The Christmas Child. Diana Hamilton

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СКАЧАТЬ scrutinised her under the platform lights. ‘It’s not like you to wear bright colours—you look like a stranger! And you didn’t get that fancy outfit in one of the local shops.’

      ‘Dawn and I went up to London for a day or so,’ she responded stiffly. He was grinning now. Actually grinning. Did she look that funny? She must do. He never commented on what she was wearing and he certainly didn’t burst into laughter at her appearance.

      ‘I might have known she’d be behind it.’ He chuckled. ‘She’s always been a flashy dresser. Pretty with it, mind. By the way, like the way you’ve done your hair. Cut some of it off, have you?’ He started to walk. ‘Let’s get a move on. Damned cold, standing here.’

      ‘Tell me about it!’ Mattie muttered, following. So it was all right to wear bright clothes, but only if you were pretty! And she most certainly wasn’t!

      The fragile confidence in her new appearance, brought to tenuous life by Dawn’s insistence on her visiting a top hair stylist, learning how to apply make-up properly, choosing the designer labels that her friend vowed suited her so well, had never been strong and was rapidly ebbing away completely.

      Thankfully, her father was only too happy to take her ignition keys. He didn’t rate her driving skills any more than James did. She settled herself into the passenger seat and sank into her dreary thoughts.

      The jaunt to London had been an expensive waste. She should never have let Dawn talk her into trying to turn herself into something she wasn’t. The only sensible thing to do was push the new clothes she’d splurged out on into the very back of her wardrobe and go back to wearing the plain, serviceable things she was used to and felt comfortable in.

      And the second sensible thing to do was phone James. Tonight. Explain that she’d reconsidered, call the wedding off.

      It was the only course of action to take, she told herself sternly when the car finally swept up the driveway to Berrington House. She couldn’t imagine what had made her accept his cold-blooded proposal in the first place.

      But she could. Of course she could, she reminded herself as she stood in the hallway waiting for her father to garage her car. When her father had taken James into his confidence, told him he was thinking of taking full retirement, of selling the family home and moving into an apartment with Mrs Flax to look after him, he had overlooked her entirely, just as if she didn’t even exist.

      It had felt like abandonment. Brought back the feelings of betrayal and inadequacy she’d experienced when her mother had walked out all those years ago, never to get in touch again, or remember her birthdays, or even ask how she was.

      It had made marriage to James, even a marriage that would be no marriage at all, seem like a haven of security.

      She was going to have no part of it.

      She could stand on her own, make a life for herself. She could travel, take up private tutoring. With her qualifications she could easily find employment teaching English to Spanish children—or French, German or Italian. She wasn’t the hopelessly vague and impractical creature everyone seemed to think she was.

      ‘I think you have something to tell me,’ she stated as her father closed the door behind him, dropped his light leather suitcase on the floor and began to unbutton his overcoat.

      ‘I have?’

      ‘I think so.’ They were going to have this out before she phoned James to tell him she wouldn’t marry him. Tonight she was going to take the initiative for probably the first time in her life, even if the thought of turning James down did make her feel weak and tearful. ‘Retirement, handing over the shares in the business to me, an apartment in town for you and Mrs Flax. Does that jog your memory?’

      ‘Ah.’ He had the grace to look uncomfortable. ‘So James told you. I would have told you—’

      ‘When?’ she broke in. ‘When the new owners moved in here and you finally remembered I existed, couldn’t really be left behind like a piece of unwanted furniture they could either make use of, or throw on the nearest skip?’

      If possible, he looked more incredulous than he had at the station when confronted by her new appearance. He wasn’t used to her standing up for herself.

      ‘Nothing like that!’ he answered gruffly. ‘Look, let’s go through and make cocoa. I fancy an early night, and while we drink it I’ll explain everything.’

      Tight-lipped, Mattie led the way to the kitchen and took a bottle of the white wine left over from Christmas out of the fridge and busied herself with the corkscrew. She felt in need of something stronger than the ritualistic bedtime mug of cocoa.

      Apart from raising one bushy eyebrow, Edward said nothing, just set about making his own hot drink, and when that was done he found his daughter looking at him almost aggressively over the rim of her glass.

      ‘Sit down, Mattie. You weren’t meant to feel left out of my plans.’

      ‘Then why was I?’ she returned, but less sharply. He really did look tired, she thought with a pang, and she normally didn’t have a confrontational bone in her body.

      She did as he’d suggested and joined him at the table, cradling the bowl of her wineglass in her small, long-fingered hands. ‘Have you reached a firm decision about moving?’ she asked, determined to cool down for his sake.

      ‘Yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘But only forty-eight hours ago when I found the ideal apartment. Since my GP advised me to take things more easily—no, it’s nothing to worry about,’ he said quickly, seeing the sudden flare of anxiety in her eyes. ‘Problems with blood pressure, nothing that can’t be sorted. But it did start me thinking. James is more than capable of running the business without my input. And I could sell out to him, but I’d rather the shares went to you, stayed in the family.

      ‘Naturally, I discussed the possibility with him. And this barn of a place—’ he spread his hands expressively ‘—the three of us have rattled around here for too long. I sounded Mrs Flax—Emily—out. I said nothing definite, of course. An apartment in London would be easier for her to cope with. Close to the things that make life more agreeable. Emily and I share several interests—light opera, the theatre, visiting museums, Italian restaurants, that sort of thing. And more of a social life for you, I thought. You spend too much time alone here.

      ‘And then you and James dropped your marriage bombshell and you were out of the frame where my plans were concerned. What had been vague ideas became a little more solid then. So I spent the week in London. Apartment hunting, meetings with the company solicitor arranging for my shares to be transferred to your name. And I hadn’t mentioned any of this to you.’

      His eyes smiled at her. ‘Not because I’d overlooked you, but because nothing was definite, not at that stage. You’re not the most practical person I know, happiest when shut away with your work. I didn’t want you getting into a flap until I’d really decided that the move, if I were to make it, would work.’

      ‘You thought I’d run around like a headless chicken,’ Mattie commented wryly. It seemed that everyone had an unflattering opinion of her. And no doubt she had earned it. Well, she thought robustly, things were going to change. She was going to change.

      She swallowed her wine and poured herself another glass, opened her mouth to tell her father that her marriage to James was off, then closed it again as something inside her tightened СКАЧАТЬ