Penmarric

by Susan Howatch

  “Delightful!” said Felicity the next morning: “I wouldn’t like to think I’d missed out on something. Never mind about the annulment, Jan darling, there’s always divorce. I’m sure we can rustle up a little adultery if we’re hard-pressed for a legal separation later.”

  So we continued to enjoy ourselves in Paris and again later when we stopped for a further two weeks in London before returning home. Felicity proved to be tremendous fun. We wined and dined everywhere from Soho to Knightsbridge, and we danced every dance from the fox trot to the Charleston. We danced until we dropped. Long, afterward when I look back on my honeymoon I have a series of blurred memories of a London blazing with modernity—-cocktails, night clubs, jazz bands, flappers with short-cropped hair and scarlet mouths, and all the time dancing, dancing, dancing … But our energy was limitless. When we weren’t dancing all night we were racing around London during the day; we rowed on the Serpentine, walked in the park and even visited the zoo. By the time our honeymoon came to an end we were still enjoying ourselves so much that neither of us wanted to go home. The most extraordinary part of the situation was that by this time I was genuinely glad I had married Felicity and foresaw an amusing married life ahead of us, but as soon as I returned to Cornwall I fell under Rebecca’s spell again and nothing could keep me away from her, not even my respect and liking for my new wife. Of course I never told Rebecca that Felicity and I had had a normal honeymoon, never mentioned that I still slept with Felicity once a week even after the honeymoon was over. I considered I owed it to Felicity to make at least a weekly gesture of appreciation since she was, as the saying goes, such a “good sport” and made what might have been a dreary marriage into a cheerful good-natured relationship.

  Felicity and I had a wing of Carnforth Hall to ourselves; however, two or three times a week we were obliged to dine with her father and stepmother in the main part of the house. I was careful to maintain cordial relations with Sir Justin, who was an awful old bore, and he was so grateful to me for providing him with the hope of grandchildren that he was prepared to treat me generously. He increased Felicity’s income by a large margin; Felicity instantly arranged a joint account for us at the bank, and after that I didn’t have to worry about money any more. I bought a splendidly extravagant car—a Hispano-Suiza—and several new suits. Felicity bought some new horses and extended the stables. The only fly in the otherwise unblemished ointment of our happiness proved to be Felicity’s new stepmother, my father’s former housekeeper, Alice Penmar.

  Alice and I had always disliked each other; now, linked to each other indirectly by our marriages, we continued to cling to our mutual distaste. She was one of those capable women who love to manage everything they can get their hands on. No doubt she managed Carnforth Hall even more admirably than she had managed Penmarric and Sir Justin even better than she had managed my father (I could never make up my mind whether or not she and my father had been lovers, but it did seem likely that she had been his mistress for a time). Certainly Sir Justin doted on her. She was fond of him, I think, and always treated him kindly, but I’m sure her heart was more in fulfilling her role to the community as Lady Carnforth than fulfilling her role to her husband in the conventional marital manner. At the time of my marriage she was about thirty-seven years old, clever, bitchy and sharp as a needle.

  “She warned me against marrying you,” confided Felicity, who didn’t like Alice either. “Isn’t that a hoot? Of course I jolly well told her to M.Y.O.B.—‘Mind Your Own Business,’ I said, straight to her face! I’m sure she thought I was beastly rude, but I didn’t care. Then she started to try to tell me about you and Rebecca, so I said airily, ‘Alice darling, is that all the gossip you can rake up? Jan’s told me the whole story already!’ My dear, she went puce with rage. It was so funny.”

  I began to feel nervous. I wasn’t ashamed of my affair with Rebecca, but for her sake and for the children I did try to be as discreet as possible. Besides I now had Felicity to consider; I didn’t want Felicity to be embarrassed by unpleasant gossip, but if Alice Carnforth was going to go around being bitchy on the subject of my mistress at Morvah I was going to end up by being thoroughly unpopular with my father-in-law.

  I was much annoyed. “I wonder how Alice knew about my relationship with Rebecca,” I said to Felicity as we brooded over the problem together.

  “Alice knows everything,” said Felicity. “She’s that sort of woman. She rakes in gossip as easily as other women collect hats, and she can smell an illicit affair when all the couple have ever done in public is smile at each other and say, ‘Nice weather we’re having.’ She’s absolutely amazing. In fact I think her talent for raking in gossip is second only to her talent for twisting elderly men around her little finger. I’ll never forget what a shock it was when Daddy said he was going to marry her. I knew he’d rather fancied her for ages, but I never actually thought he’d go ahead and let her lure him to the altar. After all, he absolutely loathed her father for jilting poor old Aunt Judith donkeys years ago, but Alice, apparently, had no trouble at all in convincing him that her father was doing Aunt Judith a favor by running off with someone else! I honestly think she could make him believe black was white if she tried hard enough.”

  We continued to ponder glumly over Alice for some time.

  “I shouldn’t worry too much if I were you,” Felicity said sensibly at last. “As long as I’m obviously in the seventh heaven of marital bliss Daddy isn’t going to believe a word against you. All he’s really concerned about is my happiness, and if I’m happy he’ll willingly believe your visits to Morvah are made out of sheer Christian charity to your widowed sister-in-law and your poor fatherless little nephew and niece. So long as Rebecca doesn’t ditch the children and pop off with you for a naughty weekend at Budleigh Salterton I’m sure he won’t even raise an eyebrow of disapproval.”

  This was true, but I still felt uneasy about Alice and had a nagging suspicion that she was going to make my life difficult before too many years had passed.

  However, apart from Alice I had no complaint to make about my new life as a married man. I still hankered abortively for Penmarric, but even in that direction my prospects were beginning to revive. Philip and Helena had no children and I learned that Helena spent most of her time with my sister Jeanne and her husband Gerald Meredith at Polzillan House. Finally in the spring of 1930 all my doubts about Philip’s sexual inclinations were eliminated; during one Saturday evening in St. Ives with Rebecca I glimpsed Philip and Trevose emerging from one of the seamier pubs in the heart of the artists’ quarter, and it took me only one look to see the whole story.

  The odd part was that Philip’s behavior was no surprise to me since I had long suspected him of homosexuality, but I was shocked to the core by Trevose.

  I stopped dead to stare at them. They didn’t see me. They didn’t see anyone but each other. Philip was laughing. Marriage had made him somber, but he wasn’t somber now. Trevose was laughing too. His habitual expression of surliness had vanished and his smile was as spontaneous as it was relaxed. They wandered away down the alley together, their hands in their pockets, their movements unhurried as if neither of them had a care in the world. They were at ease, at peace, perfectly attuned to each other.

  “What are you looking at?” demanded Rebecca, suddenly aware that my attention had wandered from her, but although she swung around at once to glance about her Philip and Trevose had already vanished from sight.

  After a moment I said, “It was nothing. Just a couple of odd artists,” and presently we began to speak of something else.

  But I knew then how matters stood between Philip and Helena. The marriage had failed; there would be no children. A few months later I was just reflecting yet again that my chances for inheriting Penmarric were now as good as they had ever been, when all our lives were disrupted without warning by the disaster at the Sennen Garth mine.

  TWO

  John had at last married Isabel de Clare, heiress of the g
reat Honour of Gloucester; though his nickname of Lackland stuck to him for life … he was now one of the greatest landholders in the west.

  —The Devil’s Brood,

  ALFRED DUGGAN

  Richard tried a balancing act with possible rivals to the throne … John and his nephew Arthur—Geoffrey of Brittany’s son. The late 12th century had not made up its mind about rules of inheritance and both had a good claim… The trouble with balancing acts is that they only work if everyone in the act does his share of preserving the balance.

  —King John,

  W. L. WARREN

  OF COURSE EVERYONE FELT so sorry for Philip.

  Even I felt sorry for him. While all England and the journalists of the world lavished well-deserved sympathy on the widows and orphans of the disaster, everyone in the surrounding parishes thought also of Philip. The mine was the great cause for which he had fought all his life; every man who died could be counted as his friend, and among the men who had died was Alun Trevose.

  Philip’s grief must have been unendurable. I myself was so appalled by the tragedy and so stunned by the loss of so many men who were well-known to me that I was moved to offer him as much sympathy as I could put into words.

  But he didn’t want my sympathy. “There are others worse off than I am,” he said, not letting me finish, and immediately bent all his enormous reserves of energy toward fostering a national fund for the widows and orphans and calling on each bereaved family to make sure there was no needless want to aggravate their suffering.”

  I saw him then in a new light. I had thought him selfish and utterly egocentric, but now I saw him care only for others; the bereaved turned to him in their grief and somehow he had the strength to comfort them. Previously I had thought him so hard and cold that I had doubted whether he could ever be emotionally affected by a tragedy; I had never seen him weep, never seen him betray the slightest distress at a funeral. Now I saw that he did indeed suffer, and his suffering was the harder for him because of this same superhuman self-control on which I’ve no doubt he prided himself so pitifully.

  Felicity very decently offered to come with me to the memorial service, and although there was no need for her to be present I accepted her offer with relief. A shared ordeal is always less harrowing than an ordeal faced alone, but even with Felicity at my side it was still a harrowing occasion. The famous English stiff upper lip has never been a virtue of mine, and I find grief so infectious that my emotional response to it never fails to embarrass me.

  After that it was several days before I saw Philip again; evidently he had found some solitary spot where he could lick his wounds like some dignified golden lion after a savage battle for survival. I was just wondering if I ought to call at Penmarric to see if either he or Helena needed my help when I received a telephone call from none other than Philip himself.

  He sounded as abrupt and offhand as he usually did, but to my surprise asked me to have a drink with him at Penmarric the following evening. Helena, he told me, would be spending the evening at Polzillan House; Felicity wasn’t invited; we would be alone.

  “There’s something I want to discuss with you,” he added curtly. “Come at six-thirty, will you?” And with a touch of characteristic arrogance he replaced the receiver before I could say a word in reply.

  When I dutifully arrived at Penmarric at the appointed hour I was so nervous I nearly drove my car up the steps to the front door. Medlyn pursed his lips in disapproval as he watched from the threshold, but then gave his unctuous smile as he showed me into the library.

  Philip was there waiting for me. He looked better. The lines of pain were still deeply etched about his mouth, but his eyes were less tired and his hands were steady. He was drinking orange juice.

  “Sit down,” he said. “What will you drink? Whisky?”

  My nerves stretched a fraction tighter as I sat down and pretended to relax. “Fine,” I said cheerfully, “Thanks.”

  “Forgive me for not drinking with you but I feel I’ve consumed enough alcohol in the past few days to last a lifetime.”

  We settled ourselves, facing each other across the hearth. There was a pause. By this time I was convinced that his brush with death had made him think about his will with the result that he had decided to discuss with me my position as his heir. However, despite my excitement and my nervous anticipation I assumed my most tranquil expression and forced myself to wait for him to begin.

  He inhaled from his cigarette, shook out the match. He was in no hurry. He was master of Penmarric, master of the situation. He could do as he pleased.

  I went on waiting, detesting him for keeping me in suspense, and at last he said idly as if the news were of no concern to me, “I’ve been making plans for the future.”

  There was a pause. “Oh?” I said politely.

  “Yes, I don’t intend to go on living here exactly as if nothing’s happened. I’ve decided to go away. I’m leaving Penmarric.”

  “Leaving!”

  “Yes, I’ve decided to go to the tin mines of the Rockies and work in Canada for a while.”

  “Canada!” I began to wonder if my hearing were in some way afflicted. I could hardly believe I had heard him correctly.

  “Well, what do you expect me to do with myself each day if I stay in Cornwall? Walk along the cliffs past the dead mines of the Cornish Tin Coast? Go to the pub in St. Just in the evenings when I know none of my friends will be there to meet me? Later, perhaps, when my mind has fully accepted the disaster, but not now. Now all I want is to get away.”

  This time I was too dumfounded to speak. My fingers wound themselves tightly around my glass and interlocked with one another.

  “I’ll come back, of course,” he said casually. “I’m going to give myself three years. If I dislike the life there I may come home before then, but three years is the target I set for myself.”

  “But my God, Philip!” I exclaimed, suddenly finding my tongue. “What the devil are you going to say to Mama? How on earth are you going to break the news to her?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “My dear Jan-Yves,” he said with an ironic, drawl that reminded me instantly of our father, “if you think Mama is the type of woman to have hysterics simply because I intend to go abroad for three years, then it’s obvious you don’t know Mama. I shall break the news to her tonight and I’ve no doubt that when she understands why I’m going she’ll make no attempt to stop me.” And before I could think of anything to say in reply he added abruptly, “While we’re on the subject of Mama, let me say that I shall be relying on you to call on her at least once a week while I’m away. Will you promise me you’ll call every week and look after her properly?”

  “Yes, of course—good heavens, Philip, I think you might at least trust me to look after my own mother! I’m sorry I haven’t been calling on her lately, but I’ve been occupied with other matters.”

  “Yes,” he said coldly. “I’ve noticed the time you spend at Morvah with our sister-in-law.”

  “There’s one other point that bothers me in regard to Mama and that’s this business of Adrian replacing old Barnwell as rector of Zillan. Have you heard about that yet? I had a letter from Adrian this morning and assumed he wrote to William by the same post but perhaps you haven’t spoken to William today. Apparently the appointment’s still only tentative, but Adrian’s angling for a transfer from his Oxford parish more for Barnwell’s sake than for his own. Barnwell’s so old now and anxious to retire, but he doesn’t want to leave the rectory where he’s lived for the last fifty years or the neighborhood where he’s spent most of his life. Rather than share the house with a stranger he fancied the idea of sharing it with Adrian. He always did have a soft spot for Adrian, if you remember.”

  “Did Adrian agree to this? Won’t it interfere with his career?”

  “Adrian didn’t agree to it. He suggested it himself as soon as he heard of Barnwell’s predicament and wouldn’t take no for an answer, when Barnwell said he’d be better off at Ox
ford. You know how noble and high-minded Adrian is. He can never resist the opportunity to do a good deed, and besides I don’t suppose he’ll be at Zillan for long; Barnwell can’t last forever, and he must be nearly ninety by now.”

  I was silent, thinking of my younger half-brother. I had always been somewhat jealous of him because he had such large place in William’s affections, but I admired his intellect and liked him for his human weaknesses if not for his inhuman virtues. Since the war he had started to smoke too much and had developed a passion for cars. Whenever he came to Cornwall for a visit he always had to have a joy ride in my Hispano, and part of the legacy my father had left him had been spent on a decorous little Ford. He pretended he needed a car on account of a leg wound suffered during the war, but I, knew better. I knew a fellow car fiend when I met one. He was unmarried and quite inhuman enough not only to preach chastity but practice it also; however, I suspected he might have had a fling or two up at Oxford before he had decided to become a clergyman, for I could still remember him blushing on the rectory lawn when the two of us had first met Rebecca, and I knew that unlike Philip he did find women attractive.