A Christmas Homecoming: A Novel

t was after dark. Outside the wind had dropped, and the frost was bitter when Caroline spoke to the housemaid who usually changed her bed linen and tidied the room. She had come in to give Caroline clean towels, but after she had put them on the rail she stopped a moment, clearly wishing to speak. She was a handsome girl, but her face was troubled. She kept moving her hands, rubbing one with the other softly.

“What is it, Tess?” Caroline asked. She was almost certain what the girl was afraid of, and she sympathized with her.

“Is ’e ill wi’ summat catching, ma’am?” she asked.

“No,” Caroline answered. She thought Eliza Netheridge might not forgive her, but the truth had to be told some time. “He is not sick. I’m afraid he met with what may have been an accident, and he is dead. We did not tell you because we didn’t wish everyone to be frightened, nor did we want to spoil Christmas.”

Tess’s face flooded with relief, until the truth sank in that a man was dead. Her expression crumpled to sorrow. “ ’E were a nice man, even if ’e were a bit odd, like. I’m sorry as ’e’s dead, ma’am.”

“I think it happened very quickly.” Caroline tried to keep her imagination of the scenario out of her mind, the violence, the pain, and the blood; even if it had been brief, it hadn’t been painless. But she put the image out of her mind; she would never have a better chance to speak to one of Netheridge’s servants. She had to get a hold of herself, focus, and learn what she could from Tess.

“The police are going to ask us what happened, because they have to know,” she went on. “The poor man’s family must be told.”

“I’m terrible sorry …”

“Of course. We all are. We are not quite sure what happened, and it would be better if we knew. Were you upstairs late in the evening?”

Tess nodded. “I din’t stay. Mr. Netheridge were … not ’isself.”

“He was ill?”

“No, ma’am, but ’e an’ the mistress were ’avin’ a disagreement.”

“What about?” Caroline did not make any excuses as to why she wanted to know. There were none that would not sound completely artificial. “The play?”

“Oh, no, ma’am. It were about the drawin’ room, an’ such like, the dinin’ room, too. It’ll all need redoin’ pretty soon. Come the spring, at the latest. The master says it’ll all be the same as ’is mam ’ad it. It always is. The mistress says as she’ll ’ave it ’er own way this time, like she wants it. ’E says it’s always been like ’is mam ’ad it, and she says it’s time it was changed. They went on an’ on like that, an’ I know it wasn’t no use askin’ ’er anythin’ about anythin’ else that night, so I just went.”

“What time was that?”

“Just before midnight. I waited around, like, but it wasn’t goin’ to get any better, so I gave up.”

“How long do you think they argued?”

“ ’Alf hour, maybe more.”

“So I don’t think they could have seen what happened to Mr. Ballin.”

“No, ma’am. They was too angry to see anythin’ else but the curtains an’ walls an’ the like.”

“Were they going to redecorate the bedroom as well?”

“Yes, ma’am. An’ the mistress says as it in’t goin’ to be brown this time.” She looked pleased. “Wot lady, ’ceptin’ ’is mam, wants a brown bedroom?”

“None,” Caroline agreed. “Mine is mostly pink and red, and I love it.”

Tess breathed out in a sigh of pleasure. “Cor! An’ your husband don’t mind?”

“If he did I wouldn’t have done it. The pink is very pale and cool, and the red is hot. He likes it.”

Tess went out smiling so widely that Caroline heard the other maid on the landing asking her what had happened. The tale of Caroline’s bedroom would be all over the house in an hour.

The last person Caroline spoke to was Alice herself. She found her alone after dinner in a long gallery overlooking the snowbound darkness of the countryside. There was nothing to see except an occasional light in the distance where the city lay, shrouded in snow, just like them.

“I shall miss you when you’re gone,” Alice said quietly. It was simply a statement. She did not seem to be expecting a reply. She took a deep breath. “And I miss Mr. Ballin. Do you think it was Douglas who killed him, Mrs. Fielding?”

“No,” Caroline replied without hesitation. “Nor was it your father.”

Alice turned to face Caroline. Even in the candlelight and shadow of the gallery, Caroline could see the shock and shame in Alice’s face.

“Were you not afraid of that as well?” Caroline asked her. “You know if you want to break off your engagement to Douglas and come to London, it will take a great change of heart on your father’s part, to allow that.” She bit her lip. “And he might be a good deal less inclined to back our company in the future, if he feels that we have influenced you toward that.”

“But he invited you up here to help me!” Alice protested. “You came. If he then blamed you for what happened as a result, that would be monstrously unfair.”

“Not really. He has no obligation to back us.”

“But that is why you came?”

Caroline felt the heat in her own face. But she could not deny it now. “Yes. But things don’t always work out the way you expect.”

“I have enough money to live for quite a while in London, even if I don’t earn anything right away.” Alice turned again to stare back out the window into the darkness.

“It would be a very big change,” Caroline warned.

“I know. Leaving home always is, but there are all sorts of ways in which I am not really at home here. I … I feel that if I marry Douglas I shall have stopped growing, the way a plant does if you put it in too small a pot. The flowers never open, the fruit never forms … that will be what I’ll feel like.” She looked at Caroline again. “Is it worth dying a little inside, just to be safe from hurt, or failure? And there’s more than one kind of loneliness. You could spend all your life with people who only know what they think you are, what they think you ought to be, and never let you be anything different.”

“Yes, but growing can hurt, and you don’t always get what you want,” Caroline warned. “Or sometimes you do, and then find that you don’t want it so much after all.”

“So is it better to not even try?” Alice asked earnestly. “I was going to say ‘to stay at home,’ but surely home is where you are yourself, your best self, isn’t it? I don’t think that for me it is Whitby. Not any more.”

“Then perhaps you had better find out where your home truly lies,” Caroline conceded.

“Will you ask Mr. Fielding to consider allowing me to join your group? I won’t expect anything beyond the opportunity to work. And I won’t ask to come with you now. That would be embarrassing for you, after this.”

“Of course I’ll speak to him,” Caroline said quickly. “I think if it is really what you want, then we will find a way to make it possible. But all the same, give it a little longer, perhaps a bit more thought.”

Alice smiled. “And I think maybe Miss Rye would be better for Douglas anyway. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Yes, of course I have.”

“And I don’t mind,” Alice said with surprise. “When I realized that, then I knew I shouldn’t marry him. It would be dishonest, and I don’t want to start any undertaking by lying to myself.”

“I don’t see that possibility in you,” Caroline said frankly.