Twelve Days Of Christmas Part 7

'I drove Grandpa up,' Jess said. 'I was bored and I like driving the buggy; only I'm not allowed to do it on my own.'

Seeing she was looking wistfully at my slice of fruit cake I said, 'Can I get you both some tea and perhaps a slice of cake? Mine has gone cold because your nephew just rang again, so I was going to make a fresh pot anyway.'

'Oh, Jude got through?' he asked. 'What a pity we were not here in time to speak to him.'

'I'm afraid he simply had to go. But I expect he'll phone you back later.'

'Very likely . . . but we don't want to disturb you if you are busy,' he said, with a look at the pile of papers next to the easy chair.

'Not at all, I was only going to look at some notes for a recipe book I'm compiling Cooking for House-Parties. I've been collecting recipes and tips for years, but now I'm finally hoping to get it ready to send out to publishers in the New Year.'

'Do people have large house-parties any more? I remember them as a young man, and jolly good fun they were, too!' said Noel a little wistfully.

'Oh yes, you'd be surprised but probably they're very different from the ones you knew.'

'I know Becca still gets invited to shooting and fishing ones,' he said. 'And the family have always gathered here at Old Place between Christmas and Twelfth Night, so that is a house-party too, I suppose.'

'I think your book needs a less boring t.i.tle than Cooking for House-Parties, Jess said frankly.

'That's just the working t.i.tle, but if you can think of a better one, let me know.'

'I'm writing a vampire book, with lots of blood,' she confided.

'I expect there would be in a vampire book.'

'There wasn't a great deal, as I recall, in Bram Stoker's Dracula,' her grandfather said doubtfully.

'There will be in mine. I'm going to kill off all the girls at school I don't like horribly.'

'Good idea that sounds immensely satisfying,' I said.

Noel settled comfortably on the sofa in front of the fire. Jess came through to the kitchen with me and, while I brewed a fresh pot of tea and laid the tray with cups and saucers and the remains of my fast-vanishing fruit cake, fetched a carton of long-life orange juice from the lavish supply in the larder and opened it.

'Jude likes this with his breakfast.'

'Going by the ready meals in the freezer, he doesn't do much cooking, does he? There's lots of other food in there, but most of it looks as if it's been there for ages, especially the game.'

'I think he forgets to cook half the time, apart from breakfast. It's Aunt Becca who puts all the game and trout and stuff in the freezers she's forever visiting friends and coming back with more than she knows what to do with. She gives it to Granny, too. Do you like rabbit?'

'When it's cooked properly.'

'I don't. I can't help thinking about how harmless and nice rabbits are.'

'Well, no-one's going to force you to eat one, are they?' I said with a smile. 'I could make you a rabbit you would like one day though a chocolate blancmange one! There's a lovely Victorian gla.s.s mould in one of the cupboards and I'm dying to try it. You could come to tea, if your grandparents say it's all right.'

'Oh, they won't mind. What's blancmange?'

'A kind of flavoured milk jelly.'

'Is it like Angel Delight? Granny has some of that in the cupboard.'

'Sort of. You know, someone ought to eat up the game in the freezer, it's such a waste otherwise.'

'As long as it isn't me. Though actually, your cooking might be better than Granny's her food is all a bit weird.'

'I expect she just cooks like she did early in her career and tastes have changed,' I said tactfully. 'By the way, the black stuff in those pinwheel sandwiches she gave me for lunch . . . I don't suppose you know what that was?'

'It's a heavily guarded secret. I call it minced rancid car tyre.'

'That's a pretty fair description,' I admitted.

'I know Granny carries on as if she does all the cooking herself, but actually Edwina does most of it really,' Jess confided. 'That's the real reason why they always move into Old Place when she goes off to her relatives for Christmas and New Year. Goodness knows what Christmas dinner will be like this time!'

I felt another inconvenient pang of conscience, though why I should I can't imagine, since it's Jude Martland who ought to be having them, not me!

'You can help her with the cooking,' I suggested. 'I used to help my gran, that's what started me off thinking I wanted to become a chef.'

'She's very bossy and says she doesn't want little girls in the kitchen under her feet when she's busy, even though I'm nearly thirteen and way taller than she is! I help Grandpa with the washing up, instead.'

The tea was ready and I carried the tray into the sitting room, finding Noel half-asleep before the fire, though he woke up the instant the crockery rattled.

'Lovely to see the fire lit in here again,' he said, 'it seemed so cold and unwelcoming without it.'

'I thought it would air the house out old houses seem to get dank and musty very quickly, don't they?'

'Yes, indeed. Of course, with only a week to go until Christmas Eve, this room would usually be decorated for Christmas by now, with the tree in the corner by the stairs and a kissing bough . . .' he said regretfully. 'All the decorations are in the attic, though Jude's mother used to make swags of greenery from the garden, she was very good at that sort of thing.'

'The attic is locked, as are one or two other rooms,' I said. 'That's fine, but do you have the keys in case there's an emergency, like a burst water pipe?'

'The attic isn't locked, it's just the door that's very stiff,' Jess said. 'I remember that from playing hide and seek last Christmas. When I went up there, no-one found me for ages.'

'That was because it was supposed to be out of bounds,' Noel reminded her. 'But yes, I do have all the rest of the keys, including the one for the mill studio, just in case.'

'Oh good. I don't suppose for a minute I'll need them, I just like to know. I expect I'll only really use this room, apart from the kitchen wing it has a lovely warm, homely feel to it, despite being so big.'

'Yes, it was always the heart of the house.' He sighed and his gaze rested on a black and white family group photograph that stood on one of the occasional tables. 'There were five of us children, you know, and now only Becca and I are left. Jacob was the eldest, but he was killed at Dunkirk, poor chap, and another brother, Edward, was badly wounded later. Alex Jude's father inherited, though he didn't marry until late in life. But they're all gone now, all gone . . .' He shook his head sadly. 'Alex pa.s.sed away last January, after a long illness.'

'I noticed the house had some adaptations for an invalid, like the stairlift . . . and excuse me, but did you say one of your brothers was called Edward?' I asked.

'Yes, though we always called him Ned.'

I was startled by the revelation that there had indeed been a Ned Martland, a contemporary of Gran's but surely this was just one more of those strange coincidences that life throws at you? I couldn't see how their paths could ever have crossed . . .

'He was a bit of a rip, but full of fun and mischief Jude's younger brother, Guy, reminds me of him.' Noel shook his head with a rueful smile. 'There was no real harm in him, but he was the black sheep of the family, I suppose, whereas Guy has settled down very well lately he's an international banker in London, you know.'

'He's settling down with Uncle Jude's ex-fiancee,' Jess pointed out. 'And I don't think Uncle Guy is very nice at all.'

'He is very naughty to tease you,' Noel said, 'but he doesn't mean any harm by it.'

Since Jess was at the age where your main wish in life is to be totally invisible and anyone even glancing at you could be an agony, I thought Guy Martland sounded very insensitive and mean indeed! Just as objectionable, in his own way, as his brother Jude, in fact.

'I'm sure it was all for the best that Jude's fiancee broke the engagement, because she can't have been in love with him,' Noel said, 'and I am a firm believer in marriage being for life.'

'Yes, me too and beyond,' I murmured absently, my mind still on Ned Martland.

'Guy and Coco that's her silly name just got engaged,' Jess said. 'It was in the paper and I think that's why Uncle Jude said he wasn't coming back from America until after Christmas.'

'Oh, but he already had the invitation to spend the holidays with friends after the event to mark the installation of his sculpture . . . Though perhaps you are partly right, Jess,' her grandfather conceded. 'I expect Guy would have thought nothing of turning up for a family Christmas despite everything, had Jude stayed at home.'

'They haven't spoken since last Christmas,' Jess explained. 'Jude invited Coco here to meet the family and she and Guy got very friendly. Uncle Jude was pretty grim.'

'I expect he would be!' I agreed, though going by the photographs I'd seen, and my brief conversations with him, he was always pretty grim.

'Then she and Jude had a big argument and Guy drove her home and that was it.'

'I don't feel that Guy behaved very well in the circ.u.mstances, even if there was a mutual attraction between him and Coco,' Noel said, looking troubled. 'It upset my brother, too, that there was a breach between his two sons and Jude thought it hastened his last illness.' He shook his head sadly. 'Not that Alex liked her very much it was her first visit to Old Place and she made it clear she was expecting a much larger and grander house.'

'It seems pretty large and grand to me,' I said, surprised.

'Still, she won't have to live here if she marries Guy and Jude will just have to forgive and forget.'

'I don't suppose she'll come here much anyway,' Jess said. 'She didn't seem to like being in the country at all and wouldn't go out except in the car, because she hadn't brought any shoes except stiletto heels, though she could have borrowed some wellies. And she's scared of horses and dogs. Granny says she's all fur coat and no knickers, and Guy could do better.'

I swallowed a sip of tea the wrong way and coughed, my eyes watering.

'I don't think you should repeat that phrase, really,' Noel said mildly.

'How on earth did she meet Jude in the first place?' I asked. 'It doesn't sound as if they had a lot in common.'

'She is a model and also, I believe, aspires to be an actress. Someone brought her to Jude's last big retrospective exhibition and introduced her. She's very, very pretty indeed, if your taste runs to fair women.'

'Uncle Jude's must, mustn't it?' Jess said.

'I suppose we do tend to be attracted to our opposites,' I suggested.

'You're very dark, so was your husband fair?'

'Jess, you really shouldn't ask people personal questions!'

'I don't mind and yes, my husband had blond hair and blue eyes. His younger sister is my best friend and has the same colouring she's very pretty too.'

How I'd longed to be small, blonde and cute when I was at school, rather than towering above everyone, even the boys! I'd been thin as a stick too, which had made me even more self-conscious though actually I wasn't sure it was any better later when I filled out and men started to talk to my b.o.o.bs instead of me . . . except Alan, of course.

'Well, I think we ought to be going!' Noel said, getting up.

'I'm walking down to the village tomorrow, to explore,' I told him. 'I'll call in at the lodge to see if there's anything you'd like me to bring back from the shop.'

'I'll ask Tilda,' he promised. 'You are very kind!'

It seemed to me that, far from being isolated and alone at Old Place, I was going to be inundated with visitors!

The day had gone by in a flash, so I went to put the dried beet to soak in a bucket for Lady's bedtime mash and then went out with it and some of Billy's goat munchies to lure them back into the stable.

Thanks to a bit of timely advice from Becca, I knew that if I was carrying the bucket then Lady would simply follow me into her loosebox and Billy would come with her, and so it was. Then I shut them both up all cosily for the night.

After my conversation with Noel, I abandoned my cookbook notes and brought down Gran's journal and read on steadily into the evening. I was again tempted to flick forward and see if I could spot any mention of Ned Martland, but I'd been enjoying all the details of Gran's life as she slowly came out of her sh.e.l.l under Hilda and Pearl's influence and I didn't want to rush it: this was a girl whose idea of a night of dissipation was a trip to the cinema!

I finished that journal and read the first page or two of the next in bed before I went to sleep. By then Gran had started referring to the new patient as 'N.M'! It occurred to me that there was a very natural way her path might have crossed with the Old Place Ned Martland and after what Noel had said about his brother being a black sheep, I'll be really worried for her if it turns out to be him.

But I suppose even if it is, then given Gran's upbringing and nature, it could only have been some kind of Brief Encounter!

Chapter 9.

Daggers.

Hilda and Pearl kindly warned me that N.M. was a flirt and not to take anything he said seriously, but he was very sincere and sweet when I told him about Tom and my intention to devote my life to nursing. He is kind when he is being serious and easy to talk to.

February, 1945.

Next morning the wind had died down a bit, but everything was thickly furred with frost. But then, it's been growing steadily colder since I got here and, according to the radio, the odds on it being a white Christmas were getting shorter and shorter by the minute.

The house was already starting to warm through now I'd lit the fire, though, and I was keeping it going by a lavish application of logs from the cellar. The place will soon feel cosy, despite its size.

After breakfast (which I ate with the latest of Gran's journals propped in front of me) I let Lady and Billy out. Billy ignored the open gate and jumped straight over the fence like a . . . well, I was going to say goat!

I hung a filled haynet on the rail, high enough so that Lady wouldn't catch her feet in it when it was empty (another bit of advice from the invaluable Becca!) and broke a thin skin of ice on the trough, before tidying up the loosebox.

Merlin had wandered off up the paddock, which I thought was probably exercise enough for the morning, so I went back in and prepared to give the sitting room the sort of cleaning my Gran always referred to as 'a good bottoming', something it clearly hadn't had for quite some time.

It's part of the Homebodies remit that we keep the rooms of the house that we actually use neat and clean, it's just that the houses aren't usually quite on this scale!

I don't enjoy the process of cleaning, but I do love a nice clean room, so I suppose you could call that job satisfaction. Although it's not in the same league as providing an excellent dinner for twenty-five people with mixed dietary requirements every day for a fortnight with effortless expertise. Now that's satisfying on a creative level, too I sometimes think cooking is a kind of ephemeral art form.

Anyway, by the time I'd vacuumed the pattern back into existence on the lovely old carpet, mopped the bit of stone floor around the edges, removed spider's webs from every corner and polished the bra.s.s fender, fireguard and furniture (and even the front door knocker, while I was about it), it all looked wonderful and I looked a grubby mess and had to go and shower again.

By this time it was late morning, so I put on my warm, down-filled jacket and set out for the village with Merlin, since he was desperate to come with me. The poor old thing seems to have attached himself to me already, but life must have been very confusing for him lately.

As well as exploring, I wanted to see if the shop had the extra supplies I had on my list and anything Tilda might want, so I hoped there would be something to tie Merlin to outside it. I suppose I should have taken the car really, only I like to walk and my rucksack is very roomy.

Noel insisted I went into the lodge for a moment, even though Merlin seemed to take up a lot of s.p.a.ce in the small, cluttered room, and when he wagged his tail he nearly took out the Christmas tree and a snowglobe. I felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland when she'd drunk the get-bigger potion, myself.