A Christmas Letter: Snowbound in the Earl's Castle

He nodded. ‘Goodnight, Faith,’ he said, his voice low.

Her eyes filled with silent gratitude. ‘Goodnight, Marcus.’

It was only as he watched her walk up the stairs that he realised he was protecting her from himself.

Faith did her best to keep busy the next day. She got to the studio early, determined to remove the last of the glass from the old lead. Each fragment she removed was placed on the carefully drawn template she’d made. It was slow work, but absorbing, and it kept her mind off things she didn’t want to think about. However, as the hand on the clock moved closer to four her heart-rate refused to settle into its normal rhythm.

Would he come?

At four-fifteen she had her answer. There was a rap on the door, but this time, instead of opening it a split-second later, he waited for her reply. Marcus was good with boundaries, she realised. He wouldn’t overstep their agreement, and she knew she wouldn’t have to remind him of it even once in the coming fortnight. So why didn’t that make her feel any happier?

‘Come in,’ she called, feeling her own boundaries crumble a little further, like the scattering of grit and pebbles just before a rock-fall. Mentally, she shored them up as best she could.

‘Hello,’ he said.

His expression was shuttered, wary. It was almost the way he’d looked at her on that first morning, except…She had the oddest feeling that although the walls were back it wasn’t that he was pushing her away, but holding himself back.

She cleared her throat. ‘Hi.’

Platonic, she’d said. And Marcus had wanted to be informed of any interesting developments regarding the window. She could do this. She could do platonic and professional. She’d never had any problems with it before.

‘Come and see.’ She indicated the half pulled apart window on the table in front of her.

He nodded and, just as he’d done for the whole of the previous week, asked thoughtful, intelligent questions. She answered him clearly, adding in interesting facts, which had also become her habit. Anyone watching them would have thought nothing had changed, that what had happened in the cellar had stayed in the cellar.

Faith knew better.

The whole time they talked there was an undercurrent that hadn’t been there before, pulsing away beneath the surface.

And they didn’t deny it—to themselves or each other—but by tacit agreement decided to leave it be. It was frustrating, but it was honest. She didn’t think she could have lied to him anyway. Somehow he could see inside her. It wasn’t that she’d let her barriers fall—they were still tightly in place—but that to him, and only him, they were like the glass on the table in front of her.

‘I’ve asked Shirley to rustle up some help with the cellar,’ he said. ‘She’s sending a couple of the part-time cleaning staff down. There should be waiting for us by the time we get there.’

She nodded, knowing this was a good idea—a fabulous idea—even as her heart sank. It was a good idea to give Basil some back-up.

‘Hope they like dust,’ she said as she grabbed her coat, ‘and badgers …’

Marcus’s father had always accused him of being a contrary child with an iron will, and now that resolve served him well. Even so, the cellar-cleaning crew became his safety net over the next few days, stopping him giving in to the urge to ‘lose’ the doorstop one evening and do something stupid.

It didn’t help him forget, though. He couldn’t erase the memory of that kiss, that sweet, soft, unfinished kiss.

From the way Faith’s gaze would snag with his, the way she’d colour and look away, he guessed she was suffering the same way. But she’d asked for friendship alone. They had an agreement and he was honouring it.

They were both back safely behind their respective walls of polite friendliness. That should have been enough, but it wasn’t helping. Walls that were three feet thick were a great idea, but if those walls were transparent …

It made the whole thing worse. Now he could see Technicolor Faith all the time, but he knew he couldn’t—shouldn’t—reach out and touch her. Even so, he could feel his resolve slipping a little more every day. It had started with his wanting to keep her safe, to protect her, and now he was starting to want to give her other things. Things he hadn’t realised he still had left to give. Maybe he didn’t. And they were things Faith McKinnon didn’t even want.

He just had to keep it all together for another ten days. That was all.

Late Friday morning he was passing the studio and decided to stick his head in. He found her not hunched over the table, as usual, but sitting back on her stool, hands on hips, staring at the last remaining pieces of dirty glass that she had been cleaning.

‘Problem?’ he said as he came and stood behind her, trying to see what was so perplexing.

She shook her head. ‘Not a problem…just some interesting irregularities.’

‘Not anything to do with a message?’ He shaved the words I hope off the end of that sentence.

‘No.’

He pulled up another stool and sat down next to her. ‘Talk me through it.’ This was safe enough territory.

She pushed her stool back, stood up and walked over to a second table, where she plucked a large photo of the window from a pile of papers and brought it back to show him. Marcus did his best to concentrate on what was in front of his eyes instead of the faint smell of rose gardens that always seemed to cling to her. What was it? Perfume? Shampoo? Whatever it was, he was finding it very distracting, even though he’d never really had a fondness for the blasted flowers.

She pointed to the top of the photograph. ‘See the lead there? It’s very fine and it was beautifully crafted. The work of a master glazier. No doubt about it.’

His gaze followed her slender finger down to the bottom of the picture.

‘But here…nowhere near the skill. It’s as if it’s been repaired by a local craftsman just trying to do his best.’

Marcus’s eyebrows drew together. ‘Maybe the workman wasn’t up to the job.’

She nodded. ‘Probably. But it’s not the fact that the window was repaired, but where and how that’s interesting. A breakage results in a certain pattern—either a crack in just one piece of glass, or a wider area of damage radiating out from the point of impact. See this bit down here …?’ She pointed to a long, wide section at the bottom of the pane. ‘It’s just the glass inside that border that’s been replaced. All of it. You can see it quite clearly now it’s been cleaned.’

She got up and looked at the disassembled window laid out on the end of the table. ‘The new glass is of much poorer quality.’

Faith carefully lifted two small pieces of dark green glass and held them up to the light. One was a beautiful clear emerald, the other was slightly muddier in colour, and the newer glass had a large ripple down the centre. She returned the fragments to the template. ‘It’s as if someone replaced that whole section—a long, thin rectangular section. Not the sort of shape that would come from usual damage.’

‘And that’s significant?’

She frowned and gave him a serious look, one that made him think he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.

‘I can’t quite get it out of my head that someone has removed something from the window.’

He pulled in air through his teeth. ‘Something like a message?’

For a second she said nothing, but then she pushed out a breath, stood up and ran a hand through her hair. She smiled at him, a weary little twist of her lips. ‘Ignore me. I think I’m starting to let the magic and the mystery of this place seep into me.’

He stared at the window. Now she’d mentioned it he could see the long, thin rectangle, could imagine a phrase or word being in the place where there was now plain green glass.

‘I don’t think we should tell my grandfather about this.

Not yet.’

If ever.

She nodded her agreement. ‘There’s nothing to tell, anyway. Even if there had been something else in the window, we have no way of knowing what it was.’

That was that. He should feel relieved.