‘You need to get away,’ William Pierce said. ‘This family wedding you’re going to is just what you need. Take a week or two off, Nick, and unwind properly.’
‘You think that’s what I need? To see my brother tie himself up to the sister of that impossible woman who came calling on us?’ he scowled. ‘I’ll give it two years, and then he’ll be getting in touch with us to disentangle himself.’
‘My God, when did you become so disillusioned? This isn’t like you, Nick.’
‘I know, so what do you say we get out of here and go down to one of the seamen’s pubs this evening, drink ourselves silly and pick up a couple of floosies on the way back?’
William began to laugh, because this wasn’t like him either, and he only ever spoke like it in a fit of melancholy. But he went along with it as he always did, knowing nothing would come of it.
‘Why not?’ he said breezily. ‘And you can tell me some more about this family your brother’s marrying into.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Nicholas said abruptly. ‘And there’s too many to worry my head about them anyway.’
‘What about that semi-famous artist bloke among the relatives? He sounds interesting enough.’
‘Albert Tremayne,’ Nicholas nodded. ‘I might call in at his studio in Truro while I’m there to take a look around.’
‘If there’s anything half decent, you might pick it up for me, Nick. He may not be a Rembrandt, but you never know, his work might appreciate when he’s dead.’
‘He’s half dead now, by all accounts,’ Nicholas retorted. ‘Most of them are, if what Adam’s told me about them is anything to go by.’
Apart from seeing his brothers and his parents again, he admitted he wasn’t particularly looking forward to going back to Cornwall. And yet there was still a corner of his mind that wanted desperately to see it all again, if only to note how small and insular it had all become in retrospect. And the tiny tug that he couldn’t deny made him all the more resentful of the fact that Cornwall could still have a hold on his heart. Lawyers didn’t go in for all that romantic nonsense. As for the restlessness that had pervaded his soul as much as any other man’s when the war to end all wars had ended, well… He smiled ruefully; being stuck in a lawyer’s chambers was as far removed from travelling as from deep-sea diving.
Sometimes he still felt an urge to get out and see more of the world. But that was where he and his partner differed. William often spoke about one day buying an antique shop and surrounding himself with the antiques that he loved. If they sold up their successful practice, they could each follow their dreams, Nicholas mused… and that was probably all romantic nonsense too.
* * *
Romance was furthest from Philip Norwood’s mind at that moment. He glared at his wife’s cousin across the desk in the plush St Austell offices of Killigrew Clay. Theo was being as obstinate as ever, but Philip had always reckoned he could match him in that respect. Besides which, he had all the richness of an academic’s language at his disposal, while Theo Tremayne, for all his brashness, came from common stock, and frequently betrayed it.
But today, he knew damn well that Theo was getting the better of him, and he could feel the old wound in his head throbbing as his blood pressure rose.
‘’Tis no use you showing me that black face, Norwood,’ Theo bellowed. ‘Much as I dislike the thought of partnering a woman in business, ’tis laid down legal and proper that the clayworks and the pottery be divided between your wife and myself, more’s the pity, and I ain’t persuading her to do nothing different.’
‘I’m perfectly aware of that fact—’
‘And the only way you can be a part of it,’ Theo went on relentlessly, ‘is if Skye herself hands her share over to you now, or makes a legal thing of it in her will. And I doubt that she’ll do any of it. We Tremaynes be a stubborn bunch o’ folk, as you’ve discovered over the years. We keep what’s ours. And anyway, I can’t see your wife passing over yet. She’s too bloody healthy for that, barring accidents. You ain’t seeing fit to poison her to get your hands on the business, I suppose?’
‘Don’t be insulting. Such a thing never entered my head, and I’ll thank you not to countenance such evil thoughts.’
‘And when she and I go underground,’ Theo went on crudely, ‘there’s your young Oliver all set up to go into partnership with my Sebby and Justin. She’ll not want an outsider to take a share, especially a poncey schoolteacher.’ His face hardened still more as he stood up, leaning on the desk, and almost spitting out his final words at Philip. ‘So, Norwood, I’d suggest you keep your hands out o’ my clay if you know what’s good for you.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘No. It’s a promise.’
* * *
Philip left the St Austell offices more shaken than when he’d arrived. The man was vicious and uncouth, and he would never like him as long as he lived. In that respect, he agreed with his wife. But he couldn’t deny that in another respect, he and Theo were in agreement. Neither of them thought a woman should be in business to the extent that Skye was. She held the family purse strings as well as the house that had been bequeathed to her, and the whole bloody watertight facts were galling to a man of importance, such as a college professor.
As he strode along unseeingly, freely accepting the snobbery of his thoughts as his manly right, they switched to an unwanted direction. If he had married Ruth Dobson as he had always intended, he would have had a subservient and mild-mannered wife instead of the sparky and beautiful daughter of the Tremayne dynasty… His thoughts changed just as quickly, wondering what the hell he was thinking of, to be so dismissive of the love he and Skye had known over the years.
Ruth was his past, however guilty he could still feel over the way he felt he had abandoned her. She had ended the engagement herself, but he had always known it was because she could see he was so passionately in love with the woman he had met on the ship bringing them both to Cornwall. Such a twist of fate that had changed all their lives…
‘My goodness, Philip, you’re deep in thought today,’ he heard an amused voice say, and he forced a smile to his face as he met the bright eyes of Vera Pollard. ‘What are you doing in St Austell?’
‘I might ask the same of you,’ he countered, with the ease of tutorial rhetoric. Vera laughed.
‘Oh, I’m visiting Betsy, just to check that Sebby’s got over his latest tantrum. If he plays up at my wedding, I’ll throttle him. But it’s a bribery visit, I’m afraid. What do you think of this?’
She opened the brown paper bag she carried, and brought out a toy soldier with a key in its back. When she wound it up, the soldier saluted continuously until the mechanism creaked to a halt.
‘Very nice,’ Philip said, oozing sarcasm. ‘Just the thing to remind children about the existence of war.’
‘Oh, Philip, don’t be so stuffy,’ she said crossly, never one to mince her words. ‘Sebby’s too young to know anything about war, and it’s only a toy.’
She flounced off, realising she still didn’t know why Skye’s husband was wandering about St Austell like a lost soul, instead of tutoring at his college in Truro. He was a secretive man at times, thought Vera, and no doubt his own war experiences had a lot to do with his frequent scratchiness, but she wasn’t sure that she really liked him. It had never occurred to her before, but it occurred to her now.
Chapter Three
Two days before his brother’s wedding, Nicholas Pengelly came back to Cornwall. With Adam’s nervousness and young Ethan’s exuberance, he managed to hide his shock at the way his mother had aged in the last few years. His father too seemed to spend far too much of his time staring out of the window, and was clearly still of the opinion that his dead son was coming home from the war.
It made Nicholas more than uneasy. He was also filled with guilt to realise the few times he had returned to the St Austell family home. And how small it all seemed to him now… He knew such observations were commonplace w
hen folk moved on, but it didn’t lessen his uncomfortable feelings to know it. Nor the fact that once he had been inside the house for a while, he felt a real urge to get out.
‘I’m going to take a drive over to Truro to look up a few people,’ he said casually the next morning. ‘Why don’t you come for the ride, Mother? It will do you good.’
She shook her head. ‘There’ll be enough excitement for me with having to meet all these Pollard folk and t’others at the wedding, but you go off, Nick. You don’t want to stop in wi’ an old couple when you’ve got folks to see.’
He gave her a swift hug, feeling how frail she was now, compared with the robust woman he remembered. But he had to go. The thought of sharing their empty, endless days began to stifle him as much as the house.
It wasn’t good for Ethan, either, he thought suddenly, to face the prospect of caring for two aged parents. Not that he guessed the boy had even considered it. Neither had Nicholas, until now, but when Adam was married and had set up home with his new bride, it was going to be inevitable. Ethan would be the only brother left in the house. His guilt began to magnify as he realised that sending money home for their little comforts didn’t compare with companionship, and the way his mother’s eyes had lit up on his arrival told him as much.
But for now, he put it all behind him as he drove towards Truro. As yet he hadn’t met any of Adam’s future relatives, although he had been to see the White Rivers Pottery, where Adam was such a proud and experienced potter, and where Ethan was fast learning the craft.
He had duly admired the gleaming, virginally white products, with the initials WR entwined with KC on each base, depicting White Rivers and Killigrew Clay. There was clearly no intention of separating one from the other, and rightly so, he supposed. He had known the whole area since childhood, though his family had never been involved with the china clay business or its owners. But everyone knew the importance of Killigrew Clay around here, and the way the pottery had come into being after the end of the war. Adam had told him that Mrs Norwood herself, the part-owner who had once been Skye Tremayne, had thought up the name of White Rivers.
To Nick, she sounded a pretty formidable woman, and probably in the mould of Lily Pollard who had come calling on him unannounced. It wasn’t an appealing picture.
But he instantly forgot about her. Because today, after he had visited several old acquaintances, he intended calling at the artist’s studio, with the firm intention of buying a future masterpiece as a gift for his partner.
* * *
Albert Tremayne didn’t relish the prospect of attending a family wedding. He accepted that he had become more reclusive as the years had gone on, in complete contrast to the heady greenstick days he had shared with his sister, Primmy.
Before his wife Rose had become so dependent on him, she had constantly complained at how garrulous he was with clients and Truro folk, and he had insisted that he owed it to be civil to the folk who considered him a local celebrity. But after Rose had died, and there was no more need to go out of the studio for relief from her grumbling, he had turned inward on himself.
He took few commissions now. He probably should, because until he got them working, his fingers were becoming stiff with arthritis, and he had lost much of his enthusiasm for his work. He took longer to begin his day each morning, but since he was now seventy-two years old, he hardly cared what folk thought about him any more. He knew that some thought him a queer fish, but amazingly, this aura of mystery and aloofness seemed to enhance his stature as an artist.
Albert scowled at the insistent knocking on his studio door on that sunny April morning. It was barely ten o’clock; he had just finished a late breakfast, and still wore the Chinese silk kimono one of his more grateful travelling clients had given him. His hair was lank and long, and he peered at the smartly turned out young man at his door with an air of irritation.
‘I’m not open for business yet, and I don’t do sittings without a prior appointment.’
‘Mr Albert Tremayne?’ the man enquired. ‘My name is Nicholas Pengelly, and I believe we’re shortly to become related, at least in a roundabout manner.’
Nicholas forced a smile, though personally he found the sight of the artist a disgrace to humanity. Bits of food clung to the sides of his mouth, and he looked and smelled none too clean. No wonder he needed prior appointments for his clients’ sittings, if only to tidy himself up. The clients would need fair notice too. But he wasn’t here to criticise.
Albie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Related, you say? How the devil do you make that out?’
From his dishevelled appearance and the tremor in his voice, Nick guessed that the man had probably been drinking the night before and his brain was befuddled, or he would surely have recognised the name Pengelly. Nick spoke slowly, the way one did to the very drunk, or the very stupid.
‘I apologise for coming here unannounced, sir. And it’s my brother who is about to be married to your niece. I refer to the marriage of Adam Pengelly and Miss Vera Pollard.’
‘Charlotte’s girl,’ Albie growled. ‘And not before time, either. Not that I suspect any funny business between ’em, you understand, but she’s getting a bit long in the tooth.’
The man was an oaf, thought Nicholas, but he had met enough celebrities who thought they could get away with any insult they chose to use. They always attracted enough adoring sycophants, no matter what they said, so their party trick was to become as obnoxious as they could, to see just how far they could go before their audience fled in disgust.
In his profession, he was used to summing up people very quickly, and he would be surprised if Albert Tremayne wasn’t just such a person. But he’d come here for a purpose, and he wasn’t going to be put off, nor rise to the bait as Albie stood with folded arms, awaiting his response.
‘Then I hope my brother knows how to handle her,’ he said coolly. ‘But that’s their business, and not mine. Now then, Mr Tremayne, I want to purchase a special gift for my business partner, and as he’s very keen on supporting modern artists, this is my purpose in coming here.’
‘Oh, your business partner, is it?’ Albie sneered, his voice heavy with innuendo. ‘Well, I’ve heard bedmates called some fancy names, so I dare say that’s as good as any. And what makes ’ee think I need supporting in my old age?’
Nick looked at him steadily. ‘From the look of you, man, I’d say you need a pot of strong black coffee to support you. And perhaps I could give you my card. It might also serve to remind you not to make insinuations about people unless you want to be accused of slander.’
He handed over the gilt-edged card with the words “Pengelly and Pierce, Solicitors at Law” embossed on it, and the address of their Plymouth chambers beneath.
Albie took it, staring at it fixedly for a few seconds while his brain took in the information. It had been said so smoothly that he wondered if he had even been censured at all.
‘So if you’re quite satisfied that I’m not here to ravish you, sir, perhaps I could step over the threshold before you startle the local virgins and horses alike by your unkempt appearance,’ Nicholas went on pleasantly.
It was the shock approach, and it usually worked. For a moment, Albie said nothing, then he roared with laughter and stood back to give Nicholas admittance.
‘By God, you’re a rum fellow, but I like you, sir,’ he said, when he could draw breath.
Which was more than Nicholas could say about Albert. But personalities didn’t come into business dealings, and he knew that well enough.
‘Well, in the circumstances I dare say I can trust ’ee not to run away wi’ any of my work,’ Albert added, unable to resist the barb. ‘So you can wait in the studio and take a look-see while I get some clobber on, then we’ll get down to business. Would ’ee care to take some coffee with me – or something stronger, maybe?’
‘Thank you, nothing,’ Nicholas said, not wanting to risk having a drink laced with anything unidentifiable. ‘I’m happy to wait unti
l you’re ready.’
‘Come through, then,’ Albie grunted, and led the way to the studio before he stumped upstairs to his living quarters. He had plenty of paintings for sale from his more feverish days, and he was sure he could palm off this lawyer fellow with a suitable scene and make a handsome profit.
Nicholas tried not to notice the fine layer of dust on the studio furnishings. He was not fastidious to the extent of prissiness, but he disliked squalor. This place didn’t qualify for the term yet, but it was clear that Albert Tremayne’s business acumen must be going downhill fast. He felt a brief pity, because once, he knew, the artist had really been a somebody in this town. A glamour figure, in his way, almost as much as the new movie stars were becoming now.
He turned his attention to the work on display. There were plenty of paintings for sale, on easels and hanging on the walls. Some were quite small and delicately painted, while others were bold and masterly. The man was a fine artist, Nick acknowledged, and no one could take that away from him. He moved towards the group of unframed paintings stacked against one wall, and idly riffled through them. Some were pastoral scenes, but others were portraits. Then, without warning, his breath caught in his throat, and he pulled one of the paintings out from all the rest and stared at it.
The woman portrayed on the canvas was more beautiful than any woman he had seen in his life before. And it was obvious to anyone with any sensibility at all, that there was a world of passion in her extraordinary blue eyes, and that the artist had painted her with a matching passion in his soul.
For a hard-headed lawyer like himself to have such an instant reaction was unusual enough. To be aware that his heart was racing and that he could feel more than a stirring in his loins just by studying the voluptuous red mouth and the curvaceous figure dressed in the extraordinarily flamboyant garments, was something he was totally unable to explain.
White Rivers Page 4