House in the Hills

by House in the Hills (retail) (epub)

  ‘No need to bow and scrape, Ellen. I’m pleased to be here.’

  The dangling end of the tablecloth caught beneath the sole of her shoe. ‘Oh, blast!’

  ‘Let me.’

  While Ellen disentangled her shoe, William rested one hand on the tablecloth to stop it slipping further.

  ‘Are you all right?’ He kissed her cheek.

  Ellen sighed like a deflated balloon. ‘My health is fine, if that’s what you mean. It’s everything else that isn’t quite right.’

  A waiter pulled out a chair and William sat down and ordered drinks.

  William had been blessed with the same good looks as his brother, but more softly endowed. Almost as though, thought Ellen, there hadn’t been quite enough metal left over to make him of the same iron hardness. William was softer and, although she’d never admit it, she found this quite endearing.

  He offered her a cigarette from a gold case monogrammed with his initials. They lit up, drew in the acrid smoke then like a mutual sigh, let it out again simultaneously.

  ‘Tell me all about it, sis,’ he said to her, his eyes full of concern in a way Walter’s never were.

  The waiter brought menus. Before looking at them, Ellen drew the carrier bag out from under the table.

  ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

  ‘You’ve bought me a present?’

  His face was bright with merriment. He was joking but he loved it. Humour was never very high on Walter’s agenda, so Ellen welcomed it.

  ‘No,’ she said, and brought out the doll.

  William frowned. ‘It’s a doll.’

  Deep dimples appeared at the sides of Ellen’s mouth. Even though she was feeling far from her best, William never failed to make her smile.

  ‘I didn’t buy it for you. It’s Germaine’s, but I didn’t buy it for her either. We found it behind a stack of bottles at Castile Villanova.’

  He took it with both hands. Looked at it. Made a nondescript face and shrugged. ‘So? What’s the significance? It’s a nice-looking doll. I expect one of the servants’ children left it there.’

  Ellen made a cat’s cradle of fingers, on to which she rested her chin. ‘It was made in Bristol by a very expensive doll maker.’

  She saw his eyes flicker and a small frown pucker his handsome forehead. ‘So it wasn’t for a servant.’

  Lowering her eyes, then her hands, to start playing with the cutlery again, she said, ‘No. It most certainly was not. I believe the doll belonged to my husband’s daughter.’

  Ellen was astonished at William’s transformation. Up until now he’d been the attentive though impassive recipient of her conversation. Now he was changed; far from impassive, indeed, she’d never seen such a pained expression in his eyes.

  ‘Walter’s daughter! Is she with her mother? Did you see Leonora?’

  She glanced down at her hands. For a brief and very strange moment she’d almost believed that her hands were around his throat; so husky, so full of emotion did he sound. His eyes had drifted from her face. He looked lost; lost and far, far away.

  Ellen felt immediately worried about him. ‘William.’ She reached for his hand, clasping it between both of hers regardless of what anyone watching might think. His look was such that she couldn’t care less about social conventions. ‘William. Leonora’s dead. She shot herself when she found out Walter had married me.’

  Mouth open, face pale as white flour, William shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, in a muted voice. ‘No.’

  Ellen gauged everything about his reaction.

  ‘I understand Leonora lived with Walter for a number of years.’

  His eyes flickered at the mention of her name. Mouth gaping still, he nodded.

  Ellen ordered a waiter to bring tea and some food. ‘Just a light lunch. The chef’s recommendation will do,’ she said quickly. She’d ordered the food merely to buy them time, certain they would not eat it.

  ‘I knew her before Walter did. It’s my fault she lived with him,’ he said at last. ‘But I didn’t know about the child.’

  ‘I see.’

  She waited for him to continue. He told her about Leonora Rodriguez and how he’d fallen in love with her. ‘She was going to be a nun, so I stepped back and let her do as she pleased, though I loved her… I sorely loved her. She was so beautiful. Heavenly in looks and spirit. In a fit of melancholy – and too much to drink – I confided my feelings to Walter. It was the worst thing I could have done. He was intrigued and sought her out. What Walter wants, Walter gets. You should know that.’

  He told her the whole story and how he had felt afterwards, also how he had ended up marrying Diana.

  ‘I never visited the Castile Villanova while she was installed there.’

  Ellen had listened attentively, all the time condemning herself for marrying Walter, for thinking she could be happy with such a man. You accepted him, she thought to herself, and in return a woman killed herself and a child was turned out of her home. She felt responsible.

  ‘I want to find this child,’ she said, her voice firm with conviction. ‘I want to put things right for my own peace of mind.’

  William nodded. He suddenly looked a lot younger than his forty-eight years. Ellen automatically reached out and covered one of his hands with one of hers.

  ‘You loved her deeply.’

  He nodded. ‘I tried to find her after Walter married you. He told me she’d decided at last to enter a convent, but I didn’t believe him. All the same, it was pretty feasible. Her aunt was a nun. I enquired about her at the convent where she used to be. I thought she’d know where Leonora was. I learned that she’d left. No one seemed to know where she’d gone except that it was north, up in the Douro Valley.’

  Ellen sighed reflectively. ‘I haven’t mentioned any of this to Walter.’

  William shrugged disconsolately. ‘There wouldn’t be much point. He’d just shrug it all off and wouldn’t tell you anything. Once something’s done, my brother quickly relegates it to the past.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  They sipped silently at their tea, both engrossed in their own private thoughts.

  ‘And he wouldn’t give a damn if you knew,’ William said suddenly.

  ‘No. He wouldn’t,’ returned Ellen and knew it was true. ‘When I next go to Portugal I intend seeking out the woman who brought this to my attention.’

  William’s face lit up. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘The child’s nurse. Her name is Conceptua Delamora.’

  ‘When do you go to Porto again?’

  ‘In two weeks. Walter has arranged for the children and me to holiday there for the summer. He’s too busy to come.’ William nodded, his eyes heavily lidded in a similar, though more open, way than his brother’s when he was planning and scheming.

  ‘I’ll meet you there. We’ll search her out together.’

  Twenty-Six

  Unlike the splendidly well-groomed Sanchia, and certainly against her advice, Catherine had purposely hooked out her ugliest dress in a weak attempt to proclaim her disdain for everything her father stood for. Green had never been her colour. Blue would have better complimented her dark-grey eyes.

  ‘You dress carelessly,’ Sanchia had said, her arched brows meeting like an arrowhead above her straight nose.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Catherine had retorted.

  She was speaking the truth. She had thought carefully about what she should wear to meet her father. The choice was difficult. On the one hand she wanted to go to him bathed in defiance so he would look at her and rue the day he’d set aside both her and her mother. On the other hand she wanted him to think her childish, even a peasant, and not want anything to do with her.

  The latter was preferable. The dress, washed and worn a thousand times, was now a very light green that made her look sallow, almost as though she were sickening for something.

  Sanchia stared at her feet. ‘Those shoes!’

  ‘They’re all I have.’

 
; Sanchia’s jaw dropped in dismay and her frown deepened. ‘They are dreadful.’

  ‘They’re my school shoes.’

  She said it blithely, though secretly she blessed the flat black creations with the ankle strap. Like a pair of chameleons, they could be flattering with the right dress and extremely ugly with the wrong one.

  Sanchia sighed. ‘At least your hair is presentable.’ Catherine grimaced. She’d bound her hair into plaits. Naturally silky, escaped fronds fell around her face relieving the tightly torturous look of her hairline. Her features too were unalterable; there was nothing she could do about the colour of her eyes or the way they reflected the light like flashes of highly polished silver. Her cheekbones were high, her mouth wide and sensual.

  She followed Sanchia up to the fifteenth floor.

  ‘My father lives here?’ she asked, taking in the quality surroundings and the pale-eyed man who greeted them.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sanchia.

  She found herself impressed. ‘He owns this?’

  ‘Yes,’ snapped Sanchia as they followed the butler through a pair of double doors.

  ‘How rich is my father?’

  ‘Very rich. Now stop asking questions.’

  She had no need to ask any more questions. Other questions, other answers and ensuing plans were forming in her brain. Castile Villanova was the most luxurious place she’d ever lived in and he owned that too. And all this would be hers if he’d married her mother. In response to this sudden truth, she not only felt resentment but also a great urge to recover what should rightly have been hers.

  The room she found herself in was broad yet had been decorated and furnished in such a way as to focus on what appeared to be a glass wall immediately ahead of them. Beyond this glass was a balcony and on the balcony was a dark-suited figure.

  Her heart began to palpitate as he turned and entered the room. Before he’d entered, the room had seemed spacious and clean-cut, decorated as it was in the modern style. Once he’d entered, it felt cluttered, small and almost stifling.

  Catherine found herself holding her breath. She clenched her hands behind her back as she studied him, determined she would not smile, would not like him.

  Her mind worked quickly, assessing from the way he moved whether he would offer her his hand. She decided not and was proved right. Once he was close enough, she studied his face. His eyes shocked her most of all. They were dark grey. Fixing on them alone was like looking at her reflection. His face, however, was not like hers. She was reminded of a linocut print she’d seen of Napoleon Bonaparte that had been defaced by a school friend who’d insisted he should smile. Her father smiled just like that – and, as in the case of Napoleon, it didn’t belong.

  He stood with his legs braced as he looked her up and down. ‘Well!’ he said at last. ‘You’re Leonora’s daughter.’

  In a split second before she responded, Catherine changed her mind about his eyes. They weren’t exactly like hers. There was no warmth. What light she’d seen in them was reflected from a mirror that in turn had reflected the light from the windows.

  ‘I understand I’m yours as well,’ she retorted and purposely copied the tone he himself had used.

  If he was at all taken aback, he didn’t show it.

  ‘You look a little like her.’

  ‘But I have your eyes.’

  He flinched, seemingly surprised that she had noticed and he had not. So! Walter Shellard was not infallible.

  There was an arrogant tilt to his jaw, a purposeful look in his angular features. She decided his face had always been totally bereft of curved lines or soft flesh. Everything about him was hard and would be hard for a very long time. Not until he was really old bones – perhaps in his eighties – would deep lines score the corners of his mouth or his flesh droop, hanging like limp lichen from his cheekbones.

  ‘Those clothes,’ he said, preferring to forego her features and return to the less palatable subject. ‘You’re wearing them specifically to annoy me?’

  ‘They’re all I have. I’ve had to make do and mend over the years. You never sent Aunt Lopa any money for my keep.’ She didn’t know whether it was the truth or not, but didn’t care. He deserved to be the target for every grievance she could think of.

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Aunt Lopa?’ He laughed, not a big, manly laugh, but a sly, low sound deep in his throat. ‘You mean Anna Marie Rodriguez. I hear she was slightly touched. Runs in the family, I think. That’s why your mother killed herself.’

  Although her coldness cut her like a knife, she refused to show any emotion. ‘Really? I thought you drove her to it.’ Her delivery was as cold as her father’s had been.

  He shrugged. ‘I did what I had to do. Now sit down,’ he said, indicating a square-armed sofa of a green only a few shades darker than her dress. ‘But carefully, so I can see where I’ve left you. That dress is almost the same colour as the sofa. We might not be able to find you again.’ He laughed at his own joke.

  Every nerve ending in her body tingled as Catherine sat on the sofa aware of the soft fabric surrounding her, the thick carpet beneath her feet. In some odd way each luxury item seemed an affront to her mother’s memory; such opulence, such ostentation directly in opposition to the empty hollowness of death.

  Her father seated himself in a chair directly opposite. Sanchia lowered herself into a chair covered in gold brocade. As usual she was elegance personified in a claret-red silk jacket and a close-fitting skirt. A stiff visor of black net drooped over her eyes from a hat that matched her outfit. She took an ebony cigarette holder from her handbag. Her eyes were fixed on Walter Shellard, Catherine’s father.

  ‘Put that away,’ he said, pointing at the unlit cigarette.

  Sanchia obeyed instantly.

  Catherine observed, sucking in information like a sponge. Inside she was squirming, but outwardly she was calm. She fixed her eyes on him, wanting to know more about him, but only in order to destroy him. She’d read somewhere that revenge should be savoured cold. To do that she had to control her deep-seated emotions.

  Sanchia poured tea and handed cups around. Her father sipped at his tea like a gentleman, yet Catherine sensed the steely hardiness of a common seaman at the core of his soul.

  ‘You read my letters so know why you’re here,’ he said after replacing his empty cup in its saucer.

  ‘No. I burned them.’

  ‘You’re at a vulnerable age and you’re my responsibility until you are twenty-one. From what I gather you are most definitely in need of moral guidance. You either live under my roof or under that of a husband. At least with a husband you would be mistress of your own house – your own life to a great extent.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Though I doubt anyone would have you dressed like that.’

  The idea of having some kind of independence from her father – from everyone – was attractive. But she wouldn’t tell him that. Although he tried not to show it, her behaviour and shoddy appearance was irritating. She decided to go one step further and be shocking. ‘A husband would expect a virgin bride,’ Catherine said, her eyes flaring with defiance.

  Her father’s response was less than pleasing. His lips spread in something resembling a smile. ‘That is true for Portugal and other Catholic countries. An English husband would not be so choosy.’

  ‘I think I too will be a nun. Like my Aunt Lopa.’

  He slapped his hip with an air of exasperation. His patience was swiftly running out.

  ‘Stop being so irritating, Catherine. Go with Sanchia and buy some new clothes. We can’t have you going to England looking like a poor peasant.’ His manner was dismissive, as though she were no more than an annoying fly buzzing around his ears. He glanced at his watch.

  Angered by this, as he looked up, she said, ‘I suppose you have to be somewhere else. You never did have much time for me.’

  For a moment her sharpness seemed to put him off balance, though not for long.

  ‘You’re spirited.’ He
sounded surprised.

  ‘Like my mother?’

  He paused and a small frown creased his brow, then it was gone. ‘No. Not like her at all.’

  She disliked the way his gaze held hers, as though he were trying to glean what she was beneath the scruffy exterior. But she would not lower her eyes. She detected a seed of concern in his mind and instantly knew what it was. She was not like her mother, but he’d expected her to be. And if she was not like her mother, then she must be like him. She liked the thought that it worried him.

  Sanchia passed him a buff-coloured folder, opening it for him before sitting back down. He proceeded to read from it. ‘As your official guardian…’

  Guardian? Not father?

  ‘I’ve made reservations for you and Sanchia on the packet to England. The ship leaves in two weeks. Be on it.’

  Catherine glowered. ‘I don’t want to go to England. I want to stay here.’

  The set of her father’s features were as stiff as a marble statue. His voice was devoid of emotion. ‘You will do as I say.’

  She felt as though she were drowning in a sea of panic, but still she reined in her voice and the emotion that drove it. ‘I have my own money. I saved money from selling cheese. And I think my aunt left me shares.’

  An amused smile crossed his face. ‘A few may be in some ne’er-do-well Iberian companies. Not enough to live on, my dear Catherine.’

  He glanced again at his watch. His tone was clipped and matter-of-fact.

  ‘You’ve no choice. Your mother was not respectable. And neither are you. I’ve no time to argue. Everything’s been arranged. If you continue to refuse, then that priest fellow will bear the consequences. My credit is good. Sanchia will go shopping with you. You cannot go to England dressed like a peasant. Bristol is not London, but it does have some standards.’