The Snow Angel

by Lulu Taylor

  Emily looked beyond the climbers to the garden. There was the place where the snow angel had sat in the paintings. In its place she’d put a stone sculpture that she’d found in a local shop. It was not an angel – that seemed too laden with meaning and too close to the source of some of Tom’s troubles – but a beautiful abstract shape.

  Of course, I don’t know if there’s anything under there and there’s no point in disturbing things now. But just in case . . .

  Confiding her theory to Cameron – that Catherine Few had died somehow and been buried by Ralph and Cressida – had convinced her not to tell anyone else.

  ‘So Aunt Cressida was a killer!’ he crowed happily when she filled him in on everything that had happened. ‘Wow! I had no idea this search would turn up an actual corpse.’

  ‘We don’t know that she killed Catherine,’ Emily pointed out defensively. ‘We don’t even know that she buried her. I mean, it was Maggie who implied that there’s something in the garden. She must have heard that from her mother. Maybe it was Ursula who did it.’

  ‘Er . . . wasn’t Cressida the one painting spooky angels that marked the spot? They obviously did it together, maybe with that bloke’s help as well.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right. But that still doesn’t mean they killed her.’ Emily shook her head, seeing her little image in the corner of the screen do the same. ‘I think it’s out of character for them. Anyway, they both got punished. Cressida never saw her family again.’

  ‘What are you saying, Emily? That going off to Australia is a punishment?’ demanded Cameron in a jokily offended tone. ‘I mean, I know it used to be, but those days were long gone. And Cressida got to while away her time painting pictures in Cumbria. Not all bad.’ He shivered. ‘Although thinking of how bloody freezing it is . . .’

  ‘We can’t know,’ Emily said, smiling. ‘We’ll never know exactly what happened. But my theory is that Maggie knows something. I think Ursula told her exactly what happened here. Maybe one day she’ll tell us the truth.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe. Until then, I guess that’s case closed.’

  She nodded at Cameron’s friendly, open face, so far away but so immediate nonetheless. ‘I guess so, for now.’

  ‘But if Maggie ever spills the beans, you’ll let me know, right?

  ‘You bet. You’ll be the first to know. I promise.’

  ‘Come on, Carrie!’ Emily turned and went on climbing the hill. The question is, was it all worth it? Whatever they did, and why ever they did it . . . I think it must have been. I hope so. If what Mrs Pendleton said was true.

  When she had visited Mrs Pendleton to tell her what she had learned from Maggie Kemp and from Cameron’s research, the old lady had been surprised but somehow not shocked.

  ‘That woman was Cressida Fellbridge, was she? Well, well . . . perhaps I should have guessed. I don’t know how. But she always made such an impression on me. She was very striking.’

  Emily had leaned forward in her armchair. ‘But what about Ralph Few? What was he like?’

  Mrs Pendleton had thought hard. ‘He was, I thought, a sweet-natured man, but there was something broken about him. He was very handsome but a little frail and she was utterly devoted to caring for him. They seemed very much in love, adoring of each other really. I always sensed that they needed no one else in their lives. For years, I used to see them painting. He had the brushes and the palette but she was always watching over his shoulder and telling him how things looked, what colours he should use. Towards the end, when his mind was going, you could tell he barely knew what he was putting on the canvas. After he died, I only saw her with the easel, often out in the garden while she wore her big old straw hat, painting away. Even in the height of summer, she was always painting the snow.’

  Emily nodded. ‘That makes sense,’ she said softly. ‘It really does.’

  The letter arrived quite unexpectedly from the crematorium. Catherine Few’s ashes, it transpired, were still there, unclaimed.

  ‘And of course, she’s actually Cressida Fellbridge, my aunt,’ Emily said to James. ‘I owe her this house. We must do something appropriate with the ashes.’

  ‘Maybe ask them what they did with Catherine Few?’ said James jokily, and then saw her face. ‘Sorry. But seriously, aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to dig up the garden and see what you find? You could have a body out there.’

  Emily shook her head. ‘I’d rather not know. We can’t know anyway. Even if Catherine is there, we don’t know how she died and we never will. I’d rather look to the future now that we know what happened to Cressida.’

  ‘So what will you do?’ James asked.

  Emily smiled at him. ‘We should scatter her over this beautiful countryside, over the view she loved so much.’

  So here they were, climbing the hill on a bright summer’s day, with Emily carrying the small, plain urn supplied by the crematorium.

  As they got higher, Emily looked back at the little group following her. ‘Do you think this is a good spot?’ she asked.

  ‘Excellent!’ called James, and they all hiked up to meet her.

  ‘It’s a great view,’ Tom said, turning to look at it. ‘I might bring that easel up here and have a go at painting it.’

  ‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ Emily said, smiling at him. ‘You should do that.’

  Then they opened the urn and all took a handful of the gritty grey dust inside, taking turns to scatter it up and out onto the breeze. The summer wind took it and carried it out on the currents towards the house, garden and fields.

  ‘Goodbye, Aunt Cressida!’ Emily called as the grey ash billowed and vanished on the wind. ‘Goodbye!’

  ‘Goodbye!’ they all called. Then she was gone forever. They walked back down towards the house, Emily and James hand in hand as the children ran and skipped around them, dashing down the hill with the wind in their faces, and Tom following behind, taking in the beauty of the countryside around them.

  Then, after striding through the garden to the back door, they went inside the house, where the portrait of Cressida Fellbridge looked out from the sitting room towards the spot where, perhaps, Catherine lay beneath the pretty stone sculpture, and closed the door behind them.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to everyone at Pan Macmillan for their wonderful help with this book: Wayne Brookes, Louise Buckley and Eloise Wood. They are a marvellous team and I’m so happy to be a part of it.

  Thanks, too, to Anne O’Brien, Lorraine Green and Nicole Foster for splendid editorial work.

  Heartfelt gratitude, as always, to Lizzy Kremer and Harriet Moore at David Higham, to Gill Paul and everyone who has offered help and advice. Thanks to my family and friends for their ongoing support and tolerance.

  Very special thanks to my artist friends who helped so much with the research for this book and who are most certainly not the Fews. If you would like a further idea of what Ralph’s portraits look like, the work of William Orpen would give you a good idea.

  Thank you to readers for your comments and feedback, which I love to get – you can reach me on Twitter at @misslulutaylor or on Facebook.

  Praise for Lulu Taylor

  ‘This is such great escapism it could work as well as any holiday’

  Daily Mail

  ‘[This] engrossing romantic saga is a hugely enjoyable, escapist treat’

  Sunday Mirror

  ‘Pure indulgence and perfect reading for a dull January evening’

  Sun

  ‘Wonderfully written . . . this indulgent read is totally irresistible’

  Closer

  ‘The book is full of mystery and intrigue, successfully keeping me guessing until the very end . . . An evocative read, full of dramatic secrets that will make the reader gasp’

  Novelicious.com

  ‘A poignant, sophisticated and romantic love story’

  Handwrittengirl.com

  THE

  SNOW

  ANGEL

  L
ulu Taylor moved around the world as a child before her family settled in the Oxfordshire countryside. She studied English at Oxford University and had a successful career in publishing before she became a writer. Her first novel, Heiresses, was published in 2007 and nominated for the RNA Readers’ Choice award. It was followed by Midnight Girls, Beautiful Creatures, Outrageous Fortune and The Winter Folly. She is married and lives in Dorset.

  By Lulu Taylor

  Heiresses

  Midnight Girls

  Beautiful Creatures

  Outrageous Fortune

  The Winter Folly

  The Snow Angel

  First published 2014 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2014 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-4472-3050-2

  Copyright © Lulu Taylor 2014

  Cover images: girl © Ayal Ardon / Arcangel Images; house © Sandra Cunningham; wall © Lee Avison / Trevillion Images

  The right of Lulu Taylor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The Macmillan Group has no responsibility for the information provided by any author websites whose address you obtain from this book (‘author websites’). The inclusion of author website addresses in this book does not constitute an endorsement by or association with us of such sites or the content, products, advertising or other materials presented on such sites.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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