Prospero's Children (6 page)

“I read your mind, not your birth certificate,” he retorted. “You’d better go now, Fernanda. Your lunch is waiting, and you should change into dry clothes. I’ll be here tomorrow. Or the next day. Remember: find the key. You must . . . find the key . . .”

The wind snatched at her hat and as she turned to recapture it the rain seemed to swirl around her, blurring the landscape, and when she looked back up the path there was only a rock—she could see it was a rock—shaped like a seated man with his hood pulled forward over his face. She ran on down the hill toward the house.

For the time being, Fern said nothing to Will about her encounter with Ragginbone. It was not that she expected disbelief: on the contrary, Will was only too prone to believe in the improbable or even the impossible, while dismissing probabilities as too dull to merit his faith. But Fern needed a while to assimilate her own reactions and come to terms with what she had learned. In any case Will, she told herself, was still very young, obviously imprudent, easily carried away by over-enthusiasm; oblivious to real danger, he would see this shadowy world into which they had strayed as merely an adventurous game. And she was sure there
was
danger, lying in wait, a little way ahead of her: she could sense it even as the hunter senses the tiger in the thicket.

Will had struck up an unlikely friendship with the vicar and over the next few days, when not rummaging in the attic, he accompanied Gus on leisurely rambles up on the moors, identifying wildlife and listening to local folklore. Fern declined to go with them, beginning a methodical search for keys, turning out drawers and emptying cupboards to no avail. “He’ll have put them in a safe place,” opined Mrs. Wicklow. Fern, who had done that herself on occasion, was not encouraged. She wanted another talk with Ragginbone but the hillside was bare again, leaving her oddly bereft, and it was small consolation that no snuffling disturbed her slumber. The most disquieting incident was when the blackvisored motorcyclist passed her and Will on the road one evening, cutting in so close that they had to leap for the verge. But this, surely, could only be an act of mindless bravado, a young tough out to terrify and impress; it could have no connection with the mystery of Dale House.

On Friday morning, Robin telephoned. There was a lot of background noise and although Fern could hear him he didn’t seem to be able to hear her very clearly. He said he was at the airport, about to emplane for New York: an urgent business trip, Alison Redmond had given him some contacts, an American historian working on witch-trials, all very exciting. He might be gone some time. “But, Daddy—!” Anyway, she wasn’t to worry. He’d arranged everything. Alison would come and stay with them, take care of things, help fix up the house: she had a real flair for interior design. He knew Fern would get on with her. (Robin always knew Fern would get on with his various girlfriends.) Over the phone she heard the tuneless tinkle that precedes an announcement over the tannoy. “Must go, darling. I’m awfully late—” and then the line went dead and Fern was left clutching a silent receiver, a pale anger tightening her face. Gradually, it drained away, to be replaced by bewilderment. Accustomed as she was to her father’s erratic behavior, this level of impetuosity appeared extreme. “I detect Ms. Redmond’s Machiavellian hand behind the whole business,” she declared over lunch, putting Will and Mrs. Wicklow in the picture. “What I don’t understand, is what she’s after.”

“Happen she’s looking for a husband,” said Mrs. Wicklow sapiently. Her dourness had long been revealed as purely external and she had evidently ranged herself on the side of the young Capels.

“Well, naturally,” said Fern. “That was what I assumed from the start. I’ve never had any problems dealing with that kind of thing.”

“Cunning little lass, isn’t she?” Mrs. Wicklow almost grinned.

“But,”
Fern persisted, “if it’s Daddy she wants, why send him to America? It’s almost as if—” She stopped, closing her mouth on the unspoken words.
It’s almost as if she were interested in this house.
It was not cold in the kitchen but Fern felt a sudden chill.

“What’s she like?” Will asked. “I haven’t met her, have I?”

Fern shook her head. “She’s clever,” she said. “I think. I don’t really know. She has a lean and hungry look, like Cassius in
Julius Caesar
. But . . . there’s something there you can’t catch hold of, something fluid. She can look all bright and glittering and slippery, like water, and yet you always feel there’s a hardness underneath. I can’t explain it very well. See for yourself.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Sometimes,” Fern admitted dubiously. “She can exude a kind of shimmering fascination one moment, and the next she’s just a thin ugly woman with a big mouth. It’s not looks: it’s all in her manner.”

“Those are t’ ones you have to watch out for,” said Mrs. Wicklow.

“You’ll take care of it,” said Will. “You always do.”

In the afternoon Fern, annoyed with herself for not having thought of it earlier, rang the solicitors to inquire if they had the rest of Mr. Capel’s keys. Her brainwave, however, failed to bring results; a man with an elderly voice suggested that she search in drawers, cupboards, and so on. “I already have,” said Fern.

“He’ll have put them in a safe place, then,” said the solicitor comfortably.

“I’ve been afraid of that,” said Fern.

She tried vainly to stop herself looking out of the window every few minutes; Ragginbone’s continued absence might be irrelevant, but it provided an extra irritant. At tea, Will startled her by remarking: “That rock’s gone again.”

“Which rock?” The question was a reflex.

“The one that looks like a man. It’s been gone for several days now.”

“You’re imagining things,” said Fern. “Forget it.” She was still reluctant to talk about the Watcher.

Will studied his sister with limpid detachment. “This woman who’s coming here,” he said, “do you suppose she could be part of it?”

“How could she?” said Fern, without pretending to misunderstand.

“I don’t know,” said Will, “but I can see you thinking.”

Alison Redmond arrived later that day, driving a Range Rover loaded with paintings, samples of carpet and furnishing fabrics, several cardboard boxes taped shut, and three or four items of Gucci luggage. She was wearing her point-edged smile and a passing flicker of sunshine found a few strands of color in her dim hair. She greeted the Capels with a diffidence designed to undermine hostility, apologized to Mrs. Wicklow for any possible inconvenience, and demanded instantly to be taken over the house, praising its atmosphere and period discomforts. She did not say “I do so hope we’re all going to be friends,” nor scatter kisses in their vicinity: her gestures were airy, tenuous, almost filmy, her fingertips would flutter along an arm, her hair brush against a neighboring body, and Fern knew it was paranoia that made her fancy these feather-touches contaminated her. Alison managed to adore everything without quite crossing the line into effusion, drawing Will out on his attic researches so skillfully that his sister grew anxious, throwing her arm around him with unaccustomed affection and digging her nails into his shoulder to silence him. The only thing that checked Alison’s flow, just for a moment, was the main drawing room. She hesitated on the threshold, glancing round as though something were missing, her smile blurring; and then she seemed to regain her self-command, and the charm was back in play. Afterward, pondering that temporary glitch in her manner, an explanation occurred to Fern, but she discarded it as too far-fetched. Alison had never been in that room before. She could not possibly be disconcerted because the idol had been moved.

“I’ll help you bring your things in,” Will offered, clearly reserving judgment.

Alison, just grateful enough and not too grateful, passed him a valise and a book of carpet patterns and began hefting the boxes herself. “Most of the pictures can stay in the car,” she said. “One of our artists lives in York: I picked up a load of stuff on my way here to take back on Monday. There are just a couple of mine I’d like to have in my room; I never go anywhere without my own pictures.” The sweep of her smile deprecated affectation. “Some people won’t travel without a particular cushion, or a bag, or an item of jewelry. With me I’m afraid it’s paintings. It’s disastrous on planes: it makes my baggage so heavy.”

Fern went to assist her, largely out of curiosity. The paintings in question were propped up against the bumper, shrouded in a protective cloth. Alison vanished indoors and Fern lifted the material to steal a glance at the topmost canvas. She had been expecting an abstract but this work was representational, though it struck her as strangely distorted, not for effect but because of some clumsiness on the part of the artist. It showed a horse’s head peering over a stable door, a conventional enough subject, but there were bars impeding it and an odd discoloration creeping in from the borders of the image like mold. The horse’s mane was unnaturally long and tangled and its forehead seemed somehow misshapen, as though its creator had made no real effort for verisimilitude, yet its eyes were intensely alive, heartbreakingly real, dark wild eyes gazing out at Fern with a mixture of pleading and defiance. Being in London most of the time Fern had had few opportunities to ride, but she loved horses and still dreamed of having the chance to learn. She found herself reaching out to touch the canvas, her hand going instinctively to the lock on the stable door; the paint felt rough and hard, like metal, like rust. “Leave it!” The voice behind her was Alison’s, almost unrecognizable in its abrupt alteration.

Fern jumped. Her hand dropped; the cloth slipped back into place. “I beg your pardon,” she said with exquisite politeness. “I wasn’t aware the pictures were private.”

For a second, she thought Alison was discomfited; then both curtness and awkwardness melted away and a thin veil of warmth slid over her face, leaving it as before. “The paintings are old,” she explained, “and very fragile. If you touch the paint you could damage them. I’m keeping them for restoration work: my own personal project. As a matter of fact, I think that whole scene has been applied on top of something else. The layers have to be removed very carefully. As you saw, I’ve only just started.” The area that looks like mold, Fern thought, only half satisfied. “A lot of stolen masterpieces get painted over to make them easier to hide or transport. I keep hoping I’m going to come across something special.”

She carried the pictures upstairs herself. They had installed her, by common consensus, on the top floor—“Out of the way,” said Will—in a room that felt chill and gloomy from long vacancy. Alison, however, professed herself delighted with the crooked ceiling, the balding velvet of cushion and curtain, the smoky mirror above the mantel. “I trust you won’t think me obsessive,” she said, “but if I might just have the key? I have this thing about privacy. My own space is vital to me—I can’t help it, it’s just how I am. I grew up sharing with three sisters: I expect that’s how it started.”

“I’m sorry,” said Fern blandly. “We only have the house keys. Great-Cousin Ned seems to have put all the others in a safe place.”

“We’ve looked everywhere,” Will added. “At least, Fern has.”

Watching Alison, Fern was convinced there was another flicker in her expression, a momentary freezing-over. “I’d be obliged,” she said, “if you didn’t come into my room when I’m not here. I’m sure you understand.”

Do I? thought Fern.

She and Will went back downstairs, leaving Alison to unpack.

“She’s very nice,” said Will, “if you like niceness. It’s hard to tell how sincere she is. She seems to be working at it—but if she’s keen on Dad she would, wouldn’t she?”

“The niceness is all on the surface,” declared Fern. “All sparkle, no substance. It’s called charm.”

“Like tinsel,” said Will, “on a shoddy Christmas tree. I don’t think I trust her. I haven’t quite made up my mind.”

“I have,” said his sister. “You don’t.”

In the hall, Mrs. Wicklow was putting on her coat. “I’ll be off now,” she said. “There’s a pie in t’ oven. I daresay Madam won’t eat it, she’s too skinny to eat pie: probably lives off brown rice and that muesli. Still, I know you two appreciate my cooking.”

“We do,” Will concurred warmly.

“Queer thing about her,” she added, glancing up in the direction of Alison’s room. “Odd fancies you do get sometimes.”

“What fancy?” asked Fern.

“Miss Redmond comes from London: that’s what you said?”

Fern nodded. “She works in an art gallery in the West End.”

“There was a young woman over from Guisborough, three . . . four months before t’ Captain died. Happen I mentioned it. Something to do with antiques. I didn’t get a good look at her, of course, and she didn’t have all that hair—I think she had a kind of bob, just about shoulder-length—but I could swear it was t’ same woman. Heard her, I did, chattering away to t’ Captain, sweet as sugar. She didn’t notice me, mind: she’s t’ sort who sees them as interest her and doesn’t bother to look at t’ rest of us. I’d have bet five pounds it was your Miss Redmond.” She gave a brisk shake, as if throwing off a cobweb. “Must be my fancy. Still, you take care. Third house from end of t’ village if you need me.”

“Thanks,” said Fern, smiling, making light of the matter. But the smile vanished with Mrs. Wicklow and she went to check on the pie with a somber face.

Dinner was a polite meal. Alison kept the conversation going by discussing her ideas for the house. “I think we could do something really exciting with that barn,” she said, having duly admired the
Seawitch
and her current residence. “Your father’s very keen to have my advice. He’ll be calling from the States in a day or two: I’m going to ask him if I can make a start. I have a friend in the building trade who specializes in these sort of commissions. I thought I’d get him up here to give us an estimate. Of course, we must take care of that wonderful boat. It should be all right outside for the time being, if we cover it in tarpaulins. After all, it
is
supposed to be summer, even if it hasn’t reached Yorkshire yet.”