The Girl From Over the Sea

by Valerie K. Nelson

  Lesley swallowed hard and put on an innocent expression. Had Mrs. Piper seen ... ‘The Kissing Seat?’ she repeated.

  ‘I was sitting in a sheltered place, a kind of upturned boat to keep out of the wind.’

  ‘That’s it, m’dear, the Kissing Seat. I see’d you and I said to myself, “Now I wonder what young man will come along and catch her there. She’m expecting Mr. Dominic, forbye, and then I could a’died laughing when I saw Mr. Defontaine talking to ‘un.’

  Lesley stared at her, her heart in her mouth. What next? ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Piper, I don’t quite follow. I’m all at sea.’

  Mrs. Piper almost choked with laughter. ‘That’s just what ‘un bain’t, me handsome. ‘Un were all on land.’

  Lesley braved the old woman’s merry blue eyes and began to smile. ‘What is this all about, Mrs. Piper? Mr. Defontaine stopped to say it was cold for sitting around and I agreed with him and came in for a cup of tea.’ The housekeeper seemed to have missed seeing Dominic, which was all to the good, and what had happened behind the wall was well out of anyone’s view. ‘My love,’ he had said as he held her. Lesley shivered.

  ‘Here’s your tea. You’m still real cold,’ Mrs. Piper said with a look of concern. ‘And you be careful, m’dear, about they old Kissing Seat. Hereabouts they say that a maid never marries the one who first kisses her there. Not, I’m sure, that Mr. Defontaine would be doing any such thing. More reserved like, he be, wouldn’t you say, m’dear?’

  Lesley avoided answering that question by a pretended eagerness to know more about the local superstition. ‘So they say you never marry the boy who first kisses you under the Kissing Trees. That’s rather sad, isn’t it, Mrs. Piper?’

  ‘Now don’t get the little old story wrong, Miss Lesley,’ the other said, shaking her head. ‘It b’aint the Kissing Trees—them’s different. It’s the Kissing Seat. Un you kiss under the Kissing Trees, un’s the one for you, so they say, but what beats me is how you can kiss under the trees and not on the seat. That’s what beats me.’

  It hadn’t beaten Blake Defontaine, though. Behind the wall, you could stand under the Kissing Trees and be forced right against the wall and your mouth bruised with just one kiss... The cup rattled in the saucer she was holding.

  ‘Now don’t ‘ee get me wrong about Mr. Defontaine, Miss Lesley. Reserved un may be, but un’s a man, m’dear ... a real man. I guarantee Miss Sorrel knows that all right.’ Mrs. Piper like the rest of the staff had the greatest admiration for ‘the Maister.’

  Lesley turned away. ‘I expect she does,’ she said dully. ‘Thanks for the tea, Mrs. Piper.’

  ‘Don’t mention it, me handsome,’ smiled Mrs. Piper.

  Still feeling entirely unlike her usual self, Lesley walked back to the New Manor to take over the reception desk duties from Jennifer. If it weren’t for Blake Defontaine and his girl-friend, life at Trevendone Manor, despite the hard work, would be tolerable, she thought.

  She liked old Mrs. Trevendone who though very vague and keeping to her rooms very much now the season had begun was always pleasant and welcoming. She seemed to have accepted Lesley and Rita as her great-grandchildren, though it was Ricky who was her first favourite. Jennifer appeared to have got over her initial hostility. She worked hard in the hotel, much harder than Dominic, and Lesley had grown to respect her.

  When she arrived at the big reception desk she saw that in the little office behind it Jennifer was talking to Sorrel Lang. They were very deep in a discussion and Jennifer at least seemed rather embarrassed by Lesley’s appearance.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Lesley. I hadn’t realised it was time for you to come on again.’ She walked towards the door where Lesley was standing. ‘I’ve just been hearing what happened this morning, Lesley. I’m sorry. I’ll see Blake and explain that it was my fault.’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry,’ Lesley said with a shrug. ‘Forget it.’

  Jennifer shook her head. ‘Oh no. Coming, Sorrel?’

  ‘Not for a moment,’ Mrs. Lang called out carelessly. She was in riding kit and Lesley wondered whether she was going down to the beach to ride with Blake or whether she was on her way home. Her big Italian car was in the courtyard in front of the hotel, as Lesley had noticed as she came to the front of the New Manor.

  Lesley went into the office and sat down at the desk on which her typewriter stood. She seldom wasted any words on Sorrel since that occasion when the girl had left her high and dry in Exeter and had never thought fit to make either an explanation or an apology.

  ‘Jennifer and I were just talking about you,’ Sorrel said in an insolent voice.

  Lesley did not raise her head. ‘Really?’ she said indifferently.

  ‘Yes, we were discussing what we both believe is Blake’s plan for you.’

  That did rouse Lesley. She swung round in her typing chair, and tension tightened her throat. ‘Blake’s plan for me? What plan?’

  ‘We’ve both got the idea, Jennie and I, that he has it in mind that you and Dominic might make a match. That would unite the two branches of the family and make everything neat and tidy about your claim to the estate.’

  ‘The claim isn’t mine. It’s Rick’s,’ Lesley said stonily.

  ‘Oh, anybody can see Rick isn’t interested either in the estate or in the hotel and Rita will go back to Australia as soon as she can. So that leaves you.’

  Does it indeed? thought Lesley grimly. What a shock Blake Defontaine would get when he knew the real truth—that she had no business, here at all since she wasn’t a Trevendone. Though oddly enough, she had always feared that he’d half suspected it right from the beginning. But evidently not, if what Sorrel was suggesting was true. So much for his wanting to make everything ‘neat and tidy.’

  But the last person with whom she was going to discuss this or anything else was Mrs. Sorrel Lang.

  ‘You and Jennifer must have been enjoying yourselves,’ she said contemptuously as she swung back to her typewriter. ‘Was Dominic in at the discussion too?’

  Sorrel smiled, reminding Lesley, as she so often did, of a handsome black cat. ‘Dominic! Well, of course, he hasn’t a clue. Naturally.’

  Her black eyes flashed as she repeated the word, ‘Naturally!’ Lesley thought; she isn’t in love with Dominic, but she won’t let him go to anybody else. In so many words she’s warning me off.

  She got up and went to the window. There had been a mist far back in the sea for most of the morning. Then it had seemed to clear, but now it had thickened and the wind had brought it swirling inland. It seemed to press silently against the office window, almost menacingly, just like this woman who stood by the door, menacing too in her own way. Lesley said, ‘Frankly I don’t know what all this is about.’

  ‘You like Dominic, you like him a lot?’ Sorrel questioned.

  Lesley shrugged and went back to her desk. ‘Of course I like Dominic a lot. He has been nicer to me than anyone else here. Also he’s very good-looking and very good fun—a dreamboat. So of course I like him.’

  And Sorrel could make what she could of that.

  Sorrel’s black eyes blazed. ‘Well, take it from me. It just isn’t on!’ she almost spat.

  Lesley sat down in the swivel chair and inserted some paper into the typewriter. ‘Isn’t that a matter between Dominic and myself?’ she asked provocatively.

  ‘No, it isn’t. It concerns all of us—all the Trevendones, that is. When we had that first conference you announced loudly enough that you were going back to Australia to get married. Rita says your young man is coming over here for the summer. So don’t get involved with Dominic or it might be ... awkward.’

  ‘When you’ve quite finished dissecting my love life, perhaps you’ll let me get on,’ Lesley said in a voice of ice. ‘And if it’s of any interest to you or to ... anyone else, I’m not contemplating marrying anybody at the moment.’

  ‘Don’t throw your Australian boy-friend to the winds in the hope of getting a better catch,’ Sorrel said, her ey
es still blazing vindictively. ‘A bird in the hand, you know...’

  She sauntered out, leaving Lesley staring after her with sick distaste on her face. Sorrel Lang was quite impossible ... a fit match for the revolting man she was going to marry.

  Her thoughts went back to Jennifer. So she had-heard of the’ unpleasantness this morning and was evidently intent on making amends. Lesley hoped to goodness she would leave well alone. It was over now, and it was a mistake she wasn’t likely to repeat.

  The affair had arisen from the fact that a client had rung up on Tuesday morning to say that he would not be taking up his reservation that night but would-be arriving after lunch on Wednesday. Later a couple had phoned asking for accommodation for one night—the Tuesday—and Jennifer had happened to answer the call. She had turned to Lesley suggesting that as Mr. Forsyth’s room was vacant they should accept this booking.

  Jennifer was a much keener business woman than Dominic, anxious, as she had said bitterly more than once to Lesley, to free Trevendone from debt so that she could live a life of her own.

  Lesley was dubious. Mr. Forsyth, it seemed, was an old and valued client, a wealthy man, and there was no question of his not paying for the reservation.

  She had shaken her head, well aware by now how Blake Defontaine liked the hotel to be run, but Jennifer with a very set face had reminded her in icy terms that in theory at least, Dominic and she were the owners of Trevendone Manor.

  Lesley could do no more than accede and offer the room for the night. That might have been the end of it, but unfortunately this morning when it came to paying, the couple had quibbled over the bill. They had arrived rather late in the evening, had not asked for any refreshments nor for the hotel terms, and Lesley, largely through inexperience, had not mentioned them.

  This morning when she had presented them with their bill there was a certain amount of unpleasantness into which unfortunately Blake had appeared. Lesley was fairly confident that she could have coped with the situation, but Blake immediately took over in an icily correct manner, found out that the couple hadn’t been quoted terms, asked what they had expected to pay, and still icily correct, had ordered Lesley to accept that amount.

  The affair was over in a few minutes and the couple departed, not at all sure that they had come off best. But then, so far as Lesley was concerned, had come the deluge. She was determined not to involve Jennifer, so she had said nothing to justify herself and that had enraged him even more.

  ‘I gave you credit at least for being able to carry out orders,’ he said sweepingly. ‘What would you have done had Mr. Forsyth changed his plans and turned up unexpectedly last night—as was well within his rights? He hadn’t cancelled his reservation. He had merely had the courtesy to let us know that he couldn’t arrive until today.’

  Lesley stared down unhappily at her fingers and found nothing to say.

  When on the following morning Blake came to where she was sitting at the reception desk, Lesley scarcely raised her eyes. She had spent a disturbed night, and felt weary and unrefreshed. Before she had finally gone to bed, she had stood for a long time by the window looking at a star-spangled sky which seemed to mock her mood of burning anger and resentment by its very remoteness.

  Remote as he was. It had satisfied some dark devil in him to hold her in his arms till her bones melted, kiss her once, and leave her to feel like this,’ unsettled and bereft and with a knowledge that for her life would never be quite the same.

  And more or less at the same time, he had been discussing with his girl-friend and Jennifer the pros and cons of her marrying another man, deciding whether he would approve or disapprove, give his consent or withhold it.

  At the moment Lesley felt that she hated everybody here at the Manor. What a fool she was to stay—to become, as they thought, a pawn in their schemes.

  ‘I’d like a word with you, Miss Trevendone, in private,’ Blake said above her head.

  That constricted feeling was in her throat again. If he referred to that kiss; if he dared to apologise, she would walk out even if it meant leaving Rick and Rita here.

  She said, in a muffled voice, ‘I’m very busy. These accounts have to be checked.’ It was Dominic’s work, but as usual he had left it to her.

  ‘I won’t keep you for more than a few minutes,’ he said, and it sounded to her as if there was half the Arctic Ocean in his voice. He walked behind her chair to the small office and after a moment she followed him.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said, and when she had sat in front of the typewriter he closed the door and leaned his broad shoulders against it. ‘Why didn’t you tell me the real facts about the Forsyth booking yesterday?’ he questioned, his eyes bleak.

  Lesley was so relieved that this was the subject he wanted to see her about that she almost sighed with relief. The unexpectedness of the question left her unprepared and in an off-hand manner she said, ‘Why should I?’

  It wasn’t really what she would have answered, given time, but at the moment there was little room in her mind to think of anything else except his intolerably insulting behaviour yesterday afternoon beside which his sarcasm of the morning paled into insignificance.

  His face went darker than ever. ‘Doesn’t it matter that you were blamed for something that wasn’t your fault?’

  She gave him a quick look and saw that his black brows were drawn in a forbidding bar across his face. With a sudden spurt of anger she stood up. ‘Where you are concerned, Mr. Defontaine,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t matter in the slightest.’

  He moved from tire door so that she could pass, and it was surely just a trick of the light that on his face was an expression of hurt bewilderment. Which was, as Lesley told herself when she sat down at the reception desk, about as wild a flight as her imagination had ever taken her.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Now it was early May and in the hedgerows of the Cornish lanes the primroses had faded to give place to a wealth of spring flowers whose names Lesley did not know, while the cliff sides and edges were bright with sea pinks and yellow vetches.

  Lesley glanced through her last sheet of typing, flicked it out of the machine into the wire basket and flexed her fingers. If she was going for a stroll on the cliffs before dinner she’d better start now, she told herself apathetically. She didn’t expect Blake to come in with more work for her tonight, but as she was typing in the little office off his lab next to the Lodge, it wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility.

  It was still lovely and sunny outside and Cornwall in May was out of this world, but tonight for some reason Lesley could feel no thrill. Why did life seem so empty just now? she wondered. Was it just the malaise of spring when most people became restless or was she homesick for Australia ... and Steve?

  Since she had arrived in England, Steve had written to her every week, short scrawled air mail letters with no more than a sentence or two. Now he was coming to England with the surfing and life-saving demonstration group who were giving displays up and down the coast during the summer. Steve wasn’t an actual member of the group, but somehow he had got himself attached to them and since his father was a wealthy pastoralist, Lesley suspected he might be helping to finance the party.

  Lesley recalled the time she had been the Wentworths’ guest at the Royal Show in Sydney and how proud she had been of Steve dressed in what was practically the uniform of the rich pastoralists’ sons—cavalry twill and a wide-brimmed hat. It had been gay and exciting and she had known that Steve’s parents liked and approved of her. They would have welcomed an engagement, and then had come the message from Lactatoo that Margaret Trevendone was ill.

  In the end she had quarrelled with Steve about the twins. He had poured scorn on Lesley’s promise to Margaret Trevendone to bring her children to Cornwall to claim their father’s inheritance and in a temper Lesley had handed him back her eternity ring—the one he had given her as a ‘friendship ‘ring when they had first met while she was still at school.

  Steve had reco
vered his temper before they sailed and had come to Melbourne to see them off. He had looked at Lesley with upraised brows and a quizzical expression when both Rita and Rick had declared gloomily that they didn’t want to go—

  Well, they had come, and now Lesley never heard either of them speak of returning. In the past weeks they had been making lives for themselves quite apart from her, simply because she had been so busy adjusting herself to the strenuous tasks that had been piled upon her. Yet could she have done anything else in view of the fact that she had to earn not only her own keep but theirs in addition to doing an infinitesimal amount to paying off the Trevendone debt to the slave-master?

  Lesley’s brow creased. That was Rita’s phrase these days rather than anyone else’s. She just hadn’t reconciled herself to life at the Manor in the way Rick had. At one time she had spoken a great deal about Steve’s forthcoming visit because in Melbourne she had obviously had a schoolgirl crush on him, but now his name was never mentioned.

  It all seemed to stem, Lesley thought, biting her lips, from that night of the family discussion when she had said rashly that she was returning to Australia to marry.

  Rita had uttered that one cry of outrage, Lesley recalled, and never once since had she referred to the subject again.

  What had possessed her to say that about marrying? In a way it had just come into her mind when she had wanted to make it clear to the Trevendones that they need feel no responsibility for her—that it was the twins who must be considered.

  That surely had been her motive. Or had there been another one? A desire to show that arrogant, impassive man who had sat at the head of the table that though he might despise her as an awkward, red-haired, green-eyed young woman from over the sea, there were men, and one man in particular, who admired and loved, her sufficiently to want to marry her.