Penmarric (21 page)

“I’ve been in London for the past three weeks,” he said without offering even the briefest of apologies. “I had one or two tiresome family affairs to settle. Also my cousin Robert Yorke died and I was delayed in London on account of the funeral.” Ignoring my coldness, which must by then have been very obvious, he glanced out of the window at the gray bleakness of the November afternoon and added carelessly, “I assumed you would realize that I was unavoidably detained.”

“Unfortunately,” I said icily, “clairvoyance is not among the gifts God saw fit to bestow upon me.”

“Dear me,” he said in such a gravely mocking voice that my cheeks flamed with anger. “I’m sorry about that. However, since God has seen fit to bestow upon you so many other admirable attributes it would no doubt be unfair to complain about such an inexplicable omission.” And even before I could open my mouth to tell him what I thought of him he slipped a small square leather box into my hand and bade me open it.

The angry words died before they could be spoken. With fingers that were suddenly hot and unsteady, I fumbled with the catch, raised the lid and stared inside.

I saw a ring bearing an enormous sapphire. The sapphire had that warm slumbrous glow in shadow and that brilliant glitter whenever it caught the light. Around the sapphire were diamonds, bright, hard, multi-sided diamonds such as I had not seen since I had been a lady’s maid long ago at Menherion Castle.

I could not speak. I was dumb. I stared at that exquisite ring and all I could think was: He did not go away and forget. I misjudged him. He thought of me when he was in London and finally he came back, just as he promised he would. He meant every word he said. He was sincere.

“It’s … very beautiful,” I heard myself say diffidently at last. “I—I have never had such a fine present before.”

“I hope it will be the first of many.”

After a moment I said, “Oh?” I was overcome; tears, absurd and unwanted, pricked my eyelids. “I thought you’d left me,” I said suddenly, the words tumbling from my lips. “I thought you’d gone.”

“After waiting for you for so many months?”

I looked up. Tears blinded my eyes, burned my cheeks, but they no longer mattered. Nothing mattered now because he had kept his word and he had come back to me and his attentions were not empty after all but filled with meaning and purpose.

“I didn’t believe you,” I said. “I didn’t trust you. I didn’t think you were so …” So ready to keep your promises, I almost added, but the words would no longer come. And as I halted uncertainly, my eyes so dim with tears that I could not see his expression, he leaned forward and took my hand in his and said gently in his beautiful voice, “Did you ever doubt that I would ask you again to marry me?” And I could not speak; it was as if I were in some dazzling dream which bore no relation to all those long years of toil and misery and insecurity behind me, and all I was conscious of was his hand hot and dry against my own and his dark eyes filled neither with cynicism nor speculation but with a message no man’s eyes had ever held for me before. And the message was tenderness, not Laurence’s pity and compassion, not Jared’s lust, but tenderness, and beyond the tenderness stretching as far as the heart could read lay love, the love I needed, the love and peace and security I had longed for all my life.

“Will you marry me, Janna?” he said. “Will you?”

And I said, not even pausing to think, only obsessed by the fear that my lifelong desire might once again slip through my fingers, “Oh yes, Mark—yes, I will, yes, yes, yes …”

As soon as I had promised to marry him I was overcome with panic. Mark began to talk blithely of a wedding in London, a honeymoon on the Continent and renovations to Deveral Farm so that we could live there in comfort until he inherited Penmarric—and the more he talked the more frightened I became. At length when he paused for breath I managed to say in a small voice, “But, Mark, could we not be married in Penzance? Or Truro or Launceston or some other large Cornish town?”

“Penzance!” he exclaimed, much amused. “What an extraordinary idea! No, it would be much more practical to be married in London. My cousin left me his townhouse in Park Lane, so we can stay there until we’re ready to go abroad. You can have the opportunity to order some good clothes, look around the shops, buy whatever you wish—”

“But, Mark,” I said, and I could hear my voice tremble, “I’ve never been away from Cornwall before. Penzance is the largest town I’ve ever seen. I—I would not know how to behave in London. I would make mistakes—it’s so many years since I lived at Menherion Castle that I can’t remember all the details of etiquette. All your friends would look down at me—your mother …” I nearly fainted with fright at the thought of Mark’s mother. Words failed me.

“My darling,” said Mark in his gentlest, kindest voice, “simply be yourself and I shall be more than proud to present you in any drawing room in London. If you’re good enough for me you’re good enough for everyone else as far as I’m concerned.”

“But my voice—I don’t speak as a lady should—”

“Your accent’s so pretty! I love to hear you speak!”

“But I’m not educated! I know nothing—”

“You can read and write and that’s all that matters. Too much education makes a woman unfeminine.”

“Yes, but—”

“Listen,” he said, kissing me, “you’ll enjoy London—we can have a box at the theater, dine at some good restaurants, see all the famous sights—”

“But I shall have to meet your mother.”

“Yes, it’ll be tedious for you, I agree, but—”

“Tedious!” I felt faint again.

“She won’t dare to make any unpleasant observations to you while I’m there. Besides, she’s no longer living at the house in Park Lane. She’s bought herself a house near Berkeley Square, so we need only see her once while we’re in London … There’s no one else you need meet—one or two Oxonian friends of mine, perhaps, but that’s all. You won’t be meeting Nigel. He and I are still not on speaking terms.”

The word “London” was still reverberating so loudly in my ears that I did not at first listen to his next words. It came as a shock when I heard him say rapidly: “…and while we’re on the subject of my family I wish to make one point perfectly clear. I never want to discuss my father with you. Is that understood? I never want to hear you speak of him or refer to him in your conversation. He’s dead. He’s gone from your life and he’s gone from mine, and that’s all there is to say. I shall never speak of him myself and if I hear you speaking of him I shall be very angry. Is that clear?”

I was so startled by his vehemence and the rough edge to his voice that I merely said meekly, “Yes, Mark.”

“Good.” He rose to his feet and I rose too so that in a second we were face to face and he was taking me in his arms. We kissed. I had forgotten how weak and dizzy his embrace made me feel. I could hardly stand …

“Oh Mark, Mark …” We could not even separate from each other for long enough to go upstairs to my room. I remember lying on the sofa and then, when the sofa became too cramped for us, on the rug by the hearth.

Later, much later, when we were ourselves again and I was twisting my hair back into place before the looking-glass, he asked me if I had a gown I could wear that evening in Penzance.

‘This evening?” I said stupidly. “Penzance?”

“At the Metropole Hotel,” he said. “I was hoping that tonight at last we could dine together for the first time.”

I said to Griselda, “He wants to marry me.” Griselda snorted.

“He does, Griselda. At Christmas. In London.”

She gaped at me. “Lunnon?”

“He’s going to marry me, Griselda. And I want to marry him. He’s not, as shallow as I thought he was. He keeps his promises—he means what he says, so I can trust him, Griselda, can’t you see? I can trust him and feel secure.”

“And the house? The house thee’s so crazed for? What’s to happen to the house?”

“I’ll lease it to Jared. Mark and I will live at Morvah, and he says he’ll make a little cottage for you, Griselda, a little home all your own! Oh, Griselda, I do love him! I’m not marrying him just because he’s rich and well-to-do! If you knew how I felt—if you could understand—”

“Bewitched thee art. Bewitched and crazed. There’s that boy, no more ’n one-and-twenty—”

“Oh do be quiet, you silly old woman! Really, you make me so angry sometimes I feel quite put out. Quick, get out the ironing board and let me press that pale-green gown Miss Charlotte gave me all those years ago. I think if I lace up my corset a little tighter I can still make the gown meet around the waist.”

The news of my good fortune exploded in Zillan as furiously as fire in a tinderbox. At first my natural reaction was to feel exultant, but gradually my exultation faded and a bitter anger took its place.

“Maybe you’d have married me, Janna,” said Jared, “if I’d been six inches shorter and a whole heap uglier and a rich gentleman instead of a yeoman farmer.”

“Mrs. Roslyn,” said my friend the rector with a tactfulness that could not wholly conceal his concern, “would it perhaps not be more prudent to wait until the spring? I realize that you and Mark both feel there’s no point in waiting since you both know your minds so clearly, but I fear your haste will give rise to the most unfortunate gossip …”

“Gossip,” said Griselda, “gossip, gossip, gossip. They thinks I’m deaf and don’t understand, but I understands right enough. Fast, they says thee art, fast and scheming. And someone’s been talking of thee and Mr. Laurence—Jared, maybe? Or that evil-tongued Joss … Well, says they, well, if she can’t get the father, they says, she gets the son. She gets what she can, they says, and her husband not yet one year in his grave. And there’s Mr. Mark, they says, an innocent boy, they says, no more ’n one-and-twenty, and
clay,
says they,
clay
in the hands of a powerful ambitious older woman. Terrible gossip there be all through Zillan parish and all through Morvah, Zennor and St. Just, and even as far as Penzance, Madron and Marazion—”

“Stop it, Griselda!” I cried. I felt close to tears with horror and resentment. “Stop it!” In a passionate wave of anger I exclaimed, “I’ll be glad to leave here and go to London! I’m sick of all their vicious tongues! I’ll be glad to leave Zillan parish and never speak to anyone in Zillan again!”

I left Roslyn Farm with Mark less than a week later.

She immediately married Henry.

—
The Saxon and Norman Kings,

CHRISTOPHER BROOKE

Henry and Eleanor were quietly married at Poitiers without any pomp and almost surreptitiously…

—Henry II,

JOHN T.APPLEBY

I
SHALL NEVER FORGET
the horrified amazement that assailed me when I first saw the house in Park Lane which Mark’s cousin Robert Yorke had recently devised to him by will. I was already stupefied by the long, train journey from Penzance—I had never been in a train before—and stunned by the enormity of the vast, dirty, crowded, jumbled, confused city, in which I found myself late at night on that December evening, but when I saw the townhouse I was so numb with shock that I forgot even the fearful excitement of the journey and of my first sight of the London lights stretching away on all sides to infinity. I had fancied “Park Lane” to be a pleasant little street in some modest neighborhood not unlike the superior residential areas of Penzance and the house to be a simple dwelling a little smaller than Roslyn Farm but with one or two more servants. Yet to my horror I found myself in one of the grandest streets in London with the magnificence of Hyde Park on the one hand and the splendor of mighty mansions on the other. Speech instantly deserted me. I was so unnerved I could hardly bring myself to descend from the hansom cab.”

A footman came out to meet us. And another. A butler hovered in the hall. There was even a third footman behind him. And the hall! A massive chandelier hung from an ornate ceiling. A beautiful staircase curved elegantly to the floor above. I stared blankly around me. The servants were bowing, the butler was murmuring courtesies. I think I smiled in acknowledgment. I cannot remember. All I do recall is that I thought at once with fright of the patched underwear in my valise, and I began to beseech Mark in a whisper to let me unpack the luggage myself. I had bought one or two items in Penzance before the journey but at his suggestion, had left the essential purchases until reaching London. “But I must do the unpacking!” I urged wretchedly. “My clothes—”

“No.” That was all he said. Merely: “No.”

“But, Mark—”

“My dear, it simply isn’t done. Do as I say.” It was as if he were the one who had the ten years more experience of the world and I were the one scarce out of my teens. So overwhelmed was I by his manner and authority that I did not dare question him further.

Upstairs I found I had been allotted a vast bedchamber with a grandiose modern bed, resplendent furniture and somber paintings on the walls. The carpet was so thick that I could hardly walk upon it. Presently I was informed by the expressionless maid who was unpacking my belongings that there was even a bathroom nearby, and, seizing the chance to escape before she could discover my patched underwear, I hurried down the corridor in search of it. The bath was of white porcelain on little gilt legs and there was a basin with taps. I turned the tap. Water came out. I turned it off again. The water stopped. Becoming bolder, I investigated the room next door and discovered it was, as I had suspected, a water closet, the bowl very fancifully decorated with a royal-blue design on a white background. There had been a water closet at Menherion Castle, but none of the servants had ever been allowed to use it, and besides, the castle plumbing had never been reliable—at least not back in the Seventies when I had lived there. Perhaps matters were so improved now that all the gentry had beautiful bathrooms and perfectly functioning water closets. Or perhaps they were simply more advanced in London than they were in far-off provincial Cornwall.

For a moment I was so absorbed with the novelty of my surroundings that I quite forgot to feel nervous.