Island of the Heart (3 page)

a long drive flanked on each side by tall hedges of fuchsia, growing

wild in a profusion of pink, crimson and purple.

And then the house was there in front of them, big and square, like a

child might draw, with long multi- paned windows. Stone steps,

guarded by urns filled with trailing plants, led up to the double doors

of the main entrance. It looked grand, forbidding and slightly

shabby, all at the same time, Sandie decided wonderingly.

O'Flaherty brought the car to a halt at the foot of the steps. 'Away in

with you,' he directed. 'I'll see to your luggage.'

Sandie flew through the raindrops up the steps, and turned the

handle on one of the doors. It gave more easily than she anticipated,

and she nearly fell into a wide hall, with a flagged stone floor.

'God bless us and save us!' exclaimed a startled voice.

As Sandie recovered her equilibrium, she found she was being

observed by a tall grey-haired woman in a flowered overall, carrying

a tray laden down with tea- things.

She said, 'I was told to come straight in. I am expected...'

It was beginning, she realised with exasperation, to sound a little

forlorn. It was also irksome to find the woman gaping at her, rather

as O'Flaherty had done at the airport.

Sandie straightened her shoulders. 'I'd like to see Mr Sinclair,

please,' she said with a trace of crispness.

'He's in Galway, and won't be back till night. I'll take you to the

madam.' The woman continued across the hall, to another pair of

double doors, and shouldered her way through them, indicating that

Sandie should follow.

It was a big room, filled comfortably with sofas and chairs in faded

chintz. A turf fire blazed on the hearth, and a woman was sitting

beside it. She was dark-haired, with a vivid, striking face, lavishly

made up, and was wearing a smart dress in hyacinth blue silk, with a

wool tartan scarf wrapped incongruously round her neck. Sandie

recognised her instantly and nervously.

'Here's the young lady come to play the piano for Mr Crispin,' the

woman who'd shown Sandie in announced, setting the tray down on

an occasional table.

Sandie found herself being scrutinised from several directions—by

the woman beside the fire, by a tall, dark girl, bearing a strong

resemblance to Crispin, and also by two children, a boy and girl

barely in their teens, bent over a jigsaw puzzle at another table.

'Oh, dear,' Magda Sinclair said at last. 'Oh, dear. This is too bad of

Crispin. This really won't do at all.'

Sandie knew an ignominious and overwhelming urge to burst into

weary tears. She'd set out with such high hopes, and come all this

way, and now Crispin wasn't here, and his mother disliked her on

sight. She remembered Crispin had said she was temperamental.

'Now, now, Mother.' The dark girl got up from the window seat

where she'd been sprawling, and came forward. 'The poor kid will

think she's landed in a lunatic asylum!' She held out her hand.

'Hello, I'm Jessica Sinclair. Welcome to Killane. This, as you

probably realise, is Magda Sinclair, and the brats are James and

Steffie.' Sandie swallowed. 'How do you do. I'm Alexandra

Beaumont.' She was beginning to feel like something in a zoo.

Magda Sinclair seemed to shake herself, and got up. 'I'm sorry, my

dear, if we seem a little odd, but we just didn't expect you to look

so—so...'

'Young,' her daughter supplied, with a hint of dryness, giving Sandie

the impression this was not what Magda Sinclair had intended to say

at all.

'Yes, of course,' Mrs Sinclair said. She gave Sandie a brief smile. 'I

expect you've had a terrible journey. Why don't you let Bridie show

you .your room, then come down and have some tea with us.'

Sandie had been expecting to be shown the door, rather than the

place where she was to sleep.

She said, 'Thank you. That would be marvellous.'

Bridie led the way back into the hall. As Sandie followed, the strap

of her bag caught on the ornately carved doorknob, and she paused

to disentangle it.

Through the half-open door, she heard Jessica Sinclair say in a low

voice, 'Don't look so worried, Mother. Everything will be fine.' She

paused, adding flatly, 'Just as long as Flynn stays a thousand miles

away.'

SANDIE-S room was at the back of the house. Vast and high-

ceilinged, it contained a cavernous wardrobe in walnut with elegant

brass handles, and a matching dressing-table, tallboy and old-

fashioned bedstead of equally generous proportions. Sandie felt

almost dwarfed as she unpacked and put her things away.

Tea had been an awkward meal. Having behaved so strangely when

she arrived, the Sinclairs now seemed embarrassingly over-eager to

put her at her ease, Sandie found ruefully. In spite of that, she'd

managed to drink two cups of the strong, fragrant tea, and sample

some of Bridie's featherlight scones, and rich, treacly fruit loaf.

Bridie, she'd learned, was the cook-housekeeper, and the mainstay

of the household.

'She came here as a kitchenmaid when I married Rory Killane,'

Magda Sinclair explained, 'and she's been here ever since. She

knows more about this family than we do ourselves, and she's

incredibly loyal.'

'She likes Flynn best,' said James, passing his cup to be refilled.

'What nonsense,' his mother said coldly. 'She adores us all. Anyway,

Flynn is never here.'

'Bridie says he'll be here soon. She saw it in the tea-leaves,' put in

Steffie, heaping jam on to her fruit loaf.

Sandie saw Magda's exquisitely reddened lips form something that

might have been 'Damnation' and hastily looked elsewhere. She

hadn't intended to overhear that brief snatch of conversation before

she went upstairs, but she couldn't help being intrigued by its

implications.

Flynn Killane, she thought. Crispin's non-musical half-brother, who,

for some mysterious reason, needed to be kept at a distance.

But what difference can it possibly make to him if I'm here or not?

she asked herself in bewilderment.

As soon as she could, she'd excused herself from the tea-party round

the drawing-room fire, on the grounds that she needed to unpack.

But with that task accomplished, she needed to find something else

to do until Crispin came back from Galway, and she was reluctant to

return to the drawing-room with its spurious bonhomie, interspersed

with silences.

She wandered over to the window and stood looking out. It was

raining harder than ever, she noticed with a sigh, and the wind had

risen, bending the trees and shrubs that fringed the lawn. Beyond the

formal part of the garden was a white-painted fence, dividing it from

a paddock where several horses grazed.

'Have you got everything you need?'

She swung round to see Jessica standing in the doorway, her smile

friendly.

'Yes, thanks. This is a charming room.'

'I think it's totally bizarre, like all of them.' Jessica cast a droll

glance towards the embroidered runners that masked the polished

surfaces of the chests and bedside table, and the pin tray and trinket

jars in rose- painted china which ornamented the dressing-table.

'It's like being caught in a Thirties timewarp. Fortunately, the

plumbing is bang up to date. Flynn saw to that, although all our

water comes from the lake.'

'It does?' Sandie's eyes widened, and Jessica grinned.

'Sounds rather primitive, eh? But it's the norm round here. It would

cost a fortune to bring mains water to this scatter of population. We

have a rain tank as well,' she added, nodding towards the streaming

window. 'As you can see, it's rarely empty.' Her tone became

brisker. 'Mother wondered whether you'd like to see the music-

room, where you're going to be working.'

'Yes, I would—very much.' Sandie forced a smile. 'I began to

wonder if I'd be staying, or whether I'd be asked to leave. Everyone

keeps—staring at me as if they'd seen a ghost.'

'How rude of us,' Jessica said lightly. 'The fact is, you're the image

of someone we used to know. The resemblance is quite amazing.'

So that's all, Sandie thought with relief. She said, 'Well, they say

everyone has a double.'

'So they do.' Jessica's tone was faintly ironic. 'Come on, and I'll

introduce you to the piano.'

The music-room was on the ground floor, at the side of the house.

'It used to be the morning-room,' Jessica explained as she led the

way in, 'but Flynn had it converted to make the most of the view.'

Sandie gasped with pleasure. The entire end of the room had been

extended out over the lake, and the walls and ceiling glazed so that

sky and water formed the backdrop for the magnificent Steinway

grand that stood there.

'It's fantastic!' she exclaimed.

'I'm glad you approve. You're going to be spending a lot of your

time here.' Jessica paused. 'Crispin can be a hard taskmaster, but I

suppose you know that.'

'I don't really know very much about him at all,' Sandie returned.

'But he thinks I have promise as a pianist, and I want to work hard

for him.' She swallowed. 'I hope Mrs Sinclair will let me try and

play her accompaniments. I need to justify my existence here.'

'I should find your feet before you start looking for extra jobs,'

Jessica said quite kindly. 'This room is completely soundproofed, by

the way, so you can come and practise any time when no one else is

using it. I tend to work in my room, so you'll only have Mother and

Crispin to compete with.' She gestured towards the piano. 'Go on,

try it. I can see you're dying to.' She disappeared, closing the door

behind her.

Sandie sat down and ran her fingers experimentally over the keys.

She began mutedly with scales, and a few loosening exercises, then

broke into the last movement of the concerto she'd played at the

festival.

When she finished, there was a burst of applause from behind her,

and she glanced round startled to see Crispin standing in the

doorway, smiling at her.

'Don't get up,' he directed, walking towards her. 'You look just as I

imagined you would. This room is the perfect background for you.'

Sandie flushed. 'I didn't come here to be ornamental,' she protested,

with an awkward laugh.

'Of course not,' he said soothingly. 'But you can't escape the fact,

sweetheart, that you are—amazingly decorative. I'm surprised your

parents allowed you out of their sight.'

Her blush deepened, and she searched frantically for some casual

and sophisticated response. I'm not very good at flirting, she thought

despairingly. I've been so immersed in my music that there hasn't

been time for men—or even boys. Of course, I know he isn't

seriously interested in me in
that
way—he's just being—nice to me.

As he reached her, she wondered if he would kiss her again, and

found herself both thrilled and a little nervous at the idea, but

Crispin walked past to her to one of the long line of cupboards and

extracted a pile of manuscript paper which he brought over to the

piano.

'Here's something you might look at, when you have a moment,' he

said. 'I call it
Elegy'

'You wrote this?' Sandie began to turn over the sheets.

'A long time ago. It's never had a public performance yet. I'm

waiting for the right moment—and the right person to play it.' He

smiled at her. 'Maybe that person will be you, Miss Alexandra

Beaumont.'

'I shouldn't think so,' she said honestly. 'I haven't got a very big

span—look.' She spread out her hands. 'Some of these chords will

be beyond me.'

'Darling, you've only just got here, so don't start being defeatist

already.' He spoke quite gently, but there was a faint undercurrent of

irritation. 'I said I'd like you to have a look at the piece—try it over,

that's all. I'm not planning to launch you on to the world stage with

it next week.'

'I'll start on it tomorrow,' she said. 'I'm tired and a bit stupid this

evening.'

'Then I recommend an early night.' He paused, then said rather

carefully, 'I hope Magda spread the welcome mat for you, after all

my groundwork.'

'She's been very kind,' Sandie said neutrally. 'I only hope I can be of

some use to her.' She hesitated. 'The man who met me at the airport