HIGH TIDE AT MIDNIGHT (22 page)

a lot of question marks hanging over the past, and a lot of skeletons in the

family cupboards. Dominic's worked damned hard—and Nick and my father

before him—to redeem that image. Communities like this have long

memories. We have to convince everyone that we no longer wreck

boats—we build them instead.'

Morwenna shook her head. 'I had no idea the sense of the past was so strong.'

He shrugged. 'Why should you? After all, you don't know us very well yet."

His words suggested that she would be at Trevennon long enough to make

all the discoveries that were needful, and she was grateful to him for that.

She could see that in many ways it would have been this sense of the past

that had fascinated Laura Kerslake and kept her looking back nostalgically

to her childhood. But Laura had recognised that there was also a world of

reality as represented by Robert Kerslake and the calm safety of his love,

and she had opted for this in the end.

And what will happen when I leave here? Morwenna asked herself. Will I

too be always looking back over my shoulder, remembering the dark cliffs

and the wild sea and the arrogance of men who built a house to stand for

hundreds of years in the teeth of the wind?

And even as she formulated the thought, she knew that above and beyond

everything else she would remember one man all her life and the hot, sweet

danger of his lovemaking that held no love at all.

She ate the food Inez put in front of her because in some ways it was less

trouble to do that than to argue about it, although she had no appetite. When

she had finished he? meal, she went listlessly upstairs to transfer her

belongings back into her suitcase so that they could be moved to Laura's

room. That was how she thought of it. There was no way in which she could

relate the possession of such a room to herself.

While she was waiting for the grumbling Zack to bring her things along, she

wandered round it, examining everything more closely. There were cut glass

scent and cosmetic jars on the dressing table, and a pretty glass tree on which

to hang rings, she supposed, only her hands were bare. She remembered

Nick had said there were some trinkets in the dressing table and found them

without difficulty. There was not a great deal—a small silver cross and

chain, a necklace made out of shells, some coral ear-rings, and a ring to hang

on her tree—a pretty thing made out of pearls. She tried it on and it fitted,

and as she looked down on it she remembered that people said pearls were

for tears, but surely she had cried enough.

Then the door opened and Zack entered, weighed down by a strong sense of

grievance as well as her case and rucksack and an unwieldy brown paper

parcel.

'Troublin' folks and botherin' 'un, and turning the 'ole 'ouse upside down,' he

muttered truculently as he dumped the case down on the carpet. He

produced a hammer and some picture hooks from inside his waistcoat and

fixed her with a stern look. 'And now I s'pose you'll be wanting these hung

up.' He indicated the brown paper parcel which he had put down on the bed.

In spite of her emotional state, Morwenna had to suppress a giggle. The

more she saw of Zack, the more impossible it seemed that there could be any

kind of relationship between him and the cheerful outgoing Inez.

'I'm sorry,' she apologised meekly. 'I realise I'm giving a great deal of

trouble. What's in that parcel?'

'Them pictures you brought when you come here. Been at the framers in

Penzance, they have, and now you'll be wanting them up.'

She pulled off the string and the layers of brown paper with fingers that

shook. It was quite true, they were her mother's paintings, surrounded by

antique frames which became them far better than the original ones at the

Priory. She had wondered several times what had become of them, but had

not liked to ask Nick, thinking that perhaps he had put them away

somewhere because he found the sight of them painful still. But instead he

had sent them to be framed somewhere as a surprise for her. She felt tears

prick at the back of her eyelids and -wiped them away with her fist as a child

might do.

'Mr Nick had these done for me,' she said slowly. 'I didn't know…'

Zack snorted. 'Tidn't the only thing you don't know, by the sound of it.

Where do you want 'un? I got other things to do 'sides this.'

It wasn't too difficult to decide. She got Zack to arrange them on an

otherwise bare wall above a little jewel of a chest of drawers, just where the

first morning light would catch them. They looked right there. They

belonged, and perhaps in time they would make her feel as if she belonged

too.

Long after Zack had gone, she stood staring at them, thinking of her mother

and wondering what she would say if she knew where her pictures had

ended up. And yet wasn't this the whole purpose of her being here? She had

come to ask the Trevennons to protect her sole inheritance, and her wish had

been granted.

She heard the door behind her open quietly and thought she knew who had

come to see how his gift had been received. She took a long, trembling

breath, aware that there were tears on her face.

'Nick, you're so good to me. I can never thank you enough…'As she turned

to face him, her voice faltered and died. It was Dominic. He took a half step

forward, then halted, his face like a dark mask as he saw how she

instinctively recoiled from his approach.

'What's the matter?' he asked abruptly. 'Why are you upset*'

'It's nothing. No, that's not true—it's everything.' She spread out her hands in

an all-encompassing gesture. 'It's this room—and her ring—and now Nick's

even had her pictures framed for me. It's as if she were here—with me. Oh, I

can't expect you to understand.'

'No,' he said drily, 'you can't, can you? I came to talk to you, but I can see it

isn't the right moment."

There is nothing you have to say to me that I want to hear.
Brave words.

Words of defiance, and now singularly inappropriate for some reason she

could not even define to herself.

'No, it isn't,' she said, and her voice was ragged. 'There'll never be a right

moment for us. Now if you have the slightest mercy, go and for God's sake

leave me in peace.'

He made a half-movement and she tensed, willing him with all her strength

not to approach her. If he touched her, if he took her into his arms she would

break into little pieces. She had asked for mercy and peace because-that was

all she had the right to ask for. She could not ask for love.

She closed her eyes and waited and when she opened them at last, she was

alone. And when she whispered, 'Oh, Dominic. Oh, my love,' there was no

one to hear her.

MORWENNA fixed the last glittering glass bauble in place, then alighted from

the small step-ladder and took a long, appraising look at the Christmas tree.

She'd had to fight hard enough to get it here, so she was determined that it

was going to look right in its corner of the sitting room.

Mark had taken a lot of persuading before he had agreed to tie it to the roof

of the Mini and drive it home from Penzance where they had been doing

some belated Christmas shopping.

'A Christmas tree.' She could recall the scepticism in his voice. 'In a bachelor

household? Have a heart, love! It'll go down like a lead balloon.'

'Just a tree,' she had told him solemnly, her eyes dancing nevertheless. 'And I

promise to forgo the paper chains and the mistletoe.'

'Oh, I don't object to mistletoe.' He had pretended to leer at her, and she'd

laughed.

She had spent a lot of time with Mark over the past few weeks. So much so

that Nick had asked her rather gruffly if she was sure she knew what she was

doing.

'He likes to play the field, young Mark,' he told her, his brow furrowed, and

again she had laughed and bent over to drop an affectionate kiss on the top of

his head. Because she knew that Mark's days as a Lothario were past and

done for ever.

Ever since, in fact, that first supper party they had been invited to at St Enna.

She had sensed Mark's nervousness as they drove there. It was a low

rambling building—two cottages knocked into one—and Biddy had

answered the door to their knock. Morwenna had seen them look at each

other and although nothing had been said, she knew that all was well.

Biddy had been her usual cheerful self, with a spot more colour in her cheeks

than usual. She had served a delicious chicken casserole, piquant with herbs

and wine, and they had all drunk Greg's home-brewed lager and grown

steadily more hilarious as the evening progressed. Later she had helped

Greg, tall, bearded and taciturn, to wash up in the tiny kitchen, leaving Mark

and Biddy alone together.

Since that night she had spent a lot of her time at St Enna, even when Mark

did not accompany her. It was a relaxed and undemanding atmosphere, and

she was always sure of her welcome. She had even made a thumb pot under

Greg's supervision, and it had been baked in the kiln with his own work and

glazed, and she was proud of the way it had turned out. Biddy had said she

had a natural flair for pottery and Greg had promised he would show her

how to throw a pot on the wheel in the workshop, if she was interested. And

she was more than interested, she was fascinated. She liked the feel of the

clay under her fingers, and she loved sitting and watching the pots and

utensils grow and take shape under Greg's hands. And, more importantly, it

gave her something else to think about.

She told Greg and Biddy about her ambition to study .under Lennox Christie

and Biddy stared at her wide-eyed.

'Why go to those lengths?' she demanded. 'There are good art schools all

over the place, including Cornwall. You could even get a grant. And who

says you're meant to be a painter anyway?'

Perhaps Biddy might be hoping that when she and Mark were married,

Morwenna might take her place at the pottery with Greg. If so, it was a vain

hope. She couldn't confide in Biddy, because Biddy loved Mark and had no

secrets from him, and she couldn't risk Mark finding out that she was

hopelessly and desperately in love with his brother. Meaning well, he might

choose to interfere, and her blood ran cold at the thought. No, her secret was

safe with just herself. And if everyone thought that her heart was set on

Mark, then so much the better. By the time the truth came out, she could be

miles away.

Even Inez had issued a dark warning that 'Mr Mark was a rare one for the

maidens', although her general attitude had suggested that Morwenna could

do worse than join him in gathering rosebuds while they both might.

As for Dominic… Morwenna sighed as she bent to pick an errant piece of

tinsel from the carpet. No one would be prepared to hazard a guess as to

what he thought about the situation. It was impossible to suppose that he

approved of her going out with Mark night after night, but he made no

comment at all to either of them. But she noticed that no matter how late

they returned from their outings, there was always a thin streak of light

showing under the study door. Was he really working there alone, she

wondered, or was he monitoring her comings and goings? She smiled

bitterly to herself. If he silently objected to her going out with Mark, it was

not hard to imagine his anger when he discovered the true state of affairs.

She had little doubt in her own mind that Mark would choose the line of least

resistance and take Biddy off to the nearest register office early in the New

Year, presenting Dominic with a
fait accompli.

She gave her tree a last look and prepared to leave the room. It seemed to

light up the whole room, she thought, and perhaps the star she had wired to

the topmost branch was a star of hope, after all, for Mark and Biddy at least.

There did not seem to be a great deal of hope for Nick and Barbie. Barbie

had not been near Trevennon since the night of the dinner party, and

according to a terse remark from Nick, Morwenna gathered that she had not

been to work either at the boatyard, pleading illness.

But Karen, in spite of what had happened, had been much in evidence. She

had obviously decided to overlook the fact that it was her own ill-natured

behaviour which had triggered off the entire incident and behaved to

everyone with an air of tolerance and Christian forgiveness which sent Nick

limping hurriedly for sanctuary in his room whenever she appeared at

Trevennon. Morwenna, she appeared not to notice whenever possible, and

Morwenna was content for it to be so.

As she set her hand on the door-knob, her heart sank. She was sure she had