Christmas Betrothals. Sophia James

time he did laugh. Two little girls without the weight of the English society rules upon them promised to be interesting indeed. His own childhood had been much the same, a violent father whom he saw only intermittently and a mother who was never well. Perhaps these old people would have been an improvement!

      A noise from one end of the hall had them turning and a child stood there. A thin pale child with the shortest hair he had ever seen on a girl of her age and large blue eyes.

      ‘Charity,’ Mrs Poole said as she walked forwards. ‘You are back early. Come and meet Mr Clairmont, dear, for he is just come from London.’

      The girl’s teeth worried her bottom lip and her light glance was full of anxiety, but she allowed the woman to shuffle her forwards.

      ‘She does not speak as such since the passing of her mother, sir, but she will certainly know you.’

      Did not speak? He had had little to do with children in his life and was at a loss as to how to deal with this one. Still he tried his best. ‘I would like to see your tree house one day.’

      She nodded. At least she understood him without lip reading, her eyes trained upon the floor.

      ‘Her sister, Hope, will not be in till after dark. Will you be staying, sir?’

      He wondered what Hope did for all of the hours of daylight, but with the lack of concern on all the faces before him refrained from asking the question.

      ‘I have not booked passage back to London until the morrow and I think there is much to discuss about this situation.’

      Lizzie Poole looked at her husband and Charity clutched the old lady’s hand tighter, Luc calculating in a second that although there was not a lot here in the way of material richness, love was apparent. For that at least he was glad.

      ‘Jack here will see you to your room, Mr Lucas, and I will go to the kitchen to prepare some dinner. Charity love, will you give me a hand?’

      When the child smiled the sun came out, her deep dimples etched into her cheeks and blue eyes dancing with laughter. A beauty, he thought suddenly, and Lillian Davenport came to mind. This girl had her sort of timeless elegance, even dressed as she was in a gown about two sizes too small and patched everywhere. He wondered what the sister would look like as he followed Jack Poole up the solid oak staircase.

      Dinner consisted of two tiny cooked carcases he presumed to be wild fowl, a bowl full of boiled potatoes and a handful of greenery that looked like the watercress farmers in Virginia grew by the James.

      ‘The land provideth and the Lord taketh away,’ Mrs Poole told him sagely as they sat at a table in the kitchen, the fire in the oven behind a welcome asset to keep out the cold.

      Hope was still outside, he presumed, as her place was empty. Charity sat next to him, her hands folded in her lap as she waited for grace to be said. A long and complex prayer of thanks it turned out to be too, a good five minutes having passed as Lizzie Poole gave acknowledgement for all the things that God had sent them, for their health and hearth and laughter, for the fuel which fed the fire and the earth which supported them. To Luc’s mind she seemed a trifle generous in her praise, the fowl in particular looking like they had seen but three months of life and barely eaten anything in that time. Still, it was refreshing to see gratefulness in small blessings and he wondered what she might say of the overladen London tables should she ever see them.

      Just as they had finished the kitchen door banged open and an older child walked in. She looked nothing like her sister, except for her thin build, her hair a wild tangle of long deep brown curls and her skin darkened by the sun.

      ‘I am sorry to be so late, Lizzie,’ she said, stopping as bright emerald eyes met his own. Another beauty, but of a different mould.

      ‘This is Mr Lucas Clairmont, Hope. He has come from London today to see you and your sister.’

      Hope’s eyes went to Charity’s and a communication passed between them. A silent language of perception and accord.

      ‘Very pleased to meet you, sir.’ She curtsied in a way reminiscent of another age.

      ‘Mrs Poole tells me you spend a lot of time outdoors. What things do you do there?’

      ‘We fish sometimes for the dinner table, and collect this cress. If we are lucky, we bag hares or wild birds and in the spring we steal the eggs from the nests that are low in the hedgerows.’

      ‘So this bounty is your doing?’ he replied, gesturing to the food on the table.

      ‘Some of it is, sir. Winter is the most difficult time to gather, but come spring we can find all sorts of berries and mushrooms and even wild tomatoes.’

      ‘So your sister helps you?’

      ‘Of course.’ She flashed a smile and the other nodded. Tonight Charity appeared a lot more worried than she had a few hours ago but Hope picked up quickly on her fright, settling herself on the other side of the girl and again that wordless communication that excluded everyone in the room.

      ‘They are very close, sir. If anyone were to split them up …’

      ‘I have not come here to do that.’

      ‘This house is the only home they have ever known and were they to be thrown out …’

      ‘I have not come to do that, either.’

      ‘Their mother was perhaps a trifle wild, I realise that, but Charity and Hope have never caused us even a moment’s worry.’

      Luc placed his eating utensils down and laid his hands on the table. ‘Thackeray led me to believe the girls were being looked after in the manner my late wife would have wished them to be. If I had had any notion of the lack of finance you have put up with for the last God knows how many months—’ he stopped as the old lady winced at his profanity ‘—for the last months,’ he repeated, ‘then I would have been up here a lot sooner.’

      ‘So we can stay?’ Hope asked the question, the same emotion as her name easily heard in her voice.

      ‘Indeed you can, and I will see to it as soon as I return to London.’

      He left Woodruff Abbey with all of its inhabitants waving him goodbye and a handful of warm potatoes wrapped in cloth that Charity had given him.

      The first thing he did when he arrived in the city was to tell the elderly Horatio Thackeray that his services as his lawyer were no longer needed, and set an investigator on to the trail of finding where the money had gone. In his stead he hired a younger and more compassionate man whose reputation had been steadily rising in the city.

      ‘So you wish for Woodruff Abbey to be kept in trust for the children?’ David Kennedy’s voice contained a tone in it that could most succinctly be described as incredulous.

      ‘That is correct.’

      ‘You realise of course that once the deed is filed it is binding and you would have no hope of seeing your property back should you change your mind at a later date?’

      ‘I do.’

      ‘You also wish for the monies from the estate to be placed in a fund to see to the running of the Abbey, and for a specified number of servants to be hired to help the older couple?’

      ‘That is right.’

      ‘Then if you are certain that that is what you want and you have understood the finality of such a generous gesture, you must sign here. To begin the process, you understand. I shall get back to you within the month when the deeds are written.’

      A quick scrawl and it was done. Luc replaced the ink pen in its pot and gathered his hat.

      ‘There is one proviso, Mr Kennedy.’

      The lawyer looked startled.

      ‘The proviso is that you tell no one of this.’

      ‘You do not wish others to know of your generosity?’