Page 145 of The Christmas Invitation
‘I think we need to have a serious talk with Sybil and get her to open up – and there’s another matter we want to talk to her about, too,’ she added. ‘But let us have a peaceful Christmas first! Then I’m sure we can sort this all out afterwards.’
‘Yes, though I think we should try to keep Piers away from Sybil as much as we can until then,’ suggested Henry. ‘Certainly no more tête-à-têtes.’
Clara checked her watch. ‘It’s almost time for the carol service.’
‘Which carol service?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘It’s on the radio: Nine Lessons and Carols with the choir of King’s College, Cambridge,’ explained Henry.
‘Yes, so do go into the drawing room while I quickly put Tottie in the picture about the night of the Solstice,’ urged Clara.
Since there was no way of stopping her telling Tottie, I thought perhaps I’d better put River in the picture too, at the first opportunity. I hoped it wouldn’t be too great a shock to him.
Henry switched on the radio just as Tottie and Clara came in, with Teddy following, still lightly dusted with flour or icing sugar from helping Den in the kitchen.
Tottie was carrying a large box and while we were listening to the service, she and Teddy unpacked a set of beautifully carved wooden Nativity figures and a crib and set them up on a wide window ledge.
‘It’s lovely,’ I said, admiring it after the radio was switched off. ‘But where’s the baby Jesus?’
‘He hasn’t been born yet,’ Teddy told me. ‘It’s his birthday tomorrow.’
‘Of course, silly of me,’ I apologized.
Clara told me later that Tottie thought the idea of Sybil attempting to push me over a precipice was ludicrous, and just the product of an overactive imagination.
But River, when I got him alone for a few minutes and told him everything, just said sadly, ‘Poor lady! I suspected as much at the Gathering.’
‘Youdid? And it would have been poor Meg if she’d succeeded!’
‘The Goddess protected you. I saw straight away that you believed you’d been pushed and knew it must be Sybil, for her aura was not right … and her expression when she saw you enter the hall for the Gathering was one of pure relief.’
‘Well, that’s something! Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I thought it better to let the pattern work itself out,’ he said obscurely, then smiled like a wise but infuriating elf. If he’d been wearing his pointy knitted hat, I’d have been tempted to ram it down over his eyes, like those little Scandinavian nisee or tomte gnomes.
‘Violence is never the answer,’ he added, though whether he was continuing his original train of thought or had read my mind, I had no way of knowing.
Clara
This next part of my memoir deals with more current events although, as you will see, connected with the past.
Recently our lives took another new and surprising turn when I was struck by an idea that was to have far-reaching consequences.
An old Oxford friend, Professor Priscilla Longridge, had recently had her portrait painted and had crowed about how she intended to leave it to posterity, i.e. the National Portrait Gallery. (This was amusing, since the portrait was such a speaking likeness that I could tell she secretly hated it, even though it was so brilliant that she couldn’t reject it!)
But having seen it I felt it would be great fun for Henry and me to have our portraits painted too. I very much liked the way the artist had caught the more crocodilian aspects of Pookie Longridge’s face. She was the artist for me and since I had to be in London to give a talk, I thought I would arrange the matter at the same time, though this proved slightly more difficult than I had anticipated.
However, in the end all was arranged and within a couple of days Meg Harkness, a delightful young woman, was established at the Red House and beginning the first of our portraits.
She soon became one of the family. Indeed, both Henry and I felt from the start that there was something oddly familiar about her unusually pale colouring and light, almost turquoise eyes.
But it was only when I reached that part of my memoirs dealing with my first year at Oxford that the penny dropped and I slowly came to realize that she must be the granddaughter of Nessa Cassidy and Henry’s brother, George.
How strange are the twists of fate that brought us all together!
37
Gifted
