The Puzzle Ring

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘Dirty?’

  Roz flashed her a look. ‘Yes, I guess that’s what I mean. He’s changed an awful lot.’

  ‘Oh, well, I bet you’ve changed heaps too,’ Hannah said cheerfully. ‘Lots more grey hair now.’

  Roz smiled wryly. ‘Thanks, darling.’

  Blackthorn Twigs

  The road ran through close-growing trees. Glimpses of the loch could be seen to the west. To the north rose a high green hill, crowned by a great mass of twisted black twigs and thorns. A shadow hung over the hill, as clouds gathered before the sun. Hannah gave a little shiver and pulled her cardigan closer.

  ‘That hill is called Fairknowe,’ Roz said. ‘See how the landscape changes? That’s the Highland Boundary Fault. A collision of tectonic plates about four million years ago caused the Midland Valley to fall by, oh, I don’t know, several thousand metres. That’s why the highlands are so much higher than—’

  ‘Let me guess, the lowlands. Thanks, Mrs Science Teacher.’

  Roz grinned. ‘Well, I thought you’d be interested. It’s very dramatic, geographically speaking. It’s the fault that causes Fairknowe Hill to rise up so steeply from the land all around it, and made all those islands across the loch. The fault crosses Scotland all the way to Arran.’

  ‘It certainly makes pretty scenery.’ Hannah paused to catch her breath at the top of the hill. From here, they had an uninterrupted view of the loch and its scattered islands, looking like the beads of a broken necklace.

  ‘The view is even better from Wintersloe. Come on! Just round this corner.’

  Hefting her guitar higher, Hannah followed the curve of the road and found herself standing before a wide set of iron gates. Stone gargoyles were crouched on top of the massive pillars, each holding a twig. One looked merry, the other sad.

  High walls curved away from either side, with trees hanging over the capstones. Beside the gate was a tiny stone house, gabled and turreted, surrounded by tall spires of foxgloves and a spilling profusion of alyssum. A boy’s bicycle lay abandoned on the drive outside the small wooden gate. It had a ramshackle motor attached to the back, and Hannah recognised it as the one ridden by the black-haired boy in the village.

  ‘That little house was practically a ruin last time I was here,’ Roz said. ‘It looks like someone lives there now. And the gates are shut. Should we ring the bell, I wonder?’

  ‘Of course we should.’ Hannah seized the chain attached to the clapper and rang it vigorously. A magpie flew down to investigate. Head cocked, it perched on the gate, regarding her with a black beady eye.

  ‘One for sorrow,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Superstitious nonsense,’ Roz replied automatically, her fingers playing with the ring hanging about her neck. The magpie gave a shriek and flew at her, as if trying to seize the ring with its beak. Roz ducked, hastily pushing the chain back inside her shirt and waving her arms to frighten the bird away. ‘Magpies are such thieves! They’ll steal anything bright.’

  ‘It’s much smaller than the magpies in Australia,’ Hannah said.

  The magpie fluttered to the top of the sad gargoyle, which was holding a twig with berries on it. The happy gargoyle was holding a twig with flowers. ‘I wonder what plant that is,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Blackthorn,’ a woman’s voice replied. ‘Prunus spinosa. It’s part of the rose family. It has flowers in spring and sloe berries in autumn. At least, most blackthorns do. The one on top of Fairknowe Hill has not bloomed in living memory. The castle is named after it, you know.’

  Hannah and Roz looked round and saw a woman with very short black hair and a dirt-streaked face standing in the middle of the foxgloves. She was dressed in a khaki shirt and trousers, and wore heavy-duty gardening gloves. She was carrying a little spade in one hand.

  ‘You must be Lady Fairknowe.’ She stripped off her gloves and came forward with a warm smile. ‘You won’t remember me, though we did meet, many years ago. I’m Evangeline Lombardi, the gardener here. Come on in.’ She swiftly unlocked a little gate set one side of the main gates and held it open for them.

  ‘Please, call me Roz.’ Hannah’s mother looked at the other woman with interest. Although she was only small, she looked wiry and strong, and her hands were brown and hard. Her eyes were a clear blue, startling in her brown face, and her teeth were charmingly crooked.

  ‘Okay, Roz. You can call me Genie, most people do. You go on up to the house. Lady Wintersloe is so looking forward to seeing you.’

  Roz nodded, smiling.

  ‘You look like you could do with some help,’ Genie said to Hannah as she heaved her backpack up onto her shoulder again. She turned her head and yelled, ‘Max!’

  ‘What?’ a distant boy’s voice yelled back.

  ‘Come and help out, okay?’

  ‘But, Mum, Donovan’s here!’

  ‘He can come and help too. And then I want you two out in the garden.’

  ‘But, Mum, I’m just reading an article on anthrax! It’s really cool.’

  ‘You’ve had enough time on that computer, young man! It’s a beautiful day. And I need you to come and carry Lady Hannah’s bags.’

  Hannah felt a little shock of surprise. No one had ever called her Lady Hannah before. She considered it, and decided she quite liked it.

  ‘Please, just Hannah,’ Roz said. ‘No need to call a twelve year old girl “lady”!’

  ‘But, Mum, I’m almost thirteen,’ Hannah protested.

  ‘Still no reason to get all lah-di-dah on me,’ Roz said firmly.

  The upstairs window was flung open and a boy around Hannah’s age put his head out. He was thin and dark like his mother, and wore round, gold-rimmed glasses. He stared at Hannah in open curiosity.

  ‘Come on, Max, can you do what I ask for a change?’ Genie put her hands on her hips, staring up at her son.

  ‘All right, all right, I’m coming,’ he answered, sounding very put-out.

  Hannah raised her chin. ‘I’m fine. I don’t need help. I’d rather carry my own stuff.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Genie looked troubled, but then smiled and shrugged. ‘All right then. I’ll be seeing you around. Come down and have a cup of tea whenever you like.’

  ‘Thanks, I’d like that,’ Roz said.

  Mother and daughter walked past the gatehouse and up the curving drive towards the house. Hannah was so excited she felt as if she had springs attached to her boots. Even her backpack and guitar did not seem so heavy any more. The drive came out of the shadow of the trees into sunshine, turning a giant circle around a garden where crimson roses, heavy-headed, filled the air with sweet fragrance.

  ‘They call that the Queen’s Garden. Mary, Queen of Scots, is meant to have planted the first red rose there. Personally I always thought that very unlikely. If she had slept in all the beds and visited all the houses she’s meant to have visited, she can’t have spent many nights under her own roof! She only lived in Scotland for six years or so.’

  Hannah gazed at the garden in awe. ‘Imagine if she did, though. I wonder which rose it was?’

  ‘She died hundreds of years ago, Hannah. Roses do not live that long! It’s not reasonable to think any one of those roses is more than ten or twenty years old.’

  ‘They could be the descendant of the rose planted by Mary, Queen of Scots,’ Hannah argued. ‘Just like I’m the descendant of the people who lived here then.’

  ‘I suppose that may be possible,’ Roz conceded. ‘Though I still think it’s very unlikely she ever came near this place!’

  Hannah was not listening. She stood still, staring up at Wintersloe Castle, which had just come into view behind the trees. Built of warm golden-grey stone, the house basked in the sunshine, surrounded by a tangled profusion of flowers. At one end was a tall pepper-pot tower, its bronze roof turquoise blue with age. At the other end was a small turret crowned with a pointed roof on which stood an ornate weathervane. In between was a tall house, with large bay windows, tall chimneys, crow-stepped gables and steeply
pitched slate roofs that sported stone gargoyles and heraldic beasts.

  ‘Wow!’ Hannah said.

  ‘See, I told you it wasn’t a castle. Built in the 1860s, I think.’

  ‘It looks like a castle.’

  ‘Believe me, real castles were never so pretty. It’d take a marauding army about ten seconds to breach this place’s defences.’

  ‘It’s gorgeous!’

  ‘If you like that sort of thing. I must say, I think it’s the most impractical house I’ve ever seen. All it needs is a folly in the garden.’

  ‘What’s a folly? I thought that meant doing something stupid?’

  ‘Yes, exactly. In this case, architecturally speaking.’ Seeing Hannah’s look, Roz smiled. ‘It means when you build something in your garden that has no use. You build it just for the look of it. Rich people in Victorian times used to build fake ruins in their garden, for example. Too much money!’

  ‘Not everything has to be practical, or useful, you know.’

  ‘Why not? What’s the point of it if it’s not useful?’

  ‘I don’t know. Fun, perhaps? Or maybe, just because it’s beautiful?’ This was an old argument between mother and daughter, and so was conducted lazily, without rancour.

  ‘Does it really have a ghost?’ Hannah wanted to know.

  ‘Of course not. The whole concept of ghosts is completely irrational, you know that.’

  ‘I wish it did.’

  Roz cast her a look, half amused, half irritated. ‘The only scary thing in this house is your great-grandmother, you can trust me on that. Come on, let’s get it over with.’

  Together they walked up the broad stone steps to the front door. Roz smoothed down her skirt with both hands, took a deep breath, and then put her finger to the bell. They heard a shrill ringing somewhere inside the house.

  She was just ringing it again when the door was flung open.

  A very old, very small woman stood in the doorway. Her back was so stooped she had to twist her head sideways to see. A cloud of short white curls covered her head, and her skin was as creased and spotted as ancient linen. Her green eyes were dim and clouded. At the sight of Hannah, her whole face lit up. She reached out two trembling, clawlike hands and seized Hannah’s shoulders, drawing her down into a close embrace.

  ‘My darling girl, it’s so very good to see you!’ she said in a soft, husky voice. ‘Let me have a look at you! Are you not the very picture of your father? Red as any Rose, we always say round these parts! Just look at you, my lamb!’

  Hannah normally disliked being kissed and hugged by strangers, but this little old woman was so soft and gentle and sweetly scented Hannah hugged her back just as naturally as if she had known her all her life. She was conscious of a sense of relief. Her great-grandmother did not seem so scary!

  But Roz was exclaiming in surprise, ‘Linnet! How lovely! I wasn’t expecting to see you.’

  The old woman smiled broadly, her eyes disappearing into a net of wrinkles. ‘No doubt you thought I’d be dead and gone long ago.’

  ‘No, no, I just meant—’

  ‘No harm done, my lady. I was very old last time you saw me, and now I’m even older. Sometimes I surprise myself that I’m still tottering around!’

  ‘Hannah, this is Linnet. She has been the cook here at Wintersloe for . . . well, for as long as your father could ever remember. He always used to say she cooked the best marmalade cake in the world!’

  ‘Aye, Bobby loved his marmalade cake. I wondered if you’d remember. I made it for the wee one to have for her tea.’ She smiled at Hannah, who bit back a grin at the idea of this tiny woman calling her ‘the wee one’.

  ‘Her ladyship is so pleased you’ve come. She’s been that cranky since she broke her leg. Come in! Where’s all your bags?’

  ‘Allan MacEwan is going to bring them up from the village for us,’ Roz replied.

  Linnet shook her head sadly. ‘Och, the poor man. That Donovan leads him a merry dance, I can tell you. But come in, what am I doing leaving you on the doorstep? We can talk just as well in the house.’

  She flung wide the arched door, and let Hannah and her mother into a vast hall, its domed ceiling far above them. Light poured in through the great windows, illuminating the golden colour of the panelling and the gilded frames of immense pastoral paintings, so vast and lifelike it seemed they were windows onto another time. Hannah looked about her in amazement. Antlers were hung on the wall above the great stone fireplace, and shields and daggers lined the wide wooden staircase that lead in a great swoop to the upper floor. Hannah hugged herself in secret delight.

  ‘But how’s all with you, Lady Fairknowe?’ the old cook said. ‘You’re too thin! I’ll have to be doing what I can to fatten you up! We’re having a feast tonight to celebrate your homecoming. I’ve made game soup, and roast grouse with skirlie, and bramble crumble, all your favourites, my lamb.’ Linnet pinched Hannah’s cheek affectionately. Hannah could only stare at her in amazement, having never heard of such dishes. Game soup sounded very odd, while Hannah had always thought ‘grouse’ meant to complain. And bramble crumble sounded positively dangerous!

  ‘Let me take you in to see her ladyship, then I’ll bring you a nice cup of tea and a wee bite to eat. You must be starving.’ The old cook led them down a wide hallway, every spare inch of the walls decorated with paintings of mountains and moors and stags and stormy seascapes.

  Hannah barely had time to glance about her before Linnet was knocking on a panelled door. Without waiting for an answer, she opened the door and led Hannah and her mother into a large drawing room that looked out over the garden. Hannah received a confused impression of warmth and colour and richness, but all her attention was concentrated on the woman who sat upright in a wheelchair by the fire.

  Lady Wintersloe

  Lady Wintersloe was long and thin and very elegant, dressed in a green woollen suit with a cameo brooch pinned to one lapel. A newspaper was folded on the table beside her and she held a fountain pen in one long, manicured hand. Unlike most old ladies Hannah had seen, her hair was not cut short, but smoothly coiled into a knot at the back of her head and secured with a tortoiseshell comb. It was a silvery-gold colour. High cheekbones gave the impression of hollowed cheeks on either side of a long, patrician nose. Her eyebrows had been carefully drawn in with a pencil, and she wore powder, blusher and lipstick, very bright against her withered skin. A tartan rug was laid over her knees, but Hannah could see one leg was enclosed in a cast.

  ‘Ah, Rosamund, Hannah. Do come in, please.’ Lady Wintersloe laid down her pen upon the newspaper and removed her glasses, letting them hang from a gold chain around her neck. ‘How lovely to see you both. Forgive me for not rising. I broke my femur, you may remember, and I’m afraid it is not healing as it ought. The ravages of age, I’m afraid. Come, draw up a chair, sit down.’

  Hannah looked around for somewhere to sit. The seat closest to her great-grandmother had a smoke-grey cat curled up on it. Hannah went to pick her up, thinking to hold the cat on her lap, but her great-grandmother held up a warning hand. ‘Watch out!’

  It was too late. The cat had lashed out, scratching Hannah on the hand.

  ‘Ow!’ she cried, and sucked her hand. The cat leapt down gracefully and stalked over to the window, where she sat, back to the room, tail lashing.

  ‘That nasty bogey-cat!’ Linnet said.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Lady Wintersloe said. ‘Are you all right?’

  Hannah nodded, looking down at the line of red beading where the cat’s sharp claws had drawn blood, then sat in the chair the cat had vacated, sucking her hand. Her mother sat nearby, looking harassed.

  ‘She’s really not a very friendly cat, I’m afraid. Your father called her Jinx, which sadly proved to be prophetic. It was because of Jinx that I fell down the stairs and broke my femur. She has a way of always being underfoot when you least want her.’

  ‘Which is always,’ Linnet muttered, as she went out and shut the doo
r behind her.

  ‘So what did you break? Is that why you’re in a wheelchair?’ Hannah saw her mother grimace at her to be more tactful, but ignored her. Hannah could never see how being good and polite helped you find out the things you wanted to know.

  ‘I broke my femur. That’s your thighbone.’ Lady Wintersloe indicated her right leg. ‘It is such a nuisance! The doctor says I need a rod put in, but I must wait until a bed becomes available, which could be a long time.’

  ‘So your leg is still broken?’ Hannah cried.

  Her great-grandmother nodded.

  ‘Doesn’t it hurt?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘Oh, well. Nothing I can do it about it. I can’t afford private care. I’ve already sold nearly all I have of value, just to keep the house from falling apart. I’m reluctant to sell any more paintings, because about the only income I have is from the open days and no one will come if the house is bare.’ She sighed. ‘I do hate to sell what has been in the family for generations. I’d like to be able to pass it down to you, my dear.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ Hannah said. ‘Better sell it and fix your leg. We can always buy it back again later.’

  ‘You’ll have to set about restoring the family’s fortunes,’ Lady Wintersloe said with a strained smile.

  ‘I want to be a great soul singer! I’ll sing all over the world and sell millions of records, and then I’ll be able to buy anything I want.’

  ‘You like singing? I see you have a guitar. Your father was musical too, did you know? He played double bass very well.’

  ‘He called her Mary-Lou,’ Roz broke in. ‘He said she was the only other woman in his life.’

  ‘His double bass? He had a name for it?’ Hannah realised just how little she knew about her own father. It made her angry at her mother, for not telling her things she should know.

  ‘For her,’ Roz corrected. ‘He always called his double bass “her”.’