Puzzled, Stephen headed in the direction of the sound, his booted footsteps echoing on the floor of the colonnaded entry hall as he crossed it and turned down a long corridor that ran toward the back of the house. At the end of the corridor he stopped again, his head tipped to the side, listening to the silence. Sherry had undoubtedly retired hours ago, he decided, growing thoroughly annoyed with himself for rushing home from his mistress's inviting arms to devote himself to her like some overardent nursemaid.
He started to turn in disgust then stopped dead as
Sherry's merry voice wafted down the hallway from the direction of the kitchen. "All right, everyone, let's try it again-only Mr. Hodgkin, you must stand right near me and sing louder, so I don't get the words wrong again. Ready?" she said.
A chorus of servants' voices suddenly burst into a jaunty Yuletide song that every English child since the Middle Ages had learned to sing. Stephen strode toward the kitchen, his annoyance increased by the thought of Sherry being in the kitchen with his dawdling servants instead of his being waited upon by them. In the doorway of the large, tiled room, Stephen stopped short, staring in amused disbelief at the sight that greeted him.
Fifty servants in their various household uniforms were standing in five perfect rows, with Sherry and old Hodgkin positioned in front of them. Normally the household staff conformed to a rigid, centuries-old hierarchy, with the head butler and the housekeeper at the pinnacle of it, but it was obvious to Stephen that Sherry had organized them without regard to either rank or decorum and probably according to singing ability instead. Poor Colfax, Stephen's lofty head butler, was relegated to the back row, between a chambermaid and a laundress, while his archrival for household supremacy-Stephen's valet, Damson-had managed to obtain a more important placing in the front row. Damson, a rigidly superior gentleman's gentleman, who rarely deigned to speak to anyone but Stephen, had actually slung his arm around a footman's shoulders, and the two of them were harmonizing with shared gusto, their rapturous gazes cast toward the ceiling, their heads nearly touching.
The vignette was so unprecedented, so beyond Stephen's wildest imaginings, that for several minutes he remained where he stood, watching and listening as grooms, ushers, and footmen in full livery sang in democratic harmony with chambermaids, laundresses, and plump scullery maids in soiled white aprons, all of whom were taking direction from a stooped, ancient under-butler who was waving his hands as if he were conducting a symphonic chorus.
Stephen was so riveted by the scene before him that it was several moments before he realized that Damson and the footman, and several of the others, had very pleasant voices, and several minutes more before it occurred to him that he was enjoying the amateur performance in his kitchen far more than the professional one at the theatre.
He was wondering why they were singing a Christmas song in the middle of spring, when Sherry suddenly joined the chorus, and the sound of her voice soaring gently above the would-be tenors and aspiring baritones nearly stopped Stephen's breath. When the notes were low, she sang them with a jaunty earthiness that made her makeshift chorus break into grins as they sang with her, and when the melody climbed higher, she matched it with effortless ease until every corner of the vast room seemed to reverberate with the soaring beauty of her voice.
When the song came to its rousing end, a footboy of about seven years of age stepped forward, holding out his bandaged forearm to Sherry. Smiling bashfully at her, he said, "Me hand would feel much better, ma'am, if I was to hear one more happy song."
In the doorway, Stephen straightened and opened his mouth to order the boy not to plague her, but Damson leapt in with what Stephen thought would be a similar order. Instead, the valet said, "I'm sure I speak for all of us, miss, when I say that you've made this evening into an extraordinarily fine one by sharing your company and your-may I be so bold as to say-your exquisite voice with us!"
That long, flowery speech won a hesitant, confused smile from Sherry, who had crouched down to adjust the bulky bandage on the little boy's arm. "What Mr. Damson means," Colfax, the butler, translated with a disgusted look at the valet, "is that we all enjoyed this evening very much, miss, and that we would be deeply appreciative if you might extend it just a little."
The little boy rolled his eyes at the butler and the valet, then beamed at Sherry, who was at his eye level, frowning at whatever she saw beneath the bandage. "They mean, may we sing another song, please, miss?"
"Oh." Sheridan laughed, and Stephen saw her wink conspiratorially at the butler and valet as she straightened and said, "Is that what you meant?"
"Indeed," said the valet, glowering huffily at the butler.
"I know it is what I meant," the butler retorted.
"Well, can we?" the little boy said.
"Yes," she said, sitting down at the kitchen table and drawing him onto her lap, "but I'll listen to you this time, so that I can learn another of your songs." She looked at Hodgkin, who was beaming at her and waiting for further suggestion. "I think that first song, Mr. Hodgkin-the one you all sang for me about 'a snowy Christmas night with a Yule log burning bright.' "
Hodgkin nodded, held up his thin hands for silence, waved his arms dramatically, and the servants instantly burst into exuberant song. Stephen scarcely noticed. He was watching Sherry smile at the little boy in her lap and whisper something to him, then she lifted her hand to his cheek, gently cradling his smudged face to the bodice of her gown. The picture they made together was one of such eloquent maternal tenderness that it snapped Stephen out of his distraction, and he stepped forward, inexplicably anxious to banish the image from his mind. "Is it Christmas already?" he said, strolling into the midst of the cozy scenario.
If he'd been holding loaded guns in both hands, his presence couldn't have had a more dampening, galvanizing effect on the merry occupants of the room. Fifty servants stopped singing and began backing out of the room, bumping into each other in their haste to scatter. Even the child in Sherry's lap wriggled away before she could catch him. Only Colfax, Damson, and Hodgkin made a more dignified-but very cautious-retreat and bowed their way out of the room.
"They are quite terrified of you, aren't they?" Sherry asked, so happy that he'd returned early that she was beaming at him.
"Not enough to stay at their posts, evidently," Stephen retorted, then he smiled in spite of himself because she looked so guilty.
"That was my doing."
"I assumed it was."
"How did you know?"
"My magnificent powers of deduction," he said with an exaggerated bow. "I have never heard them sing, or ever come home to an empty house until tonight."
"I felt at loose ends and decided to explore a little. When I wandered in here, Ernest-the little boy-had just put his arm against one of those kettles and burned it."
"And so you decided to cheer him by organizing all the servants into a choir?"
"No, I did that because everyone seemed to be as much in need of a little cheering as I was."
"Were you feeling ill?" Stephen asked worriedly, scanning her face. She looked fine. Very fine. Lovely and vibrant-and embarrassed.
"No. I was…"
"Yes?" he prompted when she hesitated.