Even now, I felt a pang of anguish fill my heart: the loss of the baby was something I’d learned to live with but would never be able to forget.
‘Never mind, you’ve cut him out of your life now, that’s the main thing,’ Fliss said.
‘I just hope he doesn’t turn up after this event he’s doing in York anyway, because I wouldn’t put it past him.’
‘After what you’ve just told me you said to him, he’d have to have the hide of a rhinoceros to do that,’ she said, then asked what else had been happening.
I described the trip to Terrapotter and how Lex hadn’t seemed so antagonistic this time, but Al and Tara had made up for him.
‘Lex was cross with Al for telling Tara what happened in the past – or what he imagines happened. And he didn’t know until I told him about Al having a go at me that time in college, after Lisa died.’
‘Though, of course, Al wouldn’t have done that in the first place if Lex hadn’t talked to him about that evening, would he?’ she pointed out.
‘No, that’s true, though I suppose Al could have put two and two together and made five all on his own, when he found Lex was with me.’
‘I suppose it’s made you even more determined to leave after the Solstice?’
‘No, actually it hasn’t,’ I confessed. ‘I’m painting really well here. Not only that, I’ve fallen in love with the idea of Christmas, too! And,’ I added determinedly, ‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t stay, whatever Lex thinks of me, because I’ve done nothing to be guilty about … or not much.’
‘Nothing,’ she assured me. ‘And I think you’re quite right: it’ll be fun! The people you’re staying with sound a bit mad … but interesting.’
‘They are. Clara’s just made a major breakthrough with a clay tablet inscription in cuneiform.’
‘What’s that, when it’s at home?’
‘An early type of writing: it looks a bit like a bird has walked across damp clay.’
‘Like runes?’
‘No, not at all like runes,’ I said, from the depths of my new, if sketchy, knowledge of epigraphy.
‘I’ve been invited to visit the owner of the local manor house tomorrow,’ I said, changing the subject.
‘Is he young, single and handsome?’
‘All three – but about five years younger than me.’
‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ she said airily.
‘He also seems to be a bit of a love rat, so I wouldn’t buy a wedding present quite yet, Fliss. I think he’d only marry someone who could plaster walls, or who knows how to use a cement mixer.’
I told her what Mark was doing to Underhill and she laughed and said she might be renovating a house herself soon, on a more modest scale, because the only way they could afford to buy a house would be to move out of London.
‘There’s no real reason for me to live in London now either. Being up here has made me realize how much I miss the countryside.’
‘Just somewhere not quite so remote?’ she suggested.
‘No, or anywhere with Lex Mariner as a neighbour,’ I agreed.
21
Still Life
Henry gave me another sitting next morning and I began to put paint on the canvas. The sound of my palette knife spreading paint on the surface and then, sometimes, scraping most of it off again, was for some time the only sound in the room.
Henry was a perfect sitter, seeming to relax into the pose, though I wasn’t sure he was always reading, because sometimes the pages didn’t turn for ages. Perhaps he was thinking about his long poem cycle instead, which sounded as if it was nearing completion.
I had thought that poets were all like Rollo and his slightly precious circle, or the sometimes earthier but more entertaining ones we heard at pub open mic sessions, but Henry was something else entirely.
He had the same thing that Lex and I recognized in each other, without false modesty, and that’s brilliance at what we did. You can’t be full of yourself about it, because you’re merely the vehicle for this amazing gift that’s been bestowed on you.
Mark fetched me after lunch in that huge black Cherokee thing. It had snowed on the tops last night and everything was looking sugar-coated and crispy white, like the enormous Christmas cake under a glass dome in the larder at the Red House. Den had swirled ‘Merry Christmas’ in red icing across the top, then added a tiny reindeer, a huge robin and sprigs of plastic holly and mistletoe. I had a sudden mad vision of him up on the hillside with a giant icing nozzle, marking out a seasonal greeting …
Mark parked in the courtyard in front of the oak door and led the way in.
‘Mum?’ he called, opening the door on to the hall’s dark chilliness, but there was no reply except for a faint echo. Or perhaps I just imagined that. Cosy, it wasn’t.
‘She must be out in the garden, or up with the horses or somewhere, but I expect she’ll be back in a bit.’
If she wasn’t, I thought, she’d probably get hypothermia, but they seemed a hardier breed up here and were presumably acclimatized to it.
‘I’ll show you those pictures first,’ Mark said with his attractive smile – probably because he wanted my free advice, I thought cynically. With his longish dark auburn hair, straight nose, high cheekbones and pointed chin, he’d have looked like a Cavalier in a painting by Van Dyck if he’d been wearing a ruff.
‘After that, I’ll show you round and tell you what I’m planning for the place.’
I reluctantly parted with my coat, because it seemed rude to insist on keeping it on. Then we went upstairs to what he called the Long Gallery. It was quite long, the walls half-panelled in dark wood, with pictures ranged above them.
The Stubbs wasn’t. In fact, I was pretty sure the Lely wasn’t, either … but there was a small, but very dirty, Dutch still life in a dark corner, which I thought might be promising.
‘I’d never have thought that was worth anything,’ Mark said, when I pointed it out.
‘I think it’s good, but you can’t really tell until it’s cleaned – and I mean professionally cleaned and not wiped over with white spirit,’ I added hastily, because I could see what he was thinking. ‘If you tried to do it yourself, you’d remove almost all the value from it.’
‘Oh … right,’ he agreed reluctantly, so I think I got that one across in the nick of time.
‘I’ve written down the number of the girl I know in a big London auction house. Why not invite her up after Christmas and see what she thinks? I suspect that little still life will make more than all the others put together … but if it was mine, I don’t think I could bear to sell it.’
‘But if it’s valuable enough to pay for the rest of the renovations and keep us afloat until I’ve opened for business, then Mum will be pleased too. She doesn’t want to part with any of the paintings really, but I don’t think she’s ever paid much attention to that one.’
‘I expect your visitors will like to see the portraits of the ancestors. They’ll be an added attraction.’ Not quite the Lions of Longleat, perhaps, but something to look at. ‘But I suppose the wedding receptions will be the chief moneymaker?’ I said as I followed him back out of the gallery.
‘Yes, and I’m determined we’ll be open for those this spring. The letting bedrooms might have to wait a bit longer, though I’ll need an en-suite room for the bride to use on the day.’
It didn’t take him long to show me over the rest of the house, because although considerably bigger than the Red House, Underhill wasn’t a vast stately home.
We had to negotiate an obstacle course of ladders, buckets and rolls of paper to reach the room intended as the bridal suite. A door had been knocked through into an adjacent bathroom and it had been refitted, but was otherwise bare. The bedroom wallpaper was half-stripped and the sections of plaster looked scabby and mottled.
‘The rooms along this corridor have always been family bedrooms, but I’ll have a new apartment in the east wing, and I’m creating a suite of rooms over the old k
itchen for Art and Gerry. I thought Mum could have the old housekeeper’s parlour downstairs, with the bedroom over.’
‘Yes, I think she mentioned that,’ I said, and I could see why Sybil might not be entirely enchanted with the idea after being the chatelaine of the house.
‘Once the workmen downed tools, I realized I’d have to concentrate on finishing the bridal suite first.’
I hoped he’d have cleared the clutter of tools and materials from the landing before the first bride tripped – literally – down it, but I expect he would.
‘Of course, I’d get on faster with the decorating if I had some help,’ he hinted, but I didn’t take him up on that one. I was here to do my own work, not be Mark’s unpaid labourer.
We went back downstairs and into the old kitchen, where there was evidence of the Gidneys, but no sign of life. Mark said they would have gone to their own cottage in the grounds, since he and his mother would be out until dinner.
‘This kitchen won’t need to be changed, because there’s going to be another catering-standard one through here …’ He led me out past closed doors, which were probably larders and the like, and into a big room with newly plastered walls and ceiling. Here and there, bunches of wires and cables hung from holes.
‘We created this from a couple of smaller rooms and you can see we’ve knocked a door through into the barn. The plumbing and electrics are done in here and a specialist firm will come and fit it out in early February.’
That wouldn’t be cheap and I could see why he wanted to raise some money from the paintings.
He unlocked the new door that led into the coach house and went through. ‘We’ve made this little anteroom, for when we’re clearing the tables and as storage for the cutlery, china and table linen. Then there’ll be swing doors into the actual reception area.’
He made a gesture as if pushing invisible doors apart as he passed through the space into darkness beyond and I stifled a giggle: he’d looked as if he was swimming off, breaststroke.
He turned the lights on in the barn, and I found it surprisingly big, with wonderful beams, whitewashed walls, and a series of high windows. There was one large area of glazing with a central door, where presumably coaches were once pushed inside, too.
I commented on the polished dark wood floor.
‘I thought the original paving would look too cold, so I had this laid. It goes with the beams and brings the place together anyway, I think,’ he said, and I agreed.
He turned on his heel, surveying the room. ‘There’ll be a long serving table at the far end, which can also be used for buffets, and then smaller tables that can be joined together in any configuration. The linen will be the very best damask, of course. Everything’s going to be very, very upmarket.’
‘I can imagine how it’ll look,’ I said, ‘and once the kitchen has been fitted out and the furnishings are in, it won’t take long to get ready to open for business, will it? You’ve already done such a lot in a short space of time.’
‘I’ll still need to get that bridal suite finished by then, though. And if I decide to perform wedding ceremonies here as well, then the Great Hall will have to have a makeover.’
We went back in there and it seemed even darker and chillier than ever, and not at all bridal unless you were a romantically inclined polar bear.
Mark had been talking to me as if he’d known me for ages and wanted to know me quite a lot better. But although I found him attractive and it was flattering that he was interested in me, I found I didn’t fancy him in the least. Probably, from what I’d been told, just as well!
I realized he’d been talking for the last few minutes, and was gazing down intently into my eyes. Now he was saying. ‘I’ll spend the winters in my house in Italy. I’d love you to see it. It’s—’
He was interrupted by the opening of a door and excited barking as the two little dachshunds rushed in.
Pansy made a beeline for me and jumped up and down against my legs, as if she was being bounced on a piece of elastic, until I picked her up. Then she licked my chin and wriggled ecstatically.
Sybil had followed them. ‘Do come into the morning room, Meg. It’s freezing in here!’
‘You take Meg through, Mum, and I’ll make some coffee,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to set off quite soon, though.’
In the cosier small room, Sybil put another log on the smouldering embers of the fire and then, looking guilty, turned the thermostat on the radiator up a trifle.
While we waited for Mark to come back with the coffee, we talked about the pictures and the renovations.
‘The bedroom corridor, especially, is such a mess at the moment that I’m very glad to be going to the Red House for Christmas, although I haven’t heard anything back from Daddy’s old friend, Piers Marten, after I wrote to tell him I’d be away this year. I hope he doesn’t have to spend Christmas alone in his flat.’
‘Best place for him,’ said Mark callously, having come in bearing a tray. ‘And you know very well he has family he can stay with. He’d just rather freeload here, guzzling good food and trying to drink the cellar dry.’
Sybil gave him a nervous and placatory smile and said, ‘Perhaps my letter went astray. I’d better ring him to make sure he got it.’
‘You do that,’ agreed Mark. ‘We don’t want him turning up like a bad penny.’
I wondered just how bad this Piers Marten was. Mark certainly seemed to dislike him very much, though I think Sybil must have had a soft spot for him, to be so sad about putting him off.
We set off back to the Red House for tea and the dogs kept me warm in the back of the car by lying in a heap on my knees.
‘Pansy’s taken such a shine to you,’ said Sybil, turning round to look at them. Her voice held a hint of speculation and if I hadn’t known how much she’d intended charging the people who had backed out of buying Pansy, I’d have been sorely tempted myself, even if it would have made my life difficult when I had to travel about so much for work.
We arrived at the Red House just as Lex and Teddy had got out of the pick-up, so it was like déjà vu, but with an audience. At least Lex didn’t look shocked this time when he saw me, just sombre, serious and slightly tight-lipped.
Perhaps it had been my parting shot – ‘Get potted’ – last time I saw him? It was possibly not my finest moment.
Clearly, though, it hadn’t put him off staying for tea, because he followed us into the house. He’d greeted Mark in a friendly enough way too. I supposed they were relations, if only by marriage, and had seen quite a bit of each other over the years.
Teddy ran straight off upstairs to change out of his school uniform, while we found Henry, Clara and Tottie in the drawing room, cosily ensconced on the sofas in front of the fire.
Mark sat down next to me on one of the sofas and laid an arm across the back of it behind my head, in what struck me as a slightly proprietorial way … and now he was telling me again, in a low voice, how I’d love the warmth of an Italian winter.
‘I expect I would, but I’ve no intention of going there any time soon,’ I said firmly. Then I caught Lex, sitting in an oversized tub chair nearby, his long legs stretched out, looking so sardonically at me that I felt myself blushing … and even more hotly when I noticed that all conversation in the room had come to a halt and every eye was turned on us.
The blush was turning fiery when Pansy came to my rescue. She’d climbed on to my lap when I sat down and now jealously inserted herself in the small space between me and Mark and tried to rabbit-kick him away.
‘Naughty Pansy,’ I said, not meaning it in the least, and then Den provided another distraction by bringing tea in and decanting cups, saucers, teapot, a covered dish and a cake on to the coffee table.
Teddy followed him in carrying a small stack of tea plates and paper napkins. ‘There are buttered potato cakes in the dish,’ he told us. ‘I like those, but they drip a lot.’
‘An’ this ’ere’s a carrot cake, seeing Tottie g
rows enough bleedin’ carrots to feed a stableful of ’orses,’ said Den. ‘I’m orf now to the flat fer a bit; leave the ’appy family to it.’
This seemed to have been said with no sarcastic intent and he went off, whistling ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ between his teeth.
‘He’s such a character,’ Sybil commented.
Her eyes wandered back in my direction again and I hoped she – and everyone else – hadn’t got the wrong idea about me and Mark.
Henry asked me what I thought of Underhill and Mark’s plans, and I told him I was impressed by how much he’d actually done already.
‘It’ll certainly be ready for the spring opening,’ Mark said. ‘But I’ll need it all looking good before that, for the brochure and website … so I could do with a little help, especially with decorating.’
He’d already hinted as much to me, so I thought that one might have been directed at Lex, though he didn’t take him up on it either.
‘Meg thinks a teeny tiny still life of flowers and fruit, which I’d never really taken much notice of, might be worth more than most of the other pictures put together – isn’t she clever?’ Sybil announced.
‘I’m not an expert,’ I said hastily. ‘I just think it might well be extremely valuable, so you won’t have to sacrifice any of the family portraits.’
‘I expect you’re right and I don’t think we’ll really miss it at all,’ she said. ‘I can see we have to sell something, what with death duties and the renovations and—’
‘Grandfather having tied up what was left of the money,’ Mark finished, though since I’d found the still life, this didn’t sound quite as barbed as before.
‘We’re so looking forward to having you here over Christmas, Sybil,’ said Clara.
‘And Mark for dinner on Christmas Day, though of course you’re welcome to come over any time you like, dear boy,’ invited Henry.
‘That depends,’ Mark said, looking at me with a meaningful smile. ‘You said you weren’t sure if you’d be leaving before Christmas or not, Meg.’
The Christmas Invitation Page 20
