Upon a Midnight Clear by Narya

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Chapter 2

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He went back to Walden Street straight after breakfast. The world was beginning to stir; laughter and shrieking echoed from tall pastel houses, and passers-by tipped their hats and wished him a merry Christmas. With a practised smile he returned the sentiment.

Lottie Brooke's house looked alive and cheerful this morning. Its grey stone walls were bathed in the pink glow of the awakening day, and the shards of light gleamed on the flat, frozen pond. Already the smell of cooked meats and cakes wafted from the ground floor windows. On the air he heard the chatter of children, the cheerful sound of piano chords, laughter followed by a crash, scolding and teasing at some youngster's exuberant clumsiness – and then more laughter as the world was set to rights and the celebrations went on.

He took a breath and rang the doorbell.

Dogs yipped; the children shouted with excitement; over the hubbub a calm voice spoke, and the noise subsided. A tall, steel-haired, soft-eyed woman answered the door; she was perhaps sixty or sixty-five years old, straight-backed and startlingly handsome.

“Good morning, ma'am.”

“And a good morning to you, sir.” She looked him up and down – not unkindly, but with a frank curiosity that endeared her to Maglor at once. “How may we help you?”

“Is your name by any chance Mrs. Brooke?”

“Yes, it is.”

Gently, he continued. “And did you have a daughter named Charlotte?”

To his astonishment, no grief or shock crossed her face; instead, her elegant features settled into a fond smile. “What did she leave behind this time?”

“I...” Maglor, so rarely lost for words, blinked. “Forgive me, I don't understand.”

Mrs. Brooke held out her hand, still smiling, her eyes dancing as though deeply amused by a private joke. “Why don't you come in, sir? I think it's best if we talk inside.”

He followed her into a warm, airy hallway with papered walls and faded carpet on the stairs. In the parlour to his right the family were gathered; a small blond boy was rolling on the floor with a terrier pup; his parents watched and restrained him by turns, while an unseen pianist practised carols at the far end of the room, and a fire snapped and danced in the hearth. He received a few questioning looks as he passed the door, but nobody called out or spoke.

His hostess led him past the staircase and back towards the source of the cooking smells, pausing next to an open door on the left. “Abe?”

“What is it, Louise?”

“Would you come into the kitchen for a moment?”

A portly man with a resplendent salt-and-pepper beard emerged from his study; on seeing Maglor, he held out his hand. “Abraham Brooke.”

“Mark Lawrence.”

“How do you do, Mr. Lawrence?”

“How do you do?”

A rosy-cheeked maid in a cap and apron was busy at the kitchen range; Louise Brooke smiled at her as they entered, and quietly asked, “Hettie, could you leave us for a few moments?”

Hettie. Maglor remembered that name from last night.

“Yes, Ma'am.” Hettie took herself away through another door that presumably led down to a basement.

“Please sit down, Mr. Lawrence,” Mrs. Brooke said, still smiling.

Maglor took a seat at the small wooden table.

“May I bring you anything? Coffee, perhaps?”

“That's very kind, but no, thank you.”

She exchanged a glance with her husband. “I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Lawrence; you must think all of this so strange.”

He smiled a little at that. “I've lived long enough to know that the world can be a very strange place indeed, Mrs. Brooke.”

The old woman relaxed, and seated herself by his side. “That it can.” Her husband sat down opposite, and chewed thoughtfully on an unlit pipe.

“Twenty-four years ago,” Mrs. Brooke began, “our daughter Charlotte went out to a party on Christmas Eve. She quarrelled with the boy who was to drive her home, and she told him she'd walk the rest of the way.” For the first time sorrow dimmed her eyes, and the lines around her mouth deepened. “But it seems my beautiful, foolish, stubborn girl slipped on the ice and couldn't get up. That night was the coldest in living memory; she died alone in the snow by the old Red Bridge.”

Again Maglor felt the surge of vicious anger at the boy who had driven off in the sleigh, leaving Lottie to fend for herself. Abraham Brooke took his wife's hand and squeezed it tight.

“I think you knew that, though, didn't you, Mr. Lawrence?” Mrs. Brooke brushed a tear away, and smiled at Maglor again. “Tell me, how did you guess she was dead?”

“Her dress. The snow by the bridge – there were no footprints or tracks.” Maglor paused, unsure how much to say, but Mrs. Brooke seemed steady enough. “And...something about her eyes.”

Mrs. Brooke nodded slowly. “Very sharp.” She let go of her husband's hand, and reached out and took Maglor's own. “Mr. Lawrence, you aren't the first to find our daughter by the bridge and drive her home for Christmas. Oh, it doesn't happen every year; only on a snowy Christmas Eve, just like the night she died, and only when there's no-one around to see. She won't approach anyone she knew in life – I imagine she'd hate to give them a fright – but you're not the first traveller to find something of hers in your sleigh, and try to return it to us the next morning.”

Maglor smiled, and from his waistcoat pocket he drew the small silk glove.

Almost reverently, Mrs. Brooke took it in her hands, and for a long moment she closed her eyes. “My poor, sweet girl,” she sighed. “She had a kind heart. Oh, she had a temper too, but she was a good soul. Sometimes I wonder if these little trinkets are her way of telling us that she isn't unhappy, wherever she is.”

Mr. Brooke gave a gruff cough, and sniffed.

“Thank you, Mr. Lawrence.” Mrs. Brooke opened her eyes, and she laid the glove aside and took his hand again. “Truly. For being kind to my daughter, and for coming back to tell us what you knew.”

“I wasn't entirely sure I was right to do it,” Maglor confessed. “I only knew that if it were my family, I would want to be told.”

Mrs. Brooke nodded again. “Do you have plans for the day, Mr. Lawrence? Are you meeting family for Christmas – or friends, perhaps?”

“No, ma'am.”

A glance at her husband, who smiled, and then she turned back to him. “How would you like to have dinner with us – and games and a dance, afterwards?”

“I'd hate to be a nuisance -”

“Nonsense, the house is full already.” Mr. Brooke waved a large, pink hand. “What's one more?”

“You aren't the first friend of Lottie's we've welcomed under our roof on a moment's notice,” Mrs. Brooke added. “We'd be delighted to have you.”

And she took him by the arm and led him through to the parlour, and introduced him to the company as Lottie's friend Mr. Lawrence. None of them seemed to find it strange. There were three couples there – Lottie's siblings and their spouses, Maglor gathered – and their children, and an old maiden aunt and her companion, and a smattering of family friends, and a trio of noisy dogs as well as the yapping young pup. The piano player was a shy, long-limbed girl of fifteen or so; when Maglor admired her skill and offered to turn the pages for her, she blushed deeply and barely managed to squeak out her thanks. Mrs. Brooke moved serenely through the room, smiling and soothing, touching cheeks and kissing brows. Mr. Brooke handed around hot punch and coffee and tea; an uncle made everyone laugh with a display of ventriloquism; the old aunt muttered darkly about indulgence and sin, though when handed a tin of sugared almonds she guarded them as fiercely as any of the dogs, and ate most of the box herself.

When Hettie announced that dinner was served, they sat down to a feast of clam soup, and herring, and turkey in oyster sauce, and buttered turnips and stewed carrots and baked potatoes, and French pickles, and then afterwards there was ice cream and cake and a mountain of bon-bons and caramels. Their easy chatter drew Maglor in without probing or pressing, and after dinner, he was even persuaded to take part in charades.

“Oh, Mr. Lawrence, you ought to be on the stage!” exclaimed one of the young Miss Brookes, wiping tears from her eyes after his successful miming of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Maglor smiled, but said nothing in response.

After games there were gifts – dolls, train sets, sweets, carved footstools, mittens and hats – and even though Maglor had been an unexpected guest, Mrs. Brooke had managed to slip away and quietly wrap a box or two for him.

“It's nothing much,” she apologised as he pulled the paper from a tin of home-made toffee and a trio of silk handkerchiefs.

“It's very kind of you.” Maglor kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”

Then the tables and chairs were pushed back, and it was time for dancing. The shy pianist took her seat; this time a younger brother was on hand to turn pages for her, and she struck up a jaunty polka. Maglor settled himself by the fire, and watched the light of the flames flicker and gleam on the wood-pannelled walls.

Mr. Brooke drew up a stool next to him. “Are you alright, son?”

Son. Maglor's heart gave a bound, and immediately he berated himself for a sentimental fool. “I asked your daughter that same question last night, or very nearly.”

“And what was her answer?”

“She said 'I'll manage.'”

Mr. Brooke nodded. “And so we all must.”

Maglor watched as he lit his pipe. A pair of cousins laughed as they went the wrong way and fell over one another; in a corner, the old aunt snored. “Mr. Brooke, something's been troubling me. I hope you don't mind my asking, but what happened to the Phillips boy? The one who should have brought Lottie home?”

Mr. Brooke tapped the stem of his pipe against his teeth, and breathed slowly outwards. “If truth be told, he was heartbroken. He blamed himself, and perhaps he was right to do so. But less than a year after my daughter died, that boy went away to war. When he came back in sixty-five he was a broken man.”

“I see.”

For the first time, Mr. Brooke cast a lingering look at the scars on Maglor's right hand. “What happened to you, Mr. Lawrence?”

Maglor looked up sharply, startled by the direct question.

Mr. Brooke held up a hand. “I don't mean to offend. Keep your secrets, if that's what you need to do. It's only that Lottie never sent anyone to our door who didn't need our help, one way or another.”

That didn't come as a surprise. “A good soul,” Maglor said, echoing Mrs. Brooke's words from earlier. And a wise one.

“Was it the war?”

Maglor flexed his hand. “Yes.” Another lie that was halfway to being truth.

“You must have been quite the boy when you set out.”

“Yes, sir. I suppose I was.”

Mr. Brooke laid his right hand on Maglor's shoulder. “Well, I hope you'll spend some more time with us in the future, Mr. Lawrence, now that we know one another.”

Maglor looked at the half dozen couples laughing and dancing, at the small boy in the corner with his puppy asleep in his arms, at the tree decked with nuts and oranges and strings of beads, and topped with an eight-pointed star. New things on top of the old, and old things born anew. “Thank you, sir.” He smiled, and this time there was nothing practised or guarded or wary about it. “I'd like that very much.”