Return to Belle Amber

212 Pages·2016·0.94 MB·English

by  Way Margaret

RETURN TO BELLE
AMBER

Margaret Way
Belle Amber had always been part of Karen's life, and now she was
living there again it was dearer to her than anything or anyone else -
except Guy.

Guy was Guy, a man of immense charisma, but nobody had warned
Karen about Celia, the exquisite figure with a heart of ice...
CHAPTER I
THE gold was fading from the sky. It was turning imperceptibly to a
delicate green, like cool, running water. A capering wind whipped up
with the dusk skeining her long black hair across her face and throat.
Karen roused herself from a world of random little thoughts and
hurried on home. Soon it would be dark and Philip would be waiting.
She turned up the collar of her coat, her long slim legs flashing, her
heels on the pavement tapping out the same urgent message: Philip
will be waiting: Philip will be waiting.
In her own quiet cul-de-sac the roar of the traffic, the relentless
procession of cars, buses and darting taxi-cabs was suddenly
obliterated. The fine old houses stood in a world of their own; a world
of silence and gentle stability. The winter-into-spring blend of
atmosphere was brisk and invigorating and in every garden the
wattles were bursting into fluffy gold blossom. The sight and scent of
them prodded her memory and induced a bitter-sweet nostalgia, a
fragrant reminder of days long past. Karen gave an involuntary gasp,
for an instant suspended in time.
In front of the old wine cellar stood a magnificent acacia. With each
spring it burst into dazzling blossom : masses upon masses of softest
yellow constellations that swayed against the whitewashed stone
building. A very long time before someone had built a circular bench
around its broad base, and there the children loved to congregate, in
plain sight and scent of the mysterious and wonderfully spooky old
place — the cellar. It was haunted, of course, by old Matthew Amber,
who had built it and stocked it and loved it and gone there to die. How
many childish fantasies had they woven around him - the tall spectral
figure that roamed the gloomy underground tunnels stacked high
with dusty old bottles that glowed ruby and amethyst when rubbed off
and held up to the light:
At the back of the cellar was a squat stone wall trailing ivy, with a
background of camellias and low-growing azaleas, and beyond that
the glasshouses crammed to the ceiling with exotic plants from all
over the world. Aunt Patricia favoured orchids and was the possessor
of an enviable "green finger". As soon as the temperature dropped a
few degrees she would rush off to the greenhouse to check the
humidity for her beloved cattleyas, for once the orchids budded they
would bloom on for weeks at a time.
One lovely image after another flashed across Karen's mind like
slides on a projection screen. Faster and faster they flew, absorbing
her entire attention. At the foot of the embankment,, approaching the
vineyards, was a small pond guarded by willows, where fish liked to
dart, leaving flashes of silver and gold. Rikki got spanned once for
trying to fish there. Rikki was always the rebel, a small boy with
silver-gilt hair!
The breeze tugged at her hair, pulling her out of it. Karen blinked her
eyes fiercely. It all seemed a million years ago, anyway. The golden
days of Belle Amber! The days of her childhood; the halcyon days
that could never be recaptured.
Nearing her own front gate, great ferny fronds groped through the
fence towards her and caught at her coat. Karen bent down and broke
off a few with her hand. Despite all her efforts the garden was getting
too much for her. She could cope with the lawns, but the
long-established flower beds were beyond her. She shifted her gaze to
the rambling old house; almost a mansion. A light shone dimly
through the living room curtains. The house was getting too much for
her. It was too big, too lonely, but at least it was hers. She had high
rates but no rent to worry about. Even so, the next few years would be
a battle to make ends meet. She braced her slender shoulders, warding
off a sudden burst of depression. She was tired, that was it.
Wednesday was always a long tiring day with a straight run of dull
pupils and theory classes after school. Responsibilities always
seemed more overwhelming when one was tired. Characteristically
she began to hum quietly under her breath, fighting off the plague of
doubts and self-recriminations that seemed to close in with the dusk.
The front door of the house opened and a boy of about ten careered
down the stairs. Karen's face changed as she watched his swift flight,
and an imperturbable gaiety spread over her lovely mouth. Philip was
a handsome child with dark hair and dark eyes, his skin a clear olive.
She dropped her music case and heavy shopping bag prepared for the
high-spirited launch he made at her.
"Karo! Karo, guess what? I've busted my knee again, would you
believe it?"
His sister looked down at him, the lovely gaiety still on her . mouth. "I
would, and. you'll survive, my pet. Did you put any disinfectant on
it?"
Philip nodded his head matter-of-factly. "Sure. But you should see
the dents in the bike. I don't know how I'll ever get them out."
Karen clicked her tongue in commiseration and the two of them
walked up the steps, flanked by stone jars overflowing with massed
Alba Magna azaleas. Their arms were entwined, their dark heads
together. They were very close. It had always been so. Even before
their mother had died Karen had been everything to her small brother
- mother, sister, brother, confidante. Eva Hartmann had spent the last
eight years of her life mysteriously an invalid, a strange and bitter
woman with an impenetrable protective veneer, aloof from her own
children, obsessed with the past, obsessed with the Ambers, her own
wealthy clan and die family who had contrived in so many ways to
ruin her husband.
As a very young girl Karen had suffered recurrent nightmares from
her mother's tales of Amber misdeeds and machinations. The
expression on that once beautiful face still disturbedher dreams; the
expression Karen came later to recognise as a deep and implacable
hatred.'
One of the few legacies Karen had of the past eight years was a
courageous independence of thought and spirit, an aspect of her
character that was fostered by nature, and strengthened by the events
and environment of her life.
Inside the house the hall light was blazing. The letter was there again!
Karen picked it up carefully, her hands trembling. She glanced down
at Philip.
"Go and wash your hands and set the table for tea."
He looked at her patiently, his dark eyes alerted. "I've already done
that, Karo. What's in the letter?" He searched his sister's pale face.
Her skin gleamed opalescent under the bright light.
"Start on your homework, then," she murmured abstractedly, her eyes
already on the typewritten page, the huge cheque that accompanied it.
She separated them uneasily while Philip went off, unprotesting
without trying to divert or offer comfort. He was already something
of a philosopher. Karen was worried. He could always read the signs,
but she was not prone to airing her worries. He would start on his
homework. Besides, every term he seemed to get more of it.
His sister walked into the living room, gazing down at the letter. The
house seemed very still around her, almost as though it were
listening. So they wanted them. The almighty Ambers! Her eyes
moved down the page to the black forceful signature, as distinctive
and vigorous as its well-remembered owner - GUY AMBER.
Lessons painfully learnt are forever remembered! Karen lifted her
dark head, her great tawny eyes flashing like topazes in the light. No
wonder her mother had hated him. What an insufferable style he had,
though the technique was flawless, almost surgical in its clean
sweeping thrusts. She could almost applaud his easy, positive
assumption that she would fall in with his wishes. Her soft mouth
held a sobering maturity. No, not wishes, precisely - commands. That
was it. Commands, and he was a man long used to giving them.
So the great Guy Amber had come forward to look after the orphans.
Eight long years later he would look after the orphans. He would take
care of Pip's education. Philip was, after all, an Amber. He would go
into the family business. Perhaps take his father's place... never!'
The thoughts in her mind Were clear, clear and cold and precise.
Karen screwed up the sheet of paper with a single convulsive
movement and pitched it into the fireplace with stunning accuracy,
her young, almost breakable body taut with fiery disdain.
She would look after Philip. She always would, for as long as he
needed her. She was nineteen, not ninety, and she was earning a good
salary - her Conservatorium diploma saw to that. She was already
assistant music mistress at St. Hilda's, the exclusive girls' school
where she was once a pupil. All those years of study had paid off.
Her mother had kept her hard at it, though she derived no great
pleasure from her daughter's accomplishment - "A necessary
investment" - Eva Hartmann had called it as she paid out the high
fees. Karen's undeniable gift, an inheritance from her father, had done
the rest. Karen's eyes swung round the living room, fixing details. It
was a beautiful room really, faded but still-beautiful. A woman's
room, highly individual, with each piece carefully selected by her
mother. It still held her essence. There was no lingering trace of their
dear dead father, no element of masculine intrusion, save the piano.
Only the piano remained to remind the children of their father.
Stephen Hartmann had been a highly gifted pianist. The piano, a
six-foot concert grand, had been his own cherished possession.
The French Impressionist paintings that shimmered from the walls
were her mother's favourites and over the piano hung a fine Degas
print, so deeply familiar to her from long hours of staring at it, the
little dancing girl's tutu caught in a halo of light. Even the books were
her mother's - a whole wall of them, beautifully jacketed, with
separate niches for display pieces of porcelain and china, crystal and
ivory, coloured glass objects that winked in the light.
Karen's eyes came back to the piano, open as usual, her music
scattered helter-skelter all over the top from the morning's frantic
search for a Debussy Arabesque. How often in the past when she
practised had she looked up to find her mother's eyes fixed on her ...
on the piano; seeing and unseeing, her expression fixed, her fine dark
eyes clouded with remembrances.
Ever sensitive to her mother's moods, Karen had only once broached
the subject of her father. Then her mother's taut answer, the queer
tone she had used, made Karen forever back away from the subject:
"We won't speak of your father, Karen. For me, at least, it's a kind of
peace without him."
Karen had never forgotten it - had she allowed herself to dwell on it,
never forgiven it. Her father had been very dear to her. She was, after
all, made in his image. To have lived all her life so close to her mother
and then to discover in one painful instant that she really didn't know
her at all came as a shattering realisation, part of the disillusionment
of growing up. Something dreadful had happened to Eva Hartmann,
but when or how it had happened Karen had been too young to fell. It
was impossible to pinpoint the exact period of time, though she had
gone over and over it.
One thing was certain, the Ambers were up to their necks in it. On
their shoulders lay a great measure of the blame for Eva Hartmann's
disenchantment, the great ache that gnawed away her fragile bones.
Only with approaching maturity did Karen come to glimpse the
exquisite pleasure her mother derived from her suffering, the
implacable bitterness she wore like a shield. Her death was a shock,
complete and absolute, but after the first rush of grief came a sense of
release, a lightening of the burden that Eva Hartmann had knowingly
or unknowingly conferred on her children.
Abruptly, Karen came out of her reverie. She hurried out of the room
and ran up the stairs to her bedroom. The white bobbles on the high
canopy danced as she threw her coat down on the bed. She pulled her
dress over her head and reached into the wardrobe for her slacks and a
sweater. It would only take ten minutes to heat the casserole through.
She was a clever and capable young woman, but she thought little of
her own varied talents. She hadn't the time. The days and nights spun
by endlessly, none of them free from some form of anxiety.
Inevitably, her eye fell on an early framed portrait of her mother and
father, and she checked in her stride to look down at it. Two
handsome young people gazed back at her; her mother looking
directly at the camera, her face, despite the outdated hairstyle,
striking, imperious even; her father looking slightly past the camera,
both of them caught at a high point in their lives, eyes and mouth
smiling, happy and confident, facing the future with the assured
arrogance of the young and secure. And they had been secure - then.
Her father's family, the Hartmanns, had been among the colony's
earliest pioneers of the vine with a small but excellent vineyard and
winery, and her mother's family - the Ambers, then a big
wine-making firm, now controlled twenty of the finest vineyards in
three States and a great trading company.
A merger between the two families had been inevitable. The
Hartmann vineyards adjoined the Amber estates. It was only a matter
of time before they swallowed them up. Stephen Hartmann played
right into Amber hands. His land was ripe for the taking. In a major