Barbara Taylor Bradford – Emma’s Secret (страница 7)
Now, as then, Linnet wondered why. There appeared to be no valid reason for this curious combativeness, and she thought Tessa was being reckless in the way she constantly annoyed their mother.
Paula had not said anything to Linnet at Christmas, nor since then, regarding Tessa’s questionable behaviour. But understanding her mother the way she did, Linnet knew Paula had not missed a trick. She was merely biding her time. It was unlikely that Paula would put up with Tessa’s moods for very long. She was a practical woman with her feet firmly on the ground, and emotional outbursts for no apparent reason usually left her totally unmoved.
So be it, Linnet muttered to herself. What will be, will be. I’ll just have to tackle things as they come at me … if indeed they do. And in the meantime, I’m not going to worry.
But despite this promise to herself, Linnet
She hoped it wouldn’t come to that. But if it did she would have to defend herself. She had no other choice.
Linnet was glad to be off the moors for once, and she experienced a sense of relief as she crossed the long meadow behind Pennistone Royal. It was going to snow, and very soon; she knew from experience that the worst thing that could happen was to be caught on the moors in bad weather.
When she finally arrived at the old, wrought-iron gate that led into the estate she pushed it open, hurried past the vegetable gardens, and only slowed her pace when she came to the parterres cut into the back lawn.
She stood there for a second surveying the intricate designs, as always intrigued by their geometric precision. ‘Best seen from the air, them there parterres,’ Wiggs used to say to her when she was a little girl and he was a young gardener. ‘But I don’t have an aeroplane,’ she would protest, staring at him perplexed. ‘An upstairs window then?’ he would suggest with a big wink. And she would wink back, the way he had taught her, run into the house, up the stairs and into a back bedroom. From there she could see the parterres from high up, just as Wiggs had said. She had always had a soft spot for him; now he was head gardener at Pennistone Royal and in charge of the whole estate.
On this cold morning she thought the parterres looked a bit sad. But in the spring and summer the geometrical patterns would be bristling with tender young leaves and the small, flowering plants that brought vivid colour to the dark earth. And elsewhere on the estate the many fountains would be spraying water high into the bright sunlight, and the famous Rhododendron Walk, which her mother had created over thirty years ago, would be in full bloom. That was the time of year she loved the gardens best of all, when there was such renewal, and everything was bursting with life and the air was fragrant with mingled scents.
Linnet shivered under the sharp wind and hurried on, huddling down into her coat, wanting to get home to stand in front of one of the roaring fires, to warm herself until she was thawed out.
Within a few minutes the front façade of the house loomed up in front of her, and she came to a stop, gazing up at it with admiration. There was a timelessness about it that never failed to move her … how much this house must have seen over the hundreds and hundreds of years it had been standing. The dramas of families and so many lives. Happiness and joy, pain and suffering, death and loss, love and marriage and the bearing of children. An endless, enduring cycle, her grandfather was prone to saying, always adding, ‘If only these venerable old stones could talk, what stories they could tell.’
Rooted in the seventeenth century, Pennistone Royal had a majestic dignity with its mingling of Renaissance and Jacobean architecture. The grey stone walls were intersected with many mullioned windows and topped with crenellated towers, whilst tall chimneys punctuated the roof. When she had been a very little girl she had thought of those chimneys as sentinels standing guard over the house and everyone in it – especially her family.
She smiled at the remembrance; she had been such an imaginative, fanciful child.
As her eyes roamed over it she realized just how much she loved this ancient house. It was her safe haven, her home, just as it had been Emma’s home for so many years of her long life. Linnet felt her great-grandmother’s presence in every corner of it, and this was another reason she cared about it so much. Grandy Emma would want me to have it, when my time comes, Linnet mused, but I hope that’s not for years and years …
She lifted her eyes and glanced up at the sky as she began to walk on at a brisk pace. As usual it had changed yet again: bloated, heavy with cloud, it looked curiously luminous, streaked with pale, silvery light. Suddenly her face was thoroughly wet … it had started to snow and the flakes were whirling around her in great flurries, settling on her scarf and her coat.
Not wasting another moment, Linnet began to run, her loden coat flying out behind her.
Bryan O’Neill had arrived at Pennistone Royal over an hour ago, and once he had looked in on his grandson, Desmond, who was recovering from the flu, he had made his way to the upstairs parlour.
Positioning himself at a window, he had stood there ever since, looking out at the moors, anxiously waiting for Linnet to return, worried about her.
Now, as he saw her sprinting along the path, he relaxed for the first time since entering the house. Convinced that she was going to get lost in a blizzard, as she had once before, he had been on tenterhooks.
With her suddenly in his direct line of vision, his spirits lifted considerably, and he felt his taut shoulders relaxing. A small sigh escaped. He tried so hard not to have favourites amongst his grandchildren – he loved them all – but there was no denying he loved this one the best, even though Desmond happened to be the apple of his eye, the long-awaited male heir-apparent.
Linnet was a wonderful young woman in so many different ways, but then so were his other granddaughters. However, there was a special reason why she was close to his heart and precious to him, and it was bound up with so many of his memories and his childhood.
Bryan strode across the room and went out into the corridor, making for the central landing. In December he had celebrated his eighty-fourth birthday, but he looked nowhere near that old. Vigorous and strong, and in robust health, he was a fine figure of a man, tall and broad-shouldered, with a shock of silver hair and the same merry black eyes his father Blackie had had, and which his son Shane had inherited from them both.
As he headed towards the grand staircase, Bryan heard the front door slam, and by the time he reached the top of the stairs Linnet was standing in the Stone Hall, struggling out of her coat and scarf.
Unobserved, he watched her as she put them away in an antique armoire near the front door.
It was her colouring, of course, that so captivated, so drew the eye to her: the glorious red hair shot through with golden lights, the translucent skin, the oval-shaped face with its fine, chiselled features, the wide-set eyes of a green so deep their colour appeared almost unnatural. She had been endowed with the famous Harte colouring, the famous Harte looks, and he thought she was the embodiment of true beauty.
Unexpectedly, in the inner recesses of his mind, he heard Edwina’s voice reverberating, and he instantly fell down into the past as he recalled her comments uttered thirty years ago or more. ‘All the Hartes have is pots and pots of money. Oh, and their looks, of course. There’s no denying they are a good-looking family. Each and every one of them.’
Bryan had never forgotten what she had said that day, and with such awful disdain it was chilling to the bone. It had been at the party after the christening of Lorne and Tessa at Fairley Church, in the little village at the foot of the moors. He had been shocked by her tone, and truly angered by her attitude.
Edwina was a Harte herself, Emma’s first-born child, and yet all she had ever wanted was to be a Fairley. Blackie had frequently said that her attitude was an insult to Emma, and Bryan had fully agreed with his father.
Yet what Edwina had said all those years ago did have a certain ring of truth to it, inasmuch as their looks were concerned. The Hartes
‘Grandpops! What are you doing here so early? You weren’t expected until tea time!’ Linnet cried, having suddenly spotted Bryan on the landing. As she spoke she ran to the bottom of the staircase, stood looking up at him, her face ringed in smiles. These two had been confidants since her childhood, and they were still close.