The Christmas Invitation

by Trisha Ashley

  Rollo gave her a look of gratitude. ‘You’re so kind.’

  Flora cast me a triumphant glance, as if she’d put one over on me. Clearly Rollo had convinced her that we were in some kind of relationship.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you, Mark?’ she said, turning to him and taking him by surprise.

  ‘What?’ He gave a start. ‘No, why should I mind?’

  Then his eyes caught sight of his mother and he beckoned her over.

  ‘Mum,’ he said, putting his arm around me again and drawing me forward, ‘Meg had a fall up on the hill. She almost went over the steep drop near the bonfire. Her hands and face are a bit scratched and could do with some antiseptic.’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing!’ said Sybil sympathetically. ‘Didn’t anyone warn you to keep away from the edge?’

  She didn’t wait for an answer, but added firmly, her maternal instincts clearly roused by my state, ‘You come with me and I’ll do a bit of first aid.’

  I was glad to go. Not only were my hands stinging terribly, but by then I was desperate to get away from Rollo.

  29

  Prickly

  Sybil cleaned up my face and then competently removed several thorns from my hands. I bet she wielded a mean hoof pick.

  ‘You’re so kind; thank you,’ I said gratefully when she’d finished. ‘My hands feel so much better already!’

  ‘Good, and the scratch on your face is barely visible, though I’m afraid there might be a bruise tomorrow.’

  ‘Never mind, I think I got off lightly.’

  ‘How did you come to fall?’ she asked curiously. ‘No one had moved the white stones marking the edge, had they?’

  ‘No, but I was standing very close to them and a sudden gust of wind caught me. I just managed to grab that gorse bush as I was going over!’ I shivered in recollection. ‘Lex spotted me and pulled me back.’

  ‘Thank goodness he did,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve only been here for a short time, but I’m sure everyone at the Red House is fond of you already – and Mark certainly is, too!’

  She paused, though continued packing away the scissors and plasters in the first-aid box. ‘I … may not have given you the warmest of welcomes into the family, Meg, but your existence came as quite a surprise to me and … well, it’s taken me time to come to terms with it.’

  ‘That’s all right. It’s taken me time to get my head around it, too,’ I assured her.

  ‘Of course at first, like Mark, I was worried that you might have a claim on the estate, which would make things very difficult for him.’

  ‘I can understand that, but even if that were possible, I don’t want anything more than to know I’m part of the family. Mum will feel exactly the same.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, then added, with a smile, ‘You and Mark hit it off immediately, didn’t you? And I’m sure you’ll soon grow attached to Underhill.’ She gave me a look that I couldn’t quite fathom. ‘Mark said you were very interested in his plans.’

  ‘It’s a charming old house,’ I said, though actually the Gothic excesses of the Red House were more to my taste.

  ‘Mark likes you very much – I could see that tonight – and it doesn’t really matter if you’re cousins, after all,’ she said more to herself than me, evidently pursuing some inner train of thought. ‘It would be perfect!’

  There was no mistaking the direction of her remarks now, so I said firmly, ‘I’m sure being cousins will make us even better friends.’

  Even if Mark had been my type, which he wasn’t, he had a few drawbacks, like being several years my junior and appearing to have previous relationship issues to resolve. I’d already had one love rat in my life and I wasn’t looking for a replacement.

  ‘I look forward to getting to know you better during Christmas,’ Sybil said. ‘It’ll be good to get away.’

  ‘That reminds me,’ I said, ‘Mark might have an assistant over the holidays, because Flora just offered to help him with the decorating while she’s home.’

  Sybil’s expression, which had been pensive, darkened. ‘I hope he turned her down. She’s a man-eater under that sweet and fluffy “poor little me” act! She hounded poor Lex when she was Teddy’s nanny and then, last time she was home between jobs and Mark happened to be here too, sorting out the estate after probate had been granted, she wouldn’t leave him alone. Just because he felt sorry for her and took her out for dinner a couple of times, she seems to think they’re in a relationship.’

  I thought there’d been a bit more between them than that, even if not serious on Mark’s side. Perhaps he should have made that clearer from the start.

  ‘Well, we’d better get back,’ she said, and when we reached the hall it was clear we’d been away longer than I’d thought, for lots of people had already left and the rest were getting back into anoraks and overcoats and wrapping scarves around their necks.

  Lex was leaning against the bottom of the staircase and seemed to be waiting for me, but I couldn’t see any sign of the others.

  ‘There you are, at last,’ he said, straightening up. ‘Den’s taken everyone else home, except Tottie, who’s walking up by way of the fields with Len Snowball, to help him catch the horses.’

  ‘That’s so kind of dear Tottie,’ said Sybil. ‘There’s heavy snow forecast for tonight, so I asked him to bring them down to the stables.’

  Then she excused herself and went to speed her departing guests homeward.

  Lex looked down at me. ‘Mark offered to run you home himself later, but I said I’d wait for you.’

  I suddenly realized that here would be the perfect opportunity to have that private talk with Lex I’d promised River, even if it was the last thing I felt like doing right then. My head was a bit fuzzy, too, which I think must have been the generous shot of brandy in the toddy earlier. I’m not used to spirits.

  ‘It was kind of you to wait,’ I said formally.

  ‘Not really. I thought it was time we had a little talk.’

  I stared at him in surprise. ‘You’re right, and I was going to suggest we stop somewhere on the way home to have things out, too.’

  ‘River told me earlier that I had a closed mind and needed to open the door and listen to you,’ he said.

  ‘That makes it sound like I’ve been shouting at you through the keyhole,’ I said shortly, and the ghost of a grin touched his lips.

  ‘Well, this is your chance to shout at me face to face.’

  When I’d fished my coat out from the depleted pile under the table and put it on, I joined Lex and Mark by the door.

  Mark smiled at me warmly. ‘I see Mum fixed you up. You look a lot better now.’

  ‘It’s amazing what a difference washing the mud off my face and combing my hair made,’ I agreed. ‘I’m really fine, just a few scratches and bruises.’

  ‘We’d better get off,’ said Lex. ‘Is it still snowing?’

  ‘Yes, though that sudden wind has dropped as quickly as it got up.’ Mark’s eyes went beyond me and I turned to see Flora with Rollo, though I hardly recognized him, since he was enveloped in a battered caped raincoat that covered him from collar to heels. He was in the act of pulling the wide hood over his head to complete the mad monk impersonation and avoided looking at me, but instead thanked Mark for the loan of the coat.

  ‘That’s all right. It’s an old one of my grandfather’s that hangs in the back hall for anyone to borrow, so there’s no hurry to return it.’

  ‘I’ll bring it when I come over tomorrow afternoon, once I’ve run Rollo back to Thorstane, Mark,’ Flora said brightly. ‘We have so much to catch up on and I want to hear all about these renovations.’ She smiled winsomely up at him, her face framed in snowy white fake fur.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll be too busy for visitors,’ he said with more haste than tact. ‘Mum’s going to the Red House tomorrow to stay over Christmas, so I can press on with the work here.’

  ‘Really? But you don’t want to be alone at Christmas, surely?�
� she said, widening her big eyes at him. ‘And anyway, I’m not a visitor, am I? I can help you, too.’

  Mark might have behaved badly, but she was now starting to remind me of a small, pretty, but predatory fairy, red of fang and sharp of nails. The dark sort you found in some old stories: a bit Grimm.

  Rollo had sidled up to me unnoticed and now said in a low voice, ‘Meg, since I’ve come all this way and caught a chill, surely you’ll let me come and see you in the morning, before I go?’

  ‘Now, how can I put this tactfully, Rollo?’ I mused aloud. ‘No!’

  ‘You’re terribly hard, aren’t you?’ said Flora, gazing at me sadly, with her head on one side, like a bird. A small vulture, possibly. Or maybe a buzzard, circling over a new kill. ‘Poor Rollo!’

  ‘Poor Rollo nothing,’ I snapped. ‘And if it was me he came to see, then he’s standing right in front of me now, isn’t he?’

  Rollo glowered in his best Byronic fashion, though under the hood and with a pink-tipped nose and watery eyes, it didn’t come off too well.

  ‘Apparently, the forecast is for heavy snow tonight, so you’d be better going straight back to the motel while you can,’ I suggested.

  ‘Oh, it won’t be that bad – and don’t worry, because I’ll look after him,’ Flora told me.

  I bet she would.

  Then she turned her full wattage on Lex, smile and fluttering eyelashes working overtime: she obviously couldn’t be near any personable man without giving it her best shot.

  ‘Oh, Lex, will you tell Clara that I’ll pop in and see Teddy some time soon?’ she cooed and then added to me, ‘He adores me. I was his nanny, you know. I saw him earlier, but he can’t have spotted me or he’d have come over to say hello.’

  ‘He did, but Fred was teaching him the vanishing handkerchief trick with Clara’s bandanna,’ Lex said. ‘That was much more exciting.’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ she said, pouting.

  ‘I’ll just say goodnight to Sybil and then I’m ready to go,’ I said quickly to Lex, suiting the action to the words.

  I’d have liked to have said goodbye to Pansy too, but Mark had shut the dogs up in the morning room.

  We were the last to leave, and the Gidneys had already half-cleared the trestle table. The platter that had held the huge treacle cake was now bare, apart from a scattering of crumbs.

  Rollo and Flora had gone, and I thought if she had any sense at all, she’d drive him straight back to the pub tonight and leave him there.

  Mark had taken me by surprise by kissing me in an uncousinly way under a bunch of mistletoe before I left, and as I climbed into the front of the pick-up next to Lex, he said, ‘Perhaps you’d rather have let Mark drive you home? He seems to have recovered from that slight hiccup when he heard you were related and suspected you were after his money, doesn’t he?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t, and what I said at the mill was true: I’m not interested in him that way and I’m sure he isn’t seriously interested in me, either.’

  I did like him, though, and he’d been kind tonight. When we’d first met I’d thought he was mean to Sybil, but I’d come to realize that he was driven by his love for Underhill to do whatever it took to keep it.

  ‘I’m sure he’d like your help with the decorating,’ Lex suggested.

  ‘He’ll have to make do with Flora’s. I’m a portrait painter, not a decorator’s mate.’

  The front seat of the pick-up was a long bench-style one and I kept a good space between us, hoping the heater would soon kick in, as Lex headed down the drive.

  In the headlights the snow was swirling down in quite large, flat wafers that settled on the ground.

  ‘It’s starting to look as if the weather forecast got it right: heavy fall of snow overnight on the moors,’ Lex said. ‘So if Flora doesn’t want to be stuck with Rollo for longer than one night, it’s to be hoped she’s halfway to the pub by now.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. I’m still furious with him for turning up, because I’d already told him I never wanted to see or hear from him again after he rang Clara that time.’

  ‘I don’t think he got the message, and it sounds as if he’s been spinning Flora a tale about being in a relationship with you.’

  He had, of course, but I wondered now if his survival instinct had kicked in when he’d met Flora at the pub, warning him that he’d better tell her he was involved with someone else?

  As we drove through the village, the only sign of life was a few lit windows, including those at Preciousss.

  ‘We can park by the Sailing Club under the pine trees for a bit, where it’s sheltered,’ Lex said, turning down a track that ran through the woods until he pulled up facing the glimmering reservoir, next to the dark outline of a building, and cut the lights.

  It was a bit like the start of a murder mystery … but perhaps we’d already had act one? As we’d driven here I’d let my mind go back to that awful moment when I’d almost fallen and, no matter how irrational it might be, I was sure I hadn’t imagined the hard shove of two hands in the small of my back.

  Lex switched on the interior light, which shed a dim glow, and turned to face me. He seemed to sense what I was thinking, which was disconcerting.

  ‘Do you still think someone tried to push you off the hill tonight?’

  I answered indirectly. ‘I don’t see why on earth anyone would, unless you have a local practical joker.’

  ‘No, and it would have been way beyond a joke if you’d fallen down there.’

  I shivered. ‘Then it must have been an accident. And anyway,’ I said, getting my resolve together, ‘that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. River said it was time I told you exactly what happened between us that night you came back to my flat. Not that I haven’t tried already,’ I added tartly.

  ‘But I already do know what happened – or enough. What good will it do to rake over the ashes now?’

  ‘But you don’t know, that’s the whole point,’ I said forcefully. ‘You only think you know. You and Al built up a whole picture from a few pieces without asking me for my side of it.’

  He sighed, running one hand through his already tangled hair, his handsome, dark, hawk face brooding in the dim light.

  ‘Look, we’d both had a lot to drink that night, Meg, and I’ve already said I don’t blame you for what happened, but myself for getting so drunk that I didn’t really know what I was doing.’

  ‘You don’t actually have anything to blame me for, magnanimous though it is of you,’ I said sarcastically, but he was back in the past and swallowed up in a sea of old guilt.

  ‘If Al hadn’t managed to track me down, I might have got there too late to see Lisa. I can’t bear to think of that!’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said, softening slightly. ‘But you’d been under a lot of strain for weeks and you’d no way of knowing she’d need you that night. Now, perhaps you’d like to stop wallowing in guilt for a few minutes and just listen.’

  That was harsh, but it got through, because he said tightly, ‘You’re obviously determined to go through it all again, so let’s get it over with.’

  ‘I don’t know how much you recall about the start of that evening we met in the wine bar,’ I said. ‘When I went in with a group of my friends, you and Al were already there and you insisted we join you. You’d already had quite a bit to drink by then.’

  ‘I was trying to blank out what was happening for a few hours.’ He rubbed his forehead as if his memory hurt him. ‘Lisa had finally had to go into the hospice and her parents had come down that day to be with her … so rather than let me go home on my own, Al took me out for a drink.’

  ‘Which turned into several drinks,’ I said. ‘I’d had a couple myself, but then switched to coffee when the others left and we stayed behind, talking.’

  ‘Al had a job as a hotel night porter, so he had to go, too. I remember that part … and when they’d all left you told me your boyfriend had just dumped you by email – was that Rollo?’r />
  I nodded. ‘Yes, the first, but not the last, time. I was mad to give him a second chance.’ And a third and final one.

  ‘It starts to get hazy after that,’ Lex admitted. ‘I think … I talked to you about Lisa.’

  ‘You totally unburdened yourself on the subject,’ I said frankly. ‘All about how you’d supported her decision not to have chemo in the face of her parents’ wishes, because the chance of it working had been so slim and she’d wanted to enjoy what life she had left. And how guilty you felt about it, after she’d worsened so quickly.’

  ‘I really did bare my soul, didn’t I?’ he said wryly. ‘I knew we’d talked a bit, but I didn’t realize how much I’d told you.’

  ‘I thought that was why you turned and walked away the next time I saw you – because you felt embarrassed about having told me so much personal stuff.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that. I hadn’t remembered what I’d said.’

  ‘I know that now, but it was only when Al raged at me like a madman later that day that I realized the truth – and what you both thought of me!’

  ‘He shouldn’t have taken it on himself to say anything at all, and I told him so. But he’s been a good friend throughout everything.’ He paused. ‘So, I remember being in the wine bar with you … but not how I ended up in your digs.’

  ‘You’d carried on drinking, but since you were talking perfectly well, I didn’t realize how drunk you were until we left. When we got outside it was bucketing down with rain and the cold air just hit you for six: I had trouble keeping you upright. We were the last out of the wine bar and they locked the door behind us, or I’d have rung for a taxi to take you home.’

  He was looking intently at me now, though I couldn’t see his expression clearly enough to read.

  ‘I lived only round the corner, so I thought the best thing to do was take you there, pour black coffee down you and call a cab.’

  ‘Very practical,’ he said drily. ‘What went wrong?’