A Winter’s Tale: A festive winter read from the bestselling Queen of Christmas romance
shook my head.
‘Perhaps you were kept away, for the berries are poisonous. The boxes used to be stored in a shed, but the mice got at them.’
‘I suppose they would,’ I agreed. ‘The tearoom is a bit rough and ready, isn’t it? And the toilet is inadequate, I should have thought, especially if there’s a coach party.’
‘It was the staff toilet until Sir William put in that nice cloakroom under the backstairs, and the teashop used to be the laundry and brewhouse. But we don’t need a laundry now we’ve got the utility room, and the only brewing is what Miss Hebe does next door, and better not to ask about most of that,’ she said darkly.
‘Definitely not,’ I agreed. ‘When we’re open, who does the teas?’
‘The Friends serve them, but I cook the pastries and scones.’
‘That must make a lot of work for you?’
‘I like to do a big bake, and Grace comes in extra and cuts the sandwiches, but we don’t get so many visitors.’
‘I’m surprised you get any, because there isn’t much of the house open to see, is there?’
‘No, but they come for the garden mostly. It’s a picture in summer, though Seth says the terraces are still a work in progress. Gardening clubs and so on—they like to keep coming year after year to see how it’s going on.’
‘Surely it must be nearly finished by now? They’ve been at it for years, from what Mr Hobbs was saying!’
‘Oh, yes, I think there’s only the bottom terrace to do, though it seems to me they spend as much time maintaining the garden as they did making the thing in the first place—all these grown men snipping and clipping! Miss Hebe seems able to manage the whole walled garden on her own, apart from getting one of the gardeners to do the heavy digging, or clean out the hens, which makes Seth mad. He thinks of nothing but his blessed restoration scheme and your granddad was just the same.’
‘I’ll look round the garden as soon as I’ve got the chance, but it sounds as if it’s had enough time and money expended on it and getting the house back in good order will be what’s important now. Things are going to change.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. When we heard how Sir William had left things, we did wonder if you would come back or just sell the place.’
‘I wondered too, at first, but once I’d seen Winter’s End again I knew I was back for good,’ I said firmly, though somewhere inside I was quaking at the thought of explaining that to Jack…
Charlie gave a sudden snort and opened his eyes, then got to his feet and ambled over, tail wagging. I bent down to stroke his matted head. ‘Do you know where Charlie’s brushes are?’
‘The cleaning room, two doors down the passage on the left. I doubt you’ll get a brush through that mess, though, but I’ll tell Jonah to give it a go, shall I?’
‘No, I think you might be right about not being able to get a brush through it. He’ll have to be clipped, and I’d say from the way he’s walking that his claws need cutting too. He can’t have been getting out and about enough to wear them down, while he’s been moping. In fact,’ I decided, ‘what I really need is a dog grooming parlour!’
‘Milly’s Mutt-Mobile,’ Mrs Lark said.
‘What?’
‘Jonah’s sister’s husband’s brother’s girl. She has a mobile dog parlour. Shall I ring her?’
‘Oh, would you? Ask her if she could come up and do something with Charlie as soon as she has time.’
‘I’ll be glad to. I feel that bad for neglecting the poor little thing, though I kept trying to coax him to eat, and Miss Hebe tried one or two of her potions on him. But he’s just had a huge dinner now, so he’s on the mend.’
Yes…Aunt Hebe’s household-book-derived potions.
‘Mrs Lark,’ I said, sitting on the wooden settle facing her, ‘I expect you know about Alys Blezzard’s book, don’t you?’
‘Oh, yes, there’ve always been copies of what you might call the everyday recipes in circulation, and they were used in the kitchens here, but of course not nowadays…though come to think of it, I do still use the one for medlar cheese. Your aunt got her recipes for the lotions and potions and stuff she brews up from the original, though they’re not Christian to my way of thinking, because it’s well known that Alys Blezzard and her mother were both witches. Lots of people locally, they come up here of nights and buy them. I use the rose face cream and hand cream myself,’ she added reluctantly. ‘There’s no harm in them.’
‘My mother always said Alys was a witch. She liked to think she took after her, brewing up charms and spells, but she didn’t really. It was just a pose.’
‘Alys Blezzard was distantly related to the Nutters through her mother, and they were witches,’ Mrs Lark said. ‘Some of them were burned for it, I think, a lot later. Alys was took—betrayed by the family, some say.’
‘Took?’
‘Gaoled her for questioning, but she died before they could do anything. Just as well, though Seth says she probably wouldn’t have been burned as a witch back then; the burnings was later. But ducking would likely have been just as fatal, especially in the wintertime, if they got carried away.’
I shivered. ‘What a horrible thought! And didn’t they sometimes tie suspected witches up and throw them in the water, and if they sank they were innocent, but if they floated they were guilty? They had no chance, did they?’
‘Before she died Alys entrusted the book to a servant, to give to her daughter when she was old enough,’ she said, with a bright-eyed look at me. ‘I overheard Miss Hebe saying so to Jack—and that it was full of treasures. Alys had said so herself on the flyleaf.’
‘She told Jack that!’ I exclaimed, because Mum had definitely led me to understand that the ancient, handwritten book with all its recipes, was some great and precious secret handed down only to the women of the family—and if there was one thing certain, it was that Jack wasn’t one of those.
‘Of course, that was enough to get him going, seeing the way he’s been treasure-hunt mad from a little lad—and he turned the place upside down looking for the book in case your mum hadn’t taken it after all.’
‘But the treasures are just the recipes!’
She shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘Miss Hebe couldn’t even remember properly what Alys had written in the book because it was Ottie that had charge of the key to the box, and she’d rarely let her look at it. And when Ottie found out she’d told Jack, she was right mad! They haven’t spoken since—but then they were forever falling out, so that’s nothing new. When Ottie married the gardener they didn’t speak for five years, Hebe was that disgusted—only it was probably all down to jealousy because he was a fine figure of a man, though she’d never of married him herself, of course.’
‘You know, I thought they weren’t speaking. But how did Ottie find out that Hebe had talked to Jack about it in the first place?’
‘Because he tried pumping her about the book and got a right flea in his ear for his trouble. Ottie told him straight it was nothing to do with him.’
‘That explains a lot. I was surprised Jack knew about the book at all, when he came up to see me in Northumberland, but I can see now that of course its existence was bound to be generally known about within the family and copies of some of the recipes in circulation. But Aunt Ottie was right—the rest is no business of Jack’s.’
I got up. ‘I think I’ll just bring the rest of my bags in, then move the van round the back. It lowers the tone of the place, standing out there.’
‘You can park it in the courtyard or