Page 126 of One More Christmas at the Castle
‘I thought you might be ready to go back to the Castle now,’ he suggested.
‘Yes, I’d better,’ I agreed, checking my watch. ‘Henry, you stay on. There’s not much to prepare for lunch and I can manage.’
‘We’ll be back soon, anyway. I’ll round everyone up shortly,’ Dom said. ‘I saw Dad just walk in, too, so the delights of the folk museum must already have palled.’
A little weak sunshine made the windows of the Castle sparkle like jewels as we came out of the dark maw of the drive.
The house looked serene and peaceful, and I wondered if Olive Melling was looking the same way after her talk with Mrs Powys.
We went in by way of the Garden Hall and dumped our purchases on the kitchen table.
Plum was so fast asleep, we had to wake him up to tell him we were home, though I don’t think he’d even realized we’d been out.
‘I’d better go and collect the tea tray from the sitting room before I start lunch,’ I said. ‘Mrs Powys and Olive must have long since finished their talk.’
‘I’m sure they have,’ Xan agreed. ‘Shall I fetch the—’
He broke off as the big bell on its metal spring jangled to announce a visitor at the front door, and we looked at each other.
‘Can that possibly be Mr Makepeace and his granddaughter already?’ I said. ‘They aren’t supposed to be here till after lunch.’
The bell jangled again. ‘We’d better answer it, whoever it is, because no one else seems to be,’ Xan said, and we headed for the Great Hall, Plum pattering in our wake.
The door into the sitting room was open, but since there was no sound of voices, perhaps Olive and Mrs Powys had gone upstairs to their rooms until lunch.
‘You get the tray and I’ll answer the door,’ Xan suggested as the bell jangled for the third time.
‘OK,’ I agreed, and heard him open it and say, ‘Hello, Mr Makepeace! Sorry for keeping you waiting, but …’
I lost the rest, but when I went out again with the tray, an elderly man was ushering a dark-haired young woman into the hall.
‘Ah, Xan,’ he said, ‘good to see you again.’
His voice was dry and so was he – a small, shrivelled husk of a man, like a spent chrysalis from which all life had long since flown.
‘So sorry we’re early, but my granddaughter drove us and she was worried the roads might be difficult because of the snow. This is my granddaughter, Sophie Martin. Sophie, Xan Fellowes.’
And as she turned towards Xan, who had been closing the door behind them, my heart gave a sudden, sickening lurch. It might have been almost twenty years since I’d last seen her, but the feathery dark hair framing an enchantingly pretty heart-shaped face, with a tip-tilted nose and huge, soft, pansy-brown eyes, did not seem to have changed in the least.
I heard Xan exclaim incredulously, ‘Sophie!’ And when I looked quickly at him I saw, bizarrely superimposed over his own dear face, the dazzled expression of a young man deep in the throes of first love.
‘Xan! I can’t believe it!’ she exclaimed breathily. ‘I never thought to findyouhere!Howmany years is it?’
‘Too many,’ he murmured, still looking dazedly at her.
The tray tilted in my hands and the crockery begun to slide towards the floor, but I righted it in the nick of time.
‘What were you saying about there being too manycoincidences, Xan?’ I said tartly, before bitter tears blinded my eyes and I fled to the haven of the kitchen.
Once there, I sank down on a chair, feeling quite sick when I remembered that expression on Xan’s face.
He’d told me he’d soon forgotten all about her after that summer, but the sight of her had clearly brought it all back, and now it would probably all come out about the letter he’d asked me to give her on the day he’d left, and my sins would finally catch me out.
It took me a good ten minutes to pull myself together and begin on the preparations for lunch, but I was glad when Henry came back and I could pour it all out into his sympathetic ear.
‘I suppose Charlotte and this girl’s family are all local, so it’s notthatmuch of a huge coincidence that she should turn up,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s lucky Xan had already recognized you, isn’t it? I expect he’s already told her you’re here, too.’
‘Yes, and then he’ll ask her why she never replied to the letter he left for her. Which she couldn’t, because instead of giving it to her I burned it in a fit of adolescent jealousy!’
