Page 6 of Deck the Halls in Secret Agents
The next morning, George and Nikolai emerged from the attic and made their way down to the great hall, only to pause at the top of the grand staircase, gazing down at the toppled Christmas tree. Two men were hooking it up to a miniature tractor to cart it out of the hall.
George and Nikolai started slowly down the stairs. Stephens stood on the first landing, supervising the hoisting of a banner that read WELCOME 1992 in massive glittery letters. As George and Nikolai reached the landing, he inclined his head to them, without taking his eyes from the banner-raising. In his grave butler voice he intoned, “Did you find what you were looking for?”
George felt the tickle of a giggle in his throat. He tried to swallow it, then made the mistake of looking at Nikolai, and both of them burst into helpless laughter, staggering like schoolboys as they continued down the stairs under the benignly disapproving eye of Stephens.
A servant with a long pole was unhooking the Christmas tapestries from the walls. She gently lowered the fenced Rudolph to the flagstone floor, and then efficiently used the self-same pole to hoist a spangled black velvet New Year banner.
“Oh, how delightful!” cried Biffy, and George swung around to find Biffy bearing down on them, beaming, hands outstretched. “Practically all the other guests left as soon as the snowplows cleared the roads, but you’re still here! Oh, how marvelous. Do say you’ll stay for the New Year. Everyone will be coming back, you know, they’ve just popped down to Monte Carlo for a dash at the tables.”
George and Nikolai looked at each other. They had still made no definite plans, after all.
Then Nikolai turned to Biffy with a broad American smile. In a broader American accent, he said, “’Fraid I can’t. Places to go, people to see.”
Biffy’s face fell briefly. Then his beam popped back into place, and he turned it on George. “What about you?”
“Oh, I have to head out too,” George said. Biffy looked like a child who has just been denied a puppy, and George added, “But it was a wonderful Christmas, Biffy. The best I ever had.”
Biffy’s beam returned full force. “Oh, I’m so delighted to hear it. Of course I can’t take all the credit. So much depends on whether it snows. I’d order a blizzard every year if I could! But the things money can’t buy are always the most important, it seems. Do come back next year, George…um… What was your surname again?”
“Douglass.”
“And you too!” Biffy said to Nikolai, with a flap of his hand that suggested he had already forgotten his name. “Always welcome! Now, Stephens will have your cars brought round.”
“Oh, but we didn’t drive in,” George protested. “Remember? We both walked in after our cars broke down…”
Stephens had materialized by their side. With a stiff inclination of his head, he said, “I took the liberty of having your cars towed to the chateau. I intended to ask, but,” the briefest pause, “I couldn’t find you.”
George felt again that wild desire to laugh.
“The Citro?n is running again,” Stephens continued, “but I am afraid,” with a nod toward Nikolai, “that the Renault will not start.”
George felt a curious wonderful weightlessness, akin to last night’s dizziness, except that this time it was a sense that for once, the universe had aligned itself utterly right. They would not have to separate even briefly to drive away in their own cars. They could leave together.
Nikolai was saying, still in that cheery American accent, “Well, damn.” Then, to George, “Where are you headed?”
“To Paris,” George said, and years in the field meant that his voice expressed none of the expansive giddiness in his chest, only a hearty friendliness. “I could give you a lift if you need it.”
“Sure looks like it. Could you see that the Renault gets back to the rental place?” Nikolai asked Stephens.
“Indeed.” Stephens inclined his head again. “I already took the liberty,” he said, “of removing Mr. … Mellon’s suitcase into Mr. Danvers’ Citro?n. The car should arrive at the front steps,” and he discreetly checked his watch, “in two minutes.”
And so, with a final exhortation from Biffy that they really must return next year, they emerged through the great doors into the freezing bright morning. The Citro?n indeed awaited them at the foot of the steps, engine purring and heater blasting.
Then they were in the car together, George in the driver’s seat and Nikolai riding shotgun, sailing away on the smooth cleared road that flowed like a black river through the gleaming white world. The sunlight sparkled on the snow.
“Do you really want to go to Paris?” George asked.
“I don’t know.” Nikolai’s American accent had fallen away, and he spoke in his own voice again, that accent that was still a little strange to George. “Paris is beautiful, of course, but…” Suddenly he smiled. “Let’s head south,” he said. “Out of the cold.”