Chapter 7 Christmas
Chapter 7
Christmas
L aurence came down to breakfast the next day feeling awkward, but Miss Lilley greeted him at the breakfast table as though nothing had occurred and so he determined to put the event behind him. He had no real interest in Miss Lilley, after all, and that one unexpected glimpse of her legs was not enough to ruin a perfectly amicable acquaintance. He helped himself to coffee and sat near his uncle as the three of them discussed their Christmas plans.
“I will close up Northdown for the winter months, as usual,” said Lord Barrington. “I miss it when I am away, but it does not do to leave Ashland Manor with no master for too long, they see little enough of me as it is. And Northdown is always at its best in the summer months. Indeed this year I have tarried longer than usual, generally I am gone by November, the cold makes my bones ache. Frances will be headed to her family. And you, Laurence? Frolicking in London as usual?”
“No, Sir, I am to return home to my father this year.”
“Ah. It will be the first year since your dear mother’s loss?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“It will feel different, of course, your mother was always the heart and soul of Christmas, but your father and sisters will make it merry and they will be exceedingly glad to have you there. They have missed you these past few years. It will do you good to spend time with them. To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root, according to the old Chinese proverb.”
Laurence nodded. “I have enjoyed my visit with you, Uncle, I shall do my best to return in the spring.” He turned politely to Miss Lilley. “It has been a pleasure to enjoy your company, Miss Lilley. Will you be in London or at Woodside Abbey for Christmas?”
“Woodside Abbey. My sisters will bring their families and my brother will be there also, so we will be a houseful.”
“Ah, the children will enjoy having their favourite aunt to play with,” said Lord Barrington. He turned to Laurence. “Frances is wonderful with children, though she does not much care for the grown men and women of society.”
“Children are easier,” retorted Frances. “And I can always escape to my bedroom to hide from them. One cannot hide from society.”
“I am not surprised you like children,” said Lord Barrington. “‘An honest man is always a child,’ as Socrates taught us, and I know of no-one more honest than you, Frances. Indeed, I hope you will both know the joy of children one day.” A shadow crossed his countenance. “It is a great sorrow of mine that I never had a family.”
“You have us, Sir,” said Laurence. “Your nieces, nephew and goddaughter.”
“Indeed I do,” said Lord Barrington, smiling fondly at the two of them. “And you are all a great joy to me. I am grateful for your time spent with this old man. Now, I shall not keep you longer, you both have long journeys to make and I shall have to travel myself the day after tomorrow.”
The carriage was brought round soon after breakfast. It would take them to the nearest staging inn, where they would join separate post-chaises to their respective parts of the country. Frances bestowed a kiss on Lord Barrington’s cheek, then he and Laurence shook hands, before the two young people climbed into the carriage while their luggage was securely strapped to the back and roof. They drove away, both waving to Lord Barrington, who sat in his chair outside Northdown House, watching them leave.
Once on the road proper, they settled back.
“I wish you all the compliments of the season,” Laurence said as they drove. “Will your family all have gathered already?”
“Yes, it will be very noisy, for my two sisters and their five children will be staying with us. And you?”
“Yes, although we will be quieter. I do not yet have nieces and nephews.”
“Lord Barrington was right,” she said. “I mostly prefer children to grown men and women. They speak their minds, and do not make polite conversation just for the sake of it. And they love my shells. We play together for hours with them.”
“I am surprised they are quiet enough for you,” he said.
“Oh, I have to hide away sometimes to rest my ears from their racket,” she agreed. “But on the whole, I enjoy their company.”
At the inn, Laurence saw her conveyed to her post-chaise with Deborah and her luggage, then stood by the window as they waited for it to depart.
“I will see you when the season begins in the spring,” he said.
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “Though if you choose your bride swiftly enough you may well be married by the next time I see you.”
He could not imagine it. “Perhaps,” he managed. “And perhaps you will be engaged also?”
She shook her head firmly. “Not if I can avoid it,” she said. “If I can get to the end of the season unmarried it is possible my father will allow me to set up a home of my own at last.”
He smiled at her stubborn insistence and bowed. “Then I hope I will be permitted to call upon you one day, wherever your little home may be.”
She nodded, then waved her hand as the carriage moved off.
Frances only just made it back to Woodside Abbey before an icy wind delivered drifts of snow and daily fog, but the Abbey was snug enough and the snow a great delight to her nephews and nieces. While her sisters Rebecca and Susan huddled indoors with Lady Lilley, discussing clothes and gossiping about their neighbours, and her older brother Charles spent most of his time discussing hunting with his father, Frances threw herself into the festivities with the children.
They coerced a gardener to come out with them to the woods and dragged back a giant Yule log for the fire as well as so much greenery to decorate the house that they had to make use of a sled to carry it. The greenery, along with bright red ribbons and mistletoe, were hung about the rooms and hallway, making the Abbey festive, and the rest of their days were spent alternately playing outside until their clothes were soaked through by the snow or pulling on the bell to demand more hot chocolate, biscuits and cakes from the kitchen.
In the evenings, Frances brought out boxes of shells and lay on the drawing room floor with the children, turning them over, explaining their origins and making patterns with them, before the smallest ones would inevitably fall asleep in her lap. She liked to stroke their soft hair and watch them sleep, and spending time with them largely removed her from the necessity of partaking in the tedious conversations after dinner, as well as avoiding too many pointed references to her unmarried state and questions regarding the upcoming season.
Sometimes, when she tired of the noise of the children, she retired to her bedroom or the library and read her books on shells or watched the snow tumbling endlessly out of the sky, a sight she found restful, akin to watching flames flicker in the fireplace. She relished this chance to be away from the endless social whirl, which would intensify when they returned to London in the spring, but there were days when she wondered if her plans to remain a spinster would take from her the pleasure she found in the children’s company. Would she one day regret the choice she had made to live alone? She was unsure, but the thought of the marriage mart only wearied her, and she could not see her way to one without the other. Being an aunt would have to suffice.
Lord Sabin, a widowed cousin of Lady Lilley’s known to them as Uncle Richard, and his daughter, Lady Andrea, joined them for Christmas and Frances found herself wishing that her parents might follow Lord Sabin’s approach regarding his daughter’s marriage. Lady Andrea had come out the previous year, but her father seemed to show no hurry to have her wed and off his hands.
“Ah, there is plenty of time,” he said indulgently, when Lady Lilley asked about Lady Andrea’s marriage prospects. “I will keep her close to me while I can, for she will leave me soon enough and I shall miss her when she does, my last to fly the nest. The house will be quiet without her. I have no desire to pack her off to fortune-hunters or young men barely out of their nurseries, so there is no hurry to make a match.”
“Do you have someone you wish to marry?” Frances asked Lady Andrea when they were alone.
Lady Andrea shook her head. “There are a few whom I find pleasing,” she said. “But as Papa says, why hurry? He took his time choosing dear Mama and they were very happy together for many years. Why does your mother want you to marry in haste?”
Frances shrugged. “I have been out for four years, while she was married to Papa by the end of her first season. And they are happy enough together.” This was true up to a point, but even Frances would have had to acknowledge that Uncle Richard’s marriage had been a love match, while the Lilleys were no such thing – they were, as Mr Mowatt had put it, respectful to one another and there was some affection or at least contentment between them. By the dictates of the ton , theirs was a successful marriage, but she wondered whether Mr Mowatt knew of what he spoke when he said he wanted only a marriage of convenience. Would it make him happy? Still, that was his concern, not hers. He was a pleasant young man, no doubt he would arrange a satisfactory marriage. He seemed clear on what he needed in a wife, which must surely help matters along. Frances had never been sure of what she wanted in a man, she had only identified what she found annoying. Which was most men, their disinterest in her shells, their incessant need to talk, their evident distaste for her blunt way of speaking or topics of conversation.
She smiled as she thought of Mr Mowatt and how shocked by her conversation or behaviour he had been on various occasions, but at least, unlike other men of her acquaintance, he had persevered in talking with her, which was unusual. She had grown to like their conversations, for he did not persist with false flattery as many young men she had met tended to do, instead he seemed to find her half odd, half amusing, yet worthy of his time. He had proven a quick learner regarding her shells, trying to recollect the Latin names of her finds and looking about him to find suitable items to add to her collection. It was pleasant, she admitted to herself, to have someone her age to talk with from time to time who did not always insist on boring small talk and the niceties of polite conversation. In some ways he reminded her of her friend Elizabeth Belmont, who was quietly willing to allow each person to be their true selves, to accept them as they were, a rare skill in a society that demanded all must follow the same rules and be nought but paper doll copies of one another.
She hoped perhaps to see Mr Mowatt again when they returned to London, for there would certainly be little chance of escaping to Margate once the season proper had started. This festive season would be her last respite before plunging back into the marriage mart and she was determined to make the most of it.
Laurence was welcomed home with open arms by his father and his Aunt Constance.
“Laurence! You have beaten both your sisters here, though they will be hot on your heels, I hope. It looks like snow.”
Sure enough, only a few hours passed before his two sisters Arabella and Edith arrived in their carriages, husbands in tow. They had married within a few months of one another and now were both expecting, so that all of the household fussed about them, ensuring their every comfort.
“Are we not to enjoy snowball fights, then?” asked Laurence. “It is how we used to pass our winters.”
“We shall nominate our husbands to act in our stead,” said Arabella cheerfully. “You will get thrashed, Laurence.”
“And you will stay cosy and warm and watch from the windows, I suppose?”
“Indeed. Tell your man to be ready to dress you all over again, for you will be quite soaked through by the time they are done with you.”
So it proved when Laurence and his two brothers-in-law, as well as his father, braved the snowy-swept gardens to have a vigorous snowball fight, though he put up a fine defence. Roberts only shook his head with a smile, having already prepared a hot bath and warmed clothes for Laurence to change into.
Laurence had dreaded the visit, for it was the first time he had spent Christmas with his family since his mother’s death four years previously. That following year, unable to bear the thought of celebrations without her, he had gladly taken up an invitation from a friend to spend Christmas in Scotland and each year afterwards he had found a way to celebrate the season elsewhere. But this year he had run out of excuses and had steeled himself for a Christmas lacking her warmth and sense of fun.
To his surprise, there was still her touch on the days that followed. Her portrait hung in the drawing room where they gathered each day about the fire to breakfast, to play silly games, to read alone or to each other, or to play cards. His sisters’ voices echoed her tones and the cook, Mrs Williams, took care to serve dishes he remembered from his youth, including the Maids of Honour and preserved cherries that had been his mother’s favourites. He had forgotten, in the unending whirl of social parties of one kind and another that he spent his time attending, that his family were not much given to grand balls and formal dinners, preferring to spend time alone or with close neighbours, some of whom made their way through the snowy lanes to join in the festive cheer, sharing hearty meals and foolish games of charades or Blind Man’s Buff, causing much merriment. In the mornings and early afternoons, when the weak sun showed its face, he and his father wrapped up warm and walked about the estate with the dogs in tow, talking of everything and nothing at all.
“It is good to have you with us this year, Laurence, we have missed you.”
“I should have joined you sooner, I –”
His father patted his shoulder. “There is no need to explain, Laurence, it is a hard thing to lose a mother. We all of us miss her, but I like to think I see her in the three of you when you are together, a little bit in each of you. It comforts my heart.”
“I will join you again next year,” said Laurence. “I was afraid it would not feel like old times, but it does, even with Mother missing.”
“It is our memories of her that bring her back to us,” said his father, his voice wavering. “She loved Christmas. She was not one for travelling here there and everywhere to attend the best parties when she could stay at home and enjoy the family.”
That evening, Aunt Constance took Laurence aside. “I hope you will choose a bride soon,” she said. “Your sisters are beginning their own families. It would be a happy thing if all your children might be of an age to play together. Do you have a woman in mind?”
“Possibly, Aunt,” said Laurence. He meant Honora, of course, but for one moment he thought of Frances, how she had spoken with fondness of her nephews and nieces, had said she enjoyed time with them. Which was absurd of course, since she did not intend to marry.
“Will you tell me more about her?” she asked, smiling.
“Not just yet, Aunt,” he managed, confused by the thought of Frances appearing to him in the place of Honora.
She patted his hand. “All in God’s time, then, but I look forward to welcoming her into our family,” she said kindly. “The right woman by your side will be the making of you, Laurence.”
It was almost February by the time the roads were clear and safe enough to return to London and Laurence bid a fond farewell to his sisters, wishing them well in their confinements. He promised to return for a spring visit to his father and aunt, then travelled back to London, glad of the thick coat and furs his aunt had piled onto him, since the weather was still bitterly cold.
For the first time since he had set up in London, Laurence found that his rooms at Albany felt empty. The thought that he might continue on as he had done for the past few years for many more years to come, only with a larger finer house to be his one day, was dismal rather than exciting. He had forgotten the warmth that family brought and now that he was alone again, he felt its absence. Still, he had invitations to spare piling up on the tray in his drawing room, and elite amongst them all was the prized voucher that would gain him admittance to Almack’s, indicating him as an eligible young man in this season’s marriage mart. There would be some fun to have. But he decided he would visit home more often and keep his father company, for he had enjoyed their time together and besides, he could learn about how to manage the estate that would one day be his. His sisters, too, had been of good cheer and soon they would be delivered of their babies, making him an uncle. Perhaps he might spend time with the youngsters as they grew up. He liked the idea of being a kindly uncle to them, as Lord Barrington had so generously been to him. For now, he must shrug off his feelings of solitude and enjoy his carefree bachelor days.
After a bumpy and chilly journey from Woodside Abbey, Frances awoke to the dripping sound of icicles melting outside her window and a rising dread inside. London’s frozen winter was slowly giving way to the first days of March, heralding the return of the ton. The men made their way to Parliament, which was promptly delayed, leaving them with little to do for the next few weeks. The women, however, had much to do, for now the season would begin in earnest. All efforts made in the Little Season paled into comparison compared to the dedication that would be committed to the marriage mart for the next twelve weeks.
Lady Lilley was all smiles. “Vouchers!” she said at breakfast to Frances. “Vouchers to Almack’s!”
Frances did not reply, only buttered more toast.
“You will need to look more pleasant than that ,” snapped Lady Lilley. “Smile, Frances, and try to look pleased.”
“I will smile when I have to,” said Frances. “At the ball, and not before.”
Lady Lilley left the room in a huff, but the lack of enthusiasm from her daughter did not stop her from booking an appointment with the modiste and the milliner, for last minute adjustments and additions to Frances’ wardrobe. In so doing, she made enquiries and discovered to her satisfaction that the Duke of Buckingham did not yet appear to have chosen a bride, although it seemed that his attention was slowly being directed towards Miss Elizabeth Belmont.
“As she is a friend of yours, make sure to spend some time with her,” instructed Lady Lilley. “Especially when the Duke of Buckingham is in attendance.”
“You want me to steal his attention away from one of my only friends?” asked Frances.
“Not at all,” said Lady Lilley, colouring. “But there is no harm in being attentive. He has not made her any promise, therefore he is still entirely free to pay his compliments to any other young lady.”
Frances shook her head. “I would never step between Elizabeth and the current most eligible man of the ton . It would be a despicable thing to do.”
Lady Lilley sighed. “Really, Frances, you seem determined to be a failure. Anyone would think you did not want to marry.”
“I don’t, as you well know,” said Frances.
She meant it, although she was aware of what a struggle she would have to face in making her parents accept her wishes. She had hoped that one more dismal season would make her case for her, but it seemed unlikely. How many more years would she have to wait before she might have the future she hoped for, where she could be mistress of her own fate?