‘You are very welcome,’ he breathed. Then, after a pause said, ‘Francesca would be so very proud of you.’ Behind the lenses of her father’s glasses, Mary could see tears had formed in the corners of his eyes. She squeezed his hand and he smiled, at first melancholy, but then wider and with more exuberance, before starting to laugh.

  ‘You’ve turned me into a soppy old fool,’ he chuckled, removing his glasses.

  Smiling, Mary was about to respond when they heard movement out in the hallway. Expectant, they both turned their heads to the sitting room door just in time to see it open.

  ‘Good morning,’ a tired-eyed Alexander said as he peered around the door frame, ‘and Happy Christmas.’

  ‘Happy Christmas, Alex,’ Mary said from the pouffe, still hand in hand with her father. On the sofa next to her, Ern also offered seasonal greetings.

  ‘I thought I heard someone in here,’ Alexander said before turning his eyes to Mary, ‘and when you weren’t in your room I—’ he rubbed the side of his neck and smiled. ‘Anyway, would you both like some coffee?’

  ‘Tea, please,’ Ern replied as he returned his glasses to his nose. Mary responded likewise, then offered to help him in the kitchen.

  ‘If that’s no bother,’ Alexander said, looking at Ern. ‘I don’t want to interrupt.’

  Reclining back against the sofa, the other man wafted his hand. ‘No, not at all,’ Ern grinned. ‘Just bring me some biscuits with the tea.’

  Mary stood up. ‘Of course.’ She touched her father on the cheek before leaving the room to join Alexander.

  On the stove, the kettle started to whistle. Mary draped a tea towel over the handle to lift it then poured the boiling water into the cups. The teabags floated to the surface.

  ‘I thought you offered to make the drinks,’ she said, casting a wry glance across the kitchen at Alexander, who was leaning against the old oak sideboard next to the door.

  ‘I offered to make coffee,’ he said, catching her eye as he looked between her and a book he was holding in his hands. ‘You wanted tea.’

  ‘Well, at least I know what I want.’

  Alexander closed the book and placed it on the sideboard next to him. Mary moved to the fridge for milk. She took the top off the bottle, poured the creamy liquid into the cups, then returned it to the shelf. Alexander watched her, arms folded across his chest.

  ‘I didn’t want to—’ he paused when she looked at him. He considered, then said, ‘I don’t want you to think poorly of me.’

  The spoon rattled against the porcelain as she stirred. Unspeaking, she held his gaze, waiting for him to continue.

  ‘I suppose I felt bad. What with your father being in the house.’

  Mary’s eyes urged for more.

  ‘It— it just felt improper.’

  Mary finished with the spoon and placed it in the sink. ‘Improper,’ she finally said, ‘is pushing someone away when they have given you no reason. Improper is—’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Let me finish. Improper is holding your tongue, failing to say anything at all, when someone tells you that—’ Mary’s voice wobbled. She cleared her throat, then continued, so quiet that Alexander would have had to strain to hear had he not already known what she was about to say. ‘When you say nothing when someone tells you that they love you.’

  Alexander winced. He would have argued that she made it sound so much worse than it had actually been, but he knew that would have been a lie. He felt terrible and wished he could tell her something to make it better, but ‘I don’t know what to say,’ was the only response he could manage.

  Mary sighed. ‘It’s Christmas, Alex. At least try to show some charity.’

  She picked up the tray with the teas and the plate of biscuits and carried it to the door. Wordlessly, he moved to open it for her. As she passed, he caught a whiff of her scent and inwardly cursed himself for being such an imbecile.

  She kept her distance from him all morning until it became obvious to all that she must be punishing him for something. The previous evening, after the excitement on the driveway, he had walked her inside the house, ahead of Ern and Sophie, who stayed talking together on the gravel. In the sitting room, Robert Senior had been minding Guinevere and Aurélie, beguiling the younger with fanciful and fantastical stories. As Alexander had passed by the door with Mary, it being slightly ajar he had caught his grandfather’s eye. The old man had paused, winked at him, then returned to his story. Later, when Mary opened up to him, the bitter taste in his mouth had still been there.

  ‘What gift did you get Mary?’ Sophie asked him as they arranged plates together in the dining room.

  Alexander turned his head, avoiding his mother’s questioning eyes as he heard someone open the fallboard to the piano in the sitting room and run their fingers over the keys. ‘I haven’t given it to her yet,’ he said.

  This was true — he had bought her a gift. It was upstairs, sitting on top of the quilt on his bed, wrapped in blue tissue paper. He had intended to seek her out, present it to her in private, make her reaction his and his alone, but last night had made things awkward.

  ‘Why not?’ Sophie asked, folding a napkin.

  Alexander moved around her to place a plate at the far end of the table. ‘I’m waiting for the right moment,’ he said, quiet and keen to end the conversation.

  His mother touched his elbow. ‘You cannot wait forever, my strawberry.’ She stopped what she was doing and waited for his eyes to lift from the table. When they did, Alexander shook off her gaze and reached for another plate.

  At least try to show some charity.

  ‘Do you need help with anything else?’ he asked.

  Sophie shook her head. ‘Not until the food is ready.’

  ‘Okay,’ Alexander said, ‘just find me then.’

  Sophie nodded and watched him leave the room.

  Christmas day or not, there was always work to be done. In the hallway, Alexander laced up his boots. The lace on the left shoe had frayed, so he tucked what was left of it behind the tongue before pulling on his coat. He checked his watch and took the keys to one of the farm buggies.

  Pandora’s baby was already noticeably bigger. Little over a week old, it was starting to become difficult to tell that she had been born preterm. Big-eyed and bonny, the newborn gurgled when she saw him.

  He poured the water into the bottle first, being careful to check it was the right temperature before adding the formula. Holding the edge of the rubber teat, he put it into the retaining ring, then screwed it onto the bottle. Once the cap was over the teat, he shook it and the powder dissolved into the water. A drop of the mixture onto the inside of his wrist told him the liquid was safe for the infant to drink. He sat her on his lap and supported her cheek and chin with the same hand he held the bottle. She started to suckle, eager and hungry.

  Bottle feeding wasn’t ideal. Labour intensive and messy, it was something that the family tried to avoid. In certain circumstances, however, it was the only option. Pandora’s milk was laced with antibiotics, and, even if it hadn’t been, she was still too weak to meet the demands of a hungry newborn. For now, Alexander had replaced the infant’s mother, and it was to him that the child looked to for nourishment, warmth, cleanliness and, strangely, affection.

  The newborn gazed up at him whilst she fed, holding his eyes for a few seconds before turning her attention to something else. So young, her vision was limited to objects that were only a short distance in front of her. Alexander didn’t speak to the child as he had done those first few days when he had coaxed her to feed. Instead, he snatched impatient glances at his watch, its face clinking against the plastic of the bottle as it bobbed up and down in the infant’s mouth. As the milk drained, she paused, and Alexander drew the bottle away slightly, giving her time to catch her breath. While she rested, he patted her back and switched sides, moving the infant from one knee to the other. Once she was settled again, he allowed her to draw the bottle back in and continue suckling.

  When the formula was gone, she needed burping. Alexander lifted the infant to his chest, resting her chin on his shoulder. She hiccuped twice as he arranged her. Cupping his hand, he began patting her tiny back and waited for her to burp. It was important to get the air that she had swallowed whilst feeding out.

  Better to be sick on me now than all over herself when I’m gone.

  He threw the towel into the sink when the infant was finished. Softly, he returned her to her crib and turned off the light.

  Pandora was sleeping when he looked around the door to check on her. Her hair was flat against the pillow and there was a flannel on the floor which must have slipped from her brow. Quiet shoe steps and he picked it up from the tile. He found a fresh one in the cupboard under the sink, dampened it with cold water, and folded it over the woman’s forehead. Caught in fever fatigued sleep, her eyelids fluttered and she mumbled something inaudible. If her daughter had grown stronger in the days after delivery, Pandora had grown weaker. Alexander put the window on vent to allow some of the cool Christmas air inside then closed the door to her room. Before climbing back into the farm buggy, he checked the lock on the entrance to the building. He would be back in a few hours.

  Twenty-Six

  The food was almost ready to be served by the time Alexander returned to the house. Mary was in the kitchen, spooning condiments into small, round glass bowls. The cranberry sauce was homemade and she licked the spoon after emptying the jar.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to put that in the bowl.’

  She raised an eyebrow, slid the spoon out of her mouth and, with over-exaggerated motion, dropped it into the empty jar.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked as he walked across the room.

  ‘To help you carry these in.’ Alexander nodded to the bowls on the worktop next to her. At first suspicious, she relented and stepped to the side. He picked up two bowls of cranberry sauce. She took one of mint and one of mustard and went to follow him through the door.

  ‘You know, I used to really like cranberry sauce,’ he said as they placed the bowls on the table in the dining room. Alexander set the second bowl down and turned to Mary. She straightened the mustard and, unblinking, held his gaze. ‘But,’ he continued, ‘one day, I dropped some all over my shirt and everyone teased me about it afterwards, every single time we ate it. And so, because I was stubborn, I decided I wouldn’t eat it again. I convinced myself it was so inherently tart that I could never enjoy it. That it wasn’t to my taste.’

  ‘If this is an apology, then—’

  ‘But then I tried it again,’ he interrupted, ‘and realised that it has a hint of sweetness. Subtle. Delicious,’ he grinned, and she dropped her eyes, a smile starting to pull at her lips. ‘And then I realised that, actually, I really do quite like cranberry sauce.’ Softening his grin, Alexander took her left hand in both of his. She looked up. ‘I got you a gift,’ he said gently, guiding her around the other side of the table. ‘If you’ll accept it.’

  Tucked under the table and concealed by the tablecloth, he had placed it on her seat. He pulled out the chair, picked up the present, and gestured for her to sit. She did, and took the blue tissue paper bundle from him with careful hands.

  ‘It’s heavy,’ she said as Alexander pulled out a second chair. ‘What is it?’

  He smiled and shrugged. ‘Open it.’

  Mary peeled the tape off the corners piece by piece, fully immersing herself in the moment, relishing in how, with every cut, with every fold, with every fastening of the paper, he must have been thinking of her. He leant against the back of his chair, trying to appear relaxed and nonchalant despite being anxious to witness her reaction.

  To a casual observer, it was a straightforward enough gift. A luxury version of the game Scrabble. A rotating wooden cabinet, complete with built-in storage drawers and a brown leather board, it was an exquisite, expensive, suitably impressive present. Yet, when Mary unwrapped it, she knew she had been right to wait, right to suffer, right to pine and cry and need him so badly in her darkest moments.

  We are meant to be.

  Alexander’s choice of gift was marked by an honesty that said, ‘I see you. I know you’. It told her that he had been listening, he had been there, all those times she had spoken of her sadness and of that inexorable tide of grief she had borne, oftentimes alone and in silence, since childhood. How she had cried over the loss of her mother. How, as the newness of the injury had dulled in the years afterwards, she had adopted her love of word games as her own.

  Mary pulled open one of the drawers, revealing the bag of letter tiles, and thought of how she and Alexander might play the game together, and that, in giving her this gift, he had expressed to her — in actions, if not in words — that he wants to play the game together. She closed the drawer and placed a hand on either side of his gift.

  ‘Do you like it?’ Alexander asked, leaning towards her, aware that she had not yet said anything.

  Mary nodded. She touched the board, running her fingers over the grid where the letter tiles were meant to be placed. ‘I do,’ she replied, being careful to moderate the emotion in her voice. ‘Very much so.’

  He smiled and said, ‘I’m glad.’

  She absorbed the warmth of his expression then said, ‘And now I suppose you expect something from me?’ Her tone was both playful and severe.

  Alexander laughed and ran his hand across his cheeks and down over his chin. ‘Never,’ he said, eyes bright. And yet, always, Mary thought, remembering the first night he had come to her.

  ‘It’s just as well, then,’ she said, rising from the chair, ‘that I got you something.’

  She placed the board game on the table before she left the room to get it. Alexander stayed where he was, wondering what gift she might have chosen for him. He knew her to be sharp-eyed, sharp-witted — even a little too sharp on occasion — and serious, the owner of a clever tongue who knew how to hide her soft parts behind an armour of silent contempt and, indeed, cruelty. But, he also knew that it was that sharpness which gave Mary a depth of perception that could only be regarded as empathy. When directed towards the right person, she had a great ability to understand — and thus, if the wrong person, to manipulate — the feelings of others.

  When the door to the dining room reopened, it wasn’t Mary, but Alexander’s father who stood on the threshold. He was wearing the jumper he wore each Christmas, and never any other day of the year: a blue and white knitted nightmare with Christmas trees on the cuffs and a chain of octagram stars across the middle. Robert had once told his son he only wore it because Sophie liked him to, but Alexander suspected that he himself rather enjoyed the cheery comfort of that garish jumper.

  ‘Your mother wants to know if you’re done in here,’ Robert said, one hand on the doorframe.

  Alexander turned in his chair. ‘Almost,’ he replied. ‘We can move out the way if she needs.’

  Robert shook his head. ‘Finish up,’ he said. ‘I can see you’re in the middle of something.’ He noticed the Scrabble board on the table and smiled. ‘Your gift?’ he asked. Alexander nodded. Robert was about to say something else when Mary came in from the hallway.

  ‘Is Sophie ready, Robert?’ the young woman asked as he stepped to one side to allow her into the room.

  Robert shook his head. ‘Ten minutes or so more.’ He looked at his son and said, ‘I’ll leave you to it. Do come and help your mother when you’re done.’

  Alexander nodded and watched as his father closed the door behind him. Mary was already back in her seat. Lavishly carved, time-worn and robust in her delicate hands, a wooden box housed her gift to him.

  ‘For you.’ She placed it on the table next to him. Alexander took it and opened the lid. ‘For whenever you are feeling lost,’ she said.

  It was an antique nautical compass. Made of brass, a metallic aroma rose into the air as Alexander lifted it from the box. The device’s rose, the diagram that displayed the points of the compass, was exquisitely engraved, and laid out the eight cardinal and intercardinal points. Perfectly sized to slip inside a pocket, it had been crafted to help lost sailors find their way home.

  Alexander balanced the compass on the palm of his hand. The needle pivoted, oscillating above the rose for a few seconds, before settling into equilibrium. At its centre, helping to hold the needle in place, was a small red stone. Mary pointed to it and explained that it was a ruby. ‘And,’ she said, placing her hand over his and turning the compass, ‘I had it engraved.’

  On its back, in the centre of the compass, etched into the brass, were his initials. A.R.W.

  So I don’t forget who I am.

  It was a symbolic gift, a heartfelt gesture that came from a place of understanding. Alexander thanked her and asked whether she would like him to keep it safe in the box, or on him, in one of his pockets. She hesitated, before telling him that was for him to decide.

  At least try to show some charity.

  He slipped the compass into one of his trouser pockets and kissed her on the cheek. Her skin was warm and soft beneath his lips, and beckoned him to stay longer. Christmas dinner, however, was in the kitchen waiting to be served.

  A bowl gorged with roast potatoes formed the central dish, and from it spiralled plates of roasted carrots and brussel sprouts, honeyed parsnips, buttered cabbage, sage and onion stuffing, and large, crisp Yorkshire puddings. Jugs of gravy flanked the ends of the table and on each individual plate was a perfectly juicy, perfectly tender chop, seasoned with fresh herbs and peppercorns, first seared, then transferred to the oven to finish cooking. Aromatic, sweet white wine was poured into crystal glasses. For the children, cups of fresh milk, frothing with thick cream. A veritable bounty of homegrown produce. It truly was an occasion to be merry.

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ Sophie giggled, clutching Robert’s hand on the table, ‘you are silly!’

  At the other end of the table, Ern was shaking with laughter, trying to put his glass down without spilling his drink. Next to him, Robert Senior was chewing furiously, shaking his head. ‘You’ll be old one day, too, my boy,’ he said, mouth full of meat.