Page 41 of The Secret Christmas Library

There were some slightly shamefaced looks the next morning at breakfast, which Mirren, despite her sadness, tucked into with a will.

Esme and Theo had sidled in at different times, Theo looking rough, Esme looking fabulous, the slightly weary cast to her face only making her sexier than ever.

The fact that they made a massive point of arriving at different times made it even clearer to Mirren that there was a very strong chance they’d got up to something.

Theo didn’t seem ever to be able to not at least give it a go.

Jamie was up, quietly pacing, looking at the poem and waiting for the sun to rise. Nobody seemed to have remembered what day it was, until Bonnie appeared, bright as a button, smiling and with a packet of batteries.

‘It’s Christmas Eve!’ she said. ‘And I thought of something.’

And she slotted the batteries into a small transistor radio and tuned it in.

Theo groaned. ‘Is it going to be the emergency broadcast network telling us the rest of the world is enjoying a zombie invasion?’ he said, but instead it crackled into life with carols – from King’s, in fact, the voices of the young choristers ringing out high and sweet: ‘unto us is born a son’.

Theo buried his head in his hands. ‘Owwww,’ he said.

Mirren smiled tentatively. ‘Is this your way of telling us we’re not getting out today?’

‘’Fraid so,’ said Bonnie. ‘They haven’t opened the road yet. Unless you’ve got a friend with a helicopter.’

‘I do!’ said Esme suddenly. ‘Oh, no, hang on – I slept with his sister.’

‘And that annoyed him?’ said Theo, curiously.

‘I know – I was surprised too.’

‘It’s going to be a funny old Christmas,’ said Mirren.

‘No stockings,’ said Esme, sighing.

‘No big boxes under the tree,’ said Mirren.

‘No mother drunk by lunchtime,’ said Jamie. ‘Thank heaven for small mercies.’

‘No Mum throwing the gravy on the floor because someone said it was lumpy,’ nodded Mirren.

‘No church!’ said Theo. ‘This is looking up. Where is the church anyway?’

‘Oh, we have our own.’

‘You have your own church. Of course you do.’

‘But it’s probably rather snowed in.’

‘And we don’t have a vicar,’ added Esme. ‘Since the last one was caught doing un-vicary things.’

‘Actually, these days I think those are very vicary things,’ said Jamie. ‘Oh, Bonnie, is that bacon?’

Bonnie unveiled a large silver container, with a lid that was obviously from something else.

‘Oh, God, I love you,’ groaned Esme.

‘I thought you were vegan,’ said Jamie.

‘You’re the animal-lover!’

‘Yes,’ said Jamie. ‘Kindly and organically reared animals are okay to eat.’

‘Says you.’

‘Lots to do,’ said Bonnie, beating a retreat.

‘Can we have Buck’s fizz?’ asked Esme. ‘As, one, it’s Christmas Eve, and two, I need a hair of the dog?’

No one stood up, so Esme made it in the end.

She added a very small amount of orange juice to each glass, topped it up with fizz and handed it around.

Theo looked at it as if trying to figure out whether that would make things better or worse, then obviously decided it was worth the risk and necked it.

‘Okay,’ Esme declared. ‘That feels better.’

She glanced at Jamie, who was still very focused on the sunrise. ‘Please tell me today is the day we finally get our present?’

‘I hope so,’ said Jamie, who was holding on to Mirren’s copy of the poem as if it was something precious. ‘If we’re right about the maze.’

‘What else can it be?’

‘Anything,’ said Jamie. ‘Someone’s old dry-cleaning receipt.’

‘Argh, don’t say that. Please don’t say that.’

The delicious aroma of bacon spread as Theo made himself a sandwich and looked at it contemplatively. Esme reached for the dish herself.

‘You’re the worst vegan ever,’ said Jamie.

‘I’m eating the bacon,’ said Esme. ‘It’s my Christmas present to myself.’

‘But not that poor pig?’

‘Everyone stop talking about pigs,’ said Theo, ‘or I might throw up.’

Esme refilled his glass.

‘Kill or cure,’ he said, and downed it.

Mirren came over and stood behind Jamie.

The sky behind the trees was bright pink and gold – breathtaking colours.

As she stared, the stag appeared once again, his horns high in the trees, part of the wild forest itself.

She noticed Jamie incline his head, ever so slightly, as if nodding in respect – and it didn’t seem weak, or ridiculous; it seemed absolutely right.

‘It’s going to be the most beautiful day,’ she said, quietly amazed, really, that she would ever say that on a day so cold you could quite clearly see where Jack Frost had been, his fingers leaving traces all over the insides of the windows. But she meant it. ‘Happy Christmas Eve.’

He turned to look at her, and his eyes had their sad look back. ‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘I think we will find it,’ said Mirren, trying to be optimistic. ‘Look out there.’

The first golden beams were bouncing off the ground; the snow had hardened into solid ice, glistening like diamonds, crunchy and solid.

‘The whole world new,’ she said, still quietly, as if trying not to startle a shy creature. ‘That’s the promise of Christmas, isn’t it? Whatever you believe. The whole world turns shiny and new again, a brand new year, a brand new baby. It’s always the same and always new.’

Jamie nodded. The shadows of the trees on the white lawn were incredibly long.

‘My grandfather never managed to make everything new.’

‘You’re not him,’ said Mirren. ‘You’re not, Jamie.’

He smiled ruefully. ‘Got that same name.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Mirren. ‘At Christmas, everything old is new again.’

He looked at her. ‘Did you choose me a book present yet?’

She smiled. ‘Yes.’

‘I want it!’ he said. ‘I want my present. Can I have it today? We can pretend we’re European.’

And, because his smile was finally back. Mirren reached into the pillowcase she had filled when she hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, and pulled it out.

Jamie beamed when he saw it. ‘I haven’t read this in years!’ He opened the first page. ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit . . . ’ He smiled. ‘I loved this book.’

‘Good,’ said Mirren.

‘Hang on,’ said Esme. ‘You got up last night and went and looked at more books?’

Mirren looked back at her. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’ she said. ‘It’s a treasure trove here. I found the South Library. The moon was so bright, and I couldn’t sleep. And I was hungry. You didn’t leave me very much.’

Theo and Esme had the grace to look shamefaced. Mirren didn’t mention that she had secretly rather hoped she might bump into Jamie, wandering about in the halls at night-time. She hadn’t.

She handed over a book to Esme.

‘Valley of the Dolls,’ Esme read. ‘“The book too hot to publish”. Ooh!’ she went on. ‘This looks like it would be just my kind of thing. Although I don’t read much.’

‘You’ll still like this.’

‘What happened to that other one you mentioned, the sexy one?’ asked Jamie.

‘I kept it for myself. Ssh,’ said Mirren, and Jamie let his smile out, cautiously.

Theo crossly flapped his hands in her direction when he saw his book, the second glass of champagne having fallen out with the first one, and being in no mood to make polite conversation.

‘A Rake’s Diary?’ he said. ‘That seems harsh.’

‘Au contraire,’ said Mirren, sternly. ‘If you’d been living back then, you’d have done some terrible harm.’

‘I’m not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not,’ he said, flipping through the illustrated plates.

‘Not,’ said Mirren, and Jamie glanced at her, wondering.

‘Bonnie?’ said Mirren, as Bonnie set down steaming plates of black pudding, haggis and eggs. Esme’s eyes grew moist with longing. Theo on the other hand looked rather green. Bonnie looked up.

‘This is for you. It’s not much,’ said Mirren.

‘And also, not yours to give,’ pointed out Esme.

‘No, I realise that,’ said Mirren. ‘I thought we could read them here.’ It was a copy of a book called Longbourn. ‘I wasn’t sure if this was appropriate,’ said Mirren. ‘If it isn’t, I’m really sorry. I just work here too.’

Bonnie turned it over. It was Pride and Prejudice, written from the point of view of the servants. Mirren tensed in case she was offended – but Bonnie immediately softened.

‘Thank you,’ she said, looking Mirren in the face for what felt like the first time. ‘Thanks for this. I think . . . I will read it.’

‘You don’t have to,’ said Mirren.

‘No, I will, thanks,’ said Bonnie, holding it close.

‘Come on,’ said Jamie. ‘Hurry up and eat! The sun is up! Well, nearly.’

‘Where is this maze?’ said Theo. ‘Maybe it’s so far away that one of us should actually stay back here and, you know, hold the fort.’

They looked at him.

‘The fresh air will do you good,’ said Mirren, with no sympathy whatsoever.

Esme sighed. ‘It’s on the far side of the loch,’ she said.

‘Why is everything so far away?’ groaned Theo. ‘We have a London garden square. Everything’s right there.’

Mirren’s mum’s suburban garden was the size of a pocket handkerchief, so she didn’t mention it. ‘We could do with a tramp,’ she said. ‘Christmas Eve morning walk after our huge breakfast.’

It was indeed huge, and after several refills of tea even Theo looked as if he might be ready to go.

‘I know what we need,’ said Esme, nodding towards the boot room.

‘No, don’t,’ said Jamie. ‘You’re terrible anyway.’

‘I am not!’

‘You are! Always used to lean on the gardeners!’

‘Oh, well, yes,’ said Esme. ‘But that was before I spent that winter in . . . ’ Her voice trailed off as she mumbled something that might or might not have been ‘St Petersburg’.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Mirren.

‘You’ll see,’ said Esme.

‘You’d better check it,’ said Jamie, the little furrow appearing.

‘If there’s ice on the inside of the windows, then you know it’s fine,’ said Esme. ‘Come on, you old woman! Let’s GO!’

And she leapt up, Theo groaning in her wake.