Bride of Pendorric (2 page)

I had been indignant when they told me I must go away to school in England. It was a necessity, my mother pointed out, for she had reached the limit of her capabilities, and although I was a tolerable linguist (we spoke English at home, Italian to our neighbours and, as there were many French and German visitors to our studio, I soon had a smattering of these languages) I had had no real education. My mother was anxious that I should go to her old school which was small and in the heart of Sussex. Her old headmistress was still in charge and I suspected that it was all very much as it had been in my mother’s day.

After a term or two I became reconciled, partly because I quickly made friends with Esther McBane, partly because I returned to the island for Christmas, Easter and summer holidays; and as I was a normal uncomplicated person I enjoyed both worlds.

But then my mother died and nothing was the same again. I found out that I had been educated on the jewellery which had once been hers;

she had planned for me to go to a university, but the jewellery had realised less than she had hoped (for one quality she shared with my father was optimism) and the cost of my schooling was more than she had bargained for. So when she died I went back to school for two more years because that was her wish. Esther was a great comfort at that

time; she was an orphan who was being brought up by an aunt, so she had a good deal of sympathy to offer. She came to stay with us during summer holidays and it helped both Father and me not to fret so much with a visitor in the studio.

We said that she must come every summer, and she assured us she would. We left school at the same time and she came home with me at the end of our final term. During that holiday we would discuss what we were going to do with our lives. Esther planned to take up art seriously. As for myself, I had my father to consider, so I was going to try to take my mother’s place in the studio although I feared that was some thing I should never be able to do entirely.

I smiled, remembering that long letter I had had from Esther, which in itself was unusual for Esther abhorred letter-writing and avoided it whenever possible. On the way back to Scotland she had met a man; he was growing tobacco in Rhodesia and was home for a few months. That letter had been full of this adventure. There had been one more letter two months later. Esther was getting married and going out to Rhodesia.

It was exciting and she was wonderfully happy; but I knew it was the end of our friendship because the only bond between us now could be through letters which Esther would have neither time nor inclination to write. I did have one to say that she had arrived, but marriage had made a different person of Esther; she had grown far from the long-legged untidy-haired girl who used to walk in the grounds of the little school with me and talk about dedicating herself to Art. I was brought out of the past by me sight of Roe Pendorric’s face close to mine, and now there was nothing but sympathy in his eyes. ” I’ve stirred up sad memories.”

” I was thinking about my mother and the past.”

He nodded and was silent for a few seconds. Then he said: ” You don’t ever think of going back to her people … or your father’s people?”

” People?” I murmured.

” Didn’t she ever talk to you about her home in England?” I was suddenly very surprised. ” No, she never mentioned it.”

” Perhaps the memory was unhappy.”

” I never realised it before, but neither of them ever talked about . before they married. As a matter of fact I think they felt that all that happened before was insignificant.”

” It must have been a completely happy marriage ” It was. “

We were silent again. Then he said: “Favel! It’s an unusual name.”

” No more unusual than yours. I always thought a roe was a legendary bird.”

” Fabulous, of immense size and strength, able to lift an elephant … if it wanted to.”

He spoke rather smugly and I retorted: ” I’m sure even you would be incapable of lifting an elephant. Is it a nickname?”

” I’ve been Roe for as long as I can remember. But it’s short for Petroc.”

” Still unusual.”

” Not in the part of the world I come from. I’ve had a lot of ancestors who had to put up with it. The original one was a sixth-century saint who founded a monastery. I think Roe is a modem version that’s all my own. Do you think it suits me?”

” Yes,” I answered. ” I think it does.”

Rather to my embarrassment he leaned forward and kissed the tip of my nose. I stood up hastily. ” It really is time I was getting back to the studio,” I said.

Our friendship grew quickly and to me was wholly exciting. I did not realise then how inexperienced I was, and imagined that I was capable of dealing with any situation. I forgot then that my existence had been bounded by school in England with its regulations and restrictions, our casual unconventional studio on an island whose main preoccupation was with passing visitors, and my life with my father who still thought of me as a child. I had imagined myself to be a woman of the world, whereas no one who could lay a true claim to such a description would have fallen in love with the first man who seemed different from anyone else she had met.

But there was a magnetism about Roe Pendorric when he set himself out to charm, and he certainly was determined to charm me. Roe came to the studio every day. He always took the statuette in his hands and caressed it lovingly.

” I’m determined to have it, you know,” he said one day. ” Father will never sell.”

” I never give up hope.” And as I looked at the strong line of his jaw, the brilliance of his dark eyes, I believed him. He was a man who would take what he wanted from life; and it occurred to me that there would be few to deny him. That was why he was so anxious to possess the statue. He hated to be frustrated.

He bought the bronze Venus then.

” Don’t think,” he told me, ” that this means I’ve given up trying for the other. It’ll be mine yet; you see.”

There was an acquisitive gleam in his eyes when he said that and a certain mischief too. I knew what he meant, of course.

We swam together. We explored the whole island and we usually chose the less well-known places to avoid the crowds. He hired two Neapolitan boatmen to take us on sea trips and there were wonderful days when we lay back in the boat letting our hands trail in the turquoise and emerald water while Guiseppe and Umberto, watching us with the indulgent looks Latins bestow on lovers, sang arias from Italian opera for our entertainment.

In spite of his dark looks there must have been something essentially English about Roe, because Guiseppe and Umberto were immediately aware of his nationality. This ability to decide a person’s nationality often surprised me but it never seemed to fail. As for myself, there was little difficulty in placing me. My hair was dark blonde and there was a platinum-coloured streak in it which had been there when I was born; it had the effect of making me look even fairer than I was. My eyes were the shade of water, and borrowed their colour from what I was wearing. Sometimes they were green, at others quite blue. I ‘had a short pert nose, a wide mouth and good teeth. I was by no means a beauty, but I had always looked more ‘like a visitor to the island than a native.

During those weeks I was never quite sure of Roe. There were times when I was perfectly happy to enjoy each moment as it came along and not concern myself with the future; but when I was alone—at night, for instance—I wondered what I should do when he went home. In those early days I knew the beginning of that frustration which later was to bring such fear and terror into my life. His gaiety often seemed to be a cloak for deeper feelings; even during his most tender moments I

would imagine I saw speculation in his eyes. He intrigued me in a hundred ways. I knew that given any encouragement I could love him completely, but I was never sure of him, and perhaps that was one of the reasons why every moment I was with him held the maximum excitement. One day soon after we met we climbed to the villa of Tiberius, and never had that wonderful view seemed so superb as it did on that day. It was all there for our delight as I had seen it many times before—Capri and Monte Solaro, the Gulf of Salerno from Amalfi to Paestum, the Gulf of Naples from Sorrento to Cape Misena. I knew it well, and yet because I was sharing it with Roe it had a new magic. ” Have you ever seen anything so enchanting? ” I asked. He seemed to consider. Then he said: “I live in a place which seems to me as beautiful.”

“Where?”

” Cornwall. Our bay is as beautiful—more so I think because it changes more often. Don’t you get weary of sapphire seas? Now, I’ve seen ours as blue—or almost; I’ve seen it green under the beating rain and brown after a storm and pink in the dawn; I’ve seen it mad with fury pounding the rocks and sending the spray high, and I’ve seen it as silky as this sea. This is very beautiful, I grant you, and I don’t think Roman emperors ever honoured us in Cornwall with their villas and legends of their dancing boys and girls, but we have a history of our own which is just as enthralling.”

” I’ve never been to Cornwall.”

He suddenly turned to me and I was caught in an embrace which made me gasp. He said, with his face pressed against mine: ” But you will .. soon.”

I was conscious of the rose-red ruins, the greenish statue of the Madonna, the deep blue of the sea, and life seemed suddenly too wonderful to be true.

He had lifted me off my feet and held me above him, laughing at me. I said primly: ” Someone will see us.”

“Do you care?”

” Well, I object to being literally swept off my feet.” He released me and to my disappointment he did not say any more about Cornwall. That incident was typical of our relationship.

I realised that my father was taking a great interest in our friendship. He was always delighted to see Roe, and he would sometimes come to the door of the studio to meet us after we’d been out on one of our excursions, looking like a conspirator, I thought. He was not a subtle man and it did not take me long to discover that some plan was forming in his mind and that it concerned Roe and me.

Did he think that Roe would propose to me? Was Roe’s feeling for me more marked than I dared hope, and had my father noticed this? And suppose I married Roe, what of the studio? How would my father get along without me? -because if I married Roe I should have to go away with him.

I felt unsettled. I knew I wanted to marry Roe—but I was not sure about his feelings for me. How could I leave my father? But I had when I was at school, I reminded myself. Yes, and look at the result. Right from the beginning, being in love with Roe was an experience that kept me poised between ecstasy and anxiety.

But Roe had not talked of marriage.

Father often asked him to a meal; invitations Roe always accepted on condition that he should provide the wine. I cooked omelettes, fish, pasta and even roast beef with Yorkshire pudding; the meals were well cooked because one of the things my mother had taught me was how to cook, and there had always been a certain amount of English dishes served in the studio.

Roe seemed to enjoy those meals thoroughly and would sit long over them talking and drinking. He began to talk a great deal about himself and his home in Cornwall; but he had a way of making Father talk, and he quickly learned about how we lived, the difficulties of making enough money during the tourist season to keep us during the lean months. I noticed that Father never discussed the time before his marriage, and Roe only made one or two attempts to persuade him. Then he gave it up, which was strange, because he was usually persistent—but it was characteristic of Roe simply because it was unexpected.

I remember one day coming in and finding them playing cards together.

Father had that look on his face which always frightened me—that intent expression which made his eyes glow like blue fires; there was a faint pink colour in his cheeks, and as I came in he scarcely looked up.

Roe got up from his chair, but I could see that he shared my father’s feeling for the game. I felt very uneasy as I thought: So he’s a gambler too.

” Favel won’t want to interrupt the game,” said my father. I looked into Roe’s eyes and said coldly: ” I hope you aren’t playing for high stakes.”

” Don’t worry your head about that, my dear,” said Father. ” He’s determined to lure the lire from my pockets,” added Roe, his eyes sparkling.

” I’ll go and get something to eat,” I told them, and went into the kitchen.

I shall have to make him understand Father can’t afford to gamble, I told myself.

When we sat over the meal my father was jubilant, so I guessed he had won.

I spoke to Roe about it the next day at the beach. ” Please don’t encourage my father to gamble. He simply can’t afford it.”

” But he gets so much pleasure from it,” he replied. ” Lots of people get pleasure from things that aren’t good for them.”

He laughed. ” You know, you’re a bit of a martinet.”

” Please listen to me. We’re not rich enough to risk losing money that has been so hard to come by. We live here very cheaply, but it’s not easy. Is that impossible for you to understand?”

” Please don’t worry, Favel,” he said, putting his hand over mine.

” Then you won’t play for money with him any more?”

” Suppose he asks me? Shall I say, I decline the invitation because your strong-minded daughter forbids us?”

” You could do better than that.” He looked pious. ” But it wouldn’t be true.” I shrugged my shoulders impatiently. ” Surely you can find other people to gamble with. Why do you have to choose him?” He looked thoughtful and said: “I suppose it’s because I like the atmosphere of his studio.” We were lying on the beach and he reached out and turned me towards him. Looking into my face he went on; “I like the treasures he has there.”

It was in moments like this when I believed his feelings matched my own. I was elated and at the same time afraid I should betray too much. So I stood up quickly and walked into the sea; he was close behind me.

” Don’t you know, Favel,” he said, putting his arm round my bare shoulder, ” that I want very much to please you?”