Master of Gothic House 12

 

Chapter 12

 

Esther sighed when Angela and Jeb came into the boudoir with arms full of greenery.

“You’re not actually going to put all that mess around the place, are you?” she demanded.

“Mr. Curtis, should we pin some holly onto this statue?” asked Angela. “It seems static.”

“I fear it might be a sleeping dog, and you know what they say about letting sleeping dogs lie,” said Jeb Curtis.

“Well, I wager that’s the closest Miss Mortimer has ever come to being called a bitch in public,” giggled Angela. “And if you didn’t mean it like that, Mr. Curtis, as I perceive from your shock you did not, I think it very funny.”

“You’re the bitch,” said Esther. “Why are you flirting with my beau?”

“The one who grubs in the dirt and wants to make you mess about with dirty animals, whom you would not marry if he was the last man on earth, that beau?” asked Angela.

Esther flounced.

“I wouldn’t marry her now for all the tea in china, having seen her true colours,” said Jeb Curtis. “Oh, look, I’ve found a tiny sprig of mistletoe, Miss Cubitt, do you suppose we should appease it?”

“It’s a very tiny sprig, Mr. Curtis, its appeasement should be equally tiny,” said Angela. “You may kiss the corner of my mouth, no more, without a larger bunch.”

“Oh, I shall have to be content, then,” said Jeb, dropping a chaste kiss on the corner of her mouth.

“Well, he’s a pretty inconstant swain, or maybe swine,” said Esther. “He’ll drop you if he finds a woman with a decent dowry.”

“Not a woman who can cite the advantages of different kinds of sheep for different lands,” said Jeb. “You might want to go into the dining room, though, Hymes is setting out a buffet luncheon for when we finish decorating.”

“I wonder if we might not need to find a better clump of mistletoe?” said Angela. “I hope you do not think me too fast to suggest it, Mr. Curtis?”

“Yes,” said Esther.

“I am shocked at my own feelings, to be honest,” said Jeb, ushering her out of the boudoir. “You looked up at me when I came to see if I could help, and I thought you looked like an angel on earth.”

“Red hair and all?” laughed Angela.

“I admire your hair,” said Jeb. “It is a wild, free, untamed thing, and I want it to choose to stay with me because it wants me, not because it is tamed.”

Angela blushed, and her breathing was a little fast.

“Why, Mr. Curtis, you are a poet,” she said.

He blushed.

“I write a little,” he confessed. “I would not dare tell Esther, she would tease me as I’m not learned enough to write according to any rules. But I like to write. I am toying with some ideas about your fiery locks setting my heart ablaze.”

“Well, in that case we must find a clump of mistletoe, for that’s almost a proposal, so long as you aren’t mistaking me for a prize Tamworth sow with their ginger bristles.”

“Comparison is a silly one,” said Jeb.

They found another clump of mistletoe in the vestibule, and Jeb drew Angela into his arms and kissed her tenderly. Angela clung to him.

“Will you marry me?” asked Jeb.

“Yes, Jeb!” said Angela.

“I can only give you my tiepin as a token for now,” said Jeb, taking it from his tie, and pinning it to Angela’s sensible cashmere bosom, “But I will have a brooch made which is mistletoe, in gold, with pearls for the berries.”

“You do have the soul of a poet,” said Angela, and then her belly gurgled.  “Oh dear, and my digestion is neither lady-like nor romantic.”

“It will be much better fed on bread, paté, and pickles,” said Jeb.

“A romantic man who is practical as well. I don’t think a girl could be luckier,” said Angela.

 

 

Esther was even more determined to leave, and to leave some revenge as well. She drifted into the dining-room.

“I believe I will go back to bed,” she said. “I do not feel well. Perhaps someone will bring me dinner on a tray.”

“I’ll bring you some,” said Clara. “I hope you will sleep well and feel better.”

Esther made a good meal, and went to bed, to sleep well then, instead of overnight. She had not slept well the previous night, and was glad that someone had provided her with two hot bricks and made up her fire; she did not realise that the other two young women and the servants were prepared to cosset her in order to keep her happily out of the way.

She awoke to a knock on the door, and Clara came in with covered plates on a tray. Esther could smell rich gravy, and her belly growled.

“Thank you,” she managed.

Clara left her to it. There was no laudanum in the glass of claret, though Clara had been tempted. She ran down to take her own place at the table, just in time for Edwin to say the Grace before eating.

It was not a meal to grace a dinner party, but it was a meal in which Mrs. Hymes had risen to the occasion, even though there was only one remove, the dried pea soup starter removed with the Beef Bourguignon, which was the main attraction, making the most of the oft-times tough salt beef by tenderising it with the red wine. Cooked in a sauce with vegetables, it was delicious, and on the table at the same time were roast potatoes, baked onions, roast honey-glazed parsnips, raised pies, rabbit stew, from the rabbit Will had taken down with a catapult the day before, and an egg, cheese, and bacon open pie, in the French manner.   The savouries were removed for a boiled pudding made with dried fruit, and opened ahead of Christmas to provide something sweet, covered in a rich creamy sauce.

Will was sent for by Edwin, to thank him for the rabbit.

“I done take down rabbits at times for the butcher to pay me,” said Will.

“You’ll get a vail in your monthly pay,” said Edwin. “I don’t have a bailiff, according to Hymes, so as far as I am concerned, you can take as many rabbits as you like and I’ll pay for them. Ram Gopal will teach you to shoot when you are tall enough to handle a gun easily.”

Will reckoned he was in clover.

 

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, my sergeant and I are going to turn in early,” said Lt. Wickes. “We are hoping for an early start.”

Edwin put his head on one side, and raised an eyebrow as Wickes rose, but said nothing. However, he followed the two soldiers out of the room.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asked.

“To be honest, sir, I was going to have a word with Ram Gopal,” said Thomas Wickes. “He being more than able to see through a brick wall. That Miss Mortimer was spinning a Banbury tale to one o’ your grooms, and wanted him to be ready tomorrow morning very early, as my sergeant overheard. Now, if she wants to go home, I thought to myself, why not just ask? Why declare that Mrs. Clitheroe is part of a conspiracy against her? I didn’t like it.”

“I see,” said Edwin. “I wondered why you were in a hurry to be off, and my aunt looking stricken at the thought, after you had been assiduous in your courtesies towards her.”

“I admire the lady very much,” said Wickes. “I don’t suppose I’m good enough to court her, but I’ve enough impudence to try.”

“Oh, she likes a bit of constructive impudence,” said Edwin. “So, what did you plan to do?”

“Watch Miss Mortimer leave, and make sure she’s safely gone,” said Wickes. “And perhaps you’d advise the other ladies to lock their doors. I don’t guarantee she might not try to hurt them to alienate them from you by spoiling their looks.”

“Wouldn’t that defeat her escape?”  asked Edwin. “They would surely scream.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

“And it would take a few minutes for someone get up – and she might escape in the confusion,” said Wickes. Edwin nodded.

“Not very efficient, but I can understand that she’s the sort to be vindictive over nothing at all,” he said.

“Hardly nothing,” said Wickes, dryly. “It’s apparent that you’ve chosen one of the ladies, and the gentleman Miss Mortimer swears she is escaping from, but is still her recent beau, has chosen t’other.”

“Leaving Miss Mortimer the only one who is unwanted; and I confess, I hoped something like that would happen, to teach her a lesson.”

“But people like that hoity-toity miss cannot bear to be left out, even if only denied the opportunity to spurn you both,” said Wickes. “And you can depend on it, her story when she gets home is that you were not good enough for her.”

“Unlike Miss Snowe, who has every excuse to spurn me, for putting her through fear of being in the same shoes as her dead parents,” said Edwin. “But I hope she will not.”

“Her looks towards you when you are not looking are warm,” said Wickes.

Edwin seized his hand and pumped it enthusiastically.

“I believe I may also go to bed early and rise equally early. I will tell Ram Gopal,” said Edwin.

 

He slipped back into the dining room.

“You ladies should lock your doors tonight,” he said. “We might have trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?” asked Clara, sharply.

“Vindictive trouble looking to spoil looks,” said Edwin.

“Understood,” said Clara.

“Would she go so far?” asked Angela.

“I don’t rule it out,” said Edwin.

“Are you keeping a watch?” asked Jeb. “Because I’m in; if those two army types are up for it, we can all go into the master bedroom and have one man on watch at a time.”

Edwin nodded.

“I think that is a most excellent plan,” he said.

 

oOoOo

 

Esther finished her dinner, and waited for the tray to be removed, feigning sleep.  She was too excited to sleep, but she did decide to doze. She was sure she would not oversleep.

In point of fact, she did not sleep deeply, because her mind was so busy, making her plans and thinking about exactly what she was going to do. She listened to Clara put Tommy to bed, and then go down again for an hour or so. She listened to Clara and Angela come to bed, speaking in hushed tones, and then Elinor Clitheroe coming to bed, giving quiet orders to Betty. Esther considered the idea of setting a fire on the corridor to trap all the women in their beds, but concluded regretfully that the old bat, as she privately called Elinor, would be bound to smell the smoke and might manage to get it put out before it got a good hold. She dragged herself out of her doze, and got dressed. That made sure she was fully awake; and she checked her travel clock. Two-thirty, or just after. Elinor had come up at midnight.

Esther packed methodically, folding a quilt to tuck through the handles of her valise.  She might as well be warm in whatever conveyance Ezra took. She carried it, and one of her cooling hot bricks in its old piece of blanket downstairs.  She set her valise by the kitchen back door, and put her brick in the hot oven, throwing into the stove a cord of wood to increase the heat, incidentally making the rising bread in the slow oven collapse for over-heating it, as Mrs. Hymes had left a minimal amount of coals in to keep some warmth in the stove.

Esther searched the kitchen for some lamp oil and took the bottle to the base of the stairs. She took a cord of wood upstairs as well, to get her own fire burning merrily, and transferred all the glowing coals to the small coal skuttle. This she also carried downstairs, cursing mentally how awkward it was.

 

oOoOo

 

Elinor sat up in bed.  She thought she might smell smoke!

Had Esther not used the cord of wood to bring her fire to life, Elinor might not have woken, but life is about choices. Elinor did not dismiss her fears out of hand, but went to investigate, taking the poker from the fire irons of her room.

She could definitely smell smoke. Esther Mortimer had left her door open; and Elinor looked inside. No Esther. No valise, and not much fire left in the grate either.

Elinor returned to her room to shake Betty awake, and get hurriedly dressed herself, before going to knock sharply on the door of the room the two young ladies shared with Tommy.

“Get up and dress!” she called, sharply, and headed for the stair up to the upper level for the servants.

 

oOoOo

 

It was Jeb who was on watch when the stair creaked, and he eased open the door to see Esther go down with her valise.  Well, if that was all she was up to, nothing to worry about, he thought.

He looked out again when she returned upstairs, and watched in horror as she manhandled the skuttle with its merrily burning coals down the stairs shortly thereafter, held in the blanket of her other hot brick to prevent herself from burning her hands, something Esther was becoming increasingly worried about. In the end, she set the skuttle down half-way down the stairs, and went the rest of the way without it.

Jeb woke the others with a hand over their mouths.

“She’s raising fire,” he said. “On the stairs.”  

“My responsibility is to the ladies,” said Edwin, “And to the servants. If you can, go down the servants’ stair; if you cannot, go through the linen closet to the porch room, there is a ladder there to the porch. Run round and raise the stable hands.”

“I’ve another idea,” said Wickes, grimly. “You others do as his lordship says, I’m going to see if I can’t fight the fire another way.” He pulled one of the woollen blankets off the bed and poured water from the ewer into it.

By this time, Esther had thrown a load of lamp oil around, and managed to use a spit from the old, open hearth to pull the skuttle down with a clatter. She went into the kitchen to retrieve her hot brick and fairly ran out of the back door, leaving it open, with her valise to meet with Ezra, who was just harnessing horses to the shooting brake.

“Well done!” said Esther, leaping up beside him, placing the brick at her feet and arranging her quilt over her knees. “Let’s go!”