Then she broke off and said again that I would be very welcome, but it was clear that as far as she was concerned, my advent was a very mixed blessing.
When I spoke about Lucy, I feared my own voice had the very same doting tone in it as Aunt Hebe’s when she uttered Jack’s name: bewitched, besotted and bewildered. But that didn’t stop me feeling slightly jealous. I had always thought that she was fond of me, in her way, yet evidently my absence had been more than compensated for by Jack’s arrival, the cuckoo who’d taken my place in both the nest and her affections.
When I finally managed to see Lady Betty before I left for Lancashire, it was clear that she had all but forgotten me too.
I had been to the stiff and starchy care home once before, and the same white-overalled woman was on the reception desk. She asked me for my name and then checked a list while I undid my coat. It was hot in there and smelled of air freshener and surgical spirit.
‘I’m afraid you are not on the list of permitted visitors,’ she said, pursing her lips, ‘though you have been before, haven’t you? I recognise that funny little brooch you’re wearing.’
‘My bee?’ I said, taken aback but thinking fast. ‘Yes, it is unusual, isn’t it? Lady Betty gave it to me—and I won’t be on the list of visitors because I’m just an employee. Mr Conor Darfield asked me to bring in a few things that she wanted.’ I lifted the carrier bag to show her.
‘Oh, right,’ she said, ‘perhaps if you leave—’ She broke off as an elderly gentleman, who had been shuffling about the foyer in a desultory sort of way, suddenly made a determined, if hobbling, sprint for the front door.
‘No, no, Colonel Browne, come back!’ she called—but too late, he’d gone. ‘Oh, blow—I’d better catch him before he vanishes,’ she said distractedly, lifting up the flap in the counter and coming out.
‘That’s all right,’ I assured her, sincerely hoping the poor colonel made it to wherever he was going, ‘I know where Lady Betty’s room is—I’ll just pop up.’ I don’t know if she heard me because she was off in pursuit, but I seized the opportunity to run upstairs.
I tapped gently on the door of Lady Betty’s room before going in, finding her in bed. As soon as I saw her I realised that this would be our last goodbye, for she seemed suddenly to have grown smaller, as if she was already shrinking away into death, and there was no recognition in her clouded eyes.
I sat quietly with her for ten minutes, feeding her bits of ratafia biscuits and sips of whisky and water from the supplies I had smuggled in (both of which she had always loved), and she took them with greedy eagerness, opening her mouth like a baby bird. She seemed to become slightly more alert then, and I talked to her, trying to raise some spark of recognition, but there was only one brief moment when her eyes focused on my face and she said my name and smiled. Then she closed her eyes and to all intents and purposes went to sleep.
I left the remainder of the biscuits in the bedside cabinet, but took the whisky bottle away with me. I had a feeling that anything remotely pleasurable would be banned in this sterile place.
The receptionist, looking distracted, was on the phone and only acknowledged my departure with a wave of the hand. ‘Yes,’ she was saying, ‘he’s gone again. Must have had a taxi waiting outside—and God knows which pub he’s gone to this time…’
I only hoped the colonel had a good time before they caught up with him.
The exterior of the VW was painted in time-faded psychedelic flowers, just as it was when my mother drove it, but I had made the interior over to my own tastes. Now, it was more like an old-fashioned gypsy caravan than a camper—deep, glowing colours, brightened with lace and patchwork and painted tables, ingenious shelves and cupboards, all sparklingly clean and smelling of roses.
There was a place in it for every item that was essential to me, so I felt as reassured as a snail in its shell once I was driving down to Lancashire, even though I was nervous about actually arriving.
But after all, if I got cold feet, I could always just get in my van and vanish again, couldn’t I? Though come to think of it, that’s what my mother always did, and that’s really not a pattern I want to repeat.
It’s a long way from Northumberland to west Lancashire, especially when you don’t drive at much more than forty miles an hour, and since my heater wasn’t working very well my fingers were frozen to the wheel most of the time. But the autumn colours were very pretty coming over the Pennines, and I noticed that, as I dropped back down towards Brough, all the bushes were covered with scarlet berries—supposed to be a sure sign of a hard winter to follow.
I made one overnight stop soon after that, near a village with a wonderful bakery, and then set out early next morning on the final leg.
It was just as well that Mr Hobbs had given me directions to Winter’s End, for I was lost as soon as I took the Ormskirk turn off the motorway and then drove into a maze of small, hedged lanes. And although as I reached the large village of Sticklepond everything looked vaguely familiar (except that the general shop had turned into a Spar and the village school into a house), I don’t think I would have easily found the right narrow road leading off the green.
I paused to consult the Post-it note I’d attached to the dashboard: ‘Half a mile up Neat’s Bank take the first right turn into a private road, by the white sign to Winter’s End. Fifty yards along it, you will see a car park on your left and the main entrance gates to your right…’
The tarmacked road had a ridge of grass growing up the middle and the walls seemed to be closing in on me. Surely they couldn’t get coaches up there?
I slowed right down and, sure enough, here was the sign and an arrow—but set back into a sort of clipped niche in the hedge so as to be almost invisible unless you were opposite it. I’d overshot a bit, so I reversed slightly and started to turn—then slammed the brakes on to avoid the tall man who leaped athletically down from the bank right in front of me and then stood there, blocking my way.
The engine stalled, and while we stared at each other through the windscreen a bird dropped a long series of sweet, high notes like smooth pebbles into the pool of silence.
The tall man had eyes the cool green of good jade, deeply set in a bony, tanned face with a cleft chin, a straight nose and an uncompromising mouth. His floppy, raven-black hair looked as if he’d impatiently pushed it straight back from his face with both hands and his brows were drawn together in a fierce scowl.
If he wasn’t exactly handsome he was certainly striking, and I had a nagging feeling that I’d seen him somewhere before…especially that scowl. A warning dream perhaps, half-forgotten?
Since he showed no sign of moving I reluctantly wound down the side window and, leaning out, said politely, ‘Excuse me, do you think you could let me past?’
‘No way,’ he said belligerently, folding his arms across a broad chest clad in disintegrating layers of jumpers, each hole showing a tantalising glimpse of the other strata beneath. ‘And you can go right back and tell the rest of them that they’re not welcome here. This is private property.’
‘The rest of them? Who?’ I asked, tearing my eyes away from counting woolly layers with some difficulty.
‘The other New-Age travellers. I’ve had trouble with your kind before, setting up camp on land I’d cleared for a knot and making an unholy mess.’
A knot? Wasn’t he a bit big to be a Boy Scout?
‘Look,’ I said patiently, ‘I’m not a New-Age traveller and—’
‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,’ he said rudely. ‘You’re not welcome here, so if you’re trying to scout out a good spot for the others you’d better turn right around. Tell them the car park’s locked up for the winter and patrolled by dogs, and if they come up the drive they’ll be run off!’
‘Now see here!’ I said, losing patience, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I’ve had a long journey and I’m too tired for all of this. My name is Sophy Winter and—’
‘What!’
&nb
sp; He took an impetuous stride forward and I started nervously, banging my head on the top of the window frame. ‘Sophy Winter and—’
‘Good God!’ he interrupted, staring at me in something like horror, then added unexpectedly, in his deep voice with its once-familiar Lancashire accent, ‘Blessed are the New-Age travellers, for they shall inherit the earth!’
‘I’m not a New-Age traveller,’ I began crossly. ‘I keep telling you and—’
But he still wasn’t listening. With a last, muttered, ‘Behold, the end is nigh!’ he strode off without a backward look. I know, because I watched him in the wing mirror. His jeans-clad rear view was quite pleasant for a scoutmaster, but I still hoped he’d get knotted.
Chapter Five: Pleached Walks
Today to my great grief and sorrow came the news of my mother’s death and the babe with her. But I already knew the very moment of her passing: it was as if all my mother’s arts flew to mee on the moment of her quitting this earth and my eyes were opened to a terrible pre-knowledge of destiny that moved like dark shadows around mee, step for step.
From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1580
Slightly shaken, I restarted the engine and crawled up the lane between grassy banks and sad, autumnal brown hedges, feeling that this first encounter did not bode well. I only hoped he wasn’t tying knots anywhere close by…
And then it occurred to me that since he looked a bit son-of-the-soil, he could even be one of my inherited three gardeners, though maybe not. Greeting his future employer like that was hardly the way to achieving lasting job security.
A wide, gated and padlocked opening on the left declared itself to be Winter’s End visitors’ car park, well and truly shut for the winter. Opposite was a matched pair of sandstone lodges linked by an arched chamber set with a weathered shield, carved with a crest that looked exactly like a whippet with a black pudding in its mouth. An immaculate half-moon of turf in front of each had been bordered with box hedging torturously clipped to form the words ‘WINTER’S’ on one side, and ‘END’ on the other—a strangely municipal and time-consuming labour of love that contrasted strangely with the once-splendid iron gates. For goodness’ sake! Had they never heard of wire wool and Cure-rust?
The gates were open, but, in their present state, looked more like the jaws of a trap than a welcome. I turned cautiously between them onto a drive that ran through a dark tunnel of trees, slowing to wait for my eyes to adjust after the bright autumnal sunshine.
This was a lucky move, as it turned out, because a large grey horse was advancing to meet me—if you can call it an advance when it was going backwards rather fast. I stamped on the brakes for the second time in five minutes, and the creature briefly slammed its fat rump into the front of my van before whirling round, snorting down two red, foam-flecked nostrils, its eyes wildly rolling. The rider, almost unseated, was clinging on like a monkey.
Two thoughts about the matter crossed my punch-drunk mind from opposite directions and collided in the middle. One was that the woman seemed to have no control over her mount whatsoever; and the second (rather regretfully), was that I would never look so good in riding clothes: too big, too curvy, too bouncy.
Imagine Helen of Troy in tight cream breeches and a velvet hat.
She spared me a fleeting glance from curiously light brown eyes and called, ‘Sorry about that!’ very casually, considering there was probably a horse’s-bottom-shaped dent in the front of the VW. Then, with some inelegant flapping of the reins, she urged her mount off down the road at a clattering trot.
‘Idiotic creatures, horses,’ said a voice in my ear, and I jumped again. ‘Saw me dressed in white and ran off—though it’s a holy colour, I always wear it to go to church and I’m off to do the flowers later. But she was a Christopher before she married, and none of them ride well. I suppose she thought Jack was here—though you never know, because she’s never been what you might call fussy where men are concerned.’
I might have tried to explore this interesting statement further had I not had other things on my mind, for I would have known my great-aunt Hebe instantly anywhere: tall, bony, aquiline of nose like a slightly fuzzy Edith Sitwell, with her shock of fine hair, now white rather than red-gold, partially secured into a high knot with a chiffon scrunchie.
If I hadn’t recognised her I would probably have been running after the horse, due to the polar-bear-crossed-with-Miss-Havisham style of her apparel. A floating, ivory-coloured, crystal-and sequin-dotted chiffon dress, layered for warmth with a yellowing fake-fur coat and fluffy scarves, and worn over white wellington boots of the sort only usually seen in hospitals and clinics, made for a striking ensemble.
There was a lump in my throat. ‘Hello, Aunt Hebe,’ I said, slightly unsteadily.
She regarded me severely, then leaned in through the still-open window and kissed me, though the silver pentacle and golden cross that hung around her neck on separate chains swung forward and bashed me on the nose first. Evidently Aunt Hebe still liked to hedge her bets, a family tradition.
‘You’re late! We expected you over an hour ago, so I thought I would walk down and see if there was any sign of you. I’d better get in.’ She opened the passenger door and, clambering up with some difficulty, arranged her skirts. The familiar scent of crushed rose petals came in with her, and I felt eight again…
‘Off you go,’ she said briskly, and I realised I’d been staring at her, waiting for some sign that my return held real meaning for her. Maybe I hadn’t quite expected bunting, banners and a fatted calf, but a little more than a peck on the cheek and a ticking off—but then, there had never been much in the way of maternal softness about Aunt Hebe.
Obediently I moved off again up the dark driveway—and then nearly went off the road as something beat a sudden tattoo on the roof. It was definitely one surprise too many in a very eventful day.
‘Nuts,’ said Aunt Hebe, unfazed.
‘Right…’ I said uncertainly, my heart still racing away at twice the normal speed. ‘There certainly are!’
She gave me a sharp, sideways look and I managed to get a grip on myself. ‘I didn’t know I was expected any particular time, Aunt Hebe. In fact, I nearly stopped to get something for lunch in the village. I’ve been thinking about Pimblett’s hot pies all the way down here—didn’t Mum sometimes buy me one on the way home from school?’
‘I dare say, but lunch is being prepared for you up at the manor,’ she said reprovingly, ‘and I believe it is hotpot pies. Everyone is waiting to meet you first, though.’
‘Everyone?’ I echoed, then added, perhaps too eagerly, ‘Is Jack here already?’
She gave me another sidelong glance. ‘Jack sent his apologies, but business matters prevent him from welcoming you home until the weekend. He’s probably putting it off, for he’ll find it difficult, seeing someone else in his place—but there, what’s done is done, and the obvious solution is in his own hands.’
I supposed she knew all about his offer to buy Winter’s End and there was no question about where Aunt Hebe’s loyalties lay.
‘You’ve turned out not too badly, considering,’ she added, turning her beaky head to study me.
‘Thanks.’
‘Though you appear to have no dress sense. Jeans are so unflattering on women of a certain age.’
‘I don’t know, they hold me in where I need holding in, like a twenty-first-century corset. Exactly who did you say was waiting to meet me?’
‘Everyone,’ she repeated as we came out of the darkness under the trees. ‘Everyone that matters, anyway.’
And there was the house sitting in a puddle of autumn sunshine, the light dully glittering off the mullioned windows, a shabbily organic hotchpotch of black and white Tudor and local red sandstone, with the finger of an ancient tower poking triumphantly upwards above the rest.
It looked as if it had grown there, like some exotic fungus—but a ripe fungus on the point of decaying back into the earth it had sprung from. Before the p
orch a distant double row of miscellaneous figures waited, like the guard of honour at a low-budget wedding and, as if on cue, a small, fluffy pewter cloud let loose a confetti of snowflakes.
‘Oh, yes—I see them now,’ I croaked nervously, crunching slowly up the gravel. To my left stretched the curving, billowing shapes of yew that formed the maze, the gilded roof of the little pagoda in the centre visible in the distance. My feet would know the way to it blindfold…
‘The maze has been extended at huge expense back to the dimensions of the old plan, and the pagoda regilded, since your time,’ Aunt Hebe informed me, so maybe I wouldn’t find my way into it so easily—and I suspect a lot of the bank loan went on restoring it.
‘Most of the rest of the garden has been extensively restored, too, since you were last here. It became quite a mania with William.’
Everything in the garden looked pleached, parterred, bosketted and pruned to within an inch of its life. A mere glance showed me that there were still abundant examples of all four garden features here, but the immaculately manicured grounds only served to make the house look the more neglected, like a dull, dirty jewel in an ornate and polished setting.
I circled my incongruous vehicle left around a convoluted pattern of box hedges and little trees clipped into spirals, and the fountain at its heart sprinkled me with silver drops like a benediction as I came to a halt.
We climbed out to a thin scatter of applause and a voice quavering out: ‘Hurrah!’
Hebe rearranged her collection of white angora scarves around her neck and, taking me by the elbow, drew me forward and began making introductions.
‘You remember Mrs Lark, our cook—Beulah Johnson as was? And her husband, Jonah?’
‘Welcome back, love,’ Mrs Lark said, her twinkling eyes set in a broad, good-humoured face so stippled with brown freckles she looked like a deeply wrinkled Russet apple. ‘Me and Jonah are glad to see you home again.’
A Winter’s Tale Page 5
