A Dangerous Nativity

Chapter 7, Scene 5

Will wished desperately that Catherine stood at his side two days later, when Sylvia soaked his neck-cloth and sobbed all over his jacket. Three boys looked on with wide eyes and troubled expressions.

"The boys meant no harm," he murmured. What can I say to heal this madness?

"Truly, we didn't, Mama," Charles said. Hands still holding pine branches hung at his side. "I invited Randy and Freddy to help make the Hall look festive."

Sylvia's muffled reply was unintelligible. The boy continued desperately, "It's just that Songbird Cottage looks ever so festive, and we never do anything—" he groped for a word, "fun. We never laugh," he finished, anguish in his voice.

Sylvia lifted her head and took a look at her son. "But Charles, we're in mourning."

Charles raised a defiant, if trembling, chin. "We've been in mourning my whole life."

She gasped, and Will braced for another outburst. What she said next surprised him.

"We have, haven't we? Ten years of mourning. Never any joy. No smiles over dinner. No guests. Never any holiday greens. No Christmas pudding. No Twelfth Night revels, not here, not with family. No joy. Even Boxing Day felt like a court ceremony, and no one ever told me the rules." She gave a little hiccup and put her head on Will's shoulder. "I always got them wrong."

He hugged her close.

"Oh, Will, do you remember how Father used to make the household laugh on Boxing Day?" she asked.

"I remember. I didn't think you did. Do you remember how Mother organized Twelfth Night revels?"

Sylvia cried again, but with less desperation. To Will, it felt like the soul-shaking cry of mourning. She mourned, he suspected, the loss of youth, family, and joy, not her husband. He gathered her close and spoke to the boys over her shoulder.

"You're right to bring joy to this house, Charles, but perhaps the grand foyer is not the place to start." It will take more than the boys' efforts at decoration to make this monstrosity feel human. "I suggest you start with the nursery."

Charles's face fell, but he complied. He picked up one pile of branches. "Come up with me, Randy and Freddy. At least upstairs, no one will interrupt us."

"Wait, boys," Will said. You could also decorate the family parlor. Celebrations belong best with family, no?"

"Famous, Charles! We'll all be there, won't we, my lord?" Randy looked at Will hopefully.

"You certainly will. We'll all be together tomorrow night." I have no idea how I'll make sure joy outweighs grief, but I'm damn well going to try. "There will be gifts," he said with a wink.

"Excellent notion!" Charles exclaimed.

"Come on, Charles. A parlor will be easier to do, anyway," Freddy suggested. "We were going to need a big ladder for this one, and that Stowe liked to have apoplexy when we brought in the greens." He looked around the cavernous foyer. "It would be a good place for the nativity pageant, though."

"Don't even think about it," Will called over Sylvia's shoulder at the retreating boys.

In the boys' absence, Sylvia's quiet weeping echoed off the walls. "Come, dear one, let's go upstairs." He kept an arm around his sister's shoulders while he led her to the stairs. "Were the decorations so terrible?"

"They aren't terrible at all," she said, her voice thick with tears. "It reminded me of Chadbourn Park. Emery never allowed it. He never allowed us to celebrate."

"I thought Emery liked his pleasures."

"He spent the weeks at house parties, but he left orders. Once, I put up holly in the parlor and took it down before he returned."

"Good for you."

"Stowe told him. Emery beat me and turned off the two servants who helped. I never did it again. He hated me." He felt a tremor go through her body and wished his late brother-in-law to one of the lower rungs of Hell. At least she finally said the words, he thought.

When they reached her room, Will took her face in his hands. "Someday, Sister, when you are ready, you will tell me everything, and I will tell you again how very sorry I am that I didn't protect you from that man."

She smiled sadly. "He was my husband. He had every right. You could do nothing."

Her words didn't assuage his guilt, but they fed his determination to make it up. "He's gone, you know. Make yourself believe it. If you let him continue to blight your existence, you give him power over you still. Don't do it. Flourish, instead. Your revenge will be joie de vivre."

A twist of her mouth almost looked like a smile.

"Disobey his every rule, Sylvia. Defy his every unreasonable dictate." He leaned his forehead to hers. "Fly free."

"Such as entertaining Lord Arthur's family?"

"Absolutely."

"But there's something about that woman, Catherine ..."

"Whatever it is, if it came from Emery, it is poison, and we will not let it blight our lives!"

She nodded, but Will wasn't convinced that she meant it.

When his sister shut the door, he slumped against the wall. She looked skeptical and, he suspected, afraid. Catherine's words came back to him. "Give her time." He couldn't undo eleven years of damage in a few months.

How am I to endure years of this? If he had to do it alone, he couldn't bear it.

For now, he had boys to oversee. I need to remind them to hang mistletoe. A smile took hold, and he stood a bit taller. He hurried to the family parlor.