“But it doesn’t make sense. He didn’t even know me!”
“Lots of things Armand chose to do didn’t make sense. That was the kind of man he was but believe me he wasn’t one to make decisions lightly. If he chose you then he did so for a good reason. Why not accept your good luck and see what happens?”
“That’s what my friend keeps telling me,” Ness sighed.
She could almost hear Mel yelling in her ear to just take the bloody island and shut up!
“From waitress to heiress! It’s like Cinderella!” Her friend had said. “Can’t you just be happy? It’s a fairy tale come true.”
Ness sighed. She was happy and excited but she was also uneasy too because this wasn’t really her fairy tale, was it? It should have been Lucy’s. She was the real Cinderella in this story.
“What if I decided to give the island to Lucy? Could I do that?”
David flicked her a glance. “Is that what you want to do?”
Ness shrugged. “It seems fairer.”
“I appreciate that, Nessa, and I know this must all feel very strange,” David replied. “But the point is that, strange or not, it’s what Armand wanted. If you don’t wish to be the beneficiary of his will then it goes to the next of kin and I suppose technically Jamie would inherit, being the eldest male relative living but I can tell you with one hundred percent certainly this is the antithesis of what your uncle wanted. Jamie is the last person Armand would have left the island to.”
“But why? Why not Jamie?” Ness asked.
But David wasn’t prepared to answer this.
“You’ll meet him soon enough,” was all he said.
So Ness didn’t press him and the solicitor killed the engine. Moments later he was opening the passenger door for her.
“The family use the south tower,” he explained as Ness stared upwards, her eyes widening when she noticed battlements and crenulations. She owned battlements? And were those actually cannons that she could see? If she wasn’t already black and blue from the drive over, Ness would have pinched herself. Surely any minute now she’d wake up in her narrow bed, the sheet sticking to her, and with the air con roaring away? With her head spinning as much from the surreal nature of everything as looking upwards, she grabbed her bag and followed David Brown across this smaller courtyard.
“The kitchen’s over to our right; what remains of the Great Hall is on the left, and then there’s the winter parlour,” he was saying. “The rest of the rooms beyond that are in the tower where the family live, although sometimes they open the music room up too. At Christmas there’s always a wonderful tree in the hall and a carol concert featuring Mr Penwellyn’s Cornish Winter from his Island Suite.”
“You sound like a tour guide,” Ness remarked.
“That’s because I am. Twice a month I volunteer my services and show the visitors round.” He stopped so abruptly that Ness almost slammed into him, and he spun around to face her. “Don’t be fooled by the grandeur of what you’re seeing. This place is run and tended by volunteers from the town who give their time and energy to looking after it, as well as a few folks who live here and work for a pittance.”
She nodded. The size and beauty of the castle were breathtaking but there was no hiding the fact that nature was doing her best to capture by stealth what sieges and gunfire had failed to fully destroy.
“And don’t underestimate the strength of feeling that exists about this place, either. It’s very much a part of St Pirran and its local history. You’ve inherited a huge responsibility, and what you choose to do with it is going to have significance above and beyond the Penwellyn family.”
That sounded like a warning if she’d ever heard one, Ness thought. What on earth did David think she was going to do with the place? Sell it to Disney? Build a nightclub? Bulldoze the lot and build a carbuncle?
She was just about the ask him when a liver-and-white spaniel shot out of a doorway and hurtled towards them, jumping up at David and barking joyously before hurling itself at Ness.
“Biscuit! Get down, boy!” David lunged for the spaniel’s collar but missed. Seconds later Ness found herself on the ground with a pink tongue licking her and silky ears brushing her face.
“Biscuit! Biscuit! You naughty dog!” A woman scuttled down the worn steps, her wispy blonde hair falling into her face as she ran, and tugged the spaniel away. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right? He hasn’t got you dirty has he? Oh, Biscuit! You bad boy!”
“I’m fine,” Ness assured her as she got to her feet and brushed dried grass and mud from her white jeans. With hindsight it was a bad idea to have worn them; white clothing always seemed to invite muddy-pawed dogs or some other kind of trouble.
“He never usually does that. He must really like you. Perhaps he knows you’re family?” Biscuit’s owner said, biting her lip in distress and regarding Ness with worried forget-me-not blue eyes. Keeping two fingers of her left hand curled tightly into the dog’s collar, the woman held out her right one. “I’m Lucy Penwellyn – and you must be Nessa. Welcome to Pirran Island.”
Ness took the hand and shook it. The fingers were rough and the nails had been nibbled almost to the quick, but the grip was firm and Lucy’s smile was warm. Since Addy’s death Ness had been on her own; until this second she’d had no idea just how adrift and lonely this had made her feel. There was an enormous lump in her throat. This woman was her cousin and they were related. They were family.
She had a family.
“Please, call me Ness,” she said.
Lucy smiled again. “It’s wonderful to see you, Ness. Everyone’s waiting in the library.” She turned to David. “I thought that would be the best place?”
“Everyone?” David said as the climbed the steps to the arched door. Lucy raked a hand through her hair. Judging by the way it was standing on end at the back, she’d been doing this quite a bit already.
“I mean Jamie,” Lucy said. “Oh dear. He feels like more than one person at times.”
David didn’t reply but nodded. Interesting, thought Ness. Her welcome from Jamie wouldn’t be quite as warm as Lucy’s and certainly wouldn’t be anywhere near as enthusiastic as Biscuit’s. Then again, Jamie Penwellyn would have assumed he was inheriting everything and was probably seething now that he’d been proved wrong.
She raised her chin. Well, let him seethe. For some reason their uncle had chosen her over him and, no matter how intimidated this place made her feel or how nervous she was right now, Ness was determined not to let Armand down. She already had the strange impression that David no longer trusted her, and judging by the way Lucy was gnawing her thumbnail she was on edge too. The sooner the full will was read and everyone knew exactly what they were dealing with, the better.
Ness hesitated beneath the arched doorway as the others stepped inside. The entrance pooled with shadows and for a moment the only sounds were Biscuit’s claws clicking on the flagstones and the calling of the seagulls high above. This was it. Once she stepped over the threshold she was inside the castle and setting foot in Addy’s childhood home. Mysteries and secrets and angry cousins lay ahead. Was she ready for them? Ready for the undercurrents and unsaid words swirling like the sea beyond the rocks? The answer was probably not, but it didn’t look as though she had any choice in the matter; like it or not, this place was now her home and her responsibility.
Taking a deep breath, Ness stepped into her castle.
Chapter 9
The castle was cool and still; only the steady ticking of a longcase clock and the click of paws on stone broke the silence. It felt to Ness as though the place was holding its breath. Dust motes and dog hair twirled in the beam of sunlight filtering down from a high slit window, and the walls bulged as though the weight of the old muskets and staffs on display here were too much for the ancient stones to bear.
“This is the Small Hall. The Great Hall’s in ruins now,” Lucy told Nessa. “It’s really nice here in the winter when the fire’s lit, but otherwise we
don’t tend to use it much. Mostly we just pass through.”
Small Hall? Ness could have fitted most of the dive hotel in this cavernous space. She looked around her in interest. A coat of arms was emblazoned above a huge fireplace that was easily six feet tall and topped by a blackened breastsummer, and three oak doors led off from the far end into narrow tunnel-like passageways going who knew where.
Dusty, mournful-eyed hunting trophies regarded her from on high and a faded tapestry hung on the far wall, but what struck Ness were the four large portraits that dominated the wall directly opposite her.
Her hand flew to her mouth. There was no mistaking that bold style; she would have recognised those confident, vivid brushstrokes anywhere.
“My father painted these!”
“There’s quite a lot of your father’s work here. Uncle Armand kept it all but I know these portraits were especially important to him,” Lucy said.
“That’s Dad!” Ness stared up at the first portrait in amazement. It was Addy all right, but younger and without the deep lines that had crisscrossed his face in later life. Those gas-flame blue eyes and that mane of deep red hair were all his, as was that characteristic lack of self-consciousness as he stood with one hand in the pocket of his jeans and the other resting loosely on the windowsill. The shock of being confronted with him so soon on her arrival was overwhelming – so much so that Ness had to breathe deeply to try to calm her racing pulse. History, both her own and that of the castle, was all around her. This self-portrait was from a time before grief and fear and loss had changed him forever, and Ness was both thrilled and saddened to catch a glimpse of the young man he’d once been.
The next two portraits were of her uncles, Maudsley and Armand himself – both caught forever in time as young men, preserved for posterity like dragonflies in amber. As she looked at the paintings Ness had the unnerving experience of seeing her own features reflected back at her across the years. The slightly too long nose and the high brow were theirs too, as was the determined chin, but the heart-shaped face and wide green eyes belonged to the subject of the fourth painting: Beth Penwellyn, her mother.
Unlike the three brothers, who had been depicted in casual clothes and inside the castle, Beth was outdoors and yet formally dressed. She was wearing a crimson ballgown that exposed her golden shoulders, around which fell her glossy curls of long brown hair. With her back to the painter, and looking over one shoulder beyond him, she was standing on the rocks with the waves breaking behind her. Her attention was held firmly by something, or someone, in the distance. A violin hung loosely from her left hand and a bow dangled from the right.
“That’s my mother.” Ness was overwhelmed. Any mental images she had of Beth had been gleaned from Addy’s few faded snapshots. They’d shown a pretty young woman with laughing green eyes, but none of these snaps had captured Beth’s pure sensuality the way this portrait did. Every brushstroke and swirl of paint brimmed with desire and, oddly, danger.
Ness shook her head. Danger? What a strange thing to think.
“I’m sorry,” she said, realising that David and Lucy were waiting for her. “It’s a bit of a shock. Dad’s only been gone three years and as for my mother—” the word caught in her throat and for a moment she struggled to continue. “I’ve never seen a proper picture of my mother before. Not like this one, anyway. Addy never really spoke about her.”
Lucy laid a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, Ness. It didn’t occur to me this might be upsetting for you.”
Ness shook her head. “Please don’t apologise. It’s not upsetting exactly, maybe just a little strange.”
How did she feel, Ness wondered? Punched in the solar plexus. Winded. That described it. As soon as she’d looked at the picture her skin had prickled. Was it a coincidence that Beth was framed by the same ocean that had claimed her life? And why would her uncle have kept the portraits when he’d been estranged from both his younger brothers? Something here was as discordant as the notes in her uncle’s compositions.
“There’s a lot of family history here,” David said gently. “It’s going to take some getting used to. Maybe we should get the official business out of the way? Then you and Lucy can talk.”
Lucy nodded. “I can tell you what I know, although I should warn you that it’s easier to pull limpets off the rocks than it was to get Uncle Armand to talk about the past. He had that in common with your father, at least.”
There were family secrets here more convoluted and confusing than the twisting passageways that Lucy was now leading them through, Ness thought, still feeling shaken. As she followed her cousin’s denim-clad backside, she had the unsettling sensation that she was being led into a deep labyrinth. If she lost sight of Lucy, she didn’t think she could find her way out again: the corridors zigzagged erratically and the flights of tight curving steps wound ever closer into the centre of the place. The only light came from arrow-slit windows or skylights high above, through which she glimpsed slices of blue. Otherwise all was dark and oak-beamed and claustrophobic. What a place for her uncle to shut himself away. It was a fortress of the mind just as much as it was a physical fortress.
After what seemed like an endless climb, they reached a small room with latticed windows filled with the bright blue of the sea. Below was a dizzying drop to emerald-green gardens and a jigsaw of overgrown walled terraces, with the town lying beyond the golden apron of sandy beach. A steady crocodile of people wound to and from the causeway. Having taken a moment to absorb this view, Ness looked around her at the rest of the room. Two battered sofas flanked a stone fireplace and there were several well-stocked bookcases crammed with a mixture of classic fiction and romances.
Seeing Ness looking at this selection of novels, Lucy blushed. “All mine, I’m afraid. They’re my guilty pleasure. This is the solar, the room I use the most.”
“It’s a lovely space,” Ness said. After the darkness of the enclosed passageways the solar felt like the architectural equivalent of heaving a sigh of relief. “And anyway, there’s nothing wrong with reading for pleasure. Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins have got me through some tough times.”
Lucy looked pleased. “Oh! I do love a good Jilly. I think I’ve still got Riders tucked away somewhere. I have such a soft spot for Rupert Campbell-Black.”
“And what a lovely place to read about him,” Ness remarked. Wow. Talk about Rapunzel’s tower, with Lucy as a rather faded princess. Had a handsome prince rocked up to rescue her at any point? Judging by how nervous she was every time somebody mentioned Jamie, Ness didn’t think so. Poor Lucy was totally in thrall to her brother.
Well, now Ness was in charge that could change for a start. Girl power hadn’t ended when the Spice Girls broke up!
“After the medieval wing it’s nice to have some daylight, isn’t it? I always think whoever added this part on in the seventeenth century did a good job,” Lucy was saying, interrupting Ness’s daydreams of platform shoes and Union Jack dresses. Giving herself a mental shake, Ness dragged her concentration back to what her cousin was telling her.
“So it’s not all Norman?” she asked, hoping her question made sense. She’d been doing her best to read up on the place, but her British history was vague to say the least. She’d had little education in such things, whereas she could recite the McDonald’s menu like a parrot – another thing to thank her father for.
“Not all of it. Some parts were added to later on, or the older parts adapted. I’ll give you a proper tour of the place later,” Lucy promised. “I know it must feel like a warren but, honestly, it isn’t that bad. You’ll soon get the hang of it. If you keep it, of course.”
Ness was about to ask Lucy how she felt about all this when a door flew open and a scowling young man burst into the solar.
“For Christ’s sake, Lucy. Give her the bloody history lecture later on, can’t you? I’ve been waiting for hours and, unlike you, I’ve got real business that needs attending to.”
This had to be Lucy’s br
other Jamie. What a charmer, thought Ness. Although he had the same colouring and blue eyes as his sister, there any similarities ended. Whereas Lucy’s blue eyes were lined and a little faded, exhaustion and sadness having taken their toll on the pretty lively girl she must have been, her brother’s were as hard and chilly as sea-washed glass. His sandy hair was receding, whereas his chin seemed to have acquired excess flab; in general his facial features had an odd blurriness to them, as though they were composed of pencil lines that somebody had tried to erase. His was a petulant and bloated look that was all too familiar to Ness from her long experience of a certain kind of expat: self-indulgent and self-important people who gorged at brunches, drank too many cocktails and spent far too much time in the hotel bars congratulating themselves for merely existing while barking orders at the locals.
Instantly she was on her guard.
“Nessa, this is your cousin, James Penwellyn.” Ever the professional, David was making polite introductions – although he was no doubt bracing himself for what was already promising to be a difficult hour or two.
“Pleased to meet you,” Ness said, holding out her hand.
Her cousin took it reluctantly, just about managing to brush her fingers with his own pudgy ones before stepping away as though he’d come into contact with something nasty. An inheritance-stealing virus maybe? thought Ness, fighting the urge to giggle.
“Likewise, I’m sure,” Jamie replied with maximum insincerity. “Shall we go into the library?”
Turning on his heel, Jamie stalked into the next room, while David gallantly held the door so that Ness and Lucy could follow.
The library was a circular room, with one large leaded window that was in a recess filled with scarlet cushions and framed with matching velvet curtains. The walls were lined with row upon row of books with faded spines and pages edged in gold; all of them were a little dusty and unloved, but to Ness they seemed to be crying out to be held and read. The wooden floor must have glowed with beeswax once, but was now dull and scuffed where it was visible at the perimeter; the rest was covered with threadbare carpet. A standard lamp threw buttery light into what would otherwise have been the darkest part of the room, where there was a huge armchair that looked perfect for curling up and reading in. The centre of the library was occupied by a large mahogany table with four chairs pulled up around it – one of these being at the head, where Jamie immediately seated himself.
The Island Legacy Page 10
