Page 28 of The Secret Christmas Library

At first, she couldn’t work out where she was. She had had strange dreams of zeros and ones and books tumbling over and over, like Alice collapsing under armies of playing cards, and at first, looking at the red curtains all around her bed, she had panicked and thought she was buried.

Then it had come flooding back to her, that she was snowed in in a castle in Scotland, which, while obviously terribly inconvenient, was nonetheless rather exciting – and she leapt up immediately because – what had happened with the snow?

She realised two things as she got up. Firstly, the fire was flaming up again, which meant someone had been in to set it going; and, she noticed, there was a coffee pot on a tray, which was, to her slight embarrassment but also absolute delight, still hot.

Bonnie must have come in when she was fast asleep and in fact that must have woken her, given how hot the coffee was.

She wasn’t at all used to this, and it felt extremely weird.

On the other hand, it was such a treat. She poured herself a cup into another piece of extremely expensive china with a chunk out of it – there was a definite theme to the crockery in this house – and, pulling the tartan rug around her again, she went to look out of the great old rattling window.

It had stopped snowing. At first, Mirren was slightly disappointed; it was a childish thing, to want it to snow and snow forever.

But as she looked left out over the northern hills, then towards the water straight ahead, she saw a sudden pink beam of dawn reach out and hit the fields, and the scene, suddenly illuminated, was so extraordinarily beautiful it took her breath away.

Mirren had never seen proper deep snow before. Even on her one skiing trip, it had all been mostly melted in the huge mega-resort they were at, and she hadn’t made it up much past the nursery slopes.

This was completely different. This was a thick fluffy blanket laid over the world. She could roughly gauge its extraordinary depth: it reached the top of the hand-built stone walls that demarcated the faraway fields.

Directly below the window were two completely concealed lumps that yesterday had been cars.

The window steamed up with condensation from her coffee cup and she rubbed it clean.

She wanted to take a photo of the view more than anything, then realised that no, what she really wanted to do was to walk beyond the house and take a picture of the castle, in the snow, the pink light shining on its turrets; Cair Paravel by the sea.

She looked at the rotting wood of the window frame and pushed her finger into it gently, watching it flake away. Yes. Definitely better from a distance.

But walking far looked like it would be out of the question; the wrought-iron gate showed the snow at waist height. Not a track despoiled the purity of the white, although the brown shapes of birds, looking for sustenance, could be seen here and there. It was utterly lovely.

Suddenly, she started. There was something on the horizon.

She peered more closely. Outlined against the white, astonishing in its majesty and loveliness, was a huge stag, strolling nonchalantly out of the trees.

His antlers reached up high out of his head; this wasn’t a young animal.

He sniffed the air, obviously finding his way in the new snow.

Did he think it was beautiful? thought Mirren.

Or a challenge, just as they did? Or both?

He moved forward, in that silent world: the stag, the snow, the castle, the sea; every element frozen, like a huge chessboard of white fields and dark woods, waiting for the pieces to move.

She couldn’t have said how long she stood there, watching the magnificent animal – and, who knew, maybe he was watching her too – until something startled him, and his huge head turned, rapidly, and he vanished back into the dark of the wild forest.

Conscious that presumably Bonnie had had to come wake her up because she was horribly late – and hating to be late – Mirren scampered down the corridor to the bathroom.

Jamie hadn’t been lying about the hot water, but at least there was some; there were still no lights working so the electricity wasn’t on, but the boiler seemed to be running.

Hers at home wouldn’t work without electricity so she would have to assume this really was old.

She got about two inches of water into the ancient vast tub that would just about double as a swimming pool and made do as best she could.

There was no trace or sound of Theo but that didn’t mean anything; the walls and doors here were so thick, he could be having a DJ party in his bedroom and she wouldn’t notice.

Back in the bedroom, she made her bed and went back once again to the strange drawers.

There was nothing else for it; she only had a couple of days’ worth of clothes, and clothes appropriate for staying in a normal house at that, which, she now realised, was not good planning; but then, absolutely nothing so far had been remotely as expected.

In the drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe, amid quite a strong smell of mothballs, she discovered several old jumpers, huge chunky knits that were clearly handmade and nothing like as chic as the party dresses hanging up.

On the other hand, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and actually if she donned an extra bulky, rough oatmeal jumper and her jeans, and put on both pairs of socks she’d brought, she was almost warm, if not feeling quite as glamorous as she had the night before.

She added a scarf, and wished she’d brought mittens.

She snuck out – there was nobody in the passageway, and the corridor was freezing; she was glad of the scarf.

There was nothing to hear anywhere, and she wasn’t sure where she ought to be.

Life was odd when you didn’t have your phone; you felt untethered from everything.

She didn’t even wear a watch, since her brother had bought her a smart watch for Christmas one year and it kept bugging her about not answering her messages or taking enough steps or sleeping for long enough and basically it was like having a pass-agg small person following her about all day and as she’d explained at the time, if she needed one of those she could just go back home and live with her mum.

Now, which was the turret door they came through?

It was down at the end of . . . This was ridiculous; she hadn’t been that drunk last night.

Although it had been very dark. Now light streamed in through the little arched windows, showing two rows of corridors going off at right angles to each other.

The castle must be a square, which would put Theo’s room overlooking the inside courtyard?

And if she was looking out over the sea .

. . she must be on the east side. And the drawing room looked out over the front, which must be the south side .

. . but where did that put the kitchen? She sighed; she would have tossed a coin if she had one.

Then she headed off to her left. All the closed doors looked the same, one after another, like a vast hotel.

But one where all the guests had left a long time ago.

Finally, she noticed that one door in the wall was set in the corner, at an angle. Surely this must be the one? She gave it an experimental tug; at first she thought it was locked, but it was merely stiff, and with a bigger pull it creaked open.

It was the turret with the spiral staircase.

Pleased, Mirren stepped in and started to head down, around and around.

Perhaps everyone had slept late, and there would be fresh eggs – Bonnie had mentioned birds, hadn’t she?

And more of that surprisingly good coffee.

She should have brought her cup and pot down with her, but it was weird the vibe she got from Bonnie, a little bit kind of a you don’t belong here, don’t try and pretend and don’t think you’re being nice by helping me feeling.

It was probably her own paranoia, thought Mirren.

Her own sense of inadequacy at being around people who, however financially embarrassed they might be now, came from great families, castles and clans – a completely different way of living and being in the world.

She and Esme were chalk and cheese; she could not imagine Esme ever entertaining any of the doubts Mirren had about her life, future, friends.

Esme didn’t seem to have a moment of self-doubt in her body.

Just a clear belief that she was born slightly superior and therefore everyone should treat her correctly; and, amazingly, everyone did.

No way would Theo have ghosted her, thought Mirren with surprising venom.

She was suddenly very pleased that she hadn’t given in to his tempting invitation last night.

Only the last shreds of her self-respect had kept her from succumbing quite so easily.

But she had been single for – well, if it was Christmas, then for a year.

She missed human contact, quite desperately.

And he was so terribly handsome, that wide clear forehead, the black hair flopping on his brow.

Completely lost in thought, she realised suddenly that she’d been walking down the steps for a long time.

They were worn with footprints over hundreds of years; the multitude of feet that had trodden here, way back into deep time, had made indentations in the very rock itself.

This must be the older section of the castle, the ancient part at the back.

But she was surely further down than they had been the night before?

She looked up at a sudden noise: a white bird far overhead flapped, then disappeared.

They must be nesting in the towers. No wonder it was so freezing everywhere.