Trisha Ashley - Twelve Days of Christmas

I’d just spoken Olivia’s line, in a simpering falsetto, ‘“Nay come, I prithee: would’st be ruled by me?”’ and Michael, as Sebastian, snatched me into his arms, crying passionately, ‘“Madam, I will!”’

‘Excuse me!’ Jude said and then dropped the tray of glasses down on the table so that one fell over and broke, before going back out and slamming the kitchen door, for good measure.

Michael gave me a knowing look, and I threw the oven glove at him. Okay, I now admit Jude’s jealous: but that still doesn’t mean he intends making any move on me which — now I’m pretty sure he’s my cousin — is just as well!

When I was cosily tucked up in bed that night and flicking through Gran’s last journal to find my place, a tiny black and white photo fluttered out onto the duvet.

It was unmistakably Ned Martland — I knew those features so well now, from the family album. But he looked very young and handsome, standing by a prewar motorbike. On the back he’d written, ‘All my love, your Ned.’

Obviously, he hadn’t seen fit to mention that she’d only had all his love on a temporary basis.

I propped the picture up against my alarm clock so I could study it better, trying to puzzle out his character from his features. And that’s how I fell asleep — and plummeted right into a tangle of dreams in which Jude was welding bits of old motorbike together, wearing little more than his protective visor. .

It was pretty disturbing stuff, I can tell you. I woke up in a muck sweat.

Jude came down early again next day, still in a deeply morose and taciturn mood, which probably wasn’t helped by my inability to look him straight in the eye after last night’s red-hot dreams.

Then he vanished back upstairs as soon as he’d seen to the horses with Becca, so there was no-one to ply me with tea while I worked, or help cook the breakfast while passing the odd, quiet remark. . and somehow, I missed the companionable silences, too. It’s strange how quickly you get used to something. . or someone.

Becca asked me on her way through the kitchen if we’d had a falling out. ‘I don’t know what’s got into the boy this morning!’

‘Not that I know of, though he’s hardly spoken to me since last night,’ I told her, though I didn’t add that I thought he might have misinterpreted finding me in Michael’s arms again, since that might lead to a whole lot of other questions I didn’t even want to think about.

He didn’t come back down until Jess and everyone else apart from Tilda were eating breakfast, and even then he didn’t sit down, just made himself a thick bacon sandwich and wrapped it in foil to take with him.

‘I won’t need you today,’ he said to me curtly.

‘Can I come then, Uncle Jude?’ asked Jess eagerly.

‘No,’ he said and went out and Merlin, for once, followed him — though with a troubled look back at me. Perhaps he was reattaching himself to his master?

‘I hate Uncle Jude!’ Jess said bitterly.

‘I thought it was me you hated, Mini-Morticia?’ Guy said.

‘Only when you call me Mini-Morticia, Uncle Guy,’ she said and he winced.

‘Never mind Jude, he seems a bit grumpy today for some reason,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose he was thinking what he was saying. Why don’t you start making a snowman out at the front now the thaw seems to be starting, while there’s still lots of snow? Then, when I’ve cleared breakfast away, I’ll come and help.’

‘I suppose I could,’ she said sulkily. I hoped some of the others might offer to go with her, but Michael had decided to walk up the track and phone his ex-wife, in the hope she might have relented about letting him speak to his daughter, and no-one else seemed to be terribly keen, though Noël said he would look out later, to see how the snowman was coming along.

But when I went out after about twenty minutes, Jess was nowhere to be seen, and there was no sign of activity other than a shovel stuck upright in a patch of virgin snow and a trail of footprints leading off towards the drive.

Her wellingtons and coat were missing, so I checked the yard and paddock first, and then the house, without result. Michael had come back and he and Guy were playing snooker in the library, but when I asked they said they hadn’t seen her.

‘I entirely forgot to go and see how the snowman was doing,’ Noël confessed guiltily when I went back to the sitting room to report her disappearance.

‘I bet she’s gone down to the studio to plague Jude into letting her mess about with the modelling clay, or something,’ Becca suggested.

‘Oh yes, that will be it,’ Noël said, ‘though of course she should have told one of us where she was going first.’

‘But then we would have stopped her from disturbing Jude,’ Tilda pointed out. ‘You know he can be such a bear when an idea strikes him.’

‘He can be a bear anyway,’ Coco said. She was sitting by the jigsaw puzzle, so I expect she’d rammed a few more pieces into the wrong places. Then she drifted out, probably to feast on the last fluff-covered Fruity-Go from the bottom of her handbag, or to have an illicit cigarette in her room with the window open.

‘That girl’s a waste of space,’ Becca said, then added that someone should go down to the studio and bring Jess back. ‘But don’t look at me, I think I ate too much breakfast and I want to have a doze in front of the telly. White Christmas is on again.’

‘Oh, is it? I might join you,’ Noël said.

‘And I will too, if Holly doesn’t need me,’ Tilda agreed, though I wasn’t about to suggest she trekked off down the drive in her high-heeled marabou and velvet slippers to look for Jess.

‘I’ll walk down and bring her back with me. I can give my friend another ring while I’m down there.’

‘Oh, good! Tell Jess she’s very naughty and bring her straight back,’ Tilda said.

I set off down the snow at the edge of the drive, which was definitely not as crisp as it was yesterday. It didn’t seem quite as deep, either, so perhaps was starting to subside from underneath in the way drifts sometimes do, leaving a crystal shell of harder snow on top.

It was more than possible that Jude had sent Jess straight home again, so at any minute I expected to find her dejectedly trudging towards me. And I decided I didn’t really need to call Laura again either, since nothing much had happened to report since yesterday, apart from Jude’s suspiciously jealous-looking hissy fit.

It occurred to me that there was no-one else in the whole world except Laura who genuinely cared about me any more: no family or other friends close enough. Yes, there was a circle of people I’d known from school who all met up occasionally, including Laura and my erstwhile Homebodies boss, Ellen, but that was not the same at all. .

Laura’s family were always kind, but I had distanced myself too much after Alan died and now the breach is unbridgeable. We grieved in different ways — they celebrated his life and I pretended it had never happened. But I’d changed so much in the last couple of weeks. .

And here at Old Place I was suddenly surrounded by long-lost relatives, even though none of them realised the connection and would probably be highly embarrassed if they did ever know! Jude would immediately believe the worst, that I was out for what I could get, and think he’d been right to be suspicious all along!

Still, since I wasn’t going to tell them, it didn’t matter.

There was still no sign of Jess when I turned off the drive up the track through the dark pine trees, so I thought Jude must have relented and let her stay. But then, as the trees opened out onto the banks of the stream below the studio, I suddenly spotted her black-clad figure — right in the middle of the frozen mill pond, testing the ice by stamping on it with one booted foot.

It made an odd, high-pitched, singing sound and my blood ran cold: I raced for the bank, calling urgently, ‘Jess! Jess! Stop that and come back here this minute!’

She half-turned, startled by my voice — and then there was a horribly loud cracking noise like a small explosion and down she plummeted with a scream and a splash. For a heart-stopping moment she vanished completely. . and then her head popped up and she was floundering among bobbing shards of ice in the bitterly cold black water.

I didn’t stop to think, just ran out onto the frozen pond and flung myself face down, reaching out to her. I managed to grab first one of her cold little hands in a firm grip, and then the other, soaking myself in freezing water to the shoulders in the process.

‘It’s all r-right,’ she said through chattering teeth, though her face looked blue-white, ‘I can s-swim.’

But how long would she last in water at that temperature? And the ice beneath me was starting to crack too, I could hear it; but I didn’t know if I was capable of sliding backwards and pulling her with me — and I certainly wasn’t letting go of her.

It was just looking as if I would be joining her — though in that case I thought perhaps I would be able to boost her out onto the ice to go and fetch help — when I heard the slam of the studio door and Jude’s deep voice exclaiming, ‘What the hell?’