The Snow Rose

by Lulu Taylor

  ‘Okay, darling. See you later.’ I straighten up and wonder how I’m going to find Matty’s cottage. I only have the vaguest idea of which direction it’s in. But they told me it was easy enough to find. I set off towards where I think the boundary of the garden must be. The tangle of bare branches and overgrown bushes is sometimes too much to overcome and I have to make my way around it, where the route is easier. I’ve soon lost my sense of direction and just keep moving forward, clearing the way ahead by stamping down brambles and foliage, feeling like an explorer advancing through the virgin jungle with a machete in hand.

  Soon I come to a long, thick hedge, too regular to be an overgrown shrub. It seems to form a border, and I guess that beyond this must lie another property, surely that of Matty and Sissy. I walk along the hedge, trampling down long, damp grasses as I go, looking for a thin patch where I might be able to wriggle through. No doubt the sisters know a civilised way around much nearer to the house, which is now completely obscured. I spot what looks like a hole in the hedge, and head towards it only to see, to my surprise, a rotten gate on a pair of rusted hinges, locked with a bolt that looks as though it has not been opened for a very long time. It is tightly shut and all my efforts cannot open it, the cold, rust-pocked metal hurting my hands until I wrap them in my scarf. After that, with a great heave, I’m able to edge the bolt bit by bit out of its home until I can tug the gate open wide enough to sidle through. I’m out of our garden and into a kind of meadow, the grass much shorter, speckled with wild flowers and heather. The ground feels waterlogged underfoot, and I guess I’m near the lake. I look over to my right and see a small cottage up the slight rise, its roof thatched, smoke rising from the chimney.

  ‘Bingo,’ I say, pleased with myself. ‘That must be it.’

  I head off towards it, the going easier now that I’m out of the overgrowth. There is a satisfying squelchy noise as I stride up the hill, enjoying the sensation of the walk. It’s so long since I’ve been out. Even before we got here, I stayed inside for months. I’ve been closeted away for so long and I feel now the mood-lifting magic of exercise. I consider walking on and on, away from the cottage, the house and everything, just walking on forever. But I know I can’t. I’m needed. I have to go back.

  When I finally reach the cottage, it loses a little of the charm it had from a distance. It’s dilapidated and seems to be gently and slowly falling down. A few skinny chickens peck about in the area in front of it – not quite a garden and not quite a yard. But there are also well-tended flower beds and I can see, through a gate, a range of raised beds with the dark green and purple splodges of winter greens, and others that will no doubt be full of produce later in the year. Empty fruit frames dwarf the pruned-back canes. By the door that sits under a porch so wonky it could be from a fairy tale is a herb bed with a huge rosemary bush. I pick a stem of grey-green spikes, crush them absentmindedly and inhale the earthy scent that brings back vague memories of Sunday roasts and Easter lunches. I throw it quickly away and go to the door. An old iron ring serves as a knocker and I bang it hard.

  ‘Hello? Anyone home?’

  A voice sounds faintly inside. Then footsteps, and I hear it more clearly. ‘All right, I’m coming. Hold on.’

  A moment later, the old door opens slowly and reveals Matty standing there, wearing a cherry-red jumper with a huge droopy rollneck, and a tartan kilt. She wears thick stockings and a pair of woolly slippers. Her grey and white streaked hair falls freely over her shoulders. Her dark eyes fix me with their inscrutable blackness at the core. ‘Oh,’ she says flatly. ‘It’s you. You’d better come in.’

  I follow her in as she heads back into the cottage’s interior. The floor is worn grey slabs, the ceiling low and fretted, like the walls, with dark wooden beams. There is stuff everywhere: huge pieces of furniture clearly not suited for the small dimensions of the cottage, loaded with ornaments and bric-a-brac, and half-open drawers spilling their contents. Baskets against the wall are stuffed with tottering piles of newspapers and magazines, or folds of fabric, or assorted junk. Every bit of plaster has a picture hanging from it – all sorts, from large, grand gilt-framed oil portraits and landscapes to amateur-looking watercolours, along with prints, engravings, woodcuts, framed pages from books, and photographs of stiff-looking Victorians and Edwardians in their best clothes: leg-of-mutton sleeves, wasp waists, straw boaters and unsmiling expressions.

  Are they hoarders?

  I recall stories of people unable to jettison anything, who end up crawling through tunnels of rubbish, slotting themselves into tiny gaps between it and the ceiling, until one day they are struck by a tumbling avalanche of detritus that buries them alive. I look around. It’s bad, but not that bad. They could just do with a bit of decluttering.

  No wonder their belongings don’t fit in here if they came from the big house. But there’s so much tat. They could lose most of it without even noticing. Then you might be able to see the nice stuff.

  We emerge into a kitchen, where I’m enveloped by a cloud of warmth made fuggy by the washing that hangs on a rack above the range. What draws my eye at once is a sideboard on which sits a bonsai tree, absolutely adorable in its miniature perfection, the tiny gnarled trunk and outstretched branches in perfect proportion. There are leaves of dark glossy green unfurling next to little green buds, the tips showing the white of the petals within.

  Next to the range, in a wooden rocking chair, sits Sissy, knitting. She looks up as I come in and smiles as though she can see me.

  ‘Hello,’ she says cheerily.

  ‘It’s the caretaker from the house, Sissy,’ explains Matty. I wonder if she is teasing me.

  ‘Hello,’ I say. ‘I hope you don’t mind me dropping in.’

  Sissy still seems to be staring straight at me. ‘I knew you’d come,’ she says almost confidingly, her needles clacking on, her fingers twisting the dark wool with fast, deft movements.

  I look back at the bonsai tree. ‘That’s very pretty. What a lovely tree. It’s so tiny but so perfect.’

  Sissy says, ‘Oh, our little snow rose. She’s a fussy one, that one. The others live in the sitting room but not the snow rose. She likes it here. She likes the warmth of the range and the way the sink and the washing keep the air moist. She hates to dry out! But worse is being too damp. She knows exactly how she likes things, and she likes it here. My theory is that she is a sociable little thing and enjoys hearing our chatter. She’s modest but when she decides to open herself out, she’s the most beautiful of all.’

  I smile. ‘You’re obviously very fond of it. I’d love to see it flower.’

  ‘You might,’ Sissy says. ‘You might. All it does is flower. It will never grow any bigger. It will always stay this way: small and sweet.’

  Matty says, ‘Tea?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She fills a huge bell-shaped kettle from a tap at the sink, takes it to the range, lifts a lid and places the kettle on the hotplate beneath. She nods towards the small square scrubbed table in the middle of the room, which I take to mean I should sit down, so I pull out one of the chairs and sink onto it, glad to rest after my walk.

  ‘What brings you here?’ Matty asks, leaning back against the range while she waits for the kettle. ‘Everything all right at the house?’

  ‘Yes, fine. The house is just the same. But . . . I’ve got some visitors.’

  The knitting needles stop clacking and there is a sudden silence. Then they resume and Matty says stiffly, ‘Visitors?’

  ‘More guardians. Sent from the company. Two girls. Well, women. Two women.’

  Matty glances over at her sister, who inclines her head towards her as if they are swapping looks, even though that’s impossible. ‘Oh,’ she says.

  ‘They’re called Sophia and Agnes.’

  ‘Oh,’ Matty says, frowning. ‘Greek. As usual. That’s a bad sign.’

  ‘Is it? Why?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ says Sissy in her gentle voice. �
��It doesn’t mean a thing.’ But her needles have slowed, her fingers curling the wool around them less rapidly. She’s staring at the length of knitted wool as if counting rows. She must be lost in her own thoughts.

  I continue, ‘Well, they’re here, and there might be others coming. I had to take stock of the condition of the house, and it made me think a bit more about what it used to be like. In the past. When you lived there.’

  After a pause, Matty says, ‘That was a long time ago.’

  ‘So . . . I’d be interested if you could tell me a little about it. About its history. There’s nothing I could find on the internet about Paradise House, just a bit about the architect.’

  ‘Paradise House, is it?’ Matty shakes her head. ‘Well, well.’

  ‘Didn’t you call it that?’

  ‘We did. But that wasn’t its official name, not on the deeds. They’re calling it Paradise, are they?’

  ‘Yes, I don’t know any other name for it. Well, that explains why I couldn’t find out anything about it! And the women told me there’s a church in the grounds. Do you know about that?’

  Now the silence that greets my words is deep and unmistakably loaded.

  ‘We know about the church,’ says Matty at last.

  ‘Oh yes, we know about the church,’ echoes Sissy in her soft way.

  ‘Where is it?’ I ask, curious. ‘I haven’t heard any bells.’

  ‘No, you won’t hear bells. Or see people going to it. It’s not used anymore.’

  ‘But the women told me they were going to a service there.’

  The atmosphere grows suddenly tense and I sense an anxiety that hasn’t been present until now. Matty starts to move, turning to the kettle, lifting it and putting it back. Sissy drops her knitting to her side and begins to rock in her chair, her brow puckering into a scowl.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ I ask.

  Matty replaces the kettle, tapping her nails for a moment on its metal side, before turning back to me. She stares at me with those almost rimless eyes. ‘So,’ she says. ‘It’s what we thought. It’s all starting again.’

  ‘What is starting again?’

  Sissy says quietly, ‘History. History is starting all over again.’

  They are careful about what they say in answer to my questions. I soon realise that in fact I am the one answering questions. They want to know how I heard of the place, on what terms I was engaged to come here and who it is that engaged me. I try to stick with the version of events that ties in with what I told Alison, just in case the stories are compared at some point in the future.

  ‘I’m an artist,’ I tell them.

  ‘Are you?’ Sissy says it quickly, directly. ‘Really?’

  I hesitate. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You exhibit? Sell work?’ She seems suspicious.

  ‘Well . . . no. Not yet.’

  This seems to reassure her, though I can’t think why. ‘And you’ve come here to paint?’

  ‘Yes. In peace and quiet.’

  ‘All on your own,’ says Matty.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Don’t you have a husband? A family?’

  ‘My husband and I are separated,’ I reply stiffly.

  They absorb this silently. They don’t ask about children after that. They want to know more about Sophia and Agnes. I can only assume it’s because they feel so protective of their old home that they want to understand what’s going on there now. After all, they came to scrutinise me not long after I arrived. Now I’m doing that for them with the newcomers.

  ‘And they went to the church,’ Matty says.

  ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘Wearing very pretty white dresses.’

  Matty nods, looking not at all surprised, and says, ‘Well, they would.’ She has made the tea, lifting the kettle off the plate just before it begins to whistle, and pouring the water into a bright yellow china teapot. After a moment, she tips the pot over the waiting cups, and then adds milk to the tea. She pushes one in my direction. ‘There.’ Then she walks over to Sissy, lifts her hand and folds her sister’s fingers around the handle of the cup. ‘That’s for you, old girl.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sissy says.

  I thank Matty and sip the tea. It’s unexpectedly delicious, exactly what I wanted after my walk. Perhaps it’s the fresh air, after so long inside.

  ‘You still haven’t told me about your time in the house,’ I say, smiling. All this talk about the newcomers has formed a bond between us – at least, that’s what I hope. Now we’re united against the strangers. Aren’t we?

  Matty sighs while Sissy sips her tea. She sits down slowly in the chair opposite me. She stares at me for a moment, and says, ‘I don’t think you’re a religious person, are you?’

  I blink at her, uncertain what to say. I want to keep our bond alive, so I’ll say whatever will make her happy. But I’m not sure what that would be. Then I think: am I? Am I religious?

  It’s not something I’ve thought about for years. I went to a convent school, taught by nuns and spinsters, and our entire school lives revolved around the Church calendar and the school chapel. We had lots of lessons on religion – ‘divinity’ it was called, as though teaching us to be angels – but of the utterly unquestioning kind.

  Sister Martha would make us recite the Magnificat or the Nunc Dimittis. Or The Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in heart . . . Blessed are the meek . . . Blessed are those who mourn . . .

  And we were in that chapel twice a day, for morning service and in the evening for compline. I dreamed through the morning service, but the evening one I liked: the dimness of the chapel, the orange-gold candlelight flickering on the walls, turning them salmon pink; the calmness of the short service and its plea for safety. Defend us from all the perils and dangers of this night. Like an invocation, a spell, a magic charm.

  I never really questioned religion. I simply accepted it. Why, after all, would we go to all this bother if there were nothing at all to it? Why would it be so integral to official, grown-up life if it were all just a fairy story? Everyone whom I was supposed to respect and obey believed it. And I liked hymns, and Easter and Christmas, Lent and Harvest Festival, the rolling round of the liturgical year. I liked the stories of saints and the Bible tales. And who could disagree that we should love our neighbour and try very hard to be good?

  But after I left school, I drifted away. With no one to make me, I never went to church, except the occasional midnight mass, half drunk on Christmas Eve, to bellow out the old favourites, doing the descant on ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’. The old rituals faded and were forgotten. It was all a story told long ago that I used to know well, but not anymore.

  I’m struck by a sudden horrible thought. Perhaps if I had continued going – begging for forgiveness, trying to be good – things might have been different.

  Defend us from all the perils and dangers of this night.

  Oh no.

  It’s like an arrow piercing me. Where I went wrong. I never asked for protection. I never said the spell. I forgot that I needed to be safe from the dangers of the night. That we all did.

  I forgot to protect us all. Is that what went wrong? Is that why I’m still going wrong?

  I feel faint, a horrible wooziness in my head, threatening to drag me down into the dark. Into the perils and dangers.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Matty is leaning forward, frowning as she stares at me. ‘Do you feel ill?’

  My eyes flutter closed as I gasp for breath, and I reach forward to clutch the table. There’s a kind of howling in my mind, a sort of shriek that’s so high I can hear it as a vile, mosquito wail that makes my skin prickle and my mouth taste bitter. I can’t speak; I try to breathe, as though that’s the only thing that can restore me.

  ‘Help her, Matty.’ It’s Sissy’s soft voice, now urgent. ‘Help her.’

  I feel strong hands clasp me under my arms and pull me upwards so that I’m straight in my chair. My head lolls back. Breathe, breathe, I command myself.
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  ‘Come on, now,’ Matty says firmly. I feel a light slap on my cheek and then on the other. ‘It’s close to hysteria, that’s what it is. Listen to her!’

  I’m gasping for air, each inhalation accompanied by a strange high sound that comes from the depths of my throat. The knowledge of what I’ve failed to do seems to be strangling me. My neck is blocked with something solid and impassable.

  ‘Don’t hurt her,’ cries Sissy.

  ‘I’m not. It won’t hurt her. But she needs to snap out of it now.’

  Then I feel it – a hot, broad sting on my face as Matty slaps me hard. It shocks me but the pain cuts through the blockage in my throat and opens my lungs to the sweet air beyond it.

  ‘There,’ Matty says, releasing me. My shoulders slump as I pull in long, deep breaths. ‘That’s done it.’

  When I raise my eyes to them, I’m embarrassed at what just happened but they don’t seem in the least disconcerted by it. There’s no sense that my near-faint was in any way unusual.

  ‘There’s something there, Matty,’ whispers Sissy. She’s picked up her knitting and is stroking it with one hand while the black eyes seem to stare right through the wool. ‘Don’t you think?’

  Matty nods, her gaze fixed on me. ‘Oh yes,’ she agrees. ‘There’s something there. Something there right enough.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  As soon as I’ve recovered myself, I tell the sisters I have to be going. I’m still mortified at almost passing out at their kitchen table. All they did was ask if I was religious, and I almost had a fit. They must think I’m a nutter.

  I’m frustrated too. I still don’t have any idea what their connection with the house is, or why there is a church in the garden somewhere. All I know is that, according to them, history is repeating itself. But I don’t know what that history is, or whether it’s a good or bad thing that it is happening again. If it is.