The Gentle Prisoner

by Sara Seale

  Mills&BoonClassics

  Sara Seale

  THE GENTLE PRISONER

  There was a curious similarity between the fairy tale of "Beauty and the Beast" and Shelley Wynthorpe's relationship with Nicholas Penryn. The Beast lived in a remote house, surrounded by high walls; so did Nicholas. Beauty's father brought her a white rose from the Beast's garden; so did Shelley's father, when he visited Nicholas and they came to their strange arrangement that Shelley should become Nicholas's wife. The Beast was hideously ugly — and Nicholas, badly scarred, was convinced that no woman could ever feel anything but revulsion for him. But. .. after a year and a day, Beauty had fallen truly in love with the Beast. Would Shelley, with her gentle ways, be able to bring her own love story to its happy ending?

  Sara Seale

  THE GENTLE PRISONER

  f

  MILLS & BOON LIMITED LONDON • TORONTO

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Philippine copyright 1977 This edition 1977

  This edition © Sara Seale 1977

  For copyright reasons, this book may not be issued on loan or otherwise except in its original soft cover.

  ISBN o 263 72527 8

  Set in 10 on upt Plantin

  Made and printed in Great Britain by C. Nicholls & Company Ltd The Philips Park Press, Manchester

  CHAPTER ONE

  The house, in the soft summer twilight, looked grey and forbidding. The high wall which completely enclosed it rose in a straggling circle from the silent moor, and only through the tall iron gates could the house itself be seen, strong and implacable with its shuttered windows blank to the enquiring eye. Away on the horizon the slag-heaps of china-clay workings rose like ghostly, snow-covered hills.

  The man, with his hand already on the chill iron scrolling, paused and shivered. He had an instinct not to enter, a faint presage of ill-luck, should he push those hostile gates ajar and slip inside.

  "Absurd ..." he said aloud, and his hesitant, delicately shaped hand fumbled for the latch.

  Inside the gates it was as if the barren moorland had blossomed under some magic wand, for he found himself in a rose-garden which was as unexpected as it was beautiful. A short drive led directly to the house.

  He pulled a bell at the side of the heavy front door, and to the old man who answered it, he said:

  "Mr. Penryn, please."

  "Mr. Penryn is not officially in residence," the old man said severely, "but if you will give me your name, sir, I will enquire."

  "Wynthorpe. Lucius Wynthorpe. Tell your master I come from Mrs. Anderson."

  The hall seemed very silent when the old man had gone. Lucius Wynthorpe shivered again and glanced over his shoulder at the closed front door.

  "Absurd ..." he said for the second time, as the old man returned.

  "Mr. Penryn will see you," he said. "This way, if you please, sir."

  For a moment, the lamp illumined a mirror on the wall, and Lucius saw himself in passing, the familiar ascetic features softened by the unaccustomed light; the silvery hair swept back from the high forehead with distinguished elegance. He was

  reassured. Such a setting suited his thin, rather wistful charm. He should not have to appeal in vain.

  The room he was shown into was shadowed and indistinct and his eyes immediately focused on the pool of light shed by a single lamp by the fire-place, and the man who rose from a high-backed chair to greet him.

  "Mr. Penryn?"

  "Yes," his host replied after a slight pause. "I don't think I know you, do I?"

  "No," said Lucius quickly. "You don't know me. Mrs. Anderson gave me your name, and since I'm staying in this district, I thought - " he paused, and Nicholas Penryn said smoothly:

  "You've come on business? I don't as a rule see strangers." "Business - yes, well, perhaps it is business of a sort." Lucius' charming face was hesitant. "You see, I - " "Won't you sit down?"

  "Thank you. I'm sorry for calling on you so late, but -well, I only learnt this afternoon that you were home again."

  Lucius looked with curiosity at the man who had resumed his chair opposite him. There were many stories about Nicholas Penryn, his wealth, his slight eccentricity, his shrewdness in business matters; Penryn of Garazion. With mild surprise, Lucius saw him to be a much younger man than he had expected. The face, turned slightly away from him, was strong and dark with flaring nostrils and deep furrows running from the nose to the line of the jaw. Thick black hair grew in a widow's peak on the broad forehead, and the eyebrows were straight and black and uncompromising. It was a face that would have been ugly except for the surprisingly gentle mouth, then he turned his head to look directly at his visitor, and Lucius moved involuntarily. A deep scar disfigured the other side of his face, puckering the corner of his mouth, and drawing one eyebrow into a satanic lift. Mephistopheles ... Old Nick ... Lucius could see how he had got his name.

  "My face shocks you?" the harsh voice asked, a little mockingly.

  "My dear fellow! I hope I wasn't staring," Lucius said quickly. "I had heard about your accident, of course. No, the

  fact is you are such a much younger man than I had supposed."

  "Thirty-eight," Nicholas smiled, and the scar made it a crooked, slightly sinister effort. "And that shocks you more. You'd put me down in the late forties, hadn't you? Now, what can I do for you?"

  Lucius measured him thoughtfully. "I won't wrap it up," he said, "The fact is, Mr. Penryn, I've come to beg."

  He saw a wary hardness come into the dark eyes, before the heavy lids veiled them.

  "Yes?" Nicholas said, and there was a faint weariness in his voice.

  "Oh, I know," Lucius said quickly. "You are used to begging letters, even personal approaches such as mine- they are the natural accompaniments to a man in your position, but I had been told - Mrs. Anderson in fact told me that you cherished a - kindness for the maimed, for the disfigured - that

  - forgive me - your own injury had made you tender towards other unfortunates. Mrs. Anderson spoke of the immense good you had done for deserving cases."

  "Mrs. Anderson, it would seem, has talked too much, as usual," Nicholas remarked dryly. "What is it you want of me?"

  Lucius smiled his charming, deprecating smile.

  "Money, alas! What else? I have a daughter, Mr. Penryn

  - an only child. She is eighteen - just on the threshold of womanhood. She spends her days in a spinal carriage - an accident two years ago - a hit-and-run driver - you know the sort of thing."

  Nicholas moved his head until the scarred side of his face was in shadow.

  "I'm sorry," he said with the politeness of a man who has heard such stories many times. "And in what way can I help you?"

  Lucius clasped his hands between his knees as he leant forward into the circle of lamplight.

  "My daughter is my whole life," he said slowly. "Everything that medical science can do for her has been done and there is no possible hope of further improvement. All I care about now is that she should have some kind of bearable life - and

  this is what I cannot give her. I make no excuses, Mr. Penryn -I have been a drifter, a waster. But I cannot bear the thought of my daughter suffering as a result, and I need money for her, never for myself."

  "Did yo
u not get damages at the time of the accident?" Nicholas Penryn's voice was flat and mechanical.

  "I told you - it was a hit-and-run affair. We never found the man responsible. Meanwhile my daughter needs a holiday, occasional weekends in the country, books, music - the sort of thing that can be enjoyed from the confines of a wheelchair. And this is just the sort of thing I cannot provide for her."

  "I see. How much do you want?"

  Lucius was taken aback. He had not expected such a simple capitulation.

  "One thousand pounds would cover all her immediate needs and look after her for some time to come," he said. "Mr Penryn, you cannot conceive the weight you will take off my mind. The thought of my dear daughter, lying there day after day, with nothing but the immediate necessities of life - "

  Nicholas moved and his disfigurement showed cruelly in the lamplight.

  "I have not said I am prepared to help you, Mr. Wynthorpe," he said smoothly.

  Lucius caught his breath and his eyes were strained.

  "I misunderstood you," he said quietly. "When you asked me how much I needed, I thought - no matter. I apologize for disturbing you."

  He rose with dignity, but Nicholas did not move.

  "Sit down," he said. "I have not said thatT refuse to help you. I would like some details of your own circumstances."

  Lucius told his brief story with halting charm. He had told it so often before, that almost unconsciously he used the same inflections, the same effective pauses, alive to the smallest change in his listener's attention.Nicholas watchedhimthrough half-closed eyes, making no interruptions, his singularly beautiful hands resting quietly on the arms of his chair.

  His parents had been well off, Lucius said, and he was brought up unfitted for any career. He was already married and living on an allowance from his father when the family

  business failed. The allowance vanished overnight, and he found it impossible to get steady work. He was fitted for nothing, he had a delicate wife, and then his child was born.

  "My wife died giving birth to our daughter," he said, "and I was left to bring her up as best I could. After my parents died, I was left with a very small income which I've never been able to enlarge. By then I was no longer young and there was no place in the earning world for me."

  Nicholas looked at him thoughtfully, at the cultured, delicate face, its weakness hidden by its ready charm, the face of a man taught in adolescence to live on others, and he thought of the young girl, helpless in a spinal carriage, dependent perhaps on the charity of a stranger.

  He got to his feet.

  "You're a wastrel, aren't you?" he said quite pleasantly. Lucius drooped.

  "Yes," he admitted. "You're quite right. But the sins of the fathers, you know - do you really think it's fair - that old biblical cliche?"

  Nicholas' hand vaguely fingered his scar.

  "No," he said. "No - I've never been sure. And after all-"

  "Yes?"

  "It doesn't matter."

  Lucius rose too and faced him.

  "After all, you were going to say, you had advantages which people like myself hadn't." Nicholas' eyes were suddenly cold.

  "I inherited my father's money, if that's what you mean, but I inherited the business too, and I've worked to keep it going."

  "China-clay," said Lucius musingly. "One of the oldest trades in Cornwall. You are a Cornishman? Yes, of course, with that name and that complexion. Perhaps I envy you." He glanced round the room. "You have some lovely stuff here, if one could see it."

  Nicholas took the lamp and carried it from cabinet to cabinet. Glass gleamed in the passing light, and china and pieces of carved jade and rare editions of old books. "My collection,

  and perhaps my life, now," he said.

  "Yes, I've heard how you shut yourself up here with your possessions. Unusual for so young a man. An escape?"

  "Escape?" Nicholas looked startled. "Perhaps."

  The light suddenly caught a painting over the mantelpiece, and Lucius paused involuntarily.

  "Extraordinary!" he said.

  "That?" said Nicholas. "It's by an unknown artist, eighteenth century, of the Greuze school. Rather charming, isn't it?"

  The portrait was that of a child dressed in the stiff garments of the period, her hands folded quietly in her lap, her grave, enquiring eyes looking out from under a fringe of fair hair. The tones of the painting were very delicate and clear, and Nicholas' eyes were tender as he rested on it.

  "I've always had a great affection for her," he said with unexpected gentleness.

  "Extraordinary," said Lucius again. The light moved on and the picture was in shadow. Lucius held a Yung Cheng vase in his hands, turning it round to the light.

  "This," he said softly, "is worth more than all my debts. It hardly seems fair, does it?"

  Nicholas put down the lamp.

  "Mr. Wynthorpe," he said, "I'm prepared to help you - for your daughter's sake. If you will send me a list of what you need, I will get something done for you."

  Lucius stood in the shadow, indeterminate and tense.

  "A cheque for a thousand would cover everything," he said.

  "I dare say. But I would prefer to settle things my own way. May I have your address?" Lucius hesitated.

  "We have no settled address," he said vaguely. "We move on when the spirit takes us."

  "But you have a bank, I presume, or somewhere where you can be reached?"

  Lucius shrugged.

  "As you please. We have been lent a small cottage at St. Bede, so our address is only temporary, you understand."

  "Quite. And after that?" Lucius shrugged again.

  "It's in the lap of the gods. I'm afraid we live from hand to mouth, but I can't do anything else. If you could write me a cheque now, it would save you a great deal of trouble."

  "Possibly." Nicholas went to a desk and found a pad and pencil. "Your address, please."

  Lucius gave it. He looked defeated and suddenly tired as he waited while Nicholas wrote. The room with its treasures seemed to close in on him as he stood. Each separate item would mean life and gaiety to him. Each inanimate object resting mutely in its appointed place could mean freedom from care.

  "You are a collector?" he remarked idly.

  Nicholas closed the writing pad.

  "Yes," he said, "I'm a collector."

  The interview was over. Lucius walked with his host through the silent hall and waited while Nicholas opened the heavy door. As the door swung back, the scent of the roses came to meet them. It was nearly dark now, and beyond the rose-garden, the high wall rose sombrely to the fading sky.

  Lucius stretched out his hand to a white Frau Karl Druschki.

  "May I?" he asked, snapping off the bloom before he was given permission. "For my daughter, you know. She loves roses."

  "Certainly," said Nicholas courteously. "You have a car?"

  "I left it outside," Lucius answered, fingering the rose delicately. "Well, good night, and thank you - or shouldn't I thank you, except for the rose?"

  "You will be hearing from me," Nicholas said, and stood in the porch, watching his visitor depart.

  When the last sounds of Lucius' car had died away, Nicholas went into the house, shutting and bolting the door behind him. He paused for a moment, in the quiet hall, stroking his scarred cheek, then abruptly he went to the telephone and put through a London call.

  "Hullo ..." he said when the connection was made. "Please put me through to Mrs. Anderson..."

  The small fishing village of St. Bede lay beyond the clay works

  where the moor dipped to the estuary. It was too remote for the tourist, but a small artists' colony gathered there during the summer months and were tolerated mildly by the fisher folk.

  Nicholas left his car on the headland, and began the short descent down the cliff side to the village. It was just six o'clock and already the shadows were lengthening. Nicholas descended the last part of the cliff path and began to walk along the shore.
>
  He was familiar with most of the cottages which were let to summer visitors, but the address Lucius had given was strange to him, and he glanced about for some likely person to direct him. Some children were playing in the rock pools left by the tide, but they ran away when they saw his face, leaving a young girl who sat on a rock and dipped her bare feet in the water.

  "I wonder, could you direct me to Gull Cottage," he asked. "It's lent, I believe, to a Mr. Wynthorpe."

  She looked up at him and he was immediately teased by some sense of familiarity. She was strikingly fair. The fine, soft hair which swung to her shoulders was almost silver, and widely spaced grey eyes looked gravely out from under a high forehead.

  He was used by now to strangers' reactions to his face, the polite shock, even repulsion, then the pity which had at one time hurt him so much. He did not expect to be hurt again, but something in the quick widening of this child's eyes, in the startled, almost imperceptible withdrawal, made him move impatiently and turn the disfigured cheek away.

  "Yes," she said then, and her voice was as grave as her eyes. "Up there on that little terrace - next to the pink-washed cottage with the shutters."

  He followed the line of her pointing hand with his eyes, and saw the two cottages side by side above the first cobbles of the little quay side.

  "Thank you."

  "I would take you there myself," she said with polite unexpectedness, "only I can't leave for a little. Would you tell me the time?"

  He looked at his watch.

  "A quarter-past six."

  She sighed.

  "Another half-hour," she said, and he raised his eyebrows enquiringly.

  She made a little movement with her head and he noticed for the first time that one of the bearded artists who strolled about the village had set up his easel by the breakwater and was painting her.

  "Oh, I see," he said gravely. "You are a model."

  She nodded.

  "He pays me a pound," she told him with reverence, and he smiled, the rare smile which twisted the scarred side of his mouth, but nevertheless lent his face an unexpected charm.

  Immediately her face lost its polite gravity, responding at once in an answering smile that was wholly child-like, and he knew why she had seemed familiar. She might well have posed for the grave child whose portrait hung in his study.