A Christmas Letter: Snowbound in the Earl's Castle

He crossed the courtyard and headed for the studio door. After a busy day at the estate office, dealing with all the extra work the weather had thrown up, he’d got into the habit of checking up on Faith near the end of the working day.

When the natural light began to fade she’d sit up from being hunched over the stained glass panel and rub her eyes, as if she was waking from a long and drowsy sleep. Tenacious wasn’t the word. If he caught her at just the right time he’d see the warm, vibrant Faith who’d visited the other day in the chapel—the one who only came to life when she was talking about or working on the window.

He knew he probably shouldn’t want to catch a glimpse of this other Faith, but she didn’t hang around for long. Once the tools were back in their box she disappeared, and temptation was safely out of reach. It wasn’t wrong to just look, was it? It wasn’t as if he was going to do something stupid and touch.

He knocked on the door to warn her of his approach, and then opened it without waiting for an answer. He found her just as he’d expected to—perched on a stool next to the trestle table, spine curved forward as she snipped the soft lead away from the antique glass with a pair of cutters.

When she heard his footsteps she put her tools down and then linked her hands above her head in a stretch that elongated her spine. Marcus stopped where he was, suddenly transfixed by the slight swaying movement as she stretched the muscles on first one side of her torso and then the other. That motion was doing a fabulous job of emphasising her slender waist through her grey polo neck jumper.

Forget stockings and corsets. It seemed that softly clinging knitwear was enough to do it for him these days. Had he been without significant female company for too long? Or was this just a sign that he was getting old, and cardigans and suchlike were going to float his boat from now on? Either way he answered that question it was a pretty sad state of affairs.

Faith stopped stretching and turned round to talk to him, which—thankfully—gave Marcus the use of his vocal cords once again.

‘Is it that time already?’ She pushed up a sleeve and checked her watch, frowned slightly at it, then got up to head off to the large window that filled the opposite wall. The setting sun was hidden by the castle, but it had turned the lake below them shades of rich pink and tangerine. She sighed as he walked across the space to join her.

‘Ready?’ he said.

She turned towards him and nodded. ‘Sure.’

This, too, had become a habit. Just as his feet had fallen into taking him to the studio at the end of the day, he and Faith had fallen into a routine of meeting up and going down to the cellar when the working day was over. After more than a week of evenings dusting and sorting and tidying they’d made progress.

He knew he could have snapped his fingers and had a whole crew descend on the place and sort it out in a matter of days, but he was quite enjoying sifting through the debris of earlier generations bit by bit. A couple of hours of quiet each evening before dinner, when he was free to do something that interested him rather than something that had to be done, was doing him good.

She collected her things, put her coat on and looped a scarf around her neck, before turning the light off and shutting the door. Marcus pulled the key from his pocket and locked it behind them, then they strolled back down the hill towards the castle, its silhouette dark against the sunset.

She filled him in on her progress with the window.

‘It’s strange,’ she said, and frowned. ‘It’s obvious the bottom of the window has been repaired before. Quite soon after its installation, if I’m right about the age of the materials. I wonder what happened to it.’

He made a noncommittal kind of face. ‘Perhaps we’ll find an answer if we ever find some purchase records. Someone must have been paid to do the work.’

She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Let’s hope.’

They made their way down to the cellar and resumed their clear-out operation. Some of the ratty office furniture, which had obviously been dumped here a decade or two ago, when the estate offices had moved to the renovated stable block, had been cleared out, which left them with a little more space. A pile of sturdy lidded plastic crates stood near the door, and anything that might be useful was put safely inside, away from the dust.

They’d also found a lot of ‘garbage’, as Faith called it, a few treasures and a mountain of paperwork. Most of it, even the grocery ordering lists and letters of recommendation for long-gone parlour maids, they’d decided to keep. It would be the start of a rich family archive, giving glimpses of daily life from the castle over the last fifty years. Faith had suggested having an exhibition, and much to his surprise Marcus had found himself agreeing. In the New Year some time, though, when all this Christmas madness was over.

Faith pulled an old invitation for the Christmas Ball from the nearest pile and lifted it up to show the stuffed badger, who’d been released from his filing cabinet prison and now perched proudly on a wooden plant stand, keeping guard. His beady little orange glass eyes glinted in the light from a single bare bulb overhead.

‘What do you think, Basil? Worth keeping?’

Marcus put down the cardboard box full of cups and saucers he’d been moving. ‘Basil?’

Faith shrugged. ‘Basil the Badger. It seemed to fit.’

Marcus shook his head.

Side by side, they started sorting through piles of assorted papers, books and boxes, stopping every now and then to show each other what they’d found, debating the merits of each find.

It was nice to have someone to discuss things with—even if it was whether to keep a receipt for a peacock feather evening bag or not. It made him realise just how much he’d been on his own since he’d come back to Hadsborough to work. He only discussed the bigger issues with his grandfather, leaving him to rest. The remainder Marcus dealt with by himself.

It had been different in the City. He’d had plenty of friends, an active social life, a woman who’d said she loved him …

Better not to think of her. She was long gone with the rest of them. Everyone he’d counted on had deserted him when he’d needed them most. It seemed the family name had been more of a draw than he’d thought, and once that had been dragged through the mud they’d scattered. Whether it was because he was no longer useful or they thought they’d be painted guilty by association didn’t matter.

But now he was back home, with only an elderly relative for company. The staff kept a respectful distance, not only because he was the boss, but because of the family he’d been born into. He realised he hadn’t had much time to socialise with people who weren’t afraid to meet him as an equal, as a human being instead of a title.

Faith did that. Without being disrespectful or fake. Not many people achieved that balance, and he appreciated it. She wasn’t afraid to share her opinions, but she was never argumentative or rude. She just ‘called a spade a spade’, as his grandmother had used to say. In fact he had some news for her about one of their recent conversations when she’d done just that.

‘It’s been four days since we cut the ticket prices to the Christmas Ball and sent word around the village,’ he said nonchalantly as he dusted off a pile of old seventy-eight records. ‘And relaxed the dress code, of course.’

Faith stopped what she was doing and turned round. Her ponytail swung over her shoulder and he got the most intoxicating whiff of camellias and rose petals.

‘Yeah? Have sales improved?’

He nodded. ‘The locals are snapping them up.’

Her eyebrows rose. ‘See? I told you I understood the community spirit you get in a place like this. People just love to feel involved. You’re not their lords and masters any more, so it wouldn’t hurt to stop hiding away in your castle and mix a little.’

He snorted. ‘I do not hide away in my castle.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, no? When was the last time you went down to the village pub for a drink, then?’

‘I could name you a time and a date,’ he said, sounding a little smug.

Faith wasn’t fooled for a second. ‘Sock it to me.’

Marcus closed his eyes and smiled as he looked away for a second. ‘Okay, I was seventeen,’ he said as he met her impish gaze, ‘and I escaped down to the village with a couple of my schoolfriends who were staying over. The village bobby had to bring us back at two in the morning, drunk as skunks. I was grounded for a month. So I remember that occasion very well.’

‘It wouldn’t hurt you to get outside the boundaries of the estate once in a while, you know.’

He wanted to argue, to say he did—but hadn’t he just been thinking about being on his own so much? Had he turned himself into a hermit? Surely not.

‘You will come, won’t you?’ he asked.

‘To the village pub? Now, there’s an offer a gal can’t refuse!’ She gave him a wry smile as she took a vinyl record from his hands and inspected it.

‘No,’ he said, ‘to the Christmas Ball.’

She rubbed a bit of dust that he’d missed off the corner of the record sleeve with her fingers. ‘It would be lovely, but I…I can’t. I’m busy with the window, and a ball’s not really my sort of thing.’

‘You said you were making good progress,’ he replied. He looked around the darkening cellar. The sky through the narrow windows at the top of the room was indigo now. ‘An invitation is the least I can give you after all you’ve done to help resurrect the idea.’

If anything she looked sadder. ‘Maybe,’ was all she said.

He didn’t get it. He thought women liked balls and dressing up and dancing. So why had Faith sounded as if he’d asked her if he could gently roast the family rabbit for dinner? Perhaps he’d better change the subject.

He picked the next record up from the pile. ‘What about this Christmas-mad small town you come from? Tell me about your family.’