“Rather late in the day,” grumbled my mother, who nowadays seemed determined to favor Lizzie over her other daughters. “She’ll be thirty-seven next Christmas. That’s too old to have one’s first child, in my opinion.”
My mother was now seventy-seven, in full command of every faculty and extremely spritely for her years. She was crafty enough to pretend to be frail when she wanted extra attention, but we all knew she was amazingly fit and well.
“She’ll live forever,” said Philip with pride, as if he himself was solely responsible. “She doesn’t look a day over sixty-five.”
Philip was restless, but as far as I could judge not actively discontented. He spent much of his time wandering around the Tin Coast with a couple of old mining comrades on weekends and making journeys below ground more out of nostalgia than out of hope of finding a lode worth working. Helena was deeply involved in charity work. They seemed to co-exist harmoniously enough, and although they did not entertain much at Penmarric Philip did make the effort to take his wife to London every year for a holiday.
Adrian also had a holiday in London that summer. His old friend Mr. Barnwell died at last, and soon after his funeral Adrian was promoted to the staff of Exeter Cathedral; before taking up his appointment he had spent a week in London seeing his publishers and various interested persons at the BBC, for his first full-length theological book had been published in the spring of 1936, just before Mr. Barnwell’s death. Adrian had made full use of those six quiet years at Zillan parish, and now he was to reap his reward by earning a reputation for himself as a theologian and finding his name become well-known in clerical circles. I admired his book very much. It was an advanced modern approach to Christianity which seemed to me to blow a breath of fresh air through the cobwebbed sobriety of the Church of England. The book was reviewed in the national press, not merely noted in clerical publications, and during his visit to London Adrian was even interviewed on the wireless—much to the awe of the parishioners of Zillan, most of whom still regarded the wireless as hopelessly newfangled.
The new rector had a hard time following in such illustrious footsteps; he was a thin, earnest man called Forrest whom my mother disliked. “Too Popish,” she said fussily, although all the poor man did was swing a little incense now and then. “And common,” said my mother. “I wish Adrian were still here.”
I wrote and told Adrian that. He had always been so kind to my mother that I thought he should know his kindness had been appreciated.
Esmond came to stay that summer as usual. His father was still alive, but only just; I think Esmond found life depressing in Scotland at his father’s enormous mansion and was glad to escape to Penmarric each year. Mariana was now in Monte Carlo with a rich American and Esmond was still not allowed to communicate with her, but Philip and Helena treated him as if he were their son, and any stranger seeing the three of them together would have at once assumed they were his parents. He was sixteen now, strong and athletic, and shared not only Philip’s passion for Cornwall but also a hint of Philip’s passion for the Cornish mines. That summer, much against Helena’s wishes, the two of them fell into the habit of exploring the abandoned mines together.
“Supposing something happened to Esmond?” she confided to me in anxiety. “Philip is as much at home below ground as an aeroplane pilot is in the sky, but Esmond is hardly in the same position as Philip. I worry terribly about him.”
“Philip will look after him,” I said soothingly. “He won’t take any chances where Esmond’s concerned.”
She looked somewhat less anxious at this, but I suspected she went on worrying just the same.
I didn’t worry. I had no hint of what was to come, no premonition of disaster. I was enjoying myself, working at Penmarric in the mornings and afternoons, taking a long lunch hour with Rebecca and entertaining myself exactly as I pleased on weekends. Those were good days for me, and by this time I had fully recovered from my disgrace following Philip’s return from Canada.
“Thee looks powerful well and vigorous, Mr. Jan,” said old Mrs. Trewint as I went into her shop in St. Just one August morning to buy a packet of cigarettes. “And so do the Master. He passed here an hour ago with young Mr. Esmond, Lord Roane, I should say, begging his pardon. It’s all very nice to see an uncle and nephew so attached to each other as the Master and his Lordship.”
I smiled, paid for my cigarettes and pocketed the packet. “Which mine were they off to visit today?” I said. “Or didn’t they say?”
“The Master says they was riding over the moors toward Zillan and the shafts up by Ding Dong. A shame it is to go underground on such a beautiful morning! But that’s a Cornish tinner for ’ee. Pisky-led by the thought of tin. All they tinners is the same. Why, I remember when the Levant was working …”
I listened patiently to her reminiscences before escaping to Morvah to lunch with Rebecca. Since it was August the children weren’t at school, but Jonas had caught the bus to Penzance to spend his pocket money on a brace of goldfish, and Deborah had walked over to Zennor to visit a friend for the day. There was no lodger that summer; Rebecca had decided she didn’t need the extra income now that Deborah had finished her year at the secretarial school and would soon be earning her living, and besides a lodger would undoubtedly have made a nuisance of himself by getting in our way.
When I arrived we went straight to the bedroom as usual, and after Rebecca had gone downstairs at last to dish up the lunch I lingered for a few minutes between the sheets. I felt drowsy; I was just about to drift into a doze when I heard the sound of horses’ hoofs below the bedroom window.
Someone had ridden up to the back door at a gallop.
I sat up at once, listening. Perhaps someone had come to fetch me for some reason. But who knew I was at Morvah?
Only old Walter Hubert with whom I worked in the little office at Penmarric, and Walter wouldn’t have sent for me unless there was an emergency.
Perhaps it was an emergency.
I sprang out of bed, flung back the curtain and leaned out of the window that overlooked the yard. I saw him then, saw the sun burnish his hair to gold and glow upon his sunburned skin. He was slipping from his horse, running to the back door. The expression on his face made my blood freeze.
I turned, grabbed my shirt, pulled on my trousers and ran barefoot out onto the landing.
Rebecca was already calling me. “Jan!” She was at the foot of the stairs. Her eyes were dark with shock in her upturned face. “Jan …”
I raced down the stairs and pushed past her into the kitchen. He was sitting slumped at the kitchen table, but as I burst into the room he started and twisted around to face me.
“Oh God.” He was ashen. “Oh God.”
“What happened?”
“He—he fell … Such a simple little shaft … We—we weren’t even roped together—and he fell … The ladder came away from the wall. The ladder was rotten and he fell …”
I was dumb. I could only look at him without speaking. “I went down,” he said. “I went down by the rope. His back was broken. He died. In my arms. He died.” Tears streaked his face. His eyes were blind. “He died,” he said. “There was nothing I could do. And all he said was—”
“Yes?”
“He—he said, ‘Perhaps this was what I really wanted,’ ” said Esmond, and began to cry as if his heart would break.
EIGHT
In a poor state of repair and ill-defended, it presented only a minor problem to Richard’s talents. He was indeed too contemptuous of it, and without bothering to don his armour be went reconnoitring round it… He was struck in the shoulder by a bolt from a crossbow… He died bequeathing his jewels to his nephew Otto of Saxony, and his inheritance to his brother John.
—King John,
W. L. WARREN
It would be pleasant if it could be reported that Berengaria’s life flowed in easy courses after Richard’s death, but unfortunately she [lost] the friend who had stood by her in all her trials,
the King’s sister Joanna … after her brother’s death the shock caused [Joanna] to give birth prematurely to a son, and she died herself the following day.
—The Conquering Family,
THOMAS COSTAIN
HE WAS FORTY-ONE. At first I could not believe he was dead. “He was only forty-one,” I said. “He was in his prime of life.” I thought of his vitality, his restlessness, his immense reserves of physical strength, and I saw it all laid on the altar of the Cornish mines he loved so well, a gigantic sacrifice to futility, darkness and decay.
“He was only forty-one,” I said. “That’s young to die.”
But he had lived longer than either Marcus or Hugh.
“There’s a curse on your family,” said Rebecca. “You spend your lives fighting each other and then you die young. There’s a curse.”
I remembered all those years when I had hated him and grudged him his good fortune. I remembered our quarrels and hostility. I remembered my jealousy, my resentment that he should always be so fortunate, and as I remembered I looked back into the past and saw not the good fortune I had envied, not the glitter of success, not the coruscation of a mighty popularity, but the emptiness, the disappointment, the wasted years of bitterness and frustration.
“We were friends at the end,” I said. “I liked him once I no longer envied him. I admired him.”
So because of this I grieved for him, for my great golden older brother, dead in his prime of life, and as I grieved I thought how others too would grieve at his loss and mourn the tragedy which had brought him to an early grave. I thought for three brief seconds of Helena and my sisters, and then in a flash of panic I remembered my mother, all alone at Roslyn Farm.
2
Somebody would have to tell my mother.
“I can’t,” said Helena, her calm face ravaged with grief. “I can’t.”
“Jeanne can’t possibly,” said my brother-in-law Donald McCrae over the phone. “The news itself was such a shock to her that she fainted and now it looks as though the baby’s going to come two months early. I’m just about to take her to the hospital.”
“Somebody will have to tell your mother,” said Walter in my office. “Poor woman. It’ll be a terrible blow for her.”
“Lizzie,” I said, clasping the telephone receiver with sweating fingers, “Lizzie, someone has to tell Mama, but I simply can’t face it. What on earth can I do?”
“Have an outsider tell her,” said Lizzie, very crisp and practical far away in Cambridge. “How about the new rector?”
“She doesn’t like him. He hardly knows her.”
“Donald, then—”
“Jeanne’s in the midst of a miscarriage.”
“Good heavens, what a frightful chain of misfortune! Is Jeanne very ill?”
“Donald just said he was taking her to the hospital.”
“Oh God, I do hope she doesn’t lose the baby—she wanted it so much.”
“But Lizzie, who am I going to get to tell Mama? Who can I ask?”
“Perhaps old Dr. Salter—”
“He died two years ago. And Mr. Barnwell’s dead too. If only Adrian were here—”
“Adrian will know what to do. Ring up Adrian. Listen, Jan, you will let me know as soon as you get word about Jeanne, won’t you? I’m terribly worried about her. Did Donald mention anything about a Caesarian?”
“No, he didn’t. Lizzie, isn’t there anyone you can think of who might just possibly tell Mama about Philip?”
“Ask Adrian,” said Lizzie. “Adrian will know.” And before I could begin to say anything else the operator interrupted us and our conversation came to an end.
“What am I to do?” I said to Adrian five minutes later. “I know I’m weak and a coward and all the rest of it, but I simply can’t nerve myself to do it. Can you think of anyone—anyone, Adrian—who might possibly—”
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Your mother must often have faced the possibility that Philip might die in a mining accident. Tell her clearly and slowly and be as simple as possible. Say you have bad news, that Philip’s had an accident while exploring one of the old mines. She’ll guess the rest.”
“I can’t,” I said. I don’t mind admitting I was crying myself by this time. My un-English upper lip was betraying me again and my eyes were blurred with tears. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” he said. “I know you can. Don’t be afraid. Old people are more familiar with death than people of our age and more accustomed to thinking about what it means. Your mother’s a believer; she’s also a strong woman who’s lived through many tragedies. She’ll survive. But you must tell her. It wouldn’t be right to send a stranger. You’re her only surviving son and so you’re the best person to tell her that even with Philip gone she’s still not alone in the world. Now go out, get into that car of yours and drive over to Zillan to see her before she hears the news accidentally from a complete stranger.”
I went. I drove away, still sniffling, along the coast road and then took the road which led over the moors to Zillan. On the crest of the ridge I paused, blew my nose and mopped myself up. After that I lit a cigarette and smoked it. Finally when I was composed once more I started the engine again and drove the last long mile downhill to the farmhouse.
I saw her as I drove up the lane. She was snipping busily with her shears at the wild roses which grew up the wall by the porch.
When she saw me she waved.
I halted the car and got out. The summer air was warm and quiet and infinitely peaceful. A bird sang, a bee hummed and a cricket whirred in the long grass nearby.
“Jan-Yves!” She was smiling. The faint breeze ruffled her white hair. She looked young for her years, happy and light-hearted. “What a nice surprise!”
Tears pricked behind my eyes. My throat ached, throttling my power of speech. “Have you come to tea?” she said sociably. “Do stay!”
I shook my head.
“Is something wrong?”
I swallowed, cleared my throat. I still couldn’t speak. To gain time for myself I opened the car door again as if I had forgotten something and fumbled at the dashboard.
“What is it?” She was beside me in a moment. It was amazing how quickly she moved still. “It’s not bad news, is it, darling?”
I nodded, shut the door, fidgeted with the handle. I still couldn’t look her in the face, but I felt her stillness suddenly, her tension, her mute expression of dread.
“It’s Philip, isn’t it?” she said.
I looked at her. She never flinched. She held her head erect and her eyes were steady and her back was straight and stiff and proud. We stood there together before that mellow old farmhouse on that quiet August afternoon, and at last after a long silence she said in a clear, cool voice, “I suppose it was in a mine.”
I tried to speak then, but she wouldn’t listen. I tried to tell her that he had died quickly with little suffering, but she didn’t want to hear. She looked past me across the moors toward the tower of Zillan church and her eyes were empty of all emotion.
“It was really a miracle that he lived so long,” she said in the tone of voice in which people discuss the weather. “I never expected him to. Sometimes, you know, I even thought it might have been better for him if he had died in the Sennen Garth disaster. With Trevose.”
And as I stared at her, too appalled by her knowledge to reply, her unnatural calm disintegrated and her frail old body began to shudder beneath the terrible burden of her grief.
3
Later I said, “So you knew.”
“Wasn’t I supposed to?” Her mouth twisted a little but she could not even smile in irony. Her face was drawn with grief. Tears scarred ugly furrows down her withered cheeks. “How could I not know? I knew Philip better than anyone else in the world. Do you think I didn’t know all his faults as well as all his virtues? Do you think I was so stupid as to believe him to be perfect? Do you think I never noticed that he preferred to be with that coarse, rude, unspeakab
ly vulgar little miner? How blind you must have thought me! How fatuous and besotted! Of course I noticed! I noticed everything. But it didn’t matter to me.” Tears overcame her for a moment, but she brushed them aside. “I didn’t care,” she said. “It didn’t make any difference. How could it? He was still Philip. All I wanted was for him to be happy, and if he was happy with Trevose, then that was what I wanted for him.”
Her cheeks were wet with tears again. She sat hunched in her chair, an old, old woman who had lived too long and seen too much.
“I never said anything to him about Trevose,” she said. “I didn’t once reproach him. It would have been wrong for me to interfere, wouldn’t it? I always tried not to interfere. I didn’t want to antagonize him and I was afraid that if I made him angry he wouldn’t realize that all I ever wanted was the best for him. How can it be wrong to want the best for your children? How can it be wrong to want them to be happy? I wanted Philip to be happy … but he wasn’t. He was restless and becoming more so each day. He was already dissatisfied with his life at Penmarric—if it hadn’t been for Esmond he would have left again by now. He was longing for the mines again. He talked of Australia, South Africa. No, he wasn’t happy here. I knew he wasn’t happy.
“Maybe it would have been different if he had loved Helena a little—if there could have been children—but their marriage was nothing. I spent such a long time hoping he would marry her. I was so convinced she would make him happy, but of course in fact I couldn’t have been more wrong. I realized—too late—that poor Helena was the worst type of woman whom a man of his inclinations could possibly have married. She was too cold, too self-contained, too withdrawn—poor girl! No doubt her misfortunes accentuated her worst attributes, but what kind of woman accepts her husband back under such impossible conditions? Certainly not a woman with normal passionate emotions.
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