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Mariah ought to take a page out of her own heroine’s life.

She dressed with care that afternoon in an emerald merino wool gown. She still wore her sensible crinolines though. She was not about to parade around the workers of Lancashire and sappers from the Crimea looking like an insensible creampuff.

As she donned a warm charcoal paletot, she noted that a true lady would likely bring a maid into town. Perhaps she ought to ask Mrs. Applewhite to keep up appearances…

She found the housekeeper overseeing the arrival of a large pine. In the drawing room.

“What is this?” Mariah gasped at the sheer size of the massive pine. Then she gazed around the cavernous room, which was empty but for the footmen who were attempting to secure the tree. “But…b-but where have the women gone to?”

“Lord St. George said he needed their assistance today. Said it were of the utmost importance.” Though the housekeeper maintained a mask of dutiful focus upon the massive pine, Mariah caught a fleeting glint in the woman’s eye that suggested she was secretly enjoying Mariah's bewilderment.

“But why is there a tree in the d-drawing room?”

“That was Lord St. George again.” Mrs. Applewhite motioned to one of the footmen to lean it to the right. “Said it were a German tradition. The queen herself is supposed to have an even taller tree at Windsor Castle.” Directing the same footman with a brusque gesture, Mrs. Applewhite signaled for the massive pine to be angled toward the left, a sharp huff of impatience escaping her throat.

Observing the housekeeper's focus upon the greenery, Mariah surmised the woman was unavailable to escort her into Barnsley that afternoon. She offered a brief farewell, yet the memory of that glint in the woman's eye lingered, as did the peculiar notion of harboring forest timber within a drawing room.

“And they say the Irish are strange,” she muttered under her breath as she donned her bonnet.

Once the hum of the looms filled the interior of the carriage, Mariah pulled back the curtains, hoping to view the newly constructed tenements, which came into view after several blocks. Proudly they stood, in warm red brick. Not the quickly erected slums that had first been there, but enough space for families to live. And maybe dream.

Deep satisfaction filled her chest as she readied for the carriage to slow. Yet its wheels kept the same pace once they arrived before the tenements, the hum of the looms slightly dimming as they rode on.

Panic seized Mariah’s chest as she glanced about the carriage frantically. She had never needed to jump from a moving carriage. She had no walking stick like a gentleman to tap to give her desired location. Very carefully, she opened the door of the carriage, gripping the side tightly in her kid glove so she would not fall out.

“Where is it w-we are going?” She was forced to shout above the din of the clip-clop of horses hooves, the hum of the looms, and the sounds of the town right before Christmas.

“Lord St. George says it were a surprise.” The coachman shouted back. “Now sit back down, my lady. He’d have my head if anything happened to you.”

Mariah plopped down on the leather squab, letting out a hiss of frustration. All that frantic energy bubbled up inside her while the panic receded. Another surprise. She was not entirely sure she could take any more revelations before the year was out.

She chose not to peer out the velvet curtains until the carriage rolled to a stop. The more distant sound of the looms told her they were still in town but not at the school or the Counting House.

“The assembly hall?” As her mind arrived at that determination, her eyes confirmed that fact as the carriage door slung open.

Awaiting the opportunity to assist her descent, his brow knit with a palpable intensity, was James Reed, the 8th Baron St. George. Her husband.

“What is h-happening? I thought I was to meet you at the t-tenements?” The words did not do full justice to her mix of exasperation and wonder at all the events of that day so far.

“You saw that they were completed?” An uncharacteristic expression of pride illuminated his features, effectively smoothing the tension that usually constricted his brow.

“They look m-marvelous, James.”

He averted his gaze, but the crinkles at the corner of his eyes told her he was pleased. When he looked up again, his face was somber. “They will be moving in today. So their families will all have a place to stay for Christmas.”

Unable to speak, Mariah nodded. James, who she noticed was still garbed in the linen and wool of the north, offered her his arm, which she took, as he led her into the assembly hall.

If she had found herself momentarily bereft of speech, what she saw next utterly stole her remaining breath.

One moment, Mariah had been outside on a blustery northern day. The next moment, she was engulfed in the smell of fresh pine and velvet, and the sight.

Oh, the sight.

Brass gas lamps lined the exposed red brick walls that led to the stage at the center of the chamber. Unlike the walls before, which were covered in soot and grime, the rich red shone through as if it had been scrubbed within an inch of its life. Although in some ways it possessed none of the opulent grandeur of the London theater from her youth, the unvarnished timber that lined the proscenium seemed more fitting for the reality of Barnsley than any gilded stage..

It felt like them. Home. A way to have dreams and beauty in a space of smoke and dust.

Finally her words came. Very inarticulate ones.