Trisha Ashley - Twelve Days of Christmas

‘I’d forgotten about you!’ Jude said, then turned to me: ‘Look, I’m going to bring the Land Rover into the shelter of the yard. You take him into the kitchen and thaw him out.’

‘Yeah, and what did your last one die of?’ I muttered, but he was running his hands over the gently throbbing generator and didn’t hear me. Honestly, men and their toys!

‘It’s fine,’ I assured him. ‘Henry showed me what to do if it wouldn’t start automatically. There’s no mechanical skill involved that I can see.’

‘There is if it goes wrong,’ he said, then turned and strode off.

‘Well, do come into the house,’ I invited the shivering stranger and he followed me in gratefully. I made him take his soggy shoes and outer layers off in the passage and put them in the utility room to dry off, along with mine.

Now I could see him better, he was very handsome, in a thin, fair way — chilled but perfectly preserved. ‘I’m M-Michael Whiston,’ he said, holding out a hand like a frozen blue fish.

‘Holly Brown — come on through, it’s warmer in the kitchen. And never mind the dog, Merlin is harmless.’

Merlin didn’t seem terribly interested in the stranger, except in a polite sort of way, but at the roar of the Land Rover’s engine outside and then a pair of heavy thuds — presumably as baggage was tossed through the back door — he uttered a low bark and began to wag his tail.

‘Just as well someone’s glad to see him,’ I muttered. I pulled up a chair next to the Aga for Michael and then fetched a picnic rug from the utility room and draped it around him. He smiled gratefully.

I’d put the kettle on and was making tea by the time Jude came in, in stockinged feet and drying his hair on Merlin’s towel. He tossed it aside and bent to fondle the old dog’s ears.

‘I looked in on Lady — she seems fine,’ he said grudgingly.

‘Of course she’s fine, I kept telling you she was. And Becca’s keeping an eye on her now, too.’ I handed him a mug. ‘Give your friend this, he’s got hypothermia. I’ve put brandy in it.’

‘Not the good brandy from the dining room, I trust?’

‘No, I used that up in the cake. This is some cheap stuff I got from the pub.’

‘You put my Armagnac in the cake?’ he asked with disbelief.

‘I had to make a Christmas cake in a hurry and I assumed it wasn’t much good or you would have locked it in the cellar with the rest of the booze. Mo and Jim wouldn’t have touched it anyway and neither would I — all the Homebodies staff are vetted for honesty, soberness and reliability.’

‘I forgot about it until too late, but it was Sharon I didn’t trust, not Mo and Jim.’ He stared at me. ‘I’d never have thought of anyone putting the last of my father’s good brandy in a cake, though!’

‘It’s not the last, Noël found another bottle in the cellar. And anyway, the cake is for your family and it smells delicious. Now, for goodness sake, give the tea to your friend before it goes cold!’

‘Michael isn’t my friend, I’d never met him before tonight. He’s just another fool who got his car stuck on the lower road trying to take a shortcut.’

‘The SatNav sent me down there,’ the man said, gratefully clamping both shaking hands around the mug, though at least his teeth seemed to have stopped chattering. ‘But the snow got too bad and I couldn’t go any further.’

‘I had to bring him with me, I couldn’t leave him to freeze to death in his car. I’ll be surprised if even the snowplough gets through in the morning, if it carries on like this.’

‘I’m astonished you got up here at all if it’s that bad, because George Froggat said the bottom end of the lane often gets impassable in snow and ice and the weather’s much worse now. But I sincerely hope you’re wrong, and it thaws out a bit by morning.’

‘I had chains for the tyres in the back of the Land Rover, so I stopped and put them on as soon as I left the motorway. But no-one in their right mind would drive up narrow country lanes in this weather without them.’ He gave the other man a look of scorn.

‘Well, thank you for rescuing me, anyway,’ Michael said, with an attempt at a smile. ‘And for making me put on half the clothes in my suitcase, too!’

I sat down at the table with my tea and Merlin immediately abandoned his master and came and sat down, leaning against my leg as he usually does, his head on my knees. Jude gave him one of the frowning looks he’d been bestowing on me earlier, though slightly puzzled, too.

Now I’d got over the surprise, I’d started to wonder how Jude’s arrival would affect me: after all, I was only here to house-sit and he wouldn’t need me now. Still, time to sort that out in the morning. I’d pray for a sudden thaw!

‘I’ll have to give Michael a bed for the night,’ Jude said.

‘Then I’m afraid it will either have to be yours or the little servant’s room next to mine in this wing.’

He had been pushing back his unruly dark hair, which was trying to curl damply, but now stopped and stared at me with his treacle toffee-coloured eyes. ‘Why? What’s the matter with the others? I mean, only three of them can be occupied, apart from yours?’

‘Actually, no, all the rooms in that wing are in use tonight: your brother Guy arrived earlier and his fiancée — or ex-fiancée I should say, since they’ve had a falling-out — followed him. I’ve put her in the nursemaid’s room next to Jess, since Guy wouldn’t give up his room for her and we couldn’t put her in yours, because it was locked and even Noël didn’t have the key.’

‘What, Guy and Coco are here?’ he demanded, missing most of the explanation and going straight to the nub of the matter.

‘Yes, Coco managed to run her car off the road and I have no idea where it is now, but the other car outside is your brother’s.’

‘Guy’s got a nerve, coming up here while I’m away!’ Anger sparked in his eyes.

‘He certainly has: he seemed to think he could simply turn up and the Chirks would feed and look after him!’

‘And I suppose you let him bamboozle you into letting him stay?’

‘Look,’ I said shortly, ‘I got back from a shopping trip to the village and he was here already, with your aunt and uncle, in his family home. How do you think I, the house-sitter, was supposed to eject him? Oh, and he’d had a couple of drinks by then, too, so there was no way he could have driven anywhere.’

‘I suppose not,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘You said Coco had an accident? Is she all right? Where is everyone?’

‘Coco’s fine, apart from some exhausting hysterics after arguing with your brother when she arrived, but it’s been a bit of a day, and they’ve all gone to bed. I was just about to as well, once I’d checked on Lady and Nutkin, but then the electricity went off and the generator obviously wasn’t going to start up on its own.’

‘I hope you’ve been keeping the heating on all the time at a low level, like I said in the instructions?’

‘I don’t think it has any temperature other than low, does it? But I haven’t touched it and I’ve also kept the fire going in the sitting room day and night and opened all the upstairs bedroom doors to let the warm air circulate and air them, luckily.’

‘Except mine, presumably?’

I shrugged. ‘Unless any air sneaked in through the keyhole.’

‘I don’t mind where you put me, I’m just grateful you’ve taken me in,’ Michael offered, sounding much better.

‘The only bedroom left used to be a servant’s one and is a bit Spartan, but it’s warm and comfortable enough and I’ll make your bed up and put a hot water bottle in it,’ I told him.

‘You’re very kind: bed with a hot water bottle sounds like bliss.’ He gave me that charming smile again and I found myself smiling back.

‘That’s all right. You’ll have to share my bathroom, which is just opposite — in fact, you’d better have a hot bath before you turn in. Come on.’

‘What about my bed, aren’t you going to make that, too?’ asked Jude sardonically.

‘No — and if your room is chilly and musty, it’s your own fault for locking it.’

I led Michael up the backstairs, first collecting his two expensive-looking bags from the hall, where Jude had dumped them in a puddle of melting snow with his own. I put out towels and ran a bath while he unpacked his night gear, then while he was in there I made his bed up.

I heard Jude climb the backstairs and walk along the passage, heading for his own wing, and apart from Merlin the kitchen was deserted when I fetched the hot water bottle.

Hoping Michael wouldn’t fall asleep in the bath, I went up to my own bed after washing up the mugs and saying good night to Merlin. Luckily the bathroom was now empty and, in fact, the whole house seemed quiet when I cautiously opened the door to the gallery a crack and listened: a brooding silence reigned.

I had a feeling it wouldn’t be quite so tranquil in the morning. .

By now, I was at that stage beyond exhaustion where you’re looking at everything through thick glass, so I climbed into bed and picked up Gran’s latest journal, saying aloud, ‘Please let me have jumped to all the wrong conclusions so there’s no possibility I’m related to that objectionable man!’

I woke very early, before it was light, and lay there for a little while thinking about poor Granny, for whom the outcome I had feared seemed to have come about. She didn’t marry Ned Martland in the end, but I don’t know if this was because he abandoned her (which looks horribly likely) or because he was killed before it could happen.