‘Yes.’
‘Oh good, I’m so glad. I apologised to her for being short with her this morning. She was so sweet about it. I hope she has a good evening with that awful father of hers.’
Alex did not reply and she knew he hadn’t heard a word. She looked over the letter he was reading. ‘Anything important?’
‘Mainly a lot of boring legal stuff. There’s this,’ and he handed her a card in an official envelope.
‘It’s an invitation from the mayor and mayoress of Truro to a dinner party. How super! I’m going to luncheon with the vicar and his wife and the churchwardens tomorrow.’ She looked at Alex carefully. ‘I’m beginning to get a social diary. Cornwall is certainly agreeing with Stephen, I adore the creek and I do like Truro so. I’m so glad we came down here, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Alex shuffled the letters together and looked at the door. ‘That’s Mrs Wright coming for us.’
Abigail was careful not to chat too much during dinner. She knew Alex found it tiresome and she didn’t want him going off after coffee in a huff. He sat at the desk in the sitting room hurriedly writing letters and advice to Mr Drayton while she sat quietly near the door with an empty brandy glass in her hand. When he’d sealed the letters, he got up and made to leave the room. Abigail held out the brandy glass.
‘Would you pour me a teeny drop more, please?’
Alex took the glass from her and went to the drinks table. She came and stood close beside him.
‘Aren’t you having one?’
He looked at her squarely. ‘No.’
‘You’re not retiring already?’
‘I thought I’d have an early night. I’m up early in the morning to take one of the boats out into Falmouth Bay. After that I’ve got business in the town.’
‘Won’t you stay and talk for a little while? I haven’t seen anyone all day.’
Alex didn’t actually sigh but he was fidgeting to get away. ‘What do you want to talk about? Anything in particular or just chit-chat?’
She had made up her mind to try to pin Alex down on his plans for Trevallion and he had given her the perfect opening. ‘I’d like to know what you’re planning to do about Trevallion, Alex.’
‘I haven’t decided. Stop pushing me for a decision, Abigail.’
He moved away but she held his arm. ‘Please, Alex, I need to know. I have a son without a future. Ralph’s son has a right to a secure future, hasn’t he? It’s what Ralph would have wanted.’
Alex looked right into her. ‘You want me to settle Trevallion on Stephen? Is that it?’
‘If you don’t want it for yourself, yes. You wouldn’t have had Trevallion at all if Miles and your other relatives hadn’t died, and you have all your other property and interests to leave to your own children should you decide to marry. Please, Alex, do this for Stephen. He’s your nephew and goodness knows you’ve paid little enough attention to him since he was born.’
Alex looked over Abigail’s head. The vision of Miles standing over his bed last night and the things he had said were burning through his mind.
‘Miles wants the Kennickers to have it,’ he murmured.
‘I beg your pardon?’ She slid her hand up to his face and made him look at her.
‘I’m sorry, I just can’t decide yet. I’ll think about Stephen and I’ll do something for him, I promise, Abigail.’
It was good to get some sort of promise but Abigail didn’t want to go back to Carsham Hall or to London. She had too much to live down and Stephen must never know of her exploits during the war.
‘That’s very sweet of you, Alex,’ she said softly.
It was good being close to Alex. He might have psychological weaknesses but his rangy body was strong, he was tall and so very good-looking. He had a smell of outdoor ruggedness about him. It was different to that of manufactured aftershaves; masculine, basic. Abigail felt a longing for him.
Alex was looking at her steadily, as if he was trying to read her thoughts. Surely he could sense them? He hadn’t moved away. Did he want her too? He was a man and she could give him something better tonight than terrible memories.
She slid her other hand up over his chest and put her arms round his neck. ‘Alex, please…’
She had him mesmerised and sought his lips. When she found them he pulled her in close and kissed her almost brutally. This was exactly what she wanted. She realised with an almost painful intensity that she wanted him above all other men, the stand-offish, silent, brooding, Alex Fiennes. Then, afterwards, perhaps he’d be filled with remorse and a sense of duty and marry her and everything he had would be rightfully hers and Stephen’s.
Alex lifted his head away and gazed at her, looking stunned.
‘It’s all right,’ she whispered. ‘Mrs Wright and Mrs Grubb have gone home. Stephen won’t stir for the night and Rebecca won’t be back for ages.’
He looked confused and Abigail tilted her face to kiss him again. He didn’t respond and shook his head. ‘No, it’s wrong.’
‘It’s all right. I can’t have any more children. Nothing like that will happen. It’s just me and you here, Alex. Don’t let’s waste this time together.’
‘No.’ Alex thrust himself away, filled with shame and a little revulsion.
‘Don’t do this, Alex,’ she pleaded. ‘I will be good for you.’
He rushed from the room, up the stairs and locked himself in his room.
* * *
Upstairs, alone, Alex shuddered. What had that woman been trying to do to him? He didn’t want any feelings stirred to life in him, particularly those. He wanted only to be dead. He’d told himself that, wished it often enough.
He couldn’t sleep and an hour later lit a cigarette and looked out of the window. He saw Rebecca walking to the gatehouse with Trease. They said goodnight and he felt relieved when he heard her coming up the stairs and going into her own room. He knew he could sleep now and face another day. He didn’t want to be cold stone dead like Miles and Ralph and Georgie Gilbert any more but he wanted all his other feelings, all other areas of his life, to stay dead. He didn’t want anyone reaching down into them, trying to awaken them. At least there was one woman here whom he could trust.
Chapter 17
It was warm, with an early morning mist rising off the water, when Alex, Jossy Jenkins and his sons Donald and Victor set sail in Miles Trevallion’s favourite boat, the Lady Harriet. The craft, named after Miles’s fiancée, was locally built and painted white like the lseult. Long and slender and purpose-built for racing, its canvas sails were beating a magnificent tattoo as they made a match for the fresh winds. The boat had meant so much to Miles. He had spoken of it the last time he had visited Carsham Hall just before the war and Alex had agreed to come down to Cornwall and sail in it the next summer. But that had never happened.
Alex could picture the beautiful lady in the portrait in Miles’s study gracing the deck with her presence, layers of white silk billowing from a wide-brimmed straw hat in the wind. He could see Miles looking at her with all the love he’d borne for her. Alex was pleased he had met Harriet Bosanko. He would be calling on her great-aunt, a figure of some mystery and great interest to him, later in the day.
As on their previous trip, Jossy was only too happy to give Alex the benefit of the mine of information he seemed to have stored inside his old head. He explained that the seven cargo vessels that towered over them in the narrow deep-water channel of King Harry Reach were temporarily redundant and berthed there because it was one of the cheapest places in the country to lay up a ship. The Lady Harriet sailed on down Carrick Roads to the Fal estuary and out into Falmouth Bay between the twin castles of Pendennis and St Mawes which, with St Anthony’s Headland, formed a natural entrance to the estuary. The castles had been built under the orders of Henry VIII to protect the harbour from the French and Spanish fleets, and St Anthony’s lighthouse, Jossy went on, warned ships of the treacherous rocks of its headland and those of nearby Zone Point. St Mawes and St Anthony were on
the end of the Roseland peninsula and Alex decided on another day he would sail up the Percuil River which separated the headlands.
Out in the bay the sea was teeming with craft, fishing boats, cargo steamers, racing yachts and topsail schooners. The Lady Harriet rode the choppy waves undaunted and the experience held Alex spellbound. The Jenkins waved to people they knew and Alex was kept fully informed about each of the boats’ occupants.
The men watched a pair of dolphins cavorting. The mammals came close to the boat for a few playful minutes then swam away. Before they were out of sight, Jossy trotted out the information that sometimes grey seals would follow the mackerel into the Fal estuary as far up as Loe Beach.
About six and half miles south-east of Falmouth, off Coverack, was the dreaded reef of the Manacles, the undoing of many a ship and its mariners. They didn’t sail close but gazed at the pinnacles rising up from a depth of twenty fathoms or more. A great variety of fish could be found around the reef and its wrecks, bass and pollack, immense conger, wrasse, huss, whiting and many more.
They turned back at this point and the Lady Harriet’s new captain and crew devoured a crib of pasties, comparing the Jenkins women’s to Loveday’s supreme effort. There were chicken and ham pies, yeast buns, heavy-cake and flasks of strong tea, and a stiff tot of rum produced by Alex to loud cheers.
The boat practically found its own way to the land mass of Falmouth harbour, as if it remembered the way there from its last trip many years ago. They moored up at Custom House Quay. Donald and Victor decided to look around the town but Jossy refused to budge from the boat. He’d waited so long to sail in the Lady Harriet again, he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight.
Following Jossy’s instructions, Alex walked along Arwenack Street, carried on along Grove Place, turned off into Avenue Road and round the corner at its end where it met Melvill Road. He crossed over the road and walked briskly up to the front door of Miss Susannah Bosanko’s residence.
The maid asked him politely into the hall and took his card to her mistress. She was back in a minute. ‘Madam says you are to step this way, sir, into the parlour.’
Alex’s burning curiosity about the elderly lady he was about to meet turned to excitement. It was years since he’d been this interested in something. If her love letters were anything to go by, Susannah Bosanko had been a very passionate lady in her youth. Alex had felt like a voyeur as he read the intimate details of her affair with Roland Trevallion while he had been married to local beauty Arabella Kerseys. At one time Susannah had thought she was pregnant. There had been tears and frustration when she miscarried, and thinly disguised jubilation when Arabella had died suddenly, leaving Roland with a small son, Vyvyan. Susannah had expected to step in as second wife and stepmother. There had been a long gap in dates before the next group of letters. They contained pleas to see Roland, demands for an explanation as to why he seemed reluctant to see her. The last letters had been the most interesting; not love letters, quite the reverse, full of hate and spite. Roland had apparently taken up with another woman and Susannah Bosanko threatened revenge.
What had happened next was a mystery. Roland hadn’t married anyone else and he had hanged himself soon afterwards. According to Jossy, people reckoned Roland’s tragic death at just thirty-one years of age had nothing to do with the death of his wife. What then? The affair with Susannah Bosanko seemed to have been simply that to Roland, an affair. If he had fallen in love with somebody else, why hadn’t he married her? Why had he killed himself like that? Alex was curious to know and hoped Susannah Bosanko would be able to enlighten him.
He was shown into a large square room and went forward to meet Miss Bosanko. She was sitting in a high-backed winged chair from where she could watch people walking along the pavement outside. Alex paid no attention to the room and did not notice that both it and Susannah Bosanko were entirely swathed in green, but he felt the same revulsion as Neville Faull had at her repugnant features. He gulped but managed to keep his face straight.
‘It is very good of you to see me, Miss Bosanko,’ Alex said quietly, lowering his head to meet the beady stare fixed on him.
Her head came up sharply. ‘And what can I do for you, Major Alexander Fiennes?’ she said quietly, her eyes piercingly bright in her skull-like face. She held out her hand and Alex, unable to tear his eyes away from hers, kissed it lightly. He instinctively knew that a gentleman did not shake this old-fashioned lady’s hand.
‘Owing to the sad demise of my second cousin, Captain Miles Trevallion, I’ve just inherited the Trevallion estate, Miss Bosanko. While sifting through my cousin’s papers I came across your name and on finding that you were the great-aunt of Miles’s late fiancée I thought I’d look you up. I hope you don’t mind,’ he concluded, trying a brilliant smile on the old lady.
It worked, much to Alex’s surprise. He had never considered himself a man of charm. Up came her head again, her sharp chin jutting forward, the look in her eyes one of shining acceptance as if it was her right to receive this sort of attention from a man.
‘I have few visitors nowadays and I would not turn a handsome gentleman such as yourself from my doorstep, Major Fiennes,’ she said, the words seeming to melt off her lips. She leaned forward a little. ‘Or may I call you Alexander?’
‘Of course,’ he replied gallantly. Obviously flirting was the easiest way to get to know this strange and hideous old lady. ‘Or Alex if you prefer.’
‘Oh no.’ With a thin bony hand she waved him to the chair nearest to her. ‘Alexander sounds so much more noble, to suit your strong dark looks. One hears gossip from the river and I had heard that the new heir of Trevallion had taken up residence in the gatehouse of the property. I consider it most courteous of you to call on me, and so soon, Alexander. What a pity you cannot stay in the great house. Such a charming place, not so very big by some standards but in such a lovely setting. Will you be staying in Cornwall long?’
‘My original plan was to come down to wind up Captain Trevallion’s affairs, perhaps to stay for the summer, but I really don’t know what I shall be doing in the long term, Miss Bosanko.’
She wagged a finger at him. ‘Susannah! I insist upon it. Now, Alexander, my dear, may I offer you a sherry? Or a Scotch?’
‘A small Scotch would be splendid,’ Alex said, speaking in the sprightly manner of his hostess. ‘Please, don’t ring. I shall help myself He sprang up and realised she was watching his movements as he walked to the drinks cabinet. ‘And for you, Susannah?’
‘A sherry, please.’ It came out deep and husky and Alex was sure she was trying to sound sultry.
As she took the sherry from him, Alex found his eyes rooted to hers. She had him absolutely mesmerised, riveted to the spot on her Axminster carpet. A chill ran up his back but it wasn’t fear. Susannah Bosanko was ugly and disfigured but utterly fascinating. There was an extraordinary aura of strength and vibrancy about her. Alex could almost feel the passion with which she had written those love letters.
Alex took his Scotch to his chair and continued to gaze at her, to Susannah’s pleasure.
‘It was a terrible tragedy about Miles. Such a handsome, robust young man. It nearly destroyed him when Harriet died, as it did me.’ Tears glistened in Susannah’s ice-clear eyes and Alex had to restrain himself from leaping up and holding her hand. ‘Harriet was my niece’s child, an unwanted child, and I took over the task of bringing her up. I loved her as if she was my own daughter. It was a terrible shock when she died and I felt an enormous blow when Miles died this year. I couldn’t bring myself to go to his funeral, it would have been like burying my dear Harriet all over again. Miles should not have died like that!’ she said angrily. ‘He was not only a perfect gentleman but a real man, not like his weak pathetic father, Vyvyan, and his wretched grandfather before him!’
Alex said quietly over his whisky glass, ‘I wish I was in this part of the country for reasons other than having inherited Miles’s property and having to go throug
h his personal things.’
Susannah cheered immediately, surprising him again. ‘Life goes on, Alexander. No more gloomy talk, I won’t have it. A young man like you, vital, full of energy, must look to the future.’
He smiled ironically. ‘I would hardly describe myself as that.’
‘You will,’ she said shrewdly. ‘Whatever happened to you during the war, you’ll get over it. You’ll find something to live for. Fall in love perhaps. And before you say never, if there are any young women worth their salt out there, like I was in my younger days, one of them will see to you.’
‘See to me?’ Alex was amused.
‘You’ll know what I mean when it happens. You’ve come down with your brother’s widow and son, I understand.’
‘Yes, Abigail and Stephen.’
‘What are you going to do with them?’
‘What do you mean? What am I going to do with them?’
‘Well, you haven’t married the woman. She’s a war widow – I know all the gossip. You haven’t married her and yet she’s come down here with you, which means she’s penniless, has to tag along with you because there’s nothing else for her to do.’ Susannah sipped her sherry, keeping her eyes riveted on Alex. ‘Take my advice, Alexander, get rid of her. She’ll drag you down. I know the sort of female she is. Probably wants you to marry her to set herself and her son up, and from what I’ve heard he’s a fine piece of obnoxious spawn. Bet the woman has tried to bed you. I can’t see how she could keep her hands off a splendid man like you.’
Alex hadn’t blushed since his schooldays but right now he didn’t know where to put himself ‘You can’t tell me I’m wrong, can you? She wouldn’t have tried it on home ground. It’s happened since you came down here. Speak up, don’t be embarrassed.’
‘It was only last night actually,’ he admitted, astounded to find himself telling this stranger such an intimate thing. He cleared his throat and looking longingly at the Scotch bottle.
‘Don’t wait to be invited, help yourself,’ Susannah said on a high-pitched note.
Trevallion Page 17