In the Shadow of Winter: A gripping historical novel with murder, secrets and forbidden love. Lorna Gray
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before adding, “You are all right, aren’t you? Croft hasn’t turned up?”
Oh God, I thought, here we go again.
“That was all a long time ago, John, nearly eight years,” I said firmly. My hand was shaking where it fiddled with the telephone wire. “I can’t see why you think he would come to me now.”
“So you haven’t seen him?” he persisted. “Did Mrs Ford tell you what he’s done? I saw Jamie’s body and it was savage. He’ll hang for sure when they catch him.”
I shut my eyes as I prepared to lie again, “No, John, I haven’t seen him.”
“Good. And you’ll call me if he does contact you?” He took my agreement as given. “Anyway, on to a more pleasant subject. They’re promising a thaw so the weekend’s Dance might actually happen. Would you like to go with me?”
“Oh!” I gasped, taken aback. “I hadn’t really thought…I, um … I’ll think about it. Will that do?”
He gave a laugh, “Yes Ellie, that will do. Just don’t keep me waiting too long. Bye, and Ellie?”
“Yes, John?”
“Be careful.”
I slowly set the telephone back down onto its cradle. I already knew that when I turned, I would look up, straight into the bare furnishings of an empty room.
I didn’t sleep much that night. Nor did I find much rest when I did. Outside, the wind had swallowed what footsteps he had left and I saw no sign as I did my usual tour of the barns at evening stables. I wasn’t even sure if that should be a relief.
In my father’s day, the farm had been full of young hunters who were being backed before being sent off to their wealthy owners to start their careers. We had farmed sheep too on the steep valley fields which stretched down from behind the house. But then the war had come, my father had died and the horses were taken away to other breaking yards or to play their part in the war effort by working the land. Now Freddy and I scraped by on the small rental income that the pasture fields brought, the price of a few ponies at the yearly sales and my rather doubtful skills as a riding instructor for the local village children. I wouldn’t like to imply we were poor hapless creatures, and we certainly fared better than many, but even teaching had dwindled for the moment thanks to the weekend’s latest turn of incredible weather.
The next day was no better. The morning dawned reluctantly to yet another dreary day; a blackbird was hopping about amongst the chickens who were waiting impatiently beneath the kitchen window for their breakfast. Its breath was misting in the still air and the cockerel looked too cold to crow.
Behind this faintly pathetic scene, a rickety fence marked the limits of my vegetable garden where repeated hoarfrosts had turned earlier snowfalls to stone. Anything left in the ground was guaranteed to have been ruined but there were a few crates of root vegetables stored in the gloom of the small outhouse; provided that they hadn’t been destroyed by frost and, of course, I could actually dig them out.
Turning to the stove, I realised that I might need to now. The dish of last night’s stew that marked the remains of our meat ration for the week; the dish that should have fed the boy and me for at least another day, was empty. I bolted the kitchen door after that but it didn’t do any good. The next morning another stew and the end of my coarse home-baked bread had vanished too.
That night, I gave in. I left the door unlocked, the bread, plate and cutlery ready on the table and a pile of gauze and iodine with instructions to re-dress his wounds.
Apparently John’s hopes of a thaw by the weekend were not quite as foolishly optimistic as I had thought. Slipping out of the house into the faint grey of early morning, I was amazed to see that there seemed to be a promise of a brighter day ahead; the clouds were lifting at the horizon to show a hint of paler grey here and there, and although the breeze had risen again in the night, it actually felt for the first time as though the steady gusting might be carrying with it a very little warmth.
Encouraged, I decided to risk putting the horses out into their paddocks – they certainly wanted the exercise – and I was going to just turf all the animals out and then get on with the day’s chores when something about the way Beechnut sighed as I gave her some breakfast made me sneak back inside to collect her tack. My cosy little yard was silent as I clambered on to the chestnut's back from a convenient wall.
Slithering down the submerged streambed towards the deeper isolation of the valley bottom, trees closed around us absorbing everything until all sounds were muffled except for the regular whisper of unshod hooves over deep wintered ground and the soft collapse of snow falling from a height in the distance. A dry stone wall crept alongside; beyond it, a wind cleared field lay dotted with the hulking mushroom-shaped remains of sheep-grazed haystacks. It was a different scene from the past years that had found me working endlessly to gather in, to plough or to sow alongside a giggling and yet startlingly efficient army of Land Girls. Then the countryside had been full of flare and chatter and an extraordinary riot of colour and it was a stark contrast to the field’s present wide acres which seemed very much to have been painted in tones of muted sepia.
But not quite as muted as it had been, perhaps. As I set Beechnut at the steep banks that lined the valley and back towards home, I thought I heard the faint hiss of water meeting snow over the sound of her laboured breathing. The sound faded again as we reached the top but slowly, as we weaved between the vast drifts that glistened madly and lurked like towering sand dunes along the hedgelines, the light whisper became more regular and when we crossed the wide expanse of wind-cleared hilltop, I abruptly and conclusively found myself being met by the cool unexpected kiss of misted rain to the face.
After all the weeks and months, this was, needless to say, quite a startling development and I was still drifting along with my eyes half shut and a lunatic smile on my face when the chestnut suddenly gave a sharp snort and stopped.
Her ears and eyes were fixed acutely upon the route ahead. She felt as though she might try to turn and run at any moment and automatically putting a calming hand on the suddenly taut muscles of her neck, I peered intently about us trying to make out what she had spotted. An unpleasant recollection was flitting through my mind of one lone man and our last encounter on this hilltop, and I wondered for a moment whether, as my horse watched him, he was likewise watching me.
But then, after a painfully tense pause while I still tried and failed to identify what could possibly have alarmed my brave little mare, I saw movement in the distance.
“Oh my God,” I sobbed and urged her forwards into canter.
I arrived back with an angry flurry of hooves to find the yard full of men and dogs. They appeared to be milling about in some disorder and as one they turned to stare when we burst onto the yard in a sweating streaming mess.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
The horse was brought to a slithering halt just inside the gateway. She was plunging and threatening to kick out but the men simply stood there, barring my way and gawping stupidly. Their blank silence was intensely infuriating and, urging the stamping horse forwards once more, I used her as a weapon to force a path through them and retake possession of my yard.
Amazingly, the men parted like obedient cattle. Seizing my advantage, I wheeled the wild-eyed horse about:
“Get out of my yard this instant!”
My low growl was swallowed by the mizzle and banks of hulking snow, and it looked for a moment like they might argue, but a half rear from Beechnut sent them scuttling for the gate. If I was livid, she was raging; she was fighting my hand for control of the rein and much as I valued the effect she was creating, self-preservation made me hastily throw myself down from her back before she could rear again.
Dragging the saddle