Chapter Four
"Isn't this just perfection? The crisp winter air, the beauty of these trees around us, and no sound at all but what we make ourselves?”
“You’re making enough for all of us, and it’s hardly anything praiseworthy.”
“Is it supposed to be this cold?”
The lack of appropriate response to Colin’s attempts at enlightenment made him scowl as he looked behind him at his son and brother. “You know, the pair of you could try for a little optimism.”
Kit grinned at him and shrugged. “I’m very optimistic. We’ll be returning home with a large and apparently perfectly proportioned tree for the family, which is exactly what I want.”
Colin nodded in approval, then looked at his son. “Freddie?”
Freddie looked around as the snow fell and shivered. “I wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t for all this snow.”
“That’s not exactly what I am looking for.” Colin sighed and folded his arms. “You’re bundled up enough, aren’t you?”
“I suppose so,” came the reluctant reply. “Between Mrs. Donovan, Mama, and Aunt Marianne, I am surprised I can move out here. But Papa, this is a farming estate, isn’t it? And the men following us are farm hands?”
Kit bit back a laugh and Colin struggled with the same. “It is, yes. And they are.”
“Then why are we out here with them?” Freddie cried, flinging his arms out. “This isn’t a job for gentlemen! Uncle Kit will be a lord soon, and this is not appropriate for a lord!”
Kit looked up at Colin with a smug look that clearly said, “And how are you going to answer that?”
“Where are you finding this description of a lord or gentleman that says he can’t go out into the forest on his own land and cut down a tree for his family to decorate for Christmas, hmm?” Colin asked his son.
Freddie’s mouth popped open, then closed in thought. “Well, it’s just not done!” Freddie eventually said.
“Says who?” Colin asked again.
“Everyone!”
Kit hooted a laugh at that. “I think you will find, Freddie, that there are several people who are technically gentlemen who do not obey the sort of dictates that everyone knows about, for good or ill.”
That seemed to startle Freddie. “Really?”
Kit nodded soberly. “Take Lord Whitlock, for example.”
“Careful, Kit,” Colin warned, slightly afraid of what story his twin might tell about their oldest friend.
“I’ve seen with my own eyes Lord Whitlock help his tenants by working their farms with them, or fixing a roof, or play with village children.” Kit nodded again when Freddie looked shocked. “And you know that Lord Whitlock is a very gentlemanly man.”
“Uncle Derek did all that?” Freddie asked, awed and amazed.
“And more, if I’m not mistaken,” Kit added, looking to Colin for confirmation, who gave it with a short nod. “A gentleman does what is right and proper, for certain, but sometimes what is right requires that he step outside of the boundaries that Society may set.”
Freddie was silent as he processed that, absently trudging along behind them when Colin and Kit continued on.
“That was a long answer to a simple question,” Colin muttered.
“Should save him from asking again,” Kit replied, clapping Colin on the back. “You’re welcome.”
Colin glared at his brother’s back as he moved ahead of him. “I can’t wait until your son is old enough to cause you some grief, because I will be right there to show him the way.”
“What was that?” Kit called over his shoulder.
“Just wondering which of our able farm hands will be strong enough to manage hauling the tree to the wagon alone, if any!” Colin called back loudly, bringing up boasts and bets from the farm hands coming up behind them, and Mr. Johnson ahead of them, leading the way.
“Papa,” Freddie broke in suddenly. “Is that why we are getting a tree for Christmas?”
Colin looked back at him. “Is what why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Colin looked up the hill at Kit, who was trying not to laugh yet again. Colin pointedly turned his back on him. “It’s got nothing to do with right or wrong, Freddie. Not in this case. This is something that we are doing because it is Christmas, and your uncle and I used to go out with the farm hands and our father to find a tree for Christmas.”
He turned and continued up the hill, and heard Freddie crunching in the snow behind him.
“A tree for Christmas?” Freddie repeated.
“Yes.” Colin widened his eyes at his brother, who still looked too amused.
“Why would we need a tree for Christmas?” Freddie asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“What indeed?” Kit murmured as Colin neared him.
“Don’t you start,” Colin hissed. “It’s an old Bavarian custom,” he called to his son.
“Why would you celebrate Bavarian customs?”
“Because our mother was Bavarian.”
“Oh.”
Colin exhaled shortly and nodded, praying that would be the end of it. Mr. Johnson was standing just up ahead in front of a tree, waiting for them. “Is that the one, Mr. Johnson?”
Mr. Johnson waved his arm and gestured to the tree. “What do you think, sirs?”
Colin came up alongside Kit and they stared at it for a long moment. It was a great evergreen tree, exactly the sort they’d had as young boys, and if his memory served, rather like the one their grandfather had placed in his house the one Christmas they had spent in Bavaria. It was full and stately, but not too tall or ambitious for the room in which it would be placed.
“Kit?” Colin asked, willing to defer to his brother on this only because he knew what his answer would be.
Kit clapped his gloved hands together. “I love it. It’s perfect!”
Mr. Johnson laughed a deep laugh and looked up at the tree. “I rather think it is, sir. Should we call the boys to start chopping it down?”
“Yes!” Colin and Kit cried together.
Freddie looked bewildered by it all.
“Papa,” he asked as he came to stand by Colin. “Why is it a Bavarian custom to bring the trees inside for Christmas?”
Colin, having lost himself in his glee of finding such a perfect tree, almost missed the question. “What?”
Freddie huffed in irritation. “Why is the tree for Christmas a Bavarian custom?”
He looked at Freddie for a long moment, scrambling for thought. “I don’t think the Bavarians invented the idea. I believe they just continued it.”
“Who started it?”
“Probably the Romans. Maybe the Celts.” Colin looked at Kit in a plaintive cry for help.
“Vikings, maybe,” Kit added.
Not exactly the helpful response Colin was going for, but Kit had never been particularly useful in that regard.
“But why?” Freddie pressed. “Why would any of them do that?”
Oh, now this was unfair. Colin rarely thought back to his education, but now he was being forced to do so in an attempt to not look like he was uninformed to his son. Even when Colin was being educated, he rarely thought about anything he was being taught, which made it nearly impossible to recollect anything of the sort now.
“Probably had something to do with the solstice,” Colin said evasively.
“Why?”
“Because most customs tended to revolve around things like that.”
“Why?”
Colin looked at his son again, patience all but gone. “Are you trying to irk me, or are you really this inquisitive?”
Freddie shrugged, not noticing Colin’s tone or not caring. “Uncle Kit always said an inquisitive mind makes for wise men.”
“He did, did he?” Colin mused, turning to glance at his brother with a raised brow.
Kit held up his hands in surrender.
“And do you ask these sorts of questions of your professors at school?” Colin asked, returning to his son.
Freddie wrinkled up his nose. “Sort of. I phrase them better, but I tend to ask a lot.”
“And what do they say?”
“Usually good things,” came the answer with a shrug. “I’m a quick learner and show great promise.”
Colin laughed to himself at the formal sounding comment. “Says who?”
Again came the shrug. “All of them.”
“Good lad, Freddie,” Kit offered, coming closer.
Freddie smiled at him. “Thank you, Uncle Kit.”
Colin cleared his throat quickly. “Yes, very well done, son. And now you can tell them all something about Bavarian Christmas traditions, eh?”
Freddie laughed reluctantly, clearly not as amused by the idea as his father was. “Yes, Papa.”
“Master Frederick, have you ever seen a tree properly cut down?” Mr. Johnson asked from his position behind the tree as the farm hands gathered.
“No!” Freddie said, suddenly intrigued.
“Come on over here and get a different sort of education then.”
Freddie scampered over to the tree, leaving his father and uncle standing alone.
Kit came to stand beside Colin and they watched as Mr. Johnson instructed Freddie in the finer arts of tree cutting.
“He’s going to get thrashed by the other boys for being an intellectual,” Kit murmured in an offhand manner.
“Oh, he is absolutely going to get thrashed,” Colin scoffed. “No question there.”
“You may want to consider engaging a fighting instructor for him.”
“So he can terrorize Rosie more? I think not.”
“Is he doing the terrorizing? I rather thought Rosie was.”
That gave Colin some pause. It was true that their sister was a bully, and there was some concern about that, but the reports from her instructors at the Miss Masters Finishing School in Kent were all so positive and encouraging that they had no worries about her there. It was evidently only when she was home that she acted in this manner.
They were not entirely certain if that ought to encourage them or not.
“When Rosie goes back to Kent…” Colin began slowly.
“Perfect timing. He can even have the lessons at our house if it makes you feel safer.”
Colin gave his brother a sly look. “It just might. If you offer yourself as his partner.”
Kit chuckled to himself. “Oh, that would not help your son at all. He would never best me.”
“You saw how he was with Rosie today,” Colin told him in a low voice. “Rosie is a good four inches taller and a good stone heavier, if not more. Yet he turned her into a circling stock horse for his own purposes. Tell me now that my son is not creative enough to find his way around you given the proper instruction, experience, and opportunity.”
His brother was silent for a moment, then cleared his throat. “You are not supposed to take pride in your son harassing our sister in that way, Colin.”
“It was a brilliant move, and you know it.” Colin shook his head and sighed. “If we weren’t supposed to be the adults, let alone the parents and guardians, I think we might have praised him for his instincts.”
“Sounds like he had his reasons,” Kit relented, smiling.
Colin nodded slowly. “What did Rosie have to say for herself?”
Kit groaned and shoved his hands into his pockets. “She knows she was full out of line with her comment. She insisted she didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but her pride would not allow her to apologize while he was hurting her.” He glanced at Colin with a wry look. “It would seem that our offspring and siblings are struggling to find the same enthusiasm for Christmas that we have, Colin.”
That seemed to be too true, and Colin didn’t quite know what to do about it.
“All the more reason for us to show them the way, don’t you think?” he suggested to Kit.
“Ideally, yes. Provided they don’t kill each other first.”
Colin shrugged. “Well, yes, that would be a given.” He strode forward towards the group around the tree. “Make way, make way all of you. Allow me.”
He took up position with some of the others, and went to work with the saw. Not two minutes later, Kit joined on the opposite side.
“I thought perhaps these fine men would like to get home before dark, considering how long it was taking you to do anything at all,” Kit said, to the general laughter of their group.
“Maybe if you stopped talking long enough to work,” Colin panted as he sawed, “we might get somewhere.”
“All right, boys, place your bets!” Mr. Johnson called with a laugh. “I’ll place a half a crown on Mr. Colin.”
Colin grinned at that. “Double that, Mr. Johnson, and I’ll send your family a Christmas goose worthy of praise.”
Mr. Johnson was no fool, and did exactly as he was told.
And he did indeed receive a very fine goose, though not the one Colin had intended to send him.
“Left. Left. No, your other left.”
“I am going left, Colin.”
“If you were going left, you would be going left. As it is, you are not.”
“Why are we doing this and not the servants?”
“At this moment, I’m not entirely certain. The servants know their left from right.”
“Oh, stuff it, both of you. Just go forward.”
Colin looked through the boughs of the tree he was hauling. “Susannah?”
“I had to see this for myself,” his wife said, and he was fairly certain she was folding her arms.
“Just what I wanted,” Kit grunted. “An audience.”
“Oh, come now, darling. It’s in our nature to appreciate a spectacle of masculinity when it is before us.”
“Marianne?” Kit squawked, beginning to turn to face his wife.
“Don’t turn!” Colin scolded. “You’re shifting everything.”
“Pay attention, Kit, and do show your brother the proper way to do this.”
Kit suddenly stood taller and bore more of the brunt of the tree. “Right, Colin. Three paces forward, one to the left.”
“Oh, to the left, you say?” Colin replied drily. “What an ingenious notion.”
Kit said nothing.
They moved exactly as Kit had said, and then tilted the tree up to stand upright. The servants came and secured it as Kit and Colin stepped back and surveyed their handiwork.
Colin looked the tree up and down. “It is a rather good tree.”
Kit nodded firmly. “It is, yes.”
“Does someone want to explain to me why we have a massive evergreen in this room?” Marianne asked as she came forward, looking like the perfect Christmas matron in her burgundy velvet dress. She always tended to look pristine and elegant no matter what she wore, but in the years since her marriage to Kit, she seemed to hardly notice any of that. It did wonders for her, and it helped that Kit always looked at her as though she were the brightest star in the heavens, even after a few years of marriage.
It was a pleasant change from how things used to be, where he twitched at the sight of her, but going from one extreme to the other was not easy for Colin to deal with.
Kit turned to his wife with the same almost awestruck look he always wore with her, as if he had forgotten what she looked like from one moment to the next. “It’s a Bavarian Christmas tradition, my love. Our mother was Bavarian by birth, and it was always her favorite part of Christmas.”
Marianne softened at once and almost curled into Kit’s side. “Oh, that’s lovely! Did you have trees growing up?”
“Every year,” Colin replied, coming to stand beside his wife, dropping his arm around her shoulders. “Well, except for when Loughton decided to give us all up.”
“Good riddance to him,” Susannah spat with a rather savage tone. “Don’t ruin the day by invoking his name.”
“Amen,” Marianne echoed, her fair brow furrowing.
Kit kissed her hair and her brow cleared as she smiled softly. “But what do you do with it?” she asked.
“I usually wait for it to start up a jig, but as yet, I’ve never seen it,” Colin quipped, sighing sadly for effect.
Susannah nudged him sharply in the ribs. “Don’t laugh off her sincere question.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Colin did actually wait for it to dance a jig,” Kit offered thoughtfully.
“See?” Colin told Susannah, who scoffed even as she took the hand around her shoulders and toyed with it absently.
“Traditionally, it is decorated with ribbons and small gifts,” Kit told the women. “And candles are placed upon it, and then lit.”
Marianne and Susannah looked at each other in surprise. “It’s a wonder houses don’t burn down,” Susannah said.
“Considering the state of many Bavarians around this time of year, I’m surprised there still is a Bavaria to celebrate Christmas,” Colin scoffed.
“I don’t know…” Marianne murmured, looking a touch worried.
Colin looked over the heads of the women at Kit, who shared an equally frantic look at him.
“The servants will monitor the candles,” Colin assured them in a soothing tone.
“And we’ll only light them in the evenings,” Kit added.
“Our trees always had candles,” Colin pointed out. “And we never burned down the house or even scorched a rug.”
Susannah made a soft noise of contentment. “Well, if that isn’t indicative of something significant, I don’t know what is.”
Marianne laughed and patted Kit’s chest. “It’s a miracle, isn’t it?”
Kit frowned down at her. “There’s no need to be that dramatic about it. We were hardly that terrible.”
Now Susannah hooted a laugh. “Kit Gerrard, that is an outright lie, and you know it.”
“Colin was terrible,” Kit pointed out. “I never was.”
“Excuse me?” Colin protested. “You planned every single one of our escapades, I was simply the one that got caught.”
“Only because you were too stupid to avoid getting caught,” Kit argued.
“And we wonder why Rosie and Freddie were fighting this morning,” Marianne offered with a thoughtful look at Susannah.
“Complete mystery.”
“She gets it from him,” Colin and Kit said at the same time, then stared at each other with a frown.
Marianne was beside herself. “Oh, this is too much. I’ve never seen the pair of you be this twin-like in my life.” She wiped at a few tears of laughter. “But back to the tree. What sort of gifts are we to put on it?”
Colin’s senses went on the alert and he was very careful to avoid looking at Kit. “Oh, small ones, by all means. We could never fit large presents in the tree, that would certainly topple everything. Very small packages.”
Susannah looked up at him in confusion, no doubt catching his awkward tone.
“And what of the presents that are too large for going in the tree?” Marianne asked, oblivious to his tone. “Where would those go?”
“Oh, anywhere at all,” Colin offered. “The tree does not have to be the bearer of presents.”
Marianne nodded thoughtfully. “I did struggle with what to get the children for Christmas. One doesn’t want to spoil them, but how to reward them and spread cheer without being excessive…?”
It was becoming increasingly obvious to Colin that Marianne was the culprit, and he felt a surge of satisfaction in his veins.
“How indeed?” he mused.
“What are you going on about?” Susannah hissed so only he could hear.
He shrugged lightly. “Nothing at all. I agree with her, I would never want to be excessive with the gifts we give the children. What would they do if we gave them everything?”
“Exactly so,” Marianne said with a warm smile. “I was a very spoiled girl, and it took quite some getting over. I would never want to do that to one of the children. I thought of just one present apiece, and then we could certainly make up some very small things for the tree.”
One apiece? That was hardly fitting in with the mass amount of packages that had appeared.
But Marianne was very clever, and he would not put it past her to lie.
“So what did you get for the children?” Susannah asked of the room in general. “I had little input this year, Colin wanted to do most of it.”
Kit suddenly wore a very smug smile. “Colin, why don’t you share with the room what you got for Rosie?”
Now that was uncalled for. But he could hardly claim privacy and get away with it. “A pony,” he grumbled. “And Kit got a saddle.”
Susannah and Marianne looked stunned for a moment, then looked at each other as if they were going to laugh.
“What?” Colin demanded.
“Rosie is too big for a pony,” Susannah told him, her voice near to laughter. “And so is Bitty.”
Colin forced his expression to remain neutral. “Then it appears Ginny is getting a pony.”
Kit was struggling against laughter so much his face was red.
“And Rosie?” Marianne asked on a giggle.
Colin sighed. “Do either of you have new dresses or ribbons I could pay you for? Preferably something Rosie has never seen.”
Susannah closed her eyes, laughing to herself. “Oh, Colin. You should have asked me. What Rosie really wants is…” She paused, sniffing the air. “What is that smell? Is that…?”
Colin sniffed the air himself, then exhaled in irritation. “That, my dear, is the smell of something burning. It would seem that something in this house has caught fire.”