Twelve Days of Christmas: A bestselling Christmas read to devour in one sitting!

‘A kind of flavoured milk jelly.’

‘Is it like Angel Delight? Granny has some of that in the cupboard.’

‘Sort of. You know, someone ought to eat up the game in the freezer, it’s such a waste otherwise.’

‘As long as it isn’t me. Though actually, your cooking might be better than Granny’s – her food is all a bit weird.’

‘I expect she just cooks like she did early in her career and tastes have changed,’ I said tactfully. ‘By the way, the black stuff in those pinwheel sandwiches she gave me for lunch … I don’t suppose you know what that was?’

‘It’s a heavily guarded secret. I call it minced rancid car tyre.’

‘That’s a pretty fair description,’ I admitted.

‘I know Granny carries on as if she does all the cooking herself, but actually Edwina does most of it really,’ Jess confided. ‘That’s the real reason why they always move into Old Place when she goes off to her relatives for Christmas and New Year. Goodness knows what Christmas dinner will be like this time!’

I felt another inconvenient pang of conscience, though why I should I can’t imagine, since it’s Jude Martland who ought to be having them, not me!

‘You can help her with the cooking,’ I suggested. ‘I used to help my gran, that’s what started me off thinking I wanted to become a chef.’

‘She’s very bossy and says she doesn’t want little girls in the kitchen under her feet when she’s busy, even though I’m nearly thirteen and way taller than she is! I help Grandpa with the washing up, instead.’

The tea was ready and I carried the tray into the sitting room, finding Noël half-asleep before the fire, though he woke up the instant the crockery rattled.

‘Lovely to see the fire lit in here again,’ he said, ‘it seemed so cold and unwelcoming without it.’

‘I thought it would air the house out – old houses seem to get dank and musty very quickly, don’t they?’

‘Yes, indeed. Of course, with only a week to go until Christmas Eve, this room would usually be decorated for Christmas by now, with the tree in the corner by the stairs and a kissing bough …’ he said regretfully. ‘All the decorations are in the attic, though Jude’s mother used to make swags of greenery from the garden, she was very good at that sort of thing.’

‘The attic is locked, as are one or two other rooms,’ I said. ‘That’s fine, but do you have the keys in case there’s an emergency, like a burst water pipe?’

‘The attic isn’t locked, it’s just the door that’s very stiff,’ Jess said. ‘I remember that from playing hide and seek last Christmas. When I went up there, no-one found me for ages.’

‘That was because it was supposed to be out of bounds,’ Noël reminded her. ‘But yes, I do have all the rest of the keys, including the one for the mill studio, just in case.’

‘Oh good. I don’t suppose for a minute I’ll need them, I just like to know. I expect I’ll only really use this room, apart from the kitchen wing – it has a lovely warm, homely feel to it, despite being so big.’

‘Yes, it was always the heart of the house.’ He sighed and his gaze rested on a black and white family group photograph that stood on one of the occasional tables. ‘There were five of us children, you know, and now only Becca and I are left. Jacob was the eldest, but he was killed at Dunkirk, poor chap, and another brother, Edward, was badly wounded later. Alex – Jude’s father – inherited, though he didn’t marry until late in life. But they’re all gone now, all gone …’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Alex passed away last January, after a long illness.’

‘I noticed the house had some adaptations for an invalid, like the stairlift … and excuse me, but did you say one of your brothers was called Edward?’ I asked.

‘Yes, though we always called him Ned.’

I was startled by the revelation that there had indeed been a Ned Martland, a contemporary of Gran’s – but surely this was just one more of those strange coincidences that life throws at you? I couldn’t see how their paths could ever have crossed …

‘He was a bit of a rip, but full of fun and mischief – Jude’s younger brother, Guy, reminds me of him.’ Noël shook his head with a rueful smile. ‘There was no real harm in him, but he was the black sheep of the family, I suppose, whereas Guy has settled down very well lately – he’s an international banker in London, you know.’

‘He’s settling down with Uncle Jude’s ex-fiancée,’ Jess pointed out. ‘And I don’t think Uncle Guy is very nice at all.’

‘He is very naughty to tease you,’ Noël said, ‘but he doesn’t mean any harm by it.’

Since Jess was at the age where your main wish in life is to be totally invisible and anyone even glancing at you could be an agony, I thought Guy Martland sounded very insensitive and mean indeed! Just as objectionable, in his own way, as his brother Jude, in fact.

‘I’m sure it was all for the best that Jude’s fiancée broke the engagement, because she can’t have been in love with him,’ Noël said, ‘and I am a firm believer in marriage being for life.’

‘Yes, me too – and beyond,’ I murmured absently, my mind still on Ned Martland.

‘Guy and Coco – that’s her silly name – just got engaged,’ Jess said. ‘It was in the paper and I think that’s why Uncle Jude said he wasn’t coming back from America until after Christmas.’

‘Oh, but he already had the invitation to spend the holidays with friends after the event to mark the installation of his sculpture … Though perhaps you are partly right, Jess,’ her grandfather conceded. ‘I expect Guy would have thought nothing of turning up for a family Christmas despite everything, had Jude stayed at home.’

‘They haven’t spoken since last Christmas,’ Jess explained. ‘Jude invited Coco here to meet the family and she and Guy got very friendly. Uncle Jude was pretty grim.’

‘I expect he would be!’ I agreed, though going by the photographs I’d seen, and my brief conversations with him, he was always pretty grim.

‘Then she and Jude had a big argument and Guy drove her home and that was it.’

‘I don’t feel that Guy behaved very well in the circumstances, even if there was a mutual attraction between him and Coco,’ Noël said, looking troubled. ‘It upset my brother, too, that there was a breach between his two sons and Jude thought it hastened his last illness.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Not that Alex liked her very much – it was her first visit to Old Place and she made it clear she was expecting a much larger and grander house.’

‘It seems pretty large and grand to me,’ I said, surprised.

‘Still, she won’t have to live here if she marries Guy – and Jude will just have to forgive and forget.’

‘I don’t suppose she’ll come here much anyway,’ Jess said. ‘She didn’t seem to like being in the country at all and wouldn’t go out except in the car, because she hadn’t brought any shoes except stiletto heels, though she could have borrowed some wellies. And she’s scared of horses and dogs. Granny says she’s all fur coat and no knickers, and Guy could do better.’

I swallowed a sip of tea the wrong way and coughed, my eyes watering.

‘I don’t think you should repeat that phrase, really,’ Noël said mildly.

‘How on earth did she meet Jude in the first place?’ I asked. ‘It doesn’t sound as if they had a lot in common.’

‘She is a model and also, I believe, aspires to be an actress. Someone brought her to Jude’s last big retrospective exhibition and introduced her. She’s very, very pretty indeed, if your taste runs to fair women.’

‘Uncle Jude’s must, mustn’t it?’ Jess said.

‘I suppose we do tend to be attracted to our opposites,’ I suggested.

‘You’re very dark, so was your husband fair?’

‘Jess, you really shouldn’t ask people personal questions!’

‘I don’t mind – and yes, my husband had blond hair and blue eyes. His younger sister is my best friend and has the same colouring – she’s very pretty too.’

How I’d longed to be small, blonde and cute when I was at school, rather than towering above everyone, even the boys! I’d been thin as a stick too, which had made me even more self-conscious – though actually I wasn’t sure it was any better later when I filled out and men started to talk to my boobs instead of me … except Alan, of course.

‘Well, I think we ought to be going!’ Noël said, getting up.

‘I’m walking down to the village tomorrow, to explore,’ I told him. ‘I’ll call in at the lodge to see if there’s anything you’d like me to bring back from the shop.’