Page 42 of One More Christmas at the Castle
It could be my imagination, but I’d already got the impression that Mrs Powys seemed to like Henry rather more than me, though I expect that was because they both came from the same sort of background.
Tired but satisfied with my day’s work, I retired to our sitting room, put on some Christmas music, and started unpacking our mini pop-up tree and some decorations.
You’d think my head would have been full of lists, menus and recipes when I finally went to bed, but instead, when I closed my eyes, it was Xan’s dreamy and abstracted poet’s face that I saw, just the way he’d looked that afternoon, by the lake.
No longer blinded by an adolescent crush into endowing him with the attributes of a romantic hero, I saw him for what he was: a nice, friendly man with scholarly tastes and no yearnings to be Lancelot to anyone’s Guinevere.
Sabine
These days, although I sleep little, I always retire to my rooms by ten, feeling quite exhausted. The pangs of pain and aching in my bones increase too, harbingers of what is to come, but I’m hoarding the painkillers they obviously mean to dole out in meagre amounts.
It has been an emotionally draining day, opening up Asa’s study to Xan, seeming also to open a floodgate to memories of the past, both the good ones and the ones I’ve tried hardest to forget. Whether this will prove a good thing or not, I don’t know – but it was never possible to shut Pandora’s box again once it had been opened.
I gave Xan Asa’s bunch of keys to the doors, the desk, the low cupboards and filing cabinets, along with the free run of whatever he might find in there.
Of course, I had my own desk, computer and printer moved into the library very soon after Asa died. That way, it was easier to pretend Asa was just next door, sitting in his big leather office chair. So, though Maria regularly dusted and aired the room, it was almost six years since I’d last entered it.
When I unlocked the doors for Xan this morning, it was asif Asa had just strolled out a few minutes ago. That’s what almost stopped my heart. Xan pulled back the drapes to let in the light, which was symbolic, I suppose, of what he was about to do, and looked around the room in amazement.
‘It’s as if Asa had just gone out for a few minutes,’ he said, echoing my own thoughts. ‘Even his computer is still sitting there on his desk!’
‘Yes …’ I said on a sigh. ‘It hasn’t been touched since Asa died. You’re going to have quite a task.’
There were books, papers, artefacts, magazines and journals crammed on the shelves and piled on every surface, coloured maps and charts pinned to the walls, and a framed photograph of the two of us, young, bronzed and carefree in the bright Greek sunshine, expecting the bright golden bubble of our happiness to surround us for ever.
I resolutely turned away from the photograph and told Xan that I entirely trusted his discretion on what he might find, and which material he would use in the biography. I said I knew that his grandfather, Tommy, would have told him many stories about his early days with Asa, too.
They’d been inseparable friends from school, so perhaps he and Asa were together now, having a riotous time in heaven, which has many houses, at least one of which should be full of cheerful, argumentative academics.
Xan assured me that I need have no worries and, in any case, could read the book before he sent it in to his publishers, if I wished.
I thought I’d probably be long gone by then, but suggested that as he wrote, he could ask himself: ‘Would Sabine like this to be included?’ and he grinned.
He’d earlier told me he had already researched Asa’s childhood onwards – I am sure he would have written the biographywith or without my co-operation – and made notes about his later career and achievements. The framework was there, but the man, Asa himself, was not and must be brought to life within its pages.
‘I have no idea if the computer still works but the password is “amphorae”,’ I said. ‘He printed out all his emails and replies and I filed them away for him. I doubt there’s much of interest left on it.’
‘I’ll check and let you know,’ he said, and looked around. ‘I think I’ll set up my laptop and printer and unpack my recording gear. Perhaps you’ll give me a short session after lunch?’ he suggested. ‘Just a little background about your life up to the point where you met Asa.’
I agreed and then, hearing the voices of Henry and Dido in the library, where they awaited my instructions, went through and closed the adjoining door behind me.
Lunch was simple but good, served by the boy – he seems a boy to me – Henry. Dido so far has effaced herself, other than bringing my breakfast and receiving my orders this morning, but I am conscious of her presence in the house in a way I wasn’t expecting.
After lunch, Xan and I took our coffee in the study, where he had placed two chairs opposite each other across the coffee table in front of the fireplace, his recording equipment between us. He told me to think of it as a pleasant chat about my childhood at the Castle and the years until I went up to Oxford University.
I have to say that I quickly forgot he was holding a microphone and told him all about my early childhood at the Castle, when my mother was alive – ponies, dogs, skating and tobogganing in winter – and the wonderful warm memories of theChristmases we had. The Castle was my mother’s family home and she ran the estate and the household with perfect ease. My father had a share in a London antique shop and often went to country house sales and auctions, in search of suitable items to send down to it. These trips, and going to race meetings, were interests Mummy shared.
‘It was a magical, wonderful childhood and we were so happy … until Mummy suddenly became ill, when I was seven. Eventually a nurse came to live in and look after her. And although I’d thought Mummy and Daddy were devoted to each other, not three months after she died, he married this nurse, Barbara Jones. Babs, she called herself. And things were never the same again.’
‘That must have been very difficult for you, while you were still grieving for your mother,’ Xan said softly.
‘It was – I think I hated Daddy almost as much as her – and I was sent off to boarding school when I turned eight. Not that I wanted to be at home, for although Mummy had left the Castle and her estate to me, my father had an income derived from it and could continue living there. I’m sure Mummy never expected him to marry again,’ I added. ‘My home felt tainted when theUsurper– that’s what I called her – took over. Then she had my half-sister, Faye, and they both doted on her …’
I paused, feeling again the turmoil of anger, bitterness and jealousy that had filled me then, before shrugging off the past: ‘She was so much younger than me that I barely knew her and, in any case, I spent as much of the school holidays as possible away, staying with the family of friends, or on school trips abroad. I became interested in history and archaeology and was accepted by Oxford University.’
I looked up, only then remembering that this was all beingrecorded. ‘I’ve been running on a bit, but I really don’t want any of that in the book!’
‘It’s all right, I’ll just briefly skate over the years till you arrived at uni. I already knew a little about your past from Tommy – that your father had remarried and you had a half-sister. But your life before then sounded very happy.’
