In the Shadow of Winter: A gripping historical novel with murder, secrets and forbidden love. Lorna Gray
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corpse, but he, poor man, found the shock of impact infinitely worse. Meeting someone at all in a whiteout was obviously utterly unexpected, and to find them standing silently and unmoving just above him was quite simply far too much. His strangled cry echoed back off the swirling barrier of icy wind; the momentum, which had carried him so suddenly and forcefully to his feet, made him rebound off me again and he stumbled, flailing backwards until he was brought crashing painfully down once more onto the hard frozen ground.
There was a brief moment of silence while I recovered my balance and my poise and the poor tramp simply lay there. He was as still and as silent as he had been before and I wondered if I really had killed him this time. But then in the next moment I saw him breathe and I was suddenly kneeling in the rubble by his side, putting a reassuring hand on his ragged sleeve and gabbling apologies and explanations like an anxious idiot.
He hadn’t moved from his crumpled heap, head concealed in the curve of his arm and a liberal dusting of windblown snow. In fact, he seemed completely insensible to my jumbled words and I was just mumbling something along the lines of “sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry” when all of a sudden he moved again. As before it was entirely unexpected and again he made me yelp and flinch away but this time, instead of plunging to his feet, he twisted round onto his back and took hold of the hand that had been steadily giving his shoulder a little shake.
For a man on the edge of existence his grip was surprisingly firm but what was more startling was the speed with which he snatched aside my other hand. It had instinctively reached to push at his chest so that I would not topple forwards onto him, I think – not hard, in spite of the sharply muttered exclamation it had drawn from him – and my mind was just beginning to make the first uncertain move from confusion into alarm when all of a sudden, quite simply, it just froze.
The hoarse voice was mumbling something up at me, a garbled torrent attempting to form an angry accusation. It sounded like he was questioning my morality and made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but I was not listening to that. All I could think of was the numbing discovery that this was no strange vagrant.
The man’s weary tones were curt and altered, and it had been a long time since I had last heard him speak, either in irritation or in friendship. But regardless, the voice was inexplicably, indisputably familiar – I knew him.
In an instant the urge to draw back evaporated. “Matthew?”
My enquiry was as hesitant as it was incredulous and it had to be repeated five or six times before my words finally filtered through his rage enough to at least silence his ranting. In defiance of his evidential fury, my voice was astoundingly steady as I persevered:
“Matthew? It’s me … Eleanor.”
The dark eyes that were marked and shadowed by the hollow strain of exhaustion wavered for a moment before abruptly focusing to fix upon mine. They were staring at me from behind the tattered mask of the scarf and I could see where the fabric was moving in and out over his mouth to the draw of his rapid breathing.
“Matthew?” I repeated, trying not to give in to the appalling rush of concern that had accompanied that first wild unrecognizing glare. I believe I even tried to smile.
His breathing checked.
Suddenly he moved again. It was with that same uncontrolled urgency that had startled me before. I flinched aside, raising an arm instinctively as he leapt to his feet only to realise even as I did so that he must have let me go. There was a sharp crunch of snow behind me and a rapid scattering of loose flakes. Then, irregular and stumbling, the uneven steps accelerated and diminished.
In an instant and without so much as pausing for thought, I had twisted to my feet. I could still make out the weaving shadow of the departing figure and, racing over to the sulkily waiting pony to snatch up his rope before dragging the reluctant creature after me, I set off again across the field in pursuit of the hurrying man.
Even with the handicap of a stubbornly protesting animal, I was still able to gain on him before we had travelled many yards and as I drew alongside and then began to pass him, it was easy to see why. His head was down as he forced himself onwards and it seemed to me that he was only managing to do so at all by drawing on some last deep reserves that had nothing to do with muscle or physical strength. The tatty scarf had fallen away to expose a grimy unshaven jaw and his breath was coming in short laboured puffs that misted in the air around him before being swept away by the ceaselessly bitter wind. He was clearly floundering but I didn’t dare touch him again and he seemed to have no intention of stopping until either snow or exhaustion forced it.
In desperation I dragged the pony round to partially bar his path and cried, “Matthew! You’re going the wrong way!”
For a moment I thought he might try to break his way past but then, with a short agitated cry that seemed to come from somewhere between impatience and despair, he abruptly stopped and stood before me, swaying gently.
Then he lifted his head once more and where the shadowed eyes stared watchfully out at me from beneath frosted brows, I was startled to realise that his dirtied cheeks were actually streaked with tears.
“You were going the wrong way, Matthew,” I repeated gently, by way of an explanation.
There was a very, very long silence when I thought he had not heard. But then, in a voice that was so faint that it almost seemed to be coming from somewhere else entirely, he finally whispered, “The wrong … way?”
The question was vague and flooded with uncomprehending weariness, and it made my heart ache. “My home is that way.” My voice was soft and steady like a parent talking to a frightened child and, being careful not to startle him, I lifted a hand in an imprecise indication of its direction.
His gaze wavered briefly as he unwittingly turned to look, not that we could see more than twenty yards from our feet let alone all the way down to the farmhouse. But then his gaze snapped suspiciously back to my face, filled with hard distrust in case I had moved, only for the expression to fade again to guilty abstraction as he remembered who I was.
“Your home?”
“Home,” I said firmly and then, in the manner of a casual afterthought, added; “Would you like to come?”
It was lucky that I had thought to bring the pony; I would never have got Matthew back on my own. It was almost as if in that instant of deciding to accept my help, however reluctantly, all of his remaining strength had been spent and for a few horrible long minutes I had feared that even maintaining a grip on the pony’s mane as it towed him steadily along was going to be a demand too far.
If I had thought that task difficult however, getting him to relinquish it for an arm about my shoulders and from there steering him into my house proved even more of a challenge. He had neither spoken nor moved from his hunched position since we had started for home and as I set about tugging him along the path, it became horribly apparent that he must have been wandering about out there for far longer than just a few hours. In truth he was barely conscious and although he was obviously trying to spare me as much as he could, he very nearly crushed me when we finally attempted to coordinate a sort of crabwise shuffle into the house.
Freddy, however, was utterly amazing. The boy had already appeared noisily by my side before I could have possibly expected him and, as soon as Matthew and I had set off on our unsteady way, had whisked the tired pony away to hay and a dry stable, only to rush to the door before we had even made it around the side of the house, still talking ceaselessly. He was there now, ahead of us, pushing the door open and dragging it wide so that we could slowly shuffle our way into the short passage by the kitchen.
Even with the boy’s help, the doorway was still very narrow and it took some manoeuvring to ease us both through. I suppose if I had thought, I could have got Freddy to run and open the more impressive – and therefore much wider – front door but as with all farmhouses, the kitchen