A Christmas Cracker

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘It’s this really virulent strain of flu, all right,’ the doctor said when he came back down. ‘I’ve told him to rest in bed and I’ll give you something he can take to get his temperature down. Lots of liquids, but he’s probably not going to feel hungry for a day or two.’

  Then he checked that Silas had had a flu vaccination, which he had, and left.

  I hadn’t had one but, evidently, I’d just have to take my chances.

  ‘I don’t want anything to eat tonight, just leave me in peace,’ Randal said, eyeing me belligerently when I returned after seeing the doctor off.

  ‘Good, because I was only going to offer you chicken soup anyway. I made it as soon as Charlie told me you were on the way, and some fresh lemonade to Mercy’s recipe, which will do you good. I’ll bring some of both up shortly. And Job will pop in again later to make you comfortable for the night.’

  ‘He needn’t bother,’ snapped Randal. It was fast becoming clear that he was going to be the patient from hell.

  He seemed worse later, but I managed to persuade him to drink some of my very excellent soup and a little lemonade to wash down the capsules the doctor had left for him.

  Pugsie and Pye, probably curious as to why I was in this part of the house, had followed me up and Pye jumped on the bed and stared down at Randal.

  ‘Go away,’ he said weakly.

  ‘Mmrow,’ Pye said, helpfully head-butting him, as if to encourage him to get up.

  Pugsie tried and failed to jump up on the bed too and then, showing more intelligence than I’d previously given him credit for, used the low wooden chest at the end as a step.

  He had to be dissuaded from licking Randal to death, but finally settled down next to him.

  ‘Are you going to keep Randal company?’ I asked him.

  ‘I don’t want him,’ Randal protested, but I left him there anyway, though Pye followed me out.

  There’s nothing quite so comforting as the presence of a pet when you’re ill, is there?

  Job came back later as he’d promised and reported that Randal was now very feverish, but he’d taken another dose of the medicine and he hoped that would bring his temperature down.

  Silas had gone to his rooms by then, so I locked up the house for the night and then tiptoed up and peeped in at Randal. Job had left a dim lamp on and he seemed to be restlessly asleep …

  I took Pugsie downstairs, so he and Pye could go outside while I got into my pyjamas and dressing gown, then went back up again, because there was no way I was leaving Randal alone that night.

  I spent most of it dozing on a small Victorian day bed in the sitting room, and when I heard him muttering I went in to check his pulse, which was racing.

  ‘Hot,’ he said, half-opening his unfocused eyes, so I wiped his face with a cold, wet flannel and then got some more medicine and a bit of lemonade down him before he went back to sleep again.

  The next time I tiptoed in to check, he woke up as I laid my hand gently on his hot forehead and grabbed my wrist.

  ‘Lacey, where have you been?’ he demanded urgently.

  ‘It’s not Lacey,’ I said gently, ‘just relax and go to sleep, Randal. You’re not very well.’

  His eyes narrowed as if trying to bring me into focus. ‘It’s the witch. You’ve put a spell on me, haven’t you?’ he said, his grip on my wrist tightening. He’d tossed aside the coverlet and his unbuttoned pyjama top revealed an admirably muscular chest, considering how underweight he was. I overbalanced and found myself briefly clasped to it, before his grip on me loosened.

  ‘Yes, and this nice cold lemonade is the cure,’ I told him, slightly breathlessly, but he was off again with the restless muttering.

  I was in two minds whether to call the doctor out again, but finally he quietened and dropped off to sleep and I sat there as the night slowly turned to morning and the birds began to sing.

  Chapter 47: True Lovers’ Knots

  Q:What are the wettest animals in the world?

  A:Reindeer!

  Next morning, Job arrived early to see to Randal and came back downstairs saying he thought he’d turned a corner in the night and should now quickly improve, though it hadn’t done anything for his temper.

  No great surprise there, then.

  I chopped a soft-boiled egg up in a mug and when I presented it to Randal with a spoon and two toast soldiers, he gave the tray a look of disgust and said he felt about six again.

  He was pale and there were interesting blue shadows under his eyes, but at least, thanks to the super-efficient Job’s ministrations, he was washed, shaved and as much in his right mind as he’d ever been.

  I expect Pugsie, who’d clearly cast himself in the role of Devoted Companion as soon as he was let back upstairs, got most of the egg and toast once my back was turned.

  In the afternoon, after demonstrating to his own satisfaction that his legs wouldn’t hold him, Randal demanded when I took him a cup of tea that I stay and give him an account of everything that had been happening at the mill.

  ‘I’ve got things to do,’ I protested, but he was adamant, so I sat down and started to list what we’d done, making my voice deliberately monotonous when I saw his eyelids looking heavy.

  He fell suddenly and deeply asleep halfway through my description of the unusual chocolate tree decorations I’d discussed with the chocolatier in Sticklepond.

  I looked at him, lying there like a fallen and rather ruggedly handsome giant in a fairy tale, and I simply couldn’t resist it: I went and fetched my sketchbook.

  By the time Mercy and Liz arrived home Randal was well on the mend, though his temper wasn’t. He’d insisted on coming downstairs earlier and getting underfoot in the kitchen while I was baking a welcome-home chocolate fudge cake, to one of the recipes Mercy had taught me.

  It was good to see them home, though of course Mercy immediately began to fuss over Randal. I noticed he accepted her ministrations with much better grace than he had mine.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you’re getting better, though I’m sure you shouldn’t be up yet,’ she told him. ‘And isn’t it sweet, the way Pugsie has attached himself to you?’

  ‘He thinks he’s a cat,’ he responded. ‘That demonic beast of Tabby’s has brainwashed him.’

  ‘Pye isn’t demonic!’ I said indignantly. ‘But I think you’re right about Pugsie thinking he’s a cat.’

  ‘He and Pye both stalk ghosts in the drawing room – you should have seen them when we were having tea,’ he said. ‘The place is a madhouse!’

  ‘There are no ghosts here, they’re just playing a little game,’ she assured him cheerfully. ‘Now, what could you fancy for dinner?’

  ‘Anything except chicken soup. I’ve practically grown feathers and wings.’

  ‘There’s gratitude for you,’ I said, ‘and it was all you could do to keep that down for ages. But there’s shepherd’s pie for dinner tonight. Silas fancied it.’

  ‘I can see you’ve been a bad patient, Randal, but Tabby’s looked after you very well,’ Mercy told him. ‘I don’t suppose a little of the pie will do you any harm, but perhaps I should make you a plain rice pudding for dessert?’

  Later she asked me if I’d seen anything of the Martlands and I said I’d been to have coffee with Holly one day and then she’d shown me Jude’s sculpture studio, which I’d found fascinating.

  I noticed that no one asked after Lacey or, indeed, even mentioned her name, though she must have been on Randal’s mind, or he wouldn’t have assumed I was her when he was feverish.

  There’d been no more messages from Guy since he’d gone on holiday, either. The silence was deafening.

  Liz tried Randal’s patience to the utmost by practising her future-doctor skills on him, but then luckily went off to spend a couple of weeks in France with her friend Maisie’s family at their gîte before his already frazzled temper could get the better of him.

  Persuaded by Mercy, Randal handed in his notice, though of course he’d have to go
back to London to work it out when he was well enough.

  But he looked stronger with every passing day and was soon champing at the bit to go and personally check on things at the mill – and probably check the accounts as well, just in case I’d been fiddling them – so finally Silas drove him down there in the new golf buggy. Pugsie went too, wedged between them on the seat.

  Of course, after that first visit we had some lively discussions over the dinner table about the changes that I’d made in his absence, but I was certain my decisions had all been good ones and gave as good as I got, especially about his misguided attempt to turn the café into Gingham Central. Mercy backed me up.

  He did admit that Silas’s museum was starting to look really interesting, but that might have been because he’d fallen for the super golf buggy and wanted to borrow it.

  Lacey returned from her holiday and spoke to Randal several times at length on the phone, but she didn’t exactly rush up to see him and smooth his fevered brow. He said some problem had come up with her business while she was away, so she’d had to sort that out first. I expect they’d sent the wrong kind of cable ties for the Bondage Box, or something.

  When she did finally appear, it was with Guy in tow!

  ‘Darling, how are you?’ she said, rushing over to kiss Randal. But he held her off and said, looking at Guy with a frown, ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘Oh, Guy insisted on driving me up, because he was coming to spend the weekend at Old Place anyway,’ she said.

  ‘That was kind of you, Guy,’ said Mercy.

  ‘Not at all,’ he replied, with one of his charming smiles. ‘But I can’t stay, I’ve only popped in to give Tabby a little present I brought her back from my hols, to show her I was thinking of her.’

  ‘What, for me?’ I said, taking the small bubble-wrapped parcel he was offering me.

  At exactly the same moment, Randal, his eyes narrowing, demanded, ‘Were you in St Lucia, too?’

  ‘Yes. Pity you couldn’t make it,’ he said casually. ‘Lovely island and we had a great time. Tabby, do you like your present?’

  It was a tiny oil painting, perhaps only four inches by three, of minute dark figures on a long white stretch of beach. I adored it.

  ‘It’s lovely!’ I exclaimed, wondering if he really had been thinking of me while he was away, though his present attentions seemed aimed at annoying Lacey, because her face went all tight and she turned back to Randal and told him how much she’d missed him.

  Guy suggested before he left that he and I, and Randal and Lacey, met up in the pub later, but Mercy pointed out that Randal still wasn’t fit to go out yet and anyway, she’d hoped for a quiet family party that evening.

  Mercy had already asked me to be there for dinner and after the last few days I was exhausted anyway, especially now Randal had begun firing off questions and commands at me as if I was his PA and not Mercy’s, so I turned Guy down, too.

  Lacey suddenly exclaimed that she’d left her Ray-Ban sunglasses in the car and darted out after Guy, but she wasn’t carrying them when she came back.

  ‘Must be in my handbag, after all,’ she said with a small laugh and I saw Randal look at her with the sort of suspicious, narrow-eyed gaze he usually reserved for me.

  Pugsie had made himself scarce the moment Lacey arrived, so I expect he thought she’d dognap him, but he couldn’t stay away from his new hero for long and was soon hanging round Randal’s feet, wanting to be picked up.

  Randal looked pale, interesting and romantic at dinner, so I wasn’t surprised when Lacey began an all-out charm offensive and was all over him like treacle. I don’t think I could have been charming if my life depended on it, especially to Randal, who was still sniping at me over Gingham-gate.

  Lacey’s charm seemed to work on him, though, and he’d just started to mellow slightly when Mercy asked her whether she intended taking Pugsie away when she left. ‘Because he’s attached himself to Randal while he’s been ill – so sweet.’

  ‘Actually, one of my friends said she’d like him, so I was going to give him to her, but you can have him if you want him, Randal.’

  ‘I intended getting a dog when I was here permanently, but not a ridiculous creature like Pugsie,’ he said, but I knew he’d grown fond of him, even if they did make an incongruous pair.

  ‘Oh, good, that’s settled then,’ Mercy said. ‘Dear little Pye will be pleased his friend is staying, too.’

  Frankly, I thought Pye was profoundly relieved that Pugsie now spent much of his days shadowing Randal, because he’d been cramping his style.

  Mercy and Silas went off to the meeting next morning, but I’d been reluctantly deputed by Randal to take a clearly bored Lacey down to the mill and show her the big changes that had been happening.

  And actually, once we were there, her business head took over and she made some intelligent comments about what we’d been doing.

  ‘And getting that order from Liberty was impressive, so I suppose you might make a go of the cracker business after all. I still think that museum’s a waste of good space, though.’

  ‘So does Randal,’ I said. ‘Do you think you might move your own business to this area, after all?’ I added, seeing she was opening up a bit.

  ‘No, I’ll leave it where it is. Once the mill is up and running, there’s no reason why we can’t divide our time between here and London. I’m not quite ready to bury myself in the middle of nowhere and vegetate yet.’

  Then she looked at me with narrowed blue eyes and said, ‘I hope you’re not thinking Guy’s serious about you, because he’s not. You’re just an amusement.’

  ‘I’d grasped that he wasn’t the serious kind, even before everyone warned me about him. But he knows I’m only interested in being friends and he’s accepted that.’

  ‘Has he? He was flirting with you yesterday … though actually, that was more to make me jealous.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ I agreed.

  ‘Well, I hope Randal didn’t notice. He doesn’t know I used to go out with Guy.’

  ‘Did you really? I’d never have guessed,’ I said, but the sarcasm went over her head.

  ‘It was a few years ago and I thought we were serious. But then I found out he was seeing someone else – his brother’s girlfriend – so of course I dumped him.’

  ‘Yes, I’d heard about that, though he did Jude a favour really, because Holly is lovely.’

  But Lacey wasn’t interested in Holly. ‘Of course, Guy came running back to me eventually, but I told him where to go.’

  She looked pensive.

  ‘And then you met Randal and fell in love with him?’ I suggested.

  ‘Yeees,’ she agreed slowly. ‘I mean, he’s just as attractive in a different way, and being older he seemed so safe and dependable.’

  She frowned, which was not something I’d advise her to keep doing, if she didn’t want to end up Botoxing her forehead rigid on a fortnightly basis.

  ‘All my friends were getting married about then and having babies and I felt left out and ready to settle down … and he seemed perfect husband material. Only now I think I’d like another year or two of fun first. There’s plenty of time for all that.’

  ‘I suppose there is,’ I said, feeling suddenly sad, because seeing Holly’s little boy had stirred up maternal feelings I didn’t even know I possessed.

  ‘Anyway, I just thought I’d warn you that Guy means nothing with his flirting, in case you got your hopes up.’

  ‘That was kind of you,’ I said, though I thought it was more a case of her warning me off, because she didn’t want anyone else to get him. ‘But really, my only ambitions are to have a small home of my own and work from a studio at the mill.’

  She gave me a searching look from those amazingly bright blue eyes, then said it sounded boring as hell to her, but each to their own.

  ‘But maybe when Randal and I are married, it won’t be so tedious coming up here for weekends and holidays because I ca
n invite lots of my friends, too. We’ll have some fun and put a bit of life into the old dump.’

  That sounded ominous: Mercy was very hospitable, but it hardly sounded like the kind of fun she and Silas would join in with! I’d hate to see the magical peace and tranquillity of the farm destroyed, too, but I suppose it would all be up to Randal.

  She made me swear not to tell him about her previous relationship with Guy.

  ‘But why not just tell him yourself? After all, it was a long time ago and before you met him.’

  ‘I would have, if I’d realised Guy’s family lived practically next door to Randal’s. Telling him now would be difficult and maybe he’d start imagining things.’

  I thought he probably already was a bit suspicious, but I didn’t say anything and we went back up to the house to find the others had come home again.

  After lunch, Guy came to pick Lacey up and take her back to London, but this time he didn’t come into the house, just hooted his horn.

  When we’d waved them off, Randal, looking distinctly grim, turned and headed back up to his rooms. Pugsie was under his arm, but I expect he’d forgotten he’d picked him up to keep him from getting under everyone’s feet.

  Chapter 48: Santa’s Little Helper

  Q:How did the human cannonball lose his job?

  A:He got fired!

  Until he went back to London to work out his notice, Randal spent every day at the mill, which was hardly the quiet rest that the doctor had prescribed.

  I told him there was no point in checking the accounts. ‘Arlene and I can only order things from firms Marwood’s already have an account with, unless Mercy or you authorise them.’

  ‘I didn’t really think you’d been cooking the books,’ he said to my surprise. ‘You still puzzle me, but I can see now that you’re genuinely fond of Mercy and wouldn’t do anything that might hurt her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t, and I’m fond of Silas, too. It’s been fun working with him on the museum.’