‘Alright… alright!’ Ruth Taylor had been the housekeeper at Selworthy Manor for many years; since Mrs Summers’s fatal heart attack, she was now solely in charge of the manor and held in awe by the two servants who took their orders from her. She was a difficult woman, tall, slim and authoritative, with quick dark eyes, steel grey hair and a forbidding manner.
As she hurried across the vast hall, the sound of her echoing footsteps carried to the outer steps, where Vincent Pengally was now impatiently pacing up and down. Infuriated by his loud persistent thumping on the outer door, the housekeeper swung it open, demanding to know, in a rasping voice, ‘What is it you want?’ She regarded Vincent Pengally with contemptuous eyes, surveying his common jacket and ungainly appearance with obvious distaste.
‘I want the young man of the house!’ His manner was equally surly. ‘Garrett Summers. Send him out, or I might have to come and fetch him out… by the scruff of his neck!’
‘Young Mr Summers is not at home. And if he was… I doubt whether I would be inclined to “send him out”, as you say. Certainly not to such an ill-mannered and offensive person as yourself!’ She attempted to quickly shut the door, but was astonished when he thrust his booted foot between the door and its frame, ‘I’m not shifting until I’ve seen him. There are serious things to be settled!’
‘I tell you, he’s not here!’ She deliberately put all of her weight against the door, pushing hard until the pressure crushed the toe of his boot into a peculiar shape. Still he would not be moved, ‘Get away from here, you scoundrel!’ she cried in a shrill voice, ‘unless you want me to send for a constable.’ When he gave no answer, but continued to stare at her through the narrowed gap, his eyes wild and threatening, she became exasperated. When he began hurling obscene abuse at her, she kicked out at his foot, belying the dignity for which she was renowned.
‘What’s going on here?’ The voice was refined, but sharply impatient. It surprised them both.
‘Oh, Mr Summers!’ The housekeeper swung round to address the thin-faced elderly man in the wheelchair, ‘This… man is asking for your son. I’ve already informed him that young Mr Summers is not at home.’ She turned to cast a withering glance at Vincent Pengally, who was glaring at them both through the now wide open door. ‘He refuses to go away! Shall I send for a constable, sir… and have him forcibly removed?’
‘It’s alright.’ Mr Summers put his large slender hands on the wheels of his wheelchair and propelled himself to the doorway. ‘You go about your business,’ he told her, ‘I’ll see to this gentleman.’
‘Oh! So you’ll see to me, will you?’ Vincent Pengally came forward to place one hand on the arm of the wheelchair, then leaning his scowling face towards the other man he said in a low gruff voice, ‘If there’s anyone to be “seen to” it’s your son… and I’ll be the one to do it!’
‘State your business.’
‘I’ll state my business to your son. I have none with you.’
‘You’ll tell me what you want with him, or you’ll get off my premises!’
‘I told your woman I won’t shift till I’ve settled a score… and I’m telling you the same!’ The half-smile on Vincent Pengally’s face was devilish to see.
‘Very well. You leave me no choice!’ The wheelchair made a small grating sound as he inched it backwards, causing the other man to withdraw his hand in order to stop himself from falling forwards over the step. ‘Send them out, Mrs Taylor.’ Mr Summers addressed himself to his diligent housekeeper who had positioned herself by the drawing room door. On his command she flung it open and out bounded two large savage looking dogs. When they saw how menacingly close was the stranger to their master, they began loudly barking, then advanced slowly, their lips curled back to show long fearsome teeth and emitting low threatening growls. Even when their master put out his arm and cautioned them in a quiet commanding voice, they were not easily restrained.
‘Keep them away from me, or I’ll not be responsible for the consequences!’ Vincent Pengally had nothing but fear and contempt for dogs, always believing them to be noisy, unnecessary creatures who did nothing to earn their keep. He would never admit his innate fear of them, for the same reason he would never acknowledge his horror of the unknown: he saw such weakness as being the base of cowardice. And that he would never admit to!
‘Again, sir… what’s your business?’ The man in the wheelchair had the dogs, one either side of him, his fingers tightly gripping their collars as the animals remained taut and threatening, a low guttural sound issuing from their trembling throats, and their vicious bright eyes trained relentlessly on the stranger.
At the sight of the two dogs Vincent Pengally’s fury was tempered with caution. ‘You would do well to ask your son what my “business” is!’ he snarled, being careful to keep his distance.
‘I’m asking you. And I must say I don’t like either your manner or the tone of your voice.’ The old man peered deep into the hostile grey eyes, ‘I know you! It’s Pengally, isn’t it… the blacksmith from Dunster?’ Suddenly, realisation dawned. Damn and bugger it! How many times had he warned Garrett to keep clear of the blacksmith’s daughter? The village gossip had long reached his ears, and he did not like the implications. Not one bit. He liked even less the consequences of his confrontation with Garrett, who foolishly confessed that he was besotted with the girl. In fact it was this unhealthy business with Scarlet Pengally that had been at the root of Garrett being sent away to a business college. Good God! The girl was far too young and utterly unsuitable for a son of his. Would Garrett never learn? The old man braced himself. He had an unpleasant feeling that this Pengally fellow had seen the advantages inherent in his daughter’s association with the young Mr Summers, a man of position and consequence. Even a fool could deduce that Pengally was here on an errand of blackmail. ‘What’s on your mind, Pengally?’ he demanded. ‘Spit it out, man… let’s have it done with! I take it your daughter’s at the bottom of it, but I’ll tell you this. If you’re here to extract money, I warn you to be very careful.’
‘Do you think I’d lower myself to take a penny from the likes of you?’ came the swift, scathing reply. ‘It’s not money I’m after, damn you. I don’t mind telling you, Summers, if your son had answered my knock on this door, he’d have had my hands round his throat, and neither you nor your dogs would have prised them away until they had choked the life out of him!’
‘Are you insane?’
‘Happen I am! And happen I’m not about to be satisfied on this particular occasion. But I’m a patient man when needs must… my time will come. And so will your son’s. He’s defiled my daughter… used her for his own gratification. He’s given her a bastard to carry. I won’t forgive him that, and I won’t forget.’ When he saw that the other man was shocked and about to intervene, he thrust himself forward, being wary enough to stay out of range of the dogs who seemed desperate to tear him apart, ‘You tell your son that. And tell him this. I won’t keep soiled goods in my house! She’ll be thrown out bag and baggage. From this day on… Scarlet Pengally is no daughter of mine!’ With a last lingering look of malevolence that made the old man’s blood run cold, he straightened his formidable frame and turned to stride away, his booted feet stamping the ground as though even the earth offended him.
‘Stay out of it, John. The two of them have made their bed, and now they must lie on it!’ Ada Blackwood came down the narrow stairs from the bedroom where she had put young Trent to sleep. Hurrying across the tiny parlour, she put out her hand to stop John from following Scarlet and Garrett Summers, who were going up the path towards the trap which would carry them to Selworthy Manor and a new life for Scarlet.
‘Don’t be so heartless, woman.’ John had been both surprised and disappointed at his wife’s blatant disapproval of Scarlet’s terrible predicament. She had shown little sympathy, while he himself was appalled by Vincent Pengally’s callous treatment of his daughter, though he was not surprised. What had astonished him was Shel
agh’s revelation that Scarlet was expecting Garrett Summers’s child. And though Ada openly condemned such ‘wanton and shameless conduct’, she had not hesitated to help when Shelagh sought temporary refuge for Scarlet at the cottage.
Later, when her strength was beginning to recover and Shelagh had returned to her duties at Greystone House, Scarlet had sat on the window seat, gazing out of the tiny bay window to the garden beyond, quietly refusing all offers of food or drink, inwardly punishing herself for the impossible situation she now found herself in. She wondered whether life was worth living. But then she thought of that new life surging inside her. It gave her hope for the future.
At nine-fifteen, when John answered an urgent knock on the door, it was to an agitated and greatly concerned young man. He had gone first to Greystone House, only to be warned by Shelagh that he should make all haste away from there. ‘Scarlet’s father is like a man demented,’ she had told him. ‘You’ll find Scarlet at John Blackwood’s cottage. Take her quickly to a safer haven.’ She also revealed how it was she who had implicated him as being Scarlet’s lover and had brought the wrath of Vincent Pengally down on him, ‘all to save Scarlet from being further imprisoned in the attic’. She was greatly relieved when Garrett Summers had professed his love for Scarlet, together with his intention to ‘marry Scarlet… if she’ll have me, and to give the child my name and protection’. He had never forgotten how they had made glorious love, and how he might so easily have fathered a child in her. As far as he was concerned, this child that Scarlet carried was a bond, drawing them together when otherwise she might never have been his.
Earlier that evening, on his return from overseeing the shipment of cattle from the lower pastures, he had found his father beside himself with rage. When he had confronted Garrett demanding, ‘What kind of damned fool are you… that Pengally girl made pregnant?’ he was even more enraged when his son would not deny it.
At first, when Garrett explained to Scarlet how he intended taking her to Selworthy Manor, where ‘we can make plans for the future’, she had resisted. But when she saw how he adored her and was willing to accept the child without question, she felt ashamed. Besides which, she was weary and her spirit was desperately tired. There was no question of her returning to Greystone House or of imposing herself on John and Ada Blackwood in their little cottage. She needed time to recuperate, time to breathe. After thanking the Blackwoods she went with Garrett, though in her heart she knew there must come a day when she would regret it.
‘You take care of her!’ John had come out onto the doorstep as Garrett helped Scarlet into the trap. He was pleasantly surprised when Ada appeared beside him to call out, ‘Mind how you go.’ He knew she would not change her stern attitude concerning those two, especially Scarlet whom she had always proclaimed was ‘too flighty by half!’ But it pleased him to know that her heart was in the right place after all, or she would not have taken Scarlet in after Pengally had thrown her out, and she wouldn’t be here beside him now, telling them to ‘mind how you go’.
John turned to his wife with a warm loving smile on his face. Then, as his gaze was drawn beyond the cottage, to the rising ground above the river, the smile froze on his face. There in the moonlight, like a haunting apparition, was a dark hooded figure, its hollow face turned towards the cottage and seeming engrossed in what was happening there.
‘Come away, Ada!’ John put his arm across his wife’s shoulders to propel her through the door and on into the cottage. When safely inside, he thrust home the bolts on the door and quickly drew the curtains across every window, laughing nervously when Ada told him, ‘I do believe you’re getting frightened of the dark in your old age!’
Outside the wind played in the treetops, creating a weird moaning, melodic sound. The figure remained still and silent, watching the trap as it carried the young man and Scarlet out of sight. Then it slowly nodded its head, before moving softly away. Presently the moon was smothered by cloud, and all was engulfed in darkness.
12
‘And when will you be sixteen?’ Edward Summers stared across the table to where Scarlet was restlessly picking at the fine food on her plate.
Suddenly the idle chatter ceased and all eyes were turned in her direction. She resented the way Garrett’s father relentlessly sought to belittle her. She had an urge to hurt him somehow, to surprise him and strip the arrogance from his shrewish, refined features. As always, she suppressed the urge, yet told him in a cool voice, ‘But I understood that Garrett had already discussed that with you. If I agree… and I still haven’t decided… the date of our wedding will coincide with my sixteenth birthday, in March… four months from now.’ She saw his back stiffen at her impudence, and his discomfort goaded her on. ‘Of course, the child will be born long before then. I know you have wished it otherwise, and, if I’m to be the cause of introducing the first bastard into the Summers family, then you will forgive me, I’m sure.’ She bestowed a darkly angelic smile on him and was inwardly delighted when he visibly squirmed.
‘Won’t it be wonderful though, Edward… a baby in the house after all these years?’ Nancy Thornton’s distinctly American accent drew attention away from Scarlet. She was a delightful little woman, demure and pretty in an expensive silk dress fashioned in the latest design; she wore a string of pearls round her throat, and a smart mother-of-pearl comb kept her long fair hair securely pinned up into a fold at the nape of her neck. Her wide green eyes were almost childlike which, together with her small slim figure, belied her fortieth year. Yet there was a sadness in those honest pretty eyes, a long and bitter regret at never having produced a child for the husband she adored. The sadness was in her voice when she now addressed Scarlet. ‘Oh, I do envy you, child,’ she said with a warm smile. ‘What more could a woman ask than to hold her own newborn safe in her arms?’ Her voice trembled with emotion.
‘Now, now… enough of that.’ Jonathan Thornton was a large portly man with a thick shock of golden hair. He had been acutely embarrassed by the blatant animosity between his host, Edward Summers, and the girl Scarlet, who he thought was not only the loveliest creature he had ever seen, but who had something about her that made him unusually cautious. Or perhaps it was something in himself, he mused. All the same, he felt obliged to change the subject at once. He had already been an unwilling witness to the heated arguments between Edward Summers and his son, with regard to the girl’s reluctance to marry.
While the ensuing discussions centred on matters such as King George’s approval regarding the interment in Westminster Abbey of an unknown British soldier, and the recent bomb explosion on Wall Street in America which killed thirty people and injured hundreds, Scarlet grew increasingly uncomfortable. All day there had been a gnawing restlessness inside her that she could not rid herself of. Even when she and Garrett had walked the moors and there she had rediscovered a measure of inner peace, there was this sensation of urgency and panic that would not let her be. When they had paused to watch the creatures at play in the fallen leaves deep in the woods, she had been seized with sudden uncontrollable terror. It was as though some vindictive devil had wormed its way inside her and meant to haunt her to destruction.
Some days ago, after she and Garrett had inadvertently come to wander the ridge above Greystone House, two things had happened that had since caused her nightmares. She had stood on the high ridge, gazing down at that monstrous beautiful house, and in her deepest mind she was compelled to relive the fear and horror that stalked every nook and cranny there. Memories so vivid that they became uncannily real: fearful images flooded her mind, of a small terrified child shut away in a dark attic with only the rats for company; visions tormented her of her father’s shadowy figure at her bedroom door and of Silas enacting unspeakable deeds which were forever printed on her impressionable mind. In that house was love and hatred, unbearable guilt and exquisite desires, suspicion and fear. Always the fear. That inexplicable fear that spread through the house, permeating the very air and invading all wh
o lived there: herself, her mother, and even her father. It was relentless, there was no reprieve, not even now, when she thought herself to have escaped its evil.
On that day when she and Garrett had come to that certain spot, Scarlet knew beyond any doubt that she could never escape. Because, in spite of the fear and the horror wrought in her on seeing Greystone House again, there was something else that was stronger and even more terrifying. The house was calling her! The man who had defiled her was beckoning, and even her poor suffering mother would not let her go. Silas was there, he would always be there. And now Scarlet believed beyond all reason that Silas, like her, would forever be drawn to Greystone House. It was their destiny, it was in their blood. Too much had happened to be dissolved by time or distance. In her stricken heart, Scarlet knew that however much he might fight his awesome fate and run from it, it was inevitable that Silas would meet his end in that house. Just as she would. It was strange, she thought, how the awful premonition brought with it a degree of comfort; almost as though she knew how, when the end did come, it would bring with it an everlasting peace.
Lost in her own innermost thoughts, Scarlet had not been aware of how deeply even Garrett was affected by the awesome sight of Greystone House. When, disquieted and eager to be gone from there, she turned to address him, she was shocked by the look on his face, a look she had never seen there before. A look of mischief and, did she imagine it, a look of terrible revenge!
Now, when he gazed at her so lovingly across the table, his face so open and honest and his hazel eyes so pitifully innocent, she wondered whether on that day when her own emotions were so turbulent, she might have imagined that look on Garrett’s face.
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