Next morning, I painted Henry’s long-fingered, sensitive hands and began on Lass, who always lay unbidden across his feet on the dais, in just the right pose.
Clara came in after a while to have a look.
‘So different from my portrait … and yet, so distinctly your work,’ she said, examining it. ‘Henry’s a typical Doome – straight nose, high cheekbones and fair hair.’
‘Well, it was fair; it’s white now,’ he said.
‘George was the bigger, cruder, glossier version of Henry,’ Clara told me. ‘Brassy gold hair, slightly popping blue eyes, tall, rugged, dim.’
‘Sums him up pretty well,’ agreed Henry. ‘He felt sorry for me for being such a runt.’
‘Ha!’ said Clara.
Henry got up to join her and they scrutinized the portrait together, then turned as one and looked intently at me.
‘Is there something wrong?’ I asked anxiously.
‘Not in the least. We’re just amazed at your brilliance, my dear,’ Henry assured me.
‘I’m certain I could finish it tomorrow, if you could give me one last sitting, Henry?’
‘I’m not sure there’ll be time tomorrow. It might have to be Sunday morning.’
‘Why, what’s happening tomorrow?’ I asked.
‘We always take Teddy to the old Friendship Mill near Great Mumming to see Father Christmas and to choose our box of Christmas crackers. It’s what they’ve always made there. The cracker making is only in part of the mill now, though, and the rest is a little museum and some interesting shops, including the Christmas one I told you about.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember.’
‘They have a very good wholefood café, so we always have lunch. Clara, Lex and I take him, but this year he wants you to come too, Meg,’ Henry said.
‘He’s taken a real shine to you,’ said Clara.
‘Lex takes Teddy in to see Santa, which gives us time to get a few last-minute additions for his Christmas stocking,’ explained Henry. ‘Then we meet in the café.’
‘But I’m sure Teddy doesn’t really need me to go too. I—’
‘Do relax, my dear. You’ve almost finished the second portrait and deserve a day out,’ urged Clara. ‘We’re so glad you aren’t going to rush off after the Solstice.’
Teddy appeared to want to include me in everything, even though I was sure Lex didn’t … But then again, the old factory really did sound fun.
We all squeezed into the Range Rover and set off for the Pike with Two Heads, with Den driving. Clara would take the wheel when we left the pub for the school afterwards, so Den could have a pint or two of Gillyflower’s Old Brown Ale.
Tottie’s family name lived on, even though the brewery had been sold years ago.
It was a very old pub with modern extensions: a glass-roofed dining area had been added at one side, and a wing of motel rooms at the other. The old part was quite dark, but we detoured through it so I could see the famous mutant pike, proudly exhibited by the landlord, Fred Golightly.
It was in a glass case in the snug, with a light over it to illuminate the creature, which wore a severely pissed-off expression on both its faces.
‘Fed up to the gills,’ I commented.
‘He does look a bit cheesed,’ Lex’s deep voice agreed from right behind me, and I jumped.
‘There you are, Lex,’ said Clara. ‘Come along, let’s go and have lunch. I’m starving!’
Den was going to eat his (probably non-vegetarian) lunch with the landlord and would join us for coffee later, but the rest of us followed Clara as she led the way into the large and light dining area, which was furnished with rattan chairs and glass-topped tables, and had been tastefully decorated with fake fan palms in large plastic urns and murals of camels plodding across deserts. I shouldn’t think you’d see a lot of those round here.
I looked critically at the nearest camel as I sat down. ‘I think they could rename the pub the Camel with Two Heads.’
‘Reminds me of the horse in that School of Stubbs painting at Underhill,’ Lex said, taking the chair next to me.
‘You’ve seen it?’
‘Mark insisted I go up and look at it weeks ago, though I told him my artistic expertise lay in pots, not paintings. But even I could see it probably wasn’t even School of, let alone the real thing.’
‘I think he’s accepted that now,’ I said, thinking Lex seemed a lot more chilled today and, if not friendly, at least not openly inimical.
‘Mainly because you found him something probably a whole lot more valuable that it won’t hurt Sybil to part with.’
We consulted the menus and then all chose the same thing: fish pie, followed by crème brûlée. I noticed Lex addressed the pretty blonde waitress as Susie and she had trouble keeping her eyes off him.
‘It’s like an annual outing of Pescetarians,’ Tottie said, tucking in. ‘I suppose we do all grab the opportunity of a bit of fish when we’re out, even though we have it at home occasionally, too.’
‘Lex fell into our ways when he used to stay with us over the years,’ Henry said.
‘Zelda’s a little carnivore, though,’ Lex said, and I wondered what this unknown younger sister, Teddy’s mother, would be like.
‘I don’t really feel I should be eating fish,’ said Henry, ‘but I just can’t seem to entirely break the habit.’
‘I can manage anything fishy, so long as it isn’t still wearing its head,’ Clara said.
‘Or two heads, if it was the mutant pike,’ said Lex.
‘Let’s not go there,’ I said, ‘or it’ll put us all off our lunch.’
‘True,’ said Clara. ‘And I’m so glad you could join us today, Lex.’
‘Perhaps you should have invited Mark, too,’ Lex suggested. ‘Meg seems to have sweetened his temper no end.’
I turned and looked suspiciously at him and he gazed blandly back.
‘You mean, by finding that still life?’
‘I expect that helped, because he seemed practically genial the other day. Something, or someone, has certainly softened him up,’ Clara said.
‘I think he’s taken a liking to Meg – and who could blame him?’ said Henry with a twinkle, and I blushed.
‘It’s no such thing. He’s just delighted that I think his still life will fund the rest of his renovations.’
‘What did you really think of his plans?’ asked Lex.
‘I’m no expert on it, but I think if he can persuade people that it’s worth going all the way out to Underhill for a very upmarket wedding reception venue, he could be on to a winner.’
‘He’ll certainly have to charge a bomb if he’s going to make enough money between spring and early autumn,’ Lex said.
‘What about this idea of turning Underhill into some kind of small country house hotel?’ Tottie asked dubiously.
‘I think it’s more so he can accommodate some of the wedding party, rather than open it to the general public,’ suggested Clara.
‘I don’t know if it would be worth it, really, and it would make a lot more work,’ I said.
‘I agree,’ Henry said. ‘He’d do better concentrating on the receptions and later, perhaps, hold weddings there, too.’
‘It’s all a big disruption anyway. Poor Sybil will be glad to get away to stay with us, though I noticed she was still fretting over that ghastly old reprobate Piers Marten,’ said Clara. ‘But if he’s alone for Christmas, it’ll be by his own choice.’
‘Do you think there might be some kind of autumn/winter romance going on there?’ asked Henry.
‘I wouldn’t have thought so, really,’ replied Clara. ‘I mean, she calls him “Uncle Piers” and he’s the same age as George would have been … and he’s not a very nice or attractive man.’
‘I’m sure she just feels sorry for the old blighter,’ Tottie said, spooning the last froth out of her cappuccino cup.
Den had arrived along with the coffee and, since we were all full, was eating the chocolate mints t
hat had come with it.
‘I think Sybil was hoping I’d suggest Piers come and join us at the Red House for Christmas, but I’d much rather not, so I didn’t,’ Clara said.
‘Quite right too,’ said Tottie. ‘The man’s a pain. Tried to get off with me after I inherited the Red House, till he found there wasn’t any money to go with it. Then he cleared off.’
‘Really?’ exclaimed Clara. ‘I had no idea!’
‘Must ’ave known yer couldn’t cook,’ suggested Den.
‘I can cook! Or some things, anyway.’
‘A man can’t live by jam and pickles alone, even if there’s a bit of ’oney on the side.’
Tottie seemed about to take exception to this, but Henry hastily suggested it was time we made a move if we were to get to Gobelins in time for the Nativity play.
At the school we followed a stream of parents into what had once been a sizeable ballroom. The long curtains at the windows were drawn and rows of chairs had been placed in front of a raised stage, with steps up to it on either side.
Miss Aurora, an imposingly tall and deep-voiced woman, briefly welcomed us and then drew back the curtains to reveal Miss Dawn in the act of lowering a backdrop that had been painted by someone with little artistic skill, but a lot of enthusiasm.
It depicted a room with a window. A small and truculent Mary sat in a chair in front of it and proceeded to deal with the Angel of Annunciation, who was not seen, but merely a gruff voice heard offstage. First she told him to get lost, before finally being persuaded that what he proposed was a good idea.
After this she picked up her chair and trudged off, and in the next scene she was shown on her way to Bethlehem, well padded and saying she didn’t much fancy riding a donkey in her condition.
I suspected she would grow up to be either a leading actor, or a leading feminist … or possibly both.
Another backdrop of a splashily painted open-fronted stable was lowered and Mary bossily ordered Joseph to sweep out the muck, but leave the donkey, the cow and the sheep, to keep it warm. The stage was quite crowded by this time.
Mary popped behind a group of donkeys and then came back and laid a baby in a manger that looked suspiciously like a wicker magazine basket.
‘There we are, then,’ she said. ‘Come on, you lot, and have a look.’
The shepherds, several angels and the Three Wise Men all crowded on to the stage at once, so I was afraid the sheep would fall over the edge.
‘I’m glad you didn’t arrive early, because you don’t want a load of strangers about when you’re having a baby,’ Mary told the Three Wise Men, raising her voice to compete with the cacophony of moos, baas and braying from the animals. By now, most of the children were hot inside their costumes, red-faced and very over-excited.
One angel had a drooping wing and another – Teddy – was throwing his halo like a discus across the room at a small papier mâché palm tree.
‘Hush up,’ Mary ordered everyone severely, then pushed her way to the front of the stage and announced brusquely, ‘We’re going to sing, and then that’s it.’
They formed themselves into ragged rows and gave a stirring rendition of ‘Jesus Christ, Superstar’, before trooping off to loud applause.
‘Oh, that was brilliant!’ I enthused, as we rose gratefully from the bottom-numbing plastic chairs and headed for the refreshments at the back of the room.
Lex looked down at me with his arrowhead smile. ‘Mary certainly stole the show, didn’t she?’
‘Well, naturally,’ said Clara, overhearing.
The refreshments were exactly as Tottie had described them to me on the way there. There was non-alcoholic punch, sandwiches of all kinds and a large chocolate fudge cake, plus plates of small fondant fancies, meringues and vol-au-vents filled, according to Den, who was eating them with relish, with condensed mushroom or chicken soup.
‘Do it meself fer the nibbles on Boxing Day, don’t I?’ he said. ‘Just the mushroom, though.’
The children came back, now dressed in their own clothes, though one donkey still had his ears on and Mary had a halo rammed down firmly over the blue cloth that covered her head.
After we had admired Teddy’s performance to his satisfaction, he told us about Santa’s visit to the school earlier that day.
‘I’ll see him again tomorrow, at the cracker factory,’ he added. ‘Henry and Clara are taking me, but you and Uncle Lex are coming too, aren’t you, Meg? The cracker factory is magic.’
‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy seeing it, Meg,’ said Henry, and I said it did sound fun.
‘Lex will meet us there in the car park,’ Clara said, which reminder slightly took the icing off the gingerbread of anticipation.
‘Wonderful,’ I said, and turned to find him standing right behind me. He gave me one of his more adamantine stares from those dark, moss-agate eyes under drawn black brows, though I don’t know what I’d done to deserve that.
He’d come to say he was leaving, and we did too soon afterwards, all cramming into the Range Rover.
Clara was driving – the long way round rather than the pass, I was happy to note – and when we finally scrunched up the gravel drive of the Red House, Henry said with a happy sigh, as if we’d been away for a year, ‘How lovely to be home again!’
23
Present
Henry drove us to the mill next day in the Jaguar, by way of the Grimlike Pass, which was hairy since we met a delivery van coming up, hogging the middle of the road.
Beyond Great Mumming we took a narrow road that meandered off into the countryside between tall, dark, hawthorn hedges until we finally turned in through a pair of open wrought-iron gates between stone posts. A large sign next to them read:
WELCOME TO FRIENDSHIP MILL
THE HOME OF
MARWOOD’S MAGICAL CRACKERS
‘Here we are,’ said Henry gaily, heading up a thin tarmac road past a small terrace of cottages, to where the mill stood by a stream. The valley was narrow and woodland came crowding down behind the mill, but on the other side of the stream the ground opened up a bit and an old house sat there, on a green, grassy cushion surrounded by a moat, with ducks. It looked very improbable.
‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ said Clara as we drew into a gravelled car park and stopped next to Lex’s pick-up. ‘It’s in the Domesday Book and it still belongs to the Marwood family. We know Mercy Marwood, because her nephew, Randall, was at school with Lex, though he is a little older.’
‘It’s lovely, but certainly unexpected,’ I said – unlike Lex, who had now got out and was shrugging a disreputable old waxed jacket over his slightly clay-smeared black jeans.
‘There you are,’ he greeted us, as if he’d been hanging around for hours, which he evidently hadn’t, since the bonnet of his pick-up was still slightly steaming in the chilly air.
‘Your jeans are covered in clay, darling,’ Clara pointed out.
He looked down and grunted. ‘They were clean this morning … but then I went into the workshop for a few minutes.’
‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ said Henry. ‘Half the craftspeople from the workshops in the mill wander about covered in paint, or clay or whatever.’
Teddy, released from his car seat, bounced up and down impatiently, while the wind whipped his mop of black curls, so like Lex’s, into a frenzy.
‘Come on, Uncle Lex – come on, Meg!’ he urged, grabbing our hands, so that we headed for the mill entrance with Teddy between us, the picture of a happy family outing, Clara and Henry following behind.
A large Christmas tree twinkled in the foyer and fragranced the air, but I barely had time to snatch a leaflet about the attractions within from a pile on a table before Teddy had dragged me through the double doors at the further end, highly excited.
‘Slow down, Teddy,’ called Henry. ‘We want to show Meg the cracker making and the museum first. Then you can see Santa.’
‘The cracker makers don’t work weekends, but there are demonstrati
ons instead,’ Clara informed me.
I saw that the large interior of the mill had been divided by a partition with viewing windows, through which you could watch the crackers being made, while to the right were the windows of the Christmas shop and the side of a hut that said, ‘Santa’s Grotto’, though it looked more like Santa’s garden shed.
Above us, on a terrace reached by a flight of metal steps, was the café.
It was still quite early, but the place was already busy. In the background was some kind of electronic music … or sound, at any rate, for it conjured up wind whistling among snowy trees, icicles tinkling, sleigh bells jingling … It was very well done and a big improvement on the raucous Christmas pop songs usually blasting out in shops at this time of year.
We joined a group by one of the viewing windows and watched as a slender, elegant black woman with silvery hair and a tall, elderly man with improbably dark hair, parted in the middle and pasted flatly over his head, constructed large and intricately decorated crackers. I didn’t think it could possibly be as easy as they made it look.
It was quite mesmerizing, watching their fingers nimbly assembling the various components: card centre, snap, joke, hat and some small gift, then enclosing the whole expertly in paper and patterned foil, before tying off the ends with ribbon.
There was an information board by the viewing window, but Teddy was too impatient to let me linger. Instead, he headed off to the back of the room where a sign indicated the museum.
That all looked riveting too, with the history of the mill, the cracker making and the Marwood family itself, which appeared to be Quaker and, like many of the early factory-owning Friends, benevolent and caring to its workforce.
‘Look at all these old boxes of crackers in the display cases!’ I exclaimed, fascinated. ‘I love this Zoo box. Do you think that dates from the sixties?’ I asked Henry.
‘Probably, going by the clothes the children are wearing on the box front,’ he agreed.
The Christmas Invitation Page 22