An Introduction to the Pink Collection (14 page)

They began to head back the way they had come. But at the top of the stairs they heard a voice that made them both start back and flatten themselves against the wall.

“It's him,” Cecil said. “Mr Wyngate.”

The man's hated voice seemed to combine the cawing of a rook with the sound of a coin scratching across glass. It reached them clearly up the stairs.

“Get back to your room quickly,” she murmured.

She gave him a moment to get out of sight, then descended, hoping against hope that John had not reacted badly to the sight of Wyngate , but was playing his part successfully.

She forced herself to be composed as she entered the drawing room to find Wyngate there, standing between Matilda and John, a hand on the shoulder of each.

“I was a little disturbed when I found my dear one wasn't in her room, as I expected her to be,” he said, with a ghastly smile at his daughter. “But then I realised where she must have gone, and so I came to find her, and here she is. You couldn't keep away, could you, my pet?”

“It's such a beautiful house, Papa,” Matilda said woodenly.

“Indeed it is. And it will be better still when I've spent some money on it.”

Even from across the room Rena could sense John's struggle to keep his composure. He was doing his best to stay calm, but he moved away from Wyngate's hand and said firmly,

“That still remains to be seen. I'm by no means sure that I can accept your help, sir, and I advise you against any precipitate moves.”

“Don't you worry, m'boy. I know my own business best.”

“I'm sure of it, sir. But it is my business we are discussing,” said John in a cool voice.

Wyngate's smiled slipped a little, but only a little. He had succeeded in getting back into the house, which was his main objective. The rest could wait until these fools realised the futility of fighting him. His smile in Rena's direction contained more than a hint of a sneer.

“Why, it's the little housekeeper.” He stressed the last word very slightly, as though reminding her that it was her own fault that she was still in this lowly position.

“May I bring you and your guests some refreshment, sir?” she asked John.

“None of that,” Wyngate said, not troubling to ask what his daughter would like. “I want to see the tower.”

“But you have already seen the tower,” Rena said. “This morning – ”

“Not like that. I want to go up to the roof and see it close up. I have an idea for its improvement.”

“I doubt if it can be improved,” John said, keeping his temper.

“Things can always be improved, young man, if it's done in the right way. That tower tells people who you are.”

“But I don't need an edifice to tell people who I am,” John replied quietly. “I am Lord Lansdale and I am the master here. I am. Nobody else.”

At those firm words Wyngate shot him a sharp look as though scenting rebellion. John returned his gaze with a bland one of his own, but his blue eyes were hard.

“Of course you're the master here,” Wyngate said at last. “Nobody doubts it. Lord Lansdale, master of his acres.

But on my money, eh? Come along, I don't want to waste any more time. You two young people take a walk in the garden together. Your housekeeper can show me up to the tower.”

“No, we'll all go,” John said. “As the master of the house I prefer to entertain you myself.”

Rena knew that nothing on earth would have persuaded him to let her go up there alone with Wyngate.

“Then shall we begin the climb to the roof? ” she asked. “It's quite difficult and tiring. And you must be careful where you walk because the roof isn't very safe. It's easy for your foot to go through.”

She remembered a long time ago when she had visited this house with Papa, and the old Earl had shown her the tower. Luckily the keys hung in the same place now as then, and she fetched them quickly. A climb of three floors brought them out onto the roof.

It was the best spring day they had had so far, and the four of them stood there in the bright sun, looking at the sunlit land spread out before them.

“How charming,” Matilda said. “You can see ever so far.”

“Not far enough,” Wyngate said. “Higher. I want to see more.”

In the centre was the tower itself, a square shape, extending right from the front of the roof to the back, rearing thirty feet above them, with little turrets around the edge. Rena unlocked the door, and John led the way up the stairs, contriving to squeeze her hands reassuringly as he passed her.

After climbing thirty feet they came out into the air, gasping at the gusts of wind that assailed them. Matilda gave a little scream and clutched John. Wyngate would have given his arm to Rena but she declined and held on to the top of one of the turrets. But it immediately gave way, leaving her looking down what seemed like an endless drop to the ground.

As though time had slowed, she was able to watch the loose stone falling to the ground and landing with an almighty crash.

For a moment she was dizzy. The terrifying drop yawned before her like a descent into hell. Then she stepped back sharply, giving a prayer of thanks that nobody had been there to be crushed.

Wyngate hadn't noticed the reactions of anybody else. He was looking around him, up into the sky, then out onto the landscape.

“This is right,” he said. “This is as it should be. A great man in a great house, presiding over a great estate, needs a great tower from which to survey his domain.”

John tried to deflect it as a joke.

“It hadn't occurred to me that I was a great man,” he said wryly.

“You will be when I've finished,” Wyngate said. “At any time you can come up here and look out for trespassers.”

John gave a wry laugh. “You can't see the whole estate from here. Nothing like it.”

“You will have men to guard the place, if you are sensible,” Mr Wyngate remarked. “And they should each carry a gun!”

“No,” Rena cried. “You can't shoot people who are just taking a little walk or looking for an escaped dog. And with all these acres, you'll never stop children climbing through the hedges to pick flowers, or watch the squirrels.”

“That will stop,” Wyngate said sharply: “The locals are subservient to the Squire and they will have to learn to behave themselves. Trespassers will be punished severely.”

Horrified, Rena looked towards John who met her eyes, his expression mirroring her own. But he didn't remonstrate with this unpleasant man. He merely shook his head very slowly, unseen by Mr Wyngate.

“This must be enlarged,” Wyngate declared. “It must be twice the height.”

“By all means,” John said, “if you want the house to fall down.”

“What?” Wyngate glared at him.

“In the Navy I learned that the hull is the most important part of the ship,” John continued. “Everything depends on that being strong, and capable of carrying not only the rest of the ship, but everyone on it.

“If you want to enlarge the tower you should strengthen the foundations first. Then work up, strengthen and secure the roof. Then, and only then, can you think about the tower. Otherwise, the increased weight will only bring the whole thing down.”

Wyngate glared. He was shrewd enough to recognise that he would look foolish challenging the Earl on this matter, but he still couldn't accept defeat graciously.

“We'll see,” he grated. “We'll see. But I insist on twice the height.”

“You had much better abandon the whole idea,” John said. “A higher tower would be completely out of proportion to the rest of the building. In fact, even the present height is too much. It should have a few feet taken off.”

“I – want – it – twice – the – size,” Wyngate said slowly and emphatically.

John shrugged.

“Don't you understand?” Wyngate screamed. “You should let everyone around know that you are here, and that you insist on being obeyed.”

“But I don't,” John said mildly. “And I prefer to be on good terms with my neighbours.”

“Neighbours?” Wyngate sneered. “These are your inferiors. Never forget that.”

“They are my neighbours,” John said stubbornly. “I don't want them to obey me, I want them to like me.”

“Like you? Who cares if they like you?”

“I do.”

“Their role is to obey and yours to command. You've been a naval officer. You should know about command.”

“I shall probably never know as much about command as you do,” John observed. “Or perhaps the word I want is bullying?”

“You can call it what you like,” Wyngate sneered. “I didn't get where I am by being a milksop. I expect obedience and I get it, or there's trouble.”

He swung back to the view that stretched over hills and vales, across streams and woods, almost to the sea.

“All my life I've dreamed of this – standing on a high place and having dominion over all before me.”

“I believe the devil had much the same dream,” John said.

“Hah! Do you think to scare me by saying that? Do you think I don't know that they call me the devil? Do you think I mind?”

He bellowed the last words into the wind, and for a moment they saw him, arms upraised in defiance of the world. He had forgotten their existence.

“Come,” John said, taking each of the ladies by the arm. “He does not need us, and we are safer below.”

They withdrew quietly, walking down the stairs and leaving Wyngate there with his dreams of glory. When they came out on the ground they looked up to see him still there, standing against the sky, oblivious to his isolation.

At last he looked down and saw them on the ground, looking up at him.

“I suppose we look like ants to him,” Matilda said. “That is certainly how he thinks of us. And this is how he wants us to think of him – as far above us.”

“Let us simply go quietly inside,” said John. “And wait for him to descend in his own time.”

It took another hour for Wyngate to join them, and then he showed no awkwardness at the way they had deserted him. Probably, Rena reasoned, he thought that ‘lesser folk' had simply withdrawn to allow the ‘great man' to brood alone.

Certainly his demeanour when she descended supported this view. He seemed exalted.

“Come, my dear,” he said to Matilda. “It is time for us to be going.”

He was quieter than usual as he led her out to the waiting carriage. He was still absorbed in some inner dream, and it struck the watchers with a chill.

“It's all right, he's gone,” John said, slipping an arm around Rena's shoulders.

“Yes,” she said heavily. “It's just that while he was up there, looking out over the countryside, I felt as though he was casting a pall of evil over everything that fell under his gaze.”

She gave a little shudder.

“I feel that if we went out there now we'd find every tree and bush withered, and every blade of grass turned brown.”

“Now you're being fanciful,” he chided her gently. “Just the same, I do know what you mean.”

“John,” she said suddenly, “Can we go back to the cross? Please, I just want to see it. It'll make me feel better.”

“Of course we will. And we can take another look at the earth, to see if we missed anything last night. Let's go now, before the light starts to go.”

They hurried down the path and across the bridge. The bright day was fading, and a watery sun sliding down the sky as they entered the woods, which now seemed bathed in an eerie light. To Rena's morbid imagination they had a withered look, as though Wyngate's malign influence had indeed blighted them.

She tried to pull herself together, conscious of John's warm, strong hand holding hers. She was being foolish. Any minute now they would reach the cross, and it would cast its usual comfort over her.

“There it is,” said John. “But surely – Rena, I couldn't have dug a hole as big as that last night, could I?”

“You didn't do that,” she breathed.

As the foot of where the cross had stood was a hole so large that it seemed only a wild animal could have made it. Some creature in a frenzy had gored into the earth, ripping its heart out.

And the cross that had stood proudly in that earth had been ripped out too, and now lay on its side, abandoned, desecrated.

*

“Wyngate went there last night, after we had gone,” John agreed. “He saw us digging in that spot, and went to see what we were looking for. If there were any coins left, they're now in his possession.”

It was late at night and they were sitting on the oak settle in the kitchen. Cecil had gone to bed, and they were at last alone with their love, and their despair.

“I wish I hadn't agreed to Matilda's plan to seem complacent with Wyngate,” John added.

“I don't think it would have made any difference,” said Rena with a sigh. “He makes his plans despite us. It's like being strangled.”

“Forget him for now, my love. Hold me and let us dream of better things.”

She snuggled against him, willing to allow herself these few precious moments of happiness, perhaps to last a lifetime.

But they were disturbed by a knocking on the front door.

“Who can that be, so late?” John demanded.

“I'll see.”

“I'm coming to the door with you,” he said, rising. “If it's Wyngate or that bullying clergyman, I'll deal with them.”

They made their way through the dark house into the hall. Another storm was brewing outside, with the occasional flash of lightning searing through the windows, then vanishing into darkness again.

John drew the bolts back and Rena opened the door wide enough to see who stood on the step outside.

At that moment there was another flash of lightning, illuminating the stranger from behind, turning him into a silhouette.