The Trail to Love Read online

  Mr. Boustred shook his head wearily.

  “I wouldn’t do it for anyone else,” he said. “But Sir Julius was a good customer and a true gentleman. I will give you until Tuesday to settle the account.”

  He paused and looked around the drawing room.

  “I’m no expert, but it looks like there’s a good few thousand pounds worth of stuff hanging on these walls.”

  And with that he and his two colleagues strode out of the drawing room.

  Richard sat down on the sofa to recover himself.

  Mr. Boustred was right.

  The paintings that Sir Julius had collected over his lifetime and had loved so much could be sold and would probably fetch a good sum of money.

  It was just that he could not bear to take them down from the walls and sell them.

  Travis then entered with the breakfast tray and laid it beside him.

  He coughed politely.

  “What is it, Travis?”

  “There is the small matter of the servants’ wages, Mr. Richard. As you know, Sir Julius paid us annually on the first of January each year. The money is only a couple of weeks late, but anxieties have been expressed – ”

  Richard held his head in his hands for a moment.

  This was the last straw.

  He had to face up to what must be done.

  He was never going to get back the money he had lost in Argentina.

  No. 13 Lanchberry Close and all its contents must be sold, the debts must be paid and somehow, he, Richard Stanfield, must begin a new life.

  A life that would be very different from anything he had known so far.

  *

  “I really don’t know what I can do with all Papa’s clothes,” Elissa sighed, as she looked at the pile of coats, trousers and colourful jackets that she had just cleared out of the wardrobe in his bedroom.

  “And what about all the things in the studio? The oil paints and his brushes and – ”

  “There sure be a lot of stuff,” muttered Kitty. “Far too much to carry with you, miss.”

  “Exactly. But how am I going to get rid of it all? Who would want a grubby old painter’s smock with all the colours of the rainbow splashed all over it? Only me – for all the happy memories.”

  “Miss Elissa – you could always leave everything ’ere. We could ’ide it all in the loft.”

  “Oh Kitty, and what about the new people who will move in?”

  “No one ever goes up in a loft, miss. Only to dump the stuff they ain’t got no use for any more. We tuck all your father’s things away in a corner up there. No one will ever know.”

  “Kitty – you are a genius!”

  “And then maybe one day, when you be a rich lady, miss, you can come back and claim it all.”

  “Do you really think that might happen?”

  “But your Mama said that you ’ad great ’appiness comin’ to you, didn’t she, miss? In your dream?”

  “Yes, she did, Kitty. But it might take a while to happen! Come on, let’s get everything packed up.”

  Elissa felt glad that she did not have to throw away her Papa’s possessions. She liked the idea of them being safely hidden away in a secret corner of the house where he had lived and worked for so many years.

  Once that was completed, there was just one more difficult task to face.

  Mr. Gabriel Harker, an art dealer from Bond Street, was coming to take all her father’s paintings away.

  A tall upright man in an elegantly-cut tweed suit, Mr. Harker did not have much good news for Elissa.

  “I admire your father’s work,” he said. “He is sadly neglected and not appreciated as he deserves to be. I’ll try and find a buyer or two to take some of them. But I can’t promise anything.”

  Then he offered to take all the paintings and keep them in his warehouse.

  “At least you will know that the pictures are safe and being properly stored. And – who knows, perhaps one day tastes will change,” he told Elissa.

  She agreed, because what else could she do?

  She certainly could not take all the big canvasses to Yorkshire with her. But seeing them packed up in brown paper and cardboard and carried out of the house was like losing the last little bit of her beloved Papa.

  She was so upset that she quite forgot to give Mr. Harker the address of her new home in Yorkshire.

  *

  “So Mr. Stanfield. Shall I run through these figures again for you?”

  The lawyer peered at Richard over the top of his glasses.

  “I think I have understood, Mr. Grey.”

  Richard had no head for figures himself and he did not think that another lengthy explanation of what sums of money were owing, and how they could now be paid off, would be of any use to him.

  A buyer had been found for the house and this man had agreed to purchase all the furniture and fittings as well.

  The proceeds from the sale would pay off the debts. It would also pay what was owing to the servants, and give them a little bit extra to tide them over until they could find new situations.

  As far as Richard was concerned, that was all he needed to know.

  “I must say, it seems no time at all since we sat here at this very same table to discuss your inheritance after the sad demise of your father,” said Mr. Grey, fixing Richard with his sharp little eyes. “And now what very different circumstances we find ourselves in today.”

  He was clearly curious to know what Richard had done with the fortune that Sir Julius had left him.

  But Richard had no intention of confiding in him the details of what had happened.

  All that was private, personal and most painful.

  He rose from the table.

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Grey. If you will now proceed with everything as we discussed.”

  The lawyer stood up too and shuffled all the papers together.

  “If I can be of any further assistance – ”

  “Then I shall certainly contact you,” said Richard, politely and waited for Mr. Grey to leave.

  It was very strange to think that soon he would be without a roof over his head, but at least from now on he would not have to face any more furious Mr. Boustreds threatening to take him to Court.

  Travis was hovering in the doorway.

  “Mr. Richard, there is another gentleman here. I have told him that you will be settling all your accounts over the next few days, but he insists on speaking to you.”

  The old butler was looking grey and tired.

  There had been so many comings and goings to the house over the last few days and so many angry creditors banging at the door that Travis was rushed off his feet.

  “Let him wait a moment, Travis,” replied Richard. “I – just want to say that I am very sorry about all of this. It has been so hard for you. And – have you found another situation?”

  Travis had served Sir Julius for more than twenty years since before Richard was born.

  Now the old man smiled.

  “No, Mr. Richard. I will be hanging up my butler’s apron and going to my sister’s in Norfolk. I shall be very comfortable there, I’m sure.”

  “Well, that is good news, Travis!”

  Richard felt suddenly lighter as he saw that the old man was genuinely pleased to be retiring.

  “Papa would be so pleased to know that all is well with you. But – who is this man at the door?”

  “A Mr. Jones, sir, from the bank.”

  “Oh, show him in! He will be very pleased to hear what I have to tell him.”

  Mr. Jones, a small man with watery blue eyes, was indeed happy to hear that the overdraft would very shortly be cleared and all the creditors paid off.

  “But then what of yourself, Mr. Stanfield? What are your plans for the future? There will not be much money left for you.”

  “I still have my father’s art collection to sell.”

  Mr. Jones eyes darted around the room, looking at all the pictures on the walls.


  “French stuff, is it?” he asked.

  “Yes, some of it. There’s a Monet and that picture of the Thames is a Whistler.”

  “Ah, then I’ve heard of him,” Mr. Jones exclaimed, looking relieved. “And those two are pretty, aren’t they?”

  He pointed at a pair of small paintings hanging near the window.

  Richard had bought them for his father’s birthday, the year before he became ill.

  The first painting showed a cherry tree covered in blossom with a girl in a white dress standing beneath.

  And in the second the tree was covered in fruit and a young woman with long fair hair and a basket over her arm was reaching up to pick the cherries.

  “They’re by an English painter,” he told Mr. Jones. “Leo Valentine.”

  Richard had always loved these two pictures.

  He recalled how he had visited the artist’s house to buy them and had met Mr. Valentine, a tall man with a lion-like mane of golden hair.

  “Ah, yes. An English artist, very good, very good,” Mr. Jones wittered on. Clearly he did not know very much about art.

  “Now then – Mr. Stanfield, once you have sold the paintings may I suggest that we invest the money for you? And tie it up so that it cannot be spent? It will provide you with a small income.”

  “Yes,” agreed Richard, “that would be a good idea, Mr. Jones. Thanks for the advice.”

  He then rose to show the banker to the door before the man could start asking awkward questions about what had happened in Argentina.

  Once Mr. Jones had gone, Richard went up to his bedroom and pulled out his battered leather valise that he had brought back from South America.

  It contained many painful memories, he reflected, as he opened it up.

  Inside there was a box of watercolour paints, some brushes and a bundle of sketches and paintings.

  Richard’s plan, as he travelled abroad, had been to paint the exotic plants, birds and animals he came across.

  He had always loved painting, but then it was not considered particularly suitable for any young gentleman to take up as a career.

  When his father died, however, there was no one to criticise his decision to charge off to the tropics for a few months and absorb himself in charcoal and paint and thick velvety paper.

  If only he had been able to stick to his plan!

  Reluctantly he unrolled the bundle of his paintings.

  There were several rough sketches of orchids and tropical ferns.

  The rest were portraits of a lovely young woman.

  Mercedes de Rosario.

  He had never considered himself to be that good at portraiture, but as soon as he met Mercedes, he longed to capture her incredible beauty on paper.

  With her glowing golden skin, her shining dark red hair and luscious black eyes, she outshone all the brilliant flowers in the tropical gardens around her mother’s house in Buenos Aires.

  He now looked into her laughing eyes as he held up one of the portraits.

  He remembered the day he had painted it and how when it was finished, she had promised to marry him.

  He could still feel the warmth of her lips against his as they kissed in the green shade of the tall trees growing in her garden, for once forgetting the watchful eyes of her mother, who always seemed to be spying on them.

  That was the happiest day of his life.

  He had found love and would be spending the rest of his life with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  The sadness of losing his Papa began to recede and grow less hurtful.

  Mercedes had seemed happy too for a little while. She was longing to travel to England and see all the sights of London.

  But then she started to question Richard about how much he loved her.

  “Do you care for me, Richard? I am afraid that you are just playing with me – I am a poor Argentinean señorita – I do not have the Paris clothes, all the pretty things that the English ladies have – ”

  She told him she was afraid that he was ashamed of her and her Mama, who spoke no English, and that he did not really want to take them back to London with him.

  Richard gave her money to buy clothes and wrote cheques to her so that she should have some money of her own.

  But however often he did so, always telling her she was the love of his life and that of course he was proud of her, she still seemed fearful and anxious.

  Then one day she came to Richard and asked him to lend her a very large sum of money.

  “Please, Richard, my darling! If you love me – ”

  Richard was ashamed to feel a little nervous about giving it to her.

  But she insisted.

  “It is for my family, Richard. My uncles and my brothers are involved with so many exciting new projects in our country, but they will all fail if we do not have this money, and if we succeed – then we will be rich forever. You must lend it to me, darling! Please!”

  So he started writing a cheque for her.

  “How much exactly, did you say, Mercedes?”

  “Oh, my darling. I am not sure. I can’t remember – I will fill it in later!”

  Sir Julius had always advised Richard never to give anybody a blank cheque.

  “You’re just asking for trouble, young ’un, if you do that,” he used to say.

  But Mercedes was standing behind Richard with her arms around his neck, kissing the top of his head as he wrote out the cheque with her name on it and he simply could not say ‘no’ to her.

  The next day, when he went to visit her, the house was closed and the blinds were drawn over the windows.

  Perhaps Mercedes and her mother had gone away to sort out the family businesses she had told him about.

  But three days later she had still not returned and when Richard enquired at the house nearby, an old woman informed him that Señorita de Rosario had gone away to the Pampas in the South.

  “Is that where her family are? The de Rosarios?”

  “Her family? Señorita de Rosario has no family,” the woman told him. “They are all dead.”

  Richard shook his head.

  What about Mercedes’s mother!

  That large silent woman with black hair and eyes was always watching over her. He remembered how she had watched him and every time he came to visit, her deep black eyes staring at him from under her dark brows.

  But, he had never had a proper conversation with the woman.

  Mercedes was always drawing him away into the garden.

  Maybe she was not really Mercedes’s mother.

  Could it be that the beautiful girl had lied to him?

  Richard then ran straight into the bank in the town and sent a wire to stop the cheque he had written.

  But it was too late.

  It had been cashed and for a great deal more than the amount that Mercedes had asked him to lend her.

  All his money was gone. The account was empty.

  Now, as he stood in the bedroom which had always been his and which now he would have to leave forever, Richard stuffed the portraits of the beautiful red-haired girl back into the valise.

  It was all history now, it was over, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He had tried to find Mercedes, had travelled back and forth through the plains and mountains of Argentina, but no one knew of her. Or of the mysterious woman she had called her mother.

  He had confronted the bank, who were apologetic, and said they would look into the matter, but they advised him that since his signature was on the cheque and since he had already been making regular payments to this woman, it was unlikely that they could do anything to help.

  Richard picked up the brushes and the paint box.

  He was about to pack them away, but something stopped him.

  ‘I am free now,’ he thought. ‘I will have a small income, if I invest the money wisely from the sale of the paintings.’

  Why should he now not try his hand at becoming an artist? As a profession, and not
just a hobby? He could travel around England and paint landscapes, which he had always been good at.

  For the first time since his return from Argentina, Richard felt a little rush of happiness.

  And then he suddenly remembered Leo Valentine, the big blustering man with the mane of golden hair and a long beard – the artist who had painted the two cherry tree pictures he had bought for his father’s birthday.

  ‘I will go and see him again,’ Richard decided. ‘I liked him, he was wild and jolly and happy. He’ll give me some good advice about being a painter.’

  *

  The small white house in St. John’s Wood had been cleaned from the attic to the basement and white sheets had been placed over all the furniture and the walls were now empty of pictures.

  Elissa was sitting by the empty fireplace wearing her coat and gloves to keep warm.

  Her bag was packed and she was ready to leave for King’s Cross Station to catch the train up to Yorkshire.

  There was a loud knock at the front door.

  ‘That will be the House Agent come to collect the keys,’ Elissa reckoned, as she jumped up to answer it.

  But when she opened the door, a young man stood there. Tall and strong with wavy black hair and vivid blue eyes that were gazing straight into hers.

  “Oh, goodness!” he exclaimed. “Hello!”

  Elissa felt her heart beating fast.

  He was smiling at her, and his whole being seemed so vibrant and alive she did not know what to say to him.

  She realised that it was a very long time since she had spoken to a young man.

  She had spent so many days with her ailing father, and then all the men who had come to talk to her about the letting of the house seemed old, dull and preoccupied.

  None of them looked at her as this young man was doing now.

  “I’ve come to see Leo – Leo Valentine, the artist,” the young man was saying.

  “I’m sorry – but my Papa has passed away,” Elissa managed to reply, her voice feeling thick and tight.

  “Oh, no!”

  The young man’s face fell.

  “How awful! I so wanted to speak to him – ”

  And then he blushed.

  “I mean, how awful for you – I’m so sorry – Miss Valentine.”

  “I am just about to leave,” said Elissa, taking pity on him, “but why don’t you come in for a few moments? The House Agent will be here soon, but I could make you a cup of tea.”