The Christmas Invitation

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘But you hated spending Christmas in digs,’ Clara reminded her.

  ‘It is a bit miserable, but this time I never even got asked. And that advert I’ve just done was for toilet tissue – hardly the pinnacle of my career.’

  ‘Was it soft and strong and very long?’ asked Lex, and she threw a cushion at him, which he fielded neatly.

  ‘So, what would you do instead of acting, darling?’ asked Clara.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.’ She smiled. ‘Though I did have the glimmer of an idea a few minutes ago!’

  ‘You’re always welcome to move in here while you decide,’ said Henry, and Clara agreed.

  ‘That will be fun, Mummy,’ said Teddy, though since he’d previously told us that Zelda had described Starstone Edge as ‘the arse end of nowhere’, I couldn’t really see that happening.

  Zelda appeared to feel the need to explain it, too. ‘I like fun, meeting new people and travelling, but of course I love being here as well. So I need to find a way of combining the two.’

  ‘If you discover how to have your cake and eat it, we’ll all be interested to know,’ Tottie said drily.

  ‘The idea I had came while I was talking to Mark about his plans for Underhill. I wondered if he might give me a job when his wedding reception business is up and running.’

  He smiled at her and said, ‘I just might, at that! We can discuss it tomorrow, when you come over.’

  ‘Oh, are you going to Underhill tomorrow?’ Flora broke in jealously. ‘Perhaps you could pick me up on the way? You promised to show me what you’d been doing and all your plans, Mark.’

  ‘Did I?’ he said, breaking eye contact with Zelda with an effort and looking harassed.

  ‘Actually, Meg and I are going to Underhill with Zelda in the morning too,’ Lex said. ‘But to help out with the work for a couple of hours, not just look around.’

  ‘I could help, too,’ Flora said eagerly. ‘I may not be able to stay long, because of my visitors, but I can always walk back. My old Mini really isn’t good in the snow.’

  There was no putting her off. When Mark said he really would have to go home now, she said she might as well walk back with him, because she needed time to get things ready for her unexpected visitor.

  ‘Poor Mark!’ said Clara obscurely as they left together.

  ‘He brought it on himself,’ Tottie pointed out fairly.

  ‘I’d forgotten what a man-eater she is, under that cute fluffy-little-me exterior,’ Zelda said.

  ‘Just a little over-keen,’ Clara said charitably. ‘She does tend to think that going out for a drink with a man means you’re practically engaged, though I’m afraid Mark did give her a little encouragement last time he was home.’

  ‘I’ve always thought she seemed a very sweet girl,’ Piers said. ‘I don’t know what you’ve got against her.’

  ‘We haven’t got anything against her,’ Clara said. ‘She was a very competent nanny, too, and I found her a good post in London when Teddy didn’t need her any more.’

  Sybil was looking alarmed. ‘I really don’t want her as my daughter-in-law,’ she said. ‘And anyway, I thought—’ She broke off, her gaze resting on me in a baffled way.

  ‘It will all work out fine in the end, don’t worry, Sybil,’ Clara said. ‘I never do.’

  ‘It’s like one of Shakespeare’s plays, where everyone is mistaken in everyone else’s character, and it takes a lot of untangling before it all comes right in the end,’ agreed Henry. ‘Christmas should be very interesting this year.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re all talking about,’ Piers said testily. ‘Now, if I’m to stay here for dinner before being carted off to this godforsaken bed-and-breakfast place, I’d like to freshen up a bit and then have a lie-down. It’s been a very exhausting day.’

  ‘You can use my room,’ River offered generously. ‘There’s a bathroom opposite. I’ll show you.’

  Piers didn’t thank him, but followed him out. In the hall, we heard him say to River, as if he were some kind of minion, ‘I’ll need that small Gladstone bag there.’

  ‘Fine, you bring it with you,’ said River’s voice gently.

  ‘River’s a kind and generous soul, but he’s nobody’s fool,’ I said.

  ‘I’d better go up and unpack and freshen up too,’ said Zelda.

  ‘Usual room, darling,’ said Clara. ‘I’m starting to think we’d all be better for a lie-down in a darkened room.’

  Tottie heaped the tea things on to the trolley and Lex took them out to the kitchen. Lass slipped out behind him, probably hoping for leftovers, but Wisty was fast asleep in front of the fire and Pansy had climbed back on to my lap again, without my noticing.

  River returned and, taking the seat nearest the fire that Piers had vacated, beamed round at us and said without apparent sarcasm, ‘Well, this is jolly!’

  Clara

  Starstone Edge was exerting an ever greater pull on us and we discussed whether we might be able to afford a cottage in the valley, where we could spend time, either separately or together, without having to stay with George.

  Then my beloved aunt Beryl died and left her considerable fortune to be divided between myself and my sister, Bridget.

  What with this and Henry’s flourishing investments, we suddenly found ourselves surprisingly affluent, and travelled up to Starstone Edge to see the few houses that were for sale.

  After inspecting a couple of claustrophobically tiny cottages and a thirties villa with some serious damp issues, we were beginning to despair, when we went to tea with Tottie Gillyflower.

  She had been only a tiny baby when I’d left Starstone, but of course Henry knew her well and we had often met her on our visits. She lived at the Red House, a substantial Victorian house at the further end of the village from Underhill and, over tea, we learned that her attempts to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast establishment since her mother’s death had not been the success she had hoped. The upkeep of such a large house was expensive and she feared she would have to sell it and move away. It was the idea of losing her garden that seemed to upset her most.

  Henry had always adored this bizarrely over-the-top Victorian Gothic relic and I also had a sneaking likeness for it – and also for Tottie, a no-nonsense, angular youngish woman with a passion for gardening and beekeeping. So we came to an arrangement and bought the Red House from her with the proviso that she was to continue to make it her home and take over the housekeeping, devoting the rest of her time to her garden and bees. Den, our loyal friend who had cooked and looked after us so well in London, would continue to do so there, but could have his own flat over the garage, once we’d completed a scheme of much-needed renovations.

  Though the arrangement with Tottie might seem strange and fraught with possible difficulties to many, we soon all settled down into one happy family – and still are, over thirty years later.

  Eventually, although officially still attached to the British Museum, I could divide my time between my work on epigraphy, lectures, and the writing of books, both erudite and fictional.

  Of course, I am now retired, but I can’t say that it has made any great difference to my life, except that through the innovations of technology, I can do quite a bit of epigraphic reconstruction right here on my computer screen, via a wonderful program.

  Our lives have been full and happy ones and though we had no children of our own, my sister Bridget’s have spent so much time here at the Red House that they have more than made up for it …

  33

  The Kissing Bough

  Sybil had been huddling quietly in a corner of one of the sofas, but now looked up and said, in a distressed voice, ‘I’m so sorry about Piers trying to impose on you like this and, really, I know I should have made Mark take him back to Underhill … and gone with them.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense, Sybil!’ declared Clara roundly. ‘You’re too kind-hearted for your own good. Just because he was your father’s best friend, it doe
sn’t mean that he’s entitled to hang around your neck like an albatross for the rest of his life.’

  ‘But … I mean, I’ve known him since I was a little girl,’ she protested. ‘And I do feel sorry for him, because he says his family don’t really want him for Christmas.’

  ‘He probably makes himself such an odious nuisance that it’s not surprising,’ Henry said.

  ‘But Piers isn’t all bad,’ she insisted.

  ‘Sybil, we know he and George used to drink themselves senseless every night after dinner when he was staying at Underhill, not to mention the gambling … and the other things that they got up to when they went off on one of their jaunts to the South of France,’ said Clara. ‘We heard the rumours.’

  Sybil didn’t try to deny this.

  ‘Don’t worry about him, Sybil,’ Lex told her kindly. ‘He’ll be more comfortable at the guesthouse than he would have been at Underhill with all the work going on, and Flora will look after him.’

  ‘As long as she doesn’t find him too much trouble, because he is a little set in his ways,’ said Sybil. ‘But then, perhaps the road will thaw tomorrow and he can get away,’ she added optimistically.

  ‘I doubt it, Syb,’ said Tottie. ‘Den told me the Met Office forecast said there wouldn’t be a thaw for a few days. So it looks like he could well be here on Christmas Day, with his feet in the trough.’

  ‘In which case, I’d better keep the key of the drinks cabinet on me, when he’s in the house,’ Henry said thoughtfully. ‘And tell Den to keep the larder door locked, too, though we don’t stock a large supply of alcohol, other than Tottie’s mead and fruit wines.’

  ‘There’s whisky and sherry, but I think that’s it,’ agreed Clara.

  ‘And several bottles of elderflower champagne for the Boxing Day morning party,’ Tottie reminded them.

  ‘Oh, I adore elderflower champagne!’ I said. ‘Maj at the Farm makes it, too.’

  ‘Indeed she does,’ said River. ‘They’ll all be drinking it now at the feasting …’

  He looked slightly pensive, probably remembering that this time he had abdicated his role in the proceedings to Oshan.

  I was right, for he added, ‘Oshan poured a libation of mead over the stone cairn on the hill behind the Farm at the Solstice, as usual.’

  ‘I expect Den has a crate or two of Guinness in the flat,’ Henry said. ‘But he’s not going to share with Piers. They’ve never taken to each other.’

  ‘That’s because Piers is a snob and tries to treat Den like some kind of servant,’ Clara said.

  Sybil made a token protest, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  ‘I expect Den puts him right,’ Henry said.

  The phone rang. It was Flora to say Deirdre had agreed that Flora could take in Piers as a paying guest on full board terms, but at double the usual rate.

  ‘Pretty much what I thought she’d say,’ said Clara. ‘So that’s that sorted.’

  ‘I’ll take him down there in the pick-up after dinner,’ Lex offered. ‘It’s probably started to freeze, but I can put the chains on.’

  ‘I think I might lie down till dinner, once I’ve fed the dogs,’ Sybil said. ‘I have a bit of a headache.’

  I felt no urge to lie down, but I did want to get away to my own little Rapunzel turret for a bit and once I was there, dashed off a quick email to Fliss.

  Lex being very kind to me, to make up for thinking I was an evil seductress. I’ve just watched Mark, the only romantic hero material, fall head over heels for Lex’s sister on sight. Ex-nanny furious, had designs on him herself. Ghastly old gent arrived earlier, but he’s going to stay somewhere else. Rollo still in Starstone Edge too – he has caught a chill, the roads are blocked and we’re snowed in. The thick plottens.

  Meg x x

  I hadn’t mentioned that I thought someone had tried to push me off a precipice because in retrospect I could see how silly the idea was.

  Lex was still being almost unbearably kind to me: before I came upstairs, he’d caught me up and asked me if I was sure I wasn’t hurt by Mark’s sudden defection and I’d told him not to be daft.

  Henry was right, it was all just like one of Shakespeare’s more confusing romances. I only hoped it would be all’s well that ends well.

  I’d just sent the email to Fliss when I heard a scratching noise and yapping. I went down the turret stairs to find Pansy outside my bedroom door, bright eyed and wagging her tail.

  ‘How on earth did you know where I was?’ I exclaimed, scooping her up.

  And I felt a horrible pang, knowing that after Christmas she would belong to strangers. I only hoped they’d love her as much as I’d grown to.

  She lay on the rug and watched me as I brushed my hair and then rendered my eyelashes and brows a slightly more dramatic shade than their natural fawn.

  A pale face framed in rose-pink hair, with eyes of a strangely light duck-egg blue, stared back at me from the mirror. With my high cheekbones and straight nose, I wondered how I could possibly have missed the Doome family features that I’d painted in Henry, and must have noted in Mark.

  On impulse, I opened Mum’s tin trunk and Pansy sneezed as a wave of sandalwood and patchouli hit her.

  I rummaged among the clothes. I had an urge to bring her close tonight by wearing something of hers, and chose a heavy silk top with bell sleeves, an embroidered yoke and tassel-tie front.

  I wore it over a long, go-anywhere, dark green skirt with a hitched-up side that revealed a silk chiffon layer beneath. I’d found it in a charity shop years ago and it looked sort of Victorian.

  Malachite drop earrings completed the look … whatever the look was.

  I felt cheered by the spirit of my freewheeling mother and it suddenly struck me that Zelda’s style of mothering was very similar to hers.

  I knew Mum loved me, but it had never stopped her going off on her own adventures. I seemed to have assumed the maternal, worrying role … especially since she’d vanished.

  Down in the hall I found a scene of activity. Henry and Teddy had upended the big canvas postbag on to the side table and were sorting the contents into heaps, while Den and River had got out the long stepladders and were hanging up the kissing bough.

  ‘I knew there was something missing in here,’ River explained.

  ‘Yeah, and ’ere’s one we prepared earlier, ain’t it?’ said the voice from above.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I said admiringly, though this one wasn’t so much a bough as a large twig, wound with ivy and decorated with a few sprigs of berried holly. From it hung a large bunch of fake mistletoe, which they’d probably purloined from one of the swags.

  ‘Holly and ivy to represent the male/female yin/yang element of the season, of course,’ said River. ‘And mistletoe for obvious reasons.’

  ‘Kissing,’ said Den, starting to descend.

  ‘No, I meant the deeper magical significance, but kissing is good too,’ said River, and kissed my cheek.

  I returned the salute and gave him a hug.

  ‘How lovely you look tonight, dear child,’ he said.

  ‘This is one of Mum’s tops, out of the trunk. I thought I’d wear it because she feels very close tonight, for some reason.’

  ‘Yes, I feel that too, and I’m sure she will come back to us soon.’

  I hoped he was right and my worst fears weren’t true …

  Tonight River wore the tunic with the runes. Around his neck hung a silver wire mandala and a chakra necklace of variously coloured stones.

  ‘You look very fine, too,’ I told him. ‘Did you manage to get into your room to change?’

  ‘Yes, though Piers was still flat out on my bed asleep. In fact, we might have to wake him for dinner.’

  ‘And we’d better get back and bleedin’ finish cooking it,’ Den suggested, and they went off, carrying the ladder between them, like a comedy act.

  ‘Do go in the drawing room and have a drink, my dear,’ suggested Henry. ‘Clara, Tottie and Sybil are alread
y down – and we assumed Pansy must be with you when she vanished. Lex has gone to fetch in more wood and Zelda’s been holed up in Clara’s study for the last half-hour, having a long phone conversation with someone. We suspect it’s Mark.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘I’ve never seen such a coup de foudre.’

  I laughed. ‘Nor me! They were both struck all of a heap, weren’t they?’

  Teddy, who was clutching a large parcel, said, ‘Look, Meg! Uncle Henry forgot he’d left a bid in an auction for some more Christmas decorations ages ago and they’ve just arrived.’

  ‘Haven’t checked my emails for a couple of days, or I might have known they were on the way,’ he admitted. ‘I can’t even remember what was in this lot.’

  ‘Can we open it now?’ demanded Teddy.

  ‘No, let’s tantalize ourselves and save it for tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Carry it carefully into my study and put it on the desk with the typewriter. That’s another antique: they can keep each other company overnight.’

  ‘You’re very silly, Uncle Henry,’ Teddy said severely.

  ‘I know, but I’m afraid I’ve left it too late to change now.’

  Teddy carried off the box and Henry quickly whipped out another package from the post sack and stowed it in the hallstand cupboard. ‘Another parcel with American stamps, but this one is for Clara and has Radnor Vane’s address on the back, so I expect it’s something for Teddy.’

  I hoped, for Teddy’s sake, that it wasn’t more Mickey Mouse slippers.

  ‘We’ve sorted out the post now. That was the last,’ Henry said, as Teddy returned. ‘I’ve given Clara ours, which was mostly cards, and Sybil is looking through the mail for Underhill. I thought you and Lex could take that up with you tomorrow morning, Meg.’

  ‘There’s still a lot more to deliver, though,’ I said, eyeing the heaps on the table.

  ‘I’ll probably take it round tomorrow, when I’m out with Lass, but it shouldn’t take long because most of it is for the Adcocks and Bilbo.’

  In the drawing room, the tree lights and chandelier sparkled, and with the curtains drawn and the fire glowing warmly, everything looked very cosy.