Edge of Glass

by Catherine Gaskin

  Maura, dear ‒ I really don’t know if I’ve done a foolish thing ‒ whether I should have let him in or called the police. My knees felt weak, and I held on to the rail as I skimmed the remainder. But he’s most persuasive, and I couldn’t help believing him. I don’t quite understand what it’s all about, but he’s been here Monday and Tuesday and again this morning asking if there was word from you. He said he didn’t know whether you would come back from Ireland, but if you did, he meant to be waiting for you. So I let him wait.

  I stood in the living-room door and looked at him, asleep, crumpled on the sofa that was too short for him, and I knew that I would see his sleeping face many times again, that I would know every expression of it, see my own moods mirrored there; I would love him, and at times believe that I almost hated him, I would laugh with him, and have him comfort me, I would grow bored with him, and angry, and long for him, as I had done since the moment he had left me. I knew, as I looked at him, why it was that I had turned back to Cloncath yesterday and demanded from Connor the glassmaking tools that had belonged to Thomas Sheridan. Connor had given them without protest, and I think he also had known for whom they were intended.

  He slept heavily. I bent over and touched his cheek with my hand, and that too I knew I would do a thousand times.

  ‘Brendan! ‒ the stew’s burning.’

  Fourteen

  We do not live romantically above the glassworks in Bristol, as I once pictured Brendan doing, but near enough so that I walk over there in the afternoons and do some book-keeping, and type letters, slowly and carefully, because I am still learning. The old stone warehouse that we rent from the family of Tim Henderson, who is Brendan’s partner, looks out on the river, and I spend more time than I should watching the river-traffic, and even more time watching the work around the furnaces, the fantastic dance of skill and grace that I had seen first at Sheridan Glass. I am not afraid of it any more, I do not blink and draw back as the glowing molten glass flashes by me on pontil or blowing iron. I am attuned now to the rhythms and patterns of the dance, and I love to watch it ‒ and, as Brendan said, it’s warm around the furnaces in winter. There are only two glory-holes, and it is doubtful that Brendan and Tim will want any more, even when the demand calls for them. They have six apprentices, and two servitors and another master glass-blower; expansion would mean the end of the individual quality of the pieces they blow. In the spring they will give their first exhibition in London and Stockholm, but already the orders are coming in ‒ for glass screens, for abstract glass sculpture, for bowls and vases. ‘We’ll have to watch out,’ Brendan says to Tim, ‘that we don’t get too successful and start repeating ourselves. Then we’re dead.’ Success is with us already, but it is not the kind of success one grows rich on.

  As Claude had threatened me, for a while there was no modelling work for me in London; probably I will never work again for a high-fashion magazine ‒ Claude will see to that, as well as the fact that I have gained the fatal extra pounds that stop me from photographing gaunt and hungry-eyed. But there is enough of the other kind of work, cake-mixes and March’s chocolates, and modelling the sweaters that go with the knitting instructions in the women’s magazines. It is gentler work, almost dull, and it does not clutch at me and make me sharp and bad-tempered and exhausted as the other used to. I commute to London when I am needed, like any businessman, and I am anxious to get home again. Letting go can be a sweet relief.

  We do not talk about Meremount or Tyrell or Connor ‒ not because the subject brings pain, but because we have said all we want to say about it. I know that for Brendan I am not a substitute for Lotti, and that is all I need to know. In The Times we read about the auction of Meremount’s contents at Sotheby’s; there were some New York buyers, and so bidding was brisk and prices high. They did uncover the small treasures, the minor masterpieces that Praeger had predicted; some of the special pieces I could remember having seen ‒ the sets of Chippendale chairs, the matching commodes, the eighteenth-century Sevres dinner service stacked on the floor, the Chinese service. Mary Hughes attended each day of the three-day sale, and sent me a catalogue with the prices jotted down. I could feel her chagrin come through the scrawled figures ‒ she knew about Meremount now, and her pain was for Blanche and what Blanche had missed. For myself I didn’t care. The only time I was touched with anger and hurt was when a woman journalist, on holiday in Ireland, caught the scent of the Meremount story, and wrote it up in the Sunday Express before the auction. ‘Rare Treasures in Mansion of Eccentric Recluse’. Parts of the truth were there ‒ Lady Maude, Sheridan Glass, a rehash of the tragedy of Lotti’s death, Otto Praeger’s wealth. It was vulgarised and overdone, and part of the truth being there made the falsity worse.

  Mary Hughes still hangs on to the shop ‒ will do it, probably, until the lease runs out, so Blanche’s name is still high above the King’s Road. I drive out sometimes to the auctions in the countryside around Bristol, and I’ve made a few purchases for Mary, tentatively, with no great confidence that they are the right buys. But the dealers who always appear at each auction were Blanche’s friends, and they make a little game about teaching me the business. I have a sense that they loved Blanche, and miss her.

  Otto Praeger has bought Meremount, and at last has been able to buy Thomas Sheridan’s own collection of Venetian Glass ‒ and so both are off Connor’s hands. That and the Sotheby sale have given him enough capital to let him borrow more, and to begin the process of pulling Sheridan Glass into a competitive position. He will not do as much as he could have done if the Praeger money had backed him, but unless things go very wrong, it seems certain that Sheridan Glass will not disappear. For that I am glad; Connor I try not to think about.

  Praeger does not let us go ‒ Brendan and I. Three times he has been to Bristol and we begin to dread his visits, and yet lack the sternness to turn him away. He is lonely; he talks much of Meremount, but not of Connor. Meremount is being restored, and Praeger’s chief pleasure is sending his agents to scour England and the Continent for the furniture and paintings that will decorate it as the perfect eighteenth-century house. He paid Connor inflated prices for the privilege of picking over Meremount’s contents for what would best suit the house. The Hogarths, Gainsboroughs, Romneys and Reynoldses are coming in, and Praeger is paying the prices a collector must when he is in a hurry.

  ‘Meremount is to be a museum of eighteenth-century arts ‒ paintings, furnishings, ceramics, silver, glass, rugs, landscape gardening … It will be presented to the Irish people. President de Valera will come to open it.’ His eyes mist over as he says it; he dreams he is buying a birthright.

  With Brendan and me the attempt to buy is more subtle. He inspects the glasshouse, and says, ‘With a little capital you could double your output in a year.’ Brendan tries to explain, with great patience, that all Tim and he want is just to sell the products of their own making ‒ that a dozen master glass-blowers would make a dozen different things, all needing their own market. Praeger shakes his head. ‘You could institute design control ‒ look at Steuben in America.’ But Brendan doesn’t want to see the same piece ten thousand times. ‘We don’t want to be Sheridan Glass, or Steuben, or Kosta. We have to stay a studio workshop. The big boys will copy our designs, but we will have done them first.’ So Praeger shakes his head, and the offer to lend or give money is bitten back.

  But he keeps reaching to us in other ways. He is waiting for my first child to be born as a grandfather would; when it comes he will be harder to restrain. He keeps urging us to come to Tyrell. ‘The North Lodge is still empty,’ he says, ‘I have never let it. You could be quite private and on your own.’ He doesn’t understand how marvellously private we are now, because we live in each other. He will keep reaching for us, and it will grow harder and harder to keep him out. He wants to give us things ‒ I am afraid he wants to give us everything. We know, Brendan and I, that if he takes away from us the opportunities to give to each other, if money should take away
the need to work for each other, to work physically and in all the other ways that love demands, then we are already beginning to lose.

  So we hold him off for as long as we can; but we don’t know yet who will win.

  The Property of a Gentleman by Catherine Gaskin

  The Property of a Gentleman … a poignant and thrilling tale of intrigue, mystery and romance, set in the dramatic landscape of England’s Lake District. From the internationally bestselling author Catherine Gaskin.

  Shortly after her mother’s death in a Swiss plane crash, Jo Roswell is sent from the London auction house where she works to the remote and mysterious Thirlbeck – stately home of the Earl of Askew. Jo’s task is to evaluate the house’s contents for a sale, but she soon finds herself drawn into the complex lives of Thirlbeck’s past and present inhabitants, each with their own secrets and desires.

  Robert Birkett, the Earl of Askew, has returned to Thirlbeck after many years abroad. A decorated war hero, he has also spent time in prison after a fatal car accident for which he was blamed. Carlota, the Spanish Condesa, is the Earl’s sophisticated yet possessive companion.

  Meanwhile, Nat Birkett, a distant cousin of the earl, is the reluctant heir to Thirlbeck. A local farmer, his passion is for the land rather than titles and possessions. Following his wife’s mysterious demise at Thirlbeck, he is also the single father of two young boys.

  George Tolson is Thirlbeck’s brooding keeper, who jealously guards the property from unwelcome strangers. By Tolson’s side is Jessica, his intelligent but fragile granddaughter, who must be protected from herself.

  During her stay, Jo is absorbed by the tragic story of The Spanish Lady, whose young life was cut short at Thirlbeck many centuries before. She also encounters La Española, the brilliant diamond which, according to legend, brings disaster to all who try to possess it. And she is shocked to learn of her own mother’s connection to Thirlbeck.

  Jo will struggle with difficult discoveries as she unlocks the puzzles which link Thirlbeck’s past and present residents.

  Read The Property of a Gentleman now from Amazon UK

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  Learn more about Catherine Gaskin and her other novels at www.catherinegaskin.com

  Sara Dane by Catherine Gaskin

  The international bestseller available as an ebook for the first time

  Sara Dane is the story of an eighteenth-century young Englishwoman who is sentenced for a crime she did not commit and transported to Australia. The novel follows Sara’s struggle to raise herself from the status of a convict to a position of wealth and power. She faces many challenges, from the savage voyage aboard a convict ship to the corruption and prejudice rife in New South Wales. Life in the Colony is harsh, and Sara has to contend with natural disasters and convict outbreaks, as well as the snobbery of the high society she wishes to enter.

  Sara’s life is also influenced in often surprising ways by the men who love her, childhood sweetheart Richard Barwell, ship’s officer-turned-landowner Andrew Maclay, Frenchman Louis de Bourget and the Irish political prisoner Jeremy Hogan. Sara Dane is a sweeping historical novel full of adventure, romance, rivalries, double-dealing and murder.

  During her lifetime Catherine Gaskin’s books sold over 40 million copies worldwide, and she was known as ‘The Queen of Storytellers’. Sara Dane is arguably her best known work, an international bestseller, it was also made into a popular TV mini-series. This is the first digital edition of Sara Dane, published to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the novel’s début.

  ‘A fine sweep of urgent vitality.’ The Times

  ‘Most readable. A big book with a sustained dramatic power.’ London Evening Standard

  ‘A grand story.’ Yorkshire Evening Post

  ‘A magnificent piece of evocative writing.’ Glasgow Herald

  ‘Rarely a story of the lands down under has this quality.’ Kirkus Reviews

  ‘An extremely readable novel.’ Argus (Melbourne)

  Now available as an ebook on Amazon (all territories excluding USA).

  Read Sara Dane now from Amazon UK

  Read Sara Dane now from Amazon.com

  Read Sara Dane now from Amazon AUS

  Learn more about Catherine Gaskin and her other novels at www.catherinegaskin.com

  The Lynmara Legacy by Catherine Gaskin

  The sweeping saga of two remarkable women, their courage, ambitions, and the men they love ‒ from New York in the Great Depression to England during the Second World War. By the bestselling author of The Property of a Gentleman and Sara Dane.

  ANNA ‒ the proud, determined Russian nightclub pianist. She was humiliated and rejected by the English aristocracy, and the man she loved. Anna must make a terrible sacrifice so that her daughter can have the life she herself was denied.

  NICOLE ‒ the talented young American who seems destined only to fulfil other people’s ambitions. She plays a celebrated, but reluctant, role in London’s high society. Yet Nicole must keep her family secrets from the one she loves most.

  LYNMARA ‒ the ancestral home of Lord Manstone and his dashing son, David. They form the link between past and present, mother and daughter.

  A compelling tale of passion and ambition, war and death, and the legacy of a mother’s love.

  Praise for The Lynmara Legacy:

  ‘She tells her story remarkably well.’ Daily Telegraph

  ‘A compulsive heroine and family saga.’ She

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  Read The Lynmara Legacy now from Amazon AUS

  Learn more about Catherine Gaskin and her other novels at www.catherinegaskin.com

  The Summer of the Spanish Woman by Catherine Gaskin

  The dramatic blockbuster that takes you from the windy shores of Ireland to the sun-baked earth of Spain; this is a gripping story of family pride, forbidden love, secrets and lies. Beginning at the turn of the last century and spanning the First World War and the Spanish Civil War, The Summer of the Spanish Woman is another spellbinding page-turner from the pen of the bestselling author of The Property of a Gentleman and Sara Dane.

  When her grandfather dies without leaving a male heir, Charlotte Drummond and her mother are forced to leave their family home, Clonmara. A distant cousin, Richard Selwin, inherits her grandfather’s estate and the title of Lord Blodmore. He also claims Charlotte’s heart, but a cruel twist of fate prevents them from being together.

  Charlotte and her mother begin a new life in the Spanish town of Jerez among the families and vineyards of the great Spanish sherry dynasties. There she discovers the surprising secrets of her grandfather’s younger life, and the mystery surrounding ‘the Summer of the Spanish Woman’ many decades before. As Charlotte learns more about the events of that long-ago summer she realises that its far-reaching consequences stretch into the present. Drawn into a web of deceit and vengeance, her destiny is shaped by both her enemies and her allies in this foreign land. And she must confront Isabel, Marquesa de Pontevedra, whose presence casts light or shadow over those whose lives she seeks to control.

  A brilliant family saga which paints a vivid picture of life among the sherry makers of early twentieth century Spain and the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War.

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  Learn more about Catherine Gaskin and her other novels at www.catherinegaskin.com

  A Falcon for a Queen by Catherine Gaskin

  A gripping story of romance and mystery set in Victorian Scotland.

  After the death of her father, Kirsty Howard leaves their home in China and travels to be with her mother’s family in the Scottish Highlands. It is here that her brother William
has also recently died ‒ after a hunting accident. With her Kirsty carries a scroll sent by William from his deathbed, with a cryptic message ‘She has killed …’

  Arriving at Cluain, the old house and whisky distillery owned by her grandfather, Kirsty is drawn to the mysterious and moody Callum Sinclair, who roams the moors with his majestic falcon. She also meets the other people who had known William ‒ the forbidding housekeeper, Mairi Sinclair; the friendly young maid, Morag; and Sir Gavin Campbell and his beautiful wife, Margaret. Over time, Kirsty learns the parts these strangers played in her brother’s life, and how her own fate is bound up by the places and people of this remote land. But nothing can prepare her for the truth that must be revealed.

  An atmospheric story of secrets, passion and family duty.

  Read A Falcon for a Queen now from Amazon UK

  Read A Falcon for a Queen now from Amazon.com

  Read A Falcon for a Queen now from Amazon AUS

  Learn more about Catherine Gaskin and her other novels at www.catherinegaskin.com

  The Wine Widow by Tessa Barclay

  A gripping family saga – the first in the captivating Wine Widow trilogy. A compelling tale of one woman’s triumphs and tragedies which you will not be able to put down.

  Young peasant girl Nicole Berthois works hard to support her family in a wine-making village in Champagne. Her life changes forever when she falls in love with handsome aristocrat Philippe de Tramont. The young lovers marry despite his mother’s objections, and Nicole’s strength and determination help her husband to follow his dreams. But then tragedy strikes; Philippe is killed and Nicole must struggle to raise their two small children as a young widow. She faces many challenges as she tries to win her mother-in-law’s approval, and build her husband’s legacy into a great champagne dynasty. But will illicit passions, war and a shocking family secret destroy all she has worked to achieve?