Enchanting Ophelia

by Rachael Miles

  Ophelia placed her hand over Judith’s comfortingly.

  “We thought he would put aside the celebrations for a year or two, but he never began them again. Several months ago, however, the twins admitted that the only Christmases they’ve known begin with a solemn service in a cold church and end with a cold collocation left for the family.”

  “Grief evidences itself in unexpected ways,” Sidney said gently.

  “It wasn’t until I married Alderson last year and spent Christmas here with the celebrations in the village, that I remembered all I had enjoyed as a child.” Judith turned her hand over and squeezed Ophelia’s. “Alderson has volunteered to amuse Father and Simms in his study during the day, so that the boys can yell and run and be generally disreputable until dinner.”

  “What do you have planned?” Ophelia bit into an apple tart almost as good as those Sidney’s cook baked for her at home.

  “We are to celebrate in the fashion of the old royalist Cavaliers.” Judith leaned forward confidentially. “Last night, before you arrived, we lit the yule log. Tonight, in the early evening, we will attend services in the village. The villagers have a lively celebration with candles and carols. Mummers travel door to door to drive out the evil spirits. Alderson has even hired players to perform one of the old morality plays. After that, we will have the Christmas feast. And Cook has assured me that a feast it will be.”

  “What would you have us do until services?” Sidney encouraged, finishing his breakfast.

  Judith looked around the room. “I want to decorate the hall. Behind the ruins of the old dower house is a gardener’s shed covered thick with ivy. And the oaks at the bottom of the kitchen garden are covered with mistletoe. And Cook has promised me a basket of sugared dried apples to string.”

  “We passed a holly in the woods last night,” Ophelia suggested.

  Judith smiled widely. “Then you will help.”

  “I imagine everyone will wish to help.” Sidney patted Ophelia’s knee before he rose. “Did you hear, my sweet? Judith has a shed, and it’s not in pieces.”

  “For now,” Ophelia teased, smiling, and Judith shook her head, laughing.

  Chapter 2

  While the boys donned their boots and gloves, coats, and scarves for tramping through the snow drifts, Sidney gathered the knives and baskets they would need to collect the greenery. Then, once they returned to the hall, Benjamin, showing a real talent for distributing men and supplies, gave them their various tasks. Kate and Ariel were disappointed that they were going to be relegated to stringing the apple slices, until Aunt Millicent agreed that they could borrow clothes from their brother and join the others in the snow. And Ophelia, jealous, ran up the staircase to borrow Sidney’s.

  At the second landing, she turned down the hallway that led to their rooms. At the end of the hall, where the oldest part of the building met the newest, a woman, wearing ancient clothes, stood looking out the antique rose window. Ophelia stopped, startled, then realizing that the Aldersons were likely offering lodgings to the traveling actors, she called out.

  The woman turned slowly, her face narrow and sad, and Ophelia felt the woman’s gaze deep into her bones. Her eyes met Ophelia’s for a long instant, then she disappeared into the darkness of the hall.

  By the time that Ophelia reached the spot, the woman was gone. Wondering if the woman and the players were the source of the vague noises she’d heard in the night from the wing opposite theirs, Ophelia told herself to ask Judith.

  She ran to their room, and sorting through Sidney’s clothes, she chose the ones he had worn the previous day to travel in—not yet laundered, the clothes still smelled of Sidney. She held the fabric up to her face and breathed it in. The son and grandson of a perfumer and himself the owner of a soap manufacture, Sidney wore a range of perfumes. This one was woody and crisp, with a hint of pine, but they all reminded her of him alone.

  When she returned to the hall, her sisters—and her aunt Millicent—were brandishing knives and scissors, pretending to be Boadicea and her daughters preparing to fight the Romans. The three stopped when they saw her.

  “Benjamin has assigned us the holly you saw in the woods!” fourteen-year-old Kate announced.

  Thirteen-year-old Ariel and Aunt Millicent, a hearty sixty-three, carried cutting baskets to hold the leaves and berries. Sidney, assigned to keep the boys out of too much trouble, kissed her on the way out, and she felt his absence like the pull of a magnet.

  The holly was a short walk from Coldmarsh House toward the village and easily seen from the carriage drive. As Alderson kept the drive clear for the arrival of the guests and it hadn’t snowed since the day before, the women were able to walk with ease. Ophelia suspected that had been Benjamin’s intention. While her sisters were enjoying the freedom of boys’ clothes on a relatively clear path, their cousins were already covered in snow.

  Her sisters, refusing to limit themselves to the branches closest to the cleared drive, bounded into the thicket to trim the leaves and berries. Before joining them, Ophelia looked toward the dower house, where Sidney was directing the twins in tearing ivy off the old shed. She could hear the boys’ laughter as they pelted Sidney with snow, and she watched her husband return the attack, his snowballs rarely missing their target. Even at a distance, Sidney seemed to know she was watching, and he turned and waved before returning to his battle. His movements were precise, even graceful, and she joyed in each one. Soon, however, the battle moved out of sight. Sighing, Ophelia turned back to her task, the crisp scent of holly filling the air.

  “Did you know that our Christmas feasts, games, and greenery are borrowed from the Roman Saturnalia?” Ariel clipped a pretty branch and placed it in her basket. “The Gentleman’s Magazine says that Pope Gregory—Gregory XIII, I think it was—encouraged missionaries to reuse pagan holidays to help people convert.”

  “Gregory I, dear,” Millicent corrected Ariel. “We should include him in your reading of revolutionary historical figures. Gregory XIII changed the calendar to make the celebration of Easter conform generally to when it was celebrated by the early church.”

  “I also read that the Druids collected mistletoe for their religious ceremonies. It was so reverenced that the priest cut it down with a golden knife and placed it on a white blanket,” Ariel added. “But I skipped the part about the sacrifices.”

  “I read that part. Two white bulls, never before yoked. Sometimes virgin maidens.” Kate rolled her eyes.

  Ophelia smiled, loving the odd conversations that Aunt Millicent encouraged in her nieces. “Do we kiss under the mistletoe because of the Druids as well? If so, it’s a delightful custom—with the right partner, that is.”

  Kate and Ariel both grimaced. “We don’t kiss.”

  “At your ages, well you shouldn’t.” Aunt Millicent tsked at Ophelia.

  The thicket was thick enough that, with judicious trimming, their harvest was barely noticeable. When all the baskets were full, the four turned back toward the house.

  As her sisters chattered with Aunt Millicent about the origins of their Christmas traditions, Ophelia examined the lines of the odd house. Coldmarsh House had been fortified in its centuries-long transition from old, ruined monastery to manor home. Its battlements stood dark against the light of the sun. In some places, she could tell exactly where the old ruins ended and the house built upon them began. In others, the merging of old and new was more subtle. What she could easily tell, however, was how each addition had made the house larger and larger, until it dominated the valley. The portion they were staying in appeared to be the newest, but even that dated to sometime more than a hundred years ago. As they walked, her attention shifted to the older building closest to their rooms, and she wondered again at the strange noises she’d heard when Sidney was deep in sleep.

  A movement on the old battlements caught her attention. A figure stood watching them. Bu
t the battlement itself seemed incomplete, as if the woman—for she was certain it was a woman—was standing in air.

  Olivia was struck dumb for a moment. But before she could ask her sisters to confirm what she thought she saw, her foot caught on a branch, and she and her basket almost tumbled. By the time she’d righted herself, the woman was gone.

  * * * *

  Within an hour, all the harvesters had returned with their green bounty. Sidney and the twins—eleven-year-old Clive and Edmund—carried the ivy in long strands over their shoulders. They looked like the woods had come alive and were advancing on the house. When sixteen-year-old Tom and his cousins Aidan, Seth, and Colin, all between sixteen and thirteen, returned dragging a blanket filled with mistletoe, Ophelia caught the attention of Ariel, who looked both amused and wary.

  “At least it’s not a white blanket. If it were, Kate and I would have to lock ourselves in our rooms until after the new year.”

  “If the Druids were to come for virgins, I’m certain they would pick the Simms girls,” Ophelia whispered. “No one looks as unhappily chaste as those two. Besides, no self-respecting Druid priest would pick a girl who dresses as a boy.”

  “A perfect reason always to wear trousers!” Ariel declared a bit too loudly, drawing the pinch-faced glare of Mrs. Simms, and Ophelia hugged her youngest sister tight as the pair fell into laughter together.

  Soon the hall was filled with piles of ivy, mistletoe, and holly. With the arrival of Benjamin, who brought twine and a basket of apple rings, the group set to adorn the hall.

  With the help of the servants, the group strung festoons of greenery in large swags across the lintels of the doors and windows. While the Somervilles and Gardiners hung the greenery, the Simms children strung the apple slices, spacing them so that they would appear intermittently along the swags of green. The blazing yule logs and the greenery—contrasting with the banks of snow beyond the windows—made even the large room cozy and warm.

  * * * *

  The village was joyful, the street-facing windows lit with candles in preparation for the procession to the church. Mummers in giant masks performed from door to door, enacting the old play of good against evil over and over. The villagers threw open their windows to them, letting out any evil spirits that might have found their way into the houses. For their service, the mummers were rewarded with food and sometimes with coin.

  When the church bell called the people to worship, every resident in the village and manor, as was required by law, took a seat. The duke and his sons were seated at the front of the church, as was appropriate to his rank, along with Tom, who as Lord Wilmot, was the next-highest-ranked visitor. In the next pew were the Aldersons seated close with Aunt Millicent and the Gardiners, and, behind them, the Simms family, looking pious and restrained. Ophelia and Sidney—of no rank at all—sat next to the vicar’s wife against the far wall. Even bundled close together, Ophelia shivered against the cold that emanated from the stone slabs beneath their feet, and Sidney pulled her tightly into his side, distracting her from the sermon and the readings.

  After the church service, the whole group, including the servants, walked the mile back to Coldmarsh House, singing carols. Benjamin served as their choir master. Ophelia, holding fast to Sidney’s hand, followed the line of his harmony, melding her mezzo with his rich bass. By the time the large group had exhausted much of their mental hymnal, they had reached the manor, lit bright.

  * * * *

  By long tradition among the Somervilles for family dinners, the table was arranged by age and relation. The youngest sat at the bottom of the table, their elders at its head, foremost among them Judith’s father, the duke, and her husband, their host, Mr. Stuart Alderson. By virtue of her recent marriage, Ophelia had ascended to the adult end, with Mr. Simms to her left and her cousin Benjamin to her right. Sidney sat across the table, two chairs over. Periodically he would look her way and wink or smile, but mostly her husband kept the conversation around him moving smoothly, with a nudge here or an encouraging word here. Her husband, she thought, still relishing the word, would someday change the world, and he would do it one generous conversation at a time. As if he knew she was thinking of him, Sidney looked her way and raised a single eyebrow.

  The dinner itself showed in every way that Judith was the daughter of a duke. To allow the servants their own celebration, the long table was covered once, making all eleven courses available from the first. Roast turkey and pig, sirloin of beef, and assorted other meats were set among soups and vegetables, minced pies, seasoned butters, and, of course, the plum pudding. More than anything else, plum pudding meant Christmas to Ophelia.

  Dinner—as dinners always were when the Somerville brothers were in attendance—was raucous, though the laughter and ribbing centered at the children’s end of the table. The eldest Somerville, Sir Aaron, was a man of vicious temperaments. Judith had carefully placed him at the head of the table, sandwiched between Mrs. Simms and Ophelia’s aunt, Millicent, and across from Judith herself. Judith—born second—was the manager, attempting to keep all her brothers out of trouble; in this, she had the aid of Benjamin, who, third-born, was the natural peacemaker. From her new seat among the adults, Ophelia admired Judith’s care in arranging the table in such a way that she denied Aaron proximity to the unmarried girls and surveilled any attempts he might make to importune the female servants.

  Each time her younger cousins laughed or teased, Ophelia wished she were still among them, except that it would mean that she would be still unmarried. And married life suited her, better than she’d ever imagined or even hoped. Though innately sociable, she’d dreaded the hours of social pleasantries that marriage to a man in public service required, and she’d feared that those obligations would mean the end to her chemical avocation. But marriage, she’d found—at Sidney’s insistence—allowed her to do both, and even to do both better than she had before. Life as Ophelia Mason fed both sides of her psyche.

  Because the table was filled mostly with family, the conversation was allowed to ramble where it wished. Ophelia quickly learned that though the children’s end was openly amusing, the conversation at the top of the table was not as dry as she’d expected. Alderson told an engaging story about his early failures as an industrialist. Simms recounted his recent failure to outwit a squirrel. And the duke quickly intervened when Aaron—already well in his cups—decided to recount a game of “feed the dove” he’d played with his most recent mistress. The duke’s story—of his favorite dog in childhood who would not learn to fetch, until it did with disastrous results—reminded Ophelia of how kind the duke had been before the weight of his dukedom and Aaron’s repeated scrapes had made him difficult and taciturn.

  While her Somerville cousins—again like locusts—cleared every plate of the eleven courses, Ophelia found herself simply watching Sidney with the giddy delight of a newlywed. Kind, generous, and charming, Sidney made himself at home in any company, whether talking to a duke or a fishwife. One of his great skills was his ability to forge common ground, even if that ground were nothing more than both parties enjoying the way that the sunlight reflected beneath Westminster Bridge. His hands, long and slender, were often the most restrained part of him, but when they were alone together, his hands spoke love as well as his words. She allowed herself to think about his hands, then his lips, then all his other parts, until, while Ophelia sat enjoying her last bites of plum pudding, Sidney caught her eye. With his hand still on the table, he moved one finger a mere inch, quietly directing her attention to the diffident man to her left.

  “Mrs. Mason. Mrs. Mason.” Simms grew more insistent each time he repeated her name. “Mrs. Mason.”

  Ophelia gave him a brilliant smile. “Forgive me, Mr. Simms, but I’ve just realize you were speaking to me. I’m still unused to my married name.”

  “Of course, my dear, of course. It takes married ladies some time to get used to a new name.
Mrs. Simms, however, adapted quite easily. Her maiden name was Stimpson, so the conversion was easy. But from Somerville to Mason, that would take some adjustment.”

  “Lady Judith and her Somerville brothers are my cousins. My family name was Gardiner. Lord Wilmot, there at the end of the table, is my younger brother, and my sisters are Kate—there to the left of your son—and Ariel, to his right.”

  “Right. Right. I’m having a bit of trouble keeping the dramatis personae straight. How do you and your siblings fit into the Somerville hierarchy?”

  “We fill in the gaps between the Somerville children. I’m younger than Sir Aaron but older than Lord Benjamin and Lady Judith. Likewise, my sisters are older than the twins, but one is younger and the other older than Seth, who is the youngest of the middle brothers.”

  “We were surprised when Stuart—Mr. Alderson, I mean—choose such a young woman for his second wife. But then we met your cousin, and she is a very mature nineteen. We became friends with Alderson when his first wife was still alive. Lovely woman. She loved this house, for all its decay and degradation. Then it killed her. Such a shame.”

  Ophelia forced herself not to react. Pitching her voice so no one else could hear, she asked, “The house killed her?”

  Simms looked around furtively, much like a cornered rabbit, before whispering, “Yes, I would have thought you knew. Please don’t speak of it to Stuart. It still pains him. She was so young, so beautiful.”

  “If I might ask, what happened?”