by Sara Seale
Often when he was out those wild March days, she would come to the deserted room with its shrouded furniture, its tall windows bare of curtains, and look at the picture. It seemed sad to her that it should lie there, abandoned and forgotten, and she would dust it tenderly and prop it up in different lights, studying each line of the face until she knew it by heart. Often now, she would look at Nicholas, when he was preoccupied with something else, and see, not the disfigurement which had at first repelled her, but the young, unblemished face of the portrait. It was a curious experience and she was reminded of the princess in Riquet of the Tuft who had been given the gift of making whoever she loved as handsome as she pleased: "Could you love me enough to do that?" "I think I could" said the princess, and her heart being softened towards him, she wished that he might become the handsomest prince in all the world...
Could love do that? she wondered, startled. Were all fairytales which ended in the disenchantment of the beast only an exposition of the loving heart?
Once he caught her looking at him with that strange, startled expression, and said, frowningly:
"What is it, Shelley? Haven't you got used to my face by now?"
It was one of those impatient, bitter little remarks he still made to her when his mind was occupied with other things.
"You think too much about your face," she said gently. "These things don't matter."
He looked at her, shaken for the moment out of his preoccupation.
"I've found, unfortunately, that it has mattered very much," he said.
"I think," Shelley ventured a little shyly, "you've allowed it to matter more than it should. Nicholas - " Suddenly she longed to be able to talk to him without that barrier of remoteness which he had built between them. "Talk to me, sometimes - really talk, I mean. Tell me about yourself."
"What do you want to know?" He sounded impatient and a little puzzled. He had formed the habit of thinking of her as a child he must treat with dispassionate care, and his mind was already half on his work.
She made a little movement as though she would go to him, then sat, quietly, her hands folded in her lap. The things she wanted him to speak of had been locked away for years. Perhaps he had already forgotten, perhaps he still remembered Lydia...
"It doesn't matter," she said. "If you want to work, Nicholas, don't pay any attention to me."
"Well, there are one or two things. I'm afraid I'm neglecting you, my dear, but Tregenna will be back in a week or so. I'll be freer next month."
Later, he remembered the small interchange and wondered if he had been a fool, but so much to do with the business was occupying his thoughts just now that it was difficult to preserve a balance.
Once he caught her in the room where the portrait was, and asked:
"What on earth are you doing in here?"
She looked suddenly guilty, and his eyes fell on the portrait propped up against a chair.
"Oh, you've found that, have you?" he said. "Not much resemblance now, I'm afraid. Has it given you a shock?"
"No," she replied. "I found it weeks ago. I often come up here to look at it."
His thick eyebrows lifted.
"Well, I consider that to be very foolish. I'll have it taken away," he said.
"No, please -" she said quickly. "Can I - I would like to have it in my sitting-room, if you don't want it."
"No," he said curtly. "No, I shouldn't care for that at all. It's best forgotten."
In these moods she could not reach him. Indeed she came to think he could feel no more for her than the possessive pride which he took in his collection. He gave her the same thought and care that he afforded to his most delicate porcelain. He would turn her round, approving, or criticizing her clothes, add a jewel, or take one away with the same fastidious thought with which he arranged the pieces in his cabinets, and she grew stubbornly fond of the old skirts and sweaters which she wore in the garden, just as she clung obstinately to the muddled conglomeration of her sitting-room, despite all Nicholas' half-amused protests.
Towards the end of the month a cable came from India to say that Martin had arrived safely, and Shelley felt a stab of nostalgia. Now, truly he was lost to her. He was safe with his parents and his new baby sister; Garazion was already a fading memory, with Mitzi, the cat, and Shelley, and the warm intimacy of months.
When Nicholas told her he must go away for a few days, she begged him to take her with him.
"You promised you would," she said, weary of the loneliness of the wind which never seemed to cease day after day.
"Not this time," he said absently. "I'm going north and it would be very dull for you."
"I wouldn't mind," she said, and it seemed to her suddenly that it was vitally important that this time he should not leave her behind.
"But I should," he told her lightly. "I shall be making business contacts all the time, and won't even have my evenings free. I shall have to go to London next month. I'll take you with me, then."
"I hope," she said, her voice trembling with unreasoning despair, "you won't be sorry."
His regard was tolerant and a little amused.
"I hope not," he said. "What are you imagining might happen while I'm away?"
"Anything," she said childishly. "I might drown in Penzen-nen's Pool."
"Oh, really, darling! If you feel you're likely to fall in the pool then keep away from it. What's happened to you, Shelley? You're not nervous at being left, are you?"
"No - not nervous exactly. I'm sorry, Nicholas."
The days seemed endless after he had gone, and when on the third day there was a telephone message from him saying he was obliged to stop away another week, she ran out on to the moor with the hot tears of disappointment streaming down her face. She came to Penzennen's Pool and stood in the wind staring into the dark, chill water, and remembering her absurd words to Nicholas before he went away. It would serve him right, she thought, if she really were to fall in and catch a chill, catch pneumonia, perhaps even die. She dipped the toe of her shoe in the water, then plunged her whole foot in and drew it out again quickly, crying out at the cold.
A voice behind her said:
"That's no way for a princess to behave!" And she whirled round, staring disbelievingly.
"Oh, Colin! Colin!" she cried with gladness, and ran straight into his arms.
CHAPTER SIX
"You've been crying," he said, touching her wet lashes.
"It was Nicholas," she laughed, accepting him happily as if she had seen him yesterday. "I thought he was coming home tomorrow and he's sent me a message to say he'll be away for another week."
"Oh, I see. And your husband's absence is a cause for tears these days, is it?"
"I was lonely. There's no one here now, you see. Martin has gone back to India."
"So you weep for your good man's return and find only me."
"But who else could I want to find more? When did you come? Why are you here?"
They were back at Polzeal, he told her, the same little band of players, opening in a fortnight with a month's repertory of old plays. He had, he said, already been twice to Penzennen's Pool to look for her.
"I never thought you'd come back," she sighed. "Martin said you were a magic."
"I told you I'd be back in the spring."
"Spring?" She looked at the rough March day and shivered.
"It will be April in three days. You'll be surprised how suddenly the moor can burst into spring.
"... And now all nature seemed in love; The lusty sap began to move; New juice did stir the embracing vines, And birds had drawn their valentines...' "
She remembered his habit of quoting and smiled. "Who wrote that?"
"I forget. You look pinched, my child. Has the winter been long?"
"Very long."
"Well, we have a week," he said lightly. "Let's make the most of it. I can borrow Jake's old car - you remember Jake, our producer? I'll bring a picnic tomorrow and we'll make a day of it."
He came every day, when they were not rehearsing, and wet or fine they drove about the countryside, discovering cromlechs and monoliths and forgotten hut-circles, and Shelley was entirely happy. Once they went to St. Bede and she showed him Gull Cottage and the little church where she had married Nicholas, and they ate winkles and raced along the wet sands, their feet bare, until Shelley laughingly complained of the chilly pools.
She returned each evening, ravenous for dinner and did not trouble to change, but sat down as she was in her rough sweater her hair still tumbled by the wind, and did full justice to Baines' offerings. The evenings were no longer lonely, for she curled contentedly by the fire and thought over the day that had been and the day that was to come, going early to bed and sleeping dreamlessly the night through. She wrote happily to her father, telling him of Colin's return and describing each day's small events with a wealth of detail which must have bored him mightily. But he replied graciously enough, told her that life was short and she should gather roses while she may, and, in any case, experience should be good for her.
To Lucius, yawning over his daughter's effusions, the situation had its pleasing side. He had no doubt that this young man's rather boring technique was merely leading up to a logical conclusion, and no one would be more delighted than he if his pompous son-in-law should be made a cuckold of. For two pins, he would have run down to Cornwall himself to see what was going on, except for the fact that Nicholas would be returning very shortly. Cromlechs indeed! In his young days it used to be etchings!
On the day before Nicholas came home, Colin and Shelley set out to explore the Pixie's Hole behind Garator. It was the first day of April to give real promise of spring, and the sky was a delicate ducks-egg blue, cloudless and tender. The moor seemed to have changed almost overnight and even Penzennen's Pool was tranquil and less forbidding.
"You see, I told you," Colin said, as Shelley exclaimed with pleasure. "April can work magic on the moor."
"All those little green bits - surely they weren't there yesterday," she said. "And look, Colin! There's a bird drinking
from the pool! That proves it's magic, or perhaps the enchantment's broken. Nicholas told me that the legend was that no living creature would drink from those waters."
"Like all legends, a little inaccurate, I expect," he said.
"No," she persisted. "I've never seen it before. It's an omen."
He glanced at her affectionately.
"An omen of what, you ridiculous child?"
"I don't know," she said, suddenly solemn. "But it's an omen just the same."
He was amused and a little touched by her belief in a miracle. Several times throughout the day she alluded to it and her mood seemed lifted and expectant, born of the small incident.
"You are a child, aren't you?" he said, when, after lunch, they lay in the heather in the mouth of the Pixie's cave and turned their faces to the thin spring sunlight. "I really do believe you take your magic seriously."
"Don't you?" she asked, stretching her arms above her head.
"There are different sorts of magic," he told her, cocking an eyebrow. "My own brand I take very seriously indeed." "What is your brand?"
"Never mind," he said, resisting temptation, because as yet he had no wish to precipitate matters between them.
He looked at Shelley, lying beside him, her arms stretched above her head, the grave, grey eyes fixed on the tender sky above her, and knew a moment's uneasiness. He had had many such affairs, but they had been different. Girls in the company, girls picked up in their various ports of call. On holidays they had gone and lain in the heather, or the hay. or the sand; whatever had offered for the occasion. But Shelley was not like these other girls, with her absurd magic, and her child-like pleasure in the moment, rather than the companion. He wondered idly about the dark Penryn. Did he not make love to his young wife? Did he not try to wake her from her long sleep?
"What do you do together, you and your husband?" he asked, curiously.
"Do?" She moved her head, savouring the thin warmth of
the sun. "We don't do anything."
"Don't you walk on the moor, discuss things, have fun together?"
"Nicholas is very busy. He's away a good deal, and he often works late in the evenings."
"Why did you marry him?" he asked. He had often wondered, for she clearly was not in love with her husband.
"My father wished it," she said, and he exclaimed a little incredulously:
"But my dear child, these aren't Victorian times! One doesn't marry because one's parents wish it!"
"No," she said, remembering Nicholas that hot evening when he had come to Gull Cottage for his answer. "And it wasn't quite like that, either. It was a sort of - personal compulsion - I can't explain, but Nicholas is like that. And I felt safe."
"Safe with the dragon?"
The light breeze stirred the fringe on her smooth forehead.
"He isn't really a dragon," she said. "He's been very much hurt. I think he once loved someone very deeply and she - she let him down when he most needed her."
"The cousin who ran away with the younger brother?"
She looked at him, startled.
"You know?"
"My dear, everyone knows in these parts. It's one of the local legends."
"I suppose so," she said, and sighed. "But Nicholas has never told me, himself. I should so like -" "Yes?"
"I should so like to make up to him."
He was silent, watching, as she was, a lark soar, singing into the sky, and watching, felt a little ashamed. However Penryn had managed things, she was still there for his taking, could, possibly, even love him if he took any trouble. Now was the time to leave her, now, with Nicholas coming home tomorrow.
"Have you still got my Crib?" he asked idly.
"I gave it to Martin when he went to India; he loved it so. You don't mind, do you?"
"I suppose not. I still have your medal of St. Christopher."
He pulled it out of a breast pocket and dangled it over her nose.
"I didn't want," she said, troubled for fear she might have hurt him, "to part with the Crib. I kept the donkey for remembrance."
For remembrance ... that's how it should be, he thought, and touched her cheek, gently.
"You're very sweet," he said. "I think we should be going home."
But at the gates of Garazion, he said, in spite of himself:
"I'll be at the pool most days, or, if you leave the small gate open, I'll go to the summer-house. If your husband's busy, you'll be lonely again."
"I think," she said, "I would like you to meet Nicholas. We must arrange it."
"Sometime," he said vaguely, and turned away across the moor to where he had left his car.
When Nicholas came back he regarded her with approval.
"You look much better," he said. "Have you been getting out more?"
"Nearly every day," she said, and he pinched her cheek. "See how wise I was not to take you with me to the dreary north. You're settling down more now, aren't you?" She slipped a hand through his arm.
"Oh, Nicholas!" she cried, "Couldn't we spend a day on the moor tomorrow? It's so lovely at the Pixie's Hole. We could take our lunch and lie in the heather."
"A little early for lying in the heather, don't you think?" he replied, "And I'm afraid I must go to the works tomorrow and make my report."
"Oh," she said and turned away.
He was busy for the next few days, and she and Colin walked on the moor, or met for a brief half-hour in the deserted summer-house. She was a little loath to meet him in the summer-house, perhaps, because so long ago, Lydia had met Justin there, and they had been lovers. She suggested once that he should come to tea and meet Nicholas when he got back from the works, but it was Colin now who did not wish to come to Garazion.
"You are half a fairy-tale, anyway," he told her whimsically, "Let's keep it a fairy-tale and not resort to social occasions."
Now, he had no desire to meet Nich
olas and see him in relation to Shelley. You could not, he argued to himself, feel any obligation to a man you had never met.
Nicholas, watching Shelley, knew a fresh hope. He had been wise, he thought, to give her time. There was a new spontaneity about her, now; a grave gaiety which he found very charming. In a few weeks his press of work would ease up, in a few weeks she would be ready for him. He was often touched by her solicitude for him. She would look now for signs of weariness in his face when he returned from the works, and if she put it down to press of work rather than the strain of his home conditions, he had only himself to blame.
He said to her once, his eyes suddenly searching:
"Shelley, are you at last feeling a little - kindly fondness for me?"
She looked gravely up at him. For the first time he sounded to her as if he was seeking that affection which he had said he would never demand.
"Don't you know?" she said.
"I'd like you to tell me. Sometimes I feel I've cheated you pretty badly."
She wanted to say to him: "Because you can't love me as you once loved Lydia?" But the habit of reticence which he had unconsciously imposed upon her regarding himself was too strong for her. She leant against him and said gently:
"You're bound up, somehow, with my father. I love you for all the things my father was not... can you understand?"
"I think so. But - love, Shelley?"
"Yes. He didn't want it. You don't want it, either, do you?"
His hand tightened on her shoulder.
"The love of a daughter? No, I'm not sure that I do," he said a little wryly. "But perhaps it's a beginning, and I might have made you hate me."
"No, you would never make me hate you. You just shut me out."
"Do I, Shelley? The habit of years is very strong, I suppose.
But you aren't the only one to feel that. You and Martin used to shut me out, you know."
She raised her face to look at him. It was one of those moments when she felt close to him.
