Page 5 of A Christmas Celebration
‘My goodness,’ Catherine gasped. ‘No wonder you look all in. You must be exhausted.’
‘I am beginning to feel it a bit,’ I confessed. ‘Even though I did sleep on the bus.’
‘In that case,’ she insisted, ‘you must go and rest.’
‘Yes,’ said Molly, making me feel wide awake again, ‘you really must look after yourself, Paige. You need time to recover.’
Did she mean from the travelling or was she winkling out my secret already? I didn’t dare speculate.
‘What’s it like, working in those camps?’ Archie asked.
Catherine and Molly exchanged a look.
‘Utterly exhausting, I would imagine,’ said Catherine. ‘Let’s get you upstairs, Paige.’
‘The Rose Room is made up,’ said Dorothy, making my day.
The Rose Room had always been my favourite. With its own fire and comfy sofa and the deepest tub in the en suite, it was the height of luxury and after so long sleeping on a canvas camp bed, I was going to make the most of it.
‘The Rose Room it is then,’ said Archie, picking up my rucksack.
Just like his father, he was thrown off balance by the weight of it and groaned.
‘What did you expect?’ I laughed. ‘Practically all my worldly possessions are in there.’
‘I would say you travel light,’ he smiled back, ‘but it weighs a tonne. How on earth have you managed it?’
‘She’s stronger than she looks,’ said Molly with a wink.
I didn’t respond to that.
Dinner that evening was the usual jolly Wynthorpe Hall affair and eaten around the scrubbed kitchen table. Dorothy, as always, had cooked enough to feed a thousand and piled my plate high with toad in the hole, mashed root vegetables and thick gravy.
‘This looks delicious, Dorothy,’ I was quick to say, ‘but I probably won’t be able to get through half of it. I’ve been living on rations for so long, I need to be careful.’
I knew from past experience that switching from one diet to another with no settling in period was not a good idea.
‘That’s all right,’ she said, ‘you just eat what you can.’
She sounded sincere but I knew she’d be disappointed if I left even the tiniest morsel.
‘So,’ Angus then keenly said. ‘Shall we pick up where we left off earlier?’
‘Yes,’ said Archie. ‘That’s a good idea, Dad, and with the arrival of Paige it doesn’t feel half as daunting to go through it all again now, does it?’
‘Goodness,’ I said, letting out a breath. ‘I’m not sure my presence warrants that amount of relief, Archie. I am but one person after all.’
‘But one person can make ahugedifference,’ Molly prophetically said.
‘No pressure then,’ I tutted and everyone laughed.
‘And you need us every bit as much as we need you, Paige,’ she further added. ‘It’s all meant to be.’
Archie looked poised to ask what she meant, but I cut him off.
‘So,’ I said, laying my cutlery down and making Dorothy’s eyebrows shoot up as a result. ‘I know a bit about Anna’s volunteering, making the deliveries and ferrying people to medical appointments and so on, but what about cleaning the hall? Is it really not possible to employ a specialist firm to come in?’
‘We would have done that with more notice,’ explained Catherine, ‘but with Hayley and Gabe’s plans changing at the last minute we haven’t been able to book anyone.’
