Bride of Pendorric Page 3

  There came the day when Roc and I were married and I was so overwhelmed by new and exciting experiences that I did not give a thought to what was happening to my father. I couldn’t think of anyone but myself and Roc during those days.

  It was wonderful to be together every hour of the days and nights. We would laugh over trifles; it was really the laughter of happiness, which comes so easily I discovered. Giuseppe and Umberto were delighted with us; their arias were more fervent than they used to be, and after we had left them Roc and I would imitate them, gesticulating wildly, setting our faces into tragic or comic masks, whatever the songs demanded, and because we sang out of tune we laughed the more. He would come into the kitchen when I was cooking, to help me he said; and he would sit on the table getting in my way until with mock exasperation I would attempt to turn him out, which always ended up by my being in his arms.

  The memories of those days were to stay with me during the difficult times ahead; they sustained me when I needed to be sustained.

  Roc was, as I had known he would be, a passionate and demanding lover; he carried me along with him, but I often felt bemused by the rich experiences which were mine. Yet I was certain then that everything was going to be wonderful. I was content to live in the moment; I had even stopped wondering what my new home would be like; I assured myself that my father would have nothing to worry about. Roc would take care of his future as be would take care of mine.

  Then one day I went down to the market alone and came back sooner than I had expected.

  The door of the studio was open and I saw them there—my father and my husband. The expression on both their faces shocked me. Roc’s was grim; my father’s tortured. I had the impression that my father had been saying something to Roc which he did not like, and I could not tell whether Roc was angry or shocked. I imagined my father seemed bewildered.

  Then they saw me and Roc said quickly: “Here’s Favel.”

  It was as though they had both drawn masks over their faces.

  “Is anything the matter?” I demanded.

  “Only that we’re hungry,” answered Roc, coming over to me and taking my basket from me.

  He smiled and putting his arm round me gave me a hug. “It seems a long time since I’ve seen you.”

  I looked beyond him to my father; he, too, was smiling, but I thought there was a grayish tinge in his face.

  “Father,” I insisted, “what is it?”

  “You’re imagining things, my dear,” he assured me.

  I could not throw off my uneasiness but I let them persuade me that all was well, because I could not bear that anything should disturb my new and wonderful happiness.

  The sun was brilliant. It had been a busy morning in the studio. My father always went down to swim while I got our midday meal, and on that day I told Roc to go with him.

  “Why don’t you come too?”

  “Because I have the lunch to get. I’ll do it more quickly if you two go off.”

  So they went off together.

  Ten minutes later Roc came back. He came into the kitchen and sat on the table. His back was to the window and I noticed the sunlight through the prominent tips of his ears.

  “At times,” I said, “you look like a satyr.”

  “That’s what I am,” he told me.

  “Why did you come back so soon?”

  “I found I didn’t want to be separated from you any longer, so I left your father on the beach and came back alone.”

  I laughed at him. “You are silly! Couldn’t you bear to be away from me for another fifteen minutes?”

  “Far too long,” he said.

  I was delighted to have him with me, pretending to help in the kitchen, but when we were ready to eat, my father had not come back.

  “I do hope he’s not got involved in some long conversation,” I said.

  “He couldn’t. You know how people desert the beach for food and siesta at this time of day”

  Five minutes later I began to get really anxious; and with good reason.

  That morning my father went into the sea and he did not come back alive.

  His body was recovered later that day. They said he must have been overcome by cramp and unable to save himself.

  It seemed the only explanation then. My happiness was shattered, but how thankful I was that I had Roc. I did not know how I could have lived through that time if he had not been with me. My great and only consolation was that, although I had lost my father, Roc had come into my life.

  It was only later that the terrible doubts began.

  TWO

  All the joy had gone out of our honeymoon, and I could not rid myself of the fear that I had failed my father in some way

  I remember lying in Roc’s arms during the night that followed and crying out: “There was something I could have done. I know it.”

  Roc tried to comfort me. “But what, my darling? How could you know that he was going to have cramp? It could happen to anybody and, smooth as the sea was, if nobody heard his cry for help, that would be the end.”

  “He never had cramp before.”

  “There had to be a first time.”

  “But Roc … there was something.”

  He smoothed my hair back from my face. “Darling, you mustn’t upset yourself so. There’s nothing we can do now.”

  He was right. What could we do?

  “He would be glad,” Roc told me, “that I am here to take care of you.”

  There was a note of relief in his voice when he said that, which I could not understand, and I felt the first twinges of the fear which I was to come to know very well.

  Roc took charge of everything. He said that we must get away from the island as quickly as possible because then I would begin to grow away from my tragedy. He would take me home and in time I should forget.

  I left everything to him because I was too unhappy to make arrangements myself. Some of my father’s treasures were packed up and sent to Pendorric to await our arrival; the rest were sold. Roc saw the landlord of our studio and arranged to get rid of the lease; and two weeks later we left Capri.

  “Now we must try to put that tragedy out of our minds,” said Roc as we sailed to the mainland.

  I looked at his profile and for one short moment I felt that I was looking at a stranger. I did not know why—except perhaps because I had begun to suspect, since my father’s death, that there was a great deal I had to learn about my husband.

  We spent two days in Naples and while we were there he told me that he was not in any hurry to get home because I was still so shocked and dazed, and he wanted me to have time to recover before he took me to Pendorric.

  “We’ll finish our honeymoon, darling,” he said.

  But my response was listless because I kept thinking of my father, sitting at the studio table in the dark, and wondering what he had on his mind.

  “I ought to have found out,” I reiterated. “How could I have been so thoughtless? I always knew when something worried him. He found it hard to hide anything from me. And he didn’t hide that.”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Roc almost fiercely.

  “I think he was ill. Probably that was why he got this cramp. Roc, what happened on the beach that day? Did he look ill?”

  “No. He looked the same as usual.”

  “Oh Roc, if only you hadn’t come back. If only you’d been with him.”

  “It’s no use saying ‘if only,’ Favel. I wasn’t with him. We’re going to leave Naples. It’s too close. We’re going to put all this behind us.” He took my hands and drew me to him, kissing me with tenderness and passion. “You’re my wife, Favel. Remember that. I’m going to make you forget how he died and remember only that we are together now. He wouldn’t have you mourn for him.”

  He was right. The shock did become modified as the weeks passed. I taught myself to accept the fact that my father’s death was not so very unusual. I must remember that I had a husband to consider now and, as he was
so anxious for me to put the tragedy behind me and be happy, I must do my best to please him.

  And it was easier as we went farther from the island.

  Roc was charming to me during those days; and I felt that he was determined to make me forget all the sadness.

  Once he said to me: “We can do no good by brooding, Favel. Let’s put it behind us. Let’s remember that by a wonderful chance we met and fell in love.”

  We stayed for two weeks in the South of France and each day, it seemed, took me a step farther away from the tragedy. We hired an Alfa Romeo and Roc took a particular delight in the hairpin bends, laughing at me as I held my breath while he skillfully took the turns. The scenery delighted me, but as I gazed at terraces of orange stucco villas which seemed to cling to the cliff face, Roc would snap his fingers.

  “Wait,” he would say, “just wait till you see Pendorric.”

  It was a joke between us that not all the beauty of the Maritime Alps nor the twists, turns, and truly majestic gorges to be discovered on the Corniche road could compare with his native Cornwall.

  Often I would say it for him while we sat under a multicolored umbrella in opulent Cannes or sunned ourselves on the beach of humbler Menton: “But of course this is nothing compared with Cornwall.” Then we would laugh together and people passing would smile at us, knowing us for lovers.

  At first I thought my gaiety was a little forced. I was so eager to please Roc and there was no doubt that nothing delighted him more than to see me happy. Then I found that I did not have to pretend. I was becoming so deeply in love with my husband that the fact that we were together could overwhelm me and all else seemed of little importance. Roc was eager to wean me from my sorrow; and because he was the sort of man who was determined to have his way he could not fail. I was conscious of his strength, of his dominating nature, and I was glad of it because I would not have wished him to be different.

  But I grew suddenly uneasy one night in Nice. We had driven in from Villefranche and, as we did so, noticed the dark clouds which hung over the mountains—a contrast to the sparkling scene. Roc had suggested that we visit the Casino and I, as usual, readily fell in with his suggestion. He took a turn at the tables and I was reminded then of the light in his eyes when he had sat with my father in the studio. There was the same burning excitement that used to alarm me when I saw it in my father’s.

  He won that night and was elated; but I couldn’t hide my concern and when, in our hotel bedroom, I betrayed this he laughed at me.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’d never make the mistake of risking what I couldn’t afford to lose.”

  “You’re a gambler,” I accused.

  He took my face in his hands. “Well, why not?” he demanded. “Life’s supposed to be a gamble, isn’t it, so perhaps it’s the gamblers who come off best.”

  He was teasing me as he used to before my father’s death and, I assured myself, it was only teasing; but that incident seemed to mark a change in our relationship. I was over the first shock; there was no need to treat me with such delicate care. I knew then that Roc would always be a gambler no matter how I tried to persuade him against it, and I experienced once more those faint twinges of apprehension.

  I began to think of the future, and there were occasions when I was uneasy. This happened first during the night when I awoke suddenly from a hazy dream in which I knew myself to be in some unspecified danger.

  I lay in the darkness, aware of Roc beside me, sleeping deeply, and I thought: What is happening to me? Two months ago I did not know this man. My home was the studio on the island with my father, and now another artist works in the studio and I have no father.

  I had a husband. But what did I know of him?—except that I was in love with him. Wasn’t that enough? Ours was a deeply passionate relationship and I could at times become so completely absorbed in our need of each other that this seemed all I asked. But that was only a part of marriage. I considered the marriage of my parents and remembered how they had relied on each other and felt that all was well as long as the other was close by.

  And here I was waking in the night after a nightmare which hung about me, seeming like a vague warning.

  That night I really looked the truth in the eye, which was that I knew very little of the man I had married or of the sort of life to which he was taking me.

  I made up my mind that I must have a talk with him and, when we drove into the mountains next day, I decided to do so. The fears of the night had departed and somehow seemed ridiculous by day, yet I told myself it was absurd that I should know so little of his background.

  We found a small hotel where we stopped to have lunch.

  I was thoughtful as we ate and, when Roc asked the reason, I blurted out: “I want to know more about Pendorric and your family.”

  “I’m ready for the barrage. Start firing.”

  “First the place itself. Let me try to see it and then you fill it with the people.”

  He leaned his elbows on the table and narrowed his eyes as though he were looking at something far away, which he could not see very clearly.

  “The house first,” he said. “It’s about four hundred years old in some parts. Some of it has been restored. In fact there was a house there in the Dark Ages I believe—so the story goes … . We’re built on the cliff rock some five hundred yards from the sea; I believe we were much farther from it in the beginning but the sea has a habit of encroaching, you know, and in hundreds of years it advances. We’re built of gray Cornish granite calculated to stand against the southwest gales; as a matter of fact over the front archway—one of the oldest parts of the house—there’s a motto in Cornish cut into the stone. Translated into English it is: ‘When we build we believe we build forever.’ I remember my father’s lifting me up to read that and telling me that we Pendorrics were as much a part of the house as that old archway and that Pendorrics would never rest in their graves if the time came when the family left the place.”

  “How wonderful to belong to such a family!”

  “You do now.”

  “But as a kind of outsider … as all the people who married into the family must be.”

  “You’ll soon become one of us. It’s always been so with Pendorric brides. In a short time they’re upholding the family more enthusiastically than those who started life with the name Pendorric.”

  “Are you a sort of squire of the neighborhood?”

  “Squires went out of fashion years ago. We own most of the farms in the district and customs die harder in Cornwall than anywhere else in England. We cling to old traditions and superstitions. I’m sure that a practical young woman like yourself is going to be very impatient with some of the stories you hear; but bear with us—we’re the fey Cornish, remember, and you married into us.”

  “I’m sure I shan’t complain. Tell me some more.”

  “Well, there’s the house—a solid rectangle facing north, south, east, and west. Northwards we look over the hills to the farmlands—south we face straight out to sea, and east and west give you magnificent views of a coastline that is one of the most beautiful in England and the most treacherous. When the tide goes out you’ll see the rocks like sharks’ teeth and you can imagine what happens to boats that find their way onto those. Oh, and I forgot to mention there’s one view we don’t much like from the east windows. It’s known to us in the family as Polhorgan’s Folly. A house which looks like a replica of our own. We loathe it. We detest it. We nightly pray that it will be blown into the sea.”

  “You don’t mean that, of course.”

  “Don’t I?” His eyes flashed, but they were laughing at me.

  “Of course you don’t. You’d be horrified if it were.”

  “There’s actually no fear of it. It has stood there for fifty years—an absolute sham—trying to pretend to those visitors who stare up at it from the beach below that it is Pendorric of glorious fame.”

  “But who built it?”

  He was look
ing at me and there was something malicious in his gaze which alarmed me faintly because for a second it seemed as though it was directed at me; but then I realized that it was dislike of the owner of Polhorgan’s Folly which inspired it.

  “A certain Josiah Fleet, better known as Lord Polhorgan. He went there fifty years ago from the Midlands where he had made a fortune from some commodity—I’ve forgotten what—he liked our coast, he liked our climate, and decided to build himself a mansion. He did and spent a month or so there each year, until eventually he settled in altogether and took his name from the cove below him.”

  “You certainly don’t like him much. Or are you exaggerating?”

  Roc shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps. It’s really the natural enmity between the nouveau poor and the nouveau riche.”

  “Are we very poor?”

  “By the standards of my Lord Polhorgan … yes. I suppose what annoys us is that sixty years ago we were the lords of the manor and he was trudging the streets of Birmingham, Leeds, or Manchester—I can never remember which—barefooted. Industry and natural cunning made him a millionaire. Sloth and natural indolence brought us to our genteel poverty, when we wonder from week to week whether we shall have to call in the National Trust to take over our home and show it at half a crown a time to the curious public who want to know how the aristocracy once lived.”

  “I believe you’re bitter.”

  “And you’re critical. You’re on the side of industry and natural cunning. Oh, Favel, what a perfect union! You see, you’re all that I’m not. You’re going to keep me in order marvelously!”

  “You’re laughing at me again.”

  He gripped my hand so hard that I winced. “It’s my nature, darling, to laugh at everything, and sometimes the more serious I am the more I laugh.”

  “I don’t think you would ever allow anyone to keep you in order.”

  “Well, you chose me, darling, and if I was what you wanted when you made the choice you’d hardly want to change me, would you?”