Penmarric (5 page)

“Oh, Giles, Giles …”

“In the end you even called your son a bastard in an attempt to ensure your victory, did you not? You deliberately perverted the truth for your own ends.”

“No! I never lie!”

“You have lived a lie, Maud. For nearly seventeen years, ever since your father died and you began the litigation, you have lived with your lies. Don’t attempt to tell me now that you never lie.”

“But Mark is your son! I am certain—convinced—”

“How can you be either certain or convinced when you have no proof?”

“But—”

“The plain truth of the matter is that you’re not certain who his father is, so why twist the truth by assuming a certainty you don’t possess?”

“But, Giles, I thought if I were to tell you—”

“Indeed why should you not tell me when you knew you had nothing to lose by such an admission? Yes, I can see why you told me. But why did you have to tell the boy? I could see at once that he had been told. That was a cruel, wicked thing to do, Maud. You had no right to use the boy as a pawn in our own private and personal feud.”

There was a knock on the door and the nurse entered the room. “You rang, Mr. Penmar?”

“Yes, take me back to my room. And tell Medlyn to show the visitors to the door.”

“Giles …”

“There is nothing more to be said, Maud. I bear you no grudge. I simply have nothing else to say. Goodbye, young man. I wish you well and only regret I shall not have the chance to know you better.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Maud.”

But my mother could not answer. As the wheels of the invalid carriage trickled into the distance across the hall, she covered her face with her hands and sank down upon the nearest chair.

I closed the door. We were alone.

At last she said, not looking at me, “I must be sensible. Naturally I feel upset, Giles ill, so obviously dying, the house … not as I remember it. But …” She hesitated before adding with her old arrogant determination, “But we can transform the house, can’t we? A few repairs, a little redecoration here and there, new furniture … It could soon be as splendid as it was in my father’s day. I could have the Tower Room, that magnificent Tower Room which overlooks the sea …”

The moment of revenge had arrived. I stood motionless on that worn Indian carpet and looked her straight in the eyes and said, “No, Mama.”

She stared at me. She did not understand. “But surely I can at least choose my own rooms! I must insist, Mark, that when I’m living here—”

“You won’t be living here, Mama.”

She continued to stare at me. And as I saw the comprehension creep into her eyes, the understanding of the enormity of my revenge, I wondered why I felt no satisfaction in my hour of triumph but only a bleak emotional emptiness that no amount of revenge could ever fill.

“You always said you wanted the house for me,” I heard myself say, and my voice was as calm as if I neither loved nor hated her but was merely indifferent to her presence beside me in that dark depressing house. “Before long I shall have it and your dearest wish will be realized. But if you think we could ever live together in amity beneath one roof, I fear you’re very much mistaken. I intend to be my own master, not a pale echo of your wishes like poor Cousin Robert. I’ve been at your beck and call for too long already.”

She was so angry by this time that she could not speak but merely stood trembling with rage. Then without warning her rage dissolved into sobs and she began to plead with me. “Mark, please … I cant bear you to be unkind too … Please … I love you … Let me stay … don’t turn me away …”

And suddenly I longed for her to stay, longed to give her all she wanted, longed for her gratitude and pride and affection. I was almost afraid to speak for fear I would betray how close I was to an irrational and sentimental
volte-face.
But I spoke. I said, giving her a dose of her own callousness, “My mind’s made up and nothing can change it. I’m sorry.”

She started to shout at me but I took no notice. I merely suggested we should leave the house without further delay, and when we reached the carriage I told the coachman to return to Penzance via Morvah.

“Morvah?” said my mother. “Morvah? Why Morvah?”

“My father is there visiting property of his and I intend to stay with him for a few days. Cousin Robert will look after you when you reach Penzance; there’s no need for me to escort you back to London.”

“But—”

“I want to see my father.”

“But why choose this time to see him?” She was half furious, half despairing. “I need you more than he does!”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But I need him more than I need you.”

She did not answer. Perhaps she had at last realized that she possessed no answer to offer me. She cried all the way to Morvah. but when the carriage halted by the hamlet’s little church her pride returned to her and she averted her face when I tried to kiss her goodbye.

“I’ll call on you when I’m next in London, Mama,” I said after a moment. “I wish you a safe journey.”

“Pray don’t bother to call,” she said icily, and then suddenly she was crying again, clinging to me and begging me to stay with her because after all I was her son, was I not, and I did owe her something.

“I’m not your only son,” I said. “There’s Nigel.”

“Oh yes,” she said emptily. “Nigel. I was very ill when he was born. I nearly died. I’m afraid I never cared for him greatly after I recovered.”

“He would visit you if you were to invite him.” I jumped down from the carriage and told the coachman to drive on. “Goodbye, Mama.”

She did not answer. The carriage rolled slowly away along the road which led south on to the moors, and I watched it until it had slowly surmounted the ridge and crawled out of sight. After that, still feeling numb with the emotional exhaustion of the scene at Penmarric, I asked directions from a passing yokel and five minutes later I was half running, half walking down the track to Deveral Farm.

I was shocked to see the house my father had decided to use as a summer residence. I had, it was true, known that the property was described as a farm, but I had thought that the word must be an obsolete description and that the house would be a small country mansion with perhaps a humble farm nearby to furnish it with essential food supplies. When I left the Penzance road and turned down the lane toward the cluster of graystone buildings visible quarter of a mile away I was puzzled by their rustic aspect, but I merely thought that the outbuildings of the farm hid the mansion from view. It was not until I reached the farmyard that I made the discovery.

There was no mansion.

There was not even a farm, for the outbuildings were disused and the barn was in a bad state of repair. All the estate consisted of was an old farmhouse, four-square and ugly, which could not possibly have contained more than ten rooms. I cast a sharp glance over the exterior for pipes which would hint at interior sanitation, but there was none; a water butt caught rainwater from the gutters but that was all. Crossing the overgrown, weed-strewn patch of garden at the side of the house, I reached the front door and, hardly believing that my father could have chosen to live in such a place, rapped on the panels.

I was admitted by a gray-haired Cornish woman, humbly dressed but respectable, who showed me into the “parlor,” a dingy room that possessed plain furniture and an air of being permanently unused. I began to wonder if my father had taken leave of his senses. I thought of Gweekellis Manor, aged and beautiful, its mellow façade, its splendidly vaulted hall, its sunken garden still recognizable as a medieval moat; I thought of the woods which stretched from the lawns to the estuary, the peace and tranquillity of the South Cornish countryside. My father had belonged there so absolutely that I could not imagine him living anywhere else, least of all amidst this savage landscape of the Cornish Tin Coast in a humble working-class farmhouse. I was just wondering if I should be bold enough to inquire directly into his motives when the door opened and he came into the room.

“Mark!” he exclaimed. “What a pleasant surprise! How are you?” And he took me in his arms and embraced me. He must have been surprised when he tried to disentangle himself and found me still clinging to him, but he smiled and patted my shoulder and said kindly, “Come into my study and I’ll ask my housekeeper Mrs. Mannack, to bring us some tea.”

I looked at him, at his familiar face that I knew and loved so well, and suddenly I saw him as if through the eyes of a stranger, saw his candid blue eyes and his sensitive mouth and the fine bone structure of his face, saw his thin, immensely tall frame and his gray-brown receding hair and his long-fingered scholar’s hands. I thought of my mother’s rapid, uneven words in that park in London but even as grief gripped me like a vise my voice said clear and untroubled, “It seems strange to see you in such humble surroundings, sir! I hadn’t realized your property here was so modest. Surely by this time you must be missing Gweekellis Manor and feeling anxious to return?”

“I can understand your surprise …” He led the way into his study. As I followed him inside I recognized his favorite books, his inkstand, even his favorite pipe; a copy of
The Times
lay tossed upon the window seat, and beyond the window was a spectacular view of Carn Kenidjack and the sea. “The change of scenery has helped my writing,” he was saying apologetically, as if he knew his decision to spend time at the farm was eccentric, but the next moment the note of apology was replaced by enthusiasm. “And what scenery it is! I’ve become fascinated by the views across the moors to the sea on the one hand and across the moors to the ridge on the other—the stark ugliness of the mines somehow only emphasizes the austere beauty of the parishes … Yes, Mrs. Mannack, we will have tea, if you please, and some of those excellent wine biscuits, if you have any left … Sit down, Mark. Where was I? Ah yes, the parishes. Historically this is a most interesting area. There’s an ancient hill fort on the summit of the ridge behind the house—at least two thousand years old, I should think—Chûn Castle, it’s called, Chûn after the Cornish ‘Chy-An-Woon,’ meaning ‘House on the Down,’ and nearby is a quoit of the same name…”

It was not until the housekeeper had brought tea to us that he remembered to ask me why I should be in Cornwall when I was supposed to be relaxing in London after my hard work at Oxford.

“I was visiting Penmarric with my mother,” I said.

“I see.” He looked away. “Let me show you the postcard I received from Nigel this morning from Florence—”

“Papa …”

“Yes?”

“I went to Penmarric because Giles Penmar asked to see me. Now that his only son is dead he has decided to make me his heir. Penmarric will be mine when he dies.”

There was a silence. He did not answer but I saw his hand tremble as he pushed the tobacco into his pipe. I said unsteadily, “I’ll refuse it, if you prefer. Your wishes mean more to me than my mother’s.”

“My dear Mark, don’t be so foolish!” he said at once; “Of course you must accept the situation. You have every right to inherit Penmarric by virtue of your mother’s claims, and if I’ve always seemed reluctant to discuss either your mother or her inheritance with you it’s only because I find it painful to speak of your mother, who brought me so much unhappiness, and repugnant to speak of her sordid quarrels with Giles Penmar. I also felt guilty because I felt I was failing in my parental duty by allowing you to see her and become involved in her quarrels, but what else could I have done? It takes a hard man to keep a son from his mother, and besides, I was afraid Maud would make all manner of distressing scenes if I refused to let you see her, and I think I would have hated that more than anything else on earth.” He laid his pipe on the table absent-mindedly and glanced out of the window. “However, if your mother’s quarrel with Giles Penmar is now at an end I suppose I should feel glad for her sake—and for yours—that the matter is finally settled. Penmarric will make a fine inheritance for you one day.”

There was a pause. He picked up his pipe again. “It makes a certain decision easier for me too,” he said at last, and I could hear the relief in his voice. “Now that you’re so well provided for I need have no qualms about leaving Gweekellis Manor to Nigel.”

I was on my feet before I realized it. I saw his startled expression and I believe he spoke, but I heard nothing he said because by then I was already shouting at him in a harsh voice that did not sound like my own, shouting that Gweekellis was mine—mine—mine because I was the elder son, and how dare he give it to Nigel and how dare he favor Nigel and how dare he treat me as if—

The harsh shouting suddenly ceased. Panic made me feel as if I were suffocating. I began to back away toward the door.

“Mark,” he said, much distressed, “Mark, please. I think you forget yourself.”

I reached the door. My fingers groped blindly for the handle.

“Your mother has been trying to turn you against me,” he said. “What has she been saying? You’d better tell me at once.”

I was in the narrow hall and stumbling past the stairs to the front door,

“Mark …”

But I had escaped. I could not hear or speak or see, but suddenly I knew I was outside, for the air was fresh against my aching throat and the sea breeze ran light fingers over my hot cheeks and burning eyes. I began to run. Heather, coarse and tough, tugged at my trousers and scratched my shoes. I was on the moors, the desolate silent moors where there was nothing except my choking gasps for breath and my single-minded determination to run until there was no more strength left in my body. So I went on running, stumbling across the summit of the ridge, groping my way downhill into the valley of Zillan parish, and it was there in the porch of the parish church that I first saw Janna Roslyn and decided that despite everything that had happened I would stay on in Cornwall and postpone my return to London.

It was Count Geoffrey’s intention that at his death Henry should be content with the Kingdom of England, if he could secure it, and that the ancestral fiefs of the Angevin house should pass to his second son.