Snow Angels

by Elizabeth Gill

Genres: General Fiction; Historical Fiction; Sagas; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

From the homelands of Durham to the streets of London, can she build a new life for herself? A sparkling winter wonderland of a novel, the perfect fireside read for fans of THE WINTER BABY by Sheila Newberry and CHRISTMAS ANGELS by Nadine Dorries. Grieving after the loss of her mother, Abby Reed, finds an unexpected source of comfort exploring the rugged, snowy countryside, where she meets the brooding Gillan Collingwood. But then Abby learns that Gill is already interested in another woman. Heartbroken, she impulsively flees frosty wilds of her homeland to London's glittering social scene . . . but can she ever forget the boy she left behind? Elizabeth Gill's next northern saga THE QUARRYMAN'S WIFE is available to preorder now! Just search 9781786482662 Rated 5 stars by REAL READERS: 'This is a real love story with twists of family saga' Debra, Amazon reviewer ' Snow Angels is a most enchanting book. It keeps you captivated in an exciting world with plenty of twists and turns' Sally, Amazon reviewer 'The story is full of fantastic descriptions of the North Country, where Elizabeth Gill herself has always lived, and which she clearly loves with all her heart.' Amazon reviewer Also by Elizabeth Gill: The Guardian Angel Nobody's Child Miss Appleby's Academy The Singing Winds Far From My Father's House And available to pre-order now: The Quarryman's Wife

Release date: March 14, 2013

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 338

Sample

1890

Newcastle upon Tyne

It was a cold wet November afternoon when Abby Reed’s mother died. The doctor had said she would probably go quietly in the night, but Bella Reed had never done anything quietly. She clutched the lapels of the doctor’s jacket, her thin hands like chicken claws, and begged him not to let her leave this world and, though he had looked shocked, fifteen-year-old Abby could only agree with her mother. It was all very well for those who were convinced of paradise, but her mother knew that there was nothing beyond a box in the ground of the local cemetery and it was hardly a prospect to be faced with equanimity.

‘My dear lady,’ he said, ‘you must prepare to meet your maker. There is nothing more that I can do.’

‘Idiot!’ she said, falling back onto her pillows. ‘Get him out of here, Abby. I don’t want him at my damned deathbed!’

The doctor, shocked even further at the dying mother’s foul mouth, almost ran. Abby could have told him it was nothing special. Her father proudly said of her mother that she swore better than any docker. Abby didn’t see him out; she stood in the gloom at the top of the staircase which dominated their house and Kate, their maid, appeared from the kitchen to deal with the doctor and the door.

Wind and rain bespattered the entrance hall and the doctor stood for a moment before he faced the darkness. It was past four o’clock and the weather had ensured that what light there had been had gone as the afternoon started. Kate struggled to shut the door and Abby went back to her mother. The room was cosy. She had lit the lamps and the fire had been on in there not just all day but for many weeks while Bella’s illness progressed. Bella was lying with her eyes closed.

‘Abby?’

‘I’m here.’ She went over to the bed, sat down and clasped her mother’s hand.

‘I love you.’

Tears rose in Abby’s eyes and in her nose and in her mouth and seemingly everywhere. Her mother did what they called in the area ‘naming a spade a bloody shovel’; she always said what she meant. Other people might skirt around a subject, but Bella never did. Abby had been astonished as a small child that other mothers did not treat their children with open affection, that they did not spend time with them, that they did not appear to have any joy in them, but she had always known because her mother had always told her and always shown her. They both knew that Abby would never hear the words again on Bella’s lips.

‘You mean more to me than anything in this world. You’ve given me more pleasure than you could possibly imagine. I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to leave you. Come closer.’

Abby kissed her thin cheek and Bella put a hand on her head.

Her mother didn’t even ask for her father. Since her illness, he had taken refuge in his work. Abby didn’t blame him for that. There was nothing he could do, and to stay around his wife’s bedroom would have been an admission of her coming death on both their parts. He would be back soon, Abby thought, and there was life in her mother yet. They would have time to say goodbye. She lay for a little while with her head on the pillow beside her mother. She had not slept properly in several days and nights and she was so exhausted that she let herself drift for a while. Suddenly she heard the door. She had not expected to feel relief and, when she did, got up to meet her father. It was only then that she saw his gaze was fixed on her mother.

‘She didn’t stay for me,’ he said.

*

The weather retreated for the funeral, but the cemetery was slippery with mud. Abby had insisted on going even though the old Northumbrian way was for the men to go; the women would stay behind and prepare the tea. Her father needed her there. She was his only child, and even though people might look disapprovingly, she didn’t care. She held up her head and clasped her father’s arm.

It was easier when they got back to the house. They lived in Jesmond, one of the more prosperous areas of Newcastle, in a big semi-detached villa not far from the cricket ground. People were packed in to show their respect. Henderson Reed was a shipbuilder, not the biggest on the Tyne, but well known. Abby helped to dispense tea. It stopped her thinking about her mother.

Charlotte Collingwood, wife of William Collingwood, who was the biggest shipbuilder on the Tyne, came to her. Abby had tried to avoid her. Charlotte was a pretty woman of forty who had given her husband two sons, but Abby despised her. She sat at the top of Newcastle society in a way that Abby’s mother had once likened to ‘a fairy with a Christmas tree stuck up her arse’ and Abby had never forgotten it. Charlotte had come from a top family, a branch of the Surtees who owned land and many fine houses, but William Collingwood had made his way up the social ladder. He was nothing more than the son of a boat builder. Charlotte had been well bred but penniless, and now enjoyed fine clothes, a huge country house and more money than she could spend. She had never read a book in her life. Abby treasured her mother’s books.

‘You must come to us for Christmas,’ Charlotte said. ‘The boys will be home from school and we’ll be having a party. I know you won’t feel much like parties, but the change would do you good.’

Abby felt guilty then. Charlotte was being generous, and she could imagine lots of things worse than seeing Edward Collingwood again. He was eighteen, fair and handsome. He went to a top public school, he was well spoken, beautifully mannered and rumoured to be very clever. The younger boy, Gil, as far as Abby could judge, was the opposite: dark, stupid and sullen. He was just a bit older than Abby. They had long ignored one another, but, thinking of Edward and wanting to distance herself from her mother’s death, Abby was inclined to agree at once. The idea of spending Christmas alone here with her father and the servants did not appeal, though perhaps he would think differently.

Charlotte asked Henderson. He seemed agreeable and Abby knew a lightness that she hadn’t felt for months. Bella had struggled with her illness, only giving in when she could fight it no more. It had been a long and dreary autumn and Abby thought that her mother would not have wanted her to grieve further. She had known that her mother was dying; her grieving was almost done. It would do her father good to get away from the house and shipyard for a few days.

The days before Christmas were short and wet and empty. Abby missed her mother all the time and wanted to weep, but she couldn’t; it was as though a door had closed between her tears and her eyes and even when she ached to cry, she couldn’t. She did her best to look after her father and cheerfully presided over meals which neither of them ate. She was tired, but when she lay down to sleep at nights, thoughts of her mother flooded her mind and gave her no rest. Everyone else seemed so cheerful because it was Christmas, wishing each other all the best. Carol singers came to the door. It even snowed. Abby thought of her mother lying in the cemetery with a fine white layer of frozen water above her and no future.

It was therefore with relief, just after midday on Christmas Eve, that Abby and her father drove the several miles out of Newcastle to the mansion which William Collingwood had built a dozen years ago when he became rich. Abby did not think about the Northumberland countryside; she was used to the big farms and wide fields. Castles were commonplace here, the kind of fortifications which had helped to keep out the Picts and Scots and Border reivers at different times. Some of the farms had half-ruined towers or castles right beside the house, which might have looked strange to foreign eyes but were usual to those who knew the area. It was prosperous: the fences were mended; the walls were straight and safe; the roads were good.

Bamburgh House was a monstrosity, Abby thought as they pulled in at the gates of the long mile drive. It could have been beautiful; the honey-coloured stone had been quarried from right beside it, but the architect had been having some kind of love affair with Greece. Four enormous pillars obscured the front of the house. It managed to look stately in the slight covering of snow, but Abby was not deceived. She had been there before and thought it the most stiff, unfriendly house she had ever seen in her life. In the summer great arrangements of flowers stood to attention in huge vases in all the rooms. Everything was swept clean; no dusty cupboards in Charlotte’s house. The maids were uniformed and unsmiling. The food was always lavish and overdone, so that it put you off before you started, and Charlotte was fond of table centres such as iced swans and animals made from chocolate and marzipan. Neither William nor his wife had any taste. The house, though huge, was filled with furniture. There was not a corner that had not its share of paintings and ornaments and dead animals in glass cases or their heads on the wall. There were tiger rugs and elephants’ feet and stuffed birds. It was an animals’ cemetery, Abby thought with a little shiver, and the furniture was uncomfortable, all gilt and velvet, short-backed sofas and shallow chairs. Sometimes Abby was ashamed to be there considering that she was aware of how badly paid and housed were William’s shipyard workers – her father was always saying so.

It could have been no pleasure to work in that house, because none of the servants ever looked happy, not like Kate and Mrs Wilkins at home, sitting by the kitchen fire no doubt and enjoying the cake and sherry and beef which her father’s money had bought for them. She had made sure they had generous presents that Christmas because they had been kind to her all that time when her mother was ill. Abby had been glad also that her father had provided a big dinner for all his workers, gifts for their wives and children in the form of foodstuffs and confectionery and a bigger paypacket than usual for all the men. Some of them drank their money, which was why her mother had in previous years insisted that their families should be given gifts directly as well as extra money. Abby had made sure that this year was even better for them. They should not feel the difference because her mother was dead.

In the huge entrance hall of Bamburgh House stood the largest Christmas tree that Abby had ever seen, glowing with candles. Holly festooned every corner and mistletoe peeped out here and there among the red berries and green thorns. The weather did its best to help, freezing neatly so that the snow turned solid and wet trees glittered as though somebody had put them in just the right place to catch the winter sunlight. Huge fires burned in the rooms. Throughout the afternoon, people arrived and everyone was to stay, some of them for several days.

Abby began to enjoy herself, to be pleased at the dress she had brought. An excited hum came from having so many people in the house and there were wonderful smells and sounds between dining-room and kitchen. Maids went to and fro downstairs until the long tables were laden. Musicians arrived and began to make music in the ballroom. Abby glimpsed Edward, but of Gil there was no sign. A little maid came to help Abby dress. She was very young and chattered more than she should have done, but Abby didn’t mind, and it was of her that she enquired for the other boy. The girl’s face paled.

‘His da leathered him,’ she said.

‘Beat him?’

The girl nodded.

‘Two days since.’

‘Why?’

The little maid’s face darkened.

‘Not for summat you’d think. He didn’t do nothin’ like lads do. Locked him up an’ all, like a dog.’ And with that, Abby had to be content.

The evening went well. There were good things to eat: jellies and creams and cold chicken and ham. Abby even had champagne. Edward asked her to dance and, although she shouldn’t have because of her mother dying, her father insisted. The music and the champagne made Abby pleased with everything. The light from the chandeliers glittered inside and the frost on the snow glittered outside. Gil did not appear.

‘Where’s your brother?’ Abby enquired of Edward as they stood against a pillar in the ballroom, flushed from dancing.

‘In his room.’

‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ Abby pointed out.

‘He isn’t there by choice,’ Edward said.

Abby couldn’t rest. She tried to. She reasoned with herself. She didn’t like Gil Collingwood and as far as she knew he had neither looked at her nor spoken politely. It was strange. She kept thinking about her mother alone in the cemetery and Gil by himself, and it all got mixed up. She had refused a second glass of champagne and contented herself with lemonade, but her mind did not unmix. She danced with several boys, she talked to girls she knew and it should have been the happiest evening she had spent for a long time, but there was an emptiness inside her which grew and grew until Abby could bear it no longer. She left the noise and the music, took a candle from the hall, wrapped a huge piece of chocolate cake into a napkin and then made her way up the first of two wide staircases.

From the rooms below there were lights and the sound of laughter. It was a big house but conventionally laid out, with the upstairs rooms around a central hall. The rooms were well set back. The hall was lit and Abby couldn’t hear her own footsteps because there was carpet all along the floorboards. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she saw it anyway. There was a key in the lock of a door as far away from the staircase as possible. She listened hard, but could hear nothing.

Abby brought her candle down to the key and very slowly turned it in the lock. It made no noise. The door opened soundlessly. Abby drew in her breath at the blast of cold air that came out of the room. It was freezing; she could feel it through her dress, straight onto her skin as though she wore nothing. At first she thought it was an unused room. There was nothing personal about it and, though she looked as best she could in the gloom, the grate was empty and clean, there was no light of any kind and the bed was stripped. There were no ornaments, no books, no clutter. There was no carpet on the floor; the linoleum was like ice. The curtains were drawn back and from there the moon threw its white light in through the window. It was, Abby thought, shivering, the nearest thing to a grave. Nobody was in here. There was no sound. She turned to go and the candle flickered in the draught. Then she saw him.

Gil was quite tall, that Abby remembered, but he was curled up as small as he could possibly be at the far side of the bed, right against the wall, like a hedgehog. He didn’t move or acknowledge her in any way and, as Abby saw him better, she recognised the whiteness of his shirt and the blackness of his hair.

‘God Almighty,’ she said.

Her first instinct was to run for help, but she stopped herself. She couldn’t do that. Adults lived in another world, a powerful world where she had no place and no influence. If she spoke a single word she would get into trouble and get him into even more trouble, if that could possibly be. She mustn’t be found out. She left the room with as little movement as she could. From the room next door she pulled thick blankets and two pillows and carried them back and put the blankets over him and the pillows down onto the bed.

‘Gil, are you dead?’ It was not the time for formality somehow. ‘Gil?’

He didn’t move. Abby touched him on the shoulder.

‘Go away.’ With a strength that surprised her, he shoved the blankets back at her. They enveloped her. She had to push them off. Her heart pounded. She really had thought that he was not breathing. It was her nightmare come back: lying beside her mother, tired from trying to come to terms with the idea that she might lose her, that somebody else would go out of this life and she would not be awake or not be there and be unable to do anything. Nightly she haunted herself, thinking that if she had stayed awake, her mother would still be alive. She knew that it was stupid, but she only knew this in the daylight. When she had been a child the night had held no fear, it was a velvet blackness. She had fallen asleep listening to her parents’ voices coming up from below the floorboards. Childhood had been when life was for ever, when nothing would hurt her. Now the darkness was full of devils and they tormented her with guilt and inadequacy.

Abby stared at the window, glad of the moon. There were thick frost patterns on the window. She remembered her mother showing her all the different ones. They were coldly beautiful.

‘I brought you some cake.’ It was rather squashed by its journey. ‘Chocolate cake.’

He stirred after a few moments and then very slowly turned over. Abby made herself not react. There was a big mark across one side of his face where somebody had done what her mother would have called ‘backhanding him’. His straight black hair hid the expression in his eyes. He didn’t touch the cake as she offered it; he just looked at it and then at her and said, ‘You’ll get into bother.’

‘Nobody will know.’

There was a jug of water and a glass on the dressing-table. Abby went across and poured some and gave it to him and he took the cake and ate it very slowly. Abby was more accustomed to the room now and she could hear the faint sounds of music from the ballroom. It seemed strange here in the almost-silence, like another world. She wondered if her mother could still sense some things from the life she had left, whether there was any way in which sounds filtered through.

She began to cry and almost choked in embarrassment attempting not to. After all these weeks, she chose this moment in which to realise that her mother could not hear the music nor feel the cold. She couldn’t touch her or speak to her or have the love between them like a shining light any more. It was all gone; it was over.

‘Did you want some cake?’ he asked as the tears flowed. Abby shook her head wordlessly and wished for a handkerchief, for control, for oblivion. The candle, which was never going to be anything spectacular, guttered and gave up and she was left in the cold, white moonlight with a boy she barely knew, a hot face, cold tears, a blocked nose and a terrible desire to sniff before her nose ran. It got worse, until she was blinded and everything was salt and even sniffing didn’t help. She found a tiny stupid scrap of lace and cotton in the only pocket of her dress and blew her nose. It sounded like a train to her ears. She mopped her face on the edge of the nearest blanket and the hairs from it went up her nose. When the crying took over her whole body, she gave herself up to it until it wracked her. When the sobs quietened she found the blankets over her, and his body, which was surprisingly warm, close. Exhausted, comforted, Abby fell asleep.

At some time in the night she kicked off her shoes and settled herself against him and slept again. Then somebody was shaking her gently. When she opened her eyes he was looking down at her and saying, ‘You’ll have to go or they’ll find you here.’

Abby was horrified. She had spent the night with a boy, slept close against him in a bed. She remembered – did she remember it – his arms around her at one point and then his body folded in against the back of hers. ‘Spoons’ her mother would have called it, as in polite households where the cutlery was carefully put away on its side, not like in her house where her mother thought people had better things to do like painting, reading and going for walks on Tynemouth beach and making sticky toffee cake. The old familiar loneliness punched at Abby’s insides again, but it was not quite so bad today because she had cried and somebody had been there to hold her. At least, she thought that he had. The embarrassment ousted the other feelings and her face burned. She fled and it was only when she reached her own room that she remembered it was Christmas morning.

She washed and dressed and went down to the dining-room, where her father and several other people were breakfasting. She kissed him, but felt somehow as though she had betrayed him, as though she had done something wrong. She couldn’t eat. People were merry and there were sausages and hot coffee, but the smell of food made Abby feel sick. She had a terrible desire to confess what she had done. Only the thought that William Collingwood would no doubt beat his son all over again stopped her. They would blame him. She wished that she had not left the party. She watched Edward across the table, sitting with his best friend from school, Toby Emory, and she could not equate him with the boy she had left upstairs, his silent tongue and closed expression. Edward and Toby were laughing and talking about horses. Edward’s father had bought him a new hunter for Christmas and they had already been down to the stables.

Nobody noticed that Abby didn’t eat. She went off to church with her father and the others in the nearby village. In church, she felt dirty and she was cross with Gil. This visit could have been so pleasant. Another girl, Rhoda Carlisle, who came from Allendale Town at the top end of Tynedale where it met Weardale on the felltops, chatted freely to her as they came out of church. She was here with her parents and two small brothers. Rhoda was a tall, pretty, brown-haired girl who liked books, and when they got back to the house Abby was happier. She had done nothing wrong. And then the happiness dropped away from her. Gil was there. He stood out, or was it just because of what had happened? He was taller than the other boys and stood away from them. Abby blushed until she couldn’t blush any more and ignored him. It wasn’t difficult to do. He didn’t even acknowledge her. He didn’t smile and to her he seemed unapproachable and aloof.

There was a huge meal and so many people that it ceased to matter. She wasn’t seated near him, but with Rhoda, Toby and Edward. Edward paid Abby so much attention that she was flattered and pleased.

It had snowed all the way through the meal, but afterwards it stopped and they went outside and threw snowballs at each other until it was too dark to see anything. They called by the stables to admire Edward’s new horse and Abby found herself asking, ‘What did your brother get for Christmas?’ Out the words came. She was astonished at herself and not surprised that Edward frowned.

‘I have no idea. Whatever he asked for, I suppose. Why?’

‘I just wondered.’

‘You just wondered? Tell me, Abigail, what is this sudden interest in my brother?’ His eyes danced. Abby could have hit herself.

‘He doesn’t seem very happy.’

‘You wouldn’t be very happy if your father had taken a horsewhip to you.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘My brother is stupid. He came bottom of the class. No, I lie, second to last, except in geometry. Can you imagine?’

‘I don’t think that’s much of a reason to beat somebody and lock them up.’

‘My God, you like him!’ Edward stood back, watching her from astonished eyes. ‘What is it you like best about him? His elegant manners, his erudite conversation, his fine wit?’

Abby would have given a lot to have said, ‘I liked the way he put his arms around me’, but she couldn’t. And that was the moment she realised she felt proprietorial about Gil Collingwood, as though some kind person had wrapped him up in paper and presented him to her on Christmas morning. She shook her head and laughed, but the feeling didn’t go away, even when Edward had stopped teasing her. She understood something – that touch was the most important thing in the world between people, that because of it she would have defended Gil against anyone who tried to hurt him. It was totally irrational, but her mother, Abby couldn’t help thinking, would have approved of the idea. No wonder older people kept younger people apart. There was nothing like sleeping close against someone and seeing the old day out and the new one in for bonding you together.

As she came into the house Gil was in the hall. There were shadows, it was growing dusk and the lamps were lit, but he looked straight at her and Abby looked back at him. His eyes were so dark that you couldn’t see the iris in them. He didn’t say anything and Abby didn’t linger. Late in the evening, when she had danced with half a dozen different boys and hated every moment of it because he didn’t ask her and she couldn’t see him, she went outside just to get away. It was bitterly cold out there; she had put on her coat and boots. She needed the quietness. It was completely still, just like the previous night, with a huge full moon and a complete quota of stars. Abby walked away from the house on the crisp snow; the trees were thick with it. Further over, the snow became too heavy on one branch and dropped with a dull thud to the ground.

She was feeling a little melancholy. Everyone sounded so happy. It made her think of last year and what things had been like then. Her mother had been well and in her impetuous way had decorated the whole house, made two Christmas cakes and bought Abby every single gift she had shown an inclination for. She wondered whether her mother could have known that it was the last Christmas they would ever spend together and consequently had made it the best ever. Why was it, Abby thought, that you could not return to those times? She thought of her mother’s sweet laughter. It had snowed then, too, on Christmas Eve and her mother had taken her by the hand and run outside and they had danced in the garden. Abby could remember the small, square snowflakes on her dark hair. And every year they had made the snow angels. Abby couldn’t bear to remember it. It seemed to her now that her childhood was completely lost because her mother had given her that childhood. Her father was a kind man, but it was not the same. It was all gone; it was finished; nothing would ever be like that again.

She heard a movement behind her, jumped and turned around quickly. There was Gil. Abby couldn’t help feeling irritated. Did he have to be there every time she cried? Except that she was not crying, not quite. He was taller close to, much taller than she was. Slender and in expensive dark clothes and a white shirt, he matched the night, blended as if he wasn’t really there, just of her imagination. Abby couldn’t help but compare him with his brother and find Edward wanting. Gil really was very nice to look at.

‘You could have asked me to dance,’ she said.

‘Don’t know how.’

‘I got six boxes of handkerchiefs for Christmas. I didn’t realise they would be so useful.’ And she scrubbed at her face and looked at him. ‘Do you know how to make snow angels?’

‘What?’

She didn’t explain further. She stood with her feet together and her arms down by her sides and let herself fall straight back into the snow. Then she swept her arms and legs into a semicircle and got up carefully so as not to spoil the impression.

‘There,’ she said.

He smiled. It was not exactly an earth-shattering event, Abby thought. He contained it as though the effort of anything bigger would have been too much and it went almost as fast as it came, but she saw it.

‘Go on then,’ she said, and to her surprise he did.

Gil got up and stood back and Abby looked approvingly at the impressions in the snow before they turned and walked back to the house, towards the music and the lights. Her mother would have been pleased, Abby thought, and she felt peaceful as she had not felt since her mother died.

They say that time heals, but it isn’t true. If anything, as you get further and further away from the death of the person you loved, so you see them more clearly, remember them more frequently, wish for them with an emptiness which gets bigger and bigger. Her father didn’t mention her mother’s name after a while, so that in a way Abby wished she could think of her mother as ‘Bella’ and that she could shout her name out when she went to the cemetery or when she stepped into a roomful of people. Nobody spoke of her. There was nothing left.

Rhoda Carlisle’s father died only a month after the Christmas party. Abby wrote, knowing exactly how Rhoda would feel because she had been close to her father. Abby remembered him. He was a botanist, a kind, unworldly man who cared for nothing but flowers and insects and butterflies. Although he came from a family with a great deal of money, he settled in a tiny dales town without society or worldliness and he had loved it there.

Rhoda soon had other problems. Within six months of her father’s death her mother had married again, the son of a local farmer, several years younger than she. People sniggered and said that Jos Allsop had married the silly woman for her money and that she had married him to warm her bed. Abby could only be thankful that her father had not been equally foolish, though she knew that he was lonely. He could easily have married again, he was a prosperous, respected man. In the early days Abby had been fearful every time an eligible woman drew near, but it was as though he didn’t see them, as though Bella’s death had blinded him. And yet, Abby thought ruefully, he saw too much. Once, when they had come home from what had been an enjoyable party, he put his hand on her shoulder and said, ‘Don’t fret, lass, there’ll be no mistress here but thee.’

Abby stammered and disclaimed, said that she