Home for Christmas (8 page)

‘I like Agnes. She’s fun,’ she said. ‘And Heathlands. Imagine a country estate. I think Christmas there will be quite wonderful.’

She said nothing about Agnes’s plans for a birthday party but entertained a childish excitement. She was quite looking forward to it. Although she was only two years off twenty-one, she still yearned to celebrate her birth, no matter what her father might think.

‘Lydia,’ her father began in the kind of tone he always used when about to speak his mind, ‘I wouldn’t want you getting too fond of her. She is after all merely a cook’s daughter.’

Something about his tone, hijacked from his wealthy English patients and friends, irritated.

‘I like Agnes. I don’t care where she’s from. You wouldn’t want to offend Sir Avis, would you?’

She knew the answer to that. Of course he wouldn’t! Sir Avis was something of a feather in his cap.

He stood tapping the invitations against his fingers, frowning at her whilst he rearranged his thoughts.

‘You haven’t known her for very long. There are things you don’t know about her,’ he grumbled.

‘Am I likely to be contaminated by these things that I don’t know about her?’ she asked sharply.

‘Her status is … questionable …’

‘You mean the status of her birth?’

‘Yes. There are rumours,’ he said slowly.

Lydia shook her head, feeling a growing unease, or perhaps even nausea, with regard to her father’s attitude to class and pedigree.

‘I don’t care about rumours. What I know beyond doubt is that Agnes is a very intelligent girl. Unfortunately, she’s likely to end up doing the same job as her mother simply because of the circumstances of her birth. I must say I think that’s unfair, as unfair as women giving birth to children year after year, expected to feed and clothe them on next to nothing, and men seeming to think …’

Her voice trailed away. She looked down at her hands, studying their softness and imagining how red and blistered they would be if she had to skivvy for a living. The Kinskis’ house was still vivid in her mind, its smell seeming to be lingering at the very top of her nose where the olfactory nerve ran into her brain.

‘You sound as though you have allowed sentimentality to overrule professionalism. It doesn’t do to fall into that trap, Lydia, certainly not in a world where the little you can do to help is just that; too little.’

‘I still think I can try.’

‘Of course you can and I much admire you wanting to change the world. I hope you will.’

‘So we are going to Heathlands for Christmas?’

He jerked his chin in a single curt nod. ‘If Sir Avis has seen fit to honour me with an invitation, I feel obliged to attend.’ He grimaced and his eyes twinkled. ‘More fun perhaps than Christmas with your Aunt Iris.’

‘
Wunderbar
!’

Her father’s sudden grin lit his face, like a naughty boy planning to play truant. ‘Let’s look at the alternative.’

‘Aunt Iris descending on us for the festive season!’ said Lydia.

‘Not if I can help it,’ he said with a rueful grimace.

Placing the invitations behind the mantel clock, her father sighed, took out a handsome pocket watch from his waistcoat, a look of great satisfaction coming to his face as though the time – seven o’clock – gave him great pleasure.

‘Time I was going.’ He went on to state his intention to change clothes and go to the theatre. ‘I may eat at my club,’ he added.

‘Like a true English gentleman,’ said Lydia, whilst thumbing through a recent edition of
Harper’s Bazaar
.

She raised her eyes, regarding him with amusement.

Women loved her father, and her aunt was no exception. She wondered at his relationships with other women. He never mentioned anyone; neither had he introduced her to any of his female acquaintances. Perhaps there had not been anyone of note, not until now. She had lately detected a gleam in his eyes. Someone had touched his heart. It was a matter of time before she found out who that was.

Five days before Christmas, uninvited and unannounced, Iris Wilson arrived on the doorstep surrounded by bulky luggage, namely three brown leather bags and one trunk.

When informed by the housekeeper Mrs Gander that his sister-in-law had arrived, Doctor Miller looked up in dismay from the article he was writing entitled ‘Contraception and Family Stability’. The pen dropped from his hand.

Iris breezed in wearing a new coat, a new hat and for the first time he could recall, looking as though she were wearing rouge on her cheeks and dark lines around her eyes.

‘Darling Eric. Merry Christmas. I thought I would come early and get things organised. Mrs Gander, you do a wonderful job, but you are ever in need of help are you not?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that …’ said Mrs Gander, looking slightly affronted, her chin seeming to recede into her neck.

‘Iris,’ said Eric, pushing down on his chair arms so that he rose more quickly. ‘I sent you a telegram telling you not to come and that we – Lydia and I – would not be at home for Christmas.’

No matter how bright her cheeks, Iris’s complexion seemed suddenly to turn a pale mauve, her lips dark purple.

‘Telegram? What telegram?’

‘You know very well what telegram, Iris,’ said Doctor Miller, gritting his teeth at the same time as trying to wear a welcoming smile. ‘I sent you a telegram telling you not to come.’

The fact was he could barely keep his temper; not that Iris made him angry as such. What she did do was irritate, behaving as though she were flighty and empty headed, when in fact she was totally the opposite.

She spread her hands and looked surprised. ‘Where are you going? Where else could possibly be as welcoming as home with the family on Christmas Day?’

‘This year will be different. We – Lydia and I – have been invited to spend Christmas in the country. A very influential patient of mine owns the house and estate. I cannot turn him down.’

‘How important?’

‘He’s a baronet.’

‘Eric! I don’t know what to say. This is so unexpected. We’ve always spent Christmas together – you and I – and Lydia of course.’

Looking to be on the verge of hysterics – which Doctor Miller didn’t believe for a minute – she took out a lace-trimmed handkerchief and began to dab at her eyes.

‘What shall I do?’

‘So why was it you didn’t receive my telegram? Were you somewhere else?’

He knew very well that Iris spread herself around in the Christmas season. She visited one relative or friend after another before finally settling with her brother-in-law and niece for Christmas.

‘I was with Celia. She hasn’t been well.’

Her eyes suddenly took on a contemplative look, as though something about her visit to Celia had been quite pleasurable.

Eric didn’t know it, but she had attended a large dinner party at the house of a widower, a friend of Celia’s who had paid her court all through the meal. Well, if Eric didn’t want her here … Still it always paid in one’s personal life as well as in business to hedge one’s bets, and she wasn’t about to give in too easily.

‘Are you sure this is what you want to do?’ she asked. Her eyes seemed to fill her whole face and her voice was tremulous – which relieved Doctor Miller; he couldn’t possibly have coped if she had burst into tears and fallen to her knees.

In a bid to soothe her disappointment, he suggested they sit down, take a sherry and discuss the matter in greater depth.

Lydia, who had followed them into the study, standing there without saying a word, excused herself, saying she was meeting the friend she’d gone to the theatre with the night before. She’d thought it best to say theatre rather than the picture house, which was acquiring a bad reputation in some quarters due to the amount of courting couples locked in tight embraces in its darkness.

‘I’ll see you both later.’ She beat a hasty retreat before either of them had the chance to ask her to join them; her aunt for some kind of female affinity she did not feel, her father as a shield against his sister-in-law’s romantic notions.

‘Leave the door open,’ her father called after her.

Lydia smiled. Her father wasn’t often nervous, but he was when Aunt Iris was around.

Lydia could see into the study from the safety of the first floor landing. Being careful his sister-in-law didn’t see, her father looked up at her and grimaced.

‘Now, Iris,’ he said, adopting his very best bedside manner. ‘I do apologise, but that, I am afraid, is the way it is. Lydia and I have a previous engagement.’

Iris Wilson’s generous chest heaved with an equally large sigh.

‘The thought of catching another train and travelling all the way back …’

She rolled her eyes in his direction before tipping the sherry down her throat.

Unable to suggest how the journey might be improved, Doctor Miller instantly poured her another.

‘As I said, Iris, you should have sent a telegram or telephoned to say you were coming. I know you are more in tune with modern inventions than you make out.’

Iris sprang to her feet. ‘I quite understand, Eric! My company is not required. I have no option but to catch the next train back.’

‘I’m sorry, Iris, but if you had contacted me I would have told you not to come.’

‘I do not use telephones. I do not use any of these newfangled devices if I can possibly avoid it. Anyway, they’ll never last.’

‘People said that years ago about the steam train, but you managed to get on that.’

Her jet and marcasite earrings jangled with indignation.

‘Don’t be facetious, Eric. And by the way, my glass is empty.’

Eric apologised and refilled her glass. After replacing the decanter in its tantalus, he paced up and down the room. It was something he couldn’t help doing when Iris was around, afraid she might pounce on him if he dared to stand still.

If he could read her mind, he would see he wasn’t far wrong.

‘I haven’t got a tantalus,’ she said, eyeing the wooden contraption that locked the three bottles within its grasp so the servants wouldn’t be tempted. ‘I think I should buy one. Servants are so dishonest. Food, drink, linen and silver; they’ll steal anything if they can.’

Eric gulped back his drink. If he hadn’t done so, he would have lost his temper. She talked about servants as though they were another species of human being; similar but different.

When Iris Wilson looked at the man her sister had married, something inside her melted. If only he’d listened to what they were
truly
saying all those years ago, he wouldn’t have married Emily, the wild one, Emily, the rebel; perhaps, just perhaps, he might have married her instead.

She pushed the upstart thought away, determined to keep her composure. No matter her true feelings back then, she had erected a barrier between herself and the outside world. A woman running the family business had to be better than the men she dealt with. Men for the most part expected women to be docile, intent only on marriage and having children. Rarely did they come across an independent woman who could wheel and deal with abundant confidence and quite regularly beat tough tradesmen at their own game.

When eventually she realised that her unfeminine attitude put men off, youth and marriage had passed her by. Not that she’d cared much for any of the men who had attempted to woo her. Besides, she’d never forgotten that first fluttering of her heart when she’d set eyes on her sister’s fiancé.

When he was left with a young child to bring up, she had entertained the hope that Eric might consider her as a suitable companion for himself and a mother for Lydia. But Eric had been devastated at the loss of his wife and even though Iris had suggested she could bring the child up in Dorset, Eric had refused. Iris had entertained the hope that having joint care of Lydia might have warmed his heart to her. Alas, it didn’t happen.

Becoming a little light headed, she accepted another sherry, and looked around her. Eric’s study reflected the kind of man he was; the chairs were of dark green leather, the desk strong, hard mahogany. A bookshelf ran along the far end of the room, the books’ titles etched in gilt down their spines.

A black slate fireplace graced the other end of the room and midway between them two matching windows framed by dark green curtains overlooked the street below.

The room had no curving lines, no fancy lace to impede the light coming through the windowpanes. It was a handsome room, a man’s room and even though he was now middle aged, Doctor Eric Miller was still handsome and eminently masculine. No wonder her wild sister had mellowed at the sight of him – though only long enough to marry and produce a daughter.

It occurred to her that even though her looks were more rugged than Emily’s were, they might still be a painful reminder of her charming sister. Perhaps that was why he kept pacing up and down, only stopping to replenish her glass.

However, there were compensations for not being the more beautiful daughter. Her darling father had depended on her to run the rank of shops and the lemonade factory they owned and she’d risen ably to the challenge.

‘Your health,’ Eric said to her, raising what must have been his third drink. She did the same before gulping back half the sherry, feeling it warm the back of her throat.

‘Eric, are you sure you’re doing the right thing spending Christmas at this country house? Are you sure you won’t be overcome with melancholia seeing as it’s the time of year when Emily …’ She licked her bottom lip and let her gaze fall to her half-empty glass. ‘What I mean to say is … what about Lydia? I have been seriously considering my niece’s future. She is also of an age, my dear Eric, when a young girl needs a mother’s guidance. There are certain physical aspects …’

Suddenly she felt her face burning and immediately began fanning her face with her hand. She was not comfortable pronouncing the fact that Lydia was now a young woman with a woman’s desires.

Eric knew exactly what she meant and almost laughed. ‘I am a doctor, Iris, and Lydia is a nurse. She is also a very independent young woman. Do you have any idea how long she nagged me to let her enter the nursing profession? She never gave up. It was what she wanted to do and she’s now studying hard. Frankly, I think she will make a splendid nurse. She is also fully aware of what happens between a man and a woman. If the medical books still leave unanswered questions in her mind, she can ask me. After all, my dear, I am in a position to know! More so than you, my dear Iris.’