Winter’s Children: Curl up with this gripping, page-turning mystery as the nights get darker

Put in fresh cold water, cover and bring to the boil. Simmer, skim well.

Change water again, add all the seasonings and simmer until tender. Lift from the pan and cut off all meat into diced pieces.

Strain the liquor, boil until reduced by half and to a jelly when cold.

Add the meat and season to taste. Pour into moulds and chill. Turn out and garnish.

Recipe for a Dish of Frumenty

Take the crushed grains of new season’s wheat still in the husk with equal parts of milk and water and soak overnight in a stone bowl.

Cook slowly with some sugar in oven until the frumenty be as thick as jelly.

Flavour as pleases you with cinnamon, nutmeg or honey. Dried fruits may be added.

To be served on Christmas Eve, piping hot with cream or top of milk.

‘Where are those dozy wenches?’ Hepzibah muttered, seeing a maid running through the yard with no cap on. There were strangers tramping everywhere and the noise of the stuck pig rang in her ears. She scurried with her feather brush from her busyness in the little parlour that was her pride and joy. ‘Why did the girl vanish like morning mist when there was so much to be done?’ The screams were ringing in her ears, echoing from the yard where the men were at the kill. She scuttled through her chores, flicking over her ark chest and carved bedposts, her fine table and stool, and the wall-hung rack of her best pewter plates. Only Blanche had more finery than she, and much of that was disappearing fast from Bankwell House.

The pig had been lured, stuck in the throat, and even now its blood dripped into the pail. Soon she must heat the water for the scalding of its skin to scrape off the bristles. So much to do: larder to be scrubbed ready for salting down the joints before the Advent fast, the hog’s head to be set boiling in the cauldron for broth and brawn. It was a pity to waste even the trotters; they would be shared out among the helpers, for they would not keep for long.

Hepzibah was in no mood for celebration for a flood of monthly blood had woken her with such bellyache, and hopes of a summer bairn were dashed again. She was still fretting about Blanche’s boldness in church against the parson and wondered if she should bring them both under her watchful eye over this Christmastide.

She hurried back through the kitchen to chivvy up the butchery. She had great plans for their modest dwelling. Already she’d made a private parlour and a hearth for her spinning. Nathaniel bred fine sheep for market. She must keep on pestering him for a proper upstairs befitting their standing, a carved oak staircase and private chambers. The thatched roof at the back of the house was in need of repair. Sturdy stone slates would look better but Nate grumbled that it hath seen his father and grandfather through terrible winters, it could wait one more. But what was the point of fancifying their quarters if there was no heir?

She must visit the healing goodwife down in the village who sold her berry-leaf tea and prayers to the Virgin for a blessing. She hesitated many a night over that one, for it was a popish practice to make supplications in that direction. Why am I barren and Blanche is not? Hepzi paused. Perhaps if she gave alms to the poor, prayed three times a day, curtailed any frivolity of dress, the Lord would be merciful. Obedience and vigilance in worship might bend His ear in her direction too.

There must be no Christmas in this house, however much Nate complained, and perhaps there might be another way to secure His holy favour too … Oh, where was that dozy wench?

Two days later Hepzibah and her maid wrapped the brawn in its pot with a muslin cloth. Their hands were raw with rubbing saltpetre into the hams but the pig was cured, hanging safe for the winter. She had prepared the brawn especially for the parson as a goodwill offering behind Nate’s back. He was on Blanche’s side when it came to sermons.

‘Mark my words, if that old skinflint doesn’t come and prod us in the belly to see if we’ve eaten a Christmas pie,’ he sneered. ‘What does he need with our sustenance when he’s already as puffed up with air as a pig’s bladder?’

Hepzi took no notice, for she knew the holy man lived frugally in his cottage by the churchyard. It was her duty to share the Lord’s providence as a token of respect. Parson Bentley kept no servants and welcomed them to his hearth with a grey gaunt face, looking as if he were half starved, his eyes sunk deep in their sockets burning with such zeal. His house was more like a monk’s cell than a kitchen, and smelled of neglect. The rushes on the floor were stale and in need of refreshment. It lacked a woman about the place to soften the edges of its bareness and sweep out the cobwebs, brightening the shelf with trinkets rather than books. There was a bare table in need of a scrub, a stool and hard bench, nothing more but the scriptures set in a plain box.

Hepzibah presented the wrapped gift with a hesitant smile but he jumped back in alarm when he opened the wrapper.

‘I hope this be not some yuletide offering, Mistress Snowden. I cannot accept any such thing,’ he rasped.

‘No, no. It’s time for the pig kill, yuletide or no. There is more than enough for our needs, being as yet a small household. You have taught us many a time to share God’s blessings, and Nathaniel and I would deem it an honour to offer this gift for your enjoyment,’ she replied.

‘Enjoyment? Nay, lass,’ said Bentley. ‘Rich food in the belly excites the carnal urges that disobey the higher mind. There must be no pleasures of the flesh while I am God’s shepherd in your midst. Pleasure leads only to gluttony and lust.’

‘Sadly then I must take it home with me. I would not want to lead you into temptation. It was well meaning but I fear I have done wrong,’ she said, making to withdraw the parcel, but the parson stayed her hand.

‘Be not hasty, mistress. I’m sure the Lord in His wisdom prompted you to such a gesture of mercy. I see it was offered in honesty of spirit, which is more than can be said of some of your kin.’ The parson snatched the parcel and ushered her to the bench while the maid stood in the shadows. ‘I heard your cousin Norton disclaiming the word of the Lord, Sunday last. She comes weekly in my sight with her haughty manner and brings up the child in the dress of popery and idolatry. Is that not so?’ He was questioning her, his eyes burning into hers.

‘My sister in Christ hath had many troubles of late, sir. She is a widow, unused to straitened circumstances. She finds it hard to hold silence in her opinions,’ she answered with a frankness that surprised her heart.

‘Opinions, indeed! What doth a widow woman need with opinions?’ Bentley spat out his words. ‘It is forbidden in scripture for women to speak in worship. How dare she cast doubt on the Holy Writ? Is she or is she not a Christmas keeper: that is the question here?’

Her face flushed even though the fire at the hearth was meagre. All of Blanche’s conversation had been overheard, the walls of any church had ears eager to pass on mischief, the righteous spies who were only too willing to see another Norton brought down low.

‘You know, in times past the Nortons kept a great house with many celebrations but all that is long gone since the Commonwealth now rules,’ Hepzibah said. It was the best she could muster in Blanche’s defence.

‘I am pleased to hear it but what of worship? Does she intend to defy me and hold a Christ’s Mass in the chapel?’

The parson asked such direct questions that she was too flummoxed to proceed without untruths.

How would the Lord answer her longings if she spoke lies to His minister?

‘I’m not sure, sir, but she does not visit us often,’ she lied. ‘We do not meddle in each other’s affairs. She attends church as is prescribed, that I do know.’

‘But I fear such a wayward spirit within her. Was she not of the Royalist cause? I fear for her everlasting soul. A little chastening in that direction would be to her eternal interest,’ he smiled, and his breath smelled of rancid milk for his teeth were but few.

What did he mean, ‘a little chastening'? Did he mean to punish Blanche? A shiver of fear went through her.

‘If you would like me to speak to her myself …’ she offered.

‘No, but you must be my eyes and ears. The Lord will come unannounced in the night. We must prepare daily for the Judgement. I have my own plans for Mistress Norton. If ever a soul was in dire need of a humbling …’

His words trailed away as Hepzibah rose, feeling faint and nauseous by the stench of smoke and stale body odour, and the knowledge that this man would pursue her cousin further.

I must warn her and soon, she thought, warn her to be vigilant against his spies. There was a crazed hungry look in his eyes, which frightened her. She wished she had not brought meat to his door and stirred up his wrath against her cousin.

Next morning they woke to a blanket of snow: December snow that would stick, blocking all tracks, but she took heart from this as a good sign that at least the drifting would keep Parson Bentley at his hearth. He would not find it easy to go snooping. This gave her spirit some consolation.

Blanche was still her own flesh, and there was the child to consider too. She resolved to send a servant to Bankwell, to the hall down by the river, to warn her cousin not to provoke the parson into some idiocy this Christmastide. Better still, the two of them must come up to the farmhouse where no harm would befall them both. He would not dare to call on them unannounced, not with the stains of her fresh brawn on his jacket. That night it snowed hard again, blocking them fast in with drifts. The message to Blanche would have to wait. No one would be going anywhere now.

Anona Norton peered out of the mullioned window with excitement as the snow lay like a thick coverlet along the lawns and paths of Bankwell House in the winter of 1653. She wanted to run around and dance, roll over and make snowballs, leaving her footprints like deer tracks, but Mama wouldn’t let her play outside for fear of catching a chill and wearing out her boots. Why did they have to live shut away in this cold house with meagre fires when it was much more fun to go out of doors?

The snow covered the ruins at the side of the house with its whiteness. Everything looked mysterious, like the dustsheets hiding the furniture in the great parlour, which lay cold and empty all year round where she would gallop on her hobby horse, looking up at poor Papa on the wall ‘who art in Heaven'; the papa who died even before she was born.

She knew about the bad man, Cromwell, whose army foraged over the district and sacked their store barns of all good provisions so that ivy was growing over the ruined walls and there was little monies for repairs. She knew that Mama had a hidden box of treasure to pay for the fines so they didn’t have to go to Wintergill church every week.

Bankwell House stood tall in its park but everything was overgrown. It was close by the river crossing and sheltered from the northern snows but it could not withstand this new parson and his snooping spies. There was a chill wind of change in the air when he arrived. They were not allowed to use their own little chapel except in secret, and Mama said that the soldiers had stripped it bare to use as their stable. Anona thought that was nice for the horses but they left a fearful mess. Once they had gone it was put back again as best they could with windows boarded up, for the stained glass was smashed beyond repair. Here some of the villagers gathered for worship for no one could stop old Father Michael from coming over the river from his hiding hole to say Mass.

She liked the old priest, who was bent over like an arch, but he never came without some comfits in his pocket, a sweetmeat or two and nuts.

Soon it would be yuletide, and Mama promised it would be a special time, with fresh rushes strewn on the floor, proper candles and evergreens brought into the little parlour to cheer them up: holly and yew, mistletoe from the apple orchards and fresh rosemary from the little herb bed.

Since Sunday last Mama was sharp and crotchety with everyone and withdrew into her chamber to cry quietly, but Nonie knew if she pushed back the bed drapes and crept inside to hug her, she would soon sigh and feel better.

Sometimes she wished she had a real father like Uncle Nate, who was round and jolly, and laughed a lot. Aunt Hepzi was plain dressed and strict, but kind enough, so different from Mama in every way.

‘Are you sad because we can’t hold a Christ’s Mass?’ she asked once, puzzled by the parson’s angry words. If only Father Michael were the priest, but Mama said she must never tell anyone about his visits.

‘A little, child, but we will keep the holy feast days. It is our duty, whatever that black crow says,’ Mama said. ‘How else are we to give our tenants something to warm their bellies with for a few days? It is what your father did, and I will carry on even though it gets harder each year to find the extras. I cannot bear to think his cause and all who loved it died for nothing,’ Mama sighed, but Nonie did not understand.