The Golden Maze (16 page)

whispered. "I'm still frozen and I feel—well, messy."

"Of course, come up with me." Cindy led the way to the curving staircase. "I know how you feel. The water is always marvellously hot."

She could see Mrs. Stone at the door talking to a tall woman.

"It won't take more than a few moments any time." The woman was half hidden in an enormous loose-hanging mackintosh with a purple scarf twisted round her head.

"You be off, we want no gipsies here !" Mrs. Stone snapped, and slammed the door.

Turning, she saw Cindy standing there.

"Only Caterina," Mrs. Stone explained. "Always wanting to tell fortunes, but we won't have nothing to do with such folk any time. Just layabouts, too lazy to work, that's what I say." She gave Roxanna a suspicious look. "Remember what I said, Miss Preston, now."

"Yes, Mrs. Stone."

"Who's she? Proper dragon !" Roxanna commented as they went up the stairs.

"Actually I'm very sorry for her," said Cindy, leading the way to her bedroom. "She was Mr. Baxter's housekeeper for ten years and her son grew up here and somehow she thought the old man would leave the castle to the son."

"But he didn't. Never does to count your chicks before they're hatched. My mum used to say that and I got real mad with her, but she was right, you know."

"Do you really like all this walking?" Cindy asked curiously.

Roxanna gave her a quick smile. "It isn't the walking...

Cindy laughed. "It's Martin?"

"It's always someone, isn't it ?" Roxanna sighed. "It's the only way I can get to be with him, but oh, how my feet hurt !"

Cindy showed her to the bathroom and went to wait in her bedroom, content that Yvonne should be keeping Martin occupied. As she sat there, Cindy read some of Uncle Robert's diary again. The items really were so sad—sometimes cheerful, but always with that wistfulness, that disappointment that things had turned out as they had, always blaming himself for a terrible mistake. In one case, he had written :

"I should have realised that Peter is like me. He has to be a person—not someone's shadow."

How right Uncle Robert was, Cindy thought, curled up on the floor before the electric fire. Now David was much more of a shadow—Peter was definitely a person.

The rain was still pelting down when Peter came in for lunch. He looked annoyed, but was pleasant to the 'guests'.

"Real bad luck," he agreed. "Where were you making for? I'll run you over this afternoon if you like."

Roxanna's eyes glowed. "Would you?" she said eagerly.

"Why not? In the morning the sun may he shining and you won't have wasted a day after all. Care to come, Yvonne?" he asked casually.

"No, thanks." She smiled at him. "I have some phone calls to make. Perhaps Cindy would like to."

"I took that for granted," Peter told her, and looked

at Cindy and then at Roxanna. "We won't go until tea-time, then you'll get to the hostel in time for your evening meal and bed."

"Thanks a ton," Roxanna said happily. She looked quickly at Cindy and away again. Cindy understood—a whole wonderful day without having to walk ! What a girl will do for love, she thought sympathetically.

The rain was still pouring down as Peter drove them to the long grey hostel. Cindy was startled when Peter abruptly asked Martin :

"What was Yvonne talking to you about ?"

Martin pushed back his hair. "She's interested in folklore, so am I. I told her all the local legends and things."

"She was interested?" Peter sounded amused.

"Yes, particularly anything I knew about the castle. I didn't know much, because it isn't one really, is it? I mean, everyone knows it's a mock castle."

"I agree. Yet she wanted to know all you could tell her about the castle? Was there much?"

"No, very little. The usual tales of the smuggling days. But every old house round the lakes and sea up here has those stories. Seen that old farmhouse near the coast with seven chimneys? Said to have been built by an old man so that each of his jealous daughters could have a chimney. Who'd want a chimney?" Martin chuckled. "Anyhow, the legend is that only two of those chimneys have fireplaces and that the other chimneys were used to hide their smuggling treasures."

"She was interested in that?"

"Very ... even asked me where the house was, and

when I told her it was for sale—well, she got real excited like."

"I bet she did !" Peter laughed.

They stopped at the hostel which was comfortably settled at the foot of a mountain and facing the lake where the wind rippled the water into tiny patterns.

"Thanks a ton," Roxanna said to Cindy. "If it hadn't been for You ..."

Cindy smiled, "Good luck !"

Roxanna whispered in her ear, "I -just hope it goes on raining !" and chuckled as she and Martin left, with their heavy packs, turning at the door of the hostel to wave.

Peter drove away. "Funny, that," he commented. "What's funny?"

"Yvonne's interest in the house with seven chimneys. Surely she wouldn't be mug enough to believe that nonsense about smugglers' treasure? I mean, if there was any there, it would have been found years ago."

Suddenly Cindy had an idea. She opened her mouth and then closed it again. Peter wouldn't believe her. He might even accuse her of cattiness or childishness. Yet she'd had a thought ... perhaps that was why Yvonne was so keen to find the mysterious path that had given the castle its name, and why she was so concerned about the vaults and Paul Stone digging there. Did she think there was treasure hidden in the castle? Yet it might all be coincidences. It was best to keep quiet, Cindy decided.

"Was it really necessary," Peter asked abruptly, "to be quite so abrupt with Mrs. Stone ?"

"Abrupt?" Cindy, jerked from her thoughts about Yvonne, turned in surprise. "Was I abrupt?"

"She asked me who was the mistress here as she didn't know whose orders to obey. She seemed pretty mad."

"I had to rescue them. It was the two . .." Quickly she told him how Mrs. Stone had been turning them away, refusing them a chance to dry. "They were wet through and looked half drowned. She was very rude to them."

"I'm afraid she has an unfortunately abrupt manner," said Peter, his voice suddenly cold. "On the other hand, you have to draw the line somewhere. We can't give hospitality to every Tom, Dick and Harry."

Cindy's cheeks burned. "Under which heading' do I come?"

"You know very well I didn't mean you!" he almost snapped at her. "I agree you did right in asking them in. Only a couple of kids," he said almost scornfully, and Cindy, remembering that Roxanna and Martin had been about her age, felt her cheeks burning still more. "Shouldn't be out trekking alone. They could easily get lost. The girl didn't look as if she enjoyed it much."

"She hates it."

"Then why do it?"

Drawing a deep breath, Cindy turned to him. "Are you men blind? She loves him, that's why she does it, and he's too ... too selfish to see it !"

"You mean she walks these miles, gets half drowned, her feet painful, just because she loves that .. .? She must be crazy !"

"Most females are. I suppose no man would do such a thing for a girl he loved," Cindy said bitterly. "He'd expect her to mould her life the way he wanted it."

"Well, that's right, isn't it?" he asked, his voice casual.

"No, it is not !" Cindy retorted angrily. "There should be compromise. It shouldn't all be-for one to have his own way."

"But you're as bad as the rest of them, Cindy. Look how eager you are to get back to your boss, and I bet he whistles the tune, and you do what he says even when you don't like it,"

"The boss . " she began, and stopped. "He never asks me to do anything I don't want to."

Peter whistled softly. "Well, well, well, aren't we a lucky girl !"

She clenched her hands, fighting the desire to smack his face. Instead she turned her back and looked out at the rain-drenched world.. Where had the beauty of the mountains and lakes gone? The, stark loveliness of the leafless trees had vanished in the mist. Now everything was grey sheets of rain and the maddening tick-tock-tick-tock of the windscreen wipers.

IT was not until they were near the castle that Peter broke the silence, and then only casually, almost as if unaware it had existed.

"Cindy, as I said, I would be grateful if you'd do some research for me about the castle. I think it was designed to be like the castles built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but I'm not sure as to the date. I'd like to know what sort of furniture they had in that period and the clothes, so that the staff could wear them. Wasn't it your idea in the first place? After all, as you said, in Ireland it's successful and there are quite a lot of people who'd get a kick out of living in the past, but, as I say, I want it to be the right background."

Cindy turned round a little. She was tempted to refuse, yet knew she never could.

"I'll go to some of the museums and libraries. You are going to run it as a hotel?" -

"I can think of no other way. It would cost the earth to have it as a mere home and it's far too big. I did think of it as a school, but can't imagine it somehow, can you ?"

"No." Cindy had to laugh, imagining the swarms of little boys or girls racing up the stairs. "Actually I think it would be rather dangerous. They'd have to rail off the garden."

"You're right. It's a bit too close to danger."

"You're selling the farm ?"

"Yes. I've persuaded old Colin Pritchard to come and be my head gardener. There's a cottage on the fell that he can have, so he'll be quite happy. I'm only keeping ground enough for a flower and vegetable garden and of course somewhere the guests can sit in the sun . I might even build a little folly—you know, those comic little sort of summerhouses they built."

"That's a good idea," Cindy said warmly. "You'll want a lot of staff."

"I thought of keeping Mrs. Stone as housekeeper, in charge of the staff. She was good to the old man and seems very efficient."

"She is. And Paul ?"

Peter frowned as he turned off the main road and they began to jolt and slide on the muddy track. "I'm not sure. I'll have a good talk with him. He's' done absolutely nothing to the garden, but he's a good driver and quite a good mechanic, so I might keep him for that."

"You oughtn't to have cars, but coaches," Cindy pointed out.

"Help ! You're right. But can you imagine a coach going down that narrow winding-road to the village ?"

"Yet it must have done once."

"You're right, you know." Peter sounded surprised.

The rain seemed to have lessened a little as they came in sight of the castle. Cindy gave it a desperate look, she loved it so much. It seemed to her that she was always saying -goodbye to it. When would she finally go?

"When will my car be ready ?" she asked.

"Ready? Oh, about Thursday or Friday."

"It's taking longer than we expected," she said, dismayed.

Peter shrugged. "So it seems."

Cindy pleaded a headache as an excuse to go early to bed and after coffee in the drawing-room, left them talking. Half way upstairs, she remembered she had left her book there, so went back. As she began to open the door, she heard Peter say :

"Planning to buy a house with seven chimneys?" he asked as if amused.

"So what if I am ?" Yvonne snapped back.

Cindy pulled the door to gently. Were they going to start another of those wrangles that depressed her 'so much? She went up to her bedroom; she would read Uncle Robert's diary instead. There were so many notes and the handwriting so small that there was still quite a lot she hadn't read yet.

It was tea time next day that Keith Ayres arrived. Peter and Yvonne were having tea with Cindy. It was a chilly, dismal day, though the rain was less severe. Yvonne was in a strange mood, hardly talking, constantly looking at Cindy as if she wanted to say something but was hesitating.

Mrs. Stone ushered him in. "Mr. Keith Ayres," she announced.

He stood in the doorway staring at them. They were startled and showed it. Then he went straight to Cindy.

"Miss Preston ? Good to see you again." He turned to Peter and held out his hand. "Mr. Baxter, I came up to settle some small details." He looked at Yvonne

and waited for Peter to introduce her, which he did promptly.

"Sit down, have a cup ?" Peter asked.

"No, thank you. I had rather a big lunch on the way. I can only stay for a night and if you can't put me up, I can go to a hotel somewhere, but there are a few things we have to clear up."

He sat down, speaking curtly as if angry. Cindy wondered why, for he had been so different before. He was a good-looking, older man, with slightly greying hair and a friendly smile when he looked at her.

"Of course you can stay here. I'll tell Mrs. Stone to get your room ready," said Peter, leaving them.