She put the paper down and looked out of the window, tired of news which grew more inevitable and depressing every day. The country seemed divided between frenzy and apathy, between those who argued passionately for or against another war, and those who were resigned to trouble but too weary to do anything about it. She veered unreliably between the two. Today, though, she was happy to join with the rest of the country in using Christmas as an excuse to put her fears to one side, and there was something soothing about letting the countryside slip past as they moved further away from the capital. She watched, entranced, as dense evergreen forests gave way to more typically English stretches of woodland: thickets of silver birch, their distinctive feature now lost against the snow, and ancient oak trees whose gnarled branches drew stark, charcoal shapes in the air. The train entered a long cutting, then the banks cut away without warning, revealing a vast, sloping landscape of white, leaving the carriages feeling suddenly exposed.
‘Oh my God.’ Josephine looked at Marta, who had picked up the discarded Times. ‘No wonder Archie was so smug. Just look at this.’ She passed the newspaper back, open at the article that had caught her interest. ‘Christmas with Marlene. That really is a coup. Why on earth didn’t I pack something more daring?’
Josephine laughed. ‘I love the idea that we could even begin to compete.’ She scanned the news story in disbelief, feeling both excited and intimidated at the prospect of meeting one of the most famous women in the world. The headline – ‘Hollywood’s “Angel” lives up to her name’ – sat next to a familiar photograph, a still from the film Morocco in which Dietrich wore a man’s tuxedo and top hat, brazenly modelling the androgynous image that had made her so popular with men and women alike. There was a cigarette poised provocatively at her lips, her eyes a mixture of defiance and devilish charm; Josephine looked admiringly at the high cheekbones, sculpted so carefully by the light, and wondered what it would be like to sit across from that face at the dinner table.
Marta seemed to share her thoughts. ‘It’s silly, isn’t it? You and I know lots of actors and actresses. We’re both familiar with that world and really shouldn’t be star-struck, but I’m already panicking about what I might find to say to her.’
‘At least we can be honest about her last film,’ Josephine said wryly. ‘It was the first time she seemed human.’
‘And it’s given The Times a good headline.’ Marta took the paper up again, but it was impossible now to settle to the rest of the news. ‘I bet Archie will have some tales to tell by the time he gets to Cornwall,’ she said. ‘I can’t wait to get him on his own.’
2
The church was quiet in the early morning, although the wind was rising again outside, finding a rhythm with the waves on the rocks below until it was difficult to separate one sound from another. Nora Pendean hesitated by the north entrance, taking in the familiar stillness, the faint smell of incense and polish, and the soft rattle of the organ loft door as the draught from the terrace caught it. She had known this church all her life, through good times and bad. People had worshipped here for eight hundred years, and – despite the hand of a more modern restorer – these old stone walls still carried echoes of the monks for whom they had originally been built. Sometimes, if she was here at night, she imagined she could hear their prayers in the wind that came off the sea, their footsteps climbing the narrow staircase to the top of the tower, lighting the beacon to guide fishing boats home under a star-bright sky. Here, the past was never far away.
She closed the door behind her and walked down the central aisle, where a shaft of light through the east rose window threw a kaleidoscope of colour onto the flagstones to dance in patterns at her feet. The winter sun was grudging, but still it reached the statue of the saint who gave St Michael’s Mount its name, bringing out the fire in the bronze and giving the winged figure a dramatic intensity, appropriate to the struggle of good over evil. The combination of zeal and mercy on the saint’s face never failed to move her, although she couldn’t help but feel that it was she who was judged these days, and not the figure of Lucifer who lay at his feet. She shivered as the initial relief of coming in from the cold subsided, and turned to set about her work, struck by how beautiful the church was, and by how much she hated it. Its magic, once so compelling, was dead to her.
Two crates of holly and other greenery had been left ready for her, freshly cut and brought over from the mainland. She rinsed all the vases in the tiny vestry and began to make up the arrangements for the service the following day, wincing whenever the holly caught her skin. There was more than enough to dress the altar, so she filled each window ledge with garlands of ivy and mistletoe, the berries stark against the green like tiny moons on a winter’s night. The wood around the altar needed polishing and she did it with care – not out of love now, but because it was her job – then hung the last of the greenery at the end of the family pews, fighting back tears as the familiar rituals of the season emphasised the passing of time.
The pews hid a narrow staircase leading down to an underground chamber, once a hermit’s cell and used these days as a storeroom. Nora took the uneven steps carefully, glad of the daylight that followed her down, and braced herself against the mustiness of the small, enclosed space. She rummaged around in some boxes and soon found the last of the decorations, together with one or two pieces of silver which were used for the most important services of the year. When the altar was complete, she unwound the chain which lowered a heavy gilt chandelier down from its place above the nave; changing the candles was a laborious task and she was glad that they were lit only at Christmas, but Jenna had always loved helping her, demanding to be lifted up in her mother’s arms until the year that she was finally tall enough to reach the highest crown of fixtures on her own. Nora paused, feeling for a moment the warmth of her little girl’s body, remembering the laughter that had seemed to fill so much of those eighteen treasured years. She had been so proud of the young woman who replaced the child, and even now, when there was no option but to accept it, she could scarcely believe that she would never see her daughter again. Perhaps, in time, her memories would be a comfort to her; at the moment, with her grief still so raw, it was as much as she could do to get out of bed in the morning.
The sun had moved round while she worked, a reminder that the day was slipping away and she still had plenty to do. She had forgotten to collect the missing nativity figure from the museum, which meant an extra trip down to the village that she really could have done without, and hurried across the terrace and back through the house. The doors to the guest rooms were wide open, and she could hear the crisp snap of sheets being shaken as she passed, accompanied by expectant chatter amongst the housemaids. She had been wrong to assume that Marlene Dietrich’s birthplace would be more important than her celebrity; most of the staff had been thrilled by the prospect of looking after a Hollywood star, and only the older members of the household had shared her reservations, most notably those who remembered the last war. She looked at the clock: the first train was due soon, and from then on there would be a steady stream of arrivals, taking advantage of low tide to cross with their luggage by car rather than boat. She told the maids to get a move on, then left the castle and took the Pilgrims’ Steps down to the harbour.