be the story?”

  “Antony and Cleopatra?” Tavie suggested.

  “Only if we wish our mama to avail herself of an asp!”

  “Abelard and Heloïse?”

  “No. The only letters in this episode are the ones we composed.”

  “Romeo and Juliet?”

  “Too young.”

  Tavie frowned and began to pace. “Pyramus and Thisbe?”

  “Too gruesome.”

  “Tristan and Isolde?”

  “Too gothic! Oh, Tavie,” she cried, throwing down her quill, “it must be something quite original, I am afraid. Something that depicts their particular difficulties—but so subtly they will not guess what we are about.”

  “I believe you have the right of it.” Tavie sighed disconsolately. “It is a shame we must leave out all mention of wagering and bad blood and daughters, for they would surely guess at that. I daresay we might tell the rest of their story, however, if we are but careful to change their names and ages.”

  “How clever you are! Instead of daughters, they shall have sons . . .”

  “Oh, do let’s make them princes, Genie—it is so much more romantic!”

  “Perhaps some mythological setting? It will seem no more than a homely fable.”

  “What fun! The sons will be princes of Bohemia then. And Mama and Father will be King and Queen.”

  “And an evil courtier named ... I have it!—Eyewall! . . . will have set them at odds for his own diversion—”

  “And thereby hopes to gain the kingdom!”

  “Now, what will our parents be c
alled?”

  * * * *

  “Queen Worthy and King Blynde?” Giles had entered the drawing room where his wife sat repairing one of Genie’s attempts at needlework, and shut the door behind him. Her copy of the manuscript lay beside her on a table.

  Fanny smiled, but kept her eyes trained on her work. “Yes, I have come off the winner, on paper, at any rate.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Merely that, instead of the usual Christmas masque, the girls have written us an allegory to perform,” she told him. “It would seem they believe you ‘blynde’ to my ‘worth.’ ”

  Giles flipped quickly through the sheaf of paper, frowning more deeply as he did so. “To think, they would have had us perform this farce before the entire household! Had you any idea this was what they were up to?”

  Fanny avoided his question, biting back the smile that played rebelliously at her lips. “It would seem you are not amused.”

  “It is difficult to achieve that state,” he said ruefully, “when one is cast unfairly as the villain. You must know, Fanny, I have never castigated you before them. Indeed, I have taken great care that they not know the particulars of our troubles.”

  Self-righteous, wasn’t he? she mused. And oblivious. In short, a man. “Perhaps you have not explained in so many words, but, although the girls were mere children when I left, Giles, they were neither deaf nor blind.”

  “They were away at school most of that time,” he said doggedly.

  “Yes, and what did they come home to at holiday?”

  “We maintained our civility before them,” he insisted.

  “And a cold civility it was. As I recall,” she said quietly, “you spent your own childhood similarly situated. Have you memories of your parents?”

  He turn away from her. “What is that to do with anything?”

  “Do not be obtuse, Giles!” Fanny cried impatiently, remembering forcefully the way in which many of their other quarrels had begun. “You know very well what I mean. Children are quite sensible—more so than their parents, too often—to the tempests blowing about them.”