Chapter 36 #2
‘Compromised!’ repeated Etta, stifling a laugh. The whole thing seemed so absurd to her all of a sudden – she felt giddy with it.
‘Etta, this is serious. This is your reputation we’re talking about. This is about the rest of your life. If anyone at all in this room, even a servant, had even an inkling of what has passed between us—’
‘I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just rather surreal, that’s all,’ said Etta.
She supposed that her whole reality now was surreal, but somehow over the last weeks she had stopped questioning it. Was she really in a ballroom right now, in 1817, rebuffing a male supermodel’s marriage proposal?
The old ladies on the Tube had asked her if she wanted a holiday in Regency London, but this had become so much more than that. Marriage was meant to be a lifelong commitment, wasn’t it? Was that what was holding her back?
She opened her mouth to give him a proper answer, but no words came out.
‘I’ll write to you over Christmas,’ said Etta quickly. She could see her mother weaving her way towards them through the crowd. ‘That’s all I can promise. For now.’
Lady Bainbridge’s amused voice cut through the air as she took Etta’s arm. ‘Enjoy the orangery, dear? I know Lady Dinklage is particularly proud of it.’
Christmas seemed to come around so much sooner than everyone had expected and before she knew it, Etta was whisked off back to the countryside to spend Christmas at Bainbridge House. Almost every upper crust family had fled London for the festivities, and the Bainbridges were no exception.
As a rule, Etta loathed and despised Christmas.
Every schmaltzy advert and themed chocolate bar and sad piece of office tinsel had been agony.
In the past, she had spent the day itself in lonely misery watching Christmas specials over a bucket of leftover KFC.
Not once since her dad had died had Christmas seemed like an even remotely good idea.
But Christmas back at the estate was unlike anything she had ever witnessed. In costume dramas she’d always wondered how miserable it must be for the servants to have to slave away while the poshos had fun, but in actual fact everyone was equal parts merry and productive.
While kitchen staff prepared huge spiced boiled hams and mulled vats of sweet wine, which made the entire house smell a million times better than any peppermint third-hand Secret Santa Yankee Candle (Etta couldn’t say she missed those at all), she and her mother got to work draping boughs of rather prickly local foliage around the hallways.
There was no tree, but Etta was fine with that – the only Christmas tree she was used to decorating was the one in the office reception, because putting one up in her studio flat had always seemed like the ultimate exercise in futility.
Besides, she’d thrown away the family decorations the first Christmas after Dad had gone.
There was only so much pain she could take, and seeing her long-gone mother’s family baubles was so far across the invisible line she’d drawn for herself that it might as well have been on the horizon.
So Christmas with her new family was something new, and unbelievably welcome: she was finally ready to start again.
Some of the traditions were really quite wonderful, too: putting together baskets of expensive goodies for the people who lived on the estate was a highlight.
She had loved sitting in the morning room with her mother, close to a roaring fire, parcelling up packages of her mother’s favourite robust tea leaves, bundles of dried fruit, and hanks of sugar loaf.
Even Charlie had joined in, despite it being, as he’d attempted to put it, ‘really just for the girls, surely’.
Her brother might be a bit of a feckless idiot, but he took his duty to the people on his estate very seriously indeed – the last Lord Bainbridge had drummed it into him very thoroughly, but Charlie was also a very kind and generous man. It had been good spending more time with him, too.
‘So clever of you to think of pinning the ribbons instead of cutting them, Henrietta. Ribbons really are extortionate these days. I think I might ask Nanny whether she has any receipts for dyes, too, although I might not ask you to copy them out – I know you’ve been practising, but your handwriting is still really quite dreadful. ’
Lady Bainbridge turned a beady eye to Charlie, who was attempting to untangle ribbons and failing miserably.
‘Charles, I believe that means the duty falls to you.’
Charlie groaned, but didn’t attempt to remonstrate.
‘If that means Etta can deal with these bloody buggering ribbons – sorry for cursing, Mother, but they really are the outside of enough – then I’m all for it.’
He earned a rap on the head with a roll of parcel paper as he passed by, but Lady Bainbridge was in a good mood.
‘You know, Henrietta, this is the best Christmas I think we have enjoyed for perhaps a decade or more.’ She wiped away a stray tear. ‘It really has been wonderful, these past few months, having you back with us.’
Etta gave her mother a hug, feeling her own tears welling.
‘I know, Mama. It’s been wonderful being here, too,’ Etta said.
‘Just… Please don’t leave us again, Henrietta. I don’t think I could bear it.’
‘I won’t,’ she promised, remembering the bracelet now buried deep in a box, along with Hetty’s long-forgotten notebooks, and hugging her mother even tighter.
It could stay there forever, as far as she was concerned. It really had been perhaps the best thing that had ever happened to her – The Switch had been incredible, and Christmas was a highlight she’d never seen coming. Every season was better than the last.
But one thing played on her mind more than anything, like a deep current running through every festivity.
Etta knew Max was waiting for her to make her decision, and it was time.
She’d asked Bessie if there was a way to deliver his present over to his house nearby and had bravely put a note in one toe as she carefully wrapped the slippers in tissue paper – the brightly coloured embroidered tigers shining against the navy velvet in the candlelight.