Christmas at the Farmhouse - Rebecca Boxall Page 0,33

His face was red, too, and I could see him trying to control his own rage.

‘Do not touch him!’ Father shouted at me. ‘You good-for-nothing little hussy! You’re to go to your bedroom straight away! Now!’ he yelled.

‘You have no right to speak to her like that! No right at all. She’s virtually an adult!’ Robin spoke back. ‘And if we want to marry, then we will. Whether you give us your blessing or not.’

Father smiled a nasty little grin. ‘You think you’re clever, don’t you? You’ve got that look about you. But you’re clearly not very clued up on the law. Susan is seventeen. Legally, she cannot marry anyone without her father’s consent until she’s twenty-one.’ The smile was suddenly replaced with a frown, as though he’d thought of an obstacle. ‘Well, admittedly I saw something in The Times about it changing to eighteen soon, but you’d still need my permission until March next year and I can guarantee that I won’t give it to you!’ He looked triumphant again.

‘So you’d rather her be a single mother than marry me?’ Robin asked, clearly incredulous.

‘She won’t be a single mother. And if you tell another soul in the town what you’ve done to her, you’ll have me to answer to! Mother, find me a telephone number for one of those Homes for Unmarried Mothers. That’s where you’ll be going quick smart, Miss,’ he said to me, spittle from his angry mouth landing on my face. ‘And you won’t return until you resemble a respectable seventeen-year-old girl again.’

‘I don’t want to give up the baby!’ I cried, feeling sick at how powerless we were. ‘I won’t give up the baby!’

‘Yes you will,’ said Father, quietly again. ‘You absolutely will.’

Robin left, then, tears in his eyes as he looked at me one last time.

I was packed off to the Home a month later, my father not allowing me to say goodbye to Robin or even Penny. I cried the whole way there.

Chapter Eighteen

Monday 23rd December 2019

Jo – Stockings

I decided to do stockings for all the children in the end. After all, I never know when it’s going to be the last Christmas we’re all together as a family. At some point one of the in-laws is definitely going to want to have Christmas with their own family; Mikkel has already warned me that next year he and Belle and the twins might be heading to Belle’s native Australia for Christmas. And by then Freja’s baby will be here and perhaps Xav will have moved on. So, if this is it, I want it to be as traditional as possible.

I scattered everything onto my bed and sorted it into piles: for the boys, warm socks, boxer shorts, shower gel, beer coolers, golf balls (Mikkel) and riding gloves (Lucas).

For the girls – always far more fun to buy for – scented candles, lip-glosses, festive earrings, face wipes, novels and notelets.

I couldn’t wrap the gifts in front of the fire in the sitting room – too many eagle eyes about – so I completed the task on my bed during the early afternoon. I put the TV on for company and discovered that Love Actually was playing so I watched that with one eye, a favourite for getting myself in the mood for Christmas.

Once everything was wrapped, I realised I didn’t have any tangerines, so I headed downstairs to get some. In the kitchen I was surprised to find Lucas, Astrid and Freja sitting around the kitchen table surrounded by cookery books.

‘What are you lot up to?’ I asked.

‘You’ve caught us! We were going to do it as a surprise,’ Lucas explained. ‘We’ve decided you’re going to be doing enough cooking over the next few days so we’re going to cook tonight’s supper.’

They all looked so pleased with themselves I decided not to tell them I’d only planned on defrosting a casserole.

‘What a treat!’ I said, grabbing a few tangerines from the fruit bowl. ‘What have you done with everyone else?’

‘Dad’s gone up to his office to get a bit of work done, Heidi’s taken Violet off for a walk, and Percy’s having a nap,’ Astrid told me. ‘Now off you go and we don’t want to see you again until this evening!’

Duly dismissed, I returned to the bedroom and stashed the tangerines and all the wrapped presents in a box at the bottom of my wardrobe. All sorted, I wondered what to do next. I looked at the bed, which seemed to wink at