Penmarric

by Susan Howatch

  “You and Mariana and Philip will have to do your lessons alone now, Alice,” declared Marcus proudly. “I’m going to school.”

  “Well,” said Alice, who had a very acid tongue for one so young, “I wish you joy of it. I’m glad it’s not me.”

  “You’re jealous!” said Mariana. “Marcus can’t wait to go!”

  This was certainly true. But on the day of his departure he cried all the way to Penzance station, and on the platform he clung to me and wept that he did not want to go at all.

  I was horribly distressed. If it had been any of my other children perhaps I would not have been so upset, but Marcus was such an affectionate child that it wrenched my heart to think that we were sending him away all on his own as if we no longer loved him. It was no consolation for me to tell myself that his grandmother was meeting him at Paddington Station and would look after him until the time came for him to board the school train from Waterloo the next day; Maud Penmar was such a hard, unsympathetic woman, and Marcus would be so lost and bewildered …

  “Don’t send me away,” he was sobbing pathetically, burying his face against my skirts. “Please. I’ll be so good you’ll never scold me again.”

  “Oh Marcus!” I could not bear to see him looking so pathetic. I felt the tears streaming down my cheeks as I hugged him. “Marcus darling, we’ll take you home—you shan’t go.”

  “What’s all this?” Mark, who had been organizing the luggage, reappeared beside us on the platform. “What’s all this fuss and nonsense? Come, Marcus, this won’t do at all. Pull yourself together and be your age—it’s high time you stopped clinging to your mama’s skirts. Now, have you got everything? Then take my handkerchief, blow your nose and get on the train at once. We don’t want it to leave without you.” Marcus sobbed into his father’s handkerchief.

  “Mark …” I began but broke off as I saw his expression.

  “I think,” he said, “you’d better wait outside in the carriage.” And later when the train had gone and he was in the carriage beside me his first furious words were “That’s the last time I ever allow you to see your children off to school!” He was keeping his voice low so that there was no chance of Crowlas overhearing our conversation beyond the cramped interior of the carriage. “Marcus would never have become so distressed if you had remained calm—he looked to you for support and you gave him none. The whole unfortunate scene was entirely your fault.”

  “But I couldn’t help—”

  “No, you couldn’t help it because you don’t know any better, but in future you’ll say goodbye to Marcus at Penmarric. Sensibly. Without any ill-bred embarrassing scenes.”

  And it was then at last that we had our long-postponed quarrel.

  I said I was sick of him always sneering at me, always hinting that I wasn’t good enough for him, always behaving as if I were too common, too uneducated and too old to matter to him any more. Mark said that was a pack of lies and I was obviously too distraught to know what I was saying, so I reminded him how he spent most of the year away from Penmarric and how even when he was at Penmarric he took care to avoid me most of the time. He said that he thought he was doing me a kindness by leaving me alone; he was well aware that I had never forgiven him for his affair with Rose Parrish because ever since I had found out about her I’d never been the same in bed. Besides, it was patently obvious that now I no longer wanted more children I found my marital obligations not only unattractive but also so unbearably tedious that I was anxious to escape from them whenever I could.

  “That’s not true!” I cried. “It’s just not true! I do love you still—I do want you—but can I help it if your behavior toward me makes me feel so nervous that I sometimes seem cold and ill-at-ease? The truth is that you’re just using my apparent coldness, my failure, as a convenient excuse! If you can convince yourself that I no longer want you you’ll consider you have a right to go elsewhere—which is all you truly want to do anyway!”

  “If you cannot face the truth squarely, there’s no point in discussing the matter further,” he said. “I think we’ve spoken quite enough on the subject. There’s nothing more to be said.”

  We drove on to Penmarric. We did not speak. On our arrival home we went our separate ways, I to my room, he to the library, and the gulf of our estrangement yawned between us until it seemed to me as if it were an abyss no bridge would ever span again.

  4

  He came to my room that same night. I suppose he regretted the quarrel as much as I did; certainly we both tried to make amends, but afterward I felt convinced not only that I had failed him but that he had found it no more rewarding than I had. He had simply made the gesture to be kind to me; I was certain in the cold hard light of early morning when I looked at myself in the mirror that he could have had no other reason for coming to my room, and all I knew was that I did not want him to come any more if he simply came on account of kindness.

  As I dressed that morning I stared out of the window at the rain slewing into the stormy sea, the ugly black cliffs surrounding that bleak ugly mansion, and after a while it seemed to me that I would be much happier if I were not continually worrying about maintaining the shreds of our old relationship. It was obvious that Mark no longer wanted me, and if I could only reconcile myself to this truth and accept the fact that our physical relationship was dead, then his indifference could no longer hurt me. Perhaps I would no longer even mind so much that he went to other women—for I knew Mark too well by this time to assume naively that he was not unfaithful to me whenever he had the chance. I knew he had other women. What I should also have known was that I did not have to demean myself by competing for him as if I were his mistress, utterly dependent on retaining his favors. I was his wife, the mother of his children and the mistress of his house, and nothing could ever change that.

  At breakfast when we had a moment of privacy I said to him carefully, “If you don’t wish to come to my room in future I quite understand. I apologize for the scene in the carriage yesterday. I didn’t mean to place you under any kind of obligation in regard to our affairs as husband and wife.”

  He looked at me for a long moment. At last all he said was a curt “It’s your decision.”

  “I merely thought it would be easier for both of us if—”

  “Quite.” But he wasn’t listening to me. When I was silenced he said with that coarse bluntness I had always detested, “Sleep alone if you wish but don’t expect me to follow your example.”

  I tried not to let him see how much his words hurt. I simply said, “I’m sure you’ll be very discreet” and turned my head away sharply so that he should not see my tears.

  He did not bother to reply and a second later he had left the room. I was on my own, listening to the sound of his footsteps dying away in the distance until at last all sound faded into nothingness and there was nothing else to listen to except the silence.

  My chair toppled over as I sprang to my feet. I went after him, but he was gone by the time I reached the hall and when I stopped the silence wrapped itself around me in thick suffocating folds. It was hard to breathe. I glanced around wildly, ready to clutch at any small trifle that would help me maintain my self-control, but there was nothing, only the dark shadows of that deserted hall, and at the top of the stairs the cynical smile of the first Penmar as he looked down at me from his enormous frame and brandished his pair of loaded dice.

  SEVEN

  The disparity of age between Henry and Eleanor was perhaps primarily responsible for their growing animosity; at forty-five she had patted the prime of her beauty, while he, eleven years her junior, was still in the full vigour of his lustful passions.

  —King John,

  W. L. WARREN

  Eleanor began to dislike her husband, Presumably be was now more blatantly unfaithful even than before …

  —The Devil’s Brood,

  ALFRED DUGGAN

  LATE SUMMER MELTED INTO autumn; a mellow light came to the moors, a cooler wind blew in
from the sea, and at last to my embarrassment and regret it became increasingly evident to me that I was going to have a child.

  The news was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. It was the first time Griselda’s old-wives’ tales had proved of no use to me in preventing such a situation, for all my other pregnancies had either been wanted or at least due to a carelessness that I had not regretted later on. But this time I had not been careless. I had not wanted another child, and when my unfortunate condition was confirmed I was at first so disgusted that I could not even bring myself to tell Mark what had happened. However, there was no need to tell him immediately. Concealment was easy enough for the first few months, for he went away soon after the child was conceived and spent some time at London and at Oxford before returning to Penmarric for Christmas. Even then we saw so little of each other that he did not guess anything was amiss, and in the new year he returned to Oxford so that I was once more on my own.

  He had bought a house now, a manor house in a village called Allengate not far from Oxford, where he could entertain his friends in greater style. He said it was more comfortable than living in rooms and that anyway he preferred a house in the country to cramped quarters in town. He even invited me to join him at Allengate Manor, but of course he knew I would refuse; he knew how I had hated Oxford during my one and only visit there, how uncomfortable I had been among his intellectual friends. My one consolation was that he planned to live at Allengate only during the academic year, and when he left Penmarric in early January he promised to return at Easter to see the children during Marcus’ school holidays.

  When he did return I was seven months pregnant and no further concealment was possible.

  I sensed he was as embarrassed as I was by the situation, although as always he remained courteous and considerate.

  “Are you feeling well?” he said. “I hope you’re not doing too much and the vicar of St. Just isn’t pestering you too hard on parish matters.”

  “No,” I said. “I feel very well.” It was true. Despite the fact that I was now almost forty-four and much too old, in my opinion, for having a baby I was in excellent health and Dr. Salter was pleased with me. Even when the time for the birth came there was no trouble. Elizabeth was born in June, a dark, plain, heavy baby with little to commend her save her prompt arrival in the world. My confinement was brief, my recovery rapid. After the christening I left her in Nanny’s care with relief, and although I paid my usual visits to the nursery they were paid more out of a sense of duty than any deep emotional feeling toward the new baby. She had inherited Mark’s dark slanting eyes, the first of my children to do so, and against my will I was reminded of Mrs. Parrish’s elder son, whom I had glimpsed briefly years ago. Poor ugly little Elizabeth! I regret to say I held her looks most unfairly against her, but try as I would I could not overcome my irrational prejudice.

  Meanwhile the time had come for Philip to be sent away to school with Marcus, who was by this time thoroughly enjoying his career as a schoolboy. I was pleased that he had settled down so well, yet sad that he should now be so independent and no longer as reliant upon me as he had been before. He was now very much the eldest child and looked down with scorn upon Philip and Hugh, who had not been out and about in the world as he had.

  “Are there moors there?” said Philip. “Are there mines? Is it near the sea?”

  “Of course not!” Marcus said loftily. “The school is near London and the countryside is full of woods. It’s quite different.”

  “How stupid it sounds,” said Philip. “Why should I want to go there?” And to his father he declared boldly, “I shan’t go.”

  “You’ll do exactly as you’re told,” said Mark curtly, “and no nonsense.”

  “I shall run away,” said Philip. “You can’t make me stay there.”

  “If you run away,” said Mark, “I’ll give you the best hiding you’ve ever had in your life.”

  They stared at each other in open hostility, and suddenly I could not help but notice Philip’s resemblance to his father, the strong will, the stubbornness, the unyielding determination to get his way. He took no notice of Mark’s threat. The first time he ran away he was apprehended within a few miles of the school, but the second time he was missing for three days. I was dreadfully distressed and Mark even came home from Oxford to be with me while we waited for news. Finally Philip, dirty, exhausted and tear-stained, arrived at Penmarric and rushed headlong into my arms.

  “We can’t send him back!” I said, appalled, to Mark. “We can’t! Please, Mark, please let him stay!”

  “Certainly not,” said Mark. “He has to learn his lesson—he has to learn that he can’t always have his own way. I’m not giving in to him, and the sooner he realizes it the better. He’s going straight back to school and I’m going with him to deliver him in person.”

  “But—”

  “Blame yourself if the situation is distasteful to you! If you hadn’t always spoiled him so atrociously from the cradle onward he wouldn’t be so unmanageable now!”

  We quarreled bitterly and parted in anger. The next day Mark set off with Philip to the east, and after he had delivered Philip to the school in Surrey he went to Oxfordshire and remained at Allengate until December.

  I saw little of him after that. He returned to Penmarric for a week at Christmas and a week at Easter, but in the summer he was asked to give a series of lectures to graduates interested in twelfth-century monasticism and he stayed at Oxford throughout all the summer months. Soon the new academic year had begun and I knew I would not be seeing him again before December. We did correspond irregularly about the children, and he remembered all their birthdays with meticulous care, but gradually as summer passed into autumn I began to feel more isolated than I had ever felt before. My parish activities seemed dreary, the mechanical round of social calls futile. Finally in November I felt so desperately low in spirits that I resolved to make the journey across the Tamar and visit the boys at their school in Surrey. Their half-term weekend was in early November and they were permitted to go out for the weekend of three days with their parents, so I wrote to them both to tell them of my intended visit.

  It happened that Marcus had already accepted an invitation to stay with a school friend in London; the school friend’s parents had bought theater tickets, and since it would clearly have been awkward for him to cancel the arrangement I did not press him to do so. Instead I met Philip at the school early on the Saturday morning and after we had visited the village tea shop so that he could drink lemonade and eat two currant buns I asked him how he would like to spend his holiday.

  I had fully expected him to list a number of things he wanted to do in London, for I had already asked the townhouse staff to prepare themselves for our visit, but to my surprise he had other very different plans.

  “I want to go to Brighton,” he said firmly. “There are downs there like moors, and there’s the sea. One of the masters at school lives there—we can go to London and get a train from Victoria Station, he said. There are lots of schools there and I want to see if I like it. If I do I shall ask Papą to let me change schools. I want to be by the sea.”

  So the matter was settled. We journeyed down to Brighton easily, much more easily than I would have believed possible, and found ourselves in a pretty seaside town with attractive townhouses and esplanades and a strange foreign-looking palace that had been built years before by the Prince Regent. The driver of our hired cab took us to the largest hotel that was open all the year round, even in November, and the manager offered me a most pleasant suite of rooms overlooking the sea. I accepted the offer at once, and the porters began to bring up the luggage.

  “This is delightful!” I exclaimed to Philip, pleased because the town was more congenial than I had anticipated and because the hotel was luxurious and comfortable. “How clever of you to suggest we come here!”

  That evening we decided to dine in the hotel dining room rather than in our suite, so I put on my best gown and
saw that Philip was clean and tidy before we went downstairs together soon after eight o’clock. The hotel at first seemed as quiet and sedate as when we had arrived, but presently we heard the murmur of voices from the dining room and I supposed that there were more guests staying at the hotel than might have been anticipated at that time of the year.

  As we went into the dining room the headwaiter came up to us and bowed. “A table for two, madam?”

  “Yes,” said Philip before I could speak. “A corner one, please.”

  “Hush, Philip!” I was amused but a trifle embarrassed by his precocious treatment of the eminent headwaiter, but the latter merely smiled and said kindly, “Of course, sir! This way, please.”

  I was just stepping forward to follow him when Philip said, surprised, “There’s Papa.”

  There was a void below my heart. I felt my breath catch in my throat. And then I looked across to one of the tables on the other side of the room and saw Mark with Rose Parrish and their two sons.

  2

  She still looked young and pretty. Why not? She was no more than thirty-five. She was dressed in a beautiful, expensively cut gown and there were diamonds at her throat. Age had improved, not detracted, from her looks, and although I had always remembered her as pretty, now her prettiness seemed more mature, more striking. She was happy too. She was laughing, her expression gay and carefree. Beside her were the two boys, the elder good-looking with more than a hint of the familiar Penmar features, the younger as blond and cherubic as a choirboy.