minutes after making the discovery that she had known him in the past.
If he noticed the blush, his expression did not alter. He merely began to press her for information.
“So you haven’t been back to Cornwall for some time?”
“Not since I was five.” A dimple played for a moment at one comer of her mouth, and then vanished. “My great-aunt’s health deteriorated soon after that, and I never saw her again. She left Tremarth to my father, but he also is dead.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
Charlotte found it necessary to lower her eyelashes. She shrugged.
“Like your father he travelled abroad a good deal,” she told him, “and in fact he died abroad. He was an archaeologist.”
“And your mother?”
“I’m sorry to say that they parted. But she’s dead, too, now.”
She thought that his expression grew slightly sombre, and his grey eyes harder between the short thick fringes of his very black eyelashes.
“So we’re both orphans,” he remarked. “But I’ve been an orphan for many years – and I’m used to it.”
“Your uncle?” she enquired politely. “I remember he was Aunt Jane’s doctor.”
“Dead, too, but one of my pleasant memories. I was fond of him.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured automatically.
The landlord had brought a tray of coffee to their table, and had thoughtfully added another cup, but Richard Tremarth refused to be tempted when Charlotte poised the coffee-pot near the rim of his cup.
“Thank you,” he said absent-mindedly, “but I loathe coffee.”
He was frowning as he lighted yet another cigarette.
“You smoke too much,” she remarked, without passing to reflect that it was no concern of hers.
Tremarth shrugged.
“We all have one particular vice, and mine is not smoking.” She watched as the smoke crept upwards in a column and surrounded his sleek dark head. “I heard that Miss Woodford had died, and I came down here to take a nostalgic look at the house. You may remember that I once expressed the determination to possess it myself one of these days.”
“Yes,” she replied, “I do remember that.” “We all have dreams, but some of them are not very practical. However – ” He glanced at her swiftly and then away. “Any objection to my having a look over the house since you’re here, and I’m here, too?”
“None whatsoever,” she assured him.
“I take it you’re not planning to live there yourself?”
“I really don’t know…She sounded surprised. “It’s too soon to make up my mind. To be honest, I’m not yet accustomed to the idea that I own the house.”
“And the contents?” He shot the question at her. “Your aunt left you everything, of course?” “Everything except an income to maintain the place. She died very badly off, I’m afraid.” She was amazed by the appearance of relief in his face.
“Then you can’t even contemplate living there yourself?”
“I’ve told you I’ve no idea what I’m going to do with it-”
“But a young woman of your age! Alone – in a house like that!” Relief gave place to an alert hardness that widened her eyes and aroused in her the beginnings of real resentment. “I mean, you’re not even married. Or are you?” Suspicion edged his voice and narrowed his eyes while, to her astonishment, his fist on the table clenched itself until the knuckles showed up white and gleaming in the rays that were streaming from the ship’s lantern overhead. “You’re not just calling yourself Miss Woodford and living apart from a husband, or anything of that sort?”
“Well, really! ” she gasped.
“Are you?” he persisted, his mouth like a steel trap.
“Certainly not!” She couldn’t remember feeling so indignant for a long time. “For one thing I don’t believe in married couples living apart, and for another I’m not even – engaged!”
“Good!” He relaxed so completely that she could almost have deceived herself that she had imagined that alteration in his expression. She saw his even, well-cared-for white teeth again as he smiled across the table at her, and between his thick eyelashes his grey eyes actually softened. “Then there’s no one to tell you what you must or must not do? You are your own mistress?”
“I hope so.”
“And you probably have a job of some sort?” “I run a typewriting bureau with a friend. She’s carrying on without me at the moment.” He looked as satisfied as if she had supplied him with a very useful piece of information.
He rose from the table unexpectedly.
“You must forgive me if I say good-night to you now,” he said. “Whenever I pay a short visit to Cornwall I like to make the most of it. The tide’s out and the moon will be up in another ten minutes or so” – he consulted his watch – “and I want to take a walk. Discovering the old familiar places is one of my favourite occupations when I’m down here at Tremarth.”
She looked up at him in some surprise. Even by the light of a Cornish moon, discovering old familiar places might be a trifle difficult at that late hour of the day.
“Good hunting,” she replied carelessly, as she poured herself another cup of coffee and realised even as she did so that it would probably keep her awake when she took herself upstairs to her room. “I hope you’ve got cat’s eyes. Or perhaps you normally take your exercise when other people are thinking of going to bed?”
He looked down at her unsmilingly.
“If you’re visiting the house to-morrow, may I go with you? I don’t want to be a nuisance, but I would like to look over it again.”
“Of course,” she answered immediately. “As a matter of fact, I’m leaving here to-morrow morning after breakfast, and shall be staying at Tremarth after that. At any rate, for a while -”
He looked down at her intently.
“Thank you,” he said, “I have my own car. I’ll simply follow you up to the house as soon as I see you leave.”
She was about to call after him that she was sorry she couldn’t offer him lunch because there were no stores, as yet, at Tremarth, but he swept out of the bar with a few quick strides, and she was left with the impression of someone who was a complete and – she suspected – rather ruthless stranger, and a memory that didn’t actually link up with that stranger.
The Richard Tremarth she had known when she was a child had found her a nuisance, but had gone out of his way to please her. This man was not as pliable and she could not imagine him going out of his way to please anyone. He was very much a self-contained unit who conveyed to her the strong impression that he was not visiting that part of the world because of nostalgia, but because he had some sort of an axe to grind.
She said good-night to the landlord and made her way up to her room in the quaint centuries-old inn. Her bed was turned down, and the room itself looked very inviting, but after switching on the light for a moment she switched it off again and went across to the window. Below it lay the cobbled village street, a small opening opposite at the end of which she could see the sea.
Richard Tremarth had been quite right about the moment when the moon would rise, for it was already lifting itself above the rooftops and shedding a light across the placidly heaving sea. From where she stood at her window she could see a semi-circle of glistening white beach, and some dark cliffs looming above it. She could also see a tall figure striding out across the sand, making for the line of cliffs and looking very purposeful, and not in the least as if his sole purpose was to enjoy himself.
A faint frown drew her slim eyebrows together. Since they were such old friends, why hadn’t he asked her to accompany him? After all, as he had reminded her, he had once given her piggy-back rides round the orchard at Tremarth.
Try as she would, she couldn’t imagine him giving her anything but a few formal minutes of his time after this lapse of so many years.
