Trisha Ashley - Twelve Days of Christmas

Like taking up jogging, for instance, which led to his death. .

‘He was killed in an accident, Jess said?’

‘Yes, just before Christmas — another reason why I’ve never celebrated it since. In fact, I usually spend the anniversary of his death somewhere quiet, where no-one knows me.’

‘Then—’ he stopped. ‘Oh, now I see what made you so reluctant to do what I wanted at first! I’m sorry if you were forced into a celebration you didn’t want!’

‘That’s okay, I’ve started to think all this enforced festivity is actually good for me. And Alan was a sensitive, quiet man with a strong sense of humour — he wouldn’t have wanted me to become a hermit on his account, even once a year.’

‘No, not if he loved you, he wouldn’t,’ he agreed. ‘Have you been out with anyone since. .?’

‘His cousin, Sam.’ I didn’t say that it wasn’t a real date at all, since I didn’t want to sound totally unsought after. ‘What about you?’ I didn’t see why he should ask all the intimate questions!

‘Oh, loads of girls, but nothing serious until Coco: there was something. . vulnerable about her. I thought she needed looking after. And she’s stunningly pretty too, of course.’

‘True,’ I said, feeling oversized, ugly and capable, none of them terribly attractive traits. ‘There is something of the little girl lost about her, isn’t there? But it would be like living with a petulant toddler forever.’

I hoped that didn’t sound sour-grapes.

We crunched on a bit towards the house and then out of the blue he asked, ‘The grandmother who brought you up — is that the same one whose diaries you’re reading?’

‘Yes,’ I admitted reluctantly, ‘though it’s not so much a diary as jottings about her nursing career during the war. My mother died giving birth to me, which sounds a bit Dickensian, but she had acute liver failure. And my grandfather was much older than my gran, so I only just remember him.’

‘Your life seems to have been a succession of tragedies!’

‘Not really, not much more than most people’s are. And yours doesn’t sound much better either, when you think about it, because you lost first your wife, then your mother and father.’

‘Well, let’s not wallow in it,’ he said more briskly. ‘At least, thanks to Noël, Christmas at Old Place has always been a high spot of the year, whatever happens — he does love the whole thing. And so do I, really — deciding to stay away this year was a stupid idea. I feel guilty for forgetting that Jess’s parents weren’t going to be at the lodge for the holidays, too.’

‘You do seem to be her favourite uncle.’

‘She’s taken a shine to you, too,’ he said and added pointedly, ‘like Merlin. Have you been putting something in their food?’

‘Only goodness,’ I said. ‘Noël seems to have unlimited enthusiasm for the Revels too, doesn’t he?’

‘Local people appear to have been telling you an awful lot about them, which we don’t do usually,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘They must forget you’re a stranger, probably because, as Noël said, you’re tall and dark like the Martlands.’

There seemed to be a slight questioning note in his voice, so I thought I would get things straight (or as straight as I was absolutely certain of, to date!): ‘Until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn’t even heard of you,’ I said, which was true enough. ‘I take after my gran’s side of the family, who came from Liverpool originally. Gran always thought there was a foreign sailor ancestor in the mix somewhere.’

‘Oh? Well, the Martland colouring dates back to a long-ago Spanish bride and the darkness genes seem to win out, more often than not, over centuries of fair brides. Becca’s hair was dark before she went grey, too, though her skin was always peaches and cream, not sallow like mine and Guy’s. She was quite a beauty in her day, was Becca.’

‘Since first Alan’s cousin and then Guy thought I looked like Nefertiti, maybe I have Egyptian blood and should get regressed and find out?’ I said dryly.

‘I wouldn’t take anything my brother says too seriously.’

‘I think I’m quite smart enough to work that out for myself, thanks, and anyway, he isn’t my type.’

‘What exactly is your type?’ he asked curiously. ‘What was your husband like?’

‘Same height as me but slim, fair, blue eyes. .’

‘Sounds like Michael.’

‘I suppose it does, really. He’s a really nice man too, like Alan, very kind and thoughtful,’ I said warmly and we were silent after that until we reached the house.

We went round through the courtyard so Jude could go and have a look at Lady and I could go and towel-dry Merlin before letting him loose in the house. His shaggy coat was hung with icy droplets, so that he looked as if he was covered in Swarovski crystals: but he was already a precious object to me.

At Coco’s insistence, Noël had found the printed excerpts from Twelfth Night, so she could practise her scenes with Michael. This seemed to me more of a ruse to retire with him to a dark corner, though he firmly declined to go into a quieter room where they could be on their own.

Noël said the rest of us could read through our parts tomorrow, which would be soon enough, since we were not going to act them out.

‘Though I daresay you could all perform, even if you don’t memorise the words and have to read your parts,’ he said, ‘it would make a pleasant change?’

It all seemed to me, as the Bard would have put it, much ado about nothing, but if it kept Coco relatively quiet and occupied I was prepared to put up with almost anything!

‘Do you like Uncle Jude now?’ asked Jess when, at her insistence, I went up to say goodnight.

‘Well, I—’

‘Only he keeps looking at you, so I think he likes you.’

‘I think he’s just still sizing me up, that’s all.’

‘He’s much younger and richer than George.’

‘That’s very true, but I’m not actually searching for a rich, young, new husband, Jess, so—’

‘I think he really does like you,’ she insisted.

‘You’re wrong, Jess — I’m not his type, or he mine,’ I assured her, though I did feel a bit more sympathetic towards him since our conversation on the walk back earlier. ‘Funnily enough, he asked me what my husband was like earlier and I told him fair and blue-eyed.’

‘Uncle Jude’s wife was blonde too, I’ve seen her picture.’

‘Yes, like Coco: opposites often do attract.’

‘But not always?’

‘No, not always.’ I looked down at her, tucked into the little white-painted bed, along with her worn teddy bear, the wolf and a Beefeater bear and said, ‘But in the case of your Uncle Jude and me, it ain’t gonna happen, baby!’

She looked disbelieving, but let it drop. . for the present, though she did seem horribly taken with the idea.

‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ she said, ‘Horlicks snores!’

Back in my room, I picked up Gran’s journal, which earlier I’d been dying to get back to, only now the words seemed to be dancing about on the page so I didn’t get very far.

But my heart was absolutely wrung for her and I positively hated Ned Martland!

Waking early as usual on Boxing Day, I reread the entry in Gran’s journal and cried over it, despite knowing that she really wouldn’t drown herself like the heroine of a Victorian melodrama, but in the end marry and keep the child — my mother.

Poor Gran sounded so racked with guilt and desperation!

I still can’t help but feel fond of Noël, Tilda and Becca, but their acceptance of Noël’s casual dismissal of Gran as ‘a little mill girl in trouble’ does not reflect well on them. Evidently none of them ever wondered what had happened to her after Ned abandoned her!

But I’ll have to accept that I’m part of this family, whether I want to be or not, though at least now there’s a rational explanation for the pull of attraction to both the people (or some of them) and Old Place that I’ve felt since I arrived here.

The house was still totally silent when I got up and let Merlin out into the darkness of the courtyard, then cleaned out the grate in the sitting room and scattered the ashes outside the back door as usual — in fact, by now I had gritted quite a decent path halfway to the stables!

Merlin followed me back in, shaking off flecks of snow from his wiry dark grey coat, and ate his arthritis-pill-laced breakfast with gusto, while I slipped back out to Lady’s stall with a morning gift of Henry’s home-grown carrots for her, Nutkin and Billy.

I clipped back the top of the stable door to the courtyard and I was in the stall, standing with one arm across Lady’s warm back while she nuzzled carrot chunks from my hand, when Jude looked in. I knew who it was, because his enormous frame eclipsed all the light from the courtyard, until he shifted slightly to one side.

‘Hello — did you forget that I said I’d come down early and do the horses instead of Becca and Jess this morning?’

‘No, but I only came out to give Lady a bit of carrot, that’s all. I haven’t got time to see to her and everything else!’ I snapped. It might be totally irrational, but I felt angry with him because it was his uncle who had put poor Gran in such a harrowing plight!