The Autumn Of The Witch

Stephanie saw Miller, the maid, coming to answer the door and waved her away and went to answer the door herself. Allan stood on the threshold and his eyes darkened admiringly as they surveyed her trim appearance. Then he smiled warmly at her before stepping past her into the hall where Jennifer still stood draped against the banister watching them.

‘Well, Allan,’ drawled Jennifer. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine, thank you, Mrs. McMaster. You’re looking well.’

‘Am I?’ Jennifer heaved a sigh. ‘I feel positively drained.’

‘Oh!’ Allan glanced inquiringly at Stephanie, but she turned away abruptly, going to the hall closet to get her gloves.

‘Yes,’ Jennifer went on, determinedly retaining his attention. ‘Robert’s having one of his regular purges and at the moment I’m being subjected to his strictures!’

‘I – see.’ Allan looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s a jolly cold afternoon, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’ Jennifer moved impatiently. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

Stephanie came back at that moment. ‘I’m ready,’ she said, looked purposefully at Allan, and he nodded. ‘Okay, let’s go,’ he said, and with a polite smile at Jennifer they both went out.

Allan’s Triumph sports car stood outside with the hood up, and he helped Stephanie inside before walking round to get in beside her. The powerful little car shot away, churning up the gravel on the drive, and Stephanie lay back and relaxed. Allan glanced her way understandingly, and said: ‘Jennifer getting up your back again?’

Stephanie sighed. ‘That’s the understatement of the year. Oh, Allan, I just wish there was something I could do to stop that woman from killing my father!’ There was a fierce determination in her voice and Allan shook his head helplessly.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘this business with Ventura is getting everyone down. Once everything is settled, one way or the other, things will sort themselves out, you’ll see.’

Stephanie grimaced. ‘I wish I was as certain,’ she said glumly. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether things will ever sort themselves out again.’

‘That’s a pretty defeatist attitude!’ exclaimed Allan. ‘Your father knows that sooner or later he’s got to accept Ventura’s offer.’

Stephanie looked mutinously at him. ‘Does he?’ She shook her head. ‘He’ll hang on to the business as long as he possibly can. I know him better than you do and I know it would kill him if he were thrust aside by Ventura’s management. He’s an active man, Allan, he’s been active all his life. You can’t throw a man like that on the stockpile!’

‘Nobody’s suggesting you should. This deal with Ventura was to be a merger. Your father would retain control. At least that’s how I heard it.’

‘But for how long?’ Stephanie stared at him. ‘Oh, these big syndicates know what they’re doing all right. They agree to merge with a small company like W.A.A. and then gradually they introduce their own ideas and their own management until in the end it’s more of a takeover than a merger. My father knows this and that’s why he’s fighting – and not only Ventura. The board as well.’

‘You mean the board are against him?’

Stephanie flushed. ‘Well, Jennifer is, for sure. And Aunt Evelyn. When that man was here – that Signor Bastinado—’

‘Pietro Bastinado?’

‘That’s right. Did you meet him?’

‘Not exactly. I saw him at the office when he was with your father. You realize who he is, don’t you?’

‘Of course. He’s a member of this syndicate.’

‘He’s Ventura’s personal assistant. Anyway, go on. I interrupted you.’

Stephanie frowned. ‘Oh, yes, well, when Signor Bastinado was here he asked a lot of questions about shares and controlling interests. Oh, he did it very cleverly. Jennifer was easy to gull. She enjoys talking to any attractive man, but Aunt Evelyn …’ Stephanie sighed. ‘You see – it means little to them who controls the company, so long as they get a return. But to my father it’s something else – it’s his life!’

Allan sighed now. ‘I see what you mean. But surely this could have been avoided. I mean your father must have known things were going downhill …’

‘Yes, but there was nothing he could do. The big airlines have such a tremendous advantage. They can fly their planes half empty and still talk about cutting their fares. W.A.A. relies on its charter services, but we need new planes – you know that – new equipment! But we can’t afford them without backing.’

Allan patted her hands as they lay in her lap. ‘You really will have to let your father fight his own battles,’ he said.

‘I know that. But it’s Jennifer—’ She sighed again. ‘You know how extravagant she is—’

‘But your father married her. He chose to marry a woman half his age. It’s not your responsibility, Stephanie.’

‘But that doesn’t make it any easier to take, Allan.’ Stephanie bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. You must get sick of hearing my troubles.’

Allan smiled tenderly. ‘Not at all. In fact I’m glad you feel you can share them with me. It means you regard me as something more than just a friend.’

Stephanie looked at him quickly, sensing what he was about to say, and suddenly she didn’t want to hear it. For a brief moment, sheer panic shot through her being as she realized that whatever feelings she had for Allan they were not yet strong enough to contemplate a serious commitment. She burst into speech, chattering stupidly about one of the spastic children she was caring for, telling him about a film she had watched on television the night before, and the moment passed. She sensed his pain, for he was not an insensitive man and he must have guessed why she suddenly behaved so carelessly. But there was nothing she could say to alleviate it. Maybe it was this trouble with her father, or maybe it was her own immaturity, but whatever it was she needed more time before placing herself in a situation she could not control.

They had a pleasant afternoon out together. They had arranged to go to an exhibition of paintings and sculpture by a young artist friend of Allan’s and afterwards they attended a cocktail party given by the gallery’s owner who had sponsored the showing. Most of the young people there were known to both of them and they were invited to a party that evening to be held at the apartment of another young artist. Stephanie demurred, but with Allan’s encouragement finally agreed on the understanding that she must be allowed to go home first to change and to see her father.

It was about seven-thirty when Allan dropped her at her father’s house, a tall Georgian-fronted building which stood in its own grounds overlooking one of those small squares that abound near Regent’s Park. As she climbed out of the sports car she noticed a long, sleek continental limousine parked to one side of the front door and she frowned curiously. Certainly it was not a car she had seen before or she would have remembered its elegance.

‘I’ll call back in an hour,’ Allan was saying, and she turned absently to him.

‘What? Oh, yes, yes, all right, Allan.’ She smiled and raised a hand as he drove away with his usual ebullience, and then turned to enter the house.

She shed her gloves in the hall and hesitated as she heard voices emanating from the library. Surely her father and Jennifer weren’t arguing again, particularly as they obviously had guests, and yet she could hear her father’s voice raised in anger and she wondered with trepidation who could be arousing such antagonism. Could it possibly be something to do with the proposed merger? Had Pietro Bastinado come back with some new proposition?

She moved compulsively towards the library door and then halted. It was nothing to do with her after all, and yet if Jennifer was in there perhaps her father would be glad of an ally.

With sudden determination she turned the handle and opened the door. The library seemed full of people, but she realized that was because they all seemed to be standing instead of relaxing in the comfortable leather chairs. Jennifer was there and so was Harold Mortimer, her father’s chief accountant. Robert McMaster was leaning heavily on his desk and Stephanie’s heart went out to him before she looked at the man who faced her father across the desk; a man she had never seen before, although the man behind him was familiar; it was Pietro Bastinado.

Her intrusion caused all eyes to turn in her direction and as she met the gaze of the stranger her whole being seemed to suffuse with colour at the insolent penetration of his dark eyes. He was a man like no man she had ever previously encountered. Tall and lean, with a kind of latent virility about him, he was not a handsome man, and yet the carved planes of his face and the grim lines about his mouth and eyes were disturbingly attractive. His hair grew thick and black, low on his neckline so that it brushed the collar of his immaculate white shirt. His clothes fitted him closely and accentuated his masculinity, and from the deep tan of his skin she guessed he was no Englishman. It was an effort to drag her gaze away from that intensive appraisal and she looked back at her father.

Robert McMaster straightened from his stooping position and said: ‘You’re back, Stephanie. You might as well come in. This affects you just as much as any of us.’ He ran a tired hand over his forehead and sank down wearily into his chair. ‘It seems – I can’t go on.’

Stephanie’s brows drew together disbelievingly and she closed the door quickly and advanced towards the desk. Her gaze flickered over Harold Mortimer’s troubled countenance and the compassionate gaze of Pietro Bastinado before reaching again the sphinx-like remoteness of the stranger. With an impatient gesture she looked at her father. ‘What are you talking about?’ she exclaimed.

Jennifer, who had been standing to one side of the door, now spoke. ‘Robert is dramatizing the situation as usual,’ she observed coolly. ‘Signor Ventura has simply been outlining to us your father’s actual position.’

Stephanie’s brain refused to function. So that was who the stranger was, she thought frantically. Santino Ventura himself. The brains behind the organization that wanted to merge with W.A.A. No wonder his presence had caused her to feel apprehensive. But even so, what had been said?

She looked again at Robert McMaster. ‘Please, Father,’ she said. ‘As you said – I have a right to know if this concerns me.’

Santino Ventura moved now. He had been standing with his arms folded, regarding them all broodingly, but now he spoke:

‘Your father has sought to raise money on the strength of the proposed merger. That is to say, he has used the name of my organization in an effort to bluff his way out of an impossible situation. I can only say that I should have thought a man who has been in business as long as your father has been in business should know better than to try those kind of tactics with me.’

Stephanie listened in silence and then looked down at her father’s bent head. ‘Is this true?’

Robert McMaster, looked up. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ he replied bleakly.