‘It’s yours too, if you’re a Trevendone, isn’t it?’ he questioned. ‘Once a Celt, always a Celt.’
Lesley started and gave him a quick glance. But she wasn’t a Celt, though even in these few days the part of Cornwall she had seen had seized on her imagination and captured her thoughts. The place or ... She shook her head, dismissing the word which had occurred to her. People! No, that was absurd. It was the place. What people could have captured her thoughts? She loved the soft west-country accent, the old-world politeness, but as to people, she didn’t really know any of them. Not yet. Or perhaps one.
But he wasn’t Cornish, or she never thought of him as such. He had no soft west-country accent. His voice, at least whenever he was addressing her, was curt, clipped and commanding and his manners were abominable. She had received not even the minimum of politeness from him.
But he had no real place here. He was merely a visitor, renting a property for a season. Soon he would be gone, and it couldn’t be too soon for her.
‘You’re looking quite fierce,’ Dominic teased, laughing down at her. ‘Just like an Australian Boadicea, determined to take and hold her own.’
Lesley tried to skate over the implication of his remark. ‘Surely she belonged to the other side of the country? I saw her statue in London. No, you must think of some other character for me. Some Cornish lady. But it can’t be Yseult of the White Hands, I’m afraid.’
And she looked ruefully down at her small, square capable paws, still tanned by Australian sunshine.
He put his own long-fingered hands on hers. ‘Not to worry, little girl from over the sea,’ he told her gaily. ‘I like you as you are, little brown hands and all. But I shall call you Yseult.’ And he dropped a light kiss on the top of her burnished hair.
‘And now it’s quite time I went back,’ she told him, pausing as they came to the gate in the sea wall.
‘When you get back to the house, have a word with my sister Jenifer. We both want you to tell us about yourselves and why you decided to come over here. Between you, fix a time for our meeting and I’ll fit in.’
‘Yes, we’ll do that,’ Lesley replied.
He gave her a smiling salute and went through the door on to the cliffs while Lesley turned back. She decided to take Dingo upstairs first and then after a word with Rita who was already dressed she ran down again into the great hall, pausing for a moment by the door of the small drawing room. Then she braced her shoulders, pushed it open and stood in the doorway.
Old Mrs. Trevendone was nodding beside the log fire and at the writing desk was a girl with smooth dark hair cut short, dressed conventionally in a two-piece of kingfisher blue wool. Her eyes narrowed as she looked up and saw Lesley.
‘Great-grandma is having a nap,’ she said repressively.
‘Yes, I see,’ Lesley whispered, her first impulse to retreat. Then she changed, her mind. Jennifer must have guessed who she was and Lesley was determined to put their own presence here on a correct footing.
So she came further into the room, closed the door quietly and walked over to the writing desk where the older girl remained seated, a hostile look on her dark face. You could tell she was Dominic’s sister. Their colouring was similar, though her eyes were of a lighter blue. She was a plainer edition of Dominic with heavier features and a more serious expression. Lesley guessed she would be far more formidable than her brother.
‘I’m Lesley ... Trevendone,’ she said quietly. ‘I want to thank you and your brother for allowing us to stay while my sister was ill.’
‘I don’t see what else could have been done under the circumstances,’ Jennifer answered ungraciously. ‘I understand from Mrs. Piper that your sister is practically better now.’
Lesley went pale reading the implication that they had now outstayed what welcome they had ever had. ‘I’ve just been talking to your brother, Miss Trevendone. He ... he suggested that you and I fix a time when we could all meet to ... talk things over.’
Jennifer gave her a frozen stare. ‘If you think it necessary.’
Lesley went very tense. All right, she thought recklessly.
‘I do. Will it be convenient for us all to meet tonight?’ Rita must rest this afternoon and then she would be able to sit up tonight.
Jennifer nodded. ‘I’ll send you a note by Mrs. Piper about times. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve letters to write.’
‘Of course,’ Lesley did not smile. In a way Jennifer’s hostility was easier than Dominic’s charm. She retreated quietly, anxious not to disturb the old lady. But suddenly Mrs. Trevendone sat up, her old eyes fixed on Lesley.
‘You know, what Blake Defontaine wants, Jennifer, he gets,’ she said solemnly. Lesley stared first at her and then at the girl by the writing desk.
‘It’s all right,’ Jennifer said with a nod. ‘It’s just the tail end of a conversation we were having before she nodded off.’ Lesley smiled and said good morning to the old lady, who was showing signs of nodding off again. Her face was thoughtful as she walked slowly up the easy treads of the old staircase.
Ricky was out all day down at Penpethic Harbour, but as soon as he came in Lesley said abruptly, ‘I saw Dominic and his sister this morning. They’ve sent a message by Mrs. Piper a few minutes ago that they’ll meet us in the small drawing room tonight at eight.’
Rick was obviously in a cock-a-hoop mood after a day at the discotheque. ‘They’ll meet us?’ he echoed in a lordly voice. ‘Surely it’s we who should be calling the meeting. However, I’m all for a friendly settlement. If Cousin Dominic cares to buy me out I’m all for it. With some cash, Tim Drage and I can make for London much sooner than we’d planned.’
Lesley’s eyes were troubled. That was the last thing likely to happen or that she would want to happen. The only reason for her bringing the twins to Cornwall was to secure for them a home and a background, and the inheritance that was theirs by right.
‘Look, Rick, I know you’ve got a good opinion of this Tim Drage and you’re enjoying this discotheque place, but ... but ... is it all right? So many of these night spots are just dives ... there are drugs, and—well,’ she finished in a rush, ‘if you want the truth Dominic told me to warn you.’
‘And how does he know anything about my movements, I’d like to know?’ Rick challenged, and the hostility on his face reminded Lesley of Jennifer this morning. ‘Did you tell him?’
Lesley shook her head. ‘No. As a matter of fact...’
‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess,’ he burst out. ‘It was that trouble-shooter Defontaine. What does he mean by sticking his nose in my business?’
Lesley shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. You know as much about him as I do. Perhaps it was because of Dingo ranging around on his own. Maybe he wondered where you were.’
‘But how did he find out? Has he got spies all round the district?’
Lesley shrugged again. ‘I expect everybody knows everybody else around here just as they do in the Outback. Dominic mentioned it only in passing, but he did look—er—well, serious;’
Richard turned away. ‘I don’t intend my cousin Dominic to dictate to me,’ he said loftily. ‘If there’s any dictating to be done, I’m the one to do it.’
Lesley said nothing further, though her expression remained troubled. Neither of the twins seemed to realise the tight-rope on which they were walking. They had so little in the way of paper evidence to support their claim. Had she made the biggest mistake of her life in bringing them here? But she had sworn a solemn promise to their mother. If only Richard and Rita had been a bit older and a bit more cooperative!
CHAPTER V
The twins were very quiet that night when they sat with Lesley in the small drawing room waiting for their cousins to put in an appearance. It was now well past eight o’clock and Lesley was puzzled. Where were Dominic and Jennifer? Since this morning there had been no sign of them in the house. Was Dominic still staying at the Home Farm which was where he had been when they first arrived? But what about
Jennifer?
Lesley thought, we’ve been here over a week now and we know no more than we did when we first arrived. Rita has never been out, I’ve been practically a prisoner with her and Rick has just opened the big door and gone rushing down the drive to get to that discotheque place.
Mrs. Piper had said when she came up with Jennifer’s note, ‘The mistress is a bit on the tired side, so she’s gone to bed early and Miss Yelland is going to stay in her room with her.’
Lesley realised that though Mrs. Trevendone had accepted them, particularly Ricky, she was too old to be brought into the discussion. Perhaps too Dominic and Jennifer had heard of the unreasoning fancy she had taken to the boy because of his supposed resemblance to her husband.
‘They’re taking their time about coming,’ Rita muttered. ‘I wonder how much longer we’ve got to hang about.’
‘I wonder,’ Ricky agreed darkly.
But all three were shocked at first beyond any words when Jennifer and Dominic eventually came into the room, accompanied by Blake Defontaine and his girl-friend Mrs. Lang.
It was Dominic who started the conversation, apparently quite self-possessed and easy in his manner. ‘Well, here we are. Lesley, you and L have met and I think you know Jennifer, Sorrel and Blake. Will you introduce your brother and sister?’
Now Lesley found her voice. She jumped from the settee on which she had been sitting with Rita and Ricky on either side. Her eyes were a wide and hostile green as she stared at him. ‘These are Rita and Richard, my twin sister and brother. But I thought this was to be a family discussion.’
It was Jennifer who replied. ‘Sorrel, Mrs. Lang is our cousin and has a right to be in any family discussion. Mr. Defontaine is here ... well, you’ll understand why he’s here in a few minutes.’
Lesley was far from satisfied. Four to one, she thought bitterly. For after all the twins were children, under age. She said angrily, ‘I’d hoped we could settle this matter amicably just with a family discussion. I’m sorry any outsiders,’ and she shot a hostile glance at Blake Defontaine, ‘had to be called in.’
‘Blake can scarcely be called an outsider,’ Jennifer replied flatly, and Sorrel Lang, with a sidelong look at the dark face of the man beside her, added in a creamy voice, ‘Far from it.’
‘Suppose we all sit down.’ It was Defontaine who spoke now for the first time. Earlier someone had moved a table from the side of the room to the centre and had placed chairs around it—seven chairs. I ought to have guessed, Lesley thought wrathfully. She and the twins took the chairs at one side of the table. Dominic was opposite her with Jennifer and Sorrel on each side and at the head or foot of the table sat Blake Defontaine, dominating the proceedings, with Sorrel on his right. At what point, Lesley wondered angrily was she going to get up, shepherd the twins in front of her and walk out?
Defontaine spoke as soon as they were all seated. His voice was quiet, almost impersonal, very different from his usual arrogance. ‘Shall we all stop beating about the bush? As I understand it, Miss ... er ... Trevendone, you and your brother and sister have come from Australia. May we hear why you have ... er ... descended on Trevendone Manor ... other than to make a pleasant social call?’
Lesley shot him a glance of green dislike. ‘Directly we arrived here I told the people who received us, Mrs. Trevendone and Miss Yelland, who we were,’ she replied curtly. Quiet and mild his voice might have been until that last crack about ‘a social call’, but there was something in his attitude, and it had been the same every time she had encountered him, that roused her to angry rebellion.
‘I made a claim for Ralph Trevendone’s son. I understand that he, Ralph Trevendone, was heir to this estate. He is dead, but Richard is here, his eldest son and heir.
‘It isn’t,’ she went on in a voice that was suddenly trembling with earnestness, ‘that we want to dispossess anybody, but...’
‘I suppose we all get up and bow at that point and thank you for your generosity,’ interrupted Sorrel Lang with an ostentatious yawn. ‘Look, hasn’t this farce gone on long enough? Why don’t we...?’
‘Just a moment, Sorrel,’ Blake Defontaine put in. ‘I’d like to hear this young lady out. On a previous occasion I informed her that the Trevendone family had believed Ralph Trevendone dead for the past twenty-five years and if that were true, none of them could be his children. Possibly she has documents which prove this to have been a false report.’
Lesley swallowed. She began to feel that she was getting the worst of this discussion and that the others were just as amused as Sorrel Lang appeared to be. If only she could put a sheaf of papers on the table and say, ‘Look, look, look,’ they might alter their attitude, but she couldn’t.
She said quietly, ‘Ralph Trevendone died fifteen years ago, a few months after Richard and Rita were born. That can be proved. As I said, we don’t want to make trouble, but the plain fact is that we, or perhaps I should say Richard, is heir to this house and all that goes with it. Richard and his sister are only just sixteen, their mother is dead and Lactatoo which was their home had to be sold. Because of bank loans and dry seasons there was very little money left when everything was finally settled. I’m old enough to fend for myself, but it isn’t right that these two should have to lead difficult lives when here in Cornwall there is property and money which rightly belonged to their father.
‘That is why I gave up my job in Australia and brought them here as I’d promised their mother I would. She thought they would have a better life here than in Australia.’
‘Better than in Australia? But surely that’s the boom continent just now—the land of opportunity,’ Blake Defontaine murmured with deceptive gentleness.
Lesley’s face was still hostile. ‘If you’re very strong and tough it may be,’ she said tersely.
‘My dear young lady,’ Blake Defontaine’s voice was still gentle, ‘those are exactly the words, were one so ungallant, with which one could describe you.’
Her glance flickered away from him. He was deliberately trying to enrage her, perhaps to make her look a fool, perhaps even worse. There was no doubt that he regarded them as adventurers and impostors. But it wasn’t with him she had to deal.
She looked across at Dominic Trevendone. ‘What I want to suggest, Dominic,’ she said in a quiet voice, ‘is that Richard and Rita come to live here at least until they are eighteen, possibly until they are twenty-one. Here they would have a home and a secure background. During that time something can be worked out. None of us wishes to turn you and your sister out or anything dramatic like that.’
“My dear cousin-that-would-be, you are really too kind,’ purred Jennifer, but her pale blue eyes flashed venom. In her own quiet way she was as hostile as Sorrel. ‘Isn’t she just too kind, Dominic?’
Colour rose in Lesley’s pale face. Also her temper. They weren’t making it easy for her, but she supposed one couldn’t blame them.
‘Well, Dominic, will you give the twins a home?’ she demanded.
But Dominic didn’t speak. He hadn’t done so so far and had sat with his head bent, doodling with his finger on the polished top of the table. Was he really so spineless? Lesley wondered. His sister and Sorrel and that insufferable Defontaine had all had their say, but he just sat without a word.
It was Blake Defontaine who leaned forward and examined her face with satirical grey eyes. ‘You keep mentioning your sister and brother, Miss ... er ... Trevendone,’ he said suavely, ‘but there is no entail on this estate. Have you by any chance a will left by your father? If not, then in theory you have a right to a share in your father’s estate. Actually as you are the eldest it could be you who is ... or claims to be ... Mistress of Trevendone.’
Lesley sat silent, but beneath the table her hands were clenched. It was uncanny the way this man was able to discern her every weakness. It almost seemed as if he had guessed that she wasn’t Lesley Trevendone but Lesley Arden. Somehow she’d got to convince him that she wasn’t wanting anything from the Tr
evendone estate for herself.
So—
She said, ‘I want no claim to anything like that. When I’ve seen my ... the twins settled here in Cornwall I shall go back home to Australia where I’m ... I’m going to be married.’
Rita’s voice ripped the air like tearing silk. ‘Lesley, you never told us that.’ Her face was white and accusing. ‘You’re going to marry Steve! You ... he ... never said, and you’re not wearing his ring.’
‘Your sister doesn’t seem to approve of your matrimonial plans,’ Sorrel’s voice came purring amusedly across the table.
Lesley put her arm round her sister, but the girl flung her off. ‘Rita, we can talk about that later,’ she said placatingly. ‘I’ll explain everything when we’re alone.’
‘Oh, don’t bother. Just leave me out of this.’ Rita pushed her chair petulantly from the table and went back to the big settee by the fireplace.
Lesley bit her lip and shot a glance of pure hatred at Blake Defontaine. It was his probing and questioning that had brought about this unpleasantness. Now Rita was hurt and upset, and goodness knew how long it would take her to come round again.
Sorrel Lang was leaning back in her chair, laughing. ‘That seems to settle one of our queries,’ she said in a silky voice.
‘Actually we were wondering whether you’d arrived here with some sort of marriage proposal up your sleeve to set matters right.’
‘Marriage proposal?’ Lesley echoed now, uncomprehendingly.
‘Yes, Miss Australia, we wondered if, having come over the sea to claim your inheritance, you might suggest that you and Dominic should marry and become co-heirs to the old place. The poor boy has been positively trembling in his shoes, haven’t you, Dominic darling? Didn’t you notice the relief on his face when you mentioned you had other marriage plans?’
‘I say, Sorrel,’ protested Dominic, speaking for the first time and looking profoundly uncomfortable.
The Girl From Over the Sea Page 9