A Christmas Conspiracy (8 page)

“Fanny!” Giles exclaimed, looking up at her at last, and half rising from his seat. “I did not see you there. Pray, sit down.”

“Good morning, Giles,” she smiled with what she hoped was tranquility. Feeling more than a little awkward in her unsuitable costume, she picked up her gown’s demi-train and entered the room. Rather than face his probing gaze immediately, she stopped a moment, at the buffet, poured herself some coffee and selected a few items from the various covered dishes. Then she sat down beside him.

A few more moments passed in silence, punctuated only by the ticking of the mantel clock. Unconsciously mirroring her husband, Fanny pushed the bits of food about on her plate, lifted her cup, stared into its depths, and set it down again untasted.

“Do you think the weather will clear?” she asked him at last.

He looked up at her, startled. “You mean to go on then?”

“I do not know,” she answered simply. “I ... I am unsure of my welcome.”

Unsure, himself, of the answer, Giles rose and walked to the window where he stood gazing out at the grounds for some minutes. To the west he could see another bank of heavy clouds crouched on the horizon. No, the weather would not clear soon. She must stay, welcome or not. He glanced back at her, sitting quietly in her oddly chosen ensemble, the epitome of what drove him to near madness: beauty, eccentricity, and absolute defiance of conventionality. He could not tell whether he felt more like abandoning all wisdom and clasping her to his heart in spite of everything, or turning from her and raising another wall of defense about his heart.

When at last he faced her, he merely said, “This is, after all, your home, Fanny.”

She smiled ruefully. “That’s as may be, Giles, but that fact does not make my welcome here any more or less apparent. What is it to be, Giles? If I have been unwise in coming, pray instruct me to keep to my chamber until I can make my remove. Or else,” she said, the firmness of her voice belying the quaking of her heart, “let me be a part of this family again, if only for the holiday.”

He paced a few moments more before turning to answer her. “I am past knowing what wisdom is, Fanny,” he confessed.

“And I,” she replied, lifting her chin a fraction of an inch, “have never had a grain. Perhaps we must ask our daughters what is best to do.”

He looked at her in mild surprise.

“
That,”
he replied dryly, “would be exceedingly efficient, for we should be assured that their suggestions must reflect nothing but sheerest folly.”

“Why, Father!”

Sir Giles and his wife were startled to find that their daughters stood in the doorway, looking the very picture of wounded, youthful pride.

“It is quite true,” Tavie protested tremulously, “we have had our troubles in the past, but you must own, Father, we have been pattern cards of propriety these last two or three days!”

“Ah, a record
ne plus ultra!”
Sir Giles congratulated them. “Forgive me for having slighted your efforts.”

Fanny, well aware of her daughters’ most recent transgressions, held her smile in check as the twins sniffed self-righteously. After only a few more wounded looks cast in their father’s direction, however, they allowed themselves to be mollified.

“What Mama says is right,” Genie declared with conviction. “Perhaps it would be best if you
were
ruled by us.”

Giles and Fanny exchanged a momentary glance of comradely dismay. “Pray explain yourselves,” he requested.

Here we are being given an unlooked for opportunity, Genie! What shall we say?

We must be very cautious. We should not want to arouse their suspicions.

Indeed not! That would ruin everything. They must think we are quite pure in our motives.

Why so we are, Tavie—almost. Now, what think you of playing the wronged children who long for their parents’ reconciliation?

That is not playacting. That is merely authenticity. Although,
she hesitated for a moment,
perhaps we could not suffer by merely telling the truth of it. Not the whole truth, mind you, Genie, but some part of it.

What a novel concept! Carry on!

“Father,” Genie began tentatively, lowering her eyes. “Mama. Tavie and I do not wish to give offense. But we feel impelled to tell you the truth of how we feel.”

“The truth will not offend us,” their father returned gravely. “Pray, proceed.”

“These years have been . . . difficult . . . for us,” she said, lowering her eyes. When she looked up, tears glistened in them. “We do not know what occurred to make you so unhappy with one another, but know you have not suffered alone.
We
have felt rent to our very cores by your troubles. Beneath these gay exteriors,” she said wistfully, taking Tavie’s arm, “are concealed the broken hearts of two orphan girls—orphans of the heart!”

Taking up this tune, Tavie chimed in, “Our imprudent escapades, you must know, have been naught but cries for you to restore our life as a family to us. We need our own Mama, Father!”

“Not,” Genie said in tones of distress, “a person named Walleye!”

“Walleye?” Fanny exclaimed with mock incredulity. “There’s a
person
named Walleye?”

“We shall speak of Miss Walleye another time,” their father said evenly.

I fear you have gone too far!
Tavie scolded.

What a tangle! I had not the least intention of saying that noxious name again today, but out it came like an ill-trained dog!

“Your pardon, Father,” Genie said demurely. “Mama? Have you asked Father yet?”

Giles turned to her. “What is it you wish to ask me, Fanny?”

“A favor,” she said softly avoiding his eye. “I had wondered, if it were not possible to revive the Christmas masque—for old time’s sake?”

“We have not let go the masque,” he replied.

“Truly? But remember how you and I used to take part. Do you not think we might again?”

The twins held their breath.

Their father was silent a moment. “For old time’s sake?” he asked at last. “Why not?”

The girls clapped their hands. “We shall begin writing at once!”

Chapter Nine

“It must be a romantic masque,” Genie mused, staring at the blank sheets of paper before her, “but what is to be the story?”

“Antony and Cleopatra?” Tavie suggested.

“Only if we wish our mama to avail herself of an asp!”

“Abelard and Heloïse?”

“No. The only letters in
this
episode are the ones we composed.”

“Romeo and Juliet?”

“Too young.”

Tavie frowned and began to pace. “Pyramus and Thisbe?”

“Too gruesome.”

“Tristan and Isolde?”

“Too gothic! Oh, Tavie,” she cried, throwing down her quill, “it must be something quite original, I am afraid. Something that depicts their particular difficulties—but so subtly they will not guess what we are about.”

“I believe you have the right of it.” Tavie sighed disconsolately. “It is a shame we must leave out all mention of wagering and bad blood and daughters, for they would surely guess at that. I daresay we might tell the rest of their story, however, if we are but careful to change their names and ages.”

“How clever you are! Instead of daughters, they shall have sons . . .”

“Oh, do let’s make them princes, Genie—it is so much more romantic!”

“Perhaps some mythological setting? It will seem no more than a homely fable.”

“What fun! The sons will be princes of Bohemia then. And Mama and Father will be King and Queen.”

“And an evil courtier named ... I have it!—Eyewall! . . . will have set them at odds for his own diversion—”

“And thereby hopes to gain the kingdom!”

“Now, what will our parents be called?”

* * * *

“Queen Worthy and King Blynde?” Giles had entered the drawing room where his wife sat repairing one of Genie’s attempts at needlework, and shut the door behind him. Her copy of the manuscript lay beside her on a table.

Fanny smiled, but kept her eyes trained on her work. “Yes, I have come off the winner, on paper, at any rate.”

“What do you mean?”

“Merely that, instead of the usual Christmas masque, the girls have written us an allegory to perform,” she told him. “It would seem they believe you ‘blynde’ to my ‘worth.’ ”

Giles flipped quickly through the sheaf of paper, frowning more deeply as he did so. “To think, they would have had us perform this farce before the entire household! Had you any idea this was what they were up to?”

Fanny avoided his question, biting back the smile that played rebelliously at her lips. “It would seem you are not amused.”

“It is difficult to achieve that state,” he said ruefully, “when one is cast unfairly as the villain. You must know, Fanny, I have never castigated you before them. Indeed, I have taken great care that they not know the particulars of our troubles.”

Self-righteous, wasn’t he? she mused. And oblivious. In short, a man. “Perhaps you have not explained in so many words, but, although the girls were mere children when I left, Giles, they were neither deaf nor blind.”

“They were away at school most of that time,” he said doggedly.

“Yes, and what did they come home to at holiday?”

“We maintained our civility before them,” he insisted.

“And a cold civility it was. As I recall,” she said quietly, “you spent your own childhood similarly situated. Have you memories of your parents?”

He turn away from her. “What is that to do with anything?”

“Do not be obtuse, Giles!” Fanny cried impatiently, remembering forcefully the way in which many of their other quarrels had begun. “You know very well what I mean. Children are quite sensible—more so than their parents, too often—to the tempests blowing about them.”

“So,” he said stiffly. “You are saying the girls may be correct in their characterization of me?”

“Nonsense! I did not mean that at all. Now, do come off your high horse, Giles! You will drive me to distraction. I vow, you were not always so uppish! I merely say that, whatever the girls’ memories are, they seem to have interpreted them in this particular light. I readily admit that casting me as a heroine in this farce is very nearly as ludicrous as making a villain of you. We both made mistakes, mine in judgment, yours in jumping to conclusions and refusing to hear me out.”

“Well, what in heaven’s name was I to think, Fanny?” he muttered wretchedly. “I had forgiven you a hundred times, yet still you must fling your flirtations in my face. There could be no acceptable excuse for your behavior.”

“Acceptable to whom?” she retorted, the color rising in her cheeks. She threw her needlework to the floor. “You never even allowed me the courtesy of making an explanation. You passed judgment, condemned and sentenced me in a moment’s time. And when I tried to write to you, you sent my letters back unopened.”

“Good God!” He paced agitatedly before the fire, his ordinarily impassive face a cavalcade of warring emotions. “Do you think it did not tear my heart to do so? But I could not, could
not,
obliterate the image of you in Willoughby’s arms, both of you laughing as if it were some great jest to be thus employed.”

“Did it never occur to you that a word of explanation from me might—”

“Your words of explanation!” he interrupted bitterly. “I had heard them all before. Many of them. But you never changed. I knew I could not look for you to do so.”

“Giles,” she said evenly, “you knew when you married me I was light-hearted, a coquette. Indeed, you would never have paid your addresses had I not encouraged you so scandalously.”

“You allowed me to flatter myself that such comportment would be reserved for me.”

“Indeed,” she returned, tilting her head with disdain, “it might have been, had events not fallen as they did.”

“You mean, had I not foolishly given you free rein to be the toast of London again. But enough. This is old territory for torment. I have no desire to revisit it.” With that, he exited the room.

* * * *

Outside the drawing room, Genie and Tavie ducked hurriedly beneath the staircase as their father strode by. When he had disappeared in the direction of his conservatory, their already heightened anxiety escalated to the next level.

“What a coil!” Genie hissed. “Who could have guessed our lovely masque should have prompted such a fray? I daresay they will not perform it at all now, for all they have promised.”

“So what are we to do? We cannot simply let it go at this. I begin to wonder if we know anything at all about love!”

“Nonsense! Of course we do. It is simply that our parents do not—and it falls to us to instruct them.”

“And stay clear of Father for a bit,” Tavie cautioned. “Do you think it too much to hope he will be too distracted to notice his orchid is missing?”

“I fear it is, for he loves them so. There is nothing for it but to find some dirt and put it on the dog’s paws,” Genie said ungenerously. “Here, let us take some from this potted palm.”

Quickly, Tavie scooped a bit of the soil into a little sewing bag (a more ornamental accessory, to be sure, than practical) which hung from her waist.

“Do you think that is enough?”

“Enough for what, Miss Tavie?”

The twins turned to see Sally approaching them from the corridor whence their father had disappeared. Tavie and Genie exchanged a quick glance. Sally, they knew of old, was not one to carry tales. Indeed, she had even helped them with some of their escapades when she was a young, untried upstairs maid. But still, dared they trust her now?

“Enough,” Genie quickly supplied, “to grow a little window garden—and, to be sure, it is not! Why, Tavie, how can you be so foolish?”

You will see,
her sister fumed at this undeserved condemnation,
when I fill your slippers with honey!

“I see!” Sally said tartly. “A window garden! What a fine endeavor in December. I must say, however, that the two of you seem to be up to some sort of trick. Let me warn you, in Christian kindness, I do not think the master is in any mood to brook mischief from you. Now, if you have any little difficulty you need smoothed, why do you not confide in Sally and see what she can do to help?”