Twelve Days of Christmas (23 page)

‘Good morning to you, too,’ he said to me sarcastically, then took his place in the large wheelback chair at the head of the table as if it was his by right – which, come to think of it, it was. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any breakfast left?’

‘Yes, of course, I did extra bacon when I knew you were getting up and I’ll fry you a fresh egg. Guy, would you stick a bit more toast in?’

‘We seem to have quite the extended family party, don’t we?’ Jude said, looking round the table. ‘Odd, I don’t remember inviting any of you – though Noël, Tilda and Becca are always welcome, of course.’

‘And me,’ said Jess.

‘Not when you wake me up at the crack of dawn by hitting me with a pillow,’ he said gravely. Then he raised an eyebrow at Coco and Guy. ‘Congratulations! I saw the notice in
The Times
. When’s the wedding?’

‘There isn’t a wedding, or even a proper engagement,’ Guy said. ‘Coco was jumping the gun.’ He picked up his piece of toast and added, nonchalantly, ‘Come to think of it, there wasn’t even a gun – I’ve been trying to get rid of her for weeks.’

‘That’s a lie,’ Coco exclaimed. ‘Everything was fine! I can’t think what’s got into you suddenly, Guy!’

‘Sanity?’

‘He’s fickle, m’dear – takes after his Uncle Ned,’ explained Noël kindly, which was definitely not the sort of thing I wanted to hear about Ned Martland just then!

‘Was Ned Martland
really
fickle?’ I couldn’t resist asking Noël.

‘Yes, m’dear, but he genuinely fell in love with them. Heart soft as butter – but he couldn’t marry ’em all, could he?’

‘There you are, Coco,’ Guy said easily. ‘I can’t help it, it’s in my genes. I’m moving on to the next woman already.’ He blew me a kiss.

‘Oh, rubbish,’ she snapped, then with an effort she rallied, got up and kissed Jude’s unresponsive (and unshaven) cheek, twining her arms girlishly around his neck. ‘Jude, darling, Guy and I had a misunderstanding and he’s still cross, so that’s why he’s being silly, but I know you’ll be happy for us, about the engagement.’

‘There is no
us
, I kept trying to tell you,’ Guy interrupted. ‘Sending an engagement notice to
The Times
without telling me doesn’t actually constitute one.’

Coco burst into tears. ‘You are so cruel to me!’ she sobbed. Looking around for sympathy she did the flying squirrel thing at Michael again. ‘Please take me away from these horrible people – this terrible, terrible place!’

‘That’s an awful line and you used it with me last Christmas,’ Guy remarked critically, ‘right after Jude found us together. And you’re never going to make it as an actress because the delivery was terrible.’

Coco’s sobs began to verge on the hysterical and Michael patted her gingerly, while making a face at me over her head.

‘Poor child,’ Noël said. ‘I really don’t think you’ve treated her well, Guy.’

‘Oh, just fill the big jug with cold water and throw it on her,’ suggested Becca, which was probably also something they had taught her at finishing school.

Coco hastily removed herself from Michael’s shoulder, to his evident relief, and, declaring that she was going to dress and pack, flounced out of the room. I supposed I ought to do the same really – the packing bit, not the flouncing – though the thought was not terribly inviting. But then, neither was the idea of spending Christmas under the same roof as Jude Martland.

Noël rose from his chair, saying to Jude, ‘Glad to have you back, my boy. I’ll go and see if Tilda is getting up.’

‘How is she doing?’

‘Almost herself again,’ he assured him. ‘You’ll see for yourself, shortly.’

‘It was kind of you to rescue me,’ Michael told Jude, ‘but I hope to leave later too, just as soon as we know the roads have been cleared. Perhaps you can give me a lift down to my car?’ he suggested to Guy. ‘Or Holly says I might be able to get the local farmer to take me on his tractor?’

‘Yes, George Froggat, who has the farm up the lane, will clear the road and our drive some time this morning, and he’ll tell us what the road’s like. I’d certainly love to see Guy and Coco on their way, and I expect you’re keen to get off as well, but I can’t very well turn you all out if it’s impassable,’ Jude said, though he looked as if he’d like to.

‘Glad to hear it, though a couple more days of Coco’s hysterics and we might change our minds about turning
her
out into the snow,’ Guy said. ‘But I’m prepared to pay George good money to take her away, so all is not yet lost. In fact, I’ll take my coffee into the sitting room and watch out for him.’

‘So long as he takes
you
away, too,’ Jude called after him.

‘You wouldn’t throw your little brother out into the cold, cold snow, would you?’ Guy said plaintively, turning in the doorway and clutching a melodramatic hand to his chest.

‘Yes, I would,’ Jude said uncompromisingly. ‘And Coco’s your responsibility now, so it’s up to you to see she gets home safely.’

‘There’s a good fire in the sitting room, if you would like to go through with Guy,’ I suggested to Michael.

‘And it’s time we saw to the horses, Jess,’ Becca said. ‘It’s getting late.’

‘Oh, but I’m going to ice the biscuits with Holly!’ she protested.

‘I need to clear up the kitchen and do one or two other things first,’ I told her. ‘We’ll do it when you come back in. And it’s so bitterly cold out there that I’m not sure they should go out today, even double-rugged.’

‘So, who made you an equine expert suddenly?’ Jude said rudely.

‘Oh, you only have to explain something to Holly once, and she’s got it,’ Becca said. ‘But the horses can probably go out for a couple of hours. They’ve got the field shelter.’

When they went out Jude got up too, narrowly missing his head on the lamp that hung over the table.

‘Could we have a word?’ I asked.

‘Later. I want to have a look at Lady in the daylight myself without her rug, and make sure she hasn’t lost any condition.
And
check on the generator – which, by the way, you needn’t go near now I’m back. After that I’ll be in my room next to the library, catching up with the mail.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Later!’ he snapped again and went out before I could point out that there probably wasn’t going to be any post for a while and also that, if he meant his email, the phone was off, making a dial-up connection impossible.

And
before I could mention my urgent desire to remove myself from under his roof.

Chapter 23
Pieced Together

A little later the generator stopped roaring suddenly as the mains electricity came back on. According to Noël, in winter it flickers on and off more often than the fairy lights on the tree. Still, at least the generator had switched itself off, as it was supposed to.

By late morning we were all gathered in the sitting room over elevenses of tea, coffee and, by Tilda’s request, the Dundee cake that was Old Nan’s annual gift to them.

‘Then we can say how much we enjoyed it, when we see her,’ she pointed out.

‘
Are
we seeing her?’ asked Guy.

‘Oh yes, she and Richard will be here for dinner as usual tomorrow.’

Jess and I had water-iced the biscuits in bright colours and were hanging them on the tree with loops of embroidery silk that she had found in an old Victorian sewing box from the morning room, for want of ribbon. Becca was steadying the ladder while I reached up to do the higher branches.

Tilda was on the sofa in front of the fire, with Merlin on the rug at her feet, and Noël, Michael and Guy were at the table in the window, trying to finish piecing together one edge of the jigsaw that I’d bought at Oriel Comfort’s shop, with Coco restlessly watching them from the window seat. There is something very compulsive about a jigsaw puzzle, although it didn’t seem to have that effect on Coco; but then, that was probably nicotine deprivation.

Jude had retired to his little studio office next to the library, though he must have heard Coco’s screech when she finally saw George’s tractor coming up the drive pushing aside the fresh snow like an icebreaker, because he was there when I came back from letting him in.

I expect I must have looked a little bit pink and ruffled, but I regained my composure while George got over his surprise at finding Jude back from America.

‘Never mind that,’ interrupted Coco from the window seat. ‘What I want to know is, has the road been cleared, so we can get away?’

‘I hope by “we” you mean you and Michael,’ Guy said.

‘If you are going to be so mean and I can’t get my car out, then I’m sure Michael would drop me at a railway station.’

George took off his battered felt hat and ran his fingers through his thick thatch of silver-fair hair so that it stood on end. ‘Hold your horses! Liam had a hell of a job clearing the lane down to the village this morning, the old snow’s ridged into ice underneath the fresh stuff. And young Ben from Weasel’s Pot was at the pub, and he told him the lane below the farm is impassable and nothing’s moving down on the main Great Mumming road either.’

‘But that’s ridiculous! Surely, if Jude got up here last night, it’s possible to drive down again?’ Coco exclaimed.

‘It hadn’t frozen over with all this fresh snow on top last night,’ George said, looking her over dispassionately, as if she was a rather poor heifer.

‘And I only just made it up the hill to Weasel Pot with chains on the wheels,’ Jude put in.

‘Yes, and though I don’t doubt you could get down to the village and back, it would be pointless going further, you’d just get stuck,’ George agreed.

‘But you or someone else with a tractor could get me out of here, couldn’t you?’ wheedled Coco in a little-girl voice. ‘Me will pay you wots and wots of money!’

‘Excuse me while I throw up,’ I muttered.

George shook his head. ‘I told you, it’s impassable.’ ‘But presumably the council will be out clearing the main road by now, won’t they?’ suggested Michael. ‘Might it be possible later today?’

‘You can’t have been listening to the weather forecast or watched the news – the snow’s wreaked havoc all over the country. The council won’t bother with the little roads either, when it’s all they can do to clear the main ones.’

‘Guy!’ Coco said, turning to him. ‘
Do
something!’

‘Don’t look at me, I can’t perform miracles,’ he said and she gave an angry sob.

‘It’s your fault I’m here in the first place! Mummy and Daddy will be wondering where on earth I am, and they’ve invited the whole family round on Boxing Day to meet you because we’re engaged
and
bought champagne to toast us. And—’

‘Oh God, she’s going hysterical again,’ Becca said disgustedly. ‘Shall I throw some cold water on her?
Please
let me do it this time – I’d feel so much better!’

‘Now, Becca,’ Noël chided. ‘The poor child’s just a little overset.’

But Coco was not so far gone that she hadn’t heard this implied threat. She retreated to sob quietly on a sofa as far removed from Becca as possible and Michael followed her after a minute and sat next to her, talking quietly and patting her hand.

‘I’ll be off then,’ said George, looking hopefully at me, but I avoided his eye and let Guy see him out this time.

‘It looks as if I’m stuck with all of you over Christmas, unless some miraculous thaw takes place, which seems unlikely,’ Jude said with resignation when Guy came back.

‘We might as well make the most of it, then,’ Guy said. ‘Coco, do stop making that noise.’

‘I c-can’t help it – I want to go home!’ she wailed.

‘It’s not looking very likely at the moment.’

‘I’m sorry to put you out like this,’ Michael apologised to Jude.

‘Oh,
you’re
the least of my worries. Don’t give it a thought.’

‘Perhaps someone will help me dig out my car, just in case it does thaw out this afternoon?’ I asked. Jude turned and looked at me from his treacle-dark eyes and snapped, ‘Why, where the hell do you think
you’re
going?’

‘Home, if I can get out. But if not, I thought perhaps the pub might do rooms . . . I mean, now you’re back, the job I was hired for is finished, isn’t it?’

‘Not so fast,’ he said, ‘you invited a houseful of people here and promised to cook for them, so you can’t just take off like that.’

‘Actually, I only invited half of them.’

‘But, Holly, you can’t go,’ wailed Jess, ‘it won’t be as much fun without you! And what’s more, Uncle Jude can’t cook!’

‘There is that,’ he admitted. ‘Though of course, Tilda can.’

‘Tilda can’t cope with the cooking, not after her fall,’ Noël said. ‘She’s still recovering.’

‘Load of old fusspots – I’m fine,’ Tilda insisted. ‘Though why spoil things when Holly and I have everything organised between us?’

Jude turned his dark eyes forbiddingly in my direction. ‘Anyway, when did I say I wanted
you
to leave? And, by the way, the pub
doesn’t
let rooms.’

‘You
didn’t
say you wanted me to. But now you’re here, the job I was engaged for is ended and I’m sure you would rather I went, so—’

‘The job damned-well isn’t ended!’ he interrupted. ‘I’m paying you at great expense to do the cooking for my family over Christmas and you’re going to stay and earn your money, every last penny of it!’

‘Oh, no, you’re quite wrong, Jude,’ Noël told him, looking surprised. ‘Holly refuses to charge us any extra, though I have told her she should be paid for all her extra trouble, when she was expecting to have a peaceful couple of weeks on her own.’

‘I don’t find cooking for you any trouble,’ I assured him.

‘Of course she doesn’t,’ said Tilda. ‘And very good she is, too.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, touched by this unexpected tribute.

‘Not as good as me, obviously, but very good,’ she qualified.

‘Loth though I am to disillusion you both,’ Jude said to them, ‘I am in fact going to be paying Homebodies through the nose for Holly’s services.’

‘No, you’re not,’ I corrected him. ‘It’s your own fault if you assumed I would do anything you wanted if you offered me enough money, but I’ve already told Ellen that I’ll only be putting in a bill for house-sitting and any extra groceries I’ve had to buy.’

I smiled at Tilda and Noël. ‘I was enjoying myself, actually.’

‘And of course you must stay, Holly, we wouldn’t dream of letting you do anything else!’ Noël insisted. ‘In any case, if she can’t get out, what is she supposed to do, camp out alone in the lodge until she can leave?’

‘I’d be very happy to stay at the lodge, if you didn’t mind?’

‘No, no, of course you are staying here, m’dear!’

‘Yes, for we’ve decided the menus right through to Twelfth Night!’ said Tilda.

‘And Holly’s not only a brilliant cook, she’s
fun
,’ Jess told her uncle. ‘Merlin loves her too,’ she added as a clincher.

Indeed Merlin, deducing from his master’s voice that he was angry with me, now clambered onto my lap and was facing him protectively, all long, dangling limbs and rough fur.

‘He does seem to be her shadow, I can’t think what’s got into him,’ Jude said, staring at his dog. ‘So, Holly Brown, you’ve wormed your way into the heart of the family in a very short space of time, haven’t you? You seem to be a very dangerous, Becky Sharp sort of woman to me. And I’m
still
positive I know you from somewhere.’

Having read
Vanity Fair
, I wasn’t too keen on being likened to Becky Sharp – and I certainly wasn’t a fortune hunter out to marry him!

‘We all thought she looked familiar too,’ Noël said, ‘but I expect it’s only that she has the Martland look – the dark hair, height and light olive skin. So not only does she feel like a member of the family already, she also looks like one and fits right in!’

‘I suppose that could be it,’ Jude agreed.

‘But I get my light grey eyes and dark hair from my grandmother,’ I put in quickly. ‘In fact, apart from being tall and dark, I don’t
really
look like any of you.’

‘You’re much prettier than Jude, that’s for sure,’ said Guy, eyeing me thoughtfully. ‘Though
pretty
isn’t really the right word – you’re beautiful, in an unusual way.’

‘What, me?’ I said, astonished. After years of bullying about my height and looks, not to mention Gran’s repeated assertion that I had no reason to be vain, I found this hard to believe.

‘Yes – even George looked smitten with you – and if he didn’t kiss you under that handy bunch of mistletoe in the porch before you brought him in, why were you blushing?’

‘It was nothing, he just took me by surprise. I hadn’t even noticed the mistletoe hung in the porch until he grabbed me.’ I could feel myself going pink again, because there was no mistaking that George fancied me!

‘Becca and I hung that up,’ Noël explained. ‘There’s always a bunch of mistletoe there.’

Behind me, Coco’s piercing voice could be heard saying to Michael, ‘Guy said that housekeeper woman was beautiful – but she’s not, is she? And I mean, she might be tall enough to be a model, but she’s
way
too fat!’

I turned round and snapped, ‘If you think being a healthy weight is fat, then you’re sick! In any case, I’d rather be fat than so skinny I rattled when I walked! Excuse me: if no-one’s leaving, I’d better go and do something about lunch.’

I went out to the kitchen since clearly I hadn’t got much option but to stay, unless the roads miraculously cleared and this now seemed unlikely. Lunch was only going to be soup and sandwiches and I would lay it in the sitting room. I was getting tired of having so many people underfoot in my kitchen. There were some nice pale blue two-handled soup cups with saucers and stacks of paper napkins. I’d found a stash of real linen ones in the downstairs cupboard, but as far as I was concerned they could stay there until Jude had managed to find a handy skivvy willing to wash and iron them for her lord and master after use.

A few minutes later Jude followed me in and closed the door, then stood there with his arms folded, looking at me in a frowning, puzzled sort of way. I ignored him, as much as you could ignore something that size glowering at you, while I put the soup on the stove and got out some little oval tins of expensive game pâté I’d discovered in one of the cupboards. The use-by date was the end of December, so they needed eating.

‘I wish you’d sit down and stop looming about,’ I snapped eventually. ‘Cooking isn’t a spectator sport, you know.’

He pulled out the sturdiest of the wheelback chairs and sat on it and it protested, but weakly: I think it knew its place.

‘My mother liked to cook and I loved to watch her,’ he said unexpectedly.

‘I envy you that, because I never knew mine: she died when I was born. Gran told me lots about her, but it’s not the same thing,’ I said, softened by this picture of him as a child, hard though it was to imagine now. ‘Perhaps some of the cookery books on the shelf are hers?’

‘I expect they are, but she was just an amateur, while you, as you told me on the phone, are a highly-paid cook.’

‘Chef.’

‘Whatever.’ He fixed his treacle-dark eyes on me and I noticed for the first time that they had disconcertingly mesmerising flecks of gold in them . . .

I wrenched my gaze away with an effort and carried on with what I was doing and he said, ‘Look, Holly, I don’t understand what game you’re playing, though it’s pretty clear you’re up to
something
; but since we need your help over Christmas, I’ll pay you whatever you want. It seems as if you’re going to be stuck here with us, anyway.’

‘Unless I go and stay in the lodge? But I’m not
up
to anything and nor did I offer to look after your family for money. I did it because I felt sorry you’d spoilt their Christmas – and also, I
really
like them.’

‘So, are you saying you were just winding me up when you told me your charges were astronomical and that I couldn’t afford them?’ He scowled blackly at me.

‘My cooking charges
are
astronomical, but I didn’t actually say I was going to bill you for them at any point, did I? I told Ellen not to.’

‘You let me assume you were!’

‘Only because you annoyed me by assuming I was totally mercenary.’