House in the Hills

by House in the Hills (retail) (epub)

The figures she’d perceived filing out of the front door stood in a line to greet them. There were just four. For a house of this size? A nervous knot began to tighten in her belly. Nothing was making sense.

  Inside Cornwallis House was just as bad. Stained walls testified to square gaps where pictures had once hung. Furniture was old and neglected, curtains faded. In the dining room a beautiful Sheraton dining table and chairs were ill polished, lacked lustre and were patterned with sticky fingermarks. A sweet smell of long-laid dirt, old food and mouse droppings filled the air.

  Catherine explored each room, her jaw slack, her mouth hanging open. Dirty windows meant murky rooms smelling of dust and lacking fresh air.

  Cornwallis House was indeed a place of past glories. Catherine could imagine how it had once been; polished furniture, richly coloured wall hangings and the sounds of a bustling household rising to its lofty ceilings. Now it echoed from the lack of both.

  ‘It needs a woman’s touch,’ said Robert with a casual wave of his hand, indicating nothing in particular.

  ‘It needs cleaning.’

  ‘You can take care of that,’ he said with an air of finality.

  Alarmed at the prospect she might have to do this all by herself, she looked up at him. ‘Do we have any more servants than those four?’

  He looked slightly amused. ‘Just the four. Do you think I’m made of money? If you need any more, go along and see your father. Tell him he owes me credit for supplying damaged goods.’ He looked pointedly at her.

  She frowned and then understood. Clasping her hands in front of her, she looked away, trying to keep from blushing. Obviously Robert had wanted a young virgin. She had failed to fulfil his expectations.

  ‘You were not a virgin,’ he said suddenly, blasting the fact into her ears.

  ‘And you are hardly a gentleman,’ she shouted back at him. ‘In fact you’re the most obnoxious man I have ever met.’

  ‘You didn’t say that back in Portugal!’

  Her eyes were like flames, full of all the pent-up anger resulting from how others had treated her.

  ‘You’re a sick man, Robert Arthur Freeman. Tell me the truth. Have you ever satisfied a fully-grown woman? Well? Have you?’

  She’d followed his own example and said it loud enough for the servants to hear. His eyes stared. His face reddened.

  She smiled triumphantly to herself and at him. ‘See? Tread carefully Robert or you’ll end up stepping in your own filth.’

  Catherine knew at that moment that she’d see little of her husband in future; certainly he’d stay away from her bed. She’d shamed him. In the space of a few weeks she had grown from a girl into a woman. Girls he could cope with. Women – especially strong-minded women – he could not.

  And what of the rest of my predicament? she asked herself.

  The selfish, impressionable girl who’d been swayed by Robert’s easy charm had died halfway across the sea on the journey here. The new Catherine would have to take her place and make the best of a bad job. His comment about getting money from her father didn’t fall on deaf ears. Her father owed her much more than he owed her husband. And what of his new wife? Did she know he had a daughter?

  Robert looked at his watch. ‘The children are waiting to meet you. We’d better see them now.’

  Her head spun round. She looked at him askance. ‘Children?’

  She presumed he meant the servants’ children. ‘Wonderful. They can help get this disgusting ruin into shape.’

  ‘They’re not the servants’ children. They’re my children,’ he said indignantly.

  They were walking on Turkish carpets that had long since seen better days. Her foot stuck in a particularly large hole as they came to a sudden halt.

  ‘They are most definitely my children,’ said Robert again, looking quite gleeful that she’d tripped over. ‘They are answerable to you when I am not around, but when I am around, they are answerable only to me – as you are. Is that clear?’

  ‘You never told me you had children.’

  ‘I didn’t need to,’ he said sharply. ‘You married me, not my children. Well there you are. You wanted a husband without encumbrances and I wanted a virgin and your father wanted access through my vineyard in Spain to two of his own. Strikes me we’ve both ended up with something less than we’d hoped for – except your father, that is.’

  ‘You’re a liar.’

  ‘So are you.’

  Feeling cheated and glaring at his back, she followed him along the shabby carpets and past the shabby curtains and furniture to the place where his children were waiting. But she couldn’t really blame him for wanting a wife. Yet again it was her father who was at fault. Everything led back to her father and she hated him for it.

  Thirty-One

  Ellen Shellard waved to her children from beneath the arched colonnade of the Castile Villanova. They were sitting in the back of a small trap pulled by a white pony and looking pleased to be going off for a ride.

  Her smile felt stiff and behind her contented mask, her thoughts were in turmoil.

  The driver flicked the reins, made a clicking sound to the pony and away they went. Ellen watched them go. She regretted that her two children were growing up. They’d both started boarding school, and though her heart ached for them, Walter was insistent. She missed them badly when they were away and had determined to make the best of the holiday. But her heart was heavy. The world was not the beautiful place she’d always been led to believe. In her mind she could still see the tortured priest. She’d left her gloves at his bedside. When she’d returned to fetch them, the nuns had turned the young priest over on to his stomach and were bathing his back. Her blood had run cold at the sight of the encrusted wheals running across his back, the mix of black blood and yellow pus. She recognized that he’d been purging his soul, but from what?

  The purging of souls swiftly led her to thoughts of her husband. Things had gone from bad to worse between them. She could barely stand being in the same room with him, let alone having him touch her.

  Years ago she had admired her husband’s strong features, the way his mouth set in a determined line when he wanted something. Even though his hair no longer grew in leonine splendour from his high forehead, it had only grown thinner and not disappeared altogether. His eyes were his most dominant feature. He had a very direct way of looking at people and rarely seemed to blink unless he was caught off balance, and that happened only rarely. He’d blinked when she’d mentioned the doll. It had been such a swift fluttering, perhaps someone not so familiar with his looks and ways would have missed it. But Ellen had not. A split second – that was all it was – and she’d noticed. However, he’d admitted nothing, and neither would he. Her husband, Walter Shellard, was one of the most successful businessmen in the city. What was a doll in comparison with a million-pound deal? Nothing!

  Holding the doll in both hands, she eyed its staring eyes and yellow hair. The grubby dress was now a fresh shade of lemon and the crumpled petticoat was white again.

  Placing the doll to one side, she sat on a velvet stool before her dressing-table mirror. Turning her head this way and that, she studied her reflection. Her tawny-coloured hair was cut in the latest fashion close to her head and her complexion was creamy white. Plucked brows arched above clear grey eyes. Pearl earrings matched a three-strand necklace. Today she was wearing a peach-coloured dress trimmed with fawn satin. Although the colour was cheerful, it did nothing to alleviate the pinpoints of apprehension in her eyes. Ellen sighed and eyed the doll sidelong. It was beautiful, almost too beautiful to ever have been played with. Someone in the house must know who it had belonged to.

  She sat back and eyed her reflection. Her clear eyes looked brilliant and decidedly brave.

  ‘Right,’ she said to her reflection. ‘I’m going to show this little pretty to several of the servants, those who have been here for a number of years.’

  Her reflection nodded back at her. My, my, she thought, I look so pale
, so out of place in this country. The thought that she didn’t quite fit in had haunted her for a while. It had occurred to her to put aside her sunshade, lie out in the sun and tan herself to their skin tone. But I’d probably end up the colour of a cooked crab, she told herself. Horrible! And she shuddered.

  Even this room of hers reflected her Englishness. Walter had given her carte blanche to decorate her own sitting and dressing room as she wished. Gone were the colourful tiles and walls painted the colour of crushed rose petals. Everything was cream-coloured now and teamed with fawns and pale greens. The dark-green shutters were cream; the paintwork was cream, and even the carpet was cream. The carpet covered the hardwood floor – far too dark for modern tastes, Ellen had decided. The only thing about this room she would not change for the world was the view. From a stone balcony paved with red and black tiles, she could look out over the garden, see the distant blue hills and smell the mix of perfumes and damp earth. Like the glorious women of the region, it was vibrant with colour and rich, earthy scents.

  She’d mentioned her observations on Latin women to Walter after meeting the daughter of one of his Spanish business associates at a social event.

  ‘She’s stunningly colourful and makes me feel washed out,’ she’d said to him.

  Walter’s eyes had followed the girl. Ellen had sensed he’d tensed suddenly, almost as though an electric shock had passed through him, or someone had pricked him with a needle.

  ‘Don’t you think so?’ she’d said, studying his face intently for any sign of something she did not want to see; his approval, his desire for someone so different in looks from her.

  He’d laughed. ‘You women.’

  That was all he’d said. ‘You women.’

  Yet again she went over and over the same nagging suspicions. She looked again at the staring eyes of the doll.

  ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid,’ she muttered, slamming it down on the dressing table hard enough to make her perfume and cosmetic bottles rattle.

  Just at that moment, a knock came at her dressing-room door and her maid entered. Around thirty years old with pale skin and dark, deep-set eyes, Honoria came in with a dress draped over her arm.

  ‘The dress is repaired, madam.’

  Ellen instructed her to hang it up in the wardrobe. She was just in time to see her put it in the wrong place. The dress was of a soft lavender colour, but Honoria was hanging it next to a navy-blue dress scattered with tiny pink rosebuds.

  ‘Not there, Honoria. Mauves with other mauves and similar shades. Such as purple, for instance.’

  The maid apologized and did as requested. Ellen’s eyes went to the doll. It was a long shot as, although Honoria had been at Castile Villanova for several years and now travelled regularly with them back and forth, she was not a servant of long standing.

  Ellen wound her fingers around the doll’s white stockings. She held it up. ‘Have you seen this doll before, Honoria?’ Honoria closed the wardrobe door and came closer. She looked at the doll. ‘Is it one of Miss Germaine’s?’

  ‘No. It’s not. Germaine found it in the cellar. I wondered if it belonged to a servant’s child.’

  Honoria shook her head, her thick eyebrows meeting in a sudden ‘v’ before dividing again. ‘I don’t think so, madam.’

  Ellen nodded vaguely and pushed the doll back in the drawer. What was the point? She wanted to talk to him properly about Leonora and Catherine, but Walter was as dismissive about her wishes as he’d been at the bodega. William was cautious. ‘Don’t start an argument until I’ve had chance to meet her face to face. I want to see Catherine first,’ he’d said.

  * * *

  Honoria started when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  Walter Shellard smiled. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  Honoria managed a nervous smile in return. She’d never felt at ease with the master of the house. Yes, he smiled at his servants, but the hardness in Walter Shellard’s eyes was always there. His smile was like a smear of potter’s clay that could be pulled around to suit. The man behind that congenial countenance was never caught off guard. He was always on full alert, assessing what people were thinking and calculating how to turn the mundane to his advantage.

  ‘Is everything to my wife’s liking?’ he asked her. His lips moved as he spoke, though his teeth seemed to stay the same; clamped together, the inner part of a rictus smile. His grey eyes held hers.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She bobbed a curtsey, though her legs felt like jelly.

  His smile remained. ‘What did my wife want?’

  ‘I was just returning a dress that had been repaired, sir.’

  The non-wavering smile continued. ‘Is that all? Was there anything else she wanted you to do, my dear?’ His eyes seemed to burn into her brain.

  Unable to drag her eyes away from those teeth, Honoria shook her head so hard, the tiny white frill she wore on her head shifted to one side. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Now, now, Honoria. No need to take on so. See? You’ve shaken this pretty little frill off your head. Let me put that straight for you.’

  His hands brushed against her forehead as he pinned the frill more securely on her glossy black hair.

  Honoria hated snakes and for some reason had assumed that Walter Shellard’s touch would be like that of a snake. However, she did manage to control a sudden shudder, and once she’d got used to the idea, she noticed that his hands were really quite warm. Not sweaty. Just warm. She found that quite surprising. She’d heard gossip in the kitchen. She’d heard that the master had had quite a reputation before he had married his second wife. She’d heard about the other woman who’d lived here, a beautiful woman from somewhere around Pinhao. And she had a child. The other servants had gossiped in hushed, shocked tones, though in all honesty they relished the lurid details, made more lurid in the repetition of telling over the years.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders in a fatherly manner and looked searchingly into her eyes. ‘Did my wife ask you any specific question?’

  There was a certain set to his mouth, not so much a smile as an enquiring grimace, and although his voice was pleasant enough, it had undertones. Her fear of snakes returned, the curved shape of their mouths, and they certainly were not smiling. Neither was Walter Shellard. Not really.

  It was the question she was dreading, and yet she reasoned, it had been such a little question, not really very important at all, so why was she trembling?

  ‘She showed me a doll.’

  Walter Shellard’s smile had frozen, making his square jaw look even squarer, his teeth more even.

  ‘Tell me the rest.’

  His voice remained pitched at the same level, no word varying from the one that went before.

  Lowering her eyes, Honoria forced herself to continue. ‘It was just a doll. She asked me whether I’d ever seen it before. I said I had not.’

  He nodded and the frozen smile defrosted a little, twitching at the corners of his mouth.

  Honoria began to visibly quake in her shoes. She valued her job. She had a mother and a dullard of a younger brother to support. She was vehement in her attempt to remain in his favour. ‘I said nothing, sir. Just as instructed. I said nothing.’

  His light eyes were stone cold and paler than alabaster. A lesser man might have blinked more frequently than he did, but Walter Shellard was a man who could not bear to miss anything. He’d actually trained himself to keep his eyes wide open, to fix his opponent or enemy with a cold, searching stare. Becoming what he was had not happened overnight. He had trained himself to be successful, to have the upper hand over anyone who opposed his wishes. Family mattered, but only as long as they towed the line. He would not countenance opposition from within his business concerns or his family, and that included his wife.

  Thirty-Two

  The nursery at Cornwallis House was nothing more than a shabby but very large room. A pine table with chipped corners occupied the area closest to the window. A bookcase lean
ed against the wall at one end and a fire of damp coal steamed in the grate of a white marble fireplace.

  England was cold and this house was colder. Catherine shivered at the fire’s ineffectiveness and vowed she would do something about it. In the meantime, she made a superior effort to control her nerves, concentrating on the room’s details as a kind of precursor to confronting its occupants.

  There was a blackboard and easel on the other side of the room; a rocking horse with faded paintwork and a tangled mane; a selection of dolls sitting in tiers, propped up against the wall and looking for all the world as though they were posing for a photograph. There was also a model yacht; a metal automaton of a monkey complete with tin drum and a pair of cymbals; bats, balls and a brown doll’s pram with wooden wheels.

  A brass fender sporting a leather-covered seat at each corner was set in front of the fireplace. A girl with a flat face and straight brown hair was sitting on one of these corner seats toasting a doorstep of bread on a brass toasting fork. The girl turned round and looked her up and down then diverted her gaze and returned her attention to the toast that was beginning to colour.

  ‘This is Jennifer. My eldest,’ said Robert. He said it heartily with a great sweeping out of one arm and a flashing of even white teeth.

  He was met with silence.

  Outright rudeness, thought Catherine and tried to read the look on Robert’s face; there was pride in his features, but something else, a sparkle in his eyes. He adored his eldest child. No! More than that. The form his affection might take made her shiver.

  The girl was not much more than fourteen, four or five years younger than Catherine. Robert’s daughter had little to commend her; seemingly she’d been in the humdrum middle of the queue when attractiveness was being given out.

  Jennifer’s most outstanding feature was her hair. Although mousy in colour, it was prodigious, bouncy and big. Curls that had been teased since babyhood were unruly and dry. Her flat face was framed by a deluge of fuzziness.