That Silent Night (2 page)

Or, rather, the absence of what I saw. No footprints marked the place where I had seen her stand. The snow, untouched and undisturbed, bore no evidence of her presence.

I looked around one more time, still unable to find any trace of her. If I had felt a chill before, while inside, I now trembled with a cold that penetrated my bones too deeply to be credited only to the weather. Defeated, and decidedly unsettled, I went back to the house, brushing the snow from my dress while I waited for Davis to come to the door. In my haste to leave, I had quite forgot it would lock behind me.

“Good evening, madam,” he said, his carriage erect and his manners a study of perfection. “I trust you have enjoyed your evening constitutional. I shall have your bath drawn at once as hot water and, if I may be so bold, a drop of brandy are the only things likely to restore you to warmth after your adventure.”

“Thank you, Davis,” I said. “It is very good of you to make the suggestion. Do send the brandy up at once.” Very little I did scandalized him any longer. This was not because I had become more ordinary over the years, but rather because he had become accustomed to my eccentricities.

Colin's work must have required more time than he anticipated, as he did not come looking for me until I had already spent at least a quarter of an hour submerged in the tub, my teeth still chattering from the cold.

“I had no idea you planned to bathe,” he said.

“Nor did I,” I said, and recounted for him the details of my little excursion. He listened attentively, and then pulled a thick towel from its heated rack and motioned for me to step out of the bath. I shook my head. “I am too cold to move.”

“I can think of a better way to get you warm.” He turned his head at the sound of a muffled knock coming from our bedroom door that heralded the arrival of a maid with my brandy. After collecting it from her, he returned to me and again urged me out of the tub.

“Have you no comment at all about this mysterious woman?” I asked, succumbing to his request. With the towel, he blotted the water pouring off me.

“You are positively frozen, my dear,” he said. “Do not go out again without a coat. Whatever can you have been thinking?”

“The woman, Colin,” I said, grabbing the towel from him. Irritated now, I finished drying myself off and slipped a voluminous white nightgown over my head.

“My dear, you have been reading the work of your favorite sensational novelist all evening,” he said. “Can it come as a surprise to anyone who knows you that afterward, when you peered out the window into the snowy night, you saw the ghostly figure of a lonely woman, cold and in need of that sort of assistance of which you are all too fond of offering to whomever will accept it?”

“I do not appreciate the implication that she is a creation of my imagination,” I said.

“I do not suggest you did it deliberately, Emily,” he said. “I would instead say that she sprung off the pages of whatever wretched book you bought at Hatchards.”

“
His Darling Sin,
if you must know, and it contains nothing that would inspire the figure I saw from the library window,” I said. “It tells the tale of a devastatingly attractive young widow whose reputation is at stake due to the impertinent gossip of society.”

“I believe I have already lived that story,” Colin said, and pulled me close.

I ignored this observation. “Lady Perivale is accused—“

“I am not interested in Lady Perivale.” His subsequent actions proved the veracity of this statement and had the further effect of causing me to lose all interest in Mrs. Braddon's protagonist as well, temporarily at least.

*   *   *

By the time we awakened the next morning—disastrously late, it must be admitted—the snow had all but paralyzed London. We descended to our cheerful breakfast room, where a Roman mosaic I had purchased near Pompeii adorned the walls. I sipped my tea and munched on toast spread with butter and ginger marmalade while studying the image of Apollo in his chariot. Colin applied himself to an enormous plate of bacon and eggs. His exertions of the night before had, evidently, left him famished, and so focused was he on his meal and his morning paper that he hardly looked up when Davis entered the room.

“A new neighbor from down the road has sent a servant to inquire whether we might be in a position to spare any coal,” the butler said. “Evidently Mr. Leighton and his wife returned from a visit abroad yesterday and had not planned to stay in town overnight, but the weather forced a change of plans and it seems their servants had not the sense to keep an adequate amount of fuel on hand.” Davis' tone made it utterly clear that he would never allow such a thing to occur in a household under his charge.

“Is there none to be had except from us?” Colin asked, folding his copy of the
Times.

“The snow has made delivery difficult,” Davis said.

“Of course,” Colin said, waving his hand. “Whatever they need, send it over at once.”

“Very good, sir.” Davis gave a dignified bow and left us.

“Are we acquainted with the Leightons?” I asked. “I do not recognize the name, but so many new people have moved into Park Lane recently I find it all but impossible to keep track of who lives where.”

“I blame Rothschild,” Colin said.

“Several members of that family live in Piccadilly, not Park Lane,” I said. “Hence the ludicrous nickname given to the former: Rothschild Row.”

“I refer, my dear, to the nouveau riche in general.”

“When did you become such a snob?” I asked.

“Do not mistake me,” he said. “I like the old rich no better. Leighton, though, is a decent enough chap. I met him once at my club. Someone had brought him as a guest. I believe he only recently married.”

“Then the Leightons' return from abroad must mark the end of their wedding trip,” I said. “How awful for his bride to make her triumphant arrival to an unprepared house. And the poor servants! They could never have anticipated this storm. We should invite Mr. and Mrs. Leighton to dine with us tonight.”

“No doubt the invitation would come as a relief to both master and servant,” Colin said.

I duly wrote a short note to Mrs. Leighton, apologizing for the informality of my introduction, and sent it over to her with the servants carrying our coal. The speed of her reply and the number of exclamation points employed conveyed great enthusiasm, and even before she and her husband had entered the house, I had formed a picture of her in my mind as an eager young lady, delighted at the prospect of the new life that lay before her. I imagined blushing cheeks and a dewy complexion accompanying a bubbling personality.

As such, I was taken aback when Davis brought the couple into the sitting room that evening. That Mrs. Leighton was young could not be debated, but her thin face, with wide eyes, a long, narrow nose, and pinched lips were miles away from what I had expected. Colin and Mr. Leighton settled in comfortably at once, talking about whatever it is gentlemen of casual acquaintance discuss, but I found myself having the greatest difficulty in getting Mrs. Leighton to say much of anything.

“I understand you have just arrived home from being abroad,” I said. “Were you on your wedding trip?”

“No,” she said.

“A holiday, then?” I asked.

“Of sorts.” She stared down at her hands, clutched in her lap.

“I adore Paris,” I said. “Were you there?”

“Only to change trains.”

I will not repeat the rest of the conversation. Suffice it to say it had not improved by the time Davis returned to announce dinner and, as a result, I felt relief when I handed her off to Colin so that he might escort her to the dining room.

Mr. Leighton, who took my arm, spoke in a low tone as we walked. “I do apologize, Lady Emily, for my dear Penelope. We have just returned from Switzerland, where she was taking a cure for her nerves. I am afraid it proved less effective than I had hoped.” That he spoke so freely to a relative stranger about his wife's condition shocked me, and he must have read my feelings on my face. “I would not mention it except that I would not have you think her ungrateful for the attention you pay to us by inviting us here tonight. It is so good of you. Our cook will be forever grateful, as she had nothing on hand except what she planned to serve the staff.”

“It is our pleasure, Mr. Leighton.” We had only two footmen in the house—the rest were at Anglemore—and they held out chairs for us ladies while the gentlemen seated themselves. Because we were a small party, I had directed Davis to set the table with two places on each side of the center of the long table. As a nod both to the season and the snow, I had decided not to use the electric lights (which I found sometimes unreliable during storms), and instead caused the room to be lit only by gleaming silver candelabras with holly wrapped around their bases, its dark green leaves and bright red berries lending a festive air to the scene.

Mr. Leighton, a man of property and the youngest child of a father who had earned a fortune in the City, where he now employed in his firm all four of his sons, looked to be about five and twenty, but he spoke with an enthusiasm that made him seem much younger. That he doted on his bride was evident, and although she said very little during the course of our meal, the warmth in her grey eyes when she looked at him hinted that they shared a deep affection.

By the time the footmen brought in our final course, I had all but given up on being able to draw Mrs. Leighton into conversation, and had instead done my best to make her feel included by peppering her with little compliments. As she looked with dismay at the Grand Marnier soufflé placed in front of her, I worried that she did not care for the dish, but when she burst out laughing, I was so startled that I dropped my fork.

“Do forgive me,” she said. “Emmett and I had the most dreadful soufflés in this terrible little town in Switzerland— Do you remember the name of the restaurant, darling?—by which I do not mean to criticize your excellent food, Lady Emily, as I can already tell these soufflés are a far superior breed.”

Colin's chiseled features showed no emotion, but the mere fact that he met my eyes and did not immediately look away told me that he felt as astonished as I. Perhaps it was the effect of wine, for we had had champagne with our starters and a very fine claret with our beef, but the change in her was remarkable.

“There, now, my darling Pen, I knew you would enjoy this evening,” Mr. Leighton said, all smiles and affability.

“I imagine this is what those horrid little things aspired to be,” she said. She had hardly eaten anything all night, picking at each dish, but this she devoured almost without pausing to draw breath.

Ordinarily, I never leave the gentlemen to port and cigars after dinner, as I am fond of both things, as well as the conversation that generally accompanies them, but tonight, I did just that. Colin, startled, rose to his feet when I stood and smiled.

“We shall leave you to your port,” I said, leading Mrs. Leighton out of the room.

Do not think, Dear Reader, that I had lost hold of my senses, or that I had abandoned my passion for port and my firm belief that women should have the same rights and privileges as men. When we reached my favorite sitting room, I called for Davis, who was as shocked as my husband to find I had abandoned the gentlemen, and asked him to bring sherry for Mrs. Leighton and port for me—I had not pressed her when she refused my offer of the latter. I wanted to spend some time with this enigmatic lady away from the company of her husband, whose ebullient personality quite eclipsed her own.

The strategy, I still believe, was sound, but proved fruitless. No topic of conversation brought back to her character the brief animation sparked by the soufflé, and I found myself sighing with relief when the gentlemen joined us for coffee and shared the burden of conversation. Something about Mrs. Leighton tugged at me, but I could not quite make sense of it until we stood with them at the front door, bidding them adieu and sending them off into the snowy night. As they lived only three doors down from us, they would walk home—I had ordered the footmen to make sure the pavement between our houses was clear—and we waved to them as they set off.

“No carolers tonight,” Colin said. “I am immensely fond of snow. Only think if we had a blizzard…”

I hardly heard the rest of what he said, because Mrs. Leighton, at the urging of her husband, turned back toward us—presumably he wanted her to wave, as he was, but she only stood, motionless. And then I saw it: the uncanny resemblance to the woman I had seen the previous evening. I shuddered.

*   *   *

“No, Emily, you will not convince me that Mrs. Leighton was standing out in the snow last night. Particularly as you were most insistent, if you recall, that whoever it was you observed left no footprints,” Colin said. We had retired to the library after our guests' departure, and were playing chess.

“If it was not Mrs. Leighton, who was it?”

“I cannot speak to the specific identity of the individual, but I can assure you it was not a ghost, if that is what you are getting at,” he said. “Ghosts, my dear, are at worst a figment of weak imaginations and at best a useless attempt at reconciling oneself with death.”

“Even Christians believe in spirits,” I said. “Demons, at any rate. We do not know everything about the world, even if we do live in an age of science.”

“If this, Emily, is nothing more than an attempt to distract me so that you might—at last—beat me, I warn you it will not work.”

“I do not like to beat you because it puts you in a foul mood,” I said. “It is much easier to let you win.”

“Let me win? Quite,” he said, picking up his queen and swiftly placing her back onto the board. “Mate in two if you don't make the right move.”

I sighed. “You are far better at this than I. My talents lie elsewhere.”