Wild Sonata Read online

  WILD SONATA

  Susan Barrie

  Melanie had considered Wroxford Priory her home-until the arrival of the new heir. It soon became obvious that Sir Luke knew nothing about her being the ward of his late uncle, and it wasn’t long before Melanie moved out in a huff.

  But she was soon to return, and this time on a much more satisfactory basis!

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was a very peaceful scene, and a very rural one ... two riders parting company at a magnificent iron entrance gate that was supported by handsome stone piers and overhung by feathery tassels of lime. The lime avenue went on inside the gates and was probably one of the finest in the country, and where the trees appeared to grow closer together there was little or no light beneath them.

  The girl glanced up at the sky, and saw that the light was receding from it with a rush. In less than an hour it would be quite dark, and she had a lot of packing to do that night. In fact, she had a great many things to do, and very little time — or so she understood — in which to do them.

  ‘I must go,’ she said, a sigh in the words. ‘I’ve masses of sorting out to do, and I simply don’t know where to begin. It’s unbelievable the amount of stuff I’ve accumulated in the two years I’ve been living here.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do to help you when you move to the cottage you must let me know.’ The man had dismounted to open the gate for her, and he stood fondling the nose of her horse, stroking the velvety muzzle with long, experienced fingers, and plainly delaying the moment when he would have to let its rider go. ‘I’m going to be pretty busy towards the end of the week, but I can spare all day tomorrow if you’d like to begin your removal job then. After all, you’ll need a stout shoulder to transport the various tea chests, and there’s no one like me for shoving the odd piano around. And I take it you won’t be leaving your piano behind? ... The one Sir James gave you.’

  ‘No, of course I won’t. But Dickson is going to do all that for me, and if he needs any help he’ll borrow one of the gardeners. Sir Luke isn’t expected until the end of the week, so he won’t know anything about it, and if he did I don’t expect he’d object.’ ‘No, perhaps not.’ But there was a faintly dubious note in his voice as he gazed up at her. ‘However, I wish you’d make use of me!’

  ‘I will ... when I’ve moved in. I’ll get you to hang pictures and things, and it’ll be fun. I’m sure you’ve got a wonderfully straight eye for hanging pictures, Martin,’ and she touched him gently on the cheek with the end of her hunting-crop.

  He caught at the crop and hung on to it ‘Why don’t we have dinner tonight?’ he pleaded. ‘I could dash home and change, and then pick you up—’

  ‘No, Martin.’ Her voice was very soft and sweet, but it had a coolness that was like the faint breath of coolness wafted to them from the lake, that was hidden from their sight by the avenue of trees. Her eyes, too, had a deliberately withdrawn look ... a cautious look, and they were quite the most fascinating pair of bright feminine eyes he had seen in his life. The light was changing so rapidly that their colour was altering, but he knew that in daylight they were a wonderfully deep blue ... and in the gathering dusk they were like dark blue stars, smiling and friendly and serene. He would have felt a little happier if they had not been quite so serene.

  He could sense, too, that she was anxious for him to release her horse’s head ... unflatteringly anxious. ‘Tomorrow night, then?’

  ‘I’ve told you I won’t have a moment to spare until I’m installed in the cottage.’

  ‘But if it’s just a question of packing, I could come back here and help you. . .

  She shook her head very firmly. There was a lovely colour in her face after their wild ride across country.

  ‘No, Martin, it’s awfully kind of you, but I’ve promised Mrs. Edgerley that I’ll help her and the girls get the rooms ready for Sir Luke and his party. We don’t know how many he’s bringing with him, but he’s almost certain to bring his mother, and there may be others—’

  ‘Hasn’t he had the decency to let you know?’

  She shook her head again.

  ‘No. But I suppose he thinks there’s no real reason why he should.’

  ‘I’m sure Mrs. Edgerley doesn’t agree with him. Is she getting very worked up?’

  ‘She is a bit anxious, yes. But that’s because she hasn’t met him yet. Or not since he was a child, anyway.’

  ‘Nobody seems to have met him.’ Martin frowned. ‘But one or two people I know have heard of him. That’s to say, they’ve heard quite a lot about him.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  There was sudden, noticeable inquiry in her voice, and he smiled. His eyes gazed up at her curiously. She was a trim figure on a horse, and he could have gazed at her contentedly for hours, but he wasn’t admiring her at that particular moment.

  ‘Are you wondering what sort of a man he’ll turn out to be, Melanie?’ he asked. ‘I mean, have you devoted a lot of your spare time to wondering about him in the past few weeks, since we knew he was going to take over here?’

  She looked down at him a trifle blankly.

  ‘No. Why should I?’ she demanded.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘A bachelor, an exceptionally wealthy man ... a baronet! It has struck me that you might be a little curious.’

  ‘Certainly no more curious than are Mrs. Edgerley and the maids at the house,’ she answered with an air of being slightly annoyed. ‘You know very well that I was very fond of Sir James, and I simply hate the thought of someone else coming here to

  — well, to take over in his place,’ she admitted unhappily. ‘It doesn’t seem right, somehow ... in fact, it seems very far from right!’

  ‘But he is the legitimate heir. I mean, he has a right here.’

  ‘Yes, but only because he’s Sir James’s nephew. Poor dear old Sir James never had any family, and I know it often worried him that he had no son to inherit. Luke was as much a stranger to him as he’s going to be to everyone when he arrives. That’s why everyone’s so horribly on edge!’

  ‘Including you?’

  ‘Not me. I shall be out of his way when he arrives, safely setting up housekeeping on my own in my own cottage!’

  ‘You hope!’

  But his smile grew warmer as he released her mount

  ‘Don’t work too hard, beautiful, and if you do need me ... well, all you’ve got to do is to get on the telephone and I’ll come!’

  ‘Thanks, Martin,’ she returned, with gentle gratitude ... very real gratitude, because she knew he meant what he said, and she was very fond of him.

  He watched her disappearing under the canopy of limes, but she didn’t once glance back, or wave to him, and he remounted his own horse a little sombrely. He turned the animal’s head in the direction of the village, and clip-clopped softly homewards through the gauzy quality of the dusk, and the last of the lemon light that was left by the sunset, a shapely, attractive, very brown young man, who wished he had greater powers of persuasiveness when it came to handling young women whose minds were, apparently, made up.

  Melanie cantered smartly up the drive and turned off it before she came in sight of the house. The fork led her round to the stables, where at this hour of the day there was normally little or no activity. Her surprise, therefore, when she found the stable yard full of cars was so great that she pulled up sharply and very nearly unseated herself.

  The stable yard covered quite a large area and was intended for exercising the horses, and apart from the great coach-house which dominated it the other buildings that lined it were all loose-boxes and harness rooms, with quarters over them for stable staff. The coach-house was used for garaging cars, and recently two other garages had been added to provide ample accom
modation for visitors’ means of transport. The fact that all these garage doors were closed caused Melanie to surmise with relief that this was some deputation that had arrived at the house ... or possibly a party of sightseers who had been granted admission to the historic pile that was known as Wroxford Priory.

  She dismounted quickly and led the horse amongst the somewhat untidy litter of cars - one or two of which were quite impressive - until she reached her animal’s loose- box; and after watering it and bedding it down for the night she gave it a final pat and turned and secured the half door.

  As she threaded her way once more amongst the cars the thought crossed her mind that it was a little late for strangers to be being conducted over the house. Horton, the butler, who liked to spend a quiet hour in his pantry before dinner, would be far from pleased.

  She glanced up at the weathered walls of the house, and it struck her that there were a great many lights shining out from the various windows. If she had known that the house was occupied she would not have been surprised to see bedroom windows glowing with light, in addition to the windows of the drawing-room and the library on the ground floor. But apart from herself and the staff there was no one living in the house at the moment. They were all awaiting the arrival of the new owner.

  An uneasy thought mixed itself up with the other thoughts that were surging busily through her brain as she let herself in by a side door, and she was not really in the least surprised to find herself caught up in chaos the moment she entered.

  Mrs. Edgerley was addressing one of the maids in a slightly hysterical tone, and the cook was calling frantically from the open door of the kitchen. She wanted to know whether anyone had been sent to the village for the extra help she needed. She was saying quite a lot about being the possessor of one pair of hands only, and if she was to serve dinner on time and there were to be no complaints about its quality then she must have someone to help her with the vegetables. The two housemaids and the kitchen maid had all been roped in to help make up beds, and it simply wasn’t fair to leave her stranded in the kitchen.

  ‘Where’s Horton?’ she shrilled. ‘Why doesn’t he telephone the Bell Inn for Betty Clark’s mother? She’d come, I know.’

  ‘Horton is busy decanting the wine,’ Mrs. Edgerley replied, sounding as if one more demand on her patience would cause it to give way altogether.

  Melanie moved forward into the circle of light. Mrs. Edgerley’s eyes swung round to her, and Melanie had no need to ask what had happened.

  ‘He’s here, Miss Melanie,’ the housekeeper informed her in a kind of agony. ‘Sir Luke is here, with a large party of people, and the drawing-room curtains are still waiting to be hung! They were only returned from the cleaner’s this morning, and I was planning to put them up tomorrow ... but now they’ll simply have to go up tonight.’ She quite literally wrung her hands. ‘And there’s no one to give me a hand!’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs. Edgerley,’ Melanie returned soothingly. ‘I’ll

  help you!’

  Fortunately Sir Luke had taken over the library, and most of his friends had dispersed to their bedrooms, or were filling every bathroom in the house with the roar of running water. The drawing-room - quite the loveliest room Melanie had ever seen in her life - was an oasis of tranquillity by contrast and an island of delicate brocades and tapestries that enhanced the beauty of the polished woods and inlays, despite the fact that the great windows were still denuded of their soft furnishings, and as a result there seemed to be an enormous expanse of exposed plate glass.

  The gardener’s boy dragged in a pair of steps for them, and Melanie stood on the top and still found that she lacked the right height to tastefully arrange the swishing silken draperies. Another pair of steps was found, and she felt as if her head was lost amongst the gilding of the cornices and the heavy velvet pelmets. Mrs. Edgerley was so much on edge that she was not much help or assistance, and in the end Horton had to be summoned to give his advice.

  The curtains were finally hung, and Mrs. Edgerley flew off to supervise her bevy of upstairs helpers. Melanie went round with a duster giving a final polish to occasional tables and other polished surfaces, and after that she shook up cushions and made up the fire. It was a late spring evening, but almost certainly the ladies would require a good fire in that vast room after dinner.

  She was kneeling on the rug before the huge marble fireplace with an apron tied round her and a pair of fire-tongs in her hand when the door to the hall burst open and a man entered and addressed her without ceremony.

  ‘So there is someone in this house who is capable of answering bells?’ he demanded shortly. ‘I’ve been ringing and ringing the bell in the library and so far no one has considered it his or her duty to find out what it is that I require. Is there anything wrong with the system of bells here at the Priory?’

  ‘N — no.’ Melanie half rose from the thick skin rug in front of the fireplace, and she pushed back a strand of hair from her forehead with a hand that had a slight residue of coal dust adhering to it and left a slight smear on her cheek. ‘No — no,’ she repeated.

  He frowned at her. He was a fairly tall man of slender build with a dark skin and very dark hair and eyes who reminded her so much of the late Sir James Charnock that she did not need him to make it clear to her that he was the new baronet. But the fact that he resembled Sir James so closely deprived her temporarily of the power of ready speech.

  ‘Then why are they never answered? Why do I have to go looking for someone when all I require is a few words with the butler? Where is that fellow Horton, by the way?’

  ‘I expect he’s busy, like everyone else.’ She brought the words out with a little rush, certainly not meaning to sound rude, but realizing that that was exactly what she did sound as she saw the slight frown that was knitting his shapely black brows together invade the night-darkness of his eyes and begin to brood there as if he was perfectly capable of dealing with people like herself if they tried him too far. ‘The house is in an uproar,’ she explained, even more hastily. ‘Everyone is rushing round in circles trying to get things done, and as a result some things are being left undone, I’m afraid—’

  ‘You’re afraid?’ There was a faint glimmering of humour in his eyes as they surveyed the smut on her cheek. ‘But isn’t it a part of your duties to ensure that a house like this is maintained in a condition fit to receive the master of the place when he turns up unexpectedly with a few of his friends? After all, there are enough of you. In addition to Horton, who was always a wily customer and has no doubt been feathering his nest very comfortably all these years that my uncle lived here in a kind of splendid isolation with no entertaining or anything of that sort, there is the housekeeper and the cook and I don’t know how many other women in the kitchen. They were chattering like magpies when I ventured within a few feet of the door. And now I find you here, making a poor attempt at getting that fire to Hgfa—’

  ‘It will burn,’ Melanie assured him, as he stepped forward and threatened her careful structure of sticks and coal with the toe of a beautifully turned hand-made shoe. ‘Please, Sir Luke!’ she begged, only just preventing herself from clutching at his sleeve with a grubby hand. ‘Leave it alone and it will burn!’

  ‘Well, you may be right,’ he agreed, his brows wrinkling afresh and his tone distinctly doubtful. ‘But personally I think you’d better turn on all the electric heat we’ve got and ensure that this place is warm. The two ladies I’ve brought with me have been on a visit to South Africa recently, and they feel the cold.’

  ‘Very well, Sir Luke.’ And she went round meekly switching on electric radiators and a powerful electric fire although, behind them, a bright blaze was leaping up in the fire basket, and by the time dinner was over the fire would be roaring up the chimney ... or could be with the help of the enormous basket of logs the gardener’s boy had brought in.

  Sir Luke wandered away from her and started admiring the room.

  ‘I remember this drawi
ng-room very well,’ he said, his sleek dark head cocked appreciatively and his eyes bright. ‘I used to come and stay here when I was a boy, during my holidays from Eton, and my aunt was alive then, and the house was not at all dead - in fact, it was very lively, because she entertained a good deal and was a very lively person herself. It was after her death that my uncle became a recluse.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Melanie murmured politely, and watched him picking up ornaments and discarding them.

  ‘Wroxford Priory appealed to me then as an ideal country house. It’s not too large and it’s in the centre of good hunting country. It’s also within a reasonable distance of London.’

  He appeared to be thinking aloud, and this time Melanie said nothing.

  ‘Of course, it can do with some improvements. The bathrooms are archaic and the hot-water system defective. The bedrooms require refurnishing and redecorating, and the condition of decoration throughout the house is not very good. I don’t imagine there have been any workmen in this place for years - a quarter of a century, perhaps.’

  He had walked up to a section of the graceful white panelling that Melanie considered was one of the main charms of the drawing-room and laid his hand on it, and she heard herself say a little stiffly:

  ‘Sir James had this room redecorated only a few years ago, and he did have one or two of the bathrooms modernized. His own bathroom - that is probably yours now, Sir Luke,’ feeling sure he had taken over the principal suite - ‘was modernized only last year.’

  ‘Oh, indeed?’ He turned and confronted her, and one of his eyebrows upraised itself slightly above its fellow. She had surreptitiously removed her apron, and was holding it behind her, and it quite obviously struck him as strange that she was wearing jodhpurs and a polo necked sweater in a delicate canary colour. ‘And how long have you been here, young woman?’

  ‘Oh, I - I’ve been here for years.’

  ‘Years?’

  ‘I mean, I - I’ve been away, of course—’

  ‘And the charm of the place has drawn you back?’

  ‘You - you could put it like that, I suppose.’