Garth of Tregillis (6 page)

She had smiled and her plain face was suddenly warm and attractive. ‘Thank you, child,’ she said simply. ‘You’ve done me a world of good.’ And then as she turned over the pages her face had again relapsed into its strange, withdrawn look. ‘I’m bringing it up only to Giles’s time,’ she had said sombrely, ‘because Garth is not the true owner of Tregillis as far as I’m concerned. He is a usurper, as big a pirate in his own way as his ancestors.’

I had felt my heart beat with excitement. Diana’s suspicions were correct, then! And did Cousin Eunice know the answer to the problem that had tortured her?

‘If it hadn’t been for Garth, Giles would still be here, and darling Diana. We were so fond of each other. She was such a sweet and lovely person. But there, I’m wandering on and you don’t even know the people I’m speaking about!’

I had felt guilty as I realized for the first time the duplicity of my situation. I was in this house under false pretences: my real work was not to teach the unknown French child, but rather to worm out the secret of Giles Seaton’s fate. At least I should have an unknowing ally in Cousin Eunice. On this occasion she had been too wary of me to reveal any more, but perhaps in time when I had gained her confidence she would tell me what lay behind her words.

I walked down the avenue and turned down a narrow path that wandered down towards the cove. I had the uneasy feeling of being watched; an uncomfortable creeping sense of being in someone’s sights. I glanced back, but it was impossible to tell from the enormous facade with its rows of windows that glittered in the morning sun which particular window held a watching figure.

Perhaps all old houses gave one that disturbing sensation, as though keeping eternal scrutiny, I thought, and Tregillis, with its centuries of age behind it, was no different from others of its kind.

The blossoms of the rhododendrons were exquisitely beautiful, like huge crimson and mauve Christmas decorations against the shining deep-green leaves.

The path narrowed and came to an end quite suddenly and I found myself standing on a rough granite causeway that bounded one side of the cove. The opposite arm of the tiny bay was formed of rocks against which the sea broke gently. The cove itself was bounded by massive boulders and the blue sea lapped with deceptive gentleness on a beach of pebbles. It was a very tiny cove, almost indistinguishable if one were any distance from the land, I surmised, and in bygone days would be an excellent place for smugglers to carry out their activities. I stood for a moment breathing in the salty, exhilarating air. Guillemots soared screaming overhead and I shaded my eyes and glanced up dazzled by the sun and the reflected lights of the dimpling sea.

When I glanced again at the stony strand I was surprised and startled to see that the figure of a girl had appeared. She was slowly walking along, her eyes fixed on the ground as though searching for something. I was puzzled that I had not seen her before, then as I studied the towering boulders I could see deeper shadows indented in the rock. There would be caves there. Perhaps the girl had been investigating one of them when I had arrived and that was the reason I hadn’t seen her. She seemed to be completely unaware of my presence, for she walked until the strand curved sharply towards the rocks, occasionally bending down, picking something up and placing it in a fishing basket that she carried over her shoulder.

It was when she reached the tip of the strand and turned to retrace her steps that she looked up and I saw that she was a woman of about thirty, her dark, luxuriant hair slightly touched with grey. When she caught sight of me her face lit up. She hurried towards me and I noticed for the first time that she limped.

‘I thought I was alone. I didn’t expect you to find your way to the cove so quickly.’

‘Then you know I’m staying at Tregillis!’

I sounded surprised, and she laughed delightedly at my astonishment. ‘Why, of course—you’re Judith Westall. Paul told me all about you. I’m Verity Brett: I keep house for Paul and his father.’ She pointed along the coast. ‘Their house is about a mile from here—near the tin mine.’

I glanced curiously at her basket. ‘What are you collecting?

Shells?’

‘No, stones.’

‘Stones?’ I echoed.

She laughed. ‘I expect you’re thinking I’m one of the local oddities, but actually, although they look very drab now, they polish up quite beautifully. I’ve a machine for that kind of thing.

It’s a sanding machine and you’d be amazed how well the colours come up when they’re polished.’ She reached in her basket and held out a handful of small pebbles irregularly shaped and to my eye extremely unattractive-looking—duns and browns and pale yellow.

‘Yes, I know they look terrible,’ she said, correctly interpreting my look of disappointment, ‘but you’d really be astonished how different they’ll seem after being sanded for two days.’

‘Two days?’ I said.

‘Yes, you must come along some time. I keep my machine in an outhouse. It makes a dreadful din, but Paul and his father are very patient. I expect,’ she added with a little grin of amusement, ‘’it’s because I’m an excellent cook, so they put up with me.’ But I guessed from her manner that she was deeply attached to Paul and his father. Maybe perhaps more to Paul, I surmised. I had seen how her eyes had lit up when she had even mentioned his name.

‘But what do you do with them once they’re polished?’ I asked.

To me it seemed a rather pointless occupation, and she must have guessed at my lack of enthusiasm, for she laughed and said a little mischievously, ‘Now you’re certain I’m one of the local eccentrics.’ Actually I make them into jewellery. I buy the mounts and make necklaces, bracelets and rings. They go quite well during the season,’ she added, a little proudly, and I guessed that her talent compensated her to a certain extent for her disability.

As we spoke we strolled towards the boat-house and I glanced in curiously, but although I pressed my head close I couldn’t see beyond the dust-engrimed window.

‘No one uses the boat-house now,’ Verity said quietly. ‘Mr.

Seaton hasn’t taken out the sloop since the accident.’

Mr. Seaton! For a moment I was puzzled, then I realized she was speaking about Garth. Strange how I already thought of him as Garth. She spoke his name with a sort of reverence and I guessed that she, like others in this part of the world, looked up to him as a sort of feudal overlord, and the thought annoyed me slightly. Garth Seaton would not find this subservience towards his position in me, I resolved.

Verity let the stones slip through her fingers. ‘It was dreadful,’

she said with a little shudder. ‘I’ll never forget Paul’s face when he told me they’d found Mr. Giles. It was days after the accident and miles down the coast. I suppose,’ she continued thoughtfully, ‘he was remembering the old days and let unpleasant bygones be bygones.’

I stared at her for a moment. ‘Do you mean he didn’t like Mr.

Giles?’ I asked.

‘Whatever disagreement they had it was between them, and of course Paul never discussed it. But I saw the change in his attitude to Mr. Giles.’

Then I saw a reserve close down on her pleasant features. She was remembering, no doubt, that I was a stranger here. She knew nothing about me. She was too responsible a person carelessly to initiate me into local gossip and secrets. This was a close-knit community and whatever her enigmatic remark had meant it was clear that she felt this was neither the right time nor place to divulge it. But then she probably took my interest as merely ill-mannered curiosity. I should have to be extremely circumspect or I should find myself up against a blank uncompromising wall of silence.

I changed the subject, hoping she’d be more communicative concerning my pupil. ‘Paul was telling me that the child I’m to coach in English is called Emile Lelant and that his father was a French count.’

I saw a demure, faintly mischievous smile touch her lips.

‘Indeed Paul may not know much about the child or his father, but he certainly knew Armanell. I don’t think there was a man hereabouts who didn’t fall in love with her.’

‘Armanell?’

‘Yes, the boy’s mother. She lived with her father in a house further along the coast on a cliff overlooking the sea. It’s a lovely old home, although it isn’t a patch on Tregillis,’ she added with a touch of pride. ‘Armanell was extraordinarily beautiful and, as I say, every man was crazy about her.’

‘You talk about her in the past tense. Is she dead?’

She looked surprised and said thoughtfully, ‘Yes, I expect I do think of her as belonging to the past, for when she was still quite young she married a far-out relation in Normandy, the Comte de Chalandon, and went to live in France. They say he was very much older than she was and very wealthy, and as her father was ailing I expect he more or less arranged the marriage so that she would be comfortably settled in life before he died. I don’t really think she had much choice in it— or at least that’s what the men hereabouts said,’ she smiled tolerantly. ‘Maybe it was to soothe their vanity, because there was none she ever looked at seriously except Mr. Garth. In those days when Mr. Giles and his wife and Diana were still together, Garth was invited to Tregillis and he and Armanell went wandering around the coast together or sailing in the sloop. They loved the sea, both of them, and could sail a boat in any weather, but as I said, ever since the accident Mr. Garth has never been near a sail.’ She relapsed into silence.

‘Then the child I’m to teach is Armanell’s son!’

Had Garth Seaton returned Armanell’s love? I wondered. If so, how did he feel now that her son was to be a guest beneath his roof? Verity had said that Armanell was beautiful. What was she really like? I wondered. Surely it had taken more than mere beauty to enslave the young men in her world. ‘I expect she was very gay and lively,’ I hazarded.

Verity considered this. ‘I don’t really know. You see I didn’t see much of her, but I remember once seeing her riding across the moors with Mr. Garth and I thought I’d never seen anything so lovely. She was like a beautiful lady from the court of King Arthur.’

I smiled. ‘Oh yes, and Arthur’s kingdom was supposed to be in Cornwall, wasn’t it?’

She nodded, pleased. ‘I’ve always loved stories about King Arthur’s Court, especially the one about Guinevere and Lancelot.’

She paused and considered. ‘Yes, I think Armanell would have been like Queen Guinevere, “the fairest in the land”.’

‘And Garth would be Sir Lancelot?’ I queried.

She gave a peal of genuine amusement. ‘Oh, dear me, no. More like Sir Turquine! Although I suppose he’s handsome enough in his own way. But then,’ she shrugged, ‘my father was a fisherman: we lived in a small cottage. We didn’t meet socially: the Seatons and their like came of a different world.’

Her calm acceptance irritated me. ‘But what difference does it make?’

She regarded me with an air of mature wisdom. ‘A great deal when you’re the owner of Tregillis. They’re considered a sort of royalty in their own right. At least that’s how their employees look on them.’

‘Then they’re very silly,’ I said crossly. ‘Anyway, you’re not an employee of his.’

She shrugged. ‘Then I’m the next best thing. Paul is his steward and, I suppose, a sort of friend—as much as a man like Garth Seaton ever has intimate friends. And I’m housekeeper to Paul, so what does that make me?’

Suddenly my anger was replaced by a flash of recognition that made the colour rush to my cheeks. How stupidly and childishly unrealistic my pride must seem to Verity! Who was I, after all, to put on airs? In her view I, too, was no more than Garth’s employee, dependent on his bounty. I should be paid a salary, just as his other servants were. How was she to know I was financially independent, able to fling the dust of Tregillis from my shoes the moment I found conditions intolerable? And should I find them intolerable? I wondered.

Later when I had left her, after promising to call on her and look at her jewellery, I walked slowly back to the house with the conviction that conditions would have to be very intolerable indeed before I would leave Tregillis. I had always been inquisitive and I remembered Diana’s gentle laughing reproaches when I had questioned her too closely about her affairs.

No, there was so much I wanted to know, and although I didn’t actually admit it to myself I was insatiably curious concerning Garth Seaton.

As I approached the house I found a limousine at the door. In the hall Mrs. Kinnefer was being greeted by a small, self-possessed schoolboy. A bored-looking chauffeur stood beside a pile of luggage.

She turned to me. ‘It’s Emile Lelant. And this is Miss Westall, the lady who will teach you English,’ she informed him.

As he gravely acknowledged the introduction it struck me that his English vocabulary was excellent, although his intonation was decidedly French. ‘Uncle Garth was telling me about you,’ he continued. ‘He’s staying with Mama at Ghalandon.’

I could see that Mrs. Kinnefer was taken aback at this piece of information. ‘And did he say when he would be returning?’ she asked.

‘Oh, not for weeks and weeks. He was going to bring me to Tregillis, but Mama said Wilson would take me instead and Uncle Garth should stay on.’