A Winter’s Tale

by Trisha Ashley

  It was odd to think that Winter’s End mistletoe would be adorning houses all over the south of England this Christmas—and, since it is lucrative, be helping to support the estate too!

  There was still plenty left growing wild up in the woods for decorating the house, and also plenty of holly with bright red berries—the sign, usually, of a hard winter, though we’d only had a couple of cold snaps so far.

  ‘Thank you for the Christmas present, Anya,’ I said. ‘What possessed you, you idiot?’

  She giggled down the phone. ‘I know someone who breeds peacocks and they seemed just the thing for Winter’s End. Did they get there OK?’

  ‘Yes, your friend brought them in a crate on the back of a pick-up, just after Sunday lunch and when Jonah told us there was a delivery of birds we all went out to look. I was just grateful they weren’t flamingos or macaws or something! It’s lucky I like that sort of plaintive scream they make!’

  ‘What did Seth think?’

  ‘He wasn’t too pleased at first, because he said they would make a mess in the garden, but Hebe was surprisingly keen. She had the gardeners wheel the crate round to an empty run in the walled garden until they settle down, and says she will feed them with the hens. She’s named them, too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fanny and Johnnie after the Cradocks who used to do cookery shows on TV. Apparently the inspiration was Ottie saying that the male peacock looked henpecked.’

  ‘Nice. I look forward to meeting Fanny and Johnnie at Christmas.’

  ‘Which is practically here. And guess what, Lucy is coming home, after all!’ I said, and told her all about it.

  Of course she thought it was all arranged by our guardian angels, which I suppose Lucy’s might have done, but I’m pretty sure that mine has not left the building, let alone jetted off to Japan. In fact, ever since Ottie did her Last Revelation thing, I have the distinct feeling that whenever I’m in the parlour in the evenings, Alys is trying to tell me something.

  Whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t take her as long as it took Ottie.

  I woke up the day before Christmas Eve more excited than any child on Christmas Day, and all because Lucy was coming home! I just hope she loves Winter’s End as much as I do. At least it was now looking its best—warm, clean, inviting and smelling of rich foods and spices because Mrs Lark was cooking up a storm in the kitchen, both for the party tomorrow and Christmas itself.

  There was still lots to sort out for the party, but Seth and I had to set out for the airport right after breakfast. I was so glad he was driving, because not only were the roads icy but I was a bundle of nerves, even though I knew everything would be fine once I saw her.

  Lucy, looking pale, and with her red-gold hair dishevelled, staggered out onto the airport concourse laden with twice as much baggage as she went with.

  She dropped everything and gave me a huge hug. ‘Hi, Mum! I’m sooo glad to be back—and I’m shattered, haven’t slept a wink on the plane. Where have you put the camper?’

  ‘I’ve brought the estate car instead, and Seth drove me. He’s waiting for us in the short-stay car park—come on.’

  The cold air woke her enough to give Seth a very serious once-over followed, I was relieved to see, by one of her more delightful smiles.

  ‘Mum’s told me all about you, and you’re just the way I imagined, only more so!’

  ‘Has she? I mean—am I?’ he replied, startled, and gave me a dubious look. ‘Well, you look exactly the way I imagined you would too!’

  She nodded. ‘I know, apparently I’m a typical Winter and once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Mum, you sit next to Seth,’ she ordered, climbing into the back seat. ‘Oh—there’s a dog in here,’ she added, as Charlie woke up and then greeted her like a long-lost friend, all wet tongue and cold nose.

  ‘It’s just Charlie. I’d forgotten he’d decided to come with us. Do you want me to have him in the front?’

  ‘No, he’s fine,’ she said, and next time I turned around they were both curled up together fast asleep.

  Seth and I comfortably bickered in low voices all the way home, merely because I’d had the audacity to ask Hal to go into the woods and cut me plenty of holly and mistletoe to decorate the Great Hall, without consulting him first.

  I felt unspeakably happy.

  When we got back, the Great Hall was half transformed ready for the party. I’d left my CD player up in the minstrels’ gallery ready for carols, but Mr Yatton must have put one of his own on, for Handel’s ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’ was majestically unscrolling itself into the spiced air.

  It was strangely appropriate, for as we entered, everyone stopped and formed into a smaller, indoor version of the greeting line I had faced on my arrival: Grace, the Larks—even Ottie, who suddenly appeared as if she had divined by a sixth sense that another Winter had returned, gave Lucy a back-thumping embrace and a muttered, ‘Chip off the old block!’ before vanishing back to her studio again.

  I hoped she would remember to come for dinner, though I might have to send Jonah over to fetch her.

  As ‘The Queen of Sheba’ came to a halt, Aunt Hebe, all in spectral white, drifted silently down the dark stairs. After staring at Lucy intently for a moment, a gaze that Lucy returned in full measure, she embraced her and welcomed her home with much more enthusiasm than she had shown me.

  But then, they were as alike as two peas in a pod, except that Aunt Hebe’s hair was now white instead of red-gold. Somehow, I got the feeling that Lucy’s being a despised female wasn’t going to enter into the equation any more…

  ‘Well, we’d have known you for a Winter anywhere, young Lucy!’ Mrs Lark said, stating the obvious.

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Jonah. ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ he added, in a surprisingly deep bass and Lucy cast me a wide-eyed look.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s practising his Father Christmas act for tomorrow’s party,’ I explained. ‘Now, I’ve told you all about everyone, so you only have to put faces to names. This is Mrs Lark and her husband, Jonah, of course—and this is Grace…and here come two of the gardeners, Hal and Bob, with some holly.’

  ‘So I see,’ Seth said, and the two gardeners edged behind me.

  ‘Don’t be a grump, Seth. I only want them to help Jonah put the holly and mistletoe up, and then they can go back and do whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing.’

  ‘Raking the gravel, and Bob’s chopping the logs,’ Hal said, without noticeable enthusiasm. I’m sure they would much rather be inside because it was literally freezing out there.

  ‘Well, make sure Jonah doesn’t go up the ladder. You know what you’re like, Jonah, trying to do it all yourself.’

  When I turned back, Hebe and my daughter were arm in arm. ‘Oh, it’s so good to be home!’ Lucy said, her eyes shining. She smiled, the mirror image of every Winter I’d ever met, except the one in my mirror—and Alys, of course. ‘I’m so happy to be here—home at Winter’s End at last.’

  The magic seemed to have worked its trick and another piece of the pattern of Winter’s End seamlessly fitted into place.

  After a while I showed Lucy to her room, which she loved—especially since it had once been her grandmother’s—and then gave her a quick tour of the house to get her bearings, finishing by introducing her to Mr Yatton, who was busily doing something or other in the solar.

  In fact, I left them there together in the end as they seemed to have so much to discuss, and went back to the Great Hall to help. Seth and Derek had brought in a huge Christmas tree while Jonah and Bob had gone up to the attics to bring down the boxes of decorations that were stored there.

  By the end of the afternoon, when the sky outside was darkening, the hall looked lovely, and Lucy had slotted so seamlessly into place that I’m sure everyone had already forgotten that she hadn’t always been there.

  But I wasn’t jealous, as I had been with Jack, for one day Winter’s End would belong to Lucy and I wanted her to love it to
o.

  The Great Hall looked wonderfully festive, festooned with holly, mistletoe and swags of greenery tied with big bows of wide red ribbon, and the tree sparkling in the corner, which we all helped to decorate.

  The trestles, covered with festive tablecloths, stood ready to receive the mounds of food already prepared by Mrs Lark. Portmeirion Christmas serving bowls and dishes were lined up the middle for nuts, sweets and nibbles, and a stack of plates and scarlet paper napkins were at one end.

  Charlie lay in the centre of the revived rag rug in front of the fire like a dead dog, exhausted by watching all this activity.

  A large, hooded porter’s chair was dragged forward nearer to the fire and garlanded, ready for Father Christmas, and the presents for the children arranged in piles on the table behind him.

  Then it was ready. I felt an air of toe-tingling excitement and expectation that I hadn’t felt for…well, ever, really.

  Jack arrived late. I heard the peal of his rather noisy horn while I was showering after having helped Lucy unpack some of her stuff. He was last down in the drawing room too, not excepting Ottie, who had remembered to come only because she had finally completed the sculpture.

  Seth wasn’t there. I’d invited him, but he’d said he had something else to do, and I had a pretty good idea what that meant.

  When Jack walked into the drawing room, with his usual air of expecting to see a fatted calf laid on for him, the first thing that met his eyes was Lucy, seated on the sofa with a great-aunt on either side, like triplets. His face was stunned. I had quite forgotten to tell him that Lucy was coming home, and Aunt Hebe mustn’t have mentioned it either.

  For once she didn’t spring to her feet with loud cries of joy at the sight of her beloved boy, just smiled and said, ‘Oh, there you are at last, Jack—and here’s Lucy!’

  He recovered quickly. I think I was the only one to notice that his nose had been put out of joint, just as mine had when I first returned to Winter’s End and found him cock of the walk.

  ‘Well, this is a surprise,’ he said, coming forward to shake hands and then kiss Lucy’s cheek.

  Lucy summed him up, and then a smile that I knew from experience to mistrust appeared on her lips. ‘It’s not a surprise to me. Mum’s told me all about you and I knew you were coming for Christmas.’

  Watching them, it occurred to me that, next to Lucy, Jack didn’t look quite as splendid. His hair was just gold, not the precious fine red-gold that hers was, and his blue eyes seemed to lack the true azure depth of Lucy’s. They both had the typical Winter high-bridged nose, but in Lucy’s case her features were delicately drawn and her skin so translucently white she looked like porcelain.

  ‘How lovely to have the family all together,’ Aunt Hebe said as the gong went. ‘Oh, no time for a drink first I’m afraid, Jack. We’d better go through.’

  He changed course from the drinks cabinet. ‘Of course.’ He smiled delightfully. ‘And I hope I will be able to sit next to my newest cousin and get to know her better.’

  ‘Actually, you’re so much older than me that I think of you more as an uncle,’ Lucy said sweetly. ‘A great-uncle.’

  Battle seemed to have commenced, but I wasn’t quite sure that Jack had yet grasped the nature of his adversary. But by the time we’d eaten our way through potted shrimps with French toast and Jonah had brought in the Beef Wellington and glazed carrots, he was starting to get a glimmer of understanding.

  Jonah had excelled himself in the paper napkin department tonight: there was a huge central display of red paper roses nestling in green crepe paper holly leaves. I complimented him on it.

  ‘It’s very festive. Yo u are clever, Jonah, thank you.’

  ‘There’s nothing to roses, I could make them in me sleep. Of course, since that time the kitten ate one and it went through the poor mite’s system like a dose of salts—’ he began, but Hebe, who had been staring with vague disapproval at the bright scarlet roses, interrupted him.

  ‘Of course!’ she exclaimed. ‘Roses! That’s what it said in Alys’s foreword to her mother’s household book—that the secret was at the heart of the rose…’ She frowned. ‘Or maybe the heart of the rose was the secret?’ she added doubtfully.

  ‘Hebe!’ Ottie snapped. ‘Button it!’ But the warning had come too late. Jack was staring intently at his aunt, his knife and fork suspended.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Ottie, I didn’t mean to just blurt that out,’ began Hebe, flustered. ‘It’s just—well, forget what I said, everyone, it’s nothing.’

  ‘Is that what it says—roses?’ Jack said eagerly. I saw his eyes dart from the flowers carved along the top of the panelling to those embroidered on the firescreen, and feared he was about to embark on a whole new treasure hunt, fruitless though I knew it would be.

  ‘She only meant the use of roses in the recipes, Jack—don’t get excited,’ I said soothingly. ‘Now, could I help anyone to some more of this lovely beef?’

  After dinner we all retired to the drawing room but Lucy’s long journey was catching up on her, Ottie was in a state of exhausted euphoria due to having completed the sculpture, and Hebe and I were shattered after the preparations for the party, so we all decided on an early night.

  Jack was the only exception. Suspiciously bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, he said he would watch TV in the library for a bit, though as I was going out he kissed me good night and suggested I stay for a little while. ‘I’ve hardly seen anything of you, darling. We haven’t had a minute to ourselves since I got here.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m just too tired, Jack—and if I know Lucy, she’ll be waiting for me to come up. We’ve still got a lot of catching up to do.’

  ‘So have we,’ he said, ‘but I suppose we can make up for it tomorrow.’

  ‘Perhaps, but it’s going to be even more hectic than today. My friend Anya is arriving early in time for the Friends meeting, and her son, Guy, is coming later. They’re both staying for Christmas—did I say?’

  ‘No, you don’t seem to have told me anything!’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I? I thought I had. Well, anyway, they’re staying, and then there’s the meeting and the party, and clearing up afterwards—so tomorrow is going to be busy. I’ll be really glad of your help, Jack.’

  ‘I don’t know why you decided to carry on with these feudal traditions, Sophy. I told William often enough that it was a waste of time and money.’

  ‘I think it’s a lovely thing to do, to thank everyone for all their help over the year,’ I said. ‘Good night!’ and I dodged when he would have kissed me again.

  Some instinct—or maybe it was Alys’s chilly presence making herself felt in the passageway—made me go and lock the door to the parlour before I went upstairs, which is not a thing I normally do.

  ‘You reek of horrible aftershave,’ Lucy said disapprovingly when I walked into my room to find her sitting on the bed.

  ‘Actually, it’s lovely, but you probably associate it with Lady Betty’s repulsive nephew Conor. It’s the same one he always wore and it was entirely wasted on him. In fact, it seemed to wear Conor, rather than the other way round, while Jack’s made it entirely his own—a part of the whole handsome and expensive package.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she said, sounding unconvinced.

  I sniffed the air. ‘Have you been at my Elisabethan Rose?’

  ‘No, it’s something Aunt Hebe brewed up, but it does smell similar, I admit. She just gave it to me on the way to bed, as an early Christmas present.’

  ‘You’re honoured. Now come on,’ I said, climbing onto the bed next to her and giving her a hug, ‘you tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine!’

  Chapter Thirty: Rival Attractions

  Now it is clear that my relatives will not intercede for mee, they have subjected mee to the indignities of searching my person for such places as might suckle an imp or devil and threaten sterner measures should I not confess my wrongdoing and name my accomplices.

  From the journal of Alys Blez
zard, 1582

  Jack was conspicuously not his usual bright-eyed and bushy-tailed self at breakfast. In fact, he looked a little wan, which I expect was entirely due to his having spent a large part of the night up and about—as evidenced by his fingerprints all over every carved, engraved, embossed or stuccoed rose in the house.

  He can hardly have had time for much sleep after that either, because when Hebe went out this morning she discovered that he must have been in the walled garden at first light with his metal detector, digging holes among the apothecary roses.

  She was furious, though when she tore him off a strip, he tried to laugh it off. ‘But all I found was a silver threepenny bit and a few bent nails, Hebe. I hardly touched the garden.’

  ‘There are holes all over the place,’ she said crossly.

  ‘I’ll come and help you fill them in right after breakfast, Aunt Hebe,’ Lucy offered, and Jack gave her a dirty look. Clearly he was out of favour at the moment, though I was sure it wouldn’t last very long.

  ‘Don’t forget the Friends are coming at ten thirty for the meeting before the party,’ I reminded them. ‘Anya should be arriving any minute too. I asked her to try and get here in time for it, since she’ll be running the tearoom and gift shop end of things.’

  ‘You aren’t still determined to turn the place into a Shakespeare theme park, are you?’ Jack said. ‘We agreed you would wait and discuss it with me at Christmas before finalising anything.’

  ‘Not a theme park, Jack,’ Aunt Hebe said disapprovingly. ‘Just opening as we have done for many years now, only with a very tasteful little shop too.’

  ‘Of course Mum is going to open the house to the public next year. It’s the best way of generating income to keep the place going,’ Lucy said combatively. ‘And I’m sure your products will be our best-sellers, Aunt Hebe.’

  ‘Thank you, dear.’

  ‘But it all needs organising now; she can’t hang about waiting for your input, Jack,’ Lucy went on. ‘Anyway, I’m sure she’s got a lot more experience at running this kind of thing than you have. She did everything at Blackwalls!’