A Christmas Cracker: The only festive romance to curl up with this Christmas!. Trisha Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ could use the cat-flap. Then I tiptoed up the spiral stone staircase with my spongebag, in search of the bathroom.

      There was a dim light burning in a wall bracket in the passage at the top, and lots of closed doors, but I opened the one directly opposite the stair head, as I’d been instructed, and, after some fumbling in the dark, found a light switch on a cord.

      It illuminated a scene of Victorian splendour: the room was palatial, with a black and white chequered lino floor, on which stood a claw-footed cast-iron bath, a throne-like toilet with a metal chain running down from a water cistern balanced overhead on metal brackets, and a washbasin large enough to bath a baby in.

      The only incongruous note was struck by the large and roomy modern corner shower, but I was very glad to see it, because the radiators were as cold as stone and I’d probably have frozen to death by the time I’d run a bath.

      There were fluffy fresh towels on a rack and also some wrapped French rose soaps in a bowl. I thought the latter were probably intended for guests, but I couldn’t resist taking one into the shower with me.

      I wouldn’t say there was a great deal of water pressure, but at least it was hot, though the way the water pipes clanked made me guiltily hope I hadn’t woken anyone up.

      I washed the prison off my outer self, shampooed my hair with a bottle of something that looked even more expensive than the soap, then stepped out feeling if not like a new woman, then at least one ready to take on the world again.

      I went back downstairs in a cloud-soft towelling robe that was hanging on the back of the door – that too looked new – and untangled my hair. Then, while I was making a cup of coffee in the quiet kitchen, Pye materialised through the cat-flap and I went to rummage for his bowls in the boxes piled in my sitting room. I discovered them quite easily, along with a few tins of his favourite food, half a bag of dried mix, some kitty litter and his tray, because Jeremy, a teacher to the last, had not been able to resist labelling the cartons with things like: ‘Cat: Equipment for the Maintenance Of’ and ‘Kitchen: Sundry Utensils’. He must have got bored after a while, though, because there were an awful lot of ‘Miscellaneous’ and two that weren’t labelled at all.

      I fed Pye, who indignantly expressed strong disappointment that it wasn’t a tin of tuna like last night.

      ‘Don’t get ideas above your station,’ I warned him. ‘Silas thinks you ought to catch mice for your living.’

      ‘Pfft!’ he said, with a scathing look.

      After I’d filled his water bowl I scalded out the saucers Mercy had put down for him last night, before setting up the litter tray in one of the many unused rooms, little more than a cupboard, off the passage. Pye gave it a cursory glance, but though he much preferred to go out, he also hated heavy rain, so it was as well to be prepared.

      Taking another mug of coffee through into the sitting room, I started to sort out the boxes. Most of my clothes were in the small tin trunk that had belonged to Mum, who’d kept her materials in there when she’d worked as a dresser and costume assistant. Her old Singer sewing machine, a black and inlaid mother-of-pearl thing of beauty in its own right, was sitting on the floor in its carrying case, and I put it on the wide windowledge before rummaging for clean clothes.

      It was odd to picture Jeremy, who I’d once thought the love of my life, unable to resist folding everything neatly before putting it in there. He so hated untidiness and mess …

      I felt better when I was dressed head to foot in new clothes – black jeans, a T-shirt and sweatshirt, socks and old baseball boots. My slippers must have been Miscellaneous, because they were nowhere to be seen.

      Any garment that had been in prison with me was going straight into the washing machine and then on to the nearest charity shop, because the tag on my ankle was reminder enough. There was a laundry basket in the scullery and I tossed everything in there.

      I began unpacking and my clothes and shoes were soon stowed away in the bedroom, with my balding teddy bear sitting on the chest of drawers alongside the locked box of my small treasures … the key was still on my ring.

      Books, photograph albums and a few ornaments went into a small, empty bookcase or on the mantelpiece, and once I’d pulled the yellow velvet chair in front of the electric fire and hung a framed theatre poster on a vacant picture hook, the little room started to look very much more like home.

      I left the two unlabelled boxes for later – things just seemed to have been randomly tossed into them in a most un-Jeremy way – and repacked anything I wouldn’t need into two cartons, which I stowed with the unopened kitchen ones in another of the small flagged rooms off the passage, which didn’t seem to be being used for anything. It had stone-slabbed shelves along one side, so had probably been another larder.

      My freshly washed hair was now dry and hung straight and thick almost to my waist. It could do with a trim and so could my fringe, which was practically in my eyes, but it would have to wait. I twisted my hair into a practical plait, the end secured with an elastic band, and felt ready for anything: I was determined to earn my place here, and Mercy Marwood’s trust.

      And since I could now hear her moving about in the kitchen, clashing pots and pans and clinking china, I went through to offer my help with breakfast with a cheery ‘good morning!’ on my lips … only to discover two total strangers there, instead.

      One was a tall, cadaverous elderly man with suspiciously boot-black hair parted in the middle, dressed in a dark suit with a deep red tie. He returned my greeting in a fruity, mellow Noël Coward voice, and made a kind of strange half-bow.

      ‘Ah, you must be Miss Coombs,’ he intoned. ‘Madam told us you were taking up residence here. I am Job Carpenter, Mr Silas Fell’s personal servant, and this is my wife, Freda, who helps Mrs Marwood with the housekeeping.’

      ‘I don’t know why you’re being so formal, when she’s one of us,’ said his wife in a broad Yorkshire accent. She was a comfortably plump woman with a wild shock of permed white-gold hair and was dressed in a dark purple fun-fur coat under which stumpy legs were clad in pink leggings and blue and white spotted wellies.

      ‘What shall we call you, love?’ she asked me. ‘Tabitha or Tabby?’

      ‘Tabby is fine,’ I said.

      ‘Then Tabby it is,’ she agreed. ‘So, what were you in for, then?’

       Chapter 10: Crumbs!

       Q: What do snowmen eat for breakfast?

       A: Ice Krispies!

      I stared at her, shocked, and then glanced down my leg to see if my tag was visible.

      ‘In for?’ I repeated blankly. Had Mercy told everyone I was fresh out of prison, or did I have ‘ex-con’ written all over me, so that it was totally obvious at first glance?

      ‘Now, Freda, you know Madam wanted us to put all that behind us when we made a fresh start here, and I’m sure it’s just the same for Tabby,’ chided Job, picking up a tray containing a rack of toast and a boiled egg in a pottery cup shaped like a chicken. ‘I’d best get this to Mr Silas while the egg’s still hot.’

      Freda СКАЧАТЬ