Page 47 of The Secret Christmas Library

Later, Mirren couldn’t remember much about that journey.

People seemed to be shouting at her, Theo was there, then he wasn’t, then he was again, and it took a long, long time.

They skirted the loch, covered in snow on top of ice now; it got harder and harder to move, as the snow settled on the crust, piled up in corners, and rendered slippery sections invisible and incredibly dangerous.

They slithered their way home, half-shoving Mirren ahead of them, Esme cursing colourfully in their slipstream.

It was so, so far, and even with the pale glow of the castle ahead they still lost their bearings in the deep dark, as the batteries of the torches started to fade and fail.

Jamie constantly worried they would stray towards the cliffs, urging them on while staying on their left.

He half-carried Mirren up through the gardens in the end, she was in such a bad way. It had been a strenuous expedition.

‘Bonnie!’ he hollered, as they finally, at last, at last, turned up at the kitchen door, looking as if they’d all just come back from the South Pole. Every bit of them was covered in snow; Jamie had it in his eyebrows.

They fell in through the kitchen door, into the blissful warmth of the Aga-warmed room, which had something delicious-smelling cooking on the stove. Bonnie was nowhere to be seen.

‘Oh, God,’ said Jamie, propping Mirren up on the chair nearest the Aga. She looked up with a start.

‘Oh, God,’ she echoed. ‘What the hell?’

‘Don’t . . . it’s okay,’ said Jamie. He found, suddenly, that he wanted to weep. It was a ridiculous sentiment, and he tried immediately to swallow it back. Mirren, he realised suddenly, had noticed.

‘Do you know, I could cry,’ she said, immediately. ‘God, that was so weird.’

He knelt down, to keep himself busy.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Taking your boots off,’ he said. ‘You need to warm your feet up.’

‘Christ, I really do,’ said Mirren.

He carefully pulled them off and once again she was watching his sandy head.

She was very tired, suffering from the effects of exposure, under-slept and overstimulated, and she had seen the tears in his eyes.

That was her excuse, anyway, for pulling off her mitten with her teeth, taking her frozen hand, and running it softly through his hair.

He looked up at her, his hazel eyes brimming with unshed tears, and blinked a couple of times. Then he put his hand on hers, drew it to his head.

‘I was worried about you,’ he said, gently.

‘Ow!’ said Mirren suddenly. ‘OW OW OWOWOW!’

‘What?’

‘My hand! It hurts like buggery.’ She shook it hard.

‘That’s the circulation coming back. You really are a softy southerner, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Mirren. ‘If I ever, ever get out of here, I am going to send up a prayer to the God of Central Heating every night.’

He pulled off her other boot and put it to one side. ‘Give them to me,’ he said. ‘You have to rub them really hard. We can do it together.’

‘Is that even legal?’ Mirren said, but she found a smile from somewhere within herself, as he took both her hands between his own and started rubbing them together fast, as if he were rubbing two sticks together to make a fire.

Esme had headed off to the bathroom and to find Bonnie; there was no sign of Theo, and Jamie mentally gave him fifteen minutes before he went back out in the storm to look for him. He didn’t even take his own boots off.

The feeling gradually came back into Mirren’s hands, but she couldn’t say she was entirely happy about it; she liked Jamie’s hands on hers, liked him kneeling before her.

The slightly cloudy feeling that had hit her out in the garden hadn’t gone away; instead, it had transferred to this beautiful kitchen, the old clock still ticking on the wall, the candles fluttering everywhere, the pot on the warm stove.

Inside, as the cold finally began to subside, the warmth she felt was from being indoors, somewhere dry and cosy – but also, from being near him.

I want this man so desperately, she found herself thinking to herself, very clearly. I want him so much. He looked at her, and she worried suddenly that she’d said it out loud, but instead he was saying, ‘I’ll go and check for Theo in a minute . . . Here. You get started, compadre.’

And he handed her the letters.

He trusted her so much, he’d simply handed them over. It was extraordinary. Mirren held the thin leaves in her hands. Jamie was going through the drawers until he found replacement batteries for his torch and put his gloves back on again.

‘I may be some time,’ he said.

‘Don’t you dare!’ said Mirren.

‘I’m kidding,’ he said. ‘I’ll be five minutes and haul Theo back. He’ll probably be doing his favourite thing: throwing up by a hedge.’

Mirren nodded. ‘You’re sure you don’t want me to wait?’ she said, waving the letters.

‘Absolutely not,’ he said, rubbing his hands together and smiling, and she was so happy that he was as excited to get on with it as she was. ‘You can précis them for me when I get back. If it’s really good, don’t come and find me! I order it. You basically nearly died just now.’

‘I did not!’

‘You did so.’

‘Well, then,’ she said, ‘you saved my life. I owe you a life.’

He didn’t answer, just looked at her for a long time. Then he strode across the kitchen floor, leaving puddles of melted snow in his wake, and opened the door again, to head out into the howling blizzard.

Mirren moved closer to the Aga, luxuriating in its heat. The opening of the kitchen door had sent a freezing wind through the space, revealing how very awful it was out there.

She unfolded the letters, but, before she did, she already had a sense of them, in their tired old paper, their running ink.

The paper felt heavy with disappointment, with frustrated hopes.

She glanced at the writing; she recognised it.

Sure enough, it was the father – Jamie’s great-grandfather, his grandfather’s father.

Once more it was rejection letters: a sternly worded missive that he must give up this ridiculous idea of writing, of working in books; a further one, heartbreakingly pointing out that it was unbefitting to his status to be applying for a job as a librarian, that he was not paying attention to the accounts or the farm; that the factor – Mirren wasn’t sure what this was, but it appeared to be some kind of estate manager – was disappointed in his lack of application, unpaid bills, invoices . . .

And on and on and on it went. And there wasn’t a word from James himself, not a single word.

When she thought of his room, with his books and his things – there was something about having felt so close to him.

The crusty, unhappy person that Jamie and Esme had known – Mirren didn’t think he was like that at all.

Mirren thought he’d just been disappointed; thwarted at every turn.

But there was, thought Mirren, there was . . . this stupid bloody house.

If he didn’t want it, he could have walked away.

And she thought about that again. What these letters were trying to say. That he should have walked away. That he should have had the life he wanted; the person he wanted, but had given up.

That there was a chance for the person the quest was for.

That if Jamie didn’t want it, he could walk away.

She was staring into space when there was a crash at the door and the two men tumbled back in, Theo so covered in snow he looked like a yeti.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Mirren, as Jamie pushed him towards the Aga.

‘I was fine!’ said Theo.

‘He was heading straight over the cliffs,’ said Jamie, shortly. He picked up the boiling kettle off the top of the stove.

‘I should probably have some whisky,’ said Theo.

‘That’s the last thing you should have,’ said Jamie, pouring him a cup of Bovril.

‘Oh, yuk,’ said Theo. ‘I hate this stuff.’

‘I don’t get a lot of thanks around here,’ mused Jamie. ‘Where’s Esme?’

‘She said she’d gone to steal all and any hot water.’

‘Fair enough.’

Jamie looked at Mirren, as Theo chittered and sipped his Bovril and made a face by the Aga. He nodded at the pile of letters. She looked back at him.

‘Well?’ Jamie said quietly.

‘They’re a message,’ said Mirren.

‘Well, yes, I gathered that.’

‘No, I mean – a message to you.’

Jamie grabbed the papers. ‘Really?’

‘No, I mean, they’re just a bunch of letters from his dad telling him he has to look after the house and he can’t do what he wants.’

‘Which is what?’

‘Well, I only have one half of the correspondence, but it looks like he applied to libraries, publishers, that kind of thing, and his dad is telling him he can’t take up any jobs because he has to stay and work the estate.’

Jamie blinked several times. ‘Right,’ he said.

‘I mean,’ said Mirren, looking at him sideways, ‘I don’t know if you feel that is something that applies to you?’

‘Huh,’ said Jamie. ‘No. He couldn’t have left. He had his duty . . . ’

He read a few of them.

‘He really . . . he hated it,’ he said. ‘He didn’t get to be with the person he loved. He didn’t want to work the estate. His life . . . he really did not enjoy it.’

‘He must have liked some of it,’ said Mirren, thinking again of the huge windows and the great moon in the sky. ‘He did the best he could. Surrounded himself with things he loved. His books.’

‘Why didn’t he . . . why didn’t he tell me before?’

Mirren looked at him. ‘Are you talkers, your family?’

Jamie laughed hollowly. ‘Then why did he tell me to do my duty?’ He thought about it. ‘Mind you, that was mostly Mum. And my grandmother, I suppose.’

‘Not him?’

‘No, that’s why I’m always complaining. He didn’t teach me anything – nothing about land management or how it was meant to work. I thought he just didn’t trust me.’

‘Do you think he was maybe leading you another way?’

Jamie didn’t say anything.