The Dead of Winter Read Free Page A

which came out victorious, and I sank into a fitful sleep, lulled by the movement of the railway carriage.
    My resting mind did not acknowledge the need for the barriers I had constructed while awake,barriers to those thoughts I found too upsetting to allow. Memories of my poor mother came to me uninvited, though once they came I would have done anything to be in their company for a lifetime and never to have woken up. Things hadn’t been easy after my father died, but we were often happy, just the two of us. When wake I did, it was as if our parting was newly forced and the pain as fresh as ever. Tears stung my eyes as soon as they opened.
    Only the desire not to appear weak and foolish in front of Jerwood dried my eyes. The lawyer was deep in the examination of the papers laid out on his lap and I looked out at the passing view.
    ‘We will soon be in Ely,’ said Jerwood, glancing up.
    I made no reply. What did I care?
    ‘A carriage will meet us at the station,’ he continued, ‘and take us on to Hawton Mere. It isn’t too far.’
    Again I made no reply. Jerwood shuffled his papers together and placed them on the seat beside him.
    ‘Michael,’ he said, ‘I understand that you must feel the world is against you –’
    ‘Do you, sir?’ I said, turning towards him, my voice choking a little. How could a man like that understand what I felt?
    ‘But you must realise that we are only trying to do what is best for you,’ he continued.
    ‘I don’t want to go!’ I said. ‘I don’t want to spend Christmas with people I don’t know.’
    Even as I said the words I realised that, with my mother gone, there could be no other kind of Christmas now. Better to spend it with the Bentleys, though. At least I knew them a little and knew them to be kindly. Jerwood nodded, as though reading these thoughts.
    ‘I understand. It must be hard for you, I know,’ he said. ‘And I do sympathise, Michael. But give Sir Stephen a chance. He has made you his ward. It is not unreasonable for him to meet you, now, is it?’
    I shrugged and looked out of the window again. It did not matter what I said. I was going to Hawton Mere whether I liked it or not. Jerwood gathered up his papers and began putting them away in his briefcase.
    ‘About your guardian,’ he said as he put the case down at his feet. ‘I should warn you that Sir Stephen has not been well of late. I have known him for many years, ever since we were children in fact, and he is a good man, but he may not be quite what you expect.’
    I had actually given very little thought to whatSir Stephen may or may not have been like until that moment. Jerwood’s words did nothing to improve my enthusiasm for meeting my guardian.
    ‘Sir Stephen has the power to be a great force for good in your life, Michael,’ said Jerwood. ‘He made a promise to your father to help you and it is to his credit that he is honouring it.’
    ‘My father died and he is alive,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing he can do for me that will ever change that.’
    Jerwood saw that further conversation on the matter was useless and turned to look out of the window, as did I. The day was ending, and the evening light gilded the steeples and the bare branches of high treetops. It sent long blue shadows across the rich brown earth of ploughed fields that were speckled with crows. The sky was clear and the cold air seemed to seep through the glass of the carriage as night approached. By the time we reached Ely the light of day was all but extinguished.

CHAPTER THREE
    The ancient cathedral stood out against the dying light of evening, looking more like a formidable castle than a church. Its size and height were exaggerated by the fact that it sat atop a low hill that seemed a mountain in this flat fenland landscape, the great spiked tower bristling on the skyline like a giant’s crown.
    I waited next to my paltry luggage while Jerwood left in search of the carriage that would take us to Hawton Mere and my