A Winter’s Tale

by Trisha Ashley

  From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1581

  After dinner we all went into the library, where Hebe watched fondly as Jack thrashed me at billiards, and then not so fondly as Ottie wiped the floor with him.

  Jack was not, I noticed, a very good loser, which was a bit worrying. I mean, if he went all tight-lipped and threw his cue about just because he lost a game of billiards, what was he going to be like when it finally dawned on him that he wasn’t going to get possession of Winter’s End? And, whatever he meant by a ‘partnership’ between us, was that likely to be one of equals?

  Somehow, I had begun to suspect not.

  Ottie went back to the coach house after Jonah brought the coffee in, and Aunt Hebe got up and started to gather her knitting and garden magazines together.

  ‘I am rather tired, Jack, so I think I will retire and leave you to amuse Sophy—and I expect you have arranged to meet your friends later anyway, haven’t you?’

  Since he’d already met up with them at lunchtime and said he was going to devote the rest of the weekend to me, I confidently expected him to deny any such intention. So I felt a bit stunned and, if truth be told, somewhat chagrined, when he agreed. ‘Yes, I did think I’d pop down to the pub for an hour or so and see who’s about. If only you hadn’t exhausted yourself with all that cleaning, Sophy, I would have suggested you come too, but I can see you’re all in.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not that tired,’ I protested, then gave the words the lie by yawning hugely, though that was probably just the power of suggestion.

  He laughed. ‘You need an early night—and then tomorrow morning, right after breakfast, we can have a good discussion about everything,’ he promised. ‘There should be plenty of time before I go.’

  ‘Go?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He looked surprised. ‘I’m just closing a deal on a property in Shropshire. But don’t worry, I’m not leaving until after lunch.’

  I was starting to see what Grandfather had meant about Jack using Winter’s End like a hotel. The disappointment must have shown on my face, for Aunt Hebe said kindly, ‘Jack is terribly busy, you know, Sophy. It was kind of him to take the time to come this weekend especially to give you the benefit of his advice—and of course he knows all about renovating old properties.’

  ‘I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to be here when Sophy arrived,’ Jack said, smiling warmly at me.

  ‘That’s all right—you did send me the lovely bouquet, after all,’ I said grudgingly, though still feeling annoyed and short-changed.

  ‘I am exceptionally busy at the moment, darling, but you can get me any time you like on my mobile,’ he assured me. ‘And be prepared to see a lot more of me in the future too, because I’m used to popping in and out without warning.’

  ‘We’re always happy to see you, when you can get away,’ Aunt Hebe said fondly.

  ‘I’m told you often bring friends to stay for the weekend too?’ I said, still feeling ratty.

  ‘Yes, of course, in the summer. William never minded who I invited.’

  ‘Neither do I. In fact, the more the merrier, since from now on, all my visitors will have to come prepared to work hard for their keep,’ I said firmly, deciding to make my position plain from the outset. I wasn’t running a country house hotel and there was no slack in my budget for freeloaders—except Jack, I suppose, who had so far proved to be ornamental rather than useful.

  ‘Work?’ he said, as though it was an alien concept.

  ‘Cleaning, polishing, painting and decorating—helping to get the place straight again. And if they’re here when the house is open to the public, they might even find themselves selling tickets or helping in the tearoom.’

  ‘One doesn’t generally expect to work when invited for a country house weekend visit, dear,’ Aunt Hebe pointed out. ‘You go for walks and play tennis and that kind of thing.’

  ‘Things change, Aunt Hebe.’

  Like the tennis court, soon to be transformed into a croquet lawn…I’d noticed that Seth had taken down the netting already, though apparently no one else had.

  ‘Right…’ Jack said, looking thoughtfully at me. ‘But you know, I always hated the idea of my home being open to anyone with the price of a ticket, so I really hope you will think better of that idea. It’s not going to bring in the kind of income you need to keep a place of this size running.’ He rose to his feet. ‘But we can discuss it tomorrow—and perhaps, if you are really not too tired, you wouldn’t mind running me down to the pub before you go to bed? I’ll probably get a lift back.’

  He would need to. While I had drunk only one (fairly lethal) cocktail and a lot of water, he had also demolished most of a bottle of wine, and then chased his coffee down with a stiff whisky.

  ‘Yes of course, and I’ll come in for a quick drink too, Jack. It’s early, after all. But after that, I’ll leave you to it and come home.’

  For a moment I thought Jack looked almost disconcerted, but I must have imagined it because he said warmly, ‘That’s even better, Sophy!’ and Aunt Hebe beamed on us.

  The Green Man was large, full, warm and noisy, though when I walked in with Jack right behind me, there was a sudden lull and every head turned in our direction, as though the film had stuck in one of those old Westerns when the hero enters the saloon. But before I had time to feel paranoid they all looked away again and the babble resumed.

  There were familiar faces—Seth and a group including a couple of the gardeners were playing darts at the far end of the L-shaped room, and Grace was perched on a tall stool in front of the mahogany bar, her little strapped shoes dangling way above the brass foot rail. She flapped her hand at me in greeting.

  A voice from behind us, very loud and county, bellowed, ‘Over here, Jack—and bring your new filly with you!’

  ‘This filly, Freddie, is my lovely cousin Sophy,’ Jack said, putting a proprietorial arm around my waist. ‘Be nice!’

  Freddie had a red face, straw-coloured hair and a tendency to talk to my breasts. He was sitting with several other people, who Jack introduced me to in dizzyingly quick succession. I didn’t really take in their names, except to notice that the women’s included a China and an India—and, for all I knew, a Tasmania and an Outer Mongolia.

  They were all eyeing me appraisingly, but I suppose, being Jack’s friends, they would be interested in the usurper—and I was equally interested in seeing the crowd Jack would rather hang out with than be with me. After all, that had been the main reason I’d suggested coming in for a drink in the first place—sheer curiosity.

  There was a curious similarity about the women, who were all skinny and wearing skimpy tops and jeans that they hadn’t picked up at a supermarket with the weekly shop. Some of them were probably as old as me, but it was impossible to tell because they had all Botoxed, Pilated and face-lifted their way to the same toned and smooth-skinned blankness.

  I immediately felt fat, overdressed and cheap—but then, as one of the gardeners at Blackwalls used to say, a weed is just a flower growing in the wrong place. The dartboard end of the room, where Seth seemed to hang out, was much more my kind of ambience, and Seth, who had exchanged his usual layers of ratty jumpers for a black fleece and jeans, much more my usual kind of man…

  Well, apart from the instant antipathy and his bad temper, that is.

  Some of the women reluctantly shifted up and made room for me to sit on the curved bench seat, by moving their enormous, baggy leather handbags onto the shelf behind; but the body language was making it very clear that never in a month of Sundays would I be accepted as one of this crowd.

  Jack went to the bar to get drinks and the group, ignoring me, resumed a desultory conversation about things and people I didn’t know that seemed designed to show me just how much of a fish-out-of-water I was. I mean, as far as I’m concerned Polo means a mint with a hole in it, and my one experience of London life was a weekend trip with the WI to see Miss Saigon and the wonders of Harrods (mostly the perfume department—they h
ad to prise me out, laden with sample cards).

  I thought it would be better when Jack came back, but apart from putting his arm around me again and giving me one of his dazzling smiles, he joined right in. I sat there sipping a Coke and contemplating my exit strategies.

  Ten minutes seemed plenty long enough—in fact, if I hadn’t been checking the clock over the bar I would have thought it was more like an hour. I was just about to plead exhaustion and make my escape, when a hush fell on the room for the second time that evening.

  Thankfully, this time it wasn’t me but Melinda Christopher who had provoked the silence, and for a minute or two she just stood there smiling like the Snow Queen in all her shimmering, icy beauty, and let them look at her. The smile brightened when she spotted our group…Then her light brown eyes rested on Jack sitting close to me, and narrowed, though I don’t know why because she turned on her stiletto heels and made for Seth like an arrow flying to its target.

  He didn’t seem noticeably welcoming, but he certainly got the full treatment—the kiss on the cheek, the hand on the arm, the earnest gaze up into his face as she stood close to him—all performed with little glances over his shoulder to where we were sitting so that I started to wonder if this was for Jack’s benefit?

  And if so, was Jack aware of it? Was that the reason why he suddenly remembered my existence and began to flirt with me, or did I have a nasty, suspicious mind? His technique was just as good as Melinda’s: his head close to mine, his voice low and intimate…The aftershave alone was enough to render me semi-conscious.

  Whatever his motives were I was, I have to admit, starting to enjoy it, when a crisp voice said, right behind me, ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friend, Jack?’

  The Ice Queen cometh.

  ‘Budge up, everyone, and let Mel sit on the other side of Jack,’ Freddie shouted gaily. ‘Make it a clean fight, girls!’

  ‘Shut up, Freddie,’ Jack said, looking embarrassed, but he didn’t object when Mel squeezed in on his other side. In fact, he made room for her, which left me practically hanging off the end of the bench seat. ‘This is Sophy, Mel—a cousin of sorts. I told you about her.’

  I leaned forward, so it didn’t look as if I was hiding behind Jack. ‘Actually, we’ve already met, in a manner of speaking. Your horse tried to sit on my van, the day I arrived here.’

  ‘Oh?’ She gave me a blank, bored stare, though I had the feeling she knew exactly who I was. ‘I don’t remember—but hi, anyway.’ Then she added something in a low voice, so I couldn’t hear, but everyone else did, because they all laughed.

  ‘Your mother used to bring you over to play with me sometimes when we were little girls too,’ I said more loudly. ‘Aunt Hebe reminded me. I’d forgotten, but it’s all come back to me now.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I can’t have been more than a baby when you were last at Winter’s End,’ she said icily.

  ‘Come off it, Lindy—you’re only a year younger than me. Don’t you remember how I used to call you toffee-eyes, and you would start crying?’ I said helpfully.

  ‘You’re thinking of someone else.’ She glared at me, then turned her thin back and started to tell the others some terribly long and involved story, which they all seemed to find highly amusing. She kept drawing Jack in for corroboration and after a while he withdrew his arm from behind me and half-turned away, so I would say that Mel had won that round—and probably any other round she decided to engage in. But I came to the conclusion this was merely a demonstration of power that was also intended to make Seth, her real target, jealous, because she was constantly checking the effect her flirting was having on him.

  It didn’t seem to be putting him off his darts, so she can’t have got much satisfaction from that. But then, I have a feeling that sort of tactic simply wouldn’t work with a man like Seth.

  I decided it was time to go.

  The plump, curly-haired woman behind the bar caught my eye and waved at me, smiling. I got up, murmuring, ‘Excuse me, Jack, I think I see an old friend,’ but I’m not sure he, or any of the others, registered I’d gone. I wasn’t out of sight, but I was certainly already out of mind.

  But before I could make a hasty exit from the pub, the woman who had waved beckoned me over. ‘It’s Sophy, isn’t it? I thought you’d remember me! Val? We were in the infants’ school together.’

  She looked vaguely familiar…and then it all came back to me. ‘Hi, Val! Of course I remember you—and especially the day that horrible little boy put frogspawn down the back of your neck!’

  She shuddered. ‘It’s given me frog phobia for life.’

  ‘Wasn’t he vile! What was his name?’

  ‘Josh Priestly.’

  ‘I wonder what happened to him? No good, I expect!’

  ‘Well, actually, I’m married to him—he’s the landlord, the man at the other end of the bar.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said weakly, ‘how lovely!’ I managed to smile when he waved at me. I hoped he had grown out of practical jokes and nasty surprises.

  Val gave me a drink on the house, which I couldn’t very well refuse, so I slid onto a vacant barstool. I glanced over my shoulder at the table in the corner, but there was no sign anyone had noticed my absence.

  ‘Cheers!’ said the small, rotund man on the stool next to me, catching my eye and lifting his glass in salute. ‘And welcome back to Winter’s End.’

  Thanks,’ I said, deciding that he looked harmless. He was middle-aged, yet had an air of puckish boyishness about him that owed a lot to the bright curiosity in his eyes.

  ‘You won’t know me—George Turnbull. I only moved into the area a few years ago, but I’ve heard all about you, of course. The whole place was buzzing after news of the will got out. I heard your cousin’s nose was right out of joint.’ The grin that went with this remark took away any offence.

  ‘He’s not really a cousin—well, I suppose he is, but a very, very distant one, and he’s taking it very well,’ I assured him, which was no more than the truth, even if I had a strong feeling that the reason for that was because Jack was still convinced he would get Winter’s End back, one way or another.

  ‘Someone told me you’d been working as a cleaner, just a single mother trying to scrape a living. Then—wham—heiress of Winter’s End! It’s romantic, that, just like a fairy story.’

  I wondered who he’d been talking to, but agreed that yes, it was like a fairy story. He was both sympathetic and funny, asking me whether things had changed much since I’d lived here as a little girl, and telling me quite scurrilous gossip about some of the new people who had moved into Sticklepond since I left.

  We’d been chatting for several minutes when Seth’s dark head suddenly came between us and he said quietly, ‘So, has your new friend told you he’s a newspaper reporter?’

  ‘What?’ I said, turning startled eyes on my companion.

  George grinned unrepentantly. ‘Even a reporter is entitled to his evening off, Seth, though the whole rags-to-riches thing might make a good story. I’ve heard you’ve got ambitious plans for extending the visitor facilities at Winter’s End, Miss Winter, so you never know when you might need a bit of publicity.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ I agreed, sliding off the stool into the small area of floor space next to it not already occupied by Seth’s big boots, ‘but the right kind of publicity! I’d really hate to see my private life in the newspapers, George.’

  ‘You might change your mind—here’s my card. But you’ll usually find me here in the evenings, if you want me.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ I said, ‘but now I must go—it’s been a long day. Excuse me, Seth, I can’t get past you.’

  But Seth, frowning, was gazing beyond me to where Mel and Jack were now deep in a serious, heads-together discussion of some passion—though of what kind I wasn’t sure, except that it didn’t seem entirely amicable.

  Suddenly I felt amazingly annoyed with Seth for being stupid enough to fall for that kin
d of woman and angry with myself for minding about the way she flirted with Jack.

  I certainly didn’t feel I needed to say goodbye to either of them and nudged Seth sharply in the ribs.

  ‘You’re blocking my way—I want to go. If you’re leaving too I could give you a lift?’

  The green eyes suddenly refocused on me. ‘Why not? There’s nothing to stay for.’

  He didn’t say much on the journey back, except to remark morosely that now I’d told my life story to George I could expect to see it splashed all over the Sticklepond and District Gazette.

  ‘I didn’t have to tell him my life story because he already knew most of it. I can’t imagine who gave him all the details.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t me…though it might have been Grace. She was in earlier and they were talking when I arrived.’ He shook his head. ‘A half of Guinness and she’s anybody’s.’

  ‘You don’t really think he’d use it, do you? I don’t think my story is that interesting.’

  ‘Depends how short of news they are. But the circulation’s very small, there is that,’ he said, and lapsed into silence again until I dropped him off.

  That was gratitude, considering I’d gone all the way round to take him to the lodge. I should have made him walk from the house.

  Chapter Eighteen: Friendly Relations

  My poor husband is no more. Last night he could not get his breath and though I tried everything in my power, he left this life at midnight. At the last, to ease his passing, I whispered to him my good news and he squeezed my hand and smiled.

  From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1581