A Week in Winter: A Novel Read online

  ‘It’s an absolutely super property, Lady Todhunter, quite my favourite. I can’t wait to start marketing it properly. It’s just this thing about the keys to the office …’ His voice, rather breathless, rattled on in her ear as she visualised the clean, floppy hair and scrubbed, fresh complexion; imagined the leather Filofax whose leaves she could hear rustling as he flicked through the pages; envisaged the head at an angle, shoulder hunched so as to grip the telephone receiver. In her mind’s eye she saw his tie; silk, of course, and decorated with some cartoon animal: Daffy Duck, perhaps? Of course, he would also own a mobile phone, a laptop and a small hatchback: the necessary toys of his profession.

  ‘I quite understand, Mr …?’ She peered at the name typed beneath the scrawled signature on the letter she held in her hand. ‘Mr Cruikshank, is it …? Oh, very well, then, Ned,’—she hated the modern informality but could never resist the young—‘I understand that the keys have gone missing but I don’t have a spare set for the office and the side door. What does Mr Abbot say about it?’

  ‘Well, you see that’s the whole point.’ Ned’s voice was confiding, now, inviting her to share his bafflement. ‘He can’t remember ever having them.’

  Maudie frowned, cudgelling recalcitrant memory. ‘I’m quite certain I gave him the whole set,’ she said firmly. ‘As I recall, there was only ever the one complete set of keys and I thought it sensible for Mr Abbot to have them until he’d finished. I kept one front door key for myself, in case of emergency, and gave you the other to be going on with. How very tiresome.’

  ‘I suppose,’ he suggested diffidently, ‘that there couldn’t be another set somewhere? You know? Just knocking about at the back of a drawer, or in the bottom of an old vase, or something?’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible. The tenants returned the set which I passed on to Mr Abbot. There might be a faint chance that my husband had another set somewhere.’

  ‘Perhaps you could ask him.’ Ned sounded hopeful.

  ‘Rather tricky, under the circumstances,’ said Maudie drily. ‘He’s dead and I have no inclination towards spiritualism … No, no. Don’t apologise. How could you possibly know?’ She felt a stab of remorse for her abruptness which had caused his embarrassment and spluttered apologies. ‘My fault. You must forgive my bad taste. I’ll look about for the keys but I’m not at all sanguine. Everything was sorted out when I moved down from London, you see, but I’ll just make absolutely certain. No, not a nuisance … Don’t give it a thought … Yes, I’ll be in touch.’

  She replaced the receiver and returned to the living room, picking up the big wooden tray and piling up the breakfast things ready to be taken into the kitchen. Pausing to watch a nuthatch, upside down on the nut container which hung from a hook on the bird table, she was distracted for a moment from the problems at Moorgate. She loved these two big sunny rooms which opened on to the veranda and the garden. They were divided from the other rooms by a wide passage, with the front door at one end of it and a box room at the other. An adequate-sized kitchen, a surprisingly large bathroom, a tiny cloakroom and a spare bedroom made up the rest of the accommodation but it was quite big enough for Maudie. Each holiday Hector had chafed at its lack of space, at the impossibility of giving parties or inviting friends for the weekends.

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ she’d cry impatiently, ‘we’re only here for a few weeks. Surely you can survive without them? Isn’t it nice to be on our own for a while?’

  He’d smile repentantly. ‘Withdrawal symptoms,’ he’d say. ‘Give me a day or two …’ But he’d never been able to hide his pleasure and anticipation as the day for their return to London drew near.

  Maudie took the tray into the kitchen and unloaded the contents on to the draining board. Hector had always been at his best surrounded by people—selected people, if possible, but almost any people were preferable to his own company. Maudie was happier in a more intimate setting, one friend at a time so that she could concentrate upon them, rather than the bustle and noise of large parties. Nevertheless, they’d managed pretty well, given that Maudie had never entertained more than six people at a time before she’d met Hector. Naturally, Hilda had been the perfect hostess…

  The sudden jet of hot water, splashing against the back of a spoon, sprayed Maudie’s jersey and she cursed sharply, turning off the tap. How foolish, how utterly pointless it was, to feel such antagonism against a woman who had been dead for more than thirty years. The irritating thing about dying young—well, forty-four was fairly young—was that it immediately hallowed the dead with a kind of immunity. They were always ahead of the game, one point up, they didn’t play fair. Maudie bashed the dishes about in the hot soapy water with a splendid disregard for their welfare. Even now, with Hilda and Hector both dead, she still felt the frustration of what she called ‘second-wife syndrome’. Perhaps it would have been easier to deal with if Patricia and Selina had been prepared to meet her halfway. To be fair—did she want to be fair?—Patricia had been tolerant enough. She simply wasn’t interested in her new stepmother, too immersed, at sixteen, in her own growing-up to make any efforts to make Maudie feel part of the family. Selina had demanded her sister’s partisanship in her battle, however, and Patricia, through loyalty or indifference, had added her weight to Selina’s resistance.

  Drying the dishes, putting away the marmalade and butter, Maudie struggled for rationality. It had been difficult for Hector to remain unmoved by his daughters’ hostility. Patricia’s attacks had been spasmodic, distracted as she was by boyfriends and parties, but Selina had waged a determined, unflinching war. At twelve she’d missed her mother terribly and had no intention of sharing her father with this stranger. It was perhaps unfortunate that she’d started at boarding school in the autumn following the wedding so that, although it had been arranged for years, she could always blame Maudie for packing her off to school in true wicked stepmother style.

  ‘Absolute rubbish!’ Hector had shouted irritably, driven to distraction by Selina’s tears and recriminations. ‘You knew quite well that you’d be going away to school next term. Patricia went at thirteen and you were perfectly happy about it until … until now. You know that I’ve been posted to Geneva and that Mummy would have wanted you to be settled with Patricia at school by the time I leave. It has absolutely nothing to do with Maudie.’

  He’d slammed himself into his study leaving Selina, tear-stained and furious, outside the door.

  ‘Look,’ Maudie had said awkwardly, ‘I know it’s hard to understand but he feels it too, you know.’

  Selina’s face was as stony and unyielding as granite. ‘I hate you,’ she’d said—but quietly, lest Hector should hear and come storming out—‘and I wish it was you who was dead.’

  ‘I expect you do,’ Maudie had answered cheerfully. ‘But while we’re waiting for that happy event can’t we try to be friends?’

  Selina had not bothered to reply but had gone away to her room, locking herself in, refusing to come down to lunch, and the house had been wrapped in an atmosphere of gloom and ill-feeling until the term started. Oh, the joy of being alone with Hector, ghosts and guilt banished—only temporarily, however. Both would be resurrected with monotonous regularity at half terms and each holiday.

  ‘We must be patient,’ Hector had insisted—also with monotonous regularity. ‘After all, at least we get the term times to ourselves.’

  Hanging up the dishcloth Maudie smiled secretly to herself. What fun they’d had; careless, selfish, glorious fun.

  ‘I must say,’ he’d admitted, just once or twice, after afternoons of love, or an extra brandy after a particularly good dinner party, ‘I have to admit that it’s rather nice not to be worrying about the girls all the time. If Hilda had a fault it was that she used to fuss about them. Know what I mean? I felt that I was a father and provider first and husband and lover second.’

  She’d learned that it didn’t do to make a little joke about such criticism. ‘What’s this heresy?’ she’d ask
ed once, laughingly. ‘Come now! Can it be true? Hilda wasn’t perfect, after all?’ It had been mild enough but he’d descended at once into self-criticism and remorse, rehearsing a catalogue of Hilda’s attributes, singing her praises, mourning her passing. No, it didn’t do at all to hint, even light-heartedly, that she felt the least bit inadequate in the face of such perfection. Instead she’d done what she was good at; she’d made him laugh, made him feel young, sexy, strong. Responsibility, grief, anxiety would slide away from him and he’d respond in such a way that her own esteem would soar again and she’d feel needed, desired, witty, vital. It hadn’t been easy, after all, to give up her own career, to become a diplomat’s wife and stepmother to his ungrateful, tiresome daughters.

  Although, at the start, she had to admit that it had been only too easy. She’d been on her way home to England for leave following the retirement of the physicist for whom she’d worked for more than fifteen years. Part of her life was at an end. It was Christmas and the airport was closed by snow. Disgruntled passengers huddled together, complaining, whilst Hector … ‘hectored’, as Maudie had said to him afterwards. ‘You hectored the staff and bullied them into finding us accommodation.’

  ‘Perfectly reasonable,’ he’d said. ‘You didn’t refuse a nice warm bed, if I remember rightly.’

  It was odd—odd and altogether delightful—how she and Hector had so quickly drawn together. Laughing, sharing his hip flask, making light of the difficulties—the brief episode had been romantic, unreal, fantastic, yet afterwards they’d refused to be separated. Maudie had given up her career and Hector had risked the surprise and disapproval of friends and family so that he and Maudie could be married twelve months after the death of his wife.

  ‘It might be tricky,’ he’d admitted anxiously as they’d driven to meet Hilda’s mother and the girls. ‘It’ll come as a bit of a shock. Everyone adored Hilda …’

  It was only then that she’d realised that their life together was to be a delicate balance, a seesaw of emotions. There was the Hector that she knew, lover and companion, and the Hector who was the responsible elder son, the adored father, the admired friend, the respected colleague.

  ‘I feel that nobody really looks upon me as Hector’s wife,’ Maudie had once said to Daphne. ‘It’s the oddest sensation, as if there’s something illicit about the whole thing; that Hilda was his official, legal wife and I’m regarded as his mistress.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Daphne had replied. ‘Much more fun.’

  Daphne had been the one who had welcomed her, done her best to make her feel at home, eased her path: Daphne, who was Hilda’s oldest friend and Patricia’s godmother.

  ‘You might have a problem with Daphne,’ Hector had warned as they’d waited for their guests at the official cocktail party in Geneva. ‘She and Hilda were at school together. They were like sisters.’

  He’d been clearly uneasy at that first meeting, awkward during introductions, quite without his usual urbane ease, but Daphne had taken Maudie’s hands readily, smilingly, although her gaze had been very direct, searching.

  ‘How clever of you, Hector,’ she’d murmured. ‘How very clever.’ And she’d leaned forward to kiss Maudie’s cheek.

  Even now, more than thirty years later, Maudie could remember the warmth she’d felt at Daphne’s brief embrace. There had been a genuine liking, discernible even in such an artificial setting; a warmth that had thawed Maudie’s wariness.

  ‘I like Daphne,’ she’d said later, over their nightcap, and Hector had taken a deep breath, stretching as he stood before the fire, clearly relieved.

  ‘It all went off very well,’ he’d admitted. ‘Very well indeed.’

  Daphne had become her closest friend, her ally in the ongoing battle with Selina, her defender against the whispers of Hilda’s supporters.

  ‘After all,’ Maudie had said, enraged by a snub, ‘it’s not as if Hector divorced the blasted woman, abandoned her for me. He was a widower, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Oh, my dear.’ Daphne had looked rueful. ‘Can’t you see the threat you are to us old wifies? Hector’s flouted the unwritten rules which govern our small bit of society. He has found himself a younger, attractive woman who can’t cook, doesn’t want children, can’t tell the difference between His Excellency and the gardener and he doesn’t give a damn. He’s clearly enjoying himself enormously. He looks ten years younger and he’s making us question all our entrenched beliefs.’

  ‘But why?’ Maudie had asked. ‘Why can’t people just leave us alone?’

  ‘Research laboratories must be very unusual places.’ Daphne had shaken her head. ‘Are you only just learning that if someone steps aside from the herd he is likely to be torn to pieces? We’re all so insecure, you see. If you behave differently from me, I either have to question my own beliefs and habits or prove that you are wrong. Misguided, stupid, ill-bred, it doesn’t really matter how I label you so long as I can continue to feel complacent and safe. You have come amongst us and upset the apple cart. But you must be patient with us, Maudie. Middle-aged wives are very vulnerable people, you know. And middle-aged men are very susceptible.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a threat to anyone,’ Maudie had cried. ‘I just want to be left alone. I don’t criticise any of you. I don’t care what you do or how you do it.’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Daphne had sighed. ‘You’re so confident, so sure, so indifferent. You’ll find that some people will simply not be able to cope with it.’

  ‘You make it sound as if my life is one big laugh,’ Maudie had said crossly. ‘I promise you it isn’t. Being a second wife and a stepmother can be hell. I’m not nearly as confident as you imagine.’

  ‘Ah, but you’re not admitting it. You’re not confiding in all those wives who would love to advise …’

  ‘And gloat, privately together, afterwards.’

  ‘Well, there you have it. So why do you admit it to me?’

  ‘Because you’re different,’ Maudie had said, after a moment or two. ‘I trust you.’ And Daphne had laughed then, laughed until Maudie had felt almost uneasy.

  ‘I know it’s odd that I should trust you,’ she’d said almost defensively, ‘you being Hilda’s closest friend and all that. But I do. So now you can go and gloat privately.’

  ‘No, I shan’t do that. But I agree that it’s odd. I loved Hilda, I really did. We started at boarding school together, you know, and I spent a great many holidays with her family whilst mine were abroad, and we had a lot of fun. But she was always a serious girl, rather prim and proper, and as she grew older this developed into a kind of complacency which, if I’m honest, could be very irritating. There, how’s that for disloyalty?’

  ‘Not a bad effort for a beginner,’ Maudie had answered, grinning, ‘but I’m sure you could do better if you were to try harder.’

  Daphne had hesitated—and then laughed. ‘You are a wicked girl,’ she said. ‘Hector’s a lucky man. He’s clearly a very happy one.’

  Had he been happy? Maudie took her jacket from the peg inside the door and rummaged in her bag for the car keys. What about those endless rows over Selina? Those accusations he’d hurled at her: that she was unsympathetic, cold, selfish? What about those times that he’d gone alone to see his daughter and her children because Selina complained that Maudie was so critical, so unaffectionate that the boys were frightened of her? What about the pain when she realised that Hector was beginning to take Selina’s word against her own?

  ‘Over,’ Maudie said loudly, as she stepped outside and slammed the door. ‘Over, over, over!’

  So why, asked the insistent small voice inside her head, why are you still so angry?

  ‘Shut up,’ said Maudie. ‘I will not do this. I am going to enjoy myself Go away and leave me alone.’

  She opened the door of the large shed which housed the car, drove slowly down the long moss-covered drive and headed westwards, towards Bodmin Moor.

  Chapter Three

  The
farmhouse stood in a small hollow beside the narrow lane. At the end of the garden, by the dry-stone wall, two granite pillars—the moor gate—leaned either side of the cattle grid, beyond which the lane climbed steeply to the open moor. Maudie parked the car by the gate to the yard and climbed out. A pick-up stood in the shelter of the open-fronted barn and a bonfire smoked sulkily. It was a soft grey day, the distant farmland veiled in mist, and a brooding quiet lay over the countryside. The place looked deserted, the house closed up, empty. In the stand of trees to the west, across the lane, a party of rooks rose suddenly, noisily, into the damp air, and the faint clopping of hoofs penetrated the silence.

  Maudie looked with approval at the sturdy cob which now appeared round the bend in the lane. Its rider raised his crop to his hat and jogged onwards, bending to unfasten the small gate beside the cattle grid. They passed through, the cob waiting quietly whilst the gate was shut, and began to climb the moorland road. Presently they were out of sight and Maudie turned her attention once more to the house. In this land of granite and slate the cream-washed walls struck a warm note. The roof was Delabole slate, the front door solid oak, and the old farmhouse had an air of permanency and safety; a place of refuge in an inhospitable environment.

  On a hot summer’s day, with the tall escallonia hedge in full flower and the larks tossing high above, it was an idyllic place to be but in winter, with the storms lashing the uplands and the wind screaming from the west, it was harsh and bleak. Left empty, the farmhouse would become damp, icy-cold and uninhabitable. It needed to be lived in, kept dry and warm, used as a home, not bought for a holiday retreat.

  ‘Mummy adored Moorgate,’ Selina had been fond of repeating. ‘Her family owned it when she was a little girl and she used to stay with the farmer and his wife. Then, when they retired, we kept it as a holiday home for years. We went there every summer, Mummy, me and Patricia. Daddy joined us when he could. We must never get rid of Moorgate, there are so many memories.’