Penmarric (69 page)

Jan-Yves started to cry again. Leaving him alone with his histrionic self-pity, I walked out of my office and went down the mine. I went to the old shaft I had explored as a child and climbed down into the honeycombed workings of the western reaches. I worked my way down from level to level, picking my way in and out of that tangled labyrinth which bordered King Walloe, and as I walked I thought to myself: My mine, Sennen Garth, the last working mine west of St. Just. My cause. My life’s work.

The words went round and round in my brain and meant nothing because after all they were only words, and words don’t mean anything, not really, and all the angry words I had ever addressed to my father had no meaning except that they were spoken because of the mine. Everything I did was because of the mine, because I
was
the mine, because I loved it and it meant something to me, just as music speaks to a musician and paint to an artist. He had had no more right to close that mine than any man has a right to tear up a manuscript or deface a painting. But he hadn’t understood, he had never understood, and suddenly I wanted him to understand, I longed for his understanding, I thought: If only he could have understood we could have begun again; I didn’t mean to hurt him; I didn’t want him to die.

I was at sea level. I found one of the adits, waded through a pool of water and walked out through the cave at the foot of the cliff. The tide was coming in. Surf burst against the rocks of the cove and thundered on the sand. I turned, blinded by spray, found the cliff path and began the long climb up to the engine house. A squall was sweeping in from the sea as I walked to the village to collect my horse from the inn and ride up into the hills to Chûn. The castle walls were wet with rain and the wind was cold as it whipped along the ridge. Shivering, I flicked the horse’s reins and headed him downhill to the farm.

When I arrived I found my mother alone in the kitchen as she cleaned the brass.

“Philip!” She dropped an ornament in her surprise and didn’t even stoop to pick it up. “What’s happened? What is it? Why are you home at this hour?”

I said abruptly without stopping to think, “Father’s dead. He had a stroke and died earlier this morning.”

I was just in time to catch her as she fainted.

When she had recovered consciousness I carried her up to her room and gave her some brandy. At last I managed to say, distressed, cursing myself for my stupidity, “I’m sorry—please forgive me. I didn’t realize the news would affect you so much after all this time.”

“Why should you have realized?” She had mastered her tears and was brushing them away. “I never said anything.” After a moment she added, glancing at the mantelshelf, “That funny little clock, ticking my life away … ‘What an incredibly ugly clock,’ he said. ‘I suppose it was your husband’s.’ He didn’t like the clock. We laughed about it afterward, but I never told him where it came from. I can see him still … He was only twenty-one. He wore black because Laurence had died. He looked well in black. People said he was plain but he never seemed plain to me, not when I knew him better. I had everything then, everything a woman could ever want, and I threw it all away.”

“But, Mama—”

“ ‘Some women never change,’ he said, but oh, I could have changed! If only I could have understood before, but I never understood until we quarreled and after we quarreled it was too late. If Brighton hadn’t happened—”

I fumbled with the catch on the window, but it was stuck. I started to wrestle with it, shaking the frame.

“—I think I could still have got him back, but after Brighton I hated him even more than I loved him and there was no going back from that.”

The window flew open. I leaned out over the sill but I could still hear her voice.

“I couldn’t forget Brighton,” she said. “That was the whole trouble. I couldn’t forget Brighton.”

I left the window and made for the door. “Mama, I’m going to Zillan to fetch the rector. I think he ought to be with you.” I gave her no chance to argue with me. Running out to the stables, I saddled my horse again, and five minutes later I was riding as hard as I could across the moors toward the village where my parents had first seen each other in the churchyard on one summer afternoon long ago.

Later after the rector had gone my mother said she wanted to see the body. I would have given much to avoid going to Penmarric, but since it was my duty to take her I got out the ponytrap in the afternoon and drove her to St. Just.

The last thing I wanted to do was to see the body in the Tower Room, but my mother shrank from being alone, so I went with her up the wide staircase and along the gallery and corridor. And with each step I took I found I was consumed with the most primitive of fears, fear of death, fear of guilt, fear of terrible dark emotions which I could not name. I felt that if I saw the body I would vomit, but because I could not allow my fears to get the better of me I followed my mother into the Tower Room and forced myself to look down at my father’s corpse.

I looked upon his face. But suddenly the only face I could see was Jan-Yves’s face, so like my father’s, Jan-Yves as he had been that morning with the blood running from his cut lip, Jan-Yves saying, “You’ll pay for that one day,” in my father’s voice. Then all I could see was the blood, the blood running from his mouth until it seemed that the corpse itself was bleeding, and I felt the room begin to tilt beneath my feet. I groped my way out into the corridor and leaned against the wall. When my vision cleared I saw with a shock that I was no longer alone; Adrian was there, watching me, and as soon as I saw him I was able to straighten my back, close the door and flick the sweat from my forehead.

“I heard you were here,” he said, “and I thought I should tell you that I’ve been making the necessary arrangements. Jan-Yves, of course, is quite incapable of organizing anything.” Our glances met; I could see he despised Jan-Yves as much as I did. “I intend to ask Mr. Barnwell to hold the funeral at Zillan. Papa always said he wanted to be buried there with his father, and I don’t think the vicar of St. Just will take it amiss.”

I nodded without speaking and began to move away down the corridor.

“Oh, by the way,” said Adrian in a voice of steel. “No one knows what was in that letter except you and me. Everyone knows there was a letter but I merely said you had threatened him about the mine. I didn’t think it would serve any useful purpose to reveal the contents—not because the letter reflected badly on him but because it reflected so appallingly badly on you. I burned it. I trust I did the right thing.”

I didn’t answer. There was nothing I could have said except “thank you” and I couldn’t even say that. I walked away, and as I stumbled down the stairs to the hall I thought that never during all my stormy visits to Penmarric to see my father had I felt so humiliated by him as I felt then when he reached out from beyond the grave and shamed me before the brother I despised.

I had no wish to go to the funeral, but of course I had to go. It was irrelevant that I detested funerals, and in this case felt no grief for the corpse in the coffin. I was the elder of my father’s two surviving legitimate sons, and I had to be there not only because convention demanded it but because my mother would need my support at such a distressing time. She even said to me beforehand, “I’m so glad you’ll be with me at the funeral, Philip,” and after that there was nothing I could do to avoid the ordeal which lay ahead.

So I put on my black suit and black tie and took her to Zillan. Everyone was there, county names from all over Cornwall and from beyond the Tamar, representatives from London, from Oxford, people I had never met, and the humble people were there too; all my father’s tenants had walked over from St. Just, all the servants from Penmarric, even the Roslyns had come, over the hills from Morvah. The church was overflowing with people and the graveyard was full of people and everywhere there were flowers, enormous wreaths, lush bouquets, even small bunches of wildflowers, all perfumed and beautiful and dying, and their fragrance filled the church and lingered on the still September air.

There were newspaper reporters, a correspondent from
The Times
who wanted to know about his work, and I had nothing to say to any of them. I could only say, “I’m not a historian. I know nothing about it,” and what I was really saying was “We were estranged. His work meant no more to me than my work meant to him,” but nobody realized that, no stranger realized what had passed between us. His publishers shook me by the hand and said how sorry they were, and I was dumb; I had nothing to say. “What a delightful man he was,” said his friends at Oxford. “He’ll be very sadly missed.” And: “He was good to his tenants,” said a farmer. “And to his servants,” said Young Medlyn, and the cook said, “He was kind.”

I listened to them, but it was as if they were talking of a stranger. I tried to remember him being kind and delightful but I couldn’t; all I could remember was my voice saying clearly in the dining room at Penmarric, “If you close that mine, I’ll break you.”

And he had died.

I had to face everyone, all the mourners, and worst of all I had to face the men who had heard me speak those words to him at Penmarric—Sir Justin Carnforth, cold and barely polite; Walter Hubert, silent with discomfort; Michael Vincent, trying so hard to be civil; Stanford Blake, rigid with dislike. Even when I had finished facing them I still had to face my family, and my family treated me as if I didn’t exist.

Mariana said, “Mama darling-—how terrible this must be for you” and took care to see her back was turned in my direction.

Jeanne said, “Mama …” and then was overcome with tears as she caught sight of me.

Elizabeth stayed with Jan-Yves and kept her distance. The Parrishes were with Alice Penmar and took care that I was never too close to them. Alice’s face looked white and pinched and there were dark circles beneath her eyes; she looked ill and full of grief.

From behind me the rector’s voice said, “I trust you’re going to Penmarric now, Philip. Would you care to travel in the car Adrian has hired for me? I’m not used to motoring and would be grateful for your company.”

I said, not looking at him, “I have to take my mother home.”

“Oh no,” he said. “That’s all arranged—I’ve just been talking to your mother. The Turner girls will see her home and at a time like this she’ll be much better with women around her. And naturally you’ll want to go to Penmarric to be with the rest of your family for a short while. I believe there’s a small cold luncheon.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “No.” I couldn’t say anything else. “No, I can’t go.”

“I think you should. There are some obligations no man can remove from you.”

I looked at him. His face was old, his body frail but his eyes were young. His eyes never changed. I looked into those eyes and saw he knew everything, even that I wanted to escape, yet still he was asking me to go to Penmarric as if my father and I hadn’t been estranged.

“They expect you to go,” he said. “I think you should.”

The chauffeurs were drawing up the cars at the lych-gate. I said unevenly, “Very well. If I must,” and we walked together down the path away from the church.

We passed the journey in silence. The car made heavy weather of the hills and the engine roared laboriously as the chauffeur steered us over the moors to St. Just.

We were the last to arrive.

“Where is everyone?” I said nervously. “Where have they all gone?”

“I think they’ll be in the drawing room. Michael Vincent was going to read the will.” His hand was on my arm. He had surprisingly strong fingers. “You’ll want to hear, of course, what provision has been made for your mother.”

“Oh yes,” I said blankly. “Yes, of course.” It hadn’t occurred to me. When I followed him into the drawing room I found to my discomfort that all my family were assembled and the meeting had been delayed until my arrival.

Nobody spoke to me. There was a vacant chair by the fireplace, but when I turned to offer it to the rector I found he was already seated next to Alice.

I sat down uneasily.

“Now,” said my father’s lawyer and oldest friend Michael Vincent, “I think we can begin.” He had the will in his hands, and as he spoke he opened it up and prepared to read from the beginning.

I had a craving for a cigarette. I began to fumble in my pockets for the packet I had with me and hoped none of the women in the room would mind if I smoked.

“… last will and testament …” Vincent’s voice was clear and incisive. Everyone was still.

“… hereby bequeath …”

I struck a match.

“… following legacies to my children and grandchildren: To my daughter Mariana, Marchioness of Lochlyall … To her son Esmond, Earl of Roane …”

Mariana and Esmond already had more than enough money of their own; my father’s legacies to “them were small, a token gesture of affection.

“… to the children of my deceased son Hugh …”

Two more token legacies followed to Deborah and Jonas. The tokens were more generous this time.

“To my daughters Jeanne Castallack and Elizabeth Castallack, to ensure that they will be provided for should they not wish to marry …”

The legacies were no longer token. I glanced at Jan-Yves. He was chalk-white, his eyes black as pitch.

“… to my daughter-in-law Rebecca Castallack for as long as she shall remain a widow …”

I wondered what Hugh would have thought of that. Personally I thought my father had been more than generous to Rebecca in granting her any income however small.

“… to my wife Janna Castallack, to ensure that she receives the same income after my death …”

I sighed in relief.

”… following legacies to the sons of Rose Parrish: to William Parrish in token of all he has done to help me in the administration of the estate of Penmarric … to Adrian Parrish to assist him in the pursuance of his vocation …”

So my father had kept his word after all about the Parrishes. No large legacies, just a fair-sized gift. My cigarette went out and I had to strike another match.

“… following legacies to my servants: to my housekeeper Alice Penmar with many grateful thanks …”