Marlford by Jacqueline Yallop

he left funds for a great many improvements and expansions – new roads, for example, and an open-air swimming pool for the children to use in the summer.’
    She thought she could smell the scent of Dan’s tobacco smoke drifting in from the portico but she could not be sure, and she tried to concentrate instead on the tight pattern of angles suggested by the balls.
    When Gadiel spoke again, she started.
    â€˜Do you mean you don’t have any money now? Despite all this?’
    Ellie frowned at an obstructed pocket. ‘We have very little money,’ she replied.
    Gadiel smiled. ‘Dan’ll be pleased to hear that.’ But he could not be sure she understood his joke. ‘No – look, I didn’t mean… it must have been some disaster, though, to lose that much.’
    Ellie was scathing. ‘It was a remarkable achievement.’
    The ferocity of her tone embarrassed him. He pulled uncomfortably at one of the string bags beneath the pockets of the billiard table. The game seemed to have drifted to a halt.
    â€˜To lose everything on the turn of the dice… or something.’ Gadiel whistled, a kind of admiration.
    â€˜No, no – it wasn’t that. It wasn’t gambling.’
    She tried to settle the facts of the old story, always brittle to her, fragments from lives long past, before Marlford was ever conceived, an incongruous prehistory.
    â€˜Well, if you want to tell me, then think of it as a history lesson,’ he prompted. ‘I might learn something.’
    The light spat, momentarily throwing them into darkness before flicking on again and settling, its brightness dimmed. Ellie slid her cue onto the table, laying it along the cushion.
    She sighed. She saw Gadiel’s eagerness, something other than mere curiosity, an irresistible desire to know her.
    â€˜Papa was – well, an adventurer, like those old-fashioned explorers that lost themselves in the jungle or were eaten by savages.’ She smiled wryly at her father’s eccentricity.
    â€˜Well, which was it?’ Gadiel asked. ‘He doesn’t look like he got eaten by savages.’
    She laughed. ‘He got involved with all kinds of strange schemes, and in the end he put up a great deal of money for a British expedition to Canada. He had to take out extra loans to finance it. It was scientific, in its way – it was a genuine expedition. He had support from the British Geological Survey, the War Ministry – all kinds of officials. If it had been a success I believe there might have been a substantial return on the investment. But it was terrible timing: it was 1939, and when war broke out… well – he had to sell everything… almost everything. Except the house.’
    Gadiel was struck by the coolness of her manner. ‘Couldn’t they just have postponed it?’
    â€˜It was too late, I think. I don’t entirely understand. There’s never been many details. Perhaps it was a secret. It was something to do with finding a new supply route, but several of the ships were sunk by German U-boats just south of Rockall – I know that much. My father was on board one of them; he was one of the survivors.’
    â€˜But that’s terrible.’
    â€˜I’ve never considered it worthy of much sympathy.’
    Gadiel stepped back and stared at her. He caught the flicker of something hardly visible behind the steady primness of her face, the tiniest of movements; he could not even say what it might have been, a twitch of the cheek, perhaps, or a fleeting spark in the eye. It was like a stifled cry. He felt he should help her.
    â€˜Another game?’ It was all he could think of to offer.
    *
    When he potted the last ball, Ellie was standing by the table, blinking.
    â€˜Oh.’ The sound crept from her, an involuntary moan. ‘Well played.’ Gadiel offered her his hand but she did not take it.
    She had never considered that she might lose