A Winter’s Tale (13 page)

I asked one bride gift only—that my mother’s maid, Joan, be sent for, since my father hath turned her off, and this boon was granted to mee. Though seemingly a simple creature, she is of our old ways and was devoted to my mother. She brought with her my mother’s household book, which I mean to continue with, and some other things I have hid to be safe.

From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1581

I wasn’t surprised that Ottie knew who was there without turning round, because I can often do that myself. I think it’s a Winter thing—like the way I frequently have a flash of foreknowledge that something good or bad is heading in my direction. That was partly why I didn’t go to America with my mother, though it turned out that the dark shadows were gathering for her, not me.

I examined what looked like a cross between a cow and a giant bat, the clay seemingly slapped on over the armature with a giant paddle, and said cautiously, ‘It’s a very interesting interpretation.’

I mean, what do
I
know of modern sculpture? My knowledge of art comes from dusting several miles of old pictures in a freezing Scottish loch-side castle, or Lady Betty’s collection of pseudo-antique Egyptian relics; and if I never see another washy watercolour of Highland cattle, or crumbling alabaster Canopic jar, it won’t cause me any grief whatsoever.

‘Interpretation of what, exactly?’ Ottie enquired with interest.

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I confessed, and she laughed.

‘Good—I hate humbug.’ She regarded her monstrous creation with complacency. ‘It’s called
Folded: 25
and it’s the final one for an installation in Swindon. This could be the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to the place.’

She turned her bright blue eyes on me and asked, ‘Settling in all right?’

‘Yes, thanks. I’ve just unloaded the van and put it in the barn, and Aunt Hebe gave me a quick tour of the house to remind me of the layout, before she had to go down to the church. Aunt Ottie…’

‘Just call me Ottie, everyone does.’

‘Ottie,’ I said firmly, since she had seemingly lost interest in me again and gone back to contemplating her sculpture through a haze of sweet blue smoke, ‘Aunt Hebe appears to have told Jack all about Alys Blezzard’s book and now he thinks it might hold a clue to finding a hidden treasure.’

That regained her attention. ‘My sister’s a fool—always was, always will be. She said she thought he ought to know, since there were no female Winters left after us. But of course there were—you! And I knew you would come back one day, because I’ve got a dose of the family second sight, while Hebe just inherited the skills to whip up potions and charms.’ She looked at me sharply. ‘You’re like me, I think?’

‘A bit. Not so much second sight as more of a vague sense of good or bad coming my way—either as a light on
the horizon and my spirits lifting, or dark shadows closing in on me.’

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘You’ll probably get a stronger dose when I’ve popped my clogs. That’s what happened to
me
when my grandmother died. I suppose it’s only the Winter tendency to marry second or third cousins that has kept it so strong in the family all these centuries.’

I remembered Jack’s joke about that and also, guiltily, that he was still entirely unaware of my transition from reluctant heiress to Homecoming Queen. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that ‘consort’ wasn’t in his vocabulary…

Ottie ground the stub of her cheroot out under the heel of her boot. ‘That Hebe’s daft as a brush, wittering on about things she knows very well she shouldn’t, and putting ideas into Jack’s head. Not that there aren’t enough twisty little cunning ideas in there already,’ she warned, with a sharp look at me.

‘Is that why you and Hebe aren’t speaking to each other?’

‘Partly. I suppose Susan told
you
all about the book?’

‘Yes, and everything that
her
mother told her, but she thought you knew more than she did.’

‘William’s wife was giddy, like Susan—sweet, but no substance to her—and she died young. It put me in a bit of a dilemma, to be frank, though I had great hopes of you. Did you ever see that series on TV,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
?’ she added, with disconcerting abruptness. ‘“Into every generation a vampire slayer is born”?’

‘No, we never had a TV. And where do vampires come in?’ I asked uneasily.

‘They don’t—but into each generation or so of Winter women is born one to be trusted to keep Alys Blezzard’s secrets safe, and pass them on to the next, like an endless game of tag down the centuries. There have been Regency belles, disapproving Victorian misses and twenties flappers,
but they’ve all kept the faith. I’m the Buffy for
my
generation—but there seems to have been a slight glitch with the next two. However,’ she added more cheerfully, ‘since I also had a bit of the magic about me, I knew it would all come right in the end! You’re here, and here to stay, aren’t you?’

‘Well…yes—but I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to manage it!’

‘You’ll find a way,’ she said confidently.

I would have to. Losing Winter’s End again simply wasn’t an option. I went back to what Ottie had been saying. ‘So Mum
was
right and you do know something more—and maybe Alys’s references to treasures mean more than
I
thought, too?’

‘The book is itself a rare treasure—a household manuscript of that age, written by a woman,’ she said evasively. ‘There have always been copies of the more useful, everyday recipes circulating within the family, but when Hebe showed an interest in the more esoteric side, I let her go through the original book to look for others—more fool me! Now she’s blabbed about things she had no right to, and Jack’s been creeping about searching the place like something out of a Secret Seven novel, looking for buried gold. Seth found him using a metal detector in the grounds just after William died and threatened to wrap it round his neck if he caught him digging holes in the beds again. Then I told him he needed the permission of the owner to do it anyway, which made him even more furious, of course.’

‘I suppose it would, since apparently he’s been brought up to think himself the heir all these years,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s a difficult situation for him. But I can’t understand why Hebe told Jack in the first place.’

‘She doted on the child from the moment he came back from New Zealand and spoiled him to death, so I suppose it was on the cards that she would tell him everything she
knew eventually. But goodness knows why, because he isn’t showing any sign of getting married again, so there’s no wife to take the secret on to the next generation.’

‘Oh? I saw Melinda Christopher this morning as I was arriving—her horse tried to sit on my car. Aunt Hebe said Grandfather thought she and Jack seemed to be getting close when she first moved back here, until he showed that he disapproved.’

Ottie thought that one over. ‘I don’t think so. They are just old friends and move in the same circles. But she’s a rich widow, so now William isn’t here to put his oar in, perhaps Jack will see her in a different light. He’s always found money powerfully attractive. He and Melinda have got
that
in common.’

I returned to our original subject with an effort. ‘I still don’t see why Aunt Hebe had to tell Jack anything.’

‘Nor me. She just said she thought he ought to know, now he was the last of the Winters.’

‘Only the last of the
male
Winters, and he’s not actually a Winter at all unless he takes the name by deed poll, is he? Still, all he seems to know is that Alys mentions secret treasures on the flyleaf of the original book.’

‘That’s right, and luckily she couldn’t even remember the exact wording of that. In fact, there’s only me who knows
everything
now—custodian of the family secrets, as you might say.’ She paused. ‘When I realised Hebe had blabbed, though, it did make me wonder if
I
should confide in someone, too. Especially someone who could keep an eye on Jack’s treasure-hunting when I wasn’t here.’

She looked at me and away again. ‘You see, I knew you were going to come back, and since the key and the book vanished when your mother did, I assumed you had them. I mean, you
have
got them, haven’t you? It would be terrible if the book was lost for ever!’

I ignored that, staring at her, aghast. ‘Ottie, are you saying that
you
told someone else the family secrets too?’

‘Well, I’m no spring chicken any more,’ she replied defensively. ‘I knew you would return, but not
when
. What if you came back too late? So I told someone I trusted exactly what Hebe had told Jack, and left a letter with the solicitor to be given to you when you turned up, telling you the rest.’

‘Ottie,
who
did you tell?’

There was the sound of heavy, rapidly approaching footsteps, and then a tall, broad-shouldered shape blotted out the light. ‘Ma?’ a familiar deep, Lancashire-accented voice demanded. ‘Ma, are you there? I think old William must have been off his head! He’s only gone and left the place to a spaced-out New-Age traveller and she—’

He stopped dead when he suddenly saw me and his mouth closed like a trap. Charlie, who had been sitting on my feet, got up and wagged his tail. That dog has no discrimination whatsoever.

I turned incredulously to Ottie. ‘
Ma?
’

She looked self-conscious. ‘Yes, this is my stepson and your head gardener, Seth Greenwood. Have you met?’

‘
Your
stepson is
my
so-called head gardener?’

‘Yes.’ She looked away and fiddled with a metal model-ling tool while I put two and two together fast: ‘Don’t tell me your tit-for-tat retaliation for Hebe’s indiscretion was to tell
him
?’ I jerked a finger at the gardener, who glowered at me. ‘At least Jack was
family
!’

‘Well, so is Seth—by marriage. And at least he can be trusted to do what is best for Winter’s End, while Jack’s just out to line his pockets in any way he can,’ she said defensively. ‘If he’d inherited, the place would have been converted into some kind of upmarket apartment block and slapped on the market five minutes after probate was granted.’

‘I think you are wrong—and I don’t know why you’re
so against Jack. He seems to me to care deeply about Winter’s End! But that’s beside the point, because
neither
of them should know anything about it at all.’

‘Someone needs to keep an eye on Jack, Sophy, you take it from me—and I’m not always here.’

‘But now
I
will always be here.’

‘Yes, and Jack’s going to be pressing you to show him the book the minute he realises you have it, after all—which you do, don’t you?’ she asked again, slightly anxiously.

‘If I have, then it is mine by right—and in any case, I refuse to discuss it any further in front of
him
. Or, in fact, at all! I think you and Hebe have both betrayed a sacred trust.’

I turned and for the first time spoke directly to Seth, who was lounging in the doorway with his arms folded across a broad expanse of holey jumper and an evil look in his green eyes, like a villainous but worryingly attractive character in a B movie. That elusive memory stirred again…

‘Just bear in mind, Seth Greenwood, that I am not about to have my property searched by you, or anyone else, for a treasure that doesn’t exist. If you want to keep your job, and Jack wants to keep his visiting rights, then you’d both better consider that!’

He straightened up suddenly and said furiously, ‘Now just you look here—’

But Ottie broke into a great peal of laughter, drowning him out. ‘That’s it, Sophy, you tell him straight!’

‘I will,’ I said, ‘especially now I’ve remembered where I met your stepson before!’

‘Not a happy meeting?’ she asked interestedly.

‘No!’

‘I
thought
I recognised that van,’ he said coolly, making it clear that
I
certainly wasn’t memorable enough to stick in his mind. ‘Didn’t I move you and your New-Age traveller friends on a couple of years ago, over near Rivington?’

‘You certainly
tried
to move us on, even after we’d explained that we’d had to stop because Sandy’s baby was coming early.’

‘I’d heard that sort of story before.’ He rubbed his straight nose and then added grudgingly, ‘Though that time it turned out to be true, I admit. You know, I thought women in childbirth only screamed like that in films.’

‘Sandy believed in letting out the pain.’

‘She did that all right. They could hear her up at the house.’

‘That’s a gross exaggeration. And we left as soon as we could, didn’t we, without doing any damage?’

‘No, you didn’t—you made a mess of the ground I’d had cleared for a knot garden.’

From the way he said ‘knot garden’ you would think we had desecrated a sacred site, but it gave me the opening to hit him where it hurt.