Penmarric

by Susan Howatch

  By the time Jeanne entered her convent in the autumn of 1922 Lizzie had left school and was up at Cambridge reading classics. I was surprised that my father consented to this since I knew he was basically opposed to higher education for women, but evidently he had abandoned the struggle to oppose Lizzie’s masculine thirst for knowledge and Lizzie proceeded to fall head over heels in love with academic life. We still saw little of her, but shortly before the Christmas of 1922 she returned to Cornwall for a couple of weeks and on the day after her arrival she called at the farm to see us. Not expecting a visitor, my mother had gone to Zillan, but as it was a Sunday I was at home and found myself obliged to entertain Lizzie in the parlor till my mother returned. At first I wondered what on earth we could find to talk about, but I needn’t have worried; I had forgotten that Lizzie always had plenty to say for herself and soon I had long ceased to worry about where the next word was coming from.

  “—so I think even you’d feel sorry for him these days,” she was saying as I recalled my wandering concentration. I had become bored during her lengthy eulogy on the subject of Cambridge. “After all, Marcus is dead, Mariana’s in Scotland, Jeanne’s in the convent, I’m away at Cambridge, Jan-Yves’s at Eton, and as far as Papa’s concerned you’re a total write-off. Who has he got left to keep him company? Of course Hugh calls two or three times a week and practically falls on his nose being the dutiful son, but he and Papa haven’t got much in common and soon get politely bored with each other. It’s true Adrian’s coming home this week for Christmas, but he’s too busy learning to be a clergyman and doing social work in his spare time to be much at Penmarric these days. That leaves William, but he’s hardly much of a companion for Papa since he spends at least three evenings a week with Charity Roslyn—I do wish he’d marry her! Who cares if she was the local tart anyway?—so really, when you come to consider the situation it’s awfully lucky that Papa has Alice. If it wasn’t for Alice I think he’d be horribly lonely.”

  Alice Penmar.

  I thought of the disastrous scene before the war in my father’s study. Alice had been in love with me in those days—or so she had said, but that was long ago now, long, long ago, and times had changed and people had changed with them.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” Lizzie was saying blandly. “I don’t get on with Alice myself—she’s much too bossy and self- opinionated for me!—but I have to admit she’s a good conversationalist and nobody’s fool. She always dines with Papa, you know, if William’s spending the evening with Charity and if there’s no one else at home. She and Papa are very … friendly.”

  After a moment I said with care, “Does she go out of her way to be friendly toward him, do you think?”

  “You mean is she his mistress?” said Lizzie with interest. “I don’t think so. Jan-Yves and I have private bets about it. He thinks she is but I’m not so sure. I simply don’t think Papa could possibly be that desperate. Alice just isn’t the type; I’m not saying all unchaste women have to look like Charity Roslyn, but I do think they have to have a certain something, and whatever it is I don’t think Alice has got it. She’s so prim and proper and spinsterish! I simply can’t imagine her and Papa—well, you know … But Jan-Yves disagrees. He says Alice is just the type who would fall from virtue out of sheer frustration. What do you think?”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her about Jan-Yves, whom she mentioned so often, but I did not. I had no real interest in him; we never saw each other since he never visited the farm, and it had long seemed obvious to me that we would remain strangers all our lives.

  “What do you think, Philip?” repeated Lizzie, recalling my thoughts to the subject of Alice Penmar, “Can you visualize Alice as a fallen woman?”

  I gave a short laugh and moved to the window to see if my mother showed signs of returning from Zillan. “You have an emancipated line of conversation, Lizzie. Is that the result of advanced education?” But even as I spoke several different ideas were flickering through my mind. I was thinking; that there was talk of changing the divorce laws so that a woman could sue for divorce on the grounds of adultery alone instead of adultery coupled with desertion. I was thinking that the last thing my father would ever want would be to see the granddaughter of his old and valued friend the rector of Zillan involved in an unsavory scandal. I was thinking that if I was careful, if I had sufficient proof, if the laws were changed in my mother’s favor, I might just possibly have found my father’s Achilles’ heel and an Achilles’ heel might be more than useful to me if severe difficulties over the mine’s future arose in the years ahead.

  “It’s certainly an interesting idea,” I heard myself say at last to Lizzie. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  7

  I ran into trouble with my father again soon after that. There had been a lull since our last quarrel but presently I knew we were sure to clash again. In 1923 after paying fair dividends for three years, Sennen Garth had a bad year and went into the red. There was an accident resulting from faulty equipment and naturally I had no choice but to replace the equipment immediately in order to maintain the standards of safety for which the mine was now well known. Since there was no ready money available, however, I had to take out a loan. The loan wasn’t much, but I had to pay interest on it and so more good money went down the drain.

  The situation at the mine made me try again to persuade my father to reverse his decision on Hugh’s sinecure, but my father clung on as firmly to his decision as I clung to mine and Hugh remained a gentleman of leisure. Hugh’s fortunes reached a new unjust zenith that year; he was playing the stock market so cunningly that he could afford to take Rebecca to London and live like a lord during their stay there; moreover, his financial affairs improved at home as well; his father-in-law died of pneumonia, and although Joss Roslyn had disinherited Rebecca and left his money and property to Jared’s only son Simon Peter, Jared offered on his son’s behalf to let her have her old home at the rent of a peppercorn a year. Rebecca didn’t want it, but Hugh had other ideas. I could well imagine him rubbing his hands in delight at the opportunity to make some extra money. When they moved to Morvah to take advantage of Jared’s offer Hugh leased the cottage which my mother had given him as a wedding present, and on arrival in Morvah he leased the Deveral Farm lands to the highest bidder. Then, having assured himself of a more comfortable home and a larger income, he settled himself on his backside again and prepared to idle away some more time with his wife and child. As far as I could gather they spent their time picknicking or swimming in one of the nearby coves. Hugh was a good swimmer, and I could imagine him passing his afternoons demonstrating his aquatic skills to his admiring wife and then sunbathing languidly with her on the beach. It was a fine life, I supposed—if one liked to be idle. Certainly there was no one who enjoyed being idle more than Hugh.

  My father and I had another bitter correspondence on the subject of Hugh’s sinecure, but it was a waste of time. As the mine teetered on the brink of financial disaster I couldn’t decide whether I hated my father more than Hugh or hated Hugh more than my father.

  It was 1924, the year Ramsay MacDonald led the Labour party to power for the first time. I voted for his party, just as most of my friends did, although my mother was horrified by my gesture and saw my political views as “improper.” Despite her background—or perhaps because of it—she firmly believed that it was a matter of good taste to vote Conservative, just as it was a matter of good taste to go to church every Sunday, hold one’s knife and fork correctly and avoid short skirts.

  “But, Mama, things have changed since the war,” I pointed out reasonably. “We have to have a new Government with new views to fit the new times. The country’s in an appalling mess—the poverty among the working classes, the misery—”

  “They should work all the harder instead of grumbling so much and going on strike,” said my mother firmly. “If you want to get on in life you have to work hard and not sit back in idleness.”

  “Bu
t how can they work when there are no jobs? There are millions of unemployed and the numbers grow every day. These people have spent four years fighting for their country—and for what? To line up every day at the labor exchange? To face the humiliation of being unable to earn money to support their families? To live in condemned hovels because of the housing shortage? There have got to be some radical changes to improve things, Mama, and the Conservatives are hardly known for their radicalism. Neither are the Asquith Liberals, and the Lloyd George Liberals aren’t much better. Look what a mess the coalition government’s made of things! We need something quite new now, not more of the same ineffective recipe.”

  “Merely because an idea is new,” said my mother tartly, “doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any better than old and proven ideas.”

  I gave up. It was no use trying to persuade her to abandon her ingrained convictions, but when Ramsay MacDonald came to power I remained convinced that matters would soon improve throughout the country. They did improve slightly at Sennen Garth, but even though it was a better year for the mine I still had to take out another loan. Walter Hubert was beginning to look grim whenever the subject of money was mentioned but I didn’t care. I was determined that 1925 was going to be the year when matters would be righted and loans paid off.

  But although I didn’t know it then the mine’s faint improvement was destined to last only a short time longer than the Labour Government—nine months. By the beginning of 1925 I was beginning to worry again, but I was still optimistic enough to be able to suppress my doubts most of the time. I was in a cheerful frame of mind when I rode back to Zillan one May evening from the mine—and found my mother entertaining the last person on earth I would have expected to see in the parlor of Roslyn Farm. At first I thought it was my father. I heard his laugh ring out as I crossed the hall, and his voice drawling lazily, “So there we were! Wasn’t that amusing?”

  My mother laughed too. I had not heard her laugh so spontaneously or so happily for a long time.

  I was amazed. Wondering why my father had chosen to call and display such extraordinary good humor, I flung open the door and walked into the room.

  They were sitting at the table, just as my mother had sat facing my father when he had called to see her after Marcus had died. I still thought it was my father. It was not until the man turned and I saw his face, his black hair untouched with silver and his cynical, humorous mouth so different from my father’s that I knew who he was.

  It was Jan-Yves.

  8

  “Philip!” he said gracefully. “How nice!” And despite his voice, his drawl and his marked physical resemblance to my father, I seemed to hear an echo of my mother in his manner and choice of words.

  He stood up. He was six inches shorter than I was but tough and well-built. I remembered him as being a fat child, but now he was merely stocky and muscular. He moved with a curious grace, again unexpectedly reminiscent of my mother, and despite his calculating Penmar eyes he had a wide, innocent smile which reminded me at once of Hugh.

  I distrusted him. My mother was saying with shining eyes, “Isn’t this exciting, Philip? After all these years! I could hardly believe it when I saw him riding down the hill from Chûn.”

  I managed to say to Jan-Yves, “I thought you were up at Oxford?” I knew he had gone up to Christ Church in the autumn of the previous year and since it was still only May I was surprised to see him back in Cornwall again. “What are you doing in Zillan?”

  “Mending my ways,” said Jan-Yves with his innocent smile. “Is it ever too late to reform? Egged on by Papa and Mr. Barnwell and my conscience, I decided to ride over to Roslyn Farm bearing the olive branch of peace. Mama quite naturally nearly fainted with shock, so to revive her we selected the best bottle of elderberry wine and—well, here we are! It’s as simple as that!”

  Of course it wasn’t as simple as that at all. It turned out that he had been sent down from Oxford for some reason which he glossed over with great adroitness, and it seemed obvious enough to me that having blotted his copybook so badly with my father he had decided to compensate himself by seeking a little attention elsewhere. When I went outside later to see him off I was about to say as much to him when he launched into a speech full of such lavish praise for my mother and such lavish regret that he had not visited the farm before that I was caught off my guard, and before I knew where I was I was promising to have a drink with him after work the next day in the bar of Charity’s pub in St. Just.

  “Marvelous!” said Jan-Yves with enthusiasm. “I’ll be looking forward to it!” And swinging himself up onto his horse, he flashed his wide smile at me once again before riding jauntily off up the hillside to Cħûn.

  I watched him till he was out of sight. Despite my natural inclination to return friendship with friendship, I couldn’t help thinking that Jan-Yves was after something much less innocuous than mere maternal love and filial affection.

  I didn’t trust him an inch.

  9

  But I saw Jan-Yves before I was to meet him in the pub the following evening. I saw him the next morning at the one place on earth I wouldn’t have expected to find any of my family—at the two-hundred-and-forty-fathom level of the Sennen Garth mine. It was a Friday morning and I had been with Trevose far out under the sea to inspect the blasting area and check the stopes. We were on our way back to the main shaft when we saw one of the shift bosses, Willie Halloran, coming toward us and with him, looking odd in some borrowed overalls, was Jan-Yves.

  “Good God!” I said, amazed. “What the hell are you doing down here?” Part of my amazement was due to his guts in coming down the mine. Most laymen were wary of going so far below the earth’s surface and did not care for the experience at all. “What is it?” I demanded. “Has something happened?”

  “I’m afraid it has. I was sent to fetch you. Can I have a word with you alone for a moment?”

  I stared at him. Beside me Trevose said, “I’ll wait at the shaft for you, sonny” and walked away down the gallery with Willie Halloran. The light from their helmets flickered on the moist walls and cast ghostly shadows up and down the level.

  “What is it?” I repeated sharply.

  “It’s Hugh.”

  “Hugh?”

  We looked at each other. There was an odd expression in his eyes.

  “Has something happened to him?”

  “Yes, he had an accident. Swimming. He and Rebecca and the child were picnicking at Portheras Cove. He misjudged the current.”

  “You mean he—”

  “He was drowned,” said Jan-Yves and added with a grimace of pain, “Rebecca saw it all.”

  FIVE

  Geoffrey was fatally wounded in a tournament…

  —King John,

  W. L. WARREN

  When Richard announced publicly that this money, rightly his and unjustly detained by his father, would be used to strengthen the northern defences of Aquitaine, it seemed that open war between father and son must soon be waged with full vigour.

  —The Devil’s Brood

  ALFRED DUGGAN

  This dramatic scene was the occasion for the last rebellion… Undutiful as Richard’s conduct certainly was, he had great provocation.

  —Oxford History of England:

  From Domesday Book to Magna Carta,

  A. L. POOLE

  ALL I COULD SAY WAS “But Hugh was a good swimmer. He was always first-class at swimming.”

  Jan-Yves said “yes”—nothing more, just the one syllable, and after that we were silent.

  Around us the mine was dark and comforting in its familiarity. I turned aside, stared down the gallery into the blackness.

  “Rebecca wasn’t swimming. She was paddling with the child. She heard Hugh cry out, but—”

  “Be quiet.” I turned and began to walk on down the gallery to the main shaft. “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  He was silent again. His footsteps echoed behind me, and around us was my mine, Sennen Gar
th, the last working mine west of St. Just, the mine that had turned Hugh into my enemy and kept us estranged month after month, year after year.

  We walked on, still not speaking, just Jan-Yves and I walking toward the land from beneath the Cornish sea.

  At last I said, “Who sent you?”

  “Papa.”

  “When did the news reach Penmarric?”

  “About an hour ago. Jared Roslyn came over himself and told William. I was with William at the time. We didn’t know what to do. In the end William told Alice and Alice broke the news to Papa. Then Papa and William went over to Morvah in the car to see Rebecca and be with her when the police arrived. There’ll have to be an inquest although God knows when they’ll ever find the body.”

  I tried not to listen. I let my fingers trail against the rocky walls and timber props of my mine and tried not to think of the sea above me, the beckoning breakers, the lethal currents and the jagged teeth of the offshore rocks. People drowned every year in Cornwall. Strangers, holiday-makers, people who either knew nothing of the Cornish sea or who fancied they knew everything there was to know—they were the ones who got sucked to their deaths by whirling water and pounded to pulp on the waiting rocks. All you needed to get drowned in Cornwall was either total ignorance or total vanity. Either you didn’t know the currents existed or else you thought you could outswim any current on God’s earth.

  Vanity. It didn’t matter how much you enjoyed living, how successful you were at making money, how cleverly you had managed to survive a world war without a scratch; it didn’t matter how much talent and charm and cunning you possessed; you could have a first-class brain and first-class good looks and enough potential to launch any career you chose, but one single moment of vanity could bring it all to nothing. A flash of vanity and you were gone, wiped out, blasted beyond recall.