Page 153 of One More Christmas at the Castle
I followed them with pots of tea and coffee – and remembered the cream for Olive, this morning.
Today, Sophie was already there and it was Lucy and Mr Makepeace who were the stragglers, coming in together just after me. They were talking about morris dancing, in which they had discovered a bizarre and unlikely mutual passion.
‘Oh,pleasedon’t get Grandpa started on the bells and ribbons stuff,’ Sophie said rudely, casting up her eyes.
‘Actually, I find the history of morris dancing and mumming fascinating, too,’ said Xan mildly. ‘You can trace elements of it right back to pagan times.’
‘Itisinteresting how those pagan elements were also later absorbed into the Christian mystery plays, like St George and the Dragon,’ put in Simon eagerly, before wistfully adding, ‘If it hadn’t been for my bad leg, I’d have joined the Wallstone Morris Men.’
‘Really?’ Sophie said, disbelievingly. She had put a fried egg on top of her usual slice of dry toast, but now seemed to be having second thoughts about it.
Henry slotted two more slices of toast in the silver rack and asked Mrs Powys if she wouldn’t like to try a hash brown with her bacon this morning?
‘Maybe just one,’ she agreed. ‘And perhaps someone could pour me another cup of coffee? I feel a little tired this morning.’
From Mrs Powys, this was quite an admission and she did look fine-drawn and haggard, even if those light blue eyes were as youthfully alive as ever.
I put her coffee in front of her, and she smiled directly at me for the first timeever. It wasn’t quite the whole three-cornered puckish job, but it was getting there.
‘Thank you, Dido – that’s just how I like it.’
Nigel said, ‘Could I trouble you for some brown sauce, Dido? I always have it on hash browns.’
‘You have depraved tastes, Nigel,’ joked Mrs Powys. ‘Do we have any in the house?’
‘Yes –Ihave depraved tastes too,’ Henry said.
‘I’ll fetch it,’ I told him. ‘You keep an eye on that toaster. The bread does seem to hurtle out of it and hit the floor, if you don’t catch it.’
When I got back, there was a certain air of tension in the room that hadn’t been there before.
Mrs Powys was in the middle of saying something to Simon.
‘… and I was so interested in what you said about that Roman ring Sophie showed you the other evening that I’ve been reading up about it. It seems a very rare design.’
Simon was too interested in the subject to question when and how Mrs Powys had read up on the subject, but said eagerly,‘Itisunusual and I think there’s only one other like it, in a museum somewhere.’
‘Almost unique, then,’ she said as I stood, rooted to the spot and wondering what was coming next … until I remembered the bottle of sauce I was clutching and set it down in front of Nigel.
I thought Sophie seemed to have stiffened, but she was now making a big deal of stirring her coffee.
‘I didn’t get a chance to look at the ring properly, Sophie,’ Mrs Powys continued, ‘but I’d love to see it again and in a proper light. Why don’t you pop upstairs and fetch it?’
‘Now?’ said Sophie, looking up, her brown eyes huge and startled.
‘Yes, why not? It won’t take you a moment and you appear to have abandoned your breakfast.’
‘I – it’s gone cold. I was about to have some fresh toast … so surelyafterwardswould do?’ she suggested.
‘Yes, won’t later be better, Sabine?’ Nancy urged, but when Mrs Powys shook her head, she and Xan looked at each other in a resigned kind of way.
‘Timothy and I are going to the library right after breakfast, for a long talk, but I really ammostinterested to see the ring first, so do go and get it, Sophie.’
Mr Makepeace looked sharply across the table at his granddaughter. ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t bring it to show Sabine, is there?’ he asked sharply.
‘No, of course not!’ she said, getting up very slowly. ‘I … it’s just that I’m not entirely sure where I put it when I took it off the other night!’
‘Then if you can’t find it, we’ll all come and help you hunt for it, just as we did for my earrings,’ Sabine said, with a smile that seemed to totally unnerve Sophie.
