Galleon House

by Margaret Malcolm

  CHAPTER SIX

  When Simon went to London it seemed to Andrea as if she drew her first deep breath since he had arrived at St. Finbar. All the strains and stresses of the past weeks vanished, and with the return of the fine weather she spent most of her time out of doors reveling in the sense of freedom.

  Madam, too, seemed to be more at ease, and as for Leo, he was the old bluff, hearty self that Andrea had known and looked up to all her life.

  If only it could be like this always! she thought yearningly. If only Simon wasn’t coming back even for a little while—and things could be the way they used to be! And, unconsciously, she twisted the heavy betrothal ring on her finger as if she was going to take it off.

  Twice Leo took her out fishing at night on the Cormorant, and then, acting on his orders, she did take the ring off and left it at home for safety’s sake. Her hand seemed twice as useful without it.

  On neither of these occasions was Luke part of the crew, and when Andrea commented on the fact, Leo smiled faintly.

  “He’s not feeling quite up to it at the moment,” he explained blandly.

  Andrea looked at him sharply. Suddenly she remembered a morning, two or three days ago, when Leo had left Galleon House wearing heavy gauntlet gloves and carrying a riding whip. At the time she had attached no importance to it, imagining that Leo was going to take one of the horses out. Now she wondered, and there must have been a question in her eyes, for the corners of Leo’s mouth twitched slightly and he gave one of her curls a friendly tug, vastly different from that other occasion when he had done the same thing.

  “Thought reading?” he suggested quizzically.

  “Perhaps,” Andrea admitted cautiously.

  “Well, don’t, my chicken,” he advised amiably. “What you don’t know can’t be held against you, and my shoulders are broad enough—” He stopped abruptly, realizing that he was saying too much.

  He had, in fact, give Luke the thrashing of his life with less compunction than if he had been a dog. And Luke had groveled at his feet, admitted that it had been he who had attacked Simon, and blubbered his submission. Leo had been satisfied that he had learned his lesson for the time being at least, but he was taking no chances where Andrea was concerned. For himself, he felt confident that he could hold his own against Luke any day.

  Yet, within twenty-four hours, something was to happen which put him at a considerable disadvantage if he had occasion to defend himself—and for another reason as well. He and Andrea had been out in the little motorboat fishing. It was low tide when they returned, and as Leo stepped on to the wet, seaweedy landing steps, he slipped and fell heavily forward. As he did so, he heard an ominous sound, and when he pulled himself to his feet, his right arm was dangling by his side.

  Regardless of Andrea’s presence, he cursed heartily.

  “Bone gone in my forearm,” he explained furiously. “Of all things to happen just now! You’ll have to drive me to the hospital to have it set, Andrea. Go ashore and here, throw me that scarf of yours. It will do for a sling.”

  “Just a sling isn’t enough,” Andrea told him firmly. “It must be splinted as well.”

  “You know a lot!” Leo commented dryly.

  “You taught me!” Andrea retorted briefly. She picked up two pieces of driftwood from the rocks, and with the belt of her dress and the ribbon she had bound around her head to keep her hair from her eyes, she fixed the splints firmly into position and then supported the forearm in the scarf.

  “Neat job,” Leo remarked approvingly. “Couldn’t have done it better myself! I’ve always wondered if you would keep your head in an emergency, Andrea. It seems you would!”

  “You’ve trained me for a good many years,” Andrea flashed. “If you wanted me to indulge in the vapors you should have taught me. I just don’t know how to!”

  Leo laughed and, his good humor apparently restored, dropped the subject. They climbed the rest of the steps and into the little car which they had left parked nearby, having first instructed one of the fishermen to go up to Galleon House to explain what had happened to Madam.

  “And don’t make too much of a song about it,” Leo ordered. “Make it clear that there’s no cause for alarm.”

  An hour or so later, with Leo’s arm in plaster, they drove back to Galleon House and saw Madam waiting for them on the terrace. “Leo, how did it happen?” Madam asked sharply.

  “Sheer accident, Madam!” Leo assured her promptly. “I told Phillip to tell you that.”

  “He did,” Madam admitted. “But I wondered.”

  Leo smiled grimly.

  “If Luke went for me, it wouldn’t be my arm, it would be my head! But no, it was nothing to do with him or anybody else except me—and my own infernal clumsiness! I fell against the edge of one of the steps as I was landing and my own weight did the rest.” He patted her arm reassuringly. “No need to worry, Madam.”

  “No?” she queried.

  Leo’s hand fell and he frowned.

  “I know. That’s something of a problem. I can see only one way out.” And his head inclined slightly toward the direction that Andrea had taken.

  “But, Leo!” she exclaimed, her hawk eyes wide with amazement. “You have always been against that!”

  “I know,” he admitted restlessly. “But what else can I do? Who else can I trust?”

  Madam shook her head.

  “I do not like it,” she said emphatically. “It’s a man’s job.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Leo nodded. “But what else can you suggest?”

  At that moment, Andrea returned and the conversation turned to generalities. It was not until Madam had retired to her room that evening that Andrea suddenly turned to Leo and asked, with an urgency that suggested that the question had been on the tip of her tongue all the evening:

  “Leo, why were you so annoyed that you had broken your arm just now?”

  “What do you think was the reasons?” he asked lazily, without turning his head.

  “It could be ... because of Luke,” she said slowly. “But I don’t think it was.”

  “Quite right,” he admitted. “Well?”

  “It could be—” still more slowly “—because it’s the full of the moon tomorrow night.”

  “Ah!” He looked at her with interest now. “And just what importance do you attach to that?”

  “I’ve noticed—” she was choosing her words very carefully “—that from time to time, in the summer, when the moon is full, Madam is very restless at night. She walks the floor almost unceasingly. And when you come home, you go straight to her. And the next day both she and you are very happy ... as if ... as if something has happened to please you both. Or as if there is a load off your minds.”

  “You’re an observant child,” Leo said softly. “Is that all?”

  “That’s all I know, but—” Andrea looked quickly around and then, her voice dropped to a whisper. She went on: “On those nights I think ... I’m sure you land ... other cargo than fish!”

  “Clever child!” Leo said, half mockingly. “And you’re not shocked?”

  “No,” Andrea replied simply. “It’s in my blood, as it is in yours.” Leo became silent, and after a moment Andrea laid a hand on his. “Leo, tomorrow night, can I come?”

  For a moment Leo scowled blackly. Then he nodded.

  “You will have to,” he told her. And then, at her exclamation of delight: “You wouldn’t come were it not that there’s no one else I can trust—”

  She gave a wordless little exclamation of pleasure and Leo’s face hardened.

  “Whom I can trust to take orders and obey them to the last letter!” he said sternly. “Now, listen carefully while I tell you exactly what you’ll have to do.”

  For several moments Leo continued speaking while Andrea listened with all the concentration at her command. When he had finished, she drew a deep breath.

  “Yes, I understand,” she said, deliberately keeping any hint of excitement ou
t of her voice.

  “And you can do it?” he asked sternly. “Don’t say you can if you can’t, because everything will depend on your strength and your nerve. Well?”

  “You can trust me,” Andrea said quietly, and Leo nodded. “Very well. Then go to bed now and get a good night’s rest in preparation,” he ordered peremptorily.

  Andrea obeyed instantly. But though she went to bed, she could not sleep. One of the dreams of her life was about to be realized, and the pulsing of the blood through her veins was like the surging of the sea.

  It was a night of white light and mysterious shadows. Andrea, as she drove the little car down to the harbor, experienced an exhilaration such as she had never known before in her life. She knew quite well what she was going to do was against the law, but it did not seem wrong—only exciting and courageous. Something that, so far as she knew, no other Trevaine woman had ever done. Not even Madam! Her spirits soared. But she did not talk about it. There was no need to. Leo had experienced this same thrill many times and he must understand as no one else did.

  And Leo was silent, too. He had given her detailed instructions and had made her repeat them again and again until he was perfectly sure that she could not make a mistake. And Andrea was determined that she would not. For there was more in this night’s work than adventure.

  As they reached the harbor, she gave a sigh of pure contentment. The Cormorant lay at anchor a little way off shore and at the tiny quayside was the dinghy that would take them out to her.

  As they pushed off, Andrea heard the fisherman who was rowing her out say something in an undertone to Leo. She could only hear the word “Luke,” but at that moment she saw a slight movement in the shadows cast by the sheds on the quay and guessed the rest of what had been said.

  But there was no time to bother about Luke any more. They had reached the side of the Cormorant. Andrea scrambled up the rope ladder like a cat. Leo, handicapped by his plastered arm, followed more slowly. Both of them went to the wheelhouse, and a moment or so later, Leo gave the order to cast off.

  The Cormorant slipped effortlessly along in the moonlight and Andrea, her hands deep in the pockets of her coat, watched for the moment when she would see the lights of Galleon House gleaming from the headland.

  Ah, there it was! She was conscious of a feeling of elation at the sight. Her home—the most wonderful one in the world! Worth doing anything for—worth taking any risk to keep it intact and beautiful. In fact, it seemed as if it was one’s duty to do so. How else could one repay all that the house had done for them, the Trevaines?

  They were beyond the river mouth now, though still running along parallel to the coast. Then they were turning from it, making for the open sea. Leo, standing by the man at the wheel, his eyes on his instruments, gave another brief order.

  “Keep her at that, Joseph, until I come back,” he ordered. “I’ll be in my cabin. Come, Andrea.”

  She followed closely on his heels, and once in the snug cabin, Leo shut and locked the door. Awkwardly, from his own waist, he unbuckled a wide, waterproof belt along the inside of which ran a long zipper.

  “Put it on,” he said curtly.

  Andrea slipped off her coat. Under it she was wearing nothing but her scarlet bathing suit. She put the belt around her slim waist, but even buckled in the tightest hole, it was far too loose to be safe.

  “Confound it, I ought to have thought of that before!” Leo said irritably. “It will slip off you.”

  “Give me your knife,” Andrea said coolly and taking it from him, laid the belt on his desk and pierced it with the tip of the knife, twisting the blade so that it made the smallest possible hole.

  “Hey, you’ll ruin that knife!” Leo protested.

  Andrea glanced at him briefly.

  “How much would it cost to replace?” she asked significantly, and Leo was surprised into a chuckle.

  “Andrea, I’ve got to admit it—I’ve underestimated you for years!” he told her, clapping her on the shoulder. “You should have been a man, my dear. And if you had been, by heaven, you’d have been my next in command!”

  “Or your rival!” Andrea suggested coolly, and once again Leo laughed.

  “Just as well, then, that you’re a woman!” he said, and then, with a glance at his watch, went on briskly: “Put on your coat. It’s time we went back to the wheelhouse.”

  “I’d rather stay on deck—” Andrea began, and stopped short at the expression on Leo’s face.

  “You’ll do as I tell you,” he said very softly. “Now and always. The wheelhouse. At once!”

  Andrea swallowed something in her throat and obeyed, her eyes downcast. Perhaps she had got a little above herself, but need Leo have pulled her up for it in a way that made her feel so humiliated and inferior?

  Rather rebelliously she stared out unseeingly at the sea. It was exceptionally calm. Just as well, of course, in the circumstances, but somehow she felt a depressing of the spirits. It would have been so much more exciting if she had had to swim through turbulent seas—such a finer feather in her cap that it would have made no difference to her. Unconsciously she sighed.

  Except for a brief order, given and repeated, there was silence in the wheelhouse. Time passed.

  “Switch on the radar, Andrea,” Leo said suddenly.

  She went behind the screens that shut off a section of the wheelhouse little larger than a telephone kiosk, and pressed a switch. A screen similar to a television glowed softly and Andrea scrutinized it closely and made a slight adjustment.

  “Ready!” she called.

  “Swing slowly to starboard,” Leo ordered. “Through fifteen degrees.”

  Andrea, her hands on the controls, obeyed.

  “Something,” she said doubtfully. “But very small...”

  Leo came and took her place.

  “Too small,” he said shortly. “A fishing boat. Keep looking.” He gave an order and the Cormorant’s speed dropped. Andrea’s heart beat a little more quickly. Any moment now a significant shadow ought to appear on the screen...

  There was silence in the wheelhouse, a tense, anticipatory silence. It grew oppressive as time passed and still there was nothing on the screen.

  Once again Leo took Andrea’s place. Frowning in the dim light, he searched slowly, carefully.

  “Odd,” Andrea heard him mutter. “I know I’m on my course...”

  Once again the Cormorant reduced speed and Leo watched and waited.

  Suddenly he switched off the radar.

  “Something has gone wrong,” he said curtly. “She’s not going to turn up. Or if she is, it’s going to be so late that it will be too risky for us to hang about. Sorry, Andrea, but you don’t get your swim tonight.”

  Andrea did not answer. She felt suddenly cold. And frightened because she sensed Leo’s uneasiness. And Leo was quick to appreciate her panic.

  “You’ll find a sweater in my cabin,” he said casually. “Better put it on if you’re cold. And I’ll tell the galley to send you up some coffee.”

  Andrea found her voice.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Do?” Leo sounded amused. “Catch some fish, of course! As we should have done in any case ... later. Now off you go. I’ll come and have a coffee with you when I’ve given the order.”

  A little later, she heard him whistling as he approached the cabin door, but when he entered he stopped, his mouth twisted into a wry grin.

  “Bad luck!” he commented. “Sorry for your disappointment, Andrea.”

  “Leo, please don’t pretend to me,” she said quietly. “This is serious, isn’t it?”

  Leo sat down at his desk and lifted the cup of coffee she had poured out for him.

  “Could be,” he admitted laconically, his eyes brooding and distant.

  “Luke, do you think...?”

  He frowned, not in anger but in deep thought.

  “I don’t think so. I’ve had him watched pretty closely. So far as I know, he has
n’t had a chance—I would not have let you come tonight if I wasn’t reasonably sure. No, I fancy the trouble is the other side.” He pondered deeply and then shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve had a pretty good run for our money. We mustn’t grumble.”

  “You may see it that way, but will the men?” Andrea asked gravely. “They’ve become used to big money.”

  Leo moved restlessly.

  “I know. And sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good thing if they hadn’t. None of our people work as hard as they used to, you know.”

  “But you will keep on?” Andrea asked anxiously. “Or is there enough now?”

  Leo did not reply, and Andrea wondered just what he was thinking. He looked tired, and she never remembered having seen Leo look like that before.

  Suddenly he stood up.

  “Whether there is enough or not ... I shall keep on. If I can,” he told her harshly. “It depends on what went wrong tonight. It might just be last-minute trouble with the engines. Or—” He shrugged his shoulders. “I shall know in a day or two.”

  As soon as Simon returned he sensed that something had happened. It was difficult to define, but there was a change in the atmosphere. A tension of some sort.

  He asked no questions since he was sure they would not be answered, and in any case, what business was it of his? A few more days and he would be leaving Galleon House and these amazing relatives of his behind him. Yet though he told himself that repeatedly, he could not refrain from watching for any word or action to explain the mystery.