Penmarric (19 page)

“I made a new will the other day,” he said. “It was a step I’d been contemplating for some time.” He hesitated before adding, “I’m not naming you in my will, Janna, to save you embarrassment, but I intend to provide for you before I die by creating a trust for your benefit. You need never have to worry about money again, I promise you.”

“Please, Laurence!” I said lightly. “Let’s not talk yet about you dying!”

It was the first of October. Within three days I heard in the village that he was confined to bed with a fever, and presently I heard that his condition had worsened and he was very ill. At last, unable to endure the horror of waiting for news, I set off to Zillan, ostensibly on the pretext of visiting my husband’s grave but secretly in the hope of finding out more news than Griselda had managed to extract from the villagers. It was in Zillan churchyard that the rector found me and told me the news.

Laurence was dead. I had lost the only man I had ever loved and for the second time in six months I stood to lose the farm and all I possessed.

At first I was so overcome with the violence of my grief that nothing mattered any more, not even my future at Ŗoslyn Farm, but at last Griselda succeeded in pestering me to my senses. Was the produce to go bad because I wouldn’t rouse myself to go to Penzance? Did I want us to starve? It was all very well, she pointed out acidly, for delicate young ladies to go into a decline; they had the time and the leisure and the money to do so. I was less fortunate and it was about time I realized it. “Selfish ’ee art,” grumbled Griselda. “Like yurr mother. Bone selfish.”

She knew perfectly well that I could  not endure to be compared to my mother. Sheer annoyance and a desire to prove her wrong made me rouse myself and attempt to pick up once more the threads of my day-to-day existence.

By the Sunday after Laurence’s funeral I had managed to blunt the edge of my grief, but the thought of passing the fresh grave in the churchyard still filled me with dread and I would not go with Griselda when she trudged off across the moors to matins. Instead I sat in my sitting room and stared in despair once again at my accounts. I had barely enough money to last me to the new year. And after the new year … Tears pricked my eyes again as I looked at the list I had made of Laurence’s loans to me. Some of the sums he had insisted I should regard as gifts, but the others I had been determined to repay one day somehow. Now they would never be repaid. I would have to sell the farmhouse to Jared and everything would be lost.

The flames of the fire blurred before my eyes. I was just about to give way and weep with my frustration and despair when there was a loud knock on the back door.

I jumped up.

If that was Jared come to pester me again about the house, I thought fiercely, I’d spit in his face.

Dashing my tears aside, I marched to the door and flung it open in a bold, angry gesture of defiance. But my visitor was not Jared.

It was Mark Castallack.

Henry was never considered a handsome men like his father but his youthful freshness captured Eleanor’s fancy.

—Henry II,

JOHN T. APPLEBY

She, for her part, needed a protector … she found one in Henry of Anjou.

—King John,

W. L. WARREN

“GOOD MORNING,” HE SAID
.

I stared at him blankly. “Good morning,” I replied at last, and my voice sounded cold and unwelcoming in my ears.

There was a silence. I did not know what to say. We stood there facing each other until at length he said, “May I come in?” and as I held the door open for him he stepped past me into the kitchen.

“I apologize,” he said, “if I’m calling at an inconvenient time, but I saw you weren’t at matins and I wanted the chance to speak to you alone.”

“It’s not inconvenient.” Silence fell again. I tried to say, “I was so sorry to learn of your father’s death,” but the words would not come.

The silence was on the point of becoming awkward when he said casually, as if it were the most obvious sentiment in the world to express, “I have come to offer my condolences.”

For several seconds there was nothing, nothing at all, only those slanting dark eyes with their watchful expression, but then at last when I could breathe evenly again and the shock was a mere dull pain at the back of my throat I became aware of other things, the hens clucking in the yard beyond the open window, the birds singing in the eaves, the crackling of the flames in the kitchen range across the room. My mouth was dry. At last I managed to say politely, “How very kind.” I did not say anything else. I was too busy thinking of Laurence, and all at once I did not mind how much the boy knew; because I minded nothing save the fact that I would never see Laurence again.

“Perhaps we could talk in the parlor?”

“Yes. If you wish.”

We were in the hall, then at the front of the house. I could no longer look at him. My eyes were blind with tears.

In the looking-glass I saw him sit down at the table, as if he were expecting a glass of wine to be brought to him, and tilt the chair backward, his hands in his pockets, until he could rock it gently to and fro on its hind legs. His air of casual indifference grated on me so much that I felt angry. Anger smothered my grief; within a moment my eyes were tearless and I was in control of myself again.

“Why have you come?” I said abruptly. “I presume you came for reasons other than to offer your condolences, but if you did not then I must beg you to excuse me. I am not feeling myself this morning and do not feel well enough to receive visitors.”

He did not say how sorry he was that I was not feeling well. Perhaps he guessed that my indisposition merely stemmed from grief. Or perhaps he did not even believe I was indisposed. “Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Roslyn?” was all he said, his voice idle and unconcerned as he continued to tilt his chair to and fro. “I feel I’m being discourteous by remaining seated while you yourself are still standing. It was ill-mannered of me in the first place to sit down without your permission, and I apologize. I had no wish to treat you as if you weren’t the respectable widow you’ve always claimed to be.”

“Mr. Castallack …”

“Please,” he said, standing up abruptly and holding the chair out for me as a gentleman would for a lady, “do sit down and forgive my bad manners.”

I sat down dumbly. He sat down opposite me. The table yawned between us, and outside the window the breeze from the hills made the thorns of the wild roses scratch against the pane.

“How is the farm?” he said politely. “I trust all is well with you.”

“Thank you, yes.”

“I’m glad to hear that. My father was actually worried about you, you know. His last words were concerned with your welfare.”

I could not speak. I stared down at my hands and thought of Laurence saying in the voice I had loved so well, “You’ll never have to worry about money again, I promise. You’ll never have to worry about money again.”

“If ever you need anything,” said Mark Castallack, “I’m sure something can be arranged.”

I looked up at him. His black eyes stared at me without expression. His hard masculine mouth curled slightly at the corners in a faint expression of amusement. As I averted my eyes from his face I saw his hand go into his pocket and bring out five sovereigns. The gold gleamed dully in the bright morning light.

“You must have many expenses to meet,” he said, piling the coins neatly on the table before him with small precise movements of his hand, “and there’s nothing more tedious than not having enough money to be able to live in comfort.” He cleared his throat, picked up a sovereign and examined the face of it. I watched him, unable to look away. I was just thinking him totally absorbed in studying the coin when he looked across at me swiftly and our glances met.

I stood up and moved over to the fireplace.

The coins chinked. From the looking glass above the mantelshelf I saw he was putting the money back in his pocket. “Don’t forget,” he said, “that if ever you need any help you have only to ask and I shall do all I can to make some suitable arrangement.”

I said quickly—much too quickly—my brain awhirl, “Well, as it happens …” I stopped.

He swiveled around in his chair to look at me. “You need help now?”

“I … I am in rather a trying position …” I bit my lip. “Perhaps,” I said coolly, “if a loan can be arranged I could offer the house as a security …”

“Ah yes,” he said. “The house. Yes, I’m sure something could be arranged, Mrs. Roslyn. I’m sure we could easily arrive at a convenient arrangement.”

I wished he would not repeat the words “arranged” and “arrangement” so often. I did not like the way he used those words with such calculated repetition.

“Might I see the house?” he said casually. “If we’re to arrange a loan I would be interested—purely as a formality, of course—to see the exact nature of the collateral you wish to offer.”

“Very well,” I said after a pause. “As you wish.” I turned toward the door and he followed me, his movements indolent, his sharp narrow eyes absorbing everything there was to see. The palms of my hands were damp with sweat. I had to smooth them surreptitiously on my skirts as I crossed the hall.

“This is the dining room,” I said, opening the door. “We used to use it at Christmas and Easter and on my husband’s birthday. Otherwise we always ate in the kitchen.” The solid oak table gleamed in the sunlight; blue china sat on the dark dresser. Laurence had loved the old oak furniture. It had been in the Roslyn family for many generations.

Mark said nothing. We went out into the hall again and I led the way to the back of the house.

“You know the kitchens, of course.”

“Oh yes,” he said. “I know the kitchens.”

We went through the scullery and past the pantry and finally entered the dairy.

“This is very old,” I said. “You can see how uneven the flagstones are. This is one of the oldest parts of the house.”

“Yes. Is Annie not here today?”

“She’s visiting her kin at Zennor. She walks over there once a month.” I smoothed my hands against my skirts again. My heart was beginning to hammer in my lungs.

We went back through the kitchen and into the little sitting room behind the parlor.

“I used to sit here on Sundays and read the paper,” I said. “We never used the parlor. That was always only for guests such as yourself.” And Laurence, I might have added. I remembered how Laurence and I had drunk a glass of wine together when I had first invited him into the house. “What a charming room,” he had said. He had loved the house as much as I had.

“There are one or two cupboards,” I said, “and a little room off the scullery where we can fill the bath and wash, but otherwise there’s nothing else to see.”

“And upstairs?”

There was a pause. We were standing in the hall again. As I turned to face him I saw him glancing idly at the staircase.

“Oh,” I said, “there’s nothing to see upstairs, only a few rooms most of which are no longer used. And there’s a loft, of course—a very good loft with a boarded floor. The servants used to sleep there in the old days, but now Annie and Griselda each have a room at the back of the house.” I turned away again toward the parlor. My forehead was damp now and my hands so unsteady that I had to clench my fists to hide my shaking fingers. “Shall we go and sit down again? If you would like some wine—”

“I would like to see the rooms upstairs, if you please.” He was impeccably polite, utterly bland.

“I—“

“Can that not be … arranged, Mrs. Roslyn?”

And then there was a long moment of nothingness, a void which nothing could fill. I could not breathe, speak or think. But the moment passed. They always pass, those long dreadful moments when you cannot bring yourself to believe the facts that are staring you in the face, and when they are passed and you believe, so much begins to happen at once that you feel confused. The next moment my heart was beating painfully, there was a sickness in my stomach and a hotness behind my eyes. I thought: I cannot. And then: It would not matter. And finally: He is offering me a loan with the house as security; there’s nothing disreputable about that; the money isn’t a gift; it’s a loan, and what can be more respectable than a loan given for honest collateral? Everything else is irrelevant. Nothing else would count.

“Very well,” I said politely. “If you wish.” And we went up the old wooden staircase with the carved banisters to the landing above and I began to show him the back rooms. “This is Griselda’s little room … and Annie’s …” I was trying not to remember Laurence because I knew it would be best not to think of him. But I remembered just the same. Tears pricked like hot needles behind my eyes.

“This is the room Jared used to have … and over here is the one which belonged to Joss …”

I was moving as slowly as possible to give myself more time to think, but I could not think, reasoning was impossible, and all I could do was to tell myself that nothing could destroy my love for Laurence, least of all an episode so meaningless that it would soon pass from my memory into oblivion.

“And this is the box room,” I said. “My husband kept his first wife’s possessions here.”

I was thinking so hard of Laurence that I could almost fancy that he was behind me. I thought: If I would turn now and glance over my shoulder I would see him; we would smile at each other and I would think: Never leave me, stay with me because I love you so much I cannot bear to see you go …

But he had left me. I was alone.

“And this is my room,” I said. “It faces the moors, as you can see. My husband liked this view best of all, and I agreed with him.” And I went to the window to gaze out over the view as if I had never seen it before in my life.

I heard the door close with a soft stealthy click. There was the faint squeak as the bolt was drawn, but I did not turn around. Presently I closed the window, which I had left open that morning to air the room, and drew the curtains.

There was a silence. I turned. He was standing, not looking at me, his glance on the little clock with the Roman numerals which Laurence had brought me from Penzance one day several months ago. I had loved it because it had come from him and yet at the same time had hated its little black hands for so cruelly marking each of the few brief hours he had spent in that room.