Thrown Out on Christmas Eve, She Took Shelter in an Empty House — Unaware the Duke Was Coming Home
Chapter 2
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"Hannah," said Sam in the voice of a boy who was trying to be brave, "are there ghosts?""No," said Hannah. "There are only cold rooms. Cold rooms we can fix."She knelt by the trunk, opened it by feel, and found the small tin box at the top. Inside was a tinderbox, and next to it, wrapped in a clean handkerchief, was a single candle.It was not an ordinary candle: her father had made it the week before he died. It was pure beeswax, the color of honey, thick as her wrist, with a thin ring of red wax set around it a third of the way down. Every Christmas, Walter Lowe made one such candle, and every Christmas Eve, the family lit it and let it burn down to the red ring; then they snuffed it and saved the rest for next year."Father's candle," said Sam."Father's candle," said Hannah.She struck the flint. It took three tries. The tinder caught, and she touched it to the wick, and a small, clear flame stood up in the dark.Beeswax burns differently from tallow. Tallow, which is made from mutton fat, smokes and spits and smells of a butcher's shop. Beeswax burns clean and bright, and smells faintly of honey and summer. Hannah had been able to tell the two apart with her eyes closed since she was six years old.In the light of that one candle, the scullery of Ashmere House came out of the darkness: stone sinks, copper pans on hooks green with age, a door leading on into a great kitchen with a range as big as a cart, and sitting on the kitchen table, looking at them with enormous yellow eyes, was a very large gray cat.Sam gripped Hannah's arm. The cat looked at the candle, looked at Sam, and then, with the air of a bishop granting a blessing, jumped down and walked over to rub its head against the trunk."Well," said Hannah, letting out her breath, "at least someone lives here.""Can we keep him?""He isn't ours to keep. We aren't ours to keep tonight. We are guests who didn't ask." She stood up. "Come along. There will be coal somewhere, and wood. We need a fire before anything else."There was coal in the cellar and dry wood stacked by the back door under a little roof. There was a pump in the yard that still worked after Hannah poured a cup of water down it to prime it, the way her father had taught her.Within half an hour, a fire was burning in the great kitchen range. Within an hour, the room had stopped hurting to breathe in.Hannah found oats in a sealed crock in the larder, and salt, and a small jar of honey gone hard and white. She made porridge in a copper pan she scrubbed first with sand. Sam ate two bowls. The gray cat, whom Sam had named Bishop, accepted a saucer of it without complaint.