‘I’dloveto, thank you. I promise I’ll look after her.’
‘What are you two doing?’ asked Constance, addressing Mum and Douglas. ‘I assume you won’t be heaving chairs around here?’
Mum smiled graciously.
‘No. Fallon has kindly suggested that we take a relaxing day off so that we can enjoy the evening.’ I grinned surreptitiously at Sam, whose idea this had been. None of us needed Mum there as we prepared the party. ‘We’ll be back in time to get ready. In fact, darling, I was hoping we could do that together, in your room?’
I didn’t look up as she said this, assuming she was talking to someone else, but Constance gave me a dig in the ribs and nodded across the table at Mum.
‘Oh, me? You want to get ready with me? Er, yes, all right, that would be, er…nice.’
She raised one eyebrow a fraction, then smiled.
‘Good.’
Was that it? No dig, no insult, no suggestion that she wanted to get ready with me only to make sure I didn’t let the side down? Maybe shewasa changed character.
‘The party will go beautifully,’ said Estelle, ‘but I think that Coco and I had better clear breakfast, if you’ve all finished, as we need to get started. Our first delivery has already arrived.’
We all jumped up to help – well, most of us jumped up to help – and the bustle of the day started.
By half past five, with the guests due to start arriving at seven, Alexander, Sam and I stood back and looked at the Great Hall.
‘It looks stunning,’ I said, with satisfaction. ‘I have to admit that when this whole idea was mooted, I thought we’d be lucky to manage a few packets of peanuts, some tinsel and a Christmas CD.’
Alexander laughed.
‘Well, that’s all I would ever have come up with. You two are a complete powerhouse – I can see why you’re so successful.’
He smiled warmly at me, and I smiled back. Much of the awkwardness of the past few days had fallen away that day aswe worked, and I could feel my resolve crumbling, only for that insistent inner voice to pipe up that it wasworkthat had cheered me up, and nothing had changed.
‘They’ll love it,’ said Sam, putting his arm around my shoulder and giving me a squeeze.
I believed that they would. We had decided to feature the Christmas tree, and have a golden theme, giving a nod to Douglas’s precious Bond movies, with heart decorations liberally sprinkled throughout to emphasise that it was an engagement party. Huge swags of fir, cypress, holly and ivy hung from the walls and above the fireplace, and we had placed a mixture of around two hundred real and battery-operated candles around the room. A specialist company had come and strung up thousands of soft gold fairy lights, the staff clambering nimbly up huge ladders to attach them to the ancient walls. The fire had been lit and blazed away merrily. Massive bunches of mistletoe were suspended from every doorway, as well as at various points around the room, waiting to catch unsuspecting couples, or maybe couples-to-be. The family’s furniture had been heaved away to the sides of the room and small, high tables stood everywhere, draped in subtly sparkly gold fabric. Each table also bore candles and small vases of evergreen sprays hung with tiny gilded wooden hearts. A large table covered in a crisp white cloth stood to one side half full of sparkling glassware, with the other half soon to be laden with bottles of chilled champagne and other drinks. Up in the minstrels’ gallery, the band I had hired had set up their things and were due back half an hour before the party started.
‘They look awfully young,’ I had whispered to Sam, when we had greeted them and were watching them lug their speakers and instruments up the small wooden staircase.
‘They’re practically toddlers,’ he had replied, stifling a giggle, ‘but their videos online were great, and all the reviews were so glowing. It’ll be fine.’
Delicious smells had been wafting out of the kitchen all day, but Estelle and Coco had fiercely guarded their domain, only emerging to furnish us with overflowing doorstep sandwiches and warm Fat Rascals to fuel us for more work.
‘Right,’ I said, pulling my eyes away from the twinkling, inviting room. ‘Mum and Douglas will be back soon, and we don’t want them to see any of this. I’ll go and wait for them.’
I had only just put my head around the big front door to check when their car came crunching up the drive. I ushered them indoors and straight up the stairs, leaving Sam and Alexander to rush around with some more decorations for the entrance hall and the front of the house.
‘It looked a bit plain downstairs, darling,’ said Mum, shrugging off the coat I hadn’t given her time to remove downstairs. ‘Are you sure everything will be ready?’
‘It will be perfect,’ said Douglas, taking the coat. ‘I have every faith in these two. Now, you two go and get ready and I will see you, my beloved, later.’
I averted my eyes while they kissed passionately goodbye for the hour or so they would be apart, then led Mum to my room where she had earlier left everything that she would need.
‘Would you like to use the bathroom first?’ I asked, perching on the side of the bed.
‘Thank you, darling, I will have a shower,’ she said, collecting up some bottles and a sponge bag. ‘I won’t be long.’
With a sigh of relief, and suspecting that ‘not long’ could be up to half an hour, I lay back on my bed and grabbed my phone to watch some mindless TV while I waited. But it hadn’t been five minutes before there was a little knock on the door, and Iraised my unwilling eyes from the screen. Hopefully, this wasn’t going to be problems with the party.
‘Come in.’
