by Pamela Kent
“Listeners seldom hear any good of themselves,” he remarked. “And little girls who creep up unawares and deliberately listen have no right to overhear any good of themselves ... or their sex!”
She smiled somewhat mirthlessly.
“I’m not a champion of my sex, Mr. Trelawnce,” she informed him, “and it doesn’t matter to me in the slightest what you think of anything or anyone. And I didn’t creep up and listen,” she added, with a touch of indignation. “I was simply standing very quietly behind a tree-trunk when you chose to shatter the silence and the beauty of it all down there. If you want to know what I’d been doing before that I’d been picking primroses.”
“I see.” But his brow refused to lighten. “It’s very lonely down by the creek. I don’t think you ought to include it in your afternoon walks.”
“Then when ought I to include it in my walks?”
She put back her head and her brown hair swayed against her neck, the movement attracting a pale ray of moonlight. Her grey eyes looked up at him with a hint of challenge peeping at him from between her thick eyelashes.
He laughed suddenly, and shortly. He put out a hand and grasped her elbow and turned her back towards the house.
“At any time when I’m with you,” he answered easily. “You’ll find I’m very willing to, show you the district ... when I’ve got the time.”
“And what are you doing when you haven’t got time to show anyone the district?” she asked, as she skilfully freed her elbow and moved a few inches away from him as they walked back to the house.
He glanced at her almost whimsically under his black eyebrows.
“Officially I’m a farmer,” he answered her. “I run Roger’s farm for him ... It’s pretty extensive, as you’ll realise when you’ve seen it all. Unofficially, I occasionally do other things, like setting my own lobster-pots, and that sort of thing. You saw my boat ... it’s down at the edge of the creek now—the Dancing Daffodil in case you want to recognise it when you see it again.”
“I should recognise it quite easily,” she admitted. “It’s blue and white, and it’s got an outboard motor.” His eyebrows lifted.
“You know anything about boats?”
“No, nothing.” She shook her head. “But I heard the chug of the motor when you were coming up the creek. By the way, how far is it to the open sea?”
“A mile, perhaps less.”
“Did smugglers use it in the old days?”
“Smugglers?” His voice "was sharp. “Why in the world are you interested in smugglers?”
“I’m not ... particularly.” She smiled at him almost gently. “But a film was made here that was about smugglers. I saw it, and I thought it was very exciting. So perhaps it’s not so very, extraordinary that I should think of smugglers.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t.” But she thought his tone was grudging. “However, that was a film, and although I saw it myself I didn’t think much of it. Nowadays Cornwall is a very respectable county. Smuggling was a part of her not-so-respectable past.”
“But the film was concerned with present-day smugglers.”
“A lot of rot,” he said.
He insisted on taking her arm again, although she snatched it away at the earliest opportunity.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said, a slightly more honeyed note in his voice, and some very real curiosity. “Why have you come here, and what are you going to do with yourself? Is it true your father was a friend of Roger’s?”
“He coached him for a while,” she answered, “when he had a maths examination to pass.”
“And on the strength of that he thought Roger should act the part of a guardian to you when he died?”
“Of course not!” She snatched away her arm, and looked at him with dislike. “And Mr. Trelawnce is not my guardian! It’s simply that he was someone to turn to when—well, when I didn’t quite know what to do.”
“A pretty girl like you could surely have found a job in Paris?” he said softly and insinuatingly.
“I didn’t want a job in Paris!”
“You wouldn’t like to marry a Frenchman? I suppose you are looking for someone to marry?”
“I ... am not!” She turned round and confronted him at the foot of the terrace steps, and her grey eyes flashed angrily. “I haven’t given a thought to marriage, as yet!”
“No?” His voice was mocking, derisive. “And you’re ... how old?”
“I was twenty last birthday.”
“Twenty, and you haven’t given a thought to marriage!” He leaned against the carved balustrade once they had ascended the steps, and produced a cigarette-case from his pocket. “And it never, never, never struck you as in the slightest degree singular that your father, who was apparently very good at maths, should pick upon one of the richest men in England—and a young one at that!—to keep a paternal eye on you once he had gone, and offer you the hospitality of his luxurious country home? You didn’t even spare a moment to reflect upon the perspicacity of your father...? His admirable shrewdness!”
“No; of course not. Why should I?” Her voice quivered with indignation, and she stared at him in the dim and diffused moonlight as if she could hardly believe the evidence of her ears.
He shrugged. He had selected a cigarette from his case, and he tapped it several times on the lid before attempting to light it.
“Oh, no reason at all, except that you’re either naive beyond belief, or you and your father had the same birth sign. You’re on the same wave-length ... you were, until he died.”
Helen stared at him for a moment longer, and then she turned on her heel and walked rapidly away along the terrace. Perry followed, drawling smoothly as his longer legs carried him near to her again:
“No need to look as if a thunderstorm has blown up when we join the others. I’ve been putting myself out to entertain you ... show some appreciation!”
Helen paused a moment before re-entering the drawing-room. She glanced up at him thoughtfully.
“By the way,” she said, “did you establish contact with Tom? He was here when I returned from the creek. He was just taking his leave of Mr. Trelawnce.”
Perry Trelawnce was not as good as Roger Trelawnce at putting on a facial mask. His eyes plainly showed surprise, and they even looked mildly startled for a moment.
“So you did eavesdrop,” he said. “I shall have to proceed warily where you’re concerned.”
CHAPTER FOUR
HELEN found that she settled down fairly quickly at Trelawnce Manor. No one interfered with her, and she was free to come and go as she chose.
If she wanted to drive in to Bodmin or Truro there was a car in the garage that she could use. Her guardian discussed her financial affairs with her on the first morning after her arrival, and he insisted on placing a sum of money in a local bank for her, and although she argued almost fiercely that she did not require any financial assistance he refused to be affected by her eloquence. She would need money, and he had plenty of it. His attitude was casual, indifferent, as if money grew on gooseberry bushes where he was concerned, but it was not a favourite subject of his for discussion. She was forced to accept his generosity, and she hoped his cousin, Perry Trelawnce, would not by some devious means discover her indebtedness. He already looked upon her as an adventuress, and she disliked that very much. But she disliked Perry Trelawnce more.
She was absolutely certain he was a father unpleasant young man. Perhaps a very unpleasant young man.
The May days were warm and languorous. There was seldom a good, stiff breeze, but there was plenty of sunshine. It was a little like the South of France, and Helen was not surprised when she learned that that part of Cornwall was often referred to as the Cornish Riviera.
Exotic plants flourished there, and rare shrubs. The lanes were deep and lush, often far below the level of the fields surrounding them, and they had a strange quality of silence that was a little eerie at times. Dripping with wild roses, honeysuckle and hart’s
tongue ferns, white with Queen Anne’s lace, they seemed to hold the humid heat of the day and retain it long after the sun had set
The evenings were soft and velvety as a bat’s wing. Helen liked to take the little cream convertible that had been allocated to her out of the garage and drive it down to the shore at that hour, parking it on some high elevation of the cliff top, and sit looking out to sea until the last of the light had disappeared, or practically disappeared.
It didn’t seem to matter whether she was late for dinner. If the gong sounded and she was not there Roger Trelawnce dined alone, and Mrs. Pearce had no complaints, and was completely affable, when she hurried in guiltily and took her place at the dining-table. The truth was that she felt a little uncomfortable dining alone with Roger Trelawnce, and the fact that he often had little or nothing to say to her made her more uncomfortable. It was the same at lunch time, and breakfast was always a solitary meal for Helen.
But she declined to allow the maids to carry hot dishes all the way upstairs to her room, and therefore she spent a lot of time alone in the great, sombre dining room at Trelawnce.
She was getting to know the house very well. Without infringing any rules, or penetrating where she knew she should not penetrate—and Mrs. Pearce had made it clear that the wing which contained the window at which Helen had once thought she saw a curious face looking out at her was, to all intents and purposes, ‘out of bounds’ for some reason that was not made nearly so clear to her, although Mrs. Pearce said something about it having been allowed to fall into a state of disuse because of structural defects which had not yet been put right—she made herself acquainted with the general plan of the house, and its sometimes surprising features.
It was a very old house, but it had been considerably modernised in recent years. The main rooms were all well-equipped and furnished, and the atmosphere was that of a luxurious country home to which visitors seldom came, apparently, although there were a large number of guest rooms ready for occupation at any time. Helen’s rooms were a little cut off from the rest—even isolated—but she liked them. She liked the knowledge that she would be undisturbed whatever she did, and that she was queen in her own small world.
Roger Trelawnce had a suite of rooms in the main part of the house on the first floor. He must have spent a lot of time in them, for he was not often to be found in any of the main rooms on the ground floor, not even his own library. However, if Helen ever had cause to go to the library—if, for instance, she wished to borrow a book—she was always careful to tap on the door before pushing it open. She had once found Trelawnce seated at his desk dealing with correspondence, and he was plainly not at all pleased by her unexpected appearance.
After that she determined to be more careful, and was. She did not wish someone who was behaving so generously towards her to have the feeling that his house had been invaded by an unknown and unwanted female, and that his privacy would not be respected any more.
All the same, she felt a little lonely sometimes, and she particularly wished that she had someone to talk to. Mrs. Pearce was always ready to talk, and Helen found her broad Cornish accent fascinating, and her equally broad sense of humour was frequently entertaining; but listening to anecdotes about local people and ways and legends was not quite the same as having someone of more or less her own age, familiar with her own way of life, to talk to.
In Paris she had not had a great many friends, but there had been one or two with whom she now corresponded. Receiving their replies to her letters was one of the things she looked forward to. Another was the arrival of her trunk after the Customs had searched it, and all her painting equipment, which meant that she could take advantage of the fine weather and paint out of doors.
She would have to get herself a job—she knew that—before very long. But this was a halcyon period for transferring to canvas all the loveliness around her, and she quickly came to look upon certain corners of the grounds, the fields and the shore as her favourites, where she could set up her portable easel and forget that there was no one around to admire her efforts, or encourage her. Although when she carried them home to the manor Mrs. Pearce was always ready to praise and admire, and give her a swelled head if she was the type who had any interest in acquiring a swelled head. Which she was not.
She saw nothing more of either Colonel Wince or Perry Trelawnce during those first few weeks at the manor. Apparently they were not frequent visitors. But she more than once encountered Tom Broad, the burly fisherman whom Colonel Wince considered to be quite dependable, having a cup of tea in the kitchen while the cook sat at the kitchen table with him and looked gratified by his company, when she penetrated that far.
The first time, when she asked the cook for some iced water, the latter appeared almost confused. Whether her master permitted her to entertain friends in the kitchen Helen could have no idea; but she was a young, dark, and good-looking woman, and Tom Broad had a sailor-like twinkle in his bright blue eye which indicated that he was not unaware of her personableness, or indeed the personableness of many members of her sex.
As Helen stood looking in on them the twinkle became a bright beam of admiration, and he rose and accorded her a nod of the head and touched the peak of his cap.
“Afternoon, miss,” he said. “Nice fine weather we’re having.”
Helen agreed that it was very fine. The cook hastened to get the iced water, and Helen received the impression of a twinkle in his bright blue eyes which indicated that he was perfectly well aware that she was doing something wrong. Helen withdrew tactfully a bare second or so later.
The next time she saw Broad he was emerging from the library, where the master of the house was dealing with business, and had plainly just been interviewing him. Once more he touched his cap with noticeable politeness, and said something in a broad, rolling kind of voice about it being another handsome day. The weather, he seemed to think, was behaving handsomely altogether.
Helen smiled at him. She had her portable easel under her arm, and she told him she was going down to the creek to paint.
He seemed to think it a novel idea.
“If so be as you likes going out in a boat, miss,” he said, “I’d be happy to take, you out in mine. It’s a new boat,” he added proudly. “The Pretty Lady,” and he grimed broadly.
“Thank you, Mr. Broad,” she answered. “I’d love it some time.”
“I’ve noticed you’ve a kind of fondness for those woods down by the creek,” he told her, surveying her with rather more curiosity. “It don’t seem to me a very lively place for a young woman like you ... bit quiet like. Especially after living in a gay place like Paris,” as if the very name was synonymous with a whirlwind round of gaiety and riotous living.
She smiled again as she strapped her paintbox to the easel.
“I love Star Creek,” she told him. “That’s the local name for it, isn’t it? I even saw it marked on a map.”
“Did you?” he sounded surprised. “Mr. Trelawnce ha’ got an old map of these parts.”
“That’s the one I saw.”
His shoulders went up slightly, and then he turned away.
“Old maps are not much good,” he offered it as his opinion, a trifle shortly. “That one’s more than a couple of hundred years old.”
Two days later Helen went to Truro to visit a hairdresser, and also to match some embroidery silks. On the way back she stopped for tea at an old-world cottage where a real Cornish tea of scones and jam and cream, and very hot, reviving tea, was served to her on a strip of lawn that overlooked a dusty lane where the hedges were blue with periwinkle. But even so, when she reached the village that was the last outpost of civilisation before the lonely road led up to Trelawnce she was so hot and so thirsty that she decided to stop at the inn and buy herself a lemon drink—with ice, if it was obtainable—before finishing her journey.
The inn was one of those blank-faced, blind-eyed looking stone-built hostelries that abound in that far western corner of England
, and judged purely on its exterior it was neither a prosperous nor an inviting port of call for travellers. The locals used it, and holidaymakers took snapshots of it, but the landlord was not particularly friendly, and the inside was scarcely more inviting than the outside. There were one or two ships in bottles and a brass lantern over the bar, and a lithograph of the creek over the fireplace. The barman on duty was in his shirt-sleeves and filling a bowl with chopped ice, and there were even bundles of cocktail sticks and jars of Morello cherries close at hand, which proved he was expecting customers later on. Helen climbed on to a tall stool at the bar, and ordered a bitter lemon in a relieved voice. She was going to get her ice after all.
“Well, fancy seeing you here!” A quiet voice addressed her from behind, and she turned to find her guardian standing close to her elbow. He was wearing an open-necked blue silk shirt and grey flannel trousers, which had an exceptional crease in them despite the fact that this was, apparently, his casual garb when the temperature was in the seventies. “I don’t think I would ever have associated you with a pub.”
She smiled and indicated her drink.
“It’s not very intoxicating, and it’s hot.”
“I suppose you’re used to pavement cafes, and that sort of thing? You won’t find many of them here ... although London’s going rather more Continental than it used to be.”
“Do you know,” she said, making a pleasant chinking noise as she moved her glass about and the ice settled against the sides, “London was rather a disappointment to me after so many years abroad. It struck me as such a hive of industry.”
“And you’re not keen on hives of industry?”
She shook her head, so that her short brown curls caught the light from the ship’s lantern, and became pure chestnut in the dimness of the little low-ceilinged room.
“No. I love quiet places. I think I’d probably enjoy the desert if I ever had enough money to visit it.”
