Laurence offered Miss Hellier his hand, amused by the contrast between the two. Miss Hellier, unlike her employer, was the epitome of well-dressed femininity, from her pageboy haircut to the perfectly aligned seams of her stockings. She smiled at him, revealing dimples, and said, “Do you take sugar with your tea, Captain? Althea can wait until we have dispensed with the usual social graces.”
“By Jove, Millie, must you fuss so?”
“Just one, please,” Laurence said, then waited until Lady Copland flung herself into a chair before he sat down. He said, cautiously, “As it happens, I stumbled upon the cottage when I was in the area recently and rather took a fancy to it. I’m looking for a quiet place in the country, you see.”
“Countless better places than that old ruin,” Lady Copland said. “Could recommend a couple in the parish myself.”
“I liked Mistle Cottage.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Lady Copland remarked, narrowing her eyes. “How the devil did you even find the place?”
“Language, Althea.”
“He’s a sailor, Millie. I’m sure he’s heard worse.”
“Misadventure, nothing more,” Laurence said, choosing his words carefully. “An old injury has left me with a tendency to lose my way. I was making for the village and got turned around, and there it was. I took shelter there until I was able to make my way back to the station.”
Lady Copland opened her mouth to speak, then closed it firmly. She looked at Miss Hellier, who lifted an elegant eyebrow and shrugged a little. Laurence, fascinated by that byplay, wasn’t ready for Miss Hellier to ask, “And when was this, Captain? It is hardly far from the cottage to the station. The weather must have been quite inclement.”
“Snow, for example,” Lady Copland said, leaning forward to glare at him.
Laurence’s heart beat a little faster. They knew something. “Does it matter when I was there? The date surely makes no difference to the state of the place?”
They exchanged glances again. Then Miss Hellier said, “The cottage has been under the protection of the Copland family for a very long time, Captain. Althea would hate to betray that trust.”
“And yet it stands in ruins,” Laurence said.
“Too ruinous, surely, to offer much shelter from a storm.” Miss Hellier slid a steaming cup of tea toward him. “Unless….”
Lady Copland, obviously impatient with this, broke in. “And why would a navy man be in Privett anyway, unless he had some connection to the area?”
Miss Hellier shot her a quelling glance. “Or unless he had been on a train that was stopped by the snow on Christmas Eve. There was a gentleman we sent a search party out for this year, one whom we weren’t entirely sure had made it back onto the London train.”
“That was uncommonly good of you,” Laurence said. “I appreciate it, and I apologize for putting you out when I had found shelter. It didn’t occur to me that I would be missed.”
Lady Copland leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table, and glared at him. “And? Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“The story, man. My brothers and I spent every childhood Christmas daring each other to ride over to the sorcerer’s cottage. Never made it, though Bill and I got close enough to see the lights one year before he got the willies and bolted. Is old Avery there?”
Laurence looked between them, unsure what to say. Then he looked at them again, at the way their bodies mirrored each other in their seats, and thought of that silent exchange of looks. Could it be…?
“Yes,” he said. “And not yet old.”
Lady Copland clenched her fist, slamming it against the table. “I knew it.”
Miss Hellier looked as thrilled, in a quieter way. “And was there… was he magic?”
Laurence nodded.
They exchanged another of those silent volleys of looks and grimaces. Then Miss Hellier said, “And what was he like? There are so many stories.”
“A perfect host. Kind. Lonely.” Laurence cleared his throat. “I hoped I could offer a friendly face next year.”
“I think it’s time that curse was broken,” Lady Copland said firmly. “And you know what else? I’m not selling to you.”
Laurence sat up in dismay. He’d been starting to hope—
“But I will rent. Peppercorn rent, if you’re willing to pay for repairs yourself. Might even make it an actual peppercorn. Or how about a wreath of holly every Christmas? That’ll do the job.”
“That’s very generous,” Laurence said.
“I’m not done. You’re a doctor, right? Decent one?”
“No.”
She looked disconcerted. “Oh. That’s not what your CO said.”
“I’m waiting for them to strike me off. Scrambled my brains, and now I can’t add up. I’m not safe to prescribe.”
“But you know how to diagnose, eh? Know what to prescribe? Can’t you just look the rest up?”
“There are calculations involved.”
She snorted. “Ways round that. Here’s the thing. Our village doctor is looking to retire once nationalization comes in. Says he’s too old for change. It’s a small surgery—babies, bumps, and old dears mostly—and we’re not having much luck finding a new chap willing to move out to the sticks—”
“I really can’t—”
“We’ll get you an assistant.” She swung to Miss Hellier. “The vicar’s Jeannie—did something hush-hush and mathematical in the war, didn’t she? A few sums shouldn’t be beyond her.”
“Jeannie’s got a job at the bank in Alton now, but young Elspeth is about to finish school, and her father is set against her taking Oxford Entrance. She would appreciate some time outside of the vicarage, I believe.”
“There you go,” Lady Copland announced to Laurence. “Cheap rent, a job, and the vicar’s Elspeth. What more could you want?”
“And does Miss Elspeth get a say in this?” Laurence wondered.
“Not if she knows what’s good for her,” Lady Copland barked, and that, despite Laurence’s ongoing protests, was that.
Chapter Six
THEN, TO Laurence’s intense frustration, the weather interfered. The temperatures had been plummeting day after day, and now the snow came too, snow on snow on snow. Laurence had thought Christmas Eve was bad, but it was nothing to this. By mid-February the whole country was buried. The electricity failed more often than it worked, coal shortages left everyone shivering, the railways were snowed under, and whole parts of the country, including Privett, were effectively cut off. Laurence, along with Lady Copland and the unflappable Miss Hellier, was stuck in London.
He fretted against it almost as much as Lady Copland did. His dreams were as snow filled as the skies, and he was caught every night in endless mazes of looming holly, chasing after a distant figure who never turned back to wait for him.
He occupied himself with practicing his coordination and pathfinding, doing everything in his power to force new routines into his damaged mind. Over the course of those long snowy weeks, it did improve, but the numbers, to his frustration, remained elusive.
“I’m a man of science,” he said bitterly to Miss Hellier, who had proven an excellent listener. “What am I supposed to do without numbers?”
She looked up from her single-sheet newspaper with a faint frown and said calmly, “Doctor, I’m a crack shot, and I can fly a Spitfire, amongst other planes. Nonetheless, they never let me take one farther than France, and that was after the D-Day landings—and now I am grounded. Sometimes we must make do with the hand we are dealt.”
Laurence blinked at her.
Lady Copland said, “Tell him about the time the bottom fell off the Typhoon, Millie.”
“It really wasn’t that exciting,” Miss Hellier demurred.
“She landed the damn thing anyway,” Lady Copland told Laurence. “Bloody brilliant.”
Miss Hellier blushed delicately.
Laurence took care not to complain to her again.