The Christmas Carrolls

by Barbara Metzger

  Merry and Max joined them at Carroll House in Grosvenor Square just before Comfort and Joia left for Ireland. With everything in hand at their cottage and Max’s leg nearly healed, the countess insisted that Meredyth have her proper come-out. Having been denied the grand weddings of her dreams, Bess was determined to see her youngest daughter’s presentation done in style, with hooped skirts, tiara, and fancy balls, all the ruffles and rigmarole of a debutante Season.

  Merry made her bows at the queen’s drawing room in April, but as Lady Grey, not Lady Meredyth Carroll, which, her fond parents agreed, was a fine thing for the family reputation since the irrepressible chit grinned through the whole affair, winked at Max, and had dog hair on her gloves. During the weeks of fittings and furbishings and feminine folderol, Max proved to be a solid bastion of male companionship for the earl, who was pleased to introduce the young hero around at his clubs. Max was a good listener, but more important, he was a conscientious property owner who wanted to get home to his piece of land. With Merry’s hearty approval, her Season lasted all of two weeks. Bless the lad. Lord Carroll thought Max had to be the world’s best son-in-law.

  In June, though, Lord and Lady Carroll received a letter from Holly, saying that she was expecting a blessed event in the New Year. Mr. Rendell instantly became the earl’s favorite son-in-law.

  Also in June, Lord Carroll took on a new groom, one of those fashionable new tigers. All the swells had boys riding behind their seats, the earl casually explained to his wife, to jump down and hold the horses. The boy was a relative of Jem Coachman, he said, and would only be at Winterpark for the summer, sleeping over the stable with the other grooms.

  But the boy was too small and frail to hold Carroll’s high-strung cattle. He wasn’t dressed in livery, either, just an ill-fitting assortment of pants and shirts, with a knit cap pulled over his ears. And he didn’t have to cling to any precarious perch, Bess noted from her bedroom window that overlooked the carriage drive. He sat on the bench next to her harebrained, ham-handed husband.

  How could Bradford think she wouldn’t know? Everyone knew, she was sure, from the housekeeper’s pursed lips to her abigail’s sympathetic looks. Bartholemew avoided her altogether, a sure sign of divided loyalties. Well, let them pity her, Bess decided. Her husband was happy with his new plaything, like Meredyth with her mongrel pup, and Bradford’s mongrel was going to stay in the stable where he belonged.

  Bess’s conscience declared war on her righteous indignation. He was just a child, her eyes and her heart told her, an innocent child hardly more than a babe. He was a motherless boy with the stigma of bastardy—who’d done absolutely nothing to deserve his fate. Life was hard, Bess forced herself to reply. Better he learn that lesson now.

  What he was learning was the layout of Winterpark, as the earl took the boy with him on his visits to the tenant farmers and their families. He was learning to ride as well. Bess watched from her window as Bradford’s little shadow followed him on a sleek and shiny pony. The girls had outgrown their ponies by their tenth birthdays; there hadn’t been one in the stables in years. Perhaps life wasn’t going to be so hard for the earl’s natural son. Many men took responsibility for their by-blows, Lady Carroll acknowledged. They raised them and saw them settled in positions of respect. They just didn’t make them their heirs. Send him away, Bess silently pleaded. An’ you love me, Bradford, send him away.

  The boy did leave in August, but the countess would not ask where. To school, another family, it mattered not, there was no constant, nagging reminder of the family’s shame. He left in the earl’s own carriage, his pony tied behind, like no stableboy Bess had ever seen. She didn’t care. Her husband’s bastard son was gone.

  So was some of Bradford’s happiness, though. He seemed to age overnight, requiring naps in the afternoon, complaining of his swollen joints and aching foot. At night now, it was the earl who claimed exhaustion when Bess would have shared his bed. By day, he spent less time with his beloved horses and more time with the estate books, shouting at the servants, complaining Cook’s food was making him ill, telling Bartholemew he was not at home to callers, friends and neighbors alike.

  “What about the hunt ball?” Bess wanted to know. “Are you too blue-deviled to hold the annual party? Will it be too much of a strain for you, all that company and entertaining?”

  “Do what you will, madam. You always do.”

  The countess worried in truth now, for if Bradford was willing to forgo his cherished hunt and the huge house party that always went with it, he was ailing indeed, if only sore at heart. She wrote to Meredyth and Joia, asking them to come early for the visit and to stay longer. Hollice and Rendell were expected back before Christmas so their child could be born at Rendell Hall, but no date of arrival had been mentioned in their letters. Still, two out of three daughters ought to brighten Carroll’s spirits, his wife firmly believed.

  He was gladdened by the girls’ acceptances, but more so, Bess was angry to realize, by the boy’s return. She wouldn’t have known he was back except that she saw the pony in one of the paddocks when she drove past on her way to visit a tenant family. That and Bradford’s suddenly recovered interest in his horses, for he seldom left the barns anymore, the cad.

  The child ought to be in school instead of dawdling around a stable yard, the countess told herself, where he’d be noticed immediately on her daughters’ arrivals. They might be married now and know such things existed, but they did not need to know their own father’s indiscretion in a knit cap.

  She wouldn’t ask, of course. Silent indifference and feigned ignorance seemed to be part of their unspoken pact. Nor would she lower herself to gossiping with the servants. Bartholemew, however, did not count.

  “The young groom, Lord Carroll’s tiger, is surely of an age to be at school, don’t you think?” she asked the butler one afternoon, as though idly wondering why the child wasn’t at classes in the village.

  Looking past her shoulder, Bartholomew answered, “Quite, but there was a measles outbreak at the academy where he was enrolled.” As if stable brats frequently attended boarding school. “They sent the boys home. The little chap is fine, though. Jake Groom is taking good care of him.”

  “I thought he was Jem Coachman’s grandson, Bartholomew.”

  “Indeed, my lady. But Jake has, ah, more experience with boys.”

  Since neither Jem nor Jake had ever been married to her certain knowledge, Bess shook her head. “Get your stories straight, old man,” she said, turning her back on Bartholomew’s fumbling, annoyed that she couldn’t demand the child’s removal now. She’d thought of sending him to one of the cottagers— everyone must already know of his existence, the way Carroll trotted the boy around the countryside all summer—and to the village school, but she couldn’t, not if the boy was ill or if he’d spread the disease to the local children.

  The doctor was not sent for, so the boy must not be very sick, Bess told herself, angry that she was concerned despite her firmest intentions, irritated that she kept looking to see if the pony was out being ridden. She would not fret over Bradford’s by-blow. He was another woman’s son, not hers. Never hers.

  Then Lord Carroll was called away. There had been heavy rain and floods in the north that autumn, and the earl’s Yorkshire sheep farm was heavily damaged. Worse, his bailiff had caught an inflammation of the lungs out trying to save the flocks, so there was no one to order repairs or hire more workers. The earl had to go, and Bess had to stay, with the house party nearly upon them. The girls could arrive any time, along with the other hunt party guests, including Comfort’s father, whom she’d been obliged to invite. The duchess had accepted an invitation for Christmas, to no one’s gratification.

  “Besides, my love, I’ll make better time alone. You know you don’t like sleeping in the carriage or driving through the night.”

  She didn’t like the idea of his going without her either, not with the evidence of a previous solo journey residing over the st
ables. “Will you take your, ah, tiger with you?”

  “No, the journey will be too hard.” He touched her cheek and she bit her lip, reading the question in his eyes. She shook her head before he could say the words, so he asked, “Will you look in on my... horses, Bess?”

  * * * *

  This was all a trick of Bradford’s, the countess fumed, leaving her alone with that boy so she’d feel sorry for him, so she’d care for him. Well, she wouldn’t. She inquired of Jake, when he brought her gig around for her to go on morning calls. The lad was improving, the head groom reported, though still too weak to ride.

  Her children were never sickly, Bess gloated as she drove off alone, and immediately felt guilty. The countess was ashamed enough of her base thoughts that she decided to go check on the boy herself. What did men know about treating children? And it was not, she argued with her inner thoughts, as if the boy were an orphaned kitten that, once blanketed and bottle-fed, was impossible to toss back out into the cold.

  Instead of driving to the front door when she was finished with her visits, therefore, Bess took the carriage directly to the stables. There she saw Bradford’s son being tormented by an older boy, one of the real grooms. Oh, he was Carroll’s butter-stamp, all right, with that bright auburn hair gleaming in the sunlight as the larger boy held his knit cap out of reach. He had Joia’s straight spine, Hollice’s stubborn lip, Meredyth’s silly ears, but he was all Bradford, including the unquenchable spirit in the face of greater odds. He couldn’t reach his hat, but he could turn the air blue with his curses.

  Lady Carroll climbed down from her carriage, unaided by the brawling boys, and marched over to where they were now scuffling on the ground. She snapped her riding whip in the air, getting their attention in a hurry. The groom hung his head, sure his days of employment were over. He was hardly more than a child himself, Bess knew, and his family needed his salary. Snatching the now dusty knit cap out of his hands, she ordered him to take her horse and rig to the head groom. “I won’t report your behavior to Jake yet,” she told him with a glare, “but if I ever see you picking on anyone smaller than yourself, I’ll have you dismissed before you can blink twice.”

  Bess stuffed the cap down over the littler boy’s head and grabbed a handful of his muddy shirt. “And you, sirrah, if I ever hear you using those words again, I’ll wash your mouth out with soap. I do not know where you learned them, but they will not do for a gentleman’s son, do you understand?”

  Meanwhile and without conscious decision, she was dragging the child toward the house, away from the stable block.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the boy whimpered. “I didn’t mean to cause no trouble. “M’lord made me swear not to. But Freddy was calling me names. Bad names.”

  Bess looked down. “You are not crying, are you? Lord Carroll would not be proud of that either.”

  The boy raised his chin and swiped at the tears on his cheeks. “No, ma’am.”

  The countess reached in her pocket for a handkerchief, cursing her husband in language nearly as blasphemous as the boy’s. The child had a bruise forming on his chin, and what appeared to be a fading black eye. He was underweight and undersized. Dear Lord, what had those savages been doing to the poor child? “Fine, see that you don’t. You, sir, are no longer a groom. You’ll have a room in the nursery until school resumes. I shall expect you to behave like a gentleman at all times while you are in my house. Do you understand?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am.” He bobbed his head and looked up at her worshipfully. “My lady.”

  There were Meredyth’s laughing green eyes and wide grin, with the front teeth missing. Oh, she’d murder Bradford for this, see if she didn’t.

  She wouldn’t surrender, though. “Bartholemew, a distant connection of the family has come to stay awhile.”

  The butler nodded. Half-sized Carroll relatives were herded through the door by their shirtfronts every day, tracking dust and manure through the halls of Winterpark. “I’ll see to his baggage, my lady.”

  Bess could see the old faker’s lips twitching, but she would not give in. “He will be residing in the nursery until his—until Lord Carroll makes other arrangements. Please see that the rooms are made ready, and reassign one of the maids.”

  It was a good thing the mistress seldom had call to visit the nursery wing, Bartholemew thought, or she’d know he’d had the housekeeper turn the rooms out weeks ago. He bowed to the filthy little scrap who was clutching his cap in his hands and gazing about him in awe. “If you will follow me, Master Noel, I think you will find the accommodations to your liking.”

  Noel? the countess repeated to herself. Bradford had named the boy Noel? She’d kill him for sure.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  There was a conspiracy at Winterpark. Everyone from the bootboy to the butler wanted the child to be accepted, it seemed to Bess. Cook wanted to discuss what should be served in the nursery, instead of the menus for the hunt party. The countess’s own lady’s maid, diligently sewing small shirts without being asked by Lady Carroll, wondered if he needed three or four, since little boys were notoriously hard on clothes. The new nursemaid thought she should discuss the boy’s progress with the mistress daily. Should he be allowed out to play? When should he be permitted back on his pony, and must Jake be along?

  Bess told them all to use their best judgment, to leave her alone, she knew nothing about boys. Besides, she was busy with her gardens. Young men seemed to sprout higgledy-piggledy, out of her control, whereas her flower beds could be weeded and pruned. Pests were not coddled, not by Lady Carroll in her wide straw hat and thick leather gloves. No, they were fenced out or dug out or washed out. Not one blade of grass grew beyond its borders, not one slug dared leave a slimy trail. If only she could keep her house so well ordered.

  The second footman brought her outgrown boots, for Master Noel. Jake from the stables sent over a flute he had carved. The dairy maids delivered extra milk, now that a child was in the house again. But why, Bess wondered, why were they all showing such kindness to a misbegotten man-child? The boy was nothing but a trespasser, an interloper. He shouldn’t have been born, he shouldn’t have been brought to Winterpark, he shouldn’t have the household’s approval. Was she the only one to comprehend the disgrace of his very existence?

  Bartholemew placed the tray of sweet rolls next to her plate and answered her question with one of his own: “What disgrace would that be, my lady? It is unfortunate that milord’s brother Jack’s marriage was never recognized, having taken place in a Catholic church in France, the records being destroyed in the wars. Now that omission can be rectified, thankfully. How propitious that you and the master discovered the poor orphaned tyke before he was sent to the workhouse. There is no disgrace, I assure you, in taking in one’s departed relative’s grandchild. To the contrary, it is a fine and generous deed, what one would expect from my lord and my gracious lady.”

  “Coming too brown, Bartholomew. Do you mean to tell me that any of the servants believe that Banbury tale? I didn’t think we employed such buffleheads.”

  The butler cleared his throat. “The son of a coal-heaver would be better than Oliver Carroll, if you’ll pardon my saying so, my lady. The household will gladly swallow any prescription that cures that particular malady. The boy is a Carroll, and thus he is the hope of Winterpark.”

  “And the hope of everyone’s continued employment if he succeeds to the earldom. I see.”

  “Not entirely, my lady. There are those on the staff who simply enjoy having children about the house, and those who wish to see Lord Carroll restored to his, ah, more temperate self. In addition, Master Noel is a bright, friendly lad, already well thought of for his own sake, as you’d see if you—”

  “What are the odds, Bartholemew?”

  “Pardon, my lady?”

  “The odds, Bartholemew. What are the current odds of the boy staying in this house and being adopted to succeed my husband?”

  “Fifty-fifty,” the old butl
er reported sadly. Oliver Carroll wasn’t fit to clean Winterpark’s stalls, but he was preferable to the disharmony in this house. It fair broke an old man’s heart to see his beloved master and mistress on the outs.

  Lady Carroll stood up, with Bartholemew hurrying to pull her chair out. “Don’t bet your pension, Bartholemew. He is not staying.”

  The next morning a pencil drawing was beside Lady Carroll’s plate at breakfast. There was a house and a horse and some trees, unless those floating things were birds.

  “From Master Noel, my lady,” Bartholemew announced. “He asked me to deliver it. I thought it quite well done myself.”

  The countess glanced briefly at the paper again. “My girls were better at that age.”

  “The young ladies had the benefit of your instruction.”

  “You are wasting your breath, Bartholemew.” But she did stop in the village to buy a set of colored chalks at the emporium. And a set of watercolors. If the boy was as bright as everyone said, he could figure them out for himself.

  At luncheon Bartholemew informed Lady Carroll that Mr. Oakes, the village schoolmaster, had stopped by. “I believe he wished to discuss hiring a new instructor.”

  While she had a child upstairs in her very house, receiving no lessons, no schooling whatsoever? What a coincidence. “It won’t wash, Bartholemew. I am not employing a tutor for the boy. He will be back at school before the cat can lick its ear. Find one of the maids or footmen to teach him his letters if you are so concerned.”

  Bartholemew bowed. “Yes, my lady, you have always made sure the servants could read.”

  That night when she came down to her solitary dinner, a small, bedraggled bouquet of wild asters was at her place. Bess didn’t need to ask where the wildflowers had come from, for they were absolutely not from her gardens or greenhouses. Emotional blackmail, that’s what it was. A conspiracy indeed, right down to Bradford staying away longer than necessary, she was certain. He could stay away until hell froze over before she tended his wild oats. Lady Carroll ignored the sad little nosegay and ate her soup.