Page 114 of The Christmas Invitation
‘Mummy?’ exclaimed Teddy eagerly, and beat us to the front door by a head.
Billy had hurried round to the passenger side by then and was tenderly helping down a small woman in a long, pink quilted coat and with a ridiculously huge Russian-style fakefur hat pulled low over a lively, pretty face with dark eyes and a tilted nose.
I didn’t need Teddy’s cry of ‘Mummy!’ to know who that was.
Tottie put a hand on his shoulder in time to stop him dashing out in his slippers.
‘Darling!’ cried Zelda, her red lips curving in a warm smile, and she practically swam towards us, arms outstretched. You could tell she was an actor.
Behind her, another figure was emerging more slowly: a tall, elderly man with white hair, dressed in an old-fashioned thick woollen overcoat and Burberry scarf. He turned and surveyed us with the palest of ice-blue eyes.
‘We thought you’d make it, one way or another, Zelda,’ said Den, edging past the mother and son reunion. He’d discarded his brown linen overall in favour of a battered donkey jacket and slipped his feet into wellies.
Then he spotted the extra passenger and said, disgustedly, ‘Gawd! Yer running a taxi service now, Billy?’
‘Aye, seems like it,’ he said laconically. ‘Makes a change from carting sick sheep about.’
He grinned, gap-toothed, at Zelda.
‘You’ve beensokind – you and Pete are angels!’ she told him.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said, then explained to us, ‘The taxi got as far as the pub. Then when the snowplough went up from that side, Fred followed it with his Land Rover – and the post van followed him. The top’s too deep to plough, though, so they hailed Pete on this side and we managed to get them across.’ He grinned again, good-naturedly. ‘We had a bit of a job, what with the drifts and the old gent, and them having luggage.’
The ‘old gent’ didn’t look too pleased to be described this way.
‘Is the luggage in the back? I’ll help yer get it out, won’t I?’ said Den.
Teddy and his mother had vanished inside, but Tottie and I were still blocking the entrance and the elderly man gave us a frigid glare from under bristling white eyebrows and snapped, ‘Well, Charlotte, are you going to let me in before I die of hypothermia?’
From Tottie’s expression, she thought that would be a good outcome, but she reluctantly made way and he pushed past us into the hall.
We followed and Tottie demanded, ‘What are you doing here, Piers? Nobody’s expecting you.’
So this must be the Piers Marten that Sybil had been angsting over, though from what everyone else had said about him, he hadn’t sounded the most pleasant of characters.
‘Then theyshouldhave been,’ he was saying. ‘I knew Sybil would want me to come for Christmas, whatever plans that young cub of hers had. He never liked me, so I thought he was just getting her to put me off, until Zelda told me that Sybil is spending Christmashere.’
‘She is, because Mark’s going to be doing a lot of work on the house over Christmas. I know she’s been trying to ring you and leaving messages to tell you so,’ said Tottie. ‘The others have gone to fetch her. They’ll be back soon.’
‘I only saw the first letter and then I moved to my club, because my central heating boiler broke down. No one seemed to want to fix it this side of Christmas.’
He turned and gave me what he obviously imagined was a charming smile, though it didn’t warm his eyes.
‘Zelda told me about her new-found cousin, too. You must be Meg. I’m Piers Marten.’
‘Yes, I’d gathered that, because I’ve heard aboutyou, too,’ I said, shaking the hand he held out, which was encased in unpleasantly clammy thin leather.
‘I can’t imagine why you’re here, if you got Sybil’s letter putting you offandafter Zelda told you why,’ said Tottie. ‘You should have turned round and gone back to your club. But perhaps Billy wouldn’t mind dropping you off at Underhill on his way home – he goes right past.’
‘I’m too frozen to go any further and if Sybil is staying here, then there’s no point in it. Mark’s unlikely to give me a warm welcome.’
I suddenly remembered Clara saying that she wouldn’t have him staying under her roof, so I didn’t think that she would welcome him with open arms on her return, either.
‘You can’t be frozen, Piers, because it was toasty warm in Billy’s cab,’ Zelda said. She shed her quilted coat and the huge hat and then, having hugged Teddy and patted Lass, looked up and added, ‘I did tell you you should go back to London on the next train, but youwouldinsist on coming.’
‘Ialwaysgo to Underhill for Christmas,’ he snapped. ‘Done it for years.’
‘No, you don’t. Sometimes you’ve spent it at your club, or with your children,’ Tottie pointed out.
