The Girl From Over the Sea

by Valerie K. Nelson

  Who does he think he is, giving out orders like this? Lesley asked herself in a fury. She would have left him standing, but he was between the door and herself and she had still got to free Dingo.

  ‘If you think I’m going to have him tied up all the time you’ve made a mistake. I wouldn’t be so cruel. In Australia...’

  ‘You’re not in Australia now,’ he pointed out irritatingly. ‘But even there, one supposes dogs obey their owners and are trained to leave sheep and lambs alone.’

  ‘What proof have you that Dingo would chase lambs?’ she asked frigidly.

  ‘None, and I’m not proposing to risk finding out. We’re breeding pedigree stock at the Home Farm—animals that are too valuable to be chased over the cliffs.’

  We! That word again,’ as if he identified himself with every aspect of life at Trevendone. What bad luck that Dingo had run foul of him again before Ricky’s .claim had been established! Once it was...

  ‘Do you know anything about training a dog? ‘The question came suddenly and Lesley, wrapped in her own gloomy thoughts, jumped. ‘No, I don’t,’ she admitted.

  ‘Then why did you buy the dog?’

  ‘I didn’t buy him. He was to all intents and purposes a stray, and the twins couldn’t bear his being turned out, which is what our landlady in London was going to do. So...’

  He pounced on that. ‘So it isn’t really your dog. Those children!’

  ‘They aren’t children,’ she flung back. ‘They both look much younger than they are because they’re so small and slight.’

  Her face suddenly went very stubborn. Why was he spending so much time here ... as if he was trying to find out every single thing about her, looking at her with his cold intent eyes?

  ‘Blake darling, so this is where you are. I waited...’

  The speaker wasn’t where Lesley could see her yet, but she stiffened, disliking instinctively that smooth—and what Lesley considered affected—drawl. Dingo evidently agreed with her. He set up his vociferous barking until a cuff from Defontaine sent him down on his stomach wagging his tail ingratiatingly.

  In a leisurely manner, Defontaine now turned, presumably smiling a greeting, for Lesley did not hear him speak. She was bending down again struggling with the knots, determined not to give up.

  Now that penetrating voice came again. ‘Surely that dog isn’t still there? I thought we’d decided it had better be put down.’

  Incredulous amazement and a kind of tearing rage shot through Lesley. She got up and almost leapt across the space towards the door. She gamed a swift impression of a tall young woman with long black hair dressed in an expensive suede coat with a sheepskin collar and high ‘suede boots which matched exactly the colour of her coat. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Lesley didn’t pause to sort that out. She just thought, so this is his wife—his lady, as the gardener had put it.

  She said hotly, ‘If anybody injures my dog in any way they’ll be sorry for it, believe me!’

  ‘What have we here? Blake, don’t tell me you’ve tied the girl up as well as the mongrel!’ The dark young woman’s face was a picture of amused contempt.

  As she saw that smile for Lesley the picture fell into place. But of course, this was the girl who had stood in the doorway of the house, on the cliffs at St Benga Town and had seemed inclined to let her Borzoi take up Dingo’s pathetic challenge.

  ‘Sorrel, go on ahead. I’ll join you in a minute or two,’ Defontaine said, standing between the two girls.

  The one he had spoken to laughed again. ‘Take my advice, Blake, tie her up with the dog. These wild and woolly savages from over the sea need to be disciplined.’

  Lesley decided to ignore that. Her private opinion was that the person who should be tied up was Madame Sorrel Defontaine herself. Two unpleasant types seemed to have found each other in these two, and no doubt theirs was a very successful match.

  The girl’s smile to her husband was a very special one and then she turned and sauntered away. Now Blake Defontaine let his arm drop from across the door. Had he thought she would fly at his wife’s throat? Lesley wondered.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid like releasing that dog,’ he advised. ‘You’re nursing your sister, so you can’t keep an eye on the puppy as well. Your brother is evidently not sufficiently responsible to do so. If you have any thought at all for the puppy leave him where he is so that he doesn’t get into further trouble.’

  Lesley bit her lip. She hated the idea of giving him best, but she had no alternative till Rita was able to go out. If only Ricky ... Where had he been this morning?

  She bent to Dingo and gave him a hug. ‘All right, old boy,’ she whispered, ‘I’ll have you out as soon as I can.’ She turned back to Blake Defontaine. ‘I’ll be responsible for him as soon as my sister is well and I’ll ask my brother again to take him out only on a lead.’

  ‘That’s very sensible of you,’ he said with a nod, and Lesley could have struck him for his condescension. Seething with fury, she passed him without a glance. One thing was quite certain in her mind. As soon as Ricky had established his claim to the Trevendone estate Mr. and Mrs. Blake Defontaine must receive notice to quit the Lodge. She was unspeakable and he was too large, domineering and arrogant to have on the premises a moment longer than necessary.

  CHAPTER IV

  Lesley’s first instinct was to rush back to the Manor and demand to know what Ricky had been doing since they arrived here, but second and wiser thoughts prevailed. The last thing she must do was to upset Rita, and having a blazing row with Ricky would do that quicker than anything else. So far as he was concerned too, that would get her nowhere. He would just become stubborn and withdrawn or begin to talk of leaving Cornwall. It wasn’t as if he had ever wanted to come.

  No, the best thing she could do in her present mood of anger, frustration and general feeling of depression and despair was to walk it off and get herself sorted out.

  She hurried through the neat vegetable garden, and came to a rougher piece of land, mainly pasture with a few apple trees standing in the hollow. The path led upwards to a wall in which was a gate and soon she was on the cliff top with a magnificent view of the coastline beyond St Benga Town to some distant headland jutting into the lovely turquoise sea. It was rolling out but there were still white-headed breakers churning to foam on the cruel toothed rocks.

  As Lesley turned to look in the other direction she saw that there was a path winding down the cliffs, broken here and there by steps which led to a sheltered, sandy cove. It looked like a private bathing beach and probably Avas, but she had no intention of going down there. This afternoon it was probably going to be private to Air and Mrs. Blake Defontaine and their horses.

  She turned in the direction of St Benga Town, walking quickly along the springy downs for a time, her nerves so tense that she couldn’t even think coherently.

  But the cold wind blowing in her face and the exercise for which she had been pining gradually had their effect and after a while she slackened her speed, having worked off at least the surface of her worries.

  She had got to get this matter of Ricky settled without bringing Rita into it. The girl twin would always spring to her brother’s defence no matter what the problem. They might bicker and even quarrel between themselves, but to the world they always presented a united front.

  Lesley thought despondently, everything had gone wrong. I had the biggest difficulty in persuading them to come and since we arrived here nothing has gone smoothly. It had seemed to start when they were confronted by the ogre-like figure of Blake Defontaine looming up in the half light of that late afternoon a week ago. He had seen who was driving, Lesley felt sure, and he was holding the knowledge over her head until it suited him to pounce. Wild thoughts of blackmail came fleetingly and went just as quickly in Lesley’s brain.

  Another piece of bad luck had been the twins’ insistence on adopting the puppy. He had been a source of trouble since they came down here, and the t
wins were irresponsible about him. Lesley had to agree there with ‘the Enemy’s’ judgment. She would have to do something herself about getting a licence and try to train him. It would be no good leaving it to the other two.

  It had also been unfortunate that the two Trevendones who were in possession had both been away from the Manor when they had arrived and the only people they had been able to see had been the very old lady whose mind was fixed now only on the happy days of her youth and of course ... Blake Defontaine.

  Lesley began to walk quickly again, her hands thrust deeply into the pockets of her coat, her copper-coloured hair whipping across her face. He made her feel like this, tense and strung up in a suffocating excited way every time she met him or even thought of him.

  It had got to stop being like that. She must take a hold on herself, treat him with coldness and reserve, refuse to be drawn into battle, where possible, avoid him.

  He and his wife, that hateful Sorrel girl, must be renting the stables here as well as the Lodge, and being the types they were, they had calmly taken possession of the rest of the estate. It was a situation that would have to be changed.

  Lesley swallowed suddenly, unnerved by the wave of depression which flooded over her. They seemed so formidable, those two together. Separately she felt she could have fought them, but as a couple, married and obviously very much in love—at least Sorrel was. No mistaking the look she had given him when he had asked her to go on and leave him to deal quickly with this upstart intruder from over the sea.

  Lesley’s hands went deeper into her coat pockets and she found that now she was almost running over the smooth turf. At this rate she would soon be at St Benga Town and then there would be all the way to walk back. What was she going at this pace for? Running away from something or just from herself?

  She stood for a few moments looking down at the cluster of grey roofs that made up St Benga Town and the little harbour with its few boats rocking at anchor. And there among the houses winding up the hill was the one with blue shutters where she had first seen Sorrel.

  Her eyes went to the cruel coastline with the rocks like sharks’ teeth stretching out across the sands, eager to smash to atoms any luckless ship or sailor who should venture too near. For the moment the magic charm of the land of Lyonesse had vanished from her heart. This wasn’t a land of courtly knights and fair ladies. It was the wreckers’ coast.

  She thought again of Blake Defontaine with his dark face and his cold eyes and the black-haired Cornish girl who loved him. In this land of the Celt, Lesley suddenly felt an alien, a foreigner. She wasn’t even English, and to the Cornish, even they were foreigners. She was an Australian, a girl from over the sea, and to those two at least she was a hostile stranger.

  She thought miserably: if only I could turn back the clock. If only I’d never come here.

  And then Lesley shook her head vigorously, pushing back the strands of her hair from her face. How faint-hearted and feeble could she get? Once again her eyes were on the lovely scene before her eyes. Was she going to shrink away from it because its beauty had an element of savagery and cruelty? She had come to Cornwall to fight for the-twins’ inheritance and was she going to lose her spirit because the fight was going to be tougher than she’d expected?

  Now it was her own self-contempt that drove her on. Again she was almost running as she made her way back to the Manor, the cold easterly driving behind her. By the time she reached the wall where the Manor gardens began she was really weary. If instead of going back through the orchard and kitchen garden she went a bit further on, she might find a shorter cut to the house.

  She came upon the seat unexpectedly, set back in the wall and fashioned out of half a boat upturned with a board across sufficiently wide for two people to sit. Lesley sank down into it. It was too cold to sit for long, but at the moment she felt she couldn’t take another step, and the sides of the boat gave shelter from the bitter wind. Behind were two trees bent in two directions by the wind so that their upper branches met but leaving an elongated oval of sky above the seat.

  Lesley closed her eyes. Gosh, she was tired, and that wasn’t going to help when she tackled Rick.

  On the smooth springy turf there was no sound of footsteps. The first Lesley knew that someone else was about was when a hand came on to her shoulder and a man’s lips were on her cheek. She had turned just a fraction of a second in time or the kiss would have been on her lips.

  She sprang up, looking into the dark face of a young man with sea blue eyes that reminded her of the twins’.

  ‘What ... what do you think you’re doing?’ she questioned.

  He straightened up, laughter on his handsome mouth. ‘Kissing you, of course, or trying to,’ he said unrepentantly. ‘If you sit in the Kissing Seat that’s what you expect, surely.’

  ‘The Kissing Seat?’ Lesley faltered, turning to stare at it. ‘Is that what it’s called?’

  He was just a bit taller than she and his blue eyes twinkled down at her. ‘Yes, that’s the Kissing Seat, and those,’ indicating the two trees, ‘are the Kissing Trees. Look how they’ve bent together over the years and are now in an embrace that neither of them can ever evade. It’s quite a thought, isn’t it?’

  Lesley looked at him from under her sweeping lashes. ‘Isn’t this private property?’ she questioned. ‘Ought you to be here?’ She moved away from him and from the seat, walking towards the cliffs and staring downwards. Yes, they were there, as she had expected—a man and a girl exercising their horses.

  ‘It’s not really private, though we try to keep it so,’ he admitted.

  Then she’d guessed right. From the beginning she had been fairly sure that this young man with his dark romantic looks was a Trevendone. He must be Dominic.

  She was on the verge of asking him and then she changed her mind. She would wait to see what he said. But he seemed to be waiting for her, so now she smiled, ‘I’ve seen you before. ‘You were lunching one day at the King’s Arms in St Benga Town and then you were at the door of a lovely house on the cliff. There was a dog, a huge Russian wolfhound.’

  ‘Oh, that’s Boris. A beauty, isn’t he?’

  Lesley made a tiny grimace, and her eyes wandered again to the rider below, her black hair streaming in the wind. ‘I’m not so sure. I was afraid he was going to make mincemeat of my dog who had dared to bark at him.’

  He slapped his booted leg with the riding crop he was carrying. ‘Of course, I remember. Sorrel—Mrs. Lang—was half inclined to let Boris have a go.’

  ‘I thought so,’ Lesley replied, nodding. ‘Sorrell. She’s the girl down there, isn’t she?’ and she indicated the two riders now on the far distant beach. Her eyes wandered to the sea, turquoise and dark blue all at once under these changing skies.

  The young man’s expression changed. ‘Yes, they’re putting in some intensive practice for a race meeting that’s coming up very soon. And now I must be off. I promised...’ Lesley’s own expression was puzzled. ‘You called her ... Mrs. Lang, but I thought—I mean, doesn’t she live at the Lodge?’

  ‘Good God, no, why should she?’ His voice was suddenly harsh and his dark face half angry, half surprised. ‘She lives at Treida, the house where you saw the dog. The man down there, Blake Defontaine, lives at the Lodge. The long low building next to it is his lab. He writes books and lectures at universities all over the world and is an agricultural economist, rather famous in his own sphere, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Lesley blankly, and then, ‘I should imagine she rides well. She’s a beautiful girl. Does her husband ride too?’

  Dominic made a gesture. ‘Lang? He’s dead. He was a racing motorist. She’s been a widow since October.’

  ‘How sad for her. She’s so young.’ Beneath her lashes, Lesley’s green eyes were curious. She sensed a certain reserve in his manner, perhaps even conflict. It’s Sorrel, she thought. He’s jealous of Defontaine. He hates her being down there with him.

  The young man said a
bruptly, ‘I must go. I promised I’d join them. See you.’ He gave her a quick smile, a half salute and left her. Lesley’s eyes followed him thoughtfully as he went down the cliff path. She would make a guess that he hadn’t been invited to join the two on the beach.

  So he was Dominic Trevendone. Lesley decided that she liked him. He was young and gay and attractive. A pity—for him—that he was so interested in Sorrel Lang. But one couldn’t be surprised. The Cornish girl was so vital, so vivid, like a dark red rose, that Lesley couldn’t imagine any man not being attracted. But it was Blake Defontaine whom Sorrel loved. Lesley, remembering the look she had given him, felt pretty sure of that.

  There didn’t seem any way into the garden here, so she retraced her steps and went through the gate following the path which led through the orchard and the kitchen garden to the courtyard at the front of the house. To her relief she couldn’t hear Dingo whining. If she had she couldn’t have borne to pass by and leave him. Perhaps he was asleep.

  Had Dominic Trevendone guessed who she was? She felt almost sure he had. Perhaps if their conversation hadn’t turned to Sorrel and Blake Defontaine he might have decided to give her his name and challenge her about hers. But once Sorrel had been mentioned, once he had seen the two riders on the beach, he hadn’t had a thought for anyone else.

  Lesley went into the great hall, pausing to smooth her hair. As she did so, Mrs. Piper came through from the kitchen carrying a tea tray for Mrs. Trevendone and her companion. ‘Your tray is ready, miss, if you’ll wait to carry it up,’ she said pleasantly. She came out of the small drawing room a minute or two later and smiled when she saw Lesley standing in front of a lovely Venetian mirror still smoothing her hair.

  ‘I’m real glad you’m been able to get out for a bit of fresh air, miss,’ she said, staring admiringly at the girl. ‘You’m got a nice bit of colour in your face. You’m been real good to that little sister, nursed her well, you have. But perhaps you’m been a nurse, miss, in that Australy you’m come from.’