Tidings of Great Boys Read online

  Since Alasdair was too polite to refuse, he put the gaily wrapped box back under the tree. “Thanks. Ah well, all the more for Lissa tomorrow.”

  She ducked her head and hid behind her curtain of hair as she ripped the paper off Kaz’s gift. “Oh, wow. Look at this. Wow.”

  “We would if you’d let it go. Hand it over, girlfriend, so the rest of us can see.” Shani took it, and I saw it was a drawing in a frame.

  “It’s us,” I said in wondering tones. “He really drew this?”

  Sitting round a gorgeously colored-in fire was our whole group, comic-book style, plus Kaz himself and Danyel, Shani’s boyfriend. And even though I hadn’t been to Lissa’s last summer, I had been drawn in, too, with my embarrassing mop of curly hair, completing the circle. Firelight made our faces a study in gold and black, and each person was so uniquely them that it was almost scary. Kaz was a far better artist than I’d ever dreamed. No wonder he was trying to get his graphic novel published.

  “What are you holding?” Gillian squinted at the picture, then at Lissa, and handed it to Carly. “A torch?”

  “She’s cremating a marshmallow.” Carly handed it over her shoulder to Gabe and Patricia, who made admiring noises.

  “What a talent he’s got,” I said. “It looks exactly like us, only more—I don’t know—more.”

  Lissa took the picture again and stared at it as though she could fall right into the scene and be home with him again.

  “How is his novel coming?” Gillian asked. “Any word yet?”

  “Not a thing,” Lissa answered. “He’s on his third publisher, and they’ve had it for almost a year now. He’s basically given up.”

  Alasdair leaned over the back of the sofa and looked at the picture. “Very nice. This is a friend of yours?”

  Lissa pointed to Kaz’s self-portrait, complete with shaggy hair and whimsical, triangular half-smile. And an arm casually slung round cartoon Lissa’s shoulders.

  “Ah.” That was all he said. And yet I knew that in that single look, he’d just given up the idea of Lissa-and-Alasdair for good.

  Now all I had to do was make him see that Lindsay-and-Alasdair was an even better idea.

  And I had a week in which to do it.

  chapter 10

  ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, I’m always the first one down. Always. When I’m at home, at least.

  So when I slid down the banister and landed slap on both feet on the bottom stair (because you have to hop off at the last minute or crash into the huge finial with the carved badgers), dashed across the entrance hall and into the sitting room, I got the shock of my life.

  My mother lay curled up on the couch next to the Christmas tree, sound asleep.

  I swear I couldn’t speak or move for two whole minutes. I mean, I’d been plotting and conniving all this time to get her here, but some part of me must not have believed she’d ever come. That was the part that stood in the middle of the Turkish carpet, mouth hanging open, completely unable to form a coherent sentence like, “What are you doing here?”

  She opened her eyes and yawned. And then she caught sight of me. “Darling.” Her arms came out from under the blanket and she held them open.

  “Mummy,” I choked against her neck, my wild hair and her smooth brown bob mixing together on the sofa cushions as I knelt beside her. “You came. You came.”

  Now I was really home.

  “Well, it was obvious you were going to need my help this week if we would have any hope of getting Hogmanay together in time. I just hope your father will forgive me for barging in.”

  “Christmas is the perfect time for forgiving,” said a quiet voice from the doorway.

  “Dad!” I flew into his hug and gave him a big kiss for good measure. “You mustn’t blame Mummy. I’ve made a perfect pest of myself all week and she’s here in sheer self-defense, I’m sure of it.”

  “I’m sure she’s not.” Dad looked over at the couch, where Mummy surreptitiously patted her hair into place. “Hello, Meg. A happy Christmas.”

  “To you, too. I meant it about barging in. I’d never have considered it if Lindsay hadn’t—”

  “Think nothing of it. We’re happy to have you here.” Bother. He sounded as polite as if she were a local landowner who’d had a drop too much the night before and slept it off on the sofa. “You’ll stay for the bells with us, of course?”

  “If it isn’t inconvenient.”

  “Not at all. Gabe and Patricia are here, too, you know.”

  “They offered me a ride up a few days ago. I should have taken them up on it. The trains!” She pressed a hand to her cheek and shook her head.

  “You took the train?” I could hardly believe it. “You haven’t been on a train since…” I couldn’t even remember when.

  “There wasn’t a seat to be had on any flight, and I didn’t want to drive all that way alone. So… the train. And a cab from Inniscairn that was sheer lucky chance. Otherwise I’d’ve been ringing this morning from the local B&B, if I could even get through.”

  “I wish you’d called from Edinburgh,” Dad said. He folded himself onto the hearth and began to poke up the coals from last night’s fire. “I’d have come down to meet your train.”

  “I couldn’t do that on Christmas Eve, having invited myself here and you with a houseful of guests.” She flushed and looked away. “Were you all at the Crown?”

  He nodded, and added kindling to the coals. “Quite a sensation our guests made. If it wasn’t Lissa’s dancing, it was Gillian’s piano and Shani’s star turn at singing. Not a dry eye in the house.”

  “I’m sorry to have missed it.”

  Oh, would you stop being so wretchedly polite to each other! “I’m going to go wake everyone up.” I scrambled to my feet, but Mummy stopped me.

  “Not yet, darling. Let me take a quick shower and get tidied up first. I’d hate to meet all our guests in yesterday’s clothes and ratty hair.”

  For the first time, I realized she’d slept in wool slacks and a blouse, now crushed and wrinkled. “Mummy, for heaven’s sake. You could have slept upstairs. You didn’t have to kip on the sofa.”

  “From the sound of it, the rooms are all full, aren’t they?”

  “Not the third floor ones.”

  “Your room is still on the family floor, Meg,” Dad said quietly. The master suite had two bedrooms with a connecting dressing room/bathroom combination between them. “I can use the bathroom in the hall if you want the daybed in the dressing room.”

  My mother, who is as cool and unflappable as a judge in his chambers, blushed to the roots of her hair.

  Oh, my. This was interesting. Could Carly possibly have been right?

  “Th-thank you, Graham.” She cleared her throat. “That’s very kind of you, but I can’t put you out. I’ll just slip into one of the third-floor rooms.” Mummy gathered up the blanket and draped it round her shoulders like a shawl.

  “I’ll take your suitcase.” I grabbed the handle and wheeled it out of the room.

  But not before I saw my mother sneak a last look at Dad as he knelt beside the fire, carefully laying two chunks of wood on the crackling blaze of kindling.

  Talking of third-form antics: My parents were behaving like a couple of kids with a crush that neither one could afford to admit.

  Bless Carly for opening my eyes to the possibility, remote as it had seemed only the other day.

  Phase One was complete. My mother was here and planned to stay until the bells rang out to signal the arrival of the New Year. Maybe longer.

  Look out, parents. It’s time for Phase Two.

  THE GIFT I’D OPENED on Christmas Eve came in handy during the pandemonium of Christmas morning. I popped a four-gig memory card into my brand-new video camera and proceeded to invade the personal space of every one of my friends and family as they opened their gifts.

  “This is the best present ever.” I kissed Dad while holding the camera on us both.

  “I thought you might want the
memories of your friends’ visit.”

  That was Dad. Always thinking of the other person.

  I made sure I got plenty of footage of Mummy, too, to mark the return of the countess to her rightful place. If it all worked out the way I’d planned, we’d look back on this morning as the start of… well, they were sitting on opposite sides of the room at that moment, but hey, it had to be the start of something.

  “Mac, thank you!” Lissa swung the cashmere plaid shawl round her shoulders exactly as a girl might have done a hundred years ago.

  “Couldn’t find a Mansfield tartan, ye Sassenach,” I quipped. “I hope you don’t mind ours.”

  “I love yours.” She rubbed the feather-soft blue plaid with its red and cream stripes against her cheek. “It’ll always remind me of my Christmas at Strathcairn. And it’ll keep me warm for the rest of our vacation.”

  To my relief, Shani liked her leather gloves with their racy little buckles at the wrist, and Gillian began playing the Uillean pipe immediately, with no training whatsoever. The astonishing part was, I recognized “The Holly and the Ivy” right off. How did she do it?

  With a glance at Alasdair, Lissa made a point of opening his gift next. It was a silver thistle pin with an amethyst where the flower might be.

  “Thank you, Alasdair.” She pinned it to the turtleneck of her blue cashmere sweater, where it proceeded to catch in her hair every time she turned her head.

  “Besides being the national flower, it reminded me of our walk through Edinburgh Castle that day,” he said. “There were thistles growing out of the wall, remember?”

  She gave him a smile that made him happy and told the rest of us she had no memory of the thistles whatsoever.

  Then Carly reached for her present from me. I leaned forward on the sofa, quietly filming as she pulled the ribbons away and took the lid off. I’d gambled that she’d love it—but chances were equally good that she’d be horribly offended.

  On a slow breath, Carly lifted her gift out of its nest of wrapping paper. “Oh, Mac.” Her voice broke.

  “It was my great-great-grandmother’s,” I said diffidently. “She’s wearing it in that portrait up there, see?” Carly looked from the Edwardian lace blouse in her hands to the portrait over the fireplace, where the countess stared down at everyone so regally, you’d never believe she’d been a suffragette and a rabble-rouser before her marriage. “It’s still in lovely shape and I think it should fit you. That is, I mean, I hope I haven’t insulted—”

  Carly stopped my babbling with a big hug. “Insulted me? Are you kidding? This is the most considerate, wonderful gift I’ve ever had.”

  She was trying not to cry, but I was the one who did anyway. “Oh, good.” I sniffled. “Only you would think someone else’s old rubbish was wonderful.”

  “Only I would know this is a genuine Worth blouse worn by a countess a hundred years ago.” She touched the label sewn into one of the seams with reverence. “Mac, I can’t accept it.”

  “Yes, you can,” Dad said before I could argue. “Even I know what it means to you, and I’m just a benighted old dad. Mac told me the whole story about your dress last summer.”

  “Really? I can really have this?”

  “To have and to hold from this day forward,” I assured her from behind the videocam, filming as she held it up to her chest. “To wear, too, if you can get it on.”

  She looked as if she wanted to rush off and try it on right that second, but held herself back until the rest of us had finished opening our presents. Soon the piles of wrapping paper threatened to inundate the room, so I grabbed some of it and crushed it into little balls. I tossed one at Alasdair and grinned, all cheek and mischief, as it bounced off the side of his head. He caught it in midair and threw it into the fire. After that it was a free-for-all of flying balls of bright Christmas paper.

  “Come on, you guys,” Carly begged when all the paper had burned itself up in a merry roar of flame. “I have to try on my presents. I can’t wait another second.”

  “You girls go ahead while I scare up some breakfast,” Dad said. “I’ll call you when it’s on the table.”

  “I’ll help you.” Patricia Sutter, comfortable and casual in faded jeans and a tunic sweater, climbed out of the embrace of the squashy chair next to the tree.

  “I will, too,” Mummy said. “I think I remember where everything is, if you haven’t moved it.”

  “I don’t think you’ll find too many changes,” Dad said quietly. “Happy to have the help.”

  Well, that couldn’t have gone better if I’d scripted it myself. Satisfied, I followed the girls up to Lissa’s room, which was the only one with a big mirror.

  Carly took off her Ed Hardy T-shirt, leaving on the cami that she wore under it, and slipped Brett’s gift, an antique locket, over her head. Then she picked up the blouse with both hands. “I’m going to need help. It buttons up the back.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to wear some special corset or something?” Lissa wanted to know. “The kind that forces you into an S-curve?”

  “I’m not sure I can flush one of those out of the attics.” I filmed the moment as Shani drew the blouse on over Carly’s shoulders and settled it so that the nearly invisible seams sat properly on her shoulders. “Lucky job you’ve got a long neck.”

  “Will it close?” Carly tried to look over her shoulder into the mirror. “Don’t force it. The fabric’s probably fragile. I’d die if we ripped it trying to get it on.”

  “Relax.” Shani buttoned up the back, then focused on the neck. “Tiny little pearls with loops. Hang on. This is going to take me a minute.”

  “It’s like two separate blouses,” Carly murmured, bending her head to turn up the bottom of it and investigate, while Shani worked on the back. “One for structure and one for looks. See?”

  “Fascinating.” Gillian’s tone was dry. “The question is, can you actually wear it somewhere?”

  “There. All done.” Shani patted her between the shoulder blades and stepped back.

  Carly turned in front of the mirror, settling the blouse more comfortably, and tugging the underlayer into place. Then she adjusted Brett’s locket so that it hung just below her collarbone.

  “Wow,” Lissa said. “It really suits you.”

  “What’s the name of that artist who painted back then?” Gillian snapped her fingers. “You know, the guy who did all those faux Renaissance ladies and the Art Nouveau stuff.”

  “You mean Waterhouse?” I asked.

  “Yes. Him. Carly looks like she stepped out of one of his paintings. She has that kind of face, you know?”

  “I know who’d want to see this,” I said. “Turn toward me, Carly, and give Brett a big smile.” When she did, I made sure I got a nice, long shot. “I’ll clip it and e-mail it to him, okay?”

  “He’d love that,” Lissa said before Carly could answer. “He can play it over and over and—”

  She giggled as Carly tried to swat her and the blouse stopped her movement. “Hey! I can only lift my arms this high. What’s up with that?”

  “Ladies don’t engage in physical assaults,” I told Carly in severe schoolmarm tones. “Not wearing Worth blouses, anyway.”

  “I really do feel like a lady.” Carly turned to the mirror again, fluffing up the lace trim with gentle fingers. “Like a countess, even.”

  “You look like one,” Gillian agreed. “You could even pull off royal. Come on. Back straight. Chin up.”

  “No, that’s Shani’s department,” I cracked from behind the camera.

  “What, perfect posture?” Shani asked. “I didn’t take deportment classes for nothing, you know.”

  “No. Being royal.”

  “I’m that already.” She exchanged a smile with Gillian and Lissa, then twinkled at Carly in the mirror. Suddenly I felt left out of the frame. “I’ve been a princess for four weeks, didn’t you know?”

  A second of silence fell, in which I fumbled the camera, nearly dropped it, and in
the process switched it off.

  Just as well. This announcement needed a person’s complete attention. “What?” I finally managed when the camera was safely in hand again. “I thought you broke it off with Rashid. Did something happen that I don’t know about?”

  She laughed, her eyes crinkling with delight at finally getting one over on me. “Gotcha!”

  “You certainly did. Stop messing me about and tell me.”

  Another exchange of happy glances. That should have made the penny drop, if nothing else. “It says in the Bible that God’s children are the heirs to His kingdom, that’s all,” Shani said. “A royal priesthood. So since I came to Christ a month ago, that makes me a princess in God’s eyes, right?”

  Carly turned and smashed her blouse flat giving Shani a hug, and then had to fluff up the lace all over again.

  “I guess so.” I sounded as flat as I felt. Was that all? “You really put the wind up my kilt for a second there.”

  “Sorry.” She didn’t look sorry. She looked happy. So happy she practically glowed.

  I grew up going to the village church with my dad and I knew for a fact that I didn’t look like that. What was going on? “Just don’t go getting a swelled head over it.”

  “Oh, come on, Mac.” Lissa put her arm round my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “We don’t make you uncomfortable talking about God, do we?”

  “Of course not. You’ve been doing it since the moment I met you. Why should anything be different?”

  “You know,” Gillian said pensively, watching me, “I don’t think I’ve ever asked you. Are you a believer?”

  “I go to church.” And I sat there, thinking about everything from what I was wearing to what we might have for lunch to whether I could talk Dad into driving us into Edinburgh to stay with Carrie’s cousin Anne. It was a very contemplative time for me.

  “But do you believe?”

  “Believe what? In God? Of course.”

  “In what He can do in your life,” Gillian persisted. “In grace. In Jesus. All that.”