Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Come along, young man.” Mrs. Fipps took me by the arm and led me to the great-hall-cum-armory. “The fresh air will clear your head and give you a second wind.”
The supper waltz had come and gone. The buffet had withstood a mighty assault and not run short of any delicacy. The hour had arrived to serenade the apple trees, provided enough of the assemblage was sufficiently sober to make the trek to the orchard.
“The night has grown quite cold,” I said as Mrs. Fipps hauled me along like a grubby boy condemned to his weekly bath. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather remain indoors?”
“Of course I would prefer to remain indoors,” she retorted as we joined the line of people retrieving wraps and gloves and hats from scurrying footmen.
“But one has a duty. When my husband’s final illness was upon him, he entreated me to tend the flock as best I could.
Mr. Fipps believed in the spirit of the gospel rather than the letter.
These younger fellows are all so academic about their supposed calling.
Mr. Fipps referred to them as baptizing barristers. ”
A sturdy gray cloak was thrust at me. Mrs. Fipps took it from my grasp and swirled it about her shoulders.
Rather than don a bonnet, she extracted a bright red scarf from the folds of the cloak, raised the hood, and used the scarf to fashion a snug cap-and-half-mask covering the bottom portion of her face. She took on the appearance of an elderly bird, her scarf a nod in the direction of winter plumage.
“Do get your coat on, my lord. I daresay Her Grace and Miss West would take it amiss if I allowed you to cavort in the night air without protection from the elements. Have you a flask?”
“Full of cider. I have not done much cavorting anywhere of late.”
“Are you a teetotaler? I fear Vicar Peter is tending in that direction. A nice enough boy, but he’s becoming rather fierce with his causes. Don’t forget your gloves.”
A gust of frigid air blew through the armory as the front door was opened. Tankards of lamb’s wool were passed out as each reveler exited the Keep, the pale, frothy drink warming both the hand and the innards.
Sandy Quiggan gave tongue in a surprisingly attractive baritone. “Wassail, wassail, all over town. Our toast it is white, our ale it is brown…” Contrary to the plans I’d heard, Miss Philomel was not at his side.
“Isn’t that a tune for the ladies?” I knew of all manner of midwinter wassailing traditions.
One version sent the young ladies about the village with a steaming bowl of punch.
Another allowed mostly the young men to go “apple howling” to the orchards and byres.
Many were observed on Twelfth Night, others later in winter.
All of them involved some sort of apple-laced libation and singing after dark.
“My sainted husband,” Mrs. Fipps said, “always approached tradition with an eye toward keeping the young people involved. At Dunsford Keep, the ladies and gents wassail together, and the harmony can be lovely. My gracious, the air is fresh tonight!”
She bobbed along at my side while the song rose through the darkness. Some of the fellows held torches, the moon was well up, and the blanket of snow made everything brighter.
One kept moving over the frozen path of necessity. “Your husband sounds like a wise man.”
“He learned from his mistakes. One hopes Vicar Peter will too. I might be inspired to visit my sister when Lent commences. Peter grows quite minatory in the pulpit. Mr. Fipps said one must direct one’s preaching at oneself first, and I do believe Peter Carstairs has not taken that lesson to heart.”
I stopped to adjust my scarf over the entire lower half of my face as Mrs. Fipps was wearing hers. I also discreetly dumped half my tankard into the snow.
“I saw that,” Mrs. Fipps said. “Waste not, want not.”
“If the lamb’s wool is anything like the men’s punch, one indulges the full measure at peril to one’s wits. Tell me of the young ladies. Which one will be the next to marry?”
“Miss Delaplane—Miss Philomel Delaplane—will have Mr. Algernon. She has waited him out this long, and that young woman has the tenacity one sees in small children. If they take it into their little heads that an injustice has been visited upon them, forever afterward, they will haul it forth as proof of life’s unfairness, God’s fallibility, and the king’s lack of qualifications to rule.
When did Dunsford move his orchard five miles from the Keep, I ask you? ”
The orchard was directly ahead, its walls gleaming pale in the moonlight. The bare trees reached for the night sky, where stars twinkled like the fairy dust Miss Quiggan had created for us in the ballroom.
Speaking of… I took a visual inventory of the attendants, among whom Miss Quiggan did not number. Bryson wasn’t with us either. The baron and Lady Clotilda had also left this outing to the younger guests.
Sandy Quiggan had attached himself to a pair of local fellows, and they formed the leading section of the ongoing glee.
Philomel and Wren Delaplane were arm in arm with Algernon, accompanying the gentlemen with alto and soprano parts, respectively.
Various other parish luminaries were in good voice, though I did not see Robin with her sisters.
“Does Peter disapprove of wassailing the orchard?” I asked.
“He well might.” Mrs. Fipps pulled her scarf down to sip her ale.
“While I’m on hand to support the outing, he won’t dare.
When I’m gone, he’ll likely scold generally in the direction of lingering excuses for pagan intemperance, but he won’t oppose the baron openly, whoever the baron may be.
Gracious, my lord. You were right about the potation. Marvelously fortifying.”
Would Robin Carstairs, wife of the present vicar, ever tromp around the countryside late at night, swilling apple-flavored ale and condoning revelry? Her sisters were present, and Peter had doubtless engaged in this tradition as a younger man.
“Mind you don’t get lost on the way back to the Keep,” Mrs. Fipps said, setting her tankard on the orchard wall as we passed into the orchard itself.
“I count heads at this point and then make sure the whole party starts back in the direction of the Keep. Twenty years ago, we nearly left little Steven Davenport out here. The poor lad fell asleep in the shadow of the wall and might well have frozen to death except that some hound or other sniffed him out and would not leave him when called. I’ve kept count ever since.
The French laid low our Stevie. He made it all the way to Waterloo too. ”
Mrs. Fipps watched over the flock quite literally, while the vicar of record stayed warm in the Keep and played backgammon for farthing points.
Or composed his next reproach of the faithful.
More singing followed, as well as dousing the roots of the largest tree with wassail and other foolishness. I was last through the gate as the pilgrimage back to the Keep ensued. Tankards sat along the orchard wall, moonlight giving them the quality of ghostly targets.
Returning to warmth had apparently taken priority over serenading the stars, and soon the only sound was the crunch of booted feet on snow.
Memories assailed me, of winters in the mountains of Spain, frigid marches that never ended. Hares set loose because they were too skinny to afford me a meal, and I hadn’t the heart to end the life of one clinging so tenaciously to a hardscrabble existence.
I was preoccupied with my thoughts and lagging a dozen yards behind the group as the trail wound about fifty feet from the edge of the stable yard. A few lanterns shone from within the barn, though no sounds carried on the night air. Revelry was waning there too.
Holidays in company were taxing. Holidays without company were lonely.
Two figures beneath the overhang of the stable were keeping very close company. They were in deep shadow, where one might walk past six feet away and not take any notice of them. I spotted the pair only because they were moving—hands everywhere—and those hands were without gloves.
These two were certainly taking notice of each other.
A man and woman were getting thoroughly acquainted beneath the eaves. Or reacquainted. They kissed with the fervor of lovers who well knew where passionate embraces led, though given the freezing temperature, that destination would likely elude them in their present location.
They were nonetheless enjoying the amatory familiarities permitted courting and married couples. I found a patch of shadow and went still. Perhaps I spied on a pair of newlyweds from the village. Perhaps I’d found the vicar and his missus stealing a connubial moment.
Perhaps I’d found the key to all of Bryson Carstairs’s difficulties.
“You did not return with the other wassailers,” Hyperia said as we sought refuge among the potted palms.
The fairyland ballroom had grown tattered about the edges.
The beautiful chalk design had long since been obliterated, leaving what looked like a random distribution of sand all over the dance floor.
The pine bunting swagged around the edges of the room had come unsecured in places, resulting in uneven sagging.
One pillar’s ribbons were flapping gently in an unseen breeze.
Even the cloved oranges hanging in the tall windows had already started to shrivel, so warm had the ballroom become at the height of the evening.
“Who came in later than I did?” I had noted two absentees, but I wanted confirmation.
Hyperia found us a bench in an alcove, a blessedly cool, quiet, and dim location. “The stragglers were…” She sat and fluffed out her skirts. “You and Mrs. Fipps were among the last to return. Her cheeks were quite rosy.”
“Who else?”
“Algernon brought up the rear, doing the proper-host thing, I suppose. Why do you ask?”