by Heidi Swain
I didn’t think it was very likely that someone would buy a Christmas decoration with a random child’s photo in it but I wasn’t taking any chances. My class had put in a lot of effort to create their bespoke baubles and I didn’t want any of them to go missing.
‘I’ll take his now if that’s all right?’ said Beamish, easily transferring the girl from one arm to the other as he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a rather crumpled five-pound note. ‘Peter’s going home early,’ he added.
‘Is he?’ I frowned. I couldn’t remember hearing anything about a doctor or dentists’ appointment.
‘He’s in the medical room with his mum and Mrs Newton,’ Beamish explained. ‘He’s been sick.’
‘He seemed fine earlier,’ I said, swapping the money for Peter’s bounty.
‘Too many sweets!’ said the girl with relish.
‘This is Isobel,’ said Beamish, jiggling her about a bit. ‘Peter’s sister.’
‘Mummy’s had to leave work so she picked me up from nursery first and then we came to get Peter. She’s not very happy.’ Isobel pouted.
‘I’ll bet,’ I said.
I was tempted to give her another bag of biscuits, but given the circumstances, thought better of it.
‘Beamish plays rugby with my dad,’ she told me seriously.
‘Does he?’
‘Yes, and sometimes he goes to the pub with him as well.’
I wasn’t sure why she felt the need to tell me that.
‘And when they come back a bit wobbly, Mummy always says . . .’
‘Right,’ said Beamish as I started to laugh, ‘let’s go and find her, shall we? I’ll see you later, Hattie.’
At the end of the afternoon, after the children had all safely gone home, there wasn’t an awful lot of tidying up left to do and there was very little left which hadn’t been sold.
‘Anyone recognise these?’ shouted Rose holding aloft a pair of brightly knitted gloves as we dismantled and tidied. ‘They were on the floor near where the Bees class were set up.’
Mrs Anderson, the receptionist, wandered over for a closer look.
‘Sutton’s,’ she said, ‘the youngest boy. He was in the pushchair when they arrived and he was wearing these. His sister, Emily, is in Bees, you could send them home with her on Monday or I could keep them in the office. Her mother’s bound to ask.’
‘How did she know that?’ I whispered to Rose after Mrs Anderson had gone back to reception, taking the gloves with her. ‘How could she possibly know?’
‘She knows everything,’ giggled Rose. ‘I once found a milk tooth in an unmarked envelope in the music room. It was in a tambourine. I took it to reception and she knew who it belonged to.’
‘She never did!’
‘True as I’m standing here,’ Rose told me. ‘ “That’ll be Harry Tompkins’s’ she said. “He had a tooth fall out a couple of weeks ago and his class get changed for PE in the music room. He’ll have no doubt left it behind.” ’
‘And was she right?’
‘She was.’
‘Wow,’ I gasped, ‘that’s some kind of amazing.’
Beamish was walking up and down, cleaning the floor with a massive sweeping contraption which opened up scissor like and had a sort of elongated mop head.
‘Standard sweeping technique,’ he winked with a swagger, ‘all in the caretakers’ handbook of efficient cleaning.’
‘Not you, you idiot,’ I laughed and he pretended to look offended. ‘I was talking about Mrs Anderson being amazing, not you.’
‘Oh well now,’ he said, making one last lunge into the nearest corner, ‘she really is amazing. I couldn’t even hope to compete with her levels of brilliance. What’s she done now?’
‘Glove identification procedure,’ I said, mimicking him. ‘All in the efficient school receptionist’s manual.’
‘She wrote that,’ Beamish laughed.
‘You’re a hotel receptionist, aren’t you, Hattie?’ asked Rose.
‘I was until I was made redundant.’
‘You don’t fancy a move into education, do you?’
‘No way,’ I told her. ‘I couldn’t hold a candle to your Mrs A. I couldn’t cope with all that early morning parental pressure.’
‘I think Rose was meaning a move into the classroom, Hattie,’ said Beamish. ‘And I still think that should be your next move too. I believe I might have mentioned it before.’
He had of course and I had managed to successfully sideline the suggestion, but now Rose looked poised to join in too.
‘I’m there already, aren’t I?’ I joked, looking about me.
‘I mean permanently,’ said Beamish seriously. ‘You’re wasted working in a hotel. You should forget about management training and look for a job in a school.’
‘After I’ve moved to Abu Dhabi you mean,’ I reminded him.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘why not?’
‘I’m not sure how things like that work out there,’ I told him. ‘I’ve hardly got a wealth of educational experience or teaching qualifications to draw on and I daresay it’s nowhere near as easy as you’re suggesting.’
‘Then perhaps you should find out,’ said Rose, moving to stand next to him. ‘You’re a natural in the classroom, Hattie, and it would be a real shame to let a talent like yours go to waste.’
‘That it would,’ Beamish wholeheartedly agreed. ‘That it would.’
Chapter 10
After the school fair Dolly was desperate to get the decorations up in the cottage, and as Beamish was going to be putting her spare tree back in the loft, he kindly offered to get down the rest of the boxes so we could set to work that weekend.
‘I’d usually wait until the weekend of the tree auction,’ Dolly told me at first light on the Saturday morning, ‘but that’s a whole week away so I’ll make do with my other artificial tree this year.’
She sounded every bit as excited as the children at school.
‘Or we could put everything else up and do the tree next weekend?’ I suggested. ‘That way you won’t have to miss out on having a real tree.’
‘No, no,’ she said, checking the road again to see if Beamish was in sight. ‘I want it all done today.’
‘OK,’ I nodded, ‘whatever you say.’
‘Although you can’t beat the smell of a real tree of course,’ she wistfully added, ‘and that’s probably something you should add to the Wish List, Hattie.’
‘Tree sniffing?’ I laughed.
‘Scents of the season,’ she smiled back. ‘Cinnamon, orange, nutmeg and gingerbread . . .’
‘Oh stop,’ I interrupted, ‘you’ll set my stomach growling if you carry on.’
‘Oh,’ she said, abandoning her station at the window and heading for the door. ‘Here he is. You’d better get the kettle boiled again, Hattie dear. Decoration box distribution is hard, thirsty work.’
I went to fill the kettle at the sink thinking that so far pretty much everything on the list had been hard work, then I heard Dolly gasp.
‘How’s that?’ I heard Beamish ask. ‘Will it do?’
‘Oh Beamish,’ she cried, opening the door further and letting in a glacial blast of Wynbridge winter air, ‘it’s perfect, but wherever did you get it? The auction isn’t for another week. I didn’t think anything had been delivered yet.’
‘Well,’ he said, sounding well pleased by Dolly’s reaction, ‘I have my sources and I didn’t think you’d really want Hattie’s last Christmas in the UK spent looking at an artificial tree. They just don’t smell the same, do they?’
‘Come and see, Hattie!’ Dolly called, even though I was only a few feet away. ‘Look what Beamish has brought for us. You’ll have to let me pay for it,’ she added. ‘Now, where’s my purse?’
But Beamish wouldn’t hear of it.
‘It’s a gift, Dolly,’ he said. ‘Although not from me. The person who sent it said to consider it an early Christmas present. What do you think, Hattie?’
Beamish’s smile grew even broader.
‘You still haven’t said where you got it from,’ Dolly reminded him. ‘I can’t imagine the garden centre have beauties like this. Look, Hattie, we’re going to be hard pushed to get the angel on top. It’s almost touching the ceiling.’
I couldn’t help but giggle, her excitement was contagious.
‘I popped down to Wynthorpe Hall last night to see Catherine and happened to mention that you were putting your decorations up early this year, in spite of the fact that you had no tree and Angus, eager as ever, had taken early delivery of a few extras to set up around the Winter Wonderland trail.’
‘That man,’ Dolly chuckled. ‘I’ve heard the event is going to be even bigger this year.’
‘Given what I saw,’ Beamish told her, ‘I think you heard right. Anyway, Catherine said he could easily spare this one and insisted that I took it for you.’
‘That was very kind of her,’ I said.
‘The Connellys are always very kind,’ said Dolly.
‘And generous,’ Beamish added. ‘And,’ he went on, standing taller than I thought I’d ever seen him, ‘you’ll be pleased to know that Catherine will be more than happy to offer you a tour of the hall, Dolly.’
‘What?’
‘When we went to look at the lights you said you fancied seeing how the other half lived, didn’t you?’
‘I did.’
‘So, I went down there to see if that might be possible.’
‘Oh Beamish,’ Dolly clapped her hands together and I swallowed down the lump in my throat.
‘In view of their expanding plans for the Winter Wonderland they’re also decorating early this year so even though your trip is arranged for before the auction in town, the hall will be all dressed for Christmas too.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Dolly sniffed.
She looked and sounded absolutely delighted and I couldn’t help thinking what an honour it was to witness such an act of kindness. It was incredibly kind of Catherine to agree to open up her home but it was equally kind of Beamish to remember Dolly’s wish and go to the trouble of arranging it all.
‘It’s next Thursday,’ Beamish explained, also now sounding a little choked. ‘After school. Dorothy, the hall cook, said she’d lay on an afternoon tea and I said I’d run you there and back. You’ve been invited too, Hattie.’
‘Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much,’ I said, feeling genuinely touched to be included, ‘that’s really very kind.’
‘I thought it might be something you could both tick off the Wish List,’ he smiled, clearing his throat and sounding more like himself again. ‘There’s little in the Fenland countryside more quintessentially English than Wynthorpe Hall and at Christmas time the place is pure perfection.’
‘Now I’m even more excited!’ I laughed.
‘Well done, Beamish.’ Dolly winked. ‘You’ve got Hattie’s Christmas spirit stirring!’
By the time I had made us all breakfast and Beamish had carted all the boxes Dolly wanted out of the loft and set up the tree in a special stand and positioned it in the best spot, he was running a little late.
‘I wish I could stay,’ he told us. ‘But it’s a big match today and the coach has insisted we’ve all got to turn up early. Not that I am that early now.’
I couldn’t think of anything worse than running up and down an almost frozen expanse of grass in shorts and getting the stuffing knocked out of me, but I wouldn’t have minded cheering from the sidelines if I was well wrapped up. These rugby types were made of stern stuff.
‘Well you be careful,’ said Dolly. ‘You’re only just getting over that last knock.’
‘It was touch and go whether I’d be allowed to play at all,’ he said, rubbing his eye and the bruises which were now more yellow than black, ‘but as I didn’t get knocked out, the doc has given me the all-clear.’
‘Don’t go breaking anything,’ I said. ‘We’ll need your support on the rink tonight. I don’t know about Dolly but I’ve never quite mastered the art of standing on ice, let alone skating on it.’
One of Dolly’s Wish List additions had been to go ice skating, so Beamish was driving us over to a rink in Peterborough after his match. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all.
‘I hope you aren’t really expecting me to skate, Dolly?’ he said imploringly. ‘I’m no better than Hattie.’
‘You’ll soon get the hang of it,’ she said, with a wave of her hand, ‘it’s like riding a bike. You never forget.’
‘But what if you never grasped it in the first place,’ I began, but quickly stopped.
The look on Dolly’s face told me protesting was pointless. I was going to have to face my fear of losing my fingers and if I was going down, then I was taking Beamish with me.
‘Oh, we’ll be all right,’ I said, announcing my change of heart to Beamish, who was looking stricken. ‘How hard can it be?’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Dolly chuckled.
Once he had gone, Dolly and I began to look through the boxes of decorations and work out if she had enough to dress the tree which was somewhat larger than what she was usually used to.
‘I thought Tiddles might have sprung into action and pulled it down by now,’ I said, beadily eyeing the cat who was fast asleep next to the fire even though it wasn’t lit yet. ‘I hope she isn’t waiting until we’ve finished making it look beautiful.’
‘I don’t think we need to worry,’ said Dolly, handing me a box full of old-fashioned glass baubles. ‘She’s got about as much go in her as I have these days.’
‘If that’s supposed to set my mind at rest,’ I laughed, ‘it hasn’t. You do all right Dolly and you’re taking to the ice tonight. I think you’re a darn sight more sprightly than your pensionable cat.’
‘That’s true,’ she agreed. ‘Now, I think we’d better start with the angel, don’t you?’
Precariously balanced on top of a dining chair I couldn’t help wishing that we’d thought to ask Beamish to position the angel for us even though there wasn’t much height difference between us, but with one final stretch she was in situ, if not sitting entirely straight.
‘She’s a beauty,’ I said when my feet were back on the floor. ‘Where did you find her, Dolly?’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘she’s been in the family for years. She’s probably from the sixties and I daresay she came from Woolworths. She wouldn’t have cost much.’
‘I bet she’s worth a fortune now,’ I said, gazing up at her angelic expression and slightly battered wings. ‘Did she come in a box?’
‘Probably,’ Dolly shrugged, ‘but that’s long gone. Now, come on. We better get cracking otherwise we won’t be finished before Beamish comes back to take us skating.’
Decorating Dolly’s little cottage was nowhere near as heavy going as the things I’d ticked off the Wish List through sheer hard work at school and I thoroughly enjoyed helping with the transformation. It had been a long time since I had decked anything and it was a pleasure looking through the boxes of treasures. Dolly’s array of decorations spanned decades and were an eclectic mix but looked fittingly festive nonetheless.
Dolly insisted that pretty much everything made it out of the boxes and I let her run with her over-the-top attitude to decking her halls because I knew she was doing it more for me than her. Her ‘making memories’ ethos was in full swing and I had no intention of trying to temper her enthusiasm.
‘You’re well ahead this year,’ commented the postman who had knocked mid-morning to deliver a couple of parcels which needed signing for.
‘That I am,’ said Dolly, scribbling her signature on the screen. ‘That’s nothing like my writing,’ she said, handing the contraption back.
‘They never work properly,’ t
utted the postie. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll do. Your lights look lovely by the way,’ he called back as he reached the gate.
‘Thank you,’ Dolly called after him. ‘That timer must be on the blink,’ she said to me. ‘They shouldn’t still be on, but then it’s so dark today they do offer a little cheer, don’t you think?’
‘Definitely,’ I agreed. ‘You’ll have to get Beamish to check the setting though. What do you think these are? Early presents to go with your early decorations?’
It turned out I wasn’t far off, with one of them anyway. As promised, Jonathan had sent Dolly a cafetière so she could try the coffee from the Fortnum’s hamper.
‘Whittard,’ said Dolly, sounding impressed, as she tore into the packaging. ‘Very fancy.’
It certainly was and he’d added even more coffee to the order.
‘Let’s try it out with our late lunch, shall we?’ I suggested.
Dolly was all for that and saved the other parcel until we were sitting down to eat. She had also taken delivery of her monthly meat order from the local butcher and insisted we had a hot meal.
‘You’ll need some sustenance for tonight,’ she said, sliding the delicious-looking hand-raised chicken pie into the oven to warm. ‘And you can’t go wrong with these.’
The second parcel was a prettily wrapped box of locally designed Christmas cards from the Cherry Tree gallery.
‘I would have picked these up, Dolly,’ I said, looking through the selection. ‘Saved you the postage.’
‘I didn’t pay for postage,’ she explained. ‘Lizzie Dixon asked if I wouldn’t mind having them delivered, free of charge. They’ve had a problem with their courier apparently and wanted to send out a few orders by good old Royal Mail to regular customers to see if they fared any better.’
‘I see,’ I said, picking up a card sporting a very feisty looking Robin. ‘This one is rather nice.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Dolly smiled. ‘He’s certainly got a lot of character! A young woman called Hayley, who happens to be the Wynthorpe Hall housekeeper, designed these. You’ll no doubt meet her next week when we take the tour.’
‘She has an amazing talent,’ I said, taking in the finer details. ‘And I have to say I’m rather intrigued by the hall as well as the people who live there. It really does sound like a magical kind of place to me.’
