Christmas Carol

by Speer, Flora

  “Who could that be so late on Christmas Day?” asked Mrs. Marks.

  “There is only one way to find out.” Straightening his jacket and smoothing his hair as he went, Crampton left the servants’ dining room and headed for the steps to the upper level of the house.

  “Well, I’m sure I wasn’t expecting guests,” said Mrs. Marks. “Were you expecting anyone, Miss Simmons?”

  Carol did not answer, but only shook her head because she was listening intently. She could hear voices from the entrance hall above. Crampton and another person were talking together. The second voice sounded oddly familiar, though muffled as it was by the intervening walls, she could not place it exactly. Automatically, without thinking about what she was doing, Carol put up her hand and removed the blue paper dunce’s cap. Then, intrigued by the continuing sound of male voices, she left the servants’ dining room and went into the kitchen, intending to go up to the front hall to discover who was there. Just as she put a foot on the bottom step Crampton came through the door at the top. Behind him loomed a taller figure.

  “Crampton?” said Carol. “Is anything wrong? Who is that with you?”

  “There is nothing wrong,” Crampton informed her. “It is only that Mr. Nicholas Montfort has arrived somewhat earlier than expected.” Crampton moved down a step, making room for the person behind him, who advanced to the upper landing, where Carol could see him more clearly.

  He was tall and rather slender, although she could not doubt that beneath his well-cut suit there were hard muscles. His hair was black and straight and his eyes were green. That strong, thrusting jaw, that long slash of nose— it was, and yet it was not. . .

  Carol grabbed for the banister, praying she would not faint.

  “Good evening,” said Nicholas Montfort, looking straight at her with no sign of recognition. But then, why should he recognize her? He had never seen her before in his life.

  “Oh, my God,” Carol gasped. “Lady Augusta, why didn’t you warn me about this?”

  Chapter 20

  “Yes, thank you,” Nicholas Montfort replied to Mrs. Marks’s question. “I would appreciate some dinner. Airline food is not especially satisfying.”

  “As I have explained to you, Mr. Montfort,” Crampton said, “we were told that you would not arrive until Tuesday at the earliest. Marlowe House is, however, prepared in expectation of your coming.”

  “I cleaned and aired Lady Augusta’s rooms myself,” Nell said, contributing her part to Crampton’s assurances. “There’s even clean towels in the bathroom.”

  “Thank you,” Nicholas Montfort said again. From his position on the topmost step he gazed upon the little group below him, his eyes gleaming with amusement when they lit on Hettie with her brandy glass still in hand, on Nell’s flushed, eager face, and on Mrs. Marks, who in her excitement had forgotten to remove her gold paper crown. Only Crampton really looked like a proper servant, and even his cheeks were a bit more pink than usual, thanks to several glasses of good brandy.

  “I am afraid I have interrupted your holiday celebrations,” Nicholas Montfort said.

  “Not at all,” Crampton responded. “We have finished with our dinner. Mrs. Marks will be delighted to prepare a meal for you.”

  “Hmm.” Nicholas Montfort’s eyes were once again fixed on the glass in Hettie’s hand. Carol half expected him to demand to know exactly whose brandy the girl was drinking. Then he turned his attention to Carol. “I assume you are my late aunt’s former companion. Miss Simmons, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.” Carol was amazed to discover she could still speak, for she remained in a state of shock at the sudden appearance of the man whom she had loved in both the past and the future but had never expected to encounter in the present. Lady Augusta had not bothered to warn her of this unexpected development.

  “Perhaps you will join me in the dining room while I eat, Miss Simmons,” Nicholas Montfort continued. “Before I speak with the solicitors there are a few questions I would like to have answered about my aunt’s last weeks.”

  “Of course.” Carol met the green eyes directly. Deep inside her a glorious excitement was building, a sense of unlimited possibilities. This man’s presence at Marlowe House was Lady Augusta’s doing. Carol was certain of it. Therefore, his arrival must be connected in some way to the changes she was expected to make in both the present and the future.

  “Did you take dictation for my aunt?” The question was a little abrupt, but Carol was not offended.

  “Occasionally,” she said, adding, “I am probably not as proficient at shorthand as you might want.”

  “I will only require you to take a few notes,” he said, his eyes still on hers. “Find your notepad and some pencils and meet me in the dining room in thirty minutes. Now, Crampton, if you will see to my baggage, I would like a bath before I eat. Mrs. Marks, I will expect my dinner in one hour.”

  He was gone, Crampton following him. Mrs. Marks moved toward the stove, muttering to herself about possible menus using the leftover roast turkey.

  “Who made him king of the hill?” asked Hettie, still gaping at the door through which Nicholas Montfort had left the kitchen.

  “You put down that brandy glass, girl, and come and help me,” Mrs. Marks ordered. “He may not have a title before his name, but I know a nobleman when I see one. Mr. Montfort will expect the very best service and the best food I can prepare.”

  “First,” said Nicholas Montfort, watching Carol scribble hasty notes on her pad, “there will be two more guests arriving late on Monday afternoon. Have the servants prepare rooms for them.”

  “Right.” Carol put down her pencil to take a sip of tea while her companion applied himself to a plate heaped high with creatively transformed, reheated roast turkey and vegetables. “Will one of the guests be Mrs. Montfort, and if so, shall I tell Nell to make up the room next to Lady Augusta’s bedchamber? I believe it is in suitable condition. Nell takes very good care of all the rooms.”

  “There is no Mrs. Montfort. I am divorced.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” She was not sorry at all. She feared her heart would have broken if he had said he was married.

  “Don’t be. I’m not,” he responded to her politely insincere remark. “It was best for both of us. We never matched well together. Something was always—always disjointed between us.” He stopped, fixing her with an inscrutable look. “Now, why the devil should I feel compelled to tell you such a thing, when I never discuss personal matters with my employees?”

  “I am not exactly your employee,” Carol said. “I worked for your aunt.”

  “May I assume that you know Aunt Augusta’s solicitors?” he asked, turning his attention to a list in his own handwriting which he had put next to his plate for easy reference.

  “Yes. She used to send me to their offices carrying sealed messages she did not want to discuss over the telephone.”

  “That sounds like Aunt Augusta. She never trusted anyone that I knew of. Do you think she trusted you?”

  “Not at first,” Carol said. “But recently, yes, she put great faith in me. I hope I never disappoint her.”

  “Why do you say that? Did she leave some particular instructions with you?” His glance was sharp. “It is my understanding that she left little or nothing to the people who worked for her.”

  “Not in her will, no.” Carol took a deep breath, preparing to state facts that were not true in any legal sense, but which she knew to be Lady Augusta’s deepest desires. “Mr. Montfort, I do think she meant to do much more for her servants. She did understand how difficult their lives would be if they were turned out of their positions. Crampton and Mrs. Marks are too old to find new employment, and Nell and Hettie are not especially well educated. Hettie, in particular, can barely read. They are not likely to find good jobs elsewhere. Then there is St. Fiacre’s—”

  “Are you .telling me that my aunt was fond of these people?” he said, interrupting. “I find such a claim diffic
ult to believe.”

  “How well did you know your aunt, Mr. Montfort?” Carol demanded. “I have worked for her for nearly six years. During that time, I do not recall any contact between you.”

  “Because there was none. Her estate was left to me only because I am her sole remaining relative. Now let me ask you, Miss Simmons— how well did you know my aunt?” When Carol, trying to decide how much she should tell him, did not respond at once, he went on. “You did not know her at all. Oh, you may have seen her every day for six years. You may have done her bidding, perhaps even to her satisfaction, though I doubt if she would have told you so if you had. Lady Augusta Marlowe did not make friends of her employees, nor was she ever generous to them. Do not attempt to convince me that her character was otherwise, or I shall begin to suspect you of some unscrupulous intentions in spite of your security clearance. She did have a security check done on you, did she not? I would expect it of her.”

  “Yes, she did, but she wasn’t as suspicious as you think. At least, not—not—”

  “Not at the end, when her mind was failing?” he suggested, frowning at her.

  “How dare you imply that I tried to influence a senile old woman? That is what you are saying, isn’t it?” Carol felt like crying. How could this man look so much like the Nicholas and the Nik she knew and loved, and yet be as cold and suspicious as Lady Augusta at her worst? “Your aunt and I understood each other. As for you, I think you don’t care about anything but her estate. If you cared about her, you would have made an effort to see her once in a while.”

  “She would not have allowed me to enter the house. Did she never tell you the scandalous tale of her quarrel with my mother?”

  “Perhaps you ought to explain that business to me.” Carol was rapidly growing annoyed with him. “All I know about the great Marlowe family feud is that Lady Augusta and her sister once got into a major fight and stopped speaking to each other. Then your mother married and went off to Hong Kong, and the two sisters never made up their quarrel and never saw each other again.”

  “Those are the basic facts,” Nicholas Montfort agreed.

  “Why did they fight?” Carol asked, speaking more softly now in hope of coaxing him to tell her all about it. “I don’t know why I feel the way I do about this, but it seems to me to be vitally important that I should know what caused the quarrel between your mother and your aunt. Perhaps then I could better understand what motivated Lady Augusta.”

  “I remember her, you know.” Nicholas Mont-fort’s face softened with a smile. “We all lived in this house when I was a little boy. In those days, my grandfather was still alive. When my father died, Grandfather insisted my mother should return home, to stay with him and Aunt Augusta. She was older than my mother. I was missing my father and she was remarkably patient with me.”

  “I know Lady Augusta never married,” Carol prompted gently.

  “She had a beau. That’s what she called him. He had been a dashing pilot in the Royal Air Force during the war. Afterward, he went into his family’s business. He came here to lunch one day, shortly after we arrived. He took one look at my mother and promptly forgot all about Aunt Augusta. There was a bit of a dustup about it,” Nicholas added dryly, “and a battle royal when my mother decided to follow him to Hong Kong and marry him there.”

  “I can imagine.” Carol let out a long breath. “So that’s why the two sisters never spoke again. If Lady Augusta’s heart was broken by her own sister’s actions, it would explain why she became such a crusty, suspicious old spinster. I can’t blame your mother, though, not if she loved your stepfather.”

  “She did. And he loved her. I have seldom seen two people so happy together. He died a week after she did, and I truly believe his death was caused by a broken heart. He just did not want to go on without her.”

  “Did you go to Hong Kong with your mother?” Carol asked, to change the fascinating subject a little without entirely leaving it.

  “Not immediately,” he said. “I went to school here in England. Afterward, I started in the London office of my stepfather’s business. Later, I went out east to work directly with him, as his partner. I took full control of the company on his death. Now, with Hong Kong scheduled to be returned to the Chinese in just a few years, I have been considering moving our headquarters back to England.”

  “You could live in the old family homestead.”

  The suggestion elicited an amused chuckle from him. “You have a peculiar effect on me, Miss Simmons. I seldom talk so much. Or perhaps it is the result of returning to this house and finding myself quartered in rooms that were my grandfather’s when I was last here. On the other hand, it could be no more than jet lag that is making me so talkative.”

  “You haven’t said anything very shocking, and I won’t repeat a word of it,” Carol murmured. She was acutely conscious of the warm, quiet room with its candlelight and gleaming silver and crystal. Nicholas was seated at the head of the long, mahogany table, and she was at his right with the silver tea service in front of her.

  “Is that a decanter of port I see on the sideboard?” he asked. “Would you care for a glass, Miss Simmons?”

  “Thank you.” Carol did not usually drink port, but she would seize any excuse to remain with him like this for a little longer. She noted with pleasure the easy grace with which he rose to lift the decanter of wine off the sideboard. The way he moved had not changed from either the past or the future.

  Nor was there any change in her heart in regard to him, whether he called himself Nicholas Marlowe the Earl of Montfort, or Nik the leader of a band of rebels, or plain Mr. Nicholas Montfort. She had been steadily falling deeper and deeper in love with the same man under wildly different circumstances. Now here he was, in her own time, and her love for him meant nothing at all, because he did not know her. Carol considered her extraordinary situation for only a moment before she became aware of a slight nudging sensation within her mind.

  No, Lady Augusta, she thought in response to the sensation, I won’t forget what I have to do.

  “This is the third time you’ve done that.” Nicholas set a stemmed crystal glass of port down in front of her. “First you look desperately sad, as if your heart were broken, then you smile as if you have just remembered a wonderful secret.”

  “Perhaps I have, and perhaps I ought to reveal at least part of it to you,” she murmured. Raising her eyes to his she said in a crisper voice, “You won’t be able to do any business tomorrow because it is Sunday—or on Monday, either, because Boxing Day has been postponed until then. You can’t meet with Lady Augusta’s solicitors or make any official decisions about her estate until Tuesday at the earliest. In the meantime, I would like to show you a few things. Call them my secrets if you like. Will you go to church with me tomorrow?”

  “Church?” He laughed. “I haven’t been to church for years, but yes, if you like, I will go with you. It is the season for churchgoing, after all.”

  She told him the time of the service and then she rose, using the late hour and his long journey as an excuse to end the evening. The nudging in her mind was growing stronger, urging her to leave the dining room before she was actually ready to do so. As a result of this peculiar sensation she hoped— indeed, she prayed—that Lady Augusta would be waiting for her in her bedroom when she got there, because she wanted an explanation for the events of the last few hours.

  Her room was empty. Only the scent of paperwhite narcissus greeted her. Carol looked around, unable to believe she was alone. Surely Lady Augusta was present, even if Carol could not see her.

  “Am I right, then?” Carol asked the air. “Have you sent Nicholas Montfort to Marlowe House at this exact time because you want him to help me change the future?” Having received no response to these questions, Carol nonetheless continued speaking aloud to an empty room.

  “Lady Augusta, are you going to provide some help, or do you expect me just to fumble around until I figure things out on my own? Come to think o
f it, that is what you let me do in the other times, isn’t it? You took me to the past and the future and gave me a few pointers for getting along in each, and then you disappeared and let me learn my lessons for myself. And in both of those times you did nothing to stop me from falling in love. Can it be that loving Nicholas and Nik was part of your overall design for me?

  “In case you don’t know it yet, Lady Augusta,” Carol went on, “just in case you can’t read my mind, I ought to tell you that tomorrow I am going to introduce Nicholas Montfort to the people at St. Fiacre’s Bountiful Board, and I am going to try to convince him to make a large donation out of your estate.”

  There was no need for an introduction. Nicholas already knew Lucius Kincaid.

  “We went to school together,” Nicholas said to Carol as soon as he saw the rector march in behind the choir and take his place at the altar. “What is he doing in a place like this?”

  “I plan to show you what he’s doing, right after the service,” Carol whispered in reply. A short time later she noted with great interest the startled look on Lucius Kincaid’s face when he saw Nicholas kneeling beside her at the altar rail, and then the happy grin he tried to keep under control as he went about his priestly duties. Even more interesting was the way in which the two men greeted each other after the service was over. Laughing, pounding each other on the back, they utterly destroyed all of Carol’s preconceptions about Englishmen being reserved.

  “I never thought to see you here,” Lucius Kincaid cried. “Has the Far East lost its glamour? Are you home to stay?”

  “I am considering taking up permanent residence in London,” Nicholas responded in a mock serious tone totally unlike his usual voice. “Yes. Harrumph. The matter requires serious, not to say, lengthy, thought.”

  “I had forgotten how well you do that. You have just heard a perfect imitation of Old Foggy, our tutor at Oxford,” Lucius Kincaid informed his wife and Carol, who were both watching this display of schoolboy comradeship in stunned disbelief.