by Judy Nunn
Throughout Mrs M’s story, Sam had stared at the portrait, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from Phoebe’s. They held such life, such promise. ‘How sad,’ she said. ‘How terribly sad.’
‘Oh my goodness,’ Mrs M broke the moment. ‘I completely forgot why I’d asked you in.’ She picked up a small gift-wrapped package from the coffee table beside the sofa. ‘A little Christmas gift,’ she said as she handed it to Sam.
‘Oh Mrs M, you shouldn’t have.’ Sam was flustered and, even as she uttered the banality, embarrassed. Having decided to ignore Christmas herself, the formality of gift giving hadn’t occurred to her. She should have at least bought the woman a card. ‘Really, you shouldn’t.’
‘It’s nothing, dear, just a little memento of Fareham.’
Sam unwrapped a small cardboard box, inside which was a silver statuette of a horse in mid-trot, its front hoof delicately raised. ‘How lovely,’ she said, balancing the miniature in the palm of her hand.
‘It’s a Frogmorton,’ Mrs M said. ‘They’re local silversmiths who’ve been here for generations. They have a fine store and gallery at Brighton and the tourists buy a lot of their souvenir spoons, but I thought, seeing you’re living in the stables, the little horse was a more fitting memento of your stay.’
‘It is. It’s perfect. Thank you.’ Sam hugged the woman.
‘Happy Christmas, dear.’ Mrs M returned the hug warmly, then got down to business. ‘Now tell me, what are you doing tomorrow? Do you have plans?’ Sam hesitated for a moment, she didn’t want to lie to Mrs M. ‘I thought not. Why don’t you come to Portsmouth with me? I’m staying overnight with my daughter and her family, you’d get on famously, I’m sure.’
Sam decided to be not only firm in her refusal, but truthful. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs M,’ she said, ‘but I’d really rather be on my own.’
Martha Montgomery nodded, she’d suspected as much. There was an independent streak in young Samantha Lindsay.
‘I’m going to go for a very long walk,’ Sam continued, ‘and I’m going to loll around and read a book. Believe me, that’s a luxury after two shows a day. I’m looking forward to it, really I am,’ she insisted, hoping Mrs M wouldn’t press the point.
‘I suggest Titchfield.’ The girl would probably feel more lonely sharing another family’s Christmas anyway, Martha Montgomery thought. ‘For your walk,’ she added when Sam looked mystified. ‘It’s a dear little village, right in the centre of the old strawberry farm district, about four miles out of town. You just continue on the road past the railway station.’
‘Titchfield it is.’ Sam was grateful for the woman’s understanding.
‘And you must use the house, it’ll be completely deserted over Christmas. Come with me.’ Sam found herself once again following the ample rear of Mrs M and the sound of her voice. ‘The four guests we had have all gone,’ she was saying as they walked up the main staircase, ‘and there’s no-one else booked in until the day after Boxing Day. You’ll have the whole place to yourself.’
They crossed through the upstairs drawing room, equal in splendour to its counterpart below. Mrs M was barging on ahead, but Sam peered briefly through the bay windows. She could see the multi-storey car park and Ferneham Hall and the civic offices a little further up the street. It was a pity, she thought, picturing the view as it might once have been. Fields and meadowland, perhaps even crops, since Fareham was a market town.
Ten-year-old Jane Miller clutched her threadbare coat about her as she took the shortcut past the old gravel pit that had once been meadowland on her way to Osborn Road and Chisolm House. Her woollen hat was pulled firmly down over her blonde curls, keeping her ears snug and warm against the bitter cold of the December morning. It was a Sunday and she and her best friend Phoebe were going to build a snowman.
Sam’s attention was dragged back to the room. ‘For guests with musical inclinations,’ Mrs M was saying as she indicated the old upright piano in the corner. ‘I keep it tuned. We’ve had a number of good old singalongs up here, I can tell you.’
After bypassing several other bedrooms on the upper front floor, Mrs M led her to the master bedroom with its large en suite bathroom where Sam could have a ‘good old soak’.
‘Treat the house as your own, dear,’ she said. ‘You’ll be nice and cosy, the central heating switches off at midnight but it comes on automatically at six in the morning.’
Sam looked longingly at the huge bathtub. ‘I’ll take you up on that, Mrs M,’ she said.
It was the first thing she thought of when she awoke the following morning. A long, hot bath, she couldn’t wait. Then she looked out of the stable loft windows and gasped. The world was white. The gravel car park, the trellises, the pebbled courtyard beyond, all was blanketed in snow. A white Christmas. She laughed out loud. The gang at the theatre had promised her her first white Christmas. They’d told her that the weather reports had said it would snow during the night, but she hadn’t believed them. There’d been heavy frosts each morning but it hadn’t snowed once since she’d been in Fareham. Why should it choose to do so on Christmas Eve? But it had.
Apart from the crunch of her footsteps, all was silence as Sam trudged through the whiteness to the front door of Chisolm House. She’d never seen snow, and she felt a sense of wonderment.
She went into the front drawing room and sat at the table by the bay windows. No wonder Phoebe Chisolm had loved the garden when it snowed, she thought. The trees, the lawn, the fountain, all cloaked in white, it was magical.
A snowball caught Jane fair in the face. She squealed. Her own missile had missed its mark as Phoebe ducked and weaved about the garden. Both girls dropped to their knees, hastily balling together more snow in their gloved hands, and the fight was on. They assiduously avoided hitting the snowman, however; they were very proud of their snowman. Jane always maintained it was a cheat building it over the fountain, but Phoebe said if it meant they had the best snowman in town, who cared?
Upstairs, as Sam soaked in the hot bath, she wondered at the fact that she didn’t feel intrusive. Under normal circumstances she would. She’d feel uncomfortable lying in someone else’s bathtub in someone else’s house. But it was as if the house wanted her there. She felt at home. She put it down to the snow. It had snowed just to give her her first white Christmas, she decided. So that she wouldn’t feel lonely. And she didn’t. The snow and the house made her feel very special.
Hands shoved deep in the pockets of her anorak, collar up, scarf wrapped firmly around her neck, Sam set off on her hike to Titchfield. She wasn’t even halfway there before she took off the coat and scarf, no longer aware of the cold. A wintry sun was already turning the snow to sludge.
Titchfield was as picturesque as Mrs M had promised and, from the moment she crossed the stream and walked up East Street, Sam felt she’d stepped into the past. Then East Street wound to the left and broadened into High Street and she found herself in the centre of the village, surrounded by Georgian brick houses converted into shops and cafes. She walked down to the end of the broad thoroughfare, to where, like the spokes of a wheel, narrow roads, each lined with little cottages, led away from the village to the farms and surrounding countryside. With the exception of the cars gathered around the Queen’s Head pub where a raucous Christmas party ensued, she could have been standing in another time.
The sturdy white pony plodded across the little bridge that forded the stream, unbothered by the three small girls perched upon his back. Surefooted and confident, he turned off East Street into the lane which led through the church graveyard. He needed no guidance. Beyond the graveyard was the paddock that was his home.
Maude Cookson was pleased that Jane and Phoebe liked to ride her pony. Jane was the smartest girl in their class at school and Phoebe’s dad was Dr Chisolm, one of the most important people in the whole borough. Jane Miller and Phoebe Chisolm were good friends to have. Particularly Phoebe. Maude so wanted Phoebe to be her friend. There was one thing, h
owever, which Maude found bewildering.
‘You should have your own pony, Phoebe,’ she’d said on a number of occasions. ‘You’ve got stables where you live, and they’re not even used.’ Maude’s father was a strawberry farmer and they had plenty of space to build stables, but they didn’t have the money.
‘Daddy won’t let me.’ Phoebe’s sigh was always one of utter exasperation. She’d pleaded often enough, but she hadn’t been able to win her father around as she usually did.
So the walk into Titchfield to ride Maude Cookson’s pony had become a regular event for Phoebe and Jane.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon, the air still and freezing with the promise of more snow, when Sam arrived back at Chisolm House to discover Pete, huddled in his greatcoat, sitting on the steps to the front door.
‘G’day, Sam,’ he said. It was a running gag between them, he was always sending her up about being Australian. ‘Crikey, you look a mess.’
She knew it. Her hair was glued to her head and, although her hands were numb from the cold, her body was sweating with exertion. She was tired but exhilarated.
‘What do you expect?’ she asked. ‘I’ve just walked ten miles. What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Waiting for you. Here.’ He delved into the pockets of his greatcoat and produced two tinfoil wrapped packages. ‘A touch of Christmas,’ he said holding them out to her, one in each hand. ‘One’s turkey and one’s plum pudding, I’ve forgotten which is which.’
‘Oh Pete,’ she laughed. ‘It’s very kind of you, but it’s not necessary. I’m having the best day, I’m not lonely, you don’t need to worry about me.’
‘I’m not. I’m just pretending to.’ She looked understandably confused. ‘I had to get out of that house,’ he explained. ‘You were my excuse. Can’t we go inside? It’s freezing out here.’
‘Of course, I’m sorry. Come and I’ll make us some coffee.’ As they walked down the drive to the stables, she wasn’t sure whether she was glad to see him or not. He’d broken the mood, she’d been enjoying her solitude. But he looked so forlorn, she had the feeling it was he who needed comforting.
It was warm in the stables’ lounge room, she’d left the heating on, and she dried her hair with a towel as she waited for the coffee to brew. He sat in an armchair and watched her as she chatted away about Titchfield.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s a very pretty village.’ Did she know how beautiful she was? he wondered as she dumped the towel on the bench and set out the coffee mugs, not bothering to comb the tousled wet hair that still clung to her cheeks. It was intriguing to meet a woman so unself-conscious, such a change from Melaney. But then Sam was only eighteen; perhaps Melaney had been like that once. Highly doubtful, he thought wryly. Melaney had always been aware of her beauty and the impact it had on others. It had been one of the things he’d loved about her, he had to admit. He’d felt proud of her for it.
‘There you go.’ She placed two steaming mugs on the coffee table between them and sat in the armchair opposite. ‘Do you want anything to eat?’ she asked.
‘After Susan’s Christmas dinner? You’re joking.’
‘Well, I’m bloody starving, do you mind?’ She jumped up from the armchair and started unwrapping the tinfoil packages which sat on the bench.
‘They’re probably not hot any more,’ he said.
‘Who cares, it’ll be better than the chicken in the fridge. You sure you don’t want some?’ She brought the open tinfoil packages to the coffee table and squatted in the armchair, legs folded beneath her.
He shook his head. ‘So it was going to be cold chicken for Christmas dinner, was it?’
‘Yep,’ she nodded with her mouth full of turkey. ‘Chook, that’s what we call it back home, and a bottle of champagne. God this is good. And you’re wrong, it’s still warm.’ She shovelled another lump of breast meat into her mouth. ‘What’s the matter, Pete, why are you down?’
It was a confronting question. He hadn’t realised he’d been so readable, and he certainly hadn’t intended to bring his problems to Sam, he’d simply wanted to get out of the house with its cacophony of children’s chatter and Christmas bonhomie. But he admired her directness.
‘Melaney and I have split up,’ he said. ‘Melaney’s my wife.’
Well, that was pretty obvious, Sam thought. In fact everything was obvious, the man looked so sad. ‘Do you still love her?’
‘Yes.’ His response was instinctive and his answer genuine, but he didn’t like her asking the question he’d so often asked himself of late.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No.’ Her directness was becoming intrusive. He rose from the armchair. ‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ he said stiffly, ‘I didn’t mean to intrude on your Christmas.’
‘Well, you have, so why don’t you stay?’ She realised that she’d overstepped the mark but she didn’t want him to go, she no longer wanted to be alone. ‘Let’s open the champagne.’ She crossed to the refrigerator. ‘I promise I won’t ask any more questions.’ She got out the bottle and started struggling with the foil. ‘It’s not the good stuff, but it’s got bubbles.’
He realised he’d overreacted. Good God, he was often criticised for his own directness, why should he blame the girl for hers? He took the bottle from her and opened it. ‘Why not? I can hardly leave you on your own to wallow in loneliness, can I?’ He smiled. He was very good-looking when he smiled, she thought, wondering why she hadn’t noticed before. ‘Not that you seem to be doing much wallowing. In fact you’re positively glowing.’
‘Yes I am, aren’t I?’ She grinned disarmingly. ‘It’s my first white Christmas. I’m having the best time.’
It seemed a catch-phrase of hers, and he wondered whether it was defensive. Perhaps she didn’t want him to know how vulnerable she was. But it certainly sounded healthy. He’d love to be able to say ‘I’m having the best time’.
‘That’s good.’ He offered her the glass and they sat once again in the armchairs. ‘And you’re enjoying the show too,’ he said, getting things back on a professional keel, very much aware of his own vulnerability and Sam’s attractiveness and the fact that they were alone in the stables. ‘That’s pretty obvious.’
‘Oh I do, I love it, Pete,’ she said excitedly. ‘And I’m learning such a lot!’
He was surprised. It didn’t seem to him that Samantha Lindsay had much to learn. She could sing and dance with the best of them and she was a natural actor. ‘What are your plans, Sam? After the panto. Do you go back to the soap?’
‘Nope. I’m going to concentrate on the theatre, I’ve decided. That’s if they’ll have me of course, there’s always a bit of a stigma attached to soap actresses, and it’s tough breaking into the Australian theatre with no formal training.’
She could see he was surprised by the fact that she was untrained. She wondered what he’d say if she told him she’d never worked in the theatre before. She decided to maintain her silence on that score.
‘Why don’t you stay in England?’ he asked. Sam was taken aback, the thought hadn’t occurred to her. ‘I could put you in touch with a good agent,’ he said. ‘Melaney’s with Reginald Harcourt, he’s excellent. One of the smaller exclusive agencies, personal management really.’
‘Why would he be interested in me?’
Pete wasn’t sure that he would be, and he didn’t want to raise the girl’s hopes. She’d need more than talent in this cutthroat industry. More than guts too. You had to be hungry to make it. He wondered if she was aware of that.
‘You’d have an outside chance,’ he said cautiously. ‘In his own quiet way Reginald’s a bit of a megalomaniac, he likes to create new success stories. And he’s a nice chap, I’m sure you’d get on.’ He wondered whether in actual fact they would. Reginald was a private man and he might find Sam’s forthright qualities a bit much. ‘Mind you, he takes some getting to know.’
Pete realised that he was chatting in order to distract himsel
f, both from her proximity and her attention. She was leaning forward on the very edge of her armchair, her face close to his and, champagne glass forgotten in her hand, her full focus was directed at him. He found it most disconcerting. His overwhelming desire to kiss her shocked him. ‘You’d have to take it easy to start with. He’s a bit of an enigma, Reginald, no-one even knows whether he’s gay or not, he keeps very much to himself.’
Sam was experiencing her own sense of shock, having realised, all of a sudden, that Pete was attracted to her. She was accustomed to men finding her attractive but she was rarely attracted in return. Pete’s desire didn’t come as a shock, but her reciprocation did. What she’d taken to be admiration for Pete Harris had undergone a swift change and she realised that she found him extraordinarily attractive. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him.
‘So your wife’s an actress?’ she asked, her eyes straying to his mouth.
‘Yes,’ he drained his glass and rose to get the bottle. Did the girl know what she was doing? The way she was looking at him, was it open seduction, or was it just his wishful thinking? ‘A very good one too.’ He poured his own glass. ‘You haven’t drunk yours,’ he said.
‘Oh. Sorry.’ She drained her glass in three healthy gulps and held it out to him for a refill.
‘I’m not sure if I could get him to come to Fareham.’
‘Who?’
‘Reginald Harcourt.’ Pete sat, putting the bottle on the coffee table between them. ‘He doesn’t usually cover pantos. But I’m sure I could arrange an appointment for you in London.’