Eleven Pipers Piping (14 page)

Tom grinned back. It was too silly.

“Did Emily go off in a huff?” Caroline asked.

Judith nodded.

“Oh, well.” Tom glanced at Bumble finding olfactory treasure at the snowman’s base. “Never mind. She’ll get over it soon enough. Besides, yours is properly … traditional. As it should be.”

They all turned to the masterwork, three not-entirely-spherical spheres, piled one atop the other. It was more head, thorax, and abdomen than any humanoid assemblage, poor legless thing. A line of black buttons, likely plucked from Madrun’s sewing basket, bisected the thorax to suggest a jacket; a bright red knitted scarf of ludicrous length (possibly one of Giles James-Douglas’s from the box under the stairs) swaddled the neckless neck and draped over the tree-branch arms, which ended in gardening gloves. An exceptionally broad-brimmed straw hat, likely another of Giles’s leavings, crowned its head. Madrun must have raided the larder to give the face expression: A couple of Cox’s Pippins denoted eyes with staring calyx-pupils; the traditional carrot, this one straight as a file, served as the nose; a banana formed the mouth, which curved upwards into a lopsided grin. The effect was of a dapper, portly gent, going nowhere and nowhere to go—not unlike a cleric or two he’d known in his time.

“Well done, you,” Tom enthused. “I can see you’ve gone to a lot of work. However did you lift those great balls of snow?”

“Mrs. Ingley helped,” Ariel piped up.

“I may pay for it tomorrow.” Judith clutched the small of her back.

Tom looked down the garden, at the strips of exposed grass poking through the white covering here and there where the girls had rolled their balls, then up through swirling flakes at the denuded
trees weighted with accumulated snow. Above that was leaden sky, punctuated by a flock of rooks spiralling and climbing, finally vanishing, leaving only the promise of yet more snow. Nature seemed shrouded in a single tonality, its riotous summer palette shrunken to grey and white and brown, and it made the world feel claustrophobic, hushed as a tomb. Small sounds—the squish of nylon rubbing nylon of the girls’ anoraks, Bumble’s doggy yap—were curiously amplified, which may be why he started a little at Ariel’s querulous question:

“Mummy, have you been crying?”

“Oh, dear, no. I just … didn’t sleep well, that’s all.” Caroline flicked a finger along her eyes. “Come, we need to pack up your things and leave Mr. Christmas and Miranda and … Mrs. Ingley to their lunch. Goodness”—she reached for her daughter’s mittened hand—“your things are wet, aren’t they? I don’t want you catching cold.”

“I’m sure Mrs. Prowse has some extra mittens or gloves,” Tom responded, glancing at Miranda, who was wearing the same sceptical expression she had worn the night before, when he arrived with John and Judith.
My child can read atmospheres too well
, he thought, as he wondered aloud where Mrs. Prowse was.

“She went in just as you were coming round the back,” Judith replied.

But Madrun had seen them and come to the door, wringing her hands on a tea towel. At her feet, Powell and Gloria sniffed the air and backed away in disgust at their new, changed world. “Shall I lay more places, Mr. Christmas?” she called.

“No, thank you, Mrs. Prowse,” Caroline answered in his stead. “Ariel and I must be leaving. And thank you for everything you’ve done … for Ariel, for the girls.”

“Mrs. Prowse,” Tom added, “I’m accompanying Caroline and Ariel back to Thorn Court, so—”

“That’s fine, Mr. Christmas.” Madrun was pushing the cats away
with her feet preparatory to closing the door. “I won’t put the Yorkshire in until you’ve returned.”

“I hope all goes well,” Caroline murmured.

Tom smiled wanly and replied, “There are worse tragedies than a fallen pudding.”

Tom’s heart sank when Madrun offered Caroline one of her casseroles, frozen in preparation for her absence, but proffered in condolence, without, of course, phrasing words of condolence, Ariel being within earshot. Caroline meekly accepted it, but Tom ended up carrying the heavy, bright orange, two-handled dish up Pennycross Road, Caroline being lumbered with Ariel’s sleeping bag and Ariel with her backpack. Miranda had viewed the passing of the casserole at the vicarage with even more visible suspicion, peering at the lettering on the lid—it was part of Madrun’s very good Le Creuset set—and then peering at Tom. He knew that she was remembering when her mother had died, when a swarm of well-meaning parishioners had descended upon their home bearing Pyrex. Robbed of hunger, he could barely tolerate the rich aromas of their contents.
What became of all those casseroles?
he wondered as he stepped carefully on the road’s icy surface. Someone—Ghislaine?—must have consigned their contents to the bin, then returned the dishes to their owners. He felt a flicker of guilt for the wasted food and the scorned cooks, and wondered what would happen to this casserole, though he was sure, given the chef, that its contents were superb. It was Madrun’s best
boeuf bourguignon
, after all.

“Taking your lunch for walkies?” one wag remarked in passing.

Tom was sensing that the freakish weather and the assault on the mod cons was, perversely, beginning to cast a spell over the village. He noted as he passed the gate to old Mr. Sainton-Clark’s cottage that Mr. Snell from next door was shovelling the snow from his
front walk. The two, he was told, hadn’t spoken in ten years, having battled bitterly over intrusive tree roots. Mrs. Ewens, who was normally reserved, greeted them effusively as she cleared the pavement in front of her cottage, clearly unaware of what had befallen Caroline and Ariel, and just as happily looking forward to the worst old man winter had to offer—all very spirit-of-Dunkirk and such. They were hailed more than once along the way, with the expectation of cheery conversation, but Tom, feeling Caroline’s growing anxiety, cut each visit short. Mercifully, only Tilly Springett, sweeping the walk of April Cottage, the last one before Thorn Court, was aware of the tragedy, having heard the news in church. She glanced at Ariel, then, reading the anxiety in Caroline’s eyes, murmured “good day” before turning back to her solemn task.

Against the low grey sky of midday, Thorn Court appeared as a colourless silhouette, its hip roof and the witch’s caps over the bow windows snow-burdened, its Elizabethan garden a zoo of hilly white shapes, broken only by a tall cypress. Fresh footsteps—John’s and Caroline’s earlier traversings, presumably—cut a narrow path through the snowy walk up to the hotel forecourt. Tom gave a passing thought to Nick, who might have taken the trouble to clear the snow, but when they stepped onto the forecourt, as if thinking made it so, there Nick was, still in his kilt, his shirt crumpled and half open, and his hair plastered awkwardly to one side of his head. A blanket was draped over his shoulders.

“I saw you coming up the path,” he said, then yawned extravagantly and scratched his head. “Christ, it’s colder than a witch’s tit. Look at all this sodding snow! Can you credit it?” He regarded them peevishly. “What? What’s the matter? You look like—” Then a certain alertness crept over his dulled expression. “Oh …”

“Don’t say another word, Nick.” Caroline spoke with a kind of suppressed fury, shepherding her daughter. “Not a word. I have something I want to talk about with Ariel.”

“Where’s Daddy?” The child’s tone was sulky, suspicious.

“Not a word, Nick,” Caroline repeated, turning towards the Annex. “Come along, Ariel. Let’s get you warm and dry. Tom”—she glanced back at him over her shoulder—“thank you very much for your help.”

“Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do,” Tom responded.

“I will. Come around tomorrow morning, if you can.”

“What’s that you’ve got, Father Christmas, sir?”

Tom followed Nick’s gaze to his own gloved hands, then looked hurriedly at the retreating figures of mother and daughter. He was loath to disturb them. “Here, you take this, Nick. It’s something of Mrs. Prowse’s.”

“Tarts?”

“Beef bourguignon, I think.”

Nick burped, then pulled the blanket around his shoulders. “No thanks, mate. Don’t think I could manage that sort of grub, the state I’m in.”

“It’s not meant for you
specifically
.” Tom shoved the dish at him. “Or
now
,” he added, annoyed. “Have you only just got up?” He studied Nick’s face. He had his answer. The man’s skin was sallow, his lips dry and cracked. The evidence of sleep crusted the corners of his eyes.

“Yeah, Christ, that was some night, wasn’t it?”

“Then you slept through the mortuary van arriving and people going up the tower to fetch Will’s body?”

“Yeah, must have.”

“Will you please take this?” Tom pushed the casserole dish against Nick’s shirt.

“Will’s dead.”

Tom glanced again at Nick’s face, alerted by the tone of his voice, which was—shockingly—wondering, almost pleased. He sensed a mind rising out of somnambulance and calculating some marvellous
effects of changed circumstances in the House of Stanhope. Then, as quickly, he appeared to snap out of it.

“Coming in for a drink?”

“Good God, no,” Tom responded brusquely, taken aback, then realised how ungracious his words sounded. “Sorry. I’m wanted back at the vicarage for lunch.”

“Suit yourself.” Nick, his hands full, shouldered the door closed. The rich clunk of wood on wood resounded through the muffled landscape.

Tom took a purifying breath and turned to retreat down the path, but the view from Thorn Court’s rise arrested his step.
See, amid the winter’s snow, born for us on earth below
—the lines of the Christmas hymn slipped unbidden into his head. The village amid the winter’s snow appeared transformed, the sharp edges of its cottages and boundary walls softened into curves. It was as though someone had poured castor sugar over the village and let it settle into satiny valleys and peaks. How unblemished and pure it all looked—at least from a distance.

And then he glanced down at his feet, and noted how that implacable purity could be so quickly blemished. There were his own footprints up the central path, combined with Caroline’s and Ariel’s, and presumably John’s and Caroline’s made earlier, creating a hard, crude trail down to Pennycross Road. And there, to his right, was another crude path, a diagonal extension of the central one, veering to the Moirs’ residence. It crossed through a couple of sets of deep, parallel ruts, evidence of recent vehicular traffic. To his left, however, the snow was still blissfully untrammeled, beautiful in its simplicity, a blanket stretching to a series of pristine, snowy mounds that could only be smothered cars.

It was only some time later that he realised how peculiar that was.

N
o throaty outburst from the kitchen accompanied this Sunday’s lunch. As usual, Madrun backed into the dining room with her trusty serving cart, its top tier crowned with the joint resting on a platter and accompanying sauce boat, the second tier with an assortment of covered serving dishes, which contained the roast potatoes, vegetables, and anything she considered complementary to the main affair. All seemed bright and beautiful, and smelling heavenly, until she turned to them, her long, straight face stamped with disappointment.

“Oh, Mrs. Prowse, not again!” Tom was standing, holding the carving knife, preparatory to doing his masculine duty, but let it drop to its silver rest.

“I simply can’t understand how this could happen twice, and in a row! I’ve done everything the way I’ve done it for years … forever!”

“Pauvre Madame Prowse.”
Miranda regarded her dolefully, her elbows improperly on the table propping up her head.

“Whatever is the matter?” Judith looked wildly about the room.

“A dropdead,” Miranda said.

“A what?”

“Mrs. Prowse has been having a spot of bother lately with her Yorkshire pudding.” Tom lifted the knife.

“Hardly a spot, Mr. Christmas! The pudding hasn’t risen, not a titch.” She addressed Judith. “Today, nor last Sunday.”

“Oh, is that all,” their guest remarked, glancing into her lap and adjusting her napkin. “I thought somebody had died.” She looked up sharply, instantly conscious of the effect of her casual remark in light of events of the last twenty-four hours. “Sorry!”