Portrait of a Girl (21 page)

His
voice was bitter. Even now after so long, the knuckles of one hand showed white on his clenched fist. The jaws tightened in his lean face. I didn’t speak. Trite words like — ‘how dreadful’ or ‘Rupert, how simply terrible’, would have been a travesty, and of no use at all. Gradually his tension eased, and he said in matter-of-fact tones, ‘It was too much for her of course. What exactly happened no one exactly knew; Lucas was thrown from a horse one day after a mad gallop over the moors and was killed. I returned when I heard, and it was then I discovered that Melissa, too, was dead, drowned in the pool at the back of Tregonnis. Whether by her own hand, mischance or deliberately murdered will never be known. I suggest the latter, because I knew Lucas so well. Anyway—’ he took a deep breath, ‘—that’s the history, in brief.’

‘
And the portrait?’

‘
I’d had that painted by a good friend of mine earlier — an artist from London who came to Kerrysmoor occasionally for a visit. Later, following Melissa’s death, I had it framed and hung in that small room among certain other precious relics. The place became through the years almost sacred to me — a shrine. Anything of particular beauty I could purchase, I bought and had installed there. Oh, yes, I must admit it, my love, I adored Melissa with a youthful infatuation that only seemed to increase with time — until I met you.’

‘
Maybe you still do, in a — in a dream-like kind of way,’ I suggested wistfully, with faint pain gnawing me.

‘
As one admires anything that is beautiful and true,’ he agreed. ‘Apple blossom against a pale blue summer sky — the golden fire of summer sunset tipping the hills and passing clouds with flame — great art, and chords of forgotten music played on distant violins — oh — Josie, Josie — don’t make me sound a sentimental fool. I’m an adventurer and smuggler, remember? An unscrupulous character who’s defrauded the law and married a mad woman — not that I knew that at the time — to gain my own ends and get the estate on its feet again. Lucas had played merry hell with Kerrysmoor, and there were debts to face I’d never have met if it hadn’t been for a bit of sharp practice on my part. When Alicia came along, highly born, apparently rich and besotted with me, I’d no scruples in using her. I’d no personal illusions — I knew what I was doing, or
thought
I did. As it happened, she wasn’t quite so rich as I’d believed, and the greater part of what she’d had was spent for her own comforts and apartment in the best wing.

‘
From the beginning our marriage was a travesty, one founded on my own bitterness and fanatical heartache, and her insatiable craving for a husband. I knew nothing of her family’s taint — of the inherent insanity which eventually flared up and made her destroy Tregonnis. Jealousy! It can be a very evil thing. She would have destroyed
you
if she could; that’s why I arranged for you to stay at the Crown in Truro. But you didn’t trust me, did you? You merely decided I was throwing my weight about showing who was master.’

‘
No.’ I told him. ‘Not exactly. It looked rather as though you were trying to get me out of the way.’

‘
So I was. With Alicia escaped and on the warpath, it was the only sensible thing to do. Good heavens, Josie, she might have
killed
you. She had a knife, did you know that?’

‘
Yes,’ I said, and I related then the sordid frightening episode when I’d been attacked in the garden of the cottage.

He
sighed. ‘You should have let them know at the farm. They’d have somehow managed to contact me, or the servants at Kerrysmoor.’

I
didn’t tell him I’d told Jan, but that he was too scared to spread the news in case he was blamed for gossiping about her ladyship. Instead, I merely remarked, ‘Can’t we try and forget about it all now? Oh, Rupert, shouldn’t we just be thankful to be alive, and together — and — and—’

‘
Yes?’

‘
Couldn’t we — couldn’t you give up the other thing — the smuggling?’

‘F
or the time being, with this wretched leg, I have to,’ he answered. ‘But the house is going to cost a good deal getting into order, and when we’re married—’

‘
When
?’ I remarked pertly, ‘I never said I
would
marry you, did I? How could I, you’ve not asked me yet.’

He
paused before taking my chin in his hand and turning my face up to his. Then, before kissing me, he said whimsically with mock politeness, ‘Dear Miss Lebrun, I should be most honoured if you would consent to becoming my wife.’ His voice was restrained and formal, but laughter lit his golden eyes, laughter and all the love I’d hoped to find some day from this one man in the world to whom I knew I could be totally committed.

‘
Of course,’ I said. ‘Oh, Rupert — Rupert — I do love you so.’

‘
And I you — forever.’

From
outside came the high sweet trilling of a bird. One day maybe I would also sing again. Whether or not was unimportant to me just then. We had our whole life together ahead, and spring seemed everywhere.

*

Our son was born on a day when the lanes and hedgerows foamed with wild cherry blossom and gorse flamed gold over the high moors. From the distance a cuckoo called; the newly laid gardens of Kerrysmoor were already starred with primroses, and the thrusting speared heads of bluebells. We called the baby Pierre Rupert — which I guessed would naturally become shortened to Piers. He was a lusty, laugh-ing, strong-willed child, whose greenish eyes soon changed to sparkling amber. Dame Jenny, who had made a miraculous half-recovery from her stroke, insisted on placing one of her well-known lucky herbs under his pillow for the first week of his life. ‘T’ guard ’en against witches an’ pellars and the evil doings of smugglin’,’ she said. There was no need for the latter precaution; due to the intricate and numerous under-ground tunnelling of the moor behind the house, the ground had completely caved in, and been levelled not only by Rupert’s men, but by Nature.

‘
Still, maybe it’s for the best,’ Rupert said a little ruefully, ‘With this damned leg of mine, and you to control, my wilful love, I shall have enough to do without further adventure.’

Which
proved to be perfectly true.

If you enjoyed
Portrait of a Girl
you might be interested in
An Inconvenient Affair
by Mary Williams also published by Endeavour Press.

Extract from
An Inconvenient Affair
by Mary Williams

Chapter One

She
couldn’t rest. Watchful and tense, her nerves were stretched almost to breaking point. The ominous approach of thunder looming over the Burnwood hills didn’t help. Storms there were violent, as though the ancient heart of the range was erupting to vengeful life again, after countless millions of centuries.

Emma
Fairley, born in the vicinity and now in her twentieth year, had become sensitized to every mood of that particular north-western corner of Leyfordshire. Something of its lush sweetness, veiled mystery of its valleys and rugged freedom of rocky summits was in her very blood. A haunted area — one of volcanic origin, which at times could stir the imagination from dreamy peacefulness to a primitive awareness of a far-off bygone age. Apprehension then shuddered through Feyland Woods from the lonely tip of Hawkswycke Hill. The forest wilderness of larch, silver birch, and ancient oaks became a place of shadowed mystery; in the creeping mists of early summer and autumn, twisted branches of sloe and elder were grasping arms — the deep green tarns of Feyland, waiting graves for the unwary.

Emma,
on that far off autumn evening, was keyed-up to face not only nature’s elemental challenge, but a personal crisis which involved the whole of her future and that of her father, William Fairley — especially the latter. So much was at stake; on his meeting that day with Jonathan Bradley — business tycoon and owner of the new
Leyford
Comet
, a daily newspaper intended to oust the well-established
Leyford
Courier
— depended the survival of
The
Charwood
Echo
, her father’s own newspaper and particular baby. Bradley was determined to acquire it by fair means or foul. He had the wealth and the power. Already the
Echo
had been hit by the new sensational publication
Comet
which was cheap in price, flashy perhaps, but sufficiently colourful to woo a considerable public!

At
the expense of the
Echo
.

And
this was only the beginning.

Ultimately?

Emma, who’d been her father’s trusted confidante since her mother’s death two years previously, shuddered to think. The only real hope, she well knew, was that Bradley might be induced to take up certain shares for a minimum of power on the
Echo
, leaving William and his co-director, Frank Page, in major control.

It
was for this that Fairley had gone to Eastwood Hall that day for his meeting with Bradley. Although she hoped desperately for his success, she doubted it; and as the sullen sky darkened towards evening, bringing the first clap of thunder from the hills, her body stiffened, and despondency intensified.

William
should have been back an hour — even two hours — ago. Had he called at the office in Charbrook before fortifying himself to bring news to her? Or could there have been an accident? The forest lanes were twisting and narrow, and could be dangerous to transport in the damp fading light, especially in the new-fangled motor car, which her father had insisted on purchasing for daily, quicker transport from home to his newspaper offices at Charbrook. The trap he’d used before was still retained in the stables at Oaklands, with their beloved mare, Lady, and so far the motor car, a Mercedes-Simplex, had not proved worth its cost. Emma herself had already learned to drive it. It could be fun, but not half so much enjoyment as a ride on Lady, and the mechanics worried her. It was the mechanics she feared every time her father set off at the wheel, making such a grinding noisy start to any journey.

She
’d wanted him to go on horseback or take the trap that day. Eastwood Hall, as the crow flies, was only fifteen miles away, and on Lady he could have taken short cuts across the country. But William on this occasion had been determined to appear modern and as affluent as possible, setting out at the wheel wearing a sporting check cap and tweed jacket over knickerbockers of the same tone.

‘
The millionaire look,’ he’d told his daughter whimsically, with a little tug of his carefully trimmed Imperial beard. ‘I’ve met the man only twice, but he’s a climber. The type always appreciative of style.’

‘
And money. Mean, I expect,’ Emma had retorted shrewdly.

He
’d smiled, trying to hide underlying anxiety.

‘
Don’t be cynical, Emma, that’s not your type.’

‘
What do you mean —
my
type?’

He
flung her a shrewd glance.

‘
You know very well. Feminine. Womanly.’

‘
You sound so stuffy.’

‘
I am, my dear, over those I care about.’

This
was true. But in Emma he recognised very well, there was a quality of excitement and adventure that put her apart — ahead of her time. Not traditionally a beauty, perhaps, but arresting and unpredictable, unlike her mother Claire, whose gentle serenity and fair classical features had provided always a refuge of peace when he needed assurance to steer him through financial and other problems of the
Echo
.

There
was nothing really serene about Emma. Beneath her fine-boned, rather delicate exterior, was a quick-silver mind, forever darting this way and that to meet any challenge that might arise. The innocence of her widely-set luminous grey eyes was belied by a provocative tilted mouth in a heart-shaped face; her pert nose was slightly upturned, denoting what he termed a rare capacity for delving and digging into other people’s affairs. The small determined chin had a cleft in it, and her head was proudly set on a slender neck.

Yes.
Emma was indeed quite a force in his life.

Claire
’s death in giving birth to Rosalind, a younger daughter, following a dangerous lapse of fifteen years had eventually turned William’s affections all the more fiercely on his elder child. He hadn’t particularly wanted the new baby, and when she was proved to be backward and incapable of learning to speak or communicate properly, loss of Claire had turned to an inner resentment that could only be overcome by a quiet, almost fanatical determination to keep the family newspaper going — run in the traditional decent way first established by his grandfather.

The
Echo
and Emma.

Being
a dedicated clear-sighted man, he recognised that a certain modernisation might be necessary. With moderate expenditure this could be done. But the policy of fair comment must remain. The
Echo
had never been a political publication, and he was determined at this time, following the ending of the Boer War, that he’d restrain it from being influenced too obviously by right or left. All the same — the tempo of life was changing. Liberalism was gaining steadily, and he had a shrewd idea that in a couple of years’ time Campbell Bannerman might emerge as Prime Minister. The voice of radicalism was stirring among the minds of the people. Women, too, were showing a desire to play a part in the country’s affairs other than mere domesticity. He couldn’t see they’d have much success. But the future was chancy and unknowable. Meanwhile let the feminine appeal of the
Echo
have full play. Emma had been a great asset during the past twelve months contributing a weekly column dealing with dress, cooking, and social and gardening observations that for a time had sent the circulation up — a swing of the pendulum that might have continued, but for the sudden appearance on the scene of the
Leyford
Comet
. Racy, witty, a little cheap and Americanised, it had gained immediate response.

And
Bradley was certainly not going to allow it to decline.

William
did not fear for the future of the
Weekly
Echo
but the daily publication was a different matter. It was the
Daily
he feared for.

And
so did Emma.

Why
could life be so unfair and complicated, she wondered, as she wandered time after time to the gate of their garden overlooking the forest? Why must that rich stranger from up country have arrived at such a crucial time to upset things? Why had he to fling his wealth about so vulgarly, just to destroy the even tempo of the
Echo’s
progress, with his power? Her own column week by week had been gathering the interest of new readers. In time (though she hadn’t yet broached the suggestion to William) she might even be a regular contributor to the
Daily
. Women journalists were few and far between. But there was no reason on earth why she shouldn’t be among the first. Fame didn’t particularly appeal to her. But proving herself did — proving that she could be an important factor in helping retain the standards of the respected newspaper established by her forbears so many years ago.

Oh
dear!
Why
was he so late?

The
housekeeper who’d been with them through and since her mother’s illness came down the path, saying irritably, ‘Can’t you come in now? It’s getting damp. And you with nothing on your shoulders.’

Emma
smoothed a strand of russet hair from her brow.

‘
I’m not cold. I like the air.’

‘
Well, I don’t. And it’s already spitting with rain. You can’t do any good standing about getting wet.’

Emma
sighed. ‘No. That’s true. Very well — go along, Mrs Cox. I’ll be there in a moment.’

She
was turning to follow the receding figure when the familiar rattling sound of an engine chugged in fits and starts from a bend in the lane. Emma felt a surge of relief, and ignoring the heavy spatter of increasing rain, ran towards the blurred shape of the approaching vehicle. The gates below the house leading to the shed where the car was kept were already open. William turned in awkwardly.

‘
You’re so
late
,’ Emma exclaimed. ‘I was wondering if you’d overturned into a ditch or something.’

Clambering
out, William answered, pulling his cap off and wiping his forehead free of damp, ‘You should control that imagination of yours better. There was a puncture about five miles back and I had to change a wheel.’

‘
Oh. Poor you. What a nuisance. Are you wet?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
And what happened? Did he — did you have any success with Bradley?’

‘
I’ll tell you when we get into the house,’ William said rather abruptly. ‘
Please
, my dear. I’ve had a long day.’

Emma
’s heart sank. Obviously he had nothing good to report.

Her
deductions were correct.

When
William had changed and gone into his study for a drink before the meal, he said heavily, ‘It’s no good, Emma. He won’t co-operate. The
Echo
— yes. He wants it, and will invest a tidy sum provided he has an overall majority in the shareholdings. This would mean giving him complete power to alter the character of the paper in any way he chose — so—’ he shrugged and gave an expressive gesture of the hands, ‘it’s no go.’

‘
But — didn’t you
explain
properly? Couldn’t he see that although his type of publication might draw in a new public, the present readers like it as it is—’

‘
Of course I did. But he’s a hard thinker, looking ahead to the future. He even has a plan eventually to contain the whole lot — the
Courier
,
Echo
and
Comet
into one paper —
The
Midlander
. Oh, he’s got his head screwed on pretty firmly, but for once he won’t get his way that easily. I’ll spike his guns, by God.’

Emma
shook her head slowly. How could he? When their annual income was only just sufficient to keep them and the
Echo
, out of debt? ‘What plan have you?’ she asked. ‘If you haven’t the money—’

‘
I
could
have,’ he interrupted. ‘There’s a way. You won’t like it. But — I’ve decided.’

The
strained lines of his face — the hard look of hopeless defiance and determination about his mouth and eyes frightened her.

‘
Tell me.’

‘
I can sell Oaklands,’ he stated, not looking at her. ‘It’s a unique place and would fetch a good sum. Whoever bought it
might
allow us to remain on a rental basis. It’s the only way, Emma.’

‘
You can’t
mean
it.
Oaklands
! It’s been in the family for — for
generations
. My great-grandfather designed it. It’s a heritage — a duty; an obligation.’