The Snow Angel

by Lulu Taylor

  A sitting was due but she sent a letter explaining that she was ill and couldn’t come.

  At the end, she wrote:

  Are you able to finish the portrait without me? Catherine said it needed only some final touches. You should press on just in case this wretched cold lingers.

  She dropped the letter in the postbox at the end of the road on her way to school.

  The headmaster requested that Cressida go to see him in his office after lunch and she made her way there, still very low in spirits. Perhaps it was the way the weather had changed quite abruptly from autumn to winter. The afternoons were so dark and her hands and feet felt continually chilled. Night seemed to be pressing in, trying to gobble up the hours that didn’t belong to it. The wind was up, blowing icy gusts that stung the eyes and whipped hats from heads and dirt up from the gutters to spatter the face, and it brought squalls of rain with it.

  It was raining now, she noticed, as she passed a window and saw drops pelting hard against the glass. She hadn’t brought her mac and her umbrella was worse than useless in the howling wind. She’d be soaked on the walk back to the station.

  ‘Ah, Miss Fellbridge, how are you?’ Mr Granville rose to his feet as she came in and gestured to the seat in front of his desk. ‘Do sit down.’

  She sat obediently.

  ‘Now then, how have you been getting on?’ He pressed his fingertips together and inclined his head towards her, as if eager to catch every word.

  ‘Fine . . . I think. I’ve tried my best.’

  ‘Hmm. Reports have reached me that you’ve had a little trouble with aspects of the classroom. Control, for instance.’ He looked at her over the top of his spectacles.

  ‘Yes,’ she said hesitantly. It was no surprise that the headmaster had heard of her problems holding the classes’ attention. No doubt Crofts had reported everything back as soon as he could. She’d been expecting some sort of reprimand for her weakness but when it had not come immediately, she had put it out of her mind. Her classes had soon become just as unruly as before.

  ‘We’re nearly at the end of term,’ Mr Granville reminded her. ‘I wonder if Fleming is really the right place for you, Miss Fellbridge. It takes a certain sternness of character to teach children like the ones here. London children, working-class ones at least, are tough little creatures and you need to be just as tough to tame them. I wonder if you might not be happier in a private school, perhaps somewhere a little less . . . testing than here.’

  She stared at him, her heart sinking. ‘I see,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Now, that’s not to say we haven’t valued your contribution, because we have. But your talents could be better used in another environment. That’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘But,’ she said, feeling her temper rise, ‘I have made a difference. I may not have been able to reach all the children, that’s true, but I have affected some of them. And look at Terence Baxter – I’ve been giving him private lessons and he’s been a dream. He’s reading so many wonderful books and writing splendid little essays too. His vocabulary is extraordinary and he’s got such a bright, questioning mind—’

  ‘Ah, yes. Baxter.’ Mr Granville frowned and tapped his fingertips against each other. ‘I was going to mention him myself. You see, Mrs Baxter has been in to see me. She’s not very happy about the extra attention her son has been getting.’

  ‘What?’ Cressida said, disbelieving.

  ‘That’s right. She doesn’t like the ideas Terence has been absorbing. Apparently you’ve talked to him of university.’

  ‘Yes, I have. He’s bright enough—’

  ‘It’s not a question of brightness,’ interrupted Mr Granville in a condescending tone. ‘It’s the fact that university is not what Terence’s family want for him.’

  ‘And what about what he wants? He was very excited about the idea,’ retorted Cressie hotly, unable to credit that someone might not want their son to improve his lot.

  ‘Miss Fellbridge, do you think that Terence wants to be educated out of his class and away from his family? You will turn him into a different creature from his own parents. He may not thank you for that in the end.’

  ‘Or he may bless me for it!’

  ‘Well, that’s as may be . . .’ Mr Granville shrugged. ‘It makes no odds, really, as Mrs Baxter tells me that the family is leaving for Australia after Christmas. Baxter will be going to a new school wherever they end up living. So you might as well give up on trying to turn him into a working-class genius or whatever it is you’re attempting.’

  Cressie stared at him, desperate to throw back a perfect retort but unable to summon one.

  ‘And I think,’ he continued, ‘that we should agree that you’ll not return here for next term either. Your contribution has been valuable and we wish you well.’ He stood up. ‘I’m sure I’ll see you before the end of term, Miss Fellbridge. Good day.’

  She stood up wordlessly, turned on her heel and left, filled with fury.

  Baxter shall have a box of classics to take with him. He’ll have six weeks on a boat to do nothing but read. I’ll see to it that he damn well arrives in Australia as educated as I can make him, no matter what his blasted mother thinks.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At first, it seemed to Emily like being on holiday. There was no internet until the telephone company arrived to install it and her mobile was without signal here in the dip between the hills. The television, once it was plugged into the cable that snaked into the study from a spiky aerial on the roof, delivered only terrestrial channels and not even those very well, so it stayed off most of the time. She and the children were free of all distractions.

  Of course, there’s less housework on holiday, she thought, as she worked her way around the house with a bucket of cleaning things and a broom.

  But it was therapeutic somehow. As she tackled each room, starting with the bedrooms, washing, dusting and polishing, rehanging freshly washed curtains that had dried in the clean Cumbrian air, before arranging the furniture just as she wanted it, she felt lighter and happier, as though this whole thing symbolised a thoroughly new start, the old life washed away in buckets of grimy water. The house smelt cleaner too, as though the musty smell had ebbed away, buffeted out by the gusts of fresh air coming in through the open windows. Life was leaner now. There was less of everything.

  Owning less made her more serene somehow. She’d had so much stuff, and, it had turned out, she’d really needed very little of it. They could get by without the Gaggia Baby coffee machine and the tap that delivered boiling water. She didn’t need a huge double-doored fridge with an ice maker, which was lucky as there was no room for it here. She’d bought a smaller, cheaper one before they’d left, but even so, it had been a struggle to get it and the washing machine into the scullery; when the plumber had arrived to install the machine, he’d been clever with pipes and sorted it out for her.

  The children came with her around the house, as though they wanted to stake out the new territory with her, watching as their familiar things took up a new residence. In Carrie’s room, her little white bed looked snug against the wall. Once the drawers were in, her doll’s cradle filled most of the remaining space. She loved it, and went there several times a day just to look proudly at it and admire her very own bedroom.

  Emily’s room made her happiest of all. There was nothing in here to remind her of Will. Everything in their bedroom in London – from the huge handmade emperor-sized bed to the dressing table – had gone, all of it sold. She had spent some of the money on furniture: a second-hand French double bed with a cane headboard, a small pink armchair, an old chest of drawers with holes in the back but the lovely patina of good waxed wood. It all fitted well in this much smaller room. Even the linen was new, a splurge at an expensive shop in Marylebone that she thought was justified; every sheet, pillowcase and duvet cover was now untainted by Will. She didn’t have to remember him, or making love to him. It was strange to think about how in love they’d b
een once, and how she’d craved his body. By the end, she’d begun to dread his hand reaching out to her at night, the sound of his heavy breathing and the insistent need he’d had. He’d made love to her roughly, with something like repressed fury, as though he was barely aware of her presence and only needed the release of his climax to find a moment’s calm.

  I can’t bear to think of it.

  It made the guilt come back too strongly, and her horror at everything that had happened and her own part in it sickened her.

  But I don’t need to think of it here. It’s all behind me, and I hope that’s the end of the nightmares too.

  So far, they hadn’t come back. She was free of him, she felt. Surely up here, in this beautiful, lonely place, she was liberated.

  On the third morning, she woke to the sunshine already streaming in through her curtains, and the sound of Joe talking to himself in his cot next door. She went in to him, yawning, and lifted him out.

  ‘Ready for some breakfast, little man?’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s get Carrie and go downstairs.’

  The kitchen was always warm thanks to the range; she was already learning its ways and beginning to treasure the comfort its heat provided. There was something very satisfying, almost primitive, about opening the door of its furnace and tossing logs into the glowing depths, seeing the flames leap up to devour them. She liked to turn the vent down at night, knowing that the fire would glow, sleepy but intense, till morning. As she went about the morning routine of making the children’s porridge on the hotplate while the kettle boiled for her coffee, she realised she could hear a noise from outside the cottage: a rhythmic banging that echoed through the air.

  Curious, she went to the window and strained to see through the orchard at the bottom of the lawn. The garden was in a state, but she hadn’t had time to look at it properly yet. Through the blossom-covered branches, she could make out a shape at the bottom of the garden and the noise came again: tap, tap, tap.

  She put the children’s porridge bowls in front of them. ‘Eat up now. I’m just going outside for a moment.’

  In the scullery, she swapped her slippers for boots and let herself out through the back door. The wind was blustering around the garden and it rushed under her nightie and chilled her legs. She shivered, pulling her cardigan more closely around her as she strode through the orchard. She could see someone now, at the bottom of the garden, driving a post into the ground.

  ‘Hello!’ she called as she ducked to miss the low-hanging branches of the apple trees. ‘Who’s there?’

  The banging stopped and the man at the bottom of the garden straightened up, wiping his brow with the back of his arm. The hammer showed up starkly against the green hills beyond.

  ‘Ahoy there!’ he called. ‘Hope I didn’t wake you.’

  She saw that it was James Pendleton, a little more casual than last time in a lumberjack’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of tatty jeans. He looked much younger out of his tweed jacket. ‘James, what are you doing here?’ she said, coming up to him, digging her cold hands into her cardy pockets.

  ‘I thought about how you’ve got the two little ones and I remembered that this fence and gate needed mending.’ He gestured with the hammer to the field beyond the garden. ‘There’s a cattle trough in the field – it’s a deep one. You don’t want the little boy wandering out without you knowing and falling in. Or the little girl, come to that, even though she looks a sensible little thing. So I came down to fix it.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she said with a smile. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ He smiled back. ‘I’m just about finished.’

  ‘You’re up very early,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been up since about three a.m., if you must know. In the lambing shed for most of it. I wanted to get this done while I thought about it.’

  ‘Come in for coffee,’ she offered. ‘I’m just making some.’

  ‘Sounds very tempting. Thanks. I will.’

  They walked back together through the orchard towards the house. Amazing, Emily thought as they approached. It feels like mine already. I’ve only been here three days.

  James sat down at the table in the morning room while she made the coffee, chatting easily to the children. She could hear his deep voice interspersed by Carrie’s high-pitched chat and the banging of Joe’s plastic spoon on the table of the high chair. It was strange to have a man with them again, one who wasn’t Tom at least. She took the coffee through to the table and sat down to pour it out.

  ‘You seem to have settled in,’ James remarked as she passed him his mug. ‘Thanks very much.’ He looked around appreciatively. ‘It looks cosy.’

  ‘I was worried our London furniture wouldn’t fit but actually it looks all right. And luckily the dresser was left here.’

  He poured milk from the jug into his mug. ‘We couldn’t get it out without breaking it up. God only knows how they got it in here. So we had to leave it. Everything else was sold according to the terms of Mrs Few’s will.’

  ‘Of course, you know all about it,’ she said, curious. James had such a pleasant, friendly air about him. She felt completely comfortable around him even though she was wearing her nightie and a pair of sheepskin bootie slippers.

  ‘That’s right, as an executor. The old lady didn’t have any other friends and no relatives, as far as we could tell. That’s why she appointed us, I suppose.’ He lifted his mug to sip the coffee. She noticed that his hair stood up even more straight and fluffy today.

  Emily remembered the solicitor telling her that the executors were Mr and Mrs Pendleton. ‘You and your wife,’ she said.

  ‘Not the wife,’ James said bluffly. ‘Nope. The Mrs Pendleton you’re thinking of is my mother. She knew the old lady quite well – as well as anyone.’ He gave her a curious look. ‘But you must know all about her yourself. I’ve been looking forward to finding out a bit more about her. She was such a mysterious, lonely old thing. Mum remembered her husband but he was dead by the time I knew her. Once he went, she hardly ever left this place and as far as I know, she saw nobody but the chap who delivered her shopping and did her odd jobs – and us. But not even us very often.’ He took another sip. ‘So you can probably enlighten me quite a lot.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Emily said, disappointed. ‘I thought you’d be able to tell me something. I know even less than you – I never even met her.’

  His brown eyes met hers over the top of his mug. ‘Well, I did wonder,’ he said as he put it down. ‘I wondered how she’d found anyone to leave this place to. I thought you must be a distant relative we’d never heard of.’

  Emily shook her head, and leaned over to spoon some porridge into Joe’s mouth while it was open. ‘No, I’m no relative at all. The explanation was that she left me the house because she was grateful to my aunt Cressida for selling her this place years ago. Apparently it was in our family at one time, though I’d never heard of it before.’

  ‘What was your family name? Conway?’

  ‘No. That’s my married name. It was Fellbridge.’

  ‘Fellbridge,’ he repeated thoughtfully. ‘Nope. I’ve never heard it. I’ll have to ask Mum. She knows more about the characters who lived here ages ago – she grew up round here.’ James paused, and she noticed how his cheeks were pink on the apples. ‘So . . . you’re married then?’ he asked cautiously, looking around as though he expected a husband to jump out of the dresser.

  She felt her own face redden. She’d been expecting this question at some point but she hadn’t decided exactly what she would say, only that she would dodge the issue cleverly. But all her cleverness seemed to have deserted her right now. ‘Yes, but . . . my husband isn’t with us.’

  James nodded. ‘Working in the City or something? Is he going to commute at weekends?’

  ‘No.’ Her cheeks grew hotter. She pushed her hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ears. She saw his gaze go to her scar, linger for a second and th
en look away. She shook her hair back. ‘He’s . . . not with us.’

  Somewhere at the back of her mind, she had planned to tell people that Will had died. But she couldn’t tell a lie like that, and certainly not in front of the children. And anyway, she had reckoned without Carrie being there, who licked her spoon and said conversationally, ‘My daddy is very ill. He’s in a hospital and he won’t wake up, even if they shout really loudly in his ears and bang a drum.’

  ‘Oh.’ James took this in, growing pinker. ‘Oh dear. I’m very sorry to hear that.’

  Emily bit her lip and looked at the table. ‘Yes. I’m afraid my husband’s in a coma following a serious accident.’

  ‘Well, that’s awful.’ James looked upset. ‘I’m sorry for blundering in like that. I simply didn’t realise.’

  ‘There’s no reason why you should,’ she said, pained by his embarrassment. ‘I know it sounds awful but we’ve all had some time to come to terms with it. Please don’t feel bad.’

  There was a pause. James took a gulp of his coffee and consulted his watch. ‘Goodness, I need to get on.’

  ‘Please don’t go,’ she said as he got up. ‘I was hoping you could tell me more about Mrs Few.’

  ‘I really must, I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘if I’m going to finish that fence and get back to the farm. I’ve got plenty on – this is the busiest time of year.’ He stopped and stood very still for a moment, then fixed Emily with his open brown gaze. ‘I hadn’t realised how on your own you are.’

  ‘You don’t have to feel sorry for us. We’re fine. Honestly.’ She smiled back at him.

  ‘I’m not sorry for you – well, I’m sympathetic about your husband, obviously – but a lonely place like this must be a shock for you after London. None of your cinemas or theatres or coffee shops. I don’t suppose you know anyone up here either.’ A thought seemed to occur to him. ‘Why don’t you come up to the house sometime? If you feel like it. My mother would be happy to tell you all about Mrs Few, as much as she knows anyway. You could ask her about the Fellbridge connection. She loves to talk about the past. We ought to invite you up anyway. I’ll arrange it, get some neighbours over too so you can make some friends.’