Lesley laughed. ‘No, in Australia I worked in an office.’
‘You’m were one of they secretaries, I expect.’
Again Lesley laughed, turning her glowing face to the Cornish woman. ‘No, I worked in a very small office. I was a clerk doing general duties, receptionist, book-keeper, shorthand-typist.’
‘Were you really?’ Mrs. Piper exclaimed admiringly. She bustled away and returned with the tea tray. ‘That walk has put a nice colour in your cheeks. Did you go on the beach?’
‘No, I walked on the cliffs,’ Lesley replied.
I expect Mr. Defontaine and young Mrs. Lang would be down along training for they Cumballick Point to Point steeplechases. We’re all real set on them keeping the cups they won last year.’
‘Mrs. Lang?’ Lesley’s voice was a query.
‘Young Miss Sorrel that was. Married and a widow within the year, poor young thing. Not but what she’s got over it nicely, I will say. Young Lang was killed motor racing last October, but with no money worries. She be very well off that way. I expect she’s waiting for biggest part of year to be out before she weds again.’
‘Yes!’ Lesley turned away, forcing her-voice to an uninterested drawl. ‘I met Mr. Dominic Trevendone this afternoon.’
‘Did you now, m’dear soul? Un’s usually around when they’m training. I don’t know whether un’s riding at Cumballick or not,’ she added in a voice that sounded as disinterested as Lesley’s had. The girl gave her a quick look and Mrs. Piper spread her hands and shrugged. Lesley could think what she liked, her expression said.
Lesley went slowly up the shallow treads of the oak staircase. Blake Defontaine and Sorrel weren’t married, but the old gardener had said ‘his lady’ and that told the tale.
She paused half way to look down at the great hall with its lovely and, she felt sure, valuable furniture, glass and pottery. All along the wide corridor on which their rooms were situated were cabinets and open shelves with silver and porcelain, beautiful pictures. The carpets beneath her feet was thick and soft to her tread and not worn. The whole atmosphere was one of luxury and quiet comfort. No doubt most of these things had been collected in bygone years, but they were being preserved here in an elegant setting. And it all belonged to Ricky.
She set the tray down on a table and opened the door. The twins were laughing and she could see that Rita was sitting up and looking much brighter than she had done for some time.
‘Tea,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Rita darling, you look heaps better. I can see Rick has been entertaining you.’
‘I’ll say he has!’ Rita returned with a quick, secretive look at her twin. And then in a changed voice, ‘Where’s Dingo?’
Lesley put the tray on the table by Rita’s bed and looked across at Ricky. ‘He’s tied up,’ she said briefly.
‘Tied up!’ Rita’s voice rose excitably till it was almost a shriek, and Lesley frowned. ‘Where?’
‘In the gardener’s shed,’ Lesley replied shortly, her eyes Still on Ricky. Under her accusing stare, he began to bluster.
‘I toldyou he was tied up, Les, before you went out, but I thought you’d have the gumption to get him untied.’
‘I might have done just that—if I’d wanted to risk his getting into further trouble,’ she said dryly, and then in a reproachful voice, ‘Ricky, why did you let him go off on his own this morning? I expect you know he was down on the beach, snapping at that man’s horse’s feet again. It was he who had him tied up.’
‘I guessed you’d been talking to that grotty old Enemy,’ sneered Rick. ‘Don’t tell me, Les, that he’s managed to frighten you.’
‘No, I’m not frightened of him,’ said Lesley slowly, and wondered if that were really true, ‘but, Ricky, he is exactly that—our enemy.’
‘Our best plan is to tell him to get out of that Lodge place where he’s living,’ Rita put in. ‘After all, if we own everything around here we must own the Lodge.’
Lesley began pouring the tea. ‘I doubt if it will be as simple as that.’
‘Why not?’ the twins asked, speaking together.
Lesley shrugged. ‘He seems to be very deeply entrenched. There’s a lab attached to the Lodge, I gather, and he does experiments there. Incidentally, Rick, he said that if you’ll go down to the Lodge tomorrow morning he’ll give you a few tips about training Dingo to come to heel.’
‘Will I heck!’ returned Rick furiously. ‘I’ve no desire for Dingo to be trained. He suits me fine the way he is.’
Lesley sighed, having expected no other reply. ‘Maybe he does,’ she replied dryly, ‘but this is farming country and Dingo will have to fit in or be destroyed.’
‘Les darling, you do exaggerate. The Enemy has certainly got you on the run,’ taunted Rita.
The older girl heaved another sigh. When the twins were in this mood there was no reasoning with them. But even so she’d got to find out what Ricky had been, doing all this week.
‘Rick, where were you this morning when Dingo was on the rampage?’ she asked, handing him his cup of tea.
The boy turned away and walked over to the window, holding his cup and saucer. Lesley’s eyes followed him and then she turned to Rita who was beginning to look tired. ‘Drink your tea and then lie back, darling,’ she said gently.
Rita shrugged, ‘I’m all right,’ and then in a louder voice, ‘You’d better tell her the whole story, Rick. She’ll have to know.’
Rick came back and sat down on the brocaded chair beside the bed. ‘If you want the truth, Les,’ he said with apparent nonchalance, ‘I’ve got a job.’
This was the last thing that Lesley had expected. Her green eyes widened. ‘Where? What sort of job?’ she demanded.
‘Vocalist with a group at a discotheque in a place called Penpethic Harbour about two miles further down the coast.’
Something between indignation and despair shook Lesley, but she willed herself to silence. She had hoped so much when he came to Cornwall and found himself with a family with long traditions that he would forget this craze of his. He played the guitar well and had a good and, for his build, a remarkably powerful voice. But as Lesley had tried to point out before they left Australia, so had countless other young men.
How stupid she had been not to guess that something like this was happening. His good temper and gaiety at a time when he might have been forgiven for being bored and frustrated, sent out each day on his own because his twin was too ill to sit up and Lesley too anxious to get her well again.
She ought to have remembered, Lesley told herself bitterly, how keen, once they got to England, he had been to stay in London. That was his ‘scene’ as he had kept saying, the place where he might develop his talents. He had been depressed and uncooperative all the way down to Cornwall and while they were at the King’s Arms in St Benga Town. Then all at once he had changed and she had been too dim to suspect anything.
Lesley sought for words, knowing both of them were eyeing her closely. ‘What about this place ... and your inheritance here?” she asked, and even to herself the question seemed absurd.
Ricky shrugged and took the sandwich she was offering him.
‘You know I’ve never been dead keen on this,’ he replied.
Lesley looked around the room, taking in all its elegant comfort and luxury. What was the use of arguing, at least at this stage? ‘How ... how did it happen?’
‘Why don’t you start from the beginning?’ Rita put in languidly. ‘Les will see then how in ... inevitable it all seems.’
‘Go on, Rick,’ Lesley prompted, starting to eat her own sandwich.
‘I’d have told you before, Les,’ the boy said contritely, ‘but I didn’t want to worry you. You’d got enough on with looking after Rita. Actually it was that same day when she collapsed. I’d got Dingo in the courtyard when he slipped the lead and dashed off down the drive. I went after him as far as the Lodge gates, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. As I was standing looking about, this van drew up and this f
ellow asked me ‘if I wanted a lift. He said he was going only as far as Penpethic Harbour, so I asked him how far that was. He said about two miles, so I thought I’d go with him, looking out for Dingo on the way, and hop off if I saw him. I guessed I could easily walk back.
‘Well, we got talking and I found out he was the drummer in a group that worked in this disused cinema in Penpethic. There’s a coffee bar and at first they had sessions at the weekends just for free, but they had such crowds they’re charging now. In the season they’ll be on every night non-stop, and that means forming another group of which I’m one.’
‘Tim Drage is the man who runs it. He’s a great guy, Les, and he’s sure going places and I’m going with him. He’s giving himself this coming season down here, and then he’s going to be London based. They’re getting loads of publicity down here now. There was a bus-load of kids from the other end of the county last Saturday night.’
‘Isn’t it madly exciting, Les?’ Rita broke in, her blue eyes blazing like her brother’s. ‘Imagine a discotheque down here. Les, as soon as I’m up we must go.’
‘We’d better wait till you are up,’ Lesley warned, and for the moment added nothing else. They were no different from most of their age in being obsessed with the pop music scene. She’d had a phase herself, but it had passed. But Ricky especially seemed more obsessed than most. How often she had tried to talk him out of it, warning him he would be courting disappointment and even heartbreak if he went on dreaming that once he was in England fame might be round the corner.
‘You’ve been going down to this discotheque place every day?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I’ve always managed to thumb a lift from somebody,’ he replied. ‘It’s only properly open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays just now, but the boys are always there, some practising, some lounging around, because of course there are hangers-on. They drink coffee and talk about the way success has come overnight to some groups.’
Lesley bit her lip. She could see the attraction only too well. The discotheque seemed like an exciting new world to the boy from the Outback and far more interesting than what he had already called ‘stuffy old Trevendone Manor and this dreary old inheritance.’
What was it like, this place? She shivered, imagining the sleazy atmosphere of a would-be night spot.
‘I’m almost dazed by my sensational luck,’ said Ricky. ‘All that I’ve been looking for is here, right on the doorstep of Trevendone Manor.’
Lesley thought, it’s no good my saying much at this stage. I’ve just got to meet these Trevendones as soon as possible and get Rick’s future settled here. He’ll see it differently when it’s established that he owns this place.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ve had quite an afternoon while you two have been making plans for Rick to win fame and fortune as a pop star. Not only did I run into the Enemy—that was when I was trying to untie poor old Dingo—but also his girlfriend.’
‘His girl-friend?’ The two spoke together in tones of disbelief.
‘And a bit later,’ Lesley swept on, ‘surprise, surprise, surprise, I met that pin-up boy with the sports car. Remember, Rita, he was at the King’s Arms.’
‘I’ll say I do,’ Rita replied enthusiastically. ‘He was quite something. How come you met him, Les? Did you speak to him?’
‘As a matter of fact I did. Also his girl-friend, that sultry-looking brunette who owned the Borzoi. Remember?’
‘I’ll say I do,’ Rick put in with a mischievous grin, echoing his sister’s remark. ‘She was quite something, too.’
‘She’s quite gypsyish on nearer view,’ Lesley went on. ‘Very handsome, but my first impression was the right one. She’s not at all nice. She wasn’t with the dark young man this time but with her real boy-friend, the Enemy.’
‘No!’ This came in a chorus from the twins. ‘Lesley, you’re making it up,’ added Rita.
Lesley shook her head. ‘No, she was with Blake Defontaine this morning when Dingo went for their horses and she came this afternoon when I was trying to untie him. It was she who said he ought to be put down.’
‘She didn’t!’ Rita didn’t speak, but her shocked white face and blazing eyes were reflected in Ricky’s and in his startled exclamation.
Then Rita turned on her twin. ‘Rick, you beast! Every day you said you were taking Dingo with you.’
Lesley looked silently from one to the other. So Rita, even though she had been lying here really ill, had known what Ricky was up to.
‘I did take him most times and he loved it,’ Rick answered. ‘But this morning he just disappeared and I hadn’t time to look for him. I’d been promised this lift.’
‘It’s no good bothering about that now,’ Lesley broke in. ‘We’ve just got to keep an eye on him all the time from now on. That girl is as much our enemy as Blake Defontaine is.
‘Now one more thing. He didn’t tell me so himself, but I’m pretty sure, Rita, that your pin-up boy is also your cousin Dominic.’
That startled them, and there were further exclamations and remarks. Lesley began to put the cups back on to the tray. ‘We’ve had enough excitement for one day,’ she said briskly. ‘Rita, I think you’d better lie down now. Rick, take this tray down and then go and get Dingo. Take a knife to cut the rope. We’ll keep him close to us from now on.’
Much later, Lesley stood by the window in the darkened bedroom. Behind her Rita was sleeping peacefully, but tonight Lesley felt wakeful and depressed. She stared absently out of the window at the glittering stars and the clouds scudding across a cold moon. She shivered, though the room itself was warm enough.
She had problems enough with the twins and that meeting with the Trevendones, but she could tackle those. She wasn’t the sort to be cowed by difficulties. It was something else. Surely though her depression had nothing to do with Blake Defontaine and the girl whom old Wonnacott had called ‘his lady’. It was stupid to be like this. The sooner she went back to bed the better.
On a bright morning two days later, Lesley hurried into the great hall. She had just taken Dingo for a run and was smuggling him upstairs to Rita’s room while she helped the girl to dress. Rita was getting up now, but so far she had not been out of doors. Just as Lesley crossed to the second staircase the door of the small drawing room where old Mrs. Trevendone usually sat with her companion opened and Dominic Trevendone came out.
He stared at Lesley and she smiled back. He made a gesture. ‘We’re both caught out, I think,’ he said easily. ‘I’m Dominic Trevendone and you’re one of our visitors from “down under”. I guessed who you were the other day, but I don’t know your name.’
‘I’m Lesley ... Trevendone,’ she added as if on an afterthought, ‘and I guessed who you were too. This is an unconventional situation, isn’t it? I’m more than grateful for your hospitality while my sister Rita has been ill.’
‘How is she, by the way?’ he queried, his sea-blue eyes telling her that he found her most attractive with her flushed cheeks and her windswept hair. ‘Bad luck that she went down with ‘flu as soon as yon arrived,’ he went on smoothly.
‘She’s almost better,’ Lesley replied, ‘Which brings me to the question as to when we can talk to you and your sister. I don’t want to say anything now, because Rita and Richard and I are all together in this...’
She felt she was putting it badly, but he skimmed lightly and expertly over the awkwardness.
‘Are you now?’ he said, and his lips still smiled, but Lesley was all at once conscious of his dark reserve.
She said impatiently, ‘Oh, be quiet, Bingo!’ The puppy had begun to bark and jump up and she looked round distractedly.
‘Let’s get him outside,’ Dominic suggested, and when they were out in the courtyard, Lesley asked, ‘When do you expect your sister home?’
‘She came back last night,’ he said briefly. He made a gesture towards the house, ‘She’s in there right now, sitting with Great-grandma while Miss Yelland changes some library books.’
‘I think perhaps we ought to go back to the King’s Arms tomorrow,’ Lesley said slowly. ‘Perhaps you and your sister could meet us there.’
‘Why do that?’ he demanded. Again his eyes were full of admiration as they wandered over her face. ‘This cold weather seems to suit you, though it’s no great advertisement to Cornwall. Often we get a mild February, though I suppose it’s stupid talking to you in terms of “mild”.’
‘At least you aren’t short of water,’ Lesley said with a little shrug. ‘That’s our problem, particularly in the Outback. But tell me, Mr. Trevendone...’
‘Oh, come off it,’ he entreated with a grin. ‘You can’t he as formal as that... Lesley. Aren’t we claiming each other as cousins?’
Lesley smiled back at him, warming again to his charm and his friendly manner. ‘I ought to get back to my sister. She hates being left alone. Rick is ... out.’
‘Rick? He’s the boy twin, isn’t he? The one who’s been spending a lot of time down at the coffee bar place at Penpethic Harbour, or so Defontaine was saying this morning.’ Defontaine I Lesley scowled but did not put her thoughts into words.
‘There are some very odd types getting down on our Cornish coast these days, Lesley. I’d warn him to be careful.’
Lesley nodded but said nothing. She wasn’t prepared to discuss Richard and his doings with Dominic or anyone else. Trust that Blake Defontaine, though, to put the visitors from over the sea in as bad a light as he could.
They were crossing the old orchard now, avoiding the leaves and spears of the daffodils which clustered around the trees. Later, it should be a pretty scene here, Lesley reflected; first the spring flowers and then the blossom. She smiled up at the young man.
‘I love your county, Dominic.’
The Girl From Over the Sea Page 8