Bride of Pendorric

by Victoria Holt

  It had been such a shock to me that I was still feeling all this was unreal. My thoughts were muddled. It did not occur to me in that moment to ask myself the explanation of that extraordinary coincidence which had allowed me to marry a man who came into my life by chance and turned out to be a neighbor of my grandfather. That was to come later.

  “Well,” he asked, “what do you think of your old grandfather?”

  “I don’t know yet what to think. I’m so bewildered.”

  “I’ll tell you what I think of my granddaughter then. If I could have chosen just how I wanted her to be, she wouldn’t have been different in one detail. Do you know, Favel, you’re so like your mother that when you’ve been sitting there playing chess with me, I’ve often found my mind slipping back … and I’d be thinking she’d never gone away. You’ve got the same fair hair though she didn’t have that white streak in it; and your eyes are the same color … sometimes blue, sometimes green. And you’re like her in your ways … the kindest heart and the impetuosity. Rushing in before you’ve had time to consider. I often wondered how that marriage of hers would work out. Used to tell myself it couldn’t last, but it seems it did. And she chose a Cornish name for you. That shows, doesn’t it, that she didn’t think of the past always with regret.”

  “But why was I never told? She never spoke of the past, and you …”

  “She never told you? Nor did your father? You’d have thought they’d have mentioned it now and then. And you never asked, Favel. How was that?”

  I looked back to those sunlit days of my childhood. “I think that they felt all that had happened before their marriage was unimportant. That’s how it strikes me now. Their lives were so … entwined. They lived for each other. Perhaps they knew she hadn’t long to live. I suppose that sort of thing makes a difference. As for myself, I never thought of things being other than they were. That was why, when she died, everything changed so much for us.”

  “And you were fond of your father too?” he said wistfully.

  I nodded.

  “He came down here to paint one summer. Rented a little place a mile or so away along the coast … little more than a shack. When she told me she was going to marry him I thought it was a joke at first. Soon I learned it wasn’t. She could be obstinate … I told her she was a fool. Never stopped to think. Told her I wouldn’t leave her a penny if she married this man. Told her he was after her money anyway. So they just went away one day and I never heard from her again.”

  He was thinking of all the years that had been lost to him. Here he sat in the midst of his opulence—the loneliest old man I had ever met. And it need never have been.

  Now he had learned that he was the one who had been foolish—not my mother and father. And pitiably he was reaching out to me to give him, for the short time left to him, the affection which more than twenty years ago he had rashly thrown away.

  I turned to him impulsively and said: “Grandfather, I’m glad I came home to you.”

  “My dear child,” he murmured. “My dearest child.” Then he went on: “Tell me about her. Did she suffer much?”

  I shook my head. “There were several months when she knew and we knew … They were terrible months, particularly for my father, but it wasn’t really long—though it seemed so.”

  “I could have paid for the best attention for her,” he said angrily.

  “Grandfather,” I replied, “it’s over. It doesn’t do any good to reproach yourself … or them … or anyone. You’ve got to put that behind you. I’m here now. Your own granddaughter. I shall see you more often now. I shan’t feel like waiting for a reasonable period before calling again. You’re my very own grandfather and it’s wonderful that my home is so close to yours …” I stopped, picturing myself coming into the studio and seeing Roc there with my father. “It seems so strange that Roc should have come to my father’s studio … and that we should have married,” I said slowly. “I mean, it seems too lucky to be true.”

  My grandfather smiled. “It wasn’t just a matter of chance, my dear. Your mother never wrote to me. I had no idea where she was or what was happening to her. I had told her that if she married her artist I wanted nothing to do with her, and she took me at my word. But … your father wrote. It was a month or so before Roc went abroad. He told me that your mother was dead and that they had a daughter: Favel. He asked me if I would like to see you, and he gave me the address of that studio place of yours.”

  “I see,” I said. “I wonder why Father wrote.”

  “I had my suspicions. I thought he was after something. People often say that men in my position are comfortably off. Having money isn’t always comfortable, I can tell you. You’re constantly watching in case you’re going to lose something; you’re forever on the alert for ways of increasing what you have; and you’re always suspecting that people are seeking your acquaintance because they want a little of what you’ve got. No. I’d say I’m uncomfortably off. In any case I was wary of your father. I said: He wants to borrow something. Lilith wouldn’t let him write when she was alive—too proud. But now she’s dead he’s after something. I put his letter on one side and didn’t answer it. But the thought of my granddaughter kept bothering me. I wondered what she was like … how old she was. Your father hadn’t said. And I wanted to know more about her.”

  He paused and looked at me reflectively, and I said: “So you asked Roc to … spy out the land?”

  He nodded. “I knew he was going to Italy, so I asked him to do me this favor. I couldn’t go myself. I wanted him to find out what this studio place was like and what my granddaughter was like. My plan was that when he came back, providing I liked what he told me, I’d invite my granddaughter to Polhorgan … her father, too, perhaps, if she wouldn’t come without him.”

  “So that was why Roc came to the studio.”

  “That was it. But you’re impetuous like your mother. You fell in love with him. So instead of his bringing back a report to me, he brought you back as his bride.”

  “So Roc was carrying out your wishes,” I said.

  “He knew.”

  “But he didn’t give me a hint … in fact he never has.”

  “Well, you see, I’d asked him not to. I didn’t want you to come over to see your grandfather. I wanted us to meet as strangers. I wanted to know what you thought of me and I wanted to know what I thought of you. But the minute I saw you—you were so like your mother—I felt she’d come back to me. My dear child, I can’t tell you what a difference this has made to me.”

  I touched his hand, but I was thinking of Roc … Roc as he had come into the studio, Roc lying on the beach talking about Pendorric, about the Folly and the man who lived in it, who, he knew all the time, was my grandfather.

  “So Roc was carrying out your wishes,” I said.

  “He did even more than I asked. He brought you home.”

  “I can understand his not telling me that in the beginning, but later …”

  “I told him that I wanted to break the news to you myself.”

  I was silent. Then I said: “You wanted my mother to marry Roc’s father.”

  “Ah, that was in the days when I thought I could manage people’s lives better than they could themselves. I know different now.”

  “So I’ve pleased you … by marrying a Pendorric.”

  “Had you wanted to many a fisherman, Granddaughter, I’d have made no objection. I learn my lessons … in time. All the lonely years need not have happened if I’d not tried to interfere. Fancy, if I’d raised no objections to their marrying, I’d have had them with me all those years. She might never have died. I shouldn’t have had to wait till my granddaughter was a married woman before I knew her.”

  “Grandfather,” I insisted, “you wanted my mother to marry a Pendorric. Are you glad I’ve married Roc?”

  He was silent for a few moments; then he said: “Because you’re in love with him … yes. I shouldn’t have wanted it otherwise.”

  “But yo
u spoke of linking the families. My mother left home because you wanted her to marry Roc’s father.”

  “That was years ago. I suspect those Pendorrics wanted not so much my daughter as my money, and your father wanted her for herself … must have done, because she knew me well enough to understand that when I said there’d be nothing for her if she ran away, I meant it.”

  I was silent and he lay back in his chair and closed his eyes, though he had taken my hand and kept it in his. I could see how the veins stood out at his temples and that he was more flushed than usual. Such excitement was not good for him, I was sure.

  My grandfather! I thought, watching him. So I had a relative after all. My eyes went round the room at the paintings on the wall. They were all of the old school. Grandfather would not buy modern paintings, which he loathed, but all the same he would have an eye for a bargain. I guessed that the pictures in this room alone were worth a fortune.

  Then I thought of the studio and my mother who had bargained so fiercely over my father’s work; and it seemed to me that life was indeed ironical.

  I was glad that I had a grandfather. I liked him from the moment we met; but I wished—oh, how I wished that he were not such a rich man. I remembered what he had said about being uncomfortably off.

  Although it was less than an hour since I had discovered I was the granddaughter of a millionaire, I understood very well what he meant.

  I sat with him for an hour after that; we talked of the past and the future. I told him incidents from those early days which I had not thought of telling before, because I now understood how vitally interested he was in every seemingly insignificant detail. And he told me that Polhorgan was now my home and that I must treat it thus.

  I walked back to Pendorric in a state of bewilderment, and when I was midway between the two houses I looked from one to the other.

  My homes, I murmured. And my pride in them was spoilt by an uneasy suspicion which was beginning to grow within me.

  I was relieved, when I went up to our bedroom, to find that Roc had come in.

  “Roc,” I called; and as he turned to look at me, he said: “So he’s told you?”

  “How did you guess?”

  “My darling, you look just like a woman who has been told that she is the granddaughter of a millionaire.”

  “And you knew all the time!”

  He nodded, smiling.

  “It seems extraordinary that you could keep such a secret.”

  He was laughing, as he took me by the shoulders. “It’s women who can’t keep secrets, you know.”

  He put his arm round me and held me against him; but I withdrew myself because I wanted to look into his face.

  “I want to think about it all … as it happened,” I said. “You came to the studio, looking for me. You were going to report on me to my grandfather.”

  “Yes. I was going to take some pictures of you to show him. I was determined to do the job thoroughly.”

  “You did it very thoroughly indeed.”

  “I’m glad that you approve of my methods.”

  “And my father …” I said. “He knew too.”

  “Of course he knew. He’d lived near Pendorric. That was how he first met your mother.”

  “Father knew … and didn’t tell me.”

  “I’d explained to him my promise of secrecy.”

  “I can’t understand. It was so unlike him to have secrets from me.”

  “This was a very important matter. I reckon he wanted you to please your grandfather. It’s understandable.”

  I looked at him sharply; he was smiling complacently.

  “How I wish …” I began.

  “What do you wish?”

  “That you hadn’t known.”

  “Why? What difference does it make?”

  I was silent. I felt I was going too far. I was almost on the point of asking Roc whether he had married me on account of my grandfather’s money, when I didn’t even know that I was his heiress. But everything was changed. When I had thought of Barbarina I had continually told myself that our positions were so different because she had been married for her money. The simple fact was that now I was beginning to wonder whether I too had been.

  “What’s on your mind?” persisted Roc.

  “It’s the shock,” I replied evasively. “When you think you haven’t any family and you suddenly find yourself confronted by a grandfather … it’s a little bewildering. It takes time to adjust yourself.”

  “You’re a little aloof, you’re weighing me up. I don’t much like it.” He was looking at me intently, very seriously.

  “Why?”

  “I’m afraid of being weighed in the balance and found wanting.”

  “Why should you be afraid?”

  “Because you’re hiding something from me … or trying to.”

  “You are the one who hides things successfully.”

  “Only one thing—and I had made a promise not to tell.” He laughed suddenly and, seizing me, lifted me and held me up so that I had to look down on him. “Listen,” he said, “and get this clear. I married you because I fell in love with you. It would have been the same if you were the granddaughter of old Bill the Beachcomber. Understand me?”

  I put out my hands and touched his ears; he lowered me until my face was on a level with his. Then he kissed me; and as usual, while I was with him, I forgot my fears.

  Now that the news was out, the whole of Pendorric village was agog with it. I knew that I only had to appear for the subject to be discussed. People looked at me as though they had discovered something different about me. In the first place I had come out of the blue as the Bride of Pendorric; and now it turned out that I was the granddaughter of old Lord Polhorgan. Many of them could remember my mother’s running away with the painter; and it seemed a fitting romantic sequel that I should return as a bride.

  Mrs. Robinson at the general store whispered to me that my story was good enough for television; Dinah Bond told me, when I met her one day in the village, that she knew there was something dramatic in my hand and she would have told me if only I’d let her; Morwenna and Charles appeared to be delighted; Lowella was vociferous, squealing her delight, and went about singing something about “when Grandpappa asked Grandmamma for the second minuet,” which appeared to be quite irrelevant; Hyson regarded me with silent interest as though this new development was not entirely unexpected.

  For several days everyone talked of it, but I guessed that it would turn out to be a nine days’ wonder.

  There were two conversations which stood out in my mind. One I had with Rachel Bective, the other I overheard.

  I had gone down to Pendorric beach to swim one afternoon and as I came out of the water I saw Rachel emerge from the gardens and step onto the beach.

  I looked about for the twins, but she was alone.

  She came over and said: “What’s the sea like today?”

  “Quite warm,” I answered, and lay down on the shingle.

  She sat down beside me, and started playing idly with the pebbles.

  “What a surprise it must have been for you!” she said. “Had you no idea?”

  “None at all.”

  “Well, it’s not everyone who gets presented with a grandfather at your time of life. And a millionaire peer at that!”

  I thought her expression a trifle unpleasant and I half rose, preparing to go up through the gardens.

  “Roc knew of course,” she went on. Then she laughed. “He must have been tickled to death.”

  “You think it’s an amusing situation when families are broken up?”

  “I think it’s amusing that Roc should go out to find you and bring you back—his bride. No wonder he has been looking so smug.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her greenish eyes under the sandy brows glinted a little; her mouth was straight and grim. I thought: She is either very hurt or very angry; and suddenly I wasn’t so annoyed with her as I had been a few minutes b
efore.

  She seemed to take a grip of herself: “Roc always liked to know what other people didn’t. He’d think it great fun having a secret like that, and the rest of us being in the dark. Besides …” I waited for her to go on, but she shrugged her shoulders. Then she gave a harsh laugh which seemed to hold a note of bitterness. “Some people have all the luck,” she said. “Mrs. Pendorric and granddaughter of Lord Polhorgan, who already dotes on her.”

  “I’m going up to the house,” I said. “It’s not so warm as I thought.”

  She nodded and as I crunched my way over the shingle she sat looking out at the sea; and I could imagine the expression on her face, for she had betrayed the fact that she was jealous of me. Jealous because I was the granddaughter of a rich man? Or jealous because I was Roc’s wife? Or both.

  The second conversation took place the following day and I heard the end of it unwittingly. I was in the quadrangle gardens and one of the windows on the ground floor of the north wing was wide open, so the voice came floating through to me and I had caught the gist of the conversation before I could get out of earshot.

  It was Charles and Morwenna who were speaking, and at first I did not realize they were talking of me.

  “I thought he was looking pleased with himself.” That was Charles.

  “I’ve never known him so contented.”

  “She’s a pleasant creature.”

  “She has everything.”

  “Well, it won’t be before it’s needed, I can tell you. I’ve had some anxious moments wondering what the outcome could possibly be. Of course we’re taking things for granted.”

  “Not a bit of it. That type never leaves much outside the family. After all, she’s his granddaughter and he can’t last much longer …”

  I got up and walked across to the south door, my cheeks flaming.

  As I entered the house my eyes went at once to the picture of Barbarina. I stood looking up at it. I could almost fancy the expression had changed; that a pitying look was in those blue eyes, that she was saying to me: “I understand. Who could understand better than one to whom it has all happened before?”