Portrait of a Girl Read Free Page A

a little strange. I didn’t much like the idea of being confined in a small cottage with a shaky old woman whose faculties were failing. Did it mean that I’d hardly ever see Rupert Verne? I had no right to, of course. I must remember that always. He was married. His interest in me was supposedly because of my voice only. So if I really co-operated with his plan I must severely control all emotional impulses. Only through my singing would my heart be free to express the hunger and joy of living.
    Therefore, I forced myself to appear more calm and dignified, and the result of that propitious interview was that the following week I set off with Mr Rupert Verne in his chaise for Kerrysmoor.
    We travelled cross-country over a high moorland route up and down brown hills, past grey farms and villages, and bleak hamlets of miners’ cottages huddled along the coast. The wild horizon of earth and sky was dotted intermittently by dolmens, standing stones, and the rhythmic movement of tin-mine pumping rods smokily dark in the yellowing autumn evening. Occasionally the winding road curved close to giant cliffs bordering the sea. Through the clip clop of horses’ hooves and rattle of wheels the thunderous pounding of waves could be heard menacingly crashing against jutting rocks hundreds of feet below.
    Mr Verne was silent for most of the way. The coldness of the landscape began to oppress me. For the last few miles we passed no living creature but a few cows and sheep huddled in stone-walled fields, and a pedlar’s cart pulled by a donkey driven by a hunched brown-skinned man. He wore a woollen cap with a feather in it, and touched it as the vehicle passed by. Rupert Verne gave a slight inclination of his head. I glanced at him enquiringly.
    ‘ Tammy Vicks the pedlar,’ Rupert said casually, adding with a hint of humour in his voice though no smile touched his lips. ‘A much respected man hereabouts — Tammy.’
    ‘ Oh.’
    ‘ Heard of pellars?’
    ‘ No,’ I replied. ‘Pedlars, yes. But pellar—’
    ‘ Almost the same thing. Both go about selling things. But a true pellar is also a conjurer said to possess magic powers and cures for healing.’
    I stared at him. ‘Do you believe that, sir?’
    ‘ What I believe is of no account,’ he answered shortly.
    ‘ I see.’
    I felt snubbed and must have shown it, for he continued after a short pause, ‘I accept what I know to be fact and take the rest with a pinch of salt. You’ll hear many strange stories round here — myths and legends grown from ancient times. Take them as such. Remember the reason you’ve come to Kerrysmoor. Your voice.’
    ‘ I hope you won’t be disappointed.’
    ‘ So do I, for your own sake.’
    His stiffwords sent a wave of resentment through me.
    ‘ I could always return to Falmouth. Mr Burns was satisfied. I brought him good custom,’ I said sharply.
    ‘ Did you indeed?’ Conscious that he had turned his head quickly to look at me, I kept my chin up, and eyes fixed straight ahead.
    ‘ Yes,’ I heard him continue, still in the same abrupt stilted tones, ‘I can well believe it. You have a piquant air.’
    That was not what I’d wished him to say. Not the type of compliment I’d expected when I recalled the intense interest of those strange amber eyes as they’d first rested on me in the taproom of the Golden Bird. Sudden chill filled me; not only because of my deflated mood, but because freshened with the fading of daylight, drifts of cool air penetrated the interior of the chaise in damp waves of rising mist.
    I pulled my cloak more tightly to my chin, and then, as the vehicle rounded a corner of the lane I saw the house hunched square and dark against the shape of a rising hill. Through the uncertain light no details of style or architecture were visible. To one side a copse of trees blew in a thin wind. The rest of the valley was in shadow, but the rim of moor above was starkly clear against the greenish glow of fading twilight,