Page 158 of The Christmas Invitation
‘We were both asleep,’ I said, taking my cup and helping myself to a cheese and tomato tartlet and an Eggwina.
‘It’s starting to thaw in earnest,’ said Henry. ‘I’m sure the road to Thorstane will be open again tomorrow.’
‘You’re not leaving yet, though, are you?’ Teddy asked me with flattering concern.
‘No, I’ve got Lex’s portrait to finish first.’
‘And there’s no rush anyway,’ said Lex, moving over to sit beside me on the sofa.
‘Zelda’s gone back with Mark. She thought it would be a good idea not to leave him alone tonight, since everything’s been a bit of a shock to him. She’s a dear girl,’ said Sybil. ‘She says Mark has given up the hotel idea and they’re redecorating my old bedroom for when I return.’
If, as seemed likely, Zelda was staying at Underhill overnight, I hoped she liked ham …
‘Piers will go scuttling off back to London as fast as he can,’ Henry said. ‘He didn’t know what to do with himself when I told him we knew what he’d been doing and threatened to inform the police if he ever bothered any of us again.’
‘There,’ said River to Sybil, with one of his tranquil smiles. ‘It’s all turned out very well.’
It wasn’t quite ended yet, but therewasa sense of a journey undertaken and successfully accomplished.
‘I love a party, but how nice it is to be justusagain!’ Clara’s happy gaze encompassed family, visiting pagan, would-be murderess and Den, who was eating three cheese straws at once, while assisting Teddy to construct a 3-D triceratops out of slotted wooden pieces.
‘A little more work on my memoirs before dinner, I think,’ she added.
‘And I,’ said Henry resolutely, ‘will press the button marked “Send” and dispatch my book to my agent as a slightly late Christmas present.’
Life at the Red House had begun to return to its familiar pattern.
Later, Lex helped Teddy set up his easel in the studio, where he laid out his new paints and embarked on his first portrait on canvas. I was the sitter on the dais this time, which was a novelty.
Lex stayed, sitting in one of the battered armchairs and watching proceedings, with Pansy curled on his knees.
Teddy seemed to have turned into an even quicker painter than I was and had just told me that he’d finished when I heard the phone ring, and Clara’s voice from the study next door, so she must have picked it up. Then, a few moments later, while I was admiring my likeness (verypink hair, slightly green face), it rang again and this time she came to fetch me.
‘Meg, it’s a call for you. Do take it in my study.’
‘For me?’ I asked, following her. ‘I suppose I’ve left my phone turned off again and Oshan or someone from the Farm is trying to get hold of me. I hope nothing’s happened.’
‘I’m sure it hasn’t, darling, or they’d have asked for River,’ she said. ‘There’s the phone, on the desk.’
‘Oshan?’ I said, picking it up.
‘Is that you, Meg?’ said a faint and faraway sweet voice that was instantly familiar and most definitelynotOshan’s.
‘Mum?’ I exclaimed incredulously and out of the corner of my eye saw the door close behind Clara.
Clara
Late on Christmas Day, I was given a letter sent from America by Nessa’s former lover, Suzanne Dell, which was to throw a new light on past events.
She had found among Nessa’s papers an envelope to be forwarded to me in the event of her death. Of course, she hadn’t been able to resist opening it and then, fired by jealousy induced by the first paragraph, suppressed it. But now, with only weeks to live herself, she had finally sent it on. I will present it here in full.
Dear Clara,
If you get this I will be dead, though I hope you will still be hale and hearty and enjoying life as much as ever. You will probably be horrified to learn that you were the love of my life, something I only realized long after my ghastly mistake with George.
Making a clean break with the past was the best thing I could have done, and I have been happily settled with my lover, Suzanne Dell, since I met her at college after the move.
I’m writing this letter, because I have something I want to share and you are the only person I feel I can tell.
