The Girl From Over the Sea Page 2

  She lay brooding on this until she saw that it was getting light. She crept cautiously out of bed and went to the window. There was no sea view, but beyond the grey roofs of the little town she could see smooth green downs, white-tyalled farms with wind-bent trees around them and further away a valley where there were more trees all in a long line, leaning landwards like men carrying heavy burdens from the coast. The snow had miraculously disappeared and-all the land was green, so very very green to Australian Lesley’s eyes. The sun coming up over a hill sent out light that glistened on the grass and the trees and the nearby rooftops.

  It’s going to be a glorious day, thought Lesley, her spirits rising. She found the bathroom, had a quick shower, dried herself vigorously till her body tingled and went back to the bedroom where Rita was just opening sleepy sea-blue eyes. ‘Bag the bathroom right now, darling,’ Lesley advised. ‘Be quick and then I’ll give Rick a shout.’

  ‘Are we going to that Manor place first thing?’ Rita demanded.

  ‘No. As I’ve said before we’ll take a look round first and see what information we can pick up about the Trevendones. The village and the Manor are three or four miles from here.’

  ‘Oh, it’s madly exciting. I can’t wait I’ Rita squealed in a mocking fashion.

  Lesley gave her a quick warning look. ‘Pipe down, for pete’s sake, Rita,’ she expostulated. ‘We don’t want to get a reputation as loudmouthed brash Aussies before we’ve been here five minutes.’

  ‘Nobody can tell you’re an Aussie,’ Rita pointed out. ‘It was a pity Ma couldn’t afford to send Rick and me to a fancy school in Melbourne instead of letting us be “educated” Lactatoo style.’

  Lesley bit her lip. That reproach had been hurled at her .more than once during the past few months and it was hard for her to explain that the money for her education had come from her parents and not theirs. She said now, lamely, ‘Neither of you liked school, and if you’d gone away you would have missed Rick and he you.’

  ‘Too right. Even now I keep thinking of dear old Lactatoo and wishing we were back.’ Rita shivered. ‘Is the snow very deep?’

  Lesley pulled back the curtains. ‘It’s all gone and now it promises to be a marvellous day. Do hurry, Rita. I’m going to wake Rick and then rush down to look at the sea. I’ll tell Mrs. Cleaver we want breakfast in half an hour.’

  She dressed quickly, pulling on a thick skirt and sweater of a green that matched her eyes. A few quick tugs with her comb through her bright, nearly chestnut hair and now her leather coat with a green scarf if she needed it.

  Downstairs she asked for breakfast to be served in half an hour and then went out into the narrow high street which ran steeply down to the sea and to the little inner harbour where a few small boats were drawn up above the tide line. St Benga Town wasn’t a place for fishing. The coast was too cruel, the seas too stormy. On either side the downs rose green and inviting, and between them was a long stretch of sand ribbed with rocks and pools from which the sea, curling lazily into white wavelets this morning, was receding. When the tide was really out they would be able to walk right along the beach, perhaps beyond that headland that loomed dark against the pale blue sky. Beyond that headland was Trevendone.

  Lesley took a deep delighted breath. Above her the gulls mewed as they swooped and soared. This air was wonderful. She could smell the seaweed and with it the real tang of the ocean. That wind that she had heard in the night had gone now and there was scarcely a breeze though St Benga had the reputation of being a windy little town.

  First thing they would walk over the downs, or perhaps along the beach to Trevendone Bay and look at the Manor House. The sooner the twins discovered what they could about their future home the sooner she could get them settled.

  Neither was down when she arrived back at the little hotel, pub it was really, but clean, and breakfast promised, if savoury aromas were’ anything to go by, better than last night’s cold offering.

  Lesley fan up the steep stairs two at a time and found Rita dressed and fiddling with her long black hair. It was naturally curly, a disadvantage to her mind as she admired the girls with long lank hair that she had seen on television.

  ‘Come on, Rita,’ Lesley urged. ‘It’s marvellous out, and the air is like wine. I’m so hungry I could even eat porridge if...’

  ‘Oh, don’t!’ Rita’s face was screwed up in revolted horror. ‘I feel terrible. I’ve scarcely slept at all. I was so cold, cold,’ and she shivered theatrically.

  Darling, were you? Why didn’t you wake me?’ Lesley’s green eyes were anxious. She hoped a sleepless night would not bring on one of Rita’s migraines. ‘Have you a headache?’

  Rita examined her reflection in the mirror. She had a high colour and wished disconsolately for a skin of’ the creamy pallor of Lesley’s. Red-haired girls had everything, she thought. But still, she was supposed to have the Cornish looks of her family, the dark hair and the vivid sea blue eyes and the good, healthy colour.

  ‘It hasn’t come on yet,’ she admitted, ‘but it will if you start talking about porridge.’

  ‘Then I’ll talk about bacon and eggs,’ Lesley said.

  Rita groaned. ‘You’re a mystery to me, Les. You look—what’s the word?—ethereal—with that creamy skin and those enormous eyes. You’re as slim as can be and yet you eat like a horse, you’re as tough as old boots and you’re as full of energy as a spring-mad dingo.’

  ‘Your comparisons aren’t very flattering,’ Lesley grimaced. ‘I must get Richard down or there’ll be no breakfast for either of you.’

  Rick was still in bed, not asleep but having, as he explained, a nice daydream. Lesley gave him a shake. ‘Rick, we’ve got so much to see and do today. Hurry!’

  She was worrying again, this time about the way Richard could, and did, stay up half the night but could never be persuaded to get up in the morning. It wasn’t only these cold winter mornings in Britain. He’d been the same back home. If he were going to work on the land, learn to manage an estate, he’d have to do better than this. But she mustn’t start lecturing him or he’d become resentful and uncooperative, and she’d got to make both Rita and him see that what she was doing was for the best.

  ‘Rick darling, hurry,’ she coaxed. ‘I told Mrs. Cleaver we’d be ready for breakfast five minutes ago. I’ll go and placate her.’

  Rick gave her his charming, lazy smile. ‘Poor old Les! I wonder you bother. Your obligation to the Trevendone family for looking after you when you were an orphan should have finished when Ma died. Now you ought to leave us to follow, our own thing and look after yourself. It’s time you started thinking seriously about your love life.’

  Lesley’s green eyes danced. ‘We’ll get this business of Trevendone Manor settled first. Then there’ll be time for me to fall in love.’

  ‘There’s not all that time,’ he retorted, his brilliant eyes suddenly very shrewd. ‘Girls get married very early now. And back in Sydney a certain Steve Wentworth is very popular with the dolly birds.’

  ‘So he is,’ Lesley admitted, ruffling his dark hair. ‘I wish you’d get some of this cut off, though. I want you and Rita to make a good impression tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ll be the one to make the impression, Miss Copper Head,’ he said with a grin. ‘Do you think there was a redhead among those Camelot people, King Arthur and those knights and dames of his?’

  ‘Queen Guinevere, perhaps,’ Lesley laughed. ‘But she wasn’t a very likeable character, married to Arthur and carrying on with Lancelot. Hurry, darling. I’ll go and chat up Mrs. Cleaver.’

  She ran down the two flights of stairs and saw their hostess carrying in three dishes of tinned grapefruit. ‘What a lovely morning, Mrs. Cleaver,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘Too bright too early,’ the other warned.

  ‘You should know. Have you lived here always, Mrs. Cleaver? You’re Cornish, of course.’

  ‘Yes, I be,’ her hostess replied with natural pride.

  ‘You�
�ll have guessed that er ... we ... my ... brother and sister are Cornish too.’

  The other stared at her impassively. ‘You sound like most of they folk who come from London, miss, but the young lady and gentleman I’d have taken for Australians.’

  Lesley remembered Richard saying last night that they had come from Australia, so that wasn’t even an inspired guess. What she’d been fishing for was a comment on their name and its local connection.

  ‘You’d better start, miss. The bacon and egg will be ready in a minute.’

  Lesley sat down, spooning her tinned grapefruit and wrinkling her nose slightly. Perhaps it was stupid to expect as much fresh fruit here as in Australia. And now Mrs. Cleaver was back, carrying a plate piled high. ‘You did say only one egg, miss. You’re welcome to two if you can eat ‘un. I know you’re used to big breakfasts over there.’

  Lesley told her hastily that one egg would be sufficient. She had ordered this cooked breakfast for herself only to encourage the twins to follow her example.

  Rita now appeared and began to eat her grapefruit in a lethargic manner. ‘Do try to eat most of your egg and bacon, Rita,’ Lesley urged. ‘In this cold climate we all need more cooked food. Mrs. Cleaver seems to think, though, that all Australians eat steak or chops at breakfast time.’

  Rita grimaced, but made no remark when Mrs. Cleaver came in with two plates which she set down in front of the girl and in the boy’s place. ‘Could you keep Rick’s warm for a few minutes, Mrs. Cleaver?’ Lesley asked, getting up. ‘I’ll give him another call.’

  ‘You sit down, m’dear,’ advised the stout woman. ‘You’m told that young man to come down once. Now let ‘un bide. Young men shouldn’t be run after by their womenfolk. It makes ‘un bad husbands, so it do.’

  ‘Rick is only a boy,’ Lesley protested.

  ‘As the twig’s bent, so it grows, m’dear. It never pays for a pretty young ‘ooman to run after a man, m’dear. Let ‘un do the running. I’ll keep his plate warm, just for this time.’ She picked up Rick’s breakfast and marched out, leaving Lesley rather disconcerted and Rita giggling. ‘Do stop it, Rita. She’ll hear you.’

  Rita, who was a good mimic, raised a finger. ‘Just remember that, Lesley Trevendone, m’dear. It never pays a pretty young ‘ooman to run after a young man.’

  Lesley sat down. ‘Rick is the limit,’ she sighed.

  ‘Stop worrying about ‘un, m’dear.’ Rita obviously found the Cornish accent fascinating, and Lesley was pleased. She was desperately anxious for the twins to feel at home in Cornwall.

  The sun was still shining when they set off to walk down the High Street, though less brightly than when Lesley had been out before breakfast, and the wind seemed to have got up.

  ‘Let’s step out,’ she suggested. ‘I don’t know how far it is to Trevendone and we’ve got to get back here for lunch.’

  Rita and Rick were only too willing. The wind was too cold for any loitering. ‘I guess we’ll be having some more of that now,’ Rick said as, having reached the harbour, they started up the steep cliff path.

  Lesley shook her head. ‘Mrs. Cleaver says not.’

  ‘Cheers for that,’ Rita muttered, shivering. ‘I’d never have come if I’d realised the weather was going to be like this.’

  ‘It will improve. February can sometimes be a very mild month down here, Mrs. Cleaver says, and you can often find violets and primroses in sheltered spots, just as old Mrs. Travers told us. This year, though, they’ve had a cold rainy winter.’

  ‘You can say that again!’ groaned Rita, continuing to shiver.

  Lesley gave her a quick anxious look. Suppose the twins weren’t able to stand the British climate? Then she advised herself to stop worrying. She had been brought up in Australia and the weather wasn’t causing her all that discomfort, so once Rita and Rick became acclimatised they would be all right.

  They were on top of the downs now with a view along the coast both ways. From where they stood they could discern only the jutting promontories and the great toothed black rocks, with the sea a dull turquoise colour lashing angrily against them. They moved nearer to the edge of the cliff and a wide stretch of sand became visible broken by great whale-black projections of black and grey slate. White horses were leaping across the heaving mass of turquoise water as’ far out as the eye could see.

  Lesley took a deep breath. ‘It’s just out of this world,’ she said enthusiastically.

  Rick nodded. ‘It’s got something,’ he admitted reluctantly, but his sister shivered again. ‘It’s cold, cold. Give me Bondi Beach any day,’ she muttered.

  The wind was certainly colder than Lesley had thought. She turned to look away from the sea. Trevendone village and Manor must be somewhere on their right behind that clump of trees in the far distance. She changed her mind about going there this morning. It was too far.

  ‘Let’s go down on the beach,’ she suggested now. ‘We might get more shelter from this east wind and we can walk quite a distance on the sands now the tide is out.’

  ‘Goodo,’ said Rick. ‘Anywhere where it’s warmer. Rita, your face is blue and your nose is like a little red button.’

  ‘You don’t look all that glamorous yourself,’ his sister retorted.

  ‘Stop being childish, both of you,’ Lesley ordered. ‘Come on, there must be a way down, but don’t go too near the cliff edge.’

  The twins followed her glumly, but she was glad they had stopped quarrelling. The sooner she got them to Trevendone Manor with their own people, the better.

  The descent to the beach wasn’t easy, but the two were surefooted, though Lesley, who had no head for heights, followed them more slowly, sighing with relief when she reached the bottom.

  ‘You look pretty green now, Les,’ the boy said critically. ‘I still have the feeling that the lot of us might have been better staying put in New South Wales.’

  ‘We couldn’t. Do I have to remind you?’ Lesley asked shortly. ‘Where’s Dingo?’

  ‘He’s in the top class of the climbing school,’ Rick chuckled. ‘Didn’t you see him scooting down that path—if you can call it that. He was down ages before Rita and me.’

  ‘You said it would be warmer down here,’ complained Rita. ‘Ugh, this wind!’

  It was cold, but Lesley wasn’t going to admit it. ‘Let’s have a race along the beach,’ she suggested. ‘This afternoon, we’ll go for a run to Trevendone. I’m disappointed we couldn’t see it from the cliffs just now. It must be beyond that headland which the sea is just clearing. Let’s go!’

  She began to run with quick lithe steps across the sands. The twins might have the edge on her when it came to heights, but not on the level. She threw them a backward glance. ‘Come on!’ she exhorted, racing towards the sea.

  Rick caught the excitement, gave a shout to which his twin responded with a shrill scream and they raced after the older girl. The occasion was too much for the mongrel pup, Dingo. He too took up the chase, barking hysterically as they all ran first to the edge of the waves and then towards the rocky point where a sandy passage had just been uncovered by the retreating tide.

  Now Lesley paused to let the twins catch up with her; the dog leaping at each one in turn and still barking. ‘Stop it, yellow dog!’ Rick commanded, and threw a pebble towards the sea.

  ‘Don’t encourage him to get wet,’ Lesley warned, ‘or we shall have a real performance drying him.’

  Dingo, who didn’t have a great deal of sense, had enough to pretend to hurl himself after the stone but come to a sudden halt directly his feet began to get wet.

  For a few minutes they walked along soberly and then as the wind whipped around them again, Leslie said, ‘Look, we’ll just run to the point and turn back. I’ll give you a start and race you.’

  The twins could never resist a challenge and in a second they were away with shouts and screams, the dog Dingo barking madly first at their rear and then well ahead of them as Lesley caught up and passed them.

  N
ow, like the dog, she felt intoxicated with the keen air and her own throbbing vitality. The twins were pounding behind, wasting breath and energy with their screams and shouts, which maddened the excited puppy even more.

  And so they arrived at the sandy passage between the rocks and the waves just at the moment when a rider came from the beach at the other side. Fortunately his horse was doing no more than a slow canter and Lesley, who was well ahead of the others, was able to avoid the collision by running into the shallow water receding from the point. She turned, her heart thudding clamorously, to see that the horseman had managed to swerve round the shrieking twins and was reining in. And then Dingo, who had fallen back a few yards to examine a rock pool, suddenly raced forward, barking hysterically and snapping at the horse’s hooves.

  The animal reared and Lesley clenched her hands, believing the rider unseated. But he held on as the next moment the horse seemed to take further fright and bolted across the beach, Dingo in pursuit.

  Lesley’s hands were clenched. No, no, no! her thudding heart protested. She was being a fool, seeing what wasn’t true. A likeness, perhaps, but nothing more.

  CHAPTER II

  Ricky, who had at first seemed as shocked as Lesley by the suddenness of the encounter now started to shout encouragement to the puppy. ‘Seize him, Dingo! Seize him!’

  ‘Rick, stop that at once!’ Lesley called in a horrified voice. ‘Are you out of your tiny mind?’ She began to run back along the sands, calling and whistling to the puppy. But they had had Dingo too short a time to give him any training and he had chosen Rick as his master and was inclined to ignore Rita and Lesley.

  It was perhaps because Rick didn’t follow that Dingo suddenly lost interest and came loping back, his tongue hanging out, a silly grin on his face. Lesley scowled at him and managed to grab his collar. ‘Don’t look as if you’ve done something clever,’ she gasped. ‘You bird-brained tyke! You’ll stay on the lead after this, see if you don’t!’