Louise Allen - Moonlight And Mistletoe

In the Old Manor pew Hester could make out the crown of an impressive green velvet bonnet with plumes beside Guy’s dark head. Lady Broome had come to church after all. Hester felt herself sliding lower on her seat as though to bring her own head below the level of the panelling, then caught herself and sat up straight. I have done nothing to be ashamed of, whatever she thinks. But it was not Lady Broome’s opinion that mattered, only Guy’s.

‘Let us pray.’ Obediently Hester knelt, fixed her mind on what Mr Bunting was saying and tried to forget her sore heart.

She timed her exit from the church with care and was relieved to see Guy helping his sister up into the carriage. Lady Broome was heavily veiled and, as Hester watched, lifted the gauze slightly to press a handkerchief to her nose. Setting the scene for her head cold tomorrow night, no doubt.

The Nugents, having arrived in a rush, now seemed more relaxed and both brother and sister turned to Hester and Miss Prudhome as they approached.

‘We are looking forward to your party very much, Miss Lattimer,’ Sarah said with a smile that seemed charming, but somehow did not reach her eyes. Hester read calculation and an almost cruel watchfulness. She felt like a wounded bird being watched by a stoat, which was trying to decide if she were weak enough yet for it to pounce.

‘I am glad,’ she replied with what she hoped was a nervous smile. ‘I have to confess I look forward to having company in the house with noise and chatter and music. You will say it is foolish of me, but lately I have felt oppressed and nervous there.’

The Nugents made indeterminate soothing noises. ‘There has been a repetition of those strange happenings?’ Lewis prompted. ‘Some sort of roses being left, did you say?’

‘Yes, that, of course.’ She produced a shaky laugh. ‘We had got almost used to that. No, there is something else. As though something is in the house, something we cannot see. A presence that seems somehow restless and angry.’

‘Oh.’ Sarah Nugent appeared startled. ‘How very… odd.’

‘It is horrible! Horrible,’ Miss Prudhome burst out shrilly, then clapped her handkerchief to her face and hurried down the path to the lych-gate where Susan and Jethro were waiting.

‘My goodness,’ Hester congratulated Maria once they were safely out of sight down the lane. ‘That was an effective outburst.’

‘It was that or accuse her to her lying face,’ Maria declared vehemently. ‘Odious girl. I could not stand to speak to her a moment longer.’

Hester would not countenance any heavy work on a Sunday, but they spent much of the day helping Susan produce little comfits and sweetmeats and making bows out of the crimson and silver ribbon Hester had found in the haberdashers. ‘If we cut evergreens tomorrow, we can make garlands and swags for the stairs and door cases and mantel-shelves. Set about with candles and these bows, I think it will look very pretty.’

But try as she might, stuffing marchpane into dates, sifting sugar over tartlets and cutting lengths of ribbon were no way to keep the mind occupied. Hester caught herself daydreaming about Guy and only pulled herself together by recalling every damning word he had said about her relationship with John. This made her so angry that she cut six dates completely in half before Miss Prudhome removed the knife from her sticky fingers and advised her to wash her hands and try tying bows for a change.

The clock striking five recalled her to herself to find the others clearing the kitchen table and only three bows in the basket at her feet. The crackle of the fire in the range was conducive to dreaming and the silky slip of the satin over her fingers recalled only too vividly the feel of Guy’s skin under her spread hands.

Hester found from the heat in her cheeks that she was blushing and frantically tried to recall what she had been thinking about. The answer was all too humiliating: Guy’s kisses and how his mouth had felt on hers, how strong his arms were around her, how she wished she had pulled him down on to the spread hay and incited him to take her there in the cold barn that night.

And that would have proved him correct about you, would it not, Hester Lattimer? she told herself savagely, tossing the scissors into the basket and jumping to her feet. ‘Shall we have an early supper and be early to bed? There is much to do tomorrow and we will be up late.’

It was, therefore, only nine o’clock when Susan carried the first of the warming pans upstairs. When she came down again and stood in the doorway it was her silence that arrested their attention. Jethro put down the platter he was polishing, Miss Prudhome her hemming and Hester laid down the book she was trying to concentrate on.

‘What is it, Susan?’ The maid was white as a sheet.

‘Je…Jethro,’ Susan managed, hanging on to the door handle as if to a lifeline. ‘Upstairs… Miss Hester’s bed.’

Hester was on her feet, supporting Susan as Jethro pushed past and ran down the hall. ‘Jethro, wait, I’ll come with you. Maria, help Susan.’

‘No!’ Susan’s hand closed painfully around her wrist. ‘No, you do not want to see it.’

There was the sound of Jethro’s returning footsteps, dragging now, then the lad himself carrying a long glove box. Over it he had draped a linen hand towel.

‘Jethro?’

He moved to put it on the kitchen table, obviously thought better of it and put it on a barrel that was doing duty as a candle stand in one corner. His face was an unhealthy greenish white.

‘Jethro, what is it?’ Hester stretched out a hand and he caught it, echoing Susan’s words.

‘You really do not want to see this, Miss Hester.’

‘If I do not, I swear I am going to scream with suspense.’ Half-expecting some unpleasantness like a dead bird, she shook off Jethro’s hand and flicked off the linen cover.

Lying in the box were the delicate bleached bones of a human hand. Caught in the brittle finger tips was a gauze handkerchief, brown with age, and loose on one finger was a simple pearl ring. Hester dropped the cloth back and managed to drag in a breath. ‘A woman’s hand.’ How was she managing to keep her voice so steady? ‘This is an abomination-are they grave robbing now?’ It was anger, she realised, that was stopping her fainting or screaming or any of the other things Jethro and Susan feared.

Susan was helping an appalled Miss Prudhome to her chair. They were all too horrified at the desecration to be afraid. ‘Jethro, please go and fetch Mr Bunting. If nothing else, this should be lying in the church until we find out where it has been stolen from.’

It seemed an age until the vicar came, grave and anxious beside Jethro. The women sat and waited, eyes averted while he examined the box.

‘This is a truly dreadful thing for anyone to do,’ he said at last, ‘but you may at least rest assured that whoever perpetrated this revolting trick has not committed an act of sacrilege. This, unless I am much mistaken, is part of a skeleton that was stolen from Dr Forrest’s library last week. It is of the kind that every medical student uses to study anatomy. The bones of some poor criminal, I very much fear.’

‘Will you return it to him, Vicar?’ Hester asked. ‘And can I ask you not to say anything of this to anyone other than the doctor? Ask him to keep silent too, if you please. Lord Buckland knows who has been perpetrating a series of unpleasant tricks on this household and is preparing to unmask them. It would not do to give them warning.’

The vicar left at last, bearing the grisly relic and murmuring his distress at such wickedness in his parish. Hester regarded her solemn household. ‘This truly is the limit of what one could imagine those wretches to commit, but they will be unmasked tomorrow. Please do not say anything to Lord Buckland, there is nothing he can do and-’ Her voice broke and she regained control with an effort. ‘Quite frankly, I cannot cope with either his anger or his solicitude if he should discover it.’

‘Where are the pearls, Susan?’ Hester twisted round on her dressing table stool and regarded the maid with an worried frown.

‘Oh, I put them away safely,’ Susan reassured her. ‘Now, you are quite sure about the fern green crepe and not the rose pink satin?’

‘Definitely the fern green.’ Hester rummaged in her jewellery box and lifted out the small box with her diamond ear bobs. ‘And the dark green slippers and the silver drawn-thread scarf.’ She began to brush out her hair, watching Susan in the mirror. ‘Will you take some time to sit down and rest in a minute? I can help Miss Prudhome.’

Susan nodded. ‘I will do. But we’ll be fine once the guests start arriving, it is just that we’ve hardly stopped all day. Now, if you’ll just stand up…’

The gown was slipped on and both young women peered at the neckline. ‘Tighter,’ Susan pronounced, tugging firmly on Hester’s stay-laces until her bosom swelled above the soft floss edging of the low-cut neckline.

‘Oh, yes,’ Susan said with a decided nod. ‘Now that’ll make him sorry!’

She did not have to say who ‘he’ was.

* * *

There was already a small crowd making their way up the front path of the Moon House when Guy walked across with his two guests. He felt unaccountably on edge and spent the few minutes it took to get to the front door to run through his preparations. Nothing had been omitted, everything was as ready as it could be, he was backed up by two very senior magistrates and all the support they could possibly need. So what was he worrying about?

The answer hit him as he came through the front door in the wake of the curate and the Buntings. Hester.

She was standing in the hall directly under the lantern and the light sparked off her diamonds and burnished her hair. Her gown swathed her in a column of green so that she looked fresh and spring-like amidst the darker green of the swags. He had never seen her look lovelier and when she saw him her pale skin became rosy with a soft and charming blush. Should he really despair if he could make her colour like that? Surely she felt something for him still?