by Peters, Sue
`There’s someone coming.’
Jo straightened up from tugging the garden gate shut, and hastily pulled down her brother’s hand.
`Don’t point,’ she scolded automatically. Then, ‘She doesn’t look like a visitor …’
`I’m not.’ The fickle wind that had cleared away the mist from the sea blew Jo’s words to the young girl who approached them. She was in her very early teens, Jo judged, but already she showed promise of lovely womanhood, with jet black eyes and hair, familiar colouring along this part of the coast, and telling of ancestry that went back to the early Spanish invaders. She danced rather than walked towards them.
`I’m Melanie,’ she announced, and looked at them curiously. ‘Melanie Tremayne.’ She spoke as if the name ought to mean something to her listeners, but seeing their blank looks she explained, ‘I come from the flower farm further along the cliffs towards Arlmouth,’ she waved a slim arm along the coastline. ‘Tessa told me someone had taken the cottage, so I came along to see,’ she said with naive frankness.
`We were just going to explore.’ Chris’s tone was noncommittal, and Jo stifled a smile. In another ten years his reaction would not be so indifferent. Responding to the girl’s smile, she wondered if the same span of years would destroy the innocence in the huge black eyes. The child possessed unusual beauty, and although she seemed unconscious of it now—she was carelessly dressed in faded jeans and shirt, topped by an old anorak, and shod in incredibly ragged tennis pumps, neither of which boasted a lace—it would not be long before someone, probably a holidaymaker, brought awareness.
`We thought we’d go for a walk to stretch our legs. We’ve been on the train all the morning.’ Jo’s friendly tone invited the girl to join them. ‘We’ve never been here before, so we don’t know our way about,’ she hinted. Despite Chris’s lack of interest in the newcomer, Jo wanted him to get to know the local juvenile population, and at least Melanie was a start. She would know the other children in the village, and might provide her brother with an initial introduction.
`I know where the first wild primroses grow.’ It was pure, childish boasting, the instinctive challenge from an established member of the herd to a newcomer. ‘They’re on a ledge in a cleft, half way down the cliff.’ She stopped speaking abruptly as Chris stepped out beside Jo. ‘There’s an easier way down, though.’ Her face gentled, seeing his limp. ‘And the flowers aren’t out yet anyway, it’s too early.’ She slipped in between the brother and sister and offered
her one hand to Jo, her other to Chris, and to Jo’s surprise after a brief hesitation he took it. It would be difficult, even for an independent ten-year-old, to resist Melanie’s cheerful friendliness.
`Where does that lead to?’ Chris pointed, and this time Jo let it ride. He would not forgive her for correcting him in front of the newcomer, and a girl at that.
`That’s the path I meant. I like it better than the other one,’ their guide said casually. ‘When you’re sliding on your bottom down the cliff you can’t look round. You get some lovely views from this one.’ Jo warmed to her kindly tact, and even the boy responded.
`Does it come out on the beach?’
`It drops down by the side of Penderick Creek. You can see Penderick House from the top of this slope.’ Melanie considerately slowed her steps as the cliff rose towards a sharp point not far ahead, and chatted on amiably. ‘You can’t see the house from by the creek itself, the woods are too thick.’
`Woods?’ Jo’s heart lifted.
`Mmm, they’re lovely in the spring. They’re private, of course.’ The girl’s gay laugh, and the way she tossed her head, making her heavy raven mane swing across her slender shoulders, told Jo that she made light of the prohibitions of ownership.
`I’d like to explore them.’ The ghost of a grin lit Chris’s eyes, and Jo frowned at him
`Don’t go trespassing, and get into trouble,’ she warned him, but just the same she felt glad to see something of his old daredevil spirit show itself again.
`We won’t,’ Melanie promised, and oddly Jo felt as if the child had taken herself and Chris under her wing. Also, that she could be trusted. ‘Look, there’s Penderick House.’ She pointed to a squat grey stone house lying almost directly below them, on what looked like a small peninsula. It was
flanked on three sides by a thick belt of trees, sheltering the house on its seaward side. On the fourth, extensive gardens sloped down to the shiny waters of the creek that ran like a silver ribbon past the dark, silent trees rising above it. Smoke curled from several of the chimneys, and for some reason Jo felt surprised.
`I thought it might be a National Trust property,’ she hazarded. In size it resembled the manor houses she was familiar with at home. ‘Open to the public in the summer months—that sort of thing?’
`Oh no, the Pendericks live there themselves,’ Melanie put her right, casually. ‘They’re the fishing family. The ones with the pictures of the tern on their boxes.’
For a fishing family they lived in a palatial home, Jo thought drily, but she said nothing.
`We’ve got one of their boxes in our cottage,’ Chris remembered. ‘Jo knew it was a tern—she told me.’ He did a bit of boasting of his own. ‘Something like him—I think?’ he eyed a wailing gull that floated overhead.
`That’s only an old gull,’ the girl’s voice was scornful. `The terns have got forked tails, and they don’t come until about April, the same as the land swallows. There’s another month to go yet. When they come I’ll show you where their breeding ledges are if you like,’ she offered.
`Show us now,’ Chris begged eagerly, his scorn of girls forgotten.
`I can’t,’ Melanie refused. ‘Tessa said I’d got to be back before tea. She’ll be mad with me if I’m late, I skipped helping with the washing up at lunch time,’ she grinned unrepentantly.
`Tessa?’ Melanie did not seem the type who would call her mother by her Christian name.
`My sister. She keeps house for my father. She says I can take over when I’m older and give her a chance to get married,’ Melanie threw the information at them carelessly.
`I’ll come with you as far as the creek, then I’ll have to go back.’ She dug her heels in with a practised braking action that Chris and Jo copied as the downward slope got steeper, and their knees ached with the strain of holding them back.
`Phew, that was tough going,’ Chris admitted, and Jo looked at him sharply.
`Are you tired?’
`No, I can make it.’ His chin came up in the familiar gesture.
`The path’s almost flat from here,’ Melanie assured Jo. `It’s the most interesting part of the walk,’ she stopped Chris’s protest that he could climb the cliff back again easily enough. ‘There’s a lot of wild life along the creek, if you’re interested. The path forks not far from here, take the left-hand path and you’ll come out near the village. You’ll know your way back from there.’
With a gay wave, and a promise, ‘I’ll come again as soon as I can,’ she left them, skipping from rock to rock along the shore like a gay sea sprite, then she rounded the cliff and was gone, leaving Jo and Chris feeling curiously alone.
`These flaky bits of stone make smashing skimmers.’ With young enthusiasm Chris picked up the nearest and skimmed it across the water. ‘It bounced times,’ he counted delightedly. ‘I’ll try another—oh, look, here’s a bit that’s striped with red. Would it be any good for you to make a ring or bracelet with?’ He took a keen interest in Jo’s hobby of making jewellery, and was her chief source of supply of stones in odd shapes or colours when her clerical work for her father precluded her from searching for her own. She would have plenty of time to do that for herself, now.
`It’s pretty.’ Jo took it from him and examined it. ‘This looks like a good place to find stones.’
`You could start up a business,’ Chris suggested jokingly. `Handmade jewellery for the holidaymakers.’
`It’s an idea,’ Jo realised. ‘It’s worth thinking ab
out, anyway. Now, which fork did Melanie say we’d got to take?’ Immersed in their talk, they had reached the Y end of the path without realising it.
`The left—no, the right … I’ve forgotten,’ Chris admitted guiltily. ‘She said the path was flat from now on …’
`It’ll be the right-hand one, then,’ Jo chose the flattest-looking of the two.
`It looks sort of private …’ Chris voiced his doubts a hundred yards further on, as banks of rhododendrons took the place of the rough scrub running almost to the edge of the creek, and a sudden blaze of yellow proclaimed the presence of a sheet of daffodils, naturalised under the trees in disorderly clumps so that, looking uphill, they made a carpet of living gold.
`Shhh ! Look in the water. Oh, we’ve disturbed him ‘ A heron stood statuesque in the shallows at the side of the creek, and as they rounded a clump of evergreens it took to its wings, their slow languid-seeming beat taking it with deceptive speed across to the other side of the water, and out of sight.
`What the blazes do you mean by barging up the path like that, and frightening my heron away?’
A man rose from concealment on the other side of the rhododendron clump and regarded them with a furious blue glare. Black brows met in an angry line over a strong nose, and his deeply tanned face, topped by hair as dark as Melanie’s, was tightly hostile. ‘Can’t you see this is private property?’ he fumed. ‘You’re trespassing !’
He stood foursquare in their path, denying them further progress, and Jo halted, nonplussed, with Chris behind her. Melanie must have told them the left-hand path after all. They had taken the wrong one, and obviously wandered into the grounds of Penderick House. This must be one of the Penderick family confronting them. Jo regarded the six-foot-plus of angry householder, and decided she could well do without the acquaintance of this particular new neighbour. She much preferred Melanie.
`I’m extremely sorry,’ she apologised immediately, trying to appease his wrath. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb your birdwatching.’ It seemed a small matter for the man to get so worked up about, she thought. Living at Penderick House, he must have loads of opportunities to watch the herons in the creek.
`Melanie told us which path to take, but we forgot,’ Chris added his own apology, and loyally backed up his sister.
`Then you’ll know in future to take the left-hand fork of the path,’ the man retorted coldly.
`I’ve said I’m sorry,’ Jo sparked, stung into anger herself by his curt response to the child. ‘It was a pure mistake.’
`Then kindly don’t repeat it.’ He was in no way appeased. ‘It might be months before a heron stands in that particular position again, with the light as it is now. You’ve ruined my work !’ He waved a sketching block at her, and Jo caught a glimpse of a half finished drawing of the bird they had just disturbed. From her brief sighting she could see it was beautifully executed, but obviously incomplete. `It’s been a complete waste of time,’ the man snapped, and confirmed her dismayed realisation that not only had she disrupted the heron’s peaceful search for food, but in so doing had put the artist’s model to flight—and irretrievably enraged the artist.
CHAPTER TWO
`I CAN’T do more than apologise,’ Jo said stiffly. ‘Come on, Chris, we’ll go back.’ She turned her back on the angry blue eyes, that had the crowsfeet creases of a sailor used to squinting against dazzle on the water, and that seemed to bore right through her rather than just look at her.
`It’s a long way back to the fork,’ Chris complained. ‘My leg aches from coming down the slope of that cliff.’
His limp was more pronounced as he turned away, as it always was when he became tired, and Jo looked at him worriedly.
`Wait a minute. There’s no need to go right back to the fork.’
Jo turned back and stared in surprise. Was it really the dark-visaged stranger who had called to her? She looked beyond him, half expecting to see someone else there, but there was no one in sight.
`We wouldn’t dream of trespassing any further.’ Her chin came up in the same gesture that Chris used, and her voice was cold. ‘I can find the way back perfectly well,’ she assured him. He need not fear she would get lost and trespass on his property again.
`I don’t doubt it.’ Anger still glinted in the blue eyes that fixed her with a compelling gimlet stare. ‘I’m thinking of the boy, not of you,’ their owner told her bluntly. ‘There’s a bridge across the creek from our side on to the public footpath on the other bank. It’ll save you over a mile of walking. If you’ll allow me to show you,’ as she still hesitated he gave her a mock bow and gestured with his arm along the path, at the same time stepping to one side so that she could
proceed past him. Automatically, Jo found herself obeying him, as he had intended her to, she thought with a quick flash of resentment. But there was Chris to consider, and she swallowed her pride and walked past the artist with her chin held high. Despite the surgeon’s instructions to let her brother use his leg normally—`give it exercise and eventually the limp will disappear’—she did not want to try this new-found strength too far.
`There’s the bridge.’ A hand as brown tanned as his face drew her eyes along the length of the creek. ‘You can see the parapet where the creek bends.’
He doesn’t think it’s necessary to see us off the premises, Jo thought with an inward flash of amusement. Perhaps it’s beneath his dignity …
`I’ll come with you as far as the bridge steps,’ he disabused her. ‘It’s useless me staying here, the heron won’t come back today,’ he said regretfully, but his tone was milder.
I hope Chris doesn’t notice, Jo worried, realising that the stranger’s consideration sprang from compassion, which was to his credit, but might hurt the boy’s pride.
`D’you think he’ll come back tomorrow? The heron, I mean?’ Jo heaved a sigh of relief. Chris’s eager question held nothing but interest. ‘It’s a shame to frighten him away. Dad took us bird watching to the Fame Islands the year before last,’ he added conversationally.
`So you’ve been bird watching before?’
She could not be sure whether he was being sarcastic or not. His face was expressionless, giving nothing away. But even he must realise that other people besides himself might be interested in the same hobby, she thought waspishly.
`We’re members of the National Trust,’ she told him curtly. ‘We thought this might belong to them as well.’ She nodded towards the low stone house, framed from this
angle by the daffodils, and at this nearer distance revealing itself as old, but remarkably well preserved, and much larger even than it had looked from the cliff. Certainly a property that for historical as well as aesthetic reasons might merit the attention of the Trust if its owner should ever decide to sell.
Her remark was spurred by an urge to deflate the present occupier, but to her annoyance it seemed to have the opposite effect. Some of the angry indifference disappeared from his expression, and his face showed cautious interest.
`I’m a member too. The Trust has got quite a lot of land along the cliffs not far from here.’
`I wish I could draw like you,’ Chris interrupted her disinterested, ‘I know …’ and she lapsed into thankful silence. Whatever she said seemed to annoy the stranger, though she forgave the child’s apparent friendliness; Chris had had one or two as yet unsuccessful forays into the world of art, which seemed to have heightened rather than detracted from his enthusiasm. He eyed the half-completed sketch in the man’s hand with frank envy. ‘I’ve tried sketching birds, but they won’t stay still for long enough,’ he complained, and surprised a laugh out of his listener.
`We all have the same trouble,’ he confessed with a twinkle, that made his face look quite different, almost friendly, if that were possible. ‘And when I do get a bird to stand still for a few minutes, someone comes along and frightens it away.’ He looked straight at Jo as he spoke, and the ire was back in his voice.
`We didn’t mean ‘ she began ind
ignantly.
`Dan !’ A man’s voice hallooed from the top of the slope by the house, and a figure waved wildly to attract their companion’s attention. ‘Dan ! The phone—for you,’ he shouted.
`Oh— !’ The man called Dan growled under his
breath, and Jo smothered a laugh with difficulty. It was evidently not his day.
`Coming !’ he called back, and reaching out grasped Jo’s arm in a grip that he might not have meant to be hard, but nevertheless made her wince. ‘Take the steps across the bridge,’ he instructed, pointing with his other hand, ‘then turn right along the footpath on the other bank. Do you think you’ll remember, this time?’ he turned to Chris, and his lips lifted slightly at the boy’s emphatic nod. ‘In that case, about half a mile you should come to the lane that leads straight back to the village.’
`We know our way from there, thank you,’ Jo answered him primly, rescuing her arm, but determinedly refusing to rub it although it tingled from the strength of his fingers. `Come along, Chris.’ She gave him a cool nod, and was disconcerted to find his keen gaze on her face.
`I. ..’ he began.
`Dan ! The phone !’ The figure by the house waxed impatient.
`Oh, all right, I’m coming !’ the man called Dan shouted back irritably, and without a second look in their direction he turned abruptly on his heel and strode uphill through the daffodils as swiftly as if he was crossing level ground.
`That’d be Dan Penderick,’ Melanie informed them when told of their adventure. ‘He’s the middle one Julian’s the eldest, and Lance is the last.’
`Three of them?’ Jo’s eyebrows rose. If the other two Pendericks were as short-tempered as Dan, it must be a scratchy household ! ‘Do they all fish for a living?’ she enquired. She was not really interested, but Melanie seemed to have taken over the role of guide and mentor to the newcomers and enjoyed passing on her local information to them. Also, since they had come to live at St Mendoc, they would have to learn about the community
