The Ugly Sister

by Winston Graham

  ‘Did he? Well, well. Look, Emma, I have an idea.’

  ‘You’re hurting my shoulders.’

  ‘You have good arm muscles – not prominent, but strong.’ He released his grip. ‘Emma, I believe that if we go to see Tamsin together and tell her we propose to marry, she will explode a bomb of hysteria upon us. But if we were to marry suddenly, unexpectedly, quietly in some little private chapel and she was presented with a fait accompli she would dissolve in tears and eventually make the best of it.’

  ‘What would “ the best of it” amount to, Bram? D’you want us both on different nights?’

  ‘Yes. But I know I could not have that. You would not accept that, I’m sure. But I have a great influence over Tamsin. She is not a strong character like you. She adores Place House and wants to live nowhere else. She has lived there all her life. She takes particular pride in being Mrs Spry of Place, with the rest of the family sulking in Truro and London. The chatelaine. She does not entertain a lot, but she has special friends. And being who she is she has the respect of the neighbourhood.’

  ‘People have accepted your friendship with her?’

  ‘Many.’

  ‘And she would lose that respect, that position, if she denounced you?’

  His eyes, so close to mine, darkened. He looked a corsair. ‘ That was not what I was going to say, but, yes, if you put it that way, yes. She’s involved with me. She depends on me. She would not throw her present way of life away just for spite, for spiteful revenge.’

  ‘And you would continue to frequent Place, after you had married me?’

  ‘I have to. Most of my arrangements are made there.’

  ‘You know what the marriage service says? Forsaking all others.’

  He laughed, very quietly for once. ‘I want you, Emma. To get you I’m prepared to marry you. I believe you want me just as much.’

  II

  HE SAID: ‘ Years ago I came in for a house from my aunt. It is near Ponsanooth. You have never been there? I’m always in the position of being the visitor, am I not? That shall be corrected. Come tomorrow. It’s a small place but well kept. I live alone except for one manservant. Can you come tomorrow?’

  ‘D’you mean ride over?’

  ‘Yes. Bring Fetch if you fear to be alone with me. The church is St Stithians, about two miles away. I will see someone in the morning and get the banns read for the first time on Sunday.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘If they are read at Kea everyone will know. But I spend little time at Penmartin and your name will not arouse interest there. Cornwall, as we all know, is a hotbed of gossip, but these smaller inland villages are close-knit – farming and mining, you know – and I’m told that St Stithians is very poorly attended. There is no resident vicar, but a curate comes weekly from Gwennap.’

  ‘D’you suppose this can be done in secret?’

  ‘Let us try. It can do no harm. If it succeeds, so much the better.’

  ‘I had always thought of a big wedding, Bram – all in white, with four bridesmaids in ice blue and two page boys …’

  He laughed. ‘ Very droll. But isn’t it true to say that for the largest part of your life you did not suppose you would have a wedding at all?’

  ‘So even my closest family is not to know?’

  ‘Your mother remarried without informing you. Your sister we have good reasons for concealing it from. Desmond? Mary? Samuel? Do they count at all?’

  ‘Not as much as my sister. I am dealing her an underhand blow.’

  He sighed. ‘All’s fair in love and war, I know. A dreary aphorism. But even so I have to confess I have sometimes been in that predicament.’

  ‘As for instance being unfaithful to your first wife?’

  He took my hand. ‘What one does in one’s youth is not necessarily what one does in middle age. I am not looking for endless adventures any more, dear Emma. I am – shall be – content to have the challenge of you as my wife. Do you not believe that we shall be a challenge to each other?’

  ‘Indeed I do.’

  I went to his house the following day – with Fetch – and on the Sunday after that the banns were called for the first time. Penmartin was at the end of a lane and looked over a valley of woodland and pastures. In spite of its being close to the mining districts there was not a chimney in sight.

  I did not go to the church, but from a distance it looked ready to vie in dilapidation with the St Anthony of twenty years ago, before Desmond restored it. Would there be someone in that sparse congregation who would rise up when the parson asked if anyone here present should know of just cause or impediment? …

  But what impediment could there be? Bram was a widower, I had never married. Some woman clutching a child by the hand and swearing it was Bram’s? Did that invalidate or make impossible a church ceremony?

  The house, as he said, was small. It had been built by a mine captain in the last century, square and functional, and it was furnished without much taste. Had Bram any taste – except one for music? I wondered if this was where he had lived with his first wife. He did not volunteer, and I would not ask him. At least now he seemed to be using it only as a base. Place, perhaps, had now become his chief home. If I married Abraham Fox, would Samuel allow me to renew the yearly lease on Killiganoon?

  One day I rode down to Feock and passed Slade’s cottage. He was walking beside the wall of the garden with the aid of a stick. He raised fierce eyes to me but made no other acknowledgment. I was glad Bram was not with me. It occurred to me that if Bram did come to live at Killiganoon Slade would be uncomfortably close. Not that Bram would be likely to care.

  The following week Desmond called. I was having a singing lesson but it was nearly over and Mr Hempel presently took his leave.

  Desmond looked pallid and serious in his customary dark suit as I ordered tea.

  He said: ‘Your voice is improving all the time, Emma.’ But he said it in a grave voice as if the last thought in his head was to pay me a compliment.

  ‘Thank you. I used to think a voice was unlikely to improve much after about twenty-five, but Professor Elbruz whom I studied under for a few months in Zurich said it could get better until one was well past forty.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Desmond agreed, and silence fell. We talked about the family while tea was served. I told him how pleased I was to see him after such a long absence. Mary had a chill, but otherwise was well. He told me that he had recently taken up painting – or resumed it after many years. He wanted chiefly to paint birds.

  We discussed the exact colour of a male bullfinch’s breast feathers, the spotted woodpecker’s eggs, the battle to survive of the Cornish chough.

  Then he said: ‘Mary has heard a disturbing rumour this week. As you know, it is not our custom to listen to the tittle-tattle that circulates through a small town, but it so closely concerned you … It is that you are planning to marry Abraham Fox.’

  I stirred my tea. So Bram’s hopes of a secret marriage … And this only the second week.

  ‘I have to admit that I have been considering it.’

  ‘More than considering it, according to the gossip. I hear that the banns have been posted at some obscure country church near—’

  ‘St Stithians,’ I said.

  He pursed his lip. ‘So it is true.’

  ‘Well, yes … I suppose so.’

  ‘You suppose so. You know of course as well as anybody else that Fox is at present living openly with my wife at Place?’

  ‘When we marry, that should change.’

  ‘You think so? Hmm, well maybe. It is a possibility. But you know what an unsavoury reputation Fox has where women are concerned.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And not only in that respect. He casts quite a dark shadow in the county. Although he has this respectable occupation of Inspector of Customs, there are many whispered stories about his activities in other fields. He spends money like water. He lives in society, but society rather fears him. You hav
e always been a gentle creature – if occasionally headstrong. It would be a great personal grief to me if you allied yourself to this dangerous man.’

  ‘Dear Desmond,’ I said, moved by the unusual emotion in his voice. ‘You know also that I have always cared for you. On occasions when I have been – headstrong, as you call it, and I have been out of favour with my mother and Tamsin and even sometimes the rest of the family, you have always stayed my friend. It would be a personal grief to me also if I went against your will.’

  ‘But you intend to do so in this?’

  I did not answer. I poured him more tea. He waved away milk and sugar.

  ‘If you marry this man, what shall be your plans then?’

  ‘Bram’s occupation is in Cornwall, so we shall have to stay in the county. He has a house in Ponsanooth … Whether we could live here if we wanted to I don’t at all know. It will depend on the family – chiefly Samuel.’

  His troubled eyes went around the room. ‘ Have you thought of the effect this – this marriage will have on Tamsin?’

  ‘Of course. That is what I feel most about. I feel a traitor to her … But – he tells me – I don’t know if it’s true or not – that their affection for each other is wearing thin. Of course she’ll be upset – is bound to be. And I’m deeply sorry … But might it not – not immediately but in time – might it not lead to a reconciliation between you and her?’

  In the stillness you could hear a regular tap-tap through the open window as a thrush beat a snail against a stone.

  He said: ‘ I should consider it highly unlikely. Before we separated she said unforgivable things.’

  ‘Much that is better unsaid can be said in the heat of the moment. Perhaps in two or three years … There is your daughter to think of.’

  He rose, his second cup of tea untasted. ‘I must go. It is looking like rain, and if it rains the wind will get up.’

  ‘Can you not stay a little while longer and talk of other things? I see so little of you.’

  He smiled thinly. ‘In some ways I would like to. But this – this, what you are proposing is so important that everything else at the moment seems a triviality … You need not be told how distressed Mary will be when she hears what I have to tell.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It is not too late to reconsider. Have you seen your lawyer?’

  ‘Oh yes. Three times this week.’

  ‘You have some money, I know. What would Fox bring to this? There are all sorts of aspects to be considered.’

  ‘I have tried to consider them.’

  When he had gone I thought to myself ‘a gentle creature’. That was what he had called me. I did not think of the word ‘gentle’ as one that could be used of me nowadays.

  Chapter Nine

  I

  UNLIKELY THAT Desmond would have applied that word to me if he had seen me three days later. Though thank God, he never could have.

  I went over to Bram’s house for a third time. It had been threatening on and off all week, but the heavy clouds, separated by spells of warm sunshine, had held off. I had ridden over alone in the late morning (Fetch, to her own chagrin, was for the moment being more and more dispensed with). Hollick was away, so Bram insisted on cooking me a light dinner himself. Fishing yesterday, he had caught a hake, and he fried this in butter with a caper sauce. We had a Rhenish wine, light but not too sweet. So one saw yet another side of his character.

  I told him about Desmond’s visit. He shrugged and said: ‘That’s too bad. If it is not secret it is not secret.’

  ‘So Tamsin will get to know.’

  ‘At the moment she is laid up with a light fever. Quite likely there will be no one to make a point of telling her.’

  ‘You have been there?’

  ‘Briefly.’

  ‘And did not tell her?’

  ‘No. It would have done her fever no good. But I promise you, she will come round.’

  After dinner we talked more comfortably than we had ever done before. For the first time there seemed to be no conflict at all between us. It was as if we had shaken off the dust and grit of earlier associations. Simple words, stock phrases, occasional movement of the hands and eyes, were sufficient to convey new depths, new understanding.

  It began to rain.

  There is something strange about heavy straight drumming rain. It isolates one. Not only were we alone in the house: it was as if no one outside existed.

  We sat at the dinner table, drinking the wine and staring out at the steel rods of rain. Silence had fallen between us. But now and then our eyes met over the rim of a glass.

  ‘Little starfish,’ he said.

  ‘Something of a crab by now.’

  ‘With claws?’

  ‘With claws.’

  After another silence he said: ‘I have not shown you my bedroom, have I?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is just at the top of the stairs.’

  ‘I should expect it to be there.’

  ‘Hollick will not be back till eight.’

  ‘You are very good to your servants.’

  ‘Not only to them, little starfish. Not only to them. If given the chance.’

  ‘Two weeks to wait.’

  ‘Why wait? I have had you once out of wedlock. You were so sweet, so innocent. And yet … not so innocent. In half a night you became a woman.’

  ‘In half a year I became a deserted woman.’

  ‘Not from my choice. You were wonderful that night. I’ve thought of it so often. I’ve longed for it again.’

  ‘Two weeks to wait.’

  ‘Too long. Isn’t the house growing dark.’

  ‘Light a candle.’

  ‘Not here. Upstairs.’

  ‘Upstairs you would need to draw the curtains.’

  ‘They’re heavy curtains, velour or some such. Drawn across it would be like night.’

  Water began to trickle off an over-full gutter; soon it grew into a thin stream.

  ‘How long do you think this rain will last?’

  ‘An hour. Just give it an hour. Give me an hour.’

  ‘When I was in Blisland, more or less alone except for Uncle Francis, I used to think about you, dream about you, want to feel your presence near me … I would have given anything … I hated you for deserting me and yet still longed for the smallest sign. There was no sign.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You know my reason.’

  ‘Reasons. You were married.’

  ‘But am no longer. Whistle and I’ll come to you …’

  ‘My lips are too dry.’

  ‘Let me wet them.’

  ‘Oh, that’s too easy, Bram. It came too pat.’

  He struck one of the new wax matches, and put it to the wick of a candle. A warmer light grew in the room, making the grey dripping scene outside look colder and more hostile. It was like tears on the windows.

  ‘Your horse is well stabled and will come to no hurt for an hour or two,’ he said.

  ‘I think the stables look in better condition than the house.’

  ‘They are … Do you remember how concerned you were about your boat when you stayed at Blundstone’s? I went down to see and found it well moored. You have always had that capacity of efficiency.’

  ‘Not where my own life is concerned! That night I went sadly adrift!’

  ‘Joyously adrift. The music, the wine, the loneliness …’

  ‘Which you took advantage of.’

  ‘I have no music now. But there’s still some wine. A drop more?’

  I took it, and we drank a glass together.

  II

  WE CLAWED at each other in that darkened bedroom while the rain drummed still more heavily on the slates above. I can only describe it so, though it is embarrassing to admit it. He tore at my clothes until I was naked: I dug my nails into his back. If there can be such a contradiction as a willing rape, this was it. He muttered the very same endearments that he had used when he took me before – I had forgo
tten most of them, but they came vividly back as if it was yesterday: his head against mine, against my ear, against my breast, against my parted thighs. The storm, the tempest in him was fully – and unexpectedly – reflected in this half-timid, half-brazen, almost virginal spinster that I had become. The discovery of what I was capable of was his discovery and mine together.

  As the rain began to stop so our passion gradually eased. He turned over on his back and said:

  ‘As God is my judge, you surprise me, and delight me. Ouch – you said you had claws – my back is sore!’

  ‘I will put salve on it,’ I said. ‘You have bruised me too.’

  ‘Sorry … no, I am not sorry. My little starfish, by God. Where have you learned all this?’

  ‘Nowhere. No man has ever had me except you.’

  ‘All these years? Is that really so?’

  ‘Yes, really so.’

  ‘How long is it, eight years? In some ways it seems longer, in others it’s like returning.’

  ‘How many women have you had in that time?’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘The rain is stopping.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time.’ He leaned on his elbow and looked at me. ‘This makes our marriage all the more important.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want you to myself – for always.’

  III

  I DID not return to Penmartin again, though Bram was frequently, usually briefly, at Killiganoon.

  On the Sunday when the banns were called for the third time he said: ‘So now we can fix a day.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tuesday week would suit me.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘I hope you have not gone cold on the subject.’

  ‘Cold? You could hardly say that, could you? I am still hot – yes, hot and cold, at the memory of last week.’

  He squeezed my arm. ‘It proved a lot to me.’

  ‘It proved something to me too. That when I am in your hands I am still as weak as I was in Falmouth eight years ago.’

  ‘That is as it should be.’