Chapter Text
“It’s a white nightmare out there.” She heard his voice first before a snow-covered Siegfried entered the kitchen. His hat, the shoulders of his coat and the hem of his trousers as well as his shoes were all covered in a thick layer that started to thaw instantly after he had stepped next to the AGA, leaving a puddle on the kitchen floor. “I am sorry, I am making a right mess, but I can barely feel my feet or my hands. Could you, maybe?”
It was well past ten in the evening and she had patiently, and also a bit anxiously, waited for him to return from a late farm call, expected the journey back to Darrowby to be a difficult one when the weather had suddenly turned from bad to worse in the early afternoon. Since the early afternoon, the snowfall had been continuous. The children were already in bed after having enjoyed the snowy world outside for an hour, Helen and James had retired too not long ago. Both parents exhausted from the snowball fight Jimmy had started. Even the dogs lay cuddled side by side in the one big basket by the AGA, their fur finally dry again. Currently, Audrey was the only person at Skeldale who was still awake. And the matter-of-fact manner in which Siegfried had entered the kitchen and started speaking without even checking to see if anyone was in the room, spoke volumes. Their old routines were fully reestablished by now as if they had never spent any time apart.
Now he stood by the warm AGA, arms outstretched, his shawl covering the lower half of his face so that his eyes were almost invisible under the brim of his hat, waiting for her to remove his gloves. There was such intimacy in this gesture, such trust that she would know exactly what to do. A task practiced and executed so many times that it did not require a lot of explaining. Audrey rose from her chair, shaking her head in amusement. “We should get you some proper mittens that keep your hands warm. These,” she pulled the left one off. “might be nice for driving. They are however unsuitable for snowy weather in the Dales.”
Siegfried carefully flexed his hand, red from the cold despite having been protected by his old, dark brown leather gloves throughout the journey back to Skeldale. “But they were a present from you.”
Audrey removed the second glove, took his right hand into her warm ones and rubbed it slowly. “And you weren’t pleased about them at first.” She remembered the Christmas when she had given him this particular present. It was one of the first she had spent at Skeldale. Not a stranger to harsh winters, she had been surprised how different the conditions were in the Dales and with how little protection Siegfried went out into the cold, wintery nights. First, she had knitted him a proper, warm scarf that wrapped around his neck more than once. The second item she had bought him were the leather gloves, an extravagant, rather expensive gift that he had refused to accept at the time. It only met his approval a few days after Christmas, when the flimsy old pair of gloves he had worn thin had almost led to him losing the tip of his index finger to frostbite.
She wanted to let go of his hand, but Siegfried grasped it, held it gently in his own. “Thank you for taking such good care of me. And for these gloves.” Although his face was still hidden behind the large scarf, Audrey could see the gentle, honest smile in his eyes, knew that his words had a deeper meaning and where not only referring to a pair of simple gloves.
“Always.” Giving his hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze, she let go of it and busied herself with the kettle. The steam rising from it matched the warm feeling that had settled in the pit of her stomach.
Before the water boiled, Siegfried had taken off the snow-covered coat, removed his hat and scarf and slipped out of his shoes. She did not hear him approach but knew he was standing right behind her, when his still cold hand came to rest on her hip and the tip of his nose touched her ear. “And for the tea.” He whispered, then pressed a kiss on her cheek. Outside it might be cold and wintery, a world covered with a thick layer of impenetrable snow. But inside Skeldale, in her kitchen, the snow did not matter. Here it was warm with a fire burning not exclusively inside the AGA.