Witching Hour

Witching Hour

Sara Craven

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ENDPAGE

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

THE October afternoon was fading fast, and the drawing room at Polzion House was filled with shadows, but in spite of the encroaching dimness, none of the lamps had been lit, and the log fire on the wide hearth had been allowed to burn away almost to ash.

In her grey dress with its long sleeves and high collar, Morgana seemed part of the shadows as she stood at the window, staring out at the wind-tossed garden. She was motionless, only her hands balled into fists at her sides giving any indication of the inner tension which threatened to consume her.

Outside the wind was rising. She could hear it wailing among the tall chimneys and along the eaves. Living on an exposed stretch of Cornish coastline, she had always taken autumn gales for granted, but today—the desolate sound of it made her shiver. On other, happier October afternoons, she would have drawn the curtains and turned to make up the fire, dismissing with a shrug whatever dark angel stood at her shoulder, but not now—perhaps not ever again. Not in this room—this house.

Something inside her cringed away from the thought, but it had to be faced. Her life at Polzion House, the only life she had ever known, would soon be at an end, and she had no idea, not even the slightest, what she could put in its place. It wasn’t as if she was really trained for anything. Since leaving school with perfectly respectable examination results, she’d been here, helping her father and mother run the hotel. Family help had always been essential, as she’d always known, because Polzion House had never been successful or profitable enough to justify employing outside staff, with the exception of Elsa, who cooked like an angel when the fates decreed, and had been part of their lives for so long that she seemed like one of the family.

It had always been a struggle, but Morgana was young and strong, and she had always been optimistic about the future, until now. Or until the day nearly a month ago when her whole world had fallen apart.

She swallowed with the pain of remembering thick in her throat. Her father hadn’t been well for about a week, complaining almost apologetically of indigestion, and it was true Elsa’s cooking had been more erratic than usual. So Morgana had not worried particularly. Her father was young for his age. He swam regularly, and played golf and squash. He was as fit as anyone could be, or so they had always thought, so his collapse when it came was doubly shocking.

She and her mother had lived in hope for about a week, visiting the hospital where he was in intensive care, telling each other that these days heart attacks were not serious—almost fashionable, in fact—and that all sorts of things could be done. But in Martin Pentreath’s case, there was very little to be done. Years of strain and financial worry had taken their toll, and very quietly, they took him.

The funeral had been anguish. Everyone in the neighbourhood had been there to pay their last respects. Martin Pentreath had not been much of a hotelier, and even less of a business man, but everyone had liked him. Morgana had listened to their condolences, and told herself if she could get through this without breaking down, then everything would be all right. Only it had not been all right.

For Elizabeth Pentreath and her daughter there were shocks and more anguish when it came to the reading of the will, with Mr Trevick’s solemn face even more portentous than usual. And Morgana, listening dazedly to words like ‘entail’ and ‘surviving male heir’, realised for the first time that with her father’s death the life she had known and the future she expected had died too.

The door behind her opened suddenly, flooding the room with light from the hall beyond, and her mother came in on a little flurry of words. ‘Too dreadful, darling. I’ve just been on the phone to Marricks to order some more coke—the boiler isn’t nearly as hot as it should be, and Miss Meakins was complaining about the bathwater again this morning—and some thoroughly unpleasant person told me that unless something was paid on account, there wouldn’t be any more deliveries. What do you think of that?’

Morgana shrugged. ‘It’s not entirely unexpected. We were never a good credit risk, and now that we’ve even lost the house …’

‘Oh, Morgana,’ Mrs Pentreath wailed, ‘don’t say such things!’

‘But it’s true.’ Morgana’s tone held a faint impatience. ‘We can be dispossessed at any time by the new owner. You know the terms of the entail as well as I do. Mr Trevick made them more than clear.’

‘But it’s so unfair! And I’m sure it can’t be legal—not in these days when people are always making such a noise about sexual discrimination.’

Morgana allowed herself a slight smile as she looked at her mother. ‘An interesting point,’ she conceded drily. ‘But if we can’t muster enough cash for the fuel bill, I doubt whether we could afford a lengthy court action.’ Her gaze went to the bureau in the corner which she knew was stuffed with unpaid bills, and a number of receipts, including her father’s subscription to the local golf club. When Martin Pentreath, big, bluff and genial, had been alive his choice of priorities hadn’t seemed quite so curious, and his lack of responsibility about money matters had seemed almost endearing. Now they had assumed the proportions of a nightmare.

Elizabeth Pentreath sank down upon the elderly sofa. ‘But it is unfair,’ she repeated. ‘Why, that awful Giles hadn’t the slightest interest in Polzion. I’m sure he only kept the quarrel going with your grandfather so that he could keep away from the place, and use that as an excuse. After all, he went off swearing that he’d never set foot in the place again.’

‘Well, he’s kept his word,’ said Morgana, her mouth twisting a little. ‘Unless he comes back to haunt the house—and the new heir.’ She moved away from the window and sat down beside her mother. ‘Did Daddy never mention the entail to you?’

‘Oh, years ago, when we first married, but he didn’t want to discuss it, and I could never find out any details. And when you were born, he talked of it again—spoke of trying to get it legally removed, but again I think it was a matter of cost which prevented him. And you know yourself, darling, how difficult it was to get him to talk about serious matters—especially when they concerned the quarrel. He didn’t really want Giles’ name mentioned at all.’

‘I’m quite aware of that.’ Morgana remembered with a pang her father’s burst of temper whenever unwary references to the past had been made. From local gossip and what snippets she’d been able to piece together, she gathered that the quarrel had begun over a generation before when her grandfather and his cousin Mark had fallen out for reasons which had never been fully established, but with such bitterness that Mark had taken himself off from Polzion, never to be seen there again. Years later, his son Giles had returned in an attempt to heal the breach, but there had been more trouble and the re-opening, it seemed, of old wounds, and it had been Giles’ turn to storm off, shaking the metaphorical dust of Polzion from his shoes for ever.

There had been generations of Pentreaths at Polzion. They had farmed the land, and mined for tin and copper, living well on the proceeds, and building this large rambling house to remind the world that in this corner of it they still ruled. But when the tin and copper petered out, so did the Pentreath fortunes, and now all the land, except an acre of overgrown garden round the house which enabled the hotel to advertise as ‘standing in its splendid grounds’, had been sold, even the Home Farm which Morgana’s grandfather had clung to almost desperately.

It was only after his father’s death that Martin Pentreath had conceived the idea of turning the family home into a hotel—something he frankly admitted he would never have dared to do or even mention when his father was alive. The fact that Polzion was relatively isolated, and could boast none of the amenities of the usual tourist traps and beauty spots did not trouble him in the least.

Morgana said, ‘How Grandfather would have hated to think of Mark’s grandson inheriting this house!’

Her mother said hopefully, ‘Perhaps he won’t want it. Perhaps he’ll—renounce the entail—or whatever one can do.’

‘Whether he wants it or not, it belongs to him,’ said Morgana. ‘What a pity he wasn’t born a girl, or that I wasn’t a boy. It would have saved a lot of trouble and inconvenience all round. At least we wouldn’t be hanging around here like this, waiting to be turned out of our home by a complete stranger. And I still think it would be more dignified to have packed and gone, instead of waiting here for sentence to be carried out.’

Her mother shuddered. ‘You make it sound revolting, darling! But how could we possibly have left? There are the guests to consider.’

‘Miss Meakins and Major Lawson,’ Morgana said drily. ‘Hardly a cast of thousands.’

‘Well, it is the off-season,’ Mrs Pentreath said defensively.

Morgana sighed. ‘Even in the height of summer, Polzion House Hotel was never exactly an “ongoing situation”.’ She reproduced the jargon phrase with distaste. ‘People on holiday want hot baths and swimming pools, and meals which aren’t quite so dependent on the whim of the cook.’

‘Elsa’s a very good cook,’ Mrs Pentreath said reproachfully.

‘Oh, indeed she is, when the wind’s in the right quarter, or the tea-leaves have looked hopeful, or the cards aren’t presaging doom and disaster.’

‘Well, she has got the sight,’ Mrs Pentreath offered pacifically.

‘Then I wish she’d “seen” the big freeze last winter. We might have been spared some burst pipes.’ Morgana sounded defeated, and her mother said briskly,

‘No wonder you’re moping, darling. It’s so gloomy in this room, and cold too. Why on earth didn’t you make up the fire? It’s nearly out.’ She got up, bustling over to the hearth and stirring the reluctant embers with the long brass-handled poker.

Morgana shrugged. ‘His electricity. His logs. Maybe we shouldn’t waste them.’

‘I cannot believe any Pentreath would deny his own kin anything as basic as a fire to warm themselves by,’ Mrs Pentreath protested.

‘He’s a stranger to us. We know nothing about him—except his name and the fact that he was too busy in America on some business deal to come to Daddy’s funeral.’ Morgana sounded suddenly raw. ‘And since then, not a word, except this curt communication from his lawyers that he would be arriving here today.’

‘I think that must be a mistake, don’t you?’ The fire revived to her satisfaction, Elizabeth Pentreath sat back on her heels and regarded her daughter. ‘It’s getting so late. It’s almost dark, and the letter did say he would be here this morning.’

‘Perhaps his car’s broken down. Or maybe someone’s been fiddling with the signpost again, and he’s taken the wrong turning and driven straight along the cliff path into the sea.’

‘Morgana!’ Mrs Pentreath’s hand clutched at her throat. ‘You mustn’t say—you mustn’t even think such things. Do you think we should telephone the farm—get a search party organised?’

‘No, I don’t.’ Morgana shook her head. ‘He’ll turn up. Bad pennies usually do.’

‘You sound as if you don’t care.’

‘Frankly, I don’t. Do you really expect me to?’ Morgana’s voice deepened passionately. ‘This—Lyall Pentreath—he’s an outsider, an intruder. He doesn’t give a damn about Polzion. He’s probably never been anywhere near Cornwall in his life. All he knows about us will be what he’s heard from his father and grandfather, and that will probably be lies. There’s never been any love lost between the two sides of the family. The only reason he’s coming here now is to take possession of his inheritance, such as it is, lock, stock and barrel. And our feelings in the matter won’t be of the slightest concern to him.’

‘You can’t really say that, darling. You don’t know him.’

‘Exactly the point I’m trying to make,’ Morgana argued. ‘I don’t—neither of us knows him. And he doesn’t know us. But don’t you think, in the circumstances, he might have made the effort?’

‘He’s in a difficult position,’ her mother began, and Morgana snorted impatiently.

‘And we’re not? After all, we’re the ones who stand to lose everything. And he’s the winner who takes all. Well, in my book, he should have made contact before this. Long before. And the fact that he hasn’t makes him a moral coward.’

‘You’re not being very logical.’ Mrs Pentreath sounded plaintive. ‘You’re blaming him for coming here at all in one breath, and now he’s on the way, or presumably so, you’re complaining that he wasn’t here days ago.’

‘Not days. Weeks, months, years—when Daddy was alive,’ Morgana said bitterly. ‘When it might have done some good. We could all have talked—made plans, perhaps. Mummy, have you really thought what we’re going to do? He may want us to leave immediately.’

‘I can’t believe that.’ Mrs Pentreath’s tone was depressed, and Morgana gave her a swift glance which mingled compassion with faint irritation.

Elizabeth Pentreath had led a sheltered life, in spite of the fact that there had never been much money. She had always been cossetted by her husband, which was all to the good in some ways, her daughter thought drily, but not so hot when it came to attempting to make her face reality.

Now, with an air of determination, Elizabeth rose and went round the room, switching on the lamps. There was a central pendant chandelier, but this was rarely used. For one thing, it used too much electricity, and for another in the lamps lower wattage bulbs could be used which helped to disguise how shabby the carpet and furnishings really were. As the hotel guests used this room for afternoon tea, and after dinner, this was a consideration, although Martin Pentreath had always worked on the lordly ‘What’s good enough for us is good enough for them’ principle. It was a point of view which Morgana had never shared. She felt the family should have used another room, so that the drawing room could become a hotel lounge proper, where the guests could say whatever they liked without being inhibited by the presence of the proprietor and his family.

Miss Meakins might allow her eyes to fill with sentimental tears now that Martin was no longer leading the after-dinner conversation, but she had become increasingly voluble about faults in the service at Polzion House in the last two weeks, Morgana had noted drily. Not that most of the complaints weren’t fully justified. She and Major Lawson might have been attracted to Polzion because the winter rates were more competitive than similar establishments in Eastbourne or Torquay, but they still expected the usual amenities of hotel life.

And in the past few weeks, life at Polzion had become increasingly difficult. Probate for Martin Pentreath’s will had been applied for, but Mr Trevick had warned dourly that there would be little money left when outstanding debts were settled, though there were a couple of small insurance policies from which Elizabeth would benefit. Martin had made no large-scale provision for his widow and daughter, but then, as Morgana was forced to admit, he had always seemed so indestructible, like the Cornish granite his house was built on. Remembering her father, she thought it likely he had meant to leave them provided for—one day, when it could no longer be avoided, in much the same spirit as he’d stuffed unpaid bills in the bureau.

Morgana groaned inwardly as she thought of them, and she suspected her mother’s reception at the coal-merchant’s could well be the first in a long line of similar refusals. No coke meant that the ancient boiler would eventually go out altogether, and she doubted that even a further reduction in their ‘competitive terms’ would reconcile their guests to cold water, so she and her mother stood to lose their small remaining amount of direct income.

But that, she reminded herself, would be lost anyway as soon as the unknown Lyall Pentreath arrived. She imagined he would have already learned that his inheritance was being run as a small country hotel, and she found herself wondering what his reaction had been. Contempt? Probably. Anger? Almost certainly. Perhaps Miss Meakins and the Major would also find themselves dumped bag and baggage into the damp chill of an October evening.

Except, as her mother said, that the new owner would hardly be coming now. He would be here in the morning to look over his new possession in daylight. Until now, they had counted each day at Polzion as a reprieve. Now, it seemed, they were reduced to hours.

Suddenly restless, she rose to her feet. ‘I’d better go and see about tea. It’s past the time already.’

‘I expect Elsa has been waiting, dear, for your cousin to arrive.’

‘My cousin.’ Morgana repeated the words almost incredulously. It was the first time her mother or anyone else for that matter had used them in relation to Lyall Pentreath. It seemed alien and uncomfortable to think that this stranger was actually of her blood, even though the relationship between them was a remote one. Because of the quarrels and the separation between the two sides of the family, the other Pentreaths might as well not have existed as far as she was concerned.

‘I wish they hadn’t,’ she thought fiercely, digging her nails into the palms of her hands as she left the room. ‘I wish none of them had ever been born.’

The passage leading to what in happier days had been known as the servants’ quarters was draughty, and Morgana shivered a little as she made her way down it. But the kitchen was warm, thanks to the big old-fashioned range—which also burned coke, she remembered dismally—on which Elsa produced delectable meals when she was in the mood.

What her mood was like today was anybody’s guess. Breakfast and lunch had been passable, but there were no noticeable preparations for dinner, Morgana noted sinkingly. Instead, Elsa was sitting at the kitchen table staring down at a worn pack of cards spread there.

‘Come in, maid, and shut the door,’ she said absently without looking up.

‘We were wondering about tea,’ said Morgana, unable to resist a curious glance down at the cards as she passed the table.

‘’Tes all ready, and the kettle’s on the boil.’ Elsa was built on generous lines, and her dark hair, liberally streaked with grey, was pinned back from her face with an incongruous selection of plastic hairslides in various colours and designs. Green butterflies and pink poodles were in favour that particular day, forming an unusual contrast to her bright blue overall, safety-pinned across her massive bosom. ‘And I’ve made a batch of scones along with the cake,’ she added sombrely.

‘They look lovely.’

Elsa snorted. ‘Can’t go by looks. They’m sad, same as this ‘ouse is sad. Same as these cards.’ She gestured at them. ‘Grief and misery, pain and woe, my lover—that’s what’s in store. And a fair man,’ she added as something of an afterthought.

‘Well, that’s something,’ said Morgana. ‘At least it won’t be Cousin Lyall. Pentreath men are always dark.’

‘That’s as mebbe,’ Elsa said with dignity. ‘But there b’ain’t no dark man coming into your life, maid, not so far as I can see.’

‘Then perhaps he really has driven over the cliff,’ Morgana said cheerfully. ‘Make the tea, Elsa darling, while I put the food on the tray.’

Whatever secret sorrow the scones might be nursing, they looked almost sprightly to her, she thought, as she picked up the plate, and the saffron cake which was one of Elsa’s specialities was golden-brown and mouthwatering.

‘About dinner—–’ she began tentatively.

‘Funny ol’ bit of meat the butcher sent.’ Elsa was at the range, busy with teapot and kettle. ‘Calls it beef, but I dunno. Looks tough as ol’ boots to me.’

‘Oh dear!’ Morgana wondered privately whether the butcher was taking some kind of subtle revenge for an unpaid bill she hadn’t discovered yet. ‘Do you suppose pot-roasting would make it more tender?’

‘I daresay.’ Elsa set the teapot on the tray with an uncompromising thud. ‘But I don’t need any young maid to teach me my business in my own kitchen.’

‘Of course not, Elsa darling.’ Morgana’s smile held its first real hint of mischief for some time.

‘That’s better,’ Elsa said with rare approval. ‘Now go and change out of that damned ol’ frock before that young man gets here.’

‘I’ll do nothing of the sort.’ Morgana lifted her chin and her green eyes flashed. ‘It’s perfectly suitable. This is the dress I got for Daddy’s funeral.’

‘Looks like the next funeral it goes to should be its own,’ Elsa sniffed. ‘But please yourself, though I can’t see no sense going round looking like something the cat dragged in. You’m not a bad-looking maid when you try.’

‘I’d better go before you turn my head completely,’ Morgana said lightly as she picked up the tray.

‘No danger of that, I reckon.’ Elsa’s fierce gaze softened as they swept over the girl’s slim figure. ‘You don’t fancy yourself like some I could mention.’

Morgana hid a smile as she carried the tray out of the kitchen. Elsa was not usually so forbearing, and Morgana could only attribute her unusual delicacy this time to the fact that up to the time of the funeral she herself had been seeing a great deal of Robert Donleven, and might react with hostility to any overt criticism of his sister—because she was well aware that Elaine Donleven was the subject of Elsa’s veiled remark.

Yet if she was honest, she had to admit that Elaine wasn’t one of her favourite people either, though she would have been hard put to it to say why. Ever since Elaine had come to live at Home Farm and help Robert run the riding stables there, relations between the two girls had been perfectly civil, but no more.

Perhaps it was inevitable it should be so, she thought as she went along the passage. After all, the Donlevens had bought the Home Farm, as Robert’s mother had made smilingly clear on more than one occasion, as an interest for her husband when he retired from being ‘something’ in the City of London. In the meantime it was run by an efficient manager, and Robert and his sister had started the riding stables there, again as a hobby rather than a living. Morgana felt sometimes that Elaine mentioned this rather more than was strictly necessary, as if to emphasise the gulf between those who had to work, and those for whom the world was a playground.

Apart from exchange trips to France and Germany when she was at school, Morgana’s holidays had been spent in and around Polzion, and she sometimes could not contain a little surge of envy when she heard Elaine talk so carelessly of skiing at Klosters, and beach parties in the Bahamas. Nor did it help to feel, as she often did, that Elaine intended her to feel envious.

Robert, on the other hand, was very different. For one thing his hair was inexorably sandy, instead of being deep auburn like Elaine’s, but his temperament was far more unassuming than his sister’s, and he took the day-to-day running of the stables far more seriously than she did, although ironically, Elaine was a spectacularly better rider. But then, Morgana thought, she did not have his patience with beginners.