Bride of Pendorric

by Victoria Holt

  My uneasiness was deepening.

  I didn’t want to talk any more about the disturbed thoughts which were turning over in my mind; I feared that I had already said too much to the Clements. I wished that I could have talked to Roc of my fears, but I imagined he would laugh at them—besides, he himself was so much involved.

  I tried therefore to go on as normally as possible. So exactly a week after my unfortunate adventure I called on Jesse Pleydell again. He greeted me with more than his usual warmth and made it very clear that he was glad I had come. So he, too, had heard the story.

  We no longer sat outside his cottage—the afternoon was too chilly. I was in his own armchair, which he insisted on giving up to me while he made me a cup of tea.

  He did allow me to pour it out and, when we were sitting opposite each other, he said: “I was worried when I heard ’em talking.”

  “You mean about …”

  “’Twere the last time you did come and see me.”

  “It was very unfortunate.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t like it much.”

  “I didn’t either.”

  “You see, it’s like as though …”

  “We decided the sexton left the door open when he was last there, and that it must have been open for some time. Nobody noticed because … nobody went near it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” murmured Jesse.

  We were silent for some time, then he said: “Well, me dear, I reckon you should take extra care like. I reckon you should.”

  “Jesse, what are you thinking?”

  “If only these old eyes hadn’t been so blind I should have seen who was up there in the gallery with her.”

  “Jesse, have you any idea who it was?”

  Jesse screwed up his face and beat on his knee. “I’m feared I do,” he whispered.

  “You think it was Lowella Pendorric, who died all those years, ago.”

  “I couldn’t see like. But I be feared, for she were the bride, and ’twas said after, that she was marked for death as soon as she was the bride of Pendorric.”

  “And you think that I …”

  “I think you have to take care, Mrs. Pendorric. I think you haven’t got to go where harm can come to ’ee.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, Jesse,” I said, and after a pause: “Your Michaelmas daisies are looking a picture.”

  “Aye, reckon so. The bees be that busy on ‘em. I was always one for Michaelmas daisies, though ’tis sad to see them since it means the end of summer.”

  I left him and as I came past the cottages and saw the church ahead of me, I stopped at the lych gate and looked into the graveyard.

  “Hello, Mrs. Pendorric.”

  There was Dinah Bond coming towards me. “I heard about ’ee,” she said. “Poor Mrs. Pendorric. I reckon you was scared in that place.” She was almost laughing at me. “You should have let me read your hand,” she went on. “I might have warned you.”

  “You weren’t anywhere around when it happened, I suppose?” I asked.

  “Oh no. My Jim had taken me into market with him. We didn’t get back till late. Heard about it next morning though. I was sorry because I can guess what it feels like to be in that dark place.” She came up to the lych gate and leaned on it. “I’ve been thinking,” she went on, “there’s something strange about this. Has it struck you that things seem to be happening twice?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Morwenna was shut in the vault, wasn’t her? And then you were, with Hyson. Looks as though someone remembered that and thought to try it again.”

  “Do you think someone locked me in then? The general belief is that the door jammed.”

  “Who’s to say?” She shrugged her shoulders. “Then there was Barbarina being an heiress and marrying a Pendorric, and there was Louisa Sellick who had to go and live near Dozmary because of it. Now there’s you—awful rich, so they tell me you be, Mrs. Pendorric—and you’re the new Bride while …”

  “Please go on.”

  She laughed. “You wouldn’t let me read your hand, would you? You didn’t believe I was any good. All right, you wouldn’t believe what I could tell ’ee. But ’tis all of a piece and so seems as though it was meant, if you get what I mean.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  She came through the lych gate and walked past me, smiling as she went.

  “You be awful rich, Mrs. Pendorric,” she murmured, “but you bain’t very bright, I’d say.”

  She looked over her shoulder at me; then she began to walk towards the forge, swinging her hips in the provocative way which was second nature to her.

  All this did not comfort me. I was longing to have a talk with Roc and tell him what was in my mind, but something warned me not to. It was of course the fact that I was not at all sure where Roc fitted into this.

  The house seemed quiet. Deborah had taken Hyson and Carrie with her to Devonshire; and Lowella had refused to do any lessons since her sister was having a holiday. “It wouldn’t be fair to Hyson,” she explained piously. “I should go so far ahead of her that she’d never catch up.”

  Morwenna, declaring that this was hardly likely, at the same time gave way, and Lowella, who had become suddenly attached to her father—her affections changed as frequently as the winds—insisted on spending a lot of time at the home farm with him.

  I found myself constantly listening for the sound of singing or the playing of a violin, and I became aware that that adventure in the vault had upset me more than I cared to admit. I wanted to get away from the house to think, so I took the car one afternoon and went onto the moor.

  In the first place I had no intention of going the way I had before. I merely wanted to be alone to think; and I wanted to do my thinking right away from the house, because I was beginning to suspect that the house had an effect on me, making me more fanciful than I should otherwise have been.

  I drew up on a lonely stretch of moor, shut off the engine, and, lighting a cigarette, sat back to brood. I went over every detail of what had happened from the first day I had seen Roc; and whichever way I looked one thought kept hammering in my mind: He knew that I was an heiress when he married me.

  Dinah Bond had marveled how events repeated themselves. Barbarina had been married for her money when her husband would have preferred Louisa Sellick. Had I been married for mine when my husband would have preferred … ?

  It was something I refused to accept. He could never have been such a good actor as to deceive me so utterly. I thought of the passion between us; I thought of the ways in which he had made love to me. Surely that could not have been all lies. I could hear his voice coming back to me: “I’m a gambler, darling, but I never risk losing what I can’t do without.”

  He had never pretended to be a saint. He had never told me that I was the first woman he had ever loved. He had not denied that he was a gambler.

  What had happened that day when he went down to swim with my father? What was I thinking now! My father’s death had nothing to do with all this. That had been an unfortunate accident.

  I threw away my cigarette, started up the car, and drove on for some miles without noticing the direction in which I was going; then suddenly I was aware that I was lost.

  The moor looked so much the same whatever road one took. I could only drive on until I came to a signpost.

  This I did and when I saw Dozmary on it I discovered I was very eager to have another glimpse of the boy who looked so like Roc. After all, I told myself, Louisa Sellick had played a part in the story of Barbarina, and it seemed as though her story was very closely linked with my own.

  When I reached the Pool I left the car and went down to the water’s edge; it looked cold and gray and the place was deserted. Leaving the car I started to walk, until I found the road which led to the house.

  I started up this, then it occurred to me that if I met the boy again he might recognize me and wonder why I had come back; and as there was ano
ther path branching from this one—nothing more than a cart track—I took this and found I was mounting a slight incline.

  Now I had a good view of the front of the house, although there were several large clumps of bracken between me and the road in which it stood. I sat down beside one of these clumps and looked at the house, which I could now study at my leisure. I saw a stable and I guessed that the boy had his own horse; there was also a garage, and the garden at the front and sides of the house was well kept. I caught a glimpse of greenhouses. It was a comfortable house set in rather unusual surroundings, for it didn’t appear to have any neighbors. It must be rather lonely for Louisa Sellick when the boy went away to school, which I supposed he must do. Who was the boy? Her son? But he would be too young. He couldn’t be more than thirteen or fourteen; surely Petroc Pendorric had been dead longer than that.

  Then who was the boy? That was another of those questions which I didn’t want to think too much about. There was beginning to be quite a number of them.

  Suddenly the door of the glass-roofed porch opened and someone came out. It was the boy again. I could see the resemblance to Roc even from where I was. He seemed to be talking to someone in the house; then she came out. I think I must have cowered into the bracken for I was suddenly afraid of being recognized, because the woman who had come out of Bedivere House was Rachel Bective.

  She and the boy walked towards a car, and I recognized it as the little gray Morris from the Pendorric garages.

  She got into it, and the boy stood waving while she drove away.

  In a moment of panic it occurred to me that she might pass my car and recognize it. I ran down the cart track and as I came to the main road I was relieved because she had gone in a direction away from where my car was parked.

  I walked slowly back and drove thoughtfully home.

  Why, I asked myself, was Rachel Bective visiting the boy who was so obviously a Pendorric?

  Deborah, with Hyson and Carrie, returned to Pendorric after a few days. I thought the child looked pale and that the holiday had not done her much good.

  “She misses Lowella,” Morwenna told me. “They’re never completely happy apart although they quarrel almost all the time when they’re together.”

  Deborah smiled sadly. “When you’re a twin you understand these things,” she said. “We do, don’t we, Morwenna?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” replied Morwenna. “Roc and I were very close always, though we rarely quarreled.”

  “Roc would never take the trouble to quarrel with anyone,” murmured Deborah. She turned to me: “My dear, you’re not looking as well as I should like to see you. You should have come with us. My moorland air would have done you the world of good.”

  “Oh come, it’s not as good as our sea air surely,” laughed Morwenna.

  “It’s change that’s good for everyone.”

  “I’m so glad you’ve come back,” I told Deborah. “I’ve missed you.”

  She was very pleased. “Come up with me. I’ve brought you a little present from home.”

  “For me! How charming of you!”

  “It’s something I treasure.”

  “Then I shouldn’t take it.”

  “You must, my dear. What point would there be in giving you something I want to get rid of?”

  She slipped her arm through mine and I thought: Perhaps I can ask Deborah. Not outright, of course, but perhaps indirectly. After all, she would know what was happening better than most people.

  We went up to her bedroom, where Carrie was unpacking.

  “Carrie,” cried Deborah, “where’s the little gift I brought for Mrs. Pendorric?”

  “Here,” said Carrie without looking at me.

  “Carrie hates leaving her beloved moor,” Deborah whispered to me.

  She was holding out a small object wrapped tissue paper. I opened it and, although it was one of the most exquisite things I had ever seen, I was dismayed. For in a frame set with jade and topaz was a delicate miniature of a young girl, her hair falling about her shoulders, her eyes serene.

  “Barbarina,” I whispered.

  Deborah was smiling down at the lovely face. “I know how interested you have always been in her and I thought you’d like to have it.”

  “It’s a beautiful thing. It must be very valuable.”

  “I’m so glad you like it.”

  “Is there one of you? I would rather have that.”

  My words evidently pleased her for she looked very beautiful suddenly. “People always wanted to paint Barbarina,” she said. “Father invited lots of artists to the houses—he was interested in the arts—and they used to say ‘We must paint the twins, and we’ll begin with Barbarina.’ They sometimes did; and when it was my turn, they forgot. I told you, didn’t I, that she had something that I lacked. It drew everyone to her—and because I was so like her, I seemed like a pale shadow … a carbon copy, you might say, a little blurred, much less attractive.”

  “Do you know, Deborah,” I said, “you always underrate yourself. I’m sure you were every bit as attractive.”

  “Oh Favel, what a dear child you are! I feel so grateful to Roc for finding you and bringing you to us.”

  “It’s I who should be grateful. Everyone’s been so kind to me … particularly you.”

  “I? Boring you with my old photographs and chatter about the past!”

  “I’ve found it immensely interesting. I want to ask you lots of things.”

  “What’s stopping you? Come and sit in the window. Oh, it is good to be back. I love the moor, but the sea is more exciting perhaps. It’s so unpredictable.”

  “You must have missed the moor when Roc and Morwenna were young and you were looking after them.”

  “Sometimes, but when they went away to school I’d go to Devonshire.”

  “Did they go to Devon for school holidays?”

  “Almost always they were at Pendorric. Then of course Morwenna started bringing Rachel for holidays, and it seemed to be a natural thing that she should come to us every time. Morwenna was extraordinarily fond of her for some reason. And she wasn’t really a pleasant child. She locked Morwenna in the vault, once. Just for fun! You can understand how terrified poor Morwenna was. She had a nightmare soon after it happened and told me about it when I went in to comfort her. But it didn’t make any difference to the friendship, and when Roc and Morwenna went to France, Rachel went with them.”

  “When was that?”

  “It was when they were older. They would have been about eighteen then. I always hoped that Morwenna would drop her, but she never did. And at that time the three of them became very friendly.”

  “When they were about eighteen …”

  “Yes. Morwenna was anxious to go to France. She wanted to improve her accent; and she said she’d like to go for two months. She had finished at her English boarding school and I was thinking that she might go abroad to school; but she said it would be much better for her to stay in some pension where she would learn the language, by mixing with people, more easily than she ever would at school.”

  “And Morwenna went to France for two months.”

  “Rachel went with her. So did Roc for a while. I was a bit alarmed at that time. Roc was with them so much and I was beginning to be afraid that he and Rachel …”

  “You wouldn’t have welcomed … that?”

  “My dear, I expect I’m being rather mean, but somehow I should not have liked to see Rachel mistress of Pendorric. She hasn’t the … charm. Oh, she’s an educated girl but there’s something I don’t like about her … something I don’t altogether trust. This is strictly between ourselves, of course; I wouldn’t say it to anyone else.”

  “I think I know what you mean.”

  “She’s too sharp. One gets the idea that she’s watching for the main chance all the time. I expect it’s my stupid imagination, but I can tell you I had some very deep qualms at that time, because Roc was so anxious to see the girls settled in their pens
ion comfortably. And he actually stayed there for a while and went back and forth while they were there. Every time he returned I was terrified that he would announce his intentions. Fortunately it all fell through.”

  “It was a long time ago,” I said.

  Deborah nodded.

  I was thinking: They were eighteen, and the boy could be about fourteen now. Roc is thirty-two.

  I had often felt that Rachel had some hold on the Pendorrics. She gave that impression. She was like a person with a chip on her shoulder and yet at the same time there was a certain truculence about her. It was as though she were continually implying: Treat me as a member of the family or else … !

  And she visited the boy who was living with Louisa Sellick!

  I said: “I suppose at that time their father was dead … I mean Roc’s and Morwenna’s.”

  “They were about eleven when he died. It was six years after Barbarina …”

  So the boy was not his, I thought. Oh Roc, why do you keep these secrets from me? There’s no need.

  My impulse was to talk to Roc at the earliest opportunity, to tell him what I had conjectured.

  When I went to my room I put the miniature on the mantelshelf and stood for some minutes looking into the serene eyes depicted there.

  Then I decided to wait awhile, to try to find out more about the nature of this web in which I was becoming entangled.

  In the midst of this uncertainty Mabell Clement gave a party. When Roc and I drove over, we were both a little subdued; I felt weighed down with thoughts of the boy who lived on the moors, and conjectures as to what part Roc had played in bringing him into the world. I longed to talk to Roc and yet I was afraid to do so. Actually I was afraid to face up to the fact that Roc might not tell me the truth. I was pathetically eager that he should not lie to me, and at the same time, I was desperately trying to keep intact that wonderful happiness which I had known.