In the Brazilian's Debt(59)

                When they’d finished they sat back in the kitchen, exhausted, with a cup of tea. ‘Even if we’re evicted, the village will remember the party,’ Lizzie said with a smile of satisfaction at a job well done. Everything was gleaming and smelled fresh, but then reality kicked in and she pulled a face. ‘It’s just a pity I don’t have any money to make the party special.’

                ‘Your grandmother was much loved here,’ Annie said gently. ‘And if there’s going to be a miracle at Rottingdean, what better time for it to happen than at Christmas?’

                Lizzie sighed ruefully. She wished she could believe in miracles, but for Annie’s sake she kept those cynical thoughts to herself.

                * * *

                Her grandmother’s funeral was timed so there was a chance to hold a gathering afterwards. Even if they only drank cups of tea and sang songs, it would be something nice to do for her grandmother and those who had loved her, Lizzie thought, biting her lip with concern as she viewed the few coins and low-value bank notes she had tossed out of her change purse onto the bed.

                There had been one small miracle, she conceded, turning the horsehair friendship bracelet on her wrist. She’d found it when she’d been foraging in the attic for Christmas decorations. Chico had made it for her. She should throw it away, but as she turned it round and round she remembered that he’d painstakingly woven it for her so she would never forget him. ‘As if,’ she murmured, huffing a rueful smile.

                Shaking her head with regret at the way things had turned out, she slipped the bracelet into the pocket of her jeans, intending to throw it in the bin when she got downstairs. She was halfway down the stairs when she heard a knock at the door.

                Her heart soared and plummeted in the same instant. When was she going to realise that Chico was in Brazil, and that he had no intention of travelling to Scotland?

                Annie answered the door, and when Annie started giving orders in a confident voice as if she knew their visitors Lizzie took that as her cue to go downstairs.

                She was just in time to witness a second miracle as a tall Scots pine was delivered. The ghillies from the estate were busy erecting it in the hall. It touched her to think they had remembered, where her grandmother had always put her Christmas tree. ‘We’ll hang the lights for you,’ one of the ghillies said, beaming smiles at Lizzie as she continued on downstairs.

                ‘And decorations,’ Annie reminded them. ‘And then I’ll give you a nice cup of tea, and a piece of my freshly baked cake–with your permission, Miss Lizzie.’

                ‘Of course.’ Lizzie couldn’t stop smiling at the thought that she would soon come to believe in miracles at this rate.

                Keep that thought, she reflected tensely as someone else knocked at the door.

                But it was the local farmer delivering a turkey, a ham, and a tray of eggs.

                ‘I’m afraid I can’t pay you,’ Lizzie admitted with embarrassment.

                ‘Please don’t insult me,’ the farmer insisted in a kindly way. ‘This is my Christmas gift to you and to everyone who works here.’

                ‘I hope you’ll join us here to celebrate my grandmother’s life after we say goodbye?’

                ‘We’ll never say goodbye to your grandmother while you’re here, Miss Lizzie,’ he said gruffly, and while Lizzie was still taking this in, Annie remembered something that could turn out to be the biggest miracle of all.