The Snow Angel

by Lulu Taylor

  ‘It’s marvellous,’ she breathed. ‘Did you do it from memory?’

  ‘No. Catherine put on the shirt and your pearls. She sat for me. I made her do it. I really couldn’t think of anything but painting your picture and as you weren’t here . . .’ He smiled at her, something ambivalent in the way his lips curled upwards.

  She looked back. The portrait changed slightly under her eyes. She felt strange knowing it was now a hybrid of her and Catherine.

  ‘I’ll retouch some of the details now, once you’re sitting,’ Ralph said, as if reading her mind. ‘It’s easy enough to change anything that isn’t exactly as I want it.’

  The way you want it . . . she thought. Did it matter how things actually were? As long as they looked the way that Ralph wanted them to look. Perhaps he needed to shape life to his brush and his vision. Could she trust that the painting was really her, as she looked in life, or was it what Ralph wanted her to be? His vision was the one growing to life on the canvas, after all. But then, what of Catherine’s role and her quiet directing of the painting? Cressie had noticed moments when Ralph had stopped painting and sat there waiting, until Catherine had looked up, observed the portrait with a swift glance and a nod, and then he continued.

  She sat down in her chair, which was carefully placed on the taped marks on the floor. Settling back, she took up her pose. How long had she sat like this? It must be hours now.

  Ralph went over to a gramophone in the corner. ‘Do you mind if we have music?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ She was relieved. Music meant they would not talk and if they didn’t talk, then perhaps nothing frightening or dangerous would be said.

  He put a record on the turntable, and lowered the stylus. There was a harsh burst of sound and then silence. A moment later, the strains of a piano floated out, lyrical and fluid, into the air.

  ‘My painting music. Do you know it?’

  She shook her head and listened to the elegant, romantic fall of notes. ‘Is it Chopin?’

  ‘Good guess. No. It’s an Englishman called John Field. Have you heard of him? He was a very talented pianist and composer. It was he who actually invented the nocturne, which Chopin then took and developed. Isn’t it lovely?’

  She listened. ‘Yes. Beautiful.’

  ‘He never realised his potential, despite his genius. He moved to Russia for his career, but died quite young there. Sad.’

  ‘Very sad,’ she agreed. The music flooded out and filled the room. Ralph began to hum along as he descended into his painting trance. He paced back and forth in front of the easel, staring at her hard and then at the portrait, and then touching his brush to the canvas, frowning, biting his lips or pursing them. Sometimes he would stand, his head to one side, staring at her, seeing her with an intensity no one ever had before. She felt utterly real and completely whole, as though her soul and body were merged at that moment. Her face was a window, and every angle of her body told something about her; the turn of her head, the fall of her hand, the set of her mouth all expressed her character.

  This is terrifying, she thought. I feel completely exposed, as though he can see everything about me. All her defences fell away under Ralph’s steady grey gaze.

  He stared at her and then approached her. Her breathing quickened as he reached out towards her. He turned his brush and gently, almost tenderly, with the pointed end of its handle, he lifted a lock of her hair out of her face and carried it over to one side.

  ‘There,’ he said softly. ‘It wasn’t quite right.’

  She felt her chest rising and falling rapidly as he stood by her. The music seemed to fill the room with more intensity than ever. Her consciousness became heightened and she was aware of everything: the vase of roses on the table by his brushes jar; the blue tit hopping on the bird table outside; a leaf fluttering through the air and a swirl of grey cloud behind the church spire. She noticed his long, slender fingers, the way the palette sat in one hand, the brush held elegantly in the other. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, she noticed. But nothing so very strange in that. ‘You’re very beautiful,’ he said in the same soft tone. ‘I don’t know if I shall ever be able to do you justice, not if I painted you a hundred times.’

  She moved her head and looked up at him, wondering if her eyes showed the mix of fear and hope she felt. She was terribly afraid of anything happening between them and yet couldn’t help longing for it. She’d fantasised in secret about the touch of his lips on hers, yearned for the feel of his skin. She imagined being in bed with him, wondered what it would be like if he made love to her, until the pictures she conjured up were too powerful to bear and she’d writhed under her own sheets, not knowing how to cope with the desires flowing through her own body.

  His expression had become deadly serious as he gazed down at her, the brush still in his hand. For a moment she wondered if he’d forgotten she was the real Cressie and had begun to think she was his portrait, and whether he would lean forward and begin to paint over her skin, turning her into his work of art. Perhaps he would give her the beauty that he could see and that she couldn’t.

  Her mouth fell open, a sigh coming hard between her lips. Ralph’s eyes seemed to burn with an intensity she hadn’t seen before.

  ‘Cressida,’ he said in a low voice.

  There was the sound of the front door opening and sturdy footsteps entering.

  ‘Hello!’ It was Catherine’s voice, loud as she came down the corridor.

  They both froze, each looking guiltily at the other. Then, without haste, Ralph turned away from her, dipping his brush into the palette, his face grave.

  Catherine came into the room, her glance flying between the two of them. Despite the outward normality she seemed to sense at once that something was not quite as usual.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked, looking at Ralph, a frown creasing her brow.

  ‘Yes,’ he said brusquely.

  She turned to Cressie, who was trying to regulate her breathing and hide the pounding of her heart, which she was sure was visible beneath the cotton shirt. ‘Is he being a good host, Cressida? I hope he’s looked after you.’

  ‘Yes, he has,’ she said as brightly as she could. ‘Very well.’

  ‘Good. It turned out Mrs Bathurst didn’t need me as long as she thought she would. We’ve been sorting things out for the Christmas fair. It’s going to be quite lovely. We’ll be making wreaths this weekend . . .’ Catherine’s cosy chatter fell easily from her lips. Calm seemed to be restored. She took up her place on the sofa to watch proceedings.

  It’s as though my guard is back, Cressie thought. She’d been left unattended but she was certain that Catherine would be unwilling to let that happen again.

  She glanced over and saw Catherine’s eyes staring at her. The other woman had pulled her legs up, resting her chin on her knees, her arms crossed over her calves. The afternoon light glinted off the ring on her wedding finger.

  A bolt of shame struck Cressie’s heart.

  I’m wicked. Evil. He’s another woman’s husband. I can’t think of him the way I do – I can’t. No matter how he makes me feel.

  PART TWO

  Chapter Thirteen

  The van followed Emily’s car as they bumped along the country roads. She could only just glimpse it in the rear-view mirror over the piles obscuring the back window. As the road twisted and wound, its white nose would disappear for a while and then appear again round a bend, following determinedly on.

  These roads are incredibly narrow. I hope the van doesn’t get stuck. And they’re making us take forever. When on earth will we get there?

  The little arrow on the satnav just directed her on and on, along the twisting lanes. The last thing the electronic voice had instructed her to do was follow the road for eight miles. It hadn’t spoken for ages.

  They had set off from London early that morning, vigorous with the adventure of their undertaking. The car had been unaccustomedly heavy with all the paraphernalia that she’d loa
ded into it – and that was just the immediate necessities for an unknown house.

  ‘You’re mad,’ Polly had said to her, when she’d heard the plan. ‘Moving into a house that you’ve never seen!’

  Emily had shrugged. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m not exactly going to turn it down, even if I don’t like it. As far as I’m concerned, this house is a gift at the time I most need it. I think it’s going to be perfect, don’t ask me why. And anyway, there isn’t time to go all the way up there and back.’

  There had been far too much to do to contemplate taking the time to visit December House. The solicitor had been in touch with the executors, who had sent a sketchy floor plan of the house and a few pictures in an email, but they had been taken on a dark day without a flash, as far as Emily could see. They were shady and hard to make out – just gloomy rooms with fireplaces and deep-set windows. There was no explanation as to which room was which either – was she looking at the sitting room or a bedroom? Did the kitchen lead out from the dining room or were they not connected at all? She spent hours squinting at the floor plan – which didn’t have all its rooms labelled in any case – and the dark photographs, trying to make sense of them.

  But who cares anyway? she had said to herself. All will be revealed in time.

  She was clinging on to a secret hope that the house would be exquisite, and she imagined inglenook fireplaces and slate floors, even though she had a feeling that what she should be concerned with were the boring things like electrics, plumbing and heating. Goodness only knew what state the old place would be in if there had been just one old lady occupant for years on end.

  That day, the one when she’d learned about the bequest, had been a lucky one. On her phone there had been four messages from Loxley’s, each one more excited than the next. Ollie was delighted to tell her that there was a bidding war for the house.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said to him when she called him from the car. ‘But the main thing is how quickly they can move. It’s no good if they’re not able to complete within a few weeks.’

  ‘Two of the buyers are chain free!’ said Ollie happily. ‘They both have funding in place. It’s a shame we can’t take just a little more time,’ he wheedled, ‘because we could get another ten or fifteen if we could—’

  ‘It’s tempting, of course, but the hard fact is that I have to pay the bank back within their deadline or none of us gets anything. So let’s get the best offer we can from the person who’s a cast-iron certainty in terms of moving quickly.’

  ‘Understood,’ Ollie said wistfully, and she had accepted the offer from a cash buyer, taking less money for a guaranteed sale. But it was still a good deal, and she would be left with a decent bulwark of cash that would keep them going for a while. She had sold all her most expensive clothes on auction sites, shedding bags and shoes and hardly worn designer purchases. She took her jewellery, bar a few sentimental pieces, into a little shop in Hatton Garden and sold the lot. Her engagement ring, with its flashy rock and platinum band, had brought her in almost ten thousand alone. Any furniture or art that she thought had value went to an auction house, and it all sold. Will had chosen most of the art, and she had to credit him with a good eye: quite a lot of it had gone up in value. It replaced just a little of what he had taken of her parents’ legacy.

  We’ll be all right until I can get a job. Exactly how she was going to do that in the wilds of Cumbria, while looking after two small children on her own, she wasn’t sure. But there would be something.

  She had called Diana to tell her the news. Her mother-in-law had taken it all very frostily but there was, at least, no more talk of calling in lawyers to protect Will’s interests, and the threat to bar Emily from the hospital was not repeated. Perhaps the news that Will had taken her parents’ legacy had managed to penetrate Diana’s maternal armour. Perhaps she realised that it was only fair, now that Will was incapacitated indefinitely, that Emily should be allowed to do whatever she could to protect the family. But there was no mistaking her anguish at the children moving so far away.

  ‘But Emily,’ she said plaintively, ‘how will they ever see their father?’

  Emily had stayed silent. As far as she was concerned, their father was incapable of being a part of their lives in his current state, and the sight of him would only terrify them. Besides which, the thought of the children going near him made her insides curdle with revulsion. He wasn’t the man she’d thought he was, and perhaps he never had been. She’d known he was stubborn, selfish and materialistic, but he’d also been clever, funny, often kind, and a loving father who had delighted in his children. Even when things started to turn bad, she’d been prepared to put up with it. What had turned her implacably against him was his desire to hurt them by robbing them of both their parents.

  How could he even have thought it? No matter how bad things got, they couldn’t have been so bad as to merit orphaning the children.

  She had felt that familiar horror and hatred twist and burn inside her. Her teeth clenched, her lips curled back and her breath hissed over her tongue just thinking about Will.

  Once I loved and trusted him. I gave myself to him. I did all I could to protect him. He destroyed it all. Wrote it all off the same way he smashed the car into smithereens. And now it can never be mended.

  ‘Emily? Are you there?’

  She said at last, ‘If Will’s condition changes, I will bring the children to him.’

  She had expected an outburst from Diana but the other woman said nothing. Perhaps she had guessed the way Emily’s feelings towards Will had changed, and realised that if what Emily said was true, there was a real prospect of Emily divorcing her son and even keeping the children at a distance from him and Diana forever.

  ‘All right,’ Diana said wanly. ‘I can’t stop you. As soon as Will opens his eyes, I’ll let you know. Emily . . . is . . . is there anything you need? I know I said there was very little money, but if you’re short—’

  ‘We’re fine,’ Emily replied crisply. She was still smarting from the way Diana had treated her at their last meeting. ‘The house sale is going through and we’ll have enough for a good while.’

  ‘Very well. Please keep in touch. Don’t forget, whatever Will’s done, he still needs you. And he still needs Carrie and Joe. They’re his children too.’

  She paused and then said curtly, ‘Goodbye, Diana.’ As she put the phone down, she realised her hands were shaking with the effort of not screaming out the truth to her mother-in-law. But she could never tell. Despite all he had done, she still wanted to protect Will from people knowing that, and protect herself from others knowing that she had somehow allowed it to happen. I can’t stand anyone knowing the truth. I can’t bear what they would think. If only I know, then maybe it didn’t really happen . . .

  Emily had been afraid of leaving London and all she knew, and of losing herself in the obscurity of the remote countryside, but as the car travelled the final few miles towards Howelland, she found her heart growing ever lighter. The countryside was spectacular and the burst of spring seemed to have touched everything: white hawthorn blossomed snowily in hedges and against hills and woodland. Banks of bright yellow daffodils nodded on roadsides and the trees with ivy-covered trunks were dotted with the juicy green of fresh leaves emerging from twigs and branches. White clouds scudded over a watery blue sky and the sun shone.

  ‘Look, children, isn’t it lovely?’ she cried, feeling brighter than she had for a long while. Since the accident, in fact. The snowy darkness of that awful night felt a long time ago; it seemed to be some other Emily screaming in the whirling roar of chaos and pain as the car flew them towards the dreadful impact. She glanced for a moment in the rear-view mirror at the side of her face, and the dark red scrawl that tracked its way down it. She was glad she couldn’t remember the actual moment, or what it had been like to have the windscreen tear its way through her skin, or feel the crack and crunch as her leg broke under her.

  She push
ed those dark thoughts out of her mind and concentrated on taking the next tight bend as carefully as possible. What must these roads be like in winter?

  They passed a lake, a large glassy smear of blue beyond the hedges, the shadows of the clouds blotted on it. In the fields, lambs just past their wobbly newborn stage gambolled and jumped on hillocks. Carrie exclaimed when she saw ponies grazing, their small bodies hardy and strong.

  ‘Maybe we can go riding,’ Emily suggested, smiling at her in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Oh yes, I want to ride a pony!’ exclaimed Carrie, clapping her hands.

  ‘Pony!’ echoed Joe, but he seemed to be looking at a hedge.

  Suddenly the voice of the satnav spoke up. ‘You have arrived at your destination,’ it announced with finality.

  ‘What?’ Emily peered out of the window. ‘What do you mean, we’ve arrived? We’re still on the road!’ Just then, on the rise of the hill off to the right, she saw a large dark red sandstone house, tall and austere with rows of narrow windows gazing down over the hillside like a stern guardian keeping watch on everything below it. That was not her house, was it? She recalled the picture she had seen: the long low white house, its windows with light blue painted surrounds, and a steepled porch at the front. No. That chilly-looking house on the hill might seem as if December House was a good name for it, but it was certainly not the place.

  Just as she thought this, her gaze was caught by the very words she was thinking, and she realised she was looking at an old sign pointing to the right, inscribed with old, curling lettering that read ‘Private road – December House only’.

  She gasped and signalled a quick right, just in time to take the turn into the lane, which seemed even narrower and windier than the road she had just left. It went on for about a quarter of a mile before suddenly, after rounding a thickly hedgerowed bend, she saw it, just as in the picture, but more beautiful. She drew her breath in at the sight of the house, melded so perfectly into its landscape, as comfortable as a cat nestling in a nook. Its white-painted render was soft and faded, the slate-tiled roof mossed and speckled. Chimneys topped the gables at each end and three large windows spanned the upper floor, with two on either side of the front door on the ground floor. Attic dormers sat neatly in the roof. It was larger than she’d expected, and she felt a sudden pang of fear that she’d taken on too much. But then she had to concentrate on pulling round into the area at the front, and coming to stop outside a large stone outbuilding, leaving enough room for the van to pull up next to the dry stone wall that ran directly in front of the house. She stopped the car engine and relaxed, her healed leg feeling weak and shaky after the strain of driving for so long, her head still buzzing with movement.