Garth of Tregillis (7 page)

I saw the chauffeur wink knowingly and Mrs. Kinnefer quell him with a frown.

So it looked as if Diana had been right! Now that Armanell was free, Garth had lost no time in introducing himself into her life again!

‘Lunch will be ready in ten minutes,’ Mrs. Kinnefer was saying briskly, as though glad to be on familiar ground. ‘I’ll fetch Melinda and you can have it together.’

‘Melinda,’ he said, still with that air of being a polite and enquiring adult.

‘Melinda Markham; Mr. Seaton’s niece. She’s staying here while her people are in Africa. No doubt you’ll be great friends,’

she said encouragingly, ‘and be able to play about together.’

The idea of this grave, sedate child playing with the wild, uncontrollable Melinda was so incongruous that I could barely contain a smile.

‘Melinda is an old-fashioned name, isn’t it?’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Yaaaah!’ The eldrich screech rang through the hall and we looked up to find Melinda looking over the gallery rails, her pale face and strange hair making her look indeed like the witch she purported to be. ‘Yaah, yaah, old-fashioned! What about your own? Emile’s a stupid, silly name and I bet you eat frogs’ legs!’

Strangely enough Emile was completely unperturbed by this extraordinary greeting. He turned to me with a look of enquiry.

‘Frogs’ legs? I do not understand,’ he said patiently.

‘Take no notice,’ I said hurriedly. ‘Melinda’s an extremely rude little girl.’

‘I expect,’ he said composedly, ‘it is because I am French. Lots of foolish people imagine the French consume nothing but snails and frogs’ legs.’

There was a silence above while Melinda digested this. ‘I am not foolish,’ she said balefully. ‘And I’ll make you an apple-pie bed for that, see if I don’t!’

‘Do come down, Melinda,’ Mrs. Kinnefer said irritably. ‘I don’t know what on earth Emile will think of you carrying on this way when he has just arrived.’

‘Who cares what he thinks of me?’ She skidded towards the stairway along the polished floor of the gallery and then, flinging her leg over the banister, slid down with rapid and practised ease until she reached the tall, carved newel at the end, then slowly stalked the few remaining steps. Her face was streaked with dust and her hair sticky with cobwebs.

‘Do go and wash yourself up, Melinda,’ Mrs. Kinnefer said, ‘or I do declare I shan’t serve you a bite of lunch. A civilized body wouldn’t sit at the same table with you.’

But Melinda wasn’t taking the smallest notice of this injunction.

She walked slowly up to Emile and surveyed him from top to toe with a look of utmost contempt. ‘You’re not at all dressed like a little boy,’ she said consideringly. ‘I’ll bet you’re a midget. Yes, that’s it. You’re a midget who’s taken Emile’s place.’

Emile received this pronouncement with an air of considering gravity. ‘I’m Emile Lelant,’ he said at last, ‘and I live at the Chateau de Chalandon in Normandy and I’m eight on my next birthday.’

Melinda flicked back her hair with an air of contempt. ‘Ha, what of it? I’m eight and a half, so I m older than you and you’ll do as I say.’

‘Children, children,’ Mrs. Kinnefer interjected weakly. She glanced at me appealingly.

It was time the situation was taken in hand before it disintegrated completely, I decided. ‘Go and tidy yourself before lunch, Melinda,’ I said sternly. ‘If you don’t you can have lunch alone and Emile and I shall have it together.’

I could see she was on the point of one of her furious refusals, but obviously the prospect of a further attack on Emile during lunch was not something she intended to forgo. ‘Oh, very well,’

she said sulkily. Then, as a parting thrust, she glanced at the luggage that lay in a pile at the hall door: they were heavy, old-fashioned hide cases, obviously relics of a past generation of Lelants. ‘Your luggage is stupid, too,’ she pronounced flatly.

Strangely enough Emile seemed stung by this—for Melinda—

fairly innocuous remark. ‘It is not stupid,’ he said fiercely, then drew himself up proudly. ‘It belonged to my grandfather, the Comte de Chalandon.’

With a further derisive ‘Yaah’ Melinda swept off. ‘Really, the child gets worse every day. I don’t know what’s to become of her,’ Mrs. Kinnefer said helplessly.

Emile, now that Melinda had departed, had wandered over to one of the windows and, curled up on the window-seat, was gazing pensively out.

‘He seems such a nice, well-behaved child too,’ she whispered.

‘I must say, in a way, I’m pleasantly surprised, because he’s not at all like—’ she stopped and coughed as though to cover an indiscretion.

Had she been going to say, not at all like Armanell? I wondered, for she must have known the boy’s mother before her marriage.

‘Wilson, take the cases up to the gallery. I’ll arrange a room later,’

Mrs. Kinnefer instructed the chauffeur. Still looking bored, Wilson gathered up the cases,

tucking the smaller ones under his arm.

‘That Melinda’s a caution; there’s no denying it,’ he announced with an air of gloomy admiration. He jerked his head in Emile’s direction. ‘I’d say he don’t stand a chance,’ he said sotto voce.

‘Once Melinda gets a set on him she’ll make him wish he’d never set eyes on Tregillis.’

Mrs. Kinnefer bridled. ‘Indeed, I’ll see that Mr. Garth hears of her behaviour, and when I want your opinion I’ll ask for it, Wilson.

‘Hoity-toity,’ Wilson grumbled as he began to climb the stairs, but he apparently took the housekeeper’s admonitions with good-natured indifference.

Mrs. Kinnefer turned to me. ‘Mr. Paul will have lunch with you today as he’s here at Tregillis doing up the books. I think I’ll put you in the small dining room. There’s only yourself as Miss Eunice sticks to her own quarters, and it’s cosier anyway.’ Her manner held a faint air of defensiveness. To be put into the small dining-room was evidently in her eyes to be socially down-graded.

But I had already caught a glimpse of the enormous main dining-room with its vast sideboard and heavy silver and was delighted when Mrs. Kinnefer later showed us into a small octagonal room. Its walls were lined with tiers of dainty miniatures : the clear translucent enamels of the paintings were extraordinarily attractive against the blue and white walls.

We sat at a round Regency table and as the meal progressed I was pleasantly surprised to find that Melinda appeared docile and silent. It was as though she had forgotten the presence of the little boy who sat across from her placidly spooning his soup.

It was when Paul, making polite desultory conversation, mentioned that they held a regatta every year locally that Melinda began to show her true colours.

‘Uncle Garth has lots of cups in his study,’ she announced proudly. ‘I wish he’d sail again and I’d crew for him this time.’

Her eyes grew dreamy as her too vivid imagination got to work.

‘And we’d win lots of races and afterwards he’d thank me for my wonderful help. “But for you, Melinda, all would have been lost.”’

She whispered the words as though she had forgotten our presence, but as Paul burst out laughing her eyes darkened ominously.

‘You are a weird kid, aren’t you?’ Paul said between peals of laughter.

Melinda laid down her spoon with slow deliberation. ‘I’m not weird,’ she said tightly. ‘It’s you who are weird.’

Paul glanced at me with amused eyes and said, ‘Well, that’s one thing I’ve never been accused of before, Judith. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m one of those transparent, easy-going people, whom everyone despises.’

‘You are weird too,’ Melinda repeated monotonously, as she saw herself ignored. ‘I’ve heard people talk,’ she added darkly.

‘And what do they say about me?’ Paul inquired, still with that air of amused tolerance.

Melinda’s face grew peaked with malice. ‘They say,’ she announced slowly, ‘that you had the sloop out before Uncle Garth and Great-uncle Giles went sailing and that something happened to the boat when you had it. That’s why it capsized later.’

I saw Paul’s face stiffen and now there was no amusement in his voice as he said distinctly, ‘What a horrible child you are, Melinda!

Can you think of nothing except making trouble?’

‘I’m only repeating what I heard,’ Melinda said in an aggrieved voice. ‘People say they saw you take the sloop in against the rocks and it was probably then that the damage was caused. Everyone knows,’ she added, ‘that you’re no good with boats.’

Paul seemed to have regained his equanimity. ‘True,’ he said.

‘At least they’ve got that right, but I’m sorry to disappoint you.

The boat was in perfect condition when I returned.’

Why was he bothering to make any explanations to the appalling child? I wondered. Why not ignore her? Could there possibly be some truth in the rumour? I remembered Cousin Eunice’s remark about Paul. ‘A nice boy but deeper than he appears.’ Verity too had hinted at a quarrel between him and Giles. Had she been mistaken in thinking he was going to let bygones be bygones? Beneath that easy-going manner had he been harbouring an implacable revenge against Giles Seaton? And if so, what had passed between the two men, I wondered, that could cause such a dark hatred?

Even as it crossed my mind I dismissed the idea. Was I becoming affected, I wondered a little grimly, by Melinda’s malice? From what I had heard of Giles Seaton he had been a gentle and inoffensive character—hardly the type to engender such hatred.

We didn’t dawdle over the meal and as soon as it was concluded Paul hurried back to the study in the recesses of the house and, with some misgivings, I saw that Emile had wandered off with Melinda who had loftily suggested a game of hide-and-seek in the picture gallery. I only hoped her intentions were as innocent as they seemed, because I feared that she had not let up for one minute in her intention of making Emile’s life as unbearable as possible.

When I was alone I wandered back into the hall and paused outside an arched door that led off to one side. I felt intrigued and curious to know what lay behind the iron-bound door: it looked so old and even sinister, the sort of door, no doubt, behind which lay Bluebeard’s secrets. Then I had to laugh at myself as Mrs.

Kinnefer, passing through the hall, paused and smiled as she saw me hesitate.

‘Why don’t you go in, Miss Westall? It’s a wonderful library, so I’m told—though I wouldn’t know much about books myself, but you’ll find the room quiet and you’ll be glad to get a day’s rest, no doubt, before you begin work.’

‘So it’s a library,’ I said, pleased. ‘I’d love to see it.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I thought you’d be fond of books. Well, you can browse there to your heart’s content. With another smile she hurried off and as soon as she was gone I eagerly turned the handle and went in.

I gave a little sigh of pleasure as I saw the room that lay before me. It was long and flooded with light from the mullioned windows with their deep stone embrasures. Comfortable and well-worn armchairs were placed here and there about the room and on the polished floor before the chimneypiece was a thick bearskin rug. Each wall of the room was lined with books, their red morocco and brown nutty leather gleaming richly in the shadows.

Tall, parchment-shaded floor-lamps were placed at either end of the room and I could visualise it in winter with snow thick and crisp on the lawn outside, the fire crackling in the wide grate and the lamps casting a soft glow as one curled up in a wide armchair and perused one of those enticing books.

I wandered eagerly to the shelves. There was such a choice that I found it impossible to make up my mind: I was like a child gazing into a sweetshop, uncertain what to select.

My eye was caught by a book beautifully bound in tooled leather and reaching it down I found that it was an old history of Cornwall. When I opened it I saw to my surprise that the flyleaf was inscribed in a schoolgirl’s careful best handwriting, ‘For Garth’, and signed ‘Diana Seaton’. But even if it hadn’t been signed I think I should have recognized Diana’s writing. I could imagine her laboriously inscribing her name in the book she had so carefully selected.

I turned over the leaves slowly, then became engrossed in a chapter concerning the Fowey Gallants. It told of a band of Elizabethan adventurers who had raided Normandy. Somehow it was easy, sitting in this quiet room, with its atmosphere of having witnessed many strange deeds, to visualize those violent days.

When I had finished the chapter I idly riffled the pages and a sheet of writing-paper fell out and fluttered to the floor. I bent to pick it up and once again I saw it was covered with Diana’s writing—only this time it wasn’t laboured and careful: rather it was an untidy scrawl that slanted wildly across the paper as though the writer were driven by overwhelming distress and somehow, as I held it in my hand, it was as though from that letter, written so long ago, emanated some of the emotion that had gripped its writer.

I felt my heart beat fast with excitement as I read,
Darling, darling Garth, Oh, how can you be so cruel? You
know so well that even a kind glance from you will make me happy
for the day, yet lately you have been so cold and distant. You have
eyes only for Armanell. Oh, I know she is very beautiful and compared to her I am just your silly, loving, mousy little cousin, but I
do love you, Garth. Remember that! So much more than Armanell
does or can. If I were older I could make you love me. I’d know
how to. I realize that in your eyes I am gauche and awkward and a
nuisance, but when you went riding with Armanell today I only
wanted to follow on Toby. I shouldn’t have made up on you or
anything, or made a nuisance of myself. Anyway, Toby is too fat to
gallop. But to send me home was too unkind. You were so cross
and disdainful and really I didn’t mean to spy. I just wanted to see
you—to keep you in sight, even although you had eyes only for
Armanell. I know I won’t sleep tonight, because I am too
heartbroken. Why are you not kinder to me? I cannot help loving
you: that is my great misfortune. Oh, I know people smile and say,