Chapter Twelve
"I don’t want to hear about the stupid Yule log!”
“It’s not stupid.”
“It’s just a log!”
“Ginny, it’s tradition!”
“Not my tradition!”
“You’re in enough trouble for not doing as you were told with the goat, so if I were you, I would be quiet and listen.”
“You gave away Humphrey!” Ginny wailed, no actual tears forming.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ginny,” Rosie cried, throwing up her hands. “He didn’t give the stupid goat away. He just gave it to Mr. Matthews for safe keeping, like he said.”
Ginny gasped in outrage. “Humphrey is not stupid!”
“Well, Rosie is, so it may be catching,” Freddie mused from his seat in a chair.
“Freddie!” his parents scolded together.
“I’m smarter than you, numbskull,” Rosie spat, flicking something at Freddie.
Ginny let loose with another tearless wail. “I want Humphrey!”
“You can see him tomorrow,” Marianne tried to soothe. “I’ll take you myself.”
Kit rolled his eyes. “I didn’t give him away, Ginny. He’s still ours, he’s just in a place where someone can take care of him until we can.”
“I want Humphrey here!” Ginny cried.
Bitty covered her ears. “Why is everybody shouting?”
“That is enough!” Kit bellowed.
The room was silent, everybody staring at him in surprise.
“I do not want to hear one more word about a goat, or anybody being stupid, or anything about not wanting to do something for Christmas,” Kit announced, his voice still louder than it ought to have been, his head feeling as though it might explode if his family didn’t behave with an ounce of decorum.
Ginny sniffled once, and he glared at her, his breath seething through his nostrils.
“It is Christmas,” he snapped, “and we will do the Christmas traditions, and it will be perfect, and we will all be happy! Understood?”
Marianne looked as though she were going to say something to him, but she clamped down on her lips, her eyes saying quite enough.
He knew full well he was out of control, but he was completely at his wit’s end, and enough was enough.
“Happy!” he repeated for emphasis.
Rafe looked up at him and grinned. “Happy, Papa!”
Kit looked down at his son, who had just effectively ruined the serious nature of his tirade, as now a few people in the room were snickering.
“Yes, Rafe,” Kit sighed, his hands going to his hips. “Happy.”
Rafe nodded and went back to the blocks at his feet.
Kit looked at Colin, who sat next to Susannah on a sofa. He had a suspiciously blank expression, but his eyes were trained on Kit. “Happy,” Colin repeated obediently.
He could throttle Colin. That might make an excellent Christmas present to himself. He’d have to get to him, though, and there were four children and a table in his way. Not to mention that Susannah was sitting next to him, and he really didn’t want to hurt her. He’d always liked Susannah a great deal.
Well, maybe not when she broke Colin’s heart and in the intervening years when he considered her the greatest evil in the world, behind the actual devil and his father, who were in somewhat of a draw for the position.
But that was all past now, and he knew better.
Throttling Colin would be an excellent use of his hands and his time.
A soft clearing of the throat brought Kit back around. Marianne was giving the sort of look that told him to get on with it, and for a brief moment, he thought she might actually be telling him to throttle Colin.
Which would have been perfect.
But he suspected that wasn’t it.
“The Yule log,” Marianne said at last. “We’re waiting to hear.”
“Right,” he replied at once. “The Yule log.” He looked around at everyone, who watched him warily.
Well, some attention was better than none, he supposed.
“It’s an old tradition,” Kit began, “so it holds a great deal of meaning. It’s a favorite tradition of many, many families in England and Scotland, France, Bavaria, and several other countries in Europe. No one really knows how it started, but it is very, very important to do it properly if you want good luck in the coming year.”
“Do what?” Bitty asked, looking completely lost. “What do you do with it?”
“Ask it to dance,” Rosie muttered.
“Enough, Rose,” Colin interjected quickly before Kit could round on her.
Kit thanked him with a look.
“This log was brought in today by some of our farm hands,” Kit explained, trying for a patient and instructive tone. “In just a moment, we will anoint it with salt, oil, and wine.”
“Are we supposed to eat it?” Ginny blurted out, looking appalled.
Kit exhaled slowly, counting to five in three languages. “No, Ginny. We are not eating it.”
“That’s a relief,” she said with a heaving sigh, grinning up at Rosie, who looked at her as if she had sprouted a second head.
Colin was barely keeping it together at this point, but he still watched Kit as if truly paying attention.
The effort was something, at least.
“We light the Yule log,” Kit ground out, his teeth beginning to ache from pressing together, “with splinters or remnants from last year’s log. This begins the bringing of good luck.”
Freddie raised his hand, frowning deeply.
He was never going to make it through this. “Yes, Freddie?” he sighed, grateful that at least he hadn’t blurted something out as everyone else had.
“Did we have a Yule log last year?” Freddie asked, then looking back at his father for confirmation.
Colin very studiously kept his attention on Kit, his clamped lips white, his frame slightly shaking.
“No, we did not,” Kit admitted.
“So are we going to have bad luck?” Freddie persisted.
“I don’t want bad luck!” Bitty gasped, her hands flying to her cheeks.
“Me neither!” Ginny shrieked as she covered her head.
“I think I already have it,” Rosie muttered.
Colin squeaked and buried his head against Susannah, who patted his leg as she shook her head.
Kit looked heavenward, praying he would survive the evening. “We are not going to bring bad luck. Some of our tenants had spare remnants of their Yule log from last year, and they offered to let us use part.”
Freddie frowned still. “Will that work?”
Suddenly Kit quite understood what Colin had been saying that morning about irksome questions. “Yes,” he said bluntly. “Yes, it will still work. The family assured me they have had very good luck all year, so it is a good log to use.”
Bitty sighed with relief, and Ginny echoed it.
Rosie looked as though she were going to die at any moment.
Marianne rubbed at her brow.
Rafe and Matthew started tossing blocks at Livvy, which seemed a terrible idea, but Kit didn’t care enough to tell them off.
“Once the Yule log is lit,” Kit said quickly, sensing he was losing his audience, “the flames consume mistakes, faults, bad choices, and everything unlucky. Everyone in the house will be able to begin the new year without any mistakes at all, and will be protected from all of the bad luck. We will bring good luck to ourselves and to each other.”
Rosie raised a hand, looking doubtful and sardonic, and Kit would have given a great fortune to not call on her.
“Rosie,” he said stiffly, “do you have a legitimate question that will add to this discussion?”
“Yes,” she snapped in a defensive tone.
He nodded once. “Fine. Ask it.”
“Is it possible to put bad luck on one person in the family instead of the good luck from lighting the log?” she asked, lifting a brow in an obvious dare. “Or is it all inclusive?”
Kit stared at her, his jaw working as his teeth ground together more.
“Shall we begin the, ah, anointing of the Yule log?” Colin asked quickly, scrambling to his feet. He pushed past the smaller children on the floor to the items on the table beside Kit. “Is this all that we need?”
Kit just looked at Colin, still unable to speak.
Colin nodded as though Kit had said something. “Excellent. Do we take turns? Not sure if that matters or not, but it is important that we do this properly.”
“Take turns,” Kit managed to say, though that wasn’t something he’d ever heard or found in his research. It seemed a good idea though.
Colin nodded again. “To make the experience more personal. I like it. Shall we have the little ones go first? Come here, boys. Rafe, Matthew, come on.”
One by one each member of the family came up as directed by Colin, no one uttering a single word of complaint. Marianne had squeezed Kit’s hand as she came up, and he’d latched onto the sensation as a lifeline. He was convinced that only that touch had brought him back from the edge of madness he seemed to be so very near.
When Colin had added his portion, he handed off the rest of the wine to Kit. “Don’t drink it,” Colin muttered so only Kit could hear. “I’ll get you something stronger once the room is empty.”
Kit gave him a tight nod, and turned to the log. “Please, please work,” he begged under his breath.
Colin heard him, and uttered the faintest “Amen” known to man.
Kit poured the rest of the wine on the log. The splinters from the borrowed Yule log remnants were handed to him and he lit them from a candle on the mantle.
“Are you supposed to say something?” Colin asked quietly.
“No clue.” Kit extended the now lit splinters towards the log.
“Well, say something,” Colin hissed. “Make it up.”
Kit nodded again. “I hereby light the Gerrard Family Yule log,” he said, sounding as official as he could. “May it bring us all of the goodness we deserve and more.”
“Yes!” Bitty cried, apparently caught up in the moment.
“Please!” Ginny echoed.
Colin was back to trying not to laugh and said nothing.
Kit shook his head, exhaled, then touched the splinters to the anointed log, setting them in their proper places.
It took a moment, but eventually the fire grew and the aroma filled the room.
Someone started applauding, and then the rest joined in, making the whole thing more momentous for Kit, and he felt his anger ebb away somewhat.
He turned to face the family. “Now, this log has to say lit until at least the end of tomorrow. Anything shorter than that is absolutely bad luck. So we will need everyone to be watchful and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Ginny and Bitty were wide eyed and nodding, while everyone else just smiled.
There. That was done. And he’d only bellowed at the family repeatedly and basically obliterated the true meaning of the tradition in the face of keeping the tradition itself. A tradition that he had absolutely no experience with and had not actually engaged in until this moment.
How very merry of him.
“Now what?” Rosie asked him, not sounding disgruntled for the first time in recent memory.
Kit gripped the back of his neck. “That is all for the Yule log. There’s more tradition, but it won’t come until supper.”
Colin clapped his hands together. “Yes. Supper will be in a couple of hours, and we will expect everyone to be properly dressed. I believe your Christmas ensembles have been pre-selected, and have all been perfectly pressed and arranged for you. We will let you know when the time comes to change, so in the meantime, just amuse yourselves however you see fit, and try to keep the good luck coming to us with good behavior, eh? We’ve just poured all of our bad on the log, surely we can behave for as long as it burns.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Rosie suggested with a face. “I mean, we are Gerrards, after all.”
Susannah started coughing then, but it sounded suspiciously like a laugh, and Marianne was holding herself surprisingly stiffly, her lips twitching.
Bitty turned to look at her sister. “Can we go work on the theatrical, Rosie? I don’t even know my part yet.”
“You’re a dancer!” Ginny told her in a matter of fact tone. “And you don’t have any lines.”
“What?” Bitty cried, her betrayal evident as she looked back at Rosie. “No lines?”
Rosie winced and stood up quickly. “You’ll have lines, Bitty. I just hadn’t written them yet. That’s all Ginny meant.”
Bitty sniffed harshly. “I better have lines. And lots of them.”
“She can have my lines,” Freddie offered without concern.
Rosie sneered at him. “Excellent. I wanted you to be a sheep anyway. Can you say ‘baa’ for me?”
Freddie complied in the weakest sheep impersonation possible.
“Good.” She slapped him softly alongside his face as she passed him. “I’ll let you know when we’re ready for you. Bitty, Ginny, I need you both for something else. Come on.”
The other two clambered to their feet and skittered on after her, their whispered questions audible for a few additional moments.
Freddie looked at Colin and Susannah then. “Can I go to the library? I really just want to read somewhere quiet for a while.”
Susannah nodded, but Freddie had already gotten up and left the room.
Kit blinked for a moment, then looked down at the boys and Livvy on the floor. “Well, do you three have somewhere else to go?” he asked wearily.
“No,” Livvy chirped with a grin. “I want to watch the fire.”
Kit stared at her, then looked at Colin. “Should I be concerned about that?”
Colin shrugged. “I’m not.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything.”
Marianne sighed loudly and patted the sofa next to her. “Come here, Kit.”
He trudged over to her obediently and flung himself down beside his wife, feeling as though the weight of the world had suddenly dropped onto his shoulders.
Marianne leaned over and kissed his cheek gently. “I’m sorry that didn’t go the way you’d planned.”
He rolled his head on the sofa and looked at her. “You’re not going to scold me for losing my temper?”
Her lips twitched, but she shook her head. “Not tonight, anyway. You’re under a lot of stress and pressure at the moment, and it practically failed as it is.”
Kit groaned and covered his eyes with one hand. “I know.”
“Personally, I loved it when you demanded we all be happy,” Colin broke in cheerfully. “That was a most excellent touch.”
A slapping sound made Kit drop his hand and look over to see Colin rubbing at his thigh while Susannah looked perfectly proper.
“They were out of control, Kit,” Susannah said with a sad smile. “I don’t know why.”
“Rosie’s been on a strange sort of tirade this entire trip,” Colin added, serious at last. “I wondered if it might be something to do with school, but I can’t decide.”
“She and Freddie have been at each other’s throats,” Marianne agreed, looking troubled. “It’s getting worrisome. Freddie seems to be taking it in stride, but has he said anything about it?”
Colin shook his head. “Not after this morning’s attack. We all know what set him off there, but he didn’t say anything about Rosie specifically.”
Kit frowned in thought. “Those two have always had a bit of an explosive relationship, but it’s always been as loving as it was argumentative. Best of friends when not the worst of enemies, that sort of thing.”
Susannah sighed and leaned her head against Colin. “It may just have to be something that plays itself out, as much as I hate to admit that. If we have to keep them separated while they are home together, so be it.”
“And what about Humph… ah, Ginny’s goat?” Marianne corrected quickly when Kit seemed to twitch at the name.
Colin snorted a dry laugh. “I can promise you that the moment that goat would have started nibbling on her linens, she would have banished him for life and forgotten all about him.”
Kit sat forward and put his head in his hands. “I have no idea why she is so fixated on it. She’s never had any particularly fondness for animals before.”
“Maybe it is a similarity in temper,” Susannah suggested lightly. “Ginny could play a convincing goat without much trouble.”
Marianne giggled and put a hand at Kit’s back, rubbing gently. “They are kindred spirits. That’s why she loves him so.”
“I just spent several minutes with that thing not long ago,” Kit reminded her, taking his hands away from his face. “He doesn’t have much to recommend him, I can promise you that.”
Colin chuckled. “How was that, anyway?”
Kit gave him a long look. “Cold. Snowy. And not much by way of conversation.”
Colin rolled his eyes and gestured for someone else to ask.
“What did Mr. Matthews have to say?” Susannah tried.
“Not much,” Kit admitted. “He apologized for the inconvenience, promises to tend the goat until we can take him back, and swears he tried to say no to Ginny, but couldn’t.”
“Poor man,” Colin pitied with a mournful shake of his head.
“Also, he wishes us all the compliments of the season.” Kit looked up to the ceiling, his eyes tracing over the woodwork there. “I think I may have just wasted any compliments of this particular season.”
Marianne patted his back gently. “No, don’t worry about that. We’re a hardy lot, we Gerrards. We can take it.”
“Too right,” Susannah chimed in, giving him an encouraging smile. “You missed the part of the day where I yelled at the children for sneaking back into the study where the gifts were. I think I made Bitty cry.”
“Bitty cries if she doesn’t have a handkerchief,” Colin reminded his wife. “That doesn’t count for very much.”
“True,” Susannah replied with a smile, “but still, she did cry a little.”
“With this group we’ve got, we may all cry before the night is over,” Marianne laughed.
Kit shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, everyone. I shouldn’t have lost my temper, and I shouldn’t have put so much emphasis on…”
“Being happy?” Colin offered with a cheeky grin.
Kit leveled a dark look at him. “Don’t say that again.”
Colin held up a hand and nodded. “I just had to get it out one more time.”
“You were not helping matters, you know,” Kit pointed out. “How anybody could keep from laughing in my face with you doing whatever it was you were doing over there is beyond me.”
“I didn’t mean to take you from your moment of towering fury,” Colin teased. “It really was something.”
Finally Kit found himself smiling and relaxing. “Good thing we burned the log after all of that, right? Washes everything away and I have a clean slate?”
“You’re the Yule expert,” Colin scoffed. “You tell us.”
Kit laughed softly and leaned back. “I’d like a fresh start. There’s more in store for us this Christmas, and it would be wonderful if I didn’t have that hanging around my neck.”
Colin grinned and gestured grandly. “Then go and be free, good sir, and may the compliments of the season attend you.”
Kit stared at Colin and shook his head slowly, then looked at Susannah. “How in the world do you put up with him?”
Marianne giggled beside him, and Susannah just sighed. “It’s not easy, I grant you, but he has his moments.”
“He’d have to have a few, otherwise he’d be quite worthless.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Beg away.”
“And you two wonder why Rosie and Freddie can’t get along?” Marianne asked, laughing again.
A loud crashing and the sounds of arguing could be heard from upstairs, but no wailing in distress.
“What in the world?” Susannah asked, rising partially out of her seat.
Colin and Kit shook their heads, and Colin pulled her back down.
“You don’t want to know?” she asked them.
Kit shook his head one more time. “No, I really and truly don’t.”