HIGH TIDE AT MIDNIGHT (3 page)

we agreed it would only be fair that you should have some keepsake of her,

although there is no actual legal entitlement. I'm not suggesting, of course,

that you should take any of the better-known canvases hanging downstairs,

but if you want any of the pictures in this room you may have them. I don't

think they can be regarded as her best work by any means, but naturally they

will be of sentimental value to you.'

If she had expected a show of delight, she was disappointed. Morwenna's

face was impassive and her few words of thanks merely polite. Lady

Kerslake went away toarrange her lunch party reflecting that the girl was

probably put out because she had not been allowed to take her pick of the

more valuable paintings.

As soon as she could be sure that she had departed, Morwenna sank back

again on the sofa, her legs shaking. She stared across the room at the

painting of the lonely house on the bleak headland and her stomach

contracted nervously. She thought wildly, 'Oh, God, what have I done?'

She had always tended to be impulsive. It was a family trait, but it had never

carried her to these lengths before. It had been impulsiveness that had led her

to apply to the painting school. Many of the friends she had been at school

with were rather desultorily pursuing careers as personal assistants or

secretaries, but they seemed to be little more than glorified dogsbodies as far

as Morwenna could see. Or they were helping to run boutiques, or serving in

West End department stores. Somehow she had wanted more than that. And

it hadn't particularly pleased her when people said tolerantly,

'Oh—Morwenna? Well, she'll get married, of course,' their eyes lingering

appreciatively over her slender figure with the gently rounded hips and

small, firm breasts.

She tried to control her whirling thoughts. After all, she wasn't committed to

going to Cornwall. 'Trevennon had been a let-out—the inspiration of the

moment—something to save her face with Cousin Patricia. She didn't have

to actually do anything about it. Anyway, a wave of colour flooded her face,

she couldn't just wish herself on a group of strangers, in spite of her brave

words to Lady Kerslake. She had no means of knowing whether the

Dominic of whom her mother had spoken with such affection was still alive.

He would be in his sixties at the very least, and the years that Laura Kerslake

had spent at Trevennon would only be a distant memory.

She had sometimes wondered why her mother had not maintained contact

with Trevennon over the years, but at the time it had never occurred to her to

ask. She had been too young to consider the complexities of the situation,

she thought, and after her mother's death, too much probing into the past had

never seemed quite appropriate. Besides, she had always had the feeling that

her father had not shared her mother's nostalgia for Cornwall. Nothing had

ever been said, but the impression had been a strong one. Perhaps it had been

nothing more than ordinary, and only too human jealousy of a time when she

had lived and been happy without him, Morwenna thought wryly. Sir

Robert's love for his wife had been all-encompassing. But somehow she had

felt the past was an area where she should not trespass with her questions,

and now they could never be answered—unless of course she went to

Trevennon herself.

She shook her head slowly, clenching her fingers together in her lap. She

must stop thinking along those lines. The fact of the matter was that she was

homeless, but that wasn't the disaster it seemed. Friends were always

flouncing away from the shelter of the parental roof after some devastating

row or other, and they managed to survive. There were a number of names in

her address book which she could call on in an emergency. People were

always swopping flats, or marrying and moving out. There would be

someone somewhere wanting another girl to make up the numbers. And

there were jobs too. Not the sort of creative work she had planned on. For

those she would need training—qualifications. But she would find

something to do which would pay her share of the rent and food bills, and

there were always evening classes she could go to.

She suppressed a grimace. It was a far cry from the spring in the South of

France that she had envisaged, but she had only herself to blame. She was

capable of far better work than that she had shown Lennox Christie. But she

had known the money was there to buy her a place in his class, and she had

simply not tried too hard. If she were trying now, it would be very different.

She took the crumpled letter out of her pocket and read it again slowly.

While it held out no definite hope, it did offer her a second chance. But she

would need to work very hard over the next few months to convince him that

she had sincerity and application as well as talent, and wasn't just another

wealthy playgirl looking for an undemanding few months in the sun.

She got up restlessly and walked over to the window, staring out at the

prospect of smooth lawns and leafless trees which unfolded itself before her.

What she needed was a few months' grace to do some serious painting, when

what confronted her was the urgent necessity for job and flat-hunting. She

tried to do some swift mental calculations, but the results were depressing.

The pitifully small amount of money she had in her bank account would not

be enough to feed and house her while she pursued this tenuous dream. It

was time she recognised her hopes of a career even on the fringes of the art

world as the fantasy they were, and got down to realities.

She sighed and cast a regretful look back over her shoulder at the group of

paintings on the wall. Their appeal had never seemed more potent. If she

took any of her mother's work away with her when she went, it would be

those and the self-portrait above the mantelpiece. But if she did take them,

heaven only knew what she would do with them. She could not imagine

them as a welcome addition to the decor in any of her friends' flats. She

supposed drearily they would have to be stored somewhere until she could

find a proper home for them. Whenever that might be.

She was halfway to the door when the thought came to her. She stopped

dead in her tracks and swung round again to survey the pictures. She might

not be able to claim a temporary home at Trevennon, but surely, for her

mother's sake, they might be willing to store the paintings for her. If she took

them down to Trevennon and explained the situation… As long as she made

it clear it was only a temporary measure. They would be far better there than

locked away in some warehouse. And it might give the Trevennon family

some pleasure too to know that Laura Kerslake had never forgotten--

There was some relief to be gained in knowing she had solved at least one of

her problems, minor though it was. It was doubtful whether she would find

such ready" solutions for those that remained, nevertheless as she went to

her room to begin to sort through her clothes and belongings, a tiny ray of

hope began to burn deep inside her.

The next few days were not comfortable ones. Morwenna was thankful that

she had announced that she was leaving in advance, otherwise she felt the

atmosphere in the house would have been well-nigh unendurable. As it was,

she could remind herself that the little barbs and snide remarks which came

her way were only for a little while longer.

She had been totally ruthless with her packing. Most of her extensive

wardrobe was now at the Vicarage awaiting the next jumble sale, and she

had retained only the most basic elements. But this did not grieve her as

much as parting with the childhood books and possessions that still occupied

her bedroom. She had thought sentimentally that one day all these things

could be passed on to her own children, but she knew she had to travel

lightly, and the cherished articles were disposed of to the charity shop in the

nearby town. She had soon reduced her possessions down to the contents of

one large suitcase, while her painting gear was consigned to the depths of an

old rucksack which she found in one of the attics. The Trevennon pictures

and her mother's self-portrait were carefully taken from their frames under

Lady Kerslake's eagle eye and made into a neat parcel.

Life did not become any easier with the arrival of Guy with his latest

girl-friend in tow. She had dark, elaborately frizzed hair and a giggle that

made Morwenna want to heave, but judging by Guy's air of smug

satisfaction, he saw nothing amiss.

Morwenna also had to cope with the added humiliation that Guy had

obviously told this Georgina all about her, possibly with embellishments,

and that Georgina's reaction to the situation was to treat her with a kind of

pitying contempt, mixed with triumph that Morwenna's loss had been her

gain.

Morwenna suffered this in a kind of teeth-grinding impotence, but she knew

there would be no point in trying to convince Georgina that her relationship

with Guy had been very much in the embryo stage, and that she was not

stoically trying to conceal an irrevocably broken heart. It would have given

her immense satisfaction to tell Georgina that she was welcome to Guy, and

that her only regret was that she had not had the wit to see the truth behind

his advances in the first place, but she knew that the other girl would not

believe her.

However, it was Vanessa's attitude that Morwenna found the most

surprising. As the time approached for her departure, her cousin became

almost cordial, even to the point of insisting on driving her up to London to

catch the Penzance train. Morwenna accepted the offer, but she did not

deceive herself that it was promoted by any new-found liking for herself.

She suspected that Vanessa was taking her to the train merely in order to

make sure that she was in fact going to Cornwall, and was seeking her

company during her remaining hours at the Priory simply to enable her to

avoid Georgina to whom she had taken an instant and embarrassingly open

dislike.

Life at the Priory, Morwenna decided on reflection, seemed likely to

become hell for man and beast quite shortly, especially if Guy decided to

marry Georgina and her father's money of which she spoke so often and with

such candour, and in a way this helped to alleviate the pain of parting from

her home. Nevertheless she cried herself to sleep each night, her tears

prompted not merely by grief for the losses she had suffered but fear as well.

It was all very well to tell herself robustly that no one need starve in these

days of the Welfare State, but there was no escaping the fact that she had led

a reasonably sheltered existence up to a few short weeks ago, and that what

faced her was likely to be both difficult and unpleasant. Nor was it any

consolation to remind herself of the thousands of girls of her age who were

far worse off than she was herself. She felt totally and bewilderingly alone.

From being the pivot on which the family's love turned, she was now an

outcast, and she felt all the acute vulnerability of her position.

But when the day of her departure actually arrived, she was relieved. She

said a stilted goodbye to Sir Geoffrey in the study which had once been her

father's and was acutely embarrassed when he handed her with a few

mumbled words a slip of paper which turned out to be a sizeable cheque.

Blushing furiously, she managed a word of thanks and as soon as she was

outside the door, she tore the cheque into tiny fragments and stuffed them

into a jardiniere, conveniently situated on its pedestal further along the

corridor.

Lady Kerslake returned to her former saccharine amiability, giving the

impression that it was only Morwenna's own intractability that was taking

her away from the Priory. Morwenna, putting her own cheek dutifully

against the scented one turned to her, wondered with a wry twist of her lips

what Cousin Patricia's reaction would be if she suddenly took her at her

word and announced that she was going to stay.

Vanessa was waiting in the hall tapping her foot impatiently. She made no

attempt to help Morwenna with her case or rucksack but walked briskly

ahead of her to the car and sat revving the engine while her cousin stowed

her luggage in the boot. Morwenna climbed into the passenger seat and

looked steadily ahead of her. There was no point in looking back. The Priory

was closed to her now and lingering backward glances as the car started

down the drive would only distress her.

Vanessa gave her a sideways glance as they waited to emerge from the drive