A Christmas Cracker

by Trisha Ashley

‘But they seem to be getting on all right now,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I think that Tabby woman and her cat are both weird and I hope they’re long gone before we’re married, though I still won’t want to live here all the time. It’s not like how I imagined it would be.’

  ‘What’s the matter with it?’ I said, surprised. ‘I know it’s not huge, but—’

  ‘I thought you meant it wasn’t a huge stately home, not that it wasn’t a huge house. For a start, I expected it to have enough space for your old relatives to have apartments out of the way, so we didn’t have to see them all the time.’

  ‘I did tell you it was just an extended farm.’

  ‘Yes, but you said it had a moat.’

  She cast a disparaging look around the library, with its panelling and the painting of a severe-looking female Victorian Marwood over the fireplace. ‘I’d have to make a lot of changes, even if I was just coming here for weekends. All this dark wood and the little rooms are oppressive.’

  ‘Come on, Lacey, you can’t call the drawing room or the kitchen oppressive – they’re huge! And this library is a decent size, while the orangery off it could be made into a lovely garden room.’

  ‘I’m not into gardening,’ she said, as though I’d been trying to hand her a spade and a pair of secateurs.

  ‘You haven’t even seen all of the house yet, because you wanted to go out and meet your friend.’

  ‘What I really needed was a drink,’ she said. ‘You might have warned me about that, so I could have brought my own.’

  I decided not to try to explain why bringing her own alcohol would have offended Silas and Mercy. ‘I go to the pub in the village sometimes when I’m here and meet Jude Martland, but I can manage fine without a drink for a couple of days if I have to.’

  ‘Oh, so I’m an alcoholic now, too?’

  ‘Of course not, darling,’ I said, putting my arm round her, which she immediately angrily shrugged off. ‘Look, tomorrow I’ll show you the rest of the house and you can see there’s lots of room. My bedroom and sitting room are over this wing, so when we’re married you can get away a bit if you want to.’

  ‘I suppose we’ll need a chaperone to go round the bedrooms with us,’ she said moodily.

  ‘No, I don’t think Mercy would go that far.’

  ‘How about we buy a nice modern house somewhere nearby and divide our time between there and London, until you inherit?’ she suggested, brightening at the thought.

  I sighed. ‘I love it here and I hoped you would, too, though I suppose it does seem odd starting married life in a house that belongs to someone else. But I’m sure Mercy would be happy to sit back and let you take over the reins of the housekeeping, if you wanted to.’

  Actually, I wasn’t sure Mercy would ever slow down and take a back seat on anything, but Lacey wasn’t interested anyway.

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’ she said blankly. ‘I’d like her to move out and your uncle with her, but then I’d have to hire a housekeeper.’

  ‘Lacey, try and give the place – and Silas and Mercy – a chance, will you? It’s a long time till our wedding in the New Year and we can sort things out so everyone’s happy by then,’ I suggested. ‘The mill will be open, I’ll be managing it and I’ve already got Mercy’s agreement that if the cracker business hasn’t taken off by Christmas, we can change it to something more lucrative.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she sighed reluctantly. ‘But anyone in their right mind would have shut the cracker factory down and retired all those wrinklies long before now. It’s ridiculous employing ex-cons anyway, especially having one of them living in the house. I wouldn’t trust that Tabitha woman as far as I could throw her.’

  ‘I admit when I found out I had my doubts about it, too, but I’m making sure she doesn’t cheat my aunt in any way and she knows I’ve got my eye on her.’

  ‘Your aunt seems to like her. You’d better make sure she doesn’t worm her way into cutting you out of your inheritance.’

  ‘She wouldn’t do that. She has money of her own, though, that she can please herself what she does with, like providing for her ward, Liz.’

  ‘Yet another person cluttering up the house,’ Lacey said.

  ‘She’s at boarding school, so she’s only here for part of the holidays. She stays with friends quite a bit,’ I told her, but she looked unconvinced.

  I hadn’t expected Lacey’s first visit to be like this, but I hoped by the New Year things would somehow have worked out, with a bit of give and take on all sides.

  ‘I could do with a drink now,’ Lacey said.

  ‘You can have one tomorrow: tonight you’ll just have to make do with coffee,’ I told her firmly. ‘And be nice to Mercy: she wants to love you, so just give her a chance!’

  Chapter 34: On the Tiles

  Q:Why are Christmas trees like bad knitters?

  A:They keep losing their needles!

  I breakfasted early with Mercy, who’d bounced back somewhat from the shocks and revelations of the previous evening.

  ‘I’m sure Lacey – and probably Randal, too – think I’m very old-fashioned to have been shocked by how she makes her living, but I can assure you that my late husband would have been adamant that nothing like that should be associated with Friendship Mill,’ she said, thickly spreading a slice of toast with lime marmalade to replenish all that energy she constantly burned off.

  I was scraping a smidgeon of Marmite onto mine, a childhood pleasure recently rediscovered.

  ‘I’m not shocked, particularly,’ I said, ‘though I was surprised – especially when she suggested opening a shop in the main part of the mill. She couldn’t seem to see how inappropriate that would be for the sort of family venue we’re aiming for.’

  ‘But at least dear Randal did,’ Mercy said. ‘Of course, I entirely understand and applaud Lacey’s desire to continue to have her own business, but perhaps when she’s thought it over, she could sell something less …’ she struggled for the word and gave up, ‘… something with more general appeal, like children’s party supplies.’

  ‘I think that’s already quite a crowded market. But she didn’t really sound that keen on relocating it here anyway, did she? So perhaps she’ll leave it in London with a manager in charge and commute up and down when she has to.’

  ‘Yes … I suppose that would be one solution,’ agreed Mercy doubtfully. ‘Well, we’ll just have to wait and see how things go on, but I’ll be very glad when Randal has completed his current assignments and is living under this roof again, because I don’t like to see him so thin. He’s had no time for his digestion to recover since he was so dreadfully ill after that cruise, and he needs good home cooking.’

  As if he’d heard the mention of food preparation, Pye, closely followed by Pugsie, came in through the cat-flap. This morning had been a repeat of the day before, with the little dog put out of Lacey’s bedroom at dawn, for someone else to cope with. She was not an early riser. Mercy said she didn’t eat breakfast and it had been after nine before she came down yesterday, which to her was halfway through the morning.

  ‘And Bradley said that if Lacey’s dog messed in his garden, he’d turn it into a pair of mittens,’ I told her, remembering. ‘Of course, he didn’t mean it, but he’s very proud of the knot gardens, isn’t he? Always out there, snipping away.’

  ‘Yes, he does keep them beautifully and, of course, after working on them for so long, he considers them his own,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll get Randal to go out and check, after he’s had his breakfast.’

  I’d been about to volunteer, but this seemed an excellent plan to me.

  ‘He should be down soon, so I’ll put some bacon and eggs on for him. Then I’m going to Merchester again, for the Friend who gave us the sewing machines has obtained two more and I thought Randal and Lacey might like the opportunity to wander over the house on their own in my absence … so long as they don’t disturb Silas. You could come with me and see your friend, if you wished?’


  ‘I’d better not, because her husband has just come back from Dubai and it might be tricky since he’s unreasonably jealous about her having friends, especially me.’

  ‘Jealousy is a terrible thing,’ Mercy said sympathetically.

  ‘Job and Freda are going to Southport this morning, so I’m going with them, though we’ll split up and do our own thing once we’ve got there.’

  ‘That sounds fun,’ she said. ‘And if you should have time, there’s a sewing shop there that quite often stocks old sewing machine needles and that kind of thing.’

  ‘Write me a list with the address, and I’ll see what I can do,’ I promised.

  Job, who had earlier prepared Silas’s tray and taken it through, now returned with the remains and condescended to have a cup of coffee with us, brushing invisible coat-tails aside before sitting down.

  ‘Mr Silas is as stiff as a board this morning,’ he informed us. ‘His pills are running low, too, so I have the prescription with me to get more in Southport.’

  ‘Poor old Silas,’ Mercy said sympathetically. ‘Tabby says she’s going to Southport with you and Freda later, so I hope you have a lovely day.’

  ‘Yes, and I believe you’re coming to the Auld Christmas with everyone tonight too, Tabby, so we can properly celebrate,’ he intoned in his usual fruitily melancholic way.

  ‘Celebrate?’ Mercy said.

  ‘My untagging and the freedom to go out in the evening,’ I explained. ‘Everyone’s going early for a pub meal, so I thought I’d join them, if you didn’t mind my missing dinner?’

  ‘No, of course not: the weekends are your own and you must do as you like in them,’ she said. ‘I’ll do my best to get to know Lacey better since, if she’s to marry Randal, we must learn to love one another.’

  ‘Mr Silas said she was a brazen hussy,’ remarked Job.

  ‘Oh dear!’ she said. ‘But I’m sure he didn’t mean it, he was just crotchety from the rheumatism.’

  I could hear sounds of Randal’s heavy footsteps approaching, so telling Job I’d be down at the garages by the mill shortly, I fled to my room to get ready.

  I had to go back through the kitchen to get out, of course, and by then he was eating breakfast, fondly watched by his aunt. Pugsie was drooling on his feet, but Pye was ignoring him.

  ‘Hi, Randal,’ I said cheerily and he gave me that look of deep suspicion from under his thick, fair brows.

  ‘Where are you off to so early?’ he asked.

  ‘Out,’ I replied like a teenager and, taking the shopping list from Mercy, made my escape.

  It was almost five when I got back, but Silas and Mercy were only just having tea, having delayed it because Randal and Lacey had gone off again somewhere while Mercy was out and she’d waited for them to return.

  She’d clearly pushed the boat out with tea, too, for there was an iced cake and thin, smoked salmon sandwiches in brown bread. Since she looked a little forlorn, I joined them and showed her the things I’d purchased from her list.

  ‘And I came across this shoebox full of old sewing machine shuttles and spools in a junk shop, so I bought it.’

  ‘Well done,’ she enthused, examining my find. ‘They’re bound to come in useful.’

  My appetite, sharpened by the Southport sea breezes, was up to the challenge of eating more than my share of the sandwiches, and Pye would have helped, if we’d let him – as would Pugsie, who seemed to have been forgotten by his mistress again.

  I knew Randal and Lacey had finally returned, because his car was there when I set off for the pub later.

  A light rain had begun to fall, so Phil went up in Bradley’s car with Lillian and Joy, while I was a passenger with Freda, Job and Dorrie Bird in the estate.

  Dinner at the Auld Christmas was a very excellent pot pie with buttered carrots, followed by raspberry jam roly-poly pudding and custard. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to walk back to the car after that, in which case they’d have to roll me out, like a barrel.

  By now I was starting to recognise some of the regular customers – not to mention Nancy Dagger’s ancient father-in-law, Nick, who was usually seated in his antique hooded wooden chair before the fire.

  We’d just begun a game of dominoes (Bradley cheats by hiding them up his sleeves, so the others made him roll them up before we started), when Guy walked in, together with a very tall, heavy-set man and a woman with black hair, who Lillian and Joy told me were Guy’s brother, Jude, and his wife, Holly.

  ‘Mercy said they were all invited to Old Place for lunch tomorrow,’ I said. ‘She didn’t think Guy was home this weekend, though.’

  Of course, I might have known, had I bothered looking at his messages while I was in Southport, but I hadn’t. I’d only turned the phone on briefly, to see if there was anything from Emma, which there hadn’t been. I always worried when Des was home and she went quiet …

  ‘Holly came up here from an agency to house-sit and look after the animals one Christmas and she and Jude got together,’ Dorrie explained. ‘Now they’ve got a little baby boy, though the poor lass had a couple of disappointments first. Still, all’s well that ends well.’

  ‘There are Martlands all over Little Mumming,’ Joy said in her prim, upper class, cut-glass accent. I think she’d been doing it so long she couldn’t talk any other way, though Lillian told me she was originally from Birmingham.

  ‘There’s Jude’s aunt Becca at New Place, Mercy’s friend – you’ve probably met her more than once already.’

  I nodded.

  ‘And Becca’s brother, Noël, at the lodge, with his wife, Tilda – she was a TV cook years ago, they say.’

  ‘I remember her cookery programmes. Black and white, they were,’ confirmed Freda. ‘But then that Fanny Cradock took over. She led that poor husband of hers a sad life.’

  ‘Who, Tilda?’ I asked, startled.

  ‘No, Fanny Cradock,’ replied Freda. ‘It was “Johnnie do this” and “Johnnie do that”.’

  ‘Jude’s niece stays with them a lot, too, because her parents work abroad … but she’s away at boarding school like Liz,’ Joy said. ‘Only she’d be a year or so older.’

  ‘I met her at the Pace-egging and she seems a nice girl,’ I said.

  ‘That Guy’s trying to attract your attention,’ Phil told me, putting down a tile.

  I glanced across and Guy waved and made gestures at his glass. I shook my head and turned back to the game, suspecting that there had been some sneaky tile shuffling while my back was turned. It had quickly become clear that they were all at it.

  Guy, unrebuffed, brought his drink across and sat down next to me on the end of the bench seat. ‘Don’t you ever answer your text messages?’ he asked. ‘I sent you a whole load earlier, because I wanted to see you while I was up.’

  ‘No, but you’re seeing me anyway,’ I pointed out.

  ‘But not alone. And presumably since you’re out in the evening you’ve got rid of your tag, so that gives me much more scope …’

  He didn’t say for what, but his dark eyes, gleaming with laughter, were inches from mine … and so was the rest of him. His aftershave, subtle but pervasive, was trying to pull me into his force field.

  Then Bradley called my attention back to the game and we finished that one and started another. Guy continued to buzz around me like a wasp, trying to get my attention. I think he was flirting, but it’s not something I’ve had a lot of practice at.

  ‘You’re so beautiful, like a Red Indian princess,’ he said, at one point.

  ‘I’m not beautiful and I get my colouring from my father.’

  ‘Who was your father?’ he asked.

  ‘An actor. He’s dead now,’ I said shortly. His family still didn’t know a thing about me, and that’s the way Mum had wanted it to be.

  ‘What was he—’ he began, then broke off with an exclamation. ‘Good God, it’s Lacey Bucknall – what’s she doing here? And with Randal Hesketh, of all people!’

  Lacey�
�s red-gold hair seemed to flame in the dark, cavernous room and her short green dress clung to her figure like a second skin. She suddenly reminded me of Jessica Rabbit from a film I’d seen in prison.

  ‘Do you know her?’ Dorrie asked him, interested. ‘Randal’s brought her for the weekend to meet the family and see the place.’

  ‘Now I come to think of it, Holly did say something about Randal getting engaged and that the Mote Farm lot were coming to lunch tomorrow,’ he said, and then an unholy smile crept over his mobile face.

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me he’s introduced Lacey Bucknall as his future bride to Mercy Marwood? I wish I could be a fly on the wall when she and old Silas find out what her parents do for a living – not to mention her own company.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lillian asked, puzzled. ‘We know she’s got a mail-order business that she might relocate to the mill when they’re married, because we heard her say so when he brought her down to look round.’

  ‘Her parents own the All Thrills sex shop chain,’ he said.

  ‘Bit downmarket, those,’ sniffed Lillian.

  ‘Well, you’re the expert,’ said Joy.

  Lillian snapped, ‘Oh yes, Little Miss Butter-wouldn’t-melt, like you’ve never been in one!’

  ‘I hate bloody women,’ Bradley muttered morosely into his beer.

  ‘Now, Brad, you know you don’t mean that,’ Dorrie told him severely. ‘You’ll only get depressed again if you start off down that track.’

  ‘I’m a miserable sinner,’ he said gloomily, ‘but you and Lillian and Joy are all right, really.’

  ‘Mercy knows all about it,’ I told Guy. ‘And Lacey can’t help what her parents do for a living, can she?’

  ‘Maybe not, but did she tell Mercy that her own mail-order company was called Instant Orgy? Sells sex party supplies.’

  The others were dumbfounded by this news.

  ‘I don’t think that sounds at all the thing for Godsend,’ Job intoned deeply and mournfully.

  ‘I can see you knew,’ Guy said to me, ‘so presumably Mercy does, too? I bet she kicked up a fuss.’

  ‘It was a bit of a shock and the dust is still settling,’ I admitted.