Chapter 25 Wrong Call
Wrong Call
‘A call for me?’ I exclaimed. ‘You mean, on the landline? I can’t imagine who that could be, because the only people who know where I am are Evie’s PA, Liv, who is away over Christmas, and my old neighbour in Bedfordshire, and they both only have my mobile number.’
‘It was your boyfriend, Will Day.’
‘Ex-boyfriend, as I’ve already told you,’ I said through gritted teeth, feeling everyone’s eyes on me.
‘Oh, yes, silly me. That’s what I meant,’ Verity said apologetically. ‘He did sound terribly sweet – and very concerned about you. He’d been unable to reach you by phone or email, so he went out to that cottage you shared and found you’d sold it and moved out without letting him know.’
I stared at her. They seemed to have had a good long chat about my private affairs!
‘We didn’t “share” the cottage, it was mine, and I cut all ties with him just before the first lockdown,’ I said.
‘He did send me a couple of maudlin texts about a year later, then more recently an email, but I changed my mobile number and blocked him from my emails. And I had the landline to the cottage cut off as soon as it was sold.’
‘Then I wonder how he found out you were here?’ Evie asked with bright-eyed interest. ‘Liv wouldn’t have told him, even if she wasn’t away.’
‘No, and neither would Eli, my old neighbour,’ I agreed. Then suddenly remembered something.
‘Just before I came here, Liv rang me up and said someone from my publishers had rung up the flat to find out if I was there. She said it was a girl on work experience, in a fluster because she’d been told to send me my annual Christmas present and she’d only just remembered.
She’d been unable to contact me by phone and her email had bounced. So Liv gave her this address.’
‘That must be it – but how devious of him,’ said Evie.
‘At the time, I just thought it was an intern getting her wires crossed, because I’d already had my annual card and gift of a gardening book from the publishers.’
‘Obviously, whoever rang was an accomplice,’ Kate said, her crime writer’s mind stirred. ‘It seems almost that he is stalking you, Ginny.’
‘It certainly does, especially since I’ve already made it plain I want nothing more to do with him.’
‘Oh, I don’t think he’s stalking you, Ginny,’ said Verity. ‘He just seemed to think if he could only see you and tell you face to face how sorry he was, and how big a mistake he made—’
‘No way! He’s the long dead past. I’ve moved on,’ I said. Then, as my eyes met Rhys’s intent ones, I thought that the past, in the form of Will and Annie, seemed determined to come back and haunt me!
‘If he rings again, do you want me to tell him you aren’t here?’ asked Nerys.
I thought about it and then said, ‘No. I think if he does, then perhaps I’d better tell him myself to get lost and stop stalking me.’
‘Oh dear, it’s all very sad.’ Verity sighed.
‘It’s not sad at all,’ Evie told her crisply. ‘I hope you didn’t encourage him!’
‘I’m sorry if I did wrong, but I did think, from what Ginny’d said, that she might still have a soft spot for him.’
‘I can’t imagine what I said to give you that impression!’ I told her, exasperated, and then, finally, the subject was allowed to drop.
*
When the rest of us went to bed, Kate and Evie were still engaged in a ferocious game of Scrabble, but if they came to blows, the sound didn’t penetrate to my room. Not even the barking of Opal disturbed my dreams that night … and nor did any thought of Will.
*
I woke next morning to a winter wonderland but wasn’t tempted to go out into the crisp, white world because my new Mrs Snowboots book was calling me. As soon as I’d had a cup of coffee, I became lost in my work … until the call of breakfast lured me downstairs with the others.
We were all rather preoccupied, except Cariad, who wanted her father and me to go out into the snow with her.
‘The snow never lasts long here,’ Nerys said. ‘And there isn’t any in St Melangell. Mel’s mother rang just now and one of Mel’s sisters is walking her over here after breakfast by the cliff path, so you’ll have someone to play with, Cariad.’
‘Oh, good. But it would still be nice if you and Ginny came out too, Daddy.’
‘I will after lunch,’ he promised. ‘It’s so cold, the snow isn’t going to thaw today.’
‘And I will too,’ I told her.
Opal was still upstairs, barking and sniffling, but the district nurse had promised to pop in and take a look at her later, Nerys said.
‘Although I’m sure she’ll soon be on the mend.’
Then she looked at Verity, who was still hardly eating anything and who had also now developed an annoying sniff. There was the faint flush on her normally pale face I’d noticed yesterday, too …
‘You look as if you might be going down with something, too, Verity,’ Nerys said.
‘A little cold, perhaps, nothing to worry about,’ said Verity bravely. ‘I’ll just work through it.’
After breakfast, Noel went home, Timon and Pearl set off for the pottery, and the rest of us all vanished back into our creative burrows.
Mrs Snowboots Ahoy! was calling to me, and if the mounds of unsorted material for the Wisteria Cottage books laid out on the trestle table made me feel a little guilty, I could always work on those later in the day.
However, mornings were my most creative time and ideas were tumbling out of my imagination.
*
Caraid’s friend Mel was at lunch, a sturdy fair child who looked very much like her brother, Max.
Rhys and I went out with them afterwards to make a whole family of snow people, including a snow dog and cat, and Toby and Pearl, who returned from the pottery before tea, joined us later as well.
When we went back into the house, we were all rosy and glowing, and a bit damp, because we’d ended up with a snowball fight. We were ready for hot drinks and Bronwen’s fat, sugar-topped and currant-stuffed Chelsea buns.
I gravitated into the kitchen later to talk to her and she promised to teach me how to make them.
*
Rhys had taken Mel and Cariad over to the castle after tea, where Cariad was to stay the night, as she often did, under the eye of the Prynnes’ nanny, so she wasn’t at dinner.
It was obvious to the rest of us, however, that Verity wasn’t well, and in the end even she had to admit to feeling ill and went to bed immediately afterwards.
‘Best place for her, if she has the flu,’ said Nerys. ‘I’ve taken her temperature and it’s almost normal so it may just be a cold.’
‘Well, we don’t want to share it, whatever it is,’ said Evie with cheerful callousness. ‘Just as well Noel went home and wasn’t here tonight for dinner, although, like me, he’s had a flu jab. Bed’s the best place for her, and anyway, all that sniffling was driving me homicidal.’
‘You didn’t have to share a studio with her all afternoon,’ Nerys said darkly. ‘Let’s hope she stays in her room till she’s better, even if it does mean trotting up and downstairs with even more trays of soup and hot drinks.’
When the others were making their way into the sitting room, Nerys invited me and Evie into their private quarters, to look at the old family photograph albums. Timon and Rhys came too.
The private sitting room was small, shabby and cosy, with double doors into another that seemed part office, part study.
The walls were hung with paintings and sketches, and Evie was immediately drawn to two large oil paintings.
‘Are these Cosmo Caradoc’s work?’ she asked with interest, leaning forward to see the signature, a sort of double, back-to-back letter C. ‘Oh, yes, I see they are, but very much looser in style and a little different in colour palette to other works of his I’ve seen.’
‘They’re the last things he painted,’ Nerys said. ‘He’d had an exhibition not long before he died, so there wasn’t much work left in his studio and these were kept in the family.’
‘They’re very interesting,’ Evie said, and Nerys looked sharply at her.
‘I don’t see why. His style slowly began to change over the last few years of his life. It didn’t remain static.’
‘From what I’ve seen online, you are quite right,’ Evie said amiably. ‘Only I hadn’t seen any changes quite as marked as these. Perhaps if he hadn’t met with that sad accident but continued in this vein, his work would not have fallen out of fashion in the way it did.’
‘Maybe not,’ Nerys agreed, ‘although, of course, in the first quarter of the twentieth century, there were so many new movements that the art world was in a constant state of flux.’
‘Very true,’ Evie said. ‘I hope you will let me have another look at these in daylight, some time?’
‘Of course,’ Nerys agreed, but with seeming reluctance.
‘If you turn round, there’s a portrait of Cosmo Caradoc himself on the wall behind you,’ Timon said. ‘Nerys has inherited his black hair and deep blue eyes, but nothing else.’
The portrait was of a tall, commanding-looking man, very handsome in a classical way, but with a brooding, haughty, reserved look about him, like an extreme Mr Darcy.
‘My grandmother Rose said it was quite a good likeness,’ said Nerys. ‘He was very reserved – almost a recluse in his dislike of company. I think the artist has captured that.’
‘An interesting face,’ pronounced Evie, ‘but not perhaps an easy one to read.’
‘No,’ said Nerys, then led the way through the arch into the other room, where two large old-fashioned photograph albums were laid out on a table.
Unfortunately, it soon became evident that the Caradoc family didn’t seem to have been keen photographers. Most of the pages were filled with the usual studio portraits of wedding couples, babies, etc.
Cosmo Caradoc appeared once or twice – posed stiffly in a wedding photograph with a very pretty girl, who, Nerys explained, was his wife who had died young, leaving one daughter, her grandmother Beatrice.
Caradoc appeared again, this time posed more naturally by a large and expensive-looking car.
Nerys, obviously looking for something, turned a few more pages and then stopped. ‘This one will interest you, I think.’
It was a picture of three ladies having afternoon tea on the lawn at the back of the house, seemingly frozen in that moment: a small, middle-aged woman, caught in the act of raising her teacup to her lips, and two girls, one small, dark and very pretty, and the other, taller and very fair.
Evie leaned forward with an exclamation.
‘Yes – that’s Arwen Madoc,’ said Nerys. ‘It’s written underneath, in my grandfather Hugh Caradoc-Jones’s handwriting, but the likeness to her portrait sketch in the library is unmistakable in any case.
The other girl is Beatrice Caradoc, who, of course, married Hugh after her father’s death.
I think the other woman was some kind of relative or companion. ’
Evie was more interested in Arwen. ‘Is that the only photograph Arwen appears in?’
‘Yes, but then, she stayed here for so short a time, you know, that that isn’t surprising.’
Timon had been leaning over to scrutinize the photo. ‘You have a look of Arwen, Evie.’
‘Yes, tall, very fair women with aquiline noses run in the family, although Ginny has escaped those attributes.’ She looked up. ‘Might I borrow this photograph to copy for the book? I promise to take great care of it and return it safely.’
‘Of course,’ Timon said. ‘I’ll find you an envelope to put it in.’
When he’d done that, and Evie had cast a last, long lingering look at Cosmo Caradoc’s two late oil paintings, we returned to the hall – just as the phone rang.
Nerys looked at me with a raised eyebrow as she picked it up – and it was only then that I remembered Will. His earlier call had gone completely out of my head.
But it wasn’t him, after all, and I hoped he’d thought better of trying to contact me again, although goodness knew what Verity had said to him!
We returned to the others, Evie looking thoughtful, and I was not surprised when she appeared in my room after we had gone up to bed, wrapped in a purple velvet dressing gown of great lushness, and plumped herself down in one of the chairs.
‘Well, that was interesting,’ she said, tucking the folds of her robe around her feet.
‘The photo of Arwen is a find, but the two paintings by Caradoc were the most surprising. Quite a change from the previous work by him I’ve come across. I can see tomorrow I’ll have to widen my search a bit for his later works.’
‘It seems he wasn’t so stuck in the Victorian style as you thought. Perhaps you’re right, Ma, and he might not have fallen out of favour if he’d had longer to develop his new style of painting.’
‘Possibly. I wonder what Arwen thought of his work. It would be so interesting to know. He was such a renowned painter at that time, yet she herself had already started to develop a more modern style of her own.’
‘Unless there’s something relevant in the Memory Box when you finally get it, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,’ I said regretfully.
‘Charlotte promised she’d post it this week, so I hope we’ll soon find out.’
She paused, then said, ‘If Will does ring again, I hope you aren’t going to let him sweet-talk you into taking him back.’
‘Of course I’m not! I was a fool to take him back last time. I can see now that it was never going to work.’
‘Good. I thought you wouldn’t … especially now you and Rhys have buried whatever hatchet you had between you. There was obviously something.’
‘We were … a bit at cross purposes when we met briefly, years ago, but it doesn’t matter now, after all this time,’ I said evasively.
‘There’s nothing like a misunderstanding to bring two people together.’
‘We are not together – or not in the way you’re implying,’ I said hotly. ‘We’re just … friends. That’s all either of us wants – like you and Noel!’ I added pointedly.
If the barb hit home, she didn’t show it. ‘Ah, but Noel and I didn’t have a hatchet to bury.’
I said stubbornly, ‘Really, Evie, I’m not looking for a relationship with Rhys or anyone else. I just want to find a peaceful place to call my own, so I can—’
‘Sink back into being a reclusive cat lady again?’ she suggested. ‘Of course I believe you, darling – and I’m Titania, Queen of the Fairies!’
She got up with one of her more crocodilian smiles, and then swept out of the room with a swish of velvety skirts.