Ghosts of Winter Read online

  May climbed the stairs slowly, her feet and calves aching, hoping she would not have to do so many more times tonight. It was past midnight now, and she would be up at six to make sure the kitchen was ready for Cook.

  It was quiet in the shadowy hallway, though the staircase creaked as if someone was standing on the upper stairs. She shuddered at the notion of being watched by someone, tiredness opening her imagination to run wild with ideas of spectres haunting this old house. She paused at the door to the Common Parlour. Hearing no voices, she felt hopeful, opened the door, and took a step inside. She froze as she took in the sight before her.

  The central ceiling light in the room had been turned off, and the room was illuminated by a table lamp which stood on a small side table next to the sofa. It made a halo of light in the middle of the darkened room. In the centre of the yellow glow, a woman, the odd mannish one, reclined on the sofa, her head tilted back and her eyes closed, in seeming repose. The light sparkled from the crystal beading on the dress of the other woman, who knelt on the floor before the reclining woman, her head in the other’s lap.

  Bewildered, not able to understand what she was seeing in that instant, May stared. Then she glimpsed the bare flesh of a thigh, and realised the woman on the sofa had removed her trousers and her legs were spread indecently wide. She heard a startling moan from that woman’s throat and took in the slight movements of the kneeling one’s bowed head. Comprehension dawned on her with a wave of heat, mostly the consequence of horrified embarrassment, but with it a confusing edge of intrigue. She lingered for a moment more, watching, unsure whether to announce her presence or to creep out of the room. Her heart pounded.

  She took too long making her decision, because seconds later the seated woman opened her eyes and lifted her head slowly. She looked directly at May, as though she’d heard her enter and known she was there all along. The other woman tried to look up, but her companion placed an insistent hand on her curly head and returned it to its former position, an action which produced a shockingly deep, throaty moan from the one on her knees. The woman’s gaze locked to hers, and May suddenly felt she was fixed to the spot, unable to look away. The woman raised her eyebrows and smiled an amused smile. Her knowing expression returned May to her senses, and she turned and fled from the room, her cheeks burning, her mind grasping for ways to make sense of what she had witnessed. Why had she been so unable to tear herself away?

  *

  In the Common Parlour, Clara ran her fingers lightly through Courtney’s waved hair, and directed her skilled mouth to where she needed it the most.

  “Do you know we just had an audience, Courtney, dearest?” she said softly, and felt Courtney nod her head, her mouth never leaving its task. “But you’re degenerate enough to like that, aren’t you, my darling?” She knew that every word she spoke encouraged Courtney and increased her lover’s arousal. Courtney nodded again and the pressure she was exerting with her tongue grew stronger.

  Feeling the approach of her climax, Clara tightened her hold on Courtney’s hair and pushed her hips forward to increase the contact even more. “Yes, my darling whore, lick me, drink me, I’m all yours…oh…yes…”

  Courtney did exactly as Clara asked of her, as Clara trembled with the release. Then, running her tongue over her lips, slick with the essence of Clara, she climbed up to sit astride Clara’s lap and brought her mouth to her lover’s. Clara’s fingers slid over her stockings, caressed her bare thigh, and crept beneath her panties, teasing her. “That poor girl.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Clara said. “She watched for rather a long time. If you ask me, she enjoyed the spectacle you provided for her.”

  “I provided for her? You’re innocent in this then?” Courtney kissed her again, as Clara’s fingers slid inside her.

  “It was nothing to do with me. I’ve always known you’re a terrible, corrupting influence, Courtney Craig. You’re a very bad girl.”

  Courtney smiled. “Then you’d better teach me a lesson, my dear.” She reached down to push Clara’s fingers deeper.

  Clara held Courtney tight, as she drove her fingers into her heat and wetness. Courtney moaned at every thrust, and Clara’s hand was soon soaked. Though making love with Courtney always brought her to new emotional peaks, tonight their connection felt especially intense. She had been strangely affected by this reunion with the friends of her girlhood, and their conversation of earlier in the night, the idea their generation would be the ones to transform the world. Had their own parents thought the same thing? When they were long gone would other people live out their own lives in these very rooms? Suddenly it all seemed so fleeting, so important to hold on to every precious moment. She ran her tongue over Courtney’s delicate ear, and then whispered, as her hand still stroked, “I love you, Courtney baby, I have always loved you, and I will adore you forever.” In response Courtney wrapped her arms around Clara’s body, and gripped her as though her life depended on it.

  Seated on a step, near the top of the grand staircase, Evadne and Edith watched May’s hasty departure from the Common Parlour below and laughed gently together.

  “Do you want to speculate on exactly what Clara and Courtney are doing in there?” Edith asked wryly.

  “I think I’d rather not,” Evadne replied. “Poor May.”

  “Indeed. I think we should keep our dear friends away from all corruptible young girls. They’re a danger to the morals of society.”

  Evadne smiled. She stretched out her legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Do you remember,” she said, “when we used to do this at St. Hilda’s?”

  “You mean creep out of the dormitory in the depths of the night and sit on the stairs?”

  “Yes. The main stairs, at that. I never knew why only the mistresses were allowed to use them, and we girls had to creep around the back stairs.”

  “I suppose sitting on them at night was an act of rebellion.” Edith’s tone was light, but Evadne could hear the wistful edge remembering always brought to her friend’s voice.

  “The best sort of rebellion we could manage anyway,” she said, hoping to lighten the moment. “We were never as good at that sort of thing as Clara and Courtney.”

  “No. Do you remember how horrified Madge was when she discovered it was those two who’d smeared Vaseline all over the blackboards so the chalk wouldn’t work?”

  Edith giggled, a sound which had not changed since those distant days. “I do. She was furious. She was a sub-prefect then wasn’t she? Just couldn’t believe that her friends would do that to her when she was supposed to be responsible.”

  “She still looks just as disapproving,” Evadne said. Madge had retired to bed already, and she felt free to make her the subject of their conversation.

  “Yes, but happy too, I think,” Edith replied. “I’m glad she’s happy. Before the war her choices wouldn’t have seemed like a disappointment at all, would they?”

  “No. You’re right, of course. I’m glad she can be content with things the rest of us can’t. I think it makes her lucky, actually.” Evadne sighed. “And who’d have ever imagined Courtney and Clara would still be so mutually devoted?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, I think we always knew they were made for each other. The only hiccup would have been if Courtney had chosen to stay in New York.”

  “True. There was never really any danger of that though, not really.” Both women grew silent then, and Evadne knew their thoughts were moving in parallel.

  “Do you ever think we could have been like that?” Edith said quietly.

  “Like Courtney and Clara?” Evadne knew she was avoiding the question. “Hardly.”

  “I don’t mean precisely like them. I don’t think there are two women in the world that could be anything but pale imitations. But you know what I mean, Evvie.” Edith slipped her hand into Evadne’s and gripped her fingers lightly. “There was a time once, in that last year, when I thought…”

  “I know, Edith,” she said, squeezing the
fingers resting in hers.

  “And then with losing Clive, and Mummy needing me so terribly…”

  “I always understood what happened, Edith. We’re not so brave as Clara and Courtney, anyway. Do you think we could live as they do? I’m not sure I could bear the scrutiny and gossip myself. And even if we could, life simply took us in different directions, didn’t it?” Tears rose in her eyes. “I think that, maybe, some things aren’t meant to be.”

  “Do you ever wonder if we’re missing something wonderful? That we should try?”

  “I do, Edith. Every day. But life has given us a different path. I can’t explain it, but somehow I know it’s not our time. Not in the stars, I suppose.”

  “You make us sound like something from Shakespeare. Star-crossed, like Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Not so tragic, I hope,” Evadne replied dryly.

  “Well, I have no intention of killing myself.”

  “I’m glad of that. There’s so much to live for, don’t you think? Only we were never destined to experience it together.”

  “I wish I didn’t, Evvie, but I feel it too,” Edith said. “My mother still needs me. She’s never really recovered from losing Clive. And I’m not sure I have either. My life is with her now. For the future, who knows? I can never feel so certain of things as Clara.”

  “I think the unexpected is always lurking around the next corner.” Evadne considered for a moment and then took a deep breath in preparation for her next words. “I want to tell you something, Edith. I won’t tell the others, just you. You’ve always known my secrets.”

  “Since we used to sit on the stairs at school. What is it, Evvie?”

  “I’m going to have a baby.”

  “What?” Edith’s shock was apparent in her tone and her expression. “But how? I mean, who? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not going to do anything. Believe it or not, I’m happy about it.” Evadne replied, feeling the relief of having shared her secret with the one person she felt she needed to, the only person in the world who had ever truly known her heart.

  “The father?” Edith pressed.

  “In a very stupid moment, with rather too much gin inside me, I seduced a handsome young farmer, here to make a delivery of cheese.” Evadne shrugged to indicate it was unimportant. “I won’t tell him. I suspect I have rather a lot more money than he does, and I have no desire to marry him. I have no desire to marry anyone.” In another world, in another time, if things were different, she thought wistfully as she looked into Edith’s eyes. Edith’s pupils flickered, and Evadne wondered what she was thinking. She did not, at least, appear to be offended by Evadne’s revelation.

  “I think you’re right, of course,” Edith said. “I will be happy to die a spinster.” Her fingers pressed Evadne’s a little harder, an unspoken acknowledgement. So much of what passed between them years before had been unspoken, the words sticking in their throats while their eyes, hands, and lips had proved more eloquent. Edith seemed to shake herself and she smiled. “I hope, at least, that you enjoyed yourself with the farmer.”

  “It was fleeting. I believe I am perfectly ruined for enjoyment of that kind,” Evadne said. After you, after that one perfect, surprising night she wanted to add, but knew she could not. “But I’m rather glad of the outcome, I find.”

  “Are you sure, Evvie, darling?” Edith asked, holding Evvie’s hand between both of her own.

  “Perfectly. I’m quite content to be a mother, and I’m so very glad there will be someone after me to inherit Winter. I’ve grown rather attached to the place, I’d hate to see the house empty. Owning this place is like being part of something, you know. And it’s bigger than me. Somehow, I find that comforting. I can forget I have to be modern here, and just live. Ancient though it is, Winter inspires me to stay alive. I hope very much my child will take that on into the future.”

  “It sounds such a tempting prospect.” Edith sighed. “To be here with you.”

  Evadne was moved by the directness of Edith’s words into an equally honest reply. “You’re always here with me, Edith. I always keep you in my heart, for the sake of what might have been.”

  “I don’t believe anyone will ever mean to me what you did for those few months,” Edith said, in a voice hoarse with emotion.

  “Do you know, Edith, I think love can exist, even when it’s not acted upon,” Evadne said, daring to express what lay deep in her heart. “In some ways it’s more perfect, since it will never be tainted.”

  “Oh, Evvie.”

  “There’s something else I want to tell you,” Evadne said, before either of them grew too melancholy. “If my baby’s a boy, I want to call him Clive. For you.”

  “Oh, Evvie,” Edith said in an awed whisper. “That would be the most wonderful thing. What if it’s a girl?”

  “Then I’ll call her Edith,” Evadne replied simply.

  “You will?” Edith was crying now.

  “Yes. Edie for short, to tell her apart from her Godmother.”

  “Me?”

  “Of course. Who else?”

  “But I live so far away.”

  “We can see each other often enough. And even if we don’t, I’ll know you are there, just as I always have. We’ll always have the memories, nothing can take them away. And I have faith, Edith, my child will find fulfilment in a way we couldn’t. There won’t be a war to tear her life apart and catapult her into all this drive to be modern, whether she wants it or not. Who knows what a woman will be able to accomplish on her own in the future without even having to fight? I have the most wonderful dreams for her, doing what we could not.”

  “It might be a boy.”

  “I feel it’s a girl. I can’t explain it.”

  “Don’t you worry it might all go wrong again?” Edith asked. “Life is so wonderful at the present. It frightens me sometimes we might lose it all, so easily, like all those people who died in the war and of the ’flu. Death seems so close by.”

  “Not if you don’t give in to it. And I don’t see how we could lose this life we have,” Evadne replied. “If we can, then what was all that death and destruction for? So much sacrifice has to count for something. It’s that sacrifice that we’re building our future on.” She tried to have faith in her own optimistic words, but felt her hands begin to tremble at the thought of the life growing inside her.

  Edith pulled Evadne closer until Evadne’s head rested on her shoulder. Evadne closed her eyes. They’d spent so many nights like this at school, and just for that moment, Evadne felt herself to be a girl again with all of her potential still to be fulfilled. Then she opened her eyes again and saw the carved banisters, the fine hallway of Winter, the house she was mistress of, and knew herself to be an adult now, with chances snatched away from her, but still a hope for a bright and shining future. An impossible love that would never die, and a child she would call Edith, to honour that love. Though her eyes filled with tears, she smiled.

  Chapter Twelve

  I opened my eyes to darkness and dust. I felt I’d just dragged myself out of a deep chasm, but still had no idea what had really happened. I knew I was on the floor, but it was an odd place to be, and I couldn’t quite recall how I’d ended up there. When I blinked, my eyes felt gritty and dry. Then the pain coming from my left leg hit me full force, and I cried out loud, my cry becoming a cough through a throat full of dust. The coughing made my side hurt. I tried to press my hand to the place and found my left elbow was also on fire. I groaned and lay still, trying to make sense of this peculiar predicament.

  “Oh my God, Ros, are you awake?” said a relieved, disembodied voice in the darkness. I couldn’t see anyone anywhere near me, but I could smell a familiar scent, of leather, tobacco, and creamy vanilla. I closed my eyes again, sure I was still unconscious, for both the voice and the smell were of Anna. Anna. If only she were here now, everything would be fine. I wanted her badly. If I was still alive—and since I’d not seen any white lights, long tunnels, or pe
arly gates, I was inclined to think I was—I would get Anna back, whatever it took. Fierce resolve cut through my confusion. If the first thing my mind did on recovering consciousness was to imagine not only her voice but also her fragrance, unquestionably I was meant to be with her. In my bewildered mind, that one thing was perfectly simple and clear.

  The scent grew perceptibly stronger, and I felt a pressure on my right shoulder. “Ros? Can you hear me?” The anxiety in the voice was its most notable tone. It was definitely Anna’s voice. But what was that pressure on my shoulder?

  “Ros, wake up, come on.” The pressure became a grip which shook me gently. I dragged my eyes open, determined to discover the sense behind this mystery. When I opened them it was to find a human form leaning over me in the dark. I couldn’t make out the person’s features, but I could see the dark outline of her square glasses. Anna.

  “Anna?” I tried to say, but it was more of a groan than a real word.

  “Yes, I’m here,” she replied, trying—I was sure—to sound reassuring, but actually sounding rather frightened and tense.

  “What’s wrong with me?” I said stupidly.

  “You falling through the ceiling might have something to do with it.” She took hold of my hand in a warm grip.

  “Am I dead?” I asked, just to be sure.

  “I hope not, since I’m having a conversation with you.”

  “I fell through the ceiling?” The memory crept back in gradually, but it was such a ludicrously melodramatic thing to have done.

  “I presume so, at least. I arrived to find you here on the floor. I’ve called an ambulance.”

  “I don’t need an ambulance.” Surely she was overreacting. The idea of needing an ambulance as a result of falling through a ceiling was embarrassing.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You were unconscious. And don’t tell me nothing hurts.”

  “My leg hurts.” My ego hurts. My heart hurts.

  “See. The paramedics will be able to give you something for that I’m sure.” I became aware of her stroking the back of my hand. It felt good.