Bride of Pendorric Page 7

  “How did you guess Lowella?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t think of anyone else.”

  “It might have been Hyson.”

  “I was certain it was Lowella.”

  “Hyson doesn’t do things like that, does she?”

  “I think Hyson’s a little shy.”

  She turned another somersault.

  “Are you afraid?” she asked suddenly.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Being one of the Brides.”

  “What brides?”

  “The Brides of Pendorric, of course.”

  She stood very still, her eyes narrowed, as she surveyed me. “You don’t know, do you?” she said.

  “That’s why I’m asking you to tell me.”

  She came towards me and, putting her hands on my knees, she looked searchingly into my face; she was so close that I could see the long dark eyes which slightly resembled Roc’s, and the clear unblemished skin. I was aware again of another quality that reminded me of Roc. I thought I sensed a certain mischief in her look but I was not sure.

  “Will you tell me?” I asked.

  For an instant she looked over her shoulder and up at the windows, and I went on: “Why did you ask me if I was afraid?”

  “Because you’re one of the Brides, of course. My Granny was one. Her picture’s in the south hall.”

  “Barbarina,” I said.

  “Yes. Granny Barbarina. She’s dead. You see, she was one of the Brides too.”

  “This is all very mysterious to me. I don’t know why she should die simply because she was a bride.”

  “There was another Bride too. She’s in the north hall. She was called Lowella and she used to haunt Pendorric until Granny Barbarina died. Then she rested in her grave.”

  “Oh, I see, it’s a ghost story”

  “In a way, but it’s a live person’s story too.”

  “I’d like to hear it.”

  Again she turned to look at me and I wondered whether she had been warned not to tell me.

  “All right.” She spoke in a whisper. “When Lowella in the south hall was a bride there was a great banquet to celebrate her wedding. Her father was very rich and lived in North Cornwall and he and her mother and all her sisters and brothers and cousins and aunts came to dance at a ball here at Pendorric. There were violins on the dais and they were all eating and dancing when the woman came into the hall. She had a little girl with her; it was her little girl, you see, and she said it was Petroc Pendorric’s too. Not Roc’s … because this was years and years ago. It was another Pendorric with that name … only they didn’t call him Roc. This Petroc Pendorric was Lowella’s bridegroom, you see, and the woman with the little girl thought he ought to have been hers. This woman lived wild in the woods with her mother, and the mother was a witch so that makes it a curse that works. She cursed Pendorric and the Bride and all the fun stopped then.”

  “And how long ago did this happen?” I asked.

  “Nearly two hundred years.”

  “It’s a long time.”

  “But it’s a story that goes on and on. It doesn’t have an ending, you see. It’s not only Lowella’s story and Barbarina’s story … it’s yours too.”

  “How could that be?”

  “You haven’t heard what the curse was. The Bride was to die in the prime of her life and she wouldn’t rest in her grave until another Bride had gone to her death … in the prime of her life, of course.”

  I smiled. I was astonished that I could feel so relieved. That ominous phrase the Brides of Pendorric was now explained. It was only this old legend which, because we were in Cornwall, where superstitions prevailed, had lived on and provided the old house with a ghost.

  “You don’t seem very worried. I would if I were you.”

  “You haven’t finished the story. What happened to that bride?”

  “She died having her son exactly a year after her wedding day. She was eighteen years old, which you must admit is very young to die.”

  “I expect a great many women died in childbirth. Particularly in those days.”

  “Yes, but they said she used to haunt the place waiting for a bride to take her place.”

  “To do the haunting, you mean?”

  “You’re like Uncle Roc. He always laughs at it. I don’t laugh though. I know better.”

  “So you believe in this haunting business.”

  She nodded. “I’ve got the second sight. That’s why I’m telling you you won’t always laugh.”

  She leaped away from me and turned another somersault, her long thin legs swaying before me. I had the impression that she was rather pleased because I was going to be shocked out of my skepticism.

  She came to stand before me again and with a virtuous expression said: “I thought you ought to know. You see, the Bride Lowella used to haunt Pendorric till my Granny Barbarina died. Then she rested in her grave because she’d lured another bride to take her place and do the haunting. My Granny Barbarina’s been doing it for twenty-five years. I reckon she’s tired. She’d want to rest in her tomb, wouldn’t she? You can bet your life she’s looking out for another bride to do the job.”

  “I see what you mean,” I said lightly. “I’m the bride.”

  “You’re laughing, aren’t you?” She stepped back and turned another somersault. “But you’ll see.”

  Her face seen from upside down looked jaunty, as her long dark ponytail trailed on the grass.

  “I’m sure you’ve never seen the ghost of your grandmother—have you?”

  She did not answer but regarded me stolidly for a few seconds; then she turned a rapid somersault and did a few more handsprings on the grass, going farther and farther away from me until she reached the north door. She went through this and I was alone.

  I returned to my book but I found that I kept looking up at the windows. I had been right when I had thought so many windows would be disconcerting; they really were like the eyes of the house.

  It’s all this talk of ghosts, I thought. Well, I had been warned of the superstitions of the Cornish, and I suspected that Lowella had mischievously tried to frighten me.

  The north door opened with a crash and I saw the brown face, the dark ponytail, the light blue blouse, and dark blue shorts.

  “Hello! Uncle Roc said I was to look after you in case you were lonely.”

  “Well, you’ve been doing that after your fashion,” I told her.

  “I couldn’t find you. I went up to your room and you weren’t there. I hunted everywhere and then I thought of the quad. So I came here. What would you like to do?”

  “But you were here a little while ago.”

  She looked at me blankly.

  “You told me the story of the brides,” I reminded her.

  She clapped her hands over her mouth. “She didn’t, did she?”

  “You’re not … Hyson, are you?”

  “Of course not. I’m Lowella.”

  “But she said …” Had she said she was Lowella? I was not sure.

  “Did Hy pretend she was me?” The child began to laugh.

  “You are Lowella, aren’t you?” I persisted. “You really are.”

  She licked a finger and held it out and said: “See my finger’s wet?”

  She wiped it.

  “See my finger’s dry?”

  She drew it across her throat.

  “Cut my throat if I tell a lie.”

  She looked so earnest that I believed her.

  “But why did she pretend she was you?”

  Lowella’s brows puckered, then she said: “I think she doesn’t like being the quiet one. So when I’m not there she thinks she’ll be me. People who don’t know us much can’t tell the difference. Would you like to come to the stables and see our ponies?”

  I said I would; I felt that I wanted to escape from the quadrangle as I had from the graveyard that morning.

  Dinner that night was a comfortable meal. The twins did not join us and t
here were the five of us. Morwenna said that when I was ready she’d show me the house and explain how it was run.

  “Roc thinks that just at first, until you’ve settled in, you would like things to go on as they are.” Morwenna smiled at her brother affectionately. “But it’s to be as you want. He’s very insistent on that.”

  “And don’t think,” put in Roc, returning his sister’s look, “that Wenna will mind in the least whatever you want to do in the house. Now if you should want to root up her magnolia tree or turn the rose garden into a rockery that would be quite another matter.”

  Morwenna smiled at me. “I’ve never been much of a housekeeper. Who cares? It’s not really necessary. Mrs. Penhalligan’s a treasure. I do love the garden but of course if you want anything changed …”

  “So,” cried Roc, “the battle of the trees is about to begin.”

  “Don’t take any notice of him,” Morwenna said. “He loves to tease us. But then I expect you’ve discovered that by now.”

  I said I had and that I knew nothing of gardening and had always lived in a tiny studio which was as different from a mansion as any place could be.

  I felt very happy to hear this banter between Roc and his sister because the affection which lay beneath it was very obvious. I was certain that Roc was anxious that Morwenna should not feel put out because he had brought a wife into the midst of their household, which could easily bring a lot of change. I loved him for his consideration of his sister; and when they asked me questions about Capri and were very careful not to mention my father, I guessed that Roc had warned them of my grief.

  How considerate he was of us all; I loved him all the more because he never made a show of his care for us, but hid it under that teasing manner.

  Morwenna and Charles were clearly trying to make me feel at home, because they were kindly and so fond of Roc. I was less certain of Rachel. She seemed absorbed in impressing on the servants that she was an honored member of the family; she was a little on the defensive I thought, and, when her face was in repose, I fancied I caught a bitterness in her expression.

  We sat in one of the small drawing rooms drinking coffee which was served to us by Mrs. Penhalligan while Charles and Roc talked estate business, and Morwenna and Rachel, one on either side of me, launched into a description of local affairs. I found it all very interesting, particularly after the brief glimpse I had had that morning of the little village. Morwenna said she would drive me into Plymouth when I wanted to shop because it would be better for me to have someone who knew the shops the first time I went.

  I thanked her, and Rachel said that if by any chance Morwenna wasn’t available I could count on her.

  “That’s nice of you,” I replied.

  “Only too pleased to do all I can for Roc’s bride,” she murmured.

  Bride! Bride! I thought impatiently. Why not wife, which would have sounded so much more natural? I think it was from that moment that the eeriness of the house seemed to close in on me and I was conscious of the darkness outside.

  We went to bed early and when Roc and I were walking along the corridor on our way to our rooms on the south side, I looked out of the window to the quadrangle and remembered my conversations with the twins that afternoon.

  Roc stood close to me as I looked down.

  “You like the quadrangle garden, don’t you?”

  “Apart from the eyelike windows which are watching all the time.”

  He laughed. “You mentioned that before. Don’t worry. We’re all too busy to peep.”

  As we went along to our bedroom Roc said: “Something’s on your mind, darling.”

  “Oh … it’s nothing really”

  “There is something then.”

  I tried to laugh lightly, but I was aware of the silence of that great house and I could not stop thinking of all the tragedies and comedies which must have taken place within those walls over the hundreds of years they had been standing. I could not feel indifference to the past, which in such a place seemed so much closer than it possibly could in my father’s studio.

  I blurted out what had happened that afternoon.

  “Oh, those terrible twins!” he groaned.

  “This story about the Brides of Pendorric …”

  “Such stories abound in Cornwall. You could probably go to a dozen places and hear a similar story. These people are not cold-blooded Anglo-Saxons, you know. They’re Celtic—a different race from the phlegmatic English. I know of course that they may have haunted houses in Huntingdon, Hereford, and Oxfordshire—but they’re merely houses. According to the Cornish, the whole of Cornwall is haunted. If it’s not the piskies it’s the knackers from the mines. There are the Little People in their scarlet jackets and sugar-loaf hats. There are footlings who are born feet first, which is supposed to be a sign of their magical powers. There are pillar families—those inheriting power from fishermen ancestors who rendered some service to a mermaid; there are witches, white and black. So of course there are a few common ghosts.”

  “I gather Pendorric has that kind.”

  “No big house in Cornwall could possibly be without at least one. It’s a status symbol. I’ll bet Lord Polhorgan would give a thousand or two for a ghost. But the Cornish won’t have it. He’s not one of us, so he’s going to be denied the privilege of being haunted.”

  I felt comforted, though I scorned myself for needing reassurance; but that child this afternoon had really unnerved me, chiefly because I had believed I was talking to Lowella. I thought Hyson a very strange little person indeed and I did not like the almost gloating pleasure in my uneasiness which I had noticed.

  “About the story,” I said. “After all, it concerns the Brides of Pendorric of whom I am one.”

  “It was very unfortunate that Lowella Pendorric died exactly a year to the day after her wedding. That probably gave rise to the whole thing. She brought the heir into the world and departed. A common enough occurrence in those days, but you have to remember that here in Cornwall people are always looking for something on which to hang a legend.”

  “And she was supposed to haunt the place after that?”

  He nodded. “Brides came and went and they must have forgotten the legend although they’d tell you now that Lowella Pendorric continued to walk by night. Then my mother died when Morwenna and I were five years old. She was only twenty-five.”

  “How did she die?”

  “That’s just what revived the legend, I imagine. She fell from the north gallery into the hall, when the balustrade gave way The wood was worm-eaten and it was very frail. The shock and the fall, combined, killed her. It was an unfortunate accident and because the picture of Lowella hangs in the gallery, the story soon got round that it was Lowella’s influence that caused her to fall. Lowella was tired of haunting the house, they said, so she decided Barbarina should take her place. I am certain that the part about having to haunt the house until another bride took her place started at that time. You’ll hear now that the ghost of Pendorric is my mother, Barbarina. Rather a young ghost for such an old house, but you see we haunt in relays.”

  “I see,” I said slowly.

  He put his hands on my shoulders and laughed; I laughed with him.

  Everything seemed comfortingly normal that night.

  The woman in the riding jacket and blue-banded hat had begun to haunt my thoughts and I found myself drawn towards the spot where her picture hung, whenever I was alone in that part of the house. I was not anxious that anyone should guess how much the picture attracted me, because I thought it would appear that I was affected by this ridiculous legend.

  It was so realistic that the eyes seemed to flicker as you watched them, the lips as though they were about to speak. I wondered what her feelings had been when she felt the balustrade giving way beneath her weight; I wondered if she had felt an unhealthy interest in that other bride … as I was beginning to feel in her.

  No, I told myself. I was merely interested in the painting and I was
certainly not going to allow the legend to bother me.

  All the same, I couldn’t resist going to look at the picture.

  Roc found me there two mornings later. He put his arm through mine and said he had come to take me for a drive.

  “We don’t take after her, do we?” he said. “Morwenna and I are both dark as Spaniards. You mustn’t feel morbid about her. She’s only a picture, you know.”

  He drove me out to the moor that morning; and I was fascinated by that stretch of wild country with its tors and boulders so strangely shaped that they looked like grotesque parodies of human beings.

  I thought that Roc was trying to make me understand Cornwall, because he knew that I had been upset by the legend and he wanted to make me laugh at it.

  We drove for miles, through Callington and St. Cleer, little towns with gray granite façades, and out onto the moor again. He showed me the Trethevy Quoit, a neolithic tomb made of blocks of stone; he pointed out the burial grounds of men who had lived before history was recorded; he wanted me to know that a country which could offer so much proof of its past must necessarily be one of legend.

  He stopped the car high on the moor and in the distance I could see that fantastic formation of rock known as the Cheesewring.

  He put his arm round me and said: “One day I’ll take you farther west and show you the Merry Maidens. Nineteen stones in a circle which you will be asked to believe were once nineteen girls who, deciding to defy tradition and go dancing in a sacred place, were turned to stone; and indeed the stones lean this way and that as if they had been caught and petrified in the midst of a dance.” His eyes were very tender as he turned to me. “You’ll get used to us in time,” he went on. “Everywhere you look in this place there’s some legend. You don’t take them seriously.”

  I knew then that he was worried about me and I told him not to be because I had always prided myself on my common sense.

  “I know,” he said. “But your father’s death was a greater shock than you realize. I’m going to take extra special care of you.”

  “Then,” I replied, “I shall begin to feel very precious indeed, because I fancy you have been taking rather a lot of care of me ever since that awful day.”