Page 23 of The Christmas Invitation
I could well believe it, because it was a soupy brown colour, except for one or two clearly misguided attempts to tart him up a bit with glitter and cotton wool.
‘He belonged to Tottie’s family and originally his jacket was bright green. Red only became the dominant colour much later.’
‘Henry’s always bidding for ornaments online, when he can find them,’ Clara said indulgently. ‘I murder people as my hobby, but Henry collects shiny things like a magpie.’
‘They don’t all shine,’ he said mildly. ‘And we use some of them every Christmas to decorate one of the trees. They were made to be used and give pleasure, even if some of these are the sole survivors out of hundreds.’
‘Trees?’ I said, surprised. ‘You have more than one?’
‘Yes, we have a large real pine tree in the hall and a smaller artificial one in the drawing-room bay window.’
‘We hang the antique decorations on the artificial one, because it’s out of the way and the carpet is so thick underneath it that the ornaments bounce if they fall off anyway,’ explained Clara.
‘We often buy new ornaments for the big fir tree in the hall. There’s an all-year-round Christmas shop in an old mill over near Little Mumming and Teddy loves going there to choose them,’ said Henry. ‘He adores Christmas as much as I do – and I hope you’ll love your first Christmas here if you stay on with us, too, Meg.’
I opened my mouth to say that I was afraid I was definitely leaving the day after the Solstice, but Clara got in first.
‘Meg’s going to paint me sitting at my big desk, Henry.’
She turned to me. ‘But what about Henry? In here, or the studio?’
‘Oh, the studio,’ I said without thinking. ‘On the dais, with some good lighting …’
‘I’ll be happy to sit whenever and wherever you please, so long as I can read at the same time,’ Henry said.
Lass suddenly awoke with a galvanic snort, looked vaguely at us and then hauled herself out of the basket and went to look pointedly at the door.
‘It must be lunchtime,’ Henry said. ‘Lass is partial to a bit of bread dipped in soup.’
‘Lass is partial to anything edible,’ Clara said drily. ‘It’s a help-yourself meal again, Meg, usually at about one, but the pot of soup is always ready on the back of the stove by then, for when we feel like it.’
‘Did Clara tell you that Den and I make the bread?’ Henry asked. ‘There’s none of that mixing and kneading, you just pop the ingredients in the machine and turn it on.’
‘Technology does have many advantages,’ Clara said, leading the way out. ‘Hmm, mulligatawny soup, I think – my favourite.’
10
Grimlike
There was no sign of Den or Tottie in the kitchen, other than a note explaining that they’d dropped off the shopping and gone out again.
‘Probably a pub lunch, over at the Pike with Two Heads,’ Clara said, after reading it aloud. ‘Still, at least Den put the soup on the stove before they went off again.’
‘We should take Meg over to the pub for lunch one day,’ Henry suggested.
‘Friday – they do a good fish pie then, though there’s always a tasty vegetarian dish on the menu too, if you don’t fancy that.’
‘It sounds lovely,’ I said.
Henry, now lavishly buttering a thick slice of wholemeal bread, said, ‘I rang Lex up earlier because he dashed off yesterday before I could ask him about the tree and we’realreadya week into December!’
‘Lex takes us to fetch the real Christmas tree in his pick-up every year, so we can bring it back with us. It’s bound to be a whopper – it invariably is,’ Clara explained to me. ‘Henry always wants to put the tree up too early and then it sheds its needles long before the day!’
‘Depends which kind you get,’ Henry said. ‘Some hold the needles longer than others and anyway, the scent lingers on, even if the tree is going bald. But in any case, I need Lex to bring down the artificial tree from the attic and the boxes of decorations.’
‘Icould take you to get the tree in my camper van,’ I offered quickly, hoping to avert a possible meeting with Lex.
‘Thank you, my dear, that’s very kind of you, but you don’t want a big tree in your lovely van.’
