A Winter’s Tale: A festive winter read from the bestselling Queen of Christmas romance. Trisha Ashley

hearing the echo of the same words in the voice of an eight-year-old, curious to know what her witchy ancient relative was cooking up.

      ‘I expect Mrs Lark will show you her apartment herself, though perhaps after your long journey you might wish to put off any further inspections of your realm until another day,’ she said slightly acidly, and departed back through the swinging, baize-lined door to the hall.

      She left a snail trail of silver sequins behind her: she must have caught a loose thread on something.

Chapter Eight: Sovereign Remedies

       Sir Ralph asked mee whether I was of the Old Religion and I said I was. I swore to it, and he was well pleased. I know them to be Catholics like Father, despite their outward show of compliance to the new faith; they do not know that the old religion I swore to is not the same as theirs…

      From the journal of Alys Blezzard, 1581

      Mrs Lark said, ‘Don’t you worry about her—she never took any interest in the housekeeping, but she’s kept us in fruit and vegetables for years—and honey, chickens and eggs too. Now, do you want me to show you our rooms? Up the backstairs, they are.’

      ‘I would—but not today, if you don’t mind, Mrs Lark. So much needs doing that I think I need to go round in daylight with a notebook and write down a list of priorities,’ I said, though actually, what I really wanted to do was run about the house shrieking, ‘It’s mine, mine—all mine!’ at the top of my lungs, now that Aunt Hebe was no longer there to depress my pretensions.

      ‘The whole house is falling to pieces and that filthy I’m ashamed of it,’ Mrs Lark said forthrightly. ‘I clean my own rooms, but though poor Grace does her best with the rest of it all, it’s too much for her. And I do the cooking and ordering, but further than that I don’t go—not at my time of life.’

      ‘Of course not. You shouldn’t have to do anything else. It isn’t your job.’

      ‘That’s right,’ she agreed, less defensively. ‘My Jonah, he’s butler, valet, handyman—whatever’s wanted—though he started out as groom when Mr William used to hunt. But he’s a man, so he doesn’t notice what wants doing, never has—you have to tell him.’

      That explained the lack of a fire in the Great Hall then: it was merely that no one had thought to give the orders! I mooted the point.

      ‘I’ll tell him when he comes in,’ she said. ‘September to March it’s always kept lit, because it takes the chill off the whole place.’

      ‘What do we usually burn?’

      ‘Logs. The gardeners cut and stack them in the old stables—there’s always plenty. Ecologically sustainable,’ she added conscientiously, ‘from our own woodland.’

      ‘Oh, good,’ I said. ‘How often does Grace come in?’

      ‘Weekday mornings generally, unless there’s a party or visitors. She does the beds and towels Wednesdays and Fridays—they go to the laundry, though there’s a machine out through the back, if you want it. Grace does any other washing as required, and the ironing. Other than that, when she’s vacuumed through and done the kitchen floor and the bathrooms, she’s no time for anything else. In fact, I reckon it’s all getting a bit much for her; she’s not as fast as she used to be.’

      ‘I think it’s amazing she does so much!’

      ‘She’s not as old as she looks. I keep telling her all them cigarettes she smokes make her look like a living mummy and wheeze like a piano accordion. I’ve never smoked and we’re the same age, but I’ve got the complexion and figure I had at thirty to show for it.’

      Leaving Mrs Lark knitting and Charlie sleeping, I took a quick look at the stillroom, Aunt Hebe’s domain, where racks and bunches of anonymous vegetation hung everywhere and the scent of attar of roses and rush matting vied with other, stranger, odours.

      A small table with a chair each side stood near the side door to the shrubbery: Aunt Hebe’s consulting desk for furtive evening customers?

      Gingerly (and guiltily!) opening a cupboard, I found myself nose to nose with a row of glass-stoppered jars and bottles, all bearing labels written in a spiky black gothic hand: ‘ORRIS ROOT’, ‘HOLY WATER (Lourdes)’, ‘FULLER’S EARTH,’ ‘POWDERED GINGER’, ‘GROUND BARN OWL BONES (Roadkill 1996)’.

      Ground owl bones?

      ‘LIQUORICE EXTRACT’, ‘POWDERED AMBERGRIS’, ‘DRIED BAT WINGS’.

      I shut the door hastily, deciding not to open any more cupboards—then immediately did, thinking it was the way out. This one contained shelf after shelf of much smaller bottles and jars with fancier labels. Pinned to the inside of the door was a hand-written price list. ‘Number 2 Essence: A sovereign remedy for restoring the joys of marriage,’ I read, ‘Two pounds fifty.’

      After all these years without even a word from Rory, it would take more than an essence to restore my marriage! The next remedy was clearly aimed at all those exhausted wives with priapic elderly husbands, pepped up on Viagra: ‘Number 5 Essence: The tired wife’s friend. Two drops in any liquid given to the husband near bedtime will ensure an unbroken night’s rest. (Do not exceed dose.) Three pounds.’

      It looked like Aunt Hebe had gone into production on a large scale.

      I popped my head back through the kitchen door. ‘Mrs Lark, do Aunt Hebe’s remedies actually work?’

      She looked up. ‘Well, no one’s ever asked for their money back to my knowledge.’ She cast on a couple more stitches and added, ‘Or died from them, either.’

      ‘That’s a relief,’ I said, and went back to my tour, though I hesitated before opening any more doors. But luckily the next one merely gave on to a passage with the narrow backstairs going up from it and the cellar entrance. There was a warren of rooms beyond it, many of them unused except for storage (one of them was stacked practically floor to ceiling with what looked like empty florist’s boxes), but this area looked very familiar to me. I had been allowed to play here and to ride my red tricycle up and down the flagged floors. How I’d loved that trike! The chipped skirting boards were probably my doing.

      Feeling nostalgic I wandered on until I came to another passage, across which a fairly new-looking door had been installed. It was unlocked and when I passed through I saw that it had a sign on the other side saying: ‘PRIVATE! NO ADMITTANCE BEYOND THIS POINT.’

      Here, by removing the door between two rooms and throwing out a little glassed-in conservatory overlooking the top terrace at the back of the house, a tearoom of kinds had been created. There was a counter topped with a glass food display cabinet adorned with dust and dead flies, and a collection of mismatched pine tables and chairs, varnished to the deep orange shade of a cheap instant suntan.

      It all looked terribly half-hearted and uninviting, though perhaps in summer when they opened they gussied the place up a bit with bright tablecloths and flowers.

      The visitors’ loos were off the further room and a brief glance told me were of Victorian servants’ quality, though I suppose at the time it was the height of luxury for the staff to have indoor toilets at all.

      I retraced my steps to the warm kitchen, where Mrs Lark ceased knitting long enough to look up and smile at me. Charlie didn’t appear to have moved an inch since I left.

      ‘Did you remember your way around, lovey? You played out there all the time when the weather was bad, making dens out of old cardboard cartons, or riding that little trike of yours, though in the summer you were always outside. You used to run round and round the maze like a mad thing, with your granddad’s spaniels all chasing after you, barking their heads off.’

      ‘It’s all coming back to me—I remembered my way around this wing perfectly, despite a few changes.