Page 45 of The Christmas Invitation
Lex was in the hall when we passed through it, taking the lids off the boxes of decorations. He looked up.
‘There you are! I was just going to remind you about lunch, because we’ve had ours and we’re going to start on the trees in a minute.’
‘I forget the time. It’s my fault we’re late,’ I said.
‘It doesn’t matter, because this portrait’s going to be wonderful,’ enthused Clara. ‘There’s magic in you, to draw out things about myself I didn’t even know existed, Meg.’
‘There always was,’ Lex said. ‘She won Young Portrait Artist of the Year soon after she started her Fine Art degree.’
I was surprised he remembered that, and I wondered if he was slowly starting to see the real me again – or the version he knew long ago – rather than the false one he’d built up in his mind over the ensuing years.
‘Where are the others?’ asked Clara, breaking into my thoughts.
‘Teddy and Henry are in his study, choosing the decorations for the drawing-room tree. Sybil rode up leading the other horse and she and Tottie have gone for a hack, but she said she’d be back in plenty of time for tree-topping.’
I had no idea what he meant by the tree-topping, unless it was just that the entire household needed to be present when the final decoration went on the top?
‘Right, then, we’ll just have a quick bite to eat and then be back to help,’ she said.
The soup was onion, topped with bread and toasted cheese and we ate it to somebasso profundosnoring from Lass, who lay clean, crinkly and exhausted, in her basket by the stove.
Den was about to go back to his flat, and admonished us not to touch the Madeira cake cooling on the rack.
‘You can have some fer tea, but ’alf of it’s fer the trifle, ain’t it?’
‘Oh, good,’ said Clara as the door closed behind him. ‘He makes an excellent trifle with Tottie’s bottled raspberries and a good layer of custard.’
Then, as I laid down my spoon, she rose and said energetically, ‘Come on, let’s help decorate the trees. It’ssuchfun!’
16
Illuminations
I was now looking forward to the tree decorating, Lex or no Lex, and I think the Christmas magic was starting to slowly seep into my psyche.
The sound of Christmas carols was drifting sweetly out from the drawing room and Lex was up a very tall stepladder, winding fairy lights into the Norwegian pine, with Henry and Teddy assisting, or at any rate, offering advice.
‘There you are, my dear,’ said Henry. ‘Lex’s already put the lights on the little tree, and Teddy and I are about to get on with decorating it. Then we’ll come and help you with this monster, won’t we, Teddy?’
Teddy, who was pink-cheeked and excited, nodded. ‘You mustn’t come into the drawing room until it’s finished, though, Meg!’
‘All right, I won’t. I love a surprise.’
‘We’re leaving the door open, but no peeking.’
‘Cross my heart,’ I assured him solemnly.
He and Henry vanished into the drawing room, while Lex, once he’d wound the fairy lights from top to bottom of the tree, began to help us sort out the baubles.
There were loads of the brightly coloured round plastic ones with faceted, mirrored sides, in every colour you could imagine. They came in three sizes and I began to hang the smallest at the top of the tree by going up the stairs and leaning over the rail, while Lex did the other side from the top of the rickety-looking wooden stepladder.
Clara started at the bottom with the largest of the baubles and met us in the middle with the medium ones.
There was a lot of going to and fro between the two rooms – for the scissors, or silk ribbon, or plastic hanging hooks – but I kept my promise and didn’t even glance through the open door.
Den had returned at some point and sat on the wide bottom step of the stairs, unknotting a huge tangled rainbow of old tinsel. Slowly he extracted each strand and rolled it up into a coil: silver, gold, green, blue, red and brightest royal purple.
Teddy emerged from the drawing room and demanded all the silver and gold tinsel, but this must have been the final touch, for we were summoned in to admire their tree shortly afterwards.
