A Merry Little Christmas

by Julia Williams

  She’d met Luke on the first day when, overcome with nerves, she’d fallen flat on her back in front of a group of more experienced skiers. Their laughter hadn’t been unkind, but Marianne was already feeling like a fish out of water in the company of these sophisticated beautiful people. She was so far removed from her own world, and they knew it. Now she felt that she’d proved herself for the ugly-duckling klutz she undoubtedly appeared to them.

  Luke was the only one who hadn’t laughed. Instead, he’d swept her up in those strong arms and offered to teach her to ski. Throughout that week he’d treated her with tenderness and affection, combined with infinite amounts of patience at her obvious lack of skiing ability. Marianne had been hugely grateful for his kindness. The fact that Luke was incredibly good looking, charming and clearly fancied the pants off her had also been a great help. He made her feel like a graceful swan, even though she knew the ugly duckling was hidden away somewhere, underneath the ski gear. Being with him was a magical, dazzling, life-changing experience.

  Since then, Marianne felt like her feet hadn’t touched the ground as Luke whisked her into a world so completely alien to her own. He took her to Henley for the Regatta, to Wimbledon for Finals Day, to Silverstone for the Grand Prix, for weekends away in the country at exquisite hotels where she felt like a film star. Every day with Luke was an adventure, but today he had surpassed all her expectations.

  He’d rung the previous night. ‘Fancy a weekend at my parents’ place in the country?’ had been his opening gambit. Marianne’s heart had leaped with anticipation. With Luke it was always feast or famine – he was either frantically busy at the weekends, or impulsively spiriting her off somewhere exciting. Which was wonderful but sometimes Marianne wished they could put their relationship on a bit more of an even footing.

  Did this mean that finally he was going to introduce her to his family? He’d met her parents twice now. She’d been nervous as hell on both occasions, but Luke was his usual charming self, and professed himself delighted by Marianne’s rather tame suburban home. Her parents had been charmed, and her mum, who was desperate for grandchildren, had to be restrained on at least one occasion from asking outright when Luke was going to join the family.

  Marianne had expected a reciprocal invitation, but so far it had been unforthcoming. Luke, it seemed, was happy to meet her family, but evasive about his own. She knew he’d got money, knew he worked for the family firm in property development – ‘building eco towns’ was how he put it – but, apart from that, the crumbs of information he’d scattered had been few and far between. Perhaps if she weren’t so dazzled by his brightness, she would have asked more questions earlier. Besides, if he wanted to tell her things, she surmised, he would. She didn’t want to pry.

  They were driving through winding country lanes, the late summer sun warming the car and casting long shadows on fields ripe with corn and bursting with abundance. Cows wandered contentedly through fields, and birds sang in hedgerows. It was the countryside of her dreams. Of her imagination. As a child Marianne had been obsessed with stories about children having adventures in the countryside: The Famous Five, Swallows and Amazons, the Lone Pine Club all seemed to lead much more exciting lives than she did in the dull North London suburb that she called home. Marianne’s favourite television programmes, The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, provided further confirmation that her ideal future involved a cosy country cottage, being married to a man who adored her, having several rosy-faced children and, of course, heaps of animals. Their square handkerchief of a garden not allowing for pets, Marianne had been determined to make up for that as an adult.

  Growing up in a grey London street, Marianne had always felt stifled and hemmed in by the city. She was never happier than when she was out on a long country walk, breathing in the fresh air and feeling at the mercy of the elements. It had long been her dream to live somewhere like this.

  ‘This is fabulous,’ Marianne said. ‘What a wonderful place to live.’

  ‘It’s okay, I suppose,’ said Luke dismissively. ‘But I get a bit bored being a country bumpkin.’

  ‘Really?’ Marianne was incredulous. She couldn’t understand why anyone coming from here would ever think about leaving.

  ‘Nearly there now,’ said Luke, manoeuvring the car round an incredibly slow tractor, before putting his foot down and racing through the lanes at an exhilarating speed. The wind whipped back her hair and the sun shone bright on her back. It felt fantastic to be alive.

  And then, suddenly, there it was. They came round a bend, and there before them, in the middle of a vast lawn – across which peacocks were wandering – was an imposing Tudor house, complete with two wings, Elizabethan towers, black and white timbering and pretty gables. Marianne felt her jaw drop. Finally she was seeing Hopesay Manor, home to the Nicholas family for generations, and where Marianne’s future might lie.

  ‘This is the family home?’ she squeaked.

  Luke glanced across at her in amusement.

  ‘Didn’t I say?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Marianne. She’d imagined Luke living in a huge house, of course. But she’d thought it would be a rockstar kind of house, with its own pool and tennis court in the back garden. But this, this was a mansion. Vast didn’t quite cover it.

  ‘Well, it’s not technically where I grew up. My parents have a pad a bit closer to Hope Christmas. Hopesay belongs to my grandfather. Not that he’s here much. Silly old sod still insists on globetrotting, even at his age. I don’t think he’s been back here for more than a day or two for years.’

  Luke said this with unaccustomed savagery and Marianne was taken aback by his sudden vehemence.

  ‘Don’t you get on with your grandfather?’

  Luke smiled. ‘Oh, the old bugger’s okay, I suppose. He’s just a bit blinkered about the way the world works these days. Insists we have duties to our people, as he puts it. He likes to think we live in some bygone feudal age, when everyone doffs their cap to Sir. He can’t see the world’s changed.’

  ‘What does he think about your eco towns then?’

  ‘He doesn’t know anything about them,’ admitted Luke. ‘I’m the only one interested in the business side of things in this family. My mum and dad are more into playing bridge and drinking G&Ts than anything else. They’re pretty shortsighted too. I run the show in his absence. If he doesn’t like the way I do things he should turn up at board meetings more.’

  He swept the car into the circular gravel drive in front of the house and they got out and crunched their way up the path to the house. The large oak door was about twelve foot high and looked immensely imposing. Marianne could just about make out an inscription carved in stone above the door. Something about being happy and owing it to God.

  ‘What does it say?’ she asked, squinting up to try and see better.

  ‘Oh, nothing important.’ Luke dismissed her question with a careless wave, and lifted the brass door knocker and banged it really hard. That, too, was unusual, Marianne noted, as it seemed to depict a man – or was it a man? – wearing some kind of long robe and crushing a serpent underneath his feet. Marianne wanted to ask but, put off by Luke’s evident lack of interest in anything remotely connected to the house, she fell silent. Luke impatiently banged the knocker again, and eventually a rather dusty-looking retainer, who could have been any age from fifty to a hundred, came and opened the door.

  ‘Ah, Mr Luke, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘Hello, Humphrey,’ said Luke. ‘This is my friend, Marianne.’ Why doesn’t he say girlfriend, Marianne thought, with a disappointed lurch of her heart. ‘I just thought I’d show her round the old pad before we go to see the folks.’

  Humphrey nodded, and disappeared somewhere into the bowels of the house, while Marianne stood and looked at the vast hallway in awe. Compared to the suburban London semi that she called home, this was massive. The hallway was panelled in dark oak, and pictures of people in old-fashioned dress l
ined the stairs, which swept upwards to an imposing landing above. The black and white tiled marble floor echoed as she walked on it. She felt fantastically overexposed in such a huge space. Marianne’s stomach contracted. This was so different from where she grew up. How could she possibly ever fit in here? Surely now Luke had her on his home territory it was only a matter of time before he saw it too?

  ‘Jeez, it’s dark in here,’ said Luke, and opened some shutters to let in the evening light. Motes danced in the beams cast by the setting sun, dazzling Marianne as she stood, silently drinking it in.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ said Luke.

  ‘It’s fantastic,’ murmured Marianne.

  He drew her to him, and her heart thumped erratically as he kissed her on the lips. Marianne felt a familiar flutter in her stomach. She had never desired someone as strongly as she desired Luke. It terrified her how much she wanted him. Suppose he didn’t want her as much?

  ‘There’s a four-poster in the master bedroom,’ he said mischievously.

  ‘We can’t,’ she protested. ‘Not here.’

  ‘There’s no one here but us,’ said Luke. ‘Who’s to know?’

  ‘Er – your butler?’ She went out with a man who had a butler? This felt so surreal. Any minute she was going to wake up.

  ‘He won’t say anything. Besides, he’s as deaf as a post so you can be as noisy as you like,’ said Luke, with a grin on his face that was impossible to resist.

  He dragged her giggling by the hand up the stairs, pointing out various ancestors en route: ‘The original Ralph Nicholas, went with Richard I to the Holy Land; Gabriel Nicholas, hid in the priest hole under Edward VI and lived to tell the tale; Ralph II saved Charles II at the battle of Worcester, nada, nada, nada …’

  ‘How can you be so dismissive?’ said Marianne. ‘I mean, in my family the height of historical interest is the time when Great Aunt Maud stood next to George VI at Windsor Park. I come from a noble line of labourers and serfs. This is … just … incredible. I’d love to have this kind of ancestry.’

  ‘You wouldn’t if you knew my family,’ said Luke, with a grimace. ‘With power comes responsibility, manners maketh the man. We have a duty of care. We even have a Latin family motto, Servimus liberi liberi quia diligimus, which translates as: “Freely we serve, because we freely love”. Having that shoved down your throat from birth is pretty stifling.’

  ‘Oh,’ exclaimed Marianne. They had come to the landing, and Luke flung open the window shutters to reveal a landscaped lawn complete with fountains, walled gardens and, in the background, a deer park. ‘This is amazing. You’re so lucky.’

  ‘I am lucky – to have found you,’ he said, and her heart skipped a sudden beat. This was why she was with him. For the way he looked at her as if she was the only woman in the world. For the way he made her feel so incredibly special. All her doubts and anxieties disappeared as Luke took her hand and knelt down. ‘I wasn’t going to do this now, but seeing you here looking so incredibly sexy, I can’t resist.’

  Oh my God, Marianne thought, was he going to …?

  ‘Hang on, I’ve forgotten something …’ Luke ran over to a set of curtains which was lying in a corner and unhooked a curtain ring. He came running back, fell back down on his knee, and said, ‘Now, where were we?’

  Marianne stood motionless as he kissed her hand, slipped the curtain ring onto her engagement finger, and said, ‘Marianne Moore, will you marry me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. She didn’t have to think for a second; this was what she’d wanted her whole life, to be with a man she loved and live in a wonderful place like this. ‘Yes, of course I will.’ And suddenly she was in his arms, and they were running through the house shrieking with delight.

  A sudden slam of the door brought them both to their senses.

  ‘What was that?’ said Marianne.

  A bell rang impatiently from the hall, and they ran to the banisters to look down.

  A smallish, elderly, dapper man stood in the hallway looking rather cross.

  ‘Grandfather?’ Luke’s face was a picture of shock and dismay.

  ‘Luke, my boy, is that you?’ the man said. ‘I can see I haven’t come home a moment too soon.’

  Part One

  I Gave You My Heart

  Last Year

  December 22

  Sainsbury’s was heaving. Catherine, already feeling hypocritical that she was here at all, felt her heart sink as she saw the hordes of people ravaging through the supermarket, frantically grabbing things from the shelves as if they were in the last-chance saloon and they might never have the chance to shop again. For God’s sake, she felt like saying, as she saw people staggering past with trolleys full to the brim with hams and turkeys, mince pies and brandy butter, and the inevitable bottles of booze, it’s not like we’re all going to starve, is it? Then she berated herself. After all, she was here too, wasn’t she?

  But only for the necessary items, things she’d forgotten, like brandy butter and Christmas pud. Mum had promised to make both, but uncharacteristically for her had forgotten, so Catherine was grumpily facing the seething hordes, all of whom looked as miserable as she felt. She wondered if she should give up and try and make them herself. It’s what the bloody Happy Homemaker was always telling people to do.

  No, Cat, she admonished herself. There were still presents to wrap, a turkey to defrost, vegetables to prepare, a house to make ready for the guests (and one which would unscramble itself as fast as she tidied) – she really didn’t have time to make a Christmas pudding. Not even that one from her Marguerite Patten cookbook, which could actually be made the day before. The Happy Homemaker could go stuff herself.

  ‘That sounds like an eminently sensible idea to me.’ A little old man in his seventies, wearing a smart gabardine coat, doffed his hat to her as he walked past with a basket under his arm.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Cat looked at the man in astonishment. She must have been wittering on to herself again. She had a bad habit of doing that in supermarkets.

  ‘I was just observing that you could for once let yourself off the hook,’ said the man. ‘Christmas isn’t all about perfection, you know.’

  ‘Oh, but it is,’ said Catherine, ‘and this is going to be the most perfect Christmas ever.’

  ‘Well, I certainly hope so,’ said the man. ‘I wish you a very happy and peaceful Christmas.’ And with that he was gone, disappearing into the crowd while Catherine was left pondering how on earth a complete stranger seemed to know so much about her. How very, very odd.

  Catherine took a deep breath and ploughed her trolley into the fray. Christmas muzak was pumping out, presumably to get her into the spirit of the thing. Not much chance of that, when she had felt all Christmassed out for months. Bugger off, she felt like shouting as a particularly cheesy version of ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ blared out. Look at all these people. Do any of them look bloody merry?

  Christmas seemed to start earlier and earlier every year, and, now she had children in three different schools, Catherine had been obliged to sit through as many Christmas performances (one year she really was going to get Noel to come to one of these things if it killed her), which varied from the sweet but haphazard (her four-year-old’s star turn as a donkey), through the completely incomprehensible (the seven and nine-year-olds’ inclusive Nativity, which had somehow managed to encompass Diwali, Eid and Hanukkah – an impressive feat, she had to admit), to the minimalist and experimental concert put on at the secondary school her eleven-year-old had just started. One of the reasons Catherine had wanted a large family was so she could have the big family Christmas she’d always missed out on by being an only child. Catherine had always imagined that she’d love attending her children’s carol concerts, not find them a huge chore. And no one told her how much work it would be preparing Christmas for a family of six, let alone all the hangers-on who always seemed to migrate her way, like so many homing pigeons, on Christmas Day.
<
br />   ‘Next year, remind me to emigrate,’ Catherine murmured to herself, as she propelled herself through the mince pie section. Bloody hell. Once upon a time people had bought (or most likely made) mince pies. Now Sainsbury’s had a whole section devoted to them: luxury mince pies, mince pies with brandy, mince pies with sherry, deep-filled, fat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, probably mince-free for all she knew. The world had gone mad.

  ‘Me too.’ The woman browsing the shelves next to her gave a wry laugh in sympathy. She looked at Catherine curiously. Oh God, no …

  ‘Aren’t you—?’

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Catherine, ‘I’m afraid I am.’

  ‘I’m such a huge fan,’ said the woman. ‘I keep all your recipes. I don’t know what I’d do without your lemon tart.’

  ‘Thanks so much,’ said Catherine, guiltily hoping the woman wouldn’t notice what she had in her shopping trolley, otherwise her cover as the provider of all things home-made was going to be well and truly blown. ‘I’d love to stop, really I would, but unfortunately I’m in a tearing hurry. Places to go, people to see. I’m sure you’ll understand. Have a wonderful Christmas.’

  Catherine felt terrible for rushing off. The poor woman had seemed nice and it was churlish of her to react like that. But couldn’t she have five minutes’ peace just to be herself and not the bloody awful persona who seemed to be taking over her life? She went to join one of the many huge queues that had built up as she’d wandered round the store, and caught sight of the latest version of Happy Homes by the tills. There she was resplendent in a Santa costume and hat (why, oh why, had she let herself be persuaded to do that shoot?), next to a headline that bore the legend, ‘The Happy Homemaker’s Guide to the Perfect Christmas.’