Elizabeth Edmondson - The Frozen Lake - A gripping novel of family and wartime secrets

Edwin heaped up a pile of snow and patted it into a semblance of human form. Alix fixed on the head and gave the snowman a bulbous nose.

They stood back and regarded the stout white figure.

‘Not bad,’ said Edwin. ‘We’ll have to find him a hat.’

Alix cleared a patch of snow and prised up two black stones for eyes. ‘And a carrot from Cook.’

Edwin wound his muffler around the snowman’s neck.

‘You’ll be cold without it.’

‘No, I’ll be glowing with exercise, while this poor chap has to stand in chilly stillness. I’ll collect it on the way back, and we’ll see if there’s an old one lying about.’

‘He does look lonely. Should we give him a mate?’

Edwin laughed. ‘Why should he have all the luck? Besides, he mightn’t take to her. Tomorrow we’ll come and build him a twin, that’ll be better company for him.’

What a pair we are, thought Alix, as they took a shortcut, clambering over a dry-stone wall, passing the sledge over and sending it sliding on ahead of them. ‘Is your love life hellish because she’s walked out of your life, or because she’s a shrew, or because she’s already married to someone else, such as your best friend?’

‘You’re my best friend, Lexy. No, she isn’t married, nor a shrew, nor has she walked. She just doesn’t feel about me the way I feel about her.’

The one who kisses and the one who turns the cheek, just as it had been between her and John. ‘Have I met her? Do I know her?’

He shook his head.

‘No.’

‘Would I like her?’

He made an impatient gesture. ‘I dare say. How can I possibly tell? I’d like you to meet her. I’ve asked her up here, told her she can have the rooms above my studio for as long as she wants. Only she won’t come.’

‘Tell me about her. What’s her name?’

‘Lidia.’

‘Is she pretty?’

‘Beautiful, not pretty. She has the kind of timeless face you see in pictures, hers aren’t at all modern looks. She smiled, after we’d met. It went straight to my heart and that was that. Pierced, and bleeding, just like in the songs.’

‘Where did you meet her?’

‘At the Photographic Institute.’

Alix felt a spurt of jealousy; lucky Edwin to find a woman who shared his love of photography. ‘Is she a photographer?’

‘No, she was scrubbing steps.’

‘Edwin!’

‘She’s not a charlady, she’s a refugee,’ he said impatiently. ‘A musician, as it happens. Only think what having her hands in a pail of water all day does for a harpsichordist.’

‘A harpsichordist? That’s unusual,’ Alix said, not wanting to let Edwin see that there was anything amiss with her, although she already loathed this foreign intruder; who cared about her hands?

They had reached Pagan’s Field, a sloping expanse of virgin snow that squeaked and scrunched underfoot. The sledge was long enough for both of them to sit on it, and time and again they toiled and slipped up the hill, dragging the sledge behind them, and then flew down the slope. The run ended with a stretch of flat ground, through which one of the rivers from the fells meandered towards the lake. The rough grass there brought the sledge to a bumpy halt well before the frozen edges of the river, little more than a stream at present, that ran sparkling between undercut miniature cliffs of snow.

Sometimes one of them took the ride alone, lying flat, face only inches above the flying snow. Alix tumbled off after one such trip, and lay laughing in the snow, Lidia forgotten, feeling cold and wet and happier than she could remember being since … since goodness knew when; she couldn’t remember when she last felt like this.

Edwin hauled her to her feet. ‘If you lie there, you’ll catch cold, and you know how much Grandmama hates anyone sneezing.’

Alix brushed the snow off. ‘Why is she never ill?’

‘She has migraines.’

‘Hardly ever. Only when she’s severely vexed, and since she makes sure everyone does precisely what she wants, she rarely is.’

Edwin paused in the act of creating a large snowball in his gloved hands. ‘Do you know, that never occurred to me, about her migraines coming on when someone has crossed her? I must say that as soon as Lipp starts pursing her mouth and muttering about m’lady’s twinges, I run for cover.’

‘You can, of course, to Lowfell. And I suppose Grandpapa just shuts himself away in his study as he always has done. One thing you have to say for Grandmama, she doesn’t look for sympathy when she’s laid up with a headache.’

‘They say migraines are devastatingly painful.’

‘And admitting pain is a sign of weakness.’

Edwin gave her a direct look. ‘You should know about that. You’ve inherited exactly the same stoicism, only with you it’s anguish of the spirit you won’t own up to.’

Startled, Alix ducked his snowball and began to gather one of her own. Was that true? She didn’t care to think she might be like Grandmama in any way. Did she refuse to admit that she hurt? Yes, she supposed she did, preferring to lick her wounds in private and to draw down the shutters between herself and any well-wishers, however kindly their intentions.

She chucked the snowball at Edwin with unusual force, leaving him protesting and laughing and shaking the snow off his shoulders. ‘You wretch, it’s gone down my neck. Hold on there, and I’ll give you a taste of your own medicine.’

‘You have to catch me first,’ said Alix, sliding and slipping down the hillside to escape his long arms.

Eyes and cheeks glowing from their exertions, they went in through the back of the house, leaving their boots in the flagstoned passage. ‘I’ll come up and collect your wet things, Miss Alix,’ Phoebe called out as they padded past the kitchen in damp socks, leaving a trail of fat footprints.

Rokeby was hovering in the hall. ‘There’s a letter for you, Mr Edwin, sent up from Lowfell.’

‘Thank you,’ said Edwin, more concerned with his cold feet than a letter. He had no expectation of it being from Lidia, and nothing else could stir any great interest.

Perdita came thumping into the hall, her face pink with the cold air and indignation. ‘Golly,’ she said. ‘Grandpapa was going on about the Grindleys, for Rokeby says Roger and Angela are there, and I said I wondered if they’d taken that terrifying stuffed ferret out of the downstairs lav, because Angela made a row about it last time she was at the Hall, and Grandmama heard me and really laid into me. I mean, what’s so awful about mentioning a stuffed ferret?’

Alix wasn’t paying much attention to Perdita; she was too busy watching Edwin’s face as he read his letter.

‘She treats me like a baby; I don’t see why she should. Alix, you aren’t listening to a word I’m saying.’

‘You’re the last of the brood,’ said Alix. ‘Children, grandchildren, all living here, all under her thumb. It won’t last into another generation, we shan’t bring up our children here, so she’s making the most of her crumbling power.’

‘Edwin might live here. When Grandpapa dies, although I bet he’ll go on for ever, and I hope he does.’

‘Can you see Edwin living at Wyncrag without Grandpapa, if Grandmama were still alive? Not if he had a grain of sense. It isn’t bad news, is it Edwin, you look stunned?’

‘No, no, not bad news at all.’ Edwin stuffed the letter back in its envelope and turned to the waiting Rokeby.

His eyes were alight with joy; what was there in the letter to make him look like that? Alix asked herself.

‘I need to send a telegram. Urgently.’

‘What’s he so excited about?’ Perdita asked Alix, as Edwin rushed towards the library. ‘He’s gone quite pale. Do you know who that letter was from? You look a bit pale yourself.’