Penmarric (42 page)

William did not answer. He wasn’t even looking at me.

“William?”

“Papa’s coming back from Allengate this evening to see us. We’ll know more then.”

Panic swept over me. I took his arm and shook it. “What’s wrong with her? Tell met What is it? What’s the matter with her?”

He looked at me levelly. His eyes were calm but opaque. At last he said in an odd voice, “Papa told me she has tuberculosis.” And then in a tumbling rush, his eyes blind with pain: “I think she’s dying.”

When she died Henry had a splendid tomb made for her before the high altar in the nunnery of Godstow near Oxford.

—King John,

W. L. WARREN

S
HE DIED.

WE WERE WITH HER
at the end. Even Mariana, who had looked forward for months to the grand finale of her first season, abandoned the yachting at Cowes and traveled back to Allengate. It was August. Everyone was at Allengate at the end except Philip, who had left Rugby at half-term, quarreled violently with Papa and caught the train to Cornwall on the morning of his sixteenth birthday.

Papa wrote to him, telling him of Mama’s death and informing him of the funeral arrangements. I saw the letter on the hall chest. It was addressed to Philip Castallack Esq., Roslyn Farm, Zillan, near St.-Just-in-Penwith, Cornwall.

“He’ll never come,” I said to William; “he never cared. He was the coldest, most unfeeling brute I ever met. Mama just wasted her time being good and kind to him because he didn’t care a jot for her. I’m only glad we don’t have to suffer his presence at the funeral.”

The funeral.

I had not been to a funeral before. I had not seen anyone dying before either. I found I was consumed with the most overpowering fear of death and an unbearably painful obsession that God was cruel and unjust.

“There can’t be a God,” I said to William. “Why does Mama have to die when she’s still young? And from tuberculosis, that horrible, distressing disease! Nothing makes sense any more. Nothing.”

But Mama had said to me, “There’s a pattern. Never, never doubt that there’s a pattern. There’s a pattern always. Everywhere. In everyone.”

And at the very end she had said “Be loyal to Papa.”

She died, and the house was still. The flowers drooped in their vases and the petals fell softly to the ground like tears. It rained. That summer had been the finest in living memory but now it rained and went on raining, and the letters began to come and the flowers, so many beautiful brilliant flowers, invaded the house as if to replace the flowers that had faded away. And when the funeral was held at the little church at Allengate, the people came, dozens of people, Papa’s friends from Oxford, servants from the village, her own friends from St. John’s Wood, mourner after mourner, and none of them either knew or cared what wrong she had done because it no longer mattered and now all that was left was the goodness and it was the goodness that people remembered and for which they came so far to grieve.

The Castallacks grieved. Philip—naturally—was absent, but all the others were there. Mariana and Jeanne wept through the entire service and little Elizabeth, who was now eight years old, wept with them. Hugh was white and still; Marcus was ashen, his fingers twisting endlessly at his crumpled handkerchief; William cried. But I could not cry. I was beyond tears. And beside me Papa’s face was lined with grief and his hair was gray and he was old.

It was quiet in the churchyard and very peaceful. The clergyman read aloud from his book and the sun shone again as the coffin was lowered into the grave. He went on reading and I thought: Where is the pattern? Show me the pattern. If a pattern exists let me see it and give me some glimpse of what it all means.

A breeze ran invisible fingers through my hair. I glanced away, unable to watch any longer, and as I looked up I saw Philip crossing the churchyard toward us, a single red rose glowing in his hand.

Afterward Papa left my side and went over to him. I heard him say, “Why didn’t you send me a telegram to let me know you were coming? I would have arranged for you to be met at the station so that you could have been here in time for the service.”

“Would you?” said Philip, insolent as ever in his rudest voice. “I thought you told me when we parted company in June that you would never lift a finger to help me again. You told me never to ask you for anything for the rest of my life.”

Anger swept away my grief in a black ungovernable tide. I wanted to shout at Papa, Tell him to go away! We don’t want him here! Tell him to go back to Cornwall and never bother us again!

But Papa touched Philip on the shoulder and said gently, “My dear Philip, I often say words in anger and regret them later and I’ve no doubt you do too. I’m more pleased than I can say that you made the effort to come back for the funeral. I hope you will at least stay with us for a few days before going back.”

“I’m never staying under your roof again,” said Philip, and with a shock I heard a tremor in his voice. “Never.”

“Please. I won’t try and persuade you to go back to school or leave Cornwall. I simply don’t want us to remain estranged.”

He shook his head. “I want to get back to Zillan to my mother.”

It was then that Papa said, his quiet voice lacerating my aching sense of loss, “How is your mother?”

I turned and ran. I ran back into the church and hid myself in a back pew behind a pillar. Great sobs tore at my throat and shuddered through my body. I cried and cried as if I were a child of five instead of a youth of fifteen; I cried for my mother and I cried for myself, and as I cried the past closed its doors soundlessly behind me and I was left alone in a cold present without even the courage to look ahead into the future.

William found me an hour later.

“We were looking everywhere for you,” he said. “I was getting worried.” He sat down in the pew beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, old fellow,” he said. “Please. You must stop now. You must try and make an effort to be your usual self again. Mama’s gone and nothing’s going to bring her back. Least of all tears.”

“Oh, but …” I could not speak. “What’s to become of us?” I said painfully at last. It was still very hard to speak. I seemed to be capable of using only simple, awkward words. “While Mama was alive everything was always well … but now she’s gone nothing’s … certain … safe.”

“Why, you little ass, don’t be so silly! What do you think’s going to happen? Do you think Papa will summon us to his study, grow a couple of horns, start breathing fire and tell us not to darken his doorstep a day longer? I
am
surprised at you! Why this sudden lack of faith in Papa? Obviously he’ll look after us and take care of us, just as before. Don’t be so ridiculous!”

Papa did summon us to his study to discuss the future, but he waited until September when our grief had become dulled and I was reluctantly beginning to think about returning to school. Allengate had long seemed deserted and forlorn; Mariana, promising tearfully to order a becoming selection of black gowns, had returned to her chaperone in London after the funeral, and Marcus had departed for Cornwall to make the long-postponed visit to his mother; Miss Cartwright the governess had taken Jeanne and Elizabeth to Bournemouth for a month, since Papa felt that a holiday by the seaside would be beneficial to them after so many sad days at home, and Hugh had gone to stay for a week with a school friend of his in Norfolk. It was on the evening of Hugh’s departure, when Papa was finally alone in the house with William and myself, that he asked us to join him in his study after dinner and I knew instinctively that he wanted to discuss the future.

“Well, William,” he began in a friendly voice, “since you’ve said no more to me on the subject I’ve made no arrangements for you to go up to Oxford next month. But I trust you’ve by now decided which profession you wish to adopt. What decision have you reached?”

William went red. I felt sorry for him, for I knew he disliked the studying which adoption of a profession would entail and had no vocation for such a convenient solution as the Army or the Church. It was his misfortune that he had not been born a country squire with a comfortably unearned income awaiting him at the age of twenty-one, but Papa had made it clear to us some time ago that although he intended to leave us legacies in his will we should always expect to have to earn our own living. Mama had also explained that it was natural for Papa to take this attitude since he disapproved of any young man leading an idle life, and since Mama had accepted this attitude as correct I too had accepted it without complaint. But now I found myself becoming angry. Marcus had just left school but no one had mentioned that he must think of earning his living. In fact Marcus seemed to take it for granted that he would spend his twenties enjoying himself without doing a stroke of work. It suddenly seemed grossly unfair to me that William, who was actually Papa’s eldest son, was supposed to fend for himself financially while Marcus was free to do exactly as he pleased without worrying where the next penny was coming from.

“Well, Papa,” said William uncomfortably after an awkward pause, “I’m afraid I’m finding it very difficult to come to a decision about this. The truth is that the only thing I really want to do seems to be out of the question, so I’m rather at a loss to know what I should do instead.”

“I’m very much in favor of people doing what they really want to do,” said Papa. “What is it you have in mind?”

“Well … to be honest, I would like to manage an estate and spend most of my time out of doors in the country, but I know a bailiff is a very lower-class occupation and I couldn’t expect you to approve of it.”

Papa looked surprisingly interested. “Estate management is a skilled job,” he said agreeably enough. “It’s not a career I would have preferred you to choose, certainly, but if you really want to pursue this, William, then I shan’t stop you—in fact it’s possible I may even be able to give you a start and see that you have a training on a large estate.”

William brightened and leaned forward in his chair. “That’s very good of you, Papa! Did you … was there any particular estate you had in mind?”

Papa took a cigar from the box on his desk. I stiffened instinctively, then forced myself to relax. Even after seven years Papa’s cigars would remind me of that dining room at Brighton.

“Yes,” said Papa, making a great business of lighting his cigar. “Yes, as a matter of fact I did have a certain estate in mind.”

I knew then. I stared at him but he did not look at me; he was too busy shaking out the match, and suddenly I was back at Brighton and Papa was saying through a cloud of cigar smoke, “I’m afraid I have something to say which should have been said a very long time ago.”

“Which estate is that, sir?” said William innocently.

“Penmarric,” said Papa.

There was a silence. I clenched my fists and looked at the carpet and gritted my teeth so that I should not speak.

Papa began to explain. He said he had decided to sever his ties with Oxford for the time being and return to Penmarric to work on a book. He was always able to write well in Cornwall, and besides Penmarric was his home and he was beginning to miss it. As for Allengate, he had decided to sell it. He was sure we understood why. The house was so full of memories for him—for all of us—of Rose ill … suffering … dying … He did not want to live here any more. Besides, he was sure we would like Cornwall. We had both been there, and although we might find the Cornish Tin Coast strange at first he felt certain we would soon settle down—

“I’m not going there,” I said violently. “I’m not going to Penmarric. I absolutely refuse. I’ve no intention of being publicly humiliated.”

“We can maintain the fiction that I’m your guardian.”

 Yes—the fiction no one believes!”

“Adrian, what on earth does it matter what a few village gossips think? You must learn not to be so sensitive! Try to take a mature, sensible attitude—as I’m sure William will—”

“William!” I exploded. “William will just take the line of least resistance as usual, but I’m not like that! I stand up for what I believe in and—shut up!” I hissed at William, who had managed to kick me on the foot—“and I don’t think it’s right or just for you to drag us back to Cornwall and parade us as your … your …”

“I’m merely trying to do my best for you.”

“You’re not! You’re discriminating against us—just as you discriminate against William when you say he has to earn his living while we all know Marcus can be a gentleman of leisure for as long as he likes! It’s unfair! You treated Mama as if she were your wife—you should treat us as if we were your legitimate sons!”

“I would hardly have suggested you come to Penmarric unless I had wanted to treat you as my legitimate sons. But I can only treat you as legitimate up to a certain point, and beyond that point I cannot go if I’m to remain fair to my legitimate children. Now don’t interrupt me or I swear I’ll lose my temper too and then we’ll both be sorry! You’re nearly sixteen years old and it’s high time you began to view this situation realistically. Your mother was not my wife. It was a great pity she wasn’t, but there it is. One can’t undo the past. One must merely learn to live with it. She was my mistress. You know that and I know that and nothing we say is going to make that fact otherwise. I loved her, I treated her as my wife, I would have married her if I’d been free to do so, but she was my mistress. You are my illegitimate sons. You must face that. Illegitimacy is unfortunate, I admit, but it needn’t in the long run prove to be a handicap. You’ve both been given a decent education and upbringing. If you do well in your chosen professions and live your lives as satisfactorily as possible I doubt if anyone will ever even question your parentage.”

“But—”

“What I’m saying is this: Don’t waste your time pretending you’re not illegitimate and reading insults into every nuance of my behavior toward you. Face your illegitimacy, see it for what it is—a handicap which need not ultimately affect you at all—and make up your mind to live with it as best as you can.”