Bride of Pendorric (12 page)

” I am sure she is.”

” Easy job. Gets a lot of free time. Beautiful surroundings.”

“Ideal,” I murmured, wondering how Nurse Grey liked being referred to in the third person. I glanced at her. She was smiling at Roe. I handed Lord Polhorgan the splits, and I noticed that he moved slowly and was rather breathless as he took one.

” Shall I spread the jam and cream for you?” I asked.

“H’m!” he barked, which meant assent.

“Thanks!” he added when I had done it. ” Good of you. Now help yourself.”

Nurse Grey asked if I preferred China or Indian, and I was given delicious Mandarin Pekoe with lemon.

She then sat down near Roe. I very much wanted to hear what they were saying, but Lord Polhorgan demanded my attention by firing questions at me. He appeared to be very interested in the way we had lived on the island, and I promised to show him some of my father’s work which had been sent to Pendorric.

” Good,” he said. He made me talk about my childhood and in a short time I was living it all again.

” You’re not happy,” said Lord Polhorgan suddenly, and I blurted out the story of my father’s death, to which he listened gravely and then said: ” You were very fond of him. Was your mother fond of him too?”

I told him something of their life together then, how they had lived for each other, how ill she had become and how they had made me aware that they wanted to live every hour to the full because they knew that the time would come when they could not be together; and as I did so I marvelled that I could talk so intimately to such a gruff old man on such short acquaintance.

He laid his veined hand on my arm. ” Is that how it is with you?” he said sharply, and he looked towards Roe, who was laughing with Nurse Grey.

I hesitated just a second too long.

” Marry in haste …” he added. ” Seem to have heard that said somewhere.”

I flushed. ” I’m very happy at Pendorric,” I retorted. ” You rush into things,” he said. ” Bad habit. I never rushed. Made decisions, yes … and sometimes quick ones, but always gave them adequate thought. You coming to see me again?”

” If you ask me.”

” Then you are asked now.”

” Thank you.”

” You won’t want to, though.”

” Yes, I shall.”

He shook his head. ” You’ll make excuses. Too busy. Another engagement. What would a young woman like you want with visiting a sick old man?”

” But I’d love to come.”

” You’ve got a kind heart. But kindness doesn’t always go very deep.

Don’t want to hurt the old man . go now and then. But a bore. What a nuisance! “

” It will be nothing of the sort. You’re so interested in things. And I’m attracted by this house.”

” Pretty vulgar, eh? The old man of the people who wanted to build up a bit of background. Doesn’t go down well with the aristocrats, I can tell you.”

” Why shouldn’t people build backgrounds if they want them?”

” Listen, young woman. There’s no reason why anyone shouldn’t build anything. You get your just deserts in this world. I wanted to make money and I made it. I wanted to have a family mansion … well, I’ve got it. In this world you say, I want this and I want that. And if you’ve got any guts you go and get it. You get what you pay for, and if it doesn’t turn out as you planned, well then you have to look for where you went wrong because, you can depend on it, you’ve gone wrong somewhere.”

” I expect you’re right.”

” I’d like you to come again even if you are bored. Perhaps you’d be less bored after a while … when we got to know each other.”

” I

haven’t started to be bored yet. “

He clenched and unclenched his hand, frowning at it. ” I’m an old man incapacitated by illness … brought on, they tell me, by the life I’ve led.” He patted his chest. ” I’ve put a big strain on this, it seems, and now I’ve got to pay for it. All right, I say, life’s a matter of settling bills and drawing dividends. I’m ready.”

” I can see you have a philosophy.”

“Play chess?”

” My mother taught me.”

“Your mother, eh?”

” She also taught me reading, writing and arithmetic, before I came to school in England.”

” I reckon you were the apple of her eye.”

” I was her only child.”

” Yes,” he said soberly. ” Well, if you played a game of chess with me now and then, you wouldn’t be so bored with the old man’s efforts at conversation. When will you come?”

I considered. ” The day after tomorrow,” I said.

“Good. Teatime?”

” Yes, but I mustn’t eat so many of these splits or I shall put on too much weight.”

He looked at me and his eyes were suddenly soft. ” You’re as slight as a sylph,” he said.

Nurse Grey came over with plates of cakes, but we did not seem in the mood for eating any more.

I noticed that Nurse Grey’s eyes had grown more luminous and that there was a faint pink colour in her cheeks. I wondered uneasily whether Roe had had anything to do with that, and I was reminded of Rachel Bective and Dinah Bond, the young blacksmith’s wife. The conversation became general, and after an hour we left. Roe was clearly amused as we walked home.

“Another conquest for you,” he commented.

“The old fellow certainly took to you. I’ve never known him so gracious before.”

“Poor old man, I don’t think people try to understand him.”

” They don’t need to,” retorted Roe. ” He’s as easy to read as an A.B.C. He’s the typical self-made man—a character off the shelf. There are some people who mould themselves on old cliches.

They decide the sort of person they’re going to be and start playing the part; after a while they’re so good at it that it becomes second nature. That’s why there are so many stock characters in the world.

”

He grinned at me.

“You don’t believe me, do you? Well, look at Lord P. Started selling newspapers … perhaps not newspapers, but some such job.

It’s the pattern that matters, not the detail. Never goes in for any fun, piles up the little capital to start with, and by the time he’s thirty, industry and skill have turned it into a big capital and he’s on the way to becoming a millionaire. That’s all very well, but he can’t be himself . he has to be one of the band of self-made men. He clings to his rough manners.

“I came up from nothing and I’m proud of it!” Doesn’t go in for the ordinary graces of conventional living. Why should I change myself? I’m perfect as I am. ” Oh, I don’t have to try to understand Lord P. If he were made of glass I shouldn’t be able to see through him more clearly.”

” You don’t forgive him for building his house.”

Roe shrugged his shoulders. ” Perhaps not. It’s a fake and I hate fakes. Suppose all the self-made men made up their minds to build along our coast? What a sight! No, I’m against these pseudo-antiques;

and to have put one on our doorstep is an imposition. Polhorgan’s Folly is an outsider here on our coast with houses like Pendorric, Mount Mellyn, Mount Widden, Cotehele and the like . just as its master is . with his Midland manners calling himself Lord Polhorgan.

As though Trc, Pol and Pen did not belong to Cornishmen. “

“How vehement you are!” I said, and trying to speak lightly added: ” And if 7 made a conquest, what of you?”

He was smiling as he turned to me. ” Thea, you mean? “

” You call her that?”

“That’s her name, my dear. Althea Grey—Thea to her friends.”

” Of whom you are one.”

” Of course, and so will you be. As for my conquest,” he went on, “that’s one of long standing. She has been here eighteen months, you know.”

Then he put his arm about me and began to sing:

” Wherever you hear Tre, Pol and Pen You’ll know that you’re with Cornishmen.”

He smiled at me and continued:

” Alas, I have to add a rider. One can’t ignore the rich outsider.”

” I think,” I said, ” that you prefer the nurse to the invalid.” I saw the teasing light in his eyes.

” With you it’s exactly the reverse,” he commented. ” That’s why it was such a successful visit. I took care of the nurse while you devoted yourself to your host.”

Two days later, as we had arranged I went to play chess with Lord Polhorgan. I came back and told Roe rather defiantly that I liked the old man even more than on the first occasion; which seemed to amuse him very much. Nurse Grey was not present, and I poured out the tea.

The old man was delighted when he beat me, then he looked at me shrewdly and said:

” Sure you’re not humouring the old man—letting him win, eh?” I replied that I had done my best to beat him, and that satisfied him.

Before I left I had promised to call again in a day or so in order to give him a return match.

I was settling into life at Pendorric. I did a little gardening with Morwenna, and it was pleasant to chat with her while we worked. ” It’s a useful hobby,” she said, ” because we haven’t the gardeners we once had. In my father’s day there were four of them; now it’s Bill Pascoe from the cottages three afternoons a week, with Toms working when he gets a chance. Both Roe and I were always fond of growing things.”

” Roe doesn’t do much in the gardens now,” I put in.

” Well, there’s the farm to take up his time. He and Charles work hard on that.” She sat back on her heels and smiled at the fork in her hands. ” I’m so pleased they get on well together—but then of course they’re two wonderful people. I’ve often thought how lucky I am.”

” I

know what you mean,” I answered soberly. ” We’re both lucky. ” Charles was very friendly to me in a quiet and unassuming way, and I liked his chubby charm. When Roe took me round the farm for the first time I was immediately aware of the respect Charles had for Roe’s judgment, and that made me like him all the. more.

I even liked Rachel Bective a little better than I had in the beginning and reproached myself for a too-hasty judgment because I had fancied I detected something rather sly in her sandy looks. On one occasion we went for a walk together and she volunteered a little information about herself, telling me how she had met Morwenna when they had been at school together and had come to spend a summer holiday at Pendorric. From then she had been there often. She had to earn her living and had decided to take up teaching, so she had agreed to come here for a year to supervise the twins’ education because she knew what a trial they were to their mother.

The twins themselves had a habit of coming upon me at unexpected moments, and seemed to take a special pleasure in leaping out on me and startling me.

Lowella addressed me as Bride, which at first I thought amusing but later was not so sure; Hyson had a habit of fixing her silent gaze on me whenever she was in my company, which I also found disconcerting.

Deborah was as determined as the others to make me feel at home; she told me that she felt like a mother towards me because Roe had been like her own son. I was sitting in the quadrangle one afternoon when I suddenly had the eerie feeling that I was being watched. I shook off this feeling which was always ready to worry me when I was in the quadrangle, but it persisted, and when I looked up at the window on the west side where I had seen Deborah on the day she arrived I almost expected to see her there.

I stared for a few seconds at those curtained windows ; then I turned and looked at the east side. I was certain then that I saw a movement.

I waved and continued to look, but there was no response. Ten minutes later Deborah joined me in the quadrangle. ” How you love this spot!”

she said, and she pulled up one of the white and gilded chairs to sit close to me.

” My feelings for the place are a little mixed,” I told her frankly.

“I am immensely attracted, and yet I never feel exactly comfortable here.”

“Why ever not?”

I looked over my shoulder. ” It’s the windows, I think.”

” I often say it’s a pity that it is only corridor windows which look down on the quadrangle. It would make such a lovely view and a change from the great vistas of sea from south, west and east, and country from the north.”

” It’s the windows themselves. They take away privacy.” She laughed.

” I believe you’re rather a fanciful person after all.”

” Oh no, I’m not really. Were you on the east side a little while ago?”

She shook her head.

” I’m sure someone was looking down.”

” I shouldn’t think so, dear, not from the east side. Those rooms are rarely used now. The furniture’s covered in dustsheets … except in her rooms.”

“Her rooms?”

” Barbarina’s. She always liked the east side. She didn’t mind Polhorgan in the least, like the others did. They couldn’t bear to look at it. She had her music room there. She said it was ideal because she could practise there to her heart’s content without disturbing anyone.”

“Perhaps it was one of the twins I saw up there.”

” That may be so. The servants don’t go there very much. Carrie looks after Barbarina’s room. She gets rather angry if anyone else attempts to. But you should see them. You ought to see all over the house. You are after all its new mistress.”

” I would love to see Barbarina’s rooms.”

” We could go now.”

I rose eagerly and she took my arm as we walked across the quadrangle to the east door. She seemed excited at the prospect of taking me on a tour of that part of the house.

The door closed behind us and as we walked along a short corridor which led into the hall I was conscious of silence. I told myself that it had something to do with my mood, for naturally if there was no one in this wing why should the silence surprise me?

“The servants say this is now the haunted part of the house,” Deborah told me.

” And Barbarina is the ghost?” I asked.

“You know the story then? Lowella Pendorric was supposed to have haunted the house until Barbarina took her place. A typical Cornish situation, my dear. I’m glad I was born on the other side of the Tamar. I shouldn’t want to be perpetually ingratiating myself with pi skies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night.” I looked about the hall, which was an exact replica of the others in its proportions. There were the steel weapons on the walls, the pewter utensils on the refectory table, fee suits of armour at the foot of the staircases. The pictures in the gallery were different, of course, and I gazed casually at them as we mounted the stairs. We reached the corridor and I glanced through the windows at the quadrangle, wondering at which one I had seen a movement. ” Barby’s rooms were on the second floor,” Deborah told me. ” I used to come and stay when she married. You see we had scarcely been separated all our lives and Barby didn’t see why we ever should be.