Penmarric

by Susan Howatch

  “Mama,” Philip was saying urgently. “Mama.”

  Mark chose that minute to catch sight of us. I saw his expression change.

  “Madam?” said the headwaiter, returning to my side when he saw we were no longer following him to the table in the corner.

  Mrs. Parrish had seen us. I saw the laughter die from her eyes and the color ebb from her face.

  “Mama,” said Philip, tugging at my hand. “Why is Papa with those people?”

  I said to the headwaiter, “Pray do not trouble to seat us at a table. We shall be dining elsewhere.”

  The headwaiter looked astonished but I did not care. I turned, walked blindly out of the dining room into the brightly lit hall and began to stumble up the staircase. My breath was coming in short, uneven gasps and I felt ill with shock.

  “Mama!” Philip was behind me, treading on my heels. “Mama, what is it. What’s the matter?”

  I was crying. I tried not to but I was unable to control myself. I fumbled for a handkerchief and tried to hide my tears from him.

  “Didn’t you want to see Papa? Who’s that woman? And who are those boys? Are they at school here?”

  Of course, I thought, it would be their half-term too. Mark had come down from Oxford to see them and take them out. He had made no effort to see his legitimate sons, but for Mrs. Parrish’s children he was prepared to travel from Oxford to Brighton.

  “Mama, please!” He was frantic. “Please talk to me! Who are those people? Why is Papa here?”

  “I … will explain …” We reached the suite. I fumbled in my handbag for the key to the door and felt the tears wet on my cheek.

  “You’re crying,” said Philip.

  “No.” I found the key, fitted it in the lock.

  “He’s made you unhappy.” He turned and began to walk off down the corridor back to the stairs. “I’ll go and talk to him.”

  “No, Philip!” I cried. “No, no! Come here at once. Don’t you dare go downstairs!”

  He hesitated. I had never spoken to him so harshly before.

  “Please,” I said. “Come here, Philip, and don’t be disobedient. Please.”

  He came without a word. We went into the suite and I closed the door. The maid had already been in to light the gas and the room was well lit and warm. After a moment I sat down by the fire and stared into the flames in an attempt to compose myself.

  “Tell me,” said Philip, kneeling on the floor and pressing close to me to secure my attention. “Tell me. I want to know. Please, Mama. Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not crying, Philip.” I was more controlled now. My voice was stiff and level. I tried to swallow but my throat still ached too much. After a while I said, “The woman is called Mrs. Parrish. She’s a widow, an acquaintance of Papa’s. The boys are her sons.”

  “Is it their half-term? Are they at school here? Why did Papa come to see them and not Marcus and me?”

  “I … don’t know … I suppose there was some reason—”

  “That’s not fair,” said Philip. He scrambled to his feet. “May I go down and speak to him?”

  “No—please, darling, please. Stay with me.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  I started violently. I rose at once to my feet but before I could speak Philip said, “That’ll be Papa. Perhaps he’s come to apologize.” He crossed the room, wrenched the handle and pulled open the door.

  Mark stood on the threshold. He was alone, and suddenly I felt so faint that I had to sit down again.

  “Hullo, Philip,” he said. “What a surprise to see you here! Where is Mama?”

  Philip said nothing but merely stared at him stonily. Mark took no notice. He came into the room and when he saw me he held out his hands.

  I looked away. At last he said, “Why did you bring Philip to Brighton?”

  “I … it was merely …” My voice was unsteady. I had to stop.

  “It was my idea,” said Philip from beside me. “I had heard there were schools in Brighton and I wanted to see what sort of place it was. I was going to ask you if I could go to school by the sea. It’s got nothing to do with Mama. It’s not her fault.”

  “No one,” said Mark, “is implying that anything is Mama’s fault.”

  There was a silence. Then: “Why are you here?” said Philip with the bold insolence that Mark could not tolerate. “Are those boys having half-term? Why did you see them and not Marcus and me?”

  “Perhaps because they have better manners.” He turned to me. “What have you told him?”

  “Nothing. Only her name.”

  “I must talk to you alone,” he said abruptly. “My suite is down the corridor. I suggest you come there with me for a few minutes.”

  “No,” I said strongly, “I’m not going into any suite of rooms you share with that woman.”

  “Please, Janna!” He was dark with anger. “Not before the child.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t care. I’ve never been so humiliated in all my life as when I walked into the dining room and saw you sitting there with her—with your sons.”

  “They’re not his,” said Philip. “They’re hers. You told me—”

  “Listen, Janna—”

  “No, I won’t! Where does she live now? Is it in London? Ah no, of course she must be at Oxford—at your new house at Allengate! How stupid of me not to have guessed before! I suppose she’s masquerading as your housekeeper.”

  “I refuse to discuss this in front of the child. He shouldn’t be present.”

  “How dare you dictate to me what should be done with my children? What right have you to interfere with them when you do nothing but ignore them for the best part of the year? How am I to explain to Marcus and Philip why you preferred to see William and his brother at half-term? How dare you pay such attention to your bastards!”

  His hands were on my shoulders. He was shaking me. “For Christ’s sake!” He was so furiously angry that he did not even check the profanity. “Have you no sense, no discretion, no—”

  “Stop it!” shouted Philip. He drove his small fist into his father’s thigh and tried to tear Mark away from me. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!”

  “You see how you’re upsetting the child?” He took Philip by the scruff of the neck and disengaged himself from the child’s grasp but Philip flew straight back into the attack.

  “No, Philip.” I caught his hand and pulled him to my side. “It’s all right, darling, it’s all right.” I stooped and hugged him tightly. He looked at me, his blue eyes clear, his face white and strained, and then suddenly his mouth trembled and he began to cry. I pressed him to me and looked up at Mark with blazing eyes.

  “This is your fault.”

  “I beg your pardon, but it was not I who chose to make such a disgraceful scene before the child! I suggest you come to my suite at once and we can discuss the matter alone and in privacy.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Don’t be so absurd! There’s much to discuss, even if it’s merely the question of whether we should seek a divorce.”

  The shock was so harsh that for a moment I could not breathe. I managed to stand up. “Divorce?” I repeated blankly. “Divorce? But that’s impossible. It’s out of the question. It’s unthinkable.”

  “You’ve never considered it? I thought perhaps since you refused to live with me—”

  “I’ve been waiting month after month for you at Penmarric!”

  “You could have been with me at Oxford—I gave you the chance, but you refused. I asked you to live at Allengate.”

  “Yes—with Mrs. Parrish as housekeeper!”

  He went white. “I refuse to discuss this with you in front of Philip.”

  “Very well,” I said, anger making my voice sound cold and hard. “We’ll go to your suite.” I turned to Philip. “Darling, I won’t be long, only a little while, but there’s something I must talk about with Papa. There’s no need for you to worry or be upset. When I come bac
k we’ll have dinner here together in our rooms. Will you be all right here by yourself?”

  “Of course.” But his voice was faint, his mouth stiff and white-lipped.

  “If you want us, Philip,” said Mark, not unkindly, “my rooms are at the very end of this corridor. The number on the door is seven.”

  Philip said nothing but turned away and went over to the window to watch the sea.

  We left him, walked in silence down the corridor and finally entered a larger, even more luxurious suite. At first I thought the sitting room seemed bare of all trace of personal occupancy, but then I noticed a schoolboy’s cap tossed casually on the chaise longue. When I was closer I saw the name tape sewn in the lining, the name of the younger boy who had been born so soon after Philip, and because the name seemed in some mysterious way to be an omen to me, a glimpse of dark days to come, I picked up the cap and traced the letters on the tape with my fingers.

  His name was Adrian, a name I had not heard before. Adrian Parrish.

  Mark closed the door. Suddenly there seemed nothing to say, nothing that could ever be said between us. The pause in the quarrel had destroyed it; there seemed to be nothing remaining of my initial anger; I could not even recall the shock I had experienced on hearing the word “divorce.” I was only conscious now of bewilderment that I should still, even after all these months of estrangement, be so overwhelmingly jealous and resentful. I had accepted the fact that he must have other women; why could I not accept Rose Parrish? There seemed no logical reason, only a painful awareness that Rose Parrish symbolized so much more than the fact that my marriage had failed. To me she was the symbol of a youth I would not know again, of a class I had never entered, of a world in which I had never been at ease. She was the personification of all my unhappiness, and it was as if in looking at her sweet gay face I had gazed on everything I had ever wanted but never quite managed to attain.

  “Well, I must say,” said Mark’s cold voice from a long way away, “that was a particularly distasteful scene to enact before our son.”

  I sat down in an uncomfortable high-backed chair and tried to think what I should do, but my mind was too confused and I could not even manage to reply.

  “It’s because I think it of vital importance that such scenes should be avoided in the future that I suggest we separate permanently with a view to seeking a divorce when it becomes possible for us to do so. I have no grounds for divorcing you, as I’m sure you realize, but if I leave you now and insist on remaining at Allengate without your consent you will eventually be able to seek a divorce on the grounds of adultery coupled with desertion. I believe the period of desertion has to be at least two years, so we would have to wait before commencing proceedings, but unfortunately since you cannot divorce me for adultery alone there’s no other alternative open to us. Now, I know divorce will mean a considerable amount of scandal and I’m sure a great many people will disapprove and be shocked, but I dare say most of the criticism will fall upon me and frankly I’m willing to endure a great deal to terminate this situation in the most expedient way available. You know and I know that our marriage is irrevocably finished. My one concern now is that we act in a way most beneficial to the children, and in my opinion it would be much better for them in the long run if our marriage was officially ended in the divorce court.”

  I heard myself say woodenly, “I fail to see how the shame and disgrace of a divorce would benefit them in any way at all.”

  “And I fail to see how two hostile parents, hopelessly at odds with each other, would be of any benefit to them whatsoever! Come, Janna, be reasonable. You’re still thinking of yourself, you see—you’re still not considering the children! Now if we were to handle this in a discreet, sensible way—”

  “You’re not thinking of the children either,” I said. “It’s not because of them that you want a divorce. You want a divorce for one reason and one reason only. You want to marry Mrs. Parrish.”

  For a moment he hesitated. Then: “I don’t deny,” he said slowly, “that I hope to remarry eventually, but—”

  “Well, you’ll never remarry,” I said, “because I’ll never divorce you! Never as long as I live.” Tears blurred my eyes and my thoughts blurred too until my mind was a confused jumble of stark, painful images. In a flash I pictured the servants’ gossiping, the neighbors’ insincere condolences, the tittle-tattle, the smirks and the backchat. I saw myself in the past, my struggles to improve myself, my enormous efforts to live the life that was required of me, the strain, the fears, the agonies, the self-consciousness, the loneliness and the misery. A divorce would mean that it had all been for nothing. My one consolation had always been that I was his wife and that no one, not even Mrs. Parrish, could take that title from me. How could I possibly consent to a divorce? It would make a mockery of all my past effort and endurance, and besides … I could not bear to lose him to Mrs. Parrish. “I won’t divorce you,” I said fiercely, and the very word “divorce” rang through the air in a terrible challenge to my security. “I won’t.”

  I could see he was very angry but somehow he managed to hold on to his temper. “Please,” he said in a level voice, “Please try and be reasonable, Janna. I know it’s humiliating for us both to have to admit to the world that our marriage is a failure, but surely isn’t it futile and pointless to go on as we are at present? And what’s more, it’s very bad for the children. Come, even you must see that!” Now, if we can be unselfish and put the children first I’m sure we can work out a separation which would be infinitely better for the children and yet not too distasteful to us both—”

  “I won’t agree to a separation,” I said, “and I won’t agree to a divorce. If you decide to leave me, that’s your decision, but please don’t expect me to condone it.”

  “If you’re worrying about the money, I would naturally make you a generous financial settlement and you could continue to live at Penmarric—”

  “No,” I said.

  He stared at me. “What do you mean?”

  “If you leave me, I’m not living at that place any more.”

  “But—”

  “I hate it,” I said, the words tumbling from my lips, “I hate Penmarric, I hate it. I hate holding those horrible dinner parties, paying and receiving those dreadful calls. I hate all those enormous cold rooms and never being able to do anything without some servant watching. I’ve hated all those months I’ve spent there alone without you. If you leave me, I won’t stay at Penmarric. I’ll go home. I’ll go and live at Roslyn Farm. I never did like Penmarric anyway, not even in the beginning. I was always homesick for the farm and for Zillan.”

  He looked at me as if I were mad. “But, my dear Janna …” He was at a loss for words. “My God, you can’t go back and live on a farm like some common working-class woman! You can’t possibly do such a thing!”

  “I want to go home,” I said. “That’s all I want. I just want to go home. I don’t want to live at Penmarric any more if you leave me.”

  “Look, Janna, you must try and pull yourself together and be sensible about this. You’ve been mistress of Penmarric for eleven years. All your surviving children were born there. You cannot—and I mean cannot—go back to Roslyn Farm now. I don’t think you realize what you’re saying.”

  “I can go back and I will.”

  “Then how can I possibly let you have custody of the children?”

  I did not hear what he said at first. I could not comprehend what he was saying. And then suddenly I saw it all, saw my cherished security crumble into dust, my children growing up strangers, not loving me, not caring, leaving me to face old age alone.

  “You wouldn’t take them away from me,” I said. “You wouldn’t be so cruel.”

  “No indeed—I was going to suggest that they should live with you for most of the year and come to the townhouse in London for a few weeks to see me either during the Christmas or the Easter holidays. But God Almighty, Janna, how can I consent to my children being taken away from
Penmarric and brought up on a farm? How can I possibly agree to such a thing?”

  “If you try and take them away from me I’ll contest you in court. I’ll engage lawyers—London lawyers—”

  “Do you seriously suppose that any High Court judge is going to make a custody order which allows upper-class children to be brought up on a working-class farm?”

  “And do you seriously think,” I said, fear making me icily controlled, “that any High Court judge will make a custody order which permits a man’s children to be brought up by his mistress instead of by their own natural mother?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Mark without hesitation. “The test is not whether I’m living discreetly with a woman who’s not my wife but which environment is going to be most beneficial to the children. And if you think any judge is going to consider it more beneficial for the children to be brought up as members of the working classes on some remote Cornish farm—”

  “Then I’ll stay at Penmarric! I’ll make the sacrifice!”

  “Would you, Janna? Would you? Are you sure you would not promise the court to remain at Penmarric and then spend more and more of your time at Roslyn Farm? On second thoughts, I believe that even if you stayed on at Penmarric I should nonetheless ask the court to take the children away from you. I don’t think I could trust you to bring them up decently without poisoning their minds against me, or giving them a false picture of why our marriage came to an end.”

  “In other words, you’ve decided to spite me by not letting me have the children!”

  “Haven’t you just done your best to spite me by refusing me a divorce?”

  “You have no right to demand a divorce! And I have every right to demand my children!”

  “Try convincing a High Court judge of that! I think you would have a most unpleasant surprise, particularly when I tell him—”

  “I’ll convince him! But if you think I’m going to divorce you—”

  “If you consent to a divorce I’ll be lenient about the custody of the children.”

  “Even if I live at Roslyn Farm?”

  “I can’t answer for what the judge will decide if you leave Penmarric.”