when I was small… Not very aesthetic, I know, but for me the real spirit of Christmas is the thought behind the gift, not its material value.’
He was right, of course, and Belle knew it, shared his sentiments, but somehow he had made her feel that her values were glossy and worthless and even, in some belittling way, that she was glossy and worthless too.
Today, though, was Christmas Eve, and very soon their own special Christmas present was going to arrive. And every Christmas from now on, when they woke up in their special bed, when they made love in it, they would remember this, their first Christmas in their new home. Belle couldn’t wait to see the bed with its special headboard in situ, to polish and admire it.
It was almost lunchtime when the van finally arrived in the narrow country lane outside their house.
‘What’s this?’ Luc frowned as the driver got out. ‘They must be looking for somewhere else. We haven’t ordered anything…’
‘Yes, we have,’ Belle corrected him excitedly, craning her neck so that she could see out of the window as the men went to the rear of the van. ‘Well, I have. It’s our Christmas present…well, mine to you…to us…to the house. It’s the bed, Luc, the one I told you about…with the wonderful headboard,’ she hurried on.
‘The one we agreed we wouldn’t have because it was too expensive?’ Luc asked her quietly.
But Belle was oblivious to the cold undertone to his voice, too busy watching what was going on outside the window to be aware of the hurt look in his eyes as she agreed flippantly, ‘That’s the one.’
‘You went ahead and bought it without telling me, despite what we’d agreed…’
Now Belle did look at him, alerted to his feelings by the ominous tone of his voice.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ she told him. ‘It’s a present…a surprise. Luc…what is it? Where are you going?’ she demanded frantically as he turned his back on her and started to walk towards the back door.
‘Luc, come back,’ she pleaded, but it was too late, and she couldn’t run after him because the delivery men were already coming up the path with their new bed.
Luc would come round when he saw how wonderful their bedroom looked with the bed and its headboard proudly adorning it, Belle decided two hours later, when the men had gone and she was standing in the doorway of their bedroom admiring her new acquisition. They would need to get some different bedding now, she acknowledged, frowning a little as she studied the pretty floral set they had been given as a wedding present. Somehow it just didn’t do the new bed justice.
Luc had sanded and polished the old floorboards shortly after they had moved in, and they certainly set the bed off perfectly. It was, she knew, the kind of bed that demanded heavy Irish linen sheets scented with lavender, old-fashioned bed linen, all the traditional touches.
Luc would love that, waking up smelling of lavender… Luc…where was he? He had been gone a long time. She hoped he’d…
It was almost half an hour later when another van pulled up outside the house, a much shabbier, older one than the one which had delivered their new bed and its accoutrements, and, to her astonishment, she saw Luc climbing out of the driver’s door.
‘Luc.’ She went to the front door and opened it, calling out anxiously to him. ‘Where have you been?’
‘To get your Christmas present,’ he told her grimly.
Her Christmas present. In that old van… What on earth…? Warily she walked to the front gate and opened it, staring into the back of the van as Luc unlocked and raised the shutter door.
‘What is it? What have you got in there?’ she asked him uncertainly.
‘I’ve already told you. Your Christmas present.’
As the last of the fading daylight filled the van and she saw inside it Belle’s heart gave a shocked bound. There, in pieces, inside the van, was an old-fashioned bedframe, an obviously newly bought mattress and, tucked along one side of it, covered in a piece of old sheeting was the unmistakable shape of a wooden headboard.
‘Luc…what have you done—’ she began, and then stopped as he turned round and she saw his face.
She had never seen him look so bleak…so distant…so alien from her and to her.
‘Very much the same as you’ve done. I’ve bought us a Christmas present. A new bed. For us…for you…’ he told her in a voice that was icily polite and icily distant.
‘That isn’t new…the frame’s old…’ Belle began defensively. ‘It looks…’
‘It looks what?’ Luc challenged her. ‘It looks as though your colleagues…and your clients…would laugh at it, turn their materialistic designer noses up at it. Well, for your information, this bed belonged to my grandparents. They slept in it…cherished it…cared for it and valued it, just as my parents have done.’
‘It’s… It’s…’ Belle just didn’t know what to say, and then, as Luc climbed into the van, the sheeting slipped off the headboard and the colour left her face completely. Unlike the frame itself, the headboard was quite plainly new. She could tell that because of the pretty carving on it, entwining their initials and the date of their marriage.
‘Luc… You bought…’ she began, but Luc was already shaking his head.
‘I bought nothing apart from the mattress,’ he told her grimly. ‘The wood, good solid English oak, belonged to the father of one of my pupils. He gave it to me in exchange for his son’s tuition. I did the carving myself. It isn’t as fancy nor, I dare say, as desirable as the one you’ve bought, but…’
‘You carved it…’ Belle stopped him. ‘You carved it…’
‘Yes.’ Luc told her curtly, pushing the cloth back over it. ‘But of course I realise that it won’t come anywhere near to matching the one you’ve bought. The one I couldn’t afford to buy you. It doesn’t matter what I do or what I say, what I give you…how much I love you. The fact remains that you’re the one who’s supporting us both, financing us both…’
‘Luc, what does that matter?’ Belle protested. ‘And besides, that’s only temporary. When you get your fellowship…
‘Oh, Luc, I love you so very much, and I love the headboard as well,’ Belle told him tenderly—and she meant it.
* * *
Luc’s gift to her, his bed, was installed in their bedroom whilst the one she had bought was relegated to one of the guest bedrooms. They made up their quarrel, and the ones that followed it, but with each one the fabric of their marriage grew a little thinner, until eventually the day came when neither of them could be bothered to repair the worn patches any longer.
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