Rachel Trevellyan

‘And who might be asking?’ queried the bartender.

He sighed. ‘My name is unimportant. It would mean nothing to you. But I do wish to see Senhor Trevellyan, and as it is such an unpleasant evening, I thought perhaps——’

‘Folks round here don’t care to pass information to—foreigners,’ remarked a leathery-faced man on his right.

He controlled his annoyance with difficulty. ‘I assure you, my business with Senhor Trevellyan is perfectly respectable. He is expecting me. But the mist obliterates almost everything——’

The bartender glanced round at the avid faces about them and seemed to come to a decision. ‘You come in on the Penzance road?’

‘I suppose I did.’

‘Then you passed the Trevellyan place. ’Bout a mile back. Set off the road, it is, overlooking the sea.’

‘I’m very grateful. Thank you.’

He bowed his head politely and turned to go, but his way was barred by a husky young fisherman.

‘What business you got with old Trevellyan?’ he demanded belligerently. ‘Are you sure it’s not Rachel you come to see?’

‘Rachel?’ He frowned. ‘I’m afraid I know no one of that name.’

‘And you say you know Malcolm Trevellyan?’ The young man’s lip curled. ‘How can you know him and not Rachel?’

He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. ‘Who is Rachel, might I ask?’ He felt a stirring of unease.

The young man glanced round at his comrades. ‘Shall I tell him?’

An older man tugged at his sleeve. ‘Let him go, Bart. Maybe this is some business deal. Maybe he doesn’t know Rachel.’

His jaw felt taut. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Enlighten me. Who is Rachel?’

‘Rachel’s his wife, of course,’ snapped the young fisherman grimly. ‘Didn’t you know?’

‘I’m afraid I did not.’

‘Bart!’ The older man dragged the younger one aside. ‘Leave it, boy. It’s no business of ours.’

‘Isn’t it? Isn’t it? Don’t you care what happens to Rachel?’

‘Of course I care——’ The older man was answering, but he waited to hear no more. Pressing his way through the throng of hostile faces, he reached the door and thrusting it open stepped out into the freezing air. In this instance the cold was a relief, infinitely preferable to the heat of the bar.

But as he walked back to the car his brain buzzed with the information he had just been presented. Malcolm Trevellyan was married! He had never mentioned it. In all Trevellyan’s correspondence with his mother, there had been no reference made to a wife. On the contrary, he recalled his mother’s comments that Malcolm had become a confirmed bachelor, and certainly four years ago when she and his father had visited England he had had no wife then.

The sense of unease increased. What did it mean? Had Trevellyan married some widow for companionship in his latter years? And if so, why hadn’t he told them? Or did he expect they knew? Did he presume the invitation he had received included his wife, too?

He shook his head and opening the car door slid back behind the wheel. How would his mother react if that were so? Would she want another woman at the quinta? The invitation extended to Trevellyan had been an open one, but if he had a wife ...

And what was the young fisherman’s interest in all this? Why were they so hostile to the name Trevellyan? Was it possible that the man Bart might be this unknown Rachel’s son?

He felt angry suddenly. He was cold and tired, a stranger in a strange country, and right now he wished he had booked in at a hotel in Penzance and left the return journey until two days hence.

Leaving the village square, he turned back on to the Penzance road. The mist had cleared slightly and he drove slowly, looking for the signs of a gatepost, some indication that a house lay back from the road.

He found it almost easily. There were no other houses in the area, and he turned between stone gateposts and ran up a narrow drive to where lights glinted from behind curtained windows. He stopped the car and slid out, looking up at the stone façade of the building. It was not a large house, but in the gloom there was something faintly menacing about it. Shrugging off such fanciful feelings, he walked up the steps to the door and knocked.

There was silence for so long that he knocked again, but then there was the sound of bolts being drawn and he waited irritably for the door to be opened. Deus, he thought with impatience. Surely he had been expected even at this hour? In his mother’s letter she had clearly stated the date and expected time of his arrival. Just because he was a little later than expected it should not mean that they had given him up, that they had bolted the door against him. They?

The door swung inward suddenly and in the light that was shed from the hall behind her he saw a girl. His first impression was of a glory of red-gold hair that tumbled in abundant confusion about an oval face. She was of medium height, but very slender which made her seem smaller. She was dressed in an old pair of denim trousers that clung to her like a second skin, and which, needless to say, would have horrified his mother and her friends, while the paint-daubed smock she wore with them revealed the slight swell of her breasts and the thinness of her arms. Who was this? He thought she looked about eighteen, but he could not be absolutely certain in this light. Long silky lashes brushed her cheeks and swept upward in surprise when she encountered his dark gaze. Had Malcolm Trevellyan a daughter as well as a wife?

‘Yes?’ She was abrupt.

He gave a slight bow and then wished he had not. But the Portuguese blood in his veins ran so much stronger than his English ancestry, and it was second nature to him to behave courteously.

‘I wish to see Senhor Malcolm Trevellyan, senhorita,’ he stated politely. ‘I am Luis Martinez, Marquês de Mendao!’

The girl stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. It was obvious she hadn’t the faintest idea who he was or that he was expected, and he felt reassured. Clearly she could not be a member of this household or she would have known. He had been beginning to think that Malcolm Trevellyan had concealed a great deal from his mother.

‘Won’t you come in?’

The girl stood aside with obvious reluctance and Luis entered the narrow hall. There was a carpet on the floor, but it was threadbare in places, and while everything was clean there was little in the way of comfort. Certainly Malcolm Trevellyan deserved more salubrious surroundings than these to recuperate in.

The door was closed behind them and the girl indicated that he should enter a room on his right.

‘If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll tell Malcolm you’re here,’ she said, rather stiffly.

Luis inclined his head. ‘Thank you.’ He allowed himself to be shown into a room which appeared to be a parlour. The door closed behind him and he looked about with interest.

In the poor light shed from a standard lamp which the girl had switched on at his entrance he saw that this room was rarely used. It had an unlived-in air, a mustiness about it, and the stiff-backed chairs and horsehair sofa were reminiscent of the kind of places described in English literature of the nineteenth century. He had read a great deal of English literature when he was at the university.

Bric-à-brac lined the mantelshelf, and as a collector of antiques he ran a practised eye over them. But there was nothing there to interest the expert and he folded his hands behind his back and paced rather restlessly about the room.

A clock chimed somewhere in the house and he glanced again at his watch. It was half past nine. He had been travelling since very early that morning. No wonder he was beginning to feel weary and lacking in patience.

The door behind him opened suddenly and he swung round to confront the girl who stood in the aperture. There was a certain wary speculation in her eyes now and he wondered why. He wondered, too, what she was doing here at this time of night, and recalled belatedly that the doors had been bolted on his arrival. Why should she be staying here when she apparently knew so little of her host’s affairs?

Seen in this light she was perhaps a little older than he had at first imagined. Twenty-one, maybe, or twenty-two; surely no more. In her casual clothes she was, he thought, a typical example of emancipated youth, and he pondered what his mother’s reactions to her might be. Portuguese girls were not allowed to wear such attire; they were not allowed such freedom. They dressed conservatively. They retained, or so Luis had been brought up to believe, a certain detachment, an aura of mystery, that was only lifted to admit their betrothed, their chosen husband. He supposed there was a kind of Moorish influence still evident in his country that favoured the customs of the seraglio, the segregation of women both before and after marriage.

‘If you’ll come this way,’ the girl said now, and Luis unbuttoned his overcoat and nodded.

The girl led the way along the hall to a room at the back of the house which Luis suspected in daylight probably gave a view of the coastline. But tonight the curtains were drawn across the windows and the only light came from a lamp beside the huge double bed which dominated the room. There was an enormous fire burning in the wide grate which gave out an uncomfortable amount of heat, and propped on pillows in the middle of the tumbled bed was a figure in thick pyjamas who stared at him with piercing blue eyes.

Malcolm Trevellyan must have been about fifty, but he looked older. Thinning hair topped a face that was prematurely lined, and although he must once have been quite a big man now the fleshless skin hung on him.

Luis glanced round at the girl, who had remained by the door when he entered the room, and seeing that she was making no move to leave, he said: ‘How do you do, Senhor Trevellyan. I am Luis Martinez, at your service. You were expecting me?’

‘Of course. Of course. Come in.’ Malcolm Trevellyan spoke welcomingly, his voice strong and imperative. ‘Have you had a good journey? You’re later than I expected, but I suppose the weather hasn’t helped. Cold, isn’t it? Not what you’re used to, I suppose.’

‘No.’ Luis managed a faint smile. ‘How are you, senhor?’