A Winter’s Tale by Trisha Ashley Read Free Book Online Page B

find somewhere,’ she said vaguely.
‘You don’t mind my coming back to Winter’s End, do you, Aunt Hebe?’
‘Not at all, for how else can things be settled satisfactorily? And I’m sure we’re very happy to welcome you back to the fold, Sophy,’ she added, in a voice that suggested that she was anything but, ‘though of course I always thought Winter’s End would go to Jack, and it’s very hard on the poor boy—’
Then she broke off and said again that I would be very welcome, but it was clear that as far as she was concerned, my advent was a very mixed blessing.
When I spoke about Lucy, I feared my own voice had the very same doting tone in it as Aunt Hebe’s when she uttered Jack’s name: bewitched, besotted and bewildered. But that didn’t stop me feeling slightly jealous. I had always thought that she was fond of me, in her way, yet evidently my absence had been more than compensated for by Jack’s arrival, the cuckoo who’d taken my place in both the nest and her affections.
When I finally managed to see Lady Betty before I left for Lancashire, it was clear that she had all but forgotten me too.
I had been to the stiff and starchy care home once before, and the same white-overalled woman was on the reception desk. She asked me for my name and then checked a list while I undid my coat. It was hot in there and smelled of air freshener and surgical spirit.
‘I’m afraid you are not on the list of permitted visitors,’ she said, pursing her lips, ‘though you have been before, haven’t you? I recognise that funny little brooch you’re wearing.’
‘My bee?’ I said, taken aback but thinking fast. ‘Yes, it is unusual, isn’t it? Lady Betty gave it to me—and I won’t be on the list of visitors because I’m just an employee. Mr Conor Darfield asked me to bring in a few things that she wanted.’ I lifted the carrier bag to show her.
‘Oh, right,’ she said, ‘perhaps if you leave—’ She broke off as an elderly gentleman, who had been shuffling about the foyer in a desultory sort of way, suddenly made a determined, if hobbling, sprint for the front door.
‘No, no, Colonel Browne, come back!’ she called—but too late, he’d gone. ‘Oh, blow—I’d better catch him before he vanishes,’ she said distractedly, lifting up the flap in the counter and coming out.
‘That’s all right,’ I assured her, sincerely hoping the poor colonel made it to wherever he was going, ‘I know where Lady Betty’s room is—I’ll just pop up.’ I don’t know if she heard me because she was off in pursuit, but I seized the opportunity to run upstairs.
I tapped gently on the door of Lady Betty’s room before going in, finding her in bed. As soon as I saw her I realised that this would be our last goodbye, for she seemed suddenly to have grown smaller, as if she was already shrinking away into death, and there was no recognition in her clouded eyes.
I sat quietly with her for ten minutes, feeding her bits of ratafia biscuits and sips of whisky and water from the supplies I had smuggled in (both of which she had always loved), and she took them with greedy eagerness, opening her mouth like a baby bird. She seemed to become slightly more alert then, and I talked to her, trying to raise some spark of recognition, but there was only one brief moment when her eyes focused on my face and she said my name and smiled. Then she closed her eyes and to all intents and purposes went to sleep.
I left the remainder of the biscuits in the bedside cabinet, but took the whisky bottle away with me. I had a feeling that anything remotely pleasurable would be banned in this sterile place.
The receptionist, looking distracted, was on the phone and only acknowledged my departure with a wave of the hand. ‘Yes,’ she was saying, ‘he’s gone again. Must have had a taxi waiting outside—and God knows which pub he’s gone to this time…’
I only hoped the colonel had a good time before they caught up with him.
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