The two figures, leaning together beneath the bare boughs of an ancient beech, were barely distinguishable in the fading, wintry light. They stood quite still, a smudge of darker grey against the high granite wall that separated the sheltered garden from the sloping meadow. As he stared across the frosty grass he heard the arched, wrought-iron gate open with a clang and saw a girl pass through, closing the gate carefully behind her. He straightened, recognizing her from the brief glimpse he’d had earlier when he’d called at the house. A soft plaid was wrapped about her shoulders and she wore green gumboots beneath the long, knubbly-textured skirt.
The donkeys plodded to meet her with their familiar head-dipping gait and she spoke quietly to them, holding out her hands, bending down so it seemed as if she might be kissing their suede-soft muzzles. He hesitated – longing to call out to her, to make a connection with her – but his courage failed him. Instead, he pictured her as he’d first seen her as she’d come in through a door half hidden in the shadows at the back of the hall: a straight, uncompromising glance from beneath dark, level brows, her arms crossed over something that she held to her breast – a book? or a box? – and an air of wariness. She’d paused, watching, listening, and then had vanished through another door, leaving him with the older woman who’d smiled with such sweetness and sympathy.
‘I am sorry. It would be quite impossible for you to see Mrs Trevannion today. She’s got this wretched chest infection on top of everything else. If only we’d known that you were coming.’
‘I wrote Mrs Trevannion,’ he’d answered quickly, unable to hide his disappointment. ‘I sent a copy of a photograph with the letter. I think – I’m really hoping – that she knew my grandmother’s sister way back during the war. She emigrated to the States in ’forty-six, my grandmother, and then they just lost touch. We were so excited when my mother found the wedding photograph, all four of them together, the names on the back of it clear as clear. Hubert and Honor Trevannion …’
‘I’m afraid she’s been too ill to answer any correspondence. A broken ankle, you see, and now this infection.’ She’d frowned a little, crushing his enthusiasm kindly but firmly. ‘Perhaps in a week or two …’
‘I’m only here for the week,’ he’d told her, dismayed, ‘staying over at Port Isaac. I’m working in London for a spell and taking the opportunity to follow any leads I’ve managed to find while I’m over here. But I’ve been interested in this for a long time now and the photograph was a real find …’
Once again, at the mention of the photograph, he’d sensed a faint withdrawal.
‘I don’t see how we can help you at the moment.’
He tried a different tack. ‘What a magical little valley this is; so secret and so green. And what a great name for a house. “Paradise”. You really do have strange names in Cornwall, don’t you? Indian Queens. Lazarus. Jamaica Inn.’ He shook his head as if in amused puzzlement. ‘And then there are all these Saints. But I love “Paradise”. And it certainly looks like it is one.’
‘We think so too.’
Her courtesy was as blank as a stone wall and, in the end, he’d given her his card and she’d promised to contact him, smiling farewell, closing the door quietly. The sense of anti-climax was almost overwhelming and, walking back down the drive to the narrow lane, he’d felt oddly hurt, thinking that she might at least have offered him a cup of tea. As he stood at the five-bar gate watching the donkeys he tried to be more rational, persuading himself that Honor Trevannion was probably very ill; that the older woman and the girl were too concerned with her wellbeing to have time to spend with an unexpected stranger hunting for an ancestor. He hunched his shoulders against the chill of the evening and rested his arms along the top bar of the gate. The shadowy group at the far side of the meadow was hardly visible now as the twilight, creeping across the grass and thickening beneath the trees, blotted away the glimmerings of sunset and dimmed the last bright reflections slanting from the west. He frowned, still thinking about the interview. Had he imagined that slight tension? A reluctance to discuss his letter and the photograph? He shrugged. More likely she hadn’t a clue what he was talking about and was too worried to be interested.
He heard again the metallic clang as the gate closed: the girl was gone and the donkeys had moved into the small open-fronted barn. Frustrated, but still driven by curiosity and a determination to follow his lead through, he walked on to the disused quarry where he’d parked his car and drove away.