Penmarric (27 page)

The long dreary winter months crawled past. My housekeeper managed domestic affairs so admirably that there was little for me to do and presently my condition precluded me from fulfilling the majority of my parish duties. I visited the nursery and tried to make plans for the new baby, but for some reason I felt apathetic and could not summon the degree of interest needed to initiate the preparations.

Spring arrived, summer followed and at last it was time for the baby to arrive. He was born on the eighteenth of June and screamed with a vigor and determination that deafened us all. He stopped screaming when he was placed, in my arms, and then a great stillness descended on his minute crumpled face, and when he opened his eyes to look at me for the first time he seemed to survey me for a long while as if my presence had some mysterious significance for him.

I touched his hand gently with my thumb and forefinger, and from that moment on there was a bond between us, intangible, invisible but vitally alive.

I smiled.

Since Mark had chosen Marcus’ name he told me I might choose the name for this third son of ours, so I called the new baby Philip for no reason save that it had always been my favorite name.

I loved all my children but some I did love better than others. Mariana once said to me years later in a fit of temper, “You only cared about the boys! It was only the boys who ever meant anything to you!” and although I denied it hotly it was true that my sons did interest me more than my daughters. For a long while Stephen, or rather Stephen’s memory, remained closest to my heart, but that was probably because he was the first-born and his death had made his small personality especially poignant. Marcus was engagingly attractive with his blue eyes and shaggy dark hair; he had a winning air and I thought would grow very charming in later life, but he resembled me little; I could see myself neither in him nor in Mariana, and I had glimpsed only the faintest of likenesses between myself and Stephen, who had died before any strong resemblance could become pronounced. But from the start Philip was
my
son. He was fair, as I was, with wide, cool blue eyes and light thick hair. From an early age he was obviously ten times as clever as Marcus and much quicker in learning new things.

I doted on him. Marcus became jealous. “Take the baby away,” he ordered Nanny. “Take it away. Don’t want it.”

“Run off and play with Mariana, Marcus,” I said, irritated, but he clung to my skirts and would not let go.

“You spoil that baby, Janna,” said Mark disapprovingly, coming home one day from Penzance to find me in the nursery as usual with Philip. “He’ll take advantage of you later on.”

“No, he won’t,” I said “and I don’t spoil him.”

But I did.

Nanny became cross. “Excuse me, Mrs. Castallack,” she said firmly one day. “Pardon me, madam, but how can I train Master Philip to be obedient and good when you never refuse him anything? He’s growing very willful and thinks he needs only scream for something to get it. It’s not right, madam, if you don’t mind me saying so. When I was with the de Clancy family in Budleigh Salterton …”

And I was regaled with tales from Nancy’s past of horrible children who had been idolized by doting parents.

I resolved I would have to be more sensible.

I think part of my absorption in the children was because of the lack in my relationship with Mark. I had imagined things would right themselves after Philip’s birth and had resolved to try not to have any more children for at least two years so that I could give Mark my full attention, but the constraint between us persisted. I had made up my mind to go abroad if he wished, but now he did not offer to take me. He was deeply involved with his historical writings and had completed a second thesis on King John which he thought would further his career as a historian, and now when he spoke of going away it was not to the Continent but to Oxford to work at the Bodleian Library. Soon we had slipped into our old habit of rarely meeting except at mealtimes, and my dismay deepened when he again increased his visits to Penzance. He saw Michael Vincent two or three times a week now, and although I always waited up for him on those evenings he spent away from home he did not once come to my room on his return but slept in his dressing room across the passage.

In an effort both to please him and to draw us closer together I said at last, “Mark, why don’t you invite your friends here instead of always visiting them in Penzance? They must think us very inhospitable.”

“Oh,” he said, “but I know you don’t enjoy entertaining.”

“I think I would enjoy it more now that I’m accustomed to life at Penmarric,” I said, trying to convince myself as well as him that this was true, and soon I was no longer able to escape from the ordeal of giving dinner parties and Mark was once more talking of giving a ball after Christmas. The pace of life began to quicken, our social activities increased, and with my confinement now behind me I was drawn more into parish life and found myself very busy and occupied.

But despite this I scarcely saw Mark at all. I tried not to worry, tried not to think of those ten years that separated us, tried not to think of my Tomorrow, that time waiting for me in the future when I would be middle-aged and Mark still in his prime. But I went on thinking of those ten years until finally came the moment when I could bear thinking of them no longer. One night when Mark came home late from Penzance I went to his dressing room to meet him and asked unsteadily if I had offended or displeased him in some way.

“Of course not!” He looked uncomfortable.

“Then why—lately—”

“The fault is mine,” he said at once, “not yours. I’ve been tired and preoccupied lately.” And the next day he did make a great effort to please me by lunching with me and the children in the nursery and by dining with me in the evening; he was courteous and charming, and for the first time for several weeks I forgot my depression entirely and was conscious only of happiness.

My happiness lasted five days. Then Mark rode into Penzance again for the day and that same afternoon I was summoned to the nursery, where Marcus lay ill with a high fever.

I was frantic with anxiety. Nanny said to me, “I’m sure it’s nothing serious, madam. Young children do run high temperatures, but I think the doctor should be called just to be on the safe side.” I sent at once for Dr. Salter and moved restlessly up and down the room as I waited for his arrival. I was thinking of Stephen, of course, remembering that dreadful silent nursery and his small waxen face in the cradle. I tried not to remember but I could not help myself. I began to picture Marcus dead, Philip falling ill, all my children dying …

I began to panic. Even after the doctor had arrived and diagnosed a moderate case of measles I could still hardly contain my fear and dread, and finally by the middle of the afternoon I felt so full of longing for Mark to be with me and soothe me with comforting words that I became desperate. Leaving the nursery, I fetched my hat and coat and ordered the carriage to the door.

“Drive me to Mr. Michael Vincent’s residence in Penzance,” I said to the coachman. By the time I arrived at the house Michael would be home from the office and Mark would be arriving from Carnforth Hall for dinner—or if they were both to dine at the Hall it would be an easy matter for me to drive there to find them.

The carriage rolled down the drive toward the moors.

It was half past six when I reached the pleasant residential district of Penzance where Michael had recently acquired a house. His housekeeper showed me into the drawing room and presently Michael himself emerged from the adjacent library.

He looked at me in amazement. “Janna!” he exclaimed, as if I were an apparition. “What are you doing in Penzance?” Recovering himself quickly, he remembered his manners and added, “I’m sorry—do sit down.”

He was a typical bachelor, serious, plain and shy with the opposite sex; certainly whatever virtues he possessed as Mark’s lawyer and friend he was no match for a woman who was as desperate and panic-stricken as I was that evening. It took me no more than five minutes to wring from him the fact that not only was he expecting to dine alone that evening but that, contrary to what I had been led to suppose, he had seen very little of Mark for some weeks. To make matters still worse I learned Mark could not be dining at Carnforth Hall that evening either since his contemporaries there, Mr. Justin and Miss Judith, were spending the week with the Trehearnes at Helston.

At last I managed to say after a long terrible silence, “Then where is he?”

And Michael did not answer.

“Please,” I said, the panic rising within me in a huge silent tide, “if you know, please, please tell me! It’s so urgent—surely you can understand—”

“Yes,” said Michael suddenly; “of course I understand. Listen, I think I know where I can find Mark. If you’d care to wait here—”

“No,” said my voice. “Tell me where he is.”

“He may not be there.”

“Tell me anyway. I don’t want to waste time while I wait for you to go there and back to find out whether he’s there or not. Tell me where he is.”

“Janna, forgive me, but what you ask is out of the question. I … Mark and I quarreled violently once because he considered—rightly—that I had abused his confidence. I could not possibly—a second time—”

“Very well—tell me nothing! But once: you leave this house to fetch him you can’t stop me following you to see where you go! And you won’t stop me from telling Mark later that you betrayed his confidence anyway!”

“But …” He was so horrified he could hardly speak. “But …”

“Give me the address,” I said, “and I’ll tell Mark I followed you there without you knowing it and that you were not to blame.”

“Janna, please—I beg of you, be reasonable—forgive me, but I simply cannot—”

I lost my temper. All the strain and worry over Marcus merged with this new terrible shock that Mark had deceived me so that I lost my grip on my self-control. “No, I won’t forgive you!” I blazed. “If Marcus dies without either of his parents beside him just because you won’t tell me where Mark is—”

“But—”

“Oh, damn you!” I stormed at him. “Curse you for a stubborn oaf and a fool! What do I care if Mark’s amusing himself with some poor cheap woman down by the harbor? Give me her address, for the love of God, and let me go there and talk to him! This is an emergency, Michael—an emergency, can’t you understand? You have a moral duty to tell me where Mark is so that I can find him as quickly as possible!”

“But it’s a confidential matter—you cannot expect me to—”

“Oh, for God’s sake! I’ll take full responsibility. I swear it—full, total, absolute responsibility—is that what you want to hear? I’ll see Mark doesn’t blame you for anything. But if you don’t tell me where he is I’ll—I’ll—”

“Wait.” He went to his desk as if seizing any excuse he could find to postpone the moment of enlightening me and began to turn the pages of an address book with trembling fingers. As I watched he reached the letter P. “I think it’s possible he may be visiting an acquaintance of mine,” he said in a flat voice, “the—the widow of one of my clients… Her name is Mrs. Rose Parrish. She lives at number twelve, Landeryon Avenue, which is about half a mile from here, the second turning on the left off the main road to Land’s End.”

“Thank you,” I said and left him.

I went out to the carriage. “Twelve, Landeryon Avenue, Crowlas,” I said to the coachman. “The second turning on the left off the main road to Land’s End.”

“Yes, m’m.” He helped me into the carriage and closed the door.

I was alone.

I could not think clearly. I was dimly aware of pain but most of all of a searing conviction that life had again treated me unfairly. I had not intended to become pregnant with Philip; I had not intended to give Mark a rebuff. My pregnancy had been an accident, as much Mark’s fault as mine, yet afterward he had used it as an excuse for infidelity with some wretched, common, miserable woman. I could visualize her all too plainly. Mrs. Rose Parrish, an ex-actress perhaps, with a little money, enough to afford a house in some drab lower-class neighborhood. She would be about forty, blowsily attractive with a witty tongue; Mark always preferred women older than himself.

The pain of discovery had vanished, drowned in the rising tide of my anger. I was still furiously planning what I would say when I saw him when the carriage stopped and the coachman called out, “Number twelve, m’m,” as he scrambled down to help me dismount.

I glanced around feverishly. I was in a quiet middle-class neighborhood, not unlike the road where Michael lived. The house marked twelve was medium-sized and stood in a pretty garden of about one acre with bushes, shrubs, lawns and wide flowerbeds.

Mrs. Parrish obviously had enough money for a gardener.

I wasted no time staring, but walked up the path to the front door and rang the bell.

A light in the hall was turned higher. I felt a void below my heart, a tightness in my throat, but it was a maid who opened the door, a, young girl neatly dressed in uniform, her cap and apron immaculately starched.

I did not give my name but merely told her in my most imperious manner that I must see Mrs. Parrish at once. The parlor-maid did not argue with me; I was shown through a small hall into a simply but tastefully furbished reception room, and as she lit the gas I saw there were flowers everywhere, bowls of delicately scented blooms on the window sill and the mantelshelf and the two side tables, while throughout the room was an air of elegance and refinement.

As soon as the maid had gone I walked to the bookcase and looked at the books. There were three volumes on the history of art, a picture book of the works of the Italian masters, an informative, manual on water-color painting and a companion on sketching. There was another book called
Art Treasures of the National Gallery
and beside it a volume called
A Guide to Opera.
On the shelf below stood a biography of Mozart and a twin volume on Beethoven. I took one of the books out of the case and opened it. The pages were cut. I put it; back again and as I turned away all I could think was: I should have let Michael come. I should have stayed at his house and waited.