Under The Mistletoe (3 page)

“Mr. Chambers has a right to expect me to be hostess in his own home, Mama,” she said. “I am his wife. It is what all men expect.”

“Well!” There were two spots of color high on her mother's cheekbones. “You are the most ungrateful of daughters, Lizzie! I am very vexed with you. Besides, how can you expect to be hostess of such a large house party when you have no experience? And when you have Jeremy to attend to? I have given you almost half a year of my time and this is the thanks I receive?”

“I do appreciate all your help, Mama,” Elizabeth said. “You know I do.”

But her sister-in-law set a hand on her arm and smiled at her. “Come and join the group about the pianoforte with me, Lizzie,” she said. She had had her own conflicts with her mother-in-law during the eight years of her marriage.

Elizabeth, grateful for the excuse to avoid further conversation with her mother, nevertheless felt guilty as Annabelle linked an arm through hers and led her away. She had lied to her mother. She was not grateful. It was with dismay that she had watched September turn into October and October into November without any sign that her parents intended to return home and leave her mistress of Wyldwood again. Despite loneliness and depression over her apparently failed marriage, she had liked being mistress of her own home for a few months.

It was later in the evening, after they were all assembled in the
drawing room, that trouble struck again. There were two tables set up for cards. Another group was gathered about the fireplace, conversing. A crowd of younger people was clustered about the pianoforte, listening to young Harriet perform. Elizabeth was on her feet watching the card games and reflecting on the fact that Christmas was already shaping up to be its usual predictable, tedious self. With what high hopes she had embarked upon a totally different life last year. She really had been happy about her arranged marriage, especially after meeting the jolly Mr. Chambers and then receiving his son. But nothing had come of her bright hopes after all, except that she had Jeremy.

Mr. Chambers was moving away from the fireside group and stopped beside her.

“We will be decorating the house tomorrow?” he asked.

“Decorating?” She looked blankly at him.

“For Christmas.” He raised his eyebrows. “With holly and ivy and pine branches and mistletoe and all that.”

“Oh,” she said.

“And a kissing bough.”

Harriet had just finished playing. At the same moment a lull had fallen on the conversation by the fire. His words were generally audible.

“A
what
?” Lady Templar asked, looking up from her cards.

“A kissing bough, ma'am,” Mr. Chambers repeated. “And other decorations to make the house festive for the season. Have you made no plans, Elizabeth?”

“We have never used Christmas decorations,” she said. She had sometimes wished they had. The assembly rooms in the village at home had been decorated one year for a Christmas ball. They had looked gloriously festive, and they had smelled richly of pine.

“Then we will this year,” he announced.

There was an audible stirring of interest from the direction of the pianoforte.

“A
kissing
bough,” young Sukie said, and there was a titter of self-conscious male laughter and the higher trill of girlish giggles.

“I always did like a few tasteful Christmas decorations in a house,” Aunt Martha said with an apologetic glance at Lady Templar. “We had some one year when we remained at home for the holiday. Do you remember, Randolph? But never a kissing bough, I must admit. I believe that might be vulgar.”

“There will certainly never be one in
this
house,” Lady Templar said in the voice her family recognized as useless to argue with.
“Such bourgeois vulgarity would not be tolerated in
this
family. I will direct the servants tomorrow, Lizzie, to bring in some greenery, if it is Mr. Chambers's wish, but I will give strict instructions about what is suitable.”

“Oh, it
is
my wish, ma'am,” Mr. Chambers assured her. “But the servants need not be burdened with the extra task when I daresay they are already far busier than usual. Half the fun of Christmas decorating is doing it all oneself. I will go out and gather the greenery tomorrow morning. There should be more than enough in the west woods. Would anyone care to join me?”

A number of the young people spoke up with cautious enthusiasm, and a few others stole self-conscious glances at their parents and Lady Templar and would have spoken up if they had dared, Elizabeth thought. She stared silently at her husband, marveling that he would defy her mother yet again. He had seemed so quietly obedient to his father's will last year that she had concluded he was a man easily dominated.

“I must ask the gardeners,” he said, “if there is mistletoe anywhere in the park. It would not be Christmas without mistletoe.”

The young people tittered and giggled again.

“The children must come too,” he said. “I promised to play with them tomorrow. I also promised to exhaust them. Gathering greenery and then decorating the house will serve both functions.”

“The offspring of
this
family,” Lady Templar said with awful civility, “will remain in the nursery with their nurses, where they belong, Mr. Chambers. Children may be allowed to romp about the houses you are accustomed to frequent, but such is not the case in genteel society.”

Elizabeth bit her lip. She dared not look at her husband.

“Well,” he replied amiably, “we must allow their parents to decide, ma'am. Now, we will need to be up and out early.” He held up a staying hand when there was a collective groan from the direction of the pianoforte. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. There will be all the decorating to do afterward, and it must be done well. It is going to be a busy day.”

Uncle Oswald cleared his throat and set down his hand of cards. “I do some whittling now and then,” he said, looking embarrassed. “I daresay I could put together some sort of Nativity scene if you wish, Chambers. It seems to me that I did it a few times at Christmas when the children were young.”

“Yes, you did, Papa,” Sukie said. “Please, please may I go out gathering greenery with Cousin Edwin? May I, Mama?”

“I used to help you, Papa,” young Peregrine added. “I would help again this year, except that I don't want to miss the outing.”

“You can do both,” Mr. Chambers assured him. “You can help your father in the afternoon while the rest of us hang up the greenery.”

“Martha and I were planning to take a drive into the village tomorrow morning,” Aunt Beatrice said. “I daresay we will find some satin ribbon in the shop there if we look. Will we, Lizzie? It will be needed to make the decorations pretty,” she added without looking at Lady Templar.

“I doubt you will be able to take the carriage anywhere tomorrow, Beatrice,” that lady said, a note of triumph in her voice. “Neither will anyone be able to set foot beyond the door to gather greenery. It is almost certain to snow before morning, and we will all be housebound.”

“But I am counting upon its snowing, ma'am,” Mr. Chambers assured her. “All work and no play would make for a thoroughly dull Christmas Eve. A snowball fight would be just the thing to lift our spirits, get the blood moving in our veins, and yet not slow us down fatally. We will definitely need to make an early start, though.”

There was a smell of unabashed excitement from the younger people at the mention of snow.

Lady Templar got to her feet and surveyed the gathering with haughty disdain. “I, for one, will not stand for such vulgar nonsense,” she declared. “And if Lizzie will not assert herself as mistress of this house, then I—”

“Mama!” Elizabeth cut her off sharply. “If Mr. Chambers says that our home is to be decorated for Christmas, then it will be decorated. Even with a kissing bough.”

“Lizzie!” Her mother's bosom swelled with outrage.

“Stow it, Gertrude,” Elizabeth's papa advised from the other card table, exerting his authority briefly for the second time in one evening, without raising his eyes from his cards.

Elizabeth met her husband's gaze but then looked sharply away. Her heart was beating a wild tattoo in her bosom. She had just openly defied her mother! But how could she not have done so?

“Excuse me,” she said abruptly. “I must go up to Jeremy.” He would be ready for his night feeding. She just hoped her milk had not been soured.

She had never seen Mr. Chambers smile before today, she thought as she hurried up the stairs. But he had smiled at the children this afternoon, and he had done more than that to all her young cousins in
the drawing room—he had actually grinned at their enthusiasm over his plans for tomorrow. And he had suggested something that sounded so much like fun that her heart ached with longing.

Fighting in the snow.

Gathering greenery in the woods.

Decorating the house.

Making a kissing bough.

She had never been kissed—a ridiculous truth in light of the fact that she was a wife and mother. But he had never kissed her. And she had never had a beau before him.

They were going to decorate the house for Christmas—
they,
not the servants. They were going to have a kissing bough. She hurried lightly along the corridor to the nursery.

They were going to have
fun
.

At least, she thought, amending the idea as her footsteps slowed, the children and young people were going to have fun. But she was not in her dotage, she reminded herself. She was not even twenty yet. It just seemed that somehow, somewhere, she had misplaced her youth.

She was a matron with a child. She would be expected to remain at the house.

 

Lady Templar's prediction had proved quite correct. Yesterday's gray, raw day had been transformed into today's magical white world. A few inches of snow blanketed the outdoors, and more was falling. They were to enjoy that rare phenomenon, Edwin realized early—a white Christmas.

All the parents of young children not only had given permission for them to join the expedition to gather greenery but also had decided to go outside themselves. Only two babies, Edwin's own included, stayed in the nursery. The remaining children, their parents, and most of the younger cousins gathered in the hall soon after breakfast, bundled up warmly, chattering and laughing and in exuberant high spirits.

Most
of the parents and young people were there, Edwin saw. One was conspicuously absent. Had he expected her to come? She had surprised him the evening before by defending him against her mother, but she had done so with a cool dignity that had proclaimed only wifely obedience. There had been no indication that she was enthusiastic about his plans or that she intended to participate in them in any way. It would be as well to take no notice of her absence. She
was still the ice maiden he had married, even though she was a maiden no longer. Her cool demeanor had kept him from going to her bed last night, though he had wondered before he arrived at Wyldwood if he would. They were not officially estranged, after all.

But despite himself he hesitated, even as the crowd in the hall looked to him for direction.

“I have forgotten something,” he said. “Give me five minutes.”

He hurried through the arch and ascended the stairs two at a time, imagining with a certain feeling of amusement what Lady Templar's reaction would be if she should happen to see him. She had ignored him with haughty dignity at breakfast.

Elizabeth was not in her room. She might be anywhere, but he took a chance on finding her in the nursery. He was not mistaken. She was standing at the window of Jeremy's room looking downward, as if she expected the outdoor party to emerge from the door below at any moment. The baby was asleep in his crib.

“We are about to leave,” he said.

“Are you?” She turned toward him, straight-backed and regal and unsmiling.

He had wasted his time coming up here to talk to her, he thought. He had probably ruined her Christmas, in fact.

“Does the baby need you?”

“He has just been fed,” she told him. “Your eagerness to see him has certainly diminished since yesterday.” She spoke softly, but the rebuke was unmistakable.

“I came up here early,” he said, feeling a stirring of anger against her. Why had she married him if she despised him so? But the answer to that question was obvious, at least. It had certainly not been from personal choice. “His nurse was changing his nappy, and he was as cross as blazes, though she assured me that he could not possibly be hungry. I held him for half an hour.” He had held his tiny son against his shoulder with an intense ache of tenderness. “He almost deafened my right ear for a few minutes, but he finally found amusement in chewing on the brocade collar of his papa's dressing robe.”

Not for the first time he wondered how his son would grow up. Would he, too, despise his father and be embarrassed by his origins?

“I did not know that,” his wife said. “Nurse did not tell me.”