Christmas in the Cotswolds

by Jenny Kane

  Megan opened her mouth, but was saved from speaking by Jo, who had silently climbed down the ladder, his face set in hard disapproval. ‘So you’d rather not host the choir then? You’d be willing to sacrifice all the work that Mrs V and Megan have put in? And my work of course, but as I get paid then you could argue that I wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of my heart like they are. Still, you know best. Expect you don’t, do you, Miss Spencer-Harris, because you haven’t asked. You’ve jumped to conclusions based on the unsubstantiated claims of your mother.’

  Jo laid down the equipment he’d been holding, his green eyes fixed on Izzie’s blue ones, challenging her to argue. ‘Megan has been busting a gut getting everything sorted so you’ll get your first Christmas concert. Not to mention Mrs V, who has slowly been getting her husband inebriated in her attempts to get the batch of mulled wine for the concert just right, as well as having made enough mince pies to feed the whole of Wiltshire and Somerset combined!’

  Drawing a quick breath, Jo hadn’t finished. ‘Oh, and by the way, that’s Frank up there on the ladder. He’s in the choir; he is doing this as a favour, as are his mates outside on the scaffolding, who are mending the tiles on the roof. Or didn’t you stop to notice them either? And by the way – are you cold? No? I wonder why not? Is there light to see by? Oh yes, there is!’

  The silence in the church was suddenly icier than any of the cold drafts that had issued in through the hole in the roof when it had been there. In the stillness Izzie picked up the low hum of a machine coming from the vestry kitchen. Her face blotched with regretful embarrassment. ‘You got a generator for the electricity.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’ Jo sat on the nearest pew that used to form part of the congregations seating.’

  Mrs V placed three mugs on the nearest art table, ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I couldn’t help overhearing.’ The old lady poured some steaming mulled wine from a large flask, ‘I suggest you all sit down and try this. It’s the non-alcoholic version of the mulled wine. Or is it wine if it has no alcohol? Perhaps I should call it punch? What do you think, Izzie?’

  ‘You can call it anything you like Mrs V,’ Izzie meekly smiled at the old woman, ‘whatever would we do without you?’

  ‘Make your own punch, I suppose. Now try it, time is short and we have lots to do.’

  Taken aback by Mrs V’s short tone, all three of them sipped as ordered. Immediately rich blasts of Christmas scent soothed their nostrils and the silky smooth port like liquid coated their throats, making each of them smile despite themselves.

  ‘It’s perfect, thank you, Mrs V.’ Izzie took another fortifying sip. ‘I’ve been a prize bitch, haven’t I?’

  ‘Yes, dear, you have, but you didn’t mean to be, so I suggest we forget about your friends doing the right thing, but going about it the wrong way, and crack on with it. Because I’m telling you, Izzie dear, if we don’t, then your mother really will end up hosting the concert.’

  Mrs V beetled off back to the south aisle to attend to two customers that had just sat down as Izzie sighed, ‘Mother thinks she is anyway! What if once the choir rehearse in the orangery they don’t want to come here? I’m sure David loved it, didn’t he, Jo?’

  ‘He did. You grew up in a magnificent house.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The three of them lapsed into silence, each concentrating on their mugs of punch.

  After a few minutes Megan couldn’t stand it any longer. She got up, grabbed the diary from the drawer, and, hooking a pen out of her pocket, sat down again with a thump. ‘OK then. Mrs V has a point, we can do the “we thought we were helping” conversation later, now let’s get the a list of what has to be done, and in what order, because I for one have no intension of the Cotswold Choir performing anywhere else but here this Christmas!’

  With her leg stretched out on a chair before her, Izzie found her good humour return in the shape of six happy children and their nursery teacher. As they cut out Christmas tree shapes, sticking them together to make 3D Christmas cards, Izzie passed out glue sticks and wiped sticky fingers free of excess glitter as her friends got on with running her art centre around her.

  Megan was untangling a string of tasteful white fairy lights, Mrs V was serving up scones and tea to an undeniably nosy group of her friends, and Jo and his friend Frank were finishing off the glazing, which just left the internal re-pointing of the scratched stonework to clean up before the chancel was fixed.

  With the children chatting happily about what they hoped Santa would bring them, Izzie allowed herself to stop and think properly for the first time since she’d arrived with her parents. She couldn’t even begin to work out how to make it up to Megan. How could she have talked to her like that when she’d come all this way to help her, leaving her own job and friends at Christmas time?

  When the children trooped out, each clutching a complete, but still sticky, card for their parents, Mrs V came over to Izzie armed with a broom, and immediately started to clear up the spilt excesses of the craft session.

  ‘I can do that Mrs V, you’ve been on your feet all morning.’

  ‘You do the table surface, Izzie dear. I’ll do the floor, save you using that ankle.’

  As Izzie gathered together the spare materials up, she called to Megan, ‘Wow, they look amazing.’

  Hanging the last string of lights, Megan wasn’t convinced there were enough to make the large church truly festive, as she walked over to a beckoning Mrs V, who was holding a plate of sandwiches and a mug of coffee, ‘I swear if I didn’t force you to take a break, you wouldn’t eat at all, young Megan!’

  Izzie felt another wave of guilt wash over her. All the craft classes had been run, the café had kept up a small trade, and the chancel was almost mended. And, if the way Megan was going with the fairy lights was anything to go by, it wouldn’t matter if the electricity didn’t get fixed, because with the generator, the extra lanterns and lights, and the massive range of fan heaters and oil-fired radiators that Mrs V and her pensioner friends had provided, they’d be enough heat and light anyway!

  ‘I’m sorry, guys.’ Izzie sighed, ‘I’ve been horrid, you’ve all worked so hard. It’s my mother, I’m paranoid I guess, it’s …’

  Megan smiled, ‘Izzie, stop. It’s fine. It was a misunderstanding.’

  ‘It isn’t fine. I should have known better, you couldn’t let anybody down if you tried!’

  The sound of footsteps behind them told Izzie that Jo and Frank had finished what they were doing. Frank waved a hand in their direction, and headed outside, Jo came up the table. ‘Well, Miss Spencer-Harris, we’re all done inside. I’ll check on Jim outside, and then I’ll be on my way.’

  With that Jo inclined his head toward Mrs V and Megan and stalked out of the church, leaving Izzie feeling worse than ever. He couldn’t even bring himself to call her by her first name. And after all the hard work he’d put in, and all the friends he’d arranged favours from so that she, a total stranger, could have her first successful Christmas event, she didn’t blame him one bit.

  Chapter Eight

  December 20th

  No one had mentioned the manner in which Jo had left the church, nor the fact that he hadn’t turned up the next day. Not that he had any reason to be there now his work was done, but that hadn’t stopped Izzie hoping he’d come.

  After the final craft club before Christmas, Izzie had limped her way outside under the pretext of cheeking on Jim’s progress, but in her heart she knew she was hoping to see Jo’s van pulling into the car park. All she received, however, was a thumbs-up from Jim, who was in the process of securing the final replacement roof tile.

  Vowing to find out how much the work Jo had arranged cost, so she could at least pay his friends for their hard work, Izzie went back inside, sat at one of the art tables, and opened her diary. The rehearsal was tonight – but would there be a show tomorrow? Was there any point in doing anything else here? Should she just thank Mrs V and Megan for all their help and sen
d them home?

  Izzie had kept out of her parents’ way since she’d discharged herself from hospital, getting up and down her attic stairs with Megan’s help. She was convinced her mother would persuade David to transfer the concert to Harris Park’s orangery once he’d heard the choir sing there. Izzie was also fairly convinced she would already have told those who’d bought tickets who she considered ‘worth knowing’ (in other words, those with land and money and single sons) that the venue had changed due to her “daughter’s failings”.

  ‘Plus, of course,’ Izzie muttered under her breath, ‘I have no idea if the electrician Jo found will still come tonight. I don’t even know who he is. Jo may have told him not to bother.’

  The sound of Mrs V and Megan laughing as they sang their way through ‘Silent Night’ at the top of their voices while icing a batch of Christmas muffins in the confined vestry brought Izzie rapidly back to her senses. She had to try. She had to make sure this was the better venue. At least then, even if David did let her down at the last minute, she’d know she tried. Maybe she could open the café up in the evening to all the locals for an evening of cake and Mrs V’s vat-like supplies of mulled wine instead? She was sure that would be more fun anyway, if not as cost-effective.

  With renewed purpose, Izzie began to write yet another list of everything that they needed to do in the assumption that everything was going to be alright on the night, one way or another.

  Having had yet more attempts at apologies waved away by Mrs V and Megan, Izzie showed them what needed to be done. It was a frighteningly long list. Megan couldn’t help but grin when she saw it. ‘It reminds me of the list that my boss Peggy was making this time last year when we ran a charity auction at Pickwicks. Honestly, I thought we’d never get it all done.’

  ‘But you did?’ Izzie, who’d become quite adept at moving on her crutches, regarded the layout of the pews in the old church, that led towards the chancel, where the Cotswold Choir would hopefully sing.

  ‘We did.’

  Mrs V sat down on a pew next to Izzie, ‘Wasn’t that where you told me you met your young man dear?’

  A contented glow appeared on Megan’s face, ‘Yes, Nick and I finally met there, although we got to know each other via email really. When it came to the auction I had given up on him to be honest. We’d had a stupid misunderstanding. He thought I’d lied to him, I thought he’d been less than honest with me. It took his friend Sam to show us what idiots we’d been.’

  Izzie felt her heart contract. She hadn’t admitted to Megan, or even herself, that she’d developed a crush on Jo – or maybe even something more. He had done so much for her, had visited her in hospital when he didn’t need to, had reassured her about the choir, and had got his friends to fix up her art centre in double quick time. Had they had a misunderstanding as well?

  No.

  They barely knew each other. There was nothing to misunderstand. It was a crush; just the novelty of being attracted to a man who was of a similar age, with similar interests, and who had also got the guts to follow his own dreams rather than give into those of his parents. That was it. Jo had only helped because he was a nice person, not because he fancied her.

  Swallowing down her anxiety, Izzie asked, ‘Do you think there’s enough seating here?’

  Megan, who had got well and truly carried away with her fairy lights, having gone back to the discount store again to buy extra, nodded, ‘I counted seats for forty-eight bottoms on the pews, with another twelve on the individual chairs at the front. How many invites were returned?’

  ‘All of them!’ Izzie grimaced, ‘you should have seen my mother’s face when the Duchess of Banbury said she’d come!’

  Mrs V and Megan immediately practised a curtsey ‘You didn’t tell us we were having almost-royalty coming!’

  ‘I have a feeling there are several cousins between them and Buck House, but the way my mother goes on, you’d think they had a direct line to the Queen. They have a daughter in the choir. Anyway, including the almost royalty, we’re expecting fifty people, plus the choir itself.’

  Mrs V straightened her apron, ‘Do you think I should draft in a couple of the girls to help me serve drinks and refreshments then? Can’t be keeping the likes of dukes and duchesses waiting around for a top-up of champers?’

  Izzie laughed; she knew that by ‘the girls’, Mrs V meant Dottie and Jean, two octogenarians with even more oomph than Mrs V herself. ‘Do you think they would? I don’t want anyone kept waiting really. I was going to serve myself, but I’ll be hopeless carrying a tray with these.’ She gestured to the crutches.

  ‘Of course. Once I tell them we have almost royalty here, they’ll be desperate to have a peep!’

  Izzie hugged her friend. ‘What would I do without you?’

  ‘I can serve drinks as well.’ Megan pushed a drawing pin into the grout between the stonework to support the final string of lights that ran along the side of the pews. ‘It’s my trade, after all.’

  ‘Actually, Megan, I thought you’d like to watch the show with Nick as it’s your anniversary! It’s bad enough that I’ve taken you away from him for so long already.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’ve told Nick I’ll be hiding in the kitchen sorting mince pies and canapés and stuff. He’s very much up for helping as well. In fact, he suggested it.’

  A flash of something that felt like envy hit her. ‘He sounds a great guy, your Nick.’

  ‘He is. I can’t wait for you to meet him. What do you want him to do? You’ll have to do the greetings of course, Izzie, but Nick could help escort people to their seats, and then hand out Mrs V’s mulled wine – not to mention pick up everyone off the floor when they’ve drunk it!’

  Mrs V chuckled, ‘That last batch was a bit strong, wasn’t it, dear! Don’t worry, adjustments have been made! Mr V snored for hour’s yesterday afternoon after just one glass full!’

  ‘That’s wonderful.’ Izzie mentally placed fifty people in the seats before them, when she registered what Megan had said, ‘What do you mean I’ll have to greet them?’ Her complexion, which still hadn’t regained its colour after her accident, paled further, ‘Won’t David do that?’

  ‘He’ll be getting the choir ready, sorting out their music and things. You’ll need to be on duty in your finery. This is the Cotswold Art Centre’s first Christmas. Time to show those aristocratic types you can be a practical businesswoman and a beautiful heiress all at the same time!’

  Exhausted from a day of preparations – sorting china, and making sure that they had enough teaspoons to accompany fifty cups and saucers, plus spares, not to mention having repeatedly insisted (with the backup of the indomitable Mrs V) that Izzie really did have to wear a posh frock for the concert – Megan kicked off her shoes and reclined back on the sofa.

  ‘Izzie, I know it isn’t my place to suggest it, but I think it might be an idea if we closed the café tomorrow.’ The thought of washing up extra crockery without the use of a dishwasher on top of all the other last-minute things that would need doing was too much. ‘I know the income from lunch would help pay Jo’s bill and that but, if we’re all worn out before we’ve even started, then we’ll look more like zombies than professionals. Not the image you want for the Cotswold Art Centre.’

  Megan wasn’t sure if her friend had been listening. She suspected not. Izzie was staring out of the window across towards the main part of the house, behind which was the orangery. A number of cars were already parked in front of the house, with one of the gardeners directing the choristers towards the house.

  ‘Do you think we should go to the rehearsal?’

  ‘Probably,’ Izzie turned her back on the window, ‘but I am honestly not sure I can face watching my mother employing her best persuasion techniques on the choir master. I should still be at the church really, in case the electrician turns up, but I can’t face it.’

  Secretly relieved she wouldn’t have to put her shoes on again, Megan hauled herself upright. ‘That I
can understand. Look, Izzie, there’s no need to worry; Mrs V has put Mr V in charge. If the electrician turns up the note on the door tells him where to find the key. As Mr and Mrs V live so close he’ll find them easily. And what’s more, I think the concert will have to be held at the art centre. I’m sure David can’t change things this late. The venue is written on the tickets, remember?’

  ‘Trust me, phoning fifty people to announce an upgraded venue wouldn’t bother my mother. Especially if she feels as though she’s proved I couldn’t cope running a business after all.’

  Wishing Izzie’s mother wasn’t so hell-bent on finding her daughter a husband of the ‘right sort,’ which Megan was absolutely convinced was at the root of all this interfering, she said, ‘Come on, I’ll make us a massive pile of cheese on toast, and you can tell me what’s really making you sigh each time you think no one’s looking, because I don’t think it’s all to do with the uncertainty over the concert, is it?’

  Izzie hobbled over to the kitchen table and sank onto a seat, thankful to have a friend as good as Megan, who was already grating a massive pile of cheddar.

  ‘I honestly didn’t see it coming, Megan. I mean, we’ve hardly spoken.’

  Megan shrugged. ‘That’s the problem with love, Izzie; it catches you with your guard down. I fell for Nick over a load of emails. I’d never set eyes on him.’

  ‘The whole thing is stupid. It’s just a crush. You and Nick were the exception that proves the rule, or breaks the rule, or whatever the saying is!’ Izzie sighed again, ‘And now I don’t suppose I’ll ever see Jo again anyway. I was so mean to him after all he did for me. Which is just as well, because my mother would never approve of a relationship with a carpenter anyway.’