Rupert.
I knelt down, whispering and crying his name, pressing my face to his own cold wounded countenance. He didn’t stir; only a flicker of an eye-lid gave an indication at all that he still lived.
Despair filled me. I had to get help somehow. But from where? The part of Kerrysmoor facing the moor was gone, submerged by the elemental upheaval. Tregonnis was empty and a ruin. The farm? But God alone knew what had happened to that, and it was some distance off. I searched the landscape wildly, then turned my eyes again to the victims, recalling that there were two. The other — a woman — was obviously dead, completely crushed by the great stones on top of her. Her eyes were blank, wild and staring; a claw-like hand, greenish-white, was clutched round the handle of a knife, reddened by blood. Lady Verne.
I put my hands to my eyes, struggling to keep control of my nerves, and then, after getting to my feet, started running, slipping, sliding, crawling, jumping, sometimes slithering in streams of earth, until I came to a mound of bricks, mortar and granite that had once been the whole back portion of Kerrysmoor.
Somehow I found my way to a winding lane of slush that had been the road. Driven by an urgency stronger than exhaustion, fear or limitation of my own strength I pressed on, and eventually saw a small crowd of rescuers plodding to the scene of the disaster.
‘He’s there—’ I managed to gasp before I collapsed, ‘injured under a rock — the Three Maidens — and her, Lady Verne. Save him — save Rupert—’
I could continue no more. Suddenly the whole world seemed to fade into darkness; there was a roaring in my ears, and I fell, mercifully into unconsciousness.
*
When I came to myself I was lying on a sofa in the housekeeper’s parlour at Kerrysmoor. A small group of locals were standing in the hall, near the door which opened to a path leading to a side drive. I could feel the sting of something warm in my throat, and saw Mrs Treen carrying a flask and glass to the table.
It took me some moments to recall what had happened, and when I remembered, I sat up and cried shrilly, ‘Rupert? — Mr Verne — have you — have they found him?’
Mrs Treen took me by the shoulders and forced me to lie back. ‘The Master’s badly hurt,’ she told me, ‘but still alive, thank the good Lord.’
‘Hurt? Of course. I know that. Where is he?’
‘In the study. Washed and clean as possible,’ she answered. ‘The doctor will be here soon as somethin’ can get going along the lane — no more than a mud track it is now, and as for the house—’ she threw up her hands — ‘just half of it left, if that.’
‘And her ladyship?’ Even in such terrible circumstances I could not keep the bitterness out of my voice.
‘She’s — she’s beyond what this world can do to her any more,’ the woman answered. ‘They’ve put her in the back parlour, poor thing. You saw her though, didn’ you?’
I nodded, feeling a sudden shame at my own hardness. But the knife clenched in the thin hand, and the expression of the face — how could I feel pity for Lady Verne when it had obviously been her intention to harm Rupert?
All other thoughts were swept away as I remembered how still he’d lain in the moonlight — how ravaged as though dead.
‘I’d like to see Mr Verne,’ I said, ‘please let me.’
The housekeeper shook her head. ‘No one’ll see Master Verne until the doctor’s been. No one. He’s in a coma of sorts, and anyway what right have you?’
‘It’s not a matter of right. It’s — I found him. I was there.’
‘Well, I hope you’re not going to be difficult,’ Mrs Treen said severely. ‘I’m housekeeper here, and in charge. When the doctor comes we’ll see. But everyone’s had a shock remember — I’m not feeling too good myself. No one is. Fanny, that new housemaid swooned and had hysterics — and William, the footman, slipped in the rubble and broke his leg. So it’s up to you, including all the rest, to act as normal as possible without argument. It’s a mercy any of this place is left, but we’ve the kitchens, the dining room and the front parlour, and the main staircase is left — at the bottom; some bedrooms too. How many no one knows yet, nor how any roof or walls stayed. Cornish granite though — that’s what my da always said, you can’t beat Cornish granite for putting up a fight against storm—’
She babbled on as though she’d never stop talking; I guessed it was shock; no one else could get a word in until the doctor arrived, and then, when she’d taken him to where Rupert lay, she returned, and suddenly collapsed by the fire place, her skin turned a ghastly green colour, with her eyes closed. One of the rescuers, a man I knew by sight, who’d worked in the grounds, rushed to her aid, and heaved her into a chair. I grabbed the flask from the table, and he forced a drink on her; she revived, made a feeble effort to push him away, and muttered, ‘Don’t fuss me up. I’m all right. And look at you — all mud and dirty marks on the floor—’
He smiled grimly, and replaced the brandy. Tiredness claimed me again. I slumped back on the sofa, and gradually warmth from the fire soothed me once more into a half state of consciousness. I was aware of movement, of comings and goings, the murmur of voices, but until the arrival of the doctor nothing seemed to matter. All I wanted was to rest and drift into forgetfulness.
The rest of the night passed like a jumbled half-dream. When morning came Mrs Treen had recovered sufficiently to give orders to the bewildered and shocked staff. Breakfast was served in the kitchen, and attempts made to clean up what remained at Kerrysmoor. Rupert, I learned, had had his leg straightened and dressed, and his wound attended to. The doctor had said that later he’d have to see a specialist from Truro about the leg, but so far as he himself could judge, no irretrievable damage had been done.
How wrong they were.
When at last I was allowed to see him, it appeared at first he was his old self. A bed had been made comfortable for him in the study, and he was lying half-propped up with the injured limb bandaged and stiff before him, a bandage over his temple. He smiled, as after a light knock, I entered. There was a glow in his yellow-gold eyes that told me all was well between us.
‘Oh Rupert—’ I cried, running towards him, ‘you’re better — you’ll be all right. I thought at first you were — you’d died.’
‘Died?’ He gave a short laugh which held also a wince of pain. ‘It takes more than a thunderstorm to kill a hardened adventurer like me. Don’t look so shocked, Melissa—’
I was puzzled. ‘Melissa?’
‘That’s your name, isn’t it? You can’t be called darling all the time.’
‘I — I don’t—’
‘Come on, my love. No games. It seems to me—’ and he stared at me reflectively, with just a hint of teasing in his glance, ‘since you sat for that portrait you’ve got slightly — shall we say, above yourself?’ His voice was mocking, but warm and caring.
‘Rupert—’ I began, puzzled. ‘I’m not Melissa — I’m — oh don’t you remember? Josephine, Josephine Lebrun—?’
I broke off, trembling, waiting and fearing his answer.
He said nothing for a moment, then replied, ‘Another little act? Don’t, love, please. Not just now. I’ve had a fall, remember? My horse slipped, and this damned leg’s giving me hell. Yes, sweetheart, you’re a very good actress, and one day—’ He didn’t finish, exhaustion overcame him, the lids fluttered down over his eyes, and I realised he was asleep.
Mrs Treen came to the door. ‘You’ve been long enough,’ she said acidly. ‘You know what I told you, what the doctor said, you could have just a glance and pass a word or two if he spoke, but it seems to me you’ve had a good old chatter.’
I shook my head. ‘No — he thought I was someone else, that’s all.’
My voice must have betrayed the desolation I felt; her expression softened and changed.
‘Oh?’
That one word was a question.
‘Yes. Someone called Melissa.’
Was it my fancy, or did what little colour
she had, suddenly fade from her face?
‘Well,’ she said after a pause, ‘the Master’s known many folk — gentlemen and ladies in his time. He’s had a great shock remember, and that gash on his temple may’ve set him rambling a bit. Anyway, it’s not your worry, girl, and seems to me I’ve done wrong to let you bother him at all. Now come along. You look whisht enough yourself. And I don’t want invalids around me, there’s enough to do getting what we can in order here. There’ll be the funeral to arrange too.
‘Funeral?’ I gasped.
The housekeeper’s mouth went prim, almost condemning.
‘Have you forgotten her ladyship? The Master won’t be able to attend, if I’m any judge, but all who are fit should see they pay due respects.’ She eyed me severely. ‘Including you. Between them the Master and Lady Verne have done a good deal on your behalf, girl.’
‘He had,’ I admitted sharply. ‘But she always hated me.’
The next moment I knew I shouldn’t have spoken so, and before she could reply I’d swept from the room and made my way to the hall and out of the door to what remained of the grounds that side, and the lane.
Destruction was everywhere. Though the mud had drifted and dried in patches on the road, trees and bushes were broken from the onslaught, rocks were strewn about, streams still trickled in rivulets of filth from the devastated area of moorland behind the house. The freshened clarity of cold paper-clear skies, only emphasised the desolation — a desolation magnified by despair and the loss of an illusion in my own heart.
It was Melissa Rupert loved.
Not me.
Chapter Twelve
During the weeks that followed I stayed on at Kerrysmoor to help Mrs Treen in the extra work involved by the landslide. At first I’d thought I’d be sent away, and had made tentative plans to return to the Golden Bird, but when the housekeeper made it clear I could be of use to her, I agreed willingly — not only on her account but because of Rupert. There was Dame Jenny, too, who had mercifully been spared, but had become a semi-invalid.
The considerable part of the house that remained was comparatively untouched, but the constant walking to and fro of workmen employed in building a back wall as ballast for the surviving wings of the mansion, and for levelling as effectively as possible the hundredweights of rubble left, meant continual extra cleaning and brushing up. There was as well the carrying up of trays to the bedroom where Rupert was taken following the first two days spent in the library, and to Dame Jenny. A specialist, who came from Truro, sent a nurse along for a week or two. She also had to be looked after, and Mrs Treen daily seemed to be showing more strain. The housemaid had left, and only a small staff remained, so I would not, in any case, have deserted her.
My brief meetings with Rupert were poignant and painful — not only physically to him, but because he struggled so hard to get well, and because he continued to think of me as Melissa. I corrected him once, but when he clearly thought I was joking, I knew he didn’t recall there had ever been a girl in his life called Josephine Lebrun. Only that other — the girl in the portrait.
At Mrs Treen’s request I had attended Lady Verne’s funeral held at St Clemo’s Church in a nearby village. It was a grey day. My spine felt rigid and cold from strain and the chill wind blowing. Except for myself only two or three servants and a few natives attended. I was thankful when the sordid ceremony was over, and I was once more in the carriage driving back to Kerrysmoor.
One day when Jan called with eggs, I asked him about Tregonnis. ‘What happened there? Was that a landslide, too?’
We were standing outside the house on the path. He looked round cautiously in every direction as if he wished no-one to hear his answer, then replied, ‘Haven’ they telled you then?’
I shook my head. ‘There’s been so much else going on, and whenever I brought the question up, Mrs Treen pretended not to hear and changed the subject. It was the same with the other servants — the two men.’
Jan shrugged. ‘I do suppose they’d bin given orders earlier,’ he said, ‘when she was sick like.’
‘Sick? Who?’
‘Her. The dead woman — Master’s wife, Lady Verne. She’d gone funny in the head, an’ so I’ve heard was took up country to some place where they have mad folk. Then she got away—’
‘Escaped, you mean?’
He nodded.
‘That’s right. An’ it was her — her who set fire to Tregonnis. I heard from him, ole Johnny Trink — only nobody says, nat’ruly. An’ if you ask me—’ his voice lowered, ‘she’d gone real murderous. Seems unfair, doan’ et? A man like Master, travelling up country just to see her all right — an’ then her havin’ a go at him like that.’
‘I see,’ I said slowly. ‘So that was it.’
‘What, miss?’
‘The reason for him being away so much.’
‘O’ course. Only we wasn’ supposed to know, or speak of it. Some do say though she was a witch. An’ tell you the truth, missie, one night at full moon I did see her dancin’ like in a queer way round they ole stones, the Three Maidens, just as though she was one o’ them. All in black she was, wearin’ a dark hood thing — an’ I recognised her. Oh yes, I knowed it was her. Quite near I was, lookin’ for a lost lamb. I told em ’bout it at th’farm. But they said as how I shouldn’ go spreadin’ tales, but keep me mouth shut — ’cos after all she was Master Verne’ lady wife, and harm’d hit us if I said anythin’ bad ’bout her.’
‘I don’t believe she had any power to hurt you, Jan,’ I said in a sudden spurt of commonsense, ‘and I don’t believe the Three Maidens were anything but old stones, either.’
‘No?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘But they was once young women what was enchanted ’cos they danced on a Sabbath. That’s what I heard from my ole granny. Turned into stone they wuz, but stones havin’ strange powers o’ wickedness at the full moon.’
‘Just a story, a legend,’ I told him. ‘They have a kind of magic, I suppose — I’ve felt it myself, but it’s just the age of them and the way they stood there on top of the moor. Imagination itself is a very strange thing, Jan, you must remember that.’
‘An’ was it imagination then what saved the picture?’ Jan enquired in a knowing kind of way.
My heart jerked.
‘What picture? What do you mean?’ Even as I asked the question, I guessed.
‘The one the Master had hung at Tregonnis — the lady with the bright hair. He fair worshipped her, he did. An’ et’s funny edn’ et? Although everythin’ else was burned in the fire, her face wasn’. Just that one bit saved. Just her face.’
I went cold all over.
‘Where is it now?’
‘I dunno. I reckon Mrs Treen’s got it somewhere. I heard the Master give it to her for safe keepin’, away from his wife. Just because of her madness you know, she had a real hate of it. So it was a kind of magic saved that, wasn’t it? — a magic stronger than the witches’ put together. An’ I reckon that’s religion, doan’ you, miss? The real kind, meanin’ the power of good over evil?’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ I admitted. ‘Yes. And try to remember it.’
He nodded and started to walk away.
‘Jan—’ I called.
He turned his head, ‘Yes, miss?’
‘Who was she? The lady in the portrait? And what was her name?’
‘I never knowed her,’ he said.
‘But you called her beautiful. So—’
‘My mam said so. Everyone knowed it, but no one talks of her ’cos the Master forbid it.’
I sighed, and he went on his way, leaving me feeling bereft, lonely and bewildered, by a mystery that seemed to me then beyond solving.
Once or twice later during the week I sounded Mrs Treen as tactfully as possible about the matter, but she refused point blank to give any information or even answer me except to say, ‘I’ve told you before to mind your own business about things that don’t concern
you.’
Little she knew how very much I was concerned, although I was beginning to realise that quite soon I should have to confide in her about the child I carried. For some time I’d taken pains to conceal as effectively as possible the thickening of my figure by wearing a full apron-front to a full blue dress I’d been careful to bring along with me from the Golden Bird. Somehow it had survived all my adventures. Joe Burns’ remark to me before leaving Falmouth, about his new employee’s description of me as a plumpish, haughty-like young woman, following Rupert’s enquiry, had made me aware that I must be increasingly vigilant over my shape. But the truth couldn’t be hidden for ever, and I wondered what would happen when I told Mrs Treen. She mightn’t want me there anymore — probably wouldn’t. And if I mentioned Rupert — but how could I when he was still ill and thought of me as Melissa?
When I wasn’t working, the problem went round and round in my head, and I began to sleep badly.
‘What’s the matter with you these days?’ the housekeeper asked one morning, when I couldn’t eat my breakfast. A sudden nausea seized me. I got up and rushed from the room. She followed, and panting reached me as I stumbled into my bedroom. I stood over the basin at the washstand, vomited, but nothing came of the effort. I just felt faint and ill, and slumped on to the bed.
‘Now you’d better be straight about this,’ I heard her saying firmly, in a manner that was almost an accusation. ‘You’re expectin’, aren’t you?’
I nodded bleakly, and for a moment didn’t speak. Then life returned to me, and courage from the relief of confession. ‘Yes,’ I said, lifting my head and facing her with a certain defiance. ‘And please don’t tell me I should be ashamed, because I’m not.’
‘That’s why you left Falmouth, I suppose,’ she said primly, ‘to come here and dump your — your—’ She struggled to get the odious word ‘bastard’ out, or possibly ‘by-blow’, but before she could do so I’d stopped her by interrupting:
‘You needn’t say it. I know very well what you think. It’s no matter now. The baby will be loved and brought up properly, I’ll see to that — somehow I’ll see to it. I will, I will—’