The house lay at the end of a bumpy, gravelly track. It was not really part of the village at all: it was a mile or two outside the village, and it was much bigger than Mother had described it. Mother had made it sound an enchanted place: a tiny pretty cottage, the walls covered with roses or ivy, and sunlight glinting permanently on the windows. But it was not like that at all; it was built of the same grey stone as the village shops, and it had twisty chimneys and gardens all round it. There was a white gate that swung inwards, and a crunchy path led up to the door. A little lamp hung over the door – it gave out a lovely amber glow that made you feel warm and hopeful – and there was a light on in one of the downstairs windows. And surely, oh surely, the lady who lived here – the lady who had had the handsome young man in love with her all those years ago – would still be here. Because this was the beckoning dream at last: it was the place that had shone like a beacon all your life. I can’t have come all this way to find she’s moved away, or died.
It was the hardest thing yet to reach up to the heavy door knocker, but it had to be done. The knocker rapped smartly down, and the whole world narrowed to this single moment: to the violet dusk and the scents of the garden, and the silence which was not like any silence anywhere else. Light years spun past and whole worlds were born and died, and it began to seem as if Time had become stuck and nothing was going to happen ever again.
And then the door opened and she was there, framed in the doorway, an inquiring look on her face, not particularly worried by an unexpected caller, merely wanting to know what this was about. There was the sound of a radio or a television from one of the rooms, and there was a faint drift of something savoury cooking, all mixed up with the scent of polish and cleanliness.
‘Yes?’
She was not quite as Mother’s stories had suggested. For one thing she did not seem as old, although there were lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth, and her hair was grey. But when she smiled she had the most beautiful smile in the world, and it did not matter if she was seventy or only sixty, or if she was ninety or even a hundred. She had the loveliest voice in the world, as well. In Pedlar’s Yard people did not bother overmuch about voices; they just said what they had to say, and did not care how it sounded. But from now on, I’ll always know that voices are important. Not posh accents or anything like that – for a moment Pedlar’s Yard surfaced stubbornly, because it was wimpish and stupid to pretend to be posh! – but I’ll remember that a voice can be beautiful. Like a midnight sky. Like velvet.
Take a deep breath and then say what you’ve planned. Say it properly and politely. Here I go, then. ‘I’m looking for my grandmother. But I don’t know if this is the right house.’
The lady with the voice like a midnight sky and the most beautiful smile in the world, said, ‘It could be the right house. What is your grandmother’s name?’
‘Alice Wilson.’
She did not speak for a moment, and then she said, ‘Where have you come from?’
‘London. A place called Pedlar’s Yard.’
‘Oh!’ she said, and there was a moment when something seemed to switch on behind her eyes, and there was the feeling of an emotion suddenly springing out of nowhere, and whatever the emotion was, it was so extremely strong that it would not have been surprising to see it leap out and take solid shape in the dusk-lit garden.
Then she said, ‘Then this is the right house. I’m Alice Wilson. I know about Pedlar’s Yard. But I didn’t know I had a grandchild, although I’m very glad to meet you. I think you’d better come inside.’
Come inside…The words uttered by all the enchantresses in all the stories…Come inside, my dear…And sometimes ‘inside’ was evil and dangerous, and sometimes it was wonderful and magical. And until you actually stepped inside, there was absolutely no way of knowing which it was going to be.
But to do anything other than step into the house was absolutely unthinkable.
Those first days in the Priest’s House were filled with bewildering new impressions – so much so that even the aching loss of Mother – the pain that had nagged and gnawed just under the surface all the way here – became nearly bearable.