Devil's Mount Part 9

Not because William had been difficult On the contrary,he had been curiously subdued. But simply because she could not allow him to be the brunt of Dulcie's malice, as he surely would be if she did not appear. No doubt Dulcie had already told her mother what had happened, and while in one way it was possible that Nerys might despise Julie for giving in, it was much more likely if she did not join them, that Nerys would find some way to denigrate William in his father's eyes yet again.

So Julie had joined the family for dinner, and a very uncomfortable meal it was, too. Rhys was detached and unapproachable, William and Dulcie spent the whole meal making surrept.i.tious faces at each other across the width of the table when their parents were not looking, and Nerys was coldly aloof, in her clinging gown of champagne silk jersey. Julie, who had merely changed into a simple green woollen dress with a cuffed collar, felt distinctly out of place, particularly as Rhys' wine red velvet dinner jacket matched Nerys'

appearance for elegance.

When the meal was over, she escaped into the hall, and had reached the stairs when William's voice detained her. "Can I come to your room, Julie?"

He was not distressed now, not using his physical weaknesses to arouse her sympathies, yet heartrendingly appealing even so. She looked at him helplessly, aware of the responsibilities she was accepting by giving in to him, but unable to deny them.

"I-all right," she agreed, feeling a pang as the anxiety was lifted from his thin features, and he came on eagerly up the stairs behind her.

By the end of her first week at Devil's Mount, Julie felt as if she had always lived there. It was a strange thing, but her involvement with the members of this household had made her life in London a.s.sume a vagueness that usually only the pa.s.sage of much time could evoke. It was difficult indeed to believe that up until a few weeks ago she had never heard of Rhys Edwards and his son when now their influence coloured her life to the exclusion of all else.

And time did not drag on her hands as she had once wondered, during those periodic bouts of uncertainty she had experienced while she was still working in London. Every morning, except Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, she worked with Rhys for about four hours in the library.

Although his speed of dictation did not always flow as smoothly as it had done on that first morning when the gates of inspiration had burst open, his potential output was tremendous, and his grasp of vocabulary such that there were times when her pencil moved automatically, her brain fully occupied with absorbing the tale he was unfolding.

It was a raw and brutal picture he was painting, only fleetingly interspersed with moments of descriptive gentleness. It would not be a book for the squeamish, nor for anyone merely looking for an undemanding entertainment. It was full pf action and excitement, and yet the central character, Barnabas, exhibited a rare humanity, seldom found in such writing. Julie was never bored when he was dictating, always eager to know what was to happen next. And if occasionally she found her eyes dwelling rather too intently on the lean lines of his dark face, she told herself that her compulsion towards him was of a purely aesthetic nature. When they were working he was like a stranger to her, and often she wondered whether he was actually aware of her presence at all, except as a rather useful machine on which to expend his thoughts. But she was always aware of him, never more so than when whatever injury it was which had caused him to move so awkwardly at times caused a spasm of pain to cross his face, and he sought respite in the narcotic relief of a cigar. Not that she dared question his discomfort. A certain hardness around his eyes discouraged the sympathy which trembled on her tongue, and silenced the compa.s.sion inside her.

For the most part, her afternoons were taken up with transcribing her shorthand. But as soon as William had recovered sufficiently to go out again, they began taking walks in that twilight hour, before sharing tea round the living room fire, as they had done on that first afternoon. William had explained that Nerys had her own sitting room, and that until her, Julie's arrival, he had more often than not sat alone. She had not asked where his father spent his time, but she could guess.

Before coming to Devil's Mount, neither Julie nor William had spent much time in such uncultivated surroundings. They were both more used to the sights and sounds of the city than the mountainous countryside beyond the village, or the lonely, pine-clad slopes of the coastline. But their surroundings began to take a hold on them, and after becoming interested in the various types of sh.e.l.ls and rock formations to be found below the cliffs, they began invading the library in the evenings, searching through the heavy tomes there for articles on fossils. The dusty volumes they disturbed had not been opened for years. There was even an ancient edition of Britannica.

And as such information was only narrowly qualified over the years, they found enough information to make their quest interesting.

Dulcie was the one most put out by their investigations. Until now, William's world had been as limited as her own, and his unhappy a.s.sociations with school had given her a feeling of superiority over him. She was not attending school herself, bu William had confided to Julie that she had used to attend a small private school in London, until their move to Abernarth had curtailed all that. She could read, not well, but capably, and judging by the time she spent with her mother, could probably copy out letters reasonably well, too. Julie reasoned that she must do something. Nerys did not strike her as the kind of mother to spend too much time playing with her child.

But now, under Julie's guidance, William was entering a wider field of studies, and Julie herself was quite surprised at his apt.i.tude for learning. She had a.s.sumed that part of his problems at school stemmed from an inability to keep up with his fellow pupils, but she soon revised that opinion. And why not? she asked herself one evening, when William was expounding on a theory of time scales which left even Julie herself groping for knowledge. His father was a brilliant man, writing with equal skill about aerodynamics, or the economic necessities of developing African communities, his use of the language a privilege to perceive. Why shouldn't his son accomplish as much, if not more, given the same opportunities to succeed. Still, that was not her concern. It bordered on that forbidden topic-personal involvement, and her only purpose was to provide the boy with something to exercise his brain.

Nevertheless, there was still Dulcie to contend with, and her intrusions into the peace of the library after dinner, were becoming increasingly frequent and annoying.

Julie knew the child ought to be in bed, though she could hardly say so. She ought not to join the adults for dinner. She was only six, after all, and a high tea around five o'clock, followed by milk and biscuits at seven-thirty, would have been more in keeping with her age.

Instead of which, she ate dinner, which was seldom over much before eight-thirty, and was then allowed to play around until nine or nine-thirty, making a nuisance of herself whenever possible.

One evening, Julie and William had set out a collection of sh.e.l.ls they had made that afternoon on the desk in the library. The night before there had been quite a storm, and in consequence the sh.o.r.e had been littered with debris of all kinds. They had found a dead seagull which William had insisted on burying in the sand, and several coloured feathers, suitable for using as painting utensils, but it was the sh.e.l.ls which attracted Julie's attention. There were several rather unusual designs, which she guessed had probably been thrown up from deeper offsh.o.r.e waters, and William pounced on them excitedly. There were a number of whorls, one larger than the rest, pale pink, with a right-hand spiral; there was a paG.o.da-like object which Julie remembered reading was commonly found off the sh.o.r.es of j.a.pan, although this was probably nothing so exotic; and a frilled oyster sh.e.l.l, coloured almost purple. These were their prime specimens, but they had collected a number of commoner varieties, many of which were delicately coloured and would polish to a high gloss. They were in the process of identifying the different molluscs who had made their homes in the sh.e.l.ls when Dulcie burst into the room.

She never knocked, and this evening there was a high colour in her cheeks as though she had already received some form of reproof.

Julie speculated that perhaps she had interrupted Rhys, who she knew was reading the day's typescript in his study, a room which according to William was out of bounds to the other members of the household.

All Julie knew was that the room was at the back of the house, and from their walks on the cliffs she had occasionally seen someone standing at the narrow window, watching them. But to get close enough to the windows to see inside, one would have needed to hurdle thickly-thorned bramble bushes, which were no doubt grown there for the purpose.

Now, however, Dulcie surveyed their labours with a sullen air, pursing her lips and walking across to them, scuffing her toes against the worn carpet.

"What're you doing?" she asked petulantly, and Julie put a restraining hand on William's arm when he would have risen and ordered his cousin out of the room.

"We're identifying sh.e.l.ls," she explained pleasantly, indicating the small labels William was preparing to stick on the matchboxes he had collected from Haggar and Mrs. Evans to store his collection. "Do you want to watch us? They're quite pretty."

Dulcie sniffed. "You'll get into trouble putting those things on Uncle Rhys's desk," she said. "Salt stains, Mummy said so."

Julie hid her impatience. "They're not actually on the desk, Dulcie.

William's put tissue pads beneath them."

"Why don't you clear off?" demanded William, losing his temper, and causing Dulcie to make another of her faces at him.

"Now, stop that," reproved Julie, with a sigh. "This is one occasion when Dulcie could help us."

"How?"

William was suspicious and even Dulcie looked surprised.

"Well-" Julie chose her words carefully. "Dulcie could put the sh.e.l.ls into the boxes and stick on those labels you've been writing, William."

"She couldn't-"

"Why not?"

"She'd muddle them up."

"No, I wouldn't..."

"I don't see why she should," exclaimed Julie, trying to be fair. "It's not a difficult job."

William hunched his bony shoulders. "I don't want her helping us," he muttered, and Julie felt a sense of sympathy with him, even while she endeavoured to befriend Dulcie.'

"Look," she said, turning to the little girl and picking up a small cream-coloured specimen. "A tiny winkle-that's a small sh.e.l.lfish-used to live in here. Right down there inside. Isn't it pretty?"

She allowed Dulcie to hold the sh.e.l.l between her fingers, pointing out the striped effect that shades of a colour could create.

"Is the winkle still inside?" asked Dulcie doubtfully, keeping the sh.e.l.l at arm's length, and Julie smilingly shook her head.

"No. He's moved on to another home."

"Inside somebody's tummy," remarked William maliciously, and Dulcie thrust the sh.e.l.l away.

Julie sighed, casting an impatient look in William's direction.

"Sh.e.l.lfish are eaten, Dulcie, you know that. You eat crab -and lobster, don't you?"

"Are they sh.e.l.lfish, too?" Dulcie frowned. "Do they live in sh.e.l.ls like these?"

"Of course not, silly-"

Julie interrupted William's scathing denial, to pick up the paG.o.da sh.e.l.l, delicate in its subtle shades of blue and green. "Look at this one,' she said quickly, before an argument could develop. "This is much bigger than the other. Don't you think it looks rather splendid?"

Dulcie took the sh.e.l.l from Julie's hands, and although Julie could sense William's tension behind her, she felt confident that the child was growing interested.

"I've not seen one like this before," she said wonderingly, poking her small finger into the cavity. "Where did you get it?"

"We found it this afternoon," replied Julie, holding out her hand to take back the sh.e.l.l. "Down on the rocks. It's quite unusual to find something like that. It's very rare."

"Is it?" Dulcie frowned. Then she looked up. "So it's not yours, is it?"

"What do you mean?" Julie couldn't suppress the automatic retort.

"The cliffs and the beach are private-Mummy said so. I s'pose they belonged to Daddy once, but now they belong to Uncle Rhys."

"So what?" William was abrupt.

"So this sh.e.l.l really belongs to Uncle Rhys, doesn't it? It's as much mine as yours. I'm going to ask him if I can keep it"

"Like h.e.l.l you are!"

William was half out of his chair before Julie could stop him, s.n.a.t.c.hing the sh.e.l.l from Dulcie's hands and holding it triumphantly out of reach. With a little scream of anger, Dulcie stood there, clenching and unclenching her fists, stamping her foot in frustration.

Then, without warning, she threw out her arm and swept the collection of sh.e.l.ls clean off the desk on to the floor, destroying all the work William had put in categorizing them, and stamping on them with her small feet before dashing out of the room.

It was an act of such magnitude in William's eyes that he just sank down into his chair, clutching the paG.o.da sh.e.l.l convulsively to him, staring disbelievingly at the jumble of debris on the floor. Dulcie's light-weight had made little impression cm those sh.e.l.ls which had landed cleanly on the carpet, but where one or more sh.e.l.ls were crushed together, chipping and cracking had occurred. It had taken William over an hour to catalogue the few sh.e.l.ls he had identified, and now they were all mixed together again, his labels lying useless in the general confusion.

Julie got to her feet, unsure what to do first. Should she comfort William, who had paled considerably and whose breathing was shallow and hoa.r.s.e, or should she begin clearing up the mess to show him that little damage had been done? Then she saw tears rolling unheeded down the boy's cheeks, and with an exclamation she went to him, putting her arms around him, and he turned his face into her breast.

And that was how Rhys found them when he came to investigate the commotion, coming into the room with grim intent, narrowed eyes taking in the scene in one encompa.s.sing glare.

"Now what's happened?" he demanded harshly. "Is there no peace to be found in this house?"

"Perhaps you should ask somebody else that," retorted Julie, feeling William draw away from her to dry his eyes on the sleeve of his sweater.

Rhys surveyed the mess in the middle of the floor without expression, running one hand around the back of his neck, tugging at the hair which grew there and flexing his shoulder muscles tiredly. He had shed his jacket, and the fine silk of his shirt could not hide the darkness of the skin beneath. His actions parted the shirt at the neck and Julie's eyes were drawn to the chain of a medallion which was itself hidden, and the light covering of silver-bleached hair which cl.u.s.tered at the base of his throat. There was something vulnerable about him too, at that moment, and the desire to touch him, to rea.s.sure him as she had rea.s.sured William, caused a curious, but not unpleasant, pain in the pit of her stomach. Then he turned and looked at her, surprising that look in her eyes before she could hide it. His eyes were not black, as she had imagined, but slate grey, and for a second they moved with disturbing intentness to her mouth. It was a devastatingly weakening experience, almost as though he had been aware of her needs and satisfied them in the only way possible at that moment, although afterwards she blamed her overcharged emotions for imagining such a thing. Certainly, a second later he strode out of the room without a backward glance, while she was still bemused by that shattering encounter.

"Do-do you think-do you think he-he knows who did it?"

William's stammering anxiety brought her to her senses. "I don't see how he could avoid it," she answered shortly. Then: "Come'on, let's start clearing up. It's not the end of the world. We can soon put them all in order again."

"But some are ruined!" exclaimed William, getting down on to his hands and knees and gathering up the broken pieces of a scallop sh.e.l.l.

"Well, we can find some more," said Julie, with more confidence than she was feeling right at that moment. "At least the paG.o.da sh.e.l.l is safe, although I suppose it's arguable that if you'd let Dulcie have that, the rest would have been saved.'

William stared at her. "But I couldn't] Julie, it's mine. I found it. You don't really think I should have let her take it, do you?"

Julie wasn't quite sure what to think, but finally she shook her head.

"No, I suppose not. But don't put all the blame on Dulcie, William.

Children, generally speaking, reflect the att.i.tude of their parents."

"You mean-you think-"

"I don't know what I mean," said Julie quickly, joining him on the floor and beginning to collect the unbroken sh.e.l.ls. "Look-isn't this the one you called a leech, or something?"

William was diverted, and Julie tried to concentrate on the task in hand. But it was incredibly difficult when her thoughts kept turning to William's father. She despised herself for dwelling on that look which had pa.s.sed between them when he was so obviously no amateur when it came to seducing women. He already had one illegitimate child to his credit-or discredit, whichever way you looked at it-and his own sister-in-law was panting at his heels, if not already sharing his bed. It might well amuse him to bring every female within his...o...b..t to her knees, metaphorically speaking, especially when this particular female had allowed him to see such calflike devotion in her eyes. She felt furious with herself and furious with him, and was in no way appeased by Rhys's return with the culprit of the sh.e.l.l disaster.

He came into the room, holding Dulcie firmly by one small forearm, his fingers whitening the flesh laid bare by the cotton vest which together with matching pants was all she was wearing. She had obviously been hurriedly preparing for bed, perhaps to avoid any explanations to anyone, but judging by the tears streaming down her cheeks and the red marks still displayed on her bare legs, she had only succeeded in hardening her punishment. She hung her head and wouldn't look at either Julie or William, but Rhys was not about to be disobeyed.

"Well?" he said, giving her a little shake, and Dulcie lifted her face to reveal her quivering chin.

"I-I'm sorry," she choked, in an undertone, but that was not good enough.

"I want to hear what you're saying, Dulcie," Rhys told her quietly, and the deceptive gentleness of his tone was more frightening than hot anger would have been.

"I'm sorry," she said again, looking at William now, and watching her Julie could almost feel sorry for her. "I'm sorry, Willie."

William was obviously embarra.s.sed and discomfited. He got up off the floor and muttered something like: "It's all right," in a gruff voice, going scarlet when his father looked at him.

But then of course, Julie thought wryly, as Dulcie was beginning to dry her tears, Nerys had to appear. She was surprised Nerys hadn't come on the scene before this, but Nerys herself explained this in her first words.

"I was on the phone, Rhys, and then I heard Dulcie screaming." Her eyes went disbelievingly to her daughter. "Whatever is going on?

What's happened to her? And why is she only wearing her underclothes? Have you gone out of your head?"

She would have pulled Dulcie away from him, and true to type, Dulcie began to make the most of the situation. But Rhys held on to the little girl's arm, and he was perfectly calm when he spoke to her mother.

"Dulcie has just wrecked William's collection of sh.e.l.ls, Nerys," he told her, almost pleasantly, yet with an undertone of menace. "I have administered a mild punishment, and she has just apologised for her behaviour."

Nerys did not know what to say, that was obvious. But her eyes went straight to Julie, and she knew that this was yet another mark against her. Dulcie was crying piteously again now, begging her mother to take her away, and with an exclamation of disgust Rhys let her go.

Nerys gathered the child close, successfully undoing all the good that had been done, and then looked accusingly at her brother-in-law.

"How do you know Dulcie did this?" She indicated the mess that Julie had given up trying to salvage. "Did she say so?"

"She didn't need to." Rhys folded his arms. "Unless you're suggesting that William sabotaged his own collection."

Nerys pressed her lips together. "I wouldn't put it past him."

"I saw what happened." Julie had to intervene, for William's sake.

"Dulcie wanted one of William's sh.e.l.ls. She couldn't have it, so she lost her temper. She's been punished now. I see no reason why we shouldn't all forget it"

"Oh, do you?" Nerys was sarcastic. "That's rea.s.suring to know.

You're satisfied with the results, I take it?"

"Nerys!"

Rhys spoke warningly, but Julie was determined to have her say.

"She's apologised, Lady Llantreath. I don't think you're doing the child any good by dragging every ounce of drama out of the affair-"