Page 34 of One More Christmas at the Castle
‘Indeed. You’ll see that I’ve written down which room the guests are to have next to their names, but Mrs Kane always has the bedroom on my floor.’
‘Bluebell,’ I said, remembering the name plaque.
‘Her favourite flower,’ said Mrs Powys unexpectedly. ‘Now, I expect most of the guests will arrive on Friday the twenty-first, but if the forecast is bad, some may wish to come earlier. Mrs Kane, though, I’m expecting on the thirteenth, and I hope she will stay till the New Year.’
There was the ghost of that youthful gamine grin again. ‘Iimagine I’ll have had enough of the rest of my guests by Boxing Day, so I hope they’ll take themselves off the day after. That old saying about visitors being like fish – they stink after three days – is only too true.’
‘I sincerely hope the weather makes that possible, then,’ Henry said, his face straight.
‘Yes, indeed, and I’m trusting that you two can ensure that if wearecooped up here together for longer, they don’t kill each other in the manner of a country house crime novel.’
I was getting to recognize her deadpan, dry sense of humour now and accorded this a smile.
‘Making house parties go with a swing is our strength,’ Henry assured her, with one of his beaming and, I sometimes think, slightlyunhingedsmiles. ‘You can trust us.’
‘I should hope so, at the prices you charge! As I mentioned to you, my health is in decline and that prompted me to throw what will be my last house party at the Castle. But I don’t want that to cast a damper over things. I want it to be afunChristmas.’
‘We understand,’ Henry said, ‘and we were very sorry to hear of your ill health.’
Not that shelookedill, apart from being very thin, and her light blue eyes were soveryalive.
‘Thank you, but there’s nothing to be done about it, so there’s no point in dwelling on it,’ she said briskly. ‘After I’d had the diagnosis, I decided I wanted one final, traditional, old-fashioned Christmas, like the ones I remember from my childhood. Of course, we had Christmas parties when Asa was alive, but those were bigger and more riotous occasions. Great fun in their way, though – he had such an outgoing personality and was so gregarious that he just drew people to him like a magnet.’
Her expression was suddenly tragic and I hastened to say,‘We’re quite used to organizing traditional Christmas parties and it will be exactly as you want it. If there are any particular family traditions you want incorporated, you need only mention them.’
‘It’s partly atmosphere, I suppose …’ she said slowly. ‘Christmases at the Castle when Mummy was still alive were quite magical and bound up with the scent of the fir tree in the Great Hall and evergreen swags down the staircase … and the aroma of spicy potpourri and Christmas baking.’
‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ I agreed, writing down ‘florist’s wire’ in my notebook. Creating greenery swags would be Henry’s task; I was useless at that kind of thing.
Mrs Powys was still reminiscing. ‘Present opening was immediately after breakfast, in the sitting room, then dinner on Christmas Day was always at two in the afternoon. After that, we’d play charades, or board games … or if there was snow, go tobogganing down the slope below the Roman fort.’
I could see Henry prick up his ears at this.
‘The terraced gardens below the house are sheltered, but they open out at the bottom and the lake there often freezes over, so you can skate on it.’
‘Great,’ Henry murmured, and I expected he was storing away the location of the steep field, possibly suitable for snowboarding, if he got the chance.
It all sounded lovely anyway, and I found myself hoping for a white Christmas, even if it did cut us off for a while.
Granny and Dora had made a token effort at Christmas when I was very small, but after that we would spend it at a small, country house hotel near Bath. It had been quite fun and there were usually a few other children, and a Santa and activities laid on, but I’d learned since that there was so much more to it, especially the lovely, warm spirit of the season. Ithink that’s why I love endlessly creating that kind of Christmas for others and it’s lucky Henry enjoys it, too.
‘I suppose I’ll have to buy everyone presents, since I’m sure they’ll bring me some expensive and entirely useless bits of tat,’ Mrs Powys said. ‘I’ll have to think about that one, though Nancy is easy. I always get her Penhaligon’s Bluebell perfume.’
‘I could look at the guest list and come up with some suggestions, if you like?’ Henry offered, and she agreed.
‘You might find something suitable on the Fortnum and Mason website,’ she said. ‘By the way, I usually order our crackers from there, too.’
‘Oh, but Marwood’s crackers are the best!’ I said. ‘The factory is close to where I was brought up, and you can see them making them – and the contents are a lot more original and exciting than other kinds.’
‘I can’t say I’ve ever foundanythingexciting in a cracker,’ Mrs Powys said. ‘But do go ahead and order a couple of dozen of whichever seems most suitable.’
‘They do several varieties. I’ll check them out,’ I promised.
‘I think that’s about it for now,’ she said, looking suddenly tired. ‘I expect Nancy – Mrs Kane – will be in and out of the kitchen, making herself endless cups of tea, but she won’t get in your way.’
‘Of course, that’s no problem,’ I said, and it occurred to me that a retired vicar seemed an unlikely friend for Sabine Powys to have, so I looked forward to meeting her. Perhaps she would be the one to inject some of the real meaning of Christmas into the proceedings, too?
Mrs Powys gathered her clipboard and papers together and rose to her feet, and we got up, too.
