Page 84 of One More Christmas at the Castle
‘You’re such a child!’ I told him. ‘And Henry’s another – he’d have beaten you to it, if he’d been here.’
Plum looked as though he’d have liked some too, but of course dried fruit isn’t at all good for dogs.
I opened a packet of mini bone-shaped biscuits instead and gave him one.
‘Where did those come from?’ Xan asked.
‘I put them on the supermarket order. I thought they’d be nice for little treats. I find him hard to resist when he looks at me so endearingly. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘No, but I think Plum might be falling for you just as hard as Henry’s cousin Hector did – and me!’ he teased.
Mrs Kane was due to arrive before tea and I was just starting to get it ready when the bell for the front door jangled, but I knew Henry was in the dining room and would hear it.
‘Was that Mrs Kane?’ I asked, when he came back to the kitchen.
‘Yes, and as soon as Mrs Powys heard her voice she practically ran out of the sitting room and they hugged each other. It was very touching.’
‘Xan says they’ve been best friends since their student days and I know Mrs Powys has been looking forward to seeing her,’ I said.
‘I’ve taken her luggage up and put her car in the garage. I moved the Land Rover into the log store to make room for it. She has a pale green Volkswagen Beetle.’
He sounded approving.
I added Xan’s cafetière of coffee to the trolley, next to the big Minton teapot, and then it was all ready to go: we’d made an extra special tea, with slices of the fruit cake as well as warm savoury scones.
‘What’s Mrs Kane like?’ I asked curiously, as he prepared to wheel it off.
He paused. ‘Small, wiry, flyaway white hair … friendly,’ he said, which wasn’t reallythatilluminating. Then he rattled off down the passage, singing, ‘Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle …’ though I hoped he’d remember to stop long before he got within earshot of Mrs Powys.
I thought I’d have to wait till breakfast to meet Mrs Kane, but a little later, while Henry was lighting the fire and laying the table in the dining room, she came in, pushing the depleted tea trolley.
I looked up from slicing cucumber into wafer-thin discs to lay over the salmon, thinking Henry must have decided to fetch it on his way back, but instead saw a wiry elderly woman, with a bony, beaming, eager face, pink patches on her high cheekbones and blue-grey eyes shining with intelligence, interest and warmth.
Henry can look like that in his more cherubic moments, but in his case it’s misleading.
‘Mrs Kane! You should have left that for Henry to bring back.’
‘Oh, I thought I might as well save him a journey since I wanted to meet you, and Sabine has already gone up to rest,’ she explained. ‘Xan went back to the study ages ago, so Lucy and I have had such a nice chat.’
‘Really?’ I said, my knife poised over the cucumber. Lucy seemed to spout endless streams of slightly incoherent speech, but I hadn’t yet heard her say anything interesting.
‘Yes, indeed! I saw almost immediately that the poor girl was just dying to join in all the Christmas activities in the village with her friends, so I told her that now I was here to keep Sabine company, she wouldn’t mind Lucy absenting herself asmuch as she pleased. Not that she would have objected in any case toanythingthat took Lucy out for hours,’ she added candidly, ‘because clearly having her here hasn’t worked out. They’re chalk and cheese, and Sabine has never suffered fools gladly.’
‘No,’ I said, slightly stunned by this candid assessment. ‘I mean, yes!’
She beamed up at me. ‘No one mentioned what a tall, beautiful girl you are! And Henry seemed a most delightful young man –andhe’s a former schoolfellow of Xan’s, too, I understand. So nice for him to have young people here, as well as us oldies.’
‘He and Henry have been catching up,’ I agreed cautiously, since I was sure Mrs Powys had no idea how much time we’d all been spending together. ‘But two of the guests arriving later are around his own age, so he’ll have lots of company then.’
‘Oh, yes, Sabine told me Dominic Melling is coming. His mother is some sort of cousin of Asa’s and I met the family one Christmas when my late husband and I were staying here. And Sabine’s solicitor has his granddaughter staying with him, so she’s invited her, too.’
‘The Director of Archaeology from the Roman site is also joining us for Christmas dinner,’ I told her.
‘How lovely!’ she said, with a very Henry-like beam. ‘I’m sure this Christmas will be such fun! I do adore everything about Christmas, don’t you?’
‘I do – and so does Henry. And we’re determined to make sure this one includes as many of the traditions Mrs Powys remembers from her childhood, as possible.’
Mrs Kane looked sober. ‘We must all help to make it a very special Christmas, for I’m afraid it will be her last one. Or notafraid, precisely, since of course I strongly believe in Eternal Life,’ she added, and I remembered she was a vicar.
