And that beautiful hair… that long, gleaming black hair, dressed in a style that was not a style at all, but was decked with beads, and flowed freely and uninhibitedly over her slender shoulders. She was no more than a canvas portrait, but to Nicholas she was uncannily alive… She was Aphrodite and Cleopatra, and every temptress that ever lived in life or in legend…
‘That painting’s not for sale,’ he heard Albert Tremayne say harshly.
He hadn’t heard the artist come downstairs again, but now, dressed more soberly than in his garish Chinese garb, Albert strode across the studio floor and almost wrenched the portrait out of Nicholas’s hands.
‘I’m sorry. I was merely looking around as you suggested. But she’s such a beautiful woman. You must have known her very well. Who is she, or who was she? Your wife, maybe?’
Nick felt as gauche as a young boy asking the questions, clumsy in his need to know the identity of the woman.
‘She’s nobody who exists. She’s a dream, a fantasy, and she’s not for sale. So if you would tell me your business partner’s tastes, perhaps we can strike a deal, sir. I have clients to see today, and don’t have much time to spare for idle chitchat.’
Nicholas was damn sure there were no clients in the offing, but as Albert tucked the portrait away at the back of the stack on the floor, he knew he would get no more information out of the man. And he had best keep to the business in hand, instead of being totally bowled over by a beauty that apparently didn’t exist. Or so the man said.
* * *
Long after Nicholas Pengelly had gone away with an overpriced painting of Truro overlooking the Lemon River, Albert sat clutching the portrait of Primmy in his hands. He had forgotten it was even there. It wasn’t meant for public viewing, and he cursed the fact that he had allowed the stranger free rein in his studio.
Once, he had wanted to display Primmy’s likeness everywhere, and God knew he’d done enough paintings of her in his time. But now, with an almost possessive greed, he wanted to keep them all to himself, and he took the portrait upstairs to his bedroom and put it in the cupboard with all the others.
It was ironic, and inexplicable, even to himself, that he couldn’t bear to look at them. He simply wanted to possess them to the exclusion of all others. It was the only thing now that made her totally his.
He still cared about Primmy with an undimmed passion, but more than being a comfort, he knew it had become a curse he was obliged to live with until the day he died. And if that wasn’t enough to feed a body’s sense of fate being against him, he didn’t know what was.
He cared little what became of the paintings he sold, and had lost interest in himself as a celebrity, except when it suited him. Even then, he was more self-mocking than laudatory, with the effect that even the strongest admirers of his work thought him unduly sarcastic and arrogant. It was certain the Pengelly fellow had thought as much, but he dismissed all thought of him as easily as swatting a fly.
* * *
Nicholas drove around the countryside for quite a while before he thought of going back to St Austell. It was ludicrous how impossible it was to get the face of the woman in the portrait out of his mind.
He had no idea who she was, and he realised that the artist had been totally unforthcoming in identifying her. Perhaps it was true what he said – that she didn’t exist and never had, and was no more than a dream, a fantasy…
He wasn’t a superstitious man; he left all that twaddle for more gullible folk, but he was a Cornishman for all that, and a feeling deep in his gut told him that the man was lying. The woman did exist, and no artist, however sensitive, could have portrayed that amount of sensuality in a woman without having known her. And loved her.
By the time Nicholas got back to St Austell he was calling himself all kinds of a fool, and had determined to put the image out of his mind. He had more important things to attend to than chasing someone else’s dream. He was to be best man at his brother’s wedding.
He smiled ruefully. Having met two members of the clan so far, he wasn’t impressed. The strident Lily and the uncouth Albert Tremayne were hardly candidates for most popular folk of the year. He only hoped Adam wasn’t heading for disaster.
They had arranged to go out to a local hostelry that evening. They both knew their father wouldn’t join them, and no matter how much Ethan begged to do so, he was told firmly that he was too young to frequent such places.
‘I’m near to being fifteen,’ he defended himself. ‘I can hold me jug of ale, same as the next ’un.’
‘I hope you haven’t tried it, sprog,’ Nick said sharply. ‘It won’t do the family reputation much good to have you thrown into the local jailhouse for drinking.’
‘Your reputation, you mean,’ Ethan sulked. ‘Bigshot lawyer.’
‘No I don’t. I mean your brother’s important new family, and the ones who provide your weekly bread and butter. How would it look if Adam had to explain to his new bride and her family that you can’t be at the wedding because you’re sleeping it off in a cell?’
Ethan scowled, half of him sensing the pride in being able to boast of such a thing to his contemporaries, and the other half fearful of the cuffing he’d get from his brothers.
‘You’ll let me have a taste at the feast, though, won’t you? I know Mrs Norwood won’t be so all-fired fussy. She’s my friend, and she said I have to call her Skye now we’re near-related,’ he added importantly.
Nick began to laugh at such cheek, and Adam gave Ethan a cursory clip about the ears.
‘Don’t be disrespectful,’ he snapped. ‘I never heard such nonsense, and you mind and keep a civil tongue in your head. I’m sure Mrs Norwood never said anything of the sort.’
‘She did too,’ Ethan howled. ‘I seen her up at the pottery t’other day, and ’twas her idea, not mine, so there.’
‘What’s this Mrs Norwood got to do with the wedding, anyway?’ Nick said with a smile, trying to play down the growing tension between them.
Now that Adam was joining the clan, so to speak, he probably should have kept in touch with the goings-on down here, but he’d lost track of the large Cornish intermixing families a long while ago. His mother spoke up.
‘She’s the daughter of the Tremayne girl who went to America and married her cousin. There was some fuss over it at the time, but ’tis all water under the bridge now. This here Mrs Norwood is old Morwen Tremayne’s granddaughter.’
Nick’s heart jolted. Of course there were going to be Tremaynes and Killigrew descendants at the wedding, but the names had never been as prominent in his thoughts as now, after leaving Albert Tremayne’s studio.
‘And her name is Skye?’ he said casually.
His mother sniffed loudly.
‘American. I told you,’ she said, as if that explained everything. ‘And she be as uppity as all on ’em, from what I hear. Owns half the pottery, so that should tell you.’
Nick found himself laughing at her indignant voice, and Adam joined in.
‘Ma thinks women should stay home and bake bread or take in washing for richer folk. She forgets that plenty of ’em used to be bal maidens for Killigrew Clay in the old days, and that plenty more went to do war work.’
‘We want no talk of war here,’ his mother said sharply, with a glance at her husband in his creaking rocking chair by the window. ‘Anyway, she don’t make the pots, o’ course, just rakes in a share o’ the proceeds.’
‘She can, though,’ Ethan said. ‘She told me she once threw a pot afore the old linhay was burned down years ago. She can do anything,’ he added with adoration in his eyes.
‘Hell’s teeth, she sounds like a real tartar,’ Nick said in an aside to his brother. ‘Are you sure you want to marry into this family?’
Adam’s eyes were suddenly mischievous. ‘Oh, brother, have you got a surprise coming to you! But I ain’t saying no more, and we’re wasting valuable drinking time.’
‘You be sure and keep him sober, our Nick,’ his mother
called out as a passing shot. ‘We don’t want no faltering at the church tomorrow wi’ all they posh folks watching.’
* * *
It was late in the evening by the time they reached the Dog and Duck Inn on the St Austell waterfront, and the taproom was thick with smoke when they entered.
Adam had assured Nick that he knew what he was doing; that he adored Vera, and that she was the only woman in the world for him, and in any case he was marrying her, not her entire family.
Still with the thoughts of the two he had met so far, and the imagery of the progressive American, Mrs Norwood, firmly fixed in his mind now, Nick could only hope that Adam was man enough to cope with them all.
The door of the taproom opened and shut, bringing with it a blast of evening air, and Adam groaned.
‘Christ, I hadn’t expected him to be here tonight,’ he muttered. ‘It’s Vera’s uncle Theo, Nick. One of the Tremaynes. You’d have met him tomorrow as he’ll be giving her away, so you may as well be introduced to him now.’
Nick watched the large man moving forcefully towards them. There was a faint likeness to Albert Tremayne, if only in the eyes. This one was much younger, though – in his late forties, Nick assessed.
‘Well, Adam, taking your last taste of freedom, I see,’ Theo greeted him. ‘And this must be the brother who escaped.’
‘Escaped?’ Nick said, not sure how to take this.
‘Theo thinks everyone who moved away from Cornwall did so because they had something to hide,’ Adam said shortly. ‘Take no notice of him.’
‘Now then, you young bugger, we’re not fam’ly yet, so you mind your manners,’ Theo said, giving him a dig in the ribs, but chortling and expansive all the same.
From the look of his fiery cheeks and unsteady gait, Nick guessed he’d already had a bellyful to drink before coming here. There was a whiff of something else on him too. Perfume. And cheap French perfume at that.
Adam snapped a response. ‘Well, as you rightly suppose, this is my brother Nicholas, who’s a respected lawyer in Plymouth, if you call that escaping.’
‘A self-imposed grockle, then. Well, if we need another lawyer, we’ll know not to get in touch with ’ee, won’t we?’
He roared at his own joke and Nick looked at him steadily. So this was another choice sample of Adam’s family-in-laws… but even as he thought it, his mind cleared. They were Adam’s, not his. Once the wedding was over, and he had spent a few more days at home, he could go back to Plymouth any time he wished. He didn’t have to stay for the couple of weeks William Pierce had insisted he needed.
‘You’m a sober one, by the looks of ’ee, boy,’ Theo said thickly now, glowering back at Nick. ‘Don’t ’ee have a store of lawyer’s jokes to tell at the feasting tomorrow?’
‘I do not,’ said Nick. ‘And in my business, we take marriage seriously. Too many of them come unstuck for me to enjoy listening to the kind of jokes you’re referring to.’
‘For God’s sake, Nick, don’t bait him, or we’ll be here all night.’
‘You pompous prig,’ Theo spluttered, his mind too muddled to really be any threat. ‘I’ll have to see if I can dredge up some jokes about lawyers then, to keep the crowd amused.’
‘You do, and I’ll break your neck,’ Nick said, so pleasantly that the others wondered if he had said the words at all. He drained his ale, and told Adam it was time to go.
‘That’s right,’ Theo bellowed after them. ‘Take the boy home to get his beauty sleep, for he’ll get none tomorrow night, unless he don’t come up to expectations.’
‘Leave it, Nick,’ Adam said, clutching his brother’s arm as he made to turn back, his fists clenched. ‘He won’t remember a word of it tomorrow, and it don’t mean a thing, anyway. Everything’s all right in the lower department.’
Nick grinned at him as they went out into the fresh air and headed back to his car. ‘So you and Vera have—’
‘Once or twice,’ Adam said ambiguously, and then exploded into laughter. ‘Oh ah, broth, we’ve made contact all right, if you know what I mean. And they bedsprings in that little hotel in Newquay are going to sing out a joyous song of welcome tomorrow night when me and my Vera get thrashing. Shocked you, have I?’
‘Good God, no,’ Nick said, laughing. ‘I’ve heard far worse than that.’
He wasn’t shocked, nor even surprised, except by his own sudden feeling of envy. Whatever Vera Pollard was like, she had obviously captivated his brother, and they were clearly head over heels in love. He wished her and Adam all the love and luck in the world, and for the first time in a long while, he knew what he was missing.
Into his mind at that moment came the image of the woman’s face that had been haunting him all day. A sensual and beautiful face, that probably had no more substance than a will-o’-the-wisp. And it was a foolish man indeed who fell in love with a dream.
* * *
Trying to make conversation at the dinner table at New World that evening, Skye found herself wishing the wedding was over and done with. Philip was not in the mood to celebrate other folks’ nuptials, and the thought of being on parade tomorrow, as he put it, was making him more argumentative than usual. Finally, Skye could stand it no longer.
‘Honey, just for once, will you accept that this is a family occasion, and therefore important to me, and try to look as if you’re enjoying it?’
‘I don’t know why they’re so damn important to you, when they probably don’t give a fig for you.’
She felt herself flush deeply. ‘How dare you be so insulting, Philip. Truly, I don’t know what’s got into you lately.’
‘Well, face it, honey,’ he sneered, exaggerating her tone. ‘You were always your grandmother’s favourite, and it didn’t help matters when you were left this house and half the pottery, did it? You were the American upstart, remember?’
‘Is that how you saw me? How you see me now?’ Skye said, becoming more upset than angry now.
Philip shrugged. ‘I married you, didn’t I? It would have made no difference to me if you were black or yellow or spoke Chinese.’
‘It might have made a difference to me, though,’ she retorted. ‘If I’d been any of those things, I may not have been able to tolerate your British snobbishness.’ She listened to her own voice with something like horror, hardly knowing how this argument had begun, or where it was leading. She heard him push back his chair as he threw down his table napkin.
‘It may seem like snobbishness to you, but it’s normal behaviour to me, to want my children brought up in a civilised atmosphere, and not among—’
‘Go on. Say it, why don’t you? Among savages, maybe?’
‘You’re putting words in my mouth now,’ he said coldly.
‘Oh, I don’t think so. They’ve been in your head for long enough. You despise my family just because of who they are, don’t you, Philip? You’ve always despised them, because they don’t match up to your intellectual standards.’
She saw his hands grip the back of his chair, and noticed the way the hard veins stood out on his forehead. She knew that these signs heralded a bad night. His head would throb and the nerve-ends would stab, and he would end up sleeping in the adjoining room, instead of sharing their bed with her. And she didn’t care. She didn’t damn well care…
‘I’m sorry if it offends you, honey,’ he drawled now. ‘But if you want to know the truth, then yes, some of them are less than civilised. There’s the Irish pair, who are rarely seen here, thank God. And the farming yokels, who I suppose we have to be hospitable to for a night or two. Then there’s the drunken artist uncle, to say nothing of choice cousin Theo—’
‘Stop it, Philip,’ Skye snapped. ‘You’ve said enough, and if you shame them by your taunts, you shame me too, and I’ll listen to no more of it. Granny Morwen left me this house in all good faith, and she and my mother would be horrified to know you thought so little of it all.’
‘Oh yes, the famous Tremaynes who weren’t so bloody wonderful
that there weren’t a few secrets in their past.’
Skye flinched, wishing she had never been so reckless as to confide in him about secrets that weren’t even her own.
‘Every family has secrets,’ she said sharply.
‘Mine didn’t.’
‘Oh, I know you were Mister Perfect,’ she said, close to tears now, and hardly knowing what she was saying. ‘I dare say you didn’t even feel a flicker of lust for your precious Ruth. If you’d married her, any future children would have involved an immaculate conception—’ She gave a cry as he came around the side of the dining-table and hauled her cruelly to her feet.
‘I won’t deign to ask what your parsimonious Uncle Luke would have made of that remark. But if it’s lust you want—’
Before she knew what he intended, he had thrust one hand behind her neck and brought her face close to his, fastening his mouth over hers in a savage kiss. She tried to twist away from him, but he overpowered her, and she lost her balance and fell to the floor, with him on top of her.
It reminded her all too graphically of that other time, but this wasn’t Desmond Lock, and she was no longer a young girl. This was her husband, Philip, whom she loved… she realised she was sobbing now, as his hands fumbled for her skirts, and she tried to plead with him.
‘Philip – darling – not here, please. Think about where we are. Let’s go upstairs – please—’
Suddenly she felt him leave her. He stood up, looking down at her coldly. She drew in her breath, anticipating what was to come. They had been down this road before.
‘Tidy yourself before the servants come in. You look like a whore with your skirts all rucked up. As for going upstairs, you’ll be undisturbed tonight. My head is too full to bursting to play any more of your harlot’s games.’
She watched him leave the dining-room, tears streaming down her face and her heart near to breaking at his crudity. He professed himself a gentleman, but he frequently treated her as far less than a lady. The doctor had told her these vicious mood changes were due to the pressure inside his head, and one day… one day, it might all be too much for human tissues to withstand.
White Rivers Page 5