Page 160 of The Christmas Invitation
I tried again. ‘It means you were legitimate, Mum. But then your father married someone else, bigamously, and you have a half-sister.’
‘Is she nice?’
‘Lovely,’ I said, leaving out the whole trying-to-kill-me bit. ‘And she has a son, my half-cousin, Mark. He inherited the family estate, but actually, if you took it to court, you might have some claim on part of it. But I’ve told them you won’t do that, so we’ve decided to forget about the first marriage.’
‘That’s all very confusing, darling, but you do what you like about it. I’m a child of the Goddess; that’s enough for me.’
She sounded like River.
‘Don’t you want to come over and meet your new family?’
‘No, though it is nice to have a sister – do tell her I hope she’ll come out and visit us one of these days. Boo-boo’s got a palace. You must come out too, Meg,’ she added kindly. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be back any time soon: too cold, too wet. I feel my home is here in India now.’
Yes, I thought, probably in a lavish palace with servants and hot and cold running elephants, if such places still existed.
‘Are there elephants?’
‘In India, there arealwayselephants, darling.’
When she’d rung off, I went out of the room rather blindly and literally ran into Lex in the hall.
And it must have been the relief and shock, for I threw my arms around his neck and burst into tears all over his broad chest.
‘Mum’salive!’ I sobbed as he gathered me into his arms.
‘I know. Your brother rang Clara earlier and warned her she was going to call you, but Clara thought it should be a surprise. Is your mother all right?’
I stopped crying and mopped my face with a tissue I fished out of my pocket, then told him what my totally ditsy mother had said. And as I did, I began to see the funny side …
‘It’s exactly like her: the moment she remembers who she is, rich friends whisk her to a smart hotel, where she bumps into a maharaja, who instantly proposes to her.’
I realized Lex’s arms were still around me and he was gazing down at me, suddenly sobered and intent. ‘We could go and visit her – together?’ he suggested, tentatively.
‘What do you mean?’ I said stupidly, feeling the world whirl dizzyingly round.
He turned my face up to his and kissed me, long and hard, and my knees went weak. It didn’t help with the dizzy feeling, that was for sure.
‘I think you know what I mean,’ he said finally. ‘I love you and I think you love me. So, are we going to let the past keep us apart, or bring us together?’
‘Couldit bring us together? Won’t the memory of Lisa always be there?’
‘Yes, but in the way she wanted to be remembered: fondly, as a happy memory, not a sad ghost.’
I looked up at him and saw that his face was not sardonic, or sombre, or even kind, but instead filled with tenderness and love.
I pulled his head down for another long kiss … eventually broken by River’s voice exclaiming in pleased tones, ‘How wonderful that your stars have now aligned! The blessings of the Goddess be upon you!’
At dinner, we opened yet more elderflower champagne to toast Mum’s reappearance, butnotanother engagement because Lex and I had decided there had been too many of those lately. Instead, we’d have the honeymoon in India first and then a quiet wedding later, or possibly while we were still out there.
Clara and Henry seemed to think this was a perfectly reasonable suggestion.
‘Just as well it was a good year for collecting elderflowers,’ Tottie said, topping up the glasses. ‘Otherwise, we’d be running out of fizz, by now.’
Later, when I wished Lex goodnight, he said, ‘It’s been one hell of a day!’
‘You can say that again,’ I agreed whole-heartedly. ‘Half-nightmare, half—’
He kissed me before I could complete the sentence. ‘I hope I’m in the good half now, whatever it is.’
