Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(96)
“March the twenty-fourth,” Peter told her. “Mine is May the fifth.”
“And mine is February the twelfth,” Winifred said. “I think.”
“You think?” Ivan said.
“I am not quite sure. I was an orphan before Mama and Papa adopted me,” she explained. “I was in an orphanage. Papa grew up there before me. And Cousin Anna.”
“Really?” Ivan’s interest had been caught, and Viola went back to the drawing room to speak with her mother.
Most of the other guests arrived before dark—and an unexpected one in the middle of the evening, long after dark.
“Whoever can that be?” Matilda asked when they heard the unmistakable rumble of wheels on the terrace below the drawing room.
“I hope it is not Anna and Avery and Louise,” her mother said. “The baby should be in her bed already.”
“And it is never safe to travel any distance after dark,” Matilda added. “Surely it is not them. Louise is far too sensible. Or perhaps they were afraid it would snow and so pressed onward.”
Alexander laughed. “There is one way of finding out,” he said, getting to his feet. “I shall go down.”
He came back less than five minutes later with a single traveler, a young man who strode into the room one step behind him, looked about him with eager good cheer, and went striding off toward his mother, arms outstretched.
“Hired carriages are an abomination,” he said. “I am convinced every bone in my body is in a different place from where it was when I started.”
Viola was on her feet without any awareness of how she had got there.
“Harry!” she cried before she was enfolded in his arms and hugged tightly enough to squeeze all the breath out of her.
“So,” he said, looking down at her while noise and exclamations of pleasure erupted about them, “where is the happy bridegroom?”
* * *
? ? ?
Viola felt as if at last she had come to the end of a tumultuous journey of close on three years. She was in the drawing room of Brambledean in the early evening, two days before Christmas, surrounded by her family—all her family except for the very young children, who were upstairs in the nursery, and she was thoroughly contented. She tested the word happy in her mind, but decided that contented was the better choice. Contentment was a good thing. Very good.
Finally she was able to accept with her whole being that Humphrey’s family was indeed hers too, even though their marriage had never been a valid one. They were her family because they had chosen her, not only during the twenty-three years when really they had had no choice, but in the close to three years since when they could have disowned her. And at last she had chosen them to be her family.
She gazed about the room from her position on a small sofa beside Althea, Alexander’s mother. They were all here—the Kingsleys, the Westcotts, and their spouses and older children. Ivan and Peter were playing a duet of dubious musical distinction on the pianoforte, and Winifred was leaning across the instrument on her forearms, watching their hands and making what were probably unhelpful suggestions when they hit one of their frequent wrong notes or contested the middle keys with some sharp elbow work. Viola’s mother and Mary were in conversation with Humphrey’s mother. Jessica and Abigail were squeezed onto another sofa on either side of Harry, while Boris was perched on a pouf in front of them. They were all absorbed in some tale Harry was telling. Camille and Anna had their heads together, talking about something. Wren and Joel and Avery were in conversation together.
It was, in fact, a warm family gathering. And there was even an extended family member present—Colin, Lord Hodges, Wren’s younger brother, who was currently living eight or nine miles away at Withington House, Wren’s former home, where Alexander had met her less than a year ago. He was a good-looking, good-humored young man who had caught the attention of both Abigail and Jessica earlier in the day. He was currently standing by the window, talking with Elizabeth, who was perched on the window seat.
The room was lavishly decorated for Christmas and smelled wonderfully of pine. Alexander and Thomas, Lord Molenor, had gone out to the stables and carriage house after luncheon to look at the sleds that had been stored away for years to see if they could possibly be used if it should indeed happen to snow. Most of the rest of them went out to gather greenery from the park—pine boughs and holly, ivy and mistletoe. Then they had all set to with a will to decorate the drawing room and the banisters of the main staircase. Matilda had marshaled a group to make a kissing bough, which now hung from the center of the ceiling and had been visited accidentally on purpose—as Avery phrased it—by several couples and a few noncouples. Harry had kissed Winifred and his aunt Matilda, who had told him to mind his manners, young man, and then had tittered and blushed. Boris had kissed Jessica and turned a bright red, even though she pointed out that they were cousins, you silly boy. Colin had gallantly kissed both Jessica and Abigail, and they had turned bright red.
The Yule log would be brought in tomorrow, Alexander promised, and then it would be Christmas indeed. The carolers would surely come from the village—they had promised anyway to revive that old tradition—and there would be a wassail bowl awaiting them and mince pies and a roaring fire in the hall.
Christmas was a happy time, Viola thought, content to be quiet while Althea knitted beside her and smiled about at the scene before her eyes. It was a family time, a time to count one’s blessings and fortify oneself for the year ahead. For the new year would bring changes, as all years did, some of them welcome, some a challenge. One needed to grasp the happy moments when one could and hug them to oneself with both arms.