Hy Brasil by Margaret Elphinstone

Author:Margaret Elphinstone [Margaret Elphinstone]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857860590
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2010-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Sidony Redruth. Ravnscar Castle. July 18th.

Notes for Undiscovered Islands (working title).

I HATE IT when you think you’re not waiting for anything, but every time the phone rings you realise that perhaps you were. I’d been helping Lucy in the garden all day, weeding and watering, and I’d just come in to be in the shade for a bit and get myself a drink. The tiles on the kitchen floor were cool under my bare feet. I pulled off my sunhat and ran my hands through my sticky hair. I didn’t mind being hot and grubby. It reminded me of childhood, playing in the garden with Arthur. I even had scars on my knees, just as I had always had then, from climbing the fir tree that grew by the stone gateposts of Ravnscar. I felt as if I’d abdicated temporarily from the adult world, and when the phone rang half of me didn’t want to be dragged back. The other half felt that familiar sinking thrill in the pit of my stomach, but I wouldn’t let myself think the thought that came with it.

‘Hi-aye,’ A male voice, not one I knew. ‘Is that Miss Lucy?’

‘No. She’s in the garden. Do you want me to get her?’

‘Well now … You’ll be the young English lady? You could maybe take a message for her?’

‘Sure.’

‘Per Pedersen, you can tell her, with a message from Jared– Jared Honeyman, that is – but you know our Jed, now I think about it. You were with him not so long ago at the Midsummer dance in Dorrado. Isn’t that right?’

‘Yes,’ I said cautiously. ‘Yes, I know Jared.’

‘Of course, so you do. If you could say to Miss Lucy that Jared is needing to get hold of her as soon as possible. He was trying to phone her from here yesterday all through dinnertime, right up to three o’clock. She was out, seemingly?’

‘We took a picnic to Hogg’s Beach. It was so hot.’

‘Indeed yes, the weather is terribly hot. You won’t be used to that?’

‘It gets quite hot sometimes in Cornwall.’

‘Yes, I suppose it would do. So if you would say to Miss Lucy that Jed wishes to speak to her urgently, about a matter he needs to discuss. And maybe she could call back and leave a message for him here?’

‘I’ll tell her to do that.’

After I’d put the phone down I stood still for a minute, staring through the window at the blank white heat outside. My head ached; I didn’t feel as eager to go back out as I had three minutes ago. Lucy was potting on fuchsias in the greenhouse. She wouldn’t mind or notice if I’d gone. It was too hot to do anything really.

Too hot. An idea occurred to me. ‘Go where you like,’ she’d said. ‘Look at what you like. There isn’t anything secret.’ Well, why not now?

I followed the cellar steps down from the kitchen, through the first cellar with the garden tools and fishing tackle, and through the wine cellar below that.

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