clustering on both sides of the half-mile which paralleled the railway line were shut until next week. Outside the station the estate agent and his wife were loading armfuls of last-minute purchases into the larger of the taxis as the next-to-last train before the holidays chugged north. Mabel stopped at the newsagent's for a carton of du Maurier cigarettes and sipped a glass of the sherry he offered all his customers on Christmas Eve, and then she braved the night again while the alcohol was keeping off the chill.
The newsagent's was the last shop on the main road. Further on were a few whitewashed cottages with rough brick porches, the walls of their large gardens decorated with extravagant rocks brought down from the moors. Across the railway line acres of heather divided the town from the farms, one of which was showing a lit window like a fallen star. Mabel's was the last cottage before the railway bridge, but not the last building. Above it, at the end of several hundred yards of bare track which met the main road beside her garden, was the Sterling house.
A car was approaching from the town as Mabel reached her gate. Mabel waited with her hand on the latch for the headlamps to illuminate the unlit house. She didn't like to think that any children might have ventured into it, though surely they would have better things to do on this night of all nights. The car swung round the curve out of the town, raising its headlight beams as the streetlamps gave out. The light streamed across a cottage garden and found the Sterling house.
Both the house and the forest above it seemed to step forwards. For a few seconds the house and a glinting mass of trees were the brightest things in Stargrave. She had always thought that the tall grey three-storey house, with its steep roof and overbearing crown of disproportionately large chimneys, looked as if it had been separated from a Victorian terrace — as if it needed something to complete it — but now she had the disconcerting impression that the light had caught the building in the act of sharing a secret with the forest. It must be because all the curtains were drawn that it looked secretive, she thought, but she couldn't help remembering Ben Sterling and how she had failed to intervene on his behalf. The shadows of the grotesque stones which squatted on the wall surrounding the unkempt garden danced across the outside of the building as the car sped towards the bridge, and darkness rushed into the space occupied by the house. Suppressing a shiver, Mabel hurried along her path.
As she unlocked the door her cottage greeted her with scents of the wild flowers she'd twined around the oval mirror in the hall and through the uprights of the dresser in the front room.
She turned on the caged electric fire in the sitting-room, where the rugs looked like perfectly circular islands of snow on the green carpet. She picked up the handbag-sized radio from beside her armchair, where an Agatha Christie novel was keeping her place, and tuned the set to the Home Service as she marched into the kitchen to deal with the dripping tap.
Though she screwed the tap shut as hard as she could, the plop of water on stone went on and, just as she kept thinking it had stopped, on. She would have to ask someone at Elgin's yard to deal with it when the holidays were over. While she waited for her casserole to heat up she listened to a voice plummy as a pudding reading Dickens and worked on the mince pies, shaping the pastry cases and spooning in the fruit before fitting the pastry lids and ventilating them with a fork. There should be enough for everyone who came to visit during the next few days — Edna Dainty from the post office and Charlie who worked on the railway, Hattie Soulsby and her husband whose efforts to have children Mabel prayed for every night, the retired teachers who lived next door to Mabel, not to mention all the customers who always brought her presents. She was ladling herself a
The newsagent's was the last shop on the main road. Further on were a few whitewashed cottages with rough brick porches, the walls of their large gardens decorated with extravagant rocks brought down from the moors. Across the railway line acres of heather divided the town from the farms, one of which was showing a lit window like a fallen star. Mabel's was the last cottage before the railway bridge, but not the last building. Above it, at the end of several hundred yards of bare track which met the main road beside her garden, was the Sterling house.
A car was approaching from the town as Mabel reached her gate. Mabel waited with her hand on the latch for the headlamps to illuminate the unlit house. She didn't like to think that any children might have ventured into it, though surely they would have better things to do on this night of all nights. The car swung round the curve out of the town, raising its headlight beams as the streetlamps gave out. The light streamed across a cottage garden and found the Sterling house.
Both the house and the forest above it seemed to step forwards. For a few seconds the house and a glinting mass of trees were the brightest things in Stargrave. She had always thought that the tall grey three-storey house, with its steep roof and overbearing crown of disproportionately large chimneys, looked as if it had been separated from a Victorian terrace — as if it needed something to complete it — but now she had the disconcerting impression that the light had caught the building in the act of sharing a secret with the forest. It must be because all the curtains were drawn that it looked secretive, she thought, but she couldn't help remembering Ben Sterling and how she had failed to intervene on his behalf. The shadows of the grotesque stones which squatted on the wall surrounding the unkempt garden danced across the outside of the building as the car sped towards the bridge, and darkness rushed into the space occupied by the house. Suppressing a shiver, Mabel hurried along her path.
As she unlocked the door her cottage greeted her with scents of the wild flowers she'd twined around the oval mirror in the hall and through the uprights of the dresser in the front room.
She turned on the caged electric fire in the sitting-room, where the rugs looked like perfectly circular islands of snow on the green carpet. She picked up the handbag-sized radio from beside her armchair, where an Agatha Christie novel was keeping her place, and tuned the set to the Home Service as she marched into the kitchen to deal with the dripping tap.
Though she screwed the tap shut as hard as she could, the plop of water on stone went on and, just as she kept thinking it had stopped, on. She would have to ask someone at Elgin's yard to deal with it when the holidays were over. While she waited for her casserole to heat up she listened to a voice plummy as a pudding reading Dickens and worked on the mince pies, shaping the pastry cases and spooning in the fruit before fitting the pastry lids and ventilating them with a fork. There should be enough for everyone who came to visit during the next few days — Edna Dainty from the post office and Charlie who worked on the railway, Hattie Soulsby and her husband whose efforts to have children Mabel prayed for every night, the retired teachers who lived next door to Mabel, not to mention all the customers who always brought her presents. She was ladling herself a
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