A Winter’s Tale

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘I see what you mean…’ I said thoughtfully. ‘But we’d have to have more lighting in here, and an electric socket or two.’

  ‘I think it would be ideal. What were you thinking of doing with the tearoom part, Sophy? It looks depressingly dreary at the moment.’

  ‘Paint the walls a warm cream colour, for a start, and then have all the tables and drop-in chair seats covered in the same material…something lively.’

  ‘A large gingham check would look good. You can get PVC tablecloth material in that too, which would save laundering,’ Anya suggested. ‘What kind of food do they serve?’

  ‘Just cakes, scones, sandwiches, with tea or coffee. I suppose they have cold drinks too.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right if you don’t want to provide full meals, though you could quite easily have hot soup and rolls and maybe salads? Plus, there’s plenty of room for a freezer for lollies and ice cream, plus a tall chiller cabinet over there by the wall, so people could collect their cold drinks first and put them on their trays while queuing for food.’

  ‘That sounds a lot more practical—and professional,’ I agreed. ‘But the teashop is manned by my volunteers, and I’m not too sure yet how they will take to change.’

  ‘I’ve worked in both teashops and craft centres, don’t forget,’ she said. ‘I could help you set it all up and get it running.’

  ‘I did think of asking you, but would you actually like a permanent job? I know you said you’d like to settle down near Guy, but I wasn’t sure if you were serious. And the salary wouldn’t be very high, especially at first.’

  ‘Yes, I’m serious, though I’m pretty sure I’d still want to travel in the van every winter for a month or two, and sell my jewellery at craft fairs. I don’t need much money and I’ll be selling my jewellery in the shop too, won’t I? I could even set up a workshop area at the back and make it there when it is quiet, so people can watch me.’

  I smiled at her ideas. ‘Oh, Anya, it would be even more fun if you were here too!’

  ‘Yes, I think it would be fun, with the bonus of being able to see more of Guy—though not too much, because he won’t want his mother popping in every five minutes.’

  ‘How is he settling in?’ I asked, because she had been to see him before coming here.

  ‘Fine. He’s renting a flat and enjoying his job, but he finished with his girlfriend just a couple of weeks ago, so he’s a bit down about that. Maybe he’ll find someone new where he’s working—it’s some sort of research lab, not much more than thirty miles from here. It’s odd how conveniently things have worked out.’

  ‘I wish Lucy were only thirty miles away too, and maybe I wouldn’t worry quite so much.’

  ‘Lucy’s the most sensible, capable, kick-ass girl I’ve ever met in my life, so don’t worry, Sophy.’

  ‘I can’t help it. Mr Yatton hatched a cunning plan to lure her back home again by getting her involved in running the estate. He emails her all the time with figures and spreadsheets and stuff, but although she’s fascinated, it hasn’t worked yet.’

  ‘It probably will with a bit more time, because she loves number-crunching and paperwork, doesn’t she? And she’s a born manager.’

  ‘She’s a bossy-boots,’ I agreed.

  ‘Well, just don’t let her rule your life again when she does get back. Guy sends both of you his love, by the way.’

  ‘I’ll tell her. She keeps asking after him.’ I had a sudden idea. ‘Look, why don’t you and Guy come here for Christmas? It would be lovely to have you, and we could make a start on sorting the shop and café out then, too.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  It was getting late, so I persuaded her into taking her bags up to the newly cleaned and polished Chinese bedroom, which Grace had made ready for her. ‘The bathroom’s across the hall. When you hear the gong, dinner’s ready.’

  ‘You’ll come and get me before you go down, won’t you?’ she asked nervously. ‘Your great-aunt sounds scary!’

  ‘She isn’t…really. But we’ll go down together and it will just be the three of us tonight. My other aunt is in Cornwall and Jack’s not likely to drop in.’

  ‘Pity,’ she said, ‘I’d like to have a look at him.’

  ‘He’s not your type, Anya.’

  ‘I don’t think he sounds like anyone’s type. He’s probably in love with his own reflection,’ she said unkindly.

  Once Aunt Hebe had got over the surprise of Anya’s large nose ring and red dreadlocks they got on surprisingly well.

  When I told her that Anya was to reorganise the shop and tearoom she informed her that her range of rose-based products must have the best position.

  ‘Of course,’ Anya said tactfully. ‘I’m sure they’ll be our best-sellers.’

  She admired the central table display of paper napkins, which tonight featured both roses as well as the flotilla of paper swans, which seemed to be appearing as a centrepiece to every meal now.

  ‘Nice swans,’ she said, picking one up to examine it closer.

  Aunt Hebe gave a sniff and, shaking out her linen napkin, spread it across her lap.

  ‘Jonah makes them. He’s learning how to do it at evening class. The paper ones are just for decoration but he does it with the linen ones too, sometimes.’

  ‘I’ll make you a special one, if you like them,’ Jonah promised, overhearing from the side table where he was clattering dishes. She thanked him and said she, in turn, would show him how to make a decent duck later.

  Speaking of which, we had savoury ducks for dinner, a delicacy I had forgotten about while up in the frozen far north, and which had absolutely nothing to do with ducks or, in fact, any kind of fowl. In some areas they were called faggots, which was just as puzzling.

  I’m not sure Anya had ever even seen a savoury duck before, but after staring at it suspiciously for a moment, she ate it, along with the accompanying onion gravy, colcannon and caramelised carrots.

  ‘It’s Guy Fawkes night tomorrow, Aunt Hebe, and we’re going over to the bonfire at Middlemoss. Seth says he’ll drive us in the estate car—would you like to come?’

  ‘Oh, no, thank you, dear. It’s the omnibus of Cotton Common tomorrow on the TV and I want to catch up, but you go and have a nice time. What a pity poor Jack is so busy just now. He would have gone with you.’

  ‘Yes, he does seem to be frantically trying to close deals on several properties at once, doesn’t he?’ I said. ‘And all before the New Year, for some reason.’

  ‘I hope he isn’t overstretching himself,’ Aunt Hebe said worriedly. ‘I know he still hasn’t got planning permission to knock down that house of Melinda’s yet, to sell the land for building. Apparently it’s a Kinkerhoogen.’

  ‘Kinkerhoogen?’

  ‘He was an architect in the sixties and this is one of the few houses he designed over here. Although it is very ugly, Jack says they might try and put a preservation order on it, so I hope he doesn’t do anything hasty.’

  ‘I’m sure he won’t,’ I said soothingly, though I had no idea what she meant. I mean, what could he do—kneecap the council until they gave him planning permission?

  We had coffee after dinner in the drawing room as usual, and then Aunt Hebe flitted off to flog potions to the desperate.

  Anya and I then walked down to the Green Man, where she beat a clearly smitten Mike at dominoes, whilst I told Seth all about our plans and that Anya would soon be a permanent fixture about the place. I thought he took it remarkably well.

  Walking back through the crisp, cold darkness, I teased Anya about Mike and she retaliated by saying she thought Seth and I made a perfect couple.

  ‘Perfectly mismatched,’ I said, astounded. ‘Are you quite mad? He’s the exact opposite of my kind of man, and we’re always arguing. In any case, I’m sure he’s still having a torrid affair with this Mel Christopher I told you about, and she’s absolutely gorgeous.’

  ‘She sounds more like a match for the equally beautiful Jack, then,
’ she pointed out.

  ‘Yes…and sometimes I’ve wondered which of them she really wants. Maybe it’s both. She’s certainly had both. But no…really, I’m sure Seth is her main target. Not that it matters to me, of course,’ I added quickly.

  ‘Of course not,’ Anya agreed, ‘or not now you’ve come to your senses about Jack, anyway.’

  ‘You just wait until you see him, at Christmas! You’ll fall for him and poor Mike will never get a look-in again.’

  ‘Not me. My guardian angel has warned me about him already.’

  ‘Did she say anything about tall, dark policemen?’

  ‘Mind your own business,’ she said with a grin.

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Infernal Knots

  Joan brought mee a lock of my baby’s hair—but also something of my mother’s brewing that she entrusted to her, saying that one day I would be in dire straits and need it. I think she foresaw this moment, for now they talk of putting mee to trial, which I may not be able to bear. I have given her my keepsake and must soon give her this book, for though I conceal it, yet its discovery would go ill for mee.

  From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1582

  Next morning we were turning out the cupboard that was once the escape route from the priest’s hole, when Jonah appeared, bearing the tray holding the remains of Mr Yatton’s breakfast.

  ‘There you are then, Sophy. There’s a call from a man who says he’s your husband. Mr Yatton told him you hadn’t got one, but he’s pretty insistent, so he says, do you want it putting through, or will he get rid of him?’

  ‘Must be some crank who’s spotted that stupid newspaper article,’ I said, carefully putting a Sèvres teacup down on the seventies marbled Formica hostess trolley, which we were using to transfer what was left of the delicate china to the kitchens for washing.

  ‘Mr Yatton says he’s got a slight Scottish accent,’ Jonah said helpfully. ‘Name of Lang.’

  Startled, Anya and I stared at each other.

  ‘OK, Jonah, tell Mr Yatton to switch it through to the parlour,’ I said, feeling as if someone had punched me in the solar plexus, and he went back off down the corridor, rattling crockery.

  ‘Come on, Anya—whoever it is, ex-husband or some crank, I may need moral support. But it can’t be Rory, can it?’

  As I nervously picked up the phone Mr Yatton said, ‘Putting it through.’ Then there was a click as he replaced the receiver at the other end.

  Into the slightly crackling silence a ghost from the past, in the form of a rather posh voice with the faintest hint of a Scottish lilt, demanded, ‘Sophy, is that you? Sophy, are you there?’

  ‘Rory?’

  ‘It is Rory?’ Anya whispered, her eyes wide. ‘Are you sure?’

  I nodded, my heart racing. It might have been over twenty years since I last heard it, but it’s hard to forget your only husband’s voice. For a brief moment I was transported back to feeling like the naïve young girl, desperate for a home and family of her own, who had been agonisingly in love with a handsome, charming older man…

  ‘Sophy, darling,’ he said, his voice going all furry and warm, ‘I’ve found you at last! I can hardly believe it!’

  He couldn’t believe it? My heart stopped pounding and the power of speech returned with a rush.

  ‘What on earth do you mean, Rory Lang, you’ve found me at last? You could have done that any time you wanted to these last twenty-two years. Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘I had a bit of a breakdown—’

  ‘So did our marriage!’ I snapped.

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he said in an aggrieved tone. ‘I was actually quite ill—hardly knew what I was doing. And afterwards I went abroad. I’ve been running a diving school in the Caribbean, but please believe me when I say that every time I came home, I searched for you.’

  ‘Lying bastard!’ muttered Anya, who now had her dreadlocked head pressed to the other side of the phone and was scowling horribly.

  ‘You can’t have searched very hard, because your cousin at the castle would have told you where I was. I wrote to her after Lucy was born.’

  ‘Lucy?’ he echoed.

  ‘You haven’t forgotten I was expecting a baby when you did a runner?’

  ‘Of course not, I just didn’t know that you’d had a girl or what you’d called her—and my cousin never told me she knew where you were. And I truly did search for you every time I came back, but with no success at all until I happened to see your picture in the paper recently.’

  Anya, who had known him during our whirlwind courtship and the few brief weeks of our married life afterwards, couldn’t contain herself any longer and snatched the phone from my hand.

  ‘You lying louse! You abandoned Sophy and the baby totally, and never tried to find them until now. If you’d really wanted to, you know very well that all you had to do was go to the commune and my mother would have told you where she was. You’re only getting in touch now because you think there’s something in it for you.’

  ‘Who is that?’ he demanded sharply. ‘Put Sophy back on the line.’

  ‘It’s Anya. Remember me? I remember you all right.’

  I removed the phone from her grasp. ‘Look, Rory, Anya’s right, you could have found me and Lucy any time you wanted to. I don’t know why you’ve decided to contact me now, but we’re divorced, nothing to do with each other.’

  ‘I never agreed to a divorce.’

  ‘You weren’t there to ask, were you? And you didn’t have to agree, because I divorced you for desertion. So we’ve nothing to say to each other and—’

  ‘My daughter! I have a right to see my daughter,’ he said hastily.

  ‘Then you’ll have to travel a long way. She’s in Japan,’ I snapped, and put the phone down, my legs going trembly. His voice had all the persuasive charm I remembered—much like Jack’s, which made me think that maybe Anya was right and I have a history of falling for smooth-tongued snakes…though actually, Jack hadn’t done anything terribly dreadful other than try to trick me into selling Winter’s End at a reduced price.

  I dialled Mr Yatton. ‘That was my ex-husband, but if he phones again, I’m not home.’

  ‘Very well,’ he agreed, obviously bursting with curiosity but too well-mannered to say anything. But neither Anya nor I thought that Rory would phone again now that he had opportunistically dipped his toe in the water and found it too hot for comfort.

  By the time we’d talked it out and then spent another hour or two finishing cleaning the cupboard, and carefully washing and drying the remains of several very pretty old dinner services, I was quite calm again.

  We both had to go and shower off the filth afterwards—it’s a wonder I haven’t washed myself away since I came here. But then, I suppose if it weren’t for all the activity, the good food would have made me the size of a hippo by now.

  I did mention salads to Mrs Lark once, but she pointed out that they were not in season, in a very final way, so I expect they will make their appearance in spring when it is too late to save my figure.

  *  *  *

  After dinner Seth drove me, Anya and (not altogether to my surprise) Mike over to the village of Middlemoss, where they always have a large bonfire, though they have the strange tradition of burning Oliver Cromwell instead of Guy Fawkes.

  In fact, from what Seth was telling us on the way over, they have their own rather odd way of doing everything in Middlemoss, including performing a weird-sounding mystery play every New Year.

  There would be a charity snack stall and, as our contribution, Mrs Lark had made two trays of black treacle toffee, which Jonah smashed to bits with a little metal hammer and put in greaseproof paper cones, though we all sneakily ate some of it on the way over. I suspect we had black teeth afterwards, but luckily it was too dark to tell.

  When we got there we handed over what was left of it and then all got hot punch or coffee and roast chestnuts. Anya and Mike wandered off together after a while but, knowi
ng no one else, I stuck to Seth’s side.

  He seemed to know lots of people there, especially women…or maybe they were just smiling at him because he looked devilishly impressive in the firelight, all tall, dark and brooding? But he had competition—there was another tall, dark man there who was pretty tasty too.

  He knew Seth and came over to speak to us, and it turned out he was Nick Pharamond, one of the family from the local big house. He told Seth that his wife hadn’t come because she had gone right off fireworks after a nasty incident.

  A few minutes later I knew just how she felt, because a particularly loud bang seemed to set off a sort of chain reaction in my head and I grabbed Seth’s arm excitedly. ‘I’ve just remembered something about the day I had the accident. As I went into the summerhouse I could smell perfume and—’

  I stopped dead, because there was only one woman I knew who wore that particular combination of hot horse and Arpège.

  Seth was looking down at me, frowning. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes…or at least, I think I am. But perhaps I imagined it, and it doesn’t get us any further anyway, does it?’ I said hastily. ‘Forget it!’

  I found I was still holding on to his arm and he’d put one of his large hands over mine in a very comforting sort of way. ‘If I knew who did it…’ he began menacingly, but the rest was perhaps fortunately drowned out by a series of loud flashes and bangs.

  ‘I think that was the grand finale,’ Anya said, appearing out of the darkness with her knitted hat jammed down right over her dreadlocks and her coat collar turned up, Mike right behind her. ‘We’re a bit sticky because we’ve been eating candyfloss—that’s not something you usually get at bonfire parties, is it?’

  ‘It is in Middlemoss,’ Seth said, and then suggested we all call in at the Green Man on the way home. He entirely forgot to let go of my hand until we got back to the car, but I expect his mind was on something else, like one of his infernal knots.