Whisper Of Darkness

by Anne Mather

  ‘You won’t listen to reason, will you?’ she exclaimed, brushing past him, and in her haste her breasts bounced against the firm muscle of his arm.

  She didn’t know which of them was the most affected by the incident. She was aware of Jake drawing aside from her, his face tense and guarded, and of the tingling sensation she was still feeling from that disturbing contact. It was strange because she had had far more familiar contacts with young men of her own age, occasions when she had been on holiday in the south of France, and had attended beach barbecues wearing only a bikini, and danced the night away; yet just by brushing Jake’s arm with her breasts she was made more intimately aware of his masculinity than with any other man she had ever met.

  She was still standing there, arms crossed over her body, palms massaging her elbows, when Anya came into the kitchen, and it was lucky that her delight in seeing her father distracted her awareness of the tense attitudes of the other two people in the room. She came towards Jake eagerly, and Joanna quickly applied herself to the teacups, hardly conscious of anything except a sense of blind impotence. He was sending her away, she thought bitterly, and if there had been any doubts in his mind, she had probably destroyed them by her unthinking provocation.

  ‘Did Miss Seton tell you what we’ve been doing today?’ Anya asked, blithely indifferent to her father’s bleak countenance, and while Joanna waited with bated breath for the girl to tell Jake about her writing, she added: ‘We cleared out the library.’ She arched her brows as if expecting dispute. ‘Honestly! It was awfully dusty. Miss Seton said you could practically grow mushrooms behind the bookshelves!’

  Joanna’s shoulders sagged, and she was hardly surprised when Jake expressed no enthusiasm for the project. ‘As I persistently keep having to remind Miss Seton, she was brought here to supervise your studies, not to act as an unpaid domestic,’ he retorted brusquely, but this time Anya made no mistake.

  ‘But she is, Daddy,’ she protested, casting an appealing look in Joanna’s direction. ‘We did the cleaning this morning. This afternoon we’ve done school work.’

  Jake’s mouth compressed. ‘Is this true?’ he demanded, and Joanna met the narrow-eyed gaze he turned upon her with grim determination.

  ‘I did try to tell you,’ she said, annoyed to hear the tremor in her voice, and he turned back to his daughter in reluctant contrition.

  ‘And what did Miss Seton have to say about your work?’ he enquired distantly. ‘Did she find your general abilities as sadly limited as her predecessor?’

  ‘No!’ It was Joanna who spoke, interjecting her own response before Anya could say anything. She didn’t like his manner of interrogation, slanted as it was towards corrupting the tenuous understanding she and his daughter were achieving, and if she hadn’t known he had Anya’s well-being at heart, she would have said he was doing his best to turn the child against her. But why? Why? There was no time now to explore such a notion, and she went on quickly: ‘Anya’s capabilities are not limited. She—she’s an intelligent child. A sensitive child,’ she added forcefully. ‘And she has a genuine aptitude for English.’

  He was obliged to look at her again then. ‘For story-writing, don’t you mean, Miss Seton?’ he suggested coldly. ‘An over-active imagination, which it sounds as though you are encouraging.’

  ‘I am.’ Joanna disliked having to argue with him in front of the child, but there was no other way. ‘Why not? Her stories are good! Her grasp of description is outstanding for a girl of her age.’

  Jake’s hard eyes bored into hers, and the silent battle of wills it instigated was something Joanna knew she had to win. But not at the expense of Anya’s peace of mind, and aware of the child’s gaze upon them, she said deliberately:

  ‘I know you don’t like me, Mr Sheldon. You’ve made that very clear. But I think in this instance it’s more important that Anya takes advantage of the little I can teach her than that you and I should allow our personal differences to interfere with her future.’

  It was a consummate piece of acting, considering the chaotic turmoil of her emotions, and one he could hardly gainsay. It served the dual purpose of diverting Anya’s attention from their growing familiarity with one another, and at the same time left him little room for manoeuvre without arousing her suspicions.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last, expelling his breath on a heavy sigh. ‘Since you seem at least to have won her confidence, I have no choice but to submit to the reason of your argument. However, I will defer any decision on the matter for the present time. Unless I can find a suitable woman to come and take charge of Ravengarth, I may be forced to make other arrangements.’

  What those other arrangements might be Joanna had no idea, and Anya was only concerned with her own affairs anyway.

  ‘Miss Seton’s pretty good at housekeeping,’ she volunteered thoughtfully. ‘Couldn’t you pay her twice as much to do both jobs?’

  ‘No.’ Jake’s response was clipped. ‘Somehow I’ve got to find a woman who’s prepared to put up with the isolation of Ravengarth in exchange for a good salary, and until I do, I’m making no promises.’

  It was not a satisfactory answer, but Joanna had to accept it. At least, he was not dismissing her out of hand, she thought weakly, and then wondered if it wouldn’t have been better if he had. Staying here, she sensed she was inviting trouble of a kind she had not yet experienced, but nothing would have induced her to leave. In some strange, incomprehensible way, she was involved with the scarred master of Ravengarth, and for good or ill she had chosen her own fate.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DURING the next few days Joanna had little time to worry about the expediency of her decision. Despite Jake’s objections to her taking over the household, there was no one else to do it, and it was amazing how quickly she adapted to her new life. She made mistakes, the rarefied existence she had lived before coming to Ravengarth ill preparing her for the everyday obstacles that were thrown in her path, but apart from scorching one of the sheets by putting it too close to the fire, and breaking some of the china from the cabinet in the living room when she tried to wash it in water that was too hot, she felt she was succeeding reasonably well.

  Certainly Anya did not protest at her prolonged spells of housekeeping, but this was because it meant there was less time for lessons. Anya, she had discovered, did not work well without supervision, but she joined Joanna in her spurts of cleaning with real enthusiasm, and she guessed the little girl’s latent femininity was being stimulated by so much activity. It was obvious that Mrs Harris had more to answer for than just poor housekeeping, and Joanna fumed every time she thought of her baulking the child’s natural development.

  Jake himself kept mostly out of the way. Even at meal times, he endeavoured to appear after they had finished, and although he ate the food Joanna put before him, she always had the feeling he would rather have had dry bread. In this respect it was an unsatisfactory situation, but in no other. She closed her mind to the realisation that it was her he was avoiding, and told herself that once he acquired a suitable housekeeper, he would have to recognise what she was doing for his daughter.

  So far as Anya was concerned, Joanna’s ingenuity amazed her. Quite by chance really, she had discovered how to engage the girl’s attention, and by involving the practical as well as the academic methods of teaching, she had aroused Anya’s interest.

  It was astonishingly easy, once she had learned how to turn the situation to her advantage. Anya responded to anything that remotely involved the stories she told so avidly, and as soon as Joanna detected this she used it to good effect. Those first intimations of how history and geography could help her developed through Joanna’s patient instruction into a genuine interest in both, and gradually it became apparent that Anya was good at anything she really applied herself to. The area around Ravengarth was ideal for their purpose. It was rich in history, for one thing, a blending of Roman remains and nineteenth-century industry, and its lakes and mountains, springs and ro
ck formations were a living indication of the developing geography of northern England. That Joanna’s teaching took in science and geology as well was not important; what was important was that Anya was beginning to find the pursuit of knowledge challenging. The secret was to keep it entertaining, and Joanna discovered a quite unexpected ability to achieve this. If Anya was learning to enjoy lessons, Joanna was learning about herself, and the knowledge was amazingly satisfying.

  She had written to her mother, assuring her that she had settled down at Ravengarth, but without going into much detail about the actual circumstances of her employment. She had merely let her mother assume that there was nothing unusual about the situation, implying a household adequately supervised, where she was actively employed in her capacity as governess. Without actually coming to Ravengarth, no one would be any the wiser, and Jake’s sister would no doubt reassure both Joanna’s mother and her godmother that it seemed to have turned out well for all concerned.

  Paul Trevor appeared unexpectedly one morning almost a week after Joanna’s visit to his parents’ farm. He came in the Land Rover, parking in the yard much to the indignation of the dogs, who set up their barking, and Joanna came out to see what all the noise was about. She had not expected a visitor, and as Jake had gone to Penrith, ostensibly for some supplies, she had taken the opportunity to spring-clean the living room. Already the house was beginning to show the results of her management, and where once there had been dust and grime now there was the sweet smell of beeswax.

  It meant, however, that she was wearing her oldest pair of jeans, a cotton shirt that hung loosely outside her pants, and a scarf knotted round her head, hiding the silken abundance of her hair. She was immediately conscious of this as Paul came strolling across the yard towards her, and her colour rose as he stretched out a provocative finger and wiped a speck of soot from her nose.

  ‘Hi there,’ he said, his square handsome face creased into a smile. ‘You look as though you’re busy. Could it be that you’re teaching chimney-sweeping as part of the curriculum?’

  Joanna sighed. ‘I’m cleaning, actually,’ she said, feeling obliged to invite him into the kitchen. ‘This is a surprise, Paul. You should have let me know you were coming.’

  His expression grew a little wry at this, and with a shrug he answered: ‘I didn’t think Sheldon would appreciate me coming over when he was around, and when I heard old Coulston telling George at the pub that he was going to Penrith this morning, I decided this was my opportunity.’

  ‘I see.’ Joanna glanced round. ‘Well—er—can I offer you a drink? Some coffee, perhaps? I was just about to have one myself.’

  ‘I’d love a cup of coffee,’ Paul agreed, though his expression was more perplexed than anything when Joanna filled the kettle. ‘But where’s Mrs Harris? Couldn’t she do that for you? Or is she cleaning, too?’

  Joanna sighed, realising that she couldn’t evade his questions here as she had done at the Trevors. ‘Mrs Harris has left,’ she said, setting cups on a tray as she spoke. ‘Mr Sheldon is looking for a new housekeeper, but until he does——’

  ‘You’re not looking after this place, are you?’ Paul interrupted her in an appalled voice. ‘My God! What a bloody nerve that man has! What does he think you are? Some kind of menial or something?’

  ‘Oh, please …’ Joanna glanced apprehensively towards the hall door. Anya was in the library, reading an article about artesian wells Joanna had discovered in one of the science magazines she had found in the living room, and the last thing she wanted was for the child to imagine she was dissatisfied with the situation. ‘I offered to help until someone else could be found. I don’t mind, honestly.’

  ‘But this place is too big for one person to handle!’ he protested, and she sighed again.

  ‘We don’t use all the rooms,’ she explained. ‘Just a bedroom each, the library, and the sitting room. We eat in here. It’s easier.’

  ‘But you—you’re not used to this,’ Paul objected, pulling out a chair from the table and sitting down rather unwillingly. ‘I mean, it’s obvious you’ve been used to a different kind of life …’

  Joanna smiled then. ‘Is it so obvious?’ she exclaimed dryly. ‘That’s no compliment. I don’t think I like the idea of being regarded as completely useless.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’ Paul was vehement in his protest. ‘Joanna——’

  ‘I was only teasing,’ she assured him, and turned away to put instant coffee into two earthenware beakers. ‘There you are,’ she added boiling water to the cup and handed it to him. ‘There’s cream on the table, and sugar too, if you need it. Help yourself.’

  Paul did so, and after taking a mouthful of his coffee, put the cup down and fumbled in his pocket for a handful of notes and silver. ‘This is yours,’ he said, counting it out carefully. ‘The change from those notes you gave to me. I’d hate you to think I’d forgotten it.’

  Joanna shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t think a thing like that, Paul. But thank you, anyway. I was very grateful.’

  ‘Any time,’ he assured her fervently, his eyes on her face revealing the warmth of his feelings. ‘But now that’s out of the way, there’s something I wanted to ask you. Will you have a meal with me one evening? In Penrith, or Keswick. I could pick you up here about seven, and we could drive——’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible at the moment.’ Joanna had no particular desire to go out with Paul at all. He was a pleasant young man, and she liked him, but she had no intention of getting involved with him. Still, she had to be tactful, and making an apologetic gesture she added: ‘Someone has to be here to look after Anya, and until Ja—Mr Sheldon gets someone else——’

  If Paul noticed the slip, he showed no reaction to it, but it gave Joanna quite a shock to realise that that was how she thought of her employer. However, Paul’s next words distracted her attention, and she listened to him doubtfully as he offered a solution.

  ‘Why doesn’t he ask in the village?’ Paul suggested rather impatiently. ‘I happen to know there are one or two widows who could do with a supplement to their income, and they’d probably be willing to work here now that Mrs Harris has gone.’

  Joanna’s brow puckered. ‘They didn’t like Mrs Harris?’

  ‘Hell no.’ Paul grimaced at his language. ‘They never forgave her for what she did to Mrs Fawcett, and so long as she was at Ravengarth …’ He shrugged. ‘I could ask around.’

  ‘Would you?’ Joanna’s spirits rose.

  Paul hesitated. ‘If I do, will you promise to have dinner with me if I succeed?’

  Joanna stalled. ‘Won’t someone from the village want to go home in the evenings?’

  Paul frowned. ‘You have a point. It’s not really a suitable arrangement, is it? You living here alone with Sheldon, and only a child as chaperone.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’ Joanna flushed. The last thing she wanted was to promote that kind of speculation. ‘I just meant—if this person, whoever she is, does go home in the evenings, she won’t be on hand to look after Anya.’

  ‘You could ask her,’ Paul remarked dryly. ‘Well, what do you say?’

  Joanna pressed her lips together. ‘So long as Mr Sheldon doesn’t object,’ she said at last.

  ‘Why should be?’ Paul was indignant. ‘From what I hear, he doesn’t give a damn about anybody but himself.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Joanna couldn’t prevent the outburst.

  ‘That’s not my opinion. Living here like a recluse, never meeting his neighbours, never accepting invitations or giving them. Just because he was cut up in that car crash it doesn’t mean he has to cut himself off from other people. What’s the matter? Aren’t we good enough for him?’

  So that was it. Joanna now understood Mrs Trevor’s attitude when they were first introduced. Did it also explain why the villagers regarded Jake as eccentric? And if Mrs Harris had been the reason why none of them would work at Ravengarth, then Jake’s selfconsciousness about his appeara
nce was unfounded.

  Anya chose that moment to put in her appearance, which was just as well, as Joanna had no desire to discuss her employer in personal terms. She came sauntering into the kitchen, and regarded Paul without hostility before turning her gaze to Joanna. She looked much different from the ragged urchin she had first encountered, Joanna thought with satisfaction, and although she still wore jeans and a sweater, they were clean and tidy, and her dark hair was smoothly brushed.

  ‘Can I have some coffee, Joanna?’ she asked, darting another glance at Paul as she did so. Joanna had given her permission to use her Christian name whenever they were alone together, but this was the first time she had used it in front of anyone else. It made Paul arch his brows in mild disapproval of the familiarity, and Joanna wondered if the lapse had been deliberate.

  ‘You don’t like coffee,’ she said now, and the girl pulled a wry face.

  ‘Some milk, then,’ she said, shrugging her thin shoulders, and Joanna guessed she just wanted a reason to find out what was going on.

  ‘Did you finish the article?’ Joanna asked, pouring milk into a glass, and Anya nodded.

  ‘I read another article, too, about whales,’ she exclaimed, diverted for a moment. ‘Did you know they were an—en-endangered spe-species?’

  ‘Some,’ Joanna admitted gently, touched by her concern. ‘I’m glad you found it so interesting. Perhaps we should incorporate biology into our studies, too.’

  ‘Biology?’ Anya frowned. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s the study of animals and plants,’ Paul answered her shortly, not at all pleased at this unwelcome intrusion to his conversation with Joanna. ‘Look, I’d better be going, Joanna. I’ll let you know what luck I have as soon as possible.’