Trisha Ashley - A Winter’s Tale - A festive winter read from the bestselling Queen of Christmas romance

‘She’s got the look,’ he insisted.

‘I don’t think so—and does it matter anyway?’

‘Of course it bloody matters! They’re all mad as hatters in Middlemoss!’

‘Sophy isn’t mad.’

‘Oh, no? What about her imaginary playmate?’

Aunt Hebe shrugged. ‘Lots of children have invisible friends.’

‘Alys isn’t always invisible,’ Sophy said in a small voice, but Grandfather didn’t seem to hear her.

‘I’m sure I’m right,’ he said, ‘and why wouldn’t Susan say who the father was, unless he was a married man? God knows where she’s been the last few days, but if she doesn’t mend her ways, she’ll find herself out on her ear.’

At this inopportune moment, Susan Winter slid in through the great oak door, setting down a colourful carpetbag on the floor; tall, fair, slender and pretty in a long, floaty dress with little bells that chimed softly as she moved, smelling of sandalwood and patchouli. Like a fairy, Sophy always thought, not a dark little hobgoblin like herself.

‘So you’re back, then? Where have you been?’ Grandfather demanded, switching that fierce gaze to a new victim. ‘And, more to the point, who have you been with? Another married man?’

Susan, who had been smiling vaguely at the group, her blue eyes unfocused, flinched and took a step backwards. ‘W-what do you mean? Some friends took me to the Reading Festival to see Genesis, that’s all, Daddy!’

‘Friends! I know the riffraff you call friends! Layabouts and hippie scum! I’m telling you, Susan, I won’t tolerate any more of your loose behaviour, so if you want me to house you and your bas—’

‘ Not in front of the child!’ protested Hebe, and Sophy was suddenly snatched off her feet and carried away through the baize-lined door to the kitchen wing. It slammed behind them, cutting off the escalating sound of shouting and weeping.

‘What’s Mummy done now?’ Sophy asked, as she was set back down again. ‘Is it my fault, for making Grandfather angry? Aunt Hebe, what has Mummy—’

‘Quickly!’ Aunt Hebe said, flapping her apron and shooing her through the kitchen past Mrs Lark, like a reluctant hen into the coop.

The cook, who was single-mindedly pounding steaks with a sort of knobbly wooden mallet, looked up long enough to remark, ‘Bile pills, that’s what he’ll be needing, before the night’s out,’ before resuming her assault.

‘Deadly nightshade, more like,’ muttered Aunt Hebe. ‘Come on, Sophy, into the stillroom—I’ve got rose conserve on the stove, and I don’t want it spoiled. And you should know by now that your grandfather is all bark and no bite.’

Although Aunt Hebe was tall and rangy and not at all cosy, she always smelled of roses, which was safe and somehow comforting, unlike Mummy’s patchouli, which made Sophy feel excited but vaguely unsettled, much like Mummy herself did.

And after Mummy took her away late that night, leaving behind Winter’s End, Aunt Hebe, the little dogs, and everything loved and familiar, she always did find the scent of roses a comfort in an alien world, long after she had forgotten the reason why.

Despite my fears I found Wynter’s End most delightfully situated above a river, with terraces of sweet-scented knots. Sir Ralph was greatly pleased to see mee—but not so the mistress. Mary Wynter is Sir Ralph’s second wife and I perceived from the moment she set eyes on mee that she was mine extreame enemy, though I know not why unless she hateth every woman of less years than herself.

From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1580

No matter how many times I dreamed of the terrible day that culminated in my mother taking me away from Winter’s End for ever, I still woke up with my face wet with tears and a sense of anguish— and guilt.

Was the final argument that precipitated our flight my fault for provoking Grandfather once too often? I had been a mischievous child, always getting into trouble.

My mind groped desperately after the disappearing echoes of once-familiar voices, the last lingering fragrance of Gallica roses…but as always they slipped away, leaving me with only the fragmented memories of my early childhood to take out and examine, one by one, like faded treasures.

Since my grandfather’s brief visit earlier this year everything had been stirred up again and old wounds had reopened. But surely it shouldn’t still hurt so much. It was so long ago, that settled time before my mother and I, cast out of Eden, had moved around the country from squat to travellers’ van to commune. Eventually, like random jetsam, we’d washed up at a remote little Scottish commune, where we’d run out of road. And then later my poor feckless mother had literally run out of road…but as Marlowe said, that was in another country: and besides, the wench is dead.

Dead and gone.

It was still dark and I reached for the bedside lamp, only to find that it wasn’t there. Then, with a sickening jolt under the ribcage, I remembered that it was already packed away—and why.

I had to pad across the cold, bare floorboards to switch on the ceiling light before climbing back into bed. The white candlewick coverlet, with its raised diamond pattern and central flower motifs, suddenly reminded me of the intricately moulded plaster ceilings of Winter’s End. Strange that I hadn’t thought of that before, but perhaps, subconsciously, that had been why I bought it.

Yet I barely ever allowed myself to think of Winter’s End—not with my conscious mind, anyway—for that was the past, with the door forever shut, and the present had to be dealt with.

And what a present! That day I would be moving out of the tied cottage where Lucy and I had lived for over twenty years, because my elderly employer recently suffered a bad fall and the consequence was that my job had come to an abrupt end.

At first I thought everything would work out fine, especially when Lady Betty’s nephew arrived to look after things until she recovered enough to come home. Conor was a chubby, balding man who always reminded me of an amiable frog, though unfortunately he turned out to be a complete toad.

On previous visits to Blackwalls he had seemed fond of Lady Betty and otherwise entirely harmless (apart from a slight tendency to invade my personal space and squeeze my arm with his plump white fingers, while telling me how grateful he was to me for looking after his aunt). That opinion lasted right up to the point where he got power of attorney and had poor Lady Betty, confused but weakly protesting, whipped straight from the hospital to an expensive retirement home. Personally, I don’t see that keeping fourteen cats, and telling visitors to your stately ruin that you are the reincarnation of Ramses the First, is anything like enough reason to be declared incompetent to manage your affairs. She’d managed them perfectly well for years, with a little assistance from her faithful staff, and she never wore the headdress and robe in public.

I think Conor’s betrayal was a much greater shock to her than the fall, which I told him straight the day I found out about it—and then he had the gall to come round to the cottage that very evening, well tanked up, to try to exercise some kind of medieval droit de seigneur, insinuating that keeping my home and my job depended entirely on how ‘friendly’ I was.

I had an instinctive knee-jerk reaction and droited his seigneur until his eyes watered. Pity Lady Betty hadn’t been able to do the same, once he had charmed and weaselled the ‘temporary’ power of attorney out of her and showed his true colours.

The upshot was that Conor gave me immediate notice and put my cottage and other assets up for sale—and of course without a job I couldn’t get a mortgage to buy it myself. In any case, I couldn’t match the price the people buying it as a weekend cottage were prepared to pay. Let’s face it, I couldn’t even raise the deposit.