A Yuletide Treasure Read Free Page B

were open. The cold beat in remorselessly, as if there were no walls to shelter behind.
    The dog pushed in ahead of Camilla, sure where she hesitated. With a yip, he ran away into one of the other rooms.
    “Is anyone there?” Camilla called, following. She hoped that she’d only imagined that faint cry for help. She didn’t want to face whatever caused this sense of desolation in a place meant to be cheerful and cozy.
    “Who’s there?” The voice, a woman’s, came like a ghost’s whisper, barely audible above the moaning of the wind.
    “I’m Camilla Twainsbury. Where are you?” She followed the dog and found him sitting before a half-closed door. He looked over his shoulder at her, as if to ask what was taking her so long. Once again, as soon as she laid her hand on the door, he rocketed through it ahead of her.
    “Oh, good boy, Rex. Good boy. I’m sorry... so sorry.”
    “Nanny Mallow?”
    An elderly lady lay on the floor, her gown twisted around her. A pillow and counterpane had been pulled from the bed beside her, leaving the sheet half-drawn to the floor. The light from the net-covered window allowed Camilla to see details but not colors. She didn’t need to see Nanny Mallow’s color to know the older woman was in a bad way.
    “How long have you been here?” she asked, dropping down on her knees beside her.
    “This will be the second night. The first, I think, I was out of m’head. Thank mercy m’leg doesn’t hurt the way it did before. I can hardly feel it now. But it won’t bear me. I’ve tried.”
    “What’s wrong with it? “
    “I believe I broke it. I was reaching to knock down the cobweb in the corner and fell off the footstool like a right fool.” She lifted her hand to pat her dog, lying shivering with delight near his mistress. “It’s poor old Rex I felt sorry for. I could hear him crying in the yard, and there was nothing I could do for him. Be a good lass, Miss Camilla, and go to the kitchen. There’s a fine fat shinbone there for him.”
    Her voice faded out as her eyes rolled back in her head. She slumped down, but even as she fainted, she moaned from pain. Camilla caught her by the shoulders as she fell back and laid her gently on the pillow.
    “Well,” Camilla said, sitting back on her heels. Her mother’s old saying, perhaps passed down from the very woman before her, came into her head. “First things first. But what’s the first thing?”
    Her own white puffs of breath told her what to do. She found a flint and steel in the kitchen, kindled a fire there and set the kettle on, not forgetting to unwrap the butcher’s bone for Rex. He drank thirstily from the bowl of water she set down on the floor. She refilled it, and he drank again. A mop and bucket in the corner reminded her of other duties.
    Once she started a fire in the bedroom hearth, the cheerful glow heartened her for the unpleasant but necessary task of cleaning the floor. A quick search of a cedarwood chest on the far side of the bed discovered a treasure trove of warm blankets and a silken tie-quilt as warm and light as good white goose down could make it. Two fresh pillows under the woman’s heavy head and she looked as if she lay on a very low bed.
    Camilla had everything ready before Nanny Mallow’s wrinkled lids fluttered. “Tea,” she moaned between cracked lips. “Two days I’ve been dreaming of tea....”
    “Right here, Nanny.” Camilla slipped her arm around the frail shoulders and brought the cup near. Despite her weakened condition, after a moment, Nanny Mallow held the cup herself. “Too sweet,” she said, smacking her lips thirstily, “but a good cup, withal. I taught your mother how to make a good cup of tea.”
    “And she taught me. A clean cup, a hot pot, and boiling water.” Camilla reached out to the brown-glazed teapot on a tray on the floor. “A little more? Then something to eat, perhaps? I can have this bread toasted in the twinkling of a bedpost.”
    “I’ve been lying