A Winter’s Tale

by Trisha Ashley

  Chapter Twenty-four: Stunned

  Mary Wynter hath told the officers that they were true churchgoers and would not harbour a priest, but that it was well known that I was tainted by witchcraft and would leave the house stealthily by night to attend blasphemous sabbats…Her face was filled with spite and I saw her true intentions written there. Ye t I could not say the truth, for that would condemn mee equally—perhaps more so, and be greatly detrimental to the family and so also to my sweet babe.

  From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1582

  ‘You’re famous, our Sophy,’ Jonah said, putting a national tabloid down in front of me at breakfast the following Tuesday, folded to reveal a grainy blow-up of the Sticklepond Gazette photograph and an embellished rehash of the article.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ I exclaimed. I mean, I hadn’t thought my story exciting enough to make even the local paper, let alone be syndicated to a daily.

  Aunt Hebe, her attention wrested away from the less sensational pages of The Times, said disapprovingly, ‘Language!’ Then she twitched the newspaper from my trembling hands and read it herself, her silvery eyebrows going up and down and her lips moving with silent outrage.

  ‘This is beyond a joke!’ she said at last. ‘And half of it is not true anyway—sheer sensationalism! They are just trying to make a rags-to-riches story out of it.’

  ‘But it is a rags-to-relative-riches story, I suppose, Aunt Hebe, and I don’t think they’ve actually said anything blatantly untrue, just implied things.’ I scanned the article again and noticed something I’d missed the first time under the subtitle ‘BARONET BUMPED OUT OF INHERITANCE’.

  ‘This quote from Jack wasn’t in the last article—listen to this! “Jack Lewis, now Sir Jack, said today, ‘Of course it was a shock, but Sophy and I have become very close and I couldn’t be happier for her.’ But he wouldn’t be drawn about rumours of an engagement between them.”’

  ‘I’m sure Jack wouldn’t talk to the press,’ Aunt Hebe said positively. ‘Though he might well put an announcement of your engagement in The Times.’

  ‘There is no engagement, Aunt Hebe,’ I said wearily, ‘there never will be. It’s simply a figment of the journalist’s imagination.’

  And maybe Jack’s.

  Mr Yatton commiserated with me over the article, though he said nothing could be done about it. But I was still so steaming with anger that I went down to the terraces to look for someone else to pick a fight with, preferably Seth, who could be almost guaranteed to give back as good as he got.

  Derek and Hal were sorting out the next layer of stones for the retaining wall, which was rising with amazing speed, while Seth and Bob were removing what remained of the turf and digging over the ground.

  It was a chilly, dank sort of day, perfumed with the scent of wet woodsmoke, but it must have been hot work because both men had stripped down to their T-shirts. Bob’s was yellow with a smiley sun on it, but Seth’s was the pink one I had occasionally glimpsed through the strata of holey jumpers. Now I could see that it had ‘Gardeners like to get down and dirty’ printed across the front.

  ‘Nice T-shirt,’ I said, momentarily distracted.

  ‘Present from Ma,’ he said, stopping digging and leaning on his spade. Then he added shortly, with a glance at the newspaper in my hand, ‘Congratulations on the engagement. When’s the happy day?’

  I supposed everyone within ten miles had seen the newspaper.

  ‘Oh, don’t be daft,’ I said crisply. ‘You know very well that there isn’t going to be one. The journalist was just trying to add a bit of romance to a boring story. And I’m sure Jack never said anything to imply that we were going to get married.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘No, of course he wouldn’t, or say all this other stuff about my sad life of drudgery. It makes me sound like a half-witted Mrs Mop,’ I said, perhaps more positively than I felt. ‘Do you think that’s it now, and interest will die down?’

  ‘I expect so, unless you do something newsworthy to keep it going—but we could turn the publicity to your advantage when we have the grand reopening of Winter’s End,’ he suggested. ‘Angled to suit ourselves this time, of course.’

  Somehow, when Seth used the royal ‘we’, it didn’t annoy me half as much as when Jack did it. I supposed it was because I felt that, despite our battles, Seth and I were working towards the same end, while I had begun to have a sneaky feeling that Jack had an agenda of his own.

  I turned Seth’s suggestion over in my mind, though. ‘You mean something like, “Heiress saves family home from disintegrating into dust. Hanging Gardens of Sticklepond the Eighth Wonder of the World”? Yes, I see what you mean.’

  He grinned, and his sudden smiles are possibly the ninth wonder of the world, because it was amazing how they took the forbidding aspect away from his rather formidable face.

  I found I was smiling back and feeling better about things. ‘And the hanging gardens are coming along well, aren’t they? The front gates look almost finished too, Bob—well done.’

  ‘Yes, we’re getting there. It was fiddly work, but I spent all last weekend on them, so now there’s only the gold highlights to put on.’ Bob stopped digging and looked at me hopefully, fanning his hot, ruddy face with his hat so that the pink plastic tulip in the band nodded up and down. ‘Would you like me to go and do it now?’

  Seth’s relatively benign expression swiftly switched to thundercloud mode, so I said hastily, ‘No, there’s too much dampness in the air. It’s not a good day for painting.’

  ‘I’ll finish it off on Saturday as overtime then, shall I?’

  ‘Yes, if the weather’s right. Thanks, Bob.’

  With all the extra expenses of things like overtime, I was going to need a sudden rush of money to the bank account fast. But Christie’s would be putting my Herring painting up for auction before Christmas, and since Mr Yatton managed to find some provenance for it among the family papers, showing that it was commissioned by the baronet of that time to portray his favourite hunter, I hoped it would fetch a very good price. Even so, I needed to keep enough in reserve to repay the instalments on the bank loan until the gate money started to roll in.

  There wasn’t a single day when I didn’t feel thankful for Mr Yatton: what on earth would I have done without him?

  Seth hadn’t called by the parlour since the day Jack came to lunch, and I’d missed the cut and thrust of our often lively discussions, so I was actually quite pleased when he turned up that evening, even though he seemed rather gloomy. I expect that was the Mel effect. I often glimpsed her horse or her distinctive low, silver car, near the lodge house. I could have banned her from the estate, of course—and don’t think I wouldn’t have loved to do it. But of course, it was impossible without a better reason than simply disliking her.

  Seth tersely informed me that he was going away for a few days. ‘I’ve got a commission to design a small knot garden for a manor house in Devon. I’ll be off tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s a bit short notice! What about the wall and the lower terrace you were so determined to finish?’

  ‘Derek’s the expert where the wall is concerned, he’ll be in charge until I get back.’

  Derek seemed to be a very hard worker, so I didn’t suppose the rebuilding would slow down much, even without Seth’s eagle eye on it, but I felt unaccountably cross anyway.

  ‘I haven’t seen much of you lately and there are a few things we need to discuss.’

  ‘I’ve been busy,’ he said shortly.

  I could imagine what, or maybe that should be who, with.

  He spotted the huge vase of roses on a side table and, since they were a flagrantly passionate scarlet, it would be a bit hard to miss them, and said jokingly (I hoped), ‘From your fiancé?’

  ‘They are from Jack, and they must have cost a fortune. I wish I knew a tactful way of telling him that if he must send me something, I’d much rather have a rosebush.’

  ‘But I suppose sending a bare-r
ooted bush wouldn’t rank as quite the same flamboyantly romantic gesture?’

  ‘I don’t want romantic gestures,’ I said curtly, which I didn’t—or not from Jack, anyway. ‘I’d much rather fill the gaps in the rose garden.’

  Somehow it was odd without unexpected glimpses of Seth about the place; not to see him striding about in the distance, up a ladder clipping something, snatching lunch in the kitchen, or the top of his dark head on the terrace below…

  And I had no one to argue with either except, occasionally, Lucy. She now seemed to have stopped wavering and decided to work right to the end of her contract anyway, even though I knew she was dying to come back and get to grips properly with the business side of Winter’s End. She was so stubborn!

  To my relief the man following her turned out to be a harmless computer nerd half her size, who simply wanted private English lessons. ‘I told him I would, but only in a café near where I’m living—so no need to worry about it any more, Mum.’

  But I did still worry—illogically, I suppose, since harm could come to her anywhere, including here…and I had a worrying awareness of some dark shadows coming, gathering on the edge of my consciousness again…

  I hoped that whatever danger they foretold, it threatened me and not my child.

  A couple of days after Seth left for Devon I took what had become my usual afternoon walk up to the summerhouse in the woods with Charlie, since it was one of those sad, dead-leaf-scented, end-of-autumn days when you want to consider life, the universe and everything. Up in my ramshackle eyrie was as good a place as anywhere.

  I paused before going in, to see what was making Charlie lag behind. But of course, as soon as I turned he sat down on the path—never stand when you can sit is his motto. ‘Come on, you wimp! I’m not picking you up, we’re there,’ I told him, and going up the steps strode into the shadowy interior.

  As the wooden floor bounced under my feet, making the whole thing tremble like a stage set, I noticed a strange but not entirely unfamiliar scent on the air. Then something caught sharply at my legs and the whole world caved in on me as I went flying headlong into dark oblivion.

  I awoke in my bed at Winter’s End, with a pounding head and a doctor asking me if I could see double. And for a minute I could—there seemed to be two Charlies, who had somehow got upstairs and onto the bed. Then my vision cleared and we were back to just one.

  ‘Charlie is my darling,’ I said idiotically, and he thumped his tail.

  ‘She’s delirious,’ Aunt Hebe’s voice said.

  ‘No I’m not,’ I assured her. ‘I’ve got a headache though. What happened?’ I frowned. ‘Wasn’t I up at the summerhouse in the woods?’

  The doctor, who had been holding my wrist, let it go. ‘I’m afraid you had a bit of an accident, Miss Winter. The building collapsed on top of you, and your head took a glancing blow. But it could have been much worse. It was a lucky escape.’

  ‘I didn’t think the building was in that poor a condition,’ I said, trying in vain to remember what had happened, ‘though Seth did warn me that he thought it was getting to the point of collapse. But I loved sitting up there. I wonder if he can repair it?’

  ‘It’s probably beyond it, but don’t worry about that now,’ Aunt Hebe said, laying a lavender-scented flannel on my forehead. ‘You know, I do believe that you are going to have a black eye.’

  ‘Great,’ I said morosely. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘The gardeners on the terrace heard Charlie barking and noticed that the summerhouse roof was at an odd angle, so they went to investigate and found you out cold. Charlie was sitting faithfully next to you in the rubble, still barking, and he has refused to leave your side ever since,’ Aunt Hebe said. ‘He is quite the hero of the hour!’

  ‘Just as well for you,’ the doctor said, packing things back into his bag again, ‘or you could have been lying there in the cold for hours.’

  ‘Well, dinnertime, at least,’ I agreed. ‘Everyone would have known it wasn’t like me to miss a meal. Good dog, Charlie!’

  ‘I’ll leave you some painkillers for the headache, and I’d like you to stay in bed for a couple of days. If you have any other symptoms, including double vision, phone me immediately.’ He must have seen my mutinous expression, because he added, ‘If you don’t stay in bed and rest, you won’t recover as quickly. The bang on the head was nasty.’

  So I had to stay in bed like an invalid, black eye and all.

  Seth was still away, so I suppose he wouldn’t hear a thing about it until he got back, but as soon as Jack got the news from Hebe he paid me a flying visit, bringing a little hamper of Fortnum and Mason goodies and a big box of Godiva chocolates, just as if my strength needed building up, which it certainly doesn’t.

  Mrs Lark was rather miffed about the foodstuffs, since she said there was nothing in there that she couldn’t do better, though I felt that producing caviar from the virgin sturgeon might be a feat even beyond her capabilities. Mind you, I found it so weird that I gave most of it to Charlie, thinking the fishiness might do something for what brain cells he possessed.

  But it was thoughtful of Jack, and he was so concerned, quiet and kind, that I let him hold my hand and waffle on about our future together in his lovely, mesmerising voice, which just about sent me to sleep.

  This time I simply wasn’t up to arguing, just glad someone seemed to care.

  Chapter Twenty-five: Follies

  I am imprisoned, though Sir Ralph has seen to it that I am housed separately, in a chamber near the gaoler’s lodging. I am afraid—I fear the Wynters wish to be rid of mee, and are taking this opportunity of doing so. Yet punishments for such wrongdoings are seldom harsh—my mother’s distant connections, the Nutters, have frequently been accused of witchcraft and escaped with little more than imprisonment or a ducking…but others they have hanged, it is true. I have written to my father, to beg his aid, for I have a very great fear of hanging…

  From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1582

  As soon as I was allowed up and about, Mr Hobbs reminded me that I hadn’t yet made a will—a suggestion that cheered me up no end, as you can imagine.

  But actually, once the headache vanished I felt totally rejuvenated, so perhaps a couple of days’ enforced rest did me good. I threw myself back into the cleaning, sorting, polishing and rearranging with renewed vigour.

  Since Seth wasn’t there to complain, I had Bob and Hal move the two glass-topped curio tables from the Long Room into the gallery, either side of a column sprouting yet another of those strange light fittings in the form of a naked arm holding an ice-cream cone.

  I thought the odd collection of curios would interest the visitors, though I would have to identify and label some of the stranger ones. I was still up there writing a list, with descriptions and little drawings, when my mobile phone rang. For once I hadn’t left it in my bedroom.

  ‘Sophy?’ a familiar, high-pitched voice said. ‘This is Conor Darfield.’

  ‘Hello, Conor!’ I said, surprised that he had actually had the grace to phone me about his aunt, rather late in the day though it was. ‘I had the solicitor’s letter a few days ago and I can’t tell you how sorry I was to hear of Lady Betty’s death. It must—’

  ‘Never mind that,’ he interrupted rudely. ‘That isn’t why I called. It might interest you to know that I have been going through the will and checking the insurance inventory.’

  ‘I bet you have.’ That sounded much more like the Conor I knew and loathed.

  He ignored my comment. ‘I have been checking items off, and there are two pieces of my aunt’s jewellery missing, one of them a brooch. In the form of a bee,’ he added meaningfully, and my fingers unconsciously curled protectively around it.

  ‘Then my attention was called to a picture of you in the tabloids—and what do I see?’ He paused dramatically.

  ‘Well, you didn’t see a bee—and you’re starting to sound like a Dr Seuss book,’ I said shortly.

  ‘Yo
ur coat is open in the photograph and I am positive that you are wearing—’

  ‘Look, Conor,’ I broke in, ‘if I was wearing the crown jewels, you couldn’t tell from that photograph. But if you really want to know, there’s no secret about it: Lady Betty gave me her little crystal and enamel bee brooch, and I treasure it.’

  ‘I knew it! But when? When did she give it to you?’ he demanded. ‘There is no record of it, and I’m told she was wearing it the day she had her fall and went into hospital—and the necklace.’

  ‘Of course she was, she always wore them—they were her favourites. But when I went to visit her in hospital, with Mrs Dukes, she suddenly decided to give them away and wouldn’t be swayed.’

  ‘Mrs Dukes? Who is Mrs Dukes?’

  ‘The cook who worked for your aunt for thirty years, remember? You know, the one you fired recently?’ I didn’t mention that Lady Betty had given her the string of lapis lazuli beads. Neither item was of any great value, except to us for sentiment’s sake; and in any case it was none of Conor’s business.

  ‘The cook was impertinent,’ he said stiffly. ‘So, are you alleging that my aunt gave you the jewellery while she was in hospital? In that case, it may interest you to learn that the receptionist at the nursing home is certain she saw Lady Betty wearing both items when she arrived there! She also noticed that you were wearing that very distinctive brooch on a later occasion, so perhaps you took them when you managed, despite my instructions, to get in to see her?’

  ‘I’m not alleging anything,’ I snapped. ‘The receptionist is either vindictive or a fantasist, and it happened as I said. Lady Betty said she felt that it was time to hand the pieces on, and I was deeply touched.’

  ‘So you say, but I intend to investigate the matter further so, if you wish to escape prosecution, I suggest you immediately return the missing items to me. My aunt was clearly in no fit state to give away her property and, in any case, could not do so because I had the power of attorney. Do you und—’