A New Dream, Maggie Ford [books to read romance txt] 📗

previous life Christmas had been a formal, restrained occasion. The family would attend midnight mass, arising the next day to an exchange of Christmas presents prior to sitting down to an excellent traditional dinner prepared by Mrs Granby and served by Mary, the maid. Finally they would settle down to a quiet evening.

Julia recalled how as children they would be sent upstairs to play with their presents while their mother and father sat before a roaring fire. As they grew older they would join their parents for a while before going off to bed early. Knowing no better, they had taken it for granted that this was how Christmas was spent in most homes. It was only when Julia had begun courting Chester that life had taken on a new aspect of enjoyment.

This year her mother would probably spend the day remembering and audibly mourning her husband. And although, with three of them working and Julia herself bringing in a little money from her own endeavours, they were by no means destitute, Christmas dinner wouldn’t be anywhere near as fine as once it had been. And nor would the company.

James was planning to spend most of the day with a friend who just happened to have an attractive sister, and might be eating at their house. Stephanie too had said that she would be going out in the afternoon and might not be home until the early hours. That left Julia, Ginny and their mother to spend the rest of the day together. It would be very different from last year, with the family apparently split apart.

Julia didn’t mind the loss of Stephanie. There had been a sullen and strained atmosphere for weeks between her and her sisters, with Stephanie dropping hurtful remarks that left Ginny feeling uncomfortable.

‘I only said I’d model for you to make you feel happier,’ she said to Julia.

‘If you don’t want to do it, I’ll understand,’ Julia told her but Stephanie’s attitude had made Ginny all the more determined.

‘I do want to! Otherwise I’ll have her putting on her airs and graces and looking down her nose at me as not being up to it. In truth I’m relieved that she won’t be here for most of Christmas Day. I can do without her!’

Julia was inclined to agree. She was glad though that Ginny would be staying loyally at home for the whole day. On a whim she’d invited Simon to come for dinner. Now she wondered if that had been the right thing to do. Stephanie was sure to be awkward and she didn’t relish her sniffing and huffing at the table and ignoring him. It was just as well Stephanie wouldn’t be there the whole afternoon.

Simon had seemed reluctant at first to accept her invitation. ‘I can hardly intrude on your family,’ he’d argued. ‘They wouldn’t relish a stranger at their Christmas dinner.’

‘You’re not a stranger.’

‘Not to you but I am to them, virtually. Better I don’t come.’

‘I’ll be the best judge of that,’ she had retorted. ‘We’re working partners and you’ll be my guest.’

‘Working partners,’ he repeated, pulling a rueful face. ‘I rather hoped we were more than that.’

Taken off guard, she laughed nervously. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

For once he didn’t laugh with her. ‘Maybe it means only what you want it to mean. If you don’t know, Julia, I’d like to make it clearer.’

As she stood there he took hold of her and pulled her to him, his lips closing upon hers. If she’d wondered about that first kiss so many weeks earlier, she was left in no doubt now about his feelings. She had melted into his arms, the moments going on and on.

With the delicious aroma of Christmas cooking filling the little flat, Julia’s insides were all a-flutter as she tried to remove the beautifully browned potatoes from the dish they’d been baked in.

She was in love. Yet beneath that wonderful sensation she was prey to tiny stabs of doubt. Was Simon in love with her, truly in love? He had to be, he was an honest man. Not like Chester who had purported to adore her, only to vanish when things had gone wrong for her and her family. Simon wouldn’t play her false. He wouldn’t lie to her. Yet this past year she’d come to know just how easily and quickly some things that appear so wonderful can turn bad. She had learned to be sceptical. Having been bitten once, she had grown wary, even hard, and she didn’t want to be hard. She wanted to be soft and pliable and in love.

‘Julia?’ Her youngest sister’s voice made her jump and turn.

Ginny was looking from her to the flat metal slice that lay idle in Julia’s hand while the baked potatoes remained stuck to the surface of the baking tray.

‘Standing there dreaming,’ Ginny went on as she resumed straining cabbage water from its black pot onto the meat juices in the meat dish to make gravy. The two pieces of pork and beef were already on their warmed plates waiting to be carved. ‘The potatoes will be cold before we know it. What are you dreaming about?’

‘Nothing,’ Julia said sharply and began almost viciously to free the adhered potatoes from the dish, piling them on to a plate to be popped back into the oven to keep warm. She still had to carve the meat and serve it on to each separate plate with the vegetables.

This would all be done in the kitchen and brought to the little table in the living room. It wouldn’t be like last Christmas, with the meat carved at a large family table covered with a variety of vegetables sitting in tureens. This year there was no maid to serve the soup course – there was no soup course. Nor were there any fine wines to be poured for them, one for each course. Today there were two bottles of cheap wine to accompany both the main course and the