'And in the summer I hitch up this d.i.n.ky little trailer with bench seats behind the tractor and take the tourists up the track to the beacon and back. Pays better than the sheep, that does.'

'That's very enterprising,' I said and, as we came down past the church, added, 'you know, I hadn't thought to ask if the shop would even be open today!'

'Oh, Orrie will only close Christmas and Boxing Day and she'll always open in an emergency she lives above the shop. Yes . . . very obliging, is Orrie,' he added thoughtfully I could see I had an established love rival!

'She certainly seems to have a wide-ranging stock, doesn't she?'

'Yes, well, she's a general store and gift shop rolled into one, you see caters for the tourist trade in summer and opens that cafe of hers for cream teas. Were you wanting anything in particular?'

'Not really, just a few bits and pieces I thought we might run out of, and Tilda wanted me to check up on Old Nan and the Vicar do you think you could drop me by the almshouses? I've been wondering how they'll get up to Old Place for Christmas dinner. At a push, I expect I could drive them home again in my car, but I'm sure it won't go up this hill. I'd have to leave it down there.'

'Nay, that little car of yours won't be much good on ice! It's a pity Jude took his old Land Rover with him, or you could've used that.'

'But I couldn't use someone else's car and I've never driven a Land Rover before.'

'Well, don't you fret about Christmas Day: our Liam can plough the road to the village and your drive first thing and then one of us will go down and fetch the old folks up for you.'

'Surely you won't be out on the roads on Christmas morning?'

'We're farmers: we'll be out tending the livestock anyway, Christmas morning or not.'

'You're very kind,' I said gratefully.

'My pleasure,' he said, with a quick sideways glance accompanied by his engaging grin.

Some children were making a snowman near the church and it all looked picturebook with its coating of snow . . . until I saw where the children had chosen to stick the carrot.

'Little bleeders,' George said amiably, glancing at them as we pa.s.sed and circled the green.

'Noel's told me a bit about the Revels. He said there would be a ring of twelve fire braziers as well as the bonfire.'

'That's right. Originally there were twelve small bonfires and one big one, but Jude made some wrought-iron basketwork braziers that spike into the ground, so we use those instead now. It's the same idea, just easier and safer.'

He gave me another sideways look from his sky-blue eyes as he pulled up outside the almshouses. 'Noel doesn't usually say much to strangers about the Revels: none of us do. He must have taken an uncommon shine to you.'

'I think it's because he keeps forgetting I'm not one of the family, since I'm tall and dark, which seems to be usual with Martlands.'

'Yes, the dark side does seem to win out, and you do have a Martland look I thought so from the first.'

I wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not!

'I'm starting to be sorry I'll miss the Revels. Do you take part in them?'

'Oh yes, there've always been Rappers from Hill Farm,' he said mysteriously as I got out, and added that he was going to see his sister, who lived on the far side of the village, but would look out for me on the way back.

Although Henry was out (I left his foil-wrapped package on a little shelf inside the porch and hoped it would be all right), the other two both seemed pleased to see me and accepted as a matter of course the news that someone from Hill Farm would pick them up and bring them to Old Place on Christmas Day. In fact, Old Nan told me that George wouldn't need to bother, since Jude would come himself, he always did. Clearly she had lost the plot again.

Richard had also lost it, since he addressed me as Miss Martland and told me to inform the family that he would take a midnight carol service on Christmas Eve, since the vicar from Great Mumming was unlikely to make it. 'He usually does an early service here, then goes on to the church in Great Mumming.'

'Won't you be exhausted taking a late service and in the cold?' I asked.

'I don't sleep much these days, anyway. And there are paraffin heaters in the church, you know we have to keep the damp out.'

I didn't go in either cottage, or keep them lingering in the cold: I wanted to get on and get my errands done so I could have a quiet lunch . . . and I had Gran's latest journal in the pocket of my rucksack. I had a feeling I was going to be too busy after this to spend much time relaxing.

There was a call box in the village, but it was out of order and goodness knows how much change I would have needed to call a mobile phone in the USA, anyway! I stayed in there out of the cold while I tried the number Noel had given me on my phone, but a disembodied voice told me it was unavailable.

Well, at least I had tried . . . and, since I'd been braced to deal with Jude's brusqueness (especially when I told him I'd be billing him for the call), I now felt strangely deflated!

Mrs Comfort, who was sitting behind the shop counter knitting, perked up and greeted me with enthusiasm, especially when I said I needed a few last-minute presents.

'Gifts are mostly through in the Merry Kettle,' she said, pointing through the open door into the cafe where the overflow of her goods was displayed, probably to tempt the visitors in summer while they consumed their cream teas.

I could feel her eager, beady eyes boring into my back as I looked around at the limited selection of toys, games and novelties. There was also a large wooden display stand of everything from mugs to dishcloths printed with inspirational thoughts and labelled 'The Words of Comfort Range from Oriel Comfort'.

I was curious more than anything, because I'd already decided to make my emergency gifts myself: I'd noticed a cache of old, clean jam jars, wax discs, labels and cellophane lids in the scullery at Old Place and I intended filling them with sweets.

So I bought lots of the brightly coloured shiny ones that Jess liked, along with wine gums, humbugs, Liquorice Allsorts, mint imperials and coconut mushrooms, then added Sellotape, Christmas tags and a big roll of flimsy, cheerfully garish gift-wrap. I even found some red gingham paper napkins that could be cut into circles to make covers for the jars, too, and a bag of elastic bands to secure them.

As my pile of purchases mounted up on the counter, Mrs Comfort looked cheerier and cheerier and began to make helpful suggestions.

'Noel likes Turkish Delight,' she confided, 'and his missis likes Milk Tray chocolates he often buys her some. This is the last of the Turkish Delight, you're in luck. And what about these chocolate tree decorations?'

Unbidden, she added them to the heap and then cast her eyes over her stock, obviously wondering what else she could offload onto me.

I whisked out my shopping list. 'There are a few things I need, if you have them, like cocoa powder, icing sugar, jelly . . .'

In fact, there weren't many things she didn't have. It felt a bit like watching a magician producing endless doves from a top hat.

'And you'll want the last tins of squirty cream,' she urged me. 'We've already got tons of the stuff!'

'Love it, they do, at the lodge,' she a.s.sured me. 'Can't get enough of it.'

I ticked the last thing off (more matches) with a sigh: I was wondering how I would get everything up the hill again, unless George spotted me.

Oriel took a new tack: 'Old Nan, she likes chocolate mints and the vicar is partial to humbugs. Henry's more of an Uncle Joe's Mint Ball man.'

Surely, I thought, I wouldn't need presents for people I'd barely met, who were only coming for dinner? But then, it might be better to be sure than sorry.

'All right,' I capitulated, 'but I ought to leave Henry's now, in case I don't see him again before Christmas.'

'I'll slap a bit of gift-wrap on it for free and take it across later, shall I?' she suggested obligingly.

'If you wouldn't mind, that would be great.'

'Not at all.'

'Well, that must be everything!'

But she wasn't about to let me go without a struggle. 'What about Jess's Christmas stocking? Got everything you need for that?'

I stared at her, startled. A stocking on Christmas morning like all my friends had had was the thing I'd most desperately longed for when I was a little girl: but surely Jess was now too old?

'She's nearly thirteen, so I would have thought she was too grown up for one this year? But if she isn't then I suppose her mother or Tilda will have seen to it.'

'Perhaps perhaps not. And in my experience, you're never too old for a stocking. Perhaps you should take a couple of bits and pieces, just in case they've forgotten about it?'

'Like what? I've no idea what she would like!'

'Let me see,' she mused. 'It's a funny age: they're a child one minute, quite grownup the next.'

She took down a jar containing sugar mice with string tails in white, lurid yellow, or pink and prepared to give me a master cla.s.s in Christmas stocking preparation.

'You need one of these at the bottom, with a tangerine or something like that to start with. When I was a little girl there used to be a handful of nuts, though I never knew why, since you could hardly crack Brazil nuts in bed with your teeth, could you?'

'We've got fruit and nuts, but I don't think Jess would be very excited by finding them in her stocking, since she can help herself any time she likes.'

'It helps to fill it up, but we can put in a packet of Love Hearts instead. Most of my toys are too young for her, but there's a pack of Happy Family cards and a couple of jokes, like the whoopee cushion and the ink blot, that I expect she'd like. And maybe a fluffy toy sheepdog? I keep them for the summer visitors, with the postcards and stuff.'

'Do you think she's a fluffy toy sort of girl?' I asked doubtfully, but she was already delving deep into a large wicker basket and came up with a black, wolfish-looking creature with yellow eyes that had been lurking at the bottom.

'I just remembered this came in mixed with the last lot of collies, and I never got round to sending it back.'

'Right,' I said, and then on impulse added an elasticated bracelet of polished dark grey stones.

'How about a jigsaw puzzle? I always think a big puzzle is something the whole family can do together on Christmas Day.'

'I'm sure I saw a whole stack of them in the old nursery,' I said quickly.

'This one's got a lovely Christmas scene on the front and if you return it afterwards with all the pieces, I'll buy it back for half price,' she added enticingly and, my willpower totally sapped by now, I nodded dumbly.

Paying for that lot pretty well cleaned me out of cash, since Mrs Comfort didn't take cards of any kind, and once I'd filled the rucksack I had to buy a big jute bag with one of Oriel's inspirational thoughts on it: A Loving Heart Keeps You Warm on Winter's Nights.

It had been a choice between that or Love Circles Pa.s.s It On.

You know, when I looked closer, the things on that stand were irresistibly awful!

Chapter 17.

Rapping

N says nothing can be wrong when two people truly love each other, as we do, but I know what we did should only happen within the bounds of marriage . . .

March, 1945 I hauled my purchases over to the church and sat on a stone bench in the porch out of the wind, to phone Laura on my mobile. (I did dutifully try Jude's number again, but got the same message.) 'Oh, good,' she said when she answered, sounding relieved, 'I've been trying to get through to the house and it kept saying there was a fault on the line.'

'There is one of the poles holding the phone wires up has fallen down and taken the next one with it. Is everything okay? How are you?'

'Oh, I'm all right and the baby's kicking like mad. The other three are so excited about Christmas they're hysterical and Dan's just helpfully vanished, presumably to buy my present. He's always so last minute! But how are you doing? I'm worried about you, taking so much on and being so isolated.'

'Isolated is the last way I'd describe Old Place, actually, Laura!'

'You sound a bit worried which is not like you at all. What is it, are you finding it too much?'

'Of course not you know me, I thrive on a challenge,' I a.s.sured her, though she didn't yet know quite how much of a challenge my current post had become! 'But there's something on my mind I'd like to run past you, to see if you think I'm imagining things.'

'Go on, then, tell me.'

'It's Gran's diaries. Things between her and Ned Martland have hotted up quite a bit and . . . well, I think they had s.e.x.'

'Good heavens,' she said mildly, 'I didn't think that was invented until the sixties.'

'It certainly wasn't for good Strange Baptist girls like Gran, that's for sure, especially in 1945! She must have been sure they were going to marry, but obviously that didn't happen and since I just found out that Ned was killed in an accident I'm hoping that was the reason, not because he abandoned her!'

'Didn't you skip forward and try to find out? I would have!'

'No, because to be honest, so much is happening that I'm exhausted by bedtime and I hardly have a minute to myself during the day, though I did have another quick look while I drank my first cup of coffee this morning.'

'And did you find out what happened?'

'No, she's been wrestling with her conscience for pages and pages, but I'm keeping the current journal in the kitchen and dipping into it whenever I have a minute on my own. But the thing that's worrying me is that Noel implied that Ned was a bad lot as far as women were concerned: charming and lovable, but unreliable. I keep thinking: what if Gran got pregnant and relied on him to make an honest woman of her?'

'Aren't you jumping the gun a bit? She hasn't said so, has she?'

'Not so far, but I can't help wondering . . .' I paused. 'Laura, you know I'm not fanciful, but I've felt at home here from the minute I arrived and that I sort of . . . fit in. And the other thing is, I'm constantly being mistaken for one of the family even Noel forgets that I'm not. The Martlands are all tall and dark, though they don't have light grey eyes like me and Gran.'

'Your Gran wasn't tall, but didn't she have dark hair when she was young?

'Yes, and she told me my colouring came from her side of the family her ancestors came from Liverpool, a seafaring port and I've always a.s.sumed there was a good dose of foreign blood. So I might just be imagining any resemblance to the Martlands . . . My mother was quite tall and had black hair too,' I added, though that proved nothing one way or the other. Unfortunately, I have no idea what my father looked like, because after my mother died soon after giving birth to me, he emigrated to Australia and vanished out of our lives. Gran neatly cut him out of all the wedding photographs.

There were rumours that he'd started a new family over there, so I might have half-siblings somewhere, but although I'd had one try at tracing him (without Gran's knowledge!) I didn't get anywhere.

'I can see where you're going with all this, Holly, but it could still be just a coincidence that you're tall and dark. And with your grandfather being a Strange Baptist minister, I don't suppose he would have married your gran if he knew she was pregnant by another man, would he?'

'It doesn't sound very likely when you put it like that,' I admitted.