The Christmas Invitation

by Trisha Ashley

  River went to sit next to her, with Tottie on her other side, and soon the three of them were deep in horticultural conversation. At least, I hoped it was, because I caught the words ‘cross-pollination’ and ‘hot beds’.

  Zelda suggested she, Lex and I go into the morning room to watch a rom com, called While You Were Sleeping, which I loved. All those crossed wires reminded me a bit of our own complicated Lex/me/Zelda/Mark/Rollo/Flora situation.

  On my way to bed later I popped my head into the drawing room to say goodnight and found River, Sybil, Clara and Henry playing mah-jong. Tottie was sitting nearby, knitting a rainbow-striped scarf.

  It was a cosy scene, with Lass and Wisty curled up together under the table.

  ‘Pansy’s just been out,’ I told Sybil, pushing the little dog into the room, even though she obviously wanted to stay with me. I had to harden my heart.

  ‘Fine, dear,’ said Sybil absently, then she smiled triumphantly at River and said something that sounded like, ‘Pung!’

  When I woke up next morning, I thought about Pansy and wondered if I could beg Sybil not to sell her to someone else after all … even offer her more, if she could wait for the money?

  The light filtering in was the soft white kind bounced by snow and it still felt quite early. Was Lex awake yet? Was he thinking about that kiss last night? I might have been the one to initiate it, but he’d turned it into something deeper and … well, resistance was useless.

  Of course, he’d been very kind to me since we’d had that talk in the car, but that kiss had travelled beyond mere kindness. I just wasn’t quite sure where to.

  I told myself not to read too much into it: he might once have had feelings for me, but all that lay in the past, on the other side of the emotional chasm of his loss, grief and guilt.

  My own feelings were confused. When we were students and I’d got over my crush, we’d been friendly, and because of Lisa I’d never let myself think of him in any other way.

  But now, I was, and that so wasn’t a good idea because, given the past, how could things ever work out between us? I needed to get a grip on myself before I lost my heart, though that wouldn’t be easy when we were living in the same house.

  I turned my thoughts to Zelda, instead, whom I liked very much and who was so very different from her brother.

  Her casual mothering reminded me so much of Mum: loving but always ready to leave the responsibility of raising a child to someone else. A cuckoo mother. It was just the way some women were.

  Watching the film together last night had been fun: eating snacks from a kitchen raid and drinking home-made ginger beer, as if we’d escaped from an Enid Blyton novel.

  Zelda had dragged Mark’s name into the conversation a couple of times and I wondered where that would go. Could she settle down in one place? And Mark – how constant was he likely to be?

  But no, love at first sight is unmistakable … or, in this case, love after a long gap in sightings.

  I turned on the pillow, releasing the faint fragrance of lavender, which I found very soothing, unlike Sybil’s unsettling perfume the previous night.

  And then, quite suddenly, something connected in my head and I sat bolt upright, eyes wide.

  I hadn’t first noticed Sybil’s pervasive, unusual and strangely familiar scent at the Gathering at all. Instead it was ineradicably associated with the moment I’d nearly gone headlong over that precipice! No wonder I’d found the perfume unsettling.

  But did that mean I had been pushed, and by Sybil? I surely must be going mad if I thought Mark’s mother was a homicidal maniac! I mean, after we’d got to Underhill she’d been so kind, patching me up and then saying nice things about my joining the family, and then insinuating how much Mark liked me.

  But of course, when she’d first known about our relationship she’d been horrified and looked afraid. Mark had been wary and angry, too, until I’d reassured them both that neither Mum nor I would be remotely interested in pursuing a claim on the estate.

  Perhaps Sybil hadn’t really believed me and I’d still seemed to pose a threat? But then later, after seeing Mark and me together at the Gathering, she’d decided our marriage would solve the problem much more easily?

  Unless she was completely mad, though, my theory seemed entirely unbelievable. Yet somehow, now, I did believe it. I just didn’t know what to do about it.

  I put my dressing gown on and padded across the landing to the bathroom, pausing for a moment to listen to the faint clack of typewriter keys. It was not that early, for Henry was already at work … and was that murmuring noise Clara dictating into her microphone?

  When I went down, almost everyone else was eating breakfast or, in the case of Henry and Clara, a second breakfast.

  ‘There you are, dear,’ said Tottie. ‘We’ve saved you some fried eggs and potato cakes: we’re having a blowout.’

  ‘Mummy says she can eat what she likes now, if she’s not being an actor any more,’ Teddy told me.

  ‘To a degree: I don’t want to turn into a barrel of lard,’ said Zelda, who was looking workmanlike in a retro film-starry way, in jeans and a jumper, a scarf tied pirate-fashion over her hair and big gold hoop earrings.

  Sybil didn’t look as if she’d slept very well and wished me a wan good morning. I couldn’t imagine anyone looking less like a homicidal maniac. She was feeding bits of toast to Wisty and Lass under the table, while Pansy was polishing three dog bowls with her tongue, in case any last morsel had been overlooked.

  In this warm domestic scene, what I’d been thinking about Sybil seemed impossible. Perhaps all those crime novels of Clara’s I’d been reading had pervaded my imagination?

  ‘Henry and I were working, but we couldn’t resist the smell,’ said Clara.

  I sat down next to her and Den whipped the cover off a dish with a flourish and set it in front of me.

  ‘Thanks, Den,’ I said. I might be the one turning into a tub of lard, but I couldn’t resist it.

  ‘Coffee?’ asked Tottie, pushing the pot in my direction. ‘Just made it. Lex has gone out to look at the road, but he’ll be back in a minute.’

  ‘I am back,’ said Lex’s deep voice behind me. ‘Pete was out on the tractor gritting and he said he’d spoken to Fred at the pub on the phone and there’s no snow at all in Thorstane.’

  ‘Typical,’ said Henry. ‘You only have to get to the pub and they have a whole different weather system from ours.’

  ‘Pete thinks we’ll be snowed in for Christmas,’ Lex said. ‘They’re going to try to keep the road open up towards the tops, if they can, because of the animals, so someone could always get across if there’s an emergency.’

  ‘I sincerely hope there won’t be, though after a few days of Piers, Flora may possibly consider getting him out of her house an emergency,’ suggested Clara.

  Lex sat down and I passed the coffee pot across. I’d avoided looking at him till now, but when I did he smiled warmly at me and I returned it before looking quickly away again, feeling my face going pink. The trouble with having such pale skin is that every change of colour shows, however slight.

  Clara finished the last of her egg and sighed with satisfaction. ‘I’m going back to the memoirs shortly, because I want to bring this volume to completion by Christmas, if I can. And I think you all have plans for the morning?’

  ‘Me and Den and Tottie are going to make a chocolate log,’ said Teddy importantly.

  ‘And then we’ll ice the second Christmas cake, the one for the Boxing Day bash,’ said Tottie.

  ‘Do a lot of people come to that, even in this kind of weather?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, if they can get through, then they wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ said Henry. ‘Like the Gathering.’

  A door opened somewhere and I could hear the tinny sound of radio music and running water from the scullery.

  ‘That’s Olive. She’s giving the house a final tidy up before Christmas,’ said Tottie.

  ‘Her only
drawback is that she carries her radio around with her and is addicted to the inanities of Radio 2,’ said Clara.

  Olive’s head appeared round the side of the scullery door. ‘I heard that – and I find it soporific.’

  ‘I think you mean calming, otherwise you’d be sleeping while you cleaned,’ suggested Henry.

  ‘Soothing,’ amended Olive.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea or coffee and some toast, Olive?’ asked Clara.

  ‘No, I’ll do the upstairs bathrooms and then have me elevenses after that.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Clara, and the head vanished.

  ‘We’re heading up to Underhill shortly,’ said Lex. ‘Meg and I’ll be back for lunch, but I expect Mark will run Zelda home later.’

  ‘And you will give me a portrait sitting later, won’t you, Tottie?’ I asked her.

  ‘I expect so,’ she said, assuming the off-hand air that didn’t disguise her pleasure in having her portrait painted.

  ‘I suppose I’d better ring Flora and see if she still wants a lift to Underhill,’ said Lex, but when he came back, he reported that Flora would be going there under her own steam.

  ‘She remembered Deirdre’s four-wheel-drive was in the garage and found the keys, so she rang Gil – that’s Olive’s son, Meg – and he’s clearing and gritting the drive for her. But she won’t be able to stay long, because of her guests.’

  ‘Piers will certainly expect to get his feet in the trough for every meal,’ Henry said.

  ‘Flora says Rollo’s much improved and up and about,’ Lex said, then gave that arrowhead grin and added, ‘She said that last night she’d warned Piers that if he wanted a cooked breakfast, then he had to be down before eight thirty, so she seems to have him organized.’

  ‘I knew she would. She was a very efficient nanny and I expect she’s using the same technique,’ said Clara drily.

  ‘Piers had just asked her to ring us and remind Sybil that he wanted to see her this morning. I’d let him stew, though, Sybil.’ Lex smiled at her. ‘There’s no reason you should have to traipse down there at his command, if you don’t feel like it.’

  ‘You could just ring up,’ suggested Clara.

  ‘No … I’d better walk down and see Uncle Piers,’ she said.

  Clara was now looking at her narrowly, possibly puzzling about why Piers seemed to have such a hold over her. It was very odd. Perhaps he and her father had always barked their commands at her and she was used to obeying? But though she called him ‘Uncle Piers’, his attempt to kiss her last night hadn’t seemed very avuncular at all.

  ‘River and I are going to take the post round the village shortly, Sybil, so you could walk down with us as far as the guesthouse?’ suggested Henry.

  ‘That would be lovely. I could take the dogs with me for some exercise, if you don’t think Flora will mind them in the guesthouse.’

  ‘They’ll probably be a welcome relief after Piers,’ said Clara.

  35

  Stripped

  Flora’s car was creeping down the drive of Bella Vista as we passed and she followed us up to Underhill. The journey was a little hairy, despite a fresh layer of grit on the road, and I suppose she was unused to her aunt’s car, because she fell back and arrived a few minutes after we did.

  Mark came out, but had eyes only for Zelda, so I don’t think he even registered it when Flora parked next to the pick-up and got out with a palpable expression of relief on her face. We’d waited for her and followed the other two in, and then Mark gave us very much the same tour he’d given me, though in reverse order, starting with the almost-finished new reception room in the coach house and then through into the bare catering kitchen-to-be.

  Lex and I hung back; I think he’d heard enough about the plans already too. But Flora stuck with Mark and Zelda, asking questions and enthusing about everything until slowly it became clear even to her that she was an unwelcome third in the conversation. I felt a little sorry for her.

  Zelda was coming up with some practical ideas of her own and by the time we’d toured the upstairs, she and Mark had begun an impassioned discussion.

  ‘Starting off in spring with the wedding receptions is very achievable, because the new catering kitchen will easily be ready in time,’ she said. ‘And, of course, you’ll need an en-suite room for the bride to use on the day, but it doesn’t have to be in the family wing, does it?’

  ‘But it’s one of the bedrooms I’m already renovating for guests,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Forget those for the moment, Mark. Why not turn the rooms over the old kitchen, which you’ve earmarked for your friends’ accommodation, into the bridal suite, instead?’

  ‘But why?’ demanded Mark.

  ‘Because when you go upstairs from the hall, those rooms are to the right, but the family ones are to the left. So if the bridal suite was there, it would leave the whole of the family part of the house separate.’

  ‘But only until the other guest bedrooms were finished.’

  ‘You’ll have to scrap that idea,’ she said decidedly. ‘I don’t think letting a few bedrooms would be worth the effort, and anyway, Underhill should remain a family home as well as a business.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said. ‘And where would I put Art and Gerry?’

  ‘If Sybil still has her old bedroom, then that little housekeeper’s parlour, with its own staircase up to a bedroom, could be made into a perfect little apartment for them.’

  I thought she had something there, and Mark was beginning to look more thoughtful.

  He turned it all over in his head for a few minutes and then said slowly, ‘It could work.’

  Zelda took his arm and gave him a starry smile. ‘I’m certain it could, and it would still be a lovely home as well as a business. We’d easily make enough money just from the receptions, providing it’s all really high end.’

  ‘I’d thought of holding weddings later, too,’ he said. ‘The actual ceremony on the top landing and the guests in the hall below.’

  They moved off in that direction and we followed. I was amused to notice that at some point Zelda had stopped saying ‘you could’ and replaced it with ‘we could’.

  Flora, who had found herself sidelined for the last half-hour, now said, ‘I think Mark’s original idea about the guest bedrooms would work much better, and half the en-suites are put in already.’

  ‘No, on that scale it wouldn’t be financially worth it,’ Zelda said dismissively. ‘A lot of trouble and disruption for not much return.’

  ‘But Flora’s right about my having already put in the en-suites,’ Mark said.

  ‘The rooms wanted updating anyway, didn’t they?’ said Zelda.

  ‘Sybil will be very happy if she doesn’t have to live in the housekeeper’s room,’ Lex put in.

  ‘I do think that was a bit of a mean suggestion, darling,’ said Zelda, giving Mark’s arm a squeeze. ‘Never mind, we’ll redecorate her old room and I’m sure she’ll love having an en-suite.’

  ‘I suppose we could do it the way you suggest and then, if it doesn’t work out, we still have the country house hotel option,’ Mark conceded. ‘But my plan is not only to make enough money to keep Underhill going, but also be able to spend my winters in my house in Italy … and go skiing, too.’

  ‘It sounds so perfect, working all summer and then playing all winter,’ she said, smiling up at him. ‘And I’m dying to see your little house in Italy!’

  ‘And I can’t wait to show it to you,’ he said warmly.

  ‘That’s what you said to me,’ piped up Flora tartly. He’d said it to me, too, but though fickle might have been his middle name, I was sure he really meant it this time.

  Flora evidently thought so too, for she was admitting defeat. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to go, Mark,’ she announced. ‘I need to see how Rollo’s doing. He’s really not very strong. His poor mother’s so worried, though she knows I’m taking the best care of him.’

  ‘And Piers?�
�� said Lex.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with his health, though he is a bit crotchety and demanding,’ she said. ‘I gave him Deirdre’s rules of the house after breakfast and pointed out that he has tea- and coffee-making facilities in his room, as well as the use of the visitor lounge with a TV. I don’t suppose Rollo and I will see much of him, except when I serve his meals in the dining room.’

  Rollo was clearly living in the family part of the guesthouse, which all sounded very cosy. I wondered if this morning’s visit to Underhill had simply been a last testing of the waters with Mark and now, seeing she was getting nowhere, she would turn her full attention to the hapless and helpless Rollo?

  Perhaps she’d eat him afterwards, like a spider.

  ‘I hope you hid the keys of the roll-down shutters over the bar in the dining room somewhere Piers won’t find them?’ asked Lex.

  She gave a thin smile. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday: they’re in my bag. Not that we keep a huge stock of spirits. And we always sell it by the glass, never the bottle, as I explained to Piers last night.’

  ‘At a mark-up, too, I expect?’

  ‘Of course. I’m afraid his bill is going to be rather large.’

  Lex saw her out and came back to find us standing in the hall, discussing what to do next.

  Lex said, ‘I suppose we’d better get on with doing something, before it’s time for us to go, too.’

  ‘We’ve decided to paper and paint what was going to be the bridal suite first and turn it into Mark’s bedroom,’ said Zelda. ‘And then the same with your mum’s old room, so she can move back into it after Christmas.’

  ‘I think that’s a really nice idea, Zelda,’ I agreed.

  ‘I suppose it shouldn’t take too long with a bit of help,’ Mark said. ‘Then we can move on to the new bridal suite.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Lex. ‘Why don’t Meg and I strip wallpaper in Sybil’s room and you two take on the other?’

  We collected buckets of water to soak the walls, and scrapers, and set to.

  ‘Flora’s nose is well out of joint,’ Lex said. ‘She could hardly wait to get away.’