Portrait of a Girl (18 page)

I
was puzzled. ‘
Melissa
?’

‘
That’s your name, isn’t it? You can’t be called darling all the time.’

‘
I — I don’t—’

‘
Come on, my love. No games. It seems to me—’ and he stared at me reflectively, with just a hint of teasing in his glance, ‘since you sat for that portrait you’ve got slightly — shall we say, above yourself?’ His voice was mocking, but warm and caring.

‘
Rupert—’ I began, puzzled. ‘I’m
not
Melissa — I’m — oh don’t you remember? Josephine, Josephine Lebrun—?’

I
broke off, trembling, waiting and fearing his answer.

He
said nothing for a moment, then replied, ‘Another little act?
Don’t
, love,
please
. Not just now. I’ve had a fall, remember? My horse slipped, and this damned leg’s giving me hell. Yes, sweetheart, you’re a very good actress, and one day—’ He didn’t finish, exhaustion overcame him, the lids fluttered down over his eyes, and I realised he was asleep.

Mrs
Treen came to the door. ‘You’ve been long enough,’ she said acidly. ‘You know what I told you, what the doctor said, you could have just a glance and pass a word or two if he spoke, but it seems to me you’ve had a good old chatter.’

I
shook my head. ‘No — he thought I was someone else, that’s all.’

My
voice must have betrayed the desolation I felt; her expression softened and changed.

‘
Oh?’

That
one word was a question.

‘
Yes. Someone called Melissa.’

Was
it my fancy, or did what little colour she had, suddenly fade from her face?

‘
Well,’ she said after a pause, ‘the Master’s known many folk — gentlemen
and
ladies in his time. He’s had a great shock remember, and that gash on his temple may’ve set him rambling a bit. Anyway, it’s not
your
worry, girl, and seems to me I’ve done wrong to let you bother him at all. Now come along. You look whisht enough yourself. And I don’t want invalids around me, there’s enough to do getting what we can in order here. There’ll be the funeral to arrange too.

‘
Funeral
?’ I gasped.

The
housekeeper’s mouth went prim, almost condemning.

‘
Have you forgotten her ladyship? The Master won’t be able to attend, if I’m any judge, but all who are fit should see they pay due respects.’ She eyed me severely. ‘Including
you
. Between them the Master and Lady Verne have done a good deal on your behalf, girl.’

‘
He
had,’ I admitted sharply. ‘But she always hated me.’

The
next moment I knew I shouldn’t have spoken so, and before she could reply I’d swept from the room and made my way to the hall and out of the door to what remained of the grounds that side, and the lane.

Destruction
was everywhere. Though the mud had drifted and dried in patches on the road, trees and bushes were broken from the onslaught, rocks were strewn about, streams still trickled in rivulets of filth from the devastated area of moorland behind the house. The freshened clarity of cold paper-clear skies, only emphasised the desolation — a desolation magnified by despair and the loss of an illusion in my own heart.

It
was Melissa Rupert loved.

Not
me.

Chapter Twelve

During the weeks that followed I stayed on at Kerrysmoor to help Mrs Treen in the extra work involved by the landslide. At first I’d thought I’d be sent away, and had made tentative plans to return to the Golden Bird, but when the housekeeper made it clear I could be of use to her, I agreed willingly — not only on her account but because of Rupert. There was Dame Jenny, too, who had mercifully been spared, but had become a semi-invalid.

The
considerable part of the house that remained was comparatively untouched, but the constant walking to and fro of workmen employed in building a back wall as ballast for the surviving wings of the mansion, and for levelling as effectively as possible the hundredweights of rubble left, meant continual extra cleaning and brushing up. There was as well the carrying up of trays to the bedroom where Rupert was taken following the first two days spent in the library, and to Dame Jenny. A specialist, who came from Truro, sent a nurse along for a week or two. She also had to be looked after, and Mrs Treen daily seemed to be showing more strain. The housemaid had left, and only a small staff remained, so I would not, in any case, have deserted her.

My
brief meetings with Rupert were poignant and painful — not only physically to him, but because he struggled so hard to get well, and because he continued to think of me as Melissa. I corrected him once, but when he clearly thought I was joking, I knew he didn’t recall there had ever been a girl in his life called Josephine Lebrun. Only that other — the girl in the portrait.

At
Mrs Treen’s request I had attended Lady Verne’s funeral held at St Clemo’s Church in a nearby village. It was a grey day. My spine felt rigid and cold from strain and the chill wind blowing. Except for myself only two or three servants and a few natives attended. I was thankful when the sordid ceremony was over, and I was once more in the carriage driving back to Kerrysmoor.

One
day when Jan called with eggs, I asked him about Tregonnis. ‘What happened
there
? Was
that
a landslide, too?’

We
were standing outside the house on the path. He looked round cautiously in every direction as if he wished no-one to hear his answer, then replied, ‘Haven’ they telled you then?’

I
shook my head. ‘There’s been so much else going on, and whenever I brought the question up, Mrs Treen pretended not to hear and changed the subject. It was the same with the other servants — the two men.’

Jan
shrugged. ‘I do suppose they’d bin given orders earlier,’ he said, ‘when she was sick like.’

‘
Sick? Who?’

‘
Her
. The dead woman — Master’s wife, Lady Verne. She’d gone funny in the head, an’ so I’ve heard was took up country to some place where they have mad folk. Then she got away—’

‘
Escaped, you mean?’

He
nodded.

‘
That’s right. An’ it was her —
her
who set fire to Tregonnis. I heard from him, ole Johnny Trink — only nobody says, nat’ruly. An’ if you ask me—’ his voice lowered, ‘she’d gone real
murderous
. Seems unfair, doan’ et? A man like Master, travelling up country just to see her all right — an’ then her havin’ a go at him like that.’

‘
I see,’ I said slowly. ‘So
that
was it.’

‘
What, miss?’

‘
The reason for him being away so much.’

‘
O’ course. Only we wasn’ supposed to know, or speak of it. Some do say though she was a witch. An’ tell you the truth, missie, one night at full moon I did see her dancin’ like in a queer way round they ole stones, the Three Maidens, just as though she was one o’ them. All in black she was, wearin’ a dark hood thing — an’ I recognised her. Oh yes, I knowed it was her. Quite near I was, lookin’ for a lost lamb. I told em ’bout it at th’farm. But they said as how I shouldn’ go spreadin’ tales, but keep me mouth shut — ’cos after all she was Master Verne’ lady wife, and harm’d hit us if I said anythin’ bad ’bout her.’

‘
I don’t believe she had any power to hurt you, Jan,’ I said in a sudden spurt of commonsense, ‘and I don’t believe the Three Maidens were anything but old stones, either.’

‘
No?’

‘
That’s what I said.’

‘
But they was once young women what was enchanted ’cos they danced on a Sabbath. That’s what I heard from my ole granny. Turned into stone they wuz, but stones havin’ strange powers o’ wickedness at the full moon.’

‘
Just a story, a legend,’ I told him. ‘They
have
a
kind
of magic, I suppose — I’ve felt it myself, but it’s just the age of them and the way they stood there on top of the moor. Imagination itself is a very strange thing, Jan, you must remember that.’

‘
An’ was it imagination then what saved the picture?’ Jan enquired in a knowing kind of way.

My
heart jerked.

‘
What picture? What do you mean?’ Even as I asked the question, I guessed.

‘
The one the Master had hung at Tregonnis — the lady with the bright hair. He fair worshipped her, he did. An’ et’s funny edn’ et? Although everythin’ else was burned in the fire, her face wasn’. Just that one bit saved. Just her face.’

I
went cold all over.

‘
Where is it now?’

‘
I dunno. I reckon Mrs Treen’s got it somewhere. I heard the Master give it to her for safe keepin’, away from his wife. Just because of her madness you know, she had a real hate of it. So it was a
kind
of magic saved
that
, wasn’t it? — a magic stronger than the witches’ put together. An’ I reckon that’s religion, doan’ you, miss? The
real
kind, meanin’ the power of good over evil?’

‘
Perhaps you’re right,’ I admitted. ‘Yes. And try to remember it.’

He
nodded and started to walk away.

‘Jan
—’ I called.

He
turned his head, ‘Yes, miss?’

‘
Who was she? The lady in the portrait? And what was her name?’

‘
I never knowed her,’ he said.

‘
But you called her beautiful. So—’

‘
My mam said so. Everyone knowed it, but no one talks of her ’cos the Master forbid it.’

I
sighed, and he went on his way, leaving me feeling bereft, lonely and bewildered, by a mystery that seemed to me then beyond solving.

Once
or twice later during the week I sounded Mrs Treen as tactfully as possible about the matter, but she refused point blank to give any information or even answer me except to say, ‘I’ve told you before to mind your own business about things that don’t concern you.’

Little
she knew how very much I was concerned, although I was beginning to realise that quite soon I should have to confide in her about the child I carried. For some time I’d taken pains to conceal as effectively as possible the thickening of my figure by wearing a full apron-front to a full blue dress I’d been careful to bring along with me from the Golden Bird. Somehow it had survived all my adventures. Joe Burns’ remark to me before leaving Falmouth, about his new employee’s description of me as a plumpish, haughty-like young woman, following Rupert’s enquiry, had made me aware that I must be increasingly vigilant over my shape. But the truth couldn’t be hidden for ever, and I wondered what would happen when I told Mrs Treen. She mightn’t want me there anymore — probably wouldn’t. And if I mentioned Rupert — but how could I when he was still ill and thought of me as Melissa?

When
I wasn’t working, the problem went round and round in my head, and I began to sleep badly.

‘
What’s the matter with you these days?’ the housekeeper asked one morning, when I couldn’t eat my breakfast. A sudden nausea seized me. I got up and rushed from the room. She followed, and panting reached me as I stumbled into my bedroom. I stood over the basin at the washstand, vomited, but nothing came of the effort. I just felt faint and ill, and slumped on to the bed.

‘
Now you’d better be straight about this,’ I heard her saying firmly, in a manner that was almost an accusation. ‘You’re expectin’, aren’t you?’

I
nodded bleakly, and for a moment didn’t speak. Then life returned to me, and courage from the relief of confession. ‘Yes,’ I said, lifting my head and facing her with a certain defiance. ‘And please don’t tell me I should be ashamed, because I’m not.’

‘
That’s why you left Falmouth, I suppose,’ she said primly, ‘to come here and dump your — your—’ She struggled to get the odious word ‘bastard’ out, or possibly ‘by-blow’, but before she could do so I’d stopped her by interrupting:

‘
You needn’t say it. I know very well what you think. It’s no matter now. The baby will be loved and brought up properly, I’ll see to that — somehow I’ll see to it. I will, I
will
—’

‘
And how? Where? In the back streets of Falmouth?’ she snorted contemptuously. ‘You’ve been a fool, girl.’

‘
Maybe,’ I agreed. ‘In your opinion. Not mine. You see I
loved
the father. And when you love—’

‘
Then where is he? This seducer of young women who cares so much for his own appetite he leaves one like you to bring his bastard into the world without means or a name to face the world.
Love
! I’m surprised at
you
— you’d respect from a fine family, and a grand singing career mapped out for you, looks and — yes, I’ll admit it — a certain presence — and yet you throw it all away because some lying, lusting male takes you like any — any—’

‘
Stop
!’ I cried. ‘I won’t listen. I’ll—’

‘
You’ll tell me his name, girl. An’ if it’s anyone known round here I’ll see he pays for it.’

I
almost laughed in her face. Anyone that was
known
! The whole picture was ludicrous. If I said, ‘Well, for your satisfaction, it’s the Master, Mr Rupert Verne’, how would she have reacted?
Believed
me? Or accused me of lying and sent me packing there and then? Who could say? She might even have had a stroke and died. And anyway what good could have come of bringing Rupert’s name into it when he already remembered nothing of me at all?

From
that point I refused point-blank to discuss the matter further, except for immediate domestic plans. In the end the irate housekeeper soothed down, following a glass of a special concoction she kept to calm nerves and ward off an attack of the megrims. The result was that because she needed me just then, I could stay on, provided I managed to keep my condition quiet until necessity demanded otherwise. Then we’d have to have another ‘think’ she said.

There
really wouldn’t be any thinking to do, I decided later, when I was on my own. I’d return to the Golden Bird. Joe and Maria would take me in, and the baby could be born in comparative comfort. In the meantime, perhaps there’d be a miracle, and Rupert would remember.

Christmas
came and went. I saw very little of Rupert, simply because he kept mostly to his own quarters upstairs, and partly due to my own embarrassment. He could not yet go riding, or even walking more than a quarter of a mile, and it was painful to me to have to witness so pronounced a limp in a man who before had been so active, hardy and athletic.

Whenever
we met, by chance in the house or garden, he would regard me with a warm but puzzled look in his eyes. Once he asked, ‘Why do you avoid me, Melissa? You know I still care for you. Another thing — is it wise to leave Tregonnis so often? It could be dangerous for you under the circumstances. I had to do it you know—’ His voice trailed off as he wrinkled his brow trying to remember something I knew could be a vital link in the mystery that separated us.

‘
Had to do what, Rupert?’ I asked.

‘
Marry Alicia,’ he answered dully.

‘
Oh yes, of course,’ I said.

‘
If it hadn’t been for that damned war I’d never have left, and you’d have been all right. You wouldn’t have—’ he put his hand to his head. ‘Oh God, what am I saying? Leave me, Melissa, I’m all at sea. But I shall remember in time; heaven help me, I will.’

I
tried to think he was right, although his confusion not only worried, but frightened me badly.

The
doctor, who called every week, said only time would show how deep the injury to his brain was. There might be nothing permanent at all. His physical condition was remarkable considering what he’d been through — although again, the fractured leg might never completely recover.