The Christmas Surprise (21 page)

Rosie undid Apostil’s seat belt with apprehension, as Mr Dog shot off and vanished into a furry throng. Mrs Laird, the daily, came running out with a huge grin on her face.

‘Is the little master here?’ she said.

‘He’s not a master of anything,’ said Stephen affectionately. ‘Not even his own bowels.’

Mrs Laird, who had worked for the great house all through Stephen’s lonely, unhappy childhood, took his hands in hers and gave him a thorough inspection.

‘You look well,’ she concluded, and Rosie smiled to herself. Passing Mrs Laird’s assessment was at least as important as passing Lady Lipton’s.

‘Well, come on, come on, let’s see him!’

She marched over, and peered at the little bundle.

‘At last!’ she said cheerfully. ‘Been too long since we’ve had a little one about the place. And the last one was terribly grumpy. Anyway, by the way, have you heard?’

‘Heard what?’ frowned Stephen. Their phones struggled to get a signal down in the village, and Stephen rarely bothered with his anyway, a fact, as Rosie constantly reminded him, that had once nearly split them up.

However, whatever Mrs Laird’s news was was cut off as the back door opened to reveal someone who was so like Lady Lipton – except, if it was possible, with an even more imperious demeanour – that it had to be
Stephen’s older sister Pamela. She was exceptionally thin, in a way Rosie had occasionally seen in London but never in Lipton, where most people tended to acquire a comfy layer to keep out the harsher winter winds. She had Stephen’s strong jawline and forehead, which on her looked a little hard, and a completely smoothed-out face, her skin taut and shiny, which oddly made her appear older than her thirty-six years.

‘Well,’ drawled Pamela. ‘What on earth have you been up to now?’

Stephen grinned.

‘Hey, Pam. Wow, you’re looking seriously underweight. Well done.’

Pamela was wearing a tiny black miniskirt that Rosie could somehow tell was expensive, as were her tights – who knew tights could look expensive? – a black cashmere polo neck, fancy high leather boots with tassels and chains hanging off them in unusual ways, and a very peculiar half-leather, half-fur jacket. Her hair was tinted in varying shades of blonde, and even though nobody round here had seen the sun in a month and a half, she had Chanel sunglasses perched on top of her head.

Stephen hugged her, and Pamela gave a tentative smile.

‘So, I decided to come over early, you know, pitch up and see what was happening.’

Her accent was a mixture of very posh English and American. Stephen narrowed his eyes.

‘Seriously? The bank just lets you take time off like that?’

‘You think I have a hidden agenda?’ snapped back Pamela.

‘YES!’ said Stephen. ‘I think you couldn’t wait to see your nephew. Come and meet him.’

‘My step-nephew,’ said Pamela, reluctantly agreeing to be led into the kitchen along with Apostil, who was regarding the goings-on from his baby seat with interest. Rosie knew as soon as he got into the warmth of the indoors he would start wriggling and want to go free, so she started to loosen his straps.

‘He’s not your step-nephew,’ said Stephen crossly. ‘I’m your brother. This is my son. He’s your NEPHEW.’

There was a short silence. Henrietta was in the kitchen, shouting at somebody on the telephone.

‘Forty-five and not a penny more.’ She put the phone down crossly. ‘I can’t believe I even have to speak to these people.’

‘What people?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, holding up an electricity bill sadly. ‘I knew an hour ago when I first got on the telephone.’

Rosie felt a sudden stab of pity for her. The world she had been born into and the world she now found herself living in were completely different places.

Stephen took the bill.

‘I’ll do that, Mum.’

Suddenly Henrietta looked older, a little confused. Then she shook herself out of it.

‘Come on then. Let’s have a look at him.’

Just as Rosie went to get him, Apostil gave a little lurch forward. Forgetting she’d already undone the straps, she almost let him topple head first on to the hard flagstone floor, before managing to catch him just in time, cursing herself to high heaven. Apostil of course let out an almighty roar.

‘Well that’s never happened before,’ said Stephen quickly, as Lady Lipton’s eyebrows went through the roof.

Desperately Rosie tried to soothe him, but Apostil obviously picked up on her slightly anxious body language, and could not be calmed, instead letting out a painful repeated wail. Lady Lipton attempted to make small talk about farming conditions, which didn’t help in the slightest, as Rosie jiggled him up and down. Finally Stephen came to her rescue and plopped him over his shoulder, whereupon Rosie immediately felt conflicted between relief that he’d stopped crying and resentment that Stephen had managed what she could not, and that the other women in the room were nodding fondly at his amazing ability to do what she did every day as a matter of course. She felt a bit like growling.

‘Well, he’s a handsome chap, even if he does only
have one fin,’ said Henrietta eventually. Rosie felt obscurely grateful that she didn’t, as some people had, pretend that Apostil’s disability didn’t exist, or that it was hardly noticeable. Apostil, restored to his calm self, regarded his grandmother unblinkingly.

‘Well then,’ she coughed, ‘I suppose you’ll be spared those boring questions about who he looks like.’

‘Do you want to hold him?’ asked Stephen.

‘He seems a little unpredictable,’ said Henrietta.

‘No, he’s a sweetheart,’ said Rosie, as the others gave her patronising glances.

‘You know,’ said Pamela, apropos of nothing, ‘I had my eggs frozen when I was twenty-nine. Better safe than sorry, huh?’

‘So, you’re here for Christmas?’ said Stephen. ‘That’s nice.’

Pamela frowned and looked around the kitchen. Her eyes alighted briefly on the gin bottle, then moved on.

‘Yeah, well, thought it was time to check in.’

‘How are things with the bank? Brought down any major economies recently?’

‘How’s the school? Still accountable and paid for by our taxes?’

‘You’re right,’ said Stephen. ‘Mandatory education is just a step too far.’

‘Children,’ said Henrietta absent-mindedly.

Rosie found it astonishing that no one was more keen
to ask about their trip, or Apostil, or what had happened to them. Her own mother had pestered her for details about every single second of everything that had happened, as had Pip’s wife Desleigh, who was, Rosie was prepared to concede, a slightly nosy gossip, but even so, this family’s coolness with one another was a complete mystery to her. She looked at the way Stephen was clasping Apostil to him, the baby’s little bum up in the air, his legs curled round Stephen’s chest, and felt a swell of reassurance. No way would Stephen be like that with his own child. Not for Apostil a cold and loveless childhood in a living mausoleum.

‘So,’ said Pamela, obviously wanting to get down to it, ‘I wanted to talk again about primogeniture.’

Of course she did. This was Pamela’s big bugbear: that even though she was older than Stephen, he would inherit after his mother died, because he was a boy. Stephen didn’t care in the slightest; in fact had often spoken of how much he wished the burden would be taken away from him. Lipton Hall was crumbling and needed extraordinary amounts of money they simply would never have, and he couldn’t bear the inevitable obsequiousness from total strangers. But his mother had been so insistent that it was what his father would have wanted, that it was his duty and reponsibility, that there had been Liptons in Lipton Hall for three hundred years and he had no bloody right to break that chain, etc. etc.,
that he had almost got used to it as a kind of hideous incoming necessity.

‘Ah,’ said Stephen. He glanced down at Apostil’s head, which was moving from side to side; he was used to his bottle, but he still rooted around for a nipple from time to time, which made Rosie a little sad, even though she reminded herself she was being a total idiot and loads of natural mothers didn’t breastfeed.

Then, as Mrs Laird brought in tea and ginger cake for everyone, Stephen gave Rosie a steady look. She looked back at him and returned it, with a slight, tiny nod, because she knew exactly what that look was and what it meant, and she needed him to know that she supported him all the way, whatever the consequences. Anyway, the sight of Henrietta trying to wrangle with the electricity department by herself on the telephone had told Rosie all she needed to know about the possibility of there being any money.

‘Well,’ said Stephen. He cleared his throat and glanced at Rosie again. She came across to put sugar in his tea – he couldn’t manage it himself holding Apostil – and squeezed him briefly on the shoulder, to show her support. ‘Well, Pamela. I don’t give a tiny flying fuck. You want it, it’s all yours.’

There was a long pause.

‘Seriously?’ said Pamela.

Stephen’s jaw was set. He looked at his mother. He
knew what was running through her head, and it made him so furious he could hardly think straight. He didn’t touch his tea. He knew that Henrietta, who had always been so adamant that he had to inherit, would see things differently now that he had a son – a son who was not his natural son, who was not even the same colour, but a legal son who would always be the eldest no matter what.

He paused again, waiting, just in case he had been wrong, just in case he had misjudged her. There was silence in the kitchen as the grandfather clock ticked outside in the hallway, from which the double looping staircase ascended to the long gallery lined with portraits of strong-jawed men with fixed expressions, their hairstyles and wigs resounding way back into the past. He thought about the family, their motto and coat of arms, their family pew at church, their long line of breeding, the colonels, the hunt balls and the posh schools, all of it. And as the clock ticked on, he wondered if there was room for Apostil.

Rosie quietly cleared her throat just next to him.

‘Oh,’ he said, unhappy to even have to ask. ‘So I mean … I mean, I’ll give up my claim. To Lipton Hall. It’s okay. Pam can have it. Although … we thought … we thought we’d move into Peak House for a bit. Now we’ve got the nipper and everything. I mean, we’ll look after it for you whilst you’re in the States.’

The silence continued.

‘Actually,’ drawled Pamela, ‘I was thinking of taking a little leave of absence. Having some down time. Discovering my roots.’

‘Staying here for a bit?’ said Stephen, suddenly worried.

‘Well I can’t stay with
Mother
,’ said Pamela, as if putting up in a fifty-room mansion was the absolute height of torture. ‘So, you know. If primogeniture really isn’t a problem … I’m going to hang out in the house that’s going to be mine, know what I mean?’

There was a long pause. Rosie felt uncomfortably warm and tight around the throat. Stephen’s voice, when he spoke, was dangerously calm.

‘Have you been fired again, sis?’ he said.

Pamela ignored him.

‘Mother,’ said Stephen. ‘Rosie and I were thinking, we could really do with the space …’

Lady Lipton raised her hands.

‘Oh, suddenly the estate means something to you, Stephen. Suddenly, finally, after all this time. After years of trying to shake it off and have nothing to do with it, and go your own way and escape our fuddy-duddy ways. But then when you need a free house …’

Stephen had gone very white. Pamela was leaning calmly against the units. Suddenly brother and sister looked very alike.

‘I think we’ll take the baby home,’ he said slowly.

Rosie jumped up, as happy to get away as he was. She knew she was lucky in a way – the sting was so much less for her, because she didn’t care. She didn’t care about the Lipton seat; she certainly had no desire to take on the responsibility of a big dusty mansion and do things the Lipton way. Henrietta reacting like this had been no more nor less than she’d expected, and as soon as she’d seen Pamela – who despite meeting her sister-in-law-to-be for the very first time had barely exchanged two words with her – she’d known she was trouble.

But oh, she felt so very awful for Stephen. And they were still going to have to move.

‘They’re just HORRIBLE,’ said Stephen, driving the Land Rover down the hill with such careless force that Rosie worried Apostil would be jolted up in the air. ‘They’re just … like two nasty crows.’

‘Everyone’s family is complicated,’ murmured Rosie gently, wanting to keep to platitudes and neither stoke his temper nor encourage a sulk.

‘Yes, complicated. Not EVIL.’

‘But this is what we wanted,’ said Rosie. ‘Isn’t it? You didn’t want all the fuss of inheritance or going to the House of Lords or any of that bollocks.’

Stephen smiled.

‘I know that. I know. I didn’t, I never did. I was always going to offer it to Pamela if she still gave a shit.
I’ve done it before. They know I don’t care. But you saw what was different this time.’

There was no denying that.

There was silence in the car, as Rosie rubbed the frosted-up window.