The Show (28 page)

‘Er …’ Jen stiffened. ‘I’m a bit late actually.’ She’d stayed later than everyone else, to make a last check on the poor, traumatized sow that had caused all the trouble, and was longing to go home. It had been a very long day, and the thought of having to talk about what she’d seen in the study earlier was mortifying.

‘It’ll only take a moment.’

Laura was at the car now, with her hand on the door. She cut to the chase.

‘I wouldn’t want you to misinterpret what you saw before. In the study. Eddie and I …’

‘Please.’ The darkness hid her blushes, but Jen was sure Laura could feel her embarrassment. ‘It’s none of my business.’

‘But that’s just it,’ said Laura. ‘There is no “it”. I was upset and Eddie was being his usual, kind self. There is absolutely nothing romantic or … anything … going on between us.’

‘Right.’

Laura hesitated. Was that ‘right’ as in ‘I believe you?’, she wondered. Or ‘right’ as in, ‘I agree to lie for you?’ Or maybe it was just ‘right’ as in, ‘I want to go home.’

‘I do, sort of, have to go now,’ Jen said awkwardly.

‘Of course. Sorry.’ Laura stepped back from the car. Jen hopped in, closed the driver’s door and sped away, with what Laura couldn’t help feeling seemed like undue haste. But perhaps she was imagining things? The same way Gabe said she was imagining things between him and Macy? ‘Merry Christmas!’ she called after the vet as an afterthought. She doubted Jen could hear her over the noise of the engine.

Once the car had gone, Laura stood there for a moment, the first still moment she had had all day. There was no moon, but the stars dazzled in the sky, bright and mesmerizing above the rolling pastures of the valley. Laura thought about the shepherds in the Bible story, in another peaceful valley far away and long ago, looking up at the night sky on that first Christmas morning. She wasn’t really religious, but for a brief, lovely moment, she felt a kinship with those simple men. As if some magical line connected them through the ages. It wasn’t only a human connection either. It was about the animals too, and the land, and the peace of this beautiful place. Gabe would have understood, although he probably couldn’t have put it into words any more than she could.

As she turned towards the house, it started to snow. Thick, wet, heavy flakes began drifting lazily to the ground, like feathers from a pillow. Snow usually made Laura happy. But tonight, for some reason, the joy wouldn’t quite come. Instead she felt an unpleasant sense of foreboding. As if a change were coming, and it wasn’t good.

Eddie’s right
, she told herself.
I’m overtired.

Wrapping her jacket more tightly around her, she hurried inside.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

‘Merry Christmas.’

Gabe kissed Laura on the cheek as they walked through the lichened gate into St Hilda’s churchyard. A light snow still clung to the ground and covered the tops of the gravestones like piped icing, but Ambrose Bray, the church gardener, had thoughtfully cleared and salted the path that led from the gate to the church door. The Christmas morning service didn’t start till ten, but the tiny village church was already packed to the rafters. If they didn’t get a move on, there’d be no chance of squeezing into a pew together.

‘Merry Christmas, darling.’

Laura kissed him back and they hugged tightly as the boys skipped ahead of them. They’d made up after the
Christmas Special
debacle, to Laura’s immense relief. The show had aired last night to fabulous ratings. Thanks to all the drama with the runaway pig, the scenes with Luca and Hugh in them had been cut to a few snatched seconds anyway, so the whole ridiculous argument had been for nothing.

How silly I was to get so upset and let my imagination run away with me
, Laura thought now.
There’s nothing wrong.
She made an early New Year’s resolution to count her blessings more and to trust in the good things in her life, especially Gabriel. Yes, he drove her mad sometimes. But she also loved him madly, and she knew he felt the same. This morning he’d brought her a cup of tea in bed on a tray – with flowers, no less – and told her she looked sexy which (at that hour) was a flat-out lie.
You don’t have to say sorry to be sorry
, Laura realized. Gabe was trying. Everything was going to be fine.

‘Oh my goodness!’ she gasped, as they stepped through the heavy wooden doors into the church itself, squeezing into a back pew next to one of Hugh’s school friends and his family. ‘Doesn’t it look gorgeous?’

Even Gabe had to admit that their arch-enemies, the WI protestors, had done a spectacular job with the festive decorations. Heavy garlands of greenery – ivy and dark holly and incredibly scented fir – hung beneath each of the ancient stained-glass windows. Bright sprigs of berries clashed gloriously with the wreaths of white roses pinned to the crumbling stone walls, and simple stacks of beeswax candles burned cheerfully on each of the deep window ledges and along the nave. On the altar, four taller Advent candles in deep red flickered over a beautifully carved Nativity scene. Both Gabe and Laura remembered the same wooden figures of Mary and Joseph and the three kings from their own childhood Christmases. This year, the local children had made Victorian decorations of cinnamon sticks and oranges tied with gold ribbon and studded with cloves. Hung from the altar and the ends of the pews, and mingling with the scent from the pine garlands, they made the church smell wonderful, like sitting inside a freshly baked Christmas pudding.

On the other side of the church, the smell was making Santiago de la Cruz feel sick.

‘I may have to go home,’ he whispered to Penny, as the organist struck up the opening bars of ‘Hark! the herald-angels sing’. ‘I seriously think I might throw up.’

‘You can’t,’ she whispered back. ‘Louise Carlyle’s solo’s up next, “I Saw Three Ships
”.
The poor thing’s terrified. We must stay and support her.’

‘Can’t you support her?’

Penny frowned. ‘It’s not just Louise. You promised to drive old Mrs Cole back to her cottage after church, remember? It’s your good deed for the day.’

Santiago groaned.

‘It’s your own fault for drinking so much last night. Honestly, drinking crème de menthe at your age …’

Seb, Santiago’s stepson, had proposed an ill-advised Christmas Eve game of ‘Spin the Bottle’, in which forfeits were to be alternate shots of crème de menthe and Baileys. Unfortunately for Santiago, at twenty-five Seb Harwich had the constitution of an ox and, like a lot of young investment bankers, the alcohol tolerance of a Russian sailor. After a couple of Alka-Seltzers and a bacon sandwich, the boy looked as fit as a fiddle this morning, and was singing lustily on the other side of his mother.

The service cracked on, with Louise Carlyle’s solo performance widely considered a great success. Her husband might be a polarizing figure in the valley, but people had come to love Louise. She was so kind to everyone, and so modest, and she tried so hard to fit in, it was impossible not to root for her. The Reverend Clempson was also at a good pace for once, keeping his sermon short but sweet. Bill wasn’t so old that he’d forgotten what it was like to be a child himself, itching to get home to unwrap his presents. He hadn’t the heart to torture people with a long sermon on Christmas Day. On a rather more selfish note, he’d been invited up to Furlings for lunch by Max Bingley and Angela Cranley, and was looking forward to sinking into their grand Knole sofa with a glass of vintage champagne and the
Times
Christmas jumbo crossword in front of a roaring log fire.

The Baxter children were out of their seats and running for the door before the last strains of ‘Deck the Halls’ had finished playing. In the front pew, Angela and Max chatted and exchanged Christmas greetings with the Wellesleys and their son, Milo, who seemed to have turned into a grown man overnight. Angela was in particularly good spirits, as both Logan and Jason had come home for Christmas with their respective husbands, as well as Max’s daughters, Rosie and May, and their husbands and children, transforming Furlings back into a family home, if only for a few glorious days.

‘I hadn’t realized how maternal you are,’ said Max, kissing her with evident pride. Everyone knew that Max Bingley and Angela Cranley were the happiest unmarried couple in the entire Swell Valley.

‘Grand-maternal at this point,’ joked Angela. ‘I wish Logie would hurry up and get pregnant.’

‘Give her a chance,’ laughed Max, taking her hand and leading her down the aisle. ‘They’ve only been married five minutes.’

Penny de la Cruz rushed past, a blur of flowing orange sweater and rather odd dark green knitted skirt. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed to Angela. ‘Rushing. I’ve got Macy Johanssen coming for lunch and I forgot to defrost the pecan pie!’

Outside in the snow, Bill Clempson was smiling and shaking hands with everyone, even Gabe Baxter. Christmas was a time for reconciliation, after all, and it was a joy to see the whole village coming together. He was particularly touched when Jennifer Lee, the young vet who’d argued with him so bitterly during filming, thrust a gaudily wrapped bottle of sloe gin into his hands.

‘It’s home-made,’ she blurted, clearly rather embarrassed at her own boldness. ‘It’s sort of an apology present.’

‘An apology?’ Bill looked puzzled. ‘I’m not sure that’s necessary, Miss Lee. We haven’t seen eye to eye about
Valley Farm
, it’s true. But there’s no crime in having different opinions.’

‘Yes, but I was mean to you. At Milo Wellesley’s leaving party. You were trying to be nice and I was … annoying.’

‘I don’t remember that,’ Bill muttered awkwardly. He’d always been a rotten liar.

‘I’m afraid there’s more.’ Jen blushed scarlet. ‘The silage. On your car.’

Bill’s eyes widened.

‘That was me.’

‘You?’

Jen nodded, biting her lower lip. ‘I was so cross with you at the time. For scaring the animals. But it was awfully childish and, well … I’m sorry.’

‘Oh. Well.’ Now it was Bill’s turn to blush. ‘Apology accepted.’

The car incident had been mortifying at the time, but it was a long time ago now. He’d always assumed that Gabe was behind it and was astonished to learn that it had in fact been this really rather pretty young woman, who had such a passionate love for animals. Watching Jen hopping from foot to foot in the snow, her marvellously ample bosom heaving beneath a plum-coloured cashmere sweater that clashed with her flushed cheeks, he wondered why he’d never before noticed how attractive she was.

‘Perhaps, in the New Year, you’ll come and have a glass with me?’ he heard himself saying. ‘We can bury the hatchet properly.’

‘I’d like that,’ Jen smiled. ‘Merry Christmas, Vicar.’

‘Please. Call me Bill.’

‘All right, Bill. And I’m Jen.’

‘Merry Christmas, Jen.’

Watching her scurry off to her car, Bill Clempson decided this was turning out to be quite the merriest Christmas he could remember.

Magda closed her eyes and let the enchanting sounds of the King’s College Choir wash over her. The tiny CD player in her cottage sitting room was not exactly the height of acoustic sophistication. But Sir Edward had kindly lent her a
Carols from King’s
collection, assuring her that it was
the
sound of a traditional English Christmas. With its simple, unaccompanied boys’ voices, ‘Jesus Christ the Apple Tree’ didn’t require Bose speakers or surround-sound. Its purity rang out as crisply and clearly as a church bell on the still morning air.

Magda cherished her moment of peace, knowing it would probably be the last of the day. She was officially ‘off’ for Christmas, but with nowhere to go and no one to see, she had agreed to cook for the family. Incredibly, it would just be Sir Edward, Lady Wellesley and Milo at Riverside Hall this Christmas. Since Eddie’s book had been published, and his political comeback launched, he and Annabel had dived headlong into a positive orgy of entertaining. Occasionally, for the bigger weekend parties, they brought in extra help. But it was always Magda who bore the brunt of the work, with one long weekend blurring into the next in a constant round of laundry, cooking, bed-making, fireplace-sweeping and general exhaustion. Desperate to be forgiven after the soup incident – apparently the poor party chairman had suffered second-degree burns to his scrotum and had needed a partial skin graft – and still insecure about her position, Magda had worked without complaint. But she’d been delighted and astonished in equal measure to hear that Christmas week was going to be ‘family only’, with Milo coming back from his London internship but no other guests expected.

The carol ended. With a sigh Magda got up and turned off the CD player. It was past eleven, time for her to return to the kitchen and put the potatoes she’d basted with goose fat earlier into the oven. Grabbing her apron from the hook by the door, she was surprised to hear a knock. Lady Wellesley usually marched right in, and Sir Edward never came to the cottage.

‘Merry Christmas!’ Milo, just returned from church, stood on the doorstep. He was holding a parcel, beautifully wrapped in striped green and gold paper and with a big red bow on the top. Dressed formally in a dark suit and tie, and with his hair cut shorter (much to his mother’s delight, presumably), it struck Magda how much older he looked than the last time he was home. In a good way.

‘For you.’ He held out the present eagerly. ‘I do hope you like it.’

‘I didn’t get you anything,’ Magda said awkwardly. ‘I wasn’t expecting …’

‘I don’t want anything,’ said Milo. ‘Except for you to take this before my arm drops off.’

Belatedly, Magda took the gift, setting it down on the hall table. He followed her inside.

‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

‘Not now,’ said Magda. ‘Later. I have to put the roast potatoes on and start trimming the Brussels sprouts. I was just on my way back to the house.’

Milo looked crestfallen, but he didn’t press her. Since landing the internship at the Home Office he’d been staying with his godfather Charles Murray-Gordon in a flat on Cadogan Square. Charles M-G was an ex-Flemings banker and terrible old roué, who’d taken it upon himself to provide his godson with a wealth of unsolicited advice on how to charm the opposite sex. As this was a field in which his godfather had a proven track record of success (three wives to date and a string of decades-younger girlfriends accompanying him to Annabel’s every night), Milo had decided to heed his words of wisdom, among which were: ‘Never chase a girl when she says “no”. Doesn’t matter if it’s sex or a cheese sandwich. Don’t chase.’