Page 1 of Beatrix

PROLOGUE

Before this story begins, I’d like to introduce you to Finn Noon since he’s not a stranger arriving inconveniently into the story.

The Shackleford children have grown up with Uncle Finn as a figure of family legend. Not an uncle by blood, but by the longer, more durable bond of a friendship between Henry Shackleford and a wild, impulsive Scotsman from Caerlaverock on the shores of Loch Lomond - a friendship forged when, as Henry once told the girls, ‘Finn Noon was a lad and I was a mere babe,’ which Aunt Charlotte has always maintained is Henry's characteristic way of saying they were both equally daft when they met. Whatever debt of gratitude Henry owes Finn - and he’s said more than once, with quiet conviction, that it’s one he can never repay - it’s the kind that does not require explanation between people who’ve loved one another for more than sixty years.

Finn emigrated to Australia quite some time ago. His letters, full of colonial colour and imperfectly suppressed adventure, were passed round the Cliff House drawing room with the same ceremony as Christmas cards. They are, by general agreement, the single most significant reason Nicholas Shackleford is now in Melbourne rather than a solicitor's office in Torquay - because if Uncle Finn made it sound like that, who with any red blood in them could resist?

What the family does not entirely know about Finn - what Henry suspects but has never pressed - is that the impulsive quality Arabella remembers is not entirely behind him. Alexandra’s husband, Rhys Gould, Baron Tavistock, who’s heard his brother-in-law Samuel Shackleford’s version of events, wears a particular expression whenever Finn Noon is mentioned. It’s the look of a man who’s heard stories he has no intention of repeating in present company.

Finn's son Robert grew up in Melbourne, the only son of a Scotsman who built a respected legal practice on one side of the world while remaining thoroughly, incorrigibly himself on the other. Rob Noon is a solicitor. He’s also the young man who, at the age of six, was introduced to a photograph of Henry Shackleford's family in his father's study - a photograph that was, apparently, one of the first things Finn unpacked when he arrived in Australia. At the time Rob was told, ‘These are the best people in England. Remember that.’

He has remembered it. He’s about to find out whether it’s true.

CHAPTER 1

Beatrix Shackleford was sitting at the very bottom left-hand corner of Cliff House’s gardens. In front of her sat an easel and paints, positioned carefully to take the best advantage of the magnificent seascape before her. By her side was a large piece of apple cake, should she become peckish, and next to the snack was Aggie, the family’s golden retriever, poised to take immediate advantage should the entire slice not be required to prevent Beatrix potentially swooning from hunger.

It was a beautiful spring day - the kind that poets had written sonnets for since men had made enough time for such idleness. The sea glistened with speckles of sunlight, the waves playful and choppy. Above her, seagulls wheeled and dived through the skies, waiting for the fishing boats to return with their day’s catch.

Biting her lip, Bea leaned back and studied her efforts so far. If she was being honest - and she was rarely anything else - it was far from her best work, but since it was the first time she’d been able to sneak some time alone in what seemed like forever, it was hardly surprising.

Sighing, she put down her brush. In contrast to the day, the mood in the house had been grim, with everyone at each other’s throats. Arabella especially had been unbearable ever since the deaths of Sir Charles Drayton and John Thorpe at Castel-a-Mare ten days earlier. In fairness, Bea concluded her sister’s mulligrubs were less due to sadness at the loss of two lives - even if they had been worthless varmints - and more because she hadn’t seen Chief Inspector Benedict Hartley since the whole havey cavey business with Pembroke Domestic Agency had been brushed under the carpet.

A low whine brought her back to the present, and she looked down at Aggie, staring fixedly at the piece of apple cake. At that moment, Bea really didn’t feel like eating. Had she confessed such an uncharacteristic state of affairs to her Aunt Charlotte, she was entirely certain she’d be packed off to bed with a dose of Dr Brodrum’s restorative nervous cordial.

Picking up the cake, Beatrix nibbled round the edges then broke the remainder in two halves, both of which Aggie swallowed with only the briefest acquaintance with her teeth. Staring absently over the impressive vista spread before her, Bea thought about what had happened in the last ten days. Or rather, what hadn’t. It wasn’t only Benedict Hartley’s absence that was putting Arabella on edge. So far there had been no sign of Muriel Pemberton after Bella and Alexandra had let her go, and both were now busy berating themselves over the lost opportunity. Of course, the longer it went on, the more anxious and frustrated both sisters became.

Aunt Charlotte declaring them both complete saddle gooses hadn’t helped matters, and her demand as to what in blazes they’d been thinking, expecting that baggage to uphold any kind of a bargain, was met with gritted teeth and stony silence.

Their father had been much more forgiving of what was increasingly looking like a blunder of the highest order, but in fairness, his lack of reproach made both women feel almost worse, or so it appeared. No one mentioned the other possibility – that Muriel Pemberton was grinning at daisy roots in some hidden location…

So, all in all, the atmosphere inside Cliff House was decidedly chill. Bea looked down at Aggie staring fixedly at the crumbs now decorating her skirts. With a sudden lightening of heart, Beatrix found herself chuckling. All the Retriever cared about was her next snack. There was a lot to be said for that attitude. Indeed, that philosophy had always worked for Bea before now, and Mrs Williams did say there was to be steak and kidney pudding for supper. She looked down at her newly acquired wristwatch. Nearly three o’clock. Her stomach obligingly growled, berating her for giving away all the cake. Her inexplicable indifference to food had evidently been only fleeting, thank goodness. Was it worth braving the chilly atmosphere for afternoon tea on the off chance that Mrs Williams had made some scones? Beatrix looked down at Aggie’s wagging tail and decided it was.

* * *

Stepping ashore onto the busy quayside, Robert Noon stood for a moment, still feeling the rolling motion of the ship despite the firmness of the ground beneath his feet.

Unfortunately, however, more than fifty days at sea could not be dismissed in mere minutes and when he finally picked up his trunk and began walking, he found himself struggling to negotiate the coils of thick rope, mooring lines and anchor chains securing the SS Lusitania, the most recent steamship to arrive in Plymouth from Australia. Wooden crates, nets, heavy-duty hooks, winches and pulleys completed the obstacle course, and by the time he reached the entrance to Millbay Docks, next to Plymouth West Hoe, he was actually close to casting up his account.

Taking a shaky breath, he soldiered on, until he finally reached Millbay railway station, and was able to collapse into a seat on the platform, while waiting for his land sickness to pass. Fortunately, according to the timetable posted outside the station, he had over an hour to wait before the next train to Newton Abbot. Leaning back, he took a deep breath wondering if he’d been hasty in his decision to complete the final leg of his journey to Paignton on the day of his arrival rather than resting overnight in a Plymouth hotel.

Certainly, an additional overnight stay would have improved his chances of making a good first impression, but after so many weeks of travelling, he was desperate for a bed that didn’t constantly threaten to dump him on the floor and a meal that didn’t feature salted pork or ship’s biscuits. Unfortunately, his father had deemed both first and second-class passage from Australia to England an avoidable extravagance, citing the fact that his son was young enough and fit enough to endure a few weeks on a straw mattress. Indeed, to drive home his point, Finn Noon had regaled Rob with yet another of his far-fetched childhood stories – this time involving a sailing trip he undertook to France and a plot to overthrow the King.

Rob found himself smiling, his sickness forgotten for the moment as he remembered sitting with his sisters, listening in rapt silence to the many colourful stories his father spun about his childhood in Devon.

As Finn told it, he’d been a young lad when he’d escaped from a gold mine in Scotland. According to the frequently revised account, he’d also heroically helped save a varying number of other children. The number of orphans rescued could be anything from twenty to a hundred, depending on how many drams his father had consumed before the telling. What was certain was that he’d been taken down to South Devon, England, and adopted by a curate and his wife.

Rob had never met his adoptive grandparents - both Percy and Lizzy Noon were long gone by the time he was born, but the fanciful stories his father loved to tell suggested the modest curate and his wife had been involved in an excessive number of adventures – nearly all of which had been at the behest of a meddlesome clergyman by the name of Augustus Shackleford.

Indeed, it was the Reverend Augustus Shackleford’s grandson Henry that Rob had made the long journey from Melbourne, Australia, to see - mostly at the behest of his father, it had to be said.

Henry Shackleford and Finn Noon had been firm friends almost since the latter had arrived in Devon as a wily seven-year-old while Henry was still a babe in arms. A mere couple of years later, Finn had taken the now two-year-old’s practical education in hand. They had remained firm friends for more than half a century, despite being separated by an ocean for much of that time.

And of course, the fact that Henry’s son Nicholas had emigrated to Australia three and a half years earlier and was now working for his old friend’s law firm was yet another tie between the two families.

Certainly, Rob’s luggage contained a number of letters from both men. Would that the exchange of cheerful news was the only reason for his very first trip to England...

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