The Day of the Storm by Rosamunde Pilcher Read Free Book Online Page B

Street to seek out Stephen Forbes.
    I found him upstairs, going through a box of books out of an old house which had just been sold up. There was no one else with him, and as I appeared at the top of the stairs he stood up and came towards me, thinking that I was a potential customer. When he saw that I was not, his manner changed.
    â€œRebecca! You’re back.”
    I stood there, with my hands in my coat pockets.
    â€œYes. I got in about two.” He watched me, his face a question. I said, “My mother died, early yesterday morning. I was just in time. I had an evening with her, and we talked and talked.”
    â€œI see,” said Stephen. “I’m glad you saw her.” He cleared some books from the edge of a table, and leaned against it, folding his arms and eyeing me through his spectacles. He said, “What are you going to do now?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYou look exhausted. Why not take a few days off?”
    I said again, “I don’t know.”
    He frowned. “What don’t you know?”
    â€œI don’t know what to do.”
    â€œWhat’s the problem?”
    â€œStephen, have you ever heard of an artist called Grenville Bayliss?”
    â€œHeavens, yes. Why?”
    â€œHe’s my grandfather.”
    Stephen’s face was a study. “Good Lord. When did you find that out?”
    â€œMy mother told me. I’d never heard of him,” I had to admit.
    â€œYou should have.”
    â€œIs he well known?”
    â€œHe was, twenty years ago when I was a boy. There was a Grenville Bayliss over the dining-room fireplace in my father’s old house in Oxford. Part of my growing up, one might say. A grey stormy sea and a fishing boat with a brown sail. Used to make me feel seasick to look at it. He specialized in seascapes.”
    â€œHe was a sailor. I mean, he’d been in the Royal Navy.”
    â€œThat follows.”
    I waited for him to go on, but he was silent. I said at last, “What am I to do, Stephen?”
    â€œWhat do you want to do, Rebecca?”
    â€œI never had a family.”
    â€œIs it so important?”
    â€œSuddenly it is.”
    â€œThen go and see him. Is there any reason not to?”
    â€œI’m frightened.”
    â€œOf what?”
    â€œI don’t know. Of being snubbed, I suppose. Or ignored.”
    â€œWere there dreadful family rows?”
    â€œYes. And cuttings off. And never darken my door again. You know the sort of thing.”
    â€œDid your mother suggest that you went?”
    â€œNo. Not in so many words. But she said there were some things that belonged to her. She thought I should have them.”
    â€œWhat sort of things?”
    I told him. “I know it’s nothing very much. Perhaps not even worth making the journey for. But I’d like to have something that belonged to her. Besides—” I tried to turn it into a joke—“they might help to fill up some of the blank spaces in the new flat.”
    â€œI think collecting your possessions should be a secondary reason for going to Cornwall. Your first should be making friends with Grenville Bayliss.”
    â€œSupposing he doesn’t want to make friends?”
    â€œThen no harm has been done. Except possibly a little bruising to your pride, but that won’t kill you.”
    â€œYou’re rail-roading me into this,” I told him.
    â€œIf you didn’t want my advice, then why did you come to see me?”
    He had a point. “I don’t know,” I admitted.
    He laughed. “You don’t know much, do you?” and when at last I smiled back, he said, “Look. Today’s Thursday. Go home and get some sleep. And if tomorrow’s too soon, then go down to Cornwall on Sunday or Monday. Just go. See how the land lies, see how the old boy is. It may take a few days, but that doesn’t matter. Don’t come back to London until you’ve done all