Authors: Alison Stuart
“Charlie and I bought some land in the King Valley but I was afraid that once he went home, he’d change his mind.”
“Evelyn is convinced Charlie would have returned to Holdston but his mind was made up. He would have gone back to Australia. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you with tedious family business.”
“But I am family, Paul.” She echoed her earlier words. “For better or worse, I’m a Morrow. Generations of your family have lived in this house. Your blood, Charlie’s blood, Alice too. There must have been hard times before, but they still managed to get through them.”
“You’re quite right, Helen. There have been hard times before. A couple of civil wars and several kings intent on taxing the lifeblood from their subjects, but I doubt any of my ancestors would recognize the world we live in now.”
Paul rose to his feet and looked out of the window while he fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes. An odd procession was making its way up the drive toward the house. Tony, mounted on his black hunter headed the cavalcade followed by a groom on horseback leading a piebald pony.
“Good lord,” he exclaimed. “Is that rotund little beast the one Tony is lending Alice?”
Helen joined him at the window. “Oh it is. I must get Alice. Excuse me, Paul.”
Paul followed her out of the courtyard door, crossing the bridge over the moat to meet the Wellmore party.
“Morrow. I heard you were back.” Tony dismounted, greeting Paul with an outstretched hand and a clap on his good shoulder.
Paul gave the pony a quick appraising glance. “Using me as an agistment stable, I hear?”
“I didn’t think one more new resident would make much of a difference,” Tony replied.
Paul glanced back at the house. “Holdston is becoming quite used to new residents,” he observed. “What brings you to the country?”
“Ma is on the matchmaking path again. She’s intent on filling the house with dismal debutantes for me to make my selection.” Tony gave a mock shudder. “Suitable young women, Anthony. It’s about time you settled down.”
Paul smiled at the fair impersonation of Tony’s mother.
“There’s a soiree planned for Friday night. Angela’s coming down for the weekend to lend me support.” Tony continued.
“Angela?”
“I thought that would interest you,” Tony said. “Enough to inveigle you to Ma’s party?”
Paul shook his head. “I can’t imagine anything I would like less.”
“Oh be a sport. There’s some pretty girls in the herd and if it’s time for me to ‘settle down’, it must be time for you as well.”
“Uncle Tony.” Alice called out as she ran across the bridge.
“True to my promise, sprite. One Turnip for you to ride,” Tony said with a mock bow.
Alice giggled at the joke, and at the sight of the child’s delighted face a rush of regret surged through Paul at his own failure to be the child’s benefactor.
Obviously brought up around horses, the child did not rush to the piebald pony, but walked over slowly, approaching him from the front. The pony eyed her with his ears pricked. Alice had come prepared. From her pocket, she produced two crumbled and lint-impregnated sugar lumps.
“So, sprite. Shall we take this lazy beast for a ride?”
“Oh please can we, Mummy?” Alice addressed her mother who had joined the group, standing beside Paul with her arms crossed.
“Of course,” she said. “I just need to change and get Minter saddled. You will stay for lunch, Tony?”
Tony shook his head. “Expected back at Wellmore, I’ll ride with you as far as the crossroads, sprite. What about you, Morrow?” Tony turned to Paul.
“Please, Uncle Paul?” Alice pleaded.
Paul shook his head. “I have work to do,” he said, not willing to admit that the ache in his leg made another ride an unattractive prospect, “but you’re welcome to take Hector, Helen. I think you’ll find him easier than Minter.”
The men watched as Alice scampered back toward the house with her mother following. Tony produced a silver cigarette case and offered it to Paul.
“I’ve a message from Angela. She said if you didn’t come and relieve the tedium of the party, she would personally ride over and haul you out.”
Paul laughed. “That’s an invitation I can’t resist,” he said tapping the ash off his cigarette. “She knows how I loathe those sorts of occasions.”
“We all do,” Tony admitted.
“Liar,” Paul responded. “All those girls fawning over you, Scarvell?”
“A title and a large estate do compensate for my lack of good looks,” Tony said with a wry grin. “So, what do you think of Charlie’s widow?”
Paul coughed on the smoke. “Does it matter what I think?”
“Charlie did rather paint her as a paragon,” Tony said, “so I thought the reality would be disappointing but I have to say, old man, she’s a beauty.”
Paul contemplated the exterior of the old house and drew thoughtfully on his cigarette. He’d met many beautiful women but Helen had more than just striking good looks. Even in their short acquaintance, she shone like a beacon in his bleak life.
Mistaking Paul’s silence, Tony continued. “She’s the most interesting woman I’ve met in years, Morrow.”
Paul brought his attention back to his friend. “Don’t go falling in love with her. You know your mother would never approve.”
“Love? What makes you say that?”
“Because despite all your talk, Scarvell, you fall in love with any woman who looks twice at you.”
“Unlike you. When was the last time you were ever in love, Morrow?”
Paul shook his head. “A state of bliss I have avoided,” he said with a smile.
Except, perhaps, for Angela
.
He had loved her once.
“Here come the girls.” Tony drew a deep breath. “My God, look at those legs. Are all Australian girls such stunners?” He straightened. “See you on Friday night, Morrow.”
Paul stubbed the cigarette out on the wall. “Tell Ange I’ll think about it,” he replied.
Chapter 7
Helen put Alice to bed and read her a chapter of
The Railway Children
. The weather had changed and the beautiful day had ended in dark clouds and growls of thunder so she pulled the window shut and drew the curtain tight, pretending not to notice the corner of the scrapbook sticking out from beneath the child’s pillow.
As she straightened, Helen laid a finger on Alice’s cheek, “The holiday is over, Miss Morrow. I have decided you are going to school.”
Alice’s eyes widened. “Where?”
“Just to the village school. I’ve spoken to the vicar and I’ve got an appointment to speak to the headmistress tomorrow afternoon. His daughter, Lily, goes to the local school so you will know someone.”
Alice screwed up her face. “School,” she said with no real resentment in her tone. Helen kissed her daughter’s forehead. It must have been lonely for Alice with just adults for company.
“You can read until half past seven. I’m going down to the kitchen for supper, if you need me.”
To her surprise, she found Paul Morrow standing at the kitchen table slicing a loaf of bread. He looked up at her.
“Would you mind my company for supper? I think it’s soup.”
“I’d be glad of it,” Helen said, “As long as you have no objection to eating in the kitchen again.”
“None at all. Bread?”
“Thank you. I’ll make some tea, is that all right for you?”
“Fine.” Paul set the bread in the middle of the table.
Helen put the soup on to reheat and Paul found the kitchen crockery and cutlery.
“My aunt is still trying to live in the last century,” he said, pulling up a chair at the table. “Back in the days when we had a dozen staff.”
“I don’t think any of her generation will find it easy to change,” Helen responded, conscious that he watched her as she stirred the thick vegetable soup waiting for the steam to rise from it. “She’ll be even more shocked when I tell her that I’m going to send Alice to the village school. She needs to be with children her own age.”
“A Morrow? At the village school?” Paul’s voice held a fair imitation of Evelyn.
Helen’s lips twitched and she turned to glance at him over her shoulder. “You do that well.”
Paul shook his head. “I’ve lived with Evelyn for a long time.”
“When did you come here?” Helen enquired, knowing the answer but curious to find out more about Paul Morrow from the man himself.
“I was eight,” he said. “Same age as Alice. My father sent me back to England after my mother died.”
“Where did you live?”
“Malaya. Father had command of a regiment based in Ipoh. When my mother died he didn’t know what to do with an eight year old boy so he sent me home.”
Although Helen had her back to him, she could hear the anger in his voice, even after all these years.
“And your father?”
“I never saw him again. He died when I was ten.”
This time she turned to look at him. He met her gaze. “That’s the way these things go, Helen. It was a hard life in the Far East and I was fortunate that I had family and a home to go to in England. Even if my parents had lived, sooner or later I would have been sent to boarding school either in England or some other corner of the Empire.”
“Do you remember your mother?” she asked.
“My mother? Not well.” His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “She was Irish, the daughter of the regimental sergeant major. My father married beneath himself, for which Evelyn and Gerald never quite forgave him. She used to tell me stories of banshees, cluricauns and the lianhan shee and I can remember her dark hair and her Irish lilt. My only memory of her now is a photograph. How’s the soup?”
Helen turned back to the stove. “Just a few more minutes.”
They lapsed back into a companionable silence broken only by the tick of the old clock on the wall, the crackle of the coal in the oven and lashing rain on the windows and the water of the moat.
As the soup started to bubble, a sharp crack sounded from the furthest reaches of the house. Helen started, the wooden spoon falling into the pot. She spun on her heel to look at Paul. “What was that?”
He met her eyes and frowned. “What was what?”
“That noise. It sounded like a shot.” She stared at him. “You didn’t hear it?”
He shook his head.
“It was a shot. A pistol or something with a small caliber and it came from inside the house.” She moved toward the door. “Alice. Oh, my God, Alice…”
Paul jumped to his feet and caught her arm as she ran toward the door. “It’s just lightning, Helen.”
She turned to confront him. “That wasn’t lightning, Paul. I know a gunshot when I hear one.”
She shook off his hand and began running. At the door to Alice’s room, she slowed, panting from her sudden exertion, but the night-light revealed a peaceful, sleeping child under the pink and green quilt.
Relieved, Helen turned to go back to the kitchen. Paul waited for her in the gallery, looking down into the dark, rain-lashed courtyard.
“Is she all right?”
“She’s fine,” Helen gave a small dismissive laugh, “You were right, just my own stupid imagination.”
As she spoke a high-pitched and terrified scream came from the far end of the gallery; a woman’s scream followed by the sound of breaking crockery.
Helen glanced at Paul. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear that!” she said. “It came from the library.”
At the top of the library stairs, she hesitated, letting her breath steady. A soft yellow light spilled from under the ill-fitting door at the bottom of the stairs. Helen stopped for a moment before descending, her heart thudding in her chest.
Slowly she descended the stairs and put her hand to the half open door. It swung open at her touch and she took a step back. The light she had seen came not from the electric lights but from two candlesticks on the table and the fire burning in the hearth. In all other respects the library looked as it always did, but for a man sitting in one of the chairs at the table. Only he wasn’t sitting. He had fallen forward, sprawled across the table, a small pistol in his outstretched right hand, his head turned toward the door and his eyes wide and staring. Blood from the gaping wound at the side of his head ran in a steadily increasing pool across the papers on the desk and dripped on to the carpet beneath the table.
Helen’s foot crunched on something that snapped beneath her weight. She looked down at a wooden tray and a mess of broken crockery and glass. A scream caught in her throat but no sound came from her mouth.
“Come away, Helen,” Paul’s voice intruded into the nightmare and his hand was on her arm, dragging her back up the stairs. The door slammed shut.
“There’s... a...dead man in the library,” she stuttered, looking up into Paul’s face.
Paul grasped her by her upper arms, bringing his head down to her level. “There is no one in the library,” he said firmly.
“There’s a man. His head...there’s blood over the papers. I saw him.”
Still holding her by one arm, Paul opened the door revealing a room in darkness. No candles, no fire. Paul pulled the cord of the electric light, its incandescent glow flooding the room with startling clarity. No body lay sprawled across the table only the old Remington typewriter perched at the far end of a table littered with papers.