ARRIVALS

‘That’s all the flowers for the bedrooms – mostly berries, but the sprig of wintersweet in each vase will provide enough scent. If you take them up, I’ll start on the bedrooms.’

But the bedrooms were proving tricky. There were not enough of them for a start, but the children liked sharing. The snag was that she had forgotten how many children were now grown-up. She started to make a list.

Polly, who had not been here since her marriage, should have Hugh’s old room. And presumably Spencer would be with them in the old cot that had been kept for babies. Zoë and Rupert could have their usual room – the one with peacocks on the wallpaper. Hugh and Jemima could have Edward’s old room. Archie and Clary could have the Duchy’s room. Juliet and Louise could share the small room they’d had last year. The day nursery, which was large, could just about take Teddy, Simon, Henry and Tom. That would use up all the camp beds. Harriet, Bertie, Andrew and Polly’s twins could share the night nursery and she could put Polly’s nanny in the Brig’s old dressing room. That left Georgie and Laura. She’d had a surprising postcard that morning: ‘Plese arnt Rachel I want to sleep with Georgie, because I unnerstan him and I love him very MUCH. And I love Rivers. Love from Laura.’

She had left out Villy! And Roland. Well, he could go in with the other boys, but Villy must have a nice room. She had better have mine, she thought, and I will sleep in Sid’s. She had not been able to do this since Sid’s death, but now it was simply something that had to be faced, like so much else.

At five o’clock the house had been quiet, still, encased in the frost that had arrived with the dark. She had wandered restlessly through the rooms, drawing curtains, putting logs on the fires. But after a few minutes she’d heard a car and, wrapping a shawl round her, she went out to meet the first arrivals. It was Polly and her family. The three children scrambled out. ‘Eliza and Jane were both sick in the car, but I wasn’t,’ the boy declared. ‘I was definitely not sick at all.’

Polly hugged her aunt. ‘Oh, Aunt Rach, it’s lovely to be here. This is Gerald,’ and Gerald unexpectedly kissed her.

‘It is,’ he said shyly. ‘Eliza, Jane, Andrew, come and say hello to your great-aunt.’

‘Hello, Aunt Rachel,’ they murmured.

Gerald took Spencer from Nan, and helped her out of the car. She looked like a tiny bird in her nest of warm, sensible clothes. Eileen appeared and offered to help.

‘Come in, children.’

After that there was a steady stream of family arrivals. Laura rushed up and, in a kind of shouted whisper, asked whether her postcard had arrived. Rachel said, yes, it had, but she must talk to Georgie and his parents first, whereupon Laura gave her a very black look. Rupert and Zoë set about unpacking sleeping-bags, and Georgie brought in Rivers’s belongings and allowed Laura to give him some of his supper.

Then Clary, Archie and their two arrived. ‘It’s like coming home,’ Archie said, as he hugged her.

Juliet, who had just extricated her case from the pile in the boot, said, ‘Where am I sleeping, Aunt Rachel?’ No greeting, and she had developed a new drawly voice, as though addressing everyone from a pinnacle of indifference.

‘Hello, Juliet. You’re in the same room as before and you’re sharing it with Louise.’ She was wearing a thick sweater embroidered with white sheep and one black one. She looked stunning – and sulky.

‘Come on, Jules! Help me with the car,’ Rupert called, but she took no notice, simply stalked into the house.

Minutes later, Teddy, Simon and Louise arrived, packed rather tightly into Teddy’s small car. They all seemed pleased to see Rachel.

Clary felt touched to have been given the Duchy’s bedroom. It looked as it always had – white walls, white muslin-covered dressing table, the two Brabazon water-colours of Venice and two sepia photographs of the Duchy’s parents in their late eighties, sitting on a bench in their garden at Stanmore. The blue linen curtains were ragged, and the patchwork quilt that had always covered the bed since Rachel had made it – of blue and white silks – now had gaping holes where some of the blues had rotted. Clary looked at it all, and tears pricked her eyes. It seemed an honour to be there; eddies of grief for the Duchy came and went. It would be awful for her if she was still here, with her whole world crashing round her, she thought.

Villy and Roland arrived: Tonbridge had fetched them off the train at Battle. Villy was clutching a large tin, and Roland carried a sleeping-bag and two cases.

‘You’re having my old room, darling. I’m so glad you’ve come. Hello, Roland, I haven’t seen you for ages. You’re sleeping in the day nursery with the other boys.’

He looked bewildered. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know where that is.’

‘I’ll show him. Are we sharing?’ Villy asked.

‘No, no. You’re in my room. I’m in Sid’s.’ It was awful, she thought, that Roland didn’t know his brothers or cousins. He was much taller than his mother, and did not look like Edward at all. He was of an age when he was practically always in the way, with a great anxiety to get out of it.

She went down to see that the drinks were in the drawing room and met Andrew on the stairs.

‘I’ve explored the house,’ he said. ‘It didn’t take me long. Not much good for hide-and-seek, I shouldn’t think. Everybody would be found in a minute.’

‘Perhaps you’d go and tell the girls that supper will be in the hall any minute now.’

‘Oh, good! I will.’ And he sped happily back upstairs.

Supper in the hall, beneath the glass dome that largely lighted it, was for Bertie and Harriet, Jane and Eliza, Georgie, Laura and Andrew, and consisted of scrambled eggs on fried bread with one rasher of bacon per child followed by jam sandwiches and a Victoria sponge. Eliza and Jane got their orange squash, which meant that everyone else wanted it too, so it ran out. The meal was presided over by Nan, who kept order with miraculous ease. Georgie asked people to save their bacon rind for Rivers. When Andrew picked the top half off a sandwich, Nan was after him at once. ‘That’s no way to behave, your lordship – just for that you’ll get no sandwich at all. Hand me your plate. You’ll wait to have your cake with the others.’

‘Why does she call you “lordship”?’ Laura asked.

‘She only does it when she’s cross. I am a lord, actually.’

‘He’s got a horrible name,’ Eliza said, and Jane added, ‘He’s Lord Holt. He wanted to be Lisle like us, but Daddy said he couldn’t be. He has to stay Lord Holt until Daddy dies when he will be Lord Fakenham, like Daddy is now. Me and Jane are called “Lady”,’ she finished smugly.

‘That’s enough of that. You’re no better than the next person, any of you. We’re all the same,’ Nan finished sternly, although she thought nothing of the sort.

In the drawing room the fire blazed, giving such a convincing impression of warmth that nearly everyone felt they must be, and this was aided by the strong Martinis that the older set were drinking. There was a divide here that required tact. Roland, as Villy now saw, seemed very shy and his large Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat like mercury in a thermometer. Rachel had tried with him – asking what he was most interested in, and he had said something that clearly floored her. Villy watched him anxiously until Archie came up to give her a hug, and said, ‘Don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine,’ and filled her glass from the jug he was taking round.

The Christmas tree, potted by McAlpine, stood gaunt and majestic in the bay window, its decorations stacked in tatty old cardboard boxes round it.

The children were all in bed, but audibly not asleep. Rachel clapped her hands, and everyone became silent. ‘I just want to say two things. One, wouldn’t it be a good idea not to discuss our – difficulties, until after Christmas? Let’s just enjoy it.’ There was a murmur of agreement. ‘Second, this room must be out of bounds until Christmas morning – for the children, I mean.’

‘Well,’ Archie said briskly, ‘Rupe and I have always done the tree, and since we’re both rotten at the lights system, it would be good to have Roland: he knows all about electrical things, don’t you?’

‘I could certainly install the lights on the tree,’ Roland said, then blushed, so that his acne stood out even more fiercely, like little pilot lights in a sunset sky.

Rupert said that that would be a great help, and Villy glowed.

Clary slipped out of the room to see if she could help Eileen.

The kitchen was an inferno. Even Mrs Tonbridge’s sallow complexion was suffused to a more classic red, and kirby-grips clattered – like dwarfs’ ninepins – onto the stove. Eileen was draining beet spinach; only Nan sat quietly, knitting a shawl. She and Mrs Tonbridge approved of one another, and Nan had had a good day, as far as her memory went, and she was reminiscing about her long service with the Fakenham family, while Mrs Tonbridge was able to contribute a few things about Polly’s early life. Eileen was so entranced by this that Mrs Tonbridge had to keep shouting at her to get on with the vegetables, while she removed a large dish of stewed pheasants from the oven. ‘And you’re to take them pies one at a time into the dining room.’ Clary, who had turned up to help, said she would carry one. She was still wearing the clothes she had arrived in – jeans and a fisherman’s sweater.

‘In my day, they all changed for dinner. Even if his lordship dined alone, it was always in his dinner jacket.’

‘Times have changed, Miss Smallcott,’ Mrs Tonbridge offered uneasily. Changing like that in this household had only been for celebrations, and had meant a four-course dinner, although since the war they had made do with two.

Clary and Eileen now returned to take the vegetables. ‘Come back for the sauce, Eileen.’ Mrs Tonbridge had been stirring it in its saucepan. Her vigour made the kirby-grips even more precarious.

‘Everybody help themselves,’ Rachel said. Even so, it took a long time. We shall have to have two rooms for Christmas lunch, she thought, as she looked round the room with pleasure. And another leaf in the hall table. How her parents would have liked this!

‘I hardly eat pheasant,’ Juliet said to Teddy, when he exclaimed over her tiny helping. ‘And I never eat potatoes.’ But when the sauce came round she poured a selfish amount onto her plate.

Gerald was enjoying everything immensely. Originally, he had not wanted to come, but he had known that Polly was really keen, and it was a joy for him to please her about anything. He looked at her now, talking to Archie Lestrange, who’d married her best friend, and whom, she had told him, she had had a crush on when she was very young. ‘He was so kind to us – treating us as grown-ups when we weren’t quite. We both loved him because he listened to us seriously, and he was a very good tease. And nearly as funny as Uncle Rupert,’ she’d added.

They were a good-looking lot, but no one was a patch on Poll. Her copper hair was not as burnished as once it had been, and she was no longer the slip of a girl he had married, but maturity became her, and whatever she was doing, feeding babies, cleaning the house, looking after dear old Nan, her beauty was always apparent. She caught his eye across the table and blew him a kiss. Her clothes became glamorous because she was wearing them: tonight it was a long woollen skirt with a scarlet silk shirt. He was grateful for her mere presence. He was very good at gratitude.

‘Perhaps, Miss Smallcott, you’d care to partake of some supper in my sitting room. I’ve fed Tonbridge, because of his ulcer, so it will be just the two of us.’

They repaired to her room where Tonbridge had made a nice fire. There was a small fish pie for them, and the supper was such a success that by the end of it (with a nice strong cup of tea), they had progressed to Christian names, Mabel and Edith. Mabel had been able to say that ordinarily she would not dream of working in her carpet slippers, but she was due an operation and could not possibly do her present work in her shoes. Edith had told her then of her memory lapses which her ladyship had said did not matter in the least, and were simply due to age. ‘Not that I’ve ever told her my age. I don’t tell anyone my age.’ She did not add that this was chiefly because, most of the time, she had no idea what it was. The evening ended because Edith said she must go and listen for Spencer. She wondered whether Eileen would show her up to her ladyship’s room as its whereabouts had slipped her mind. Eileen, who had had a lonely dinner at the kitchen table, and had now been washing up for a good hour, escorted her. Spencer had woken up, and Lord Fakenham was walking up and down with him in his arms. ‘If you’ll take him, Nan, I’ll get his mother.’

Nan took the baby, who gave her a token smile of recognition, and then got down to the serious business of yelling for food.

Polly’s appearance excited him to operatic strength, but as she sank gratefully into an armchair and took him, his cries ceased in midstream as he found what he wanted.

‘Nan, dear, you go to bed. It’s long past your bedtime.’ And as she hesitated, Polly said, ‘Gerald will take you there. It’s the fourth door on your left.’

‘And show Nan where the bathroom is,’ she called after them as they left the room.

Alone with her baby, she could indulge in a passionate adoration that she imagined she concealed from everyone. His eyes, that had turned from slate-blue to brown like his father, were fixed trustfully on hers, his copper-gold hair was damp from his exertions, and she gently smoothed his curls from his forehead. ‘You are the most perfect, beautiful baby in the world,’ she told him. ‘I love you – passionately.’

She knew that she was taking far too long to wean him, but she clung to this special intimacy: this was her last baby, so it was an intimacy she would never have again.

‘The thing is,’ Harriet said, ‘we’re more likely to get snow if we all want it. Couldn’t we just say, “Let there be snow” – like God – and there will be?’ You had to hold your own against the twins, since there were two of them and they always agreed with each other.

Eliza and Jane both had their hair in pigtails and they were all snug in their sleeping-bags. The space they’d made for Laura was unoccupied, and they found out that she was sleeping with Georgie. This, they thought, was very unfair, and they all agreed that Laura was spoiled. ‘She’s too young for us, anyway,’ Eliza had said. ‘I mean, I often read in bed, and she can’t read without a grownup helping her. Andrew is awful, too. I think all very young children are pests. I shan’t have babies when I get married. I shall wait for them to be at least seven before I have them.’

Harriet was aghast. ‘Eliza, you can’t just go about with a seven-year-old baby inside you. You’d explode – like a balloon.’ She could not suppress a slightly hysterical giggle at the thought.

‘Goodness, Harriet, of course I couldn’t. I’d have it at the normal time and then lend it to people until it was old enough.’

There was a silence while Harriet digested the snub. ‘Are we staying awake for Father Christmas?’ she asked rather timidly.

She saw the twins exchange a look. ‘I think it would be best if we all went to sleep,’ Jane said, adding kindly, ‘and please don’t worry about birth and all that. I can quite see that as you don’t live in the country you couldn’t know much about that sort of thing. Do you want to go on reading, Lizzie?’

‘Not specially.’ She shut her book with a snap; she’d only been pretending to read it. They were all tired – being sick on the journey had meant the twins had had a rather small supper, and Nan had made them have baths.

The light was turned off by Eliza, who said, ‘I’m going to undo my plait: Nan made it far too tight.’

‘Me too. You’re lucky to have such lovely thick hair, Harriet – ours is far too mingy.’

Harriet lay in the dark, savouring this compliment. Nobody had ever said anything like that to her before. She decided to remember it all her life.

Roland, having successfully installed the Christmas lights, packed up his tool case and said he would go to bed. He found Teddy, Tom, Henry and Simon in the nursery trying to play records on a pretty ancient machine. One of them was also struggling with a wireless that emitted constant crackles and small bursts of jazz. ‘We’ve not to make too much noise,’ one of them was saying.

‘Roland will know what to do,’ Simon said. He was dealing with the gramophone.

It was marvellous to feel so useful and informed, Roland thought.

Louise and Juliet had soon got bored by all this, and had gone to bed, where they were exchanging important confidences – Louise about Joseph, and Juliet about the new love of her life. They were most honourable about dividing the time spent on discussing Joseph and Tarquin, while at the same time going through the elaborate process of cleaning and nourishing their skins for the rigours of the night. ‘Tarquin’s at a drama school, on a scholarship, so he must be frightfully good. My best friend at the school I used to be at took me to the end-of-term play they were doing, and he played a very old man in it, and I thought he must actually be very old, but when we met and he was taking off his make-up, he wasn’t – at all. He’s twenty – the perfect age for me. So we fell in love. He says I ought to be an actress, which I’d far rather do than go to France. He said that being a model was just mucking about. Oh! I’m sorry I said that because it’s what you do – I didn’t mean that you muck about because you’re at the top, aren’t you?’ She had dropped her drawl now they were alone, and her faint blush made her look even more beautiful.

‘Oh, no. I don’t mind you saying that in the least. I think I do muck about. Ought to find something more interesting to do.’

In the drawing room, they had finished filling the golf stockings, and had laid all the other presents under the tree. Gerald had returned to say that Polly was putting Spencer back to bed, and that he had told her to go too. ‘But are we missing anyone?’ Rachel said.

‘We’re missing Lydia because she has to do panto with her rep company.’ This was Villy. ‘I rang her before leaving and she sent her love to everyone.’

‘Wills wanted to spend the time with his girlfriend’s family. Fair enough,’ Hugh said, but he looked sad.

‘Well,’ Rupert said. ‘I think I can beat you all with Neville’s excuse.’ He took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and read out a message: ‘Sorry can’t be with you. Am working in Cuba where I shall probably get married.’

‘Good Lord!’

‘The “probably” is a typical Neville touch. I didn’t want to produce it at dinner, because I wasn’t sure how Juliet would react. She’s had a bit of a crush on him.’

‘She’s over it now,’ Zoë said quickly. ‘She’s found an actor to be in love with.’

‘Right.’ This was Archie. ‘Let’s do the stockings and call it a day.’

So, some time later, they filed upstairs with the creaking stockings, which Gerald, Archie and Hugh deposited in each of the bedrooms.

Clary could well remember pretending to be asleep, listening out all the while for the stocking to be laid carefully on her bed. Louise and Polly would be fast asleep, but she – especially in the war years when Dad was missing – always just opened her eyes a slit so that she could see who it was. The drawing room had been out of bounds then; this evening she had been examining it with a grown-up eye. The lovely curtains that Aunt Rachel had insisted on – dark green chintz with creamy white roses – were now in tatters; you had to draw them very carefully not to split them more. The sofas and upholstered chairs were also worn and shiny on the arms. The lampshades had darkened with time so that they were almost the colour of coffee, and the immense carpet that had covered the room was now full of dangerous if familiar rents.

Her play was hopefully coming back to London some time in the New Year. She had not earned very much money from it so far, but an agent had written to her saying he would be happy to represent her. Archie had said that would be a good thing and meant she would not have to worry about money. So she was to see him in the New Year. What did worry her was the alarming fact that she did not have a notion of what to write next. She had started trying to compose a new play several times, but all the scraps that she had managed to put onto paper remained scraps – incoherent and pointless. She was looking forward to living with Rupert and Zoë and kept deciding that she would postpone trying to write again until they had settled in. Saying goodbye to Home Place was the immediate thing. She and Archie were the luckiest members of the family: Hugh and Edward and Rachel were the hardest hit, and Rachel faced the bleakest future. When she thought of Rachel, she began to imagine awful things. Supposing Archie died as Sid had, and she did not have Bertie and Harriet, and she had no qualifications for any decent kind of work, but had lost all her money and needed to make some …

‘What are you crying about?’

She told him.

‘My darling, you must be deliriously happy if you have to invent things to cry about. I am extremely well, and so are the children. And you are now a playwright. I do agree that we have to worry about the others, but now, as Rachel said, we’re here to enjoy Christmas. I’m going to put my lovely healthy arms round you and you’re going to go to sleep at once.’

Rivers, although he had been dozing round Georgie’s neck, was immediately awake when Hugh came in with the stockings. He had learned to lie low when people who weren’t Georgie turned up, and scurried under the blanket until they had gone. He had no intention of spending the night in his cold cage, and as Hugh did not put on a light, he would not know that he wasn’t in it now. Awake, he felt like a snack and luckily discovered half a digestive biscuit under the pillow near to Georgie’s hair. He nibbled this very quietly, so as not to wake his friend.

Rachel undressed quickly. She was cold to the bone: her hands had gone that horrid mauve colour and her feet were blocks of ice. She had kept telling herself how well everything was going, how funny Laura could be, that adorable baby of Polly’s – she had always loved babies, each one seeming more charming than the last – how wonderful Mrs Tonbridge had been with so many people to feed, how kind and supportive her brothers and darling Archie were being, how welcoming and nice they had been to Villy, how clever Roland had been with the lights for the tree, how thoughtful Zoë and Jemima, Clary and Polly were with their determination to help, how they all seemed to get on together … This made her think of Edward, from whom she had not heard, and she could not help praying that Diana would decide not to come to Boxing Day lunch with him. It would be so much easier for Villy.

Now, she lay in the dark with two hot-water bottles – and tears were streaming down her face. She allowed herself a brief sob before telling herself to pull herself together. Tonight would be the anniversary of Sid’s death.

‘I don’t suppose he meant it, darling. You know Neville – he’s always enjoyed teasing people.’

‘It isn’t that I mind him getting married. I mind his not telling us properly. He really is a master of the flippant message. Still, it might have been difficult for Jules if he was here.’

‘Jules has fallen for someone else. She thinks I don’t know, and it’s best to keep it like that.’

‘Who has she fallen for?’

‘A student at an acting school. But you don’t know, either.’

‘All right.’ He had got into bed. ‘Be quick, darling, it’s so cold.’ She always took ages. He had taken to reading to stop himself getting impatient, and he now dived into his paperback volume of Chekhov’s short stories.

Jemima was undressed in a matter of seconds; Hugh always took longer. Tonight he seemed to be taking longer than usual: he had gone down the passage to the bathroom and, after nearly ten minutes, had not returned. She got out of bed and went to find him.

He was sitting on the bathroom stool, and turned to her when she came in. He looked shaky. ‘Got a bit stuck,’ he said, in a slurred voice. ‘Dropped my toothbrush and when I bent down to pick it up, it was too far away. Felt dizzy – couldn’t reach … Not drunk,’ he said, looking at her with frightened eyes.

She put her arms round him. ‘You’re just tired. Never mind about the toothbrush. Come with me.’ She spoke calmly, but she did not feel calm at all.

Snow fell in the night, large flakes as big as feathers, and after a while it began to settle. The bare trees became heavy with it; it thickened on the ground so that it became like the icing on a cake, then a satisfactory three inches of dazzling crunch. Spiders’ webs sparkled with icicles; the sky was the colour of dirty pearls and the air smelt of snow.

Simon, who had decided to clean out and lay the fires, had to brush the snow off the logs before he wheeled the barrow into the house. The only other person up was Eileen, who was amazed and grateful that he was doing this chore for her. She showed him where the newspapers and kindling were to be found, and offered him a cup of tea. It meant that she could also have one, which she badly needed – it was perishing. They drank their tea standing in the kitchen, then he raked out the kitchen stove and she counted the cutlery for laying the two tables in the dining room and hall.

Simon loved doing fires. He had felt rather out of it last night, with Teddy constantly steering the conversation round to girlfriends and, in particular, his own. ‘Haven’t you got one?’ he had asked, and Simon had said, no, he hadn’t. He felt himself blushing then because he thought of the gardener’s boy who worked on a neighbouring estate and with whom he had quite unexpectedly but deeply fallen in love. He had met Roy at a nursery garden centre some months back, and to begin with they had talked about trees. Roy was collecting a lorry load of fruit trees while Simon was picking up stuff for the avenue. He came from Glasgow, but his father was Italian, had been a prisoner of war and had met Roy’s mother then. After the war, Roy’s father had not wanted to return to Italy, and the family of the farm he had worked on as a prisoner offered him a job. He found and wooed Maggie, their young cook, and Roy had been the result. He was wonderfully good-looking – with abundant curly black hair, melting brown eyes, and a smooth olive skin that never seemed to change. They had agreed to go to the cinema together on their day off. They sat side by side in the dark, and Simon kept looking at Roy and his lovely profile. And then, after about an hour of this, Roy had put out his hand and rested it upon Simon’s erection.

He had given a little grunt of triumph and then he’d leaned over and kissed Simon’s mouth. Simon had been unable to contain himself and was flooded with shame. Roy had responded by taking his hand and leading him out of the cinema to his lorry. The back had a tarpaulin that covered it. Roy let down the tailboard and sprang into the lorry. He held out a hand to Simon and hefted him up. It was dark in the back, and for some reason this had made them whisper.

‘You not done this before?’

No, he hadn’t.

Roy undid one of the lashings of the tarp, which let in a little light. Simon could see that the lorry had been swept clean and that a sleeping-bag lay in one corner. For a second he wondered whether Roy had planned everything, but this only excited him more. Roy was speedily stripping himself bare, until he stood before Simon, naked. He was smiling – a teasing, inviting smile. Then, with a swift, elegant movement, he knelt, in front of him and began taking off his clothes. ‘Good,’ he said, when Simon was also naked. ‘You have a nice body.’

‘Nothing like yours.’

‘No, no. Mine is the best. But you have good cock. Let me …’

There ensued the most amazing time of Simon’s life. After a furious, sometimes painful, sometimes ecstatic session Roy drew away from him. ‘I need a fag. Half-time,’ he added, as he found his packet and lit up. He offered one to Simon, who didn’t smoke, except now he felt he wanted to do everything that Roy did.

‘I love you,’ he said, as they lay together on the sleeping-bag; the cigarette made him cough, and he gave it up. ‘I love you,’ he repeated, willing Roy to say it too. But he didn’t. He stubbed out his cigarette.

‘We have a good time together. We don’t need more. We have good sex – it’ll get even better for you. And now, as they say in pubs, one for the road.’

There had been more times, and then Roy had said he was off to Scotland for Christmas and, more importantly, New Year. And here he was, in the house where he had been born, back to say goodbye to it. And more in love with Roy than ever. In his dreams he imagined Roy returning to tell him that he was in love, too. They would live together and perhaps run a nursery garden. A blissful dream, for Simon still found it impossible that such a degree of physical intimacy could exist without love.

‘I don’t think books should count as presents.’ Georgie and Laura had raced unwrapping their stockings and were eating their tangerines. ‘I think anything except them could be a present. Except sand or earth,’ she added, after thinking about it. She had privately loved her stocking. ‘You couldn’t have had a live animal in a stocking. It would have died in the night. And you’ve got things that are useful for your zoo. It’s a pity you didn’t get a book on how to look after your goldfish,’ she added pointedly. She felt that Georgie had not been quite grateful enough for her splendid present.

‘I know perfectly well how to do that. The bowls for the rabbits and mice are useful.’

‘And your penknife, and your torch. And that notebook that says “Reports on my Collection”. I think that’s a lovely present.’

‘Do be careful, Laura. You’re beginning to sound like a grown-up.’

‘Am I? I didn’t mean to. Honestly, Georgie, nothing was further from my mind.’ She was secretly delighted at the idea.

Rivers, who did not care for tangerines, scampered inside his owner’s pyjama jacket to keep warm.

Laura had got out of bed to see if there was snow and, passing Rivers’s unoccupied cage, suddenly saw something. ‘Oh, look! A lovely little stocking specially for Rivers!’

‘Give it to me.’ Georgie was clearly delighted.

It was in fact one of Laura’s socks, and she sat on Georgie’s bed while he opened it. It contained a little bag of Good Boy Choc Drops, a partially stripped drumstick, a really beautiful little brush and comb for his fur, a tiny tin that had mixed biscuits in it, and an envelope full of scraps of ham. ‘A very thoughtful stocking,’ Georgie said. He was almost laughing with pleasure. ‘Look, Rivers!’

Rivers, who had smelt the ham and the chicken, emerged, his whiskers twitching.

‘I’m going to give him the chicken first, and it means we can eat our chocolate money. He loves chicken, and he’s never really cared for chocolate.’

That was how the three of them were occupied when Zoë and Jemima came to get them up.

‘Now, this is what’s going to happen,’ Polly said. ‘You get dressed and have breakfast. Then Daddy is going to take you for a walk—’

Andrew interrupted. ‘I don’t like to be taken. I like to do my walks by myself.’

‘Well, today, you’ll have Daddy. He’s never been here before, so you can show him round.’

‘He doesn’t know anywhere here,’ Eliza said.

‘Well, I can explore him round. Oh, I do hope I get a dog for Christmas. It will be my dog and nothing to do with you.’ He and Bertie had swapped a good many of their stocking presents, and resented the girls’ invasion of their room.

Polly, who had arrived with an armful of clothes, was laying them out on Andrew’s bed. ‘And after your walk it will be presents in the drawing room. Then it will be lunch – Christmas lunch. And after lunch there will be a competition for the best snowman.’

Clary arrived then, wearing Archie’s dressing gown as she had forgotten to pack her own. ‘You are to wear exactly what I have laid out for you,’ Polly warned Andrew, ‘or I shall send for Nan.’

This threat proved most effective, and Andrew did as he was told.

‘I shall skip breakfast,’ Louise said, when they woke up.

‘Me too.’ Juliet was actually ravenous, but she knew this was childish, and she was no longer a child. After a moment, she said, ‘I suppose we could both have black coffee. People on diets are always drinking it.’

‘Yeah, we could. You wouldn’t be an angel and fetch us some?’

‘Of course I will.’ Juliet slipped on the very old peach-coloured kimono that had belonged to her mother and sped away.

Alone, Louise decided to open the present Joseph had left for her. She had been saving it up for Christmas Day, but she wanted to open it when she was by herself. It was a small box wrapped in gold paper with a little label that said ‘L. from J.’ The tag had ‘Happy Christmas’ printed in red with a sprig of holly. He wouldn’t have wrapped it himself. Inside the paper there was a dark red leather box, and inside that, gracefully coiled on its velvet, lay an eighteenth-century paste necklace of a delicious watery green. Each piece of glass was backed with gold, and small golden links joined them together. It was extremely beautiful. She lifted it out of its box and put it round her neck. It was a necklace for wearing at parties, and she had to push away her longing for something she could always wear – like a ring. It wasn’t. But it was her first Christmas present from him. He must have touched it. She undid the clasp, and put some stones into her mouth. If he was with her they would kiss.

Rachel got up in time to go to the eight o’clock service, and as she trudged down the lane towards the church, she saw Villy ahead of her. In church they knelt side by side and went up for Communion together. Afterwards, Rachel said that she had picked a few hellebores for Sid. They would not last, but that was all there was. At least the Duchy’s grave still had a vase of berries next to it. Rachel planted the flowers in the thick snow, and swept away the drifts that had stuck to Sid’s gravestone. She shut her eyes and said a prayer, but Villy could not hear it. As she got up – she had been kneeling – Rachel brushed the snow from her skirt and took Villy’s arm. It was very good to be with someone without having to speak. As they walked back up the lane together, the snow began again – large graceful flakes that quickly covered their previous tracks.

‘The children will love this,’ Rachel said.

‘It’s all very well on Christmas cards,’ Mrs Tonbridge grumbled. She was frying eight eggs in a huge shallow pan for the dining-room breakfast. The rest of them had had cornflakes or porridge and bread and butter and marmalade. ‘But to my mind it’s otherwise nothing but a nuisance.’

‘It’s ever so pretty,’ Eileen offered.

‘You get that warmed dish out of the oven, Eileen. The snow has nothing to do with you.’ She slid the eggs onto the proffered dish and set about separating them with her spatula. She could feel her feet ache already, but she would soon be able to take the weight off them with a nice strong cup of tea, as the turkeys, stuffed, were already in the slow oven. She wondered whether Edith would be wanting breakfast in the kitchen, but Eileen reported that she was presiding over the hall breakfast. Spencer was in his high chair having Farex spooned into him by Nan, an expert’s job, since he was fascinated by everyone else at the table. And when he didn’t feel up to a spoonful, he would turn his head away at the last moment, plunge his hands into the bowl and slap the tray with his palms, which sent the stuff everywhere. Another time, he would run his sticky, laden fingers through his hair. He was no longer hungry, he did not particularly like Farex and, in any case, if it was there, he wanted to feed himself, like all the others were doing. In the end, after some sharpish demands, Nan mopped him up and gave him a rusk.

Roland got up at his usual time, but the others were all dead asleep. They had started a game of poker late at night and had asked him if he wanted to join in, but he had been tired and it wasn’t a card game that he knew. He was starting to enjoy the visit and wondered why Mum hadn’t brought him here before. The food was terrific, and all the older men had been very nice to him. The only slightly sad thing was that at home he would have had a stocking, but on the other hand it was good to be considered too old for that kind of thing. He dressed in his flannel trousers and the thick navy blue jersey that Mum had knitted for him, then slid down the banisters to the hall for breakfast.

‘Let’s have a spot of Christmas love,’ Archie said. So they did, and just managed to finish before Bertie rushed into the room, saying that Andrew had been beastly to him. ‘He wanted my torch for exploring, and when I said it was too important for him, he simply grabbed it. He really is horrible. I don’t like him.’

‘We’ll get it back. And you know you’ve done that sort of thing to Harriet, so now you know what it feels like.’ But as she said this, Clary had put her arms round him to give him a hug. ‘Happy Christmas, darling.’ And immediately he felt much better. Clary said she must go and see to Harriet, and he and Archie must get each other up.

Jemima had slept badly; she had got Hugh back to bed where he almost immediately fell asleep, but she’d lain in the dark worrying about him. Had he had a stroke? If so, it must have been very minor, but he might have another – more serious – one. Should she get a doctor? Could one get a doctor on Christmas Day? And Hugh would be furious with her if she did. This fear prevailed: he would be angry because everyone would know, and he loathed being what he called mollycoddled. It would effectively spoil not only his Christmas, but the whole family’s too.

So she was immensely relieved when he woke up, rolled over to kiss her, and was his gentle smiling self, asking how the Monster was doing.

‘She hasn’t turned up yet. I think you have rather a rival in Georgie.’

‘Well, I’m not prepared to consort with a white rat to get her affection.’

At this moment, the door burst open and Laura took a flying leap onto the bed, landing on his chest.

‘Oh, Dad! Happy Christmas! I’ve brought your presents for you both so you can open them now.’

‘How was your stocking?’ Hugh asked, while she struggled to get the presents out of her dressing-gown pockets.

‘I got a book, but otherwise it was lovely. And Rivers got a stocking all to himself so Georgie was pleased.’

‘What was your book?’ Jemima asked. She wanted to know whether Laura had even looked at it.

‘It was called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Honestly, Mummy, what on earth good is that for me? I don’t even want to be one.’

‘It might come in handy if you wanted to fly on a broomstick.’

Laura rolled her eyes. ‘Now, Dad, sit up and have your present.’ She moved and sat cross-legged on the far end of the bed, to watch how pleased he would be.

It was a tiny diary of pink leather. ‘It’s for you to write all your business things in. It will fit in your pocket and it even has a pencil here for writing things down. The pencil will often need sharpening, but I can lend you my sharpener whenever you want. You do like it, don’t you, Dad?’ She was beaming with anxious generosity.

‘It’s just what I wanted. Couldn’t be better.’ He gave her a hug, but she wriggled away from him to present Jemima with her limp little package. The handkerchief, washed and ironed.

‘I’m afraid there is a bit of blood left on it, as I pricked myself, and it wouldn’t all come out when I washed it.’

‘Darling, you did all the embroidering by yourself? It’s really beautiful.’

‘It is, isn’t it? I put a J on it, so you’ll know it doesn’t belong to Dad or Tom or Henry.’

Jemima smoothed the crumpled lace edging with her fingers. ‘Oh, no! I shall never do that. Thank you, darling, for such a thoughtful present.’

After a pause, Laura said, ‘And what about me?’

‘I’m afraid you’ve got to wait until the present opening before lunch.’

‘Oh, Mummy! It’s so many hours away! Couldn’t you give me just a little clue of what it is?’

‘Yes,’ said Hugh, promptly. ‘It’s long and thin and very good for riding on to go out and do wicked things.’

‘A broomstick? Oh, no, Dad, it can’t be that. I don’t want to go out and do wicked things!’

‘Of course you don’t. Dad’s teasing you. Now, let’s get dressed, sweetheart, and start the day.’

The day – that day – proceeded much as Polly had told her children it would. For the lunch, a sofa table was placed at one end of the dining room for the children and Nan, who kept wishing people many happy returns of the day. The glamour, the excitement, the secret disappointments about unsuccessful presents would follow tradition. Simon had offered to take the children for the walk: he wanted to go back to the wood with its stream and the place where he and Christopher had made their secret camp. Only the few burned bricks remained, and he thought of Christopher in his monastery, wondered what sort of Christmas he was having.

Harriet found a small clump of snowdrops in the wood; there was less snow among the trees. The return to the house was delayed by a snowball fight. Georgie found a dead robin on the way home, which distressed him, and he decided to make a huge Christmas lunch for the birds.

‘It’s not important,’ Andrew said. ‘On grown-up expeditions whole people get frozen to death.’ Nothing he said was very popular.

‘What will you give them for lunch?’ Laura enquired.

‘Stuff off people’s plates and I shall ask Mrs Tonbridge for things. You can help me if you like.’

And Laura, who had just finished crying because a snowball had hit her in the face, cheered up like anything.

Eventually, when the drawing room had become a sea of paper almost obliterating the careful clumps of people’s booty, the children were sent off to wash their hands before lunch; a really stupid rule, someone said, and most of them agreed.

Jemima asked Villy whether she would carve the turkeys; she was famous for her carving. ‘Won’t Hugh want to do it?’

‘He’ll want to, but he’s so tired that I’d rather he didn’t.’ Villy gave her a quick look and said that of course she would.

Harriet gave Rachel the bunch of wilting snowdrops she’d picked in the woods (she had hidden them next to her chest when they were snowballing). ‘I thought you might like them for your dead person,’ she said, and Rachel, deeply touched, said that she would.

‘She always used to carve for Christmas,’ Jemima said to Hugh, ‘so wouldn’t it be nice for her to be asked to do it today?’ And Hugh said she was a kind, thoughtful creature and of course.

Rupert and Archie fetched the turkeys – they were too much for Eileen, who followed with dishes of vegetables. Zoë and Jemima dished out Brussels sprouts, mashed potato and gravy onto each plate of turkey and stuffing, and Clary took them to the children’s table, where Spencer, who had illicitly consumed more tissue paper than was good for him and been colourfully sick, now sat depressed, but lordly, watching Nan mix an egg into mashed potato for his lunch.

Everyone had dressed up, many of them sporting presents that they had been given, but Louise and Juliet outdid them all: Louise in a low-cut dress of olive-green velvet with her paste necklace, her hair piled up at the back of her head; Juliet in a pale yellow satin frock that she had persuaded Zoë to buy her for Christmas, with strings of faux pearls wound four times round her neck.

They were really in evening dress, but had assumed that since lunch was the main celebration, this was the time to dress up. Villy had put on the dress that Louise had helped her find for the occasion: a black velvet affair with a long skirt and a black sequined bolero. She had not had anything new for years, and found it really exciting. With it she wore the garnet necklace that Edward had given her when she had had Roly. After all, Edward – if he came – would be here tomorrow, with or without Diana. This did not cause her the resentment and misery she had once felt: she told herself that she was merely curious to see the woman who had succeeded in marrying Edward, and made a martyr out of her. But, of course, she had made her own martyrdom … She remembered now Miss Milliment saying that martyrs did not make very good company and found herself blushing. She must have been intolerable. Responses, Miss Milliment had suggested, were the thing. It was possible to have power over them, and she realised she was beginning to find that out.

Hugh had given Jemima a canary-coloured twin set, a collar of pearls and a fur hat. ‘There,’ he had said. ‘If you don’t like them you will have to sing that A. P. Herbert song, “Take back your mink, take back your pearls, What made you think that I was one of those girls?”’

And Jemima, delighted that he seemed so much better, retorted, ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I am one of those girls.’ And wore everything at lunch.

All Rachel’s presents had been designed to keep her warm. A splendid cardigan, two scarves, a sheepskin hat and slippers, mittens and a quilted bed-jacket (far too grand for her, she thought). She wore the cardigan over her best blue woollen dress for lunch and was far too hot in no time.

When everyone was full of Christmas pudding the children were raring to start on the snowmen. Teddy and Simon were leaders of the two teams, and took turns to pick their henchmen. Both pairs of twins were split up, and the last person to be chosen was Andrew. ‘I was thinking of not playing,’ he said, but nobody took any notice.

The point was, the captains said, they could not just be any old snowmen, they had to be special, have a profession, that sort of thing. People were full of suggestions. A burglar, a pirate, a wicked sultan, a clown, an explorer. ‘Who’s going to judge us?’ Henry asked. It was to be Rupert, Archie and Gerald. ‘Nobody from my family!’ Laura wailed. ‘It isn’t strickerly fair!’

‘Yes, it is,’ Simon said firmly. ‘Now, each snowman can have up to three props but no more.’

‘Better hurry up, teams. It’ll be dark by half past four.’

So everybody worked hard, and the result was one pirate snowman with a black patch over one eye and a red cotton bandana on his head, and an explorer wearing goggles and smoking a pipe. After the judges’ deliberation (they all said it was a really difficult decision), the pirate won, rather controversially.

Hugh and Rivers spent a peaceful afternoon in their beds.

After tea everyone played with their presents. Archie and Clary had given Harriet a large jigsaw puzzle of the picture When Did You Last See Your Father? She loved jigsaws and this was not only huge, the pieces were made of proper wood.

Roland made a wireless for Tom and Henry, who were deeply impressed.

Louise and Juliet spent the afternoon watching Mrs Tonbridge’s television: after lunch, she had gone back to her cottage where she could soak her feet in hot water.

Poker was resumed from the previous night and raged until supper.

The grown-ups collapsed with books they had been given, and also listened to the record that Roland had bought his mother: Horowitz playing Rachmaninoff’s third piano concerto. ‘Marvellous tune, that opening,’ Rupert said. ‘Nearly as long as the Schubert posthumous sonata.’

The four wives cleared up the drawing room, and Simon brought in more logs before joining the poker gang; Laura and Georgie went to their bedroom to feed Rivers, who was crossly glad to see them. ‘You wouldn’t have liked it, making snowmen,’ Georgie said, and Rivers, after nibbling his ear rather sharply, settled for a game in which he rushed round the room and Georgie was supposed to try and catch him – a game Rivers invariably won and that restored his good temper. Laura looked on, but she was so thrilled by the grown-up watch her parents had given her that she couldn’t stop looking at it. ‘Ask me what’s the time,’ she kept saying to Georgie, until he was sick of it and escaped with Rivers.

Word had got about that Uncle Rupert could be very funny. ‘We’ll make him be it,’ Harriet had said.

‘What sort of funny?’ Eliza and Jane asked.

‘Oh, dogs being sick, sea lions being fed – we throw him old socks – and pigeons landing on a branch that isn’t strong enough for them, various things like that.’

‘Let’s make him be it, then.’ And they marched to the drawing room.

At first he said it was out of the question, but they were good at pestering and wore him down. He said he would do only two things, and they settled for the dog being sick and the sea lions. Clary and Polly exchanged glances: they had pestered him in their day and still enjoyed the acts.

After that, the mothers decreed bed. ‘There’s not a lot of hot water, so you’ll have to share baths. Youngest first.’ The children all stood, looking mutinous, and as tall as possible.

‘Laura, Georgie, Harriet, Bertie and Andrew first.’ Zoë and Jemima were dealing with them.

‘What about supper?’ Andrew asked, when he had run out of other objections.

‘You can each have an apple in bed. You’ve had quite enough to eat today.’

Eventually all the younger set were bathed, had been read a story by their fathers, and the grown-ups could collapse in the drawing room. Edward rang to say that he couldn’t manage lunch tomorrow but would love to come for a drink at noon. Rachel, who took the call, looked anxiously at Villy when she returned with this news, but Villy smiled at her calmly. ‘Is Diana coming?’ she asked, but Rachel said he hadn’t told her.

‘He seemed in a hurry,’ she added.

The rest of the evening passed peacefully. Gerald said he had brought some champagne, which he had thoughtfully buried in the snow, and wouldn’t this be a good time to have it? It would. Supper, Rachel said, was going to be bits and pieces, as she felt that Mrs Tonbridge had done enough for one day.

Clary offered to go and help with it and found Mrs T, as she called her, sitting in her housekeeper’s room with her feet up, watching television and eating Black Magic chocolates. So when Clary said that they would just have sandwiches in the drawing room and that she didn’t have to do any more, she realised how tired she was, and when Miss Clary carried the trays for her, she made herself a turkey sandwich, boiled water for her hotty, put all her presents into a basket then walked over to the cottage and plodded upstairs to the attic. She was going to eat her sandwich in bed and start one of the Barbara Cartlands that Miss Rachel had given her for Christmas. What could be more luxurious than that?

Simon, Henry and Tom came down from the poker room for provisions. ‘How many sandwiches each?’ Henry asked, and Jemima answered three. ‘Do you mean three of those triangles, or three whole rounds?’

Hugh said they could have four triangles and after that they must make do with mince pies, and because it was Hugh, they agreed. When Jemima said they were taking too many sandwiches, Tom replied that they needed enough for five, as Louise and Juliet were joining in the poker game. ‘Don’t stay up all night,’ Jemima said rather hopelessly: she knew that they would stay up just as long as they wanted to.

On their own, unencumbered by the young, people said what a lovely day it had been and how beautifully Rachel had arranged everything. They were clinging to the present, but some of them were finding it increasingly difficult to ward off bleak and anxious thoughts of the future. They were leaving the house that had been their home for so long. A few more days and it would be over. Nothing would be the same again.

Polly found it quite a relief when she had to go and put Spencer to bed. She found him with Nan in her bedroom and there was Nan choking back tears. ‘I don’t know where I am, my lady. Nothing to eat all day and a strange woman in my kitchen. I don’t think this is my home at all, you know, because my bed is facing the wrong way and I couldn’t do my crochet for the baby.’

Polly made Nan sit on the bed and explained that they would all be going home in a few days. Nan always cried when she forgot how to crochet, which was happening more and more often now.

‘When Spencer is settled, I’ll get you some Horlicks, and when you’re ready for bed we’ll do the crochet together. Look, Nan. Isn’t he sweet?’

Nan’s face had softened and she wiped her face with a Harrington square.

‘You had lunch, you know, with all of us in the dining room, and you gave Spencer a little bone to chew and he loved it. You’re so good with him, Nan. I don’t know what I should do without you.’

A spot of appreciation did the trick, and Polly could see her remembering.

In bed at last with Gerald – she had not gone back to the drawing room because it had taken her ages to get the Horlicks and then show Nan how to do her crochet – she said how good the family were being about their misfortune. ‘You have a wonderful family,’ he replied. ‘I really admire them. Particularly your aunt. Hugh was telling me what dire straits she’s in.’

‘I know. And nobody has enough money to help her.’

‘I was wondering if you’d like her to come and live with us.’

‘Oh, my darling, how good and kind you are! Oh, Gerald!’ She turned to him and he felt her warm tears on his face.

‘I’m pretty dull, though. You get that with people who mean well. It’s a real danger.’

She kissed him.

‘You see?’ he said, when she had finished. ‘You’ve been kissing me for years now, and I’ve not turned into a prince, just stayed a plain old frog.’

‘My own most interesting frog,’ she said. ‘Mind my breasts – they’re a bit sore.’

Of course, she’ll be hunting tomorrow, and won’t have another thought in her head, Teddy realised. His parting from Sabrina had not been happy, and he was almost relieved to be without her for a few days. The poker game had broken up with Roland winning. They had only been playing with matchsticks, but these were to be converted to cash when they finished the final game. Teddy had enjoyed the male camaraderie of it. Perhaps he could get a pilot’s licence and then an interesting job, even in Africa. Rather a thrilling idea.

‘He’ll be in bed now, but in the dressing room. He doesn’t share a room with her any more. He said that she’d asked him to go to bed with her twice during the last four years, and both times she got pregnant. He’ll have given her very expensive presents, though, and I expect she’ll have given him the same, and his sister will stay and it will be a nice family Christmas. Without me.’ Louise had returned the necklace to its box and put the box under her pillow. Juliet was already asleep.

Simon thought of his love – whooping it up in Glasgow, going to pubs, getting stoned, probably nipping into bed with someone if he fancied them. That hurt: he didn’t want to think about that. Better leave it that he – he was two years older, after all – had seriously fallen in love with somebody who was only just learning about love. He would be back in exactly seven days. Meanwhile, it felt good to be in the old house – especially if it was for the last time. The other, absolutely marvellous thing was that Aunt Rachel had given him the Duchy’s piano as his Christmas present. At first he’d thought that she wanted him to play her something – he had played when the family sang carols: ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, ‘I Saw Three Ships’, and ‘The Holly and the Ivy’. Later, Laura had come up to him and asked what the holly bear was like. ‘I just thought I ought to know, in case he came suddenly out of a wood, or something.’ He’d explained about there not being a holly bear – to her great relief. ‘I only wondered.’

‘You said just the right things,’ Aunt Rachel had told him later.

And now it became clear that she was actually giving him this lovely old piano: a Blüthner drawing-room grand. It was old, but that meant it had the Schwander action, made in France before the factory had closed during the First World War. The felts needed pricking, but otherwise it was perfect. He tried to express his thanks, but it was so much the most amazing present he had ever had in his life that he became lost for words and ended up hugging her, screwing up his eyes to forestall tears. ‘I’m very glad,’ she said, ‘that it means so much to you. Your grandmother would have been so pleased.’

Rachel went to bed in a far more peaceful state of mind than she’d experienced the night before. They were a very close-knit family, and she was so grateful for that. It was true that they had not accepted Zoë at first, but gradually, during those long war years, she had become enfolded and welcomed, and the Duchy had always stood up for her. Perhaps, in time, Diana will become like that, she thought. Rachel was always optimistic about potential goodness.

Tomorrow, early, she would take dear little Harriet’s bunch of snowdrops to Sid’s grave. The thought that she might be forced to live many miles away in the future pierced her yet again, but she pushed the pain deeper into her heart.

Villy lay in the dark thinking how much better it was to be back with the family, and how Roland was enjoying his siblings and cousins. He seemed happy and she had noticed that his wretched acne – the bane of his life – was definitely better. The doctor she had taken him to had said that it would clear up in its own good time. She had no idea what he felt about meeting his father in the company of his new wife, but there was nothing she could do about it now, except to be calm and absolutely unemotional. Which she was determined to be.

‘Dearest Hugh, I will not have you worrying about Rachel. I would love her to stay with us as long as she’d like.’

‘That would be marvellous, but we simply haven’t got room, have we?’

‘Yes, we have. I’ve thought it through. Laura goes into your dressing room, the boys go into Laura’s room, and Rachel can have the boys’ room. You would have to dress and undress in front of me but I’m sure we could get over our embarrassment in time.’

‘I’m afraid it might be followed by a frenzy of lust. Darling Jem, it would be a load off my mind. I’m sure we could find her some little job to do – working for a charity, perhaps – so she wouldn’t be in your hair all day. Do you mean all this, darling? Have you really thought about it?’

‘Yes,’ she replied patiently. ‘I’ve really thought about it. Rachel has always been so very kind to me and the boys. She’s treated us as family from the first time we came here, and now I want to treat her as family back. Let’s go to sleep.’

‘Not quite yet.’

Roland, who had had a smashing day, waited till the others were settled and lights were out before he smeared his face with camomile lotion. Mum had said it would help, and the spots certainly didn’t seem quite so noticeable. She had been wonderful. She had given him a cheque before Christmas so that he could buy the tools and equipment needed for an experiment he was doing with his friend. Others had given him book tokens, a squash racquet, and a very superior torch – and other things that he was too sleepy to remember. And tomorrow Dad was coming for a drink with That Woman, as Mum used to call her. He hated his father; he sometimes said this to himself to keep the hatred going. He’d ruined Mum’s life, and on the few occasions when they were together, they had nothing to say. The fatuous questions! ‘How are you getting on at school?’; ‘Looking forward to the holidays?’; ‘Made some good friends, have you?’ God! It made him sick. It was only for something to say – to get through the once-a-term hotel lunch he was taken out to. On one occasion he had brought Louise, the older sister he hardly knew, and she’d livened things up a bit, but she’d only come the once. Well, he was due to go up to Cambridge: he’d won a scholarship to Trinity next autumn, and he’d planned to get some sort of job before that to help Mum with the fees. The scholarship would only go so far, was not designed to cover everything, and his blasted father had indicated that he was unable to help. I really do hate him, Roland thought before he fell asleep. He’s not a proper father at all.

‘I think, after all, that I will come with you tomorrow. I don’t feel it’s fair for you to face them all on your own.’

‘Splendid.’ He spoke as heartily as he could manage. Far from being an escape, the drink at Home Place was going to be an ordeal. He had sold his guns and his cufflinks and this had provided him with some money to buy Christmas presents. Diana had done the rest. She had a small income of her own, derived from her Army widow’s pension, and the rent from a flat she’d inherited from her parents. She had jazzed up Christmas quite a bit on it, buying a large tree, and on Christmas Eve they had had a cocktail party for about twenty neighbours, who had drunk them clean out of vodka and gin. Edward hardly knew any of the guests, and spent most of what seemed a very long time going round and filling everyone’s glasses. He used to love parties and meeting people, but somehow he hadn’t the heart for it any more. The fact was that he’d got himself into a hell of a mess, and didn’t see how to get out of it. He had let it be known at his club that he was in the market for almost anything, but although several friends there had said they would bear him in mind, nothing had so far materialised. Early days, he said to himself, but his membership ran out in March and he would be unable to renew it.

Diana seemed to have put the future firmly out of her mind; she had been more upset when Jamie had said that he was going to spend the holiday with his grandparents and older brothers in Scotland. Comforting her about that had gone down very well – almost too well from his point of view as she had gone all out to seduce him in bed after the cocktail party. In the end, he’d managed to make enough love to satisfy her, and she’d whispered to him that, with their mutual love, nothing else mattered.

So when, on Boxing Day morning, she said she was coming with him, he wasn’t surprised but warned her that Home Place was freezing compared to their house, ‘So wrap up, darling.’ He was terrified that she would choose some revealing attire but, no, she put on a navy blue jersey dress with a polo collar, and a pair of sapphire and diamond earrings he had given her long before their marriage. This, with an old squirrel-fur jacket, completed her outfit.

‘How do I look?’

‘Perfect, as always.’

Hugh met them at the front door, and Diana presented her cheek to be kissed. ‘Such a long time since we met. Happy Christmas!’

Hugh touched his brother on the shoulder in greeting, then Waited while Diana got out of her jacket.

Most of the family were already assembled in the drawing room, Villy on a sofa with Roland standing behind her. Rachel was sitting in an armchair near the fire, but got up to kiss Edward and then to greet Diana when they came in. Rupert and Teddy were serving drinks; Clary was on her knees helping Harriet transfer her half-done jigsaw to a large tray, ‘Then you can do it anywhere, but not here,’ she was saying. Simon was stoking the fire, and Gerald had been talking to Rachel. When Polly came in bearing a tray with canapés he introduced her proudly to Diana: ‘This is my wife, Polly.’

‘Yes,’ Harriet said crossly. ‘And they’ve got a boy called Lord Holt. He’s not very nice, actually.’

Clary said, ‘Shut up, Harriet! That’s not at all a kind thing to say.’

‘I only mean he’s very unpopular with us. There may be people in the world who would love him, but I doubt it.’

‘I love him,’ Gerald said.

‘That’s different. Fathers have to love their sons.’

‘Not necessarily.’

Everybody looked at Roland then, who blushed scarlet but continued to stare pointedly at Edward. Villy put a hand on his elbow as though to check him, but he – gently – shook her off.

Edward and Diana, drinks in hand, now advanced towards Villy. Edward introduced them while everybody tried to take no notice. Diana saw a small, rather faded woman, unexpectedly well dressed, whose heavy dark eyebrows contrasted dramatically with her nearly white hair. It was pulled back severely from her face and secured with a large black bow.

‘Hello, Villy, my dear. You do look well. This is Diana.’

Villy saw a tall woman wearing a dress that was a size too small for her, and a great deal of make-up. She had large, rather ugly hands encrusted with rings. ‘How do you do? I believe we met once before – during the war.’

‘Oh, yes! Ages ago. I’d almost forgotten. And is this your son? He looks almost the age of my – our – Jamie.’

This was intended to wound, Villy knew, and the most irritating response was to show the opposite. So she smiled. ‘We all had babies in those days,’ she said. ‘I suppose it was to make up for all the poor young men who were getting killed. Don’t you think?’

‘Hello, Roland, old boy.’ Edward was getting unnerved by Roland’s stony stare.

‘Before you ask me some fatuous question about school, I’d like to tell you now that it was a beastly place. For the first year a gang of older boys used to bully me, tie me in a bath, turn on the cold tap and leave. And I never knew whether they’d come back before I drowned. One of their little escapades – just for the record,’ he ended bitterly.

‘How dreadful!’ Diana exclaimed. ‘I don’t think they did that sort of thing at Eton. Jamie went to Eton, like his brothers.’

Archie quickly came to the rescue: ‘You need a top-up, Diana, and you, too, Edward. Roland, get your mother a drink.’

Roland took his mother’s glass from her trembling hands (the bath story was news to her) and collided with Archie at the drinks table. ‘No more of that,’ Archie said to him sternly. ‘You’ll upset your mother. It’s only a drink, and they’ll be gone before lunch, so show a little more of the white flag. You could try feeling a bit sorry for your father, you know,’ he added gently.

‘Could I?’ The idea seemed incredible.

Gerald had diplomatically enticed Diana to the far side of the room to show her the snowmen and talk about gardens.

Louise and Juliet, who had decided to try the drinks on offer, eyed Diana with mild contempt. ‘I met her once before they were wed, at Dad’s club. I never for one moment thought he’d marry her.’

‘She doesn’t know the first thing about make-up,’ Juliet said. ‘Her face is like a dog biscuit, and look at that awful lipstick!’

‘Older women tend to overdo the make-up. It’s something to watch out for when you get older,’ Louise informed her. But Juliet felt she was unlikely to get as old as that and, anyway, she knew.

Sounds from outside indicated that the children were getting fretful and hungry; then Nan appeared in the doorway, clearly distressed.

‘Oh, your lordship, his lordship’s playing up something awful. He’s broken some of the twins’ toys and they went for him and that palaver upset everyone.’

Polly stopped talking to Clary and went over to comfort her. ‘Gerald, I think you’d better deal with Andrew.’

And Gerald, who had found in Diana’s remarks the all-too-usual blend of competitive showing off, was grateful for an excuse to go.

He left her triumphant: her garden was not only larger, but contained plants that he had either failed to grow or had never even heard of. She was on her third cocktail by now, and was taking in the shabbiness of the room; it really looked as though nothing had been done to it for years. She glanced about for Edward, and saw him talking to Villy (again!), standing next to two very pretty girls: Louise, whom he kept maddeningly describing as his second favourite woman, and a younger girl of startling beauty, who reminded her of Vivien Leigh.

She worked her way towards them, but her heel got caught in a rent in the carpet, and if Rupert hadn’t been close enough to seize her arm, she would have fallen over. Rachel rose from her chair to apologise.

‘Don’t bother. I’m sure it was my fault.’ She was seething with humiliation. As Diana reached them, she heard Villy saying, ‘Do you remember that Christmas when Edward put the wrong stockings on Teddy and Lydia’s beds? The outcry!’

‘Until you rushed in and put it right.’ Edward was smiling. ‘Always quick off the mark, your mother was.’

‘Edward, I’m afraid it’s time to go. Susan will be frantic for her lunch.’

‘Right you are.’ He picked up Louise’s hand and kissed it, then Juliet’s too. He saw Villy watching him, and smiled affectionately. ‘Goodbye, ol’ boy,’ he said to Roland, who made no response. Diana stopped at the open door of the drawing room, as Hugh and Jemima saw them out. ‘It’s been so nice to see you all.’

In the car, she exclaimed, ‘Phew! Glad that’s over! It’s a pity Roland was so rude to you. And that disgusting story about his school. Quite out of place, I thought. I suppose he’s spoilt.’

‘Poor chap, I haven’t been much of a father to him.’

‘I’ve never stopped you seeing him.’

Yes, she had, he thought. She had more than once suggested that it might be kinder to leave Roland to his mother, and at the beginning, after he had left Villy and before she’d consented to a divorce, Villy had said that Roland was not to meet Diana, and he, at the time, had been in anything-for-a-quiet-life mode, and had simply gone along with whatever either Villy or Diana wanted …

‘Edward! Wake up! I’m talking to you! I said, what did you think of Villy?’

‘What do you mean what did I think of her?’

‘Oh – you know. Did she look much older? Does she still care about you? That sort of thing.’

He thought for a moment, and spoke very deliberately: ‘No, she didn’t look older – younger, I’d say. She looked better than she’s done for years. And, no, I don’t think she is still carrying a torch for me.’

‘What were you laughing about, you and Villy and the girls?’

‘We were reminiscing about earlier Christmases, actually.’

He was thinking of them again now: so many since the twenties, when the house had been spanking new, painted and papered, the Duchy machining curtains from morning till night. Hardly anything had been changed since then. Even the claw marks that Bruce, the Brig’s Labrador, had made on the doors were still there. And this was the last of them and, now, the last of the house for him: he would never see Home Place again.

‘I suppose Rachel is selling the house. It’s far too big for her alone.’

‘It is being sold, but since it belongs to the firm, Rachel will get nothing out of it.’

‘Oh. Poor her.’ Her indifference maddened him – a new and horrible feeling.

‘Could we please stop talking about my family? I know you don’t like them much, but I do. I’m very much attached to every single one of them.’

‘Even Villy? You’re still attached to her?’

‘For God’s sake, Diana, will you stop? Of course I have affectionate feelings for Villy. She’s had four of my children. I was glad to see her this morning. And apart from being glad, of course I feel guilty about what I’ve done to her and Roland. So do me the kindness and shut up.’

And Diana was so surprised – shocked – by his outburst that she remained silent for the rest of the drive.

Lunch was followed by an extremely cold game of Ogres, where the old outdoor kennel was the prison in which the captured were put to wait for someone to rescue them. The trouble was that the youngest always got captured first and the adults got tired of rescuing them. Jemima, who had been worried about Laura, went out to find her sobbing in the kennel. ‘Oh, Mummy, let me out. I hate this game and want to not play it.’

Jemima took her back to the house. She was blue with cold. ‘There’s even snow in my Wellingtons.’

‘I’m going to pop you into a hot bath and then you can have tea in your dressing gown. Special treat.’

‘I can stay up while all the others are having theirs.’ The idea pleased her enormously.

Much later, when the children had had their high tea, and had finally been coaxed to bed, it was discovered that they all wanted Uncle Rupert to continue his story about a bear and a tiger who start by fighting but become friends and decide to steal a small aeroplane and fly to England. Tonight he described how they came down in the gardens of Buckingham Palace where the Queen was very kind to them and offered them tea and sausage rolls – the tiger ate twenty-four – and Mars Bars – the bear ate sixteen but then he felt a bit sick …

‘No more tonight,’ Rupert said firmly. ‘And you all go to your beds at once or there won’t be any more adventures tomorrow.’ So they went.

‘Although, you know,’ Georgie said to Laura, ‘the whole thing is most improbable. Bears and tigers wouldn’t get on at all, in real life. They would avoid each other.’

‘It’s not meant to be real life. It’s a story. Stories are better than real life. In my opinion.’

‘I prefer real life.’

There was a coldness in the room, until Laura said, ‘I’ve had an idea. I bet you Rivers would simply love a Mars Bar.’

‘Yes! I think he might. Good idea, Laura. Just a small bit, though – we don’t want him feeling sick …’

‘All done,’ said Rupert, rather smugly. ‘I could do with a strong drink.’

Rachel, who had been toying with a dry sherry that she did not really want, straightened herself in her chair. ‘Listen, all of you. I want to be practical this evening. This house is full of family furniture. I shall not need very much of it, so I want you all to choose what you would like to have. Please stick a label on it with a name and address so that the carriers can deliver everything correctly. I expect you know that I’ve given the Duchy’s piano to Simon as he’s the musical one, and Gerald has kindly said that he can house it. I have sorted out some linen and kitchen things that I shall need, otherwise it’s a free-for-all. I’m telling you now because you may need time to make your choices. I should like to keep some of your pictures, Rupert, and the drawing you made of the Duchy playing the piano, Archie. In fact, I’ve already put labels on those. And, finally, don’t any of you thank me, because I don’t want to burst into tears. The labels are on the desk.’ She took a swig of her sherry – too much – and it made her choke.

It was Hugh who patted her on the back, and Clary who said, ‘You are the most thoughtful person in the world.’

Then Juliet said, ‘Do I count, Aunt Rachel? And if I do, could I have the beautiful little silver teapot?’

‘You do, and you may.’

A new poker game was ongoing, and as soon as supper was over, Louise, Teddy, Simon, Roland, Henry and Tom and Juliet went off to the boys’ room to resume it.

Until now everybody had refrained from talking about Edward’s visit, with the dreaded Diana. But now, because they were not talking about what was going to happen to them any more, they fell upon the gossip. Archie said he thought that Edward had looked awful, grey and as if he’d shrunk.

Zoë said she didn’t think Edward loved Diana, but was frightened of her, whereupon Rupert observed, unsurprisingly, that one had to look at the other person’s point of view. Clary told Villy that she thought she had been wonderful, so calm and dignified. Villy apologised that Roland had been so hostile, and Hugh said that he rather admired him for it and, anyway, Edward had earned it. Rachel pointed out that he had married Diana, and this had to be accepted. ‘Let’s face it,’ Jemima countered, ‘she doesn’t like women very much. They seem to bring out the worst in her.’

Whereupon Polly bitchily observed that all that meant was that the worst of her was usually out. Gerald said that he didn’t think Diana was actually very happy.

‘I bet she’s not!’ Hugh exclaimed. ‘She thought she was marrying a rich man, and there he is, out of a job, and he told me he’d spent everything he’d saved on her. He’s even sold his guns and some cufflinks to buy them Christmas presents.’

‘Oh, poor Uncle Edward! No wonder he looked so awful!’

Clary’s eyes filled with tears and Archie put his arm round her. ‘She cries for England,’ he said.

Zoë began to say how stupid Diana had looked, bulging out of that dress … but Rupert intervened: ‘I think we’ve all been unpleasant enough for one evening, and I, for one, am longing to be in bed with my vituperative wife.’

That was Boxing Day over. Rachel was glad. It had been a long day for her, starting at seven when she had gone up to the churchyard with the snowdrops. She had been appalled at how much she didn’t like Diana. And she’d had no idea that Edward was so poor. If only he’d told me when he came for a drink, I could have given him something. But she knew she couldn’t have given him much. There were the servants to think of. As she was unable to give them large retiring presents, she must find them somewhere to live. And there was Mrs Tonbridge’s operation. I shall be gone in a few weeks now, Rachel admitted to herself. I shan’t be able to look after Sid’s grave. That seemed like yet another parting from her. But that is what I have to do, somehow. And find some work that will pay me money. I’m glad I told everyone to choose things. I’ve got that bit over at least.

It was a small congratulation, but it would have to do.

The next two days – the last two days – were occupied by the family making their choices. The linen, for instance: the wives all wanted some. A great deal of it was threadbare, very fine linen, marked in Indian ink that registered its date of birth, so to speak. In the end, it was divided between Zoë and Clary, as Jemima said she didn’t really need it. Polly, after consultation with Gerald, asked if they might have the hall table, four of the single beds and two chests of drawers. None of the others wanted these things. Teddy said he would like the Brig’s desk. He had nowhere to put it yet, but he suddenly very much wanted something of his grandfather’s. Georgie wanted the cabinet that contained the Brig’s collection of beetles. (This had been Rupert’s suggestion, and had deflected Georgie from wanting to unscrew the mangers in the horseboxes in case he ever got a horse.) Louise chose a very pretty set of Wedgwood coffee cups while Rachel urged Simon to take all the sheet music to go with the piano. Clary asked Mrs Tonbridge’s advice on kitchen equipment for the new flat at Mortlake: she had a small batterie de cuisine at home, but most of it was in a poor state.

Hugh, Rupert and Archie were all invited to share the silver – when Archie protested that he was not really family, Rupert and Hugh said he certainly was. Laura, unsupervised, rushed to the nursery with a sticky label, which she attached to the battered old rocking-horse. ‘I shall paint his face better and the spots on his back and ride him to do wicked deeds at night.’ Polly’s twins asked for the dressing-up box, which was stuffed with feather boas and beaded dresses, while Tom and Henry wanted all the tennis and squash racquets. Bertie mysteriously found a top hat in a cupboard that he said he’d need in case he was a magician when grown-up.

‘What can I have?’ Andrew wailed. ‘This house is full of things I simply don’t want.’

Rachel came to the rescue with The Times Atlas and a pair of binoculars. ‘Essential for an explorer,’ she said.

Bertie was easy. The only thing he longed for, apart from the top hat, was a very large stuffed pike in a glass case from the Brig’s study.

By the end of the second day everyone had chosen, excepting Villy, Roland and Harriet.

Rachel suggested that Villy have the set of garden tools that had been the Duchy’s. ‘I should love to think of you using them.’ Harriet finally admitted to wanting a patchwork quilt sewn in cotton of many different blues, some rather faded now from the sun. ‘Why didn’t you say so, darling?’

‘I thought it might be too precious for me. That you would want to keep it.’

‘No, I’d love you to have it. Here is a label for you. Put your name and address there. I’m glad you like it. This quilt was made by your great-grandmother during the war.’

‘Oh! So it’s very, very old!’ This seemed to add to its charms, so Rachel agreed on its advanced antiquity.

And so the only person left who had chosen nothing was Roland.

‘Surely there’s something you would like,’ Villy said. Roland said there was, but it would be inconvenient for Aunt Rachel if he took it. ‘It’s that marvellous old telephone in the study. I’ve never come across one like that before, only seen them in films.’

Rachel, on being asked, said that she certainly wouldn’t want to keep it, but that she might need it until she left.

‘Oh, good! And do you want the Remington typewriter, by any chance?’ Rachel, who could only type with one finger, didn’t. ‘And there’s a very early camera I’m rather keen on. Or is that too much?’

‘No, Roland, it’s helpful, thank you. Put your labels on everything.’

When word got round that Roland was getting several things, some of the others wanted more too. ‘We can’t just leave all those poor old bears and monkeys and golliwogs to be got rid of, Mummy. I could look after them,’ Harriet offered coaxingly.

‘It seems a bit silly to leave all the board games, Mum,’ Polly’s twins said. ‘Aunt Rachel is really too old to want to play them.’

‘You’ve got lots of games at home.’

‘Not all of these. And then supposing four people want to play a game that’s meant for two? They’d have to wait for hours.’

Georgie said, ‘I wonder if I could have those stuffed pheasants as well. The Lady Amhurst is quite rare and the Golden Pheasant is too. I could have them in the museum part of my zoo, with the beetles.’

Parents apologised profusely to Rachel for this surge of acquisitiveness, but Rachel said she found it priceless. In fact, she thought of more things they might like.

The Choosing Game, as the children got to call it, proved a blessing. It kept everybody active with things to do. ‘Oh dear!’ the children kept saying. ‘The last two days!’ But Georgie was longing to get home because his best Christmas present would already be there, while Bertie and Harriet were excited by their impending move, and Laura was pretty sure that the present held back for her in London would be either a bicycle or a cat, both of which she really needed.

No, it was the older ones who were stricken: too reliant on an effortful reminiscence, effortful because each memory too easily provoked grief and anxiety.

Rachel told stories of the Brig, which were safe to laugh at: ‘Do you remember the way in which he would ask you if you had heard the story about the elephant he was given in India, and you said – rather bravely – that you had, and he would simply say, never mind, he would tell you again?’

‘And when rabbit’s fur came out of the well tap, he said we must not bother our pretty little heads about that.’ (This was Villy.)

‘And the terrifying way he would drive on the right-hand side of the road, and when the police stopped him, he said he had always ridden on that side and was too old to change now.’

There was a respectful silence after stories about the Brig seemed to have run out, and everyone reverted to private thoughts. Hugh was remembering Sybil – her giving birth to Simon; her terrible cancer, and how good Edward had been to him after her death. He had thought he would never get over it, but his darling Jemima had given him a whole new life. Villy thought of the good times she had had in this house, the days when Edward had seemed happy and devoted …

All over now. She had been shocked at the sight of him on Boxing Day. In some way, Diana’s brash uneasiness had confirmed the good realities of her own marriage to Edward. It had been happy; she knew now that sex had been the only problem. It had eventually occurred to her that pretending to like it was not good enough. It was a bit like what Miss Milliment had said about martyrs being dull to love; her distaste for sex must have communicated itself to Edward, who probably thought that ‘nice’ women were generally like her so went elsewhere for satisfaction. He had clearly married Diana for sex: she looked the sort of woman who might actually like that kind of thing. Villy wished – not for the first time – that Miss Milliment had not died, particularly had not died mistrusting her …

Clary looked round her. Anxiety, unhappiness, was like a fog in the room, slowly enveloping everybody. ‘I want to say something. I think it would be far better if we all expressed what we’re feeling. I know, Aunt Rachel, that you said not to talk about it during Christmas, but Christmas is over, and this is our last night here, and we’re all fearfully sad about that. But most of us are even more worried about what’s going to happen to us next. I think we ought to talk about that. And as I’ve introduced the subject, I think I’d better begin.’

In the short silence that followed, a log fell from the grate onto the hearth, and Rupert got up to retrieve it. Nobody took the slightest heed of this: everyone’s attention was on Clary.

‘This house,’ she began bravely. ‘I shall always love and remember it because this was my first home. And it was where I really got to know Polly. And you, Zoë, who I was determined to dislike because of my mother’s death and you marrying Dad. And you, darling Archie, most of all. All through the awful time when Dad was lost and I remained the only person who believed he was alive and would come back, you were here. You became my family, too. But the house stayed the same through that time. If I shut my eyes, I could still tell you the detail of any room, and outside, the orchard and the fields and the wood with the stream running through it. I could walk blindfold and still tell you where we were. What I’m trying to say is that this is the same for all of us. This house is inside us and we shall never forget it. I think we’re lucky to have somewhere so dear to remember in our hearts.’

A murmur of approval spread throughout the room. But that had been the easy part and Clary took a deep breath and began again: ‘The other thing we’re not talking about is what is going to happen to us when Cazalets’ has gone. I know you may think it’s all very well for Archie and Dad and Zoë and me, because we’ve decided to live together so Dad and Archie can start some art classes together. Archie and I are going to let our flat rather than sell it so that if the Mortlake idea doesn’t work we’ve at least got somewhere to live. Also, I hope I’ll be earning some money from writing. So, in a way, I feel we’re the luckiest people here. Gerald and Polly have their own problems, but luckily they’re not affected by Cazalets’ demise. But Uncle Hugh, you and Aunt Rachel are, and I suppose poor Uncle Edward too, but he’s not here.’ She looked expectantly at Hugh, who cleared his throat.

‘I don’t think any of you should worry about me. I have some money saved that should tide me over until I get some sort of job. Jemima has a small inheritance from her parents that should see the twins through university, and she owns our house. So you needn’t worry about me,’ he repeated, almost irritably this time.

All eyes then turned upon Rachel. She shrank from their gaze, but could not escape it. She had been sitting with her hands clenched round a small white handkerchief. She was incapable of lying, of dissembling at all, but she dreaded the prospect of exposing her real terror at the future now facing her.

‘As you all know, I’m selling Sid’s house so I shall have some money, but I’m told it will not be enough to live on. So I shall have to try and get a job, although goodness knows who would ever want to employ me. But I shall find something, I’m sure.’ Rachel looked up at her family before continuing: ‘I’ve had four incredibly kind invitations from you, Hugh, from you, Rupert and Zoë, from you, Villy, and from Gerald and Polly to come and stay.’ Her voice cracked at this point, her knuckles turning white as she clenched the handkerchief. ‘I’m just so grateful to all of you, but I know how busy your lives are. An elderly spinster aunt is hardly a brilliant addition to any household.’ She tried to smile – quite unsuccessfully, as her eyes were now full of tears – as she muttered, barely audible now, ‘I really am not needed any more.’

Hugh went to her, then knelt by her chair and put his arms round her. ‘You are loved and needed by all of us,’ he said. ‘You’re talking a lot of sad nonsense. Of course it’s worse for you, you’ve lived in this house for forty years—’

‘Forty-one.’

‘Forty-one, then. It’s been your home all this time. Miserable to leave it.’

‘I would need you awfully, Aunt Rach,’ Polly said. ‘With four children and all the wedding stuff we’re struggling with, not to mention our rather large house, I could keep you occupied from morning till night.’

‘She’d wear you out if you weren’t careful,’ Gerald added jokingly.

The others all made practical cases for her staying with them, too, excepting Villy, who wanted Rachel desperately to come and fill her silent little house with her company. So she simply said, ‘You know I’d love you to come – any time,’ and left it at that.

All this somehow made it all right for Rachel to cry now, which she did until Hugh gave her his handkerchief. ‘That silly little thing you have in your hands wouldn’t even mop up the tears of a mouse.’

And then Gerald suggested that he open a valedictory bottle of champagne – which he did to good effect – and even Rachel drank her small share, relieved that the evening was over at last.

‘Jolly good, my little playwright, the way you made them talk,’ Archie said, when they were in their bedroom.

Down the passageway upstairs, Hugh discovered that he could not reach his shoelaces. Rather, he could reach them but he couldn’t seem to grasp them – even in normal circumstances no easy matter if you had only one hand. It made him feel dizzy trying, and in the end he called Jemima. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter, but I don’t seem able to get my shoes off.’

Jemima took one look at him, and her heart sank. He looked exactly as he had in the bathroom. ‘You’re just tired, darling,’ she said. ‘I’m going to undress you – I love doing it.’ She got him out of his clothes and into his pyjama top without his having to get up from the stool he had been sitting on. She eased on the bottoms, then said, ‘Hold on to me, darling, while I pull them up. Then I’m going to lead you to bed.’

He sank upon his pillows with a sigh of contentment and held out his arms for her. She kissed his forehead and said, ‘Now you’re going straight to sleep.’

He did, almost at once, but for a long time Jemima lay awake full of fears for him. She must call the doctor and get him to London without fail as soon as possible.

‘It really is hard for Rach,’ Rupert said, as he ripped off his clothes, leaving them in a trail from the window to the bed. ‘Do be quick, darling, I want us to have one last comforting roll in the hay before we leave.’

Polly said, ‘It would be pretty difficult. I think we’d have to get her home first so she could see all the things she might do there. We’re going to have to pay for more help as Nan gets worse anyway. She won’t be able to look after Spencer or lend a hand with the cooking for much longer.’

‘It crossed my mind that perhaps the Tonbridges would come.’

‘Gosh! That’s an idea. But Mrs T may be wanting to retire. Her feet are awful these days. Rachel says she’s arranged an operation for her bunions.’

‘Well, of course it would be after her convalescence. But she’s devoted to Rachel, and if she was with us, I think there’s a fair chance that Rachel would come, too.’

‘What about Tonbridge?’

‘He can be in charge of all the cars for the weddings. He could even drive that ghastly white Daimler we have to have.’

‘Gerald, I think you are very, very clever.’

Tomorrow, Rachel thought, I’ll move back into my own room. She was so exhausted with emotion that she slept the moment she put out the light.

Mrs Tonbridge padded across the courtyard – the thaw had made it very slushy – and when she reached the cottage she announced to Tonbridge (who was ominously reading a newspaper) that she was off to bed. She knew if she stayed down for a cup of tea, he would read her bits from the paper about the state of the world and the politicians who seemed to make a mess of everything. Half of what he read she simply didn’t understand and the rest bored her. If she retired, as Miss Rachel seemed to think she would want to do, she’d have to endure those readings morning, noon and night …

She had made a vast kedgeree for their farewell breakfast. It would only need to be heated. There was the old boy coming upstairs to bed. She rolled over onto her side and shut her eyes.

The plan was for everyone to leave after breakfast, but the packing took a long time. Teddy, Louise and Simon were the first off as they were the least encumbered. Even so, it had taken time finding the others to say goodbye. Polly was in the girls’ room supervising the packing of everyone’s presents into one suitcase, a process that nobody liked. The twins wanted to include all the board games, and Andrew complained that this left no room for him. Polly said that they couldn’t pack the board games, only their Christmas presents. Andrew, triumphant and still in a rage with the foul twins, tipped up the suitcase and then kicked it, whereupon, draughts, Peggity pegs, Monopoly cards and dice were spilled all over the floor. Eliza burst into tears. ‘Say goodbye to everyone, and then pick everything up. I’m very cross with you, Andrew.’ Polly felt weary already. She had packed all Spencer’s things, then found that Nan had unpacked them again but could not remember where she had put them. Gerald had dealt with that.

Jemima had asked Rachel to engage Hugh in conversation about how the house was to be finally cleared. ‘He’s awfully tired, and I don’t want him struggling with suitcases.’ Laura was at her worst. She cried because she couldn’t take the rocking-horse back with her; she cried because she wanted to live with Georgie. And finally she refused to wear the clothes that her mother had put out for her. ‘If you try to make me wear that silly red skirt and stupid pretending Scotch jersey, my arms and legs will go all heavy and slippery, like seaweed,’ she’d sobbed. And Jemima was so desperate to get Hugh to London that she weakly allowed Laura to choose her own wardrobe for the day, which included a gold-paper crown she had got from a cracker.

They were the next to go. Laura hugged everybody – the Tonbridges, Eileen, Aunt Rachel and Georgie. She even tried to hug Rivers, but he didn’t like the idea. ‘I’m driving,’ Jemima said firmly to Hugh. ‘It will stop me bursting into tears.’

Georgie shook hands politely with everyone. He had witnessed Laura’s display with distaste, although he had admitted to Zoë that she was better than most girls.

Rupert gave Rachel a long hug. ‘It’s been so lovely. You can’t imagine the pleasure and happiness you’ve given us all. Don’t forget that we all want you, darling Rach.’ Zoë also hugged her – not something she usually did – and Rachel stood at the white gate by the drive and waved them goodbye.

It was Villy and Roland next.

‘I’ve had a super time. Best Christmas of all. Thank you so much for having me.’ Rachel kissed him and his face went bright red, but she noticed that his acne was better.

She and Villy embraced warmly, and Villy said how welcome she would always be at Clifton Hill.

The house was emptying; fewer footsteps up and down the stairs, less opening and banging shut of the front door. Archie was loading their car, and Clary kept bringing extra things that hadn’t been packed. Bertie said, ‘I hope you’ll come and stay with us one day. We’re moving to an enormous house so there’s sure to be room.’

Harriet clung to her. ‘Do stay here, Aunt Rachel, because this is the best place.’ They took a long time to go.

Polly and Gerald, meanwhile, had finished putting luggage in their Daimler; Polly had to lead Nan to the car and put Spencer in her arms. He fell at once into a stertorous sleep. The twins were herded in, and finally Andrew, who refused to kiss Rachel because he said he hadn’t had a nice enough time. ‘The food was very good, though,’ he added grudgingly.

‘Please come and stay with us,’ Gerald said. ‘We should so much love to have you.’

And Rachel heard herself saying that she would like that very much. A final hug from Polly, and they were gone. She watched their car slowly disappear down the drive, and out of sight. Then she shut the small white gate, walked past the two melting snowmen, and back into the silent house. Eileen had lit the fire in the morning room, and soon appeared bringing her a cup of Bovril. It was all done: the last Christmas was over. The first Christmas without Sid, she thought, and found that she was able to be calmly sad about it; there was less of a weight on her heart. Harriet had whispered to her that she had found a very small primrose out in the hedge behind the monkey puzzle tree. She hadn’t picked it yet, but she thought it might go with the snowdrops. She would pick it after lunch and take it up to Sid. She loved all the children, but Harriet and Laura had touched her most, and, of course, she adored Spencer as she had adored all of them when they were babies. Andrew made her laugh in much the same way that Neville had used to do. And she felt very warmed by all the adults’ love for her. If only, she thought, I could be really needed again.

The rest of the day slowly passed. She had lunch on a tray – fricassee of turkey and a mince pie – then put on several of the warm things she had been given for Christmas, and her galoshes, and found the single brave primrose. It was still thawing outside – little streams of water were running down the sides of the lane – the sky was a clear blue, and the trees were dripping in the churchyard. Again, she scraped the snow from Sid’s grave; the snowdrops had remained intact, and she put the primrose beside them. Usually she would say a short prayer for Sid; this time she talked to her.

‘I am going to do what you said, my darling. I am going somehow to make a life without you, as you told me I should. I shall never, never forget you. You will always be my only love. You were so brave about dying, and it’s time for me to have a little courage about living. I’m going to start by staying with Polly. I shall write to her tonight.’

She caressed the stone that had Sid’s name on it, knowing that this was another farewell.

But I shall always have her in my heart, she thought, on the walk home. My dearest Sid.

When she was in the middle of her letter to Polly, the telephone rang.

‘Oh, Rachel! Hugh’s had a heart attack. He’s in hospital and I so want to be with him, but the boys have gone to stay with friends and there’s Laura. I wondered whether you could possibly—’

‘Of course. I’ll take the first train tomorrow morning. Or, better still, get Tonbridge to drive me up to town. Is there anything you want me to bring?’

And Jemima said no, only to bring herself. She sounded as though she was crying. ‘He’s at the heart hospital, and they’re being very good. Oh, Rachel, thank you so much. It will make all the difference having you. Laura loves you, and I didn’t want to send her away – she’s distressed enough anyway because she was there when it happened. I must ring off now because the hospital might want to contact me. But thank you again, Rachel. I can’t think of anyone better to help. We’re in such safe hands.’ And she rang off.

All the while Rachel was telling the servants that Mr Hugh had had a heart attack and she needed to go to London early next morning – would Tonbridge drive her, and would Eileen help her pack a case this evening? – she felt completely in command. She had obtained leave for the Tonbridges to stay in their cottage until the end of the month, and suggested that they took Eileen in, to help with cleaning the house. After that, and after Mrs Tonbridge had had her operation, she had found two possible cottages to rent in Battle. She had the three months’ rent ready on whichever they might choose. But, of course, she would be in touch with them as soon as she found out the situation with Mr Hugh.

Mrs Tonbridge was speechless with emotion. Rachel had never seen her near tears before, and Eileen asked whether this meant that Miss Rachel would not be coming back to the house. For the first time she realised that she probably wouldn’t. However, she said nothing, just asked for a plain omelette for her supper. Then she would pack and have an early night; she wanted to leave as soon after eight as possible.

Of course it will be my last night here, she thought. Better to have it like this, without my moaning and grieving and making the worst of it. I have Hugh to worry about now, and Jemima – and poor little Laura come to that.

All the same, after her supper, and packing with Eileen, and saying goodnight to her, she got into her dressing gown and walked slowly through all the rooms upstairs. There was the Brig’s dressing room, where he had slept because his snoring was of a volume that even the loyal Duchy could not endure. The room where Sybil had had Wills and lost his twin, where Sybil had died, her own room where Clary, so lonely, had come to sleep on her bedroom floor. Then she summoned the courage to enter the Duchy’s room where she had peacefully gone, and the room where her darling Sid had spent her last weeks.

She had always been the recipient of confidences – even this Christmas there had been one that shocked and disturbed her. She had found Louise weeping on the attic stairs. ‘Oh, Aunt Rach, I don’t know how to bear it, but I know now that I must.’ It turned out that she had been having an affair with a married man who, she had now realised, would never leave his wife.

So she must leave him – get over it, somehow. Her misery was so intense that Rachel had stopped feeling shocked and simply gone to comfort her. Louise was doing the right thing, she said; the unhappiness would eventually go away, and she would find someone more worthy to love her.

Sid’s room was still full of her things. Rachel took the little woolly hat she used to wear when her hair was falling out, and the long silk scarf that had been her last present. Tomorrow she would tell Eileen to clear everything else and give it to a charity. From the nursery she took a box of dominoes, and The Brown Fairy Book, her favourite when she had been a child; she had coloured all the black and white Henry Ford illustrations; all the princesses had long golden hair and the dragons were bright green. She would be able to read it to Laura now, and also teach her to play dominoes.

Then she went to bed, in her own room, which Villy had left immaculate. She knew she was tired, as her back was hurting, but she felt infinitely warm from all the love she’d received. And now – better still – she was going to be needed.