Page 27 of The Twelve Days of Christmas

‘Was simply a wedding bouquet,’ said Esther firmly.

‘Nothing more. Now come, Miss Rosalie. You cannot stay in your room until Twelfth Night, or punish your mother by acting in such a maudlin manner. She meant only to put you on your guard, and if she is proven wrong about the duke’s past conduct then no harm has been done.

If Sir Robert is sincere in his attentions, they shall not wane after one London season.

You need only wait a few months, need you not? ’

For a long moment, Esther was not sure if her machinations had been successful. But soon enough Miss Rosalie sniffed heartily and sat up straight, pinning a small smile upon her dry lips.

‘Thank you, Mrs Wilson.’

‘You are welcome, Miss Rosalie. Now then …’ Esther hesitated. ‘Shall I send for a maid? Since Miss Partridge is no longer your abigail Miss Hart has acted in her place, but I’m afraid she is unavailable at present. I can, however, arrange for another of the maids to attend you.’

‘That would be nice.’

‘Very good.’

Esther rose then from the bed, and crossed Miss Rosalie’s bedroom to reclaim the basket on the floor.

‘What’s in the basket?’

‘Golden eggs, Miss Rosalie. For tonight’s festivities.’

‘Oh.’ The girl’s face fell. ‘The treasure hunt. I forgot.’ Her shoulders slumped. ‘I never win the crown. ’Tis most unfair. Maria always gets a head start on me and she gloats dreadfully when she wins.’

‘Well, miss,’ said the housekeeper. ‘I have yet to hide one egg … I can help you, if you like, if you promise not to tell.’

‘Oh, Mrs Wilson! Truly?’

Miss Rosalie’s face was in that moment lit up like a candelabrum.

‘Of course.’ Esther returned to the bed, deposited the basket upon it. ‘Mark, Miss Rosalie, that I shall hide the egg on the landing, by the gold cherub. But here is the riddle, if you wish to solve it now.’

Esther removed the slip of paper on which was written Mr Marmery’s conundrum, and together housekeeper and Pépin daughter leant in to read it:

As to my age, if you had never heard,

You’d think me ancient by my hoary beard;

Yet my existence will so short appear,

I never yet was known to live a year,

Unless in climates far from Briton’s shore,

Where I have lived for ages heretofore.

At my approach I make the stoutest yield,

And cause whole armies to quit the field.

The footman had done rather well; the riddle was clever, Esther did concede, and though the housekeeper could not consider herself an intellect, she surely possessed a great deal of logic and saw plain the answer. Miss Rosalie, however, looked perplexed.

‘What could it be, Mrs Wilson? I cannot conceive of it.’

‘Why, Miss Rosalie,’ said Esther, with more patience than she felt. ‘The answer is Frost .’

The girl stared down at the riddle a moment before her face cleared.

‘Frost. Yes, of course,’ she said with a nod, but in a tone that suggested to Esther the girl did not understand at all.

But then Miss Rosalie raised her head and smiled at the older woman, and in that moment the housekeeper realised it hardly mattered.

She had succeeded in comforting the girl, and had even (with luck) averted disaster.

‘You know, Mrs Wilson,’ said Rosalie now, as the housekeeper crossed the room once again to the bedroom door. ‘You aren’t anywhere near as heartless as all the maids say you are.’

Esther stopped. The shot of hurt she felt was most unexpected, but she managed to keep her expression a blank as she turned to face the girl.

‘Is that so, Miss Rosalie?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ returned she, as if her words had not been so affecting. ‘I’ve heard them often speak of you when they did not know I was about. Only the other day I overheard two of the girls when they were making up my bed.’

‘And what is it they said?’

‘Oh,’ Miss Rosalie breathed, screwing her brows in recollection.

‘Something about a plate being broken. I cannot recall the exact wording, only that they called you hard and unkind, and heartless, as I said. But they are wrong, Mrs Wilson.’ The youngest Pépin daughter smiled widely, and in all genuine innocence.

‘I am glad to find you are perfectly lovely after all.’

Perfectly lovely . The words made her wince, and to hide it Esther forced a smile.

She wondered which of the maids had spoken thus. Any one of the uppers could have witnessed the incident with Lowdie Lucas and the periwinkle plate. Still, it did not matter. Not really. As has already been marked, Esther did not require her servants to like her.

Did she?

‘Good day, Miss Rosalie,’ Esther said, curt. ‘I hope you enjoy the treasure hunt.’ And as the housekeeper shut the bedroom door behind her, she was mortified to find that she wanted to cry.

Esther had not meant to fall in love with Theophilus Heysten, but then, no woman ever means to fall in love.

Often it comes upon one in unexpected ways, and Esther – beyond her sheltered childhood in which the only man she had ever known was her father – had not sought the attentions of the opposite sex.

The opposite sex, however, wasted no time in seeking hers, and so overwhelmed was she (being then so very young and new to service), it never once occurred to her that a man of Lord Heysten’s position could not truly mean to go through with his promises.

Looking back, Esther could see how very foolish she was to have supposed such a thing possible, but at the time she had lost all sense of reason.

To discover she was with child had been a great shock, which twisted into shame and regret when she learnt that the gentleman had no wish to acknowledge either her or the baby.

Heysten Park’s butler, Thomas Wilson – who had not ceased in his own attentions from the very moment Esther commenced her engagement as a housemaid – had given her the means to avoid ruination and keep her place at Heysten, but he soon revealed himself to be a cruel, hot-blooded man with a fist like granite on the occasions he chose to employ it, which – after the loss of her child, a poor scrap of a boy that slipped out of her so small and silent one Christmas morning – he did to great effect.

It was to Esther’s profound relief that Thomas died of smallpox three years later, leaving her only with bitter memories and ugly scars.

In the housekeeper’s room just off the servants’ hall, Esther sat ruminating in her armchair by the crackling fire, Mr Palamedes – perhaps the only creature at Wakely Hall who the housekeeper suspected found her company even remotely tolerable – lying in feline stupor at her feet.

The flames crackled and fizzed where they held within their blaze the sprig of mistletoe Esther had removed from beneath the grand staircase, and she looked at its charred remnants with displeasure.

The Romans considered the plant symbolic of peace, of understanding (so the old Lord Heysten once revealed as he kissed her passionately beneath it).

Symbolic of love. Esther scoffed. Love. Such a simple word, but one that held the power to cause so much pain and make those thwarted by it hard. Unkind.

Heartless.

Esther was not heartless. She never raised a hand to her charges and her punishments served to teach a lesson. Yes, Esther consented, she was an exacting woman, but it was the role of a housekeeper to run a strict household, was it not? Three rules, she had, and all perfectly reasonable:

—Keep a civil tongue in one’s head.

—Act with propriety and decorum.

—Work to the high standards expected within a country manor.

These rules were no different than any to be found in an estate of quality, and Esther was convinced they did not make her heartless, yet that was what the maids thought of her.

Miss Rosalie said so.

At her feet the ginger cat stretched. The housekeeper sighed.

Esther had served as housekeeper for over thirty years – she arrived on the doorstep of Wakely Hall barely two weeks out of widow’s weeds, determined to start afresh and leave the unhappiness of Heysten Park behind her, and this Esther thought she had done.

Life trickled along like the rain that slid down Wakely’s gutters, and servants came and went, as so often they might in a grand household such as this.

The Pépins had no butler, not after Mr John Denby passed on; Esther was perfectly capable of running such a sizeable house entirely by herself, and disinclined to suffer the company of another butler who might wish to undermine her as Thomas so often had.

Viscount Pépin graciously agreed when the matter was put to him, and it can be confidently said that Wakely Hall had not once suffered under her guiding hand.

She had, Esther knew, done her best. Strict, yes, but always fair.

So why did she feel so distressed by Miss Rosalie’s words?

A knock upon the door made Mr Palamedes jump.

‘Come in,’ Esther said tiredly and half-turned in her seat, expecting to see Mrs Denby who often at the hour of five brought the housekeeper a pot of tea, but the person at the door was not the cook at all but Miss Lucas, carrying a tray which she placed now on the small table beside Esther’s chair.

A plate holding a mince pie was set upon it, together with the expected teapot and teacup but also a glass, the pale steaming contents of which she did not recognise. The housekeeper raised a thin eyebrow.

‘Where is Mrs Denby?’

The maid hesitated. ‘She asked if I would come in her stead, ma’am.’

Esther frowned at both Miss Lucas’ hesitation and her words. The cook, then, must have taken her uncharitable comment earlier far more to heart than the housekeeper had realised.

‘And what is this?’ she asked, gesturing at the glass, and the reply that came was guarded.

‘Warm cinnamon milk, Mrs Wilson. Mrs Denby is trying something new. She … she thought you might like it.’

Esther swallowed.