In the Shadow of Winter

by Lorna Gray

  I got up abruptly to fuss unnecessarily with boiling water for a drink I didn’t want. I felt unbalanced and on edge again, and although there was a certain irony in the discovery that once more I was resorting to tea-making as a defence against his presence, above it all I was aware of the fact that if he so much as moved a muscle I would have no choice but to turn and run from him as I had done only the night before.

  As I say, it was utterly absurd.

  ”We-ell,” Matthew said slowly and I suddenly realised he was feeling just as uncomfortable as I, although obviously for entirely different reasons. “I think I’ll turn in myself.”

  “Yes, good idea,” I said vaguely, fiddling aimlessly with clean crockery. Typically the lowermost hinge to the cupboard door chose that moment to finally lose its battle with gravity and I caught it in my hand, hoping he hadn’t noticed. I hid it in the breadbin.

  “You’re in my bedroom, my dear.”

  There was a crash as I dropped a cup. It promptly smashed across the kitchen floor and I hastily bent to gather up the scattered pieces, ducking my head so that he wouldn’t see the unpleasant blush that was heating my cheeks. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  “Here.” He was holding out a piece of broken ceramic. Amusement was just beginning to touch his mouth.

  Still crimson, I gingerly took it from him while carefully avoiding touching his fingers. I put the pieces into a pot to be disposed of in the morning and having done that, with my dignity in tatters, I moved hastily towards the door, muttering as I went an almost unintelligible, “G’night.”

  “Goodnight, Eleanor.”

  I stopped at the foot of the stairs, the open door in my hand, and turned to him again. He paused in laying out his blankets to look at me enquiringly.

  “You’re not really planning to go over there again, are you? It’s dangerous.”

  “We’ll talk about it in the morning,” he said, turning back to making up his bed. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Matthew.”

  Chapter 14

  I could not say what had woken me, only that some sudden sound had jerked me out of slumber to lie there with my heart beating wildly and my ears straining to listen. Nothing, no sound at all followed whatever it was that had disturbed me.

  I lay there waiting for sleep to return but it stubbornly refused. Some sixth sense told me that it hadn’t been my imagination and finally, reluctantly, I gave in. Climbing sluggishly out of bed, I set about dragging some clothes on in the darkened room with the resigned view that I would at least have to go and check, otherwise I would just end up lying awake staring at the ceiling, worrying sleepily until dawn.

  I tiptoed down the stairs, anxious not to wake Matthew – Freddy, I knew, could sleep through anything – but I needn’t have worried. As I slipped out into the faint glow of dying embers in the living room, I was stopped short by the realisation that the settee was empty. The blankets lay in disarray as if he had leapt up suddenly and I wondered if the noise I had heard had been him leaving. I very nearly went back upstairs to alternately fret and sulk in the comfort of my bed but some other instinct made me slip my bare feet into frozen boots and slide soundlessly out through the kitchen door. As I went, my fumbling fingers met and then lifted down the heavy torch from the shelf above the coat-rack, although I didn’t light it.

  Outside, the clear night sky had been consumed by dense fog and there was nothing to brighten my way as I stumbled along the path. I stopped at the road, listening as my breath merged gently with the icy air around me. Nothing. Nothing but the crisp silence of a windless night and the occasional rustle of a small creature in the undergrowth.

  In the near-black ahead I could just make out the darker shadow of the covered-yard where I stored bedding and fodder. I couldn't even see the faint stain of its rotten tin roof set as an outsized lean-to against the crumbling workshops higher up the hill, and to its left, the low range of my stables was only discernible by the comforting sound of rhythmic chewing from the undisturbed inhabitants. Then something moved in the darkness and, cautiously, I slipped across in its wake.

  The covered-yard was truly pitch-black and before I had gone many paces my foot painfully struck something solid. Biting back the hiss of pain, I fumbled with the torch but before I could get it lit, I felt the shockwave as a rush of air lunged towards me across the darkness. It struck my arm, turning me forcibly about before snatching me back, and I would have cried out in fright but that another hand clamped down hard over my mouth.

  “Be still, you fool,” hissed a low voice in my ear. His arm locked in a tight embrace, crushing me against his chest. I lifted my foot to stamp down onto his but he hissed again; “Eleanor! It’s me!”

  Matthew? Instantly I stopped fighting and went slack, breathing jerkily into the hand which smothered my mouth and nose, and slowly, once he was sure that I wouldn’t scream, he relaxed his hold although his arm still held me close. The torch was eased from my fingers and noiselessly set down somewhere behind him.

  “No, don’t speak,” he breathed by my ear. “They’re here.”

  Who’s here? My eyes futilely scanned the darkness as I tried to make sense of what he was saying.

  “Come,” he breathed again. Taking my hand, he led me blindly along the wall and up the stone steps which rose to the old stone workshops at the side. Once there, concealed within the chill blankness of an alcove, we had a vantage point over the entire yard and through a rusting gap in the tin, I saw where the faintest cast from the moon lightened the roofline of the stables. I could hear Beechnut moving restlessly in the corner.

  I looked up at Matthew in silent enquiry as he held me fast against the icy stones. He glanced down and put his lips to my ear. Wait.

  We waited and I began to think he was mistaken when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught something moving through the gloom across the banked snow and cobbles. A stable latch squeaked as it was drawn back and then the shadow moved on along the row.

  I made an involuntary noise and felt Matthew’s body tense beside mine; the soft murmur of unshod feet on the frozen yard was loud in the heavy night-time silence as my ponies began to explore their unexpected freedom.

  Suddenly a match flared and I saw Simon Turford’s face glow grotesquely in the little red circle of light.

  No, no, no!

  My voice was lost in breathless horror as I realised what was about to happen. I tried to push Matthew away but my struggles might have been no more than those of a fly, so easily did he hold me back against the wall as he watched what was going on below.

  Simon Turford had wound a rag around a broom handle and this flared to blinding life as he set the match to it. The breath caught in my throat.

  “Stay here,” Matthew hissed. “I’ll go. But please, just stay here!”

  Then silence as he slipped soundlessly down the steps into the darkness.

  The flaming torch glided smoothly across my yard. It was borne along by Simon’s ugly bulk through the growing herd and I had the sudden sharp shock of realisation that the cost of Matthew showing himself to these people could well prove to be considerably more serious than the burning of my stables. Cursing myself and desperately regretting the burst of idiotic agitation that had made him go, I peered into the gloomy shadows hoping to somehow remedy this disaster but he had masked his movements too well and I could not find him. A splinter of stone broke off the wall beneath my hand.

  The stab of pain to my clenched fingers jolted me into a decision. Recklessly and without much care for silence, I flew down the steps after Matthew and on into the blinding darkness of the covered-yard.

  I don’t know what would have happened if I had burst out into the open as I think I was intending, but just as I was stumbling through the darkness, two things happened. The first was that as I raced across the floor, I was suddenly caught and held by strong arms once more; the second was a great clattering of angry hooves followed by a high-pitched shriek of terror.

 
; “I told you to stay put.” There was a sharp hiss beside my ear. “Ah …”

  In the end I needn’t have worried, Beechnut solved it all for us. They had made the unfortunate mistake of opening her door and as Simon Turford prepared to toss his burning rag into a stable, she charged.

  A shrill scream split the night sky as he dropped the burning handle and clutched at his head in a desperate attempt to protect himself. She reared up over him, front hooves flailing violently and I thought that was it and he was dead, but he was lucky. The falling broom hit the ground in a great flurry of sparks and, with a guttural roar which seemed impossible to have come from a horse, I saw Beechnut twist and spin away, eyes rolling wildly in her head.

  For a moment Simon Turford stood transfixed by horror. He was frozen like a statue and as the seconds ticked onwards I wondered if he would have time to remember his failed plan. But then, quite suddenly, his nerve broke and he turned and bolted for the muckheap. He threw himself up its steaming banks and vaulted clean over the wall even before Beechnut had time to wheel about and face him again, and it took barely another second for his vanishing figure to become little more than a shadow dwindling into the fog.

  An unexpected moment of peace followed this where I had time enough to register Matthew’s arms around me and begin to grow embarrassed. Only then there was a flurry of movement within the milling herd of ponies and Davey, his mouth silent working “oh, oh, oh!”, sprinted clumsily across the yard to throw himself bodily over the closed gate into the road. He barely cleared it before Beechnut slithered to an angry halt behind him, her chest pressed hard against the wooden bars. She looked wild and I thought for a moment that she might try to jump it, but then, as the second man disappeared into the darkness, she simply gave a triumphant toss of her head and turned to trot sedately back to her fellows.

  In the same instant, just as soundlessly as that man’s departure, the tight hold about me abruptly released and Matthew disappeared, leaving me to stand alone and reeling in the icy shadows.

  I must have been staring stupidly at the flaming torch for a good few minutes before a shrill flirtatious squeal from one of the ponies reminded me of my duties and I finally managed to drag my mind back to something resembling sensible thought. I doused the flames with melt-water from the trough before even attempting to make order from the mêlée of ponies and typically it was the smallest of them all that was the most trouble. He seemed to have remembered the days when he was still entire and my feet were stepped on so many times that I lost count, not to mention all feeling in my toes. Eventually, however, he was successfully prised away from his miniature harem and I had them all safely back in their stables, and seemingly none the worse for their adventure bar the odd superficial cut here and there.

  Beechnut, in fact, seemed extremely proud of herself. She returned to her stable with great dignity and although she simply appeared to be her usual affectionate self as she politely questioned my claim of empty pockets, I could not help reliving the terrifying vision of her raging fury as she pounded down the yard towards the two men. Running my hand down the soft arch of her neck, I finally came to the happy conclusion that this was one of those rare moments when there was a very definite advantage in being a woman.

  “All set to rights?”

  Matthew cheerfully loomed out of the darkness beside me just as I was giving them all a final pat. He sounded slightly out of breath as if he had been running.

  I nodded and the nearby pony confirmed it by giving a great lazy sigh and turning back to his hay. “Wherever have you been?”

  A brief hint of a quiet smile. “I just wanted to check that they really had gone. Didn’t you hear the car? They had it hidden in a gateway towards the village.”

  “Is that what it was? The roads must be improving then,” I said stupidly, and then shivered suddenly as the adrenalin left me.

  “You’re cold. Here, take my coat, sorry, your coat.” He shrugged his way out of the big black coat and slung it around my shoulders before starting to steer me back across the road towards the house. “What on earth were you doing out here anyway?”

  Hugging its second-hand warmth about me, I cast a quick glance up at him. He looked invigorated and alive, and not at all how I expected him to be. “I heard you go out. I thought … Well, I don’t know what I thought, but I couldn’t just go back to bed and pretend nothing had happened, could I?”

  He reached past me to feel about in the gloom for the door handle. “No, I guess for you that would be impossible.”

  “Matthew Croft! That almost sounded like an insult.”

  “Maybe it was.” The door swung open and he grinned down at me out of the darkness. “Why you couldn’t just do as you were told and stay put like a good girl…? Anyway, let’s get out of this fog. I think the drama is over – for now at least.”

  I led the way inside, muttering darkly to myself.

  I think it was only when I was back in the warm comfort of the kitchen that the full magnitude of what had happened finally hit me. My fingers were trembling as I lit the stove and he only needed to see me fumbling with the tea caddy to take it out of my hands and firmly order me down on the settee near the fire. It felt like barely a moment later that he was putting a steaming cup into my hands and I hardly noticed when he set about dragging the heavy armchair closer.

  He settled himself into it and fixed me with an appraising look. “You’re shivering. Are you cold?” He got up again to drape a blanket around my shoulders while I watched the flames in the hearth lick hungrily at the logs he had placed there.

  There was a pause. Then he said with increasing concern, “You’re still shivering. Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Scared?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what is it then?”

  I turned my head to look at him properly for the first time. “I’m not scared, Matthew, I’m livid.”

  He gave a laugh then, and leaned back in his chair. “You really are quite something these days, aren’t you? The girl I used to know would have been frightened, upset, confused, but no, not you – you’re livid.”

  I flinched from his humour, voice rising testily. “Don’t laugh at me, Matthew. Whatever you do, don’t laugh at me!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you, not really,” he said, trying to suppress his smile. “It’s just that you constantly surprise me, that’s all.”

  Grudgingly, I let that one pass.

  We sat in silence for a while, staring at the fire and each of us lost in thought before a sudden realisation gripped me that beat aside my flimsy bravery in an instant. “What were they doing here? Do you think that they’ve found you?”

  “I don’t think so,” Matthew said slowly, clearly thinking. “When I tailed them to the car they were talking about you, not me. And it didn’t sound like they were under orders either …” His gaze lifted and, whether he meant it or not, his next words were brutal. “You must have really made an impression.”

  I swallowed painfully. It wasn’t easy to feel so very clever about the afternoon’s little adventure anymore.

  All of a sudden, Matthew reached out and put his hand over mine where it rested in my lap. “I won’t let them hurt you. You do know that, don’t you?”

  Unlike mine earlier, there were no clichéd film-star heroics in his words, only absolute certainty, and I couldn’t help the little shiver that ran up and down my spine. His thumb moved lightly across the backs of my fingers.

  “I’m definitely going to go and have another look around tomorrow; see if I can’t figure out what they’re up to.” He was speaking very steadily and clearly as if expecting an argument and doing his level best to pre-empt it. “Tonight’s unpleasant little episode has decided that for me.”

  “Yes,” I said, equally firmly. “And I’m coming with you.”

  Very abruptly, he released my hand. He leant back in his chair once more, whistling softly through his teeth.

  “
Agreed,” he said at long last. “But on one condition.”

  “What’s that?” I asked suspiciously.

  “You do as you’re told. If I say stay put, I mean it.”

  “But I was only …!” I stopped when I saw his eyebrow lift. “All right. Sorry. I’ll do as I’m told.”

  His mouth twitched at my contrite expression. “Good. In that case, I think we should try to get some sleep. Off to bed with you, young lady.”

  I disentangled myself from the blankets and set my empty cup down on the table. When I looked back, his mouth had set into seriousness once more and he was staring intently at some fiercely private thought. I meant to just slip meekly away but as I made for the stairs, something made me pause, and barely turning to him, say, “Goodnight, Matthew, and thank you.”

  His head lifted in surprise. “Thank you? Whatever for?”

  “For not treating me like a helpless girl and telling me to stay at home.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” he said with a smile. “Goodnight.”

  Chapter 15

  The day dawned warmer than on previous mornings, the fog clinging in a sodden blur about the head of the valley and I wondered if more snow was expected. My brain felt utterly numbed by the disrupted night and I had obviously slept later than I thought because when I finally got downstairs there was evidence that Matthew, and even Freddy – who was not known for his early rising – had breakfasted and were already outside somewhere.

  They had left me the crust of the bread and I nibbled this thoughtfully as I leaned comfortably against the fireside, looking out through the window towards the road. The trees at the top of the hill were bare of their muffling burden of hoarfrost and birds were flitting about in the dirtied crust at their roots, squabbling and chasing each other; they seemed noisier than of late and I wondered if I was wrong after all and this miraculous little thaw truly was going to prove to be a forerunner of the belated spring.