Christmas Wishes at Pudding Hall by Kate Forster

34

Peggy and Petey finished counting the cash and adding up the bank payments and then Peggy circled the number and pushed the notepad to Christa and showed her the final tally.

‘Wow,’ she said, looking at Petey in amazement.

‘It were them Christmas fudges that everyone liked. We haven’t got a single bag left,’ he said to Peggy.

‘You did very well,’ Peggy said to him and patted his hand.

‘We all did,’ said Petey and Christa noticed he held on to Peggy’s hand.

She wasn’t sure when the tune changed for Petey but for the past two days Peggy had been over when she wasn’t at work, and this morning Peggy was already in the house, stating that it was easier to leave for the market from Petey’s place.

Christa didn’t comment but she was sure to send a text message to Marc informing him of the news.

They’d loved gossiping about Peggy and Petey and their burgeoning romance, which seemed to have gone from zero to one hundred overnight. Part of Christa was jealous about Petey and Peggy’s intimacy but she knew not to rush things with Marc, and certainly not with the boys at the house.

She didn’t want to disturb Marc while he was wrapping things up with Avian. All she knew was that Simon had been banished from Pudding Hall and she hadn’t heard from him, thank God.

Besides, she was she was enjoying the space from Marc while she worked things out for herself.

She had worked at the soup van for two nights and had asked Zane how she could get more experience. He had said she just needed to volunteer and that they could talk about it after New Year’s.

She was excited to see what would happen next but she was also terrified. When they spoke on the phone Marc told her that this was normal and healthy and that he was terrified before every deal.

‘If you’re not scared then you’re not outside your comfort zone and that’s where the good stuff happens.’

But he hadn’t actually invited her back to Pudding Hall and she didn’t want to push in case Avian was still there. She could have a nice Christmas with Petey, but she felt sad that she couldn’t cook the meal she had planned.

Maybe she could volunteer, she thought, but Petey told her there wasn’t an actual sit-down Christmas lunch that he knew of, though he could ask around if she wanted.

‘Christmas is only two days away,’ she said. ‘This is why I want to create the dining hall one day. It would be wonderful.’

The doorbell rang and Christa, who was closest, went to answer it and when she opened it she gasped.

The twins stood tall in their puffy jackets, looking pleased with themselves.

She looked around for Marc and saw him in the car.

She hadn’t seen him since they had kissed in the kitchen and she felt a longing deep inside her.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Come in.’ She stepped back from the door for them but they shook their heads.

‘We can’t, we have to give you something,’ Seth said and he unzipped his jacket and pulled out a large envelope with her name written in a child’s writing on the front.

‘This is for you,’ said Ethan.

‘Thank you,’ she said and looked at Marc in the car, who smiled at her and she felt herself blush.

‘Open it,’ demanded Seth, so she did.

It was a large white card with a silver engraving of the Pudding Hall crest.

Below was printing in a beautiful seraph font in black ink.

Dear Christa,

You are cordially invited to Pudding Hall on 24th December to celebrate your birthday with cocktails and dinner and entertainment.

Dress: Formal

Time: 7pm

There was not a single mention of it being Christmas Eve or Christmas the next day. It was simply about her birthday. She looked at the boys and then hugged them both.

‘I can’t wait, thank you,’ she said, hearing her voice break with her emotion. She stood up and waved at Marc who waved back.

‘Thank you,’ she mouthed and he nodded and gave her a look that made her want to run and kiss him.

Rain started to fall and she looked up at the sky.

‘Scoot – into the car, both of you,’ she said as the rain began to fall sideways with more force than she had seen in a while.

The boys raced to the car and they waved as Marc drove away with a toot of the horn.

A formal dinner? She didn’t have a thing to wear.

Everything formal was back in London and she didn’t want to wear anything she had ever worn with Simon.

She wanted to be the new Christa, one that Simon knew nothing of.

She turned over the card to find more writing.

Stay for Christmas. Please.

M x

God, what was he doing to her, she thought, as she closed the front door. She took a deep breath and put the card back into the envelope and put it in her room before she went back into the kitchen.

Petey was putting the leftover fudge into a box.

‘I’ll take this down to the van for the staff. Nice for them to have a treat, don’t you think?’

‘That’s very kind of you, Peter,’ said Peggy. ‘A generous heart is a good heart, I always say.’

Christa sat down. ‘That was the boys. They asked me to dinner tomorrow night,’ she said.

‘How lovely,’ said Peggy.

Christa looked at her and at Petey, who was now folding the top of the box.

‘Did you know about this?’

Peggy shrugged. ‘Not at all, they didn’t ask me to cook,’ she said. ‘Which was just as well. I’m a terrible cook.’

Christa started to laugh. ‘I thought you loved your shepherd’s pie.’

‘Loathe it. I don’t even eat it, but it’s easy,’ Peggy admitted.

Christa sat in thought for a moment.

‘I think I’m going to go back to my maiden name,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be a Playfoot anymore.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ said Peggy. ‘I bet he was playing foot with all sorts of people.’

Petey laughed. ‘What’s your maiden name then, love? I did a lot of reading on surnames when Annie and I did research on the family tree. My surname is Chandler, which was the name for a candlemaker back in medieval times.’

‘I suppose Peter Fudge isn’t really an appealing moniker,’ said Peggy. ‘My surname is Smith,’ she added, ‘which is my married name, but my maiden name was Ramsbottom. That was hell when I was at school.’

Christa rubbed Peggy’s arm. ‘Children can be so mean.’ Peter stood up from the table and left the room and returned with a thick book.

‘What’s your maiden name then? I have a book of names that might have yours in it?’ Petey put down the well-leafed book and Christa looked at front.

‘The Big British Book of Surnames, updated 1999,’ she read aloud.

Petey picked up the book and held it in his hand.

‘Go on then, what’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Hartley,’ she said. ‘I have no idea what it means. Something to do with hearts I guess?’

Petey flicked through the book and then looked at her. ‘H.A.R.T?’ he spelled out.

She nodded. ‘L.E.Y.,’ she finished.

Petey looked up from the book. ‘That’s a popular name around Yorkshire,’ he said. ‘Your family come from here?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Dad didn’t talk about family much – only his grandmother from time to time – but then again, I didn’t ask. Self-absorbed teenager I guess.’

Petey looked at the page, running his finger down the list and then stopped.

‘Hartley. Stag clearing,’ he read aloud.

‘A what?’ she asked.

‘In Anglo-Saxon times, “hart” meant a male deer, a stag, and “lea” meant a clearing of wood. It would have meant your family lived where the deer stood in the clearings.’

Christa put her hands over her face. ‘Ever since I have been here I keep seeing this stag near Pudding Hall. I’ve seen him three times and once in the dell,’ she said to Peggy. ‘He was so close I could see the velvet on his antlers. And then Marc gave me a Christmas decoration of a deer family. Don’t you think that’s weird?’ she asked.

Petey shook his head. ‘No, I think you have an affinity with them and now you know why. I know Pudding Hall was once home to large deer clearing and hunters used to come before Mr Ferrier bought it. I don’t think he hunts though?’ he asked Peggy.

She shook her head. ‘No, never, there isn’t even a gun in the house.’

‘I love knowing the meaning of my name, Petey. Thank you for telling me.’ Christa stood up. ‘And now I have to go and find something formal to wear to my dinner,’ she said, feeling excited at the thought of wearing something other than jeans and jumpers.

Peggy grabbed her bag and patted Petey on the shoulder. ‘I’m off to run some errands.’

‘Do you want a lift anywhere?’ asked Christa but Peggy declined and soon Christa was on her way to find a dress worthy of the new Christa Hartley.