Chapter 6
Whether it was pure coincidence or part of some far wilier plan that Catherine had cooked up during the meandering journey home from Norwich I couldn’t be sure, but the next few days leading up to December first flashed by in a heartbeat. The evenings were just as busy as the days and I didn’t even have time to think about looking for another job, let alone setting about making an online search to secure one.
Christmas was never actually mentioned when I was in the vicinity, but it was obvious that everything we were doing was with an eye, an ear and a nod to that much anticipated celebration. I thought it was a little early to be making a start, but according to everyone else there would be barely enough time now to get everything done. There was a plethora of rooms, bedrooms mostly, to reorganise, clean and then air ahead of the arrival of the rest of the family, and I was assigned as understudy to Hayley in that particular department.
I have to admit I found myself somewhat surprised by both her knowledge and her skill but when it came to cleaning and conservation she really knew her stuff.
‘Dorothy taught me quite a lot,’ she explained, as together we set about wrapping and moving some of the more delicate ornaments from what was to be the grandsons’ bedroom and into another assigned to storage until the New Year. ‘She used to do everything here, until I came along.’
I was curious to ask how long both she and Dorothy had been a part of life at the hall, but I didn’t because getting to know just the hall was proving dangerous enough. Every corridor revealed yet another room, more fascinating history and another treasure, and as the days slipped by I was feeling more and more attached to the bricks, mortar and wattle and daub. I simply couldn’t allow myself to form that level of connection and sentimentality towards the folk who populated it as well or I would never be able to move on, Christmas or no Christmas.
‘And I’ve been on a couple of courses as well,’ Hayley continued.
‘Courses?’
‘Yes,’ she said, stopping to carefully run her massive feather duster lightly over some intricate fretwork on the stairs. ‘They were run by some big historical conservation organisation – English Heritage or the National Trust, I can’t remember now – but they specialised in how to properly look after furniture and fabrics. That sort of thing.’
‘Oh,’ I said, looking at my young and usually brash colleague with fresh eyes. ‘Right.’
‘I know I said “I fling the Hoover about a bit” the day we met,’ she blushed, ‘but there’s actually more to it than that. Some of the pieces here are older than Angus and need careful handling.’
She was trying to make light of it, but I could tell how much her job really meant to her now, along with how much she cared.
‘And have you ever thought of looking for a position with the National Trust or English Heritage?’ I asked. ‘Would you consider moving to somewhere beyond the confines of the Fens, perhaps?’
‘No way,’ she guffawed. ‘They wouldn’t be interested in taking on the likes of me, especially with my background.’
I didn’t ask what difference she thought her background would make to her employability.
‘And besides,’ she said wistfully, ‘I have everything I want right here. I consider myself very lucky to be in the employ of Catherine and Angus.’
‘Of course,’
‘And so should you,’ she added meaningfully.
When I wasn’t reassigning rooms or polishing the silver, there were freezers to begin filling, and plenty of them.
‘I still can’t believe you’re starting to do this now,’ I told Dorothy, who was carefully counting and cutting out another batch of pastry to make yet more sausage rolls. ‘It isn’t even December yet.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ she said sagely, ‘but before we know it there’ll be over a dozen mouths to feed under this roof.’
I counted up on my fingers just to check she was right and tried not to look at the jars of homemade mincemeat she had lined up to make the first batch of mince pies. I had been adamant when I spoke to Catherine about staying for the week that I wouldn’t be getting roped into baking anything festive, but my resolve seemed to have been magically worn down a little when I was looking the other way.
At least the radio hadn’t been re-tuned to Smooth Christmas or Classic FM just yet, I told myself. That really would be too much. However, I couldn’t help wondering how my brain was going to react when it caught the once familiar and adored scent of the spices battling to escape from the mincemeat jars.
‘I see.’
‘And if everyone sits down for a snack in the middle of the afternoon, on just one day,’ she said, pointing a floury finger at her handiwork, ‘then that’s potentially an entire batch of sausage rolls gone.’
I could see her point.
‘And that’s even before Angus has come back for seconds and thirds,’ I smiled.
‘Exactly,’ she said, clearly pleased that I was finally getting to grips with the amount of work involved.
Not that she looked or sounded like she resented it, of course. None of them did. Staff and family alike, or the entire family I should say, were looking in the rudest of health, all bustling about and thoroughly enjoying the extra work and logistical untangling.
‘So,’ said Dorothy, tossing an apron in my direction, ‘I reckon a couple of hundred sausage rolls will be enough to be going on with this afternoon.’
Oh well, in for a penny and all that and, I reminded myself, sausage rolls weren’t necessarily confined to the ranks of festive baking.
‘And if you’re interested,’ I said lightly, while tying the apron in place, ‘I happen to know a great recipe for Stilton straws that freeze beautifully.’
The first batch of rolls and straws was barely out of the Aga before the hordes descended and Dorothy and I were fending off advances from every corner.
‘See,’ she tutted, ‘this is exactly what I mean.’
‘Is this sausage meat from Skylark Farm?’ asked Angus, who had seemingly appeared from thin air the second the trays were lined up on the table.
I hadn’t seen very much of him during the last couple of days, but I had noticed his clothes were getting grubbier and grubbier and I began to wonder if he was up to something specific that required my closer attention. Catherine had asked me to keep an eye on him and, taking in his mucky knees and oily cuffs, I felt she had been right to be concerned. I made a mental note to go and investigate as soon as I could.
‘Oh, Angus,’ scolded Dorothy, also spotting the state he was in, ‘please don’t tell me that is one of your new tailored shirts.’
Angus snatched his hand away from the tray of Stilton straws he had been aiming for and rolled up his sleeves.
‘Because I’ll never be able to get the grime out of those cuffs,’ she continued, sounding stern and frankly a little scary. ‘You know full well they were supposed to be for best.’
‘I couldn’t find any others,’ he protested half-heartedly.
‘Well, you can’t have looked very far,’ Dorothy shot back. ‘Your bottom drawer is full of work shirts and besides, why can’t you wear a boiler suit like Mick? That way I can shove the whole lot in on a boil wash.’
‘I know for a fact that he has overalls,’ said Hayley, dobbing her boss in. ‘Brand-new ones with extra pockets, because I gave him a pair for his birthday.’
It made me smile to hear them talking about him like some naughty schoolboy, rather than the man who paid their wages.
‘I don’t know what you’re smiling at, Anna,’ he said, pretending to sulk. ‘Mick wants you outside to help with the log pile this afternoon and you’re going to get filthy as well.’
‘Well, in that case,’ I told him, ‘perhaps I’ll just ask Hayley to find me the overalls she gave you for your birthday.’
‘That sounds like a very good idea,’ said Dorothy, rewarding me with one of the biggest sausage rolls on the tray, ‘and yes, Angus, this is Skylark sausage meat.’
I took a bite through the still warm, flaky pastry and into the succulent filling.
‘Oh wow,’ I mumbled, trying not to spray everyone with crumbs before wondering how many calories stacking a log pile was going to help to burn off.
As it turned out it wasn’t just moving a few bits of sawn timber from one spot to another that Mick needed help with and I soon burnt off the sausage roll and Stilton straw calories as well as any that had been left over from the afternoon tea with Catherine in Norwich.
‘I hope you’re up for this,’ Mick said when I joined him in the stable yard. ‘There’s not much of the day left, so we better get on.’
I hadn’t seen the quad bike and trailer before, or taken on board the extent of the woods that surrounded the hall, but we were soon weaving amongst the trees, Mick expertly steering and me hanging on to the trailer for dear life. Eventually he came to a clearing in what looked like an almost perfect circle of beech trees and turned off the engine.
‘Crikey,’ I said, jumping out as my ears tuned into the cawing crows and the breeze among the creaking branches. ‘Does all this belong to the hall?’
There were trees as far as the eye could see, and although perhaps not the most spectacular time of year to be taking in the scene, their unashamed nakedness did give me the opportunity to take in their girth. This place was old and, truth be told, a little spooky in the fading light of a winter’s afternoon. I pulled my coat, Angus’s work coat actually, a little tighter around me.
‘It does,’ said Mick, sounding like a proud father. ‘It’s hardly ancient woodland, but it’s pretty old. You won’t find anywhere else like it round here for a few miles. Now come on, let’s get to work before it’s dark.’
It seemed to take as long for Mick to give me the health and safety lowdown as it did to gather the logs, but as he kept reminding me, ‘Where chainsaws are involved you don’t get a second chance.’ I didn’t think it wise to remind him that I wasn’t going to be using the chainsaw, nor to ask if we could just get on with it.
Wearing all the appropriate clothing, boots and headgear, he soon carved up the trunk of a tree that had fallen victim to the autumn gales the year before and I, also sporting a hard hat and goggles, collected the more manageable pieces and stacked them in the trailer.
It was hard work and I was grateful that it was cold, because it wasn’t long before I was working up a sweat, and a thirst to go with it.
‘Let’s take a break,’ said Mick, a short while later. ‘We’ll have a drink and then load up these last few bigger pieces together.’
I was more than happy to agree. My back ached and in spite of the thick gloves my hands felt sore.
‘A tot of whisky to go with this wouldn’t have gone amiss,’ I joked as he handed me a mug of steaming tea and a wedge of Dorothy’s moist fruitcake.
‘Not for me,’ said Mick with a sniff. ‘I don’t drink.’
‘What, never?’ I asked, only just remembering that he was the only one who had resisted the charms of the Skylark Scrumpy at the switch-on.
‘Never,’ he said firmly. ‘I used to, too much, and it was almost the ruin of me.’
I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t meant to pry. I had enough knowledge about the demon drink to know that talking about the damage it could inflict didn’t come easy.
‘In fact,’ he continued after a second or two spent thoughtfully chewing his lip, ‘had I not crashed my car into the hall gates I probably would have drunk myself into an early grave.’
‘Did you do much damage?’ It was a stupid question, far too flippant for the admission he had just made, but I didn’t know what else to say.
‘The car was a wreck,’ he said with a smile, ‘but the crash saved my life.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well it was the Connellys’ wall I hit too, wasn’t it? Angus made me rebuild it and Catherine insisted I stayed at the hall until the job was done. By the time the last piece was in place I’d all but given up drinking and found a reason to live, along with a new home and job.’
‘You didn’t have a reason to live before?’ I asked, staring straight ahead.
‘I thought I had,’ he said sadly. ‘All the time I was on my final tour in the Army I thought of nothing but coming home to my wife and starting a family. I didn’t expect to arrive back early and find she was having a fling with my so-called best mate.’
‘Crikey, Mick,’ I swallowed. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Anyway,’ he shrugged, closing the conversation down, ‘that’s enough about me. How are you enjoying the week so far?’
I leant back against the edge of the trailer and warmed my hands around the mug.
‘It’s been wonderful,’ I said, because it had been. ‘To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed my work so much, but given everything you’ve just said I’m guessing you can understand that.’
Working at Wynthorpe Hall didn’t feel like ‘work’. There was more of a commune vibe about the place, and even though Catherine and Angus were the wealthy landowners there had never been so much as a hint of the ‘them’ and ‘us’ moment that I had experienced in every other similar property I had worked in.
The hall, Dorothy had told me one afternoon while she was making dinner, had once been made available to everyone, like a rather upmarket local resource, and the local community had appreciated that and made full use of it. The WI used to hold special talks and events there and there were story-time sessions for the younger members of the local library as well as brief tea and refreshment stops for the local rambling group. When I asked why those things weren’t currently happening she became evasive and changed the subject and I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to bring it up again.
‘Almost a shame to leave then,’ said Mick with a sniff.
‘Almost,’ I agreed.
Neither Hayley nor Dorothy had asked about my aversion to Christmas or been so forthright about my determination to move on. Not that my behaviour had suggested I was particularly determined, since my decision had become common knowledge. I opened my mouth to make some kind of explanation to Mick, but a movement in the trees to my left stopped me in my tracks. I stayed quiet, initially thinking it was perhaps a deer or a fox, but it was neither.
‘What the hell,’ I whispered, plucking at Mick’s sleeve. ‘Mick, are you seeing this?’ I pointed into the middle distance with a shaking hand and wondered if I was hallucinating.
‘I am,’ he said, sounding almost amused. ‘Don’t look so worried.’
‘But,’ I spluttered, trying to keep as quiet as possible, ‘that’s a witch. Isn’t it?’
To my mind, the sweeping cloak and black hat were incontrovertible evidence, but if I really was hallucinating then perhaps Mick was seeing something completely different. I risked a glance over at him, just to make sure we were on the same wavelength, and when I looked back the figure had disappeared.
‘Come on,’ he chuckled, tapping me on the shoulder and making me shriek in shock, spilling the remains of my tea. ‘We’d best get on before it’s dark.’
He wasn’t wrong. I leapt to my feet, packed away the flask and began piling the wood in the trailer as if my life depended on it.
I didn’t have much of an appetite that evening. A fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Dorothy, who watched like a hawk as I pushed her homemade chicken and vegetable pie around my plate.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she asked, peering from the plate to me and back again. ‘You look a bit peaky to me. Is it the pie?’
Mick didn’t give me the opportunity to say that it was absolutely nothing to do with her impeccable pie.
‘I reckon,’ he sniggered, ‘she looks as though she’s seen a ghost.’
‘Well, now,’ smiled Catherine with pride. ‘Have you seen our grey lady?’
She didn’t wait for me to answer either.
‘Lucky you, Anna,’ she went on. ‘She doesn’t show herself to everyone, you know.’
‘You should feel honoured,’ sniffed Dorothy, clearly a little put out. ‘I’ve never seen her. Not once in all the time I’ve lived here.’
Now this was a brilliant development. Not only were the surrounding woods overrun with witches, the hall was haunted as well. The sooner I found another post the better. I tried to count up on my fingers how many days I had left to secure another job. Amazingly the week I had agreed to stay on for was almost up. I was beginning to think there really was magic within the walls of Wynthorpe Hall after all, because it was certainly capable of making time disappear, if nothing else.
‘No,’ I croaked. ‘No ghost, no grey lady.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ said Angus, mopping up his gravy with a thick slice of Dorothy’s homemade granary.
It really wasn’t, but I didn’t say as much.
‘But she has seen a witch,’ winked Mick.
‘Oh you’ve seen Molly, have you?’ beamed Angus, gravy dribbling down his chin.
‘Who?’
‘Molly,’ said Catherine again. ‘Although I’m not sure that she really is a witch.’
‘Well, whoever she is, she looked like a witch to me,’ I said. ‘Wandering about in a cloak and pointy hat, I don’t really think she could have been anything else. It’s not as if it’s even close to Halloween now. Is she a local?’
‘Yes,’ said Angus, ‘she lives in the old woodsman’s cottage at the edge of the woods.’
I gave a little shudder. This was sounding more and more like one of the Grimms’ fairy tales to me and I was pleased I hadn’t been close enough to see if she had left a trail of breadcrumbs or had a warty nose.
‘I expect she was visiting the Wishing Tree,’ Angus went on.
‘What’s the Wishing Tree?’
‘We have a hawthorn in the woods,’ Catherine explained. ‘No one really knows how old it is, but judging by its gnarly old trunk we think it’s reasonably ancient.’
‘And it’s where people go to make a wish for something they would like, or give thanks for something they’ve received,’ joined in Angus. ‘They say a few words and then tie something to the branches as an offering or little thank-you.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Slips of paper, lengths of ribbon, all sorts of things.’
‘I’ve even seen a child’s pacifier,’ said Dorothy. ‘And a train ticket.’
I noticed she had gone a little red as she said it and wondered if she had ever tied anything to the branches.
‘And who exactly are the people thanking or asking?’ I frowned.
This was all completely new to me. I’d never seen a real live witch before or heard of a Wishing Tree. It all sounded a little strange, but in the context of the hall, I had to admit, it didn’t seem quite so fanciful.
‘The universe,’ sighed Catherine wistfully, ‘perhaps.’
‘The universe,’ I repeated.
‘Have you got something you would like to ask for, Anna?’ asked Catherine. ‘Any unfinished business in your life you wish to have resolved, or perhaps some wish you’d like to see come true?’
‘Not that I can think of,’ I said, my face flushing.
Fortunately Angus piped up again before Catherine had the opportunity to arrange an excursion under the light of the full moon that required chanting and incense.
‘You know,’ he said, pointing his fork at Mick and me, ‘I think you two seeing Molly might be a sign.’
‘A sign?’ questioned Mick.
‘Mm,’ nodded Angus. ‘I’ve been thinking about reinstating our old Solstice celebration.’
‘Now that’s a wonderful idea,’ said Catherine, thankfully diverted from my wishes and dreams, for the moment at least.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s what I thought. It always used to be so popular, didn’t it?’
‘And what is the Solstice celebration?’ I asked.
‘Well, the December Solstice is the shortest day,’ Angus explained, ‘and people used to come to the woods to search for their Yule log. As the sun set, assuming it had put in an appearance of course, we would sit around a fire and listen to the story of the passing of the crown from the Holly King to the Oak King.’
‘Then everyone would come back to the hall for mulled cider and dancing,’ added Dorothy.
‘It sounds like quite a party,’ I smiled.
I had no idea who the Holly King or the Oak King were, but my professional persona had kicked in and my business brain was telling me that Angus and Catherine would need to check their public liability insurance if they were going to have locals stumbling about in the woods, in the dark, especially after a flagon of cider or two.
‘It was,’ smiled Catherine. ‘And I think starting it again is a wonderful idea, Angus.’
‘I thought you might,’ he winked at his wife and then turned to me. ‘And as it’s your birthday on the twenty-first, Anna, you can be the one to pick out our Yule log this year.’