The Snow Sister: 'The Queen of Historical Fiction at her finest.' Guardian by Emma Carroll

Author:Emma Carroll [Emma Carroll]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571317646
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Sugared Plums

Flintfield Manor was an extremely tall house. Craning her neck at the carriage window, Pearl counted five floors, including attics and the basement. The house was made of fox-red bricks, with sills and front steps in the same cream-coloured stone. It all looked very neat and very new. Almost like a picture of a home, rather than a real one, Pearl thought.

She’d never been this close to a rich person’s house, and wondered if Silas Granger – Uncle Silas, as was – had lived in a house like Flintfield. Perhaps that was what he’d left them in his will! It was an exciting, thrilling thought. And yet, somehow, she couldn’t imagine quite how it would feel.

Once Cullen had helped Mrs Lockwood inside, he drove round to a stable yard. Rows of well-bred horses’ heads appeared over the doors to greet them.

‘Am I to stay in the stables?’ Pearl asked, as Cullen opened the carriage door.

He laughed. But she wasn’t being funny; a bed of warm straw would do until morning.

‘You and these plums are going to the kitchens,’ said Cullen.

He picked up the package from Mr Noble’s shop that Mrs Lockwood’s had left on her seat, and in one quick swoop heaved Pearl over his shoulder. Half of Pearl’s blood rushed to her head. The rest went to her ankle, making it throb like a sting.

Cullen followed a cinder path right up to the back door. On the step, he kicked the snow off his boots.

‘Put me down!’ Pearl protested.

Cullen chuckled. ‘It’s a fair walk to the kitchens, miss.’

It was too. Pearl lost count of the passages, the doors, the steps. At last they reached the kitchens.

‘Those boots of yours better be clean!’ someone called.

‘Could eat your supper off them, Mrs D,’ Cullen replied, handing over Mrs Lockwood’s package and dropping Pearl on a stool beside the range.

Slowly, the room righted itself. Pearl pushed her hair from her eyes and gasped. Everywhere she looked was white marble – cupboard tops, tabletops, boards for working pastry, even the floor at her feet. It was like being outside in the snow still, only a hundred times warmer.

As for food, there was enough here to feed a whole village. There were meat pies and fruit pies, little egg tarts on a cooling rack. Scrubbed vegetables lay in heaps, beef roasted on the range. This was a Christmas feast, Pearl thought, mouth watering. It made her pudding plans look shabby indeed.

Up on a shelf she spotted a row of muslin-wrapped basins: proper Christmas puddings, she thought, counting at least ten. She pictured all the currants and mixed peel and sugar gone into them, and it made her head spin.

When Pa came back rich they’d eat like this, she told herself. Everything would be just grand.

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