A Winter’s Tale (50 page)

‘And we will have to have the finds verified in some way, by experts, I suppose,’ she said.

‘They mustn’t leave the house,’ I said quickly. ‘Alys wouldn’t like that. I suppose we could get the experts to come to us…if we swear them to secrecy first.’

‘What if they don’t authenticate them?’ asked Lucy.

‘Oh, I should think they will fall out and argue about it for ever,’ Ottie said, ‘especially if they are not allowed to take them away to London. But that won’t matter, will it? That you found them, and what they appear to be, are the two facts that will bring publicity and visitors flocking to Winter’s End.’

‘I think we are going to have to involve Mr Yatton,’ Lucy said. ‘We can trust him totally and we’ll need his help.’

‘And Seth,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll need him to help me word the press release and all kinds of things.’ Which was a bit
of a turn around from the day when I was so angry to discover that he knew all about Alys’s book…

‘There are other people we could trust to keep it secret too, like Guy and Anya, but perhaps the fewer that know in advance, the better. What are we going to do about Hebe?’ Lucy asked. ‘She’d tell Jack right away, wouldn’t she?’

‘Yes, but she will know something is going on,’ Ottie said. ‘Perhaps we should tell her that we have discovered Alys’s secret treasure hidden in the box, and that it is just another, smaller household book that proves irrefutably that she was a witch? Even if she passed that on to Jack, he wouldn’t find it very exciting.’

‘So,’ Lucy said, her eyes sparkling with excitement, ‘when do we go public?’

On Tuesday I drove Aunt Hebe, who was attired in the full regalia of Queen Elizabeth I, including farthingale, ruff and red wig, down to the Friends’ meeting at the village hall.

When we got there, even familiar faces like Mr Yatton’s looked utterly different in Elizabethan dress. In fact, it looked like we had stepped back a few centuries. They wore costumes from every walk of life, but with a preponderance of the gentry, which I suppose is natural; how many of us would choose to be peasants if sent back in time?

After an official welcome I was introduced to one or two Friends who hadn’t been at the meeting, including a small, shy man called Mr Glover, a local antiquarian. He had a bald head framed by wisps of hair and large, lustrous brown eyes…

I had a brilliant idea. ‘Mr Glover, we could really do with someone to walk around on open days in the character of Shakespeare—and you would be perfect!’

He looked horrified and shrank away. ‘M-me?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Effie agreed, ‘what a good idea! And Mr Glover is a poet, too, you know—he would fit the part so well.’

‘The odd slim volume,’ Mr Glover said modestly, trying to edge away.

Aunt Hebe blocked his escape. ‘Come along, Terence, we all have to do our bit.’

‘What would I have to do?’ he enquired nervously.

‘Just wander about the place, holding a quill pen and a roll of parchment, looking for inspiration. You don’t have to talk to anyone if you don’t want to, you can remain mysteriously silent,’ I said encouragingly.

‘You might be quite inspired by the experience?’ suggested Effie and, in the end, he allowed himself to be persuaded.

‘Well, that’s that sorted,’ Aunt Hebe said, ‘so gather round and let’s get on with the meeting.’

It appeared that much manoeuvring for favourite jobs had been going on, but an equal sharing had been arrived at—probably by my aunt performing some sort of Judgement of Solomon on anyone reluctant to capitulate.

We had tea and biscuits while the Friends’ roles were fine tuned, and then I was escorted to a sort of tissue-paper bower (something to do with the Brownies’ activities) where I was to sit and watch the Friends trip a few stately measures.

Some of the serving wenches’ blouses barely contained their ample bosoms during the livelier passages, which made Mr Yatton look even happier and poor Terence Glover even more petrified.

In the car going home Aunt Hebe said, ‘Well, I think that went very well!’ Then she took her wig and crown off, because she said her head was hot.

I caught Lucy in the kitchen this afternoon teaching Mrs Lark how to make sushi. She has given her one or two
other recipes too, and apparently our starter tonight will be taramasalata with carrot batons. Wonders will never cease.

I am not sure what Aunt Hebe is going to make of that.

Jack returned from Barbados and paid us a flying visit, greeted by Hebe like a repentant prodigal son, though Ottie took him into the library and gave him a tongue-lashing for borrowing Hebe’s money that we could hear from every corner of the house.

He emerged looking hurt and misunderstood, but promised he would pay Hebe back, with interest, when planning permission was granted for the site of Mel’s house and he could sell it to developers. He also apologised to me for
The Times
announcement—but then he kissed me and said he would marry me tomorrow if I’d changed my mind, so he is quite irrepressible. But I do think he is genuinely starting to grow fond of me, as I am of him, despite all his devious machinations.

Seth, who was passing through the Great Hall at the time, gave us one of his sardonic looks, but since I saw Mel’s grey horse tied up outside the lodge earlier that day, he had no need to talk.

He didn’t say whether he found her repentant or not, but the visit did not seem to improve his increasingly dodgy temper and she soon took herself off to London.

Two elderly Shakespeare scholars were practically coming to blows in the parlour (under vows of strict secrecy—I told Hebe they were paper conservation experts), and the rest of the house and grounds resembled an ants’ nest that had been stirred with a stick, as the weeks shortened before Valentine’s Day.

Seth had finished planting out the lower terrace and was now practically manicuring the rest of the garden with his
harried assistants, and Guy was here every weekend, allowing Lucy to boss him into doing all kinds of jobs or vanishing into the stillroom, where he was helping Hebe with her production line.

Anya came back—and quickly moved in with Mike! I heard it was the talk of the village, but I expected they would get over it. She was up here every day, setting up the shop and the stands, arranging stock, getting Lucy to chase up late orders, and making jewellery in the little workshop area she had set up.

There was so much to do and so little time—but there was an air of expectancy and excitement building up at Winter’s End that united us all—including Alys. She was happy too, I knew.

One night, a few days before the Grand Opening, I went down to the Green Man with Seth.

As I thought, the journalist, George, was sitting in the corner, reading the paper and drinking a pint of bitter. I went and sat down opposite him, uninvited, and he looked at me warily over the top of his paper.

‘George,’ I said, ‘how would you like me to give you a
huge
scoop, a story that the daily papers would fight to publish?’

‘A scoop?’

‘Yes, a shocking and amazing family secret handed down through the generations.’

He looked at me cautiously. ‘What’s the catch?’

‘No catch—except that I don’t want the story to come out until Valentine’s Day. So, you would have to promise to keep it to yourself until the very last minute. Are you on?’

Naturally he couldn’t resist the bait, but when I told him all, I thought he might have a heart attack before he wrote the story and had to buy him a double brandy before he got his colour back.

I agreed to let him photograph some of the evidence too—well, facsimiles of some of the evidence, to be honest—for while the real things could never leave the house, I intended to put it about that they were safely locked away in a bank vault.

The article duly appeared in a major daily paper on the morning of Valentine’s Day:

THE WITCH WHO PUT A SPELL ON THE BARD! Recently found documents suggest that Alys Wynter, the notorious local witch, was Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. If so—even more astoundingly—could the present-day Winter family of Winter’s End, near Sticklepond, be the playwright’s direct descendants?

George had made quite a sensational job of it, and the phone began to ring and ring from dawn—but all they got was the estate office answering machine, telling them, ‘Winter’s End will be opened to the public from one p.m. today. If you are calling about the Shakespeare connection, then no further information will be given at present, though press handouts will be released.’

We were all too busy anyway—busy
and
nervous. The stage was set, the players were in place—lights, camera,
action
!

Chapter Thirty-five: Much Ado

I am not yet seventeen—how brief was my day of dancing in the sunlight! Yet there is enough of my mother in mee to foretell that my child will have a happier life and that all that happened to mee was meant to be. I have laid up a treasure for her descendants. That must console mee.

Alys Blezzard, 1582

I was up on Valentine’s Day in time to watch the dawn rise, which it did with serene promise. For once the weather reports were right and it was going to be my favourite sort of weather—bright, sunny and cool.

A late-home fox in the woods on the other side of the valley gave a sharp, short cry, and far below I could see the convoluted pattern of the new knot on the lower terrace outlined with baby box trees, like dark running stitch against the lighter gravel.

The butterflies in my stomach that I’d had all the previous day were totally vanished. I examined the future for portents, and found only the vaguest of darkness around the edges, wispy and insubstantial, no great threats. I wore flat boots, a cord skirt and a fitted mock sheepskin jacket with a broad belt around my waist—Anya said I looked faintly Cossack. The bee brooch, my lucky charm, was pinned to the collar.

Aunt Hebe, still somewhat miffed at not being told about the discovery in advance, was trying to pretend that it was just another day, and said that once the opening ceremony was over she intended seeing to her walled garden, the hens and hives, as usual, though she
might
pop in to see if her line of rose-based items was selling later…all in full Queen Elizabeth I dress, of course.

The post brought me a big Valentine’s card in Jack’s unmistakable handwriting, and it occurred to me that he would probably have read the papers by now too…

Everyone was in place. The press and at least two TV crews were assembled in a special area near where I would be cutting the ceremonial ribbon across the drive, and behind me were my VIP guests.

Beyond the red ribbon were massing the public, many clutching copies of the glossy guidebook that had been delivered in the nick of time.

The sun was shining weakly and, as the clock in the stable tower chimed the hour, Fanny and Johnnie tried to upstage me by walking to and fro across the gravel emitting the occasional lost-soul cry. But they vanished the instant the first small child ducked under the ribbon and tried to grab them and I launched into my short speech.

‘A hearty welcome, all of you, to the first open day of the year at Winter’s End Manor. As you know, our unique garden restoration scheme is nearing completion—a fitting memorial both to my grandfather and the previous head gardener, Rufus Greenwood.’

‘Hear, hear!’ shouted Hal and Bob.

‘Rufus Greenwood’s son, Seth, is our present head gardener, and has worked wonders to complete the last part of the restoration in time.’ I smiled across at Seth, whom I was pleased to see was not wearing his layers of ratty
jumpers, though you still couldn’t have mistaken him for anything else except a gardener.

‘Now, some of you will have seen the papers this morning and read about our exciting discovery. Many old houses and families have secrets, and Winter’s End and the Winters have more than their fair share. I’m afraid I’m going to go a bit
Da Vinci Code
here, but there has been a family tradition handed down among the women of the family, that the present day Winters are direct descendants of William Shakespeare, through a sixteenth-century ancestor, Alys—better known locally as Alys Blezzard, the witch.’

There was a buzz of comment, some of it from the press enclosure. I held up my hand.

‘When this secret was revealed to me, I thought it was too incredible to be true. However, we recently discovered both Alys Blezzard’s original journal and evidence that this legend was, in fact, true—I believe incontrovertibly, though I expect the experts will fight over it for years to come. You will find a small display, including some facsimiles of the documents, in the Great Hall, and you can also follow the Shakespeare Trail round the grounds. Winter’s End is still a work in progress, and I hope that when the house reopens at Easter, you will all come back to visit us again.’

I stepped forward and Seth handed me a pair of large scissors. ‘I would now like to declare Winter’s End open!’