Page 142 of The Christmas Invitation
‘I expect you’re just exhausted,’ I said contritely. ‘And I know having someone staring at you for hours on end can feel weird.’
‘I think I’d like to get my own back and make a clay portrait bust of you, one of these days.’
‘Really? But there might not be time after Christmas, because now I’ve finished the commissioned portraits, there won’t be any real reason for me to stay on.’
‘But you’re working so well that maybe youshouldstay on and paint some of the others, too?’
Clara pushed the door wide and wandered in. ‘Yes, why not make it a full set? Den, Teddy and Zelda, for a start.’
‘I could paint Zelda and Mark as their wedding present,’ I suggested, half-joking.
‘Now, there’s an idea,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect to see Zelda again till tonight, but Tottie and Sybil came back over an hour ago and they’re helping Den in the kitchen.’
‘So Sybil hasn’t been summoned again by Piers today,’ Lex asked.
‘Actually, hedidring first thing, but I answered it in my study and told him she couldn’t go down to see him today. He wasn’t pleased, but then he does seem to want to have his own way in everything, doesn’t he?’
‘Did you tell Sybil he rang?’
‘No, I’m afraid it entirely slipped my mind. It’ll do her good to have a nice, quiet day doing things she enjoys instead. And I’ve had a lovely morning, too,’ she continued. ‘An old friend sent me photographs of a broken stone marker and we’re agreed it’s written in an early form of Ogham. It was broken into pieces and a digger turned it up, but we seem to have most of it.’
‘Ogham?’ I echoed.
‘Don’t ask, the explanation would take us to teatime,’ Lex said.
‘Just another early written form of language, darling, that developed in Ireland, separately from others in use at the same date,’ said Clara. ‘One written language does not follow the other in a neat fashion, but instead they often overlap in time. Rather like the evolution of the human race as we currently know it,’ she added.
‘See what I mean?’ said Lex. ‘Come on, let’s go and have something to eat. I’m famished.’
‘Cheese and tomato quiche,’ said Clara. ‘Den’s been baking up a storm in there and Wisty’s covered in so much flour, she looks like a ghost dog.’
The ghost dog had been dusted off, but Den was still at work, mixing up a savoury nut loaf for Christmas dinner. Bizarrely, this was to be baked in a large early Victorian pottery mould, shaped like a capon.
‘That should confuse Piers even more than the rabbit,’ I said.
‘Got a few more things to do,’ Den said, ‘then that’s it. Fill the volley-vaunts on Boxing Day morning, won’t I?’
‘With condensed mushroom soup?’ I asked, remembering.
‘That and Eggwinas.’
‘Eggwinas?’
‘Curried eggs. It’s an old family joke,’ said Lex.
‘It was that Edwina Curry, wasn’t it?’ Den said, bafflingly, though as long as she wasn’t in the vol-au-vents, I was fine with that.
When I’d eaten I went back to the studio for a brood over the portrait, then I checked my iPad and phone.
There was a brief email from Fliss, telling me Cal was home and ecstatic at the news, to which I replied suitably.
And there were several missed calls from Rollo, who I’d thought would have given up by now. Then, disconcertingly, he rang, as if he knew I’d turned on the phone.
‘What on earth do you want now, Rollo?’ I said wearily. ‘If you’re still angling for an interview with Henry, it’s not going to happen. I think you’re jolly lucky to be invited to dinner tomorrow and you’d better be on your best behaviour!’
‘It’s nothing of the kind,’ he said indignantly. ‘I just thought you might feel some slight concern about my health, seeing you were the cause of my getting such a bad chill.’
‘Iwas?’
