Portrait of a Girl by Mary Williams Page A

springing up as quick as mushrooms. You could lend a hand there. Thee should know a weed from a flower by now.’
    ‘ All right,’ I agreed, ‘yes, I can do that.’
    So on a day when no wind stirred the countryside and a faint bluish haze lifted gradually above the earth and rising moors, I took a trowel and fork from the tool shed at the back of the cottage, and set to work pulling and digging carefully where unwanted wild plants threatened to thrive and smother the old lady’s cherished herbs and blooms. The air was sweet and faintly damp, and as the sun brightened, golden rays caught a froth of blossom on an ancient apple tree. Occasionally a bird’s rich twitter broke the silence.
    After a period of bending and kneeling I stood up to ease my back, shaking the soil from my apron, and pushing the tumbled curls from my forehead. I paused, staring across the pool to its far side, where daisies starred a patch of lawn. The extreme quiet was almost uncanny. In the distance the Three Maidens — no longer quite so menacing in the morning light, were touched to transient gold flame, and I visualised Kerrysmoor in the dip below hidden by its curve of the hill where Rupert would be up and about, and his lady wife perhaps still lazing in her luxurious boudoir.
    Rupert.
    Something in me stirred and came to life painfully. If I’d thought he’d never really cared about me at all, the ache wouldn’t have hurt so acutely, but in the beginning he had — I was sure of it. Not sufficiently though to want me as a failure, an embarrassment to his friendship with Luigi, and the theatrical world. I was perhaps exaggerating; Exeter was not London, and probably I hadn’t been important enough to cause even a word of criticism or derision anywhere except perhaps in a limited local press. Very well. I had to accept it; I was no use to him, except as assistance to Dame Jenny, and for keeping an eye on his precious treasures, including the mysterious portrait of the lovely girl.
    I glanced down into the pool where small silver and gold fish darted through the glossy leaves of water lilies and pale spreading fern-like plants. A frail breath of air shivered over the surface causing circles of light to ebb and flow in a myriad of reflected shapes including my own face, which for an instant appeared to be that of another — of the girl who could be alive or dead, but who still haunted my imagination every time I glimpsed her limpid eyes staring at me from the heavy frame.
    Nothing, for the moment, seemed quite real. Everything around me held a secret other-world atmosphere that for the first time since the disastrous Beggar’s Opera episode, took my mind from that wretched business to different channels. I recalled the day I’d climbed the area round Rosecarrion and seen the vessel in the shadows of the narrow creek, then the other occasion — twice — when dots of human forms in the far distance, had appeared momentarily and disappeared again. Perhaps I’d been mistaken in thinking I’d recognised Rupert on the boat. But if I’d been right, was the ‘matter of business’ he’d more than once referred to concerning his apparent avoidance of Tregonnis, something to do with contraband? And could the latter be the true cause for making the moor there forbidden territory?
    During my time at Falmouth, contact with sailors and merchants had taught me much about smuggling. As a child I’d learned to accept it almost as a way of life for some — a trade frequently indulged in by the rich, and conveniently ignored by certain members of the Preventative. Agreements were often made in taverns, and taprooms of inns and kiddleywinks. Following my father’s death I’d listened avidly to plots being hatched with knowing looks and snide remarks passed both in French and English. Tragedies — stories of shootings resulting in death were not uncommon. Mostly the Preventative men were loyal to their calling, but bribery often played a large part