A Proper Family Christmas Read Online Free

Annabel had bought some of them from the house’s previous owner, who had kept them in the barn. Others she had tracked down at auction.
    ‘No,’ said Annabel. ‘They’re not my ancestors, exactly, but I suppose you could say I’ve adopted them since I became the chatelaine of the house.’
    ‘Oh. I’m surprised,’ said Brummie Mouse. ‘Because you look a lot like that one.’
    Brummie Mouse pointed at the portrait of Mary Cavanagh, who had been mistress of the Great House in the sixteenth century. It wasn’t an entirely flattering comparison. Mary Cavanagh had a pinched and weary look to her patrician face. When the Buchanan family first moved into the house, Izzy had proclaimed that she was frightened by all the portraits, but especially Mary’s. She nicknamed her ‘The Witch’.
    Annabel’s smile wavered just a little but she soon recovered and carried on. ‘Even though we’ve changed the house in a great many ways, I can still feel the echoes of the people who went before. They’re in the walls. They’re in the furniture. In many ways, I feel a greater kinship with them than I feel with my real family.’
    ‘That’s a strange thing to say,’ said a largish woman, who sounded like she was from Coventry, loud enough for Annabel to hear.
    ‘Not everyone is as close as we are,’ whispered the woman’s companion, who was probably her mother. They had a similar build.
    ‘If you think I look like Mary Cavanagh, then I’m very pleased,’ Annabel continued. ‘She was an unusually well-educated woman for her time. She wrote a book regarding the emancipation of the poor; a rare achievement for a woman in those days. I like to think that if she were around today, we would have a lot in common.’
    ‘They do share a nose,’ the Coventry woman muttered.
    Annabel gritted her teeth. ‘OK, everybody. We’re going upstairs. Do be careful not to knock into the paintings as you come up.’
    The little boy who hadn’t wiped his feet took the stairs two at a time. The portraits obviously didn’t interest him but he seemed keen to get a closer look at the suit of armour on the landing.
    As the rest of the visitors streamed by him – they were going up another flight – the boy lingered in awe. It was quite charming, the look on his face. His hand hovered in front of the armoured mannequin’s breastplate.
    ‘Jack! Don’t touch,’ the child’s mother – the woman from Coventry – screeched and yanked his hand away. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’
    Annabel gave the boy a consoling smile.
    The tour group followed her up another two staircases and squeezed on to the narrow galleried landing at the very top of the house. Fortunately, there was no armour to be monkeyed with here.
    ‘And now,’ said Annabel, ‘the most important room in the house.’ She turned to indicate a closed door.
    Unlike the rest of the house, the door to this room hinted that something other than Architectural Digest -style perfection lay behind. A brightly coloured nameplate announced that this was ‘Izzy’s room’.
    ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse the mess.’

Chapter Five
Sophie
    Sophie Benson-Edwards’ bedroom back in Coventry was the smallest room in the house. Somehow her brother Jack had ended up with a bigger room. Their mother Ronnie had made the decision. She said that Jack had more crap: toys and train sets and the like, which she was not going to have downstairs in the lounge. The only way to contain Jack’s junk was to make sure that his bedroom was big enough to play in.
    Most of the time, Sophie was fine with that. Her bedroom was tiny but it overlooked the street in front of the house, which was useful now she was going out with Harrison Collerick. Whenever Sophie was grounded, which was often, Harrison would stand in the bus shelter across the road so that she could see him in real life while they BBMd each other frantically. It was real Romeo and Juliet stuff.
    But this girl’s