The Dead of Winter Read Free

rumble. I looked out of the window and saw my mother’s grave retreat from view, lost among the numberless throng of tombs and headstones.

CHAPTER TWO
    I spent a restless night at the Bentleys’ house in Highgate, packing to leave when I arose early the following day. As we journeyed to King’s Cross station that afternoon I sat in silent contemplation of my many misfortunes. I felt resentful of all those – even, I am ashamed to say, my mother – who had conspired together to bring me to this state. Grief had swiftly given way to a deep and angry bitterness.
    The sun was already sinking behind the new St Pancras Hotel when we arrived, and the difference between that tall and stylish edifice and thehumbler, squatter King’s Cross station reminded me a little of the difference between the two lawyers who now stood alongside me at the bustling station entrance.
    My bag was unloaded and I seemed to be handed from the care of one lawyer into the care of the other with detached efficiency. I felt as though I were a bundle of legal papers rather than a person.
    Having shaken Jerwood’s hand, Bentley held his hand out to me and, when I took it, he placed the other on top so that my hand was all enclosed in his, and he smiled at me, twitching and blushing a little, glancing nervously at Mr Jerwood, as if kindness were some sort of misdemeanour among lawyers. Jerwood, for his part, looked in the direction of the large clock and remarked that it was really time we ought to be going.
    ‘All will be well,’ said Bentley quietly. ‘All will be well.’
    But I was not in the mood for kindness.
    ‘Thank you for your services, Mr Bentley,’ I said coldly.
    I saw the look of hurt in his face and for a moment I felt a stab of guilt – but only for a moment. Mr Bentley smiled sadly, let go of my hand, tipped his hat and, saying farewell, walked awayto be engulfed by the crowd.
    ‘I rather think Mr Bentley may be a good man,’ said Jerwood quietly as we watched him leave. ‘I fear they’re in short supply, so value them when you find them.’
    I saw no cause to value anything about my present circumstances and I resented this lawyer for trying to influence me one way or another. I was perfectly aware that Mr and Mrs Bentley meant well, but I was tired of feeling beholden to people of whom I had asked nothing.
    We entered the great station; I followed Jerwood, who strode with stately determination through the crowds. A locomotive belched out a plume of filthy smoke that sailed up towards the wide arch of the ceiling high above.
    We found our platform and boarded our train, and had barely seated ourselves before it lurched out of the station with a squeal of wheel rims and a whistle of steam.
    The journey to Ely was uneventful, and though I had travelled very little by railway and would normally have been much excited by such a trip, I sat in the carriage with the same dull disinterest as if I had been travelling by omnibus.
    Jerwood was quite talkative in a dry and formalway, though I gave him little encouragement. By and by I realised that his stiff manner was only a kind of awkwardness, and he seemed genuinely interested in me and in the answers I gave to his questions about my life. Much as it suited me to dislike him, I found myself warming to this stranger. In fact, it took all my willpower to maintain my sullen demeanour.
    Though initially undeterred, Jerwood eventually took his lead from me and we settled into a state of quietude. The lawyer began to read through a mass of papers he had pulled from his briefcase. I wondered if any of them concerned my fate.
    I looked out of the window, staring blankly at the passing view. Had the pyramids of old Egypt appeared on the horizon I should have paid little heed. I felt as though some part of me had died with my mother and that I would never again feel truly alive.
    Exhaustion wrestled with misery for supremacy of my thoughts, but it was exhaustion – perhaps mercifully –