Page 67 of The Christmas Invitation
It didn’t take him long to show me over the rest of the house, because although considerably bigger than the Red House, Underhill wasn’t a vast stately home.
We had to negotiate an obstacle course of ladders, buckets and rolls of paper to reach the room intended as the bridalsuite. A door had been knocked through into an adjacent bathroom and it had been refitted, but was otherwise bare. The bedroom wallpaper was half-stripped and the sections of plaster looked scabby and mottled.
‘The rooms along this corridor have always been family bedrooms, but I’ll have a new apartment in the east wing, and I’m creating a suite of rooms over the old kitchen for Art and Gerry. I thought Mum could have the old housekeeper’s parlour downstairs, with the bedroom over.’
‘Yes, I think she mentioned that,’ I said, and I could see why Sybil might not be entirely enchanted with the idea after being the chatelaine of the house.
‘Once the workmen downed tools, I realized I’d have to concentrate on finishing the bridal suite first.’
I hoped he’d have cleared the clutter of tools and materials from the landing before the first bride tripped – literally – down it, but I expect he would.
‘Of course, I’d get on faster with the decorating if I had some help,’ he hinted, but I didn’t take him up on that one. I was here to do my own work, not be Mark’s unpaid labourer.
We went back downstairs and into the old kitchen, where there was evidence of the Gidneys, but no sign of life. Mark said they would have gone to their own cottage in the grounds, since he and his mother would be out until dinner.
‘This kitchen won’t need to be changed, because there’s going to be another catering-standard one through here …’ He led me out past closed doors, which were probably larders and the like, and into a big room with newly plastered walls and ceiling. Here and there, bunches of wires and cables hung from holes.
‘We created this from a couple of smaller rooms and you can see we’ve knocked a door through into the barn. The plumbingand electrics are done in here and a specialist firm will come and fit it out in early February.’
That wouldn’t be cheap and I could see why he wanted to raise some money from the paintings.
He unlocked the new door that led into the coach house and went through. ‘We’ve made this little anteroom, for when we’re clearing the tables and as storage for the cutlery, china and table linen. Then there’ll be swing doors into the actual reception area.’
He made a gesture as if pushing invisible doors apart as he passed through the space into darkness beyond and I stifled a giggle: he’d looked as if he was swimming off, breaststroke.
He turned the lights on in the barn, and I found it surprisingly big, with wonderful beams, whitewashed walls, and a series of high windows. There was one large area of glazing with a central door, where presumably coaches were once pushed inside, too.
I commented on the polished dark wood floor.
‘I thought the original paving would look too cold, so I had this laid. It goes with the beams and brings the place together anyway, I think,’ he said, and I agreed.
He turned on his heel, surveying the room. ‘There’ll be a long serving table at the far end, which can also be used for buffets, and then smaller tables that can be joined together in any configuration. The linen will be the very best damask, of course. Everything’s going to be very,veryupmarket.’
‘I can imagine how it’ll look,’ I said, ‘and once the kitchen has been fitted out and the furnishings are in, it won’t take long to get ready to open for business, will it? You’ve already done such a lot in a short space of time.’
‘I’ll still need to get that bridal suite finished by then, though. And if I decide to perform wedding ceremonies here as well, then the Great Hall will have to have a makeover.’
We went back in there and it seemed even darker and chillier than ever, and not at all bridal unless you were a romantically inclined polar bear.
Mark had been talking to me as if he’d known me for ages and wanted to know me quite a lot better. But although I found him attractive and it was flattering that he was interested in me, I found I didn’t fancy him in the least. Probably, from what I’d been told, just as well!
I realized he’d been talking for the last few minutes, and was gazing down intently into my eyes. Now he was saying. ‘I’ll spend the winters in my house in Italy. I’d love you to see it. It’s—’
He was interrupted by the opening of a door and excited barking as the two little dachshunds rushed in.
Pansy made a beeline for me and jumped up and down against my legs, as if she was being bounced on a piece of elastic, until I picked her up. Then she licked my chin and wriggled ecstatically.
Sybil had followed them. ‘Do come into the morning room, Meg. It’s freezing in here!’
‘You take Meg through, Mum, and I’ll make some coffee,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to set off quite soon, though.’
In the cosier small room, Sybil put another log on the smouldering embers of the fire and then, looking guilty, turned the thermostat on the radiator up a trifle.
While we waited for Mark to come back with the coffee, we talked about the pictures and the renovations.
‘The bedroom corridor, especially, is such a mess at the moment that I’m very glad to be going to the Red House for Christmas, although I haven’t heard anything back from Daddy’s old friend, Piers Marten, after I wrote to tell him I’d be away this year. I hope he doesn’t have to spend Christmas alone in his flat.’
‘Best place for him,’ said Mark callously, having come in bearing a tray. ‘And you know very well he has family he can stay with. He’d just rather freeload here, guzzling good food and trying to drink the cellar dry.’
