The Secrets of Winter

by Nicola Upson

  The sun had moved round while she worked, a reminder that the day was slipping away and she still had plenty to do. She had forgotten to collect the missing nativity figure from the museum, which meant an extra trip down to the village that she really could have done without, and hurried across the terrace and back through the house. The doors to the guest rooms were wide open, and she could hear the crisp snap of sheets being shaken as she passed, accompanied by expectant chatter amongst the housemaids. She had been wrong to assume that Marlene Dietrich’s birthplace would be more important than her celebrity; most of the staff had been thrilled by the prospect of looking after a Hollywood star, and only the older members of the household had shared her reservations, most notably those who remembered the last war. She looked at the clock: the first train was due soon, and from then on there would be a steady stream of arrivals, taking advantage of low tide to cross with their luggage by car rather than boat. She told the maids to get a move on, then left the castle and took the Pilgrims’ Steps down to the harbour.

  The brightness of the morning lingered, but it was combined now with the peculiar, metallic intensity of a sky which threatened snow, so rare in this part of the world that she could only remember two or three winters when the familiar landmarks of the Mount had stood strange and silent, transformed by an invisible hand. She shivered, chafing her hands as she walked through the lodge gate and past the island’s tiny graveyard, where the wind rustled through the leaves of the palm trees, hissing like the serpent in the statue above the lych-gate until she could almost believe that it had escaped St Michael’s spear. The museum stood opposite, housing a miscellaneous record of the Mount’s history to entertain the scores of visitors who came over from the mainland in the summer. It was usually closed at this time of year, with its more fragile exhibits shrouded in dust sheets, but Emily Soper – who lived and worked on the premises – had obviously been instructed to put on a good show for the Christmas guests; the lamps were all lit, and Nora could see Emily inside, rearranging one of the displays. She opened the door, glad to be out of the cold, and smiled at her friend. ‘I’m doing the church up for tomorrow,’ she said, ‘and we seem to be short of a wise man.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time, and I doubt it’ll be the last.’ They both laughed, and Nora was grateful for a moment’s easy company. The two women had always been close, growing up together on the island, and she realised now how important the friendship had been to her recently. ‘Have you got time for a cup of tea?’ Emily asked. ‘The kettle’s just boiled.’

  Nora shook her head reluctantly. ‘I’d love one, but I’d better not. It’s pandemonium up there today.’

  ‘Well, if you will mix with the stars …’

  ‘It wouldn’t be my choice.’

  ‘Ah, get away with you. I won’t be moving far from this window until I’ve seen her arrive, and you’re not telling me you won’t find an excuse to pop up to her room later.’

  Nora smiled. ‘I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t make sure she was comfortable. Is the figure ready?’

  ‘Good as new. I’ll go and fetch him for you.’

  She went through to the back room and Nora slipped off her coat and hung it on a chair by the fire to warm while she was waiting. The museum seemed more crammed than ever, a motley selection of stuffed birds and fossils, carefully arranged cigarette cards immortalising the legends of giants and kings, paintings of the Mount over the centuries and obscure weapons from its military past. A recently opened Christmas card lay on the counter, and Nora recognised the handwriting on the envelope; she picked the card up and read the greeting, Christmas wishes for a mother from her son, sent with fondest love.

  ‘Have you heard from Jenna?’

  Nora shook her head and pushed the card to one side. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’

  ‘I know, and you weren’t.’ Emily put the figure down and squeezed her friend’s hand. ‘The first Christmas without her is bound to be hard,’ she said quietly. ‘I know how I felt when Jonathan moved away, but you’ll get through it.’

  She meant it kindly, but Nora wasn’t in the mood for sympathy. ‘At least Jonathan might come back one day,’ she said.

  ‘He might, but I doubt it. He’s happy up in Plymouth, and he and Violet will be married soon. They’ll put down roots of their own, and that’s as it should be, but it doesn’t make it any easier for me.’ She sighed, tracing the image on the card with her fingers, as if it could compensate for his absence. ‘I hoped at one time that Jonathan and Jenna might end up together, but children have their own ideas, don’t they? Still, they were close. Do you remember that Christmas they hid in the church after the morning service and tried to ring the bells? Thank God it was Miss Hilaria who heard them and not His Lordship. She’s always been good to the children.’ Nora tried to block out Emily’s voice as her friend recalled one memory after another, playing out scenes from Jenna’s childhood like her very own Ghost of Christmas Past. ‘She always loved being in that church with you, right from when she was a toddler. Such bright eyes, she had – I’ll never forget how happy she looked. I suppose we should have seen it coming.’

  Emily’s observations seemed to put into words the resentment that Nora felt more strongly every day. She had been so happy when Jenna began to share her joy in the beauty of the church and all it stood for, but now it was as if she had been the victim of a cruel joke, tricked like a fairytale mother into offering the most precious thing in her life to the wolf in sheep’s clothing. It broke her heart whenever she thought back to the day that she and Tom had been invited to visit the convent where Jenna would spend the rest of her life, that square, featureless building with its ordinary gardens and drab décor. The hardship of the order had shocked her, and she couldn’t bear the thought of her daughter in those poor, simple cells, with their bare walls and comfortless beds, where any tiny personal touches seemed tawdry and desperate. The woman who would sleep every night beneath that crucifix was a stranger to her – and she had been such a carefree, normal child.

  Nora dragged her thoughts back to the present, suddenly aware that Emily had asked her a question. ‘Sorry, what were you saying?’

  ‘I just wondered if she’d be coming home again before she takes her vows?’

  Nora shook her head. ‘No, and it’s probably for the best.’

  ‘You don’t mean that, surely?’

  ‘I do. It was awful last time she came. She didn’t want to be here, I could see that. We got on her nerves, and everything about the island bored her. It was like she had sawdust in her mouth.’ Even the church that Jenna had loved seemed shabby and ordinary through the eyes of her new faith; her daughter chose a different sort of worship now, in a world of which her family knew nothing, and when she had asked Jenna to explain it to her, all she had said was that her faith was like a stained glass window: only beautiful from the inside. In that moment, God forgive her, she had despised her daughter. Jenna had chosen a spiritual life, and yet it seemed to Nora that all the spirit had been knocked out of her, with her folded hands and her downcast eyes; at times, she had longed to strike her simply to get a reaction, to catch a glimpse of the defiant little girl who feared nothing and had always known her own mind. ‘I’m relieved I don’t have to go through that again, Emily,’ she admitted. ‘It’s the only thing I’ve got now, the knowledge that we made her happy once. I don’t want that spoilt.’

  ‘Nothing can take that away. You couldn’t have given her any more love, you or Tom. If anything, you gave her the courage to go her own way.’

  The thought didn’t comfort Nora. ‘It’s just not what I ever imagined for her,’ she said. ‘For her, or for us.’

  ‘I know.’

  Nora sighed, conscious of time slipping away. ‘I’d better get back to the castle,’ she said. ‘Moaning won’t change anything.’ She picked up the nativity figure and turned to go, but now that she had begun to talk about her feelings, it was hard to stop. She and Tom avoided t
he subject these days, too numb to risk another of the fights that had shaken their marriage to its core, and the simple understanding coming from one mother to another was seductive. ‘I keep thinking about all the things I’ll never have,’ she admitted. ‘I know it’s selfish, and I know that any sacrifices I’ve had to make are so insignificant compared to what Jenna is giving up, but still I can’t help it.’

  ‘Why should you? It’s hard to be selfless about sacrifices that other people make on your behalf, no matter how much you love them.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t want to be that person. Just now, when you were talking about Jonathan getting married, I was so jealous I could have screamed.’ Nora smiled apologetically. ‘I thought I’d see her married, Em – properly married, not that mockery of a wedding we had to go through at the convent.’ She thought back to the scene and how picturesque it had all been, how deceptively gentle – a procession of nuns holding lighted tapers with the new novices in the middle, dressed as brides. She had watched while her daughter knelt before the priest at the altar and asked for God’s mercy; watched as the young women were led away to have their hair cut, with tears pouring down her cheeks as Jenna’s long, blonde hair fell to the floor like a light extinguished. The mother superior had dressed her in a girdle and veil, and all Nora could think about, stupidly, was how hot the habit would be in the summer and whether or not the veil would protect her daughter’s pale skin from the sun – ordinary, motherly things that she really had no right to consider any more, because now someone else was Jenna’s mother. ‘They even had a wedding cake in the refectory afterwards,’ she said, trying to laugh, but the words came out in a strangled sob as she thought about all the things she had taken for granted. ‘I thought I’d be planning her wedding, I’d be the one by her side when she was having last-minute doubts or trying on her dress. And now I can’t even call her by the name I gave her at birth. She’s Sister Mary Theresa, but I have no idea who that is.’ It was the first time she had used the name, and it broke her. ‘Why, Emily?’ she demanded through her tears. ‘Why did she have to be that way? Why couldn’t it be someone else’s daughter?’

  ‘I can’t answer that, Nora. No one can except Jenna and God. I suppose it’s what He wanted for her.’

  ‘And what about what I wanted for her?’ Afterwards, Nora couldn’t remember if she had screamed the words aloud or said them only in her head. She swung round, lashing out at her friend, and the next thing she knew, Emily was lying on the floor with blood seeping from a wound in her head. She was horribly still.

  Nora looked at the figure in her hands as if it had nothing to do with her, but the stain of red on the newly painted wood brought her back to her senses and she let it fall to the floor as if it had burnt her. She rushed to the door to lock it, terrified that someone might come in before she had decided what to do. Emily was partially obscured by the counter where she had been standing, and Nora knelt down to check her pulse, trying not to recoil from the blood that had begun to matt her hair and stain the collar of her blouse. There was nothing, and Nora began to cry again, shaking her friend’s shoulders and begging her to wake up, but the only response was a noise from the floor above, a soft thud like the closing of a door. To her horror, Nora realised that she had no idea if anyone else was on the premises; Emily had lived alone since her husband died, but she was popular with the villagers, and as she had said only a few minutes ago, the kettle was invariably on, waiting for visitors.

  She took one of the dust sheets from a pile of boxes behind the counter and covered Emily’s body with it, then dragged the boxes across the floor to cut off any prying glances from the window at the side of the building. Her heart was pounding as the shock of what she had done threatened to overwhelm her, and she tried to calm her breathing before climbing the stairs, which came out onto a narrow landing. Emily’s sitting room was straight ahead and she began to panic when she saw a coat draped over the arm of a chair, but relaxed when she recognised it as Emily’s own mackintosh. ‘Hello?’ she called out, trying to keep her voice as normal as possible. ‘Hello?’ The silence gave her courage, and she was relieved to find the room empty except for a black-and-white cat sitting by a pile of books that had toppled over onto the floor, staring at Nora as if to say that the accident had nothing to do with him. That must have been the noise she had heard, but the explanation didn’t comfort her, and as the cat began to rub round her legs, oblivious to what she had done, Nora’s guilt hit her with all the force of a blow.

  She hurried back downstairs, conscious that she would soon be missed at the castle, but still at a loss to know what to do. For a moment, she considered fetching Tom, but the harbour was always busy at this time of day; it would be impossible to bring him here without attracting somebody’s attention. In any case, she realised sadly, she couldn’t rely on him to save her. Emily was like family to them both, and he was a good man with a strong sense of right and wrong. He would make her go to the police and explain that what she had done was an accident, putting his faith in a justice which he never questioned – but she knew different. There was no justice in the world, the last few months had taught her that, and she didn’t want to die for what her grief had made her do.

  The urge to survive was sudden and primitive, and its strength took her by surprise; for months she had believed that there was no point in going on, but now, faced with the prospect of giving her own life for the one she had taken, she wanted nothing more than to live. Possibilities raced through her mind, some more plausible than others. The causeway was open at the moment and anyone could access the island. If she took some of the more valuable objects from the displays when she left, people would think that Emily had disturbed a burglar, a stranger to the Mount whose guilt would shame no one. She had read somewhere that crime always went up at Christmas as people struggled to pay their debts, and why should that be any different here?

  There was no time to think more logically. She picked the nativity figure up from the floor and took it through to Emily’s workroom to wash it in the tiny sink, but a noise from the floor stopped her in her tracks, a terrible, hollow gurgling that came from Emily’s throat. She looked back and stared in horror as the dust sheet – now stained with blood – stirred almost imperceptibly, as if her friend was trying to lift her arm. ‘No, please God, no,’ she whispered, but the movement came again, stronger this time, and Nora began to whimper like an animal, torn between a longing for her friend to live and the possibility of escape which she had so briefly glimpsed. She looked round, desperate for an answer, and saw the statue of St Michael through the museum window, standing above the lych-gate with his spear raised ready to strike; there was a judgement to be made, between good and evil, between life and death, and in that moment she knew that she was damned whatever she did.

  She pulled the sheet back to see if she could help, forcing herself to look at Emily’s face. The wound was still pouring with blood, so Nora scrunched the material up and tried to stem the flow, begging all the time for her friend’s forgiveness, for a second chance for them both. Emily’s eyes and mouth were open, her lips moving in agitation, but no words came out, only a dreadful wheezing that grew more shallow and laboured by the second. Nora knew in her heart that there was no hope, but still she kept talking, praying for a miracle until the rise and fall of her friend’s chest – already barely perceptible – stopped altogether. There was a final, forlorn groan, so difficult to separate from her own despair that Nora half wondered if she had uttered it herself, then silence – a bleak, wretched silence that was the very opposite of peace.

  She knelt by her friend for a long time, waiting for the nausea to pass, then shakily stood up and went through to the back to wash off the blood, scrubbing persistently at her hands and face and then at the figure. When she was sure that the painted king held no lingering evidence of her guilt, she dried it with a towel, ready to carry to the church, and took her coat from the chair by the fire, hoping that it would cover her uniform whi
le she went home to change. There was a display of jewellery in the glass case nearest to her; she put a handful in her pocket, then blew out the lamps and left the museum as calmly as she could, waving back over her shoulder as if nothing had happened, and leaving her friend’s body lying on the floor for someone else to find.

  3

  The drifts were deeper than ever as the train moved on into Devon – great swathes of white beneath a leaden sky that threatened worse to come. All across the moors, ponies stood huddled against bleak stone walls, and Josephine pitied them; the snow that had seemed so radiant and magical amid the comforts of a London winter was shown up here for what it was – harsh, unforgiving and relentless. She was glad when they reached the milder climate of Cornwall and the snow began to dwindle.

  ‘It’s a big county, isn’t it?’ Marta said, fidgeting in her seat. ‘I always forget we’re not there just because we’ve crossed the Tamar.’

  She was right. The train’s progress grew more laboured as it neared the end of the line, stopping at a series of towns filled with dark, stone buildings that reminded Josephine of Scotland. ‘It’ll be worth the wait,’ she said. ‘It’s not far now.’

  A number of the remaining passengers left the train at St Erth, ready to make the connection to the north coast. Josephine sat forward in her seat, eager for the first glimpse of St Michael’s Mount, and it didn’t disappoint. The island moved in and out of view between the tall reeds lining the track, and somehow the movement of the train served to emphasise the castle’s solidity, standing majestic and forbidding over the crescent-shaped bay. ‘God, it’s stunning,’ Marta said. ‘The photograph doesn’t do it justice.’