The Christmas Invitation

by Trisha Ashley

  The wind had been changing directions and picking up for the last few minutes, tugging and gusting around me. Then it suddenly buffeted my back, sending me off-balance … then again, but this time a hard blow that made me stagger forward between the white boulders. One foot came down into heart-stopping emptiness … and then I was desperately twisting sideways, grabbing at a nearby bush, to save myself. The sharp thorns of gorse pierced my hands, but I hung on for dear life.

  ‘Help!’ I shouted. ‘Help!’ But the wind snatched my voice away.

  Then, miraculously, a dark shape bent over me and I was seized in a strong grip and dragged back to safety.

  ‘Oh God, Meg, I thought you were going to fall before I got to you,’ said Lex’s voice. He sounded shaken, and I clung to him.

  ‘What on earth were you doing?’ he demanded, gripping my arms to hold me upright when my knees threatened to buckle. ‘Didn’t you realize those white boulders were there for a purpose?’

  ‘I … yes,’ I stammered, beginning to tremble.

  ‘A gust of wind hit me, and then I was pushed over the edge,’ I gabbled, hardly knowing what I was saying. ‘I just managed to grab that bush in time and—’

  ‘Do you mean the wind almost blew you over?’ he said sharply.

  ‘No, someone did. I felt hands … a shove in the small of my back.’

  Even as I said it, it sounded unlikely and though I couldn’t see Lex’s face, I could hear the scepticism in his voice.

  ‘When I spotted you, there was no one near, and most people had started to leave. It was lucky I’d noticed you walking away from the fire and looked to see where you’d got to.’

  There was certainly no one near us now and the last stragglers were heading for the way down – the long one, not the steep and deadly route I had inadvertently nearly taken. There was only Lex here … and he’d rescued me.

  I trembled again from head to foot and he said, a little more gently, ‘You’re safe now, however it happened.’

  I pulled myself together a bit and said uncertainly, ‘I must have imagined it and it was only another strong gust of wind after all. I mean, who would want to push me over the edge anyway?’

  ‘No one that I can think of. I suspect all that ritual and old magic has made your imagination go into overdrive.’

  I realized I was gripping the front of his coat and unloosed my hands. ‘I expect you’re right,’ I agreed. He must be, even if I could still feel those hands in the small of my back, shoving hard …

  ‘Come on,’ he said, taking my arm and urging me towards the path. ‘Almost everyone’s gone.’

  He was right. Someone had extinguished the torches around the Stone and raked the fire into dull embers. The temperature seemed to have dropped rapidly too as the wind got up, and now a spattering of hard, crystalline snow stung my cheeks and made my eyes water.

  As we started down there was a loud roaring noise and Lex said, ‘That must be Tottie and Sybil on the quad bike. They were going on ahead to make sure everything’s ready for the Gathering.’

  That must have been quite a sight, the bird-headed Tottie and Sybil, hurtling off into the darkness.

  ‘Did she still have her head on?’ I asked.

  Lex gave me a strange look. ‘Have you taken something?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so stupid,’ I snapped, anger dissipating some of the lingering shock. ‘I don’t even drink that much, let alone anything else! I just had this vision of Tottie driving off on the bike with her mask still on, that’s all.’

  ‘I suppose that would be fairly weird,’ he admitted. ‘But I expect she’s taken it off, though Sybil’s probably driving.’

  We mingled with the last of the audience walking down the track and River, still a spectral symphony in silver, fell into step next to us. He had Tottie’s bird head mask under his arm, which answered that question.

  River seemed to sense some tension between us, or perhaps it was the way Lex was still gripping my arm, like a gaoler.

  ‘Are you all right, Meg?’

  I shook Lex off and linked my arm through River’s instead.

  ‘Fine. I just had a bit of a stumble near the edge of the ledge and almost went over. It was quite a shock.’

  ‘She thinks someone tried to push her over,’ said Lex sardonically.

  ‘No, I don’t really, it just felt like that, but it must have been a gust of wind, catching me off balance,’ I said shortly. ‘Now I’m just cold. Come on, River, let’s walk down together.’

  Lex strode off ahead, but when we got to the bottom he was waiting by the pick-up and insisted on driving us up to the house. It was hardly worth the drive, really, for although Underhill was hidden round a bend of the tree-lined drive, it was barely a couple of hundred yards away.

  There were a few other cars parked in the courtyard, including Clara’s. The big front door to the house, illuminated by twin lamps of giant dimensions, was open on to the inner passage that led to the hall. Warm yellow bands of light fell across the steps and the snow-sprinkled cobbles.

  When Lex turned the engine off we could hear the whispering of crisp snowflakes hitting the windscreen.

  ‘Now for the Gathering,’ said River, adjusting his mistletoe crown and gathering his long robes together preparatory to getting out. ‘Come along, Meg.’

  At that moment I’d rather have simply gone home because not only had I turned shaky again, but I felt as if I’d been dragged backwards through a thorn bush, which, actually, I had. Bits of me were starting to hurt where I’d landed hard on the edge of the drop and my hands felt like prickly pears.

  However, since River was already out of the pick-up and waiting, there was nothing for it. He gave my arm an encouraging squeeze. ‘Let’s see if anyone looks guilty,’ he suggested, as if this was some kind of murder game. Lex gave him one of his sardonic looks and walked off ahead of us.

  The hall, which I’d previously thought a dark, chilly, echoing space, now presented a totally different aspect. It was ablaze with light and a huge log fire burned brightly in the vast hearth. It was so warm, that I suspected that someone – probably Sybil – had turned up the heating as far as it would go.

  She’d probably been the one who’d decorated the room with swags of ivy, holly and mistletoe, too.

  Clusters of people were gathered about, several of them around a long trestle table that bore a glass punch bowl at either end and, in the middle, a giant dark cake, from which a large portion was already missing.

  The players had taken off their costumes and parked the heads, cloaks and tabards under the table, but most people were peeling off layers now.

  I removed my own anorak and tried to smooth my hair down, but it hurt my hands. I noticed one or two of the nearest people were staring at me, so I must have looked dishevelled … or maybe it was just the pink hair?

  Most of them, though, were so busy eating, drinking and talking that they hadn’t even been aware of our arrival, and those who had, didn’t look particularly guilty. It was just a group of ordinary people having a good time, most of them total strangers to me, and I began to feel a bit silly and wished I hadn’t told Lex I thought I’d been pushed.

  I was just wondering whether to try to find a cloakroom to clean myself up a bit when a small black and brown shape wriggled through the forest of legs and threw itself at me, barking ecstatically.

  ‘Pansy!’ I scooped her up and held her tightly, while she licked my chin enthusiastically.

  Lex appeared with three steaming glasses, the kind in metal holders with handles, and gave one to River and another to me. I tucked Pansy under one arm and took a cautious sip.

  ‘Hot toddy – you look as if you need it,’ he said.

  It was an unexpectedly kind thought and I took another sip. It tasted spicy and of oranges and … something else. ‘Is it alcoholic?’

  ‘Yes, but not very, so I got Gidney to put a tot of brandy in yours.’

  ‘I don’t like brandy!’

  ‘
It’s for the shock, and you won’t taste anything much except spices and lemon.’

  River, holding his drink, smiled at us and then wandered off to talk to someone. He’d removed his robes and a layer or two of padding, but not the gilded mistletoe crown. It did sort of go with the black tunic bordered with gold runes that was now revealed in all its glory.

  As I drank the toddy, warmth began stealing down inside me, thawing out the frozen knot of cold and shock. Pansy wriggled and I put her down, but she stayed next to me, looking up with dark, trusting eyes.

  Everyone was happily chattering, eating cake and drinking – a small community, who all knew each other – and I felt strangely outside it all, as if I was looking in from a window.

  Up on the hill it had been another world entirely, which probably accounted for my imagination running riot. Lex must have been right.

  Mark, looking almost genial, now that hospitality had been forced upon him, finally spotted me and made his way over.

  ‘Meg, there you are!’ he said eagerly. ‘I was looking out for you and—’

  His voice stopped as he took in my state, before asking in concern, ‘Have you had an accident, Meg? You look as if there’s a bruise on your cheek and—’

  ‘I think it’s probably mud, rather than a bruise,’ I said, fingering my face cautiously. ‘I did have a bit of a fall up on the hill, but I’m fine.’

  ‘Meg nearly fell off the ledge after the ceremony and thought someone pushed her,’ Lex said, and I glared at him.

  ‘I don’t really. It was just that the wind caught me and nearly sent me off.’

  Mark gazed blankly at me. ‘Why would anyone want to push you off?’

  I flushed, feeling foolish. ‘They wouldn’t – don’t take any notice of Lex! I shouldn’t have gone so near the edge anyway, and I was lucky Lex spotted me and pulled me up.’

  ‘Weren’t you wearing gloves?’ asked Mark, noticing my poor, punctured hands.

  ‘I took them off to find a tissue. The wind was making my eyes water.’

  ‘It’s a steep drop from there, so you were lucky,’ he said, looking so concerned that I was touched.

  I drained the glass beaker and suddenly felt a lot better.

  ‘Here, you might as well have my toddy, too,’ Lex said, exchanging my empty beaker for his untouched full one. ‘I’ll get another.’

  Mark put an arm around my shoulders – in a cousinly, rather than an amorous way, I hoped – and said anxiously, ‘Meg, you must come and let me put some antiseptic on your hands. That scratch on your face needs cleaning, too.’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right,’ I said, smiling up at him and feeling warmed by his concern. ‘I expect we’ll be going back to the Red House soon and I can do it then.’

  ‘I’d run you back now, except that as the host—’

  ‘I can run Meg back any time she wants,’ Lex interrupted shortly.

  I was just about to disclaim any wish to leave the Gathering before the others, when a sweet little voice at my elbow said, ‘Lex, there you are! And Mark, darling – I was looking for you.’

  A small woman of about thirty, with big brown eyes and feathery chestnut curls, stood fluttering her long eyelashes at both men, as if semaphoring a message.

  Whatever it was, it didn’t get through, because Lex just nodded at her casually and Mark’s greeting was far from enthusiastic.

  ‘Hi, Flora.’

  So this was Teddy’s former nanny!

  Ignoring me, she was turning her full focus on Mark, who now removed his arm from my shoulders and said, slightly sheepishly, ‘I didn’t realize you were home, Flora.’

  ‘Didn’t Clara tell you? The last job simply didn’t work out because the husband couldn’t keep away from me, no matter what I said, and his wife was getting jealous. I handed in my notice and came home.’

  ‘She did mention it the other day but I’d forgotten,’ he said tactlessly. ‘Sorry about the job.’

  ‘Oh, well, at least it means we can see each other over the holidays, while I look for another post. I’ve so missed you, Mark.’

  She cast him a special, intimate smile and there was an unmistakable intensity in her voice.

  Mark began to look slightly hounded, though I remembered hearing he’d gone out with Flora on a previous visit. It looked like she wanted to take up where they’d left off.

  ‘I’ll be really busy working on the renovations, right over Christmas,’ he said quickly.

  ‘So I’ve heard, and I’m just dying to see what you’ve been up to,’ she said, undeterred. ‘I could help you while I’m here, if you like?’

  Mark was now looking increasingly uncomfortable and kept glancing at me, though Flora was still pretending I didn’t exist.

  Lex was impervious to her tactics, though, and introduced me. ‘Meg, this is Teddy’s former nanny, Flora Johnson. Flora, Meg Harkness.’

  She turned reluctantly. ‘Oh, yes, the portrait painter. I know all about you, because I’ve brought someone with me that you know very well.’

  A horrible suspicion was already forming in my mind when, with a certain Parting of the Red Sea effect, she pointed and a path to the fire opened up, revealing, huddled in a chair, a familiar but unwelcome figure.

  ‘It’s someone I recognize too,’ Lex said. ‘Rollo Purvis.’

  ‘Oh?’ she sounded surprised. ‘He’s Meg’s boyfriend.’

  ‘No, he’s not!’ I snapped. ‘He’s not even a friend any more, just someone trying to use the fact that he knows me to meet Henry.’

  ‘He said you’d been cold-shouldering him since you came up here to paint Clara, so he thought you might have found someone else.’

  Her limpid gaze looked me over, battered and dishevelled, then her eyebrows rose and she looked from Lex to Mark, as if inviting them both to find this idea as ludicrous as she did.

  ‘Rollo only wanted to see you,’ she said. ‘So he thought he’d take you by surprise.’

  ‘I’m certainly surprised he was stupid enough to drive over the Pennines in the middle of winter in his soft-top sports car,’ I said tartly.

  ‘He stayed at the Pike with Two Heads last night, but his car wouldn’t start this morning and the garage have taken it away,’ she said. ‘That’s why I offered him a lift over.’

  ‘I hope you’ll give him a lift back, too, and soon,’ I told her. Then I marched up the room to Rollo and paraphrased my favourite film quote.

  ‘Of all the ancient manorial halls in all the world, you had to choose this one?’

  ‘Casablanca,’ said Clara, who was standing by the fire with one booted foot resting on the fender. ‘Flora picked him up at the pub, Meg, and brought him back with her. She’s offered to put him up for the night.’

  ‘I just heard about your car, Rollo. You were an imbecile to drive over the Pennines in it. Didn’t you listen to the weather reports?’

  The others had followed me and Flora said, ‘It was lucky I’d stopped in Thorstane on my way home, to buy some supplies, and then decided to have lunch at the pub. Poor Rollo’s car was just being towed away by the garage when I got there.’

  ‘It was late by the time I got to this Thorstane place yesterday, so when I saw the pub had a motel sign, I checked in,’ said Rollo.

  ‘We got talking,’ said Flora, ‘and of course, as soon as I knew where he was heading, I offered him a lift.’

  ‘Of course you did, dear,’ said Clara, ironically.

  ‘The journey from York took me hours longer than I expected,’ said Rollo, looking at me as if expecting sympathy. Getting no response, he added peevishly, ‘If you ever checked your phone, Meg, you’d have known I’d had the journey from hell and you’d have driven over to the motel to fetch me yourself.’

  ‘In your dreams!’ I said, but he was lost in the remembered horrors of his journey.

  ‘I was stuck on the motorway in the snow for hours and got totally chilled. You know I’ve got a weak chest and Mother was beside herself when I rang her last night an
d told her about it.’

  He shivered pathetically in his vaguely Byronic jacket, worn over a thin cashmere jumper, and then sneezed.

  River materialized out of nowhere, as usual, his bright, deep blue eyes glinting from under the mistletoe crown, and quoted, ‘“I had a grievous ague.”’

  ‘I haven’t got an ague,’ snapped Rollo. ‘And I didn’t expect to see you here.’

  ‘Brief Lives by John Aubrey,’ Clara said, delightedly. ‘My favourite line of his is the one that goes, “Sciatica; he cured it, by boiling his buttocks.”’

  They smiled at each other, which seemed to annoy Rollo even more. He’d never really taken to River on the few occasions that they’d met.

  ‘Clara kindly invited me to stay for the Solstice,’ River told him. ‘I was Old Winter – were you not at the ceremony?’

  ‘No, it was late afternoon before we arrived at Flora’s aunt’s guesthouse and since I appear to have caught a chill, only the hope of meeting the great Henry Doome induced me to come out tonight.’

  He employed the languishing look from under his long eyelashes that he considered irresistible to women. It was the male version of Flora’s technique, which I found amusing.

  ‘I doubt the feeling is mutual,’ Clara said, dampeningly. ‘And if you’re breeding a cold I’d much rather you didn’t meet Henry because he might catch it.’

  ‘It’s not a cold, but a chill,’ Rollo said. ‘My room at the pub wasn’t very warm either, though the food was good and—’ He broke off and stared across the room. ‘Isn’t that the pub landlord over there, near the table?’

  ‘Yes, Fred plays a part in the Solstice ceremony. If you have a word with him, he’ll probably take you back with him tonight, and then you can get straight off home again tomorrow, once the garage have finished with your car,’ Clara suggested sensibly. ‘I expect he’ll be leaving soon, in case the road up over the moors freezes.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t face that chilly room again tonight,’ Rollo protested faintly, with a shiver. ‘I feel so ill.’

  ‘You don’t have to face it,’ Flora assured him. ‘You can stay at the guesthouse tonight and I expect you’ll feel much better in the morning.’