Penmarric

by Susan Howatch

  He was there, sitting at the table where his father must have sat before him, lounging in a chair with his feet casually resting on the table’s edge. I hardly recognized him, for I hadn’t seen him for three years and there can be a world of difference between sixteen and thirteen. The solid chunkiness of childhood had vanished; he was still tough, but it was a slim, wiry toughness coupled with his usual hostile expression and sullen mouth. His hair, bright in childhood, was now a coarse brown and he wore it swept back without a parting in an uncouth style. He looked what he was, a working-class rebel with an unpromising future, and although I searched his face for some small trace of Rebecca I searched in vain.

  “So it’s you,” he said, not getting up. “I wondered if you’d bother to see me while you were home. I suppose you wouldn’t have done either if it hadn’t been for the old girl.”

  Cornish mingled with Cockney in his voice, but both were dulled by the veneer of a grammar school education. It was an ugly accent.

  “Leave us, would you, Mama?” I said casually, and she left without a word.

  “All right, you young bastard,” I said, suppressing my distaste as best as I could. “You’ve been causing trouble ever since you entered the world, so I’m not surprised you’ve been causing trouble while I’ve been away. I really did think that even you wouldn’t stoop to victimizing your own grandmother, but I see I was sadly mistaken.”

  “She victimized me!” He stood up. He was taller than me by about two inches. His blue, eyes sparkled with rage. “You’ve both victimized me! I should be living at Penmarric with as much money as I liked and going off to some posh school, and yet all I have is room and board with three bloody spinster cousins at Great-Uncle Jared’s dirty old farmhouse, and no money except what I can lay my hands on and an education at the local grammar! You did me out of my inheritance, you and your—old mother! You worked on Uncle Philip and got him to change his will—”

  “Face facts, my dear boy,” I drawled, determined not to humiliate myself by losing my temper and doing anything foolish. He was too big to spank now, and if it came to a fight I was sure he was tough enough to give me an embarrassingly good match. “Face facts. My mother and I had nothing to do with Philip altering his will.”

  “Oh yes you did!” he shouted, “Simon Peter told me—”

  “Simon Peter detests both me and my mother. You can hardly rely on him for an unbiased judgment.”

  “It’s the truth!”

  “It is not the truth,” I said deliberately, stressing each syllable. “The truth is that your mother exasperated Philip so much that he lost patience both with her and with you and washed his hands of any idea of making you his heir. If it hadn’t been for your mother—”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me of my mother!” He was trembling from head to toe. “I know what you did to her!”

  “—-and while we’re on the subject of the truth, let me say that someone—Simon Peter, no doubt—has been telling you and Deborah a pack of lies. I had nothing to do with your mother’s death, nothing at all.”

  “You killed her!”

  “Nonsense!”

  “You’re nothing but a bloody murderer! I know how she died! I’m not a kid any more! She was going to have a baby—your baby—and you made her go to some bloody quack to get rid of it!”

  “I did nothing of the kind. I was trying to persuade her to see a London gynecologist. Anyway, it wasn’t my child.”

  “You liar!” shouted Jonas. “You liar! Every damned soul in Morvah parish knew how you did nothing but—her whenever you came to our house! Every damned soul knew how she loved you and how badly you treated her! She didn’t love anyone else but you! My mother was good and beautiful and she wouldn’t just have slept with any man who asked her—”

  Something in me snapped. Hot dangerous rage made my brain spin.

  “My dear Jonas,” I said, “it’s obvious you have an idealized picture of your mother. In actual fact, she wasn’t half so virtuous as you would like to believe she was. Quite apart from the fact that she chased after me just as much as I chased after her—-she even picked me up on a street corner once when she wanted a little after-lunch diversion!—it’s obvious she took more than a nominal interest in this last lodger who spent Christmas at Deveral Farm before she died. It’s about time you realized that your mother—”

  He moved so quickly that I was caught off balance. I saw the blow coming but although I tried to dodge it it still caught me on the jaw and flung me back with a jolt against the wall. The room tilted, I gasped, struggled for breath, but when I saw him closing in on me again my reflexes sprang to life in jerky self-defense.

  He tried to hit me again but this time I was ready for him. I sidestepped the blow and caught him a clean upper-cut on the chin that sent him reeling backward so fast that he lost his balance and fell. His head struck the wooden table leg; he hit the floor with a crash and was still.

  I stood there, staring at him, my chest heaving as I recovered my breath. The kitchen door opened. As I glanced over my shoulder I saw my mother peering into the room.

  “Jan …”

  “Just a minute, Mama.”

  “What happened?”

  “He hit me and I hit him back. He’ll be all right.” I flicked the sweat off my forehead and walked over to Jonas, who was still lying on the floor. “All right,” I said curtly to him, prodding him with my toe in case he was shamming. “You can get up now.” He did not move.

  “Jonas!”

  No answer.

  I bent, turned him over, stared at him.

  “Jan …”

  “Keep back, Mama.” I knelt, unfastened his collar and tried to find the heartbeat, but all I could hear was my own heart pumping the blood so fiercely to my head that my ears were ringing.

  “Here,” said my mother in a voice which shook. “Have this mirror. Put it in front of his mouth.”

  I did. There was nothing. No clouding, no misting, not even the most nebulous trace of moisture.

  He was dead. Rebecca’s son was dead. My own nephew was dead, and I—

  I had struck the blow that killed him.

  ELEVEN

  Fifty years later Matthew Paris was not at all sure what had happened, and could only hope that it was not true that John had murdered him. Arthur simply disappeared and rumours that he was dead began to circulate … What [Philip Augustus] did do, as soon as he believed that Arthur was no longer alive, was to taunt John with his disappearance …

  —King John,

  W. L. WARREN

  [Arthur] was a sixteen-year-old knight, who had been captured in battle while attempting to sack the castle that sheltered his eighty-year-old grandmother. His death was untimely, but not wholly undeserved.

  —The Devil’s Brood,

  ALFRED DUGGAN

  “OH MY GOD,” I said. I could say nothing else. I knelt there, staring down at him, my mind too numbed to know what to do. “Oh my God.”

  It was my mother, not I, who took charge of the situation then. Looking back long afterward, I find it amazing how well she kept her head after such an appalling shock, but she told me later that she did not allow the shock to catch up with her until the next day; after that she stayed in bed for a week and dragged herself up again only when the doctor threatened to take her to hospital for an examination. But now, a minute after the disaster, she was icily calm. I had always known my mother was a tough old woman; now she proved it to me. As I remained motionless on the floor beside Jonas’s body, she found the brandy bottle and slopped the liquid clumsily into two glasses.

  “Drink this, Jan-Yves.”

  We both drank. I stood up but my legs were so unsteady that I had to sit down.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” said my mother. “You didn’t mean to kill him, I know that. It was an accident.”

  But I was much too appalled to reply. Would Simon Peter believe it was an accident? If anyone knew that Jonas had apparently been blackmailing my mother and mysel
f for my role in Rebecca’s death, perhaps any story of an accident would be regarded with extreme suspicion.

  “I’ll say I was in the room,” said my mother. “I’ll say I saw it happen.”

  But she was a prejudiced party, a biased witness, a suspect who could have plotted the murder with me.

  “If only I hadn’t given him money!” said my mother. “He must have told someone that it looked as if you had something to hide where his mother’s death was concerned—he wouldn’t have kept quiet about the fact that I was giving him money! Yet I was only generous with him because he was my grandson, not because of those ridiculous threats. I wonder if anyone will believe that?”

  After a long while I said, “I wonder if anyone knew he was coming here tonight.”

  “We should act on the assumption that someone did.”

  “I think we’ll have to say …” I stopped.

  My mother looked at me. “He came. I telephoned and asked you to come over because he had been annoying me with demands for money and making himself thoroughly unpleasant. He was a difficult boy, but he was my grandson and because I did want to help him I occasionally gave him money. We shall tell the whole truth, Jan-Yves, and nothing but the whole truth. Up to a certain point. Then no one can ever prove that what took place beyond that point was not exactly as we say it was.”

  “Yes,” I said slowly. “Yes … He was rude and difficult, so I spoke severely to him and told him not to bother you again. We quarreled—yes, we even quarreled, and then—”

  “And then,” said my mother, “he told you to go to the devil and walked out of the house. We stayed here a long time discussing the incident but at last you left to return to Penmarric. You left here at eleven o’clock. At nine o’clock—that’s now—you telephoned your wife and told her that Jonas had just left but that I was upset and it might be a little while before you arrived home since you felt obligated to stay with me until I was better.”

  “Yes,” I said again. “Yes, that was how it was.” I poured us some more brandy and we thought a little longer.

  “I’m glad you’ve got the car,” said my mother. “That makes everything easier. But what can you do with the bicycle? Will it fit in the back?”

  “I’ll get rid of that, don’t worry … Where’s Annie? Is she in bed?”

  “Yes, she’s always in bed by dusk. Never mind her. What are you going to do with the bicycle, Jan-Yves?”

  “There’s that wild road that goes all the way to Ding Dong mine—”

  “Is the mine flooded?”

  “I don’t know. Yes, I see what you mean. If I could get to Sennen Garth … but I don’t think I could ever carry either him or the bicycle all the way down to the cove.”

  “Why the cove?”

  The main adits come out on the beach. If I could get to the adits—”

  “There’s an old shaft near King Walloe, the shaft Philip used to go down when he was a boy. He said that once Sennen Garth was flooded you could look down the shaft and see the water far below.”

  “That’s right. I know the shaft you mean—he pointed it out to me once. But if the mine is ever drained—no, how can it be? I shall own it for as long as I’m alive and after that it’ll hardly matter. I’ll see that the mine is never drained.”

  “No one will want to drain it,” said my mother. “Draining is too expensive and there’s not enough accessible tin left to justify the expense. The Cornish Tin Coast is finished. You’re safe enough.”

  Then if I can take the car down to Sennen Garth …”

  We talked for a while longer, going over the story, making sure that nothing had been forgotten.

  “You know,” I said at last, “I’m inclined not to get rid of the bicycle. Anyone can stumble into an unfenced mine shaft in the dark, but nobody is going to ride into one full-tilt on a bicycle. If the bicycle disappears it may cause more suspicion than if it were found. Supposing I give the back tire a puncture and leave it by the wayside of the road to Morvah? The police may argue then that Jonas, walking cross-country to his cousins’ farmhouse, encountered some mishap in the darkness.”

  “Would Jonas abandon his bicycle? Wouldn’t he get off and push it?”

  “He was tired and cross. Perhaps there was even someone in a car who stopped and offered him a lift.”

  “Yes, that’s possible, I suppose.”

  “The point is that if they don’t find the body they can’t prove anything, and they’ll never find the body.”

  “True.”

  “Do you have any gloves?”

  “Yes … why?”

  “I’ve read enough detective stories to know I mustn’t touch the bicycle with my bare hands.”

  She went off to find an old pair of Philip’s gloves and I walked outside to get some sacking which would serve as a shroud. By the time I returned she was waiting for me in the lighted doorway of the kitchen.

  “Would it be more prudent to turn out the light?” she was saying. “I have the horrible feeling that at least a thousand people are watching us from the hillside in the darkness.”

  “Yes, turn it out.”

  “Wait—phone Isabella to say you’ve been delayed!”

  “I’ll get the body in the car first—and the bicycle in the boot.”

  We worked silently in the darkness. When the task was over at last I went back into the hall and picked up the receiver of the phone.

  “St. Just two-one, please …” I waited, listening to the empty silence. “Hullo, may I speak to my wife? … Isabella? Darling, I’m sorry but we’ve had rather a scene with Jonas—he’s gone now but my mother’s upset, so I doubt if I’ll be home for at least another hour… Don’t wait up for me, will you… Sorry, darling …”

  My mother was right behind me as I replaced the receiver. “Was she cross?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid she was.” I felt cold and tired and drained of all energy and emotion.

  “Poor child, I expect she grudges you spending time with me.” She laid a hand on my arm. “Jan-Yves …”

  I looked up. “Yes?”

  “Don’t tell her.”

  “I think I may have to. It doesn’t matter—a wife can’t give evidence against her husband.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” said my mother. “Anyone.” She sounded very fierce for an old woman over eighty. “Listen, Jan. You and I are the only people who know about this dreadful accident. I shall die soon, and after that you’ll be the only one who knows. Keep it to yourself. You needn’t feel guilt-ridden about it. You’re innocent of murder. It was an accident, and I know that just as well as you do. Besides, he struck you first and you struck him in self-defense—any court of law would acquit you if we could only prove what happened, but we can’t prove it, so we’re behaving in this very practical but very dangerous way. Don’t make it more dangerous than it already is! Don’t tell a soul what’s happened. Don’t tell Lizzie or William, and whatever you do, don’t tell Isabella. It’s a fallacy to say there should be no secrets between husband and wife. Sometimes it’s better to have secrets, and this is one of those times. She’s too young, you see, and she hasn’t seen much of the world although she likes to pretend she has. It would be too much for her, and no matter how much she loves you she might always half wonder if it really was an accident after all. You do understand, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said painfully, “yes, I understand, but—oh God! When I get home tonight she’ll be waiting, expecting me to make love to her—”

  “Then make love to her,” said my mother. “She mustn’t suspect that anything is wrong.”

  “But if there’s a child … I shall look at it and remember …”

  “Oh no you won’t!” said my mother, very acid-tongued suddenly. “Do you think that every time I look at you I remember how you were conceived forcibly, against my wishes, in that horrible hotel in Brighton? When you were first born, perhaps, but not now, not after all these years when you’ve been so dear to me for so long. … Time puts
everything in perspective, Jan-Yves, please believe me. This incident is horrific to you now, but in five, ten, twenty years it’ll be a mere memory which you can recall without distress. You must believe that! Because it’s true.”

  I took her in my arms and held her for a long moment. Her withered old hand stroked the back of my neck, caressed my hair and was still.

  “You must go.”

  “Mama—”

  “No emotional farewells. That would be too much for both of us. I hope very much that I shall be alive when the war’s over and you come home for good, but if I’m not, God bless you and never, never forget that you’re an innocent man.”

  I had another shot of brandy before going out once more into the cool night air. It was a clouded night but every now and then the clouds would part and the moonlight would filter palely across the moors. It would be dark enough for secrecy yet light enough for me to see what I was doing.

  I slid behind the wheel of the car.

  “Goodbye, Mama.”

  “Goodbye, Jan-Yves.”

  I left her standing there, a fragile, bent old woman who stared after me as I drove off down the lane into the darkness.

  I wondered if I would ever see her again.

  2

  I left the bicycle with its punctured tire by the wayside just within the boundary of Morvah parish and drove on downhill toward the north coast with Jonas’s body wrapped in sacking on the back seat behind me. From Morvah I went through Pendeen to St. Just and outside St. Just I took the disused track to the Sennen Garth mine.

  I had to walk the last part of the way and my progress was slow because the body seemed so heavy, but I found the shaft without difficulty and paused on the edge to get my breath. Moonlight filtered through the clouds again and cast an eerie light upon the ruins of the scarred cliffs I had known so well in the past. I felt as if I had wandered into an ancient civilization, as if I had taken a step sideways in time in my efforts to escape from the terrors of the present. I shuddered, stared at the sacking at my feet, and for one long despairing moment I closed my eyes in prayer. I asked God to forgive me. I asked Him for a just punishment so that I wouldn’t have to live for the rest of my life with such unendurable guilt. I asked him for the chance to suffer so that I could expiate my guilt and feel better.