Penmarric

by Susan Howatch

  “Mark,” I said, still speaking levelly, “I have never, voluntarily, closed my bedroom door to you, I—”

  “So far,” he said, “you’ve closed it—voluntarily, since you chose to have children—for at least five months out of every year. But that was pardonable since we both wanted children and I was prepared to tolerate the situation. But at the moment I don’t want children and if you become pregnant now after all I’ve said I’ll take the news exactly as I would have done if you’d slammed the bedroom door in my face.”

  “My God!” I cried, my restraint snapping in two, my rage making me throw all pretense at calmness to the winds, “don’t you ever, ever think of anything else except what can happen between us in the bedroom? Is it so utterly impossible for you to spend a night without …” And before I could check myself the profanity, the unmentionable word from the gutters, had slipped from my lips. I stopped at once, my cheeks burning, but I was too late.

  He looked at me. Then he raised his eyebrows in an expression of amused distaste. “Really, my dear,” he said in his most sarcastic London drawl, “you needn’t have gone to such lengths to remind me where you come from, but since you remind me, I almost wish we were back at Roslyn Farm! There at least I could get what I wanted when I wanted it without all this fuss. What a pity I ever bothered to marry you! You were such a perfect mistress.”

  He stopped speaking. For one long moment there was an absolute silence save for the roar of the surf on the rocks far below. Beyond the parapet of the terrace the sea stretched to a misty horizon and the sun shone from a cloudless sky.

  I turned and groped my way to the French windows.

  I heard him say, “Janna …” but I did not stop. I opened the door, blundered against a small table, knocked over a vase of flowers. Presently I was in the passage leading to the hall. It was cool there, but dark after the brilliance of the afternoon light. I had difficulty in seeing. In the hall I thought: I want to go home. I hate this house. I hate it.

  I went outside again and the drive stretched before me to the trees by the gates, and the contorted spinney thrust its twisted boughs toward that azure Cornish sky. As I crossed the lawn the sun felt warm upon my back and the distant moors, shimmering in the heat haze, seemed mysteriously to beckon me across the land which separated us.

  I walked and walked. I walked to St. Just and I walked beyond St. Just and away from the road onto the moors which stretched into Zillan parish. The moors were gray-green, shimmering beneath that summer sun, and the rocks of Carn Kenidjack pointed jagged fingers to that brilliant southern sky.

  I stopped, looked back.

  He was following me, but some way behind, and when I stopped he stopped too. I thought I heard him call out to me, but I could not hear, I was too far away, and I turned and stumbled on once more through the heather to Zillan.

  I went on walking. My feet began to hurt, so I took off my elegant shoes and walked barefoot over the moors, barefoot back into the past until in my mind’s eye I was no longer on the moors at all but in the dirty reeking alleys of St. Ives. And suddenly I saw my father coming home from the sea, my poor, gay, generous father who was always so kind to me, and he was asking where my mother was and where he could find her. I saw the painted shutters of Shrimp Street, the coarse sailors, the smashed bottles, the drunken brawls. I saw hunger and want and hard times, the woman from the evangelist mission saying, “The wages of sin is death, my girl, and don’t you forget it,” the minister murmuring, “Poor child, such a sad case,” and Griselda, dearest Griselda, holding me close to her and screaming at them all, “She’s my kin! I’ll keep her! Thee’ll not take her away while I’ve breath in my body!” And I thought: I want Griselda. No one else. Just Griselda. I shall go and see Griselda because Griselda was always there, even in the beginning, and she’s still there, even today.

  I was confused then, thinking she was living at her little cottage at Morvah and not remembering until a minute later that she now had a cottage at Penmarric. I was walking in the wrong direction, every step I took carrying me farther from her, but still I did not turn back.

  I went on into Zillan parish.

  I walked and walked, and sometimes I turned to see if he had drawn nearer, but he kept his distance. And suddenly it was as if I were alone on the moors, as if I were a farmer’s wife again snatching ten minutes of precious leisure, and before me at last lay the ruined walls of Chûn.

  I went into the inner circle of stones and stood there. It was peaceful, sheltered from the wind. I stood motionless amidst the bracken and the soft grass, and glancing back over my shoulder, I watched him as he came toward me across the heather.

  When he reached me I saw his eyes were veiled again, his mouth hard, his face closed and empty of expression. We stood perhaps six feet apart for ten full seconds and then he crossed the ancient turf which separated us and touched my arms slowly, lightly with his fingers.

  I closed my eyes, felt the tears stab like hot needles behind my lids, tilted my head aside, but he kissed me just the same. And suddenly my knees were weak and my whole body trembled and I burned for him.

  “Forgive me,” he said. That was all. He made no excuses. Just the cool “Forgive me” in the voice I loved, and I forgave him because I loved him and because I had not realized before how desperately important it was that he should love me too. Yet he did love me. It was because he loved me that he had married me and not left me to struggle on alone at Roslyn Farm. So long as he loved me nothing mattered, nothing at all, and when I looked into his face then and saw that he loved me still I clung to him for one long shuddering moment as we embraced beneath that hot September sky. Our embraces became dizzier, unbearably urgent; at last we lay in the shadow of the castle walls, and it was there on the hard Cornish earth of the moors he was to love so well that my best-loved child was conceived.

  FIVE

  By this time little Henry was the eldest of an increasing family. His sister Matilda had been born in 1156. In 1157 another son was born in Beaumont Palace, Oxford, and christened Richard … The queen was kept busy, and must live in retirement for long periods every year. That gave Henry more scope for his adulteries …

  —The Devil’s Brood,

  ALFRED DUGGAN

  WHEN I FIRST REALIZED my condition I was extremely dismayed. First of all I was conscious of annoyance that I should have become pregnant unintentionally just like any refined woman who had no idea such a condition could be avoided, but presently my annoyance was replaced by my dread of having to tell Mark. Yet even my dread was lessened by my secret pleasure and relief; the ordeal of giving a ball at Penmarric in the new year could be postponed a little longer. We would have to extend the nursery, engage a nursemaid to help Nanny, tell Marcus the good news that soon he might have a brother to play with …

  But first I had to tell Mark that soon he might have another son.

  We were in London at the time; after the scene at Chûn I had told Mark I would go abroad with him as soon as he wished, but he, generously, had compromised by suggesting we spend a few weeks in the capital instead of making the more arduous journey to the Continent. In London we found everyone was talking of “The Books,” Aubrey Beardsley’s notorious Yellow Book and the more salubrious Jungle Book by Kipling. So agog was I to see the wicked Beardsley drawings that I wondered if I might acquire a copy secretly, but Mark bought a copy openly enough and even left it in an unlocked drawer so that I could peep at it whenever he turned the other way. He said he found the sketches “clever but facile” and “not altogether to his taste.” They were not to my taste either, I soon discovered, for the drawings were much too bizarre to strike me as being “naughty.” However, I did not admit to being disappointed, since it was the fashion for everyone to find them shocking, but merely turned my attention to other cultural events instead. We went to concerts, hearing the new Tchaikovsky symphony which had been first performed the previous year, and to the theater, sampling everything from the operettas of Gilber
t and Sullivan to one of those dreadfully gloomy dramas by the foreign playwright Ibsen. We visited picture galleries, dined at a dizzy number of fashionable restaurants and paid the occasional nerve-wracking social call—and then at last after several weeks had slipped by I steeled myself once again to see my Wimpole Street physician.

  “… so you don’t have to be musical to appreciate opera,” Mark was saying that evening at dinner. “Opera is such a splendid spectacle independent of the music. Of course this new stuff by Richard Strauss is abominable, but some of the Italian composers… Is anything the matter?”

  When one has been dreading something continuously for several hours the anticipation is often worse than the event. For one long moment after I had told him he was so still that I felt my scalp prickle with fright, but then he shrugged and smiled and said lightly, “And after all that fuss! What a waste of breath that scene was! I should have known it was pointless to quarrel.”

  I said tensely, “This was not what I had in mind, Mark. I realize you must feel angry, but—”

  “My dear, what right have I to be angry? You could hardly have become pregnant without my help. Let’s try and forget that wretched quarrel and put it behind us once and for all.”

  So I made no more efforts to apologize, but I felt wretched, for I was sure he suspected I had deliberately sought such a condition. He was very thoughtful and considerate to me throughout the journey home and we even reached the point of discussing names for the baby together, but in the new year he became immersed in his writings again after a long spell away from his historical papers, and in February he traveled to London for three weeks to do some research. I missed him dreadfully. I hated eating alone in that enormous dining room, hated being waited upon so meticulously throughout each course, hated sitting on my own in that silent drawing room in the evenings. In the mornings I visited the nursery, but Marcus, though adorable, was hardly old enough to offer much companionship and Mariana was cutting teeth and very fractious. In the afternoons I tried to devote myself to my parish responsibilities and to my correspondence, but I was afraid of sending letters unless Mark had read them to ensure that they were correct, and when ever I picked up a pen I became so nervous that I found I knew not what to write. It was hard to know how to pass the time. When Mark returned home at last I was painfully glad to see him.

  Yet even after his return I saw little of him in the mornings he would work in his study. In the afternoons he would be out riding or walking or attending to estate matters and in the evenings he would once more be secluded with his books. Once a week, sometimes twice, he would go into Penzance and spend the afternoon at Carnforth Hall before dining with his old friend Michael Vincent, but I was careful not to object to this increasing taste for male companionship. I personally thought Mr. Vincent was a very boring man, but Mark was surely entitled to see as much of his friends as he wished and I did not want to weary him by complaining of his lack of attention.

  The long dreary winter months crawled past. My housekeeper managed domestic affairs so admirably that there was little for me to do and presently my condition precluded me from fulfilling the majority of my parish duties. I visited the nursery and tried to make plans for the new baby, but for some reason I felt apathetic and could not summon the degree of interest needed to initiate the preparations.

  Spring arrived, summer followed and at last it was time for the baby to arrive. He was born on the eighteenth of June and screamed with a vigor and determination that deafened us all. He stopped screaming when he was placed, in my arms, and then a great stillness descended on his minute crumpled face, and when he opened his eyes to look at me for the first time he seemed to survey me for a long while as if my presence had some mysterious significance for him.

  I touched his hand gently with my thumb and forefinger, and from that moment on there was a bond between us, intangible, invisible but vitally alive.

  I smiled.

  Since Mark had chosen Marcus’ name he told me I might choose the name for this third son of ours, so I called the new baby Philip for no reason save that it had always been my favorite name.

  2

  I loved all my children but some I did love better than others. Mariana once said to me years later in a fit of temper, “You only cared about the boys! It was only the boys who ever meant anything to you!” and although I denied it hotly it was true that my sons did interest me more than my daughters. For a long while Stephen, or rather Stephen’s memory, remained closest to my heart, but that was probably because he was the first-born and his death had made his small personality especially poignant. Marcus was engagingly attractive with his blue eyes and shaggy dark hair; he had a winning air and I thought would grow very charming in later life, but he resembled me little; I could see myself neither in him nor in Mariana, and I had glimpsed only the faintest of likenesses between myself and Stephen, who had died before any strong resemblance could become pronounced. But from the start Philip was my son. He was fair, as I was, with wide, cool blue eyes and light thick hair. From an early age he was obviously ten times as clever as Marcus and much quicker in learning new things.

  I doted on him. Marcus became jealous. “Take the baby away,” he ordered Nanny. “Take it away. Don’t want it.”

  “Run off and play with Mariana, Marcus,” I said, irritated, but he clung to my skirts and would not let go.

  “You spoil that baby, Janna,” said Mark disapprovingly, coming home one day from Penzance to find me in the nursery as usual with Philip. “He’ll take advantage of you later on.”

  “No, he won’t,” I said “and I don’t spoil him.”

  But I did.

  Nanny became cross. “Excuse me, Mrs. Castallack,” she said firmly one day. “Pardon me, madam, but how can I train Master Philip to be obedient and good when you never refuse him anything? He’s growing very willful and thinks he needs only scream for something to get it. It’s not right, madam, if you don’t mind me saying so. When I was with the de Clancy family in Budleigh Salterton …”

  And I was regaled with tales from Nancy’s past of horrible children who had been idolized by doting parents.

  I resolved I would have to be more sensible.

  I think part of my absorption in the children was because of the lack in my relationship with Mark. I had imagined things would right themselves after Philip’s birth and had resolved to try not to have any more children for at least two years so that I could give Mark my full attention, but the constraint between us persisted. I had made up my mind to go abroad if he wished, but now he did not offer to take me. He was deeply involved with his historical writings and had completed a second thesis on King John which he thought would further his career as a historian, and now when he spoke of going away it was not to the Continent but to Oxford to work at the Bodleian Library. Soon we had slipped into our old habit of rarely meeting except at mealtimes, and my dismay deepened when he again increased his visits to Penzance. He saw Michael Vincent two or three times a week now, and although I always waited up for him on those evenings he spent away from home he did not once come to my room on his return but slept in his dressing room across the passage.

  In an effort both to please him and to draw us closer together I said at last, “Mark, why don’t you invite your friends here instead of always visiting them in Penzance? They must think us very inhospitable.”

  “Oh,” he said, “but I know you don’t enjoy entertaining.”

  “I think I would enjoy it more now that I’m accustomed to life at Penmarric,” I said, trying to convince myself as well as him that this was true, and soon I was no longer able to escape from the ordeal of giving dinner parties and Mark was once more talking of giving a ball after Christmas. The pace of life began to quicken, our social activities increased, and with my confinement now behind me I was drawn more into parish life and found myself very busy and occupied.

  But despite this I scarcely saw Mark at all. I tried not to worry, tried not to think of those t
en years that separated us, tried not to think of my Tomorrow, that time waiting for me in the future when I would be middle-aged and Mark still in his prime. But I went on thinking of those ten years until finally came the moment when I could bear thinking of them no longer. One night when Mark came home late from Penzance I went to his dressing room to meet him and asked unsteadily if I had offended or displeased him in some way.

  “Of course not!” He looked uncomfortable.

  “Then why—lately—”

  “The fault is mine,” he said at once, “not yours. I’ve been tired and preoccupied lately.” And the next day he did make a great effort to please me by lunching with me and the children in the nursery and by dining with me in the evening; he was courteous and charming, and for the first time for several weeks I forgot my depression entirely and was conscious only of happiness.

  My happiness lasted five days. Then Mark rode into Penzance again for the day and that same afternoon I was summoned to the nursery, where Marcus lay ill with a high fever.

  3

  I was frantic with anxiety. Nanny said to me, “I’m sure it’s nothing serious, madam. Young children do run high temperatures, but I think the doctor should be called just to be on the safe side.” I sent at once for Dr. Salter and moved restlessly up and down the room as I waited for his arrival. I was thinking of Stephen, of course, remembering that dreadful silent nursery and his small waxen face in the cradle. I tried not to remember but I could not help myself. I began to picture Marcus dead, Philip falling ill, all my children dying …

  I began to panic. Even after the doctor had arrived and diagnosed a moderate case of measles I could still hardly contain my fear and dread, and finally by the middle of the afternoon I felt so full of longing for Mark to be with me and soothe me with comforting words that I became desperate. Leaving the nursery, I fetched my hat and coat and ordered the carriage to the door.