Page 150 of One More Christmas at the Castle
And then, after the trifle, the jugs of cream and the brandy butter had gone through, Henry carried the pudding to thetable outside the dining-room door. Dom was standing ready by the light switch just inside the room and watched as I poured the warm brandy over the top of the pudding, and Henry lit it.
A blueish flame sprang up, Dom clicked off the lights, and Henry triumphantly bore in the pudding, to general applause.
I suppose it was inevitable that, of all the charms it contained, Nigel should get the bachelor’s button.
Finally, Mrs Powys tapped her glass for silence and said it had been a wonderful meal – the best Christmas dinner she’d ever eaten – and then graciously thanked everyone for helping to make the day so truly special.
‘I’m sure we’veallbeen blessed with the true spirit of Christmas today, my dear,’ Nancy assured her. ‘We’re full of goodwill, loving kindness … and turkey.’
I saw her eyes rest thoughtfully for a moment on Sophie, then she bestowed a charitable smile on her.
Mrs Powys raised her glass and, to my surprise, said, ‘Now, a toast to Dido, for her wonderful cooking!’
‘To Dido!’ they all said, though Henry added, irreverently, ‘And God bless Tiny Tim!’
Nancy organized a small army of helpers for the mammoth clear-up afterwards: Lucy, Dom, Xan and even Simon, temporarily detached from Sophie’s grip.
Sophie, of course, had followed Mrs Powys and the others to the sitting room, but I hadn’t really expected her to help.
Plum was eager to volunteer for scrap-clearing duty, though, and I slipped him a bit of turkey, before covering it up and putting it back on the stone shelf in the cold larder.
I’d kept a few slices back, though, and now made some turkeyand ham sandwiches for cold supper later. By the time those were covered and in the fridge, the kitchen was magically cleared, cleaned and sparkling and the dishwasher busily chugging.
I thanked everyone and then Henry insisted they go and join the party in the sitting room and he’d follow with the coffee shortly.
‘Only if you both join us, too,’ Nancy said. ‘I don’t think there’s much more you need to do here at the moment, is there?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ agreed Henry.
‘Goody – we’ll play board games!’ she said. ‘How else would we spend the afternoon of Christmas Day? Monopoly and Scrabble!’
‘AndSnakes and Ladders,’ Dom said. ‘That’s about my level.’
Henry, returning from taking the coffee, said that Mrs Powys, Olive, Nancy and Lucy were in the drawing room, watching one of the gardening DVDs Mrs Powys had been given for Christmas, and Frank and Mr Makepeace were in there too, but sleeping off the effects of dinner.
‘Nigel and Simon are playing chess and Sophie’s back to fiddling with her phone again, but perhaps she’ll join in with the board games later, you never know.’
‘Speaking of phones, I just rang Dad to wish him a quick happy Christmas – he’s spending the day with his friends from the university, as usual. He said Granny Celia called earlier, too, and told him to pass her Christmas greeting to me, too, to save her the expense!’
He grinned. ‘That sounds like her!’
He removed the bowl containing what was left of the trifle from the fridge and got a spoon.
‘There’s only a morsel left, so it’s not worth putting away.’
‘You seem to be putting it away, all right,’ I said pointedly. ‘You can wash and dry the bowl, when you’ve finished.’
‘Of course,andI’ll wash the silver pudding charms, too. I had to wrest the horseshoe from Dom, he wanted to keep it.’
‘I’m amazed the whole pudding vanished!’ I said. ‘I now have a spare batch of brandy butter, though …’
I’d once made brandy butter ice cream – and now I remembered I’d seen one of those ice-cream makers in a cupboard, the sort where you freeze the container overnight. I fetched it while I remembered and put it in the turkey-sized hole in the biggest freezer, then removed the very large salmon that was to form the basis of tomorrow’s dinner.
We sat down at the kitchen table with our own coffee after that. I texted a Christmas message to Charlotte while Henry sent out about a million to all his friends.
‘Could you make a few of your thin, crispy almond biscuits to go with ice cream tomorrow?’ I asked him.
‘OK,’ he said amiably, without looking up from his phone.
