Once Upon A Winter (28 page)

Nell looked across at Calista. ‘This is your older sister . . . Emma told me about her. Didn’t she
die of leukaemia?’ 

‘Yes.’ Calista stared at the grave, her arms folded across her chest. ‘She was only twenty-five. We were named after the months we were born in. We were always thankful they weren’t February or October. Can you just imagine - “Calista
October
”?’

Nell continued to stare at the stone, reading the next part of the inscription. ‘. . .
beloved wife of Silas Allen.
’

‘Oh . . . Your sister’s husband was called Silas, too . . .’

‘Yes,’ said Calista, with a slow, thoughtful nod. ‘They were only married for a few years. But they never had children . . . I suppose it wasn’t meant to be, considering her illness . . .’ Calista drifted away once more, weaving through the gravestones.

Nell hurried after her. ‘Silas isn’t a particularly common name,’ she remarked, and almost slammed straight into the older woman, who had ground to a halt again.

‘I think you might recognise this headstone,’ Calista muttered, pointing towards another yellow rose.

‘
Meredid Hughes . . .
’

‘This was Nana Gwen’s mother,’ said Nell. ‘My great-grandmother.’ She frowned, and before her gaze could catch up with the warning voice in her head, it had fallen on the grave opposite. ‘This is the family plot,’ she realised with a plummeting feeling, staring down at her mother’s grave for the first time since the funeral, over twenty years earlier.

The marble headstone was immaculate. Nell had never actually seen it for herself. Her father and Emma had commissioned it. They obviously kept it well tended, too.

This wasn’t the way Nell had wanted to remember her mother, though. Nothing more than bones in a box buried in the ground.

The paper cup half full of coffee tumbled out of her hand; all Nell was left holding was the protective sleeve. She sprang back, trying to avoid the remainder of the splashing liquid as it spilled over the grass. But as she retreated, she bumped into something. Or someone. Nell twisted round, almost jumping in fright. As far as she was aware, there had been no one in the churchyard apart from Calista and herself.

‘
Silas . .
.’ She swayed on the spot.

He grabbed her arm to steady her. ‘Are you all right?’

‘What - What are you doing here?’

‘Calista texted me
. I asked her to keep you here until I arrived.’

‘And that’s my cue to exit,’ announced Calista. ‘My work is done, for now, at lea
st. You can take over from here - can’t you, Silas?’

Silas nodded at Calista, his fingers still furled around Nell’s arm.

Perplexed,
Nell shook him off. ‘What do you mean, “take over”? Is this all just part of some elaborate scheme?’

‘Not elaborate, as such,’ Calista confessed. ‘Fairly crude really. Silas wanted to get you alone, away from Bryn
Heulog, to be able to explain everything he needs to explain. And there was some background to his story I felt I might be able to fill in with a bit more . . . detachment.’

‘So - the roses - whose idea were they?’ asked Nell. ‘I take it that they’re something to do with one of you?’

‘They’re my doing,’ said Silas. ‘I was here earlier this morning. But the roses aren’t part of any plan. I come here and lay fresh flowers on the graves every couple of days.’

‘Not on every single grave, obviously,’ said Nell, perturbed. ’And I don’t understand
why
.’ She glanced around. ‘Is it only these three graves or -’

‘There’s one more, just over there.’ Silas pointed vaguely, then glanced at Calista, who acknowledged him with a nod. She stooped and picked up the empty coffee cup from the grass, and gently prised the protective sleeve from Nell’s tense fingers.

‘I’ll dispose of these for you, cariad.’ And she squeezed Nell’s hand. ‘See you soon.’ She walked off, trudging across the graveyard towards the lych-gate.

Nell felt as if som
ething heavy were pressing down on her chest. She blinked up at Silas, and waited for him to speak first.

He was gazing down at her mother’s grave. ‘You don’t visit here, do you?’ he stated quietly. ‘I know you never used to when we were . . . together. I’m guessing you still don’t.’

‘No.’ Nell turned away.

‘I’m sorry for
allowing Calista to bring you here.’

Nell shrugged. ‘It was my own curiosity that got the better of me in the end. She came out with this story about some poor girl who used to live up at Bryn
Heulog, except now I’m thinking it’s all just made up. Because how could Calista know something that was kept such a secret and happened such a long time ago?’

Silas’s next words
were measured. ‘She knows because I told her.’

‘
You
told her?’ Nell hesitated. ‘And how do
you
know?’ she continued bitingly. ‘Do you have sole access to some hidden archive somewhere?’

‘My father explained what happened. I heard the tale when I was younger than our own son is
now.’

‘I’m sorry’ - Nell shook her head in exasperation - ‘how did your father even know? And
why
? What possible connection -’

Silas cut her off again, dragging his hands through the layers of his hair, so like Joshua’s. ‘My father was called
Aled Gwynne,’ he said, a tremor in his voice that Nell had never heard before. ‘He came to Harreloe when he heard how the Lamberts treated their estate workers and the poorer families in the village. In short, he became gamekeeper for the Lamberts, but used the power this gave him to secretly help those deprived local families. The only poachers he ever caught were men who genuinely deserved the repercussions.

‘But my father made a fatal error when he fell in love with the d
aughter of the house,’ Silas went on. ‘Anna. She was lonely. Starved of any real affection. She fell for Aled, too. Everything was conducted in secret. She would meet him at his cottage in the woods. Social convention wouldn’t allow them to marry, but that didn’t stop them conceiving a child. My father didn’t know about Anna’s pregnancy at first, though. She managed to keep it from him until she couldn’t hide the fact any longer. They made plans to run away together, but Anna was scared. She hesitated. When her parents found out what was going on, they locked her away. She eventually died in childbirth. My father raised me on his own, far away from Harreloe and the Lamberts. He brought me up knowing the full story, and how it was wrong of him to have fallen in love with Anna. That isn’t who we are. What we do. He paid the price, and my mother did, too.’

While he spoke, Silas had scarcely seemed to draw breath; but now he stopped, and stared down at Nell with a look of dread and misery on his face that made her want to stretch out and take his hand.

But she didn’t, instead she shook her head, as if scolding a child for telling tales. ‘Don’t be silly, Silas. Why - Why are you saying all this? You’re not making any sense.’

‘
Most of what I told you about myself before today – it was a lie. Anna Lambert was my mother, but I never knew her except through the stories my father told me. Whenever I’m in Harreloe, though, I come here, to this church, and pay my respects. My father’s dead now, too. One day, it will be Joshua’s turn to remember Anna. She was his grandmother. It would be fitting.’

Nell blinked up at Silas, trying to take everything in, but the information swam around torpidly in her sludge-filled br
ain. At last, though, some substance trickled through. Nell emitted a noise, like a strangled laugh.

Oh my God . . . He was mad!

She had married a mad man.

Or at least, at some point since, he had developed some sort of mental health problem th
at made him believe he was one-hundred-and-fifty years old.

Either that, or he was on drugs.

Nell took a step back, almost colliding with a gravestone. ‘I’ve - I’ve got to go,’ she muttered. ‘I’m sorry, but -’

His hand gripped her arm again. ‘Nell. Please. You’ve got to believe me. I’ve never had to share this with any of my other wives, because I’ve never fathered a child with them. But this impacts upon Joshua, too. He’s more a part of me than he is you.’

Nell tried to pull her arm away, but Silas’s hand was like a vice. Panic seared through her as she stared up into his jade-green eyes. Suddenly they were glittering and volatile and pained. She had never seen them like that before.

‘Who do you think you are?’ she hissed, as adrenaline finally began to course through her. ‘Bloody Henry VIII? How many wives do you think you’ve had, Silas?’

‘You’re my fourth, Nell. Lydia - Calista’s sister - was my third. As I think you know, she died of leukaemia. Before her there was Violet. She was killed by an incendiary bomb in 1941. And my first was Alice. The Spanish Flu took her in 1918.’ Silas recited the names like some cold, sadistic serial killer.

‘My God,’ Nell whispered, her throat constricting. All these imaginary marriages had the same outcome in common. The death of his apparent wife.

Fear churned through her like a plough through soft, damp earth. Nell looked around helplessly, but on this winter’s morning, the churchyard was deserted. Not even any sign of the reverend pottering about. Would anyone hear her if she screamed, wondered Nell. But no sound seemed to want to come out of her mouth.

‘Nell . . .’ Silas
moved his hands to her waist. Pulling her towards him, he swamped her in a tight, desperate embrace. ‘Whatever you’re imagining - I’m not going to hurt you. Please don’t think I could ever hurt you like that . . .’ The words spread through her hair on his warm, beseeching breath, until, feeling her slump in his arms, he must have decided he could trust her not to bolt. His hold on her slackened slightly.

But her plan to act submissive had worked. Nell squirmed free, and before she could even think about where she might escape to, she began to run.

Nell
spluttered for breath, her lungs at bursting point. As she reached the edge of the Main Street, she allowed herself one glance over her shoulder.

There was no sign of Silas.

Nell skidded to a halt. Her legs, used to walking but not sprinting, had turned to the consistency of jelly. She leaned against the side of an end-of-terrace cottage, gasping for breath, but the air was so cold, her chest ached.

Ridiculous to have thought Silas was following. If he’d wanted to, he would have caught up with her in a matter of strides back at the churchyard.

Nell rubbed a hand over her face. It was sweaty and clearly flushed, judging by the heat in her cheeks. Strands of hair clung to her temples, probably resembling fronds of seaweed.

Oh God. Oh God. She needed some sort of divine inspiration right now. Her heart was still hammering as if it were trying to escape her ribcage. Her mind and stomach both churned up, in their own ways. One distinctly nauseous, the other spinning her around in directions she shouldn’t be going in.

What if . . . 

NO, some
sane, rational part of her yelled back. There are no ‘what ifs’. She shouldn’t even be going down that route. It would make her as insane as the man who had just been holding her in his arms.

Why had he been holding he
r like that? And how weak of her to have actually
liked
it, even as she had feared for her life?

Why am I even thinking about that right now? Nell shook her head incredulously.

She took a deep breath, and tried to concentrate. Focus. Drill deep for the well of common sense she knew was inside her.

You need proof, came a voice.

Proof that what Silas was claiming was false.

Of course, Nell knew it was. It had to be, there were no two ways about it. But how to actually hold the evidence in her hands and confront him with it?

Nell released the wall and stood on her own two feet. So far, so good. Her legs had gone from jelly to rubber, but at least that was enough to support her weight. She began to walk up the Main Street towards the Common, a destination now in mind.

The café was busier. Meryl looked up expectantly as Ne
ll walked in. ‘On your own? No Calista?’

‘No.
’ Nell frowned, more composed than she’d been five minutes ago. ‘You mean, she didn’t come back here?’

Meryl shook her head with a sigh. ‘Probably at home again. I knew it was too good to last. Anyway, here are the crumpets.’ Meryl passed Nell a paper bag over the counter. ‘On the house today,’ she murmured, and winked. ‘Give your nana my best.’

‘I will,’ said Nell faintly, and left.

It would be reckless of her, she thought, if she went to Calista’s home alone. Here in the café, in the centre of Harreloe, she had felt untouchable. But in the dusty gloom of that large old house . . .

Calista was involved, after all. Probably as much in need of a psychiatrist as Silas.

Yet, were either of them actually dangerous? Or just two sadly unhinged people who had convinced each other of something that couldn’t possibly be true?

When it came down to it, Silas himself couldn’t have been responsible for the death of those women whose names he had rattled off so assuredly. If the first two had even existed when he had claimed they did, they would have been dead before he was even born. And he could only have been a child when Calista’s sister had succumbed to leukaemia.

He doesn’t want to
kill
me, thought Nell now, standing stock still on the edge of the Common and feeling as if she was the barmy one for having even entertained the idea.

Nell couldn’t go home yet. She was t
oo driven; her need to get things straightened out had suddenly ballooned into an obsession. She phoned her grandmother.

‘Nana, are you all right? You don’t mind if I’m out a bit longer, do you?’

‘Nellie, I’m quite capable of finishing this crossword on my own,’ said the old lady briskly. ‘And there’s one of those antique programmes on the telly in a minute.’

‘I’ll be back in time for lunch,’ said Nell. ‘And . . . And if by some chance I’m not, could you call Emma? Tell her I went to Calista’s house and to come and find me.’

‘Nellie, you sound strange. Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ lied Nell. ‘But could you do that for me? If I’m not home by lunchtime, call
Emma.’

‘All right, all right. Stop fussing. Of course you’ll be home by then. You always are. Now I’m switching on the telly. Bye
bye, Nellie.’

Nell shoved the phone back in her pocket, next to her purse. Still carrying the crumpets, and feeling as if her life had converged with a surreal, low-budget movie, she strode off towards the Main Street.

*

‘
Nell . . .’ Calista seemed wary as she peered through a gap in her double front door. ‘I didn’t expect you to come here.’

‘Why not?’ Nell challenged, as she tried to gain the advantage. ‘Did you know exactly what Silas was planning to tell me?’

‘About his mother being Anna Lambert . . . ?’

‘And about him being the same Silas who was married to your sister.’

Calista’s face was bleached of colour. ‘He told you all that, did he? About those other poor girls he was married to . . . ?’

At that, Nell pushed the heavy door
s wide open and stepped inside. ‘I need to see a photograph,’ she said. The scowl on her face felt frozen, as if it would never melt away. ‘A photograph of your sister - and her husband. You were close, weren’t you? There must be at least one picture in this house of her wedding day.’

‘Oh, but, cariad . . .’ Calista seemed to be wilting before her, all her bluster and conviction and gaiety gone.

‘Please don’t “cariad” me,’ snapped Nell. ‘I’m not a baby. I know what Silas said can’t be true, and I know you somehow believe it is. But you need to face facts, Calista. You need to confront the truth yourself, and stop living in a fantasy world. There must be a picture here
somewhere
of this Silas Allen. I’m sorry, but I want you to show it to me.’

‘Nell, think about this .
. . If I’d have realised how impervious you really were, I would never have told you all the things I did. I don’t just mean today, but the other things I explained to you before Christmas, relating to Joshua . . . I thought back then . . . I thought you were more open. You did
seem
to be . . .’

Nell folded her arms defensively over h
er chest. ‘If I allowed myself to get caught up in your far-out theories back then, more fool me. But all of this, Calista . . . all of the stuff Silas just told me . . . it affects my children, because I can’t let them associate with someone as delusional as he is. He needs help.’ Her voice broke a fraction. ‘Since he came back, he’s different from the man I used to know, as if he’s another person. Maybe his mind is addled by drugs, I don’t know. But I have to find out. And I need proof.’

In the gloom of the hallway, Calista stared back at her. ‘I’m scared the proof will be too much for you, Nell,’ she said at last. ‘You obviously weren’t ready for what Silas had to say.’

Nell straightened her back. ‘I’m not here for my own sake. I’m here for the children, and ultimately for Silas, too. I’ll say it again, Calista - he needs help. And maybe you do, too . . .’

Not the best thing to say to someone
who was hardly in the fittest mental state, but Nell’s patience was wearing thin and her resolve hardening.

‘Very well.’ C
alista capitulated with a ragged sigh.

She led the way down the corridor, but before getting anywhere near the huge conservatory at the rear, she stopped at a door on her left. There was a key in the lock. Calista turned it.

‘This was the music room,’ she said, pushing open the door. ‘I come in here when I need to wallow. And in spite of how I may come across to you, I do know how to wallow quite well. I’m not a naturally bright and breezy person, Nell. But, anyway, I stopped playing the piano years ago.’

Did that coincide with her husband’s death, wondered Nell. Another tragedy, besides the tragedy of the bereavement itself?  Along with Calista’s reclusiveness, this was probably something else to add to the list of how loss had affected this woman so profoundly, and in so many ways.

Guilt sliced through Nell as she followed Calista into the dark, musty depths of a large, once-grand room, thick with dust and decay and immeasurable sorrow. A room full of ghosts.

‘I’m sor
ry.’ Nell was on the verge of turning away when Calista grabbed her arm.

‘You’re not so closed-off, after all - are you, cariad?’ she said softly. ‘You sense it, too, don’t you . . . ?’

Nell felt as if a great mass of tears had swelled into a solid form behind her eyes; almost painful in its intensity.

‘You were happy in here,’ she said to Calista. ‘But then you’ve been sadder than you ever were, too.’

‘Two poles, pushing apart . . .’ Calista crossed the rug to the window and drew back the curtains, possibly closed for so long they seemed to have a life of their own as they resisted her. Eventually though, the long, heavy drapes were pulled back, and shafts of sunlight streamed through the flimsy lace panels behind, like an invading army.

Calista swept a small cloud of dust off a faded red chaise longue and beckoned Nell to sit down. But Nell had gravitated towards the grand piano in the centre of the room, and the cluster of photographs across the top, silver frames swathed with traces of gossamer webs.

‘Your family?’ she muttered.

‘My parents, my sister . . . my husband.’ said Calista. ‘But not the one person you’re searching for.’

‘Your brother-in-law.’

‘Please sit down, Nell,’ said Calista, with renewed purpose, as if she was regaining her strength. ‘I’ll show you what you want.’

Nell perched on the chaise longue. Calista lifted the lid of a large, heavy-looking chest, intricately carved and in all probability another antique. She drew out a white cardboard box, and blew on it, releasing another small puff of dust into the air. ‘It gets everywhere,’ she said, ‘through every tiny gap . . .’

Especially if it was all
owed to accumulate, surely.

‘Inside this box,’ said Calista
, uncharacteristically grim, ‘is my sister’s wedding album.’ She carried it over to Nell, but dithered before finally passing it down to her. ‘I keep it shut away because I promised I would. I can’t allow it to leave this room.’

Problematic, considering why I need it,
realised Nell with a frown. But she could cross that bridge when it came to it. The most imperative thing was to look inside.

The album within the box was wrapped in tissue paper. It was white leather, yellowing a little, with ‘Wedding Day’ embossed in gilt lettering on the front. She lifted it out, and placed the box and tissue paper on the chaise longue beside her.

Nell suddenly hesitated herself. She wasn’t sure why. Or why her hands were shaking so much. Abruptly, as if her rational, pragmatic side took over completely, Nell flipped open the album in the middle. The two halves fell apart with a violent thump in her lap.

And there he was. In dramatic, artistic black and white. His suit immaculate and his hair slicked back, a half-smile on his lips.

Her own husband.

Her
Silas.

The al
bum slid from Nell’s lap.