The Puzzle Ring (5 page)

‘My darling girl, it's so very good to see you!' she said in a soft, husky voice. ‘Let me have a look at you! Are you not the very picture of your father? Red as any Rose, we always say round these parts! Just look at you, my lamb!'

Hannah normally disliked being kissed and hugged by strangers, but this little old woman was so soft and gentle and sweetly scented Hannah hugged her back just as naturally as
if she had known her all her life. She was conscious of a sense of relief. Her great-grandmother did not seem so scary!

But Roz was exclaiming in surprise, ‘Linnet! How lovely! I wasn't expecting to see you.'

The old woman smiled broadly, her eyes disappearing into a net of wrinkles. ‘No doubt you thought I'd be dead and gone long ago.'

‘No, no, I just meant—'

‘No harm done, my lady. I was very old last time you saw me, and now I'm even older. Sometimes I surprise myself that I'm still tottering around!'

‘Hannah, this is Linnet. She has been the cook here at Wintersloe for . . . well, for as long as your father could ever remember. He always used to say she cooked the best marmalade cake in the world!'

‘Aye, Bobby loved his marmalade cake. I wondered if you'd remember. I made it for the wee one to have for her tea.' She smiled at Hannah, who bit back a grin at the idea of this tiny woman calling her ‘the wee one'.

‘Her ladyship is so pleased you've come. She's been that cranky since she broke her leg. Come in! Where's all your bags?'

‘Allan MacEwan is going to bring them up from the village for us,' Roz replied.

Linnet shook her head sadly. ‘Och, the poor man. That Donovan leads him a merry dance, I can tell you. But come in, what am I doing leaving you on the doorstep? We can talk just as well in the house.'

She flung wide the arched door, and let Hannah and her mother into a vast hall, its domed ceiling far above them. Light poured in through the great windows, illuminating
the golden colour of the panelling and the gilded frames of immense pastoral paintings, so vast and lifelike it seemed they were windows onto another time. Hannah looked about her in amazement. Antlers were hung on the wall above the great stone fireplace, and shields and daggers lined the wide wooden staircase that lead in a great swoop to the upper floor. Hannah hugged herself in secret delight.

‘But how's all with you, Lady Fairknowe?' the old cook said. ‘You're too thin! I'll have to be doing what I can to fatten you up! We're having a feast tonight to celebrate your homecoming. I've made game soup, and roast grouse with skirlie, and bramble crumble, all your favourites, my lamb.' Linnet pinched Hannah's cheek affectionately. Hannah could only stare at her in amazement, having never heard of such dishes. Game soup sounded very odd, while Hannah had always thought ‘grouse' meant to complain. And bramble crumble sounded positively dangerous!

‘Let me take you in to see her ladyship, then I'll bring you a nice cup of tea and a wee bite to eat. You must be starving.' The old cook led them down a wide hallway, every spare inch of the walls decorated with paintings of mountains and moors and stags and stormy seascapes.

Hannah barely had time to glance about her before Linnet was knocking on a panelled door. Without waiting for an answer, she opened the door and led Hannah and her mother into a large drawing room that looked out over the garden. Hannah received a confused impression of warmth and colour and richness, but all her attention was concentrated on the woman who sat upright in a wheelchair by the fire.

Lady Wintersloe was long and thin and very elegant, dressed in a green woollen suit with a cameo brooch pinned to one lapel. A newspaper was folded on the table beside her and she held a fountain pen in one long, manicured hand. Unlike most old ladies Hannah had seen, her hair was not cut short, but smoothly coiled into a knot at the back of her head and secured with a tortoiseshell comb. It was a silvery-gold colour. High cheekbones gave the impression of hollowed cheeks on either side of a long, patrician nose. Her eyebrows had been carefully drawn in with a pencil, and she wore powder, blusher and lipstick, very bright against her withered skin. A tartan rug was laid over her knees, but Hannah could see one leg was enclosed in a cast.

‘Ah, Rosamund, Hannah. Do come in, please.' Lady Wintersloe laid down her pen upon the newspaper and removed her glasses, letting them hang from a gold chain around her neck. ‘How lovely to see you both. Forgive me
for not rising. I broke my femur, you may remember, and I'm afraid it is not healing as it ought. The ravages of age, I'm afraid. Come, draw up a chair, sit down.'

Hannah looked around for somewhere to sit. The seat closest to her great-grandmother had a smoke-grey cat curled up on it. Hannah went to pick her up, thinking to hold the cat on her lap, but her great-grandmother held up a warning hand. ‘Watch out!'

It was too late. The cat had lashed out, scratching Hannah on the hand.

‘Ow!' she cried, and sucked her hand. The cat leapt down gracefully and stalked over to the window, where she sat, back to the room, tail lashing.

‘That nasty bogey-cat!' Linnet said.

‘I'm so sorry,' Lady Wintersloe said. ‘Are you all right?'

Hannah nodded, looking down at the line of red beading where the cat's sharp claws had drawn blood, then sat in the chair the cat had vacated, sucking her hand. Her mother sat nearby, looking harassed.

‘She's really not a very friendly cat, I'm afraid. Your father called her Jinx, which sadly proved to be prophetic. It was because of Jinx that I fell down the stairs and broke my femur. She has a way of always being underfoot when you least want her.'

‘Which is always,' Linnet muttered, as she went out and shut the door behind her.

‘So what did you break? Is that why you're in a wheelchair?' Hannah saw her mother grimace at her to be more tactful, but ignored her. Hannah could never see how being good and polite helped you find out the things you wanted to know.

‘I broke my femur. That's your thighbone.' Lady Wintersloe indicated her right leg. ‘It is such a nuisance! The doctor says I need a rod put in, but I must wait until a bed becomes available, which could be a long time.'

‘So your leg is still broken?' Hannah cried.

Her great-grandmother nodded.

‘Doesn't it hurt?' Hannah asked.

‘I'm afraid so.'

‘That's terrible.'

‘Oh, well. Nothing I can do it about it. I can't afford private care. I've already sold nearly all I have of value, just to keep the house from falling apart. I'm reluctant to sell any more paintings, because about the only income I have is from the open days and no one will come if the house is bare.' She sighed. ‘I do hate to sell what has been in the family for generations. I'd like to be able to pass it down to you, my dear.'

‘Oh, that's all right,' Hannah said. ‘Better sell it and fix your leg. We can always buy it back again later.'

‘You'll have to set about restoring the family's fortunes,' Lady Wintersloe said with a strained smile.

‘I want to be a great soul singer! I'll sing all over the world and sell millions of records, and then I'll be able to buy anything I want.'

‘You like singing? I see you have a guitar. Your father was musical too, did you know? He played double bass very well.'

‘He called her Mary-Lou,' Roz broke in. ‘He said she was the only other woman in his life.'

‘His double bass? He had a name for it?' Hannah realised just how little she knew about her own father. It made her
angry at her mother, for not telling her things she should know.

‘For her,' Roz corrected. ‘He always called his double bass “her”.'

‘Can I see it . . . I mean, her? Mary-Lou?'

‘Of course,' her great-grandmother replied. ‘The double bass is in the music room. There are quite a few musical instruments there, our family has always loved music. You must ask Linnet to show you where it is.'

‘Okay. I'd like that.'

‘So let me look at you. Red as any Rose, I see. You'll grow very tired of people saying that to you around here. I know I did. And tall! The Roses are always tall.'

Hannah smiled and Lady Wintersloe smiled back. ‘I am so very glad to see you, Hannah. Thank you for coming all this way.'

‘Hannah was very keen to meet you,' Roz said stiffly. Hannah wondered if her mum was annoyed at being left out of the conversation for so long, since Roz made it sound as if she had not been very keen to meet Lady Wintersloe again herself.

‘I am pleased to meet you too, Hannah. I'm only sorry I left it so long to write. I had not altogether realised how much you would have grown. It was only as my own birthday approached, and I remembered how old I was, that I realised.'

‘So how old are you?' Hannah asked.

Her mother exclaimed in horror, but Lady Wintersloe smiled. ‘I'm eighty-eight, Hannah. A magic number, your father would have said.'

‘Why?'

‘Because it's a palindrome, just like your name, Hannah.'

‘Oh. That means the same forwards and backwards, doesn't it. Did you know my father called me “Hannah” because my birth date is like that? It's the twenty-first of December.' Lady Wintersloe nodded to show she knew the date. Hannah seized her pen and scribbled
21/12
on the edge of her great-grandmother's newspaper. ‘See? It's the same backwards as forwards. Apparently Dad said it was a mathematically perfect date.'

‘Your father liked palindromes,' Lady Wintersloe said. ‘He thought they were magic. The Fair Folk are either drawn to them, or repelled by them, according to their nature. The Seelie Court love order and symmetry, but the Unseelie Court hate it and are confounded by it.'

Hannah was puzzled, and her great-grandmother smiled wearily. ‘You do not know the terms? The Seelies are spirits of a benevolent nature, while the Unseelies are cruel and malicious. Unfortunately it is the Unseelie Court which now rules the hollow hills.'

‘Fairies, do you mean?' Hannah was not sure she had understood her great-grandmother properly.

Lady Wintersloe's eyebrows drew together. She leant forward, laying one thin hand on Hannah's arm. ‘I am speaking of the Sidhe, Hannah. Pronounced ‘shee' but spelt S.I.D.H.E. We call them the Fair Folk, or the Good Neighbours, because it is not safe to call them by name. They are not pretty little fluttery things like the fairies you see drawn in books and cards. They are as tall as you or I, or even taller, and powerful indeed.'

‘Like elves?' Hannah asked, thinking of Legolas in the movie of
The Lord of the Rings
.

Lady Wintersloe's face relaxed, and she sat back. ‘Yes, Hannah, very like elves, though they are German in origin and we are talking about the Sidhe, who are Scottish and Irish. They have always been here or, rather, lived alongside us in their own realm. Some think they are ancient nature spirits, maybe even the old gods and goddesses who withdrew from this world when they were no longer worshipped. Others think they are just another race of people—more in touch with the natural magic of the world than us humans—who withdrew into the hollow hills and mounds when they were defeated in battle.
Sidhe
is Gaelic for “people of the mounds”.'

‘They say that up to ninety-five per cent of Scots continued to believe in fairies right up to the end of the nineteenth century. Isn't it incredible?' Roz shook her head in disbelief.

Lady Wintersloe said sharply, ‘The Sidhe have been known in Scotland for centuries, Rosamund. There are endless stories and poems and ballads describing their deeds.'

‘Well, yes, fairy stories,' Roz replied. ‘Every culture has its myths and legends. That is how primitive people try to explain natural phenomenon like thunder and lightning and the moon waxing and waning. We know better now. We have science to explain such things.'

‘Science cannot explain everything, Rosamund,' Lady Wintersloe said austerely.

Roz huffed out her breath in exasperation. ‘Perhaps not, Lady Wintersloe . . .'

‘Please, Rosamund! You're my grandson's wife, it is ridiculous to stand on ceremony with me,' Lady Wintersloe said sharply. Roz flushed scarlet, and Hannah looked from one to the other in dismay. ‘Why do you not both call me
Belle? It sounds much nicer.' Lady Wintersloe said, trying to speak more gently.

‘Then you must call me Roz,' Hannah's mother replied coolly. ‘No one calls me Rosamund.'

‘But it is such a pretty name . . .' Lady Wintersloe said, then paused. ‘Very well, then, Roz. Don't you sometimes think, like Hamlet, that there are more things in heaven and earth than you can dream of in your philosophy?'

‘Perhaps, though I cannot imagine that fairies are one of them,' Roz answered dryly.

‘It is not wise to underestimate the Fair Folk,' Lady Wintersloe said, sitting as stiffly as she could, with her cast held out awkwardly before her.