Witching Hour (15 page)

have been over a woman, do you think?'

'A woman?' Mrs Pentreath looked astounded. 'I never heard such a

thing suggested. Whatever gave you the idea?'

'Lyall did.' Morgana hesitated. 'It would explain why no one

wanted to talk about it, I suppose. After all, Grandfather and

Grandmother were married at the time, weren't they? If it had been

that sort of thing, that would have been a good reason to hush it all

up.'

'Yes.' Mrs Pentreath laid down her tapestry with a slight frown.

'But I can't really believe it, all the same. Your grandfather was a

most devoted husband. I've always understood from everyone who

knew him that he never looked at another woman after he met your

grandmother. And he's the last person one can imagine caught up

in some sordid triangle.'

'Yes.' Morgana thought of the fierce old man with the piercing blue

eyes whom she had feared more than loved when she was small. It

was difficult to imagine even his love for her grandmother having

been in any way a softening influence in his life. He had always

had his own brand of arrogance, and a certain amount of moral

rectitude that commanded respect, if it could not instil affection.

She asked rather abruptly, 'Did Lyall tell you what he plans for the

attics?'

'Yes, he did. It all sounds most exciting, and all that space is just

going to waste at the moment.'

'Did you know that all Grandmother's things were still up there?'

'I suppose they must be.' Mrs Pentreath digested that for a moment

or two. 'Of course your grandfather would never allow them to be

touched in any way.'

'As I found out to my cost,' Morgana said rather drily.

'Oh dear,. I'd almost forgotten that awful day.'. Mrs Pentreath gave

a little sigh. 'I couldn't say so at the time, naturally, but I thought it

was a great deaf of fuss. Children all love dressing up, and a

trunkful of old clothes is a natural magnet. And it wasn't as if you'd

torn or damaged anything.'

'I thought you were on his side.'

'Let's say I could understand why he reacted as he did, although I

couldn't condone it.' Mrs Pentreath threaded her needle with some

care. 'He was the master of the house still, and his word was law

and always had been. My—position wasn't always as easy as it

could have been.'

No, Morgana thought, giving her mother a sympathetic glance.

Elizabeth Pentreath's early years in this house must have been

fraught with difficulties. Perhaps her husband's subsequent

spoiling had been an attempt to make up for this, and for the

unexpected career of hotelier's wife which had been thrust upon

her, and for which she must have been totally unprepared. Yet, in

her gentle, rather harum-scarum way, she had made a success of

things as far as she was able. If the business side of it had always

been a struggle, she had an innate ability to make people

comfortable, and soothe them out of ill-humour into a more

mellow attitude to life. It was a gift, and as such it had been

recognised by Lyall.

She began to consider for the first time that with a regular salary,

and her most pressing financial problems safely shifted to someone

else's shoulders, her mother might be able to achieve a degree of

happiness and independence which had never been available to her

before. No longer shadowed by her husband's extrovert

personality, she would be able to develop her own quiet strengths.

Well, Morgana thought grimly, it's an ill wind that blows no good

to anyone, and I have to be happy for her.

But in her own life, the wind of change had risen to gale force, and

she felt as helpless and vulnerable as one of the drifting leaves in

the garden. Suddenly, almost in the passing of a day, self-doubt

had become her only certainty, and she was terrified by the

violence of emotions whose existence she had never even

suspected before.

She looked round at the familiar shabbiness of the room, seeking a

reassurance which was denied her. Soon that too would change.

She thought in swift panic, 'Nothing will ever be the same again.'

And on the heels of that realisation came another, even more

traumatic. 'I shall never be the same again.'

Huddled in her chair, watching the flames licking round the logs

on the fire, she tried to rekindle her hate for the man who had

turned her world upside down. Tried, and with a kind of despair,

failed.

LYALL did not return that afternoon, and later there came a

telephone call to say he would not be back for dinner either. He

did not venture any explanation, and Morgana, who took the

message, returned the receiver to the rest with a slight thump.

'Treating the place like a hotel!' she muttered crossly, as she went

back to her self-imposed task of laying the dinner table, and was

forced to smile ruefully as the idiocy of her own remark came

home to her.

As the evening wore on, she found she was increasingly on edge,

waiting for the sound of his car returning. Ostensibly she was re-

reading
David Copperfield,
but for once, young David's trials and

tribulations with his stepfather Mr Murdstone had no power to

hold her attention.

And when the door did open to admit a masculine figure, it was

Major Lawson who had been up to London for the day. Morgana

found she was looking at his tall, unthreatening figure with real

pleasure and relief.

'It's a cold evening,' he said, as he came forward to the fire. 'I

wouldn't be surprised if we were to have a frost.'

'Oh dear!' Elizabeth rose from her chair and began to make up the

fire. 'Perhaps Elsa is right. She's been saying for weeks that we

were going to have a hard winter.'

Major Lawson laughed, the quiet, cool lines of his face dissolving

into humour. 'Elsa's prophecies are a joy and a delight, although I

must admit I didn't have a great deal of faith in them before today.

But when I came here she told me I had a lucky face, and the news

I was given today seems to confirm that.'

Elizabeth asked in her gentle voice, 'Has something happened?'

'Something rather startling. I hope it will turn out to be pleasant.'

He paused, then said, 'My appointment today was with my agent.

Apparently a publisher's bought my novel.'

Morgana gasped, and Mrs Pentreath, said 'Good heavens,' rather

helplessly.

'That was rather my own reaction,' he admitted, sitting down on

the sofa.

'What kind of a novel is it?' Morgana asked. 'Have you written a

great many? I mean -' she hesitated '—should we have heard of

you?'

'I wouldn't think so.' He sounded amused. 'It's my first book,

actually, and it's a thriller. I'm engaged with the second one at the

moment. That's what all the typing is about.'

'Well, we did wonder,' said Morgana, returning his smile. 'It's

wonderful news for you.'

'I suppose it is. My feelings are rather mixed at the moment. I can

see certain unavoidable changes in my peaceful existence.'

'Oh.' Elizabeth looked at him quickly. 'Does it mean you'll be

leaving us?'

'No, certainly not,' he said very positively. 'But my agent warned

me that there might be a certain amount of attendant publicity

which could be rather trying.'

'I think publicity is something we're all going to have to get used

to.' Morgana said resignedly. At his interrogative glance, she went

on, 'We discovered today that the new owner of this house is the

head of some enormous corporation called van Guisen-Lyall.'

'Good God!' Major Lawson leaned forward. 'They really are giants.

Had you no idea?'

'None at all,' said Elizabeth. 'I don't really understand the

connection fully, although Lyall did try to explain it to me. It

seems his mother was a Lyall, and after poor Giles' death—I

gather the marriage wasn't a great success—she married one of the

van Guisens—the man she'd been intended to marry all along.

Lyall and his stepsister inherited everything.'

Morgana wondered when her mother had acquired all this

information. She obviously thought from the sympathetic way in

which she spoke that she was in Lyall's confidence.

But that, Morgana thought with irony, is a confidence trick. Oh,

Mother, if you only knew! She sat in her chair, staring at the book

on her lap, trying to make sense of the meaningless printed

symbols on the page, while her mother talked of Lyall and his

plans for Polzion, and Major Lawson responded with more

information about van Guisen-Lyall. It seemed he had shares in

one of their companies, and Morgana found she was listening to

what he had to say with increasing alarm. The corporation was

infinitely more powerful and complex than she had ever suspected,

with ramifications in all sorts of areas—property, engineering, and

oil. She realised that one of the things which attracted her to Lyall

as well as frightened her was the sense of power which emanated

from him— not merely sexual power, but something more

dangerous and material. She supposed he was what people called 'a

tycoon'. It was a word she had never liked, or understood, and she

saw no great reason to change her opinion.

Everything that Major Lawson was saying simply helped to

emphasise the unbridgeable gulf that yawned between herself and

Lyall. Not that he had any intention of attempting to build a

permanent bridge. She had no delusions about that. She would be

an interlude, a diversion while he was in Cornwall, far from the

hub of everything which made up his world. But when the

conversion of Polzion was complete, he would go back to that

world— to the boardrooms, and the penthouses, and the VIP

lounges at airports. There was no place for her there. On the other

hand, to give Lyall credit, he had not indicated that there would be.

She was glad when the conversation switched back to Major

Lawson's novel. It was pleasant to sit and watch her mother, her

face alight with interest and enthusiasm, and it occurred to her

almost idly that Major Lawson must think so too. He included

Morgana in his remarks, but only she was sure, out of courtesy. It

seemed right that he should be confiding in Elizabeth. People did,

and always had, and he was alone. A long time ago, she

remembered, he had told her mother he was a widower. Probably

they were the nearest thing to a family that he had now. Certainly

he preferred to spend his evenings in here, reading or doing a

crossword puzzle, rather than go along to the smaller room just off

the dining room where the television was, and where Miss

Meakins usually spent most of her time.

Eventually Morgana gave up all pretence of reading or listening,

and excused herself, bending to kiss her mother goodnight. It was

late, and she felt physically and emotionally battered by the events

of the past twenty-four hours. But when she got into bed, sleep

was elusive, and she lay there staring into the darkness, listening as

the grandfather clock in the hall below chimed the quarters and

finally the hour of midnight, wondering where Lyall was, and

despising herself for wondering.

She finally drifted off to sleep, still listening in vain for the sound

of the car, and dreamed she still searched for him through endless

rooms where a party was going on, and every other guest was a

stranger to her, except one— Elaine Donleven, smiling

triumphantly and dressed as the Queen of Hearts.

She felt unrested and at odds with herself when she awoke the

following morning, and not even the sight of the garden, sparkling

under the cloak of the promised frost, had the power to lift her

spirits. The fact that she had overslept didn't help either, and she

had to wash quickly, fling on jeans and a sweater and drag a comb

through her thick cloud of hair.

Her mother and Elsa were already busy serving the guests'

breakfast when she entered the kitchen with a muttered apology,

and Morgana lifted the rack of fresh toast and the coffee pot and

took it through to the dining room. It was almost a shock to see

Lyall there, sitting alone at a small table by the window. A glance

at the long dining table where the others sat showed that the toast