Almost as soon as he crossed the Drood threshold, Meg ordered Johnny a bath, which he was by no means thrilled about, but this was such a bath as he had never before experienced. The vessel was luxuriously curved and made of a smooth white material, not the rough tin of aunt Hetty's tub. The maidservant put something fragrant in the water and, when he was clean and dressed again, she combed through his hair.
Aunt Hetty would yank and hurt, but this girl had a gentle touch and he gave up his initial resistance swiftly and let her work on him.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"I'm Martha."
"You can be my maid, when I live here."
She laughed.
"Oh, can I now? Well, I shall look forward to it. Lord, what a lot of hair you do have."
"Are other people coming here, for Christmas?"
He rather feared the presence of his parents, whom he had no desire to see again.
"Now, let me see. We have you and your aunt, and Captain Drood's mother, and his younger brother, and Captain Drood's friend from Egypt – I think that is all. Oh, and on Boxing Day there will be a small gathering of friends. If I remember rightly they have invited a dozen or so."
"Have they invited Rosa Bud?"
"Why, yes, I think they have. Do you know the lady?"
"She is the first person ever I spoke to."
"Truly? She is a special friend to you then."
Johnny smiled, enjoying this idea.
"Yes, she is my best friend."
Downstairs, he was allowed to play and sing for the company while they enjoyed tea and festive treats in the drawing room. Captain Drood's mother seemed quite taken with his performance and praised him to the skies, which offset some of the anxiety engendered by the odd demeanour of his sister and her husband.
Captain Drood, it seemed, had little to say to Meg, and she was pale and drawn, frequently leaving the room with precipitate haste.
She was too indisposed to join the party for supper, and Johnny sat at the far end of the table with aunt Hetty, half-listening while Captain Drood's friend regaled all with tales of Egypt and its mysteries and riches. The mantel was cheerfully decorated with garlands of holly and mistletoe, but there was a sober atmosphere that even old Mrs Drood's over-indulgence in sherry and subsequent cawing of carols could not quite jolly along.
After supper, he concealed himself behind a long velvet curtain, hoping that nobody would recall his presence and send him to bed, wanting to stay up and listen for the first peal of Christmas bells.
He fell asleep there and was discovered by Martha and another girl when they came in to clear up the glasses and plates.
Martha woke him, but he was too drowsy to stir, so she carried him up the stairs, puffing to her companion as they went.
"He's too big for this caper," she gasped. "Why didn't somebody put him to bed earlier?"
"S'pose they forgot. Did you hear about Liza Drewe? Another babby, they say. Another bastard."
Johnny's ears pricked up. That word again – the one his father had spoken. What did it mean?
"No, never! Not after the last time. Who's is it?"
"Someone who came to pick hops, they reckon, long gone now."
"There weren't no hop picking nine months ago! Hops ain't ready till the summer."
"Well, I dunno, anyway. Somebody. Do you think…?" She lowered her voice, presumably for Johnny's benefit, though he still heard every word.
"What?" whispered Martha.
"The mistress."
Martha inhaled, a little fearfully. "I don't know. It seems like it, don't it? She's been so sick these last few weeks."
They stopped and the other girl opened the bedroom door.
Martha laid him down on his bed, took off his jacket and boots and loosened his collar.
"Can you do the rest, little man?" she asked kindly.
He nodded, yawning.
"Best get to sleep now, or there'll be no visit from Father Christmas for you. Oh, aren't you going to hang your stocking on the fireplace?"
"My stocking?"
"Have you never done this?"
"No, never."
"Then I'll do it for you."
Johnny watched with sleepy bemusement as Martha took one of his clean stockings from the drawer.
"When you come downstairs in the morning," she said, "you might find a surprise or two waiting for you."
"What kind of surprise?"
"That ain't for the likes of us to know, young sir." Martha smiled mysteriously and put a finger to her nose. "Good night, now."
Despite cold that bit into his toes and numbed the end of his nose, the Christmas service at Cloisterham cathedral was a thing of glory to Johnny. Already the day had given him an orange, a bag of mixed nuts, peppermints and a tin whistle, all wrapped in tissue and hidden in his stocking. Now it gave him even more – music that rose up and fought the cold and made it forgettable, insignificant even.
The low notes from the organ seemed to creep under the stone floor and make the pews vibrate.
"I should like to see the organ," he petitioned Meg as they walked back to the West Door after the service.
She waved vaguely at the pipes but he shook his head.
"No, the instrument, the keys," he said.
"Oh, it is up in the loft. Only the organist is permitted."
Dull and lightweight seemed the piano as he tinkled the opening bars of Stille Nacht before dinner was served. He wanted to make the silver rattle and the glasses chime, but the most he could do was kick at the piano stool, frustrated that his legs wouldn't reach the pedals.
"Come, Jack, it is time to sit at the table."
Why did Meg call him Jack now? He feigned deafness and played on, but at length Captain Drood lifted him bodily from the stool and deposited him in his seat beside Aunt Hetty, who scolded him for his heedlessness.
He scowled, his Christmas now darkened after its promising start, and applied himself mutely to the goose and its accompaniments while adult conversation flew above his head.
Meg had barely eaten a morsel before she had to leave the table, distinctly green about the gills. Johnny looked after her and tried to follow her, but the older Mrs Drood told him in no uncertain terms to leave her be.
When she returned, she exchanged a strange look with Captain Drood, who put down his knife and fork in a rather final manner, leading the rest of the table to halt in their repast also and regard him with an air of expectancy.
"It's been dashed difficult keeping quiet about this," he said, "and I daresay most of you know exactly what it is I have to announce, but I hope you'll wish me and Margaret well when I tell you that we are to be parents."
A great cacophony of exclamation and squawking and backslapping rent the air around Johnny, who could only stare at his sister and wonder how she knew this wondrous event was to come to pass. And when? Really, aside from a certain pastiness of complexion, she looked every inch her normal self.
"In the summer," she said, in response to a question from someone. "Yes, the doctor supposes around the end of June or start of July."
More jumbled conversation ensued which Johnny could not follow. He tried to catch Meg's eye but she would not look at him – almost, it seemed, on purpose.
When at length the buzz died down, old Mrs Drood turned to him, the only member of the party who seemed sensible of his existence, and said, "What do you think to that, master Jack? You are to be an uncle."
"Am I?"
"Yes, of course, for when your sister's baby is born, you shall have a tiny nephew or niece."
"Meg will have a baby?"
"He is but a child, he does not understand such things," cautioned Meg. "Yes, Jack. I will have a baby."
Johnny nodded, hoping to impress a sense of the depth of his understanding on the company.
"And shall the baby be a bastard?" he asked.
He was not prepared for the consternation this simple question occasioned. Old Mrs Drood shrieked for him to be removed from the table, and this came swiftly to pass, as Captain Drood took him by his collar and marched him upstairs, shoving him grimly and wordlessly into his bedroom, the door of which was locked behind him with a terrible grinding noise.
And with that, Johnny's Christmas Day was over, until very much later, when Martha stole into the room with a slice of Christmas cake on a plate.
"Oh, poor love, have you been crying since dinner?" she whispered.
"I have not been crying," he insisted fiercely, though he knew his eyes probably told a different tale.
"I have spoken to the mistress," she said, "and explained that you must have heard that…word you spoke…from Lizzie, when we thought you asleep last night. I have said that you don't know what it means and your question was innocently meant. I am right to think so, aren't I?"
He nodded.
"What does it mean?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"I should not say. But it is not a word you must ever use in company, Master Jack. Please mind me."
"I am not called Jack."
"Well, I'm sorry I spoke, I'm sure. Enjoy your cake. And your sister'll come round. She isn't angry with you, more sorry that this silly mistake came about. Go to sleep now. Tomorrow will dawn a new day."
Yes, tomorrow might dawn a new day, but it would bring nothing of luck for John Jasper, thought Johnny despairingly. Meg would have her own child and he would be forgotten.
But Rosa Bud would come to visit for Boxing Day, and he could sing and play for her.
If he went to sleep thinking of her, would he then dream of her?
He struggled out of his tight best suit, resolving to test the theory.
It didn't work, but at least the morning brought him a visitor, in the form of Meg.
"Johnny," she whispered, hurrying over and kneeling by his bedside. "I know you were not to blame for what you said yesterday. Servants' talk…forgive me for the miserable Christmas Day you have passed."
He sat up in bed.
"How do you know you will have a baby?" he asked her, a question which had been puzzling him ever since the disastrous dinner.
She took his hand and squeezed it.
"God sends us signs, Johnny."
"What sort of signs?"
"Peculiar sensations – fatigue and sickness, and such." She seemed flustered, looking away as she spoke.
"I was sick when I ate too much plum cake," said Johnny. "I didn't have a baby."
"Of course you didn't. That isn't how it happens."
"How does it then?"
"That is not fit for you to know, at your age. Johnny, I have come here to be forgiving and all you can do is pester me with silly questions."
She sounded cross and he sighed and put his arms around his knees, resting his head upon them.
"Perhaps the baby will not come," he said leadenly.
"Johnny! Do not say such a thing."
"You will care more for the baby than for me."
"No." She held her breath for a minute and he looked up, struck by her consternation. "No, I won't," she said. "I never will. But you must understand…"
"Do not tell me I cannot live here," he said, putting his hands over his ears. "Do not say it. I will not listen."
She took his hands from his ears and held them to her breast.
"I have fought so hard to bring you here, Johnny. I have been your constant advocate – please believe me when I say this. But now that the new baby is expected, Captain Drood, who was so close to softening, has set his face against it."
"I hate him," stormed Johnny, struggling to remove his hands from Meg's grip without success.
"You must not hate him, please, for me, Johnny. Please try to understand. He is your, your brother-in-law."
"He is not. He is my enemy. I hate him now and I shall hate him for life."
"Oh, how have you become this…this bitter, angry child?"
Meg stood and turned away, her voice cracked at the edges.
"I have become nothing. I have always been the same. It is you who has changed."
She left the room then, muttering something he only half heard about breakfast.
He dressed himself, rather erratically, and went outside, without his coat, heedless of the frosty lawn and the tinge of ice on the air. The cold pleased him; it replaced his anger with sharp knife cuts of pain all over his skin, then in his ears and bones, until the tip of his nose was numb and he had to stamp his feet to remind himself that he was still in possession of ten toes.
He was kicking a wall, rather enjoying the oddness of not feeling anything no matter how hard he tried, when he saw a fellow on a horse trot around the perimeter hedge of the grounds, slowing when it reached the front of the house.
He went back in through the back door and concealed himself by the staircase, interested to know the visitor's business.
Meg had taken him into a side room and shut the door, though, so he could not hear. When the messenger came into the hall, bidden to wait while his sister composed a note in reply, he heard Meg call for Captain Drood and bustle into the morning room opposite. Their conversation reached his tingling ears, apart from the bits that were spoken very low, which was rather a lot of it.
"Again?" said Captain Drood, after some whisperings from Meg. "It is a shame."
"She would be such a wonderful mother."
Low voices again, then from Captain Drood, "Well, it can't be helped. We shall miss their company but if Rosa is unwell, what is to be done?"
"Perhaps she will be well enough to join us for a New Year celebration."
"Let us hope so, Margaret. Where is that deuced brother of yours? He lurks about the place like a shadow. Tell him to show himself."
Johnny flitted upstairs and found the package of peppermints he had been given in his stocking. He had only eaten three, and there was half a pound in the bag, at least.
He ran back downstairs and pressed the sweets into the messenger's surprised hand.
"Give these to Mrs Bud," he entreated. "They are very good for settling the stomach."
The messenger roared with laughter, bringing Meg back into the hall, pen and paper in hand.
"What is it? Johnny?"
The messenger held up the peppermints.
"A Christmas box for the mistress," he explained. "Unexpected, I must say."
"I only meant to help," said Johnny, crestfallen at being ridiculed by the red-nosed fellow.
"This is very sweet of you, Johnny. Rosa will be cheered to know that you think of her in her time of indisposition. Go into the morning room – Captain Drood is asking for you."
He was reluctant to give Captain Drood audience, but he dawdled into the morning room and sat down by the fire, his feet not even reaching the footstool.
"Ah, Jack," said Drood. He essayed a smile to which Johnny responded with stony severity. "Humph. Well. We're all very sorry, as I think Margaret has mentioned, that you got the rough end of the stick yesterday. The servants spoke out of turn when they shouldn't have. You weren't to know what they meant. Shall we agree like gentlemen to let bygones be bygones?"
"What did they mean? Nobody will tell me."
Drood was taken aback by the question and spluttered a little.
"With good reason, Jack, with very good reason."
"I only ask because my parents said that I was one. They thought I didn't hear, but I did."
"Eh? What? Your parents?" Drood's frown was so furrowed and deep that Johnny thought his cheekbones might rise up to meet his brow, hiding his eyes away entirely. "What nonsense is this? I think you must have heard wrong, boy. Say no more about it, there's a lad."
But he was discomposed and his drumming fingers betrayed his agitation for the remainder of the interview.
"Captain Drood," Johnny opened tentatively, "I should like to live here."
"Impossible," he said snappishly.
"I could be a playmate for the baby," he ventured.
"Play? When do you ever play? I have never seen you do such a thing. You spend your time at that dashed piano or mooning over a book. My son will have more about him than that. I'll have him riding to hounds before he's out of frocks. A healthy, hearty, sportsman of a fellow with an open, honest, happy manner. That's what we Droods breed, Jack. Your influence will not be needed."
There appeared to be nothing more to say on the matter. After lunch, Johnny and aunt Hetty climbed once more into the Drood's carriage for the freezing journey back to their wretched cottage.
As Johnny looked out towards the cathedral spire, he wondered what it would be like to lie beneath such cold, cold ground.
