looked as if he would like to give her a jolly good spanking. But he never had.
And now every time his grey eyes flickered over her they did so with a kind of contempt and she had the feeling that his only possible use for young women of her sort was motivated by the knowledge that she stood between him and something he desired ardently… far more ardently than his bleak grey eyes could possibly make one believe.
“He wants to buy Tremarth,” she ended with a bluntness that made the words sound almost brutal. “It’s his family home, and he wants it. And he’s got so much money that I simply have to name my price!”
Hannah sat forward as if her attention had been firmly riveted at last.
“And -?” she asked.
“I’m not going to let him have it. I won’t sell! ”
Hannah drew a long breath that was almost like a breath of acute relief.
“I’m glad,” she said. “If you sell the place I won’t be able to come and stay here… and I’ve every intention of spending my summer holidays here for the next ten years. After that, we’ll see. I’ll probably try Bournemouth, or somewhere like that.”
Charlotte looked very nearly as relieved as her friend sounded.
“Then you do think I’m not just being awkward refusing to sell?”
“Of course I don’t… For one thing, you’ve hardly had a chance yet to find out whether you like it here, and even if you do ultimately sell you ought to allow yourself a brief respite in which to enjoy your sudden inheritance. Your Aunt Jane would probably haunt you for the rest of your life if you handed the place over to a stranger immediately because the colour of his money dazzled you – ”
“But Tremarth isn’t a stranger! His people once lived here.”
“Yes, you’ve already explained that to me. But if family pride is one of their principal virtues why did they ever part with the house in the first instance?” “They were probably hard up -”
“But this young man is rich! ”
Charlotte remembered that Richard had always given the impression of being rich. And, in fact he had admitted it.
“I believe it belonged to another branch of the family. In fact I’m almost sure it was his uncle who sold the place to Great-Aunt Jane.” “Then your great-aunt was probably doing him a service when she bought it.”
Charlotte looked doubtful.
“Aunt Jane wasn’t even Cornish!”
Hannah smiled at her and waved her hands in the air.
“Don’t be sentimental,” she implored. “A business transaction is a business transaction, and at the moment the house is yours. My advice to you is to hang on to it… for a while, at least. I realise you haven’t the money to live here in the same way that your great-aunt lived here, but that doesn’t mean you have to rush into a sale because someone else insists on it! I don’t like the sound of this man one bit. He sounds arrogant and inconsiderate, and he must have followed you all the way down from London when you left it. You say that he was actually staying at the local inn when you arrived?”
“I found out later that he had booked a room by telephone and arrived about half an hour before me.”
Hannah frowned.
“I hope you left him in no doubt that you were unlikely to change your mind?”
“I did.”
“And if he comes here pestering you again I’ll help you deal with him.” Nothing further was said that night about turning Tremarth into a convalescent home, but before they went to bed Hannah put an arm somewhat clumsily about Charlotte’s shoulders and squeezed affectionately.
“When in doubt, do nothing,” she advocated. “Get your bearings… and leave it to your Aunt Hannah to think out some escape from your difficulties if the problem really arises! And now I feel so tired, as a result of all this good sea air that is filling the house, that I expect to sleep like a log in my four-poster bed, and I hope you’ll do so in yours!”
The two girls parted outside Charlotte’s door, and while Hannah went to test the temperature of the bath water in their adjoining bathroom Charlotte walked across to her window and stood looking out across the open expanse of cliff on to which the rambling gardens of Tremarth abutted, and straight out to sea.
It was rather a cloudy night, and there was no moon at this hour. She remembered that on the previous night Richard Tremarth had said he was waiting for the moonrise to discover some of the old familiar places he had known when he was a boy.
She had actually seen him walking on the sands below the inn, and had wondered whether he would have the audacity to peer into darkened caves in which he had once pretended he was a smuggler, or venture into the silent woods that crept down with the creek to the murmuring seas’ edge. She was absolutely certain those woods had figured very largely in his activities when he was a boy, and as this was a nostalgic pilgrimage he was making
– apart from his intention of acquiring Tremarth – he would not overlook one tiny comer that could be revisited, especially once a cold round moon stole up out of the sea.
Charlotte was about to draw her curtains over her window when her eye was caught by something on the cliff top, and she went closer to the glass to concentrate her full attention upon whatever it was. In the end she decided that it was a stationary beam of a pair of dipped car lights, and the vehicle itself was quite indistinguishable in the gloom. She stood listening to the booming voice of the sea breaking on the rocks at the foot of the cliffs, and while she did so the car lights moved slowly forward until they disappeared like pale sword- thrusts into the night.
The last thing she was able to make out before the car finally disappeared was a twinkling rear light that reminded her of the twinkling eye of a ruby under the slow-moving pall of thick white cloud.
The mass of cloud moved out to sea, and the stars shone forth and the motionless surface of the sea became irradiated by a diffusion of moonlight that appeared to be made up of glittering diamond points and mellow primrose light. Impulsively she thrust open her window and leaned out, and the moonlight poured across her hair and gilded the coppery curls.
Below her the gardens were tranquil and sweet, with night. There was a smell of roses floating in the cool night air, and the short sweet turf almost immediately below her window exuded a kind of incense. She felt slightly bemused by the beauty of it all, and she leaned there far longer than might have been wise considering the slight nip from the sea and the feeling of prevailing moisture gathered beneath the centuries-old trees.
Tremarth, she thought…A lovely home that the members of the Tremarth family who had once had the pleasure of living in it must have cherished in the same way that some people – particularly women – cherish jewellery and lovely clothes. She herself had never possessed any valuable jewellery, and most of her clothes were fairly simple because she was unable to afford couture models. But if she had to choose between a Paris wardrobe and the opportunity to go on living in this graceful house that was now hers by right…
“I’d choose Tremarth,” she thought, running her hand lovingly over the sill of the window. “I wish somehow it would become possible for me to go on living here at Tremarth!”
CHAPTER III
THE next day the two girls acquired some pots of paint from the village store and started to touch up the woodwork in the kitchen and other neglected comers of the house. As if by mutual consent they said nothing about the reasons why they were thus attempting to disguise the various weaknesses of the house, behaving as if they had just moved in and were intending to settle down there indefinitely.
Charlotte removed all the cushion covers from the cushions in the drawing-room and washed and ironed and replaced them, attacked the carpets with carpet cleaner and polished the furniture. Mrs. Ricks, the daily woman from the village, put in a somewhat belated appearance, and began an assault on the bedrooms; and Hannah painted away steadily in the kitchen, covering herself and anyone who unwisely approached too near to her with paint, but satisfying herself and Charlotte that the job was worthwhile long before the second day of intensive operations was over.
Mrs. Ricks was a useful cook, and she prepared the girls’ meals; but after so much labour they felt the need of something slightly more tempting than a cold Cornish pasty when they desisted from their efforts and took a bath
