Page 18 of The Christmas Invitation
‘I’ll be all right, because other than the bird mask I traditionally have a cloak, so I can wear a lot of warm clothes under it,’ said Tottie. She began to count off the members of the group on her fingers. ‘There’s me; Henry, filling in for Mark; Bilbo; Fred from the Pike with Two Heads; and Len Snowball,who is the gardener-cum-groom at Underhill … and then, since the last member of another old family has moved away, Lex had to be Old Winter last time.’
I was just pondering whether I’d heard the name Bilbo correctly when she mentioned Lex again. If he was taking part in the ceremony there would be no avoiding him. In fact, all conversational roads at the Red House seemed to lead to Lex, so I really needed now to confess that I knew him – orhadknown him.
But the conversation had flowed on and Tottie was saying, ‘Mark’s told Sybil that if she wants Len to give her a hand with the horses, she’ll have to pay him herself. But I expect, if it comes to it, we can manage the horses between us,’ she added comfortably. ‘We do most of the work, anyway.’
The soup had long since been removed and we’d eaten the main course, a very delicious vegetable stew with savoury dumplings. I was beginning to feel my waistband tightening and now Den brought in the pudding and a big jug of rich yellow custard.
‘You get off to your flat now, Den,’ Clara told him, ‘or you’ll miss the start of your soap. We’ll clear up and stack the dishwasher.’
‘But Tottie’s coffee’s disgusting,’ he pointed out.
‘Mine isn’t, though,’ said Clara. ‘Off you go!’
‘Cheek!’ said Tottie as he vanished, already untying the strings of his long, striped apron.
By now I was starting to feel extremely sleepy. My illness, the long drive, and the shock of seeing Lex Mariner again – all were combining to make my head swim and the voices come and go in a dreamlike way.
‘Dear child, you’re all in,’ Clara said as we got up. ‘You should go straight to bed and get a good night’s sleep.’
I was too tired to resist and the thought of bed sounded so wonderful that, declining her offer of cocoa, I did just that.
And I did no brooding over the past that night, but instead slept like the dead in my catafalque of a bed … much like Lex’s extremely late wife, Lisa.
Clara
We were a self-sufficient community in the valley, who helped each other in hard times and made our own amusements, mostly connected to the church year and the seasons.
Being so high up, Starstone could often be quite cut off from autumn to spring – and how we revelled in our freedom when the schoolteacher was unable to get over from Thorstane!
There was a pond on the Underhill estate where we and the other village children could skate when it froze hard, and an abundance of slopes to toboggan down.
Large, glassy icicles hung from every eave and window ledge, for central heating was uncommon back then. We would break an icicle off and hold it in our hands until it began to melt and our knitted mittens would be soggy and smell of damp wool …
Back in the vicarage kitchen, thawing out by the fire, we’d roast chestnuts on a small, perforated metal shovel until the sweet softness burst from the pierced shells.
Simple pleasures …
Christmas then was not so much about mass consumerism and eating and drinking to excess, but a magical time that started with the Winter Solstice ceremony in late December, was followed bythe Christmas church services, Nativity and carol singing, then ended with Twelfth Night.
The origins of the Starstone on the hill and the annual Winter Solstice ceremony held there were hidden in the mists of time, but the whole village would attend. I remember the excitement of the bonfire on the plateau below the summit, the strange figures performing their torchlight ritual around the Stone and then my being carried home, half-asleep, through the dark night.
If the weather allowed, we would be taken to Great Mumming just before Christmas and the shop windows would be wonderfully exciting: the piles of jewel-bright apples and satsumas in the greengrocer’s, the display of ribbon-bound boxes of chocolates in the sweet shop … not to mention the delights of the toy shop!
Henry’s mother was a frail, gentle woman who died young, but she adored Christmas, and the tree at Underhill was always the biggest and most lavishly adorned in the village. I expect that’s where Henry’s love of the Christmas traditions and his interest in antique and vintage glass baubles really began.
We had a tree at the vicarage too, and it was a high treat to decorate it with the collection of Victorian glass spheres, bells, trumpets, birds and icicles that lay nestled in tissue paper for the rest of the year. I have them now – or rather, they are in Henry’s extensive collection of old glass baubles.
8
Old Shades
Next morning, after some confused nightmares in which I was attempting to flee from a nebulous but terrifying monster, my escape hampered by deep snowdrifts in which I floundered helplessly, I slowly surfaced to the sound of howling wolves …
I was certain there weren’t any wolves living in the UK any more, so after a dazed moment or two, I realized this howling was actually the wind wuthering shrilly down the chimney. It rattled the diamond-paned casement windows too, but since they were behind panels of secondary glazing, no draught stirred the drawn-back folds of the velvet curtains.
I seemed to recall that wolves played a part in my nightmare, too, so my subconscious must have registered the wind getting up in the night, and, since I was buried under a deep down duvet,thatprobably accounted for the snowdrifts. The ancient purple satin-covered eiderdown that had been on top of it, as an extra though entirely unnecessary layer of insulation, had either slithered off, or been thrown off by my struggles, for it was in a heap next to the bed.
I lay back against the plump pillows and thought about my arrival yesterday afternoon, and Lex Mariner.
