Return To Tremarth

by Susan Barrie

  She walked across to the piano and ran her finger across the ebony top of it. She held it up for his inspection.

  “See? The daily woman isn’t all that good.” “Good?” His voice sounded explosive. “You could hardly expect a village woman to keep this place as it should be kept – ”

  “I don’t.” She continued to smile at him, almost sweetly. “That’s why I’m looking forward to the arrival of Hannah Cootes. As a matter of fact, she’s on her way down from London at this very minute… I’m picking her up at the station this afternoon.”

  “And you won’t sell?”’ His voice was hard and icy.

  “I’ve told you, not at the moment. If you like to contact the local estate agent in, say, three months’ time, you might possibly discover that I’m open to offers.”

  “I can make you my offer here and now. You’ll never get anyone else to be so generous!”

  “Why not?” She leaned against the piano and. regarded him with a bright and curious gleam in her eyes. “After all, you may be rich

  – and presumably because you’re rich you don’t want to do anything with the house, such as turn it into a hotel – but there are all sorts of people motivated solely by the eagerness to make money who might see in Tremarth a very valuable property. You must admit it would make a wonderful hotel or country club – ”

  She was quite alarmed by the bleak ferocity of his expression.

  “If you turn Tremarth into something of that sort, I – ” He drew a long breath. “I simply won’t allow it! ”

  “You can’t prevent me, Mr. Tremarth,” she reminded him sweetly.

  He took a few obviously agitated turns up and down the room, and then returned to her with his pocketbook in his hand. From it he removed an impeccable slip of pasteboard and placed it in front of her on the piano. She saw that it was beautifully engraved with his name and address in Grosvenor Square, London.

  “I don’t think either you or your friend will find it very much fun housekeeping in a house with twenty bedrooms,” he observed in such a tight voice that she realised he was having difficulty controlling his temper. “At any rate, not after the first couple of weeks. So I’m leaving you my card in order that you can get in touch with me. I shall not get in touch with you again myself… but I feel fairly confident you will have a change of heart in a very short time from now – possibly within the next forty-eight hours! – and I have no doubt at all that I shall be hearing from you! It’s fortunate for you that I am a fairly patient man!”

  It was not what Charlotte herself would have described him as, seeing the taut look about his mouth and the frustrated gleam in his eyes, but it was his impudent assumption at that moment that impressed her most, and because of the unmistakable red in her hair her temper rose.

  “I think it is quite unlikely that you will be hearing from me, Mr. Tremarth,” she emphasised, “either within the next forty-eight hours or the next six months.”

  He shrugged his shapely shoulders.

  “I have warned you that I’m a patient man.” As if he had suddenly realised that his time was valuable and he was actually wasting some of it he turned away and headed for the drawing-room door. But before he reached it he remembered that he owed her something, and turned and delivered himself of some slightly acid thanks.

  “It was good of you to show me over the house,” he pronounced stiffly. “I was not surprised to discover that it’s exactly as I remembered it – even to that coating of dust on the piano. I don’t think your Great-Aunt Jane was exactly well served by her domestics, but at least they were hardly a problem in her way.”

  He strode out into the hall, and she followed him more slowly. Just before he disappeared into the blaze of sunshine on the terrace he cast his glance in her direction and wished her a formal good-bye.

  She answered mechanically:

  “Goodbye…” And then, with a dimple appearing at one comer of her mouth, she added, “Richard!”

  Tremarth paused for a moment as if in surprise, and then continued on his way out to his car.

  Charlotte drove into Truro that afternoon and met the London train, and the slight gloom that had held her since the morning evaporated when she caught her first glimpse of Hannah’s cheerful countenance.

  Hannah Cootes had been her friend since her schooldays, and there was virtually no difference between them in age. But Hannah looked several years older, and she was one of those people who always struck everyone else as ‘sensible’. She had an outdoor complexion, short dark hair, and because of the closeness of her work she invariably wore glasses. She painted miniatures, and was already acclaimed as quite a competent artist. Charlotte, who always itched to take her in hand and dress her just a little bit more smartly, as well as set her hair for her and get her to experiment with one of the more reliable brands of cosmetics, felt her lips curving in amusement when she realised that Hannah had left London in the same old paint-stained corduroy slacks she used when she was working, and for luggage she had only a single suitcase.

  Charlotte took it from her and assured her that she was delighted to see her.

  Hannah apologised for the working clothes.

  “But it was as much as I could do to catch the train, let alone furbish myself up a bit,” she admitted. Then, admiring, her eyes flickered over Charlotte. “But you look wonderful, as always! Why you ever bothered to start a typewriting bureau when you might have been modelling clothes I can’t think.”

  Charlotte smiled at her.

  “There are any number of girls who look good in clothes,” she assured her admiring friend, “but typing other people’s letters is one sure method of earning a living. However, my future plans are somewhat different now, and I may not return to typing letters. I shall probably sell out my share of the partnership and invest it in something else.”

  “Oh!” Hannah’s eyes were bright and questioning as they walked towards Charlotte’s small parked car. “Such as what?” she enquired.

  Charlotte glanced round at her almost impishly over her blue clad shoulder.

  “Tremarth?” she suggested. “I had an idea this morning, and I may yet make it work!”

  On the way back to Tremarth there was so much to talk about that Charlotte did not pursue for the time being whatever plan it was she had formed for the house that had once belonged to her great-aunt. And when they finally arrived at Tremarth Hannah was so full of admiration for its attractive exterior that it seemed a pity to introduce such a purely commercial topic as making the place pay when the new arrival simply wanted to reproduce it on canvas.

  “It’s a lovely old house,” she declared. “It’s a long time since I had a go at a really large canvas, but to-morrow I’ll set my easel up on the terrace and see what I can achieve. Luckily I’ve brought several canvases with me – ” it had been difficult to find a place for them in Charlotte’s tiny car – “as well as my oils. I can see that I’m going to have a heavenly time now that I’ve actually arrived!” and she sounded really enthusiastic.

  Charlotte smiled at her affectionately and led her inside the house. Hannah’s enthusiasm increased and she practically dissolved into rhapsodies over the splendid hall fireplace and the panelling that was so remarkably well preserved.

  “If this house belonged to me,” she declared in a reverential whisper, “I’d settle down and live in it, and I’d never return to London.” “Ah, but you’re an artist,” her friend reminded her, “and artists can settle down almost anywhere if they like the surroundings enough. I’m a very practical person, and I think the kitchen is a bit of a problem… But you’ll discover that later on!”

  They ascended the stairs to the room she had got ready for Hannah. It was next door to the one she had selected for herself, and they both had magnificent views, looking directly out to sea, and had the added convenience and touch of intimacy of sharing a bathroom.

  Hannah spent some time examining the furniture and assessing its value from the stand point of one who w
as fairly knowledgeable about such matters, and then they went downstairs to the kitchen to make a pot of tea Waterloo accompanied them, and since he and Hannah were old friends it was a very satisfactory day for the old dog. In the morning he had met a man he had liked – although Charlotte was considerably at a loss to know why he had actually fawned on him. And now Hannah had contrived to stay with them, as evidenced by the luggage she had brought with her, and that gratified Waterloo very much indeed.

  Even Hannah, however, was brought up a little short when she saw the size of the kitchen. A coach and horses could have filled it with ease, and left room for a team of outriders. The paintwork was decidedly drab, and the vast kitchen dresser was crowded with china that was unashamedly dusty. The daily woman during her tours of duty had obviously had little time to devote to it, and as Charlotte lifted cups off the hooks she carried them fastidiously over to the sink and washed them under a running tap before drying them on a clean tea-towel.

  Hannah nodded in an enlightened way.

  “Yes, I see what you mean.” She perched herself on a comer of the big centre table. “But I still think it’s a wonderful place, and you’re lucky it’s yours. Miracles could be achieved with a lick of paint in this kitchen, and I’m not entirely a decorative artist, you know – I can stoop to working with an ordinary pot of house paint, and in fact I’m rather good at it. I painted every inch of the woodwork in my own flat, and if you’d seen it before I did it you’d unhesitatingly acclaim me as nothing short of a miracle-worker.”

  “As a matter of fact I did see it,” Charlotte replied. “I happened to call one afternoon when you were up to your neck in high gloss paint.”

  “Then you’ll agree that I’m no mean performer, and my services ought to be utilised here. How soon can we get hold of some paint, do you think?”

  “We could go into Truro again to-morrow… or we could probably get some locally.” “Splendid! Then let’s try and see what we can do locally.”

  But as they sipped tea and ate buttered scones with strawberry jam at the kitchen table Charlotte felt the need to point out to her friend that it might be a wasted effort if they made an attempt to improve the distinctly drab appearance of the kitchen. For one thing, it would involve a lot of paint, and if they were to do the job properly they would have to scrub and treat the woodwork first, and the whole enterprise would take several days of united effort. Unless someone was going to live in the house afterwards – and she emphasised the word live’ deliberately – it seemed hardly worth it to exhaust themselves simply because Hannah was rather skilled at transforming dingy paintwork.

  Hannah helped herself to another scone and added a generous topping of strawberry jam to it, and then looked along the length of the table at her friend with rather more of an alert look in her eyes.

  “But you kind of implied you had some sort of plan to live here,” she reminded her.

  Charlotte looked diffident.

  “If I did, it probably wasn’t practical. In fact, I’m reasonably certain it isn’t in the least practical,” she replied.

  “But it was a plan? You had some sort of brilliant idea?”

  “In a way – ”

  “Can you possibly afford to live here without doing something to make the place pay for its upkeep?”

  “You know perfectly well that I can’t.”

  “Well, then… What was this brilliant idea?”

  Charlotte slipped a piece of cake to Waterloo, who demolished it in a flash.

  “I dismissed the notion of running it as a hotel, because everyone dreams of turning their home into a hotel when they want to make it pay. And it’s not a very original idea, anyway… But I did think I might have some success if I ran it as a nursing-home.”

  “A what?”

  A faintly pained expression crossed Charlotte’s delightfully smooth and attractive face.

  „I don’t know why you should be so surprised,” she protested. “After all, you have had some experience as a nurse. I mean, you did do two years as a probationer, didn’t you? And if you hadn’t become so obsessed with the idea of painting miniatures you might have stuck at it And although I know nothing at all about nursing I could look after the domestic side… and we could employ people! Just one or two,” rather more vaguely, “when the thing was going well enough to justify the expense. At first it might be a good idea if we catered for convalescent patients only.”

  “It would be the only idea,” Hannah offered it as her opinion, without actually wishing to pour cold water on the scheme. “Unless you’ve got a large amount of capital tucked away somewhere you couldn’t possibly equip this place for really ill people. But I’ll admit it’s the ideal location for convalescence. Not only is the house perfect for that sort of thing, but you’re right on top of the sea, and you’ve got extensive gardens and are far removed from any intrusive sounds. It couldn’t be better, in fact, looked at from the point of view of situation – ”

  “Well, then?” Charlotte enquired eagerly.

  Hannah shook her head.

  “For one thing, I’m not a qualified nurse, and I’ve got a job to do even if I were. And unless you’re hand-in-glove with a Harley Street specialist you’ll never get any patients.” “I could advertise,” Charlotte suggested with the same eagerness.

  “You still won’t get any patients. Anyway, do you know anything at all about the doctors down here?”

  “Not so far. But there must be one quite near. In fact – ” and she broke off.

  “Yes?”

  “There used to be one with a house down in the cove. He was my Aunt Jane’s doctor… a Dr. Tremarth. His people once lived here at Tremarth…” “How interesting.”

  “And when I was a child I played with his nephew who came to stay with him.”

  “More and more interesting,” Hannah commented. “In fact, quite absorbing. But I fail to follow your line of reasoning. You’re not suggesting that this Dr. Tremarth might still be functioning as the local G.P.?”

  “Of course not! In fact, I know he’s dead.” Hannah’s eyebrows rose.

  “Spirit healing?” she suggested. “Or has the nephew taken his place?”

  Charlotte rose restlessly and started to prowl about the kitchen. She stood in front of the cold and empty range and regarded it dubiously as she decided to take Hannah more fully into her confidence. She told her about her visitor of the morning… the man who had once, as a mere gangling youth, carried her around her aunt’s orchard and helped her rob the apple trees of their fruit, and who was now so changed that it was difficult to identify him with that slightly besotted youth. For there was no doubt about it, at that time, despite the nuisance value that she had for him, he had been under some sort of a spell that she exercised… a kind of willing slave to all her more precocious whims.

  She had responded by treating him with supreme childish arrogance… had pulled his hair and even kicked him at times, when she felt in the mood, and he didn’t come to heel immediately. It was true that at times he had looked as if he would like to give her a jolly good spanking. But he never had.

  And now every time his grey eyes flickered over her they did so with a kind of contempt and she had the feeling that his only possible use for young women of her sort was motivated by the knowledge that she stood between him and something he desired ardently… far more ardently than his bleak grey eyes could possibly make one believe.

  “He wants to buy Tremarth,” she ended with a bluntness that made the words sound almost brutal. “It’s his family home, and he wants it. And he’s got so much money that I simply have to name my price!”

  Hannah sat forward as if her attention had been firmly riveted at last.

  “And -?” she asked.

  “I’m not going to let him have it. I won’t sell! ”

  Hannah drew a long breath that was almost like a breath of acute relief.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “If you sell the place I won’t be able to come and stay here… an
d I’ve every intention of spending my summer holidays here for the next ten years. After that, we’ll see. I’ll probably try Bournemouth, or somewhere like that.”

  Charlotte looked very nearly as relieved as her friend sounded.

  “Then you do think I’m not just being awkward refusing to sell?”

  “Of course I don’t… For one thing, you’ve hardly had a chance yet to find out whether you like it here, and even if you do ultimately sell you ought to allow yourself a brief respite in which to enjoy your sudden inheritance. Your Aunt Jane would probably haunt you for the rest of your life if you handed the place over to a stranger immediately because the colour of his money dazzled you – ”

  “But Tremarth isn’t a stranger! His people once lived here.”

  “Yes, you’ve already explained that to me. But if family pride is one of their principal virtues why did they ever part with the house in the first instance?” “They were probably hard up -”

  “But this young man is rich! ”

  Charlotte remembered that Richard had always given the impression of being rich. And, in fact he had admitted it.

  “I believe it belonged to another branch of the family. In fact I’m almost sure it was his uncle who sold the place to Great-Aunt Jane.” “Then your great-aunt was probably doing him a service when she bought it.”

  Charlotte looked doubtful.

  “Aunt Jane wasn’t even Cornish!”

  Hannah smiled at her and waved her hands in the air.

  “Don’t be sentimental,” she implored. “A business transaction is a business transaction, and at the moment the house is yours. My advice to you is to hang on to it… for a while, at least. I realise you haven’t the money to live here in the same way that your great-aunt lived here, but that doesn’t mean you have to rush into a sale because someone else insists on it! I don’t like the sound of this man one bit. He sounds arrogant and inconsiderate, and he must have followed you all the way down from London when you left it. You say that he was actually staying at the local inn when you arrived?”

  “I found out later that he had booked a room by telephone and arrived about half an hour before me.”