Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas)

by Benison, C. C.

  His foot, that is.

  So the pill was a kind of kindness, he supposed, though he had managed surreptitiously with his fingernail to break it in half before swallowing. Fifteen milligrams sounded much too much.

  Perhaps he might favour his foot with new and unique footwear, like Alice. Sent by carrier. And how odd the directions will look!

  TOM’S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.

  HEARTHRUG,

  NEAR THE FENDER,

  (WITH TOM’S LOVE).

  He yawned deeply. The Opium Bedroom contained no hearthrug. His watering eyes roamed up his legs, past his thoroughly bored penis, to the accordion crinkle of his stomach. He absently pinched an inch of flesh. Two inches. More. How dismaying. In less than an hour it would be Christmas Eve, his family members’ jokey private name for the day before their birthdays—this year, for him, a milestone birthday that he had been approaching in slithering trepidation with little prayerful increments, like someone sidling up to a woman in a wine bar. Really, another birthday shouldn’t matter. He’d given the previous ones little mind. And he did indeed thank the Lord for the gift of life, for the gift of his daughter, his mothers, his friends, for the precious years he’d had with Lisbeth, for all the good things about life in a first-world country. But at forty he was midway through his earthly journey or, if one wanted to come over all peevish about it, he was suddenly, irrevocably, half dead. Being peevish about one’s age was not an attractive quality, though he had said nothing to his parishioners about his forthcoming birthday and had laid down the law to Madrun to keep schtum on the subject, which was in truth rather peevish of him. “Perhaps a small party when Miranda and I return from Gravesend,” he’d allowed, frowning over a much-too-early card from an old friend in London featuring a dinosaur, ha ha, how very droll.

  If he hadn’t been theologically trained, it might matter less. But he couldn’t help but be reminded of the appearances of the number in the Bible. God, the God of order and purpose, had a penchant for things forty: forty days of rain for Noah, forty days of fasting and temptation for Jesus; forty years of exile in the desert of Midian for Moses, forty years of wandering the wilderness for the Israelites. The common theme: tribulation, testing, and trial.

  Oh, dear.

  He yawned again, so hard this time his jaw ached. He wasn’t sure he was quite ready for a bout of tribulation, testing, and trial. Perhaps tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow will be the day of tribulation, testing, and … that other thing. He pinched his pudge again. Jesus lived to only thirty-three and odds were He didn’t have time to get a pudge. Lot of walking in His ministry, of course—good exercise!—and He didn’t have a housekeeper who’d trained at a very good catering college. I wonder how they managed all those meals, he wondered as he pulled the sheets down and slipped into the bed, vaguely aware his thoughts were growing gabbled and silly. All that cooking for the Twelve, plus Jesus, and who knew who else. Couldn’t do the loaves-and-fishes bit every day!

  Must have hired a team of excellent women.

  Funny the Bible never mentioned them.

  But then men’s doings got all the attention, didn’t they?

  Patriarchy! Lisbeth would have said.

  Ha ha. I love you.

  He would have laughed.

  And she came to him as an angel

  As the waters of Lethe

  poured over him.

  Some time later—not long he thought, though in his woolly state he couldn’t be certain—he was jolted to wakefulness, not by some nightmare’s trident, he considered after a dull moment, but by light, an unrelenting stream of it training against his eyelids. He had been dreaming a falling dream, the ragged edges of which flittered away in the soft safe certainty he was home in Thornford in bed. But the bed felt oddly out of place. And the furniture, shadowy forms, appeared newly arranged. The window loomed high and strange, a glowing frame pulling his eyes to a full moon suspended in the black, black sky like a mammoth crystal, from which cool rays, like those from a dying sun, streamed into the room, seeking out its remote corners, pooling along the floor, and pouring over the bedclothes. Tom widened his eyes to the transfixing loveliness and in his trance felt himself set on a silver barque on a silver sea. But the trance lasted little time. The fairy dust of moonlight soon settled dim and cold along the room’s alien shapes as his night mind sharpened to his surroundings. He knew where he was now. And he knew, too, that it wasn’t simply moonlight that had disturbed his sleep. Someone had entered his room.

  Eggescombe Hall

  7 AUGUST

  Dear Mum,

  Lovely stationaryery, don’t you think? I am ensconed ensc at Eggescombe at last. All the years I’ve lived in Devon and never thought to visit even though it’s open-to-view most weeks. Remember Hazel Turriff, Mum? Of course you do. Dad’s cousin (third?) who I boarded with when I went to Leiths. She’d lived near 50 years in Shepherd’s Bush and hadn’t seen the Tower of London or the V&A. One day, she said. But she never seemed much wont to leave Tunis Road and I’ll wager she never did see them before she died. I expect this happens when you live not far from something so well known. I’m rectu rectifying that! I can now tick Eggescombe off my list! I drove here with Miranda yesterday morning in Mr. Christmas’s car, as he went off to the airfield. I could tell he was skittish of jumping from an airplane. He hardly had a bite of my very good breakfast and kept looking at the clock over the Aga. You’ll do yourself an injury, I said to him, and began to think again that perhaps Karla was right, that the traditional ways to raise money for the church are best. And see if she wasn’t right! Mr. C. went and sprained his ankle when he landed—not badly, but enough to scotch his plans to drive to London last evening. He and Miranda are staying over at Eggescombe, I’m not sure for how long, which makes me wonder if I should mention his birthday (tomorrow!) to someone, as it seems wretched not to have at least a cake at the ready, but he was quite insistent I “hone to discretion” as he put it. Anyway, Mum, there was much worse than Mr. C.’s spill! Lord Fairhaven’s parachute didn’t open properly when the lords were jumping. We were watching it all on CCTV as it was happening and everyone was horrified, staring at the TV screen then looking into the sky expecting this poor man to come tearing out of it. What luck he had an emergency parachute, and all was well in the end, but I think something funny was going on. When I was helping serve last evening I overheard someone say Lord Fairhaven’s parachute must have been fiddled with! Anyway, Mum, I’m getting ahead of myself! Yesterday Ellen met Miranda and me at the Gatehouse, where she and Mick are staying instead of the Big House, which I thought a bit odd at first. The Gatehouse is quite splendid! A bit like a little castle all by itself, though longer than wide, three storeys high, with those crennel cre bumpy bits along the roofline and a tower at each end. Apparently Eggescombe’s senior managers live in apartments one on each side of the big gate, which they vacate with most of the other estate staff for an August holiday while Lord and Lady Fairhaven are in residence. Ellen and Mick are living in the north apartment, which is very cosy. My bedroom’s at the top of the tower—it has eight sides! With wonderful views one way down the road towards Abbotswick and the other towards Eggescombe Hall and all its chimneys. (No wonder it “played” Chimneys in the TV version of The Seven Dials Mystery!) I shall be queen of all I survey, as Miranda said when she helped with my bag. Ellen looks just the same as perhaps a little plumper than when I saw her last all those years ago. Do you remember me bringing her home to visit one weekend when we were at school? Lively thing, she was. I remember her saying then that the old shack down by the quay at Thornford could be a super little restaurant if someone put his mind to it, and now of course it is and she was right! But I must say she SEEMS different somehow. Well, you would be, after all these years, I suppose, but there’s something gone a bit severe about her, I’m sorry to say. I don’t think she cares much for her employers, for one thing. Apparently Lady Fairhaven is a bit of a trial, really doesn’t lift a hand, and yo
u have to these days, don’t you? It’s not like when Great-Grannie Prowse was parlourmaid for the Northmores at Thornridge House and there was nearly a dozen staff. There’s only Ellen and Mick doing everything. Lady Fairhaven is prone to migraines, Ellen says, though her tone suggested Her Ladyship finds migraines rather CONVENIENT, and says they live much too informally given their position and such. She seemed to prefer her last employers, the Arouzis. Do you know them, Mum? Sometimes Mr. Arouzi is on telly talking about banking or stocks or the like. He always looks very dignified, like some Arab prince, but they’re not Arabs, they’re Persi Iranians, and not Muslims, but something else, which I’ve forgotten. I shall have to ask Mr. Christmas if he knows what it’s about. Ellen said they were lovely to work for and had a household staff of seven—very grand, like the old days!—which she and Mick managed, and that the Arouzis had houses in Los Angeles and Switzerland, too, and they would travel there with them sometimes, and it all sounded very posh, so I couldn’t help asking why they had left, and she said Mick wanted it. He saw an advert looking for a butler-valet and cook-housekeeper for the Earl and Countess of Fairhaven and thought a change would do them good and they were getting on a bit and maybe should take it easier with a smaller household and suchlike, but as Ellen pointed out, with no other staff, they’re working harder than ever before. By the way, Mum, Lord Fairhaven’s last butler was that big winner last summer in the National Lottery, the biggest ever, I think, £43 million! Ellen says he and his wife didn’t even give Lord Fairhaven notice! Just packed their things and flew to Malta. Haven’t been heard of since—well except for the stories in the tabs. Does make you wonder though what Lord and Lady Fairhaven are like to work for, if their staff can’t wait to get shot of them?! Ellen hinted she would like to find a new situation, but they are fond of Maximilian, L & L Fairhaven’s son. Viscount Boothby, he is, with his courtesy title. He’s a funny little boy, but Miranda, I can tell, has taken a shine to him. We met him walking up from the Gatehouse and I thought for a second he was a midget got up for some entertainment at the Fund-raiser or some little chap wandered away from a wedding in the village. He was wearing a grey morning coat, if you please, waistcoat, stripey trousers, all of it. Lovely tailoring, I could tell, and I did wonder how any mum and dad would afford to keep a growing boy in such finery, until I was introduced. In the evening, he changed to full evening dress! Quite the best-dressed “man” there by a long chalk, I must say! Really, Mum, most of the Leaping Lords dressed no better than half the men in the village at the weekend. How standards have fallen! Still, there wasn’t much to dress for. I thought Lady Fairhaven might have had a glittering dinner party—but of course there’s not the staff, and I even filled in helping Ellen serve. I gather Lady Fairhaven doesn’t think much of her husband jumping out of airplanes, and perhaps she really is a migraine sufferer as she did look very drawn. None of the other wives were present, either, except for Lady Kirkbride whose husband organised the event for Mr. Christmas. She’s very sweet, Lady Kirkbride. She asked me all sorts about Thornford R, but of course, she’s still worried about her brother-in-law, our former verger, who went missing more than a year ago. I AM rambling. I was going to say that Maximilian has lovely manners, too, which is nice for Miranda. The boys in the village her age seem only to want to tease the girls, if they pay any attention at all. I even had a moment’s fancy of one day Miranda becoming Lady Boothby, then, in time, Lady Fairhaven, though I am being a bit previous, aren’t I? Anyway, Mum, I was going to tell you a bit about Mick. For one thing, he’s younger than Ellen, by a few years at least. Ellen Maddick, you old cradlesnatcher, I thought! Quite like something the Ellen of the old days would do! Though I wouldn’t say it to her face, of course. Anyway, Mick’s name suits him. He is a bit gaunt, a little bit grim, even in private, though he and Ellen seem to rub along together well enough. We had a natter before bedtime and he did unwind a bit, telling us about a proper row between Lord Morborne, another of the Leaping Lords, and his half sister, Lady Lucinda fforde-Beckett. His Lordship is refusing to let Her Ladyship back into Morborne House in Eaton Square, rendering her homeless—well, as homeless as a marquess’s daughter is ever likely to get! There was a thrown crystal glass and everything. Shocking bad behaviour, I thought, but I could tell Mick was only sorry that Lord Morborne ducked in time. His eyes fairly glittered when he told the story and he laughed out loud because later a champagne cork flew into Lord Morborne’s face—all of which Ellen and I missed as we were in the kitchens loading the dishwashers. Busman’s holiday for me, Mum! Mick says Lord Fairhaven thinks his wife Georgina’s family—the fforde-Becketts—is a cross to be borne bare bear and here they are all at Eggescombe for the weekend! Oliver, Lord Morborne, Lady Lucinda, and Dominic (no title!) whose brother-sister-cousin connections are enough to make you cross-eyed. (I won’t try!) Anyway, Lady Lucinda is very attractive in a cockett cokettish flirty sort of way. Have you read about her in the papers, Mum? I think she ran off and married the stable boy (or something like) when she was 19, then turned around and married some aging Italian count, though that’s ended, too. She seems very close to her untitled half brother (and cousin?) Dominic. I overheard them in the drawing room last night making a very peculiar wager with each other that I can’t bring myself to write down. Anyway, she cut quite a figure last evening and I could see she was getting on VERY WELL with some of their lordships who ought to know better as they have wives the other guests. I could tell Mr. Christmas found her attractive, too. They’re all so predictable, men, aren’t they, Mum? Even good priests. I am glad Màiri White is out of the picture. Did I tell you she’s gone to Exeter for proper police training? Perhaps I did. At any rate, I did worry that something might happen there, and bring scandal upon us. A priest of Mr. Christmas’s education and the village bobby? I think not! And no one can accuse me of being a snob. Anyway, Mum, I best crack on, even though I don’t have to, do I? I’m on holiday! Ellen says I’m not to try and lend a hand, though I can’t help myself. It’s my training, I expect. I shall walk into Abbotswick to post this letter a little later and look at the ruins of Holne Abbey, and I’ll do the famous Labyrinth, though Ellen thinks it’s mostly a bother. I’m tempted to try and get my head down for another hour or two. I didn’t sleep well. A strange bed perhaps, though I always sleep well on holiday in Tenerife. I’m certain I woke to thunder and lightening in the night, but I can’t see any evidence of rain, and then, around dawn, someone was whistling quite loudly in the forecourt. I did get back to sleep, but not for long. Anyway, I can hear them shifting themselves the floor below, so perhaps I’ll let them get on their way to the Big House before I go downstairs for some tea and toast. I’d tell you the cats are well, but I don’t know, as they have to fend for themselves for the few days I’m here. Plenty of mice in the garden! The Swans have elected their Daniel to look in on Bumble and take him for walks. Hope he does better with dog care than delivering newspapers. Love to Aunt Gwen.

  Much love,

  Madrun

  P.S. Roger did jump! His mother didn’t stop him after all. He was quite the sight in a jumpsuit!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tom’s eyes opened to the shadowy underside of a canopy—a pagoda, his synapses crackled fuzzily—brushed by the grainy gleams of first light atop the curtains, which—he shifted his gaze—were now closed, billowing faintly in a breeze. Had he risen in the night to draw them? He pulled one hand from under the bedclothes and flicked grit from the corner of his eye. The moon! Yes, of course, the staring moon had pulled him from some gabble of dreams. He must have struggled from the bed to shut out the abrasive light and return to luscious sleep.

  And then his memory fused: He had never left the bed nor been awakened by the moon. Soft footfalls had sounded through the darkness and at first, in consternation, he thought the source an anxious, troubled Miranda, because who else interrupted his monkish slumbers these days? But before he could reach out, whisper his child’s name, a silhouette slipped into the window’s s
pill of silver light, no child’s, but a woman’s. A swift swishing tickled his ears; gossamer tissue floated past his straining eyes to pool on the floor; his heart drummed as, in a trance, he watched the figure glide towards him, moonlight limning the assembly of curves, suppressing a gasp as her hair and eyes and mouth resolved into familiarity. His nose drank in a heated perfume pouring off her as she curled the coverlet back; his skin tensed to a near-forgotten sensation as hers glanced his, pressed his, claimed his. Their lips met.

  He was lost in an instant.

  He looked now from the sealed curtains to the tangle of bedclothes beside him, grey lumps in the greyer gloom. The scent of Lucinda’s hair still clung to the pillow, but the sheets to his probing fingers felt cool. She had vanished as she had arrived, unbidden, as he slept, drawing the curtains on her journey back to her own room. They had exchanged no endearments as lovers would, only grunts and commands, the purest invocations of—he squirmed as the unholy word formed in his mind—lust, as they tangled and arched, united in an urgency of animal need until finally, spent, they had collapsed panting onto the dampened bedclothes, followed swiftly by sleep. Thoughts of those moments came now, willy-nilly, and he felt his body tightening, flouting his censorious superego, unable to deny the elation, the reminder, nearly four years from his wife’s death, that his body could be the cause of happiness, to himself, and to another. He felt affirmed: He had not lost it in the vale of widowhood. And yet, and yet, as the zopiclone cobwebs faded and his ankle throbbed anew, he felt the batterings of his conscience. Irrational the first thought—and it was irrational: It hit him that he had betrayed Lisbeth, opening, brazenly, nakedly, as if he had been bent on punishing her in some fashion, for some inexplicable reason. He pressed his palm against his forehead.