The Island Legacy

by Ruth Saberton

Ness’s green eyes shone with tears. “Who else would have deserved or known its value? He knew all along that Jamie would choose material value above anything else, which was why he let him pick his bequests!”

  Lucy thought this was exactly the kind of trick her uncle would have loved to play. “How it would have amused him to know that the real legacy was hidden in something that seemed worthless.”

  Ness grinned. “I think our uncle would also have known all I could ever buy you was time to figure it all out. He sounds like a wily old boy and my guess is that Armand knew he had to wait for Jamie to reveal his true colours so that you’d stand up to him and keep the castle from his clutches. Only then could everything else could fall into place.”

  Lucy nodded. “That’s more than likely. He’d have seen it as the ultimate riddle.”

  “Or a quest? Only the truly worthy deserving the prize?” Ness suggested. “A bit like finding the Holy Grail?”

  “So it was a treasure hunt?” asked Josh. He looked puzzled. “But where’s the treasure?”

  “It’s here. It’s this music.” Lucy hugged the score to her chest. “Josh, remember how I told you that my uncle was a famous composer and everyone was sad that his greatest work was lost? This is it. It wasn’t lost at all. He’d hidden it away for all those years!”

  “I’d want everyone to hear it. Why would he do that?” Josh said.

  It was a good question and Lucy had no idea what the answer might be. Jamie hadn’t even been born all that time ago, so why would Armand have hidden the symphony? Especially when the music world had been waiting for it so eagerly. Why had he chosen to sabotage his career?

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “All I do know is that this is something very special and that maybe the answers to lots of questions are in here.”

  “I hope so,” said Ness, still cradling the violin against her heart. “Why was it hidden with my mother’s violin? Why did he put the key behind her portrait? Why leave me the castle?” She glanced around her bedroom, at the faded yet still pretty curtains and threadbare rug. “Was this her room? Did she live here? You said that it was never used before I came, yet he’d locked everything in the chest…”

  Lucy shook her head. Why were there still so many mysteries? “I really don’t know. All I can tell you is that what I’m holding is something so valuable that it terrifies me. It’s the musical equivalent of finding a new Shakespeare play.”

  Ness looked stunned. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” said Lucy. “This is going to be massive in the musical world. Once they know about it then it’ll change everything.”

  The responsibility of having Armand Penwellyn’s finest work in her possession was overwhelming, and Lucy longed to call Adam and share this with him. He was the beginning and end of her every thought these days; it amazed her how in a short space of time their friendship had melted into love. It was a love that gave her a warm, contented glow whenever she thought of it. There was passion too – something she’d never dared hope for or even dreamed of – but above all Lucy felt that with Adam she’d finally reached the quiet harbour of utter happiness. Now that this unexpected legacy had sent ripples across the smooth surface of that harbour, it was only right he should be there so that they could talk it through together.

  Ness rose to her feet. “You need a little time alone with all this before you make any decisions. I can see from your face how huge it all is.” She held out her hand to Josh. “How about we go and see if we can find that Coke you wanted? And maybe one of Annie’s cakes?”

  Lucy appreciated her sensitivity. Ness was right: there was far more to all of this than there appeared to be – and there was something else, which Lucy hadn’t shared with her cousin. Accompanying the score had been a sheaf notes covered in her uncle’s distinctive writing, and on those notes the name Beth appeared over and over again, sometimes almost scratched into the surface with the pressure and passion of his pen. Lucy wasn’t sure what all this meant, but she had her suspicions.

  Clutching the manuscript tightly, she made her way to the music room. The empty space once occupied by the grand piano still looked strange, and since she’d shut the room up dust had fallen onto every surface. There was a sense of stillness, as though the room was holding its breath, and as she placed the score on a music stand Lucy had the oddest sensation that she was about to perform in front of an unseen audience. There was no piano, so she liberated a violin from its dusty case, nestling it under her chin and allowing the instrument to become a part of her as she tuned it. Although she wasn’t a particularly talented violinist (she was nowhere near Josh’s standard), Lucy was suddenly sure that this piece would have been composed with a violin in mind. She didn’t even need to flip the score open to know for certain; her heart told her it would be so.

  With a shaking hand Lucy turned open the cover of the manuscript, which hadn’t seen the light of day for thirty years. Sure enough, there it was written boldly in that slanting hand:

  Island Siren

  A symphony

  for Elizabeth Penwellyn

  Over one hundred bound pages of a score for piano, first violin and a full orchestra. There were scribbles, crossings outs, slurring marks and scrapped cadenzas. It was untidy, heavily annotated and completely raw, but as she began to play Lucy knew that none of this mattered. The melancholic notes sobbed from the instrument in her hands, sounding so heartbreaking that as she played Lucy wept too. There was love and loss and pain and joy here, like life itself. Even with her clumsy playing, it was the most beautiful music she had ever heard. There was no doubt about it: the lost symphony was a masterpiece.

  While she played Lucy became the music, losing all track of time and space. Outside, the tide turned and the rain dried up. It was only when the last note trembled away that she became aware of the crick in her neck and the soreness in her fingers. She’d been utterly transported, just as the entire musical world would be when they heard the symphony. Imagining this score being played by a full orchestra made the hairs rise at the back of Lucy’s neck. She had to call Armand’s agents in London, because this piece was priceless and needed to be shared. It couldn’t be hidden away for a moment longer.

  Lucy placed the violin back in the case. Her head was still full of the music and the passion that was in every note – the sharps, the flats, the minor keys. She thought she understood it. Did she even need to read the notes that accompanied the piece when Armand’s music had told her more eloquently than any words ever could why he had given up composing? For a moment she hesitated, feeling again that sense of snooping into something so painful and so private that it had remained a secret for a lifetime. Then she remembered the bleakness in Nessa’s face as she’d cradled the violin. There were answers to her cousin’s questions here and Ness deserved to hear them.

  With the notes in her hand, Lucy sat down in the window seat and prepared to read. Oh! But these weren’t notes at all. They were the pages torn from her uncle’s diary. Her mouth parched at the significance of what was held within them. Armand had left Lucy his diary and instructed her to read it. There was something here that he wanted to share. In death this most secretive of men was ready to tell his story – and Lucy owed him the respect of reading it carefully, however hard she knew she would find this.

  When she’d finished, Lucy stared out at the sea for a long time. Beth Penwellyn had met her end in that water, and what a tragic tale it was. No wonder this symphony was so powerful.

  And no wonder her uncle had hidden it.

  Lucy took a deep and steadying breath. Until Ness knew the truth, this symphony had to remain a closely guarded secret. Letting it out into the world, no matter how valuable or how much of a work of genius it might be, was no longer her choice. Only Ness could make that call.

  She rose to her feet, gathering up the diary pages and tucking them into the score, before setting off for the Small Hall. She needed to speak to Ness – and Lucy knew that this was going to be one of
the hardest things she’d ever have to do.

  Ness loved Lucy and she loved Grace Note Bay too, but walking up the hill on a stormy afternoon and being buffeted by the wind was putting that love to the test. The day had already been weird enough, Ness thought as she followed Lucy and the bounding Biscuit up the narrow path to the summit, and now it was getting weirder. Finding the key to the chest, holding her mother’s violin and realising that she’d been sleeping in Beth’s room all along had made Ness feel as though she was in some kind of dream; it was as if the flagstones beneath her feet had turned to sponge. The lost symphony turning up was something else entirely though, and Ness was thrilled for her cousin. She was no expert on music but she could imagine the excitement there would be in the press about this. Her uncle’s masterpiece was probably worth a fortune. Lucy would be set up for life and nobody deserved it more.

  So why then did her cousin look so worried? And what on earth was this route march about?

  Several paces ahead, Lucy ducked to the left. Following her, Ness saw that another path veered off here, dropping away to a hidden spot cut into the granite where the grass grew even longer and swathes of pink and white valerian bloomed. Even as the wind and drizzle blew past, this half-cave in the cliff was dry and sheltered.

  “My goodness, I had no idea this was here.” Ness was taken aback. She thought she’d explored every inch of the island, but she’d missed this secret place.

  “That makes two of us,” Lucy said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s well hidden and unless you were looking how would you know it existed?” Her cousin sat down, her back pressed against the mossy granite of the cliff.

  Ness joined her. She hugged her knees close to her chest and clasped her arms around them tightly, then looked out across the endless expanse of the sea and shivered. It didn’t look very friendly.

  “What’s going on, Lucy?” she asked.

  “There wasn’t just music in the folder. There were notes too. Or more accurately, pages from Armand’s diary,” replied Lucy, in a voice that was soft yet edged with concern and worry. The nuances in her speech told Ness there was far more to this than finding a symphony.

  She looked at her cousin and suddenly Ness realised she knew the story. Of course she did. It all made perfect sense.

  “The notes were about my mother, weren’t they?”

  “Ness, this was where Armand and your mother used to meet.”

  Ness’s voice was a whisper. “They were lovers?”

  Lucy sighed. “It seems so. Armand wrote the symphony for your mother, Ness, and he wrote it for you too. When it was finished he hid it away because he couldn’t bear to ever hear it again.”

  And suddenly Ness understood everything. It was as though she’d been looking at a tapestry from the back: the stitching was there under the mass of coloured threads, and the patterns and images were partially visible, but it was only when you turned it around that you could see the whole piece clearly and that the design made sense.

  “Armand was in love with my mother, wasn’t he?”

  Lucy nodded. “The symphony charts everything. From their first meeting, to their love affair, to the affair being discovered and then your mother’s dreadful death. I can’t do anything with it until you know the truth, Ness. It may have been left to me but it’s your legacy too. This music is your story.”

  Ness pinched the bridge of her nose hard. She would not cry. “I think you’d better tell me everything.”

  There was a rustling as Lucy pulled the pages from her jacket pocket. “It’s all here, Ness. It’s Uncle Armand’s diary, his journey through composing the symphony, right the way through to nearly destroying it. It explains everything. Here. It’s all yours.”

  But Ness shook her head. “I don’t think I could read anything right now. Can you explain it, Lucy? Tell me what it says?”

  So Lucy told her, and as Ness listened so many things that had never quite made sense before suddenly became clear. Finally she understood how three brothers, all talented and close, had ended their lives as bitter enemies. Armand, the eldest, had lived for his music and been at the peak of his success. Armand had been particularly driven and aloof, though. It had only been when he’d met the beautiful and gifted Beth that he’d finally fallen in love and composed the music that had marked him out for greatness: the famous Island Suite. Unused to feelings of passion and longing, Armand had written violin parts for Beth and poured his heart and soul into composing for her and her alone. He’d known that this woman was the love of his life. Before her arrival, music had been Armand’s only mistress – but now his passion for Beth consumed him.

  The trouble was, Beth had then fallen in love with and married his younger brother, Addy. She might live on the island, and he would see her every day, but she would always be out of Armand’s reach. The diary told how this tore him apart.

  “It was long, hot summer,” Lucy said. “Your father was painting non-stop and you were a small baby. Addy locked himself away and concentrated on his art. According to the diary entries he’d do that a lot.”

  That was about right, thought Ness. Addy had frequently done this throughout her childhood, locking himself away for days on end and cocooning himself in his work with brandy and goodness only knew what else for company. As Ness had got older he’d even taken off for weeks on end, leaving her with whatever friends were kind enough to pick up his slack. He was a genius, everyone said so, but he’d also been very hard to live with. If it had been difficult for his daughter, what must it have been like for a young woman with a baby?

  “She turned to Armand because my dad neglected her,” Ness said. No wonder Addy had never talked much about Beth. Taking responsibility for his behaviour had never been one of his distinguishing traits and he’d remained bitter for the rest of his life.

  Lucy sighed. “It seems that way. I should imagine that it was hugely flattering for her to be pursued by a famous composer and hailed as a muse. To be the object of such an intense passion must be intoxicating when you’ve felt lonely and unloved. Uncle Armand would have been the opposite of your father, I guess?”

  “If he was more interested in my mother than in himself, then I imagine so,” Ness said sadly. She’d loved her father desperately but he’d been a selfish genius. If Beth and Armand had a shared love of music, that would have drawn them closer too. As an adult she understood this – but as Beth and Addy’s child she wanted to cry.

  “It must have been overwhelming for Uncle Armand,” Lucy commented, “to have never fallen in love at all and then to have this grand passion that swept everything aside and fired him up to write his greatest work.”

  Ness saw in her mind’s eye a climbing sun, boating in coves, tanned limbs, searing heat and the lassitude of long summer days, swimming naked in the sea, making love under the blue sky…

  “I wonder what my mother did with me?” she said aloud. “If Dad was on one of his painting binges and she was with Armand, where was I?”

  “With the village woman paid to look after you,” Lucy said quietly. “You can probably guess who that was.”

  “Rose Hellier.” Now things were making sense. “She kept their secret all this time? Even when I asked her outright?”

  “She was keeping Armand’s secret. I guess she felt she couldn’t tell you, even now when he’s gone. People here are loyal like that.” Lucy looked sad. “It seems our uncle had a lot of secrets.”

  “What a lonely life that must have been,” Ness observed, and her cousin nodded.

  “He told me towards the end that he had a lot of regrets. I think that was why he tried so hard to put things right where he could. Fern staying here, for instance, and his letting Merryn live here too. Giving Rose’s grandson a home was the least our uncle could do in return for her silence.”

  “So what happened next? How did your father fall out with Armand and Dad?” Ness asked. She was trying to take it all in but it was like hearing the plot o
f a movie, one filled with picnics, music, boats and paintings as well as people whose names she knew but whom she’d never met. Only Addy felt real – and knowing him, Ness could understand how her mother might have felt. Handsome, fun Addy would sweep you off your feet and then drop you just as quickly. Ness had lost count of how many times she’d cried her eyes out because he’d let her down or been dismissive. With Addy you were constantly on the back foot, always trying to be good enough and earn the golden sunshine of his smile. Once granted it was impossible to live without.

  “My father found out and Armand persuaded him to keep quiet,” Lucy continued. “Dad did, but he must have been really torn. I think the guilt ruined his life and he blamed himself for everything that happened next. I never really knew him when he wasn’t depressed.” She gave Ness a sad smile. “Uncle Armand destroyed my father. That’s why he gave me a home and left me the music. It’s a legacy of guilt.”

  “No,” Ness said. “That’s wrong. He left you the music because he loved you, Lucy. You and Jamie were both Maudsley’s children, after all, and he didn’t leave it for Jamie.”

  Lucy dabbed her eyes with her sleeve. “Thanks, Ness. I loved him too. You never knew him, but I promise he really wasn’t a bad man. He fell in love with the wrong person with dreadful consequences and he spent the rest of his life trying to atone for what happened. He even destroyed his brilliant career as a punishment.”

  Ness realised she was going to have to know the rest of the story, however uncomfortable it might be.

  “Lucy, I already know that my mother drowned. But it was wild storm by all accounts and I’ve seen for myself what it can be like here when bad weather comes in. She must have known it’d be dangerous. Why would she have ventured outside? Something happened, didn’t it?”

  “In the final movement of the symphony, a storm tears across the sea and drives away the heat,” Lucy murmured. She held out her left hand and Ness was shocked to see that the tips of her fingers were raw. “I played the whole thing through earlier on and I have never, ever had to pull so much pain from a violin. It’s brutal. In the diary Armand writes that your father found out about the affair, Ness, and he was furious. Addy confronted Armand and Beth and there was an enormous row.”