Pennyroyal (11 page)

But she did recognise the best man. It was her beaming grandfather, Thomas Ridgeway in his late thirties, already stocky, but smartly turned out in his best suit; Cassy gazed at him with love and tenderness. He looked so proud and happy. She guessed the photograph had been taken about 1949.

Her glance went to the other faces in the photograph and it was with a slight start that she paused at the bridesmaid, recognising the winsome, fairy-like creature in tulle and rosebuds as her mother, Alician.

The faces in the wedding group were all smiling, except one. Alician’s face was expressionless, her eyes like glass. Cassy wondered if the ceremony had been too much for the young girl; perhaps she had been petrified with nerves.

Cassy was about to return the photograph to the back of the frame when she caught sight of a small, disturbing detail. Alician’s hands were clenched round her posy as if she meant to crush the life out of the stems. The intenseness of the young bridesmaid was strangely at odds with the obvious joy on the faces of the newly married couple.

“I wondered where that photo had got to,” said Mrs. Hadlow, coming in with a cup of tea. “Where did you find it?”

“Behind this other photograph.”

“That would be your grandfather. He couldn’t bear to throw it away but on the other hand he didn’t want to see it.”

“I don’t understand,” said Cassy, peering more closely at the wedding group. “They all look so happy.”

“Perhaps that’s why. Your grandfather was so proud and pleased that day, he nearly busted his waistcoat buttons. He and Lewis had been friends since boyhood; they were more like brothers though Thomas Ridgeway was six years older. He’d taken care of Lewis since the days when they both fell out of trees.”

“Lewis?” Cassy remembered her mother’s words.
He didn’t believe Lewis.
She looked at the tall, dark-haired groom and something twisted in her heart. “Is this Lewis?”

“That’s right. Miss Cassy. Lewis Everand, your grandfather’s best friend and Jake Everand’s father. I suppose you didn’t know that?”

It was a shock because Cassy had not expected it. She searched the man’s face, finding a fleeting resemblance to Jake. The powerful shoulders were the same, and the set of stubborn jaw. “No, I didn’t know that. Grandfather never mentioned him, nor Jake. But why? If they had been like brothers, if they were such pals, why did Grandfather hide the photograph?”

Mrs. Hadlow bustled around, tidying the desk, her face set.

“Because of your mother, of course.” Mrs. Hadlow shut the drawers of the desk as if dismissing the subject. “After she died, the photos were too hurtful.”

Cassy sensed that was only part of the reason. “And why does my mother look so tense? Did she drop the bride’s bouquet?”

“Something like that. I don’t quite remember.”

Cassy did not believe her, but did not press the matter. She had the feeling that she had found a small breach in the mystery that surrounded Pennyroyal, and if she probed carefully she would find out what she wanted to know.

“She looked very pretty,” said Cassy.

“Oh yes, Alician always looked a picture.”

Both women heard the Land Rover arriving in the yard. The door slammed and then the side door opened and Jake Everand came into the house. Cassy smoothly slipped the wedding picture back into the frame and fastened the clasps. For the moment, she thought, she would not let Jake Everand know that she had discovered some of the family history, though she longed to ask him why he had never mentioned that the two men had been friends.

“Hello,” he said. “Did you get my report?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Cassy. “It was very interesting.”

His overwhelming size filled the small study. Cassy felt claustrophobic and her brains seemed to have scrambled.

“Ah, interesting,” he repeated, picking on the inadequate word. “I’m glad. Have you come to any decision?”

Cassy hadn’t. But in that split second she did.

“I’m going to sell Pennyroyal,” she said. “It seems the wisest move. The money will be useful capital for setting up a modelling agency I’ve always dreamed about.”

Mrs. Hadlow removed herself hurriedly from the room, the habits of a housekeeper still ingrained.

“Would you like me to make the necessary arrangements?”

“Yes, please.”

He nodded and opened his briefcase. “Perhaps you would care to tell me your real name. It can’t be Ridgeway if your mother was legally married.”

Cassy chose to ignore the offensive remark. “Cassandra Ridgeway is the name I use for my work. My real name is Cassandra Sjaarstad, somewhat of a mouthful for a model. My father was Svenn Sjaarstad, a Norwegian doctor.”

“But the sale will have to made in your legal name, Cassandra Sjaarstad,” he said, making a good stab at the pronunciation. “Unless you wish to remain anonymous.”

Cassy shrugged. “I’ve nothing to hide,” she said pointedly.

He made some notes and, for the first time, Cassy noticed that he was left-handed, writing a bold scrawl with the pen held awkwardly above the line of script.

“And you agree to the valuation as a selling price?”

“Of course. I’m paying you for your advice. Why shouldn’t I take it?”

Her green eyes were like emeralds, deep and luminous, and for a moment Jake was lost in their depths. She had no right to look so lovely when she was being waspish.

“I’m going over to Kettlehulme as soon as I’ve finished here,” he said on an impulse, his gaze quietly smouldering. “Would you like to come with me? It’s an interesting, old place.”

“Ah, the ancestral home? Mrs. Hadlow told me you once lived around here,” said Cassy, more than a little curious.

“Not exactly. My mother took me back to Cornwall soon after I was born. Kettlehulme hasn’t been habitable for years. I believe my father was never able to raise enough money to repair the house. It’s just a huge, empty, white elephant.”

“All right. An hour at the zoo would be fun.”

Jake was already beginning to regret his irrational invitation. If he were wise he ought to get out of Netherdale fast. But Cassy was wrapping a shawl round her shoulders.

“Your car or mine?” she asked.

“Mine,” he growled.

Low herds of clouds were racing across the sky bringing their burden of rain, undecided whether to drop their load over Derbyshire or race on to the next county. Cassy hoped they would reach Kettlehulme before the downpour.

They turned off the main road and took a winding lane up into the hills, Jake pointing out various peaks and ridges as if he had lived there all his life. They turned again, passed imposing gates, rusted and creaking, driving along a tree-lined drive, the leaves making a silken canopy overhead.

Kettlehulme Manor Farm lay nestled in the lea of a hill, its grey stone walls sleeping like a lichen-covered giant. Faded linen blinds were drawn across the leaded windows; leaves piled against the heavily bolted oak front door; two pairs of tall Elizabethan chimneys pointed twisted fingers to the sky.

“It’s beautiful,” said Cassy.

She heard his intake of breath. “I had almost forgotten,” he said. “Yes…it’s a beautiful house. I can understand my father’s obsession with its restoration. But he was never a business man. He trusted the wrong people.”

A mist of rain began to sweep across the neglected garden, shrouding the trees in a grey fog and touching the overgrown shrubs with feathers of moisture. Cassy drew the shawl closer round her shoulders.

“I hope you don’t mean my grandfather,” she said.

“I do not. Prickly, aren’t you? I meant his investment advisers.”

“Lewis Everand?”

Jake held back his impatience. “Yes. My father.”

Cassy nodded slowly, as if she understood everything now which she did not. “How sad. It would have made a lovely home.”

“It was a lovely home. My father and his father before him, lived here all their lives. They farmed the land successfully over the years. It’s let out to tenant farmers now. Only the garden belongs to the house.”

Jake seemed oblivious to the rain. He strode about, finding old roots and memories there in the abandoned house and grounds. How strange, thought Cassy; he has an old empty house and she had a disused lead mine. It seemed a funny coincidence, but Lewis Everand had simply run out of money. Perhaps it had been then that Jake’s mother, the smiling bride in the photograph, had taken her baby son away.

She could not take her eyes off the tall man, drinking in his masculinity, longing to be in his arms. But he was quite alone, unaware of her, needing no one. Waves of sadness swallowed her longing.

“This would make a marvellous setting,” she said.

“Marvellous setting? What are you talking about?”

“A modelling assignment…I can see beautiful girls draped all over the place.”

“I don’t fancy Kettlehulme being exploited to sell clothes,” he said, brushing her aside as he strode round the side of the house. “Come and see the walled garden.”

“There’s no harm in using somewhere unusual for a background and this is beautiful.”

The walled garden was a secret and sheltered place made for children, peaches and herbs.

Cassy followed Jake into the weed-filled garden, the rain sifting through the tangled brambles and showering them with droplets. She was half-dazed with emotion, a ridiculous weakness betraying the effect Jake had on her body.

“Modelling is like acting,” she said in a rush to cover her feelings. “A model working here at Kettlehulme would take on the ambience of the house; she would absorb the right mood of the designer and the clothes she was wearing.”

“So there’s more to modelling than being skinny,” Jake mocked.

“Surveying is not just wearing a hard hat, is it?”

“No,” he said with thinly disguised impatience. “It takes a graduate in engineering, metallurgy and chemistry. Plus a good many practical years working underground.”

She jerked her gaze away. His hostility was as unbreachable as these high walls.

“I don’t understand why someone as experienced as you took on Pennyroyal. Compared with some of the mines you’ve surveyed, Pennyroyal must seem like a rabbit hole.”

“It was the money,” he said, the edge of sarcasm not lost on her.

“Yes, I always pay well,” Cassy retorted.

Their mood had changed rapidly. What started as a pleasant outing had deteriorated. A grim expression settled on Jake’s face; was he thinking about the home his family had lost all those years ago? There was a bitterness in his voice that disturbed Cassy more than his usual arrogance. He looked cruel.

“Can we go inside?”

“I suppose your hair is getting wet,” he drawled.

“Yes, it is, but that’s not the reason.”

“It’s full of cobwebs and soot. Certainly not the ideal place for white gear.’

“Clothes are expendable,” she retorted, immediately regretting the unintentional implication. “I can always buy new.”

“Of course, I forgot. You’re a young woman of means, and even more if you sell Pennyroyal. It’ll be snapped up. People will buy anything. Someone will fancy being the leadmaster of Pennyroyal.”

“Leadmaster?”

“That’s what the owner would have been called back in Victorian times. Coalmaster, leadmaster, ironmaster…they were the men who made the Midlands.”

Jake turned a key in the front door and they went into a cold, damp hall. As Cassy’s eyes became used to the half-gloom, she realised that the light was coming from a glass dome in the roof. Above was a perfect circular gallery, edged with scrolled ironwork, now black and rusting. The green dome was hazy and smeared, covered with rotting leaves but still letting in enough light for them to see their way round.

The hall was unexpectedly elegant, out of place in the remote manor farmhouse. A curving staircase led to the gallery, the treads bare and worn. Cassy immediately whisked a magic paintbrush over the gallery, turning it to white and gold with the oak stair treads polished a golden brown.

She followed Jake into the front room. He went over to the blinds and tugged at a cord. It broke in his hands but the blind shot up raggedly, hanging at an angle from the top. The daylight revealed a drawing room of good proportions, two tall windows on both outside walls. A marble fireplace held the long-cold ashes of a big fire. Falls of soot sprinkled the hearth.

“How long has Kettlehulme been empty?” Cassy asked.

“My mother left the house soon after I was born. I’m thirty-five now. No one has lived in it since.”

“But your father?”

“He had died.”

“You never knew your father?” Cassy was shocked. She had not thought of Lewis Everand as being dead, although part of her had known all along that the tall, smiling bridegroom in the photograph no longer existed on this earth.

“No, never. He died before I was born. It all happened a long time ago. Come and see the other rooms.”

It was heartbreaking to walk through the lovely old house, now so neglected and out of date. No one could live in it in its present state. It had three good-sized reception rooms downstairs and a rabbit warren of domestic quarters, sculleries, pantries, a washroom with an old copper tub and a mildewy flower room.