Christmas at Whitefriars: A Novella Read online

  “Cancel the white food for tomorrow. He knows what we’re doing and doesn’t like it.”

  Nick looked amused. “What are we going to do with two gallons of white sauce?”

  “Pretend to be Cleopatra and take a bath in it,” she said in frustration. “In the meantime, pray for good weather tomorrow. He wants to inspect the outbuildings. I think he’s willing to have them renovated.”

  Colin stood by the fireplace, hands shoved in his pockets and brooding. “I don’t like taking on more debt.”

  “And I want to get the bakehouse restored. The crops don’t earn enough to pay for it, so I need you to help me make a good impression on Everett.”

  “Mary, shall we go for a little walk along the parapet? I could use some fresh air.”

  All her senses went on alert, for Colin had adopted the casual deportment of a gentleman at leisure. He was so good at the sangfroid routine, but she could tell he was angry and didn’t want to air it before the others. Neither did she, so she led the way.

  The parapet was a bumpy walk atop on old section of wall that joined the renovated section of the castle with the unrenovated section built in the fifteenth century. It had a splendid view of the grounds, but a chill blew through the air and Colin’s voice was grim.

  “Three days ago this man was threatening to repossess the estate. Now you’ve spent an afternoon in his company and think he’s the mortgage fairy? Father Christmas bearing gifts? Don’t let your guard down. He can still pull the trigger on that clause in the contract at any time. Why don’t you just promise him you won’t lease the tower? We don’t need the money.”

  She kept walking, an angry rush of words swirling inside. Someone like Colin couldn’t understand. From the time they were children, Colin was brave and outgoing, surrounded by friends, the most popular man in any school, weekend party, or gentlemen’s club. While she loved having him here for Christmas, in a week he and all the others would go back to New York, leaving her to roll around this big empty building like a marble in a box. Entirely alone except for a cook, a few stable hands, and a maid from the village who came four days a week. They were employees, not family. It was hard to exist year after year without the warmth and affection of real friends and family. These two weeks at Christmas had to sustain her for the entire year.

  “Please don’t be cross,” she said. “Christmas is my favorite season and I don’t want to spoil it with arguments.”

  “And I don’t want to spoil it with an eviction.”

  She bit her tongue to stop from lashing out. In theory, Colin knew everything she’d done to hold this castle together, but he’d never once risen before dawn to milk the goats or stayed awake through the night to battle rain pouring in through a collapsed ceiling. He never sneezed himself into a migraine while washing moldy tapestries or risked his sanity chasing bats out of the attic. She crossed her arms and glared at the landscape.

  Yes, the watermill looked bad, but she found tenants for it and she loved their company. Likewise, the tenants she found for the gatehouse. Those people were close to being real friends and if she could get the bakehouse fixed, she could lease that, too.

  Colin pointed toward the mill. “The rubble piled outside the watermill looks ramshackle,” he said. “So does the roof of the gatehouse. I agree with Everett that you shouldn’t be leasing the tower while the grounds look this bad. Wait until the place is presentable before you start stuffing the castle with guests.”

  The cork popped off the roiling cauldron of resentment. “That’s very easy for you to say with your multitude of friends and family and babies and fine life in New York. I’m grateful for the revenue from the licensing deal, but Colin! Honestly! You ran off to New York and got married without a word to me! You left me to run this crumbling old estate all by myself. Do you know how terrified I was? How alone and overwhelmed? All the responsibility was on me, and I’ve decided to lease the tower so I can have a smidgeon of human companionship instead of talking to myself like a madwoman shut up in a castle.”

  Colin’s face went white, his mouth a hard line of disapproval. “I didn’t think I needed to consult my little sister about my choice of a wife.”

  He should have if it meant he’d live on the other side of the ocean, but she clamped her mouth shut. She’d already said too much, casting a pall over her favorite time of year.

  “Let’s go rejoin the others,” she said. “I don’t think we are going to convince each other.”

  Colin said nothing as he followed her back inside, but she could sense him bristling the entire way.

  Chapter Four

  Everett found the tower a truly miserable place to spend the night. It was freezing, drafty, and noisy. Only minutes after he opened a book and settled in to read, animals in the chimney began scrabbling about, scratching and thumping. It was surprisingly vigorous, keeping him awake for hours. A fire was out of the question lest he smoke and cook whatever was nesting in the chimney.

  He dragged every coverlet from the armoire to mound atop the bed, but it seemed that each time he began settling in, the wind began howling, whistling through cracks in the newly installed windows. Part of him wanted to ignore it, especially since the wind increased the chill in the room, but he couldn’t. It shouldn’t be too difficult to seal these leaks, but they needed to be identified. He climbed from beneath the warmth of the blankets to shiver while running his palms along the windowsills, side jambs, and casing in search of the leaks. He’d note the spots and report them later.

  He knew in his soul the first thing Mary was going to ask tomorrow morning. With her sunny disposition she would cast him one of those blinding smiles and ask, “How was your night in the tower?”

  He burrowed back under the covers, his hands and feet icy. He would be polite if it killed him. He’d say lots of nice things before pointing out the leaky windows and the need for a chimney sweep to scare out the critters. Why anyone would cross the ocean to live in a damp, drafty castle was a mystery, but Mary seemed convinced it was a good investment. Meanwhile, each additional day he stagnated in rural isolation was damaging to his business. There were factories to tour and new technologies to license, none of which he could accomplish in a run-down castle in Yorkshire.

  He woke cold and bleary-eyed as the sun rose. The room was still wickedly cold, but if the fireplace had been going it wouldn’t have been so intolerable. A glance out one of the windows showed two field hands out near a goat pen. He’d let one of them know about the chimney and hopefully it could be remedied immediately. He didn’t expect to spend another night here, but if he did, he wanted a fire.

  He dressed and headed toward the great hall, where it was so frigid and empty he could see his breath in the air and even hear his heartbeat. Every footstep echoed off the stone walls and vaulted ceiling, mingling with the laughing voices from the far-off parlor.

  Mercifully, he was able to avoid everyone and escape through the front doors and onto the grounds. He blew on his hands to warm them, climbing up and over a berm on his way to the stable block and barn. Two horses grazed in the field, and a dozen goats clustered around a feed trough. A pair of farm hands had one goat pulled aside. One man held it steady while the other milked it. They probably weren’t the right people to sweep the chimney, but they would know someone who could.

  “Excuse me!” he hollered.

  The one milking the goat turned around and he nearly choked. Of all the things he expected of Mary Beckwith, seeing her milk a goat had not been on the list. She patted the goat’s haunch, then stood and loped over toward him.

  “Good morning!” she said cheerfully. No wonder he’d mistaken her for a boy. She wore trousers, a battered old jacket, and muddy work boots. Her hair was pinned beneath a woolen cap, but her smile was as sunny as ever.

  “How was the tower room?” she asked. “You were our inaugural guest!”

  She looked so eager for his opinion it was hard to disappoint her, but she needed to know. “The chimney will need a good cleaning before a fire can be lit. You’ve got critters living in it.”

  Her face fell. “You must have been freezing!”

  He was, but she looked plenty cold too, her gloveless fingers bright red in the frosty morning air. He had to admire a woman not too proud to dirty her hands with milking duties. He nodded to the goats. “Is this something you do regularly?”

  “Only when I’m needed,” she said. “Two of our hands have gone to the city to be with their family for Christmas, so I’m helping out until they get back in January. Don’t worry. I’ll find someone to sweep the chimney today.”

  “You won’t be the one to do it, right?” He would sweep it himself before letting a lady climb onto the roof on his behalf.

  “Oscar can do it,” she said with a nod to the man who had taken over milking duties. “Come! Let me show you the grounds, for that’s why you came all this way.”

  A fierce northerly wind was blowing, making it uncomfortable to be outdoors, but this was his last chance to get a good look at the sorry state of the outbuildings. Asserting his majority ownership of the property would be awkward, but he’d do whatever was necessary to protect the Whitefriars image. He raised the collar of his coat as they headed down the path, for the wind seemed to cut straight through to his skin.

  Mary noticed. “I’m sure Colin will loan you a scarf if you need one.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, trying to ignore the charm of her smile. It would be better if they could stick to business. He’d never been comfortable around women, but Mary had a way of getting to him and he mustn’t let his guard down.

  “Let’s see that bakehouse you were telling me about.”

  The hard ground was covered with a layer of frost, but it didn’t take long to arrive at the
crumbling remnants of a bakehouse. It was around the size of a railroad car, with stone walls on three sides and completely open to the elements on the fourth. A fireplace filled one wall, and when he approached it a squirrel darted from beneath the shriveled leaves mounded in the fireplace. It was a crumbling medieval ruin, a complete wreck, but Mary was defensive on its behalf.

  “It never had a fourth wall,” she explained. “Bakehouses are usually wide open, otherwise they get too hot. There was a time when this bakehouse made countless loaves of bread to feed the entire county.”

  Being open to the elements for hundreds of years had wrought plenty of damage. The stone pavers on the ground were buckled, dirt was encrusted into every crevice, and the roof had gaps letting sunlight through.

  “What are your intentions for this bakehouse? Yesterday you mentioned adding a bunch of windows onto a fourth wall. That seems an odd choice.”

  “I think it could become an atelier,” she said. “That’s a fancy French term for an artist’s studio. I heard that in France some of the estates make room for an artist on their grounds, and plenty of light is the most important thing for an artist. If I’m building the wall anyway, I might as well build it with plenty of windows so that if I ever decide to lease it to an artist, it will be suitable.”

  “But why?” he pressed, utterly baffled. Most artists were poor as church mice, not like the obscenely wealthy people she hoped would lease the tower.

  She laid her hand on the stone ledge over the fireplace as she gazed into space. “I like the idea of having an artist live here. A painter or a sculptor. And if that person is married perhaps there would be children, too. There is plenty of room for living quarters, and there’s already a fireplace.”

  She whirled to look at him. “But it doesn’t have to be an artist! I merely like the idea of resurrecting Whitefriars to something like it used to be long ago. A community. People with different blessings and skills all finding a home here. I’ve already leased the millhouse and the gatehouse, and I’m sure I can find a tenant for the bakehouse once it’s been restored.”

  It was a silly idea and this place should probably be torn down in short order. Sadly, it wasn’t the worst of the outbuildings he’d seen.

  “Let’s go have a look at the building midway between here and the gatehouse. The one that has a slag heap in the yard.”

  “It’s not a slag heap, it’s going to be our mill as soon as I have enough money to get it back in operation,” Mary said as they began heading down the freshly graveled path.

  Her breath came in little white puffs as she described her plans for the mill. A married couple named Sarah and Socrates Park had already moved into the small living area attached to the ground floor of the mill, but it would be at least a year before she could get the waterwheel back in operation.

  He said nothing as they continued walking, but it annoyed him that she would move people into the millhouse before they were ready to go into operation.

  “Please tell me you aren’t paying these people a salary,” he said.

  “Of course not!”

  “Then how are they supporting themselves?”

  Mary trudged forward, a hint of defensiveness in her tone. “I let them live rent free. They’re making pottery until I can get the mill working. They’ve set up quite an operation in the yard, which you mistook for a slag heap.”

  It was a slag heap. Dozens of terracotta urns were stacked up, ready to be glazed. Shelves weighed down with smaller pieces looked out of place in the yard. Broken bits of pottery and a wobbly worktable littered the muddy patch of land that was barren of grass. An anemic trickle of water barely moved in the stream alongside the mill.

  “I usually give the Parks advance notice before I visit,” Mary said, a hint of unease in her voice. “Wait here.”

  She scurried to the opposite side of the mill, but he followed. What did she intend to hide? Whatever it was, the tension drained from her face by the time he joined her and could see through the double doors pulled wide open. The doors were built to accommodate wagonloads of grain entering and leaving the interior of the mill. A few millstones and a drive shaft were propped against the wall, but most of the space had been given over to worktables, pottery wheels, and paint supplies. A rumpled bed and kitchen area must be where the couple was living.

  Mary picked up a glazed bowl, turning it so he could see the pattern of forget-me-not flowers bordering the rim.

  “See?” she said. “The forget-me-not pattern is Sarah’s design and very popular in town. People love it.”

  Mary went on to explain that the Parks had probably gone into town to make a delivery to the local shops, for they always did good business at Christmas.

  If business was so good, she ought to be charging them rent. It looked like the Parks were taking full advantage of the space, but he would rather discuss the milling operation.

  “What are your plans for getting the mill running again?”

  “I plan on dredging the stream next summer,” Mary said. “Socrates Park is a miller by trade, but they love making pottery. There’s no harm in letting them do it until I can pay for the renovation.”

  “When was the last time this mill was used?” he asked.

  “It was when my great-grandfather was alive, so at least eighty years ago.”

  The past eighty years had seen a revolution in industrialization, and there might not be any point in trying to adapt this relic to serve as a modern milling operation. It would require a qualified engineer to install new gears, axel, and grinding mechanisms, but it wasn’t something he could accomplish on this trip.

  “Tell me about the gatehouse,” he said as he started back down the path. Given the handsome structure and location near the road, he certainly hoped she was charging a premium rental price.

  “The Papadakis brothers live there,” she said. “Three brothers. They’re musicians from Greece, and what a terribly sad story they have. They came to England last year to claim an inheritance, but it turned out that the bulk of the estate had been invested in a Canadian railroad scheme. The inheritance proved worthless by the time they arrived to claim it, and they had no money for the trip back to Greece. They’re stranded here and have been with me ever since. They are musicians, and I do enjoy hearing them play on warm summer evenings.”

  A niggling suspicion took root, and he prayed it wasn’t true but kept his voice carefully neutral. “And how much are you charging them to lease the gatehouse?”

  “Well! It was in bad repair when they arrived. I wouldn’t feel comfortable charging them anything,” she said defensively.

  “It’s a habitable structure.”

  “It is now, but you should have seen it when they arrived. They patched the roof and painted the exterior. It was a lot of work that I couldn’t tackle.”

  He quickened his steps, for the gatehouse was straight ahead. Built mostly of old red brick, it was a charming building with spacious wings framing the large tunnel through which his carriage passed yesterday. The brothers hadn’t done much. The patched roof looked shabby and since most of the building was brick, there hadn’t even been much to paint, and yet the brothers continued to enjoy rent-free living.

  He strode to the front door and knocked. Mary scurried up beside him. “They don’t really speak English,” she said.

  “Then how did you learn their sob story?”

  “Well, the oldest brother speaks a little English, but not much. I also got details from their grandfather’s lawyer in town. Please don’t be angry. And you shouldn’t knock so loud; they’re probably still asleep.”

  At nine o’clock in the morning? He hadn’t slept in this late since the time he had pneumonia as a teenager. He knocked louder, and at last there were sounds of life stirring inside. Fumbling, shuffling, coughing. The door finally opened and a tousle-haired young man, bathrobe hanging open, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, but smiled when he saw Mary.

  “Maria!” he bellowed joyously, flinging his arms wide and stepping outside to embrace Mary, even though he had bare feet and practically no clothes. He gave her a kiss on both cheeks and a rambling monologue in a language Everett couldn’t understand. Mary seemed to bask in the attention, especially when another brother appeared a moment later. More embracing, more rambling spiels in Greek.