Free The Angel Tree by Lucinda Riley Page A

the Gate Lodge, praying that its occupant might see her from the window and come
out to have a chat. LJ had popped in a few days ago with food supplies, a pair of knitting needles and some wool. She had sat patiently with Greta for an hour, teaching her the basics, but Greta
hadn’t seen her since and would set off alone into the woods.
    Then, yesterday, LJ had arrived with a hamper filled with Christmas treats.
    ‘I’m off to my sister’s house in Gloucestershire in an hour or so. I’ll be back bright and early on Boxing Day,’ she’d imparted in her usual brusque manner.
‘This lot should keep you going, and I’ve asked Mervyn, the farmhand, to drop off some fresh bread and milk whilst I’m away. Merry Christmas, dear girl. Snow is forecast for
tomorrow, so make sure you keep your fire stoked.’
    As Greta watched LJ leave, her sense of isolation had deepened. And as the snow LJ had predicted began to tumble from the sky on Christmas Eve, even the pleasure of a home-made mince pie and a
small glass of sweet sherry from the hamper hadn’t cheered her spirits.
    ‘We’re completely alone, little one,’ she’d whispered to her stomach as the nearby chapel bells chimed midnight. ‘Merry Christmas.’
    On Christmas Day Greta drew back the curtains to see a fairy-tale picture in front of her.
    The snowfall overnight had transformed the landscape. Every branch of every tree was covered with the pure white powder, as though someone had sprinkled them with icing sugar. The floor of the
woods, with the occasional dark twig piercing the snow’s perfect surface, resembled a carpet of ermine. A thick frost added twinkling highlights to the idyllic scene as the morning sun rose
higher over the frozen valley.
    Walking downstairs, Greta pondered that on any other Christmas Day, she’d have been delighted that snow had fallen, but as she relit the fire and put the kettle on the range to boil, she
thought she’d never felt so miserable.
    Later, as she cooked and ate the chicken LJ had left her, then demolished the rest of the mince pies – her appetite seemed to be insatiable these days – she reflected on past
Christmases and how very different they had been.
    Not wishing to look back, but with nothing to distract her and unable to prevent the memories flooding in, she put on her coat, hat and wellington boots and set off for her afternoon walk.
    Opening the back door, Greta stepped out, the snow crunching underfoot as she did so, her breath crystallising into thin wisps of white in the freezing air. Roaming through the woods, her mood
lifted briefly as she drank in the magical surroundings, stopping here and there to examine the glistening, frosty patterns that had formed on tree trunks and fallen branches. Yet it wasn’t
long before her mind began to wander once again.
    Perhaps, she thought, the reason she felt so low was that it had been a year ago today when the problem that had precipitated her abrupt move to London had first arisen.
    She’d had a happy childhood, living in a respectable suburb of Manchester, the only child of adoring parents. Then, one dreadful day when she was thirteen and the German air raids had
begun in earnest, her father had gone out in his black Ford car and never returned. Her sobbing, hysterical mother told her the following day that he had died in a bombing raid at the Manchester
Royal Exchange. A week later Greta had watched what was left of her beloved father being lowered into the ground.
    In the two years that followed, in an atmosphere of tension as the war raged on, her mother went into a deep depression – sometimes taking to her bed for weeks on end – while Greta
concentrated grimly on her schoolwork and buried her nose in books. The one other thing she derived comfort from was the cinema, which her mother had taken her to regularly. The world of fantasy,
in which everyone was beautiful and almost all the stories had happy endings, had provided a blessed relief