A signpost loomed out of the mist and the word Mawvry could clearly be seen. He sighed with relief. He was here at last. Now all he had to do was find the house of Malcolm Trevellyan.
The village was small, and when he parked the car in the square and slid stiffly from behind the driving wheel, the tang of salt filled his nostrils. Obviously he must be very near the sea, but at the moment the mist shrouded everything but his immediate surroundings.
Across the square a swinging sign indicated a tavern which appeared to be doing good business judging from the noise from within, and deciding it would be simpler to enquire the whereabouts of Malcolm Trevellyan’s house rather than attempting to find it he pulled a fur-lined jacket from the back of his car. Sliding his arms into the sleeves, he crossed the square, his collar turned up against the weather. He shivered. Even in the coldest months Mendao was not like this, and he thought with longing of the baroque beauty of the quinta, the lush valley in which it was situated, and the vivid blueness of the ocean that lapped not too many miles away. It would have been so much easier, he thought, not to have come himself; to have sent Alonzo Diaz or Juan d’Almera. But his mother had been curiously determined that he should be the one, and he imagined she wanted Malcolm Trevellyan to know that her invitation was a personal one.
The noise in the thick, smoky atmosphere of the bar decreased almost immediately when he pushed open the door. He felt the wave of curiosity that swept over the room, a sense of almost alien hostility.
He made his way to the bar and stood there, tall and dark, taller and darker than most of these dark Cornishmen. Speaking in slightly accented English, he said: ‘Pardon me, but could you direct me to the house of a Senhor Malcolm Trevellyan?’
The bartender stopped polishing the glass in his hand and he could have sworn the hostility around him strengthened.
‘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