Stones of Fire

37

As she did each and every year, Marta Janus carefully removed the tissue-wrapped ornaments from the box. First she unwrapped the six hand-blown glass angels from her native Poland. Next she got out the tartan-clad Santas. As always, she found the green-and-blue-plaid porcelain figures slightly grotesque, but Sir Kenneth was inordinately proud of his Scottish forebears, and so each year she hung the gaudy ornaments upon the tree. One plaid Santa for each crystal angel. Sir Kenneth always complained about the dressing of the tree, claiming it a strange ritual for a woman who professed to be a devout Catholic. Marta simply turned a deaf ear. After twenty-seven years in Sir Kenneth’s employ, she was no longer affected by his condescension. She’d built a wall around her heart, brick by brick, the mortar so thick as to be impenetrable.

At first she had believed Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown was a kind and generous man. While many intellectuals had professed sympathy for the Polish dissident movement, few were willing to take in a refugee who barely spoke English. Sir Kenneth had no such qualms. He pointed; she cleaned. For the first year they had no verbal communication whatsoever. And then one day she awoke to find handwritten signs taped to nearly every piece of furniture. Her grace period having abruptly expired, the lord of Rose Chapel expected her to master the English language. At first, it had been nothing more than a silly game of butchered phrases and garbled sentences, then it went from game to something deeper, more complex, Marta determined to prove her worth to the man who had plucked her from the ashes of fear and uncertainty.

She was one of the lucky few who had managed to escape, paying an exorbitant fee to a ‘guide’ who smuggled her out of Gdansk in the hold of a fishing vessel. Her husband Witold had not been so fortunate. Caught in the communist crackdown, he’d been sent to prison for crimes against the state. A bricklayer by trade, his only crime had been to dream of a free Poland. Sentenced to ten years’ hard labour, he lasted three. Marta did not receive word of his death until he’d already been dead and buried sixteen months. She spoke of his death to no one, not even Sir Kenneth, obeying an unspoken rule in Rose Chapel: never speak of matters of the heart.

She supposed the rule had come about because Sir Kenneth did not possess a heart. Or if he did, it was rarely in evidence. In twenty-seven years there had been only two occasions when Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown had exhibited any sort of tenderness. The first was when, having read of her plight in a local newspaper, he rang up the Catholic charity that had sponsored her when she first arrived in England, informing them that he would provide gainful employment for her. Nearly ten years would pass before the second.

Although there were countless incidents in between, incidents that spoke of a decadent and depraved existence. Many nights Sir Kenneth did not return to Rose Chapel. Many nights were spent in drunken revelry. One such night she happened upon two naked, giggling girls in the kitchen smearing butter on each other’s breasts. Another night she went to turn down the bed only to discover Sir Kenneth and a muscular black man committing an unspeakable act. Some nights she thought him the devil incarnate. Other nights, a beautiful Bacchus.

He’d certainly been beautiful that long-ago December eve, attired in a crisply tailored black tuxedo, his grey curls gleaming like polished pewter. He’d returned early from a party, claiming it had been a ‘ghastly bore’. Marta offered him a cup of mulled wine and asked if he would like to help dress the Christmas tree. He laughed at the invitation but loosened his bow tie and helped nonetheless. He’d even steadied a chair so she could place a twinkling star atop the tree. But the chair wobbled and she accidentally fell into his arms. Before she knew it, they were rolling together on the recently vacuumed carpet, pulling at each other’s garments like two crazed animals. She had not lain with a man in the ten years since she left her native Poland. In that impassioned instant Sir Kenneth ceased to be the master of Rose Chapel; he was simply a man. Forceful. Hard. Commanding. She’d cried out, the pain so exquisite she thought she would be torn asunder.

The next morning silence returned to Rose Chapel. Not unlike the first year of her tenure, Sir Kenneth did little but point and mutter. She did nothing but sweep and vacuum. No mention was made of the previous night’s passion. Had it not been for the crystal angel smashed beneath the tree and Sir Kenneth’s bow tie entangled in the tree, she could almost believe it had never happened. The broken angel went into the dustbin, the satin tie into her keepsake box.

One week later, on Boxing Day, when masters traditionally gave gifts to their servants, a small box wrapped in plain brown paper mysteriously appeared on her dresser. Inside was a hand-blown crystal angel. There was no card. Each year the mystery angel was the first to be unwrapped. And each year, despite his protests and complaints, Marta dressed a Christmas tree, forcing the master of Rose Chapel to remember their night of passion.

She’d long since given up any hope that Sir Kenneth’s soul could be saved. For to have a soul, one must first have a heart. Heartless man that he was, she feared the day would come when she would be replaced with a younger woman, a woman whose hair had not turned grey, whose body had not sagged. Marta feared what would become of her if she was made to face the wolves, penniless and pensionless.

But there was now a way to avoid the wolves. An American angel had come to deliver her from that which she most feared. She could now leave Rose Chapel on her own terms, her grey head held high. It required just one phone call.

Reaching into her apron pocket, Marta removed the scrap of paper with the scrawled mobile phone number. For two days she’d carried the slip of paper in her pocket. Staring at the number, she hesitated. Uncertain. Assailed with memories of that long-ago December eve. Like a woman lost in a blizzard, Marta turned her gaze to the neat line of Christmas ornaments waiting to be placed on the tree. In the kitchen a timer pealed.

Time to take the buns out of the oven.

Marta turned away from the ornaments. As she did, her hip jogged the table. One hideous blue-and-green Santa rolled to the edge, falling to the stone floor.

Marta stared at the broken bits of porcelain.

No longer uncertain.