The Mischief of the Mistletoe

Chapter 3

Half an hour later, Arabella emerged from the headmistress’s office as a newly minted junior instructress of select young ladies.

All around her, the hall had been decked for Christmas, with bright bows of greenery and sprigs of holly. A pair of bright-eyed young girls walked past her, arm in arm, whispering confidences. Arabella forced herself to unknot her hands, taking a deep, ragged breath. It was done. She had done it, persuaded Miss Climpson to take her on, on short notice with no prior experience. It helped that Arabella had enjoyed the tutelage of an excellent governess, courtesy of Aunt Osborne. It also helped that the headmistress had found herself short an instructress with only three weeks remaining to the term. That, Arabella knew, had been the deciding factor, rather than anything inherent to herself.

Whatever the cause, she had accomplished her goal. She was to start on Monday, and if the three weeks before Christmas went well, she could stay on for the following term. Miss Climpson had made no promises regarding Olivia and Lavinia, but she had promised to consider it. Should Arabella prove satisfactory.

Arabella looked around the hall, at the bows and greenery and whispering girls. She could picture Lavinia and Olivia here. It would be good for them. Olivia needed to be drawn out of herself, exposed to the society of, well, society. As for Lavinia, exuberant and endearing, she needed just the opposite. Miss Climpson’s would provide her structure and polish.

As for herself... well, there were worse fates, no matter what Jane said. Better to be a teacher at a school than a governess, dependent on one family for her livelihood, caught in a strange half-world between the drawing room and the servants’ hall. Going back to Aunt Osborne was out of the question. And she had long ago accepted that she wasn’t the sort of girl who could expect an advantageous marriage to secure her future and that of her family.

She was, not to put too fine a point on it, average. Not ugly, not striking, just average, with eye-colored eyes and hair-colored hair. Her eyes were blue, but they weren’t the sort of blue about which her father’s poets sang. They weren’t azure or primrose or deepest sapphire. They were just blue. Plain, common, garden-variety blue, and about as remarkable in England as a daffodil among a field of daffodils. Hardly an asset on the marriage market, especially when coupled with lack of fortune, an invalid father, and three undowered sisters.

It was highly unlikely that any gentlemen of large fortune and undiscriminating taste would rush forward to bowl her over.

Arabella staggered sideways as a large form careened into her, sending her stumbling into the doorframe, while something small, round, and compact managed to land heavily on her left foot before rolling along its way.

“Oooof!” Arabella said cleverly, flailing her arms for balance.

This was not an auspicious beginning to her career as a dignified instructress of young ladies.

A pair of sturdy hands caught her by the shoulders before she could go over, hauling her back up to her feet. He overshot by a bit. Arabella found herself dangling in midair for a moment before her feet landed once again on the wooden floor.

“I say, frightfully sorry!” her unseen assailant and rescuer was babbling. “Deuced ungentlemanly of me — ought to have been watching where I was going.”

Arabella’s bonnet had been knocked askew in the fracas. She was above the average height, but this man was even taller. With her bonnet brim in the way, all she could see was a stretch of brightly patterned waistcoat, a masterpiece of fine fabric and poor taste.

Everyone knew about Turnip Fitzhugh’s waistcoats.

Mr. Fitzhugh bent earnestly over her. “Frightfully sorry and all that. I do beg your pardon, Miss...”

He paused expectantly, looking down at her, waiting for her to complete the sentence for him, his blue eyes as guileless as a child’s. And as devoid of recognition.

“Dempsey. Miss Arabella Dempsey. We’ve met before. In fact, we have danced together, Mr. Fitzhugh. Several times.”

“Oh.” His broad brow furrowed and an expression of consternation crossed his face. “Oh. I say. I am sorry.”

“Why?” She had never thought she could be so bold, but it just came out. “I don’t recall stepping on your feet. You ought to have emerged from the experience unscathed.”

In fact, she was quite a good dancer. But did anyone ever notice? No. If she looked like Mary Alsworthy or had five thousand pounds a year like Deirdre Fairfax, they’d all be praising her for being as light on her feet as thistledown, but she could float like a feather for all any of them cared, or sink like lead. At that rate, she ought to have stomped on a few toes. At least that would have been one way to leave an impression.

“Wouldn’t want you to think... I never meant to imply... That is to say, what I meant was that I’m not much of a dab hand at names, you see. Or faces. Or dates.”

Arabella smiled determinedly at Mr. Fitzhugh, and if the smile was rather grim around the edges, hopefully he wouldn’t notice. “It is quite all right, Mr. Fitzhugh. You’re certainly not the first to have forgotten my name. Or the date of the Norman Conquest,” she added, in an attempt to inject a bit of levity.

It didn’t work. Instead of being diverted, Mr. Fitzhugh just looked sorry. For her. “I won’t forget it again,” he said. “Your name, that is. I can’t make any promises about the Norman Conquest.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fitzhugh. You are too kind.”

“Didn’t think there was such a thing,” Mr. Fitzhugh mused. “As too much kindness, that is.” Peering down at her, he added, as though the thought had just struck him. “I say, I didn’t mean to detain you. Or knock you over. Might I, er, see you anywhere? My chariot is at your disposal.”

“Oh, no, that’s quite all right. I’m joining friends for supper just across the street.”

“That’s all right, then,” Mr. Fitzhugh said with evident relief. “Shouldn’t like to leave you here by yourself. Not after knocking you over and all that.”

Arabella’s smile turned sour. “Think nothing of it,” she said.

With a tip of his hat, he strode jauntily out the door. Gathering her scattered wits together, Arabella made to follow, but her booted foot struck something hard and round, half hidden under the hem of her walking dress.

Bending over, she picked it up. While slightly the worse for her stepping on it, it was unmistakably a Christmas pudding, small and round and wrapped in white muslin, finished off with jaunty red and gold ribbons.

“Mr. Fitzhugh?” she called after him, holding the small, muslin-wrapped parcel aloft. “Mr. Fitzhugh! You forgot your pudding!”

Blast. He didn’t seem to have heard her. Lifting her skirts, Arabella hurried down the short flight of steps. Mr. Fitzhugh, his legs longer than hers, was already some way down the street, making for a very flashy phaeton driven by a team of matched bays.

“Mr. Fitzhugh!” she called, waving the pudding in the air, when the second man in one day knocked the breath out of her by taking a flying leap at the pudding she held in her hand.

It must have been pure stubbornness that caused her to keep her grip, but as the man tugged, Arabella found herself tugging back. Harder.

“I need that pudding!” he growled. “Give it over!”

“No!” gasped Arabella, clinging to the muslin wrapper with all her might. People couldn’t just go about taking other peoples’ puddings. It was positively un-British.

“Hey! I say!”

Over the buzzing in her ears, Arabella heard the heavy thrum of booted feet against the cobblestones. With a powerful whoosh, her attacker was lifted up and away from her as a large fist connected with his jaw, sending him sprawling backwards. As the counterpressure was released, Arabella abruptly landed backside first on the cobbles, the wrapper of the pudding clutched triumphantly in one hand. Released from its muslin binding, the gooey ball of mince rolled free, collecting a fine coating of dust, mud, and other inedibles in the process.

This really wasn’t shaping up to be a good day. What next? Arabella sat in the gutter and contemplated the scrap of white muslin in her hand. Perhaps she should just stay here. It would save all the trouble of being knocked over again.

For the second time that day, she found herself being hauled up by Mr. Fitzhugh, who lifted her as easily as though she were a lady’s reticule. “Are you all right, Miss Dempsey?” he demanded, showing off his newfound command of her name. “Did the cad hurt you?”

“No,” said Arabella, forbearing to mention her backside. “Just your pudding.”

“Bother the pudding!” said Mr. Fitzhugh.

“I don’t think anyone will bother with it now,” said Arabella, regarding the gooey ball philosophically. “Although that man seemed to want it rather badly.”

That man was lying where he had fallen, making small groaning noises. Now that she was no longer locked in combat with him, Arabella could see that he was only of medium height, slightly built and shabbily dressed.

The man started to lever himself up on his elbows, looked at Mr. Fitzhugh, and thought better of it. “Is ’ee going to ’it me again?” he asked darkly.

“Only if you attack the lady,” said Mr. Fitzhugh, looming rather impressively. “That was a jolly rum thing to do.”

“I didn’t mean to attack ’er. My orders was to get the pudding.”

“Orders?” Arabella squinted down at her assailant. “Someone ordered you to collect the pudding from me?”

“There were a lady. There.” Struggling to a sitting position, the man gingerly touched his unshaven chin with one hand and pointed to the right with the other, to a narrow alley between Miss Climpson’s seminary and the building next door.

There was no lady there now.

“A lady told you to fetch the pudding,” repeated Mr. Fitzhugh. “There’s a Banbury tale if ever I heard one!”

“I don’t know nothing about no Banburies,” said the would-be thief belligerently, “but there were a lady and she promised me a guinea for that pudding, she did.”

“Delusional,” said Mr. Fitzhugh to Arabella, in what he fondly believed to be an undertone, but which carried at least three streets away. “The man’s disordered.”

The man gave Mr. Fitzhugh a look of pure dislike. “I weren’t disordered until you landed me a facer. Although,” he admitted grudgingly, “it were a good ’un. Nice and clean.”

Mr. Fitzhugh beamed with pleasure. “Much obliged.” Belatedly remembering the story was meant to have a moral, he adopted a stern expression. “Only don’t let me find you attacking any ladies, or I’ll land you more than a facer.”

Arabella’s backside still hurt and unless she was much mistaken, she had mud in unfortunate places upon her person. And all for a little pudding. Discounting his absurd story, she could only imagine that the man must have been driven to it by hunger. Arabella looked dubiously at the wrapper. Extreme hunger.

Something caught her eye, something odd.

Arabella scraped at the brown spots with one gloved finger, but they didn’t come off. It wasn’t mud or pudding splotch, as she thought, but rather a particularly untidy script.

Someone had gone to the trouble of writing on the inside of the muslin wrapper. Whoever it was had used a brown ink that, when the pudding was wrapped, would not show through the fabric. The message was written in uneven letters, slightly smeared now with pudding goo, but still legible. Legible and... French? Arabella squinted at the muslin. Yes. French.

“Mr. Fitzhugh?” she said sharply.

Looking somewhat sheepish, her rescuer bounded to his feet. “All right there?” he asked solicitously. “Feeling quite the thing?”

“Mr. Fitzhugh,” she said, dangling the muslin in front of him. “Were you aware that your pudding speaks French?”

Mr. Fitzhugh blinked at her, confused but game. “My puddings generally don’t speak to me a’tall,” he said, before adding gallantly, “But if a pudding were to speak, can’t see why it wouldn’t parle the Français, if it took the mind.”

The thief looked at him as though he were quite crazy. In fact, he looked at both of them as though they were quite crazy. Arabella couldn’t blame him.

“Forgive me,” she said hastily. “That’s not what I meant. What I meant was that there seems to be a message written inside your pudding. And it’s in French. See?” She thrust the muslin towards him.

Instead of taking it from her, Mr. Fitzhugh bent over her shoulder to peer at the muslin. “I say! You’re quite right! Can’t think why that should be there.”

“It’s not for you, then?” said Arabella.

“Not that I know of. Can’t think of anyone who would correspond with me via pudding.” Making one of those masculine grunting noises that passed for ratiocination among the other half of the population, Mr. Fitzhugh leaned over the pudding wrapper, saying in puzzled tones, “It seems it wanted someone to meet it at Farley Castle tomorrow afternoon.”

It was, Arabella realized, a perfectly accurate translation. Her own French was limited, but she spoke it well enough to be able to read, “Meet me at Farley Castle, tomorrow afternoon. Most urgent.”