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Dylan looked at the bran flakes with sliced banana, the covered plate of bacon and egg, the toast and coffee.
‘It all looks marvellous, and I am starving, but if I keep eating like this I shall be even fatter than when I was pregnant!’ she moaned.
‘You can’t diet while you’re breastfeeding,’ said Ruth, taking the baby out and closing the door.
After she had eaten her breakfast and put the tray on the floor Dylan lay back, sunlight on her closed lids, in a trance of happiness.
Downstairs Ruth put the baby into her wicker basket in the sunny sitting room while Cleo watched, slit eyes bright green.
‘It’s a baby,’ Ruth told her. ‘And you stay away from it, do you hear me?’ She covered the baby and shooed Cleo out of the room, closing the door firmly.
Tail lashing in affront, Cleo walked off into the kitchen and curled up in a patch of sunlight on the mat, from where she could see Fred mooching around the garden, gloomily looking for green things poking through the blanket of white snow.
Henry was talking on the mobile phone. ‘Well, that’s a wonder! If there are any emergencies, I shall be here all day at Ruth’s cottage. Oh, and Meg... Happy Christmas!’
He switched off and met Ruth’s questioning stare. ‘My message service,’ he explained. ‘Nobody needs me so far, touch wood. No really serious problems have come up overnight. Look, Ross and I are going off to see what we can scavenge to make this a real Christmas. We may be gone an hour or so, but apparently the temperature is rising again and there’s a thaw on the way, so we’re unlikely to run into any difficulty.’
‘The shops will all be shut! And anyway, I found a very big chicken in my deep freeze. I’ve been thawing it out in the microwave; I’ll start cooking it in half an hour.’
Henry wagged a finger at her. ‘The village store will open up for me! Jack has been a patient of mine for donkey’s years; he owes me a favour. Start cooking your chicken; I’ll bring back whatever else I can find.’
While they were gone Ruth prepared the chicken, stuffing it with a mixture of the herbs she grew on her windowsill and some chestnuts she had in her larder. She had meant to roast them whole, in their skins, instead she peeled them, then chopped them up very small. Before she put the bird into the oven she pushed a whole unpeeled orange into the mouth of the cavity to give a faintly orangey flavour to the meat, then laid strips of bacon criss-cross over the top.
By the time Henry and Ross returned the whole house was full of the scent of roasting chicken.
The two men stamped their boots on the mat before coming indoors, faces healthily flushed after their tussle with the wind, smelling of fresh, cold air, and bringing waves of it in with them.
Each of them carried a couple of carrier bags, but they refused to let Ruth see the contents of all the bags. Ross vanished into the sitting room with the two he carried, but Henry put his bags on the kitchen table.
‘These are full of food. You can unpack them and see what a treasure trove we found!’ Henry announced proudly.
Her face lit up as she saw that they had managed to get a Christmas pudding, a string bag of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts, a small Christmas cake, biscuits, fruit, half a dozen cartons of milk and several of orange juice.
‘That’s marvellous,’ Ruth said gratefully to Henry, as he helped her put everything into cupboards.
‘I checked what you had in your larder before we went, to make sure I didn’t buy stuff you already had—you didn’t intend to have Christmas at all, did you?’
‘Any more than you did,’ she drily told him.
He grimaced. ‘True—but, do you know? I’m enjoying it for the first time in years. How about you?’
She nodded, smiling. ‘I’m having a wonderful time.’
Henry put his hand into his trouser pocket and produced something green; he held it over her head, leaned down and kissed her on her startled lips.
Eyes wide and bright, Ruth recklessly threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
Then, flushed and laughing, they looked at each other as if neither had ever really seen the other before.
‘Happy Christmas, Ruth!’ he said, warmth and gentleness in his face, and she happily echoed the words.
‘Happy Christmas, Henry.’
He took a deep, audible breath, then plunged on, ‘I don’t suppose you’d consider marrying me?’
Ruth didn’t believe her ears; lips parted in a gasp of shock, she gazed back at him for a second or two, almost made some shy, embarrassed response which might have frozen them both for another year or two, then threw modesty to the winds and huskily said, ‘Yes! Oh, yes, Henry!’
Ross carried Dylan, in her nightie and dressing gown, downstairs just after two o’clock. ‘Don’t drop me, will you?’ she said, a little nervously, both arms around his neck as he picked her up from the bed. ‘Are you sure I won’t be too heavy for you?’
