Galleon House

by Margaret Malcolm

  From the men he passed to the women. Some of those were Trevaines by birth, of course, like the men they had married. But some were not. It made no difference. All had a similar look, and at last Simon traced it to the eyes. Like their husbands, they seemed to hold a secret. The same secret? No, he could not tell that.

  There was a portrait of a younger Madam that made Simon catch his breath. As proud and regal in the heyday of her young beauty as now, but with something else which the years had stolen—the knowledge of the power that her beauty gave her. Here was a face that would beguile the heart out of a man—and trample on it with her pretty, ruthless feet without a qualm.

  Simonetta, the French girl whom his grandfather had married before he set sail for New Zealand to found the line of the Black Trevaines, was there. Hair black as a raven’s wing, great dark eyes—yes, no wonder she was referred to, as Leo had referred to her, as “a foreigner.” Foreign in every sense. Gentle, sweet, artistic—the Trevaines must have found her utterly alien to themselves. It was the first time Simon had ever seen her likeness, and it occurred to him that here might be the explanation for his grandfather’s having left St. Finbar. Perhaps he wanted his bride to stay as she was instead of being compelled to change her ways to accord with those of the family into which she had married.

  To his surprise, he found that there was no portrait of Andrea’s mother, almost the only exception to the rule. He wondered why, striving as he did so to recall the name of the girl whom Andrea’s father, Amyas, had married. But without success. It irritated him to have to admit that there was one piece of the family tree of which he was ignorant. He must ask Leo about it some time—or Andrea herself, for that matter.

  One morning, not by any means the first he had spent in the gallery, he realized that what he had taken for a blank space of paneling between two portraits was actually a door. Leo had given him carte blanche to go where he chose, so he opened it unhesitatingly—and gave a little exclamation of pleasure. It was obviously the music room of the house. Unlike the gallery which ran along the entire length of the house on the first floor, this was, by comparison, a small room. The plastered walls were painted a delicate Regency green with panels outlined in white painted wood. In the center of alternate panels was a raised plaster motif of small musical instruments which suggested that the room had been put to the same use for many years. The long windows were curtained in heavy green velvet swagged and tied with gold that had mellowed with the years. Under each window was a perfect Hepplewhite couch which in other circumstances would have caught and held Simon’s attention. But now it was almost lost in the rest of the furnishing—if one could call it that—of this beautifully proportioned room. It was really a museum on a small scale. Someone with loving hands had evidently collected and repaired all the musical instruments that had served to entertain generations of Trevaines. There was a spinet, two harpsichords and a clavichord as well as a great golden harp. Each instrument was covered with either a piece of fringed velvet or tapestry, and some were labeled in a neat hand with the name of the owner. Along one wall was a glass case and on its shelves were smaller instruments—flutes, clarinets, several violins and some wind instruments to which Simon could not give a name.

  In addition to the older instruments, there was a modern though not a new grand piano. Curiously Simon lifted the keyboard lid and struck a soft chord. It was in perfect tune, and he wondered who played it. Then an idea occurred to him. He lifted the cloth from one of the harpsichords and sat down on the stool. He played a few bars of a Bach chorale and to his delight found that this instrument, too, was in tune. Evidently the room was something more than a museum.

  He began the chorale again, playing it right through and delighting at the gentle, unfamiliar sound he produced. When it was finished he paused. Then, with a little smile, he struck a few soft chords and began to sing to his own accompaniment.

  Did you not see my lady

  Go down the garden singing?

  Blackbird and thrush were silent

  To hear the alleys ringing.

  Did you not see my lady

  Go down the garden there,

  Rivaling the glittering sunlight

  With the glory of golden hair?

  Though I am nothing to her,

  Though she may rarely look at me,

  And though I may never woo her,

  I love her till I die.

  Did you not see my lady

  Go down the garden singing,

  Silencing all the song birds

  And setting the alleys ringing!

  Oh, saw you not my lady

  Go down the garden there,

  Rivaling the glittering sunlight

  With the glory of golden hair?

  The last notes died away and Simon’s hands fell to his lap. Behind him, surely, there had been a slight sound? And yet to all appearances there was no one apart from himself in the room. For a moment he could almost have believed that he had evoked some gentle ghost from the past, and then he saw the toe of a shoe, peeping out from under one of the long green curtains.

  For a moment he stood irresolute, his dark face unsmiling. Then, with a shrug of the shoulders, he went over to the window.

  “I really must apologize,” he said clearly. “I thought I was alone or I wouldn’t have made such an exhibition of myself.”

  Instantly the curtain was swept aside and, as he had anticipated, Andrea stood there.

  “It’s quite all right, Simon,” she assured him with studied politeness. “I would have let you know I was here, only I realized that you did think you were alone and I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

  For a second their eyes met, and Andrea’s were the first to fall. She bit her lip, her self-confidence suddenly fading. She had come into the music room by a door which opened onto the landing and had been gazing out of the window when Simon had come in from the gallery. Curiosity and a reluctance to share a tête-à-tête with Simon had made her keep silent, completely hidden as she thought she was by the curtain. Then, as he began to play and then to sing, she had found herself spellbound. Simon’s was not a trained voice, but it had a rich, vibrant quality which she had never heard before in any voice. It had set her heart beating a little quicker—or was that because of the words of the song? A love song—one she had never heard before, utterly appealing in its humility and devotion.

  As he came to the end of it Andrea, who knew so little about love, found herself thinking with absolute conviction, Simon is in love. He couldn’t sing like that if he were not. I wonder who it is? Someone in New Zealand, I suppose...

  And unconsciously she had sighed. That was the sound which Simon had heard and which had betrayed her. And now, for some extraordinary reason, she was standing in front of him like a tongue-tied schoolgirl. She would have given a lot to turn tail and run away, but something held her motionless, waiting, it almost seemed, until Simon would let her go.

  “This is a very wonderful room!” she heard him saying, although it seemed as if his voice was coming from a great distance. “Who is responsible for it?”

  “My father,” Andrea said eagerly, feeling as if the spell which held her had been suddenly broken. “He and I lived here after my mother’s death, you know. And this was his hobby. He was a wonderful pianist. I used to creep in here and listen to him—” She checked herself hastily and glanced suspiciously at Simon as if daring him to comment on this. “Of course, I was only a child then,” she added, as if to say that she had now grown out of such youthful pursuits.

  “Then you yourself don’t play?” he asked, and Andrea flushed because, by his direct question, he had forced her to admit to something that she felt was a weakness.

  “Sometimes,” she admitted. “On the harp. Only not often, because Leo says it sets his teeth on edge.”

  Simon nodded absently because what she had said had recalled his earlier wonderings in the gallery.

  “There isn’t a picture of your mother in the gallery,
” he commented.

  “No. You see, she and father were only married for a year and she died when I was born. And they weren’t very well off. My grandfather didn’t want them to get married at all, Leo says. So father went up to London to earn his living and they got married and then... afterward, father brought me back here to live. When I was eight, he died and ... and I just stayed, of course.” Simon looked thoughtful. It was a simple enough explanation, and for the life of him he could not make out why it did not satisfy him. Because Andrea recited the sad little story with an odd glibness which-suggested that she was repeating what she had been told word for word? Perhaps.

  “What was her name?” he asked.

  “Andrea Elizabeth—the same as mine,” she told him.

  “And her name before she was married? Her surname, I mean.” Again there was suspicion in Andrea’s eyes.

  “You’re very curious, aren’t you?” she suggested.

  “Hardly that. Interested, perhaps, would be a better word. You see, I was annoyed with myself because I realized that my knowledge of the family history was not as perfect as I had thought.”

  He turned abruptly as he spoke, just as Leo appeared in the half-open door to the gallery.

  “Hello, Leo,” he said coolly, exactly as if he had expected his cousin to appear. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been taking a liberty with one of your harpsichords. I’ve never had a chance of playing one before.”

  Leo laughed his big, good-humored laugh.

  “Mind? Of course not, my dear chap! Not if it amuses you. Personally, I find it a tinkly, rather irritating sound, but then I’m not musical, am I Andrea?”

  Andrea shook her head without speaking. She had been considerably startled at Leo’s sudden appearance, for, unlike Simon, she had not heard his approaching footsteps. And though Leo knew that she came here regularly to dust the instruments her father loved—though it was he who had given instructions that they were all to be kept tuned—he did not really approve of this particular evidence of devotion to her father’s memory.

  “Andrea tells me she plays the harp,” Simon went on, to Andrea’s dismay.

  “So she does—though indifferently well,” Leo said tormentingly. “But she makes such a charming picture doing it that we suffer from time to time simply to indulge our artistic sensibilities! You must give a performance some evening, Andrea, so that Simon may have a similar pleasure.”

  Andrea swallowed convulsively. Leo was angry about something. Surely not because he had found her here with Simon! That would be too absurd. But there was a tension in the air which certainly meant that someone had offended—and would pay for it.

  “Is there ... is there anything wrong, Leo?” she asked timidly, though with the hope of assuring him that she had done nothing which need annoy him.

  “Wrong, my dear Andrea?” he said blandly. “No, why should you think there is?”

  She made a helpless gesture with her hands, muttered something about Madam wanting her and retreated with as much dignity as she could contrive.

  The stable clock chimed the three-quarter hour and Leo clapped Simon on the shoulder.

  “Lunch in a quarter of an hour. Just time for a drink.” There was nothing but good fellowship in his voice, but later that afternoon Simon heard him whistling. It was rather a tuneless performance, but recognizably the air of the song Simon himself had sung. It answered a question he had not been able to answer previously—how long had Leo been in the gallery before he had come in?

  Simon looked very thoughtful and decided that, though Andrea had not told him her mother’s maiden name, he would certainly not ask for that information from Leo. Obviously interest in Andrea, no matter how remote, was something Leo did not like.

  Andrea gazed at the red eye of her betrothal ring and it seemed to stare back at her—-balefully, menacingly, as if it disapproved of her.

  With an impatient little gesture Andrea allowed the stone to turn so that it did not show, which was not difficult, for the ring was a little too big for her. She had suggested to Leo that it would be safer if it was made smaller, but Leo would not hear of it.

  “Other women than you will wear it in the future,” he reminded her. “And their fingers may not be as slim as yours.”

  And when she had said that she was afraid of it slipping off, he told her impatiently to wear a tighter guard ring above it, adding that there were plenty of rings to choose from in his safe and she could take her pick. But they were all the wedding rings of dead Trevaine women, and somehow Andrea had shrunk from wearing one of them, though Leo had laughed at her for her squeamishness.

  Finally she had chosen a quaint old ring chased with tiny flowers and the word Mizpah deeply engraved on it. Her choice had made Leo laugh again.

  “ ‘The Lord watch between thee and me while we are apart,’ “ he translated, mockingly. “But I have no intention of us ever parting, my dear.”

  “I didn’t know what it meant,” Andrea said simply. “I just like it, and it fits!” demonstrating the fact that it did.

  Leo shrugged his shoulders and said impatiently:

  “All right, wear it, then.” And then added thoughtfully: “Perhaps it’s a good choice. It was your mother’s.”

  “Was it?” Andrea gazed at the little ring in delight. “I’m so glad! I have so little of my mother to remember her by.”

  “Nothing at all, I should say, seeing that she died when you were born,” Leo said matter-of-factly.

  “No,” Andrea admitted. “But it makes her seem more like a real person and less like ... like a shadow. Did my father give it to her?”

  “Amyas gave it to her, yes,” Leo admitted, and shut the door of the safe with a bang. “Not but what I shall have to be opening it again soon,” he added significantly.

  “Oh ... you mean something must go to the sale rooms?”

  “I do,” Leo said laconically. “The George IV fleur-de-lis necklace and the bracelet that goes with it.”

  “They’re worth quite a lot, aren’t they?” Andrea said, without any particular interest or regret that they were to be sold.

  “Enough, I think,” Leo agreed. “On second thought—” he opened the safe again and took a shabby leather case out of it. “—wear them tonight. Their last public appearance—so far as we’re concerned! Simon may like to see them before they go.”

  “He could see them without me wearing them,” Andrea said, without making any effort to take the case from him.

  “He could, of course,” Leo admitted. “But jewels show to the best advantage when a beautiful woman wears them. And you are undeniably beautiful. In fact, I really think that your looks improve every day.”

  “Oh, do you?” Andrea said breathlessly. “I’m glad.”

  Leo’s eyes narrowed slightly.

  “Are you, indeed! And may I ask why?”

  There had been a time when Andrea would have flinched at that ironical note in his voice, but now she found that she could laugh. “Well, of course, every girl wants to be beautiful,” she told him with a sideways glance that was new in her and undeniably provocative.

  But if her wish was to provoke Leo, she failed. He, too, laughed and admitted that he supposed they did.

  Then, with one of those rapid changes of mood of his, he thrust the case in her hands, repeated his instructions that she was to wear them that night and told her to run along.

  Andrea took the box to her room and put it carelessly in a drawer. That evening she almost forgot to do as Leo had told her. In fact she had reached the top of the staircase before she remembered.

  Not unnaturally, she gave one final glance in her long mirror to see the effect, and had to admit that Leo was right. The jewels did look better now than they had done in their box. But the fact gave her no particular satisfaction. There was something so impersonal about all the Trevaine jewelry. It had all been worn by at least one other woman—in fact, it really belonged to the family, even her betrothal ring. It would be nice
, she thought wistfully, to own something that had been bought for one’s self alone—because someone wanted to give it.

  She went downstairs and saw that Simon noticed the diamonds immediately. She put her hand negligently up to her hair and the bracelet glittered bravely. Simon said nothing, of course, but Leo did.

  He took Andrea’s hand in his and drew her close to him.

  “This, Simon, is in the nature of a farewell party,” he said with a faintly mocking air. “Oh, not that any of us are saying goodbye yet. But—” he lifted Andrea’s hand to display the bracelet and lightly touched the large pendant diamond of the necklace, “—these! They go to the sale rooms this week, but I thought you would like to see them before they go.”

  “Indeed, yes,” Simon agreed gravely. “They’re wonderful. Very good stones, I should say.”

  “Oh yes, they ought to bring in a pretty penny—particularly since they are both historic pieces,” Leo said carelessly. “They should serve to keep us out of the welfare line for a time.”

  “Of historic interest?” Simon asked, ignoring the last remark.

  “Yes, indeed. Presented to the Trevaine of the day by George IV for old times’ sake,” Leo explained carelessly. “They were close friends during the Regency days, and oddly enough, despite what they say about the memory of princes, when he became king, the Regent did not forget his old friend. Of course,” he added reflectively, “Letitia Trevaine was a very beautiful woman—though there has never been any suggestion that the fact had anything to do with it!” He let Andrea’s hand drop.