Star Creek

by Pamela Kent

  She looked towards the creek, and realised that the windows of the disused wing had a better view of it than hers had. And as a result of throwing up the window and leaning out she could see the disused wing.

  A light was burning in one of the windows ... blazing away behind closely drawn curtains.

  She put her own light out and got back into bed. She found it impossible to fall asleep, and she lay thinking about the lighted window she had just seen, and she also thought about her guardian, Roger Trelawnce, and the extraordinary effect his handclasp had had on her.

  She could still feel his fingers grasping hers ... and the look in his eyes had been quite unreadable. Unreadable and unfathomable, like coming up against a closed door and finding that it was not locked ... If she cared to push it open she might learn something. She shivered a little, feeling a mixture of excitement and uneasiness ... uneasiness because everything was not quite on the surface at Trelawnce Manor.

  Far from it.

  In the morning, when she went down to breakfast, Mrs. Pearce told her that Mr. Trelawnce had had to make an unexpected journey to London. He would probably be away for several days, but he had left a message for Miss Dainton. It was to the effect that she should take advantage of the fine weather and get out as much as possible, but he would prefer it if she did not wander far from Trelawnce. And any invitations that she received should be declined until he returned.

  Helen could not make out what he meant by this, for the only invitation she was likely to receive was from the Rector’s sister, and tea at the Rectory was surely something that need not wait until his return? The Rector’s sister was a most amiable, harmless little woman, who didn’t even gossip.

  There was Tom Broad, of course. He might suggest again that she went out in his boat, and she would refuse. After that dream of hers she would very definitely refuse, although Tom, she was certain, was as basically harmless as the Rector’s sister.

  Then there was Perry Trelawnce. He turned up at Trelawnce a couple of days after the owner had left for London, and because she couldn’t avoid it Helen had to ask him to say for lunch. He more or less ordered her to ask him.

  “Go on,” he said, when the luncheon-gong sounded, and they were standing on the terrace outside the dining-room windows. “Be hospitable and ask me to share your meal with you. I know Mrs. Pearce, and she’ll serve up far more than you’ll ever eat. I don’t have a housekeeper myself, and I have to prepare my own meals. Behave like a normal young woman and say, ‘Please, Mr. Trelawnce, stay and have lunch with me. I’m very lonely, and I’d like your company ... in fact, I’d appreciate your company very much!’ ”

  “I wouldn’t,” Helen answered stiffly, between stiff lips.

  He frowned swiftly, and then his black eyes smiled.

  “You deceive yourself, lovely one. And you really are very lovely, you know...” touching a brown curl with an equally brown finger-tip. “I feel an urge to get to know you better! In fact, I’ve made up my mind that one day we’re going to be on the best of terms.”

  Mrs. Pearce appeared in the open french window, and he smiled at her lazily.

  “Miss Dainton has just asked me to stay to lunch ... haven’t you, Miss Dainton?” he said, with soft insistence in his tone.

  Helen bit her lip.

  “I don’t know whether you’ve got enough, Mrs. Pearce...?”

  The housekeeper did not look too pleased.

  “If it’s a question of whether I’ve got enough or whether I haven’t,” she returned, “we don’t live in a cheese-paring fashion at Trelawnce. But the master isn’t here, and—”

  “I’m Miss Dainton’s guest!” Perry said firmly, smiling at Helen. He even laid a hand over hers where it rested on the stone balustrade and patted it lightly. “Aren’t I, my dear Helen?”

  Helen bit her lip again, and snatched away her hand.

  “I suppose so,” she said grudgingly.

  The lunch, as always was very well cooked and very well served, and it was obvious that Perry thoroughly enjoyed his. When the time came for coffee to be brought to the table he suggested that they had it out on the terrace, and although, once again, Mrs. Pearce did not look too pleased, she agreed. But she hesitated when he ordered liqueurs to be served with the coffee—Napoleon brandy for himself, a small Benadictine for Helen—and even looked as if she might refuse point blank.

  “Mr. Trelawnce keeps the key of the wine cellar with him when he’s away,” she stated, with a thinning of the lips.

  “Nonsense, my dear Mrs. Pearce,” Perry replied drawlingly. “We don’t require the key of the wine-cellar. There is everything we need in the sideboard cupboard, or the cocktail cabinet, I feel sure.”

  “I don’t want anything, Mrs. Pearce,” Helen said hurriedly, and the housekeeper adopted an aggressive stance.

  Perry’s hard eyes glinted.

  “Brandy for me, Mrs. Pearce,” he repeated softly.

  Yet still, she hesitated.

  “Would you like me to go down to my cottage and fetch some of my own?” he asked, the glint plainly disconcerting her. “I do have some, you know!”

  Mrs. Pearce departed to execute his order, and when the coffee and the brandy had been carried out on to the terrace the uninvited guest said smoothly that he rather fancied a cigar.

  “One of my cousin’s Havanas. He has some excellent ones in the sideboard cupboard.”

  When Mrs. Pearce had once more departed to execute his mission Helen looked indignantly across at him and asked:

  “Don’t you think that’s very bad behaviour on the part of a guest? ... an uninvited one!” she reminded him. “Mrs. Pearce obviously has her instructions, and I don’t think plying young men like you with expensive cigars and brandy are a part of them when Mr. Trelawnce is absent.”

  Perry smiled at her, the whiteness of his teeth actually dazzling her a little as they flashed in his handsome and arrogant brown face, and he tilted himself backwards in his chair.

  “Silly child,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, I like to round things off, and a good meal should be rounded off in a civilised fashion.” He waved a hand to indicate the grounds, and the view. “I should like to live here at Trelawnce, because that would be civilised. One day I intend to own a place just like this—perhaps better! And I shall have brandy and cigars for breakfast if I feel like it, and I won’t be too mean to ask my friends for a meal at frequent intervals.”

  “Meaning that your cousin doesn’t encourage your visits here?” with shrewdness.

  He shrugged, and an indolent expression looked out of his eyes.

  “Roger and I have no particular fondness for one another,” he admitted. “But we use one another. At the moment he is using me.”

  “I gathered that he was employing you,” she said.

  He shrugged again.

  “Same thing.”

  He rose and started to walk up and down on the terrace, his eyes on the front of the house.

  “How are things at Trelawnce?” he asked! “Is all quiet on the western front?”

  “What do you mean?” feeling suddenly startled.

  He put his dark head on one side, and regarded her half humorously.

  “You have peaceful, undisturbed nights? Nothing untoward happens?”

  “I don’t know what you mean!”

  He leaned over the low balustrade and detached a climbing rose from its hold. He stuck it into the lapel of his jacket

  “Then that means things are going along quite smoothly. But from Mrs. Pearce’s expression at lunch I was rather inclined to deduce otherwise. She struck me as being agitated, and in none too good a humour. But perhaps she’s simply acting the part of a watch-dog in her employer’s interests. I believe she’s genuinely devoted to him, although she loathes the sight of me.”

  Before she could prevent herself Helen remarked tartly:

  “I’m not really surprised.”

  He turned and regarded her with an un
smiling lair of amusement.

  “One day I’ll make you sorry you said that, beautiful,” he told her. And then he bent over the silver coffee-tray and poured himself another cup of coffee, drank it swiftly almost at a single gulp, helped himself to two more cigars which he inserted carefully in an inside pocket of his coat, and then bowed to her with military precision and turned on his heel and made for the terrace steps.

  “Thanks for the lunch,” he called over his shoulder.

  She was impelled to move after him in the direction of the steps.

  “What are you going to do this afternoon?” she asked, for no real reason that she could think of, except that she had a curious wish to placate him ... an uneasy wish.

  Once more he glanced at her over his shoulder. His expression was openly mocking.

  “I’ve got a tractor to mend. If I send it away it’ll be ages before we get it back.”

  “I should have thought you would have had more than one tractor.”

  “We have, but this one’s come to rest at the foot of the hill. If you like to bring me down a hamper of tea about four o’clock you’ll probably find me still working on it.”

  Helen turned her back on him, and he went on his way with his head in the air, whistling tunelessly. She entered the house and made her way up to her own somewhat secluded corner of the house, and once there she received a shock.

  Someone had entered her bedroom in her absence, and it was not one of the maids. Havoc had been created amongst her personal things on the glass-topped table, and she could hardly believe it as she stared at the wild confusion. A box of powder had been completely emptied, and there was powder all over the carpet as well as her hair-brushes and hand-mirror. An expensive flagon of Paris perfume—one of her father’s last gifts to her—had had its stopper removed and the contents lowered by the simple expedient of sprinkling perfume all over the room, and the resultant smell was overpowering. Helen waved her hands about to get rid of it, and then crossed to the window to fling it wider. As she did so she could see through into her bathroom. Towels were flung about, and a box of bath powder spilt. A slender phial of costly bath essence had been smashed.

  She went through into her sitting-room, but there was no confusion there. All the same, she rang the bell for one of the maids, and when the girl came she asked her to send Mrs. Pearce. When the housekeeper arrived, still slightly ruffled and by no means in her usual easy good humour after the demands made on her at lunch, Helen simply took her through into the bedroom.

  Mrs. Pearce’s hands went up to her face.

  “Oh, no!” she said.

  “I’m afraid it’s ‘Oh, yes!’ ” Helen corrected her.

  Mrs. Pearce wailed:

  “And the master away! This would happen when he’s away! I told him before he went I was not too happy ... not after the other night!”

  She obviously realised she had said too much, and her face grew quite expressionless.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Dainton,” she said, “but we’ll get all this mess cleaned up.”

  Helen allowed her to reach the door, and then she called after her urgently:

  “Mrs. Pearce! Will you be so good as to put up a picnic hamper of tea for me? I want to take it down to the creek at four o’clock!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  HELEN could barely wait until four o’clock to discover whether Perry was where he had said he would be, at the foot of the hill. That meant he should be somewhere on the outskirts of the village, and on the edge of the creek. There was a stone bridge there, and half way down the hill the tractor would come into sight if it was stuck where he had indicated it was, and he was still working on it.

  It had become a vital matter to her that he should be there, and not because of any sudden desire on her part to see him again. Her opinion of him was precisely the same as it had always been—except that it was perhaps a little lower since lunch. But he was a relative, as well as an employee, of Roger Trelawnce, and he must know a great deal about him and his concerns. He must know who it was who had found an entrance to her rooms while they were lunching together and created such havoc amongst her things.

  While they were drinking their coffee he had said something that indicated he knew quite a lot. He had asked her whether everything was going along smoothly at Trelawnce, and she had been too polite to insist that he explained what he meant. In any case, it was not really her affair. Roger Trelawnce was providing her with a temporary home, and she had no right to pry into his concerns.

  But now, after what had happened, she had a right. She could only hope that Perry would be helpful and understand that she was not just trying to get to the bottom of a mystery ... she had to know.

  She raced down the hill with the picnic basket under her arm, and at any other time it would have struck her as utterly unlike herself that she should be doing anything of the kind. Racing to take tea and cucumber sandwiches and fruit cake to a man she thoroughly disliked, and who would have despised her even more than he did at the present moment—and she suspected that he did despise her, possibly because he despised all women—if he had had the least suspicion that it was his company she sought.

  He had been reasonably certain that she would look upon his careless invitation to provide him with tea with the contempt it deserved, and it had been more in the nature of a jibe than a serious suggestion. But now, if he was working on the tractor anywhere close to the stone bridge he could already see her etched against the sky as she flew down the hill. She was prepared to find him standing looking up at her with an expression of sarcastic amusement—and perhaps minor gratification—on his face when she rounded the bend that would enable her to see him.

  But he was not there.

  There was no sign of any tractor, or indeed anyone about at all. And as she leaned over the parapet of the bridge and looked down at the dark and silent water that flowed into the creek she was biting her lip with disappointment. For she had been reasonably certain that he would be there.

  He must have repaired the tractor more quickly than he had anticipated, and now he could be anywhere with it. She had no idea where he lived, and if she asked villagers it might look a trifle odd, and would certainly give rise to speculation of some sort.

  She started to climb the hill again, slowly. It was that hour of the afternoon when the sun is at its hottest, and things are inclined to shimmer and become vague in the heat. She thought there was someone waiting for her on the brow of the hill, but she could not be certain. She put her hand over her eyes, and thought she made out a slender figure with a great dog standing beside it ... and suddenly she realised, with a shock, that the dog was Nimo.

  Nimo knew her well enough by this time to display little excitement, as she drew nearer. She had not yet overcome her slight fear of such an enormous animal sufficiently to be on really friendly terms with him, and the mastiff no doubt despised her for her somewhat hesitant overtures. In any case, he was not meeting her half way, and he stood absolutely still, with the stranger’s hand on his neck, as she toiled back up the hill.

  The stranger was so obviously feminine that she could have been a new girl taken on to work at the, house; but she didn’t look like an employee ... and certainly not a domestic employee. Besides, she was on familiar terms with the dog.

  She stood there as if poised for flight, and there was a curious lack of substance about her, as if she was either exceptionally light and airily built, or she really didn’t exist at all. But the strong afternoon sunlight revealed that she wore a pink dress, and her hair was bright and burnished gold, a radiant gold. She seemed to wear it very long, for it was lifting a little on her shoulders, as if a current of cooler air on the brow of the hill was playing with it, and tossing it about her face.

  Still she stood there, her hand on the dog’s collar, and within a bare six feet of her—although the ascent was at its steepest at that point—Helen called out to her.

  She turned, and raced away like the wind, disappearing int
o the woods that bordered the road and making for the more open spaces of the park. Nimo remained motionless for perhaps a couple of seconds, and then he lumbered after her. Although Helen called out to him he refused to turn, and she lost sight of both the girl and the dog long before she reached the house.

  There was no one on the terrace, no one in the hall when she entered it. But from the drawing-room there came the sound of piano music ... someone was playing the baby grand piano.

  Helen whipped open the door, and a pair of mocking blue eyes looked across the room at her. She had seldom seen such blue eyes ... in fact, she had never seen such brilliantly, vitally alive ones. The girl in the pink dress was seated on the piano stool, and she was playing a Chopin waltz a little too loudly, but with tremendous verve. Nimo was still in attendance, lying in the middle of the carpet with his head on his paws; and as Helen burst open the door and stood there looking in on them she received the distinct impression that the dog actually regarded her with disapproval, as if inviting her to go away and not to disturb them.

  But Helen had no intention of going away.

  “Well!” she exclaimed.

  The girl in the pink dress stopped playing, and swivelled round on the piano stool, her slim hands on her knees.

  She was not as young as Helen had thought her at first, but she was fantastically beautiful. She had a delicate oval face with slight hollows in the cheeks, and her mouth was very red and full, with a sensuous bottom lip. She was not really made up, but there was something exotic about her appearance, as if her natural habitat was the stage rather than a country drawing-room; and, despite the simplicity of her dress—it was even rather an old-looking dress, well washed and faded, like an overblown pink rose—she wore pearl ear-rings and rings on her fingers, as well as an impressive pearl bracelet.