Winter’s Children (30 page)

‘And the baby?’

‘The baby was unharmed. Evie!’ Nik screamed. ‘Where the bloody hell are you hiding?’ He jumped on the quad, heading out into the darkness, headlights blazing. They stopped by a high-walled sheepfold. He pulled out the torch.

They made circles with the torch. He switched on the headlights and they sat on the quad, feeling stupid and very cold. Shouting out to break the stillness of the dawn. Kay was pacing up and down the boundary. ‘There’s nothing here but snow and stone. Let’s move on.’

‘I was so sure this was the place … Evie!’

Blanche feels herself lifted up against her will as if floating across the snowfields, down the rough track from the heights of Wintergill towards the old farmhouse. Hepzibah is still waiting by the door waving a lantern, pointing excitedly.

‘Come in, Cousin, over the threshold. What can you see? Who can you see at the fireside?’

Blanche peers and peers through the open door, catching glimpses of figures fitting across the hearth, chattering as they spin, going about their business. ‘I cannot see clearly.’ She is straining her eyes to make some sense of the scene.

‘See for thyself who’s inside, look hard, move closer …’ whispers the silver voice, and she wants to see but she’s afraid. ‘Give yourself to the task … let go of your fear and look carefully.’

The mist in her eyes is patchy now and she can see some old familiar face sitting by the hearth – Nate and his yard boy, laughing with round faces. They look up at her. Is it a fancy or does she see Father Michael quaffing from an ale pot? But he is tall and strong again, as she first knew him.

Then her heart leaps at the sight of her husband’s cloak over the oak chest. Surely, but surely it is – yes, it is Kit. She can see the lace on his cuffs and the fine jacket of blue velveteen. Is this but a devil’s mirage? Blanche steps back. Surely it cannot be thus? These are but the haunting chimeras of my tired mind, she muses. The light is too bright. She is blinded by such longings. She steps back from the threshold but Hepzibah reaches out to her.

‘Time for us to go forward now, Cousin, time to join our husbands by the hearth; my task is done. I have brought you home and can stay no longer. You must choose your own way now. I can do no more for you.’

‘But where is my child? You promised me my child. Wait, Hepzi. I’m afraid of that bright light.’

Hepzibah was vanishing into the deep recesses of the house but her voice lingered.

‘Only when you let go of that which you clutch to your side, Sister, will all be revealed. ‘Tis not Nonie who you are holding … let go of all your greed, and envy … all your malice and stalkings towards innocent maids. Let go and you will see your own heart’s desire. Trust in the higher wisdom and mercy. Step inside and see. Let go of what holds you fast here. It is not yours to take with you. Trust in my words. It is time for you to come home.’

Blanche is so torn now between longing and the hunger and yearning that never go away, night or day, from moon to moon. The flagstone passageway is tempting, worn smooth by other pilgrims, a trusted path into the light, away from the dreary shadows on this cold night. If only the mist of tears would clear so that she might catch a glimpse into that room. She loosens her grip on the hand that she has grabbed for comfort and takes a halting step forward.

Suddenly the candles flicker, and she feels a searing heat on her face, and a burning pain of anguish that she’s unworthy of the company assembled by the roaring fire.

Then she sees Nonie running towards her, and Kit looks up smiling. Her beloved child with those fair locks, is laughing and she turns to Blanche waving and smiling. ‘Mama! Come and dance a Christmas carol!’

Blanche is stunned and frozen for a second. How can she cross with the burden she is carrying by her side? She longs to be inside out of the cold at last.

‘Come on in and get some warmth … All’s well that ends well. You’ve come back to us at long last’ Hepzi steps out of the shadows. Blanche leaps forward to meet them. ‘I’m here, Nonie, I’m home!’

Nik slumped forward. ‘Can you see anything at all?’ Kay offered him the flask. ‘Why are we still hanging around here?’ she snapped in frustration.

‘Because I was following Agnes’s warning, I’m sorry … Evie has to be somewhere here,’ he said but his voice was heavy with doubt. ‘I could do with something stronger than tea.’

‘I laced it with whisky, can’t you taste it?’ Kay looked out over the scene. It didn’t look any different, a grey-black expanse of turf and walls.

‘A flask of whisky would hit the spot.’ Nik stopped suddenly, screwing his eyes tightly to focus on a bundle lying on a snowdrift. ‘What’s that over there by the wall …?’

In her dream Evie was scared of flying, round and round, spinning into the darkness, but now the hand was clutching at her with bony fingers and she couldn’t breathe. There was shouting and crying and moans like the wind under the door. She could hear another voice calling in the opposite direction, a gruff voice she recognised and she wanted to turn and go backwards to find that voice.

Evie kept tugging at the White Lady’s hand and tried to call out, but her lips were not moving, frozen with ice. They were flying towards the bright light now and Evie had no strength to break free, but the familiar far-off voice was getting louder in her ear and she was afraid as the grip tightened.

‘Let me go!’ she yelled, but no words could stop their flight. ‘Let me go home now, please!’

The light was getting so bright it hurt her eyes, a light rising in the horizon like all the colours of the rainbow in one. The White Lady was in such a hurry, rushing onwards, smiling, but she didn’t hear Evie’s plea. ‘Please let me go home,’ she whimpered one last time, and her lips were released to make the wailing howl of a creature in pain.

Suddenly the grasp loosened and the lady floated onwards without a second glance, onwards into the dawn light. Evie was left hovering and then falling, spinning down all alone but the voice was getting ever louder.

‘What’s that heap over there?’ Nik could see a black and white rug lying on the pile of wet snow. ‘Oh my God, it’s Muff!’ He began to dig furiously round the prostrate shape, digging through into the very wall itself. ‘Kay! Kay! I’ve found her! Evie! Wake up! Evie! She’s under here in the cripple hole. Thank God, Kay!’ Nik was punching the emergency numbers on his mobile with numb fingers. Evie was asleep, frozen, deathly pale, curled up in a ball, but still alive. Every second would count from now on as he rubbed her back to life, piling on the foil and the survival bag he always carried in the pouch under his seat.

Kay was at his side. She was crying, sobbing with relief.

‘Oh, muppet, we’ve found you! Clever girl to hide in the wall … Wake up. Oh why won’t she wake up?’ She was hugging the child with tears rolling down her face.

As dawn was rising high the air ambulance whirled over them to lift the child to safety, to the warmth of the hospital bed and the slow thawing-out procedures necessary. Kay was by her side, her cheeks flushed with concern and disbelief that it was all over.

Nik sat down exhausted. He looked down at the frozen body prostrate on the ground. He patted the iced fur feeling choked. ‘You did a grand job there, Muff. You always were my best setter but I reckon you topped yerself this time … Good lad.’ He lifted the collie onto the back of his quad. ‘Time to go home.’

The camera crews arrived from Leeds when all the excitement was over, their flashlights blinding him. ‘How did you know where to look?’ Over and over the same haunting question, and over and over he lied. How could he explain that he had heeded a gypsy’s warning? They’d think he’d gone soft in the head or lost his marbles.

‘Dunno,’ he smiled. ‘I just did. Us Dalesbred are hefted to these fells like all those bloody sheep that were slaughtered for nowt when a jab would’ve seen them right, but it was the dog that did it.’ That was the best way out of this inquisition.

Give credit where credit was due, he mused, recalling the frozen shape lying on the snow curled up in his last sleep. Muff had done his duty, sniffed around, stayed in contact with his charge and sat close by, old, cold and ever faithful to the end. In the quiet of his room it was another story. He turned over the pages of Agnes’s ‘Herball’ with gratitude. He didn’t understand a word of it but it worked the once and that was all he was ever going to use it for. Dabbling in mysteries is all well and good for them as knows their way about, he thought, but not this farmer. Once was enough. He was not going to tempt fate. He wrapped the book up carefully to return to the trunk in the attic. This secret must stay only within the family.

Thanks, Agnes, he smiled to himself, but no thanks. From now on I’ll be saving Wintergill residents in my own fashion. He was standing in a hall splattered with snow and mud prints. Perhaps the indoor ghost would have a fit if she could see the mess. Maybe she was gone now, the shell of her spirit for so long trapped as their guardian was relieved of her duties, he hoped. The storm candle was burning in the window and he smiled with satisfaction. He was still a shepherd gathering in the flock. Their wanderers had been returned safe and sound back to Wintergill.

Then the clock struck seven and he realised it was 23 December. That childish writing on the envelope floated before his tired eyes: ‘Gone to find Chrismass …’ The poor little sod. All this because one kiddie wanted some proper Christmas cheer. Well, things would have to be a little different this year.

Aye, things must change, indeed, he nodded to Jacob who peered down at him from his vantage point on the stairs.
I could take a few lessons from you.
Was he not the very incarnation of the festive spirit in his day? He alone could brighten up any dull hearth with his magic tricks. Did he not stir up the whole district with his Christmas doings?
And am I not named after the Christmas saint?

There’d been enough angst and gloominess to last a lifetime. It was the season to be merry said the old carol. Perhaps Wintergill needed a stirring up, a bit of singing and dancing, a table groaning with Christmas pie like it was in the old days. There was always time to work miracles if you had a mind for it, but first he must sleep … sleep for England.

Christmas Eve 2001

 

Jacob’s Yorkshire Christmas Pie

 

Take a turkey, a goose, a hare, chicken, a pigeon, sausage meat, some forcemeat stuffing and six hardboiled eggs.

Bone all the birds, season well and place each inside the other.

Put the goose in the turkey, the hare in the goose, the chicken in the hare, the pigeon in the chicken, and fill any spaces with sausage meat, forcemeat stuffing and quartered hardboiled eggs.

Sew up the turkey.

Meanwhile have prepared the huff paste for the raised piecrust.

Take a peck of fine flour and half a peck of good suet, boiled. Knead well until a stiff paste, set aside in cool place to stiffen.

Shape over a raised pie mould. Cut out a lid and decorate in traditional manner as befits the occasion with leaves.

Lay flesh within piecrust, cover with lid, brush with beaten egg. Bake slowly for at least 4 hours.

Prepare a savoury jelly from the boned stock, strained, cooled and fat skimmed away. Season with tarragon vinegar and salt.

Pour liquid into the pie when hot. Replace the lid and let the whole edifice cool.

Enjoy at leisure, garnished with the season’s preserves but the piecrust is best left for the birds.

Nora woke late. She could hear Nik on his mobile somewhere. All the terror, the exhaustion of last night’s drama came flooding back and she sat up. Was Evie safe? Was that Kay ringing with bad news? She didn’t think she could cope with any more bad news. Her chest was still tight and her breathing laboured, but she must find out when Evie would be discharged from Airedale Hospital.

‘Any news?’ she yelled over the banister rail.

Nik nodded from the stairwell and did the thumbs up sign. So far so good, she smiled, pulling on her tartan dressing gown. It was nearly eleven and not a crock washed or a floor mopped. The place looked a wreck. The whole of the local rescue force had tramped through their hall in the emergency.

Then she noticed the storm candle in its holder, just a stubble of wax left, burning on defiantly and she knew another one must be lit, especially on Christmas Eve. She wanted Evie to see it burning as they came up the drive. Hell’s bells, they wouldn’t keep her in over Christmas, surely? Perhaps Kay would then drive straight back to the Midlands. She wouldn’t blame them if they never darkened her door again.

‘Was that Kay?’ she asked as Nik bounded up the stairs. ‘How’s the bairn?’

‘Fine. In fact, amazing considering her exposure. They want to keep her under obs for a while longer but if she keeps this up she’ll be back tonight. The press want to interview her but Kay is trying to keep the cameras away. They’re calling her “the wunderkind who survived a snowstorm in a hole in the wall".’

‘Do they want to come back here? Look at this mess. There’s not a bit of Christmas trim about the place, not a card or decorations. She can’t come back to this … not after she ran away to find her Christmas,’ Nora said, looking around in dismay. Everywhere was damp, bare and depressing.

‘Don’t panic, Kay knows the score,’ he replied. ‘She’s out shopping while we speak. If you need anything I can ring her, or give me a list and I’ll bob down to town before the shops shut.’

‘By heck! That’s a first,’ she laughed, and he laughed back.

‘You can use the big kitchen if you like.’

Nora looked up at her son with surprise. He’s changed his tune and no mistake. All those dramatics must have softened his brain. He usually spent Christmas Eve tucked in a corner of the Spread Eagle with Jim Grimoldby; and then she remembered.

There was no Jim to sup with, nothing to celebrate there. Her son had just saved a kiddie from exposure by his knowledge of his terrain. He deserved a big hug but Snowdens didn’t go in for that sort of show so she nodded.

‘Thanks, son. I’ll get dressed. You did well. I was proud of you last night.’

Nik flushed. ‘Now then, that’s enough, don’t go overboard. I did what I had to do. It was a team effort.’ There was a twinkle in his eyes as he smiled back and she sensed something was shifting between them.

Nora drew a big breath. It would be a tall order to do Christmas from top to bottom in twenty-four hours, a challenge for a woman half her age, never mind one just recovering from flu.

Something in this panic was reminding her of that first German Christmas and her reluctance to give those POWs a proper do, but their visit had turned out fine, if not without consequences for her. She smiled, thinking of Klaus. How different life would have been if she’d run away with him. Shirley might be still alive but Nik wouldn’t have been born. Don’t go there, she chided herself. There’s no point now. Stop daydreaming. This won’t butter any parsnips!

When in panic, she decided as she struggled on with her corset, it’s better to make a list and delegate: jobs for her, jobs for the lad, and jobs for anyone who put their head round the door. For the moment there was just the two of them. Kay had enough on her plate getting Evie back here and settled. She would be as high as a kite, knowing that little madam.

It had been lovely having a child back in the house, especially one she could hand back at the end of the day to her mother.

Wunderkind indeed! How were they going to have a proper Yorkshire Christmas and wrap up this terrible year with a proper festive feast? They must give the Partridges some hope for the months to come so they would remember their stay with a smidgen of fondness when they returned south again.

She could still boil a hock of ham from the freezer for their supper tonight like they did in the old days when the pigs were killed on St Thomas’s Day. She would glaze it with black treacle, mustard and spices and serve it with Cumberland sauce. There was redcurrant jelly in the pantry, some oranges and an old bottle of port somewhere. She had all the ingredients.

Nik could fetch a hunk of good Wensleydale to go with the Christmas cake. Tom used to love it.

What cake? There wasn’t a crumb in the house and it was too late to make a traditional one. They’d have to buy one in – so what? It wasn’t a crime to support the local bakery for once.

Since the foot-and-mouth circus came to town in the summer, there’d been lean pickings for local traders. Nik could do the leg work for a change and support the local economy. If he was going to live on his own, he might as well learn to shop for himself.

The next job was to find where the decorations were hidden, gathering dust in the attic roof, she mused, puffing her way up the stairs. It was years since they’d seen the light of day. If Evie was to have her Christmas, she must go rooting round herself and make it happen.

Perhaps they were still in the boxes on the top of the wardrobes. That was where she used to hide the children’s gifts in old hatboxes, the little surprises that went in Santa’s stockings. She would have to face the clutter in the attic for a result.

As she turned the final stairs she looked at the old sepia photos that went from the hall up to the third floor. Evie was right, their eyes did follow you everywhere. ‘I bet you all know where the trimmings are?’ she asked them, but none of them said a word until she heard a whispering in her ear. She spun round quickly and thought she saw Jacob winking at her.

‘We’re having none of that. One ghost in the house is enough. The white coats will be calling for me soon, if this carries on,’ she laughed, and pulled a face at him. What had got into her? Was it the relief that Evie was safe and all was well?

The attic was as jumbled up and dusty as always, making her cough. This was not a good idea, but now she was up there she was going to have a good root around: boxes of abandoned bric-a-brac, old vacuums, boxes of photo albums full of snapshots of the children.

Her eye caught one of Shirley on her bike smiling into the camera with such mischief in her face. Nik was right to protest, she sighed. There was no halo round her daughter. Perhaps it was wrong to make an icon of the dead but her eyes filled up just the same, and that was when she thought she heard a little voice in her head saying, ‘Find the Christmas House.’ It was so real and vivid she dropped the album onto her lap.

The Christmas House – she hadn’t thought about that little thing for years. ‘If you want me to find it you’re going to have to help me. My legs are cramping up on this hard floor and I don’t have X-ray eyes.’ No reply was forthcoming, of course.

She picked up the album to show Kay. It was about time her family snaps were brought into the light of day before there was no one left to know who these precious ones were. It was time she put both her children in their rightful place on top of the bureau.

But where was the Christmas House? It was probably packed up with the other trimmings. If you want treasure, my girl, you’ll have to search for it, she mused as she rummaged from one box to another, among suitcases full of damp curtains and old clothes, piles of tennis rackets and hockey sticks, shin pads, rugby boots but no sign of the trimmings box.

All this needed chucking out. She ferreted into drawers crammed with ancient knitting patterns and magazines that might be worth something now. The dust tickled up her nose and made her sneeze, but she was searching like a ferret down a rabbit hole and not to be thwarted. The second attic room was crammed with old furniture she’d forgotten they had. As she was sifting through the junk on the windowledge, her eyes drifted down across the valley into the noonday light. The ground was etched with snow, a benign landscape, a stunning postcard view, but she shivered thinking about Evie’s ordeal.

This room would make a lovely den for a girl. It should be painted bright yellow with gold stars on the midnight-blue ceiling, with room for toys in the walk-in cupboard. It would make a lovely nursery and you wouldn’t hear much crying two floors down. It was here she found Nik’s old farm toys, the model farm and the tractors. She bent to finger them: plastic cows and sheep and even some trees. There was a magic drawing board. If you twiddled the knobs it made lines across the screen. She’d take these back to Evie’s room. She could doodle and wipe out to her heart’s content.

She heard the rustle of paper and a scratching in the wall. Perhaps a mouse had come to guide her, or worse. She made a move and all fell silent but there was a telltale hole in the plaster. Nora gazed out again at the fields, imagining them once more full of stock, the tractor in the field, but there was nothing to disturb the view.

She stumbled slowly back to the top corridor with its rooms right and left. Nothing here but a load of smelly junk waiting for a car-boot sale, she sighed. It was a hopeless search, but that little voice had said, ‘Find the Christmas House.’ She couldn’t waste any more time now.

‘I’ve tried my best but you’re not helping!’ she snapped. ‘You try rooting through this lot!’ Nora edged down the stairs carefully with the photographs. Overhead was a skylight and, shafting down the stairwell, a beam of speckled light glittering with dust highlighted the little cupboard tucked under the turn of the stair. More in frustration rather than hope she yanked the door open into the musty darkness. Even in the gloom she could see something glinting into the light, a tinsel ribbon, some golden balls, and soon she was pulling out boxes with excitement. This must be the place.

‘Thank you, Shirley,’ she said, grabbing the trimmings. In a wicker basket were streamers and old paper bells, pretty glass baubles covered in tissue paper. There was a suitcase full of wrapping paper and a brass candle holder with angels dancing round with trumpets, a snowstorm – the one she had as a child – crinkled Christmas crackers and stars dancing on string. The memories of old times flooded back. She was getting warmer but there was still no sign of what she was looking for, and then she spotted a brown-paper parcel right at the back of the cupboard.

She leaned forward to pull it out, her heart racing. It was the original paper that Klaus and Hans had first brought the gift in. She’d forgotten how fine the workmanship was.

It was a Swiss chalet with sloping roof, painted with snow. The windows had shutters and window boxes painted in red and green stripes. It was a house for a cuckoo clock but the whole front opened to reveal four tiny rooms and it was about the size of a cornflake packet.

It wasn’t a doll’s house. It seemed smaller than she recalled, and it was undamaged. There was no furniture inside, just a painted shell but it looked so pretty and it would take pride of place on the dining table.

‘Find the Christmas House, you said, and I have,’ she whispered into the air. ‘Thank you, my lovely. I’ve made you an angel all these years and forgotten you were a little girl who saw something she wasn’t meant to see. I hope you forgive me and don’t mind me sharing this with Evie. There’s been so little joy in this house since you left it but we’re going to change all that from now on.’

In her mind’s eye she could see the little house on the dining table in the hall, the one pushed across the door to separate her bit of the house from Nik’s quarters.

How daft can you get, living back to back, pretending the other didn’t have the right to the other side of the house and all because of bad memories and jealousy. Now the table must go into the middle with a white damask cloth, with silver candlesticks if she had any silver polish left. There must be a Christmas tree too, and where would that go? Under the stairwell as of old so Mr Jacob could see it from his vantage point and know the season was being observed.

There was no stopping these fancy thoughts now, though her bony fingers were stiff and her legs aching. How on earth were they going to do all this in time?

She sat on the bottom step, feeling as excited as a child, staring at the big cold fireplace. The grate was dusty and bare but she had no energy left to clean it up. They would need a basket of dry logs chopped if they were to have a decent blaze tomorrow.

If only I was a tidy bit younger, she sighed. She looked up at old Joss’s portrait but he didn’t move a whisker.

You mustn’t disappoint the kiddie, Lenora. Gird your loins and get cracking. Do what you can and ask for help. What was needed was a bit of co-operation, pulling together, the two of them, two horses pulling together not apart. It was Shirley’s idea about the Christmas House and she was always one for keeping Christmas cheer.