Page 77 of One More Christmas at the Castle
Once the morning chores were done, Henry vanished upstairs to carry on sorting out the Christmas decorations, popping down to the kitchen from time to time, where I was baking up a storm, to show me special finds.
‘Baubles, bangles, bright shiny things …’ he warbled, appearing yet again, this time carrying an open box of glass birds with white, glass fibre tails. Then he stopped singing and sniffed. ‘Something smells good!’
I was laying out wire cooling racks along the table, ready to receive the first offerings, fresh from the oven.
‘I’m making Cornish pasties, cheese and onion pies, two more quiches and a big batch of mince pies, mostly destined for the freezer. I’m saving some pastry to top the Lancashire hotpots for dinner one day this week, because I’ll make those later.’
I had to keep reminding myself to leave a big enough hole in one of the freezers for the giant turkey.
‘What are you giving them for lunch today?’
‘The leftover beef Wellington, very thinly sliced, with warm potato salad.’
‘Waste not, want not! You’re so organized, Dido, darling,’ he said, as I removed a tray of golden Cornish pasties from the oven and replaced it with one bearing the two quiches.
‘Well, that’s something I seem to have in common with Mrs Hill, the old housekeeper,andMrs Powys, but it will be such a help to have ready-made things I can whip out of the freezer when the house party are here.’
‘I hope you’ve left a corner in one of them for me,’ he reminded me. ‘I’ll snowboard this afternoon if the snow’s still right after all this sun, but if not, I thought I’d have a little baking session of my own and make a big fruit cake to cut at, and maybe a batch or two of savouries, like cheese straws.’
‘I’ve left you a whole deep wire basket in the biggest freezer.’ I glanced at the clock. ‘Everything should be out of the oven in half an hour, then I only need to clear up and peel the potatoes for the warm salad, so I think I’ll be able to squeeze in a short walk …’
‘I expect Xan will come and drag you out by the hair, if you don’t,’ Henry said with a grin.
‘Really, Henry, he’s not some kind of caveman!’ I exclaimed, but he simply grinned and vanished upstairs again.
Mrs Powys seemed to have settled for a regular recording session right after her breakfast now. Xan had said, while we were eating ours, that they were about to embark on the first years of Asa and Sabine’s marriage, when they’d made all their major underwater discoveries and their TV documentary series.
Xan must have shut Plum in the study with him while he worked this morning, because he didn’t make an appearance until he arrived with Xan, to see if I had time to go for a walk with them. Remembering Henry’s joking remark, I felt myself going pink, though anyone less like a caveman than the elegant, willowy and scholarly Xan would be hard to imagine!
The idea of it made me smile and he returned it warmly.
‘I was just about to go for a walk anyway,’ I told him.
‘Get your coat and put your wellies on, then,’ he said, and soon I was trudging through the snow at his side, Plum running along ahead.
I realized I was starting to look forward to these walks and would miss them when the other guests arrived and Xan didn’t need my company any more. We’d chat about everything and anything and he also told me about his holidays spent here as a schoolboy and how much fun Asa and Sabine had made them.
Asa sounded a charismatic and outgoing character, and a picture also emerged of a more sociable and unbuttoned Sabine, too. I think they must have complemented each other, the perfect partnership, and I remembered again the golden, glowing couple in that YouTube film clip.
In the study that afternoon, since I’d finished sorting the magazines, I decided to make a start on the bookshelves that covered two walls, from floor to ceiling.
They certainly needed a thorough spring clean, since itquickly became clear that they hadn’t had more than a feather duster run along them for years.
I decided I’d tackle them methodically, starting from the top of the first stack, and working downwards, before beginning the next. It would take me quite some time …
I commandeered the nearest pasting table to put the books on while the shelf was cleaned, then pulled over the mahogany library steps so I could reach the very top shelf.
Xan was still sorting letters. Asa seemed to have been a prolific correspondent and his habit of pinning copies of his replies to the originals made for even more work, though I’m sure they would be helpful to Xan for the biography.
At the sound of the library steps sliding over the floor, he looked up, watching as I climbed right to the top and reached up for the first books.
His eyes, which had been somewhat abstracted, sharpened and he said, ‘Are you sure you’re safe, teetering about up there?’
‘I’m not teetering, I’m perfectly safe,’ I told him, but after a few minutes during which I carried the first books down and laid them on the table, he got up and came over.
‘I can’t concentrate with you up there. Come down and I’ll pass the books to you.’
I gave in without a struggle, because his help would speed things up no end. But when the first shelf was empty, I insisted on cleaning it myself, even if he did hold the steps steady.
