Page 36 of The Christmas Invitation
I assured her that I wasn’t interested him in that way, which I wasn’t, especially if he was a love rat!
‘He’s very attractive in his own way, but not my type at all,’ I said. ‘I was engaged a few years ago, but I broke it off after … something happened that changed how I felt about him.’
Clara tactfully didn’t ask me what that something was, which was just as well because I still found it very hard to talk about.
‘So, no significant others, as they say, since then?’
‘No, I decided the painting is enough for me – and a quiet life.’
‘You’ll certainly get a quiet life up here,’ Clara said, turning into the drive to the Red House.
I went straight up to change and found there were short brown hairs stuck to my jeans, which made me smile. Pansy was such an imperfectly perfect dachshund … and perhaps, if I always stayed in my van, rather than in the sitters’ homes, Icouldhave a dog with me?
It wasn’t really that practical, however, and anyway, I suspected that even if Pansy wasn’t Kennel Club standard, Sybil would still want an impossibly large amount of money for her.
In our absence, Henry had picked up Teddy from school and they’d gone to visit Lex at Terrapotter.
Since the next day was Saturday, Teddy was allowed to stay up after dinner that evening. Henry was teaching him to play chess and Tottie, Clara and I played Scrabble. The lack of a TVin the room and people checking their phones every five minutes was just like being back at the Farm … restful. I hadn’t even thought of my phone since my earlier call; in fact, it was probably still somewhere in the studio.
Teddy didn’t want to go to bed at all, because he was excited about Uncle Lex coming over tomorrow to take the family on the annual Christmas tree hunt.
I intended lying low until they’d departed, so it was a blow when Henry said, ‘Lex’s staying here tomorrow night, so he can help put the tree up in the hall and fetch the decorations and the artificial tree down from the attic.’
‘The boxes are kept in the top attic, which is up a ladder,’ Clara said. ‘A bit awkward. Perhaps you could help him get them down, Meg?’
My mouth did that silent goldfish opening and closing thing.
‘We don’t put up any fresh holly or other greenery till nearer Christmas Day, because it all looks so sad when it goes dead and crunchy, doesn’t it?’ said Tottie, before I could manage to speak.
‘Uncle Henry, can I help you choose which of the old decorations go on the tree in here?’ asked Teddy.
‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘I bid for some more recently in an auction and they should be arriving any minute. It was a big, mixed lot, though I could see in the online catalogue that there were one or two unusual ones, but the rest will be a surprise. A good one, I hope.’
‘If it comes when I’m at school, you won’t open it till I get home, will you?’ Teddy asked anxiously.
‘No, I’ll save it so we can open it together,’ Henry promised. ‘Then you can help me catalogue it.’
At the back of my mind I was still dealing with the idea that Lex was not only coming tomorrow for the Christmas treeexpedition – which I had no intention of joining – but staying overnight. I don’t suppose he wanted to while I was there: it was just another of those annual festive traditions that meant so much to the family.
I found my voice finally and said brightly, ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll find a lovely tree tomorrow and while you’re out, I’m going to work on the background to the portrait in your study, if you don’t mind, Clara? Then perhaps you could give me another sitting on Sunday morning.’
‘Oh, but you can’t miss the Christmas tree hunt!’ said Teddy. ‘You have to come, Meg! We take a picnic and hot chocolate in flasks and everything.’
That sounded fun, except that the ‘everything’ included Lex.
‘Teddy’s right, you can’t miss our little expedition, and you’re entitled to the occasional day off,’ urged Henry.
‘I’ve only just got here,’ I protested, and said I really would prefer to stay at the house and work, but as usual, Clara didn’t want to take no for an answer and Teddy and Henry seemed genuinely upset at the idea that I would miss out on such a treat.
‘We’re not all going to fit in Lex’s pick-up,’ Tottie said, and for a moment I thought that was going to give me an escape route. But no.
‘It doesn’t matter, we always go in two cars anyway,’ said Clara. ‘Teddy and Henry can go with Lex and the rest of us in the Range Rover.’
‘The Christmas tree plantation is near another reservoir called Rivington,’ Tottie explained to me. ‘There’s a picnic area near the shore where we have lunch afterwards.’
‘Then back we come with a huge tree, which will then shed its needles into the hall runner right up till Twelfth Night,’ finished Clara.
‘No, it won’t, because we get a Norwegian spruce and they hold their needles best,’ said Henry.
