Christmas Carol

Smashwords Edition

Published by Flora Speer at Smashwords

Copyright © 1994, by Flora Speer

Cover design Copyright 2012, By
http//:DigitalDonna.com

This book is dedicated to my readers, and
most especially to those who enjoy historical, time-travel, or
futuristic romances. We who read or write in those subgenres of
romance believe that true love is not confined by the limits of
ordinary time or space. Thus, I give you Carol’s story, with the
wish that every one of your holidays will be merry and bright and
that love, which is the true spirit of any holiday, will remain in
your hearts throughout all the years to come.

All the best to you,

Flora Speer

Humbug.

London, 1993
.

Considering her dislike of any occasion that
required the distribution of gifts or money, it was regarded by all
who knew her to be perfectly in character for Lady Augusta Marlowe
to take her leave of this world on the 18th day of December. By
doing so she neatly avoided having to hand out Christmas presents
to her servants or to the few tradespeople who were still willing
to deliver groceries, or wine or spirits, or the occasional
garment, to her door. That is to say, to the door assigned for
servants and tradesmen. The front door—original to the house and
carved of solid oak—was seldom used anymore. Even Carol Noelle
Simmons, who was Lady Augusta’s paid companion, and thus might have
passed with impunity through the mansion’s chief portal had she
chosen to do so, almost always used the servants’ entrance instead.
However, on Tuesday, the twenty-first day of December, Crampton the
butler was kept busy opening and closing the heavy front door, for
this was the day of Lady Augusta’s funeral.

Carol was forced to admire the old girl’s
spunk. Early in the autumn Lady Augusta had declared with all the
shrill force of which she was capable that she
would not
be
taken to a nursing home or to a hospital. She absolutely defied her
despairing physician on that point. Nor, as it turned out, did she
intend to pay for professional nursing care at home. Thus, it had
fallen to Carol and the few remaining servants to bathe and feed
her, and to turn her when she became incapable of moving on her
own.

Lady Augusta’s fury at her ever-increasing
helplessness had fallen upon all of her staff, but most especially
on Carol. Cantankerous to the end, during the last few months of
her life Lady Augusta had even denied Carol the free day each week
that she was supposed to have.

While not daring to disobey her employer,
Carol had resented the deprivation. She had precious little money
to spend—Lady Augusta considered room and board to be a large part
of her servants’ wages and Carol was, in Lady Augusta’s opinion, no
more than an overpaid servant—but London offered pleasures that
cost nothing at all. The only requirements were a comfortable pair
of walking shoes, an umbrella, and a weatherproof outer garment.
But since Lady Augusta had become permanently bedridden at the end
of September, Carol’s solitary walks had been denied to her. Those
treasured hours could soon begin again, for Carol stood now, in
late afternoon of the day of Lady Augusta’s funeral, in the chilly,
pale yellow drawing room of Marlowe House, bidding farewell to the
mourners.

There were few of them and they departed
ill-fed. When she knew her end was fast approaching, Lady Augusta
had stipulated that only tea and biscuits should be served at the
funeral “feast.” Even in death her commandments were not to be
disobeyed. Carol wondered if the servants feared Lady Augusta would
return to haunt them if they opened a bottle of sherry for the
guests as she herself had suggested the day before.

“Certainly not, Miss Simmons,” Crampton had
responded to Carol’s remark with barely concealed horror. “There
will be no wine served. Lady Augusta personally ordered the menu
for this occasion and we will, as always, follow her directions to
the letter.”

And so they had. A small coal fire burned in
the grate, a plate of biscuits and a pot of tea sat upon a tray on
one of the delicate Regency-style tables, and Carol felt certain
the drawing room was every bit as cold and cheerless as it must
have been in the early eighteen hundreds when Marlowe House was
first built.

Now the Reverend Mr. Lucius Kincaid, who was
the rector of nearby St. Fiacre’s Church and who had performed the
funeral service, approached Carol. Assuming that he was about to
take his leave, Carol put out her hand to shake his. But the
clergyman apparently had no intention of departing from Marlowe
House until he had extracted some information from Carol.

“I do hope,” he said, “that Lady Augusta
remembered St. Fiacre’s Bountiful Board in her will.” He was a
tall, thin man with dark hair going gray and clothes that did not
fit him very well. Carol regarded him with distaste for, like her
late employer, she was not interested in religion. In fact, Carol
could not remember Lady Augusta ever entering a church. It was
Crampton who had suggested that the Reverend Mr. Kincaid be asked
to conduct the funeral service.

“We have not yet heard anything about Lady
Augusta’s charitable bequests,” said the rector’s wife, who joined
them. In contrast to her nondescript husband, the blond, blue-eyed
Mrs. Kincaid wore a fashionable outfit with a remarkably short
skirt and a hat that might have come right out of the American
West. “I must confess that we at St. Fiacre’s are feeling a bit
desperate right now. There always seems to be such need at
Christmastime, so much that ought to be done to help the poor. We
stand ready to provide what is required, if only we have the funds.
Or at least a pledge.”

“I am not authorized to make donations in
Lady Augusta’s name,” Carol said coldly. “If you want money, speak
to her solicitor.”

“Then perhaps you yourself would care to
contribute to our holiday efforts,” urged the rector, giving Carol
a smile she chose not to return.

“I do not,” Carol snapped.

“Surely,” Lucius Kincaid persisted, “having
received from Lady Augusta generous recompense for your devoted
care of her over these last five years and more, you will be
disposed at this holy season to give liberally to help the less
fortunate.”

Biting her tongue to keep herself from
retorting that there was no one less fortunate than herself, Carol
glared at the Reverend Mr. Kincaid. Until meeting him on the day of
Lady Augusta’s death she had not known that people stiff talked the
way he did. With his cultivated accent the man sounded as if he
belonged in the Victorian Age. How dare he hit her up for money at
a funeral?

“St. Fiacre’s Church,” Carol murmured, taking
a nasty pleasure in what she was about to say. “I know who St.
Fiacre was.”

“In this nation of gardeners, most people
do,” the rector responded, “since he is the patron saint of
gardeners.”

“That’s not all,” said Carol. “St. Fiacre was
a typical woman-hating, sixth-century Irish hermit-monk. As I
recall, he made a rule forbidding all females from entering his
precious enclosure.” She was not sure why she was deliberately
being so unpleasant. She usually had better manners than she was
displaying on this occasion, but something about the Kincaids
grated on her. For a reason she could not understand, they were
making her feel guilty. She did not like the feeling.

“Saints are notoriously difficult people,
whose very saintliness makes everyone around them uncomfortable,”
Mrs. Kincaid said, laughing as if to show she was not offended by
Carol’s rudeness. “There is even a legend about a noblewoman who
once broke St. Fiacre’s rule. She actually dared to walk into the
enclosure surrounding his hut and attempted to speak with him. Of
course, she immediately suffered a dreadful death. But that
happened, if it happened at all, more than fourteen hundred years
ago. It would take a foolish woman indeed to still be angry over
attitudes that existed so far in the past. In these modern times,
we ought instead to forgive poor old St. Fiacre his sins, if any,
against the gentler sex, and perhaps occasionally invoke his
horticultural spirit when we are having trouble with our gardens.”
She finished her speech with a smile.

“I don’t garden,” Carol said. “I never have.”
She watched with pleasure as Mrs. Kincaid’s smile vanished.

“If you would like to learn,” Lucius Kincaid
offered in a friendly way, “we can always put volunteers to good
use in the little garden in our churchyard when spring arrives.” •
“No, thanks. I’m a city girl.” The Kincaids would probably expect
her to donate plants to their wretched garden. Carol had no
intention of throwing any money away on
flowers
.

“Look,” Carol said, “it’s none of your
business, but just so you won’t waste your time asking me again,
Lady Augusta left me nothing.”

“Nothing at all?” gasped the rector’s
wife.

“Nothing.” Carol was still reacting with
rudeness to what she perceived as prying questions. “Since you
appear to be indecently interested in the will, let me tell you
what the solicitor told me and the
other
servants this
morning. Lady Augusta did leave small amounts to Crampton and to
Mrs. Marks, the cook. But Nell the chambermaid, Hettie the scullery
maid, and myself receive nothing but room and board for one month
after Lady Augusta’s death, during which time we are to search for
new employment.”

“Dear me.” The rector appeared to be in
shock. “Not a generous arrangement, I must say.”

“You’re damned right about that. I hope you
weren’t expecting Lady Augusta to be generous.” Carol included both
the rector and his wife in her mirthless grin. “She was the
stingiest, coldest woman I nave ever known.”

“Now, now, Miss Simmons,” Lucius Kincaid
said. “Whatever your personal disappointment in this matter, one
must always speak well of the dead.”

“That’s what I was doing. I admired Lady
Augusta’s stinginess, and the way she never took any nonsense from
anyone. She lived and died the way she wanted and I say, good for
her.”

“She lived for the most part alone, and died
alone, too, save for her employees,” the rector noted, adding in
one of his old-fashioned phrases, “One would hope to have at one’s
side at the end of life a close relative, or at least a dear
friend.”

“Instead she had me, and she didn’t think I
was worth much. She proved that by her non-bequest.” Carol did not
add what she was thinking, that everyone else she had ever known
had also assumed that Carol Noelle Simmons wasn’t worth much. Not
unless she had plenty of money to boost her charms into something
interesting. She made herself stop thinking about her own past. She
had promised herself long ago to put out of her mind the uncaring
man who—

“Speaking of close relatives,” said the
rector’s wife, intruding into Carol’s unpleasant ruminations, “why
isn’t Nicholas Montfort here? I believe he is Lady Augusta’s only
living relative?”

“Yes,” her husband put in. “Mr. Montfort is
Lady Augusta’s nephew, her only sister’s child.”

With an effort, Carol refrained from asking
if her two inquisitors had been researching the Marlowe-Montfort
genealogy. Instead, she offered a reasonably polite explanation for
the absence of Nicholas Montfort.

“Mr. Montfort was unable to leave Hong Kong
immediately. Business interests keep him there. He sent a telegram
urging us to go on with the funeral in his absence. He expects to
arrive in London sometime next week to meet with the solicitor
about the estate.”

“One would think,” said the rector’s wife,
“that he would have wanted the funeral delayed until he could be
present.”

“No doubt Mr. Montfort was as fond of his
late aunt as were most people.” Carol’s eyes narrowed as she
addressed the rector. “Come to think of it, I never noticed
you
visiting Lady Augusta while she was alive. Would you
have asked
her
for a donation?”

“I did, during a pastoral visit several years
ago. She refused to give any money to St. Fiacre’s and said she
never wanted to see me in her house again. Still, in Christian
charity, one would have thought—in her will—and here it is
Christmastime.…” Lucius Kincaid paused meaningfully.

“Oh, yes.” Carol could not keep the sneer out
of her voice. In truth, she did not try very hard, for her
exasperation with this ecclesiastical couple was increasing
rapidly. “The holiday. I am afraid I would be the last person to
help you in the name of the season. I don’t think much of
Christmas.”

“Not think much of Christmas?” Mrs. Kincaid
echoed.

“That’s right.” Carol had had enough of being
questioned. Noting the glance that passed between husband and wire,
she added, “The way Christmas is celebrated these days is just an
excuse for rampant commercialism. There’s no real spirit left in
the holiday anymore.”