Anne Perry s Christmas Mysteries Page 0,37

a slow-growing disease within, killing inch by inch.

It was snowing quite hard now, lying thick and light on the ground, beginning to drift on the windward side of the furrows left in the fields after their winter plowing, and on the trunks of the trees. The wind was blowing too hard for the snow to stay on the branches as they swayed against the sky. There was little sound from the pony's hooves because the ground was blanketed already, just the deep moan of the wind and the creak of the wheels. It was a hard, beautiful world, invigorating, ice-cold, and on every side, sweet and sharp-smelling from the sea, infinitely wide.

She arrived back at Snave before she was really ready, but there was no help for it. And maybe she would never feel as if it were time. She allowed the stable boy to assist her, and to his surprise thanked him for his care.

Inside she took off her cape and shawl and was very glad to be in the warmth again. Her hands were almost numb from the cold and her face was stinging, her eyes watering, but she had never felt more intensely alive. She was terrified, and yet there was an unmistakable bubble of courage inside her, as if something of Maude's vitality and hunger for life had been bequeathed to her.

She was too late for luncheon, and too excited to eat much anyway. Cook had prepared a tray for her with soup and new, warm bread, and that was really all she required. She thanked her sincerely, with a compliment, and after finishing it all, went upstairs with the excuse that she wished to lie down. In reality she wanted to prepare herself for the evening. It was going to be one of the biggest of her life, perhaps her only real achievement. It would require all the nerve and the intelligence she possessed. There was in her mind no doubt of the truth now. Proving it would be altogether another matter, but if she did not attempt it, whatever it cost her, then she would have failed the last chance that fate had offered.

***

She dressed very carefully, in the housekeeper's best black gown, and thanked the maid. It seemed appropriate. She was going to be a different person from the woman she had been as long as she could clearly remember. She was going to be brave, face all the ugliness, the shame, and the failure, and be gentle toward them, because she understood them intimately. She had been a liar herself, and every stupid ugly corner of it was familiar. She had been a coward, and its corroding shroud had covered every part of her life. She had tried to touch other people's lives with her own meanness of spirit, her belief in failure. There was no victory in that. One could spoil others, dirty them, damage what could have been whole. Now she could touch all their wounds with pity, but none of them could deceive her.

She regarded herself in the glass. She looked different from the way she was accustomed. It was more than the dress that was not her own; the face also was not the one that had been hers for so long. There was color in her skin. Her eyes were brighter. Most of all the sulk had gone from her lips, and the lines seemed to be curving upward, not down.

Ridiculous! She had never been pretty, and she wasn't now. If she did not know better, she would think she had been imbibing rather too freely of the Christmas spirit, of that nature that comes in a bottle!

She straightened her skirt a last time, and went down to join the family for dinner. Tomorrow she would leave. She would probably have to, even if the snow were up to the eaves! There was something exhilarating, and a little mad, in casting the last die, crossing the Rubicon, if she were remembering her schoolroom history correctly. It was war! Triumph or disaster, because she could not stop until it was over.

PART THREE

SHE WAS A FEW MINUTES LATE, AS SHE HAD intended. There was very little time before dinner was announced and they all went into the dining room. It was now looking even more festive, with scarlet berries intertwined in the wreaths and the swags along the mantelpiece, all tied with gold ribbons. There were scarlet candles on the table, even though they were not yet lit, and