Chapter 1: Buttercup - The Golden Hours
By Louisa Young
PART ONE: CHRISTMAS 1962
The winter they got snowed in at Fakenham, Buttercup fell headfirst into a snowdrift on Christmas Eve. She was running along, flying on the snow, disrupted by the surprising depth of the steps her little feet made, and by having to pull each foot out, which made the rhythm of running patchy and hiccupy – and then a slip or a trip sent her actually flying, down the slope beyond the terraces towards the lake. Of course, she was used to toppling and landing, she was three years old, but the sheer mass of cold snow was entirely new to her. It was so crunchy, yet delicate, solidifying and matting on her woolly mittens, melting yet attacking – and when she opened her mouth to yell it invaded her, stung on her tongue, tasting of grass and mud.
She couldn’t move, and the string of her cap was pulling tight and awkward around her neck. Her eyes screwed shut. If she opened them, would she see light shining through, inside the snow? Like an igloo, with rainbows? An icy world like Narnia in Pen’s book that Nanny reads to them? Snow was pressed up against her eyelids. Would she open them? Could she? Her eyeballs might freeze into round balls of ice which an ogre could put in his drink and then she would be a little blind girl, like the terrifying motionless giant doll of a little blind girl who holds the charity box.
It was important to remember as much as possible. Frozen eyeballs, light, fear. Her mother Clary wrote things down; soon Buttercup too would write things down. Until she could write, she must remember.
Adult voices, muffled and laughing. ‘Her little boot!’ That was Aunt Louise.
Buttercup kicked her legs; pictured her red boots against the white.
‘Oh sweetheart, are you all right in there?’ said Aunt Polly.
‘Hups-a-daisy.’ Strong hands round her knees, her ribbed red tights. Daddy. Women’s hands brushing snow off. Daddy’s tweed coat rough against her cold cheek; his arms firm around her. She blinked and smiled, bestowing her beams among them like a returning champion. There was to be hot chocolate.