Twelve Days of Christmas

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘Jess, that was very rude of you,’ Tilda said.

  ‘What the child said was true, though: you’ve always wanted what your brother had, from being a child. Then as soon as you got it, you lost interest,’ Becca said bluntly. ‘And you had a damned cheek, thinking you could just move in here while he was away and be looked after by the couple house-sitting.’

  Guy reddened. ‘Part of the reason I came was because I was worried about Noël and Tilda, left to cope on their own. It was thoughtless of old Jude to cancel Christmas and go off in a huff.’

  ‘He was going to New York anyway and we told him not to bother about us — we could manage on our own. In fact, I was quite looking forward to cooking a Christmas dinner again,’ said Tilda, ‘and I would have done, if I hadn’t had that damned fall.’

  ‘I know you would have cooked a wonderful dinner, m’dear,’ Noël said soothingly. ‘But we’re quite happy to be back at the old homestead again now, with Holly in charge, aren’t we?’

  ‘I could see that’s what everyone wanted and I wouldn’t stand in your way,’ she said, casting herself into a martyr’s role with relish, though she’d clearly been more than relieved to be whisked up here and looked after. ‘You behaved very badly, Guy, so we could quite understand why Jude felt like a change this year and wanted to get away — especially when he found out about that engagement announcement.’

  ‘Yes, that’s all very well, but Jude is the head of the household now and he has responsibilities, like seeing Old Nan and Richard are looked after,’ Becca pointed out, shaking her head. ‘He didn’t need to invite Guy and that girl, so there would have been no problem.’

  ‘Never mind: thanks to lovely Holly here, it has all worked out well,’ Noël said, ‘and Jude will be back for Twelfth Night, which is the most important thing.’

  ‘You still haven’t told us why you’ve dashed up here, Guy,’ Tilda said. ‘Didn’t you tell us last week that you were spending Christmas in London with that girl?’ She frowned. ‘What was she called? It was something to do with clowns.’

  ‘Coco,’ said Jess. ‘Like a bedtime drink. Though it would have been much worse if she’d been called Horlicks, wouldn’t it?’ she added innocently.

  ‘Different spelling of Coco, I expect, like Coco Chanel,’ I said quickly. ‘And speaking of Coco—’

  ‘I think Horlicks suits her. I’m going to call her that from now on,’ Jess broke in gleefully.

  ‘I would so much rather you didn’t, darling,’ Tilda said.

  Guy was grinning. ‘Don’t be a spoilsport, Tilda! But luckily you won’t have to call her anything, Jess, because she isn’t here. She never really took to Old Place last Christmas anyway, she’s more of a town girl, our Coco.’

  ‘I suppose you got tired of her, like all your other girls?’ Tilda said, with a slight note of indulgence. Guy seemed to be a bit of a favourite of hers, though Becca didn’t seem too keen. I suppose all that charm can’t have the same effect on everybody.

  ‘Let’s just say I had a wake-up call,’ he admitted. ‘Things got a bit rocky when she fired off that engagement announcement to the papers — and then when she told me her parents were organising a big family engagement party on Boxing Day I thought, “no thank you” and bailed out.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not ready to tie myself down yet.’

  ‘As I said,’ Becca observed dispassionately, ‘as soon as you get the prize, you lose interest.’

  ‘Thanks for that quick character analysis, Becca. But actually, she was so easy to poach that I did Jude a favour. If they’d got married, it would never have lasted.’

  He gave me a delightful smile — he seemed distinctly profligate with them. ‘But I’d much rather be here in the bosom of my family instead. You don’t mind if I stay, do you, Holly? You wouldn’t throw me out into the cold, cold snow?’ he wheedled.

  He was a bounder, as they would have said in the twenties, as beautiful and untrustworthy as a snake. If he took after his Uncle Ned, then I could understand how poor, innocent, strictly-brought-up Granny had been so quickly swept quite out of her depth!

  I looked helplessly at Noël and Tilda. ‘I. . well, everything is snowballing! I only came here to keep an eye on the house and look after the animals — and then suddenly I’m holding a house-party without the owner’s permission! And I couldn’t get him on the phone either, though I did try.’

  ‘Oh, but Jude won’t object, I assure you,’ Noël said. ‘The dear fellow will understand.’

  ‘I’m not sure he will, Noël, because Mr Martland’s girlfriend is—’

  ‘Uncle Jude won’t mind in the least about us,’ Jess interrupted, ‘but he will about Uncle Guy!’

  ‘I wish you’d drop the “uncle” bit, sweetheart — it makes me feel terribly old,’ he complained.

  ‘You are terribly old,’ she said witheringly.

  ‘If you think I’m old, Mini-Morticia, then your beloved Uncle Jude must be ancient!’

  ‘But I don’t think of him as old, because he’s fun,’ she said, which was a surprise to me, since nothing I’d heard about him so far would have led me to think of him as a fun person. ‘You’re silly and mean and you’re going all wrinkly round the eyes.’

  ‘Laughter lines,’ he said, though he turned his head and examined his face anxiously in the cloudy bevelled mirror above the fireplace. ‘Yes, laughter lines. . and is that a car I hear arriving?’ he added. ‘You’re not expecting anyone else, are you?’

  ‘We weren’t even expecting you,’ Becca pointed out.

  Jess ran to the window. ‘Oh look, it’s Ben from Weasel’s Pot!’

  She went all pink, so clearly she has a crush on the young farmer. But then she wailed, ‘Oh no, he’s driven off without coming in to say hello! But someone got out first — a woman with an enormous suitcase. Who on earth can it be?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to warn you,’ I said desperately, ‘it’s—’

  Jess turned a startled face towards us. ‘It’s Horlicks, and she looks really mad! Shall I lock the door?’

  Chapter 19

  I Should Coco

  N has been discharged from the army by the medical board and told me he has been offered a job by a friend of his father’s as soon as he is fit enough. I thought he might then go on to ask me to marry him, now he will soon be in a situation to support a wife — but he did not. .

  April, 1945

  It was too late to follow Jess’s suggestion and Coco didn’t even knock but simply swept in, looking like a slightly grubby and marked-down ice princess.

  I don’t suppose she’d realised she’d be finishing her journey in the cab of a tractor, crammed in with her luggage, which she now dropped in the doorway with a loud crash. It appeared to be decidedly the worse for wear, as did Coco: white was not perhaps the most suitable colour for gruelling journeys. She was clearly also in a flaming temper, which wasn’t improved by her reception.

  ‘Oh God, what are you doing here?’ Guy said wearily and Becca, Tilda and Noël all stared at her in astonished unwelcome.

  ‘What do you mean, what am I doing here? Don’t think you can just dump me like that and get away with it just because you got cold feet at the idea of our wedding. Get over it, because you’re coming back to London with me right now!’

  ‘Like hell I will,’ he said. ‘You might have consulted me before sending off engagement notices and arranging celebration parties.’

  ‘You agreed with me when I said May weddings were the best, but you had to pick your date quickly before they got booked up!’

  ‘I might have done, because I don’t listen to half the rubbish you talk. But I certainly never said I wanted to get married in May or any other time!’

  ‘Well, that’s why we got engaged, wasn’t it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Lots of people get engaged and it doesn’t lead to anything, and you were making a fuss about it. I didn’t know you would send an announcement to the bloody newspapers! And finding your parents had organised the famil
y round on Boxing Day to give us the seal of approval was the last straw.’

  ‘They didn’t invite them specially, it just seemed a good time to toast our engagement, while the family were all together,’ she snapped.

  ‘Well, you go and toast it, then, I’m staying right here.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly! I’ve driven all the way up here and my car’s ended up in a ditch, all because of you. Of course you’re coming back with me.’

  She gave a distracted look at Jess, who had set up a low chant of ‘Hor-licks, Hor-licks, Hor-licks!’

  ‘Does the child have to make so much noise?’ she demanded.

  ‘Jess, darling, that will do,’ Tilda said mildly.

  ‘She doesn’t like you,’ Guy said. ‘None of us like you.’

  ‘Now, now, Guy,’ Noël said. ‘Manners! Coco, come to the fire and get warm. I hope you weren’t hurt when your car went in the ditch?’

  Coco had had a long and wearisome sort of day and she wasn’t listening to Noël. Instead she turned on Guy and unsurprisingly lost her temper completely, saying a few choice and very personal things about him in her shrill voice that I could see Jess storing up for future use.

  Nettled, he began to fling barbed comments back so, since a battle royal seemed to be starting, I carried my shopping through into the kitchen, followed by Merlin.

  I had to switch all the lights on because it was still snowing heavily and didn’t look like stopping any time soon, which was a bit worrying from the point of view of getting rid of my two unwanted visitors. .

  I quickly stowed everything away, hiding the presents I’d bought under a pile of tea towels in the cupboard in case Jess took it into her head to rummage about before I’d had a chance to wrap them.

  Then I made a cup of coffee while I wondered whether I could stretch the sausage and mash with mustard sauce that I’d planned to serve for dinner to include two other diners, or if I should defrost more sausages. Dessert could be a sort of Eton Mess, with tinned raspberries and yet more squirty cream from the lodge. Or I could do something with the overripe bananas left by the Chirks. .

  I looked at tomorrow’s menu, which was to be grilled trout for the adults — there was a plentiful supply in the freezer — and home-made salmon fishcakes for Jess if she didn’t fancy that. And dessert would be whichever of the two choices we didn’t have tonight.

  I’d just put another quick chocolate cake in the oven and whipped up an easy starter of sardine pâté to have with French toast, when Becca and Jess followed me into the kitchen.

  ‘Tilda and Noël have gone into the morning room to watch TV,’ Becca said, ‘it’s all getting a bit shrill in there — tears before bedtime, I reckon. Guy’s just told her he can’t drive her anywhere tonight, even if he wanted to, because he had a couple of stiff whiskies after he arrived.’

  ‘Oh dear, did he?’ I said helplessly. ‘I was hoping he might at least take her to the nearest railway station, since he’s got that big four-wheel drive — the weather is closing in and even if her car is all right after being in the ditch, I don’t think it’s up to these kinds of conditions. George certainly didn’t think so.’

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose there’s a police car sitting in the lane in this weather, waiting to catch drunk drivers,’ she said. ‘He just didn’t want to do it.’

  ‘Did you like the Christmas decorations?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Yes, they look lovely; I didn’t get a chance to say before. Who did the holly, ivy and mistletoe arrangements? So much more swish than sticking stuff in vases, like I did with that first bunch George gave me!’

  ‘Me — one of the useless things I learned at finishing school,’ Becca said.

  I gave another distracted glance out of the window. ‘It’s still snowing — do you think we ought to bring the horses in?’

  ‘Yes, that’s why we came out, really. I’ll do that and get their hot mash early, too. Jess’s going to help me.’

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here to see to Lady,’ I said gratefully. ‘I’m going to be so busy with everything else that knowing you’re keeping an eye on her and Billy is a weight off my shoulders.’

  ‘Well, I need to see to Nutkin anyway, so another horse is neither here nor there if I have a willing slave like Jess to do the heavy work and keep that damned goat out of the way.’

  Jess gave her a pained look: I don’t think mucking out and trundling wheelbarrows about is her favourite pastime, even though she is now resigned to her fate.

  ‘That goat is evil,’ she said bitterly. ‘I’ve got bruises all up the back of my legs where he keeps butting me.’

  ‘We took Merlin out for a little run before lunch,’ Becca said. ‘He was missing you — amazing how quickly he’s got attached to you, he’s like your shadow.’

  ‘I know, I expect he’s pining for his master, that’s why,’ I said. Merlin, hearing his name, half-wagged his tail, looking up at me with warm amber eyes.

  ‘When we’ve sorted the horses out I’m going to take the sledge up the paddock again — do you want to come, Holly?’ invited Jess. ‘You can have the other sledge.’

  ‘I would have loved to, but I need to prep the vegetables for dinner and I want to put the jelly layer on the trifle,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow though, definitely. And we could bake and ice some gingerbread biscuits to hang on the tree, if you like?’

  ‘Oh yes, that would be fun!’

  When they’d gone out I could still hear raised voices from the sitting room, despite the closed door at the end of the passage: the acoustics must be jolly good. I could make out melodramatic lines, like:

  ‘I broke off my engagement to Jude for you!’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to — it was just a bit of fun on the side until Jude walked in on us.’

  ‘That’s not what you said then — I thought you loved me!’

  ‘I’m not responsible for what you think, thank God.’

  After that, I shut the kitchen door, too, and put the radio on.

  I didn’t really need to start on dinner yet, now the pâté starter was in the fridge, but since it looked as though I would be alone for quite a while I took the opportunity to make my presents.

  I scalded the empty jam jars from the utility room and dried them thoroughly, before filling them with sweets and covering each with a circle of cellophane topped with one cut from the red and white gingham paper napkins, held down with a red elastic band. They looked really good.

  I wrapped them up and labelled them, except for a couple of extra ones I left blank for unforeseen emergencies. Then I stowed them away in the cupboard under the tea towels again, along with the bits and pieces for Jess’s stocking — assuming she was going to have one. I made a note to ask Noël or Tilda about that later.

  Becca came back in, snow sparkling in her iron-grey curls. ‘It’s almost dark and still snowing out there. . and are the lights flickering, or am I imagining it?’

  ‘No, they do keep doing that. I hope the power isn’t going to cut off.’

  ‘Oh well, it does from time to time, but the generator will take over if it does. What’s happening with those two?’ She jerked her head towards the hall. ‘Still arguing?’

  ‘As far as I know — unless one of them has murdered the other and is out there burying the body in the snow.’

  ‘Ha!’ she said. She looked around her approvingly: ‘It looks different in here since you arrived — cleaner, for a start, and it’s good to see the Aga being used again.’

  ‘It looked like Mo had made a start on cleaning in here, but Sharon didn’t seem to have touched anything in the house at all. I can’t imagine what she did when she was here.’

  ‘No, she was worse than useless. I told Jude he should get another couple in to look after the place, but he said he could look after himself.’

  ‘It’s not that easy to find live-in staff anyway these days and very expensive if you do.’

  ‘True, and ones that can cook are like hens’ teeth. What’s that lo
vely smell?’

  ‘Just another quick chocolate cake — we seem to get through cake at an amazing rate!’

  ‘Wonderful.’ Becca cocked her head, listening for any noise from the sitting room, then said doubtfully, ‘It’s gone ominously quiet in there.’

  ‘I closed the kitchen door so I couldn’t hear.’

  She got up and opened it again. ‘Oh yes — she’s crying hysterically now.’

  ‘Just as well I took more sausages out of the freezer, then,’ I said gloomily. ‘I don’t think either of them are going anywhere tonight.’

  ‘No, the weather’s worse out there now, so it wouldn’t be advisable until the roads are cleared and gritted in the morning.’

  ‘Unless we’re totally snowed in overnight, have you thought of that?’

  Tilda tottered in, the heels of her velvet mules clicking on the stone floor, and sat in a wheelback chair. ‘That imbecile boy has given Coco a snifter of brandy now, to stop her crying, so there’s no getting shut of her until tomorrow!’

  ‘We’d just decided we weren’t going to get rid of her before morning anyway,’ I said. ‘But I suppose we’re going to need a couple more beds made up.’

  Guy appeared, looking harassed, which was hardly surprising since you could hear the sound of loud, angry weeping and the occasional scream of ‘Bastard!’ all the way from the sitting room.

  ‘She’s got a good pair of lungs on her,’ Becca commented.

  ‘Things are a just a little tricky,’ Guy said, with a wry smile. ‘Coco wants to go home, only I’m not risking my car taking her down to see if hers has been towed out of the ditch yet, because it’s snowing so hard I’d never get back up again — have you looked outside recently? It’s a nuisance Jude took the Land Rover, that would have made it.’

  ‘You could run her back to London in your car in the morning,’ I suggested.

  ‘No way: I’d already told her it was all off between us, so it’s her own fault if she didn’t believe me and came up here on a fool’s errand,’ he said ungallantly.

  ‘So, what’s she going to do?’