Christmas at His Command

Every time he took her hand or pulled her against him, every time he kissed her goodnight or sat with his arm round her or stroked her hair, she waited for him to make the next move. And he didn’t. He just didn’t!

Most nights, and especially following the evenings when she saw him, Marigold tossed and turned for hours before she could fall asleep, her mind racing and her body burning. She tried to convince herself her restlessness was due to all the changes occurring in her life, and there were plenty of those.

Emma had agreed to the sale of the cottage as soon as she had returned to the office in January. Apparently she had had a dreadful time there; being unable to light the fires without filling the cottage with smoke, struggling with the ancient stove and blocking the sink were just a few of the mishaps she’d suffered.

The final straw had occurred when a mouse had decided to investigate the bedroom one night, Emma had reported, and then added insult to injury by choosing one of Emma’s sheepskin slippers for a nest.

In view of the isolation of the cottage and not least Emma’s new-year decision to travel round Europe for a while with one of her friends, purportedly to recover from her broken heart at Oliver’s exit from her life, the asking price for the small house was very reasonable. A sizable bequest by Marigold’s maternal grandparents some years ago which she had resisted touching until now meant she could afford a fifty-per-cent deposit on the cottage, and after she had shopped around a little she found a bank who were prepared to put up the rest. The deposit meant her mortgage repayments were gratifyingly low, and, with Emma including all the furniture and household effects right down to her grandmother’s dustpan and brush, her immediate outgoings would be negligible.

Marigold had given notice she would be vacating the flat at the end of March, which was when she intended to move to Shropshire, and had printed myriad copies of her CV with an accompanying letter explaining she intended to freelance in her new location, and sent them to every contact she’d ever made. To date she’d had several promising replies which could lead to work in the near future but, apart from the partners at her present firm promising they would continue to leave the new designs for the greeting cards in her capable hands, nothing concrete.

And then, at the beginning of March, several events happened within the space of twenty-four hours and with a speed which left Marigold breathless.

At ten o’clock on a blustery March morning the cottage finally became hers; at eleven o’clock she was contacted by a small firm on the borders of Shropshire who had been given her name by their parent company in London. Would she be interested in a new project they were considering regarding a range of English countryside calendars, cards, diaries, notelets, et cetera?

Indeed she would, Marigold answered enthusiastically.

They would market the proposed venture very much on the lines of a ‘local country artist’ thrust, which was why she had been approached. They understood she was moving to Shropshire shortly?

At the end of March, Marigold confirmed, her heart beating excitedly.

Her CV stated Miss Flower had already had the experience of setting up a new section within her present firm. If their scheme was successful—and they had every reason to think it would be, as their parent company was intending to back them to the hilt—would Miss Flower be prepared to think about spearheading the development of this work?

Miss Flower would be only too delighted!

At three in the afternoon of the same day the telephone on her desk rang for the umpteenth time. Marigold picked it up, a lilt borne of the happenings of the morning in her voice as she said brightly, ‘Marigold Flower speaking.’

There was a brief pause before a male voice said quietly, ‘Marigold? It’s Dean. I…I wondered how you were?’

‘Dean?’ If the person at the other end of the line had been the queen of England she couldn’t have been more taken aback.

‘Don’t put down the phone.’

His voice was urgent, and Marigold wrinkled her brow before she said, ‘I wasn’t going to.’

Dean must have taken her honest reply as some form of encouragement, because he said with intensity, ‘I’ve missed you. Hell, I’ve missed you more than words can say. I was such a fool, Marigold. Can you ever forgive me?’

She held the telephone away from her ear for a moment, staring at the receiver blankly. And then she said, ‘It happened and I found it hard at the time, but it’s in the past now, Dean.’

‘But do you forgive me?’

Did she? Marigold considered for a second and realised she’d barely spared a thought for Dean and Tamara in the last two months. ‘I’ve moved on,’ she said steadily, ‘so that must mean I forgive you.’

‘I’m not with Tamara any more. She drove me mad half the time. Always wanting attention and never satisfied with anything. She wasn’t like you, Marigold.’

Two spoilt brats with egos to match. No, she could imagine things might not have gone too well.

‘I know I hurt you but there’s never been anyone like you, you have to believe that,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve always been my anchor, the one person I could count on.’

She had to stop this. She didn’t want to be anyone’s anchor, she wanted far more than that, and she realised with absolute clarity that Dean would never be able to give of himself. Dean was what mattered to Dean. ‘Dean, if things had been right between us you wouldn’t have gone with Tamara in the first place,’ she said steadily. ‘It was just as well we found that out before we got married.’

‘No, no, that’s not it at all.’ He sounded desperate and she was surprised to realise she felt sorry for him. It was like listening to a child, a selfish child who had broken his toy in a tantrum and was now demanding that it be put back together. But the toy had been an engagement, a commitment to get married. Flynn had said she could die waiting for Dean to grow up and he had been absolutely right. She had done her stint of babysitting him.

‘It was your decision to go off with Tamara,’ Marigold said firmly, hating the conversation with its distasteful connotations. ‘And frankly I think it was the best thing for both of us. You obviously weren’t ready for marriage and it would have been a disaster. There’ll be someone for you in the future, Dean, but it won’t be me. Goodbye.’

She put down the phone on his voice, her heart thudding fit to burst. It rang again almost immediately but she didn’t pick it up, letting the answer machine click on. ‘Marigold? Pick up. Please, Marigold, pick up.’ A few seconds’ silence followed, and then his voice came again, a petulant note creeping in as he said, ‘I know you’re there. Look, if you want me to grovel I will, but you know we’re meant to be together. You love me, you always have done. I need you.’ A few more moments of silence and then the receiver was replaced at the other end.

Marigold became aware she was holding her breath and let it out in a big sigh. Six months, and he expected he could pick up where he’d left off all that time ago at the drop of a hat. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.