Read Online The Christmas Wassail by Kate Sedley - Free Book Online Page B

‘eyes’, ‘noses’ and ‘buttons’ before eating the little gingerbread figures themselves. A minced pie apiece rounded off the meal, the sweet and savoury combination of fruit and meat making the perfect ending to a repast which otherwise might have left a cloying taste in the mouth.
    By this time the three older children were almost asleep, suffering from the effects of an exhausting morning and more food than they were used to, so Adela drove them all upstairs to take another much-needed rest. Even Adam went without a backward glance. She then put Luke, stuffed with plum porridge, down in the large rocking cradle which I had made for our younger son, and she and Margaret carried it into the parlour while I made the three of us a large jug of ‘lamb’s wool’. This, together with the necessary beakers, I took into the parlour after them, and we settled around a fire of logs and branches gathered by myself some days before from the many trees to be found on the downs above the city.
    â€˜Now, Mother-in-law,’ I said, pouring out the ‘lamb’s wool’, ‘tell us about this quarrel between Dame Drusilla and Sir George.’
    â€˜How do you know all these things, Cousin?’ Adela asked admiringly. She was sitting on the window seat, rocking the cradle with one foot and, when not drinking, keeping her hands busy mending a rent in one of Elizabeth’s gowns. (It has always intrigued me how women manage to do several different things at the same time.)
    â€˜My dear child,’ Margaret laughed, ‘I’ve lived in Redcliffe all my life, as you very well know. You lived there yourself until you married that first husband of yours and went off to Hereford with him – something I never approved of, but we’ll say no more about that. You must know what a hotbed of gossip it is! You can’t sneeze without someone calling round to find out if you’re suffering from a rheum. And Drusilla Marvell has lived there longer than I have. In fact, she’s lived in that old house on the waterfront all her life. She was born there, as was her brother. And after he went away to London and then to fight in the French wars, and her parents died, she just stayed on. She’s a very rich woman, you know. Not only did she inherit money from her father, but an uncle – a brother of her mother’s, I believe – who had no children of his own and was very fond of Drusilla when she was young, left her all his fortune. She’s wealthier than Sir George. Who will get her money when she dies – and that can’t be far off, she’s eighty-five now – is a matter of great conjecture in Redcliffe. The rumour is that she favours Cyprian Marvell’s son, James. Certainly, he seems to be the only member of the family she has any time for.’
    I immediately found myself thinking of Lady Marvell’s meeting with Briant of Dungarvon. Had she indeed been making arrangements to have her step-grandson abducted and sold into slavery, as I had conjectured, in the hope that with his disappearance her sister-in-law would be forced to leave her fortune elsewhere? But whatever had been her intention, it had gone awry.
    I took a gulp of my ‘lamb’s wool’, Adela’s excellent pear and apple cider warming my throat and belly, and wiped away the froth from the roasted apple with the back of my hand.
    I addressed Margaret again. ‘You said that Dame Drusilla and her brother never got on.’
    She nodded. ‘That’s true. He’s a great deal younger than she is. She was twelve or thereabouts when George was born and had been the only child until then. But naturally the arrival of the much longed-for son very quickly relegated Drusilla to second place in her parents’ affections. Her resentment of him descended rapidly into dislike and, later, into something more akin to hatred.’
    â€˜Natural enough,’ I