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The Cousin Wilberforce who appeared at the dinner table was a different creature to the one who had arrived at the front door. Spruced up, bathed and brushed, he was a presentable fox indeed. He was wearing a tail spat with his evening dress; it was an old-fashioned affectation, but it hid the bald spot and the kink. Otto must have dug it up from somewhere. Kind, perceptive dog!

Bentley's mother brightened visibly at the sight of Wilberforce. His cousin had been held up to Bentley in cubhood as a shining example of everything Bentley should be and was not, and Bentley could see that things were going to go the same way now. His mother had not witnessed the thin, pale fox of the afternoon. It might have done her some good if she had, Bentley thought - or maybe not. She was too old to accept the war and the way it had changed, was still changing, the world. Her obstinate incomprehension probably saved her from a great deal of distress.

Wilberforce was good with the old bird, too. He had lost his own mother too early, and his father, Bentley remembered, was fierce and distant, frightening both cubs whenever Bentley had visited. Wilby visibly expanded under Lady ffox's fuss and flattery. The portions he allowed Otto to serve him were small - Bentley suspected the German camp had left his stomach delicate - but it was a pleasure to watch him savour every mouthful.

"You look quite the fox about town again," Bentley observed. "Ready to meet the local vixens?"

Wilberforce chewed and swallowed a mouthful of potato, his tail, fluffed up to disguise its thinness, twitching.

"Rather!" he said.

His chance came the next morning. Otto drove them to the nearby market town, both foxes being in need of new clothes. Bentley was more muscular than he had been before the war, and Wilberforce thinner. The Weimaraner, too, required more than a borrowed butler's outfit and his master's cast-offs.

"One should visit a London tailor, really," Wilberforce observed. "Get the latest fashions."

"No, one shouldn't. One should support local industry. Besides, I can't stand the ridiculous get-up they're wearing in London this season."

The tailor's shop was smaller and shabbier than Bentley remembered it, with only a few bolts of cloth where once they had been stacked to the ceiling.

"Lord ffox! I was sorry to hear about your father. He wore no suits but mine for forty years," said the marten behind the counter.

"Thank you, Mr Teppel. I'll remember you to Mother. And this is my cousin Wilberforce. How was the war for you?"

"Not good. I tried to join up but they wouldn't have me. Then I was in a camp for a month before they worked out an old German tailor marten was no threat. Took both my boys for the Front. I got one back but his nerve's gone. I've sewn nothing but khaki for four years and had my windows broken twice. For this my mother brought me from Germany in '78?"

Then Otto spoke in German, and the marten startled, noticing the grey dog for the first time. He nodded vigorously and replied with an enthusiasm Bentley hadn't known him to display before. He called his son, the one whose nerve had gone, from the back of the shop, and set him to measuring all three of them.

"Good to be home, isn't it?" Bentley asked as the boy knelt at his feet, the cloth tape against his inside leg.

"Y...y...." agreed the young marten, his paws suddenly shaking. The boy's father was still chatting away to Otto.

Bentley put his paw on the younger marten's shoulder. "Do you get bad dreams?"

The boy just nodded.

"Me too. It doesn't mean you're not brave. We let our guard down at night, and that's when it gets you. Your brain's just trying to work out what the hell happened and make some sort of sense of it."

"None of us will ever forget," Wilberforce put in. "But it becomes easier. Now, young shaver, I want a high collar! Like they have in London!"

"Found a friend?" Bentley asked Otto as they left the shop.

"I think so, yes," the dog said. He dropped behind his master, and for the rest of the morning he haggled for purchases, handed over payment, and carried parcels.

They visited the hatter's, the bootmaker's, the draper's. Wilberforce had always enjoyed shopping, but today he did it with a sort of fierce determination, as though he could build a wall of socks and shirt-fronts and pocket handkerchiefs between himself and the last four years.

It was in the glove shop that Julia Portman found them. The small shop was a squeeze for all of them, and Bentley tactfully extracted himself, afterwards sticking his muzzle up against the window to observe proceedings. He saw the two foxes exchange greetings and talk for a moment. Julia picked up a pair of gloves in lavender silk. Wilberforce raised a paw, said something which made the vixen giggle, then took the gloves from her and beckoned Otto with the wallet. The gloves were wrapped and presented to Julia.

Jolly good. Good as a pantomime! Bentley swished his tail with satisfaction. Julia, clutching her little parcel, swept out of the shop and past him without so much as a good morning. Wilberforce and Otto emerged more slowly.

"The way to a lady's heart is through her wardrobe, eh?" grinned Bentley. Wilberforce didn't answer, but stalked off ahead to the omnibus stop to wait for the 'bus they'd been forced to take since the ffoxes' horses, and groom, had been requisitioned for the war.

"Otto? Explain, if you can," Bentley muttered to his valet.

The Weimaraner 's big paws flopped into a shrug. How soft the pads were, Bentley thought, even after all the dog had been through!

"Vhen your cousin offered to pay for the gloves, she goes stiff, like wire. She thanks him, but it is a cold thanks. I think she vould have preferred you to buy, Kapitän."

Bentley snorted. "She really is a hound! Oh, sorry, Otto!"

The snow arrived on the Sunday before Christmas, riding the back of a biting wind. Bentley and Wilberforce, waiting for Lady ffox to finish her conversation with the vicar, stood stamping and shivering outside the church. The one-armed veteran was in his usual spot, huddled in an ulster.

Wilberforce, holding forth on the prospects for next year's harvest, stopped in the middle of a sentence. Bentley, following his gaze, saw Julia Portman emerging on her father's arm.

"For goodness' sake, Wilberforce! Stop acting like a wet blanket and sweep her off her feet!"

"No." Wilberforce would not meet Bentley's eye. "It's you she wants, not me, and who can blame her? I look like Death." He planted his cane firmly between his feet and stared down at it.

"At least try to...good morning, Julia! Going to the Sylvesters' party? Got a space on your dance card for Wilby here?"

"Perhaps," Julia replied. "If I may have the first dance with you, Bentley."

"You drive a hard bargain, old feather-boa, but very well."

Julia snorted, gathered her skirts about her, and swept away. Wilberforce stared after her, looking like a cub with its nose pressed against the sweet-shop window.

"There goes the most delightful vixen ever to tread this earth," he observed.

Bentley squinted down his muzzle at him. "You're a decent enough fellow, Wilby," he conceded, "but you have some dashed strange tastes."

"You don't know how lucky you are, Benty. She's a peach."

"That may be so. Maybe I don't like peaches. I might prefer, say, onions."

"Sauerkraut, more like!"

"Oh, very droll, Wilby. Very astute."

"I'm right, aren't I? It's that valet of yours. Leopards never change their spots, and you've been queer as a nine-bob note since we were cubs." The ruined tail flicked.

"Is it really such a terrible thing, Wilberforce? After all we've seen, you surely can't be horrified and disgusted by the notion of a little more love in the world?"

The other fox sighed. "I suppose not. It just seems a bit of a waste, that's all, when there's a gorgeous young vixen pining away for you."

"My loss will be your gain, Wilby. I'm holding a soirée on Christmas Eve at which everyone's wishes will be granted," he promised extravagantly. "Including Mother's."

Bentley wasn't entirely sure how the thing was to be managed. His best efforts so far had not managed to transfer Julia Portman's affections from himself on to his cousin; the more obnoxious Bentley's behaviour, the more determined she became, like some Salvation Army crusader bent on saving his soul. But he had a great deal of faith in both his brains and his lucky star. They had seen him through the greatest conflict the world had ever known; an affair of the heart would surely be small beer by comparison.

The Sylvesters' Christmas ball had always been one of the county's grander functions, and wartime shortages did not seem to have made a great deal of difference to the spread on display. Bentley looked forward to a more intimate acquaintance with the table of glistening pies, cakes and jellies, but there was his dance with Julia Portman to be endured first.

The first dance was a waltz; no new-fangled jazz or ragtime for the Sylvesters. Bentley bowed to his partner, took her left paw in his right, and placed his other paw just above her hip.

"Well, you beast?" she asked as the music swelled, her fingers gripping his tightly. "Are you going to propose to me, or not?"

"Forgive me, Julia, but I simply don't see why you're so dead set on marrying me. You don't seem to like me very much."

"I don't want to marry you!" the vixen snapped. "You have made it your business to aggravate and embarrass me from our first day at infant school!" She swung Bentley round to avoid colliding with another couple.

"I'm supposed to lead, you know, old girl. What about Wilberforce?"

Julia's furious mask crumbled and a tender light came into her eyes. "I have always admired your cousin," she said.

"But he's damaged goods? Slightly shop-soiled? Reduced to clear?" The two foxes pressed their cheeks together.

"Oh, if he was mine, I should care for him like a nurse. It's the money." She whispered the last word as if it were obscene - which it practically was among their class, the very one that had it in the greatest abundance.

Bentley blinked. He had always thought Julia a mercenary type, but to hear it put so baldly was a surprise. He was framing a suitably cutting response when Julia surprised him again by burying her face in his chest to hide her tears. Automatically, he rubbed the small of her back.

"Daddy isn't rich any more, Bentley," she said into his celluloid dickey. "He sank a lot of money into some sort of weapon for the army, and then it didn't work."

"I'm surprised the government didn't snap it up, in that case," Bentley murmured back. "Just the sort of thing they leap at."

"You must realise that our sort are not always able to marry for love," Julia continued. "Daddy had tears in his eyes when he asked me to win you; he is well aware of my feelings on the matter, and he is not fond of you himself. He said if you ever hurt me he'd horsewhip you."

Bentley raised an eyebrow. "Your honesty is appreciated."

"It would benefit both our families to have things this way. I'll try to be a good wife, Bentley, and if we cannot love each other, perhaps there will be cubs we can both adore. I know it's not what you want either, and I'll turn a blind eye if you want to run around with that farm kitten of yours, or - or with a - "

"Don't say it, Julia. Simply not necessary."

"Then you'll..."

"I will be hanged before I marry you, Julia Portman! And I say that not because I dislike you, though Heaven knows that's true, but because I won't stand to see you saddled with a pest like me when you could be with the fox of your dreams. Let me ask you a question: if money didn't come into it, would you marry Wilby?"

"Of course. If it wasn't for the position my parents are in I would gladly live in poverty with him."

Bentley found that hard to believe, but he let it pass. "I only ask one thing, Julia. Come to tea on Christmas Eve, and trust me. Oh - that's two things! Can you bear it?"

Julia's steps never faltered - she was a pretty thing, really, and light on her feet. "All right, Bentley. You always were a cunning little brute. I'll see what you can come up with. And if you ever breathe a word of what I've said this evening..."

"Horsewhip?"

"You will long for the horsewhip by the time I've finished with you."

When the music stopped, it was with no little relief that Bentley deposited his partner into the waiting arms of his cousin. Soon, however, he was bored silly. He ate; he danced with the youngest Sylvester daughter, a giggly kitten of twelve who had been allowed to stay up late; he played at Snap-Dragon with some likeable old buffers in the corner. He was pleased when the carriages arrived at midnight, and delighted when he saw Wilberforce and Julia with their heads together.

"Why don't you see Julia home, Wilby? I'll walk. It's a lovely night," he said, helping Wilberforce on with his muffler. Wilberforce gave a half-hearted protest followed by a grateful smile. Bentley watched the carriage roll away, and set off across the fields.

The snow had settled to a crisp blanket; the moon was full, and the stars bright as electric lamps. Bentley's breath curled above his head as he crunched into the village and past the church. The cripple was curled against the wall, asleep.

"I say - still here? You'll freeze!" Bentley put a paw on his shoulder. The dog, startled, jerked his head back, and in the moonlight Bentley saw his face clearly for the first time.

"Dewlap? Hughie Dewlap? I thought you were dead!"

"I wish I was, and all."

"You're a selfish fool and a bounder, Hughie Dewlap, and if you had two paws I'd punch you on the nose. I've a good mind to do it anyway. You've broken off your engagement and broken Grace's heart into the bargain, and there's absolutely no need for it - none at all."

"What can I offer a girl like Grace? What can I offer any girl?"

"Your heart and soul," Bentley said simply.

"That's all very well, but my heart and soul won't feed us or put a roof over our heads. There are few enough jobs for the able-bodied, let alone a cripple."

"You worked in the Champneigh orchard before the war, didn't you?"

"Aye. But the boss wouldn't have me back."

Bentley fished for his wallet. "Here - get yourself a room, buy a decent set of clothes, and have a bath. And come to tea at Sandybanks. On Christmas Eve."

"I can't take..."

"It's a loan. You'll pay me back out of your first wages."

Leaving the one-armed hound to gape open-mouthed, Bentley trotted home through the snow.

His Christmas Eve party took a great deal of organising. And if that meant a lot of time spent in the cosy, firelit kitchen, Bentley's head bent close to Otto's as they plotted, well, so much the better.

"And mince pies," he said, kissing the Weimaraner between the ears. "And cucumber sandwiches. And you."

"Ich?" Those eyes looked up into his. This evening, they were the colour of pale ale. "I don't think so, Bentley."

"Damn. Thought I'd caught you that time."

"You caught me long time since, mein Kapitän."

They smiled at each other, and put the menu to one side.

Adjusting his tie as he trotted back up the corridor, Bentley glowed with fondness for the gaunt, grey German. The only fly in the ointment was keeping their love a secret. Could he fix that, too, on Christmas Eve? It seemed impossible, with so many factors against them: Otto's nationality, his status as a servant, his sex. But Bentley was a cunning ffox, and this was just the sort of problem he liked. He was going to fix things for everyone else, he reflected. Surely he deserved a little happiness of his own?

Our love, he thought suddenly, flicking his tail. I said 'our love'.

On Christmas Eve, Sandybanks glittered like a star. Candles everywhere, lighting every window and clipped to every branch of the giant fir tree in the hall and its smaller cousin in the parlour. The two fox cousins gazed, spellbound as cubs, with a hundred flickering lights reflected in their wondering eyes.

"I say! I feel I should be hanging up a stocking, what?" Wilberforce whispered. Bentley nodded, reaching out a paw to pat one of the glass baubles that dangled and winked from the dark branches. He moved, experimentally, to a small package wrapped in pink tissue, and squeezed it.

"Ach, nein! Those are for the morning!" scolded Otto. Wilberforce laughed.

"This really is like being a cub again!" he said. "How did you manage it all, Otto?"

The Weimaraner bowed. "It is the tradition of my country," he said. "Your Prince Albert brought the German Christmas to you, but we have been doing it for longer, you see!"

All three fell silent, remembering Christmases past. Bentley thought briefly of Christmas in the trenches, then pushed those memories aside.

"Remember when I got my tricycle?" he asked.

"And crashed it on Boxing Day, and bent the handlebars, yes!" Wilberforce nudged him. "I remember the year you got a pony and you gave it away to that kitten, what was her name? Grace? I don't know which of you howled louder when your people said she couldn't keep it." He winked at Otto.

The old Wilberforce wouldn't have bothered to remember her name, Bentley thought.

"Tea will be served directly," said Otto.

"Very good, Otto. You've picked up this butlering lingo as if you were born to it!"

It was nice that Otto felt safe enough in the ffoxes' presence to snort.

In front of Lady ffox, however, he was dignity itself, pulling out a chair for her and laying a napkin across her lap.

Bentley had grown used to the spreads Otto conjured out of the plain provisions from the farm and the still meagre offerings available in the shops - grown spoilt, really - but the Weimaraner had excelled himself this time.

"Hurry up, guests!" he said, rubbing his paws together - just as he had done in anticipation of party teas long past.

"Bentley! Don't be so greedy!" his mother scolded, as she had done then. Their eyes met, and they each dared a small chuckle.

The door bell chimed and Otto clicked off to welcome the visitors. Lady ffox looked approvingly at Julia Portman, indulgently at Grace. As her beady gaze moved from one to the other, Bentley thought she was on the point of asking a question, but she thought better of it.

"Are these all the guests?" she asked.

"For the present," Bentley replied smugly.

"Then let us begin."

Otto passed among them, serving the toast, the butter, preserve and Gentleman's Relish in their porcelain dishes, and the tea.

"Remember that plum and apple muck?" Bentley grunted, spreading a thick layer of redcurrant jelly across his toast.

"Rather!" said Wilberforce, at the same moment as his mother said "Language, Bentley!"

There was a thing called a stollen, somewhere between a cake and a bread, with dried fruit and great lumps of marzipan. There were mince pies washed with a sugar glaze, and there was Yule log in a brittle coat of chocolate, topped with a celluloid robin.

Otto left to refill the teapot. On his return, Bentley checked his pocket watch and nodded.

"I've got something to say," he announced, rising to his feet. "Sit down, Otto, I want you to hear this too. And for goodness sake have a mince pie or something, that's a good fellow. Now, Mother! My party, my rules!" He swung round to stare down the elder ffox, and she subsided.

"When I came home from France, Mother, you demanded that I settle my future here and now. I didn't have much time to think about it, but think about it I did, and I hope you will accept the results. Julia!"

The young vixen's eyes betrayed no emotion, but her slim paw clutched her cake fork tighter.

"Yes?"

"I would like you to do me the honour...the very great honour..."

Lady ffox leaned forward, her tail swishing.

"Of marrying my goof of a cousin, Wilberforce, and of coming to live at Sandybanks with him."

Bentley's mother let out her breath between her pointed teeth. Julia and Wilberforce looked at each other, then Wilberforce scrambled from his seat and dropped to his knees.

"Will you have me, Julia? It's an awful cheek of Benty to ask like that, and I'm slightly shop-soiled, and..."

"Yes," Julia whispered. She was crying, Bentley realised. "And, Bentley...thank you."

"Might I have a kiss?" Bentley surprised himself by asking, and was even more surprised when the vixen complied. Maybe having Julia as a cousin wouldn't be such a crashing bore after all.

"Now, Grace," Bentley said, his voice soft and full of affection. "My darling Grace, my truest friend, and my sweetest girl. I have something to offer you."

The tabby eyed him, her expression embarrassed and flattered but with a knowing glint that challenged him to reveal what he was up to. Lady ffox, whose face had fallen during Wilberforce's proposal, brightened a little. Second best, Bentley saw her think, was better than nothing.

Bentley nodded to Otto, who opened the door. A white-and-tan hound walked in, standing up straight and transformed by a bath and a new suit. It didn't matter at all that one sleeve was pinned empty across the breast.

The insides of Grace's ears went pale, and Bentley wondered if he'd overdone it. He stood beside her and cupped her elbow with his paw.

"Mother! I present your new gardener, Hughie Dewlap."

Grace, Lady ffox and Hughie all stared at him. He carried on. "He'll tame the Chase, and the orchard, and your Swiss garden. Just give him time. He's a good, careful worker who'll soon get the hang of doing it one-handed, and he'll bring you fresh-cut flowers for your boudoir every day, won't you, young Hughie?"

"I should like that," said Lady ffox in a strangled voice.

"He can live in the gardener's cottage - it needs a lick of paint, but the roof's sound, I checked. And perhaps, if we're all very lucky - especially you, Hughie! - he might have company there. The company of an excellent cook and pastry chef who has found it in her heart to forgive the man whom she loved, but who was stupid enough to think losing an arm meant losing her too."

"Are you asking me to be your servant, Bentley?" Grace asked, but there was more amusement than anger in her tone. Bentley drew breath after his lengthy sentence and shook his head.

"No, Grace. I'm asking you to come and live in my grounds, and make me happy, and Hughie too."

Grace's eyes shone.

"Though if you could be persuaded to knock up the occasional Victoria sponge..."

"Beast!" the tabby laughed. "I'll deal with you later." She turned away from him and slipped her paw into Hughie's.

"So," Bentley said. "Mother moves into the East Wing. Wilby and Julia take over Sandybanks, and start populating it with the pitter-patter of tiny ffox feet. And Hughie and Grace live in the gardener's cottage, and I hope they won't mind me dropping in for tea occasionally."

"Not at all, sir," said Hughie gruffly.

"What about you, Bentley?" asked his mother.

Bentley caught his tail and held it still. Did he dare? He had come this far, gambled everything, and all along it had come up double sixes. Here was the point, though, at which he might lose it all.

"I shall live in the former servants' quarters," he said, and the room went silent. "With Otto."

The Weimaraner swallowed and opened his mouth, but Bentley raised a paw to stop him and continued to look into his mother's eyes, black and shiny as the jet buttons on an old-fashioned boot. Lady ffox quivered, and her muzzle worked silently.

"We're not going to parade about the village arm in arm," Bentley said, "though I'm damned if I know why we shouldn't. But, Otto, Wilby, Grace - you all see it, don't you? You realise I can't deny who I am?"

For a moment, nobody moved. Then Wilberforce got to his feet.

"I shan't stay, if you throw Bentley out," he said. "You can go and whistle for your heirs, Auntie."

"And for your cake," Grace said, rising too. Hughie instantly stood up beside her.

"And your flowers, begging your pardon, ma'am."

Wilberforce nudged Julia.

"Oh, very well," she said, getting up. "Why do you always have to spoil everything, Bentley?"

Lady ffox turned to look at Otto, who alone had not moved. He tilted his head.

"Please," he said. "You have been so kind to me. I like it here. I like to work and to serve. I like to make your life happier. And I love your son."

Bentley felt giddy with bliss. Whatever happened now was worth it, even if it meant being kicked out of his ancestral home on Christmas Eve. At least he wouldn't be lonely.

"You..." She spoke as though the words were being choked out of her. "You will keep this...secret?"

"Absolutely," Bentley promised. "Nobody need get offended. Oh, people will talk, of course they will! But people always have. Sticks and stones, and all that."

Lady ffox closed her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them again, they were very bright.

"You may live wherever you wish, Bentley, with whomever you choose," Lady ffox said quietly. "You are a brave and obstinate creature, but also a shrewd and compassionate one. Your father's cub."

"And yours, old girl," Bentley said. Crossing to the old vixen's chair, he laid his muzzle on her shoulder and took her paw in his.

It was an unseemly display; not the done thing, especially in front of guests. But Lady ffox did not protest.

The End, and Merry Christmas!