Penmarric (41 page)

“That will do, Rose,” said Papa abruptly and she was silent.

Later Marcus said to Philip, “I’ve been talking this over with William. I don’t think Papa’s going to let Mama see us for a long time, and I don’t think the judge will change the order for a long time either. I know Papa talks about it being a temporary measure, but how temporary is temporary? I don’t think he wants us to see her till we’re grown up.”

“The order can’t last forever,” said Philip. “I’ll make him tell me when it stops.”

But Papa’s answer was unsatisfactory. He told Philip that although the judge might reconsider the order if he felt the circumstances warranted it, he would always, in amending or confirming his earlier decision, be guided by what he felt were the best interests of each child. In Papa’s opinion the judge was unlikely to change the order as it affected Philip until Philip himself was at least sixteen years old, and there was no question of the order expiring conveniently at an earlier date.

“I’ll show him!” muttered. Philip afterward, “I’ll show him! When I’m sixteen I’m off. I’ll be big enough then to fight anyone, even a judge. As soon as I’m sixteen I’ll leave school and go and live with Mama at the farm and Papa can go to the devil for all I care.”

And he drew up a five-year calendar, hung it on the wall at the foot of his bed and meticulously began to cross off the days.

There was something about this merciless attention to passing time that chilled me. I would look at the last month, June 1911, and as I wondered what would have happened by then I could feel uneasiness grip me like a vise. I tried to imagine what I would be like at fifteen and a half and decided that I did not like the idea of growing up at all.

“If only the years would pass more quickly!” Philip would say, beside himself with impatience. “If only I were a man!”

As if in answer to his wishes he began to grow. By the time he was thirteen he was unusually big for his age. At fourteen hiş voice had broken and he was six feet tall. At fifteen he could have passed for a young man of twenty. Awkwardness, lankiness, spots, pimples, shyness—all the banes of adolescence—passed him by and left him unmarked. Even I, who hated him, had to admit he was the most striking youth I had ever seen. Marcus, who would normally have appeared an exceptionally prepossessing young man as well, was over-shadowed by Philip’s enormous golden splendor, and even William, who was reasonably good-looking, seemed nondescript in contrast.

To my disgust I became plainer and plainer. For a long time I would not grow and remained humiliatingly short. Then when I did grow I grew so fast that I became painfully thin.

“Like a skeleton,” said Hugh with interest. He also was very small, so my sudden growth was encouraging to him.

None of my clothes fitted me. My feet became too big and whenever I tried to fold myself neatly into an armchair my limbs seemed to sprawl uncontrollably in all directions. My voice broke in the worst possible way and squeaked ignominiously whenever it was vitally important for me to maintain a deep pitch. My skin troubled me. Every aspect of puberty was an unspeakable embarrassment. I was miserable.

“Don’t worry,” said William encouragingly. “It doesn’t last forever. You’ll probably turn out presentable enough in the end.”

But I could not believe him and instead wasted many futile minutes envying the Castallacks their good looks. Only Elizabeth was fat and plain, although no one knew whether the baby Jan-Yves was ugly or not. Jan-Yves had not been summoned to Allengate. Mrs. Castallack had left him behind at Penmarric when she had returned to her farmhouse and he was being brought up there by a nanny. I thought this was unexpectedly correct of Mrs. Castallack, since according to the judge’s order she was not allowed to see or bring up any of her sons, but Mariana and Marcus thought it was odd and would discuss the subject from time to time.

“Since Papa doesn’t want it at Allengate you’d think that Mama might like to keep it at the farm,” Marcus said.

“Since Papa doesn’t want it and Mama won’t live with it” said Mariana, “it must be odd.”

“An imbecile, you mean?”

“Or else it’s a creature so ugly no one can bear to look at it.” Mariana shivered daintily at the thought and Marcus looked solemn.

In fact every year Papa said he must go down to Cornwall to pay a visit to his estate—and to his youngest child—but somehow he never managed to make the final arrangements for the long journey to the west country. It was really amazing how something always turned up at the last minute to detain him in Oxfordshire, and then talk of a visit to Penmarric would be postponed until the end of the next academic year.

Mrs. Castallack did not visit Allengate again but instead requested that she visit the girls at the townhouse. Papa refused. Mrs. Castallack then went to the judge, who told Papa that the girls should be allowed to go away with their mother for two weeks to a suitable place. Mrs. Castallack took them to Exmouth, but the visit was not a success because Elizabeth cried all the time for Mama, and Mariana sulked because she had wanted to stay at the townhouse and see the London shops. Even Jeanne, who had been looking forward to visiting the seaside with her mother, seemed glad to be back in Allengate again, and after this unfortunate episode Mrs. Castallack appeared to withdraw more completely into Cornwall and seemed unable to face the annual tussle with Papa about where and when she could see her daughters.

Later that year Papa’s mother died, but since William and I had not met her the news of her death hardly affected us. Papa even told us it was not necessary for us to attend the funeral in spite of the fact that she had been our grandmother. However, all the Castallacks except for Elizabeth were dressed in black and made to travel to London with Papa, for the service. None of them wanted to go.

“I was terrified of her,” confessed Marcus. “When she came to Penmarric after Uncle Nigel died I thought she was a witch. I was frightened to death.”

“So was I,” agreed Mariana; “She was horrible—so loud and noisy. She shouted all the time.”

“Thank goodness
we
don’t have to go to the funeral!” I said to William, but somehow as I watched them go away with Papa in the carriage to catch the train to London I was aware of a mysterious feeling of exclusion.

The years that followed were comparatively uneventful. I hated my first year at Winchester, but then became accustomed to life at a public school and drowned my miseries by throwing myself wholeheartedly into my work. I was given excellent reports. Papa was pleased with me and I felt satisfied that in this field at least I outshone the Castallacks. Marcus’ scholastic ability was unexceptional and in some subjects he was even below average. Philip did well when he felt like it but repeatedly failed to shine at any of the arts; his strong points were mathematics and science, neither of which interested me in the least. Hugh, judging from his accounts of school life, seldom bothered to work but—amazingly—never failed a single examination.

There was something a little mysterious about Hugh. I often had the feeling he was much cleverer than most of us supposed.

Apart from William and I, who were both at Winchester, all the others were at different public schools. Papa said this eliminated the risk of one brother outshining another in the close-knit community life and the development of unnecessary jealousies, so after Marcus went to Eton, Philip was sent to Rugby and Hugh to Harrow. As for the girls, they had a governess, a Miss Cartwright, but at sixteen Mariana was sent abroad to a finishing school in Geneva and returned after six months with a wardrobe of French clothes, a grownup hair style and a conversation consisting entirely of her forthcoming debut in London and all the eligible men she would enslave during the course of the Season.

“Mariana dearest,” said Mama, “you must try to converse on other subjects or people will think you very vain, always talking about yourself. Gentlemen are not attracted to girls who are too self-centered.”

But Mariana was too excited about the coming Season to take much notice. A dowager friend of Papa’s mother was going to present her and act as her chaperone. Papa spent much time at his townhouse in London, and it was arranged that a ball would be given there for Mariana at the end of May. Philip, Hugh and I would be away at school and were anyway considered too young to dance with the girls who were to be present—“Thank God!” said Philip, who hated dancing—but Jeanne and Elizabeth were to dress up in their party frocks and watch with Miss Cartwright for an hour at the beginning. Marcus, who was eighteen and in his last year at Eton, was going to get special leave to come down to London for the occasion, and William, now almost twenty, would also be there. After leaving Winchester and spending several months on the continent to “broaden his outlook”, he was toying with the idea of going up to Oxford in the autumn of 1911. I did not think he would go. He disliked studying and was secretly pining to lead an outdoor life pursuing the traditional occupations of hunting, shooting and fishing. However, that summer he had nothing to do but enjoy the London Season and was already looking forward with pleasurable anticipation to all the pretty girls he would meet.

Girls embarrassed me. I did not know what to say to them and decided that most of them were too empty-headed to merit my attention. Certainly Mariana, who was still talking nonstop about her wretched presentation to the King and Queen and her equally wretched ball, seemed one of the most empty-headed girls I had ever met.

“Oh, Aunt Rose!” she cried. “You will come to the ball, won’t you? Please say you’ll come! I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t!”

But Mama was unwell with an infection and her health did not permit her to go to London.

For a time I wondered if Mrs. Castallack would come to her daughter’s coming-out ball, but this possibility was never mentioned and I suspected Mariana was secretly glad to be spared the presence of a former farmer’s wife at such a select occasion. Certainly she never once suggested to Papa that her mother should be present.

In fact by this time the Castallacks’ attitude toward their mother was uneasily ambivalent. Marcus had first sought permission to visit her on his own when he was sixteen, but after Papa had promised him that once he was no longer a schoolboy he could visit his mother whenever he pleased, Marcus had agreed to wait another two years until the end of his final term at Eton. It occurred to me then that although Marcus was genuinely anxious to visit his mother he was also nervous about the prospect of seeing her again after such a long absence and was much more easily persuaded to delay his reunion than he should have been. I noticed too that apart from Philip, who still threatened to leave school on his sixteenth birthday and fight anyone who tried to stop him, the others were by no means overcome with the urge to see their mother again without delay. “I wish I could run away with you to Cornwall, Philip,” said Hugh, but when Philip started to encourage him Hugh said perhaps he ought to wait until he too was sixteen. “How lovely it will be to see Mama again one day!” Jeanne would sigh occasionally, but meanwhile she was more than content to live at Allengate with Mama. So was Mariana. And as for Elizabeth, it was hard for her to remember that she had not always lived in Oxfordshire and that Mama was not her own mother after all.

“Pretty odd sort of mother you’ve got,” I could not help commenting after Mariana had remarked that since her mother had not bothered to see her for years one could hardly expect her to bother to come to the ball—even if she were invited. “Well, I suppose it takes all sorts to make a world.”

Of course Philip had to be near enough to overhear me and make a fuss. “You’re bloody well right it does!” he yelled at me. “But at least my mother doesn’t sleep with a man who isn’t her husband!”

“Why you—”

William and Marcus came into the room just in time to drag us apart.

“My God,” said Philip, white with rage. “I can’t wait to get out of this bloody house! Thank God I’ll be sixteen in June. I’ve had enough of living with a couple of bastards who ought to have been shoved into an orphanage as soon as they were born instead of being brought up to think they’re as good as I am! Just you wait. If you ever try to set foot in any house of mine I’ll kick you right out into the gutter where you belong!”

“Oh God,” I said with a calculated yawn, “why on earth would we try to set foot in any beastly house of yours? That would be the one dwelling on earth which I at any rate would avoid like the plague.”

He spat on the floor at my feet and walked out of the room. The door slammed with a thunderous bang behind him.

“Adrian Parrish,” said William as he and Marcus regarded me wearily, “will you ever, ever learn any sense?”

“Why blame me?” I shouted, beside myself with fury. “It was his fault! He slighted my mother and I’ll not stand by and see her insulted! You may think yourself sensible to keep quiet, William, but you’re not—you’re weak! What’s the good of having principles if you’re not prepared to fight for them?”

And as they looked at me in blank astonishment, I yelled, “Oh, go to hell, both of you!” and rushed headlong out of the room in a rage.

Mama could not seem to rid herself of her infection. After Mariana’s ball, which all the society papers called “a brilliant occasion,” Jeanne and Elizabeth stayed on with Miss Cartwright in London, and Papa, leaving Mariana in the care of her chaperone, returned alone to Allengate.

Toward the end of term he wrote me a short note to tell me to go to the townhouse when I left Winchester for the holidays; Mama was still unwell and the doctors had advised that no children or young persons should go to Allengate while there was a risk of infection.

William met me at Waterloo. He had been in London at the townhouse throughout the Season and so had no firsthand news from Allengate.

“How’s Mama?” I said anxiously.

“I don’t think she’s very well. Papa’s hoping she’ll get a little better so that he can take her abroad to Switzerland.”

“Oh?” A faint dread shadowed my mind and made my heart beat faster. “It’s nothing serious, is it, William? I mean … she’s on the road to recovery, isn’t she?”