A Countess by Christmas Read online

  But then her aunt finally opened her eyes.

  ‘Helen?’ she croaked.

  ‘Yes, dear, I am here.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You…had a little faint, I think,’ she said, smoothing a straggling greying lock from her aunt’s forehead. ‘How embarrassing.’

  Her aunt might feel mortified, but the pink that now stole to her hollow cheeks came as a great relief to Helen.

  ‘You will feel better once you have had some tea,’ said Helen. ‘I have rung for some, but so far nobody has come.’

  Lord, they must have been up here for the better part of an hour now! This really was not good enough.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ her aunt sighed. ‘A cup of tea is just what I need. Though even some water would be welcome,’ she finished weakly.

  Helen leapt to her feet. Though the room was small, somebody had at least provided a decanter and glasses upon a little table under a curtained window. Once her aunt had drunk a few sips of the water Helen poured for her and held to her lips, she did seem to revive a little more.

  ‘Will you be all right if I leave you for a short while?’ Helen asked. ‘I think I had better go and see if I can find out what has happened to the maid who was supposed to be coming up here.’

  ‘Oh, Helen, thank you. I do not want to be any trouble, but…’

  ‘No trouble, Aunt Bella. No trouble at all!’ said Helen over her shoulder as she left the room.

  But once she was outside in the corridor the reassuring smile faded from her lips. Her dark eyes flashed and her brows drew down in a furious scowl.

  Clenching her fists, she stalked back along the tortuous route to the main hall, and then, finding it deserted, looked around for the green baize door that would take her to the servants’ quarters.

  She did not know who was responsible, but somebody was going to be very sorry they had shoved her poor dear aunt up there, out of the way, and promptly forgotten all about her!

  The scene that met her eyes in the servants’ hall was one of utter chaos.

  Trunks and boxes cluttered the stone-flagged passageway. Coachmen and postilions lounged against the walls, drinking tankards of ale. Maids and footmen in overcoats clustered round the various piles of luggage, stoically awaiting their turn to be allotted their rooms.

  Helen could see that there must have been a sudden influx of visitors. She could just, she supposed, understand how the needs of one of the less important ones had been overlooked. But that did not mean she was going to meekly walk away and let the situation continue!

  She strode past the loitering servants and into the kitchen.

  ‘I need some tea for Miss Forrest,’ she declared.

  A perspiring, red-faced kitchen maid looked up from where she was sawing away at a loaf of bread.

  ‘Have to wait your turn,’ she said, without pausing in her task. ‘I only got one pair of hands, see, and I got to do Lady Thrapston’s tray first.’

  The problem with having a Frenchman for a father, her aunt had often observed, was that it left Helen with a very un-English tendency to lose her temper.

  ‘Is Lady Thrapston an elderly woman who absolutely needs that tea to help her recover from the rigours of her journey?’ asked Helen militantly. Even though a very small part of her suspected that, since she was the Earl’s oldest surviving sister, Lady Thrapston might well be quite elderly, she felt little sympathy for the unknown woman. She was almost certain that Lady Thrapston was getting preferential treatment because of her rank, not her need. ‘I don’t suppose she dropped down in a dead faint, did she?’

  The maid opened her mouth to deny it, but Helen smiled grimly, and said, ‘No, I thought not!’ She seized the edge of the tray that already contained a pot, the necessary crockery, and what bread the kitchen maid had already buttered. ‘Miss Forrest has been lying upstairs, untended, for the best part of an hour. You will just have to start another tray for Lady Thrapston!’

  ‘’Ere! You can’t do that!’ another maid protested.

  ‘I have done it!’ replied Helen, swirling round and elbowing her way through the shifting mass of visiting servants milling about in the doorway.

  ‘I’ll be telling Mrs Dent what you done!’ came a shrill voice from behind her.

  Mrs Dent must be the housekeeper. The one who by rights ought to have made sure Aunt Bella was properly looked after. It was past time the woman got involved.

  ‘Good!’ she tossed back airily over her shoulder. ‘I have a few things I should like to say to her myself!’

  It was a far longer trek back up to the little round room with a heavy tray in her hands than it had been going down, fuelled by indignation. She set the tray down on a table just inside the door, feeling the teapot to see if it was still at a drinkable temperature.

  ‘My goodness,’ said Aunt Bella, easing herself up against the pillows. ‘You did well! Did you find out what was taking so long?’

  ‘It appears that several other guests have arrived today, and the servants’ hall is in uproar.’

  Her aunt pursed her lips as Helen poured her a cup of tea which, she saw to her relief, was still emitting wisps of steam.

  ‘I should not be a bit surprised to learn that everybody has arrived today,’ she said, taking the cup from Helen’s hand. ‘Given the fact that we have only two weeks for all of us to make our petitions known, while Lord Bridgemere is observing Christmas with his tenants. And it is only to be expected,’ she added wryly, ‘that without a woman to see to the minutiae things are bound to descend into chaos.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Only that he will not have either of his sisters acting as hostess,’ Aunt Bella explained. ‘Absolutely refuses to let them have so much as a toehold in any aspect of his life.’

  ‘He is not married, then?’

  Her aunt sipped at her tea and sighed with pleasure. Then cocked an eyebrow at Helen. ‘Bridgemere? Marry? Perish the thought! Why would a man of his solitary disposition bother to saddle himself with a wife?’

  ‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ said Helen tartly.

  Her aunt clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

  ‘Helen, you really ought not to know about such things. Besides, a man does not need a wife for that.’

  Helen sat down, raised her cup to her lips, took a delicate sip, and widened her eyes.

  ‘I simply cannot imagine where I learned about…men’s…um…proclivities,’ she said. ‘Or why you should suppose that was what I was alluding to.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you can! And I do not know why you have suddenly decided to be so mealy-mouthed.’

  ‘Well, now that I am about to be a governess I thought I had better learn to keep a rein on my tongue.’ Once Helen had made sure the Earl would house her aunt, and provide some kind of pension for her, Helen was going to take up the post she had managed to secure as governess to the children of a family in Derbyshire.

  Her aunt regarded her thoughtfully over the rim of her teacup. ‘Don’t know as how that will be doing your charges any favours. Girls need to know what kind of behaviour to expect from men. If they have not already learned it from their own menfolk.’

  ‘Oh, I quite agree,’ she said, leaning forward to relieve her aunt of her empty cup and depositing it on the tea tray. ‘But perhaps my employers would prefer me not to be too outspoken,’ she added, handing her a plate of bread and butter.

  ‘Humph,’ said her aunt, as she took a bite out of her bread.

  ‘Besides, I might not have been going to say what you thought I meant to say at all. Perhaps,’ she said mischievously, ‘I was only going to remark that a man of his station generally requires…an heir.’

  Quick as a flash, her aunt replied, ‘He already has an heir. Lady Craddock’s oldest boy will inherit when he dies.’

  ‘So that only leaves his proclivities to discuss and disparage.’

  ‘Helen! How could you?’

  ‘What? Be so indelicate?’

  �
�No, make me almost choke on my bread and butter, you wretched girl!’

  But her aunt was laughing, her cheeks pink with amusement, her eyes twinkling with mirth. And Helen knew it had been worth ruffling a few feathers in the servants’ hall to see her aunt smiling again. She would do anything for her dear Aunt Bella!

  But Aunt Bella had still not got out of bed by the time they heard the faint echoes of the dinner gong sounding in the distance.

  ‘I am in no fit state to face them,’ she admitted wearily. ‘Just one more evening before I have to humble myself—is that too much to ask?’

  Aunt Bella had prided herself on maintaining her independence from her family, in particular her overbearing brothers, for as long as Helen had known her.

  ‘All these years I have kept on telling everyone that I am quite capable of managing my own affairs,’ she had moaned when the invitation to the Christmas house party had arrived, ‘without the interference of any pompous, opinionated male, and now I am going to have to crawl to Lord Bridgemere himself and beg him for help!’

  It was quite enough for today, Helen could see, that she was actually under Lord Bridgemere’s roof. It would be much better to put off laying out her dire situation before the cold and distant Earl until she had recovered from the journey.

  ‘Of course not!’ said Helen, stacking the empty cups and plates back on the tray. ‘I shall take these back down to the kitchen and arrange for something to be brought up.’

  She had already asked the boy who had eventually dumped their luggage in the corridor outside their room if it was possible to have a supper tray brought up. He had shrugged, looking surly, from which she had deduced it would be highly unlikely.

  So Helen once more descended to the kitchen, where she was informed by the same kitchen maid she had run up against before that they had enough to do getting a meal on the table without doing extra work for meddling so-and-sos who didn’t know their place. This argument was vociferously seconded by a stout cook.

  ‘Very well,’ said Helen, her eyes narrowing. ‘I can see you are all far too busy seeing to the guests who are well enough to go to the dining room.’ Once again she grabbed a tray, and began loading it with what she could find lying about, already half-prepared. ‘I shall save you the bother of having to go up all those stairs with a heavy tray,’ she finished acidly.

  There were a few murmurs and dirty looks, but nobody actually tried to prevent her.

  In the light of this inhospitality, however, she was seriously doubting the wisdom of her aunt’s scheme to apply to the Earl for help in her declining years. She had voiced these doubts previously, but her aunt had only sighed, and said, ‘He is not so lost to a sense of what is due to his family that he would leave an indigent elderly female to starve, Helen.’

  But the fact that his staff cared so little about the weak and helpless must reflect his own attitude, Helen worried. Any help he gave to Aunt Bella would be grudging, at best. And her aunt had implied that had it not been Christmas it would have been a waste of time even writing to him!

  Thank heaven she had come here with her. She shook her head as she climbed back up the stairs to the tower room, her generous mouth for once turned down at the corners. If she had not been here to wait on her she could just picture her poor aunt lying there, all alone and growing weaker by the hour, as the staff saw to all the grander, wealthier house guests. Helen was supposed to have taken up her governess duties at the beginning of December, but when she had seen how much her aunt was dreading visiting Alvanley Hall, and humbling herself before the head of the family, she had been on the verge of turning down the job altogether. She had longed to find something else nearby, something that would enable her to care for her aunt in her old age as she had cared for Helen as a child, but Aunt Bella had refused to let her.

  ‘No, Helen, do not be a fool,’ Aunt Bella had said firmly. ‘You must take this job as governess. Even if you do not stay there very long, your employers will be able to provide references which you can use to get something else. You must preserve your independence, Helen. I could not bear it if you had to resort to marrying some odious male!’

  In the end Helen had agreed simply to postpone leaving her aunt until after Bridgemere’s Christmas party. After all, she was hardly in a position to turn down the job. It had come as something of a shock to discover just how hard it was for a young lady of good birth to secure paid employment. After all the weeks of scouring the advertisements and writing mostly unanswered applications, the Harcourts had been the only family willing to risk their children to a young woman who had no experience whatsoever.

  ‘I should think,’ her aunt had then pointed out astutely, ‘that if you were to tell them you mean to spend Christmas in the house of a belted Earl they will be only too glad to give you leave to do so. Think what it will mean to them to be able to boast that their new governess has such connections!’

  ‘There is that,’ Helen had mused. The Harcourts were newly wealthy, their fortune stemming from industry, and she had already gained the impression that in their eyes her background far outweighed her lack of experience. Mrs Harcourt’s eyes had lit up when Helen had informed her that not only had her mother come from an old and very noble English family, but her father had been a French count.

  A virtually penniless French count—which was why her mother’s family, one of whom was married to the younger of Aunt Bella’s horrible brothers, had shown no interest in raising her themselves. But Helen hadn’t felt the need to explain that to Mrs Harcourt, who had indeed proved exceptionally amenable to her new governess attending such an illustrious Christmas party.

  That night, though she was more tired than she could ever remember feeling in her whole life, Helen lay in the dark, gnawing on her fingernails, well after her aunt began to snore gently. She did not resent the fact they were having to share a bed yet again. It had been her decision to book only one bed between them on their journey south. It had saved so much money, and given both of them a much needed feeling of security in the strange rooms of the various coaching inns where they had broken their journey. And tonight the room was so cold that it was a blessing to have a body to help her keep warm. Besides, she would not have felt easy leaving Aunt Bella alone for one minute in such an inhospitable place!

  If Lord Bridgemere could employ staff who would so casually ignore a guest who was far from well, it did not bode well for her aunt’s future. Not at all. What if, in spite of her assurance that he would not permit a female relative to suffer penury, Lord Bridgemere decided he could not be bothered with her? What would she do? Helen wished with all her heart she was in a position to look after her aunt. But the reality was that there were precious few jobs available to young ladies educated at home—especially educated with the rather eccentric methods her aunt had employed.

  Aunt Bella had decried all the received wisdom regarding which subjects were appropriate for a girl to learn. Instead, if Helen had shown an interest in any particular topic she had bought her the relevant books or equipment, and hired people who could help her pursue her interest. So she could not teach pupils watercolour painting, or the use of the globe. And the post she had been able to obtain was so poorly paid she would not be able to survive herself were her meals and board not included.

  Not that she minded for herself. She was young and strong and fit. But her aunt’s collapse today had shocked her. She had never thought of Aunt Bella as old and infirm, but the truth was that these last few months had taken their toll. And in a few more years she might well fall foul of some condition which would mean she needed constant care.

  If her cousin’s nephew proved as cold-hearted as Aunt Bella had led her to believe, and as the treatment she had received since arriving appeared to confirm…

  She rolled over and wrapped her arms about her waist.

  Her aunt’s future did not bear thinking about.

  Chapter Two

  She woke with a jolt the next morning, feeling as though she
had not slept for more than a few minutes.

  But she must have done, because the fire had gone out and the insides of the lead paned windows were thick with frost feathers.

  She got up, wrapped herself in her warmest shawl, raked out the grate and, discovering a few embers still glowing gently, coaxed them into life with some fresh kindling. Then she looked around for the means to wash the soot and ash from her fingers. There was no dressing room adjoining their tiny room, but there was a screen behind which stood a washstand containing a pitcher of ice-cold water and a basin.

  Washing in that water certainly woke her up completely!

  She did not want her aunt to suffer the same early-morning shock, though, so, having made sure the coals were beginning to burn nicely, she put the fire guard in place and nipped down to the kitchens to fetch a can of hot water.

  By the time she returned she was pleased to find that the little room had reached a temperature at which her aunt might get out of bed.

  ‘You had better make the most of this while the water is still warm,’ she told her sleepy aunt. ‘And then I shall go and forage for some breakfast.’

  ‘My word, Helen,’ her aunt observed sleepily, ‘nothing daunts you, does it?’

  Helen smiled at her. ‘Thank you, Aunt Bella. I try not to let it.’

  She had discovered within herself a well of ingenuity over these past months, which she might never have known she possessed had they not been so dramatically plunged from affluence to poverty. Seeing her aunt so upset by their losses, she had vowed to do all she could to shield the older woman from the more beastly aspects of losing their wealth. She had been the one to visit the pawnbrokers, and to haggle with tradespeople for the bread to go on their table. Not that they had been in any immediate danger of starving. So many of the towns-people had banked with the Middleton and Shropshire that a brisk system of bartering had soon come into being, which had done away with the immediate need for cash amongst its former clients. The silver apostle spoons, for instance, had gone to settle an outstanding grocer’s bill, and the best table linen had turned out to be worth a dozen eggs and half a pound of sausages.