In answer, Charlie held out his arm to her. “If you leave now,” he warned in a tight voice, “they’ll call this a lover’s quarrel. Which I don’t think is the case. So let’s all calm down, shall we, and go back in together?”
Rena straightened a few loose strands of hair as she at last looked over at Barric. He thought maybe she would leave him standing there despite Charlie’s warning and rush off to her little cottage. As if four flimsy walls could keep her safe from the reach and influence of an earl if he wished to pursue.
Instead, she accepted Charlie’s proffered arm with a terse nod of acceptance. “But if your brother asks me to dance,” she said to Charlie, “I will refuse him.”
“Ah, but you see he can’t dance with you.” Darting a quick, apologetic glance at Barric, Charlie tucked Rena’s hand securely in the crook of his arm and ushered her back toward the manor. “Not if you are already dancing with me.”
CHAPTER 12
The church bells tolled Sunday morning, but the clamor was eerily out of place, two hours too early to summon them for service. As soon as the first bell had echoed, Nell turned from the coal range so quickly she nearly dropped a kettle of boiling water to the floor. Ignoring Rena’s cry of concern, the woman held up a silencing hand and waited, as if expecting the bells to stop at any moment. But the bells rolled on and on, relentless, until voices outside gathered beneath the echoing sound.
“Step outside,” Nell ordered, her face suddenly as pale as her nightdress, “and see what could be the matter.”
Rena set down the teacup she had just taken from the cupboard, glad she had risen early to dress for church, and snatched up her shawl from the peg. The bells were still clanging when she stepped outside. Several early risers were milling in the road, gazing in the direction of the church, though they could not see the steeple through the trees. Rena called out to the group, asking if they knew what was wrong. But they were as confused as Rena and Nell, shoulders tight against the cold air as they began to walk to town.
Gritting her teeth against the December wind, Rena followed them up the road. Each bell toll settled uneasily in her stomach. Was there a fire, perhaps, or something more sinister? Could England be at war? Had something happened to the queen?
At the first fork in the road, they met with two young boys who had also been sent to seek out the cause of the bells. Their voices tangled together with the others gathered there, a series of demands and confusion bandied back and forth among the crowd. Then, at last, it seemed they would finally have their answer when William came wandering down the road, his gaze stripped of its usual sharpness, a vague expression which was either stricken or confused.
“Wilmot,” one of the men called, his voice carrying strong as the bells at last silenced. “What do you do here?”
“I was seeing to a sick sheep on the other side of town.” William shook his head as if unsatisfied by his own answer. He gestured distractedly over his shoulder. “I have just passed Parson Richardson on the road.”
“What happened?” one woman demanded. “Why did he ring the bells?”
William’s jaw was clenched as he lifted his eyes to those who waited so anxiously for his answer. “Prince Albert,” he announced in a tight voice. “He is dead.”
A silence fell, so deep and dark Rena wanted to burrow within it. The queen’s husband, her beloved Albert, dead.
Rena knew as well as everyone else the prince consort had been unwell. They had prayed for him in church the past two Sundays. But his was just a passing illness, surely. Nothing serious. After all, Prince Albert was only forty-two in age and rumored to be of excellent spirits. Not that ages mattered, Rena reminded herself with a downward glance. Edric had been but six and twenty. Death often sidled up to the strong.
One of the women on the road was weeping now. William had already produced a handkerchief, which she dabbed gratefully against her eyes as the young lads gaped vacantly. From over her shoulder, Rena heard one of the men swear under his breath as he hastened away, presumably to spread the dismal word.
She was not at all surprised by their grief. Prince Albert had been beloved by many, spoken of highly by the soldiers in Edric’s own battalion as an invaluable pillar of British progress. The German prince was still famed for his work on the Great Exhibition, where products and advances had been displayed from all over the empire. Rena had once thought on this event with the utmost scorn. Empire. Imperialism. Prince Albert had been hailed a hero for raising the rallying cry of national pride and ambition; he’d made England’s reach seem endless. Had Albert been able, Rena often wondered, would he have swept her very people up into his grand exhibition hall, to be stared at by curious nationals who prided themselves on their ability to take what wasn’t theirs?
But the exhibition had been ten years ago, and her father had often warned her, if the world was to be British, then her family best served itself by serving Britain. And then Rena had met Edric, and her scorn had twisted within her again, like a dagger. He had been a soldier sent to colonize. To enlighten her people. To control them. And despite her indignation at his uniform, she loved him. She loved his stories of England and wished to follow him there. After a time, she’d even seen the strengths in the royal family to whom he answered.
Though Rena had often felt conflicted about the influence in India by the British monarchy, she felt no such conflict now in terms of Albert’s passing. She felt a rolling grief, as resounding within her as the tolling of the church bell. England might as well have lost its king, but Victoria had lost her husband, and for once Rena felt she understood the imperial queen. She knew exactly how it felt to have her heart cleaved in two, to weep until she thought she’d choke to death on her tears. In England two years were considered an appropriate mourning period for the loss of a husband. But two years had not been enough for Rena to reconcile herself to Edric’s death, and she was sure that two years would never begin to touch the grief Victoria now felt for Albert.
“Was it the fever?” one of the men demanded in a gruff voice.
“Yes,” William answered. “It was the fever.”
Fever.
Rena’s eyes began to burn. Edric had developed a fever too. He had been delirious in his final hours, his mind snatched away before she had prepared her heart to say goodbye. Had Prince Albert’s fever driven him beyond his reason as well? Had he spoken words to his wife that made little sense? Had he thrashed and raved until the doctor held him down and told Victoria to withdraw into the other room? Was Victoria still weeping over her husband’s stiff body, Rena wondered, wishing more than anything that she could pour life back into his cloudy gaze?
“Mrs. Hawley. Are you ill?”
Rena had not closed her eyes, but she felt as though she had as she blinked William back into focus. The other townspeople were watching her too, and she wondered if they could see her dead husband still floating in her gaze. As she closed her eyes, one of the men had the decency to step forward as if he might need to catch her if she swooned.
“I must tell Lady Hawley,” Rena said, her words mechanical. “We are still preparing for church. She will be worried.”
“Shall I escort you?” William offered, his mouth tipping with concern.
Rena waved away his unease as the other people on the road ogled her.
“No,” she replied, avoiding their uncertain gazes. “I must go on alone.”
Alone, indeed. What right had Rena to grieve for a man like Prince Albert? they must have wondered. She was the colonized. Albert the colonizer. She was not British. She had no stake on their grief.
But Rena would weep for Prince Albert—for the family who would ache for him, for the country that would soon writhe in confusion beneath his shocking loss. Rena turned back toward the cottage. Never could she have imagined she would share anything with the queen or even begin to understand her. Yet, in that moment, she felt wholly connected to Victoria, even though they had never met and certainly never would.
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nbsp; A penniless waif and an imperial queen. Widows both. It seemed impossible that death had not seen a difference.
Rena’s first Christmas in England was a somber affair. Prince Albert’s death, just eleven days before Christmas, still lingered at every doorstep in England. In London the social season had ground to a staggering halt, with reports of concert halls and theatres closed. Even in a small northern town like Abbotsville, his loss was made visual—shops were closed and dark; the rich were dressed in full mourning as they went about their business; the poor wore black armbands. Several highbrow dinner parties had been canceled as well, so that Lady Angelina, wearing a satin gown of ebony, had been heard remarking in town how fortunate they were that Lord Barric’s party had fallen before Albert’s death, or else they might have missed a grand affair, indeed. The lady’s irreverence had struck a chord within Rena, who could not bear to hear death dismissed so callously.
Though death tapped at the shutters, Christmas Eve still unwound like a tapestry of iridescent gold within the tiny cottage. As Rena and Nell waited for Alice and William to arrive, they finished setting their table. Both women wore their widow garb as they went about preparing the feast, and it felt strange for Rena to wear her thin black gown for a man who was not Edric.
The Christmas tree, which had been resplendent, the hallmark of Albert’s German heritage, was shrouded beneath a thin black veil in honor of his loss. Still, not all was mournful; Nell had said it ought not to be on Christmas. Heady scents rose from the various tureens on the range in the kitchen, half of which Rena had never smelled before. At the table, the light of tall candlesticks caught slivers of window frost and painted them with a deep amber hue. The table was decorated with polished red apples and sprigs of holly. Four large plates had been shined spotless and lined upon a starched linen tablecloth.
Nell had insisted on hosting the feast, claiming it as her inviolable right as a matriarch. William had graciously delivered a few of the more expensive ingredients earlier in the week, including a cow’s tongue, which had made Rena flinch as soon as Nell dropped it into the pot of boiling water. If ever they knew, her parents would surely think she’d forsaken the Hindu faith.
The Christmas pudding was the final touch. Nell had taken special care in preparing it, boiling it in a linen to protect its delicate skin. It had been hanging in the scrap of linen near the back door for nearly two weeks, tempting them all with the scent of brandy and dried fruit. As Rena bedecked the pudding with a few sprigs of greenery, there was a brisk knock at the door, as if the hand that beckoned had been chased there by cold.
“Those must be our guests,” Nell said with a smile.
Rena set down her holly and stepped to open the door.
But William and Alice weren’t waiting on their step. Instead, she found the parson shuffling back and forth on his feet, valiantly trying to keep warm, though his smile needed no such prompting.
“Parson Richardson!” Rena exclaimed. “This is an unexpected surprise.”
“A merry Christmas to all within,” he greeted, doffing his hat. He tipped his head to indicate a covered platter on the step beside him and waited patiently for Rena to move the cloth aside. Beneath was a generous leg of lamb, already roasted and piping hot.
“We are so thankful to you for thinking of us.” She stepped aside so the lovely Christmas table came into view over her shoulder. “Won’t you come in and join us? We have more than enough to eat, and Nell would want to thank you.”
Though his shoulders were bunched beneath his ears to fend off the cold, he held up a hand and shook his head. “As it turns out, I have a dinner of my own waiting,” he explained quickly. “I wished only to add to your own celebration. And, after what happened at Lord Barric’s party, I’m sure you wish to share your Christmas feast…uninterrupted.”
Rena surprised herself by not flinching on Barric’s name. In the wake of Prince Albert’s death, the gossips had been mercifully silent about their interactions at the party. Still, the longer Barric’s name went unspoken, the more he seemed to whisper against her ear that she was nothing to him. Beneath him. His voice often tangled with his uncle’s voice in her memory, the words breathed in a dragonish double tongue.
“You are mistaken if I think anything at all about Lord Barric.” She had spoken far too quickly, then stopped short. She had just lied to a parson, she realized. On Christmas.
The parson nodded to the rhythm of her reply, like he had foreseen every word of her lie but was not angered by it. “All the same, I hope you will not be uneasy about what transpired at his party. I’ve known the family for years. Barric has his father’s temper, I’ll admit, but he has never been one to think or act cruelly.”
Rena had tried not to dwell on her angry parting from Lord Barric, and the loss of Albert had offered some necessary perspective. Still, she had encouraged an earl to cast them off, to bar her from his fields, all but taunting him to let them starve just because he had hurt her with his words—such a challenge could only be ignored for so long. Frightened by the possibility that he might act on her words and turn them out at once, she had confided the whole encounter to Nell, who had merely replied that such things ought not to be worried over on Christmas.
“I am grateful for your gift,” Rena replied distractedly. “You are sure you won’t stay?”
In answer, the parson slipped on his hat, the wide brim obscuring his eyes. “Please, enjoy your feast,” he said. “And, again, do not allow yourself to be uneasy, especially today. After all, our Savior has come.”
Though calmly spoken, his words slammed against her like a gust of wind. Rena’s first instinct was to bid him farewell and slip back inside the house, to ignore such things, but her feet remained frozen to the step, and she stalled. She knew very little of this “Savior,” as he called Him. She had learned from her time in church that angry men had killed the man Jesus many years ago, and that He was yet as ageless to them as any of the gods she herself had worshipped since childhood. Nell’s crucifix still hung on their mantel as proof of this death, but Rena usually avoided the slipped-shut eyes of this tiny savior. Though Nell often spoke of resurrection, the statue’s dead eyes made her think of Edric’s eyes, forever shut, forever dead, and, as Nell had already said, such things ought not to be worried over on Christmas.
But would their eyes remain forever shut?
As if in answer, the parson’s words from his first sermon crossed her mind. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”
“But your list was wrong.” Still battered by exhaustion, Rena spoke the ridiculous words aloud before she could stop herself.
The parson froze at her answer, crooking his head. “My…list?” He did not sound angered by her accusation, but his brow furrowed in confusion.
“You spoke once of the meek and the pure and the peacemakers,” she explained. “Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Your list.”
He nodded. “And what about it, exactly, is wrong?”
“I am not sure I fit into your list,” she admitted, then sighed as she caught the concern in his eyes. “I mourn, yes, and I am poor. But I want to be proud. I want to be strong. Sometimes I even want to be angry. And it doesn’t matter however much I look, but I cannot see your god.”
She realized her words might very well upset the parson. He lived by his book as surely as Edric had. Edric, who had not shared nearly as much about it with her as he’d wished to. He had told her from his deathbed that he thought he’d have more time, but there never seemed time enough for the things that really mattered.
“You are entirely correct,” the parson said. “You do not fit into the list.”
Rena blinked up at him in some surprise.
“Do not misunderstand me,” the parson said quickly, holding out an imploring hand. “We are all proud and angry people, Mrs. Hawley. The list does not describe any of us.”
“I don’t understand. Why preach such a list if it is fiction?”
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nbsp; “I did not say it was fiction.” With a gentle smile, he went on, “The list truly describes only one person—the one you say you cannot see.”
The Savior, as he had called Him. Jesus. Rena frowned. Was there really such a man, such a god, as could raise the dead, forgive sins, and wipe the tears from Rena’s widow eyes? Was Edric with this god, despite his body being in its grave? Was Alistair? Was Victoria’s beloved Albert?
She wanted to believe all of it, but she was still haunted by Edric’s eyes—glossy, wide, and empty before the doctor had gently brushed them shut. Were Edric’s eyes still closed, she wondered, or did they gaze upon this god of his? She couldn’t get these questions out, but the parson did not seem to mind her momentary confusion, nor her silence.
“Merry Christmas,” he said again. And with a gentle smile and a subtle bow, he swiftly vanished into the cold.
William and Alice arrived shortly after sunset, bearing a glorious turkey on a thick, porcelain platter with gold etching. Both siblings wore the requisite black, and as they all sat at the table, Rena noticed that Alice was especially quiet, her eyes trained on the table ornaments. The two women hadn’t spoken since Barric’s Christmas party, and the silence made Rena uneasy. Was Alice still made somber by the death of Prince Albert? Or perhaps she had heard something of the party; perhaps rumors had been passed after all.
William made quite a spectacle of pouring a thick bottle of expensive wine, gifted to him for the holiday by Lord Barric himself. “Drink slowly,” he advised, handing Rena her glass with a playful wink. “Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
He poured generous glasses for Nell and Alice, an even more generous one for himself, then settled back in his chair. “We drink to the memory of Prince Albert,” he announced with a pinched expression. “And God save the queen.”
All at the table drank the toast in reverent silence. Then William leaned forward and began to carve the various beasts. Alice still hadn’t spoken a word since she’d arrived but sipped at her wine and stared blankly at the shrouded tree in the corner.
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